How to deal with Christ not inheriting Mary's sin nature (what is human nature)?

[Tirian]

I've read the various threads on Christ's DNA etc and I am unsatisfied (in my own thinking) with the notion that sin-nature is only passed by the father as some have suggested - and seeing as Christ has not a human father His human nature was not corrupted.

Just doesn't seem like a complete answer.

However it got me thinking "what is human nature" or more specifically, when we speak of Christ having two natures, what do we mean by His human nature? Does human nature = soul? Did Christ have a soul in the way we do?

His (Christ's) human nature was created - but if He had a soul surely that was/is eternal? What is going on during ordinary conception aside from the sperm and the egg creating a body? (I've always assumed our eternal souls are united with our bodies at that point) and so in the imputation of Adam's sin to us, that soul is corrupted. In the case of Jesus, His (human nature/soul/something else) was not corrupted.

Any thoughts?

 

[Peairtach]

Christ took to himself a complete human nature, human body and human soul, joined to His divine nature.

Unlike us He didn't participate in Adam's sin, so the corruption and guilt of that were not transmitted to Him.

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[earl40]

For starters we are not eternal or do we not predate our conception.

 

[Tirian]

For those He foreknew - to what is this referring?

 

[Andres]

I believe the fact that Adam did NOT inherit the sin nature all other men did/do, has nothing to do with the fact that he didn't come from an earthly father's bloodline. This is a teaching that has been popular for ages but has no authority in Scripture. Instead, Christ is sinless in nature because He is "the second Adam" (see Rom 5).

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

For those He foreknew - to what is this referring?

Matthew, foreknowledge and predestination are linked together. Are you asking if foreknowledge implies that we existed before we were conceived as Christ did in Eternity? I ask this due to your question following Earl's response which notes that we are not eternal nor predate our existence.

 

[Logan]

The way I have understood it is that it is more of a legal standing than anything else, and that is passed down through the father as the head, or representative. I've not understood it as being tied to DNA at all.

Adam represented all who descended from him. They all sinned in him and therefore legally are sinners and part of their birthright or inheritance is their sin nature.

Christ, though his DNA was part of Mary, did not have that headship or legal representation in Adam because he had no earthly father. He did not inherit a sin nature because that was not legally his birthright.

That's how I've understood it but I'm open to correction.

 

[lynnie]

Culver's ST has a nice section on the discussion if souls are inherited from our parents, or created by God with each conception. The Reformed community is divided. He is Lutheran and ends up that they are inherited. Anyway, Jesus did not inherit a DNA soul from Mary the way we do if I recall correctly. The preexisting divine person took on flesh. The seat of our personhood is our soul, the seat of the personhood of Jesus was that he was the Word. So he took on all the physical attributes of man, and became fully man, but his soulish person per se was the second person of the trinity. I will have to go back and reread it, now you have me thinking about it and trying to remember that whole section. Robert Culver, big black book. Since Jesus became fully man then his soulish emotion and feelings and personality would have come from Mary and her DNA.....unless the second Adam was a new fully created sinless soul bypassing Mary's sin nature, and all he got from her was the physical? But even our physical is fallen.

Good questions. See if you can hunt down that ST and the part about the Word taking on humanity but the seat of his personhood remaining the Word of God.

 

[RamistThomist]

Hodge and Turretin note that sin is not essential to the human nature qua nature.

 

[Tirian]

For those He foreknew - to what is this referring?

Matthew, foreknowledge and predestination are linked together. Are you asking if foreknowledge implies that we existed before we were conceived as Christ did in Eternity? I ask this due to your question following Earl's response which notes that we are not eternal nor predate our existence.

Yes, I was. I didn't have that in mind with the OP but I think it might be central to the discussion. I guess I am teasing out things that have just passed into my vocabulary without stopping to think about them.

is it our soul that God foreknew and predestinined? When does our soul get created? I've always just assumed God created our souls at some stage during which foreknowledge and predestination occured and that during conception our should are knitted to the embryo. Our souls are eternal from the point they are created (or everlasting if that is a better word)

If God takes our souls from some kind of dormant repository and knits them to our body then I assume that repository is tainted by the sin of Adam. In Christ's case His "soul" if He had one did not come from the tainted repository - it was and is without beginning and end and is infinitely righteous.

