Scriptural evidence for "pre-mortal existence". Is there any?

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Elijah121 said:
Rom. 8:29–“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
To foreknow means to know before, and in order to foreordain which would happen before this
life, there would have to be a pre-existence.

No it doesn’t mean that at all. To foreknow means to know before. It does not mean that you existed before you were conceived.

Eph. 1:4-5-- “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,”
We were chosen before the foundation of the world, just as Christ was “Slain before the
foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8), so were we chosen and ordained to do certain duties and
tasks. But some will fall and not complete it, in which God will plant another in his stead. D/C
35:18. We had to have existed in order to be chosen.

**(Rev. 13:8)And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world.

God chooses us but that does not mean we existed before the foundation of the world. It means that God knows all outside of time. You have to stop thinking of God in human terms. I realize that God is a huge concept and that is why LDS humanize Him. It makes it easier to understand. Besides you are quoting D/C which is not of God nor the Bible.
**

Gen. 2:5-- “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created,
in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field
before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had
not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.”
If plants were created even before the earth was and every herb before the world was formed,
why didn’t God create us before?

We are created at conception not in a pre-mortal existence. God’s timing is His own not ours.

2 Tim. 1:9–Called us with a holy calling before the world began
Who hath delivered us and called us by his holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the times of the world.

So, why do you think that means pre-mortal spirit life?

(Foreordination see also Acts
17:26)
And hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation. **
**
I’m not quite sure how this means we existed before we were born.
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SteveVH said:
It seems that at the heart of the differences between many Mormon and traditional Christian beliefs lies the doctrine of pre-mortal existence; the idea that we have co-existed from eternity with God as eternal “intelligences” who then become “spirit children” of God and then came to earth to take on human flesh in order to begin the process of exaltation for the final purpose of becoming gods ourselves. Within this doctrine is also the belief that even inert matter is co-eternal with God, having no beginning. This doctrine is so basic to Mormon thought that it governs nearly all of its subsequent theology and is the cause, in my opinion, of much misunderstanding. If I have mis-stated anything here I am open to correction.

My question is this. Where in biblical Scripture is there any evidence of this? The best I can find are verses such as “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations.” (Jer 1:5). It does not appear though, that this conveyed the meaning held by the LDS Church to anyone but the LDS, rather it is interpreted by most Christians to mean that God is omniscient, or “all knowing”.

Since this doctrine is so basic to Mormon theology, and so oppossed to traditional Christian theology, I thought it was worth discussion.
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No.
 
It’s always difficult in these cases where a careless interpretation of scripture could lead to an entirely new way of thinking. We know that God is eternal because the scriptures pretty much say that and we know we were created in the image of God but are we also eternal? If we are eternal then there must have been a pre-existence.

But really the question is if the spirit of man is eternal. If God was always God, were we always Man?

Then there’s a metaphysical argument about if something has been created can it be eternal? If it’s really eternal, it will have always existed. Our bodies clearly are not eternal and the nature of our resurrected body is unknown. But that doesn’t really help, it’s just something to think about.
 
Mcmullen you have to separate God as Creator from man.

Genesis already covers it.
 
Then from Christ, you are witness to the theophany of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the beginning of Christ’s ministry on earth at His baptism at the River Jordan.

There is a second theophany at the Transfiguration when Christ selects 3 of His apostles…at the close of Christ’s earthly ministry and the beginning of His divine where He again shows His separation as God from the Apostles.

Then the pointing of the 3…going back to communion…We enter our share, our adoption as sons and daughters when we enter into the life of the Holy Trinity…with only One personage, you cannot have communion.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God…but in essence, Himself of Love, of Communion.

Likewise, Jesus said where 2 or 3 are gathered, He is present.

Authentic Christianity sees the hand of God at work when He chooses a patriarch or prophet from the gathering of the people…where the chosen is also held accountable before the public of believers.

Joseph Smith simply came out of wherever he was and wanted people to believe now that an angel appeared to him that condemned Christianity and made Joseph Smith the new prophet…

In the Christian life, we always have one or two friends that we can share our faith with, this flowing between two and three, not one individual, again reflecting the essence of communion…and accountability and in 3’s, opposing exclusive and self-oriented relationships that happen between just two people.

What I am getting at is that the devout Christian life enters the mystical through the Word and Sacraments, tradition and learning of Christ built ongoing in every Christian generation.

We have so much to learn about Christ in our daily lives, that anything prior to our beginning conception with God and our parents is irrelevant.

Hence, we take on the name Christian, because as Catholics our faith is based squarely on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Without the vast history of faith in Christianity…because you are indoctrinated that our teachings are corrupt…you have to go elsewhere with Joseph Smith…and the condemnation of our faith really limits you…sad.

Because our faith is based on Jesus Christ, our Church is too big to focus on another religion and obsess on it, compete with it because doing so it would be a man based religion competing with other men.

