The Origin of the Soul: on Creationism & Traducianism

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

Gen. 2:7

“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

Ecc. 12:7

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Order of Contents

Creationism  10
Traducianism
.     Reformed  5
.     Lutheran  2

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Creationism

Articles

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Early Church

Jerome – bk. 2  in Against the Books of Rufinis in NPNF2, 3:***

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Medieval Church

Aquinas, Thomas – Contra the Gentiles

ch. 86, ‘That the Human Soul is Not Transmitted with the Semen’

ch. 87, ‘That the Human Soul is Brought into Being Through the Creative Action of God’

ch. 88, ‘Arguments Designed to Prove that the Human Soul is Formed from the Semen’

ch. 89, ‘Solution of the Preceding Arguments’

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1600’s

Du Moulin, Pierre – ch. 10 of Anatomy of Arminianism

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Quote

Anthony Burgess

The True Doctrine of Justification Asserted & Vindicated…  (London, 1654), sermon 24, p. 230

“As in the generation of man, though there be organical dispositions and qualifications for the soul, yet they have no causality upon the soul, but that is immediately infused by God.”

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Latin Articles

Early Church

Jerome – bk. 2  in Apologia adversus libros Rufini in PL 23:425–456

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1500’s

Zanchi, Jerome – pt. 3, bk. 2, ch. 5, ‘On the Origin of Souls’  in On the Works of the Six Days  in Opera, 3:604–27  Zanchi also has a tract on the topic in the Latin book below.

Coler, Johann Jacob & Rudolph Hospinian – A Theological & Philosophical Question:  Whether the Soul may be by Traduction, or is Daily Inspired From God [in Conceived Babies], out of Old & Recent Writings that have been Most Diligently Collected; Two Orations are Appended in the End, One on Whether the Entire Soul is Simultaneously in the Whole Body, or, on the Contrary, in What Part of it, According to the Opinion of Plato [who thought it was confined to the brain]; the Other on the Immortality of the Soul, by the Author, Rudolph Hospinian of Zurich  (Zurich, 1586)  For the beginning of Hospinian’s orations, see p. 30.

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1600’s

Voet, Gisbert – 53. ‘Of the Propagation of Original Sin’  in Select Theological Disputations  (Utrecht: Waesberg, 1648), vol. 1, pp. 1078-1118

Baron, Robert – The Second Exercise, on the Origin of the Soul & the Propagation of Sin, in which the Common View is Explained & Defended, & All the Ways in which Others Explain the Passing Down [Traductionem] of Souls & the Propagation of Sin are Confuted  in Philosophy Serving Theology, that is, a Pius & Sober Explication of Philosophical Questions Occurring Occassionally in Theological Disputations  (Oxford, 1641)  ToC

Baron (1596–1639) was one of the Scottish Aberdeen doctors, in the reformed tradition, and here argues for Creationism.

“Man truly begets man, although the soul is created by God, not because he only bestows him a body, nor because he prepares the body for receiving the soul…  but because from the man who begets comes the very action by which the rational soul is substantially united to the body, and begins to inform, inhabit, and fill the whole material of the body. Thus in our opinion, the begetting of man is located in that action by which, through prolific virtue, the soul is joined by an essential bond to the body.” – p. 84

Heidegger, Johann Heinrich – A Theological Disputation on the Origin of the Human Soul  (Zurich, 1677)  10 pp.

Heidegger (1633-1698) was a reformed professor of theology at Steinfurt and Zurich.

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Latin Book

ed. Goclenius, Rudolph – Psychologia, that is, of the Perfection of Man with Respect to the Soul & the Rise of it in the First Man [or Parents], Commentaries & Disputations of Some Theologians & Philosophers of our Age  (Marburg, 1594)  ToC  This work is a compilation of 12 tracts from Junius, Gryneus, Colerus, Hunnius, Hospinian, Goclenius, et al.

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Traducianism

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Reformed

English

Shedd, William G.T. –

Clark, Gordon –

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Latin

Sohn, George – Exegesin praecipuorum articulorum Augustanae Confessionis in Opera, 3 vols., 2nd ed. (Herborn: Christoph Rab, 1598), 2:564

Georg Sohn (c. 1552–1589)

Peucer, Caspar, “De essentia, natura, et ortu animi hominis” in a collection of treatises by Rodolphus Goclenius, Sr., ΨΥΧΟΛΟΓΙΑ, hoc est, de hominis perfectione, animo, et imprimis ortu hujus (Marburg: Paul Egenolphus, 1597), 242–68

Peucer (1525–1562)

Combach, Johannes – ch. 2, ‘De anima humana: circa animam humanam quatuor potissimum sunt dubia: substantia ejus, ordo ad hominem, ortus et operandi modus’  in Liber de Homine  (Marburg: Rodolph Hutwecker, 1620), 19–52

Combach (1585–1651)

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Lutheran

English

Gerhard, Johann – Theological Common Places: On Creation & Angels…On the image of God in Man before the Fall  (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 2013)

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Latin

Johann Gerhard, Loci theologici (Berlin: B. Schlawitz, 1864), 2:131–2

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Related Pages

When the Soul is Joined to the Body in the Womb, & on the Formation of Christ’s Human Nature in the Womb

Man, the Image of God

On the Human Soul

Original Sin

The Covenant of Works