Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig. Today, the Doctrine of Man,

Part 12. For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

Welcome to Defenders. If you weren't with us last Sunday, let me explain that because of the coronavirus, we are unable to meet together as a class

or even video record the class at the church where we normally convene.

So we are instead video recording the Defenders's Lesson from the Sanctuary of My Home Office

and podcasting it to you worldwide.

We're all of us in this together.

This is a global pandemic that we face.

And so I'm glad that as you join our Defenders podcast all around the world,

you're tuning in with us to keep the continuity of our class going and to not allow it to be

interrupted because of the threat of this virus. Now the last time we talked about the nature of the soul and today we want to turn

to the subject of the origin of the soul. Now there are classically three but now really four

views that present themselves as possibilities with respect to this question.

First is the pre-existence of the soul. This was the view held by the early church father, Oregon.

It's essentially a platonic doctrine.

Oregon held that souls exist with God prior to his creation of the physical body and even

of the physical world. Then once God creates the world, he sends these souls into the

world. He incarnates them in particular bodies. This view brought upon Oregon the condemnation of the early church.

He was condemned as a heretic because, among other things, of his view on the pre-existence

of the soul.

A second view is the creationist view.

This is the creationist view.

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