Do souls exist prior to conception?

[tayloresque]

Where in the Bible does it say that souls are created at the moment of conception? My husband and I are Catholic, and all of his family are Baptists. My brother-in-law adamantly believes in the old earth age and this earth age - meaning that souls existed in the old earth age and those souls are put into people when they’re born. I want to refute it biblically, so here I am. Where in the Bible does it say that souls are created at the moment of conception and that the souls did not exist beforehand? Thanks!

 

[Veritas41]

Your brother-in-law sounds more like a Mormon than a Baptist if he believes in the pre-existence of souls. I know that is a Mormon, not a Baptist, belief.

Has your brother-in-law mentioned what he bases his belief on? I’ve never seen any verse in the Bible that mentions pre-existing souls. The only spirits that pre-exist humans are angels, and angels are distinct from humans.

I don’t think there’s a Bible verse that explicitly says ensoulment happens exactly at conception, but if you look at the creation of Adam and Eve and if you read Psalm 139, all of which refer to God’s special creation of human beings, it doesn’t mention any of them having pre-existing souls. The separation of the soul from the body is *death *which is a consequence and punishment of sin, so the idea of the soul being not joined to a body before physical life doesn’t make sense – body and soul go together in a unity. What would be the purpose of creating a soul before a body to go with it?

 

[davidv]

Where in the Bible does it say that souls are created at the moment of conception? My husband and I are Catholic, and all of his family are Baptists. My brother-in-law adamantly believes in the old earth age and this earth age - meaning that souls existed in the old earth age and those souls are put into people when they’re born. I want to refute it biblically, so here I am. Where in the Bible does it say that souls are created at the moment of conception and that the souls did not exist beforehand? Thanks!

I don’t believe it does. Nor does the Bible say when the soul is created. It certainly does not say that all souls were created at once.

Jer.1

1. 
   *][5] "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
   and before you were born I consecrated you;

1. 
   That God “forms” us in the womb to me indicates that this is when our soul is created.

 

[tayloresque]

My brother-in-law doesn’t go to church, but he watches/listens to a preacher on tv - I think Shepherd’s Chapel (Arnold Murray). Anyway, my brother-in-law says that it’s inferred between the first two verses in Genesis. That’s where he got the first earth age and the 2nd earth age. Anyway, he said that God created a set number of souls in the first earth age but the first earth age was destroyed (hence the vast wasteland in Genesis). These souls are given a second chance in this present earth age. So when a baby is born, it has the soul of that of the soul that was present in the first earth age. It’s a crazy idea, and I so want to refute it. Thanks for your help.

Many blessings!

Taylor

 

[nablaise]

Hi!

I think the biblical foundation of this truth is from the very name of God: I Am. May be there are others more referances.

God is not I was. Or I will be.
This confusion causes as to mistake ‘eternity’ for past. I understand ‘eternity’ to be sort of perpetual ‘present’. Since a soul is eternal. It can not have been created in past because it would not have an other ‘time’ vehicle while waiting for the human body. We are in time by the means of our bodies which are like ‘time’ vehicles’. So a soul without a time vehicle is in God in eternity, perpetual present and can only come in time from eternity (perpetual present in God) at the moment of the formation of the human body.

It is God being always in the present which makes him create a soul (eternal creature) directly at the moment of conception. God being only in the present can only create in the present.

When we say that God have always existed, it is meant that he is beyond time, not that he in some distant past which we can somehow count.

I think the moment of conception is special connection between ‘time’ and ‘eternity’. A soul which has always been in God is sent in ‘time’, or created.

So a soul before creation is not in ‘old earth age’ but in God.

 

[Veritas41]

My brother-in-law doesn’t go to church, but he watches/listens to a preacher on tv - I think Shepherd’s Chapel (Arnold Murray). Anyway, my brother-in-law says that it’s inferred between the first two verses in Genesis. That’s where he got the first earth age and the 2nd earth age. Anyway, he said that God created a set number of souls in the first earth age but the first earth age was destroyed (hence the vast wasteland in Genesis). These souls are given a second chance in this present earth age. So when a baby is born, it has the soul of that of the soul that was present in the first earth age. It’s a crazy idea, and I so want to refute it. Thanks for your help.

Many blessings!

Taylor

Wow, I never heard of that before!! You’re welcome!

