Defending Traducianism from Materialism

by Ken Hamrick

The most common, and often the most convincing, objection to traducianism is the argument that traducianism would require a materialistic division of the immaterial substance of the soul. The ironic thing about these objections is that they first assume that propagation of the soul would require a materialistic division…

…and then, based on the “obvious” truth of this assumption alone, declare that such propagation is thus impossible. It has not helped that some traducianists, such as William G. T. Shedd, have added to this misunderstanding by joining in the materialistic thinking.

Shedd explains propagation of the soul with the illustration of a lump of clay. But rather than rightly explaining that the clay illustration is only an analogy and cannot account for the differences between the material and the immaterial, he adopts it in full and seemingly forgets what kind of substance he is dealing with [Shedd, Dogmatic Theology 3rd ed. (Phillipsburg: P & R, 2003), p. 470]:

The one specific substance, by propagation, is metamorphosed into millions of individual substances or persons. An individual man is a fractional part of human nature separated from the common mass and constituted a particular person having all the essential properties of human nature. The individual Socrates, for example, is not a previously existing “corporeal organization” to which “human nature” either in the sense of a property like rationality or in the sense of a “general substance” or “general principle” is added, but he is a distinct part of the human nature created in Adam, which part has been separated from the common mass and individualized by ordinary generation and which individualized part has the very same properties that the common mass has, but a different form. Suppose that a bit of clay is broken off from a larger mass and then molded into a cup. This cup now has an individual form that is peculiar to itself, such as it did not have before it was broken off and molded. This cup still has all the specific properties of clay; such as extension, color, mineral, and earthly elements, etc. But the clay that is in this individual cup is not the clay that is left in the lump from which it was broken off. Nor is it the clay that is in other individual cups that have been formed from other pieces broken off from the lump. Neither is this cup a piece of clay without properties to which a certain set of properties belonging to the lump are added, but it is simply a piece of the lump itself, having all the essential properties of the clay, but with an individual shape peculiar to itself.

The idea of propagation–especially immaterial propagation–is antithetical to the ideas of division, subdivision, fractional parts, and lumps broken off of a larger mass. To propagate is to reproduce the whole. Shedd also errs by thinking that immaterial propagation results in a depletion of the propagated “unindividualized” human nature [p. 481]:

At this present moment of time, the whole species consists of millions of individuals, namely, of the millions now living in this world together with the nonindividualized human nature in them and the disembodied millions in the other world who include no nonindividualized substance, because they “are as the angels of God” (Matt. 22:30). Thus it appears that the human nature was single, entire, and undivided only in those first two individuals in whom it was created. All individuals excepting the first two include each but a fractional part of human nature.

Here is the real error: “nonindividualized human nature.” The fact is that human nature is and has always been individualized in every person. Children are propagated not out of some unindividualized nature, but out of the individualized nature; however, the individuality is not transmitted. This is the same with physical nature. My son was propagated (physically) out of the individualized physical natures of my wife and me. Shedd’s error prompts Oliver D. Crisp to ask, in his article, (2006) Pulling traducianism out of the Shedd, Ars Disputandi, 6:1, 265-287, DOI: 10.1080/15665399.2006.10819933, “Are souls entities that are fissiparous? If so, are individual souls generated when they ‘split off’ from the soul of the parent(s)? Shedd would appear to be committed to both of these claims.”

The soul, in these contexts, is the human spirit. While the difference between the Creator and the creature is infinite, the finite human spirit was created to be close enough in likeness to the Divine Spirit for God to call both by the same term. That which is spirit transcends the natural world. While all of the post-fall natural world—including the human body–is destructible and temporary, that which is spirit is everlasting. “God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” God created men to worship Him, and so we were made to be spirit beings like God—with enough of a similarity to enable worship and communion. That which is spirit, transcending the natural world, is “supernatural;” and it is not subject to the laws of the natural world. Neither is it subject to scientific analysis. Rationalistic arguments seeking to apply natural laws to the nature of the spirit (or the prospect of its propagation) are treating what is supernatural as if it were natural.

Propagation is not division. Souls are propagated in whole, not in part. The whole soul of the father is propagated in whole to the son. No fission: just propagation (or ‘multiplication’). One whole soul prior to propagation: two whole souls at the moment of propagation. So much of the misunderstanding stems from the prevalent error of thinking that traducianism requires both parents to contribute to the soul of the child, as if part of each parent’s soul is combined to make the new soul. Such an idea is full of materialistic problems and does not comport with Scripture. Seth was begotten in the image of Adam, not the image of Adam and Eve; and sin entered the world through one man, not one man and one woman. The Bible teaches a paternal Traducianism, and this provides a clarity that cuts through much of the usual misunderstanding.

If immaterial substances are without extension and do not take up space, then they are not conformable to materialistic and spatial reasoning, such as propagation by division. Since immaterial substances are not subject to material limits, then they take on infinite characteristics where material limits are run up against when materialistic analogy is attempted. If the soul is “divided in propagation,” then it has infinite potential for such division (like the widow’s jar of oil that never depleted), and always remains whole and unchanged after propagating. To say otherwise is to try to put material and spatial limits on what is by definition free from such limits.

Therefore, arguments against traducianism that employ materialistic limits to the soul as disproof fail due to category errors. You cannot defeat the prospect of immaterial propagation based on objections that assume materialism! And mystery is no disproof.