Pre-existence in Mormonism and Platonism

 The first point of similarity between LDS belief and Platonism which we shall look at is the doctrine of pre-existence of the soul. We shall be refuting the ideas by Mormon apologist Barry Bickmore in his book entitled “Restoring the Ancient Church” (FAIR, 1999) in these articles.

There is no Biblical or Patristic support for the notion of pre-existence. A typical Mormon argument is to quote early Fathers who show that the body and soul were not created together; for example Justin Martyr in 1st Apology 10 and in Dialogue with Trypho 5, also Mathetes to Diognetus 5-6, all of which are cited by Bickmore op. cit. p. 143. Needless to say none of these quotes have anything to do with pre-existence, they merely say the body and soul are created separately.

So what did Plato teach regarding pre-existence of the soul? From the Catholic Encyclopedia article : Metempsychosis we read:

“Plato’s metempsychosis was learnt from the Pythagoreans. He gave the doctrine a philosophic standing such as it never before possessed; for Plato exhibits the most elaborate attempt in the history of philosophy to find in the facts of actual experience justification for the theory of the pre-existence of the soul.”

The key to understanding Plato is his theory of Forms or Ideas. It is a little bit tricky to understand, but well worth the effort. Here we go.

The Theory of Forms:

Plato distinguished between the world of sense and the world of universal ideas. The world we live in (the world of sense) is one of becoming; everything in this world “comes to be and passes away, but never really is” (Timaeus 28a). He said that there existed another “world” where pure essences existed. This was the world of being; everything in this world is “eternal and unchanging”(Timaeus 28a). The pure essences (also known as Forms or Ideas), according to his work the Phaedo, are (from the website http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/phaedo.htm ) unchangeable (78c10-d9), eternal (79d2), intelligible, though not perceptible (79a1-5), divine (80a3, b1), incorporeal , causes of being (100c).

Some more insight is provided by the Radical Academy’s article Plato’s Ultra-Realism

“Plato (427-347 B.C.E.) was aware that the world of sense and sense objects is in a state of continuous change. From the fact of continuous change he concluded that there is nothing real and stable in the sense world. The universal ideas, however, have a content which is stable, real, unchangeable, eternal; the knowledge acquired through universal ideas is truly “science”…
Hence, the existence of universal ideas in the human minds demands the existence of a supra-mundane world of pure essences, which are stable, real, unchangeable, and eternal and of which the universal ideas of man are a true representation. These pure essences Plato called Ideas.
The Ideas alone have reality in the strict sense; they exist as real entities (noumena) apart from the world of sense (phenomena). The objects of the sense world are but faint, changing replicas or imitations of the eternal, unchanging Ideas; the Ideas are the eternal prototypes or exemplars of the objects of the sense world.” (emphasis mine)

So, what does all this mean in regard to the Mormon doctrine of pre-existence?

Plato worked from his theory of Forms that, since universal ideas that men have cant be derived form the world of sense, then man must have got them elsewhere, namely, in a pre-existent state in this world of Forms! So the Theory of Forms led to the Platonic belief in pre-existence of the spirit.

The bottom line I want to get across is, the idea of pre-existence is a purely Platonic idea, based on his theory of Forms. The Mormon doctrine of pre-existence has is virtually identical to Platonic thought, as we shall now see.
The teaching of Mormonism regarding this doctrine can be found in the Book of Abraham. In chapter 3, Abraham sees a vision of the intelligences in their pre-existent state:

“Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was made; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; and God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born” (Abraham 3:22-23).

As we shall see in the next paper, on creation <>ex nihilo, Joseph Smith also shares a lot of his teachings with the Atomists, such as Democritus and Epicurus, of ancient Greece. The Atomists believed in the indestructibility and eternity of atoms and that there are an infinite number of worlds (See the page on cosmology). They also, most importantly to the present subject, believed that the soul is composed of atoms. Hence, according to the Atomists, the soul is eternal and so must have existed in a pre-existent state. The Atomist influence is just another area of Greek philosophical influence on LDS doctrine, which I mention in passing.

So, to give a quick summary of the above. The LDS Book of Abraham teaches the doctrine of pre-existence of the soul (in addition to other Greek doctrines). Platonism teaches pre-existence through its theory of “Forms” or “Ideas”. Similarly, the Atomists of ancient Greece taught the eternity of atoms and the atomic composition of the soul, doctrines also taught bey the LDS religion. So we see that the Mormon religion, in regard to the doctrine of pre-existence, bases itself squarely on the teachings of Plato and other Greek philosophers.

