In my many blog discussions and debates over spirit birth, I have learned that spirit adoption is the preferred theory of those who do not like the idea of literal spirit birth.  The idea of adoption as the fundamental relationship between God and man does not appeal to me in the least.  And I would like to attempt to explain why that is. But first it may be a good idea to provide simple definitions for spirit birth and spirit adoption as I currently understand the terms.

Spirit Birth – Our spirit bodies are begotten spirit sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents.

Spirit Adoption – Our spirits are not begotten sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents, but are adopted by God.

Now we can quibble about these definitions if anyone wishes to, but I would mostly like to describe why the idea of spirit adoption as the fundamental relationship between God and man (as opposed to a literal parent/child relationship) does not appeal to me.

- Who would prefer to be adopted rather than a literal child?  Especially when we are talking about omniparents here?   What prince or princess would like to hear that they were not really descendants of the perfect King and Queen, but were instead adopted?

- Ontalogical Gap.  If we were adopted by God, then He may very well be an entirely different species of being than we are.  If our spirits are not His offspring then what are we?  And who is He?

- My view of the afterlife is to become like God and live the type of life He does.  This whole notion potentially goes down the toilet if we are merely adopted.

I suppose I could go on, but I think this might do for now.  I really so no theological advantage to the notion of spirit adoption being the fundamental relationship between God and man.  I know that there are scriptures that suggest that we become the sons of God, but I feel that these ideas add to the literal parent/child relationship rather than to contradict it.  Thus we can have both literal and adoptive ideas together if we start with the literal offspring relationship.  But if we reject that literal relationship then we can never fully get it back.  An adopted child cannot become the literal child of an adoptive parent.