The Literal Meaning of Genesis
CHAPTER
The soul of the first man was created in its own proper being on the first day and laid away until God breathed it into the body He formed from the earth.
35. There is another interpretation which may be the true one, and certainly it seems to me more acceptable to human reason. Let us suppose that in the original works created simultaneously God also created the human soul, which in due time He would breathe into the members of the body formed from the slime of the earth. God had created, of course, the causal reason of the body in the works of the six days, which He created simultaneously, and by that causal reason He made the human body when the time came. Now the expression, in His image, can apply only to the soul, and the expression, male and female, can be properly understood as referring only to the body. If the authority of Scripture, therefore, and the light of reason do not contradict us, let us assume that man was made on the sixth day in the sense that the causal reason of his body was created in the elements of the world, but that his soul in its own proper being was already created with the making of the first day, and that thus created it lay hidden in the works of God until at the proper time He would breathe it into the body He would form from the slime of the earth.®3
If the soul was created before entering the body, did it enter the body by its own choice?
36. At this point we have a question of some importance to consider. If the soul was already created and hidden away, where could it be better off than where it was? What was the reason that a soul living an innocent life should be put into the life of our flesh, in which by sin it would offend Him whd cre-