Next we shall show that the doctrine of pre-existence was utterly rejected by the Early Church Fathers, as well as being refuted by Sacred Scripture itself. We shall show this, in part by refuting the efforts of Mormon apologists to garner support for their doctrine in the writings of the Fathers.

• Origen, De Principiis 2:8:3
  “We may perhaps hazard a guess” that the soul had a pre-mortal fall. (in Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, page 207).

  Note that when Origen talks about pre-existence, he is referring to angels, not to the souls of humans!!! Because Mormons are caught up in this idea of “eternal progression” they can’t seem to distinguish the two. The Clementien Recognitions 2:60 in ANF 8:114 specifically rejected the idea of a pre-cosmic fall.

   

• Origen, Commentary on John 2:25 in ANF 10:340 Here Origen speculates that John the Baptist may have been an angel before his mortal birth. Even if this were the case (and there is no reason to believe it), it does not mean that the soul of man is created before his conception. Here is the quote: “we ask if it can be one of the holy angels who is sent down on this ministry as forerunner of our Saviour.”

  In any case the word angel here many not even refer to the spirit being.

   

• Clement of Alexandria (Origen’s teacher) in commenting on Jeremiah 1:5 wrote (The Instructor 1:7 in ANF 2:224):
  

  “But the Lord hath also said in Jeremiah: ‘Say not that I am a youth: before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before I brought the out of the womb I sanctified thee.’ Such allusions prophecy can make to us, destined in the eye of God to faith before the foundation of the world; but now babes, through the recent fulfillment of the will of God, according to which we are born now to calling and salvation.”

  To say this has anything to do with pre-existence is of course unfounded speculation, as it refers to God’s foreknowledge. Romans 4:17 also very good. Jeremiah 1: 5 does not refer to pre-existence, but to God’s foreknowledge. Clement of Alexandria’s comment in “The Instructor 1:7 is likewise concerned with God’s foreknowledge, not with pre-existence.

   

• Clement of Rome (Clememtine Recognitions 1:1 in ANF 8:77): “whether I did not exist before I was born, and whether there shall be no remembrance of this life after death..”This verse does not even address pre-existence. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the pre-existence of the soul.

   

• Justin Martyr says in Dialogue with Trypho 5 (ANF 1:197) “If the world is begotten, souls also are necessarily begotten; and perhaps at one time they were not in existence, for they were made on account of men and other living creatures, if you will say they have been begotten wholly apart, and not along with their respective bodies.”This says nothing about when the soul was created, just that it is created apart from the body.

   

• Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus 5-6 (“The Early Christians afte the Death of the Apostles”, by Arnold) “the soul lives in the body, yet does not have its origin in the body”.This verse, too, is used by despairing Mormons to make the case of pre-existence. Of course, all this verse shows is that the soul is not created in the body. It says nothing about the soul being created before the body, which is what Mormons would like it to say. Too bad for them.

   

• Another tack: making Christ’s pre-existence = the individual soul’s pre-existence:The 2nd century Clementine Recognitions, allegedly preached “the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls.”

  This is nothing more than a footnote to Clementine Recognitions 1:28 in Roberts and Donaldsons The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975,) p. 85.

  The pre-existence of Christ can of course be accepted. This does not mean the pre-existence of each individual soul, though.

   

• Yet another try: making Christ’s existence from the beginning = the individual soul’s pre-existence:For example, the second century Pastor of Hermas , Vis. 2:33 “She [the Church] was the first of all creation… and the world was made for her.”

  This says merely that the Church existed from the beginning of creation, not that it has existed in pre-existence from all eternity. The Church had a beginning in time, just like all of creation. In using this argument, Mormons confuse the event of creation with pre-exsitence from eternity. Of course the latter is totally without support.

   

• 2 Clement, another document from about the middle of the second century, reads (2 Clement 14:2) “Moreover, the books and the apostles declare that the Church belongs not to the present, but existed from the beginning.”Again, this is an irrelevant quote which says nothing about pre-existence of soul.

Some further comments by Mormon apologists

Mormons say (Bickmore, op. cit.. p 146) that “The New Testament Writers often referred obliquely to the pre-existence, assuming the readers knew about it,but never teaching it in full detail.”

This is essentially an admission there was no doctrine of pre-existence in New Testament times!

In the end, Bickmore (p. 147) has to say the Church “may have decided to reject the idea of pre-existence in reaction to its acceptance by the heretical Gnostic schools”.