 

[Scottgun]

The Church specifically said in a document on abortion:

This declaration expressly leaves aside the question of the moment when the spiritual soul is infused. There is not a unanimous tradition on this point and authors are as yet in disagreement. For some it dates from the first instant; for others it could not at least precede nidation. It is not within the competence of science to decide between these views, because the existence of an immortal soul is not a question in its field. It is a philosophical problem from which our moral affirmation remains independent for two reasons: (1) supposing a belated animation, there is still nothing less than a human life, preparing for and calling for a soul in which the nature received from parents is completed, (2) on the other hand, it suffices that this presence of the soul be probable (and one can never prove the contrary) in order that the taking of life involve accepting the risk of killing a man, not only waiting for, but already in possession of his soul.

 

[gilliam]

It sounds a bit like your friend’s pastor has been reading Origen. Anyway, the soul comes into being when human life (body and soul) is created.

From Genesis:

then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being Gen 2:7.

From the Catechism:
362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that “then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Man, whole and entire, is therefore *willed *by God.

From A Treatise on the Soul ) Tertullian

After settling the origin of the soul, its condition or state comes up next. For when we acknowledge that the soul originates in the breath of God, it follows that we attribute a beginning to it. This Plato, indeed, refuses to assign to it, for he will have the soul to be unborn and unmade. We, however, from the very fact of its having had a beginning, as well as from the nature thereof, teach that it had both birth and creation. And when we ascribe both birth and creation to it, we have made no mistake: for being born, indeed, is one thing, and being made is another,—the former being the term which is best suited to living beings. When distinctions, however, have places and times of their own, they occasionally possess also reciprocity of application among themselves. Thus, the being made admits of being taken in the sense of being brought forth; inasmuch as everything which receives being or existence, in any way whatever, is in fact generated. For the maker may really be called the parent of the thing that is made: in this sense Plato also uses the phraseology. So far, therefore, as concerns our belief in the souls being made or born, the opinion of the philosopher is overthrown by the authority of prophecy even.

 

[teachccd]

My brother-in-law doesn’t go to church, but he watches/listens to a preacher on tv - I think Shepherd’s Chapel (Arnold Murray). Anyway, my brother-in-law says that it’s inferred between the first two verses in Genesis. That’s where he got the first earth age and the 2nd earth age. Anyway, he said that God created a set number of souls in the first earth age but the first earth age was destroyed (hence the vast wasteland in Genesis). These souls are given a second chance in this present earth age. So when a baby is born, it has the soul of that of the soul that was present in the first earth age. It’s a crazy idea, and I so want to refute it. Thanks for your help.

Many blessings!

Taylor

I think that the lack of biblical evidence allows for this thought to refute itself. It’s all conjecture and absolutely holds no weight. That’s why the Catholic Church is the official interpreter of Scripture. Ask him how he knows that the Book of Genesis belongs in the Bible in the first place. No where in the Bible does it say that it should. How does he know that it is even inspired?? Because somewhere in Timothy it states that “All Scripture is inspired by God and…” How do we know that Timothy is an inspired work to even claim itself as being inspired??

Our answer: The Church. Our Catholic Church acknowledged the inspired Scripture, as the Church instituted by Christ, in the same Spirit that it was written. Without the Church we have these thousands of misinterpretations that you see here.

It can be next to impossible, at times, to refute an idea that someone came up with and to them is reality. Right now “pope” Arnold Murray holds your brother in law in his authority. Let the Holy Spirit guide you and good luck. Never stop your prayers for his proper understanding…teachccd

 

[TMC]

My brother-in-law doesn’t go to church, but he watches/listens to a preacher on tv - I think Shepherd’s Chapel (Arnold Murray). Anyway, my brother-in-law says that it’s inferred between the first two verses in Genesis. That’s where he got the first earth age and the 2nd earth age. Anyway, he said that God created a set number of souls in the first earth age but the first earth age was destroyed (hence the vast wasteland in Genesis). These souls are given a second chance in this present earth age. So when a baby is born, it has the soul of that of the soul that was present in the first earth age. It’s a crazy idea, and I so want to refute it. Thanks for your help.

Many blessings!

Taylor

Wow, so there were 90 or 100 Billion people that lived during this first age, but they left nothing behind? Or is God recycling the same couple billion souls over and over?

