"Whoever pursues Godliness and unfailing love
will find life, Godliness and honor."

Proverbs 21:21

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Do Eggs Have Souls??

My best friend and I like to have theological conversations and sometimes we connect these conversations to strange things. I guess in this instance it wasn't really a strange thing but oh well. Anyways, we were discussing how people are created. Is God directly involved or does he enable humans to create other humans because we are made in His image?
In my theology class we have been studying this doctrine and there are two views; Creationism and Traducianism. Obviously Creationists believe in Psalm 139, that God knits us in our mothers womb. This is a very direct involvement. Traducianists believe in a more poetic interpretation of that verse and see God as the enabler of creation. God created us in His image and like God we are able to create. This is a pretty important doctrine to the Church because what does this mean about original sin? What happens when babies are born handicapped. What about homosexuality? Does God make us that way or does broken humanity beget broken humanity? I know what my stance is but do I know the right answer? I don't think any of us do.
Now about eggs and souls... During our talk we tried to decide what human nature was. What does it mean for humans to beget humans? What is it to be humans? We have bodies that is easy enough to figure out, but what else are we made up of? Souls? Spirits? Are they the same or different? What if God makes the souls and we make the bodies? This is why we were wondering if our eggs have souls in them or not. Neither one of us pretend to know the answer because honestly it isn't a make or break faith question (in my opinion).
I believe that God enables a man and women to come together and create humans and whatever our nature is. It makes sense to me that God would not create a child with a handicap or disease. It makes sense that he would create a child to be born into a home where they won't be loved or taken care of. The fallen nature of humanity is passed down from the womb because God created us to create.
I like believing that regardless of how fallen I am or how fallen my parents are that God has a purpose and plan for my life. By his grace, regardless of how I came into the world, He loves me.
This doesn't answer all the questions and maybe I raised more than I tried to answer but I am just kind of rattling off the conversation. It was a fun conversation. I enjoy the mystery surrounding things like this because it makes me wonder what God is thinking about when we try to figure it out. " Those poor babies... they think so hard..." :) Anyhow it would be wonderful to hear what you think about it or maybe any questions you have. Hopefully we can figure it out together.

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