I am really sorry if my questions are crude - I'm trying to unpack years of assumptions in my brain so I can repackage them again biblically!!

 

[Peairtach]

For those He foreknew - to what is this referring?

Matthew, foreknowledge and predestination are linked together. Are you asking if foreknowledge implies that we existed before we were conceived as Christ did in Eternity? I ask this due to your question following Earl's response which notes that we are not eternal nor predate our existence.

Yes, I was. I didn't have that in mind with the OP but I think it might be central to the discussion. I guess I am teasing out things that have just passed into my vocabulary without stopping to think about them.

is it our soul that God foreknew and predestinined? When does our soul get created? I've always just assumed God created our souls at some stage during which foreknowledge and predestination occured and that during conception our should are knitted to the embryo. Our souls are eternal from the point they are created (or everlasting if that is a better word)

If God takes our souls from some kind of dormant repository and knits them to our body then I assume that repository is tainted by the sin of Adam. In Christ's case His "soul" if He had one did not come from the tainted repository - it was and is without beginning and end and is infinitely righteous.

I am really sorry if my questions are crude - I'm trying to unpack years of assumptions in my brain so I can repackage them again biblically!!

There are no dormant souls waiting in eternity for bodies. That theory has never been on the Christian agenda, as far as I am aware, as it is not suggested by the Scriptural data.

Christ was pre-existent in His divine nature, of course, but His human soul and body were not pre-existent.

Our existence as souls and bodies begins in the womb of our mother, and we have no pre-existence except in the mind of God. If we are of the elect we are foreknown by God. This means that He sets His love upon us from eternity, not that He forsees the faith we will have and then rewards us with salvation.

The two ideas of the origin of or souls are "Creationism", in which God immediately creates the soul of each human being and places it in the early embryo in the womb. The other theory is "Traducianism" ; that is in some way the creation of the soul is mediated through the reproductive activity of the parents, maybe passing on something of their characteristics.

A straightforward Reformed systematic theology, like Louis Berkhof's will cover these issues and give you a basic introduction to them. Maybe someone, such as one of the moderators, can recommend a more suitable introduction to Christian doctrine.

Although it doesn't deal directly with Creationism/Traducianism, some of your questions about the person of Christ and original sin would receive answers in the Shorter Catechism and Westminster Confession. For instance one of the answers to the Shorter Catechism points out that Adam only represented those born by "ordinary generation" from him, which would exclude Christ. One of the answers deals with Christ's nature, pointing out that the divine Son of God took to His person both a human body and a "a reasonable soul".

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[jwithnell]

You may be teasing the idea of body and soul futher apart than is reflected in the Bible -- the separation of the two after death is considered by scripture to be a supremely un-natural state. You body is just as much "yourself" as our soul is. That is part of what makes the incarnation of Jesus so incredibly mind boggling!

 

[MW]

Hodge and Turretin note that sin is not essential to the human nature qua nature.

That gets to the heart of it. Sin is not an entity in itself; it is always related to a law. Corruption of a person is not material; it is moral.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

Assuming there is life and death (spiritually speaking and not just physically) how does this figure into the discussion?

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[PuritanCovenanter]

Maybe we need to discover reality and anthropology of spiritual death and life.

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[RamistThomist]

Here are some of my old notes on this:

We need to first make a distinction about man’s essential qualities and his accidental qualities. Pace the essential qualities, man does not have a positive principle of sin in him. Hodge is very clear on this. Man can take a “blow to his morality” with regard to original sin and yet his essential human qualities remain in tact (e.g., rational creature, etc). With regard to our identification in Christ, all that the Reformed need to do is demonstrate that Christ has the same essential human nature as we do (rational faculty, etc) and yet identifies with us in terms of federal representation.

As Richard Muller notes,
Thus sin is not a substance, but a stain (macula) or a fault (reatus) [137]. Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms.

