Pre-existence
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In Christian theology, pre-existence is the belief that each individual human soul existed before conception, and at conception (or later, depending on when it is believed that the soul enters the body) God places one of these pre-existent souls in the body. Pre-existence is in contrast to traducianism and the more widely accepted version of creationism which both hold that the individual human soul does not come into existence until conception or later.
See also: Accounts of pre-mortal existence
Pre-mortal existence in Mormonism
The concept of pre-mortal existence (sometimes referred to as pre-existence) is an early and fundamental doctrine of Mormonism. In 1833, early in the Latter Day Saint movement, its founder Joseph Smith, Jr. taught that just as Jesus was coeternal with God the Father, "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be." (LDS D&C 93:21-23.)
In 1844, Smith taught:
- "[T]he soul—the mind of man—the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so: the very idea lessens man in my estimation.... We say that God himself is a self-existent being.... Man does exist upon the same principles.... [The Bible] does not say in the Hebrew that God created the spirit of man. It says 'God made man out of the earth and put into him Adam's spirit, and so became a living body.' The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal with God himself.... Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had not beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are co-equal [co-eternal] with our Father in heaven." (King Follett Discourse)
After Smith's death, the doctrine of pre-mortal existence was elaborated by some other Latter Day Saint leaders, primarily within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its breakoffs. Although the "mind" and "intelligence" of humanity were still considered to be co-eternal with God, and not created, Brigham Young introduced the idea that the "spirit", which he distinguished from the "mind" or "intelligence", was indeed created and not co-eternal with God. Young postulated that we each had a pre-spirit "intelligence" that later became part of a spirit "body", which then eventually entered a physical body and was born on earth. In 1857, Young stated that every person was "a son or a daughter of [the Father]. In the spirit world their spirits were first begotten and brought forth, and they lived there with their parents for ages before they came here." 4 J.D. 218.
Among Latter-day Saints the idea of "spirit birth" was described in its modern doctrinal form in 1909, when the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued the following statement:
- Jesus, however, is the firstborn among all the sons of God—the first begotten in the spirit, and the only begotten in the flesh. He is our elder brother, and we, like Him, are in the image of God. All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother, and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity." MFP 4:203.
This description is widely-accepted by modern Latter-day Saints. However, among other Latter Day Saint denominations, there are differences of opinion as to the nature of the pre-mortal existence.