Chelms Varthoumlien at Oikodomē has provided a sizable quotation from the real Francis Turretin on the issue of Creationism vs. Traducionism (link). This is not the "Creationism" debate we normally hear about today (vs. Evolutionism) but instead about the issue of whether souls are created or propagated. Turretin quite properly and aptly defends the Creationist position.
-TurretinFan
Saturday, September 27, 2008
1 comment:
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It's interesting to me how Turretin addressed the problem of original sin. I'd point out that this is one of the problems that atheists (and in another context Arminians) raise with this view (of course, atheists make it a broader objection): If you say that God creates each soul individually, then He effectively holds us accountable for being what we were created to be. (This is, of course, the gist of the objector's objection Paul raises in Romans 9).
ReplyDeleteBy way of reply, Steve Hays has pointed out that, strictly speaking, we are the product of second causes. I'm not altogether comfortable with that answer without further explanation. I would say, perhaps a bit differently than Brother Francis, that the creation of our souls including the curse of sin, viz. original sin, is a product of second causes insofar as the creation of our souls by God was suspended upon Adam's fulfilment (or rather lack thereof) of the Covenant of Works. In other words, God creates our souls in way that is responsive to Adam's sin in the Garden; it is a reflection of the covenantal nature of God's relationship with man. Thereby, we can be said to be the victims of his actions in the Garden in the same way that, in ANE (Ancient Near East culture) when children (and women) were killed as a result of war (to take one example), they were considered the victims of their fathers' actions.