Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

Catholic Church. From the days of the Reformation there was a difference of opinion
among the Protestants. Luther expressed himself in favor of Traducianism, and this
became the prevailing opinion in the Lutheran Church. Calvin, on the other hand,
decidedly favored creationism. Says he in his commentary on Gen. 3:16: “Nor is it
necessary to resort to that ancient figment of certain writers, that souls are derived by
descent from our first parents.” Ever since the days of the Reformation this has been the
common view in Reformed circles. This does not mean that there were no exceptions to
the rule. Jonathan Edwards and Hopkins in New England theology favored
Traducianism. Julius Mueller in his work on The Christian Doctrine of Sin again put up an
argument in favor of the pre-existence of the soul, coupled with that of a pre-temporal
fall, in order to explain the origin of sin.
2. PRE-EXISTENTIANISM. Some speculative theologians, among whom Origen, Scotus
Erigena, and Julius Mueller are the most important, advocated the theory that the souls
of men existed in a previous state, and that certain occurrences in that former state
account for the condition in which those souls are now found. Origen looks upon man’s
present material existence, with all its inequalities and irregularities, physical and
moral, as a punishment for sins committed in a previous existence. Scotus Erigena also
holds that sin made its entrance into the world of humanity in the pre-temporal state,
and that therefore man begins his career on earth as a sinner. And Julius Mueller has
recourse to the theory, in order to reconcile the doctrines of the universality of sin and of
individual guilt. According to him each person must have sinned willingly in that
previous existence.
This theory is open to several objections. (a) It is absolutely devoid of both
Scriptural and philosophical grounds, and is, at least in some of its forms, based on the
dualism of matter and spirit as taught in heathen philosophy, making it a punishment
for the soul to be connected with the body. (b) It really makes the body something
accidental. The soul was without the body at first, and received this later on. Man was
complete without the body. This virtually wipes out the distinction between man and
the angels. (c) It destroys the unity of the human race, for it assumes that all individual
souls existed long before they entered the present life. They do not constitute a race. (d)
It finds no support in the consciousness of man. Man has absolutely no consciousness of
such a previous existence; nor does he feel that the body is a prison or a place of
punishment for the soul. In fact, he dreads the separation of body and soul as
something that is unnatural.
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