[Important edit: In response to this post, Josheb protested that he has "never even remotely hinted at negating the existing theology" of original sin, and that hundreds of posts on his part have defended that doctrine theologically. It seems he thought I was suggesting otherwise and felt wronged by it, saying this alleged "mistake should be corrected." However, I never suggested any such thing. That I was addressing his claim for "a biological basis for the transmission of sin" does not somehow imply that his view on sin is strictly biological. Of course it's not. But there is no point to addressing the theological angle because we are agreed on that; it is the biological claim that is the issue. Therefore, I have edited this post lightly in order to make sure this matter is clear.]
Important note: I will not be responding to anything Josheb writes in response to the following and for reasons indicated in my previous post. Those who find themselves wondering if something he said has merit, either in supporting his contention or in defeating mine, they are invited to ask me because I certainly will respond to them. But since Josheb's posts don't exhibit a teachable attitude, I won't even bother trying.
Transmitting sin versus transmitting its effects
His view asserts that the fall was a trauma that became biologically encoded in Adam and Eve's cells—"the fall of humanity was traumatizing and all traumas get encoded in the brain's cells"—and subsequently inherited by their descendants through mitosis. In other words, sin can be understood as a trauma-based biological pathology
[in addition to how it's understood theologically]. "There is a biological basis for the transmission of sin," Josheb said, adding that "Adam and Eve could have passed the biological effects of their sin onto their progeny" (
link). But please notice the shift in language between those two sentences taken from the very same paragraph, where he perhaps inadvertently moved from the transmission of
sin to the transmission of its
biological effects, such as disease. (Also notice the shift from "is" to "could have.")
This is a category collapse, which can be a rhetorical strategy to import a controversial idea by conflating it with an accepted idea. Reformed theology affirms that the fall affected every part of the human person (i.e., total depravity), but that doesn't entail the biological transmission of sin itself. His claim that sin was encoded and transmitted biologically from the fall is an untenable—
and unnecessary!—theological innovation lacking any direct, meaningful scientific and biblical support. Perhaps that is why he didn't include any relevant citations to that effect from either source, and used slippery language to shift from the transmission of sin to the transmission of its biological effects.
Our human condition as covenant-breakers (sinners) is a forensic reality and spiritual condition, a verdict rendered by divine justice upon all those in Adam covenantally
, (as Josheb would agree). But it is not
[additionally] a material substance—a mutation in a gene, a methylation pattern on a strand of DNA, or the "memory" content of cells (whatever that means). Cells, tissues, and DNA strands do not contain or transmit sin, and that includes Mary's eggs. They bear the effects of the fall, as we see in things like disease, but sin itself is not transmitted biologically. This is what Reformed confessional orthodoxy asserts, as does my view. The effects of sin pervade our biology,
but sin itself and its transmission are not biological. His view, that sin is transmitted through trauma-induced cellular encoding
[—again, in addition to how it's understood theologically—]is not and has never been taught by Reformed orthodoxy particularly, much less the Christian church generally, because scripture doesn't teach it and science can't support it.
To explicitly bring this to the topic of the opening post: Under Reformed confessional orthodoxy, Jesus being conceived through "an egg from a sinful person" does not mean that his "own flesh was sinful at a cellular level" (
link); it also does not hold that "sin can [be] and is transferred by both sexes" (
link), as federal headship and covenantal union are strictly through males, both the first Adam and the last Adam.
I would also like to take a moment to address one particular thing. "I never said memories are transferred," he objected. And yet it surely appeared that he did: "Through the process of mitosis, the
memory content of cells eventually gets
transmitted to every cell in the body—including the gametes" (
link). Perhaps he would want to quibble about a distinction between "memories" and "memory content," or between "transferred" and "transmitted," a distinction without a difference that would be exhausting to even anticipate.
Mitosis, meiosis, and the Weismann barrier
Josheb said that "the record of the trauma, as well as its psychological and physiological effects, are recorded at a cellular level" and this information, "through the process of mitosis […], eventually becomes part of every cell in the body" (
link)—"including the gametes (sperm and/or egg)" (
link). This, he said, "is a fact of cellular reproduction." (He also identified it with
replication, perhaps unaware of the difference.) As already explained, this is wrong for several reasons.