Instead our focus is on Jesus Christ and the divine life He gives us.
 
rmcmullan said:
It’s always difficult in these cases where a careless interpretation of scripture could lead to an entirely new way of thinking. We know that God is eternal because the scriptures pretty much say that and we know we were created in the image of God but are we also eternal? If we are eternal then there must have been a pre-existence.

But really the question is if the spirit of man is eternal. If God was always God, were we always Man?

Then there’s a metaphysical argument about if something has been created can it be eternal? If it’s really eternal, it will have always existed. Our bodies clearly are not eternal and the nature of our resurrected body is unknown. But that doesn’t really help, it’s just something to think about.
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Your very first line is the crux of the whole problem with the LDS interpretation, which is mostly due to the misunderstanding of the meanings of two words, eternal and immortal. They are not interchangeable, even though many people believe they are.
Definition of ETERNAL

  1. *
    • a : having infinite duration : everlasting
    • b : of or relating to eternity
    • c : characterized by abiding fellowship with God <good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? — Mark 10:17(Revised Standard Version)>
    • a : continued without intermission : perpetual
    • b : seemingly endless
    • archaic : infernal <some eternal villain … devised this slander — Shakespeare>
    • : valid or existing at all times : timeless
    Definition of IMMORTAL
      • exempt from death
      • exempt from oblivion : imperishable
      • connected with or relating to immortality
      • able or tending to divide indefinitely
      God is eternal, we are not. Our bodies are finite, but our souls are immortal from the time they’re created by God. They have a beginning, but they do not have an end. God is an eternal spirit that has always existed and always will exist. We didn’t exist at all before God created our soul and placed it in our body when it started to grow in our mother’s womb. God has no material substance, whatsoever. The angels are a completely different entity than man, like a cow is different from a horse. They were also created by God, but they are a purely spiritual creation, like our souls are spiritual creations. All spirits have no material substance. They’re immortal, because they have a beginning and will have no end, but they’re not eternal. They have not always existed. Only God has always existed.

      God and the spiritual realm of Heaven, including the angels and the souls that have already passed on, are not subject to the constraints of time or matter. Glorified bodies (Jesus) are much like pure spirits, because they aren’t subject to time or matter, either. It definitely boggles the mind of human beings to think about it, so it’s very easy for us to misunderstand the differences between spirit and matter. We tend to try to make spiritual things fit with what we know about the material world, but it doesn’t work that way.

      Joseph Smith’s misunderstanding of those two words are what lead him to believe that we must have existed before we were born. He also misunderstood the differences between the material realm and the spiritual realm. He thought the spiritual realm had to be made up of some kind of material substance. His entire theology was based on his material view of spiritual things. Unfortunately, he was wrong.
 
Thank you Telstar but you haven’t backed up anything you’ve said and I can’t think of any scriptures that corroborate your view. Soul. What is that? I might have a different understanding.

Soul = Spirit + Body

Spirit can be eternal, soul and body not so.

FYI, I do not personally believe angels are a different race, I believe them to be of the family of Man, and in this regard, I am in line with the traditional LDS teaching. But nevermind that, I’d rather address the Soul/Spirit/Body question, I might not understand the way you do on this one.
 
rmcmullan said:
Thank you Telstar but you haven’t backed up anything you’ve said and I can’t think of any scriptures that corroborate your view. Soul. What is that? I might have a different understanding.

Soul = Spirit + Body

Spirit can be eternal, soul and body not so.

FYI, I do not personally believe angels are a different race, I believe them to be of the family of Man, and in this regard, I am in line with the traditional LDS teaching. But nevermind that, I’d rather address the Soul/Spirit/Body question, I might not understand the way you do on this one.
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You’re welcome, rmcmullan. But, which parts would you like “backed up”, and what venue or source would be acceptable to you? Are you going to tell me that it has to be written in the Bible? Are you a proponent of sola scriptura, aka: Bible alone (which always was/is a Catholic book, written by Catholics in the early Church)? If you are, then you’re obviously in the wrong church. But, since I can’t use LDS writings, for obvious reasons, I guess I don’t have much choice but to use the Bible.

Can you show me where it specifically and clearly says that (soul=spirit+body) anywhere in the Bible, or is that just the way LDS and some others define it by their personal interpretations of specific verses? I can offer a few verses that might refute that idea:* [Matthew 10:28] And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather **fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.*Why did Jesus make a distinction in that verse, between those who could kill the body, and he who could kill both, the body and **the soul, if they are, in fact, the same thing? Jesus should certainly know what they really are, shouldn’t He? If they were both the same, or if the body was just a part of the soul, His whole statement would be rather silly.
[1 Thessalonians 5:23] And may the God of peace himself sanctify you in all things; that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, may be preserved blameless in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. *
And, a few from the Old Testament:[Tobias (Tobit) 4:3] When God shall take my soul, thou shalt bury my body: and thou shalt honour thy mother all the days of her life: *
*[3 Kings (1 Kings) 17:21] And he stretched, and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech thee, return into his body. *
[Wisdom 1:4] For wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins.
[Ecclesiasticus 31:37] Sober drinking is health to soul and body.
It seems that there has always been a distinction made between the two.