So in other words, the Catholic Church rejects the Platonic doctrine of pre-existence (which the LDS, strangely enough accepts! ) but still Mormons claims the Catholic Church went wrong because it embraced Platonic ideas!

That, dear reader, is the sum total of what Mormons can come up with in defense of their doctrine of pre-existence. Pretty meagre, isn’t it?

On page 102 of his book ,Bickmore comes up with an equally contradictory view re creaiton ex nihilo, which I will mention in the next paper.
A typical quote follows from St. Gregory Nazianzus, Oration 37:15

”I fear lest some monstrous reasoning may come in, as of the soul having lived elsewhere, and then having been bound to this body, and that it is from that other life that some receive the gift of prophecy, and others are condemned, namely, those who lived badly. But since such a conception is too absurd, and contrary to the traditions of the Church (others if they like may play with such doctrines, but it is unsafe for us to play with them); we must in this place too add to the words “To whom it hath been given,” this, “who are worthy;” who have not only received this character from the Father, but have given it to themselves.”

Other verses to look up: St. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurr.Par. 15,3; St. Augustine Ep. 217, 5, 16; Leo I, Ep. 15:10.
In no instance is it taught that man had a spirit pre-existence before coming to this world.

In addition, the Origenic doctrine of rebirth was refuted in 553 AD not that this is really relevant. Origen was the only one who said anything about it, and that in reference to angels.

Summary: The doctrine of Pre-existence is Platonic through and through. Attempts by Mormons to show it was an early Christian teaching fall flat on their face, for nowhere is the doctrine taught in either Scripture or in the writings of the Fathers. The most they can come up with is wild speculation, which we have addressed here.

So we are left with the question: who was influenced by Plato, the Church or the Mormons? The Mormons of course.

Appendix: Analysis of Jeremiah 23:18 and Job 15:8

Mormon claim: Jeremiah 23:18 and Job 15:8 both speak of the pre-mortal council (that is a council involving the gods and the pre-existent spirits of men). Job 15:8 “Hast thou heard the secret [5475] of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself?” Jeremiah 23:18 “For who hath stood in the counsel [5475] of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it?” Strong’s Concordanece of Hebrew words lists the word in this verse for “counsel” as 5475 cowd a session, i.e. a company of persons in close deliberation; by implication intimacy, consultation,a secret:- assembly, counsel, inward , secret (counsel). The verse Jer 23:18 means of course no one has stood in God’s council!. So much for this pre-mortal council.

But does cowd [5475] realy mean a pre-mortal council? Let’s look at other verses which use this word : Genesis 49:6
Job 29:4
Psalm 64:2
Proverbs 25:9
Amos 3:7
Proverbs 11:13; 20:19
Jeremiah 23:22

In none of these instances is a pre-mortal council referred to, and most certainly do none of them refer to pre-existent souls of men in attendance at such a council.
The other verses which use this word can also be inspected.

Note re. St. Augustine and Platonic Forms. From Ott, page 43-44 we read:

”Among the Fathers, St. Augustine particularly developed the doctrine of the Divine Ideas, in association indeed with the Platonic doctrine of ideas, which he christianised. He posited as existing in the Divine Mind the ideas conceived by Plato as hypostases eternally existing parallel with God, and by explaining these as Divine Thoughts eternally identical with the Divine Essence, in which God is cognisant of His infinite imitability through finite, created things. He regards the Divine Ideas as the origin of things. De Trin. XY 13,22: “All His creatures, the spirits and the corporeal He does not know because they are, but they are because He knows them. That is, nothing which He would create was unknown to Him. Because He knew, He created; He did not know because He created.”

Note St. Augustine conceives the Divine Ideas as God’s foreknowledge of His creation, not as anything to do with pre-existence. See also Romans 4:17.

(As a sidenote, Plato argued that when our supposedly pre-existent spirit acquired a body, the knowledge of these Forms went into a subconcious state of a kind, hence they were not known at birth, but recognized or remembered later, when the earthly complement of a Form was seen, such as a tree would awaken the Form of a tree form the pre-existent state. Such was Plato’s defense of his theory, which is also known as the theory of reminiscence.)

Next: Denial of Creation ex nihilo

Part 4: The Early Church Fathers oppose Pre-existence

Part 3: Refutation of Mormon interpertations

Part 2. Pre-existence of soul: What did Joseph Smith say?

 

Part 1. Pre-existence of soul: what did Plato teach?