Hodge writes,

“Although original sin corrupts our whole nature, yet the essence or susbstance of the soul is one thing, and original sin another…Original sin is said to be an accidens quod non per se subsistit, sed in aliqua substantia est, et ab ea discerni potest (II: 229, 230).

The essential attributes to man’s nature is his rational faculty not his morality. Charles Hodge said,

“While, therefore, the Scriptures make the original moral perfection of man the most prominent element of that likeness to God in which he was created, it is no less true that they recognize man as a child of God in virtue of his rational nature. He is the image of God, and bears and reflects the divine likeness among the inhabitants of the earth, because he is a spirit, an intelligent, voluntary agent; and as such he is rightfully invested with universal dominion. This is what the Reformed theologians were accustomed to call the essential image of God, as distinguished from the accidental. The one consisting in the very nature of the soul, the other in its accidental endowments, that is, such as might be lost without the loss of humanity itself.” Systematic Theology Vol 2 pg. 99

 

[BJClark]

The man who wrote this article is a Roman Catholic, but it may be found useful for the discussion.

http://www.johnthebaptist.us/jbw_english/documents/articles/rjmi/tr15_body_soul_creation.pdf

"God speaks of humans who are alive in their mothers‟ wombs and who are wicked: “The wicked are alienated from the womb; they have gone astray from
the womb: they have spoken false things.” (Ps. 57:4) “I have called thee a transgressor from the womb.” (Isa. 48:8) God is certainly not calling a mere piece of flesh and bones a wicked transgressor. God sanctified the Prophet Jeremias, meaning He commissioned him to be a prophet, while Jeremias was alive in his mother‟s womb: “Before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations.”
(Jer. 1:5) And St. John the Baptist was alive in the womb of his mother, St. Elizabeth, when Mary visited her. St. John leaped in the womb at the presence of Jesus, who was in the womb of Mary: “And Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into a city of Juda. And she entered into the
house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.” (Lk. 1:39-41) Note that what was in Elizabeth‟s womb was an infant, a living human being. And science also proves that feeling, moving, thinking, and dreaming human beings are alive in their mother‟s wombs. Another proof is that an infant in the womb of its mother is viable when it is 24 weeks old, which means that if it were born early from this time forward it could be kept alive by special medical equipment. Hence it had to be alive in
the womb of its mother from at least the 24th week onward."


"The scientific fact of identical twins defends the opinion that the body is formed first and then some time after the body is formed the soul is created within the body. Identical twins require the creation of two souls by God, one for each person. Identical twins come from the same fertilized egg. After the male seed fertilizes the egg, the fertilized egg splits and forms the bodies for two persons. This split can take place up to 14 days after the egg is fertilized. If life takes place at the instant the male seed fertilizes the female egg and hence forms the body, then only one soul would occupy the egg the instant it gets
fertilized. And after the fertilized egg splits and forms a second body, only one of the bodies would have a soul and the other would not. Even if the second body were given its soul the instant it split from the first body, it still would not have gotten its soul the instant the seed fertilized the egg but instead would have gotten its soul several days after and hence its soul would have been created in a body that was several days old. The only viable solution to this scientific fact is that the soul does not enter the body until some time after the body is created. Hence the bodies of identical twins are first formed after the splitting of the fertilized egg, and only some time later are the souls created within the bodies prepared for them. Therefore it is certain that the soul is not created within the
body until at least 15 days after the egg is fertilized."


And then we have this:

How are human souls created?

Question: "How are human souls created?"

"Answer: There are two biblically plausible views on how the human soul is created. Traducianism is the theory that a soul is generated by the physical parents along with the physical body. Support for Traducianism is as follows: (A) In Genesis 2:7, God breathed the breath of life into Adam, causing Adam to become a “living soul.” Scripture nowhere records God performing this action again. (B) Adam had a son in his own likeness (Genesis 5:3). Adam’s descendants seem to be “living souls” without God breathing into them. (C) Genesis 2:2-3 seems to indicate that God ceased His creative work. (D) Adam's sin affects all men—both physically and spiritually—this makes sense if the body and soul both come from the parents. The weakness of Traducianism is that it is unclear how an immaterial soul can be generated through an entirely physical process. Traducianism can only be true if the body and soul are inextricably connected.