The only Spirit that is eternal is God.
[Baruch 4:7] For you have provoked him who made you, the eternal God, offering sacrifice to devils, and not to God.
[Daniel 6:26] It is decreed by me, that in all my empire and my kingdom all men dread and fear the God of Daniel. For he is the living and eternal God for ever: and his kingdom shall not be destroyed, and his power shall be for ever.
*[Daniel 13:42]Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice, and said: O eternal God, who knowest hidden things, who knowest all things before they come to pass, [43] Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me: and behold I must die, whereas I have done none of these things, which these men have maliciously forged against me. *
In red, we can plainly see exactly how God knows us before we’re born. How else could He have given the words of prophecy to anyone, if He didn’t already know what would happen before it happened? God is all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, and man is just a bit of dust on the face of the earth, that can’t even exist unless God creates him out of nothing. Our lives and God’s love for us, are very special gifts that He gives us out of His infinite love and mercy. He really doesn’t need us, at all. But, we certainly need Him, and, we owe everything that we have to Him, alone.
 
Excellent reply, a lot of well researched scriptures and well presented too. It seems to me that the three terms body soul and spirit are used inconsistently though. Here’s my working definition:

When Adam was in the Garden of Eden, his body and spirit were seperate. God breathed the Breath of Life and brought them together to form a living soul.

I think you might not agree, what is your definition? Are body, soul and spirit seperate?
 
rmcmullan said:
Excellent reply, a lot of well researched scriptures and well presented too. It seems to me that the three terms body soul and spirit are used inconsistently though. Here’s my working definition:

When Adam was in the Garden of Eden, his body and spirit were seperate. God breathed the Breath of Life and brought them together to form a living soul.

I think you might not agree, what is your definition? Are body, soul and spirit seperate?
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Thank you for that commentary. I really appreciate it. I do tend to try and put a lot of thought and heart into my replies, and take the subject matter very seriously. That’s not always easy for me to do, because I normally tend toward being a bit of clown. 😉

I actually debated whether or not I should use the quote from 1 Thessalonians, because it also includes a reference to ‘your whole spirit’. But, I’m leaning toward that possibly being a reference to the state of our soul, like our being in a ‘spiritual’ frame of soul when we follow Jesus, as opposed to our still living ‘according to the flesh’ when we don’t. Many people confuse those two words, spirit and soul, as much as they do eternal and immortal. Even in scripture, occasionally there seems to be a problem when they use them interchangeably. I think it’s because the soul really is a spiritual ‘thing’, so it’s fairly easy to use those two words like that.

I definitely believe that the body and soul are completely separate. That’s quite obviously referenced throughout the whole Bible. I believe you are referring to this verse:[Genesis 2:7] 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. IMHO, it says that when God “breathed” life into Adam, he was bringing the body that He had created to life, by infusing it with a living soul. Therefore, it’s still consistent with the idea that it’s the soul that gives the body life, and God created them both at that moment. It was the infusion of Adam’s body with the soul that God created for him, that actually made him into a living, breathing human being. Before he was given his soul, he wasn’t alive yet. He was still just like a statue that God had formed out of the “clay” of the earth. The soul, since it’s spiritual and not composed of matter, is just shown to enter the body by God ‘breathing’ into his face.
 
That is an interesting point of view, what you said about God transferring some of his Spirit to make Man. That seems okay so far as Adam is concerned, I’m not so sure about Hitler.

One of the reasons–and this is totally outside any appeal I would make to the Bible–that I like the pre-existence model is that people seem to have such strong and distinct personalities and so far as I can tell they’re born with them. Sure there are environmental influences but it seems to me that similar people in similar circumstances turn out… very differently.
 
rmcmullan said:
Excellent reply, a lot of well researched scriptures and well presented too. It seems to me that the three terms body soul and spirit are used inconsistently though. Here’s my working definition:

When Adam was in the Garden of Eden, his body and spirit were seperate. God breathed the Breath of Life and brought them together to form a living soul.

I think you might not agree, what is your definition? Are body, soul and spirit seperate?
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From the Catechism…scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p6.htm#382

363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

364 The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232
Code: 
Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233
365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

The Biblical references are in the footnotes…👍
 
Mcmullen…you should get a Catholic catechism…

We have our own dictionaries…that have passed metaphysical tests in the realm of Christ and His Church…You won’t find anything else out there that can compare.

