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HandWiki. Pre-Existence. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/33407 (accessed on 19 September 2026).
HandWiki. Pre-Existence. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/33407. Accessed September 19, 2026.
HandWiki. "Pre-Existence" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/33407 (accessed September 19, 2026).
HandWiki. (2022, November 08). Pre-Existence. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/33407
HandWiki. "Pre-Existence." Encyclopedia. Web. 08 November, 2022.
Pre-Existence
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Pre-existence, preexistence, beforelife, or premortal existence refers to the belief that each individual human soul existed before mortal conception, and at some point before birth enters or is placed into the body. Concepts of pre-existence can encompass either the belief that the soul came into existence at some time prior to conception or the belief that the soul is eternal. Alternative positions are traducianism and creationism, which both hold that the individual human soul does not come into existence until conception. It is to be distinguished from preformation, which is about physical existence and applies to all living things. Ancient Greek thought and Islam affirm pre-existence, but it is generally denied in Christianity.

premortal human soul beforelife

References

  1. Medieval Sourcebook: Fifth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople II, 553. Fordham University, 1996. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/const2.html
  2. Origen. De Principiis. I.V.3. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen122.html. "let us inquire whether God, the creator and founder of all things, created certain of them holy and happy, so that they could admit no element at all of an opposite kind, and certain others so that they were made capable both of virtue and vice; or whether we are to suppose that He created some so as to be altogether incapable of virtue, and others again altogether incapable of wickedness, but with the power of abiding only in a state of happiness, and others again such as to be capable of either condition." 
  3. "The Anathemas Against Origen". http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xii.ix.html. 
  4. Origen. "Argument from the Prayer of Joseph, to Show That the Baptist May Have Been an Angel Who Became a Man". Commentary on John. Book II, Section 25. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen-john2.html. "If, then, when they were not yet born, and had not done any-thing either good or evil, in order that God's purpose according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, if at such a period this was said, how if we do not go back to the works done before this life, can it be said that there is no unrighteousness with God when the elder serves the younger and is hated (by God) before he has done anything worthy of slavery or of hatred?" 
  5. Origen. De Principiis. I.VII.4. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen122.html. "How could his soul and its images be formed along with his body, who, before he was created in the womb, is said to be known to God, and was sanctified by Him before his birth?" 
  6. "The Anathemas against Origen". http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xii.ix.html. 
  7. Hausam, Mark (2005). "It's All in Arminius: Mormonism as a Form of Hyper-Arminianism". Sunstone Symposium. Salt Lake City. pp. 20–21. http://lehislibrary.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/mark-hausam-calvinism-arminianism-mormonism.pdf#page=20. "What has not been frequently observed, however, is that the concept of free agency allows Arminian thought to do an end-run around the concept of our creation ex nihilo and brings in by the back door a concept of human beings as uncreated entities. Creation ex nihilo implies a radical metaphysical dependence upon God, one that logically guarantees that the creature will not be independent from God or be capable of independent contributions to reality in the ways envisioned in Arminian thought. In fact, creation ex nihilo logically leads directly to Calvinistic determinism." 
  8. Doctrine and Covenants. 93:29. 6 May 1833. http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/93.29?lang=eng#28. 
  9. History of the Church. 6:14. https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/volume-6-chapter-14. 
  10. Young, Brigham. "To Know God is Eternal Life—God is the Father of our Spirits and Bodies—Things Created Spiritually First—Atonement by the Shedding of Blood". Journal of Discourses 4: 218. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/JournalOfDiscourses3/id/541. 
  11. Ostler, Blake (1982). "The idea of pre-existence in the development of Mormon thought". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15 (1): 59–78. https://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V15N01_61.pdf. 
  12. Smith, Joseph F. (November 1909). "The Origin of Man". Improvement Era XIII (1): 78. https://archive.org/download/improvementera1301unse/improvementera1301unse.pdf#page=75. 
  13. Quran 7:172 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2002.02.0006%3Asura%3D7%3Averse%3D172
  14. "Chapter 2 Verse 12". Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. http://vedabase.net/bg/2/12/en. 
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