Everyone knows that when a human baby is conceived, its body is produced by a biological process combining the physical characteristics of its parents.  Since the double helical pattern of the DNA molecule was discovered, science is actually able to give a fairly accurate explanation of exactly how this happens.  But what about the immaterial part of the person, the soul?  Are parents responsible for that?  Here we leave the realm of science and enter the realm of theology (realms that are only formally distinct, I hasten to add).

There are essentially three opinions that have developed over time with regard to the origin of the soul.  The first is known as pre-existence and is associated most closely with the ancient theologian Origen from Alexandria in Egypt.  Origen taught that all human souls were divinely created at some point in the past and are held in storage, sort of, until a new body is propagated, when God then places one of them into it.  This opinion owes a good deal more to Greek philosophy than to the Bible-though it was known among some ancient Jewish groups-and has never had much support in the Christian church.  Not so with the other two positions, though there is no explicit biblical support for either.  Both are deductions from biblical teaching.

Some have held that as the parents create the body of a child, so they also create the soul.  This position is known as traducianism.  One of the ancient proponents of this view, Tertullian, held that the soul, and indeed all non-material things, have substance, hence it can be propagated just like the body.  Not all who advocate this view hold that position, however.  This has been criticized by some because it makes parents creators, a role belonging only to God.

The third option, creationism, holds that God creates each individual soul and unites it with the developing body.  This view has been criticized because it means that God is still creating, although he is said to have rested from that after six days in Genesis.

Traducianism by definition holds that the soul and body are joined together at conception.  Neither is ever independent of the other.  Creationism, on the other hand is indefinite as to the time of ensoulment.  It could be at conception or as late as the first breath, (arguing from Genesis that man became a living soul only when God breathed into him the breath of life), or at some time between.  Those who argue, for example, that the life of the flesh is in the blood, would see ensoulment happening when the blood system develops in the fetus.

Where one lands on this question can affect what one thinks or how one argues about abortion.  If traducianism is true, then all abortions kill unborn babies, who are personally complete.  On the other hand, if ensoulment is the result of an unknown and undefined act of God, then it would be possible to argue that at least some early abortions do not take life and are legitimate.

There have also been interesting questions raised about the incarnation of Jesus relative to this point, though we cannot pursue them here.

Are you a dichotomist or a trichotomist?  Don’t worry this isn’t some kind of a disease. It’s a way to understand the nature of man. Dichotomists (die-cot-a-mists) believe man has two parts – a body and a soul, whereas trichotomists (try-cot-a-mists) believe he has three parts – a body, soul, and a spirit.

Those who believe in dichotomy declare the words “soul” and “spirit” are often used interchangeably in the Scripture. For example, when speaking of the dead 1 Peter 3:19 says Jesus “went and preached to the spirits in prison”, whereas Rev. 6:9 has John saying, “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain.” Mary said in Luke 1:46-47 “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Trichotomists make the most of this division. They point to I Thessalonians 5:23 which says, “May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and Hebrews 4:12 which says that the Bible “penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow.”

Historically most Christians have believed man has two instead of three parts.  They understand that when God commands us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, he is not as much designating specific parts of man’s nature as he is saying “love me with everything you are.”

While the importance of these two opinions are debated by theologians, their value to us declares God created us as a unified whole.  When God created man the Scriptures tell us in Genesis 2:7 that when God breathed air into Adam’s nostrils “the man became a living being.” While theologians and philosophers divide the nature of man into a variety of parts, God unifies man into a material part (body), and an immaterial part (soul/spirit).  Separate one from the other and what it means for man to be “man” suffers.

We have a body and a soul, which were made by God and for God. This unity is also what separates us from the animals and is one way we are said to have been created in the image of God.

Theology often deals with immaterial subjects like God, angels, and eternity.  But when man, and the created world, is under theology’s microscope, the material comes into focus.  Sometimes Christians believe God is only interested in man’s soul or spirit, and that his body is only a necessary shelter until his “spiritual” body can be prepared. But is this true?

The arguments surrounding dichotomy and trichotomy focus on the immaterial, whereas the body emphasizes the material.  The Bible says God “formed the man from the dust of the ground” (material stuff), and then “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” When finished, God called all his creation, including man, “very good.” In doing this God blessed the human body.

Over the years various individuals and groups felt the body was evil. Plotinus (A.D. 204-270) sometimes called matter evil. He believed, like Plato, that the body was to be suppressed, so the soul could obtain its unity with God.  The Gnostics also believed the body was evil. Several ascetics went so far in this belief they would damage their health by performing weird and eccentric acts. The apostle Paul warned of people who passed hardship rules on the body while forgetting all of God’s creation was good (cf. 1 Timothy 4:3-4).

Man’s material part, his body, is no less spiritual than his immaterial part. That’s why God said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”  To be human is to possess a soul and a body, which are united into one person. The Scriptures do indicate that at death the soul is separated from the body; but this was imposed as something unnatural, a dreadful punishment because of sin.  The promise of the resurrection is that all believers’ bodies will be transformed so that they might bear the mark of eternity (1 Corinthians 15:49) with Christ, but it’s still a body, not something else.

