Hi Justin,
I researched John 9 and remembered that an excellent commentator on New Testament times is William Barclay. I don't always agree with all of Barclay's theological conclusions, but I trust absolutely his historical insights into how people lived and thought during the time of Jesus. In his commentary on John 9 he does indeed state that many Jews believed in the preexistence of spirits and gives this as one of the possible reasons for the disciples' question about "who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind." I felt it was important to submit the two pages of commentary here first because it would only be honest of me to do so and secondly because you don't own the Barclay commentary yourself. Below is what Barclay writes concerning John 9:1-5
"This is the only miracle in the gospels in which the sufferer is said to have been afflicted from his birth. In Acts we twice hear of people who had been helpless from their birth (the lame man and the Beautiful Gate of the Temple in Acts 3:2, and the cripple at Lystra in Acts 14:8), but this is the only man in the gospel story who had been so afflicted. He must have been a well-known character, for the disciples knew all about him.
"When they say him, they used the opportunity to put to Jesus a problem with which Jewish thought had always been deeply concerned, and which is still a problem. The Jews connected suffering and sin. They worked on the assumption that wherever there was suffering, somewhere there was sin. So they asked Jesus their question. 'This man,' they said, 'is blind. Is his blindness due to his own sin, or to the sin of his parents?'
"How could the blindness possible be due to his own sin, when he had been blind from his birth? [italics original] To that question the Jewish theologians gave two answers.
"(i) Some of them had the strange notion of prenatal sin. They actually believed that a man could begin to sin while still in his mother's womb. In the imaginary conversations between Antoninus and Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, Antoninus asks: 'From what time does the evil influence bear sway over a man, from the formation of the embryo in the womb or from the moment of birth?' The Rabbie first answered: 'From the formation of the embryo.' Antoninus disagreed and convinced Judah by his arguments, for Judah admitted that, if the evil impulse began with the formation of the embryo, then the child would kick in the womb and break its way out. Judah found a text to support this view. He took the saying in Genesis 4:7: 'Sin is couching at the door.' And he put the meaning into it that sin awaited man at the door of the womb, as soon as he was born. But the argument does show us that the idea of pre-natal sin was known.
"(ii) In the time of Jesus the Jews believed in the pre-existence of the soul. They really got that idea from Plato and the Greeks. They believed that all souls existed before the creation of the work in the garden of Eden, or that they were in the seventh heaven, or in a certain chamber, waiting to enter into a body. The Greeks had believed that such souls were good, and that it was the entry into the body which contaminated them; but there were certain Jews who believed that these souls were already good and bad. The writer of The Book of Wisdom says [most likely Philo, but Barclay doesn't ellaborate]: 'Now I was a child good by nature, and a good soul fell to my lot' (Wisdom 8:19).
"In the time of Jesus certain Jews did believe that a man's afllication, even if it be from birth, might come from sin that he had committed before he was born. It is a strange idea, and it may seem to us almost fantastic; but at its heart lies the idea of a sin-infected universe.
"The alternative was that the man's afflication was due to the sin of his parents. The idea that children inherit the consequences of their parents' sin is woven into the thought of the Old Testament. 'I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.' (Exodus 20:5: cp. Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18). Of the wicked man the psalmist says: 'May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out' (Pslam 109;14). Isaiah talks about their iniquities and the 'iniquities of their fathers,' and goes on to say: 'I will measure into their bosom payment for their former doings' (Isaiah 65:6, 7). One of the keynotes of the Old Testament is that the sins of the fathers are always visited upon the children. It must never be forgotten that no man lives to himself and no man dies to himself. When a man sins, he sets in motion a train of consequences which has no end."*
*William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Volume 2, pp. 37-39
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
Preexistence - John 3 (Greg Thornberg)
22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. 24 (This was before John was put in prison.) 25 An argument developed between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26 They came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him." 27 To this John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30 He must become greater; I must become less.
31 "The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33 The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
(John 3:22-36, italics mine)
This passage is clear from a number of directions that Jesus is from above and John the Baptist is from below. The implication is that all of us are from below and Christ alone is from above (a specific point made later on in John 8). After reviewing this passage a number of times I was able to compile this short list of ways we can demonstrate that Jesus is literally from heaven and we are literally from the earth.
(1) The word “above” is used synonymously with the location of “heaven” in verse 31. Given this synonymous usage, it seems more likely that “above” is a literal location than a spiritual state of being. Jesus literally came from above.
(2) “Above” is contrasted with the literal location of “the earth”, which is another indicator that it is a literal place and not just a spiritual state. If “above” were contrasted with “the world” (a word used frequently to imply a spiritual state of the unsaved) the argument for a spiritual state would be possible but still not necessary. The fact that the Greek word ges ("gais") for earth is used, clearly demonstrates a physical literal location is intended by John.
(3) Jesus “comes from” heaven in verse 31. It is more likely that Jesus “came from” a literal location than from a spiritual state.
