The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

was specially developed by Isaac Peyrerius, in his work, Praeadamite,
Amsterdam, 1655. He took the ground that in Gen. i. 26 is narrated the
creation of the first man, and in Gen. ii. is narrated the later creation of
Adam, from whom the Jews spring.
The theory of Autochthons, which is the prevalent view of skeptical
naturalists, is that the race came from the earth, in its original condition, by
what is called “generatio equivoca:" or that man is the result of the
development of a lower organization into a higher.
4. This Second Article presupposes that subsequent to the first
creation of man, which was immediate, all human beings are the mediate
creatures of God, and that consequently neither the body nor soul of
children results from an immediate creation by God, but that both are
mediated in the divine order of nature, through the parents.
As the first of our race were the immediate creation of God, so the
Bible teaches that their descendants are the mediate creation of God. Ps.
cxxxix. 13; Acts xvii. 26; Heb. xii. 9.
The derivation of man from God, now, may therefore be described as
a mediate creation, through omnipotence exercised ordinarily, while the
creation of Adam was immediate, by omnipotence in its absoluteness.
The propagation of the soul.
The propagation, or origination of the human soul, has been
explained by three theories, viz: Preexistence: Creationism:
Traducianism.
The theory of Preexistence was maintained by Plato, who dwelt
upon a seemingly dim recollection of a former condition, anamneesis. It
went over from Plato through Philo, to Origen, but never met with
general acceptance in the Church, and was expressly condemned in the
Council of Constantinople in 543. In recent times, it has been defended by
Kant, who thinks, in his work "Religion within the bounds of Pure
Reason," that to the explanation of the radical evil in man is required the
intelligible fact of a decision made by him at some former time. Schelling
has maintained the same view in his "Philosophical Investigation, in
regard to the Essence of Freedom," 1809.
It has also been most ably defended by Julius Mueller, in his