Creationism is the view that God creates a new soul when a human being is conceived. Creationism was held by many early church fathers and also has scriptural support. First, Scripture differentiates the origin of the soul from the origin of the body (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Isaiah 42:5; Zechariah 12:1; Hebrews 12:9). Second, if God creates each individual soul at the moment it is needed, the separation of soul and body is held firm. The weakness of Creationism is that it has God continually creating new human souls, while Genesis 2:2-3 indicates that God ceased creating. Also, since the entire human existence—body, soul, and spirit—are infected by sin and God creates a new soul for every human being, how is that soul then infected with sin?

A third view, but one that lacks biblical support, is the concept that God created all human souls at the same time, and “attaches” a soul to a human being at the moment of conception. This view holds that there is sort of a “warehouse of souls” in heaven where God stores souls that await a human body to be attached to. Again, this view has no biblical support, and is usually held by those of a “new age” or reincarnation mindset.

Whether the Traducianist view or the Creationist view is correct, both agree that the soul does not exist prior to conception. This seems to be the clear teaching of the Bible. Whether God creates a new human soul at the moment of conception, or whether God designed the human reproductive process to also reproduce a soul, God is ultimately responsible for the creation of each and every human soul."

This article is about the differences between the "Soul and Spirit"

What is the difference between the soul and spirit of man?

What is the human soul?

Do we have two or three parts? Body, soul, and spirit? Dichotomy or trichotomy?

Augustine: Christ and the Soul

 

[C. M. Sheffield]

The seat of our personhood is our soul, the seat of the personhood of Jesus was that he was the Word. So he took on all the physical attributes of man, and became fully man, but his soulish person per se was the second person of the trinity.

What you have stated here is the error of Apollinarianism. This heresy denied Christ’s full humanity by asserting he did not have a human soul. Apollinarius believed the divine nature of Christ took the place of a human soul/spirit. This view was successfully opposed in the fourth century by Gregory of Nazianzen and Athanasius, and rejected at the Council of Constantinople.

The church fathers maintained that if Christ did not posses a human soul, he could not redeem a human soul. He would only be able to redeem that part of their nature which he possessed (i.e. a physical body). If Apollonarious was correct, then the full redemption of fully human people would be lost.

Gregory famously said:

"that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved."

Jesus had to assume every element in a human nature in order to fully redeem humanity.

Concerning the mystery of Christ's person A. A. Hodge writes:

"It is impossible for us to explain philosophically how two self-conscious intelligences, how two self determined free agents, can constitute one person; yet this is the precise character of the phenomenon revealed in the history of Jesus. In order to simplify the matter, some errorists have supposed that in the person of Christ there was no human soul, but that his divine spirit took the place of a human soul in his human body. In opposition to this we have proved above--(1.) That Christ had a true human soul as well as a human body, and (2.) That he, although both God and man, is only one single person." -- A. A. Hodge, Commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith, p. 141.

 

[Peairtach]

Q. 16. Did all mankind fall in Adam’s first transgression?
A. The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity; all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression.

E.g.

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.(Luke 1:35)

Q. 22. How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?
A. Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.

E.g.

Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.(Matt 26:38)

 

[lynnie]

Well Rev Sheffield, thanks for reminding me not to go trying to paraphrase an ST, it usually doesn't work well Culver a heretic, ha.

The ST isn't heretical, I am sure of that. But it tries to explain how the Word became flesh, The Word incarnate. Definitely Jesus was fully human and had a human soul. But if you are in the camp that believes souls are inherited (Traducianism, as is Culver) then normally a soul comes from the parents and is inherited somehow from your parents along with your physical characteristics. The OP mentions DNA and inheritance.

Culver talks about the historical position that Jesus' humanity was inherited fully from Mary, and he is fully human 100%. Jesus had-has- a soul and is man permanently. So if you think souls are inherited, does that mean his soul was 100% inherited? Or is Jesus Christ not just a soul inherited from Mary's egg and DNA?

