The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Are You a Traducianist or Creationist?

Joe asks:
Are You a Traducianist or Creationist?

Pilgrim said:
I think there is one other important item you should have gleaned from the exchanges re: Traducianism vs. Creationism and your other readings on the subject. Did you happen to notice that NONE of the Calvinists who held/hold to Traducianism rely upon it to support other doctrines.

Pilgrim said:
Dave,

I think there is one other important item you should have gleaned from the exchanges re: Traducianism vs. Creationism and your other readings on the subject. Did you happen to notice that NONE of the Calvinists who held/hold to Traducianism rely upon it to support other doctrines. And why would they when most, like Dabney realize that it is one of those "mysteries" which isn't fully revealed in the Word. However, there are those like speratus and many/most Lutherans who are bound to Traducianism as they have built other parts of their theological system upon it. Thus it becomes a serious caveat to them when it is removed.

They {Adam and Eve} being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed;[6] and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.

Man after the fall begat children in his own likeness. A corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring. Hence all the posterity of Adam, Christ only excepted, have derived corruption from their original parent, not by imitation, as the Pelagians of old asserted, but by the propagation of a vicious nature.

Romans 9:11, 22-23 for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth,

What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction:

and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory,

Eph 1:4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love:

Eph 1:11 in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will;

Jude 4 For there are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old written of beforehand unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

speratus said:
I don't know about angels but 1. and 2. are excluded for people (Eph 2:8,9). So any theories about God creating special elect souls or special elect genes are contradicted by scripture. The souls of all people are utterly corrupt at conception and bear the image of Satan. That God has elected some before the foundation of the world is not owning to something within man or due to any foreseen act of man but purely according to His mercy and grace.

Before the Fall, man did bear the image of God. He still differs from animals (whose killing is not murder) in that his substance is capable of bearing the image of God. However, the image of God was never the essence of man.

If mankind AFTER the fall is in the image of Satan then to redeem mankind, Christ would have to be in the image of Satan (John 1:14; Rom 1:3; 5:12-21; Phil 2:5-8; Heb 2:14-17)

So now Jesus' essence (the second man Adam) was never in the image of God?

speratus said:
Original sin, the image of Satan, is not part of the essence of man!

speratus said:
John 8:44. See the A.W.Pink quotation in the Romans 5:12 thread. Also, Ps. 73:20. God does not despise His image. God despises their image of Satan.

If fallen mankind somehow acquires this alleged "image of Satan", which you still haven't shown to be found in Scripture, then people aren't "created" with this image but it is thus added at some period of time after birth. If they therefore have to acquire this "image of Satan", then individuals are born either without an image, ala: John Locke's "tabula rasa", or they are born as brute animals, or they are born as the Scripture teaches with the image of God albeit radically fallen, marred, distorted and wicked in all its parts.

The Image of God in Man: A Reformed Reassessment, (Slightly modified from articles first published in the British Reformed Journal)

The first of these, I Corinthians 11:7 reads,

For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.

The argument for broader and narrower senses of the imago dei is this: "man" is here spoken of. This refers to all men without exception. Therefore, all men are the image of God, in some sense.108 However, the meaning of this verse is clear to all who believe that a text ought to be understood in its context. Paul is speaking about prayer (vv. 4-5) in the church institute (v. 16). Thus I Corinthians 11:7 is not dealing with the heathen but the apostle’s "brethren" (v. 2) who are imitators of him as he imitates Christ (v. 1). It is simply not true that "the head of every man is Christ" (v. 3), if this is applied to those other than those renewed in God’s image in regeneration (Eph. 4:24, cf. I Cor. 11:1). Therefore I Corinthians 11:7 provides no support for a divine image in every man head for head. Thus some more astute scholars have only included Genesis 9:6 and James 3:9 in their proof texts for the broader/narrower view of the image of God.109

Genesis 9:6 is the second text appealed to for an image of God in all men:

Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

The exponents of the traditional view are correct in their assertion that this text speaks of all mankind and not just believers. They are wrong, however, in stating that it says that all men are now in the image of God. The text simply does not say this. It merely reiterates Genesis 1:26-27 that God made man after his likeness and thus points us back to the sixth day of the creation week. At the fall Adam lost the imago dei and begat children in his image (Gen. 5:1-3), the image of the devil (cf. Canons III/IV:1-2). How then is the creation of man in the image of God a reason for the capital punishment of murders? Man, unlike all other creatures, was created in God’s image as the crown of creation. Man as a rational-moral creature shows himself, unlike the beasts, to possess a constitution that is able to bear the divine image of knowledge, righteousness and holiness. Anyone who murders a human thus attacks God, for the divine image was given to the human race at creation and not to apes or ants. Thus the confessional view, contrary to the claims of John Murray, does full justice to "the gravity of the offence of murder," "the gravity of the penalty" and "the reason for the latter’s infliction."110