“For in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.”  So said God to Adam.  “You sin, you croak” would be the way in which many Christians would understand it.  But is that it?  Just physical death?  Of course that would be bad enough, but unfortunately, that isn’t it.  The death that is spoken of in Genesis is the rupture or distortion of all kinds of things that were originally in harmony; separations of what was meant to be together.  Though Marxists have stolen the word, “alienation” is an accurate description of what sin brought about.  Man became alienated from everyone and everything around him.

First, man was separated from God.  Where once he enjoyed the purest relationship in the most uninhibited way, he came to be afraid of God and hide in shame.  That separation also had an eternal dimension that we know as hell.  This was the death of spiritual life.

Second, man was separated from nature.  No longer yielding its fruit virtually without effort, the earth began to produce thorns and thistles and man began to eat only by the sweat of his brow.  (And having worked on a farm, I can add blisters and a few other things.)  Even the original pristine environment was placed off limits.  His body became subject to disease and pain and the agony of dissolution that we know as death.  This was the physical death that we most commonly connect with sin.

Third, man as a race was separated from each other.  The harmony of the original marriage was broken.  All kinds of finger pointing ensued-it was the woman you gave me; it was the serpent that beguiled me; at least it isn’t my fault-and the marriage counseling industry was born.  The equality of relationship and the love and respect that were present turned into a power relationship along with imposed pain and suffering.  Sibling rivalry and murder were not far behind, along with polygamy and unjustified vengefulness.   This was social and cultural death.

Fourth, man was separated from himself.  He became psychologically divided and lost the wholeness that had characterized him from his creation.  He was subject now to shame, fear, tension, doubt, anger, jealousy, and all those things that torture us and tend to make our lives sometimes a living hell.  There is an emotional or psychological aspect of the death sin brought.

Sin brought brokenness to all of reality.  It is all fractured and out of joint.  The world as we experience it is not the world as it was intended to be in any fashion or in any of its aspects.

We will pursue the restoration of sin’s devastation in more detail in the future, but here it should be noted that the grace of God in the face of sin is as wide as sin’s effects.  Grace makes us children of God, it restores broken relationships (with the church being a paradigm), it will ultimately bring a new heaven and earth, and it brings us psychological renewal.  All of these are provisional for now, but it is important to see that all of creation was ruined by sin; yet in the mercy of God the circle of redemption is the circle of creation.

This article was difficult to write. It was assigned with a chuckle and a hearty “have fun with that!” So what is this topic that I have avoided, you ask? The origin of sin. This would be easier if it were original sin. Discussing Adam, the fall, and the imputation of sin is less daunting than the question of sin’s source.

At first the simple answer “Satan” seems to suffice. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 speak of Lucifer’s desire to usurp the worship of God for himself and supplant the glory of God for his own. But simply ascribing the origin of sin to Lucifer leaves unanswered questions. Is sin something that was created? If it was created, does that mean something other than God created it? Is sin a thing that needed required creation or is it a by-product of the existence of God? When the Scripture refers to all things created by Him and for Him, does it include sin?

I think it should be stated that as I understand Scripture, it is not exactly stated where sin originated. There are some things within the counsel of God that are mysterious, and this appears to be one of them. However, seeking God and His truth is always beneficial for our finite minds as we acknowledge our limitations and extol His greatness. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! (Rom. 11:33) An examination of the origin of sin is useful because it points us to His holiness and our need for rescue.

The Augustinian viewpoint that sin began as an act of the will has generally not been questioned in orthodox Christianity. If we examine Lucifer’s attitudes and actions involved in his fall we see that he longed to be worshiped. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High. (Is. 14:14)  Ultimately that desire to be worshiped, to be the center of all things, is central to all sin. It is the lie he told man in the garden, you will be like God (Gen. 3:5).

Sin being an act of the will to usurp the glory and authority that is God’s, must have its origin after God created beings capable of will. Yet even if the origin of sin itself is a mystery held within the counsel of God, it can be clearly understood that it did not occur as a surprise to God. As the Westminster Confession of Faith (VI:I) asserts: This their [Adam and Eve's] sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory. God created a universe in which sin could exist, yet it is clear that God did not sin nor can He sin since His nature is to love His Glory above all things.

This leaves us in a place were we must cherish the greatness of our God and His grace to us.  For He knew us before the foundations of the world and so that His purpose in election might stand, predestined us to the adoption of sons. Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord! Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…. (Romans 7:25a and 8:1)

A foundational Bible verse states that the “lust of the flesh” (1 John 2:16 KJV) doesn’t come from God but from the world. Another verse tells us to love God with all our heart and mind.  But what exactly are the “flesh,” the “heart” or the “mind?”

The “flesh” has sometimes mistakenly been equated with the physical body. People used to believe the physical body was sinful and it needed to be conquered. This often produced weird results like sleeping on a bed of nails, sitting on a pole for a lengthy period of time, or some other extreme behavior.  Children can confuse the part of the body that pumps blood as the “heart” of the Bible, and the “mind” as the brain.  But if the “flesh” encompasses the body, and the flesh is bad, then how can someone love God with their heart and mind if both are part of the body?