There are two basic categories of cells in the human body, somatic cells and germ cells. As I explained previously (and he conceded the point), mitosis governs somatic cell division but it does not produce gametes, which are created via meiosis. The relevance of this point must not be missed: Contrary to the claim he made,
the process of mitosis does not result in information becoming part of every cell in the body, which would include germ cells. If any information is transmitted from somatic cells to germ cells, Josheb has not identified a mechanism or process for that. It is certainly not mitosis, almost by definition. Exactly how would information in Adam and Eve's somatic brain cells, even if altered by trauma, be transmitted into their germ cells?
Even if the record of this trauma (the fall) is not literally "memory" but rather "information"—another potential quibble—he has failed to define what this supposed information is, how it is encoded, how it escapes epigenetic reprogramming during gametogenesis, and how it maps onto sin. This is hand-waving, not science (or theology).
Identifying a mechanism or process by which this occurs would require addressing the Weismann barrier, which would involve more than just laughing. A fundamental, generalized concept in biology is that hereditary information flows in one direction, from germ cells to somatic cells. Wikipedia explains that this concept, although subsequently modified with specific qualifications in the light of modern understanding, still holds and remains important. This fundamental concept in biology represents an obstacle to his assertion that "cellular content eventually makes its way into
every cell in the body." If Josheb wants to assert "a biological basis for the transmission of sin," as if sin is a material substance transmitted through human gametes—including Mary's eggs, as per the opening post—he has a lot of work to do. In the meantime, I continue to maintain that sin is not reducible to biology or trauma, that it's a covenantal and federal reality rooted in Adamic humanity via imputation, not a ‘trauma-based biological pathology’ transmitted via gametes. I am willing to consider the latter, but at this point no theological or scientific case has been made for it.
Psychobiogenesis
I have never encountered this term before and had to look it up—to no avail. I could not find it in online dictionaries, nor the internet overall. "There are no results for psychobiogenesis," the search engine told me. I suspect that it is a neologism Josheb either coined or borrowed from fringe usage to lend a veneer of scientific credibility to his idea. As far as I can tell, this is not a term used in neuroscience or genetics in any standard academic context. Google Scholar returns practically no results for this term; there were only two, one from 1914 and the other from 1937.
He also does not use the term consistently, switching from "psychobiogenesis" to "biopsychogenesis" (
link), which influences my suspicion that this is a made-up term—rhetorically effective but scientifically meaningless. It serves to mask theological innovation with pseudoscientific language that only obscures the issue; its use should raise immediate red flags in any serious discussion. Without a clear, testable mechanism grounded in peer-reviewed science, the term functions as little more than a linguistic placeholder for a claim that cannot be empirically substantiated.
Summary
The Reformed confessional tradition rightly teaches that sin is a moral and covenantal reality, not a material substance. We inherit guilt and corruption through our federal union with Adam, not through biological mechanisms or gametic-transmitted trauma. While the effects of the fall pervade creation, including our biology, the transmission of sin itself is a matter of federal headship, imputation, and divine justice—not biology. The Bible teaches that we are sinners not as a matter of biology but because of our connection to Adam, the federal head of our old humanity. His guilt became our guilt and his fall brought corruption to all humanity, not by rewriting our cellular data but by divine judgment declared over the whole human race. Yes, the fall affected everything, including our bodies, but sin itself isn’t passed down like a disease or inherited trait (although its effects are). That’s why Jesus could be truly human and yet truly sinless—because sin is not something in human cells.
It's not about you
Josheb said, "It appears you did some research to verify my earlier post. Good." Setting aside the self-important tone of such a remark, it is also possible that I'm informed on this topic and the concepts involved because I have encountered it before. As an old-earth creationist who accepts the scientific theory of evolution, as a member in good standing at a confessionally Reformed church (URCNA), I have a real and sincere concern for "doctrinal delinquency" in my views and often subject them to critical scrutiny with the elders of my church—and one in particular who is attending seminary and is capable of fielding complicated and nuanced questions at this level. Like Josheb, he also regarded sin as something transmitted biologically, which was part of how he defended his belief that Adam was the first human.
"How do you reconcile your view, that sin is not identified or transmitted biologically, with how we confess and understand human nature?" he asked me. And I had to explain that I agree biblical and confessional orthodoxy requires a doctrine of original sin in order to explain sinful human nature, which is something my view maintains—that sin entered the world through Adam, from whom it was passed along to all mankind. Since that is not being denied, his question raised a curiosity, not a concern: How is sin passed along, if not through biological continuity?
And thus began a very detailed theological, confessional, and scientific defense of my view—years before I met Josheb.
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