James 3:9, the third verse, provides slightly more difficulty for the confessional view. David Cairns, who holds that "humanity in general" does bear the image of God, states, "The most direct reference [to all men bearing the divine image in the New Testament], and it is oblique, is James 3:9."111 Concerning the believer’s tongue, the inspired Scriptures read,

Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.

The traditional position claims that "men" here is generic, including all men and not just believers. From the text alone, this would seem to be the case. Certainly the commentators seem to think so.112 Furthermore, the verb gegonotas, translated "are made" in the Authorized Version, is in the perfect tense and so indicates a past act with present effect. Thus the "men" in our text are those who were made and, hence, presently are, in the image of God. Clearly the explanation of James 3:9 cannot proceed along the same lines as that of Genesis 9:6, namely that the text speaks of Adam as created. Are not all men then in the image of God in some sense? Here two points need to be pointed out. First, the Greek (tous anthropous tous kath homoiosin theou gegonotas) translated "men, which are made after the similitude of God," literally speaks of cursing "the men, the ones made after the similitude of God," that is "the made-after-the-similitude-of-God men." The text does not say that all men are in God’s image. In itself, the phrase could be universal, referring to all men head for head, or restrictive, referring to the regenerate alone. Second, the Scripture’s overall teaching and the context must determine which of these two are being spoken of. We have seen that the Bible supports the restricted sense and a careful reading indicates that the context does too. James 3:1 raises the issue as to who should be teachers (didaskoloi) in the churches. Christians must be "perfect" (teleios; v. 2) in their words (vv. 2-12) and "wise" (sophos; v. 13) in their deeds (vv. 13-16), and certainly teachers must be thus qualified. Chapter 4 tells us directly that there were "wars" and "fightings" in the churches (v. 1) and pride in their midst (vv. 5-10). So bad was it that these "brethren" were speaking "evil one of another" (v. 11) and so "judg[ing] another" (v. 12). Thus James 3:9 tells us that we must not curse our brethren who were created, and therefore are, in the imago dei.113 Thus we can safely conclude that those in the image of God in James 3:9 are believers in the churches "of the twelve tribes scattered abroad" (1:1).114

Wes said:

Man is created in God's image. He knows about God's eternal power and divinity, through the realities around him of time, space, and objects. (Rom. 1:20)

James 3:7-10 For every kind of beasts and birds, of creeping things and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind.

8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is a restless evil, it is full of deadly poison.

9 Therewith bless we the Lord and Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the likeness of God:

10 out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.

I think one thing we are seeing here is the difference between Lutheran and Reformed views of what happened to the imago Dei at the Fall.

True Christianity by John Arndt
Christians, here deceive themselves; but let them take heed, how they go about to lessen or extenuate the transgression of Adam, in whom they are fallen, as if it were nothing more than some little peccadillo, a poor trifle, or the eating of an apple at worst. But rather let them assuredly think and believe, that the guilt of Adam as well as of' Lucifer, was, that he fain would be as God; that it was the same transgression in them both; that it was the same, most grievous, most heinous, most detestable crime in one as in the other; the same wicked apostasy, the same vile treason, and the same tyrannical affecting and usurping the rights of the divine majesty, even to be as God.
...
Hence after this, man became inwardly like the devil, bearing his express likeness in heart and mind; since both the one and other of them had now sinned the same sin, had committed the same high crime, as traitors against the Majesty of heaven. No longer does man carry upon him the image of God; but the portraiture of the devil. Nor any longer is he after this, the instrument of God and his Spirit; but the organ of the devil and his spirit, and so is thereby capable of all manner of devilish wickedness. And thus man losing the image that was heavenly, spiritual, and divine, became altogether earthly, fleshly, and brutish, yea, devilish. For the devil, that he might imprint and seal his own image upon man, cunningly soothed him up, and by a train of enticing and deceitful words, so charmed him, and prevailed on him, as to let him sow in him his seed, which is called the seed of the serpent; by which seed, I chiefly understand, self-love or self-will; and the ambition of being as God, that is, an affectation of supremacy, or of God-head.