Traducianism: Does it make any sense?

[The Fire Rises]

I've been reading the book "The Case for Faith" (which I highly reccomend). In one chapter, the author addresses one of the most common questions that both Christians and non-Christians ask, which deals with how a Loving God could send people in Hell.

One of the questions he focuses on is: "Why didn't God create only those He know would follow Him?"

Here's a quote from the book:

"There is another part of this, which has to do with how the soul is created. There's a view that the soul comes into existence at conception and is in some ways passed on by the parents. In other words, soulish potentialities are contained the parents' egg and sperm. It's called traducianism.

This means my parents created my soul in the act of reproduction. Consequently, I could not have had different parents. That means, then, that the only way God could make me is if my entire ancestral lineage had preceded me, because different grandparents mean different parents and thus different materials for the soul.

And here's the implication of traduciansim for our question: God has to weigh completely different ancestral chains in their entirety. He can't just weigh individual people. So it may be that God allows some chains to come about, with some individuals in them who reject Christ - say, my great, great-grandfather - but which allow for others to be born who do trust Christ. In other words, God would be balancing alternative chains and not just alternative people.

When God is making these judgements, his purpose is not to keep as many people out of hell as possible. His goal is to get as many people into heaven as possible.

And it may be, sadly enough, that's he going to have to allow some more people who will choose to go to hell to be created in order to get a larger number of people who choose to go to heaven."

Notice that while the author does not claim that traducianism is in fact real, he does not deny it either.

In the context of Heaven and Hell, and God somehow controlling who marries who, who your parents fell in love with, "weighing" His options to see how many people He can usher into Heaven...does this make any sense to you?

Does it even address the original question about Hell? Is it even biblical?

I've never heard of the idea of traduciansim before. It just seems very strange to me.

 

[madetoworship]

The way I read the quote. I don't think the author is completely adopting the idea and promoting it. The tone in which He delivered that seems more like "here's one way of thinking, let me tell you about it." I come to this conclusion based on his words "There's a view that".

Transducianism seems like its limiting God in the way it proposes God has limited control over what He creates. He has to "weigh completely different ancestral chains in their entirety. He can't just weigh individual people." Another problem I have with it is that in some way someone in my lineage accepting/rejecting God had some part in me accepting/rejecting God as well. This kind of makes my relationship with God less individual and personal.

Also I don't like the way "allow" is used either. It's like saying we have a choice but God can veto it. I don't think that's the case and in that sense it's not biblical. I believe God is sovereign in election in His dimension of thought and we make choices for salvation in our dimension of thought. In other words, we choose our eternal destination in which God has already foreseen.

 

[The Fire Rises]

The way I read the quote. I don't think the author is completely adopting the idea and promoting it. The tone in which He delivered that seems more like "here's one way of thinking, let me tell you about it." I come to this conclusion based on his words "There's a view that".

Transducianism seems like its limiting God in the way it proposes God has limited control over what He creates. He has to "weigh completely different ancestral chains in their entirety. He can't just weigh individual people." Another problem I have with it is that in some way someone in my lineage accepting/rejecting God had some part in me accepting/rejecting God as well. This kind of makes my relationship with God less individual and personal.

Also I don't like the way "allow" is used either. It's like saying we have a choice but God can veto it. I don't think that's the case and in that sense it's not biblical. I believe God is sovereign in election in His dimension of thought and we make choices for salvation in our dimension of thought. In other words, we choose our eternal destination in which God has already foreseen.

I agree with you. Thanks for actually responding to this, I know this is not a common topic.

Traducianism seems really sketchy to me, I don't see how a chemical process - reproduction - can create something spiritual. Doesn't really make sense. It just seems strange that the author would put this outlandish theory in a book that is otherwise extremely solid.

 

[seeingeyes]

Does it even address the original question about Hell?

I don't think it does.

In order to address a hell where most people go for basically all of their existence (what's 80 or 100 years compared to eternity?) it is necessary to either limit God's love (to the 'few') or limit God's power (there's nothing He can do about it).

Traducianism seems to do both: It says that God can't create saints without creating sinners for the trash heap as a by-product (limiting power), and surely He doesn't love those that are created for the sole purpose of damnation (limiting love).

If the question is, "How could a loving God send people to hell?" The answer that traducianism gives is, "Well, He's not as loving as you think, and He has no choice anyway."

 

[The Fire Rises]

I don't think it does.

In order to address a hell where most people go for basically all of their existence (what's 80 or 100 years compared to eternity?) it is necessary to either limit God's love (to the 'few') or limit God's power (there's nothing He can do about it).

Traducianism seems to do both: It says that God can't create saints without creating sinners for the trash heap as a by-product (limiting power), and surely He doesn't love those that are created for the sole purpose of damnation (limiting love).

If the question is, "How could a loving God send people to hell?" The answer that traducianism gives is, "Well, He's not as loving as you think, and He has no choice anyway."

Quite right.

Renowned theologian D.A. Carson put it this way:

"Hell is not a place where people are consigned because they were pretty good blokes, but they didn't believe the right stuff. They're consigned there, first and foremost, because they defy their maker and want to be at the center of the universe. Hell is not filled with people who have already repented, only God isn't gentle enough or good enough to let them out. It's filled with people who, for all eternity, still want to be the center of the universe and who persist in their God-defying rebellion."

So what is God to do? If he says it doesn't matter to him, then God is no longer a God to be admired. For Him to act any other way in the face of such blatant defiance would be to recuce God Himself.

People who go to Hell choose to go there. They wanted to live a without without God.

God grants them their wish.

 

[seeingeyes]

For Him to act any other way in the face of such blatant defiance would be to recuce God Himself.

People who go to Hell choose to go there. They wanted to live a without without God.

God grants them their wish.

So there's nothing He can do about it.

See how that works?

 

[The Fire Rises]

So there's nothing He can do about it.

See how that works?

I guess it all goes back to free will.

If God forced us to choose Him and to choose Heaven, our will wouldn't be free at all. We were created in the hope that we will choose everlasting life, but there's no obligation. If we want to choose God, He will help us do so. But we don't have to. So our eternal fate is ultimately up to us I believe.

 

[madetoworship]

I agree with you. Thanks for actually responding to this, I know this is not a common topic.

Traducianism seems really sketchy to me, I don't see how a chemical process - reproduction - can create something spiritual. Doesn't really make sense. It just seems strange that the author would put this outlandish theory in a book that is otherwise extremely solid.

I agree with the "sketchiness".

My view of the soul is that it is biological in that it's pertaining to the study of life. However, it's just REALLY REALLY complicated biology that we don't understand. Will we ever know how it works? Probably not.

Many theories have gone out such as:

1.) Neuroscience - attempting to explain that certain spiritual disciplines are only the accumulation of neurotransmitters and hormones that gives us pleasure and comfort (What is missing in this theory is - why everyone on Earth relates to the notion that our lives are transcendent)

- Ecclesiastes 3:11

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

2.) Biochemistry - the soul is just made up of a bag of chemicals within the body and is a trained response of neurological chemical synapses in the brain. (What is missing in this theory is - if humans are just a bag of chemicals, why is there a notion to protect human life as if it is more significant than just that of an animal?)

- Genesis 1:27

"So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them."

We ARE significant! God made us in his own image, putting within us the ability to love, hate, choose right from wrong, transcendence, etc.