The word “flesh” can be bad, as the above reference indicates, but it can also be good, as when Hebrews states in Hebrews 2:14  “the children have flesh and blood” or it can be neutral, as when Jesus said “flesh gives birth to flesh” (John 3:6). The context of the verse gives us the key to its proper understanding.  In reference to the heart and mind, the “heart” in Scripture can refer to our emotions, but it also includes the mind, which houses our intellect, and/or will. All three refer to aspects of the immaterial makeup of man.

The entire makeup of man, both his physical and immaterial parts were touched by sin when man fell. The apostle wrote, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Romans 7:18). However, when a person comes to faith the Bible says our “flesh” (the NIV uses the words ‘sinful nature’) dies (cf. Romans 7:5-6) allowing us to learn how to love the Lord with our intellect, will, and emotions.  To turn away from the flesh is to say “no” to everything that leads us to sin with our body, while saying “yes” to that which leads us to use our intellect, will, and emotions to love, obey, serve, and enjoy God and others. So true worship touches not only our physical bodies but also the immaterial parts of our beings.

In my high school physics class we spent some time studying light.  Part of that was learning about things like angles of incidence and angles of reflection and how light acts with prisms and mirrors.  He told us a story about their bulldog.  On their front door they had a small mirror mounted low enough that their dog could see his reflection.  Whenever he did, he would run to the other side of the door, a distance equal to his original distance from the mirror, and bark ferociously at that other dog.  He was always frustrated though, and didn’t quite have the intellectual horsepower to figure out that it was just an image and he was barking at himself.

An image is a more or less exact replica of some original thing.  In a mirror it tends to be exact, unless you’re at the funhouse; in artistic expression, somewhat less so, but still discernible.  Scripture says that God made man is his own image and likeness.  What does that mean exactly, especially since God doesn’t have a body as we do?  In what does the image consist if it can’t be seen in a mirror?

We shall take the terms image and likeness as synonymous; the question of the exact nature of the image is more difficult and more controversial.  There are many things that have been alleged, but basically the question divides along two lines.  Is the image structural, referring to something we are, or is it functional, referring to something we do?  Functional definitions tend to be more modern, perhaps in line with the shift in philosophy away from essences.  Structural definitions dominated theology until the modern era.

The primary understanding of this term has been rational/moral.  Holiness is often listed as one of the preeminent attributes of God, having to do in part with his aversion to sin.  He knows good from evil and his character is good, providing an ultimate definition of that term for us.  We need such a definition because we also are moral beings.  We constantly make moral judgments and they are made of us.  Why do we do that?  Why do little kids learn to say, “But it’s not fair!” without us having to teach it to them?  The theological answer is because we are made moral in the image of a moral God.

Likewise with rationality.  One way to understand God is as an infinite mind, a mind that works using the laws of logic.  (A thing cannot both be and not be in the same sense at the same time even for God!)  We also have this capacity, warped as it is by sin, but still present.  We are capable of making rational decisions and rational judgments.  Truth and error are meaningful categories both to God and to us.

These aspects of our nature make us creatures capable of relating to God in a meaningful and personal way, unlike all the rest of creation.  They also provide the basis for human governance over creation, and things like artistic expression.  Because we are rational, God can speak to us and we to him.  Because we are moral, we can obey and do so in a way that is meaningful.  It also means that when we disobey, judgment can be legitimately imposed, both by God and by parents.

It is this doctrine of the imago Dei, the image of God, that makes man so special in biblical thinking and has driven the value of the person in Western thought, unfortunately now under severe attack.

Creation is a word that has polarized our society. We as Christians are quick to argue evolution vs. creation, but there is more that we do not always discuss. There are greater implications to our beginnings than simply answering a biological question. To the Christian, this concept of creation has far-reaching theological implications and deserves our study and meditation.

The Bible is clear on the origin of man. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  (Gen 1:26-27).

There are two important concepts that should be examined in the creation of man. First, we are God’s workmanship. God the Creator and Supreme Being has the right to do as He pleases. He is the only true morally free agent acting in creation because He is the only Being in creation that is not dependent on another for existence. This places us with only one response to such a Being; we must recognize that God is God and we are not. He alone may command worship. He is the Potter and is able to do with the clay as He chooses. This theological concept is central to our belief in the sovereignty of God and to our understanding of grace.

The second concept that is inherent in our creation is that we are made in His image. The exact nature of what this means can be discussed at a later date, but no matter what, this truth significantly affects the way we relate to others. If mankind is made in His image, we are reminded of God when we see each other. We must therefore have a respect for life and treat one another accordingly. If we worship God because of who He is, should we not also have respect and admiration for His image-bearers and thus honor Him by loving one another? With this foundation in mind we are reminded of the words of Christ, “…what you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me.” In C.S. Lewis’ essay, “The Weight of Glory,” he reminds us, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal….[It] is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit….[Y]our neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.”

So the concept of the origin of man reaches beyond the simple argument of creation vs. evolution to encompass our worship of God and our treatment of others. May God bless us by enlightening us further as we contemplate His greatness.