Can a Christian Support Abortion? The Theology of Abortion
Recent polls indicate that the majority of Americans are pro-choice with regards to abortion. This is interesting considering that similar polls tell us that the majority of Americans identify themselves as Christians. This begs the question, Can a Christian support abortion?
Without getting into any of the medical details of or even physiological reasons for abortions (for I am not a physician or a physiologist), I would like to deal with the issue from a purely theological standpoint. Where one stands on abortion, I submit, has more to do with one’s theology than they realize.
Can a Christian support abortion? The answer is “yes,” if their theology allows them to do so. The issue comes down to one’s beliefs concerning the creation of the soul. The theological issues of abortion are not spoken of or understood much today, yet the implications are significant. The question that one must ask with regards to this issue is this: When does the soul/spirit (immaterial aspect; henceforth soul) join with the physical (the material aspect) of a person? This is often referred to as a debate about the constitution of man. If the soul is part of the physical body from conception, then abortion is out of the question. The person is a complete person, material and immaterial, from the beginning and has not only divine recognition, but a divine mandate for life. Any premature cessation of this life by an outside agent would amount to murder. But if there is a time when the physical “fetus” is without an immaterial aspect, then, during this time, the fetus is not a person, but simply an extension of the mother’s physical nature. The question is, when does the body receive the soul?
There are two positions that have been represented prominently throughout church history and it is with these two I would like to wrestle.
1. Creationism: The belief that the soul is created directly by God and “inserted” into or united with the body which in turn is created indirectly by God through the parents. In other words, the soul is created immediately by God, while the body is created mediately by man. This position has significant support in contemporary and historic theology. Noteworthy adherents to this position include Wayne Grudem, Charles Hodge, Louis Berkholf, John Calvin, and enjoys the support of most Roman Catholics. The basic defense for this position is that God, the father of all spirits (Heb. 12:9), is the only agent that can create an immaterial entity. Kind gives forth to kind. Man is physical and can only birth physical. Therefore, God must have created the soul directly, outside of the mediating agency of man.
2. Traducianism: (from the Latin tradux meaning “inheritance or transmission”) The belief that while God is the ultimate creator of all things, He uses secondary causes to bring them into existence. If God ceased from creation after the sixth day and no longer is creating ex nihilo (out of nothing), then all creation since the sixth day is initiated mediately through secondary causes, including the soul. To put the matter plainly, parents are just as involved in the creation of the soul as they are the body. God does not use special process for the creation of the soul. The basic defense of this position is focused on the negative implications of the creationist position. If God creates the souls directly, without the mediating support of humanity, how does one explain the sinfulness of the soul. If people are born with a fallen sinful nature (Ps. 51:5), how did the soul become corrupt? Did God create a sinful soul and place it in a sinful body? Can God create something impure? Traducianist are quick to charge the creationist with making God directly responsible for sin. The traducianist does not elevate the value of the soul above that of the body. Therefore, a traducianist believes that the soul/spirit is created in and with the body. Their is not two acts, but one.  Traducianism is not without it support. Noteworthy traducianist are Tertullian, Martian Luther, Jonathan Edward, and Millard Erickson.
Now, back to the topic of abortion. Theologically speaking, it is impossible for there to be a Christian traducianist who supports abortion. Why? Because the traducianist’s theology precludes a necessary belief that a person is complete from the moment of conception. There can never be a time when the child is without a soul. The parents provide the soul at the same time and in the same way as they provide the body.
A creationist, on the other hand, may support abortion. Why? Because no one can say with any amount of certainty when the body is united with the soul. Is it at conception? Implantation? During the first, second, or third trimester? At birth? Or even sometime after birth like the age of accountability? This leaves a slight crack in the door theologically. A deferment to ignorance is usually the best recourse for the creationist, not knowing when the soul is united to the body. While this deferment may suggest that the best stance for the creationist concerning the abortion issue is one of non-support, this does not necessitate this position. One can be a Christian creationist and support abortion based upon a reliance in the findings of the medical community. If the medical community can provide further information that leans in favor of a stance that a fetus is not really a person based upon issues of psychological response along with physiological issues dealing with the parasitic nature of the fetus, then the creationist may lean in favor of a pro-choice stance on the issue.
