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| Q: | I recently referred a friend to some of the excellent answers this forum has provided regarding birth control and people's motives, because I think they are very well stated. While reviewing the answers, I noticed that discussions of birth control methods tend to rely on correlating Scripture with a largely biological definition of life. For example, "God-pleasing methods would be those that prevent conception rather than those that end the life of a human being, either in its embryonic or fetal stage of development. Life begins when a new life is formed. Usually this takes place when sperm and egg are joined together and form an embryo (Note: Cloning would be an exception)." See also pages 4-7 of "The Moral Implications of Attempts to Control Human Reproduction" by John W. Covach (WLS library). Why does there appear to be a greater emphasis in this matter on a biological approach than on the transmission of souls? While Lutherans may not be able to "establish traducianism as the clear doctrine of the Bible" (David Wietzke, Theologia, Vol. 2 No. 3), it is the theory "most widely accepted by orthodox Lutheran dogmaticians." The list of orthodox Lutherans who accept it includes Luther himself (Cf. Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, p. 291) and the author(s) of the WELS Q&A: "[That the soul of the newly conceived child is somehow derived from that of the parents] is what is taught at the seminary and by nearly all Lutheran theologians. We can say God creates our soul but he creates it as he creates our body--through our parents, not by direct creation." I ask this because I'm wondering if, when it comes to examining birth control techniques, an overly biological emphasis may provide a false comfort that is not justified on the basis of our uncertainty regarding exactly how God accomplishes the transmission of souls. Has any WELS author directly addressed the issue of how what we know and do not know about traducianism might affect an evaluation of birth control methods? | ||||||
| A: | Creationism and traducianism are two views on how the soul comes to the human being. In creationism the position is held that each soul is created by God. In traducianism the view is that each soul is generated or derived from the parents. Martin Luther adopted the view, or theory, of traducianism primarily because it best accounts for the transmission of sin from the parents to the child (i.e., original sin, Psalm 51:5; Ephesians 2:3). Scripture does not definitively say exactly when and how the soul is joined with the body. What can be said with certainty is the inherited nature of sin (i.e., original sin) and that the soul is distinctively equated with life. Even at the point of conception there is already accountability for sin (Psalm 51:5). And, when the soul of a human being is taken by God there is no life. It is logical to assume that where there is accountability for sin there is a soul and we can idtenify that point to be as early as conception. A creationism view of the soul, as an alternative to traducianism, is troubling because of the doctrine of original sin. Sin is the aberration of man not of God. For that reason inherited original sin makes the theory of traducianism the more palatable in explaining how the soul comes to the body. It comes "from the two becoming one flesh" with flesh being the communicator of inherited sin. Because in procreation every human being, at its very essence, is composed of the contributions of male and female (even in cloning the biological mix is still present), there is a natural concern about biology in ascertaining the beginning of life. We are not aware of any extensive writing on this topic within the WELS or elsewhere with special application to the beginning of human life and birth control methods. | ||||||
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