 

[BlaineTog]

Wow, so there were 90 or 100 Billion people that lived during this first age, but they left nothing behind? Or is God recycling the same couple billion souls over and over?

Maybe they built everything out of salt, which is why the sea is salty now, since the flood absorbed everything they ever made…

… or maybe the theory is absurd. It’s really cool, but absurd.

 

[agangbern]

The word “soul” has various meanings. The “breath of life” that God breathed into man during creation was a soul. We could therefore liken soul to the breathable air around us. When it was breathed into a body, that particular air became singled out from the vast body of air.
And that made the body a living being. It is in this line of fact from Genesis that we can say that at the time of conception God breaths into the physical mass inside the womb a soul for that mass.

When, by God’s act, the soul unites with the body, the body grows depending on the material food that the person takes in. And the soul grows too depending on the spiritual food that the person takes in. The two grow together. But the body can be destroyed by man while his soul only God could destroy.

When the body is destroyed, the soul that has grown according to God’s will would be provided with a new body, a spiritual body, and therefore the person continues to be alive. And the soul that grew far from His will would not be provided with such spiritual body and the person stays as a ghost, a particular soul that has no body. Satan could capture this particular bodiless soul and use it for his evil purpose.

What would you say?

 

[johnstown_johnn]

A soul comes into being at conception. Were a soul to exist before that event we would not be human beings but instead spirits.

Man has a beginning and an end but has an eternity that follows the earthly end. On the Last Day all will be resurrected in our earthly bodies for Judgment. If fortunate to enter Heaven all of our human senses will be heightened thousands of times over so to experience the wonders of God and His Kingdom. Taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight will be experience the infinite goodness.

We will know true and pure love…this is the most remarkable of all.

I read (forget the saint) who wrote that God will give us a kind of “re-run” of His creation of the universe. This was shown to the Blessed Mother when she went to Heaven. She knows the infinite nature of God and we will be privileged to experience it as well.

 

[John_Calvin]

My brother-in-law doesn’t go to church, but he watches/listens to a preacher on tv - I think Shepherd’s Chapel (Arnold Murray). Anyway, my brother-in-law says that it’s inferred between the first two verses in Genesis. That’s where he got the first earth age and the 2nd earth age. Anyway, he said that God created a set number of souls in the first earth age but the first earth age was destroyed (hence the vast wasteland in Genesis). These souls are given a second chance in this present earth age. So when a baby is born, it has the soul of that of the soul that was present in the first earth age. It’s a crazy idea, and I so want to refute it. Thanks for your help.

Many blessings!

Taylor

If he listens to that guy, its no wonder he’s confused. He has some rather weird views. I corresponded with a girl to listened to him, and I couldn’t believe that anyone today would believe that nonsense. The pre-existence of souls actually goes back to neo-Platonism. It isn’t a Jewish or Christian view at all. I would note that in the second creation account of Gen 2 it states that God formed man from dust then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living spirit. It does not state that he placed a spirit within him but that the man became a living spirit. Man is a unity, not a spirit with a body as a sort of prison for this spirit.

 

[cc70458]

Hmmm.

Jeremiah 1:5 priusquam te formarem in utero novi te et antequam exires de vulva sanctificavi te prophetam gentibus dedi te

• from the Latin Vulgate as translated by Saint Jerome
  (I do so love the latin because if you know Latin it is a good thing to compare your translations with modern ones)

Jeremiah 1:5 ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you; I appointed you as prophet to the nations.’

• from the New Jerusalem Bible

This verse would seem to support a pre-existence, HOWEVER - you must rember that we have mysteries because man was not designed to be able to grasp everything is our earthly incarnation.

Since God exists outside of, and independent of, time itself he is capable of omnipotent knowledge without impinging on free will. He knows that you are pondering a choice, the choice you will make, and the ramifications that choice will have. All of this because time is a concept that was created for our benefit.

This is why Angels who also exist outside of time have perfect knowledge, such that in a single instant was known their fidelidy to and love for the lord.

Our lack of perfect knowledge allows for us the privledge (purchased at a terrible price by Jesus Christ), to fall and fall again - so long as we exist “in time”. After we have died, we too exist outside of time and also have such perfect knowledge as the lord grants us the capacity for.

