The Origin of the Human Soul

How does it get here? When does it get here?

As I considered these questions, I realized the second question misunderstands the soul and its mode of existence. The soul is the formal cause of the body. No soul, no human body. No human body, no soul. So, if a human body is present, then so is a soul, which would lead us to understand the soul’s arrival as a simultaneous event along with the body’s arrival. So, that helps to answer the question of when, but not the question of how the soul arrives. Why? Because the body may indicate the presence of a soul, but it itself is not the initial cause of the soul. The presence of the human body only tells us of the presence of the human soul, but does not tell us its efficient cause, per se.

What causes the soul? There have been three historic opinions given: (1) preexistence, (2) propagation (traducianism), and (3) special creation by God ex nihilo. The preexistence of the soul is a platonic idea used to explain the form of man according to an extreme realist philosophy. Propagation suggests that the procreation, between father and mother, brings about the existence of a new soul along with a new body, this is called traducianism, and is an age-old theory. Some in the early church, like Tertullian, believed traducianism. And the Lutherans included it in their doctrine of the human soul as part of their orthodoxy. I, however, have come to understand the production of the soul as immediately brought about by God in a special act of creation, ex nihilo. And there are a few reasons for this—

First, the law of creation suggests our souls must be immediately created by God. Adam’s soul was immediately created by God, and so our souls must be created in the same way. Just as our bodies must be made from material, so too our souls must be made from that which God immediately imparts (Gen. 2:7).

Second, the testimony of the Scripture suggests each human soul is uniquely created by God. And this is proven with three texts— 

(1) “Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it (Ecc. 12:6, 7).” This suggests that the soul is given of God.

(2) This point is sharpened with Zechariah 12:1 which says, “The burden of the word of the LORD against Israel. Thus says the LORD, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him…” The word is literally, “and creates the spirit of man within him.” And this seems to knock down both the preexistence theory and the traducian theory.

(3) In Isaiah 57:16, God says, “For I will not contend forever, Nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would fail before Me, And the souls which I have made.” The word for made is synonymous with create, being woodenly translated manufactured.

An additional reason why the human soul must be created by God is that it must be created ex nihilo, that is, from nothing. The reason for this rests in the nature of the soul itself, which does not permit any kind of division of itself, imparting some of itself to another, which is what generation is. If a soul could impart part of itself to another it would be material not immaterial. Something that is able to give some of its stuff to something else is, by definition, material. But as it is, a soul is immaterial. So, souls must be created by God ex nihilo.

There are mainly two objections to the special creation of the soul. The first objection attacks the law of creation. I say: If God created Adam by specially creating his soul, then the same must be true of all human beings. An objector would say that this does not follow because the manner of Adam’s creation was obviously unique. Adam, for example, was taken directly out of the earth, and he was created as a grown man. This is not the case with his posterity.

To respond to this objection, we only need to note that I’m not arguing the manner of creation must be the same. It’s not the case that every human being must be drawn out of the soil, God being present to breathe a soul into him. Rather, I’m saying that the origin of the creation must be the same. If in the creation of Adam, the soul came from God, then it must be so with all human beings of the same nature with Adam. If God took man’s body from the material creation, then the same must be true for us, and it is, when the sperm of a man and the egg of a woman unite. It is the origin or cause that must be the same, not the manner.

The second objection would be an invocation of creation itself, namely, that God rested on the seventh day and created no more (Gen. 2:2). Some will argue this prevents us from ascribing any creative work of God after the seventh day. However, upon a more careful glance at the Scriptures, the work God rested from was not all work, but the work of creating new species. He did not cease, for example, from His work of providence. We also know that the rest of God was not for God’s own sake, but was intended as a pattern for man. Also, Jesus tells us that the Father did not cease from working at the end of creation in correcting the Pharisaical view of the Sabbath, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working (Jn. 5:17).” Moreover, there is the new creation, which is created by God after the seventh day, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Cor. 5:17).” And also, we know that regeneration is a work of God (Tit. 3:5), and that God, from nothing, creates in man a new heart, new affections, and a living faith, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me (Ps. 51:10).”

It is no wonder, therefore, that God would also create each individual human soul at conception. And this indeed must be the case if we are to, (1) understand the soul as immaterial; and (2) understand Adam’s posterity as being of the same nature as Adam.