What is Realism in Plain Language?

by Ken Hamrick

Realism is often made out to be more complex than it really is. So what is Realism in plain language? Realism is the idea that Adam was created with a spirit and a body, and that spirit was designed to be passed down from father to child in every generation.

Not only does a child inherit the genetic traits of her parents, she also inherits the spirit of her father. Just as being born with your father’s nose or chin does not mean that your father no longer has his nose or chin, so being born with your father’s spirit does not mean that your father does not have his any longer. Rather, these are propagated to you. Well, Adam’s spirit (or, “soul,” if you prefer) has been propagated to all of us. But there are two sides to this idea of Realism, and so far, only the first has been explained. The other side looks in the other direction, from you where you are now back through the generations to your spirit’s origin in Adam. Christianity has long recognized that Adam’s spirit could not have been in any way an offspring of God’s Spirit, because there would be no way for God to share a part of His Spirit without sharing His being–in other words, if Adam’s spirit was previously a part of God, then Adam would be God (with no way to avoid this problem). Therefore, it has from the beginning of that idea been considered heretical error, and the Church has always insisted that Adam’s spirit was created out of nothing. And even though the human spirit is infinitely different from God’s Spirit, God intended it to be analogically close enough to be called by the same name–and further, it is the created means by which we can commune with God, worship God, image God and understand God (at least in our limited ways). It is this created similarity that has also caused the Church to view the human spirit as having a simplicity that is similar to what is found in God’s Spirit. In other words, it has no parts but is completely being. So there is no way to share this spirit by propagation that does not involve a sharing of the being of the parent. This shared being is not simultaneous, as if the child and the father were the same being even after the child’s conception. Rather, the child can be said to have previously shared the being of the father while the child was still in the loins of her father, so to speak. The child is born as a separate being, but with a spiritual heritage of sin that can be traced all the way back to Adam. This shared being while still within one’s forefather(s) is why the Church has held for millennia that mankind’s sin in Adam was a sin of participation. Because of the shared being involved in a spiritual propagation, we are all said to have participated in Adam’s sin while we were still in his loins. This was the original idea of original sin. Thus, it is just for us to suffer the just consequences of our participation in the original sin, and we have only ourselves to blame. There is no arbitrary representation, and God sees us as we were and are, and not merely as He chooses to view us. This is biblical Realism plainly stated.