I long for Your
salvation, O LORD,
And Your law is my
delight.
Let my soul live, and
it shall
Praise You; and let
Your
Judgments help me.
I have gone astray
like a lost sheep,
Seek Your servant.
For I do not forget
Your commandments.
Psalm 119:174–176
When
investigating Original Sin we are led
to a perplexing question for many and for many years has been a huge debate
among theologians. This debate is conjoined to the question of Original Sin and
is a major portion of this debate; in fact, it is the foundational question
that needs to be answered. The question? The origin of the soul. What is it?
Where and when did man become a soul, a living soul? The answer to this
question aids us to understand how Original Sin has come into the lives of
people for all these centuries and will continue to plague mankind until Jesus
Christ returns and this world is destroyed and renewed and the children of God
become immortal to live with Jesus Christ for eternity. David in the above
Scripture cures out to have his soul live; is he speaking of life, or the soul
which is a separate entity within him? One thing we do learn from those
Scriptures is to be a seeker and allow the judgments of God to help us and to
not forget His commandments. Yet, there is this question of the soul, its
origin. There are and have been for all these centuries three theories that
have been advanced as to the origin of the soul. 1) There is a Preexistence of
the soul; 2) Traduction, or the doctrine that the soul of the child is derived
form the soul of the parent; 3) That of immediate Creation, or the doctrine
that the soul is not derived as the body is, but owes its existence to the
creative power of God. Where do you stand in regards to these there theories?
As to why this understanding is important will become clear as we study the
origin of the soul and then see how there has come to be Original Sin.
First,
let us examine the theory of preexistence of the soul for it has been presented
in two forms. I wrote previously in regards to Plato and his dualism for he
held that ideas are eternal in the mind of the eternal One. These ideas are not
just mere thoughts, but are living entities. These ideas or living entities
constitute the essence and life of all external things and that the universe
and all that the universe contains are these ideas that are realized, that is
clothed in matter, and in history are developed. A simple explanation given
before is that the chair you may be sitting on are only ideas that have their
reality in the mind of the eternal One are His ideas clothed in materiality.
Plato expounded on this subject by saying that an ideal, or the intelligent
world is one that is anterior to the world that we are existing in, in time.
Plato called these ideals, but Aristotle called them forms. Aristotle denied
that the ideal was anterior to the actual. Aristotle called all matter eternal
and that all things consist of matter and form; and this form according to
Aristotle meant that which gives character, or that which determines the nature
of individual things. With this both Plato and Aristotle influenced
Christianity with this Aristo–Platonic philosophy. The schoolmen, especially
during Medieval times came close to these philosophies, especially this
philosophy in regards to the soul being preexistent as to its origin, not only
to the soul but also the all things in this ideal world. An ancient theologian,
St. Bernard who is held in high esteem especially in the Roman Catholic Church,
opposed nominalism (Nominalism is a philosophy that denies that general or
abstract words stand for objective existing entities and that universals are
only names assigned to them), causing St. Bernard to adopt Platonic doctrine of
ideas, and he identified those ideas with genera and species. In other words, these
ideas, as he taught, were eternal although posterior to God, as can be seen
with the order of nature after its cause. Providence according to this
theologian applies the idea of matter, which then becomes animated and takes
form. Others, i.e., Franz Delitzsch (Leipzig, February 23, 1813 – Leipzig,
March 4, 1890) was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist, stated: “There
is according to the Scriptures, an ideal preexistence of man; a preexistence in
virtue of which man and humanity are contemplated by the divine omniscience not
merely as objects lying far of in the future, but as present in the mirror of
his wisdom. Not only philosophy and the
so called Gnosis, but also the Scriptures recognized and avow a divine ideal
world to which the actual world stands related as the historical development of
an eternal conception” (Italics mine, taken from Biblische Paychologie, p.23). It
may be said that Delitzsch meant nothing more than by this than that the
omniscience fo God embraces from eternity the knowledge of all things possible,
and that God’s purpose having been determined fro eternity the future for all
actual events, that all of this existed in the mind of God and then these
ideals were then realized in the external world, and in the history of the world.
This is somewhat different form the Platonic or Realistic theory of
preexistence.
Don’t
become weary, stay with this for we are examining a very important element of
the Christian faith, and its doctrine in regards to sin, especially the
doctrine of Original sin. Our understanding become illuminated will aid is to
see how these philosophies that led to theologies as to whether or not they are
Scriptural and how the have and are in this present age influencing many
so–called Christian Churches. In the next blogs I will discuss Origen’s
doctrine in regards to preexistence for Origen is a an early church father who
was read and followed by many Christians of his day and for others who came
into churches that taught some of Origen’s doctrines. The answer we find will
aid us not only for our understanding but as to how we might answer this
question on the doctrine of Original Sin for those seeking truth or just have
so smug dislike for Christianity due to the doctrine of sin.
Brethren, if anyone among you
Wanders
from the truth,
And someone turns him back,
Let him
know that he who
Turns a sinner from the error of h
His way
will save a soul
From death and cover a multitude
Of sin.
James 5:19–20
Pray today and communicate with God
Richard L. Crumb
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