I don’t want people to get the wrong idea, so I am going to say something as clearly as I can: Our stance concerning the issue of abortion is not our guide with regards to this theological issue. In other words, we do not choose the position that best fits with our agenda one way or another. We must seek to find the truth, not defend our preconceptions. If creationism is the best option in dealing with the biblical evidence, then that is where we go. We then let the scientific community deal with the issue of abortion, providing answers about when life begins. But if the traducian position provides better answers, then we go there, letting its theological implications provide us with a proper response to the issue of abortion.
I am a traducianist. Not because I seek a solid theological stand against abortions, but because I believe that it is the best option that deals most comprehensively with the biblical data and a systematic Christian worldview. I believe that the creationist view (which is the most prominent and popular among laity) assumes an implicitly unchristian stance concerning the relationship of the body and the soul. There is no reason to say that the soul is of special nature, having to be created directly by God.
This line of thinking (that the soul must be created directly by God) evidences more of a Gnostic worldview than it does a Christian worldview. Gnosticism was a first-century Greek philosophy that crept into Christianity here and there, and still plagues our thinking at the most fundamental level. The Gnostics were dualists, believing that all things material were essentially evil, while all things spiritual were essentially good. For a Gnostic, the ultimate goal was for one to escape the confinement of the material body, finding fulfillment in the spiritual existence. But the Christian worldview is just the opposite. Christianity affirms the essential goodness of all creation, even though it has been infected with sin. Our goal is not to escape the physical world, but to sanctify it. God declared all things good at creation. All that was involved in this declaration was the physical world, including man’s physical nature. When man sinned, God did not cast aside His original intent opting for a “plan B,” but immediately began the process of redeeming the world that He created. When people die, there is an unnatural breach in their personhood, separating the immaterial from the material, but this does not suggest that the immaterial soul is somehow better or more highly favored in God’s eyes than the body. In fact, the consummation of redemption comes at the resurrection of the body, when the soul is reunited with the physical body and the new heavens and new earth (material) are created.
This Gnostic disdain for the physicality has unfortunately found its way into Christianity in many ways. In the early Church sex was seen as a necessary evil rather than a beautiful creation of God. Monasticism was highly valued thinking that the pleasures of this world were all evil. People have seen culture and government as evil because they are part of this world. The Bible is seen as a book of God to the neglect of the contribution of man (this has had great repercussions hermeneutically). Finally, I believe the Church has devalued the body and elevated the soul, believing that while man can create the body, only God can create the soul. There is no reason for this. They are both equally miraculous.
I believe that the traducianist theory answers the questions of anthropology better than the creationist viewpoint. While their are many good Christians, contemporary and throughout church history, who have held to the creationist view, I believe that they are wrong. Having said this, I believe that when it comes to abortion, while one’s theology may allow them to support it, I believe that this theology is not only wrong, but evidences more of a Gnostic worldview than a Christian worldview. The body and the soul cannot be dichotomized in such a way. The parents create both the body and the soul at the same time as mediate agents of God.
In short, I believe the issue of abortion is a theological issue. Sadly, I believe, this understanding escapes the forefront of the debate because so many in the church today have relegated theology to a seat of irrelevance and impracticality.
To hear more about this issue, listen or watch The Theology Program session 4 of Humanity and Sin.
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JoanieD on 24 May 2007 at 5:45 am #
This is very enlightening, Michael. I know that in Genesis there are various translations of Genesis 2:7. After God “…breathed into his nostrils the breath of life…” some translations say “…and man became a living being” and some say “… and man became a living soul. ” If the best translation is “soul” than man does not HAVE a soul, man IS a soul. For those of you who are studied theologians, which do you think is the best translation? And what is it that we mean when we say “soul?” I think it is very important to know that, because that can help us determine what we think about abortions.
It sounds like you are equating soul and spirit as one and the same, Michael. I know other people would say that humans are made up of physical, soul, and spirit where spirit is the life-giving “substance” and soul is more like the personality/mind of a person.
I have not sorted this all out for myself. Abortions seem to me to be not what God or nature or anything else would want. Yet, what would you tell a married couple when the doctor advises them that if the baby is not aborted, both the baby and the mother will die? If you believe any abortions are murder, then I guess you have to say, “Oh well. God gives life and he takes life and that’s the way the cookie crumbles” so to speak. It may be that the mother feels so closely connected to her baby that despite the fact that she has been told she will die, she just cannot choose to end her baby’s life anyway. Perhaps she will say that God can produce miracles and she will hope for a miracle. I pray that none of us and no one we love will ever have to face such a decision.
