SPROUL: Now, when we talk about Jesus receiving what you call "the substance" from His mother,
the Virgin Mary, of course we're talking about His human nature.
And because we're talking about His deriving His human nature from His mother, you would
think that that human nature would pass along, as it is the case with every other human being,
all of the ramifications of original sin.
Now, that raises all kinds of theological questions that touch upon it.
One of the oldest theological questions is the question of how the soul, for example,
is transmitted from parents to their children.
And the two schools of thought of that are called "creationism" and "traducianism."
Traducianism says that the whole person, body and soul, is transmitted from the parents
to their progeny through the natural process of birth.
Others argue, which is called "creationism," that every time a human being is born, that
person is a brand new creation by the immediate and direct power of God's creativity.
And so it's not a matter of transmitting human nature by natural processes.
Now the reason I say that this question you've raised touches on the dispute over creationism
and traducianism is that if you're a creationist, you have no problem with having a human nature
coming from the mother of Jesus, yet at the same time being born without original sin
if it's a direct and immediate act of divine creation.
If you're a traducianist, on the other hand, where you see the body and soul being transmitted
through the natural process, then the question that you raise becomes a more difficult problem.
However, others have argued, and particularly historically in the Roman Catholic Church
that the reason for the virgin birth and to bypass the male was not because they believe
that original sin was transmitted by the male rather than the female, but rather that the
miraculous dimension of Jesus' birth being a virgin birth was partly designed by God
to interrupt the normal transmission of human nature from parents to their children in order
to make it possible for a human being post-Adam to be born without original sin.
Now in the mystery of the incarnation, we don't know exactly what process God used to
make that so in the birth of Jesus.
We do know, as the Scriptures teach us, that He was made like us in every respect except
one, namely without sin and without original sin.
Some have argued against that saying if Jesus didn't have original sin, He wasn't truly
human.
But of course, the problem with that is this, that Adam before the fall was truly human,
and we in our glorified state in heaven without sin then will still be human.
So that original sin is not an inherent necessity for humanness.
So we know theologically that God could have this child born through the virgin birth from
His mother and bypassing the normal process of original sin.
WEBB: R.C., I'm just curious, did some of the earliest church councils wrestle with
that question?
SPROUL: Well yes, they did.
And of course, early on there was a debate and a dispute over from whence Jesus' divine
nature came?
And Mary was called "theotokos", the mother of God, but not in the sense that Jesus derived
His divine nature from His mother, but only to point out that the One that she bore and
that she nurtured as His mother was God incarnate.