He was a fully human soul, but he was the preexistent Christ, the second person of the Godhead, the Word made flesh, taking on full manhood. Something that was preexisting took on humanity. He was not exactly like a human soul that begins in the womb but nothing of it was preexisting. He was fully human, but he existed from eternity. His divine and human grew together from the womb.

I think I will give up trying to explain what a brilliant theologian takes quite a bit of time and many chapters to explain at length. I again suggest to Tirian/Matt that he might enjoy reading that section in Culver's ST. If you believe all souls are created by God for each person and not inherited then perhaps the discussion is irrelevant, but if you think we get them from parents along with DNA, then that ST has some interesting theology and church history worth reading. It is a mystery to some extent.

By the way Culver says Apollinaris believed Jesus was 2/3 God and 1/3 man. For what it is worth.

 

[MW]

Therefore it is certain that the soul is not created within the body until at least 15 days after the egg is fertilized."

That is what a preternatural mixing of science and theology will do for you.

 

[C. M. Sheffield]

Lynnie,

I hope you understand that I was not calling you (or Dr. Culver) a heretic, but rather interacting with the statement you made. I haven't read Culver and would not presume to know his position. However, your summary of his position, stated plainly that the "soulish" (or spiritual/immaterial) person of Christ was the Second person of the Trinity. By that statement I can only understand you to be saying that the Divine Spirit of Christ was in the place of a human soul. That idea, as I mentioned, is Apollonarianism.

I do not know how much you have studied Christology in-depth. You have obviously read some on the matter. But for my self, I have spent years studying these things and I often still find the various facets of it very daunting. So I understand how easy it can be to make a statement that is inconsistent with the historic orthodox doctrine of the hypostatic union. Suffice to say, I don't think you are an Apollonarian, but that particular statement could certainly have qualified as one. I was simply hoping to make you aware of it.

 

[One Little Nail]

Adam & the Angels are referred to as sons of God due to their direct creation, Christ is The Only Begotten Son of God
due to an eternal generation not creation,this is a relational aspect to The other Persons in The Tri-Une Godhead,whereas
He is God by essence & nature Co-Eternally with The Father & Holy Ghost, His earthly body was completely(I hesitate to
use the word human,as we are not humans we are Mankind,please see a legal Dictionary as to the meaning of human)
man, so what ever man is He is,with a Union of The Divine Jehovah The Word, man was formed from the dust of the earth
& God breathed into him the Breath of Life & he became a Living Soul! Christ was fully man by direct creation in Mary's
womb, like Adam was a direct creation, though this did not make Him The Son of or a Son of God as he has pre-existed/existed eternally as The Son of God The Second Person of The Trinity Co-Equally as God, though it made Him The Second Adam.

 

[lynnie]

Thank you, it makes me realize how foolish it probably is to try and sum up something so profound by a theologian in a book in my own words. ( gack, Mark Driscoll or what).

I was trying to take a stab at the original question:

However it got me thinking "what is human nature" or more specifically, when we speak of Christ having two natures, what do we mean by His human nature? Does human nature = soul? Did Christ have a soul in the way we do?

His (Christ's) human nature was created - but if He had a soul surely that was/is eternal? What is going on during ordinary conception aside from the sperm and the egg creating a body? (I've always assumed our eternal souls are united with our bodies at that point)

...and in taking that stab to say that if souls are inherited along with the body and the soul is "the seat of consciousness", then no, Jesus did not have a soul the same way exactly we do. He did have a 100% human soul but apparently created by God at conception as opposed to inherited from Mary. And his "seat of consciousness" was not just a man who had some divine added to it, but an eternal conscious "person" who took on full humanity and both together were the soul. Maybe person is the wrong word ? Culver has a section on where Jesus uses the word "I" and it is obviously divine talking, and other places he says "I" and it is obviously human.

I would have to go back and reread the part on Traducianism because I don't even remember if anybody Reformed and modern thinks the soul inheritance is in the DNA, or if the DNA only carries physical bodily characteristics, and soul inheritance is a mystery with the egg and sperm that we do not understand.