C Michael Patton on 24 May 2007 at 11:44 am #
Joanie,
You are right about the different translations of Gen 2:7. Most would say that we should translate this as “living being” rather than soul. It uses the same phrase for the animals. The idea is that when God breathed into them, He breathed life, not a soul. This would better support Traducianism.
I am in full agreement with you that any choice that one has to make in such a situation would be beyond my comprehension.
Thanks for the comment.
richards on 24 May 2007 at 1:01 pm #
Theologically, they both have some problems. One of the things with a traducian perspective (to which I lean), is that just as parents can produce a less than ideal human (i.e., birth defects), traducians also affirm that the soul is born defective (total depravity, etc.). But if a child can be born without arms or legs or certain organs, could a child be born without a soul? Or would that situation be more analogous to being born without a brain (anencephaly) or without a head (acephaly), where survival is 0%? After all, when the soul is not joined to a body, the body is dead. Could some souls be “more defective” than others?
With a creationist view, could God choose not to give a soul to someone? Or is it guaranteed that every single child born will be provided with a soul, which is promptly corrupted?
Oddly enough, though, from a purely secular point of view, abortion is untenable. Greg Koukl at http://www.str.org has an incredible argument against abortion in which he never appeals to the Bible. There’s just one question to ask: “What is it?” If it’s just tissue, then who cares about privacy or choice or anything else — just cut it out like a mole. If it’s a human, then no issue of privacy or choice will even matter. He then goes on to show that no matter how we define human, that definition either applies equally to a fetus or is arbitrary.
As with Michael, I have no answers, only more questions.
C Michael Patton on 24 May 2007 at 1:21 pm #
Richard, I agree with the difficulties of the issues.
The traducianist would say that it is impossible for their to be a case where the soul is not present in and with the body since it is vitally connected to it. It would be like saying what if there was a body without cells? Mysteriously, although you cannot test it or see it in a microscope, the immaterial aspect, according to the traducianist, is a part of the body from the beginning and the body cannot be without it. A good definition of death is the separation of the immaterial from the material. This separation is mysterious and unnatural and make the resurrection necessary so the we, in the resurrection, can be complete once again.
While the body is born with the effects of the fall, so is the soul. These effects do vary and the immaterial will always most certainly be deformed by sin. When God redeems the world, the complete person, body and soul, material and immaterial, will be restored.
richards on 25 May 2007 at 8:57 am #
This whole idea of the body being part of the “good” creation of God was one of the more important ideas I took from Humanity and Sin. I had naively held a Gnostic view of the body. In fact, I was so adamant in my reckless view of the body, that I had said on several occasions to not spend a lot of money on my funeral — just put me in a hefty bag and throw me in a dump, ’cause that’s not me. Sounds really horrible now, but my thinking was, “The soul is what counts, the body is going to decay, and God can recreate me from whatever he wants at the resurrection.” But as H&S and this post points out, our “selves” are not composed of just a spirit with a body chained to it. God created us as material and immaterial.
James Snapp Jr on 26 May 2007 at 11:04 pm #
Greetings C. Michael Patton,
Acknowledgement that some abortions might not be murder — i.e., that they
might not involve the separation of an innocent human soul from a human
body — is not the same as lending support to all or any abortions. If one
considers that children are a gift from the Lord, then, barring rare
circumstances, a woman’s awareness that she is pregnant may be
considered a signal of God’s intent to give her a gift. Shouldn’t it be
incumbent upon Christian parents to co-operate with what appears to be
a divine intention, regardless of whatever ignorance we may have about
exactly how and when this gift will be given? Istm that the right Christian
approach to pregnancy (barring those rare circumstances) is one of
co-operation.
On the question of ensoulment and some related issues, I welcome you
to consider three essays I wrote some time ago, which can be found
near the bottom of the homepage of the Curtisville Christian Church website
– http://www.curtisvillechristian.org –
or you can go directly to the first essay at
http://www.curtisvillechristian.org/Biogenesis.html .
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.