---

As to the other teachings, they are in fact in other writings not included in either the Jewish Cannon even after the Septuagint of 60ad, or the Christian cannon. But they can be found scattered throughout the Talmud and other books of Jewish Mysticism. As someone who has a very intimate knowledge of the Mormon faith, I suspect that he has been listening to a Kabbahlist and not a Mormon.

I would suspect that such a person is not driven for a search for the truth of the Lord God, but rather is driven by a desire to find solace in a soothing mysticism that suppports his worldview.

Much like a divorced Catholic who becomes Lutheran so that he does not have to gaze upon our crucified lord with shame and be brought to tears because he is unable to keep even the simplest of commandments.

More frightening is the person who would use a condom with their spouse the night before, and then unashamedly go through the communion line, as though they simply didn’t have to follow the rules they disliked and they could still live in the light of the lord.

It takes only a small breath to extinguish a candle - are we so tied up in ourselves that we fail to show our gratitude because it is convenient or because we are “modern”.

If modernity means that we have decided that we are in a better position to decide what is best four our immortal souls then please keep it - that is Satan (not God) who teaches one to rationalize - just as he taught Eve in Genesis. But I have digressed.

Maybe, Chist himself should answer these questions - if there is an adoration chapel in the area then you may go to be with him, and receive your answers and the solace you seek 24x7. I like to start with a thank you, and go even when I have need of nothing - to express to the lord my gratitude for his sacrifice, and hope that my feeble attempts to comfort him may be pleasing to him, much like a small child trying diligently to assist a hurt adult.

 

[Yaholo]

Jeremiah 1:5 ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you; I appointed you as prophet to the nations.’

Since God knew us before conception, it could be argued the soul exists before conception. The term “know” or “knew” in the Old Testament is pretty serious (often even used to imply intercourse, as in “adam KNEW eve”). Since all existence is from God’s will anyway, for God to know our soul from the beginning implies a level of existence, whatever that may be. Just a thought anyway.

 

[chasjohn]

There are several references in the Bible to a premortal life. Three of these references are: When God laid the foundations of the earth, all the sons of God shouted for joy, Job 38: 4-7. 7. Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, Jer. 1: 4-5. God chose us before the foundation of the world, Eph. 1: 3-4

 

[catholic2]

This discussion brings to my mind this past Sunday’s second reading of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, part of which states that “God has saved us and has called us to a holy life, not because of any merit of ours but according to his own design-the grace held out to us in Christ Jesus before the world began but now made manifest through the appearance of our Savior.” (verses 9-10)

Here Christ existed and His grace was already given to us even before the world was created. If Christ existed then, it follows that we existed as well, for the reason Christ came into this world is for our redemption.

Perhaps, it is impossible for mortal men to grasp that time itself is created, for it has a beginning, yet for God who created time, everything just is … past, present and future. As God knew Jeremiah before time began, so we too are known. We are all part of God’s plan and design and nothing is not known to God, nor is he subject to change. Everything already is that was and is to be from the human perspective.

 

[WICatholic]

Your brother-in-law sounds more like a Mormon than a Baptist if he believes in the pre-existence of souls. I know that is a Mormon, not a Baptist, belief.

I was going to say the same thing. When you said it, I didn’t have to. However, if you need ‘confirmation’ of this, see below.

There are several references in the Bible to a premortal life. Three of these references are: When God laid the foundations of the earth, all the sons of God shouted for joy, Job 38: 4-7. 7. Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, Jer. 1: 4-5. God chose us before the foundation of the world, Eph. 1: 3-4

 

[nablaise]

And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7

The ‘breath of live’ is in God and has always been. But a ‘soul’ was created by the union of this ‘breath of life’ and the ‘slime of the earth’.

I think the confusion may be coming from the fact that the ‘breath of life’ existed/exists’ always with God. Here I would say that this may be mean that something of us have always existed in God even before we come into being. After all he have though about us, loved us, loved the idea of us, and created us.

In a sense I would say that something of us, something which is eternal in us have always existed in God because God have always existed and does not change. So he have always known us, and if he have always known us then we have always existed in his thoughs in his heart. But I would not call this an ‘old Earth’.

Well, we are created in his image we can tell how this may seem like. First we think up something , then we ‘create’ it. I can imagine a machine, love the idea of it, all that it could do, etc etc. But the machine does not ‘exist’ until I have ‘created’ it.

God bless