This dialogue comes from a comment in a forum where the concept and doctrine of a premortal life is being discussed. Latter-day Saints believe that we lived with God as spirit beings before we came to earth. Mainstream Christian theologians teach that our existence is spontaneous at birth. One of the participants comment is in black print, my comments are in red.
The Bible says nothing about the pre-existence of souls because this is a man-made idea with no basis in truth. This first sentence is a fallacy at three levels. The Bible does mention the "pre-existence" of souls. Wasn't Satan a pre-mortal/pre-existent being albeit he was never embodied. Weren't other angel/beings that were cast out of heaven with him before man was created. (Jude 1:6) There are other references to the spirits of mankind existing before birth. The idea is not man made. It is doctrinally sound. It can't be demonstrated with any reliability that pre-mortality of beings has no basis in truth.
The Bible makes it clear that every human being is a unique creation of God (Genesis 2:7; Zechariah 12:1; Jeremiah 1:5). Each human is obviously unique based on the science of DNA. If each person is a creation of God, In what manner is this and how is it done? Does God speak the soul into existence by some mystical power? If so he can make them anyway he wants. Apparently he makes many of them to turn out evil.
Each unique human soul begins at conception (Psalm 139:13–16; Isaiah 44:24) and will continue forever because we are created as eternal beings (Genesis 9:6; Isaiah 40:28; Matthew 25:46).
This sentence contradicts itself. The body begins at conception. When does the spirit come into existence? If we are created beings and have a beginning we can't be eternal beings. The logical conclusion is that if we can be created, we can be uncreated.
The concept of pre-existence cannot be followed to its logical conclusion. Pre-existence means one of three things: (1) the soul has always existed, The soul doesn't have to always have existed. Some Component of the soul would need to have always existed.(2) the soul was created at a previous time and waited, incorporeal, until it could inhabit a body on earth, or (3) the soul inhabited another body in the past and transmigrated to its current body. Number (3) isn't necessarily a logical conclusion. In LDS teachings a natural intelligence exists in unlimited supply as eternal truth. This eternal element is united with the spirit by the power of God. The spirit joins a mortal body and this forms the soul of an individual. What is the soul is in the terms of mainstream understanding? In death the mortal body of the earth is laid aside and the spirit awaits the resurrection. In the resurrection the spirit receives an incorruptible body and the soul then complete its journey to an eternal destiny.
If (1) is true and souls have always existed, then human beings are also part of God, uncreated and self-determined. The intelligence that becomes part of the soul has always existed. It has no power on its own, however. We are part of God in that our spirit contains his spiritual "DNA" for lack of a better eternal term. Our intelligence is eternal does give us power of self-determination. Created beings cannot be self-determined or have free will of their own since they are not eternal. Any will they have is imputed to them according to the will of the creator. What God gives us as true eternal beings is agency and freedom to act with that agency. Created beings would be pawns of creation and nothing more than highly intelligent robots with no true capacity to self-determine.
This concept is clearly contrary to the Bible’s claims that there is no other God but Yahweh (Genesis 5:1; 1 Timothy 2:5; 1 John 4:12; Malachi 2:10; 1 Corinthians 8:5–6). The pre-mortal existence of souls and being self-determined is not a claim that there are other Gods that have power over us. We have no other God than our Father in Heaven and no other Savior than Jesus Christ. The scriptures you quote don't support your conclusions. There are billions of fathers on earth but each of us only has one. So it is with our Father in Heaven. He is our only God.
If (2) is true and a soul waited in a heavenly nursery prior to earthly birth, then Genesis 2:7 is wrong: Adam being created out of the dust of the earth is symbolic of him having a physical body that is corruptible and subject to death before he fell. It doesn't mean his spirit didn't exist before that. The bodies of all of Adam and Eve's decedents also would have corruptible bodies after the fall being made of the elements of this earth. This doesn't make the scripture wrong.
“The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” The words “man became” indicate a definite beginning in which Adam’s soul and body came to life at the same time. Adam's spirit and body came to consciousness in the earth at the same time. That doesn't mean there wasn't a pre-mortal Adam as a spirit. The "breath of life" is symbolic of his sprit entering the body that was created for him. There is nothing unscriptural about this process if you understand why God created Adam in the first place. If Adam had a definite beginning then he is simply a very capable pawn or robot. He can't have free will if he some part of him isn't eternal.
If (3) is true, and a soul inhabited another body in a bygone era, then at what point was the soul created and for what purpose? The spirit will only inhabit two bodies. The mortal body and the resurrected body. Just to clarify, the soul is the spirit and a physical body. There is a mortal soul before death and and immortal soul after the resurrection. The spirit is created by God with the eternal intelligence introduced into it. The spirit inhabits the mortal body until it dies and then after the resurrection receives a glorified body. Our spirit and body are joined together as the image of God to fulfill his plan of happiness and exaltation.
The Bible is clear that each person will answer for his or her own life (Revelation 20:13; Romans 2:6; Jeremiah 32:19). When the previous body died, where did the soul go? Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.” This applies to everyone. Yes, we are accountable for our life and will answer for it. Again, to clarify a point, there is only one spirit of each person. Their eternal personhood is because of their intelligence that is part of their spirit body. The spirit never dies. The soul is the union of the spirit and a body either mortal an subject to death or immortal and not subject to death. The mortal body dies and then we will be judged at some point and resurrected with the immortal body as glorified souls.
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