Editing Traducianism (section)

==History==
{{More citations needed section|date=February 2019}}
All [[Church Fathers]] agreed that the soul of [[Adam (Bible)|Adam]] was directly created by God; they disagreed about whether humans thereafter were each given souls as a special act of creation, or whether souls were passed on to them the same way their bodies were. [[Tertullian]] actively advocated traducianism, the parental generation of souls. After the rise of [[Pelagianism]], some theologians hesitated between traducianism and creationism, believing the former to offer a better, if not the only, explanation of the transmission of [[original sin]].<ref name=dubray>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15014a.htm Dubray, Charles. "Traducianism." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 7 February 2019{{PD-notice}}</ref> For Augustine, traducianism suggested a simple explanation for original sin, but he could not decide between it and creationism. In his writing to Saint [[Jerome]], Augustine said, "If that opinion of the creation of new souls is not opposed to this established article of faith let it be also mine; if it is, let it not be thine."{{citation needed|date=February 2019}} Jerome condemned it and said that creationism was the opinion of the Church, but he admitted that most of the Western Christians held traducianism.{{sfn|Nairne|1911}} [[Gregory of Nyssa]] alone among the Greek Fathers leaned toward traducianism.<ref>Gregory of Nyssa. ''De Hominis Opificio'', 29 (Migne, ''Patrologia Graeca'', vol. 44, 233-234)</ref> [[Theodore Abu Qurrah]], [[Macarius of Egypt|Macarius]], [[Tyrannius Rufinus|Rufinus]] and [[Nemesius]] also favored that view. [[Clement of Alexandria]] laid the foundations for the creationist view. [[Ambrose of Milan]] drew a distinction between the creation of Eve's body from Adam's rib and the creation of her soul by citing Genesis 2:22:<ref>{{bibleverse||Gen|2:22}}</ref> "the man said: "This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." He noted that it did not say "soul of my soul",<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=-YtY6G5DyrcC&dq=Traducianism&pg=PA260 Hennings, Ralph. "Disputatio de origine animae -or the victory of creationism in the fifth century", ''Studia Patristica: Historica, Theologica et Philosophica, Critica et Philologica'', (Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds.), Peeters Publishers, 1997, p. 260] {{ISBN| 978-90-6831-836-4}}</ref> but that can only mean that the souls of the first man and the first woman were both created separately and independently.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

Creationism always prevailed in the East and became the general opinion of medieval theologians.{{sfn|Nairne|1911}} Amongst the [[Scholasticism|Scholastics]], there were no defenders of traducianism. [[Alexander of Hales]] characterized creationism as the more probable opinion.<ref name=dubray/> All the other scholastics held creationism as certain and differed only in regard to the censure that should be attached to the opposite error. Accordingly, [[Peter Lombard]] asserted, "The Catholic Church teaches that souls are created at their infusion into the body." Saint [[Thomas Aquinas]] was more emphatic: "It is [[heresy|heretical]] to say that the intellectual soul is transmitted by process of generation." [[Hugh of Saint Victor]] and [[Hilary of Poitiers]] were creationists. [[Anselm of Canterbury]] was against traducianism.<ref name=Randles>{{cite web| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=F-98jSOO1rcC&dq=Traducianism&pg=PA157| title = Randles, Marshall. "Requests and Replies", ''The Expository Times'', T. & T. Clark, 1891, p. 157| year = 1891}}</ref>

There was a diversity of opinions among the remaining scholastics. Some held that the soul of a child is produced by the soul of the parents just as the body is generated by the parent body. Others maintained that all souls are created apart and are then united with their respective bodies, either by their own volition or by the command and action of God. Still others declared that the soul in the moment of its creation is infused into the body. Although for a time, the several views were upheld, and it was doubtful which came nearest the truth, the Church subsequently condemned the first two and approved the third. [[Gregory of Valencia]] spoke of "Generationism" as "certainly erroneous."{{cn|date=January 2022}} Although there are no explicit definitions authoritatively put forth by the Catholic Church that would warrant calling Creationism to be ''[[de fide]]'' doctrine, there can be no doubt as to which view has been favored by ecclesiastical authority.{{cn|date=January 2022}}

That the soul sinned in its pre-existent state and on that account was incarcerated in the body is regarded by the Catholic Church as a fiction that has been repeatedly condemned. Divested of that fiction, the theory that the soul exists prior to its infusion into the organism, while not explicitly reprobated, is obviously opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church according to which souls are multiplied correspondingly with the multiplication of human organisms. However, whether the rational soul is infused into the organism at [[conception (biology)|conception]], as the modern opinion holds, or some weeks subsequently, as medieval scholastics supposed, is an open question to some theologians.{{cn|date=January 2022}}

[[Martin Luther]], like Augustine, was unwilling to make a dogmatic statement but at least later in his life moved away from the medieval consensus and favored the Traducian position. In the theses Luther prepared for Peter Hegemon's doctoral disputation in 1545 concerning the origin of souls, Luther argues for the view that the soul of the child is generated from the souls of the parents in a way that is analogous to the generation of the body from the parents, believing this to be more consistent with the Biblical testimony than an immediate direct creation of each individual soul by God.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Luther |first1=Martin |title=Luther's Works V. 73 Disputations II |date=2020 |publisher=Concordia Publishing |location=Saint Louis |isbn=978-0-7586-1402-5 |pages=509-549}}</ref> The Lutheran dogmatic tradition that followed was decidedly traducian, with [[Johann Gerhard]], [[David Hollatz (dogmatician)|David Hollatz]], [[Johannes Andreas Quenstedt]] all clearly articulating traducianism.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schmid |first1=Heinrich |title=Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church |date=2020 |publisher=Just and Sinner |location=Ithaca, NY |isbn=978-0-692-45317-9 |pages=180-183}}</ref>  [[John Calvin]] favoured creationism,{{sfn|Nairne|1911}} as did [[Robert Baron (theologian)|Robert Baron]]. The [[Catholic Church]] postulates that the souls are created immediately at the moment of the conception. [[Pope Pius XII]] stated: "That the souls are created by God, it is the Catholic Faith that obliges us to accept."{{cn|date=January 2022}}