I have to get going but thanks for the post, I will have to go back and read up on this. -edit- I just did a quick google search and it looks like Traducianism is a minority position among the Reformed and creation of souls by God at conception is more common. The ones who think souls are inherited in seed cells point to all the things we don't fully understand like germ plasm and mitochondria.

-edit again- Did you know this? wiki: Typically, the mitochondria are inherited from one parent only. In humans, when an egg cell is fertilized by a sperm, the egg nucleus and sperm nucleus each contribute equally to the genetic makeup of the zygote nucleus. In contrast, the mitochondria, and therefore the mitochondrial DNA, usually come from the egg only. The sperm's mitochondria enter the egg but do not contribute genetic information to the embryo

Hum, DNA from both parents but mitochondria only from Mom. Well that kills that theory- three of my four boys have souls so much like their dad that no way souls are carried on mitochondria.

Nice talking to you. I get in so many crazy discussions with struggling teenagers that I have to think about this stuff. They think about it. UFOs is even worse than the hypostatic union.

Merry Christmas. And yeah, Jesus was fully man and fully God. The incarnation is a glorious thing. Matt you asked a fascinating question and I hope you resolve it in a way that satisfies you. I can only say that human soul inheritence is in the category of different Reformed opinions.

 

[JimmyH]

Reverend D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, "Great Doctrines Of The Bible; God The Father, God The Son", page 37 ;

"The first thing we must do, in view of all that we have seen together, is agree to grasp the Bible as our full and final authority in all matters of revelation. Having seen that we cannot get anywhere without the Bible, then the obvious thing to do is to say, 'Very well, I accept the Bible. I don't know anything apart from it. I have no knowledge of God apart from what the Bible tells me. I may theorize, and other people may do the same thing, but I really do not know anything apart from what I find in this book.' So the first decision we must make is that we are going to be, as John Wesley put it, men and women 'of one book'. Here is my only source, my only authority.

But I want to underline this and even emphasise it still further. I must submit myself entirely to the Bible, and that will mean certain things. First, I start by telling myself that when I come to read the Bible and its doctrines, I am entering into a realm that is beyond the reach of my understanding. By definition, I shall be dealing with things that are beyond my power to grasp. The very idea of revelation , in and of itself, I suggest to you, must carry that implication. We are going to try and know God and study the doctrines concerning Him, and it must be the case that these truths are beyond our understanding. If I could understand God, I would be equal with Him. If my mind were able to apprehend and to span the truth about God then it would mean that my mind is equal to the mind of God, and that, of course, is altogether wrong.

For instance, in our next lecture we hope to be dealing with the doctrine of the Trinity. Now there by definition is a doctrine that no one can possibly understand, but let us agree to say that before we come to the doctrine. Let nobody think, however, that this means committing intellectual suicide when we take up the Bible. It simply means that we recognize that there is a limit to reason. We agree with the great French mathematician and philosopher, Pascal, that the supreme achievement of reason is to teach that there is an end and limit to reason. Our reason takes us so far and then we enter into the realm of revelation, where God is graciously pleased to manifest Himself to us.

But now I am anxious to emphasise the second point. It means that we must accept truths where we cannot understand them and fully explain them. Not only must we agree that we cannot, of necessity, understand everything, but also, when we come up against particular doctrines and truths, we must accept them if they are in he Bible, irrespective of the fact that we can or cannot understand them. Now I rather like to think of faith in that way. I am not sure but that the best definition of faith we can ever arrive at is this: faith means that men and women decide quite deliberately to be content only with what they have in the Bible, and that they stop asking questions."

 

[Tirian]

Let nobody think, however, that this means committing intellectual suicide when we take up the Bible. It simply means that we recognize that there is a limit to reason. We agree with the great French mathematician and philosopher, Pascal, that the supreme achievement of reason is to teach that there is an end and limit to reason. Our reason takes us so far and then we enter into the realm of revelation, where God is graciously pleased to manifest Himself to us.

Very good - I like the intellectual suicide sound bite!