The Pre-existence
Thus LDS doctrine says each person was a fully functioning, born entity long before his mortal birth. In an attempt to find Bible justification for this point of view, Mormons quote Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”
Only a part of the entities born to God were designated for this earth. God created many more worlds, and Doctrine and Covenants 76:24 tells us that the inhabitants of these other worlds, too, were “begotten sons and daughters unto God.” This time span between the birth of the spirit, its growth and maturing in the spirit world, and its later infusion into a corporeal body on earth is known by Mormons as the pre-existence, or first estate. In this state the spirits of men and women made preparations for earth life, living with God the Father and Heavenly Mother “. . .in his house and dwelt with him year after year,” according to Brigham Young.[i] Existing there, too, were the spirits of every plant, fish, bird, and animal that has ever lived or will ever live on earth.[ii] They, too, had spirit bodies, made up of intangible matter.
When God and his wives had finished with the creation of the spirit bodies of all who would eventually live on this earth, He called a great meeting of the spirits, a “council in heaven.” He proposed a plan whereby His children could live on earth and be tested, and yet return to Him after death. The spirits divided themselves up into two factions. God’s firstborn spirit Son, the pre-mortal Jesus Christ, supported this plan, which was based on the concept of humankind’s “free agency” or ability to choose a lifestyle that would either return them to God or separate them from their Father. Christ’s endorsement was no small thing, for if a human were given the prerogative of sinning he would surely do so; and Christ’s support of this plan required Him to sacrifice Himself for humankind’s sin, while giving the glory to God the Father.
Another highly-favored son of God, His second-born, Lucifer, also proposed a plan – one that excluded free agency, but guaranteed that all God’s spirit children would return to Him. In return, Lucifer wanted all the glory for himself. All the spirits divided themselves into factions and one-third of the spirits sided with Lucifer and his plan. God, however, rejected it.
When Lucifer and his followers found they could not have their way, they rebelled against God. Lucifer had wanted God’s glory; now he sought His throne. A great battle in heaven ensued. Lucifer and his spirits warred against the armies of heaven who were led by Michael, the pre-existent Adam. Lucifer and his followers lost, and were cast down from heaven and condemned to be disembodied spirits throughout eternity.
In order to make our “second estate,” or experience on earth, a true testing ground, it was necessary that before birth our knowledge of the pre-existence be removed. Mormons of today speak figuratively of this forgetting as a “veil” over our memories. Orson Pratt, however, explained that this loss of memory was due to the traumatic experience of the adult-sized spirit body entering the physical body of a tiny baby: “When this spirit was compressed, so as to be wholly enclosed in an infant tabernacle, it had a tendency to suspend the memory.”[iii]
Of course all of this is incongruent with the Bible. Genesis 1:26 and 2:7 clearly show man to be a created being—far from the independent intelligence that Mormonism says was “organized” into a spirit body. Genesis teaches us that man became a living soul when God breathed life into him. Of all who have lived on this earth, only Jesus Christ existed before the Creation, as John chapter one clearly teaches.
Zechariah 12:1 also strikes a blow against the LDS concept of the pre-existence of the human soul. Here the Bible states clearly that man’s spirit was formed within him. How much more clearly could God say it?
Even the Jeremiah passage, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations,” when read carefully shows (1) the fore-knowledge of God even before He makes His creations, and (2) His power to fore-ordain His servants to great works—after they are created in the womb. If this passage in Jeremiah were to be used effectively by Mormons to prove pre-existence, it would have to say that we knew God before birth— which the passage does not say — not He us.
Mormons say we are all literal sons and daughters of God, our spirits begotten – through a premortal birth process — by Him. But the Bible tells us that we become God’s children at conversion (John 1:12). In that sense, we are God’s sons and daughters.
[i] John A. Widtsoe, Discourses of Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1925) 50. Online at Questia: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=9270729
[ii] Pearl of Great Price, Moses 3:1-9.; See also Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, I, 62-64.
[iii] Orson Pratt, The Seer, 21; see also Journal of Discourses, XVI, 333-334.
For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today(Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.