Yes, it is looking like we are at the point to go back and start drawing out our dictionaries…that are associated with religious metaphysical thought,…not Webster’s English dictionary.
 
rmcmullan said:
That is an interesting point of view, what you said about God transferring some of his Spirit to make Man. That seems okay so far as Adam is concerned, I’m not so sure about Hitler.

One of the reasons–and this is totally outside any appeal I would make to the Bible–that I like the pre-existence model is that people seem to have such strong and distinct personalities and so far as I can tell they’re born with them. Sure there are environmental influences but it seems to me that similar people in similar circumstances turn out… very differently.
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I never said anything about God placing a part of His own Spirit into Adam’s body. I clearly said that God created a spiritual soul to place into it. In a previous post, I also defined spirits (such as angels) as being separate creations of God, that exist in the spiritual realm of Heaven (or hell, in the case of the fallen angels). So, your twisting of what I said to somehow compare what you perceive a soul to be, in view of someone the likes of Hitler, as being contrary to the Spirit of God, Himself, is totally ludicrous. Every soul is an individual, in the same way that the body it inhabits is an individual, completely separate from God.

A soul is not a little ‘piece’ of God. It’s just one of His many creations (from nothing), which Mormons deny He even has the power to do, at all. That just seems to be the way you to want to look at it, because to acknowledge that God actually has that kind of power, would completely nullify all Mormon beliefs. I can certainly understand how that concept would be devastating to anyone that chooses to believe in Mormonism, but, that doesn’t change the truth of it. There are two realms of existence, the physical realm of the universe that we live in now, that is completely made up of matter, and the spiritual realm of Heaven, that contains absolutely no matter, whatsoever. They are both creations from the Mind of God, the sole Creator of everything that exists. Their existence doesn’t require us to believe in them to be true, they just are, whether we choose to believe it or not.
pablope said:
From the Catechism…scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p6.htm#382

363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

364 The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232
Code: 
Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233
365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

The Biblical references are in the footnotes…👍
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Thank you, pablope! 👍
 
As I understand LDS theology…D&C 88:15 “15 And the spirit and the body are the soul of man.” Genesis names man a “living soul” AFTER God breaths life into him…the word for breath and spirit are the same word.

Our spirits(breath) go back to the God who gave it when we die…humans have spirits…but ARE souls…the part of us that can relate to God is our “spirit”…the body and spirit together are our “soul”…remember only after God “spirited/breathed” upon them…did they become a “living soul”
 
Lots of good points here…The soul is eternal & our glorified bodies will be eternal but not the earthly body. No reproduction necessary in heaven - St Paul says we live like the Angels

But soul lasts forever, soul is divine But that doesn’t make us “divine” like we are God. That 's Pantheism???
 
Telstar, that was just a misunderstanding. But I can’t really accept that He would create our spirits because He would have created them perfectly. No Hitlers, just all Adams. What am I missing here?
 
Pablope and KathleenGee, thanks for the catechism, that is helpful. The way I read it, we are pretty close to agreement on these three terms, right?
 
rmcmullan said:
Telstar, that was just a misunderstanding. But I can’t really accept that He would create our spirits because He would have created them perfectly. No Hitlers, just all Adams. What am I missing here?
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The only reason that you can’t understand it is because you don’t see any imperfection in Adam. When Adam (and Eve) was created, he was a perfect human being, in both body and soul because that is how God created him. The thing that changed him (and Eve) was eating the forbidden fruit. That’s when he opened himself up to the influences of evil, and corrupted his own soul. That was the after effect of his “Original Sin”, of disobeying God’s command. That’s also why God had warned them not to touch it, because He knew it would allow the devil to have much more influence over them. Before they ate it, they were completely innocent. But after they ate it, their souls became corrupted by the influence of understanding what evil really was. That’s also why they felt guilty when they realized they were naked, and that they had done an evil thing by disobeying God, so they hid themselves from Him.

Every human being that’s been born ever since Adam, has that knowledge and is subject to the same influence and corruption of that evil. The whole purpose for mankind needing a Redeemer in the first place, is to wash away the corrupting influence of evil (sin) that became a part of every human soul, and to reconcile them with God. Baptism is the very first step in washing away that sin and its influence from our souls. As long as we remain free from sin, after Baptism, then we’ll grow even stronger in resisting all sin. But, as soon as we fall back into sin, we open ourselves up, again, to even worse sin than we committed before our Baptism. That’s why we also need the Sacrament of Reconciliation to keep our souls washed clean of sin. "John 13:[10] Jesus saith to him: He that is washed, needeth not but to wash his feet, but is clean wholly. And you are clean, but not all. " ‘He that is washed’ refers to those who are Baptized. The ‘washing of the feet’ is a symbol of the reconciliation that’s necessary to rewash our souls, when we fall back into sin.
 
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