(4) John includes himself as one who only has an earthly perspective because he is one who is “from the earth.” This is one of John’s reasons for why Jesus’ ministry must increase over his own. Remember that John’s explaining why his ministry must decrease. That John is “from the earth” and not “from above” is one of those reasons. If John were thinking of just a spiritual state rather than a literal location, this passage wouldn’t make sense in the best possible way (it may not make any sense for that matter). John’s contrast with Jesus is more literal than just a spiritual sense—Jesus is literally “from above” and John is “from the earth” below. John is not saying that Jesus is spiritual and he is not. Such a meaning doesn’t make the best sense of the context.
(5) Jesus is “from above” and speaks about what he has “seen” and “heard” from heaven (John 3:31). It is easier to think that Jesus was a witness to things in a literal location. This would explain why his testimony is so important. The concept of being a been-there, touched-that, seen-that eyewitness is a major theme in the Gospel of John as it is in his epistles. It is more likely that Jesus is a literal eyewitness of things above, an a major theme in John. In John 8:38 Jesus says
"I am telling you what I have seen in the Father's presence..."(6) “The one who is from above is over all things,” including John. Again, this is a list of reasons John gives why his ministry must decrease in contract the Jesus' ministry. John is clearly implying that Jesus is from above and John is from below by saying this. John’s reason for why his ministry must decrease is that Jesus “is above all” things including John who is “from the earth”. It is hard to think that under the list of reasons why John’s ministry must decrease that John would exclude himself from the list of those things “from the earth.” Again a literal location makes the best possible sense of this passage.
(John 8:38, italics mine)
Saturday, September 29, 2007
More evidence of pre-existing beliefs
Hi Justin,
The conclusions you have made from the passages in your last post are excellent examples of how some passages "fit perfectly" with an a priori theological view without "proving" that theological viewpoint true. For example,
(1) JWs believe that the Father alone is God and Jesus is the first of God's creations. Jesus is the most important of all God's creation playing the role a firstborn in a family would assume. Because he is part of creation and the first of God's creations we call him our brother. Because Jesus is God's creation, he is obedient to God.
(2) Evangelicals believe that although Jesus was in the form of God, he humbled himself and became submissive to the Father. By taking on flesh, he became our brother. He didn't just take any brotherly role, he took on the responsibilities expected of a firstborn child.
(3) LDSers believe that Jesus is literally our "Big Brother" the firstborn of Heavenly Father. Just as we have, he took on flesh and as the firstborn had the responsibility of leading his brothers and sisters to salvation. He is not the same person as the Father, but the literaly a son of the Father.
So when JWs, LDSers and Evangelicals read the following verses, all see them "fit perfectly" with their theological viewpoint.
"Jesus replied...the Father is greater than I."
John 14:28
"He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation."
Colossians 1:15
"Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers."
Hebrews 2:11
In none of these verses do we find a clear contradiction between each of the three theological views. More evidence is required to resolve this issue. Now I don't agree with some people who say, "You can make the bible say anything," because that's simply not true. You and I both know (as do JWs) that Jesus had a preexistence. That's an indesputable teaching from the Bible. Below I will show how none of the passages you quoted are contradiction with my theological view and your theological view. To resolve this issue we need some solid road blocks that says "You can come this far, but no farther." One of us (or both) need to run into passages that stop us in our theological tracks. But before I discuss these showstopper passages, here's a review of each passage with a summary of your beliefs and mine.
.........................................
"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will..."
Ephesians 1:4-5 (See also: Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:20)
LDS View
God's "foreknowledge" means that he "literally" knew us in our preexistent state. As a Father, he had plans for us ahead of our incarnation and mortal state.
Evangelical View
God's "foreknowledge" means that God can "literally" know persons, places and things before their actual existence. Because he is Sovereign, he plans out the adoption of those who are to be sons even before they have a chance to choose right from wrong so that salvation depends not on the desires and effort of man but the will of God who chooses us.
.........................................
"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
Ecclesiastes 12:7
LDS View
Our spirits began with God in heaven. When we die, our spirits return to heaven where they came from.
Evangelical View
Our spirits were given to us on the earth. When we die, our spirits return to God who gave us our spirits (which is actually closer to what the verse is saying).
.........................................
"...[Jesus is] the firstborn over all creation."
Colossians 1:15
LDS View
Jesus is literally the first of Heavenly Fathers creations and therefore takes on the role of the firstborn. As firstborn, he rules over all the other creation. "Firstborn" means the Jesus was literaly the first to be born among the sons of God. Why would the bible use such as simple and clear term if it didn't mean a literal firstborn?
Evangelical View
Although Jesus is God and had no created beginning, he emptied himself to become a man and as a man humbled himself to obedience under the Father. As God in the flesh his default role as a man would be that of the firstborn. Jesus is like King David, who, although David was the youngest in his family and was not the first to be king, was given the title of "firstborn" (Psalms 89:27). Firstborn is the title of the Messiah's role, not his literal state of existence.
.........................................
"...[Jesus is] the beginning of the Creation of God..."
Revelations 3:14
LDS View
Jesus is the beginning of God's creation. The words in Revelation are clear and speak for themselves. How can you argue against such a clear statement? Again, the bible says what is means and you have to perform theological gymnastics to teach another view.
Evangelical View
The Greek word translated "beginning" in the KJV (not in more modern version) is "arche" (pronounced "ar-kay") and is a title of supremecy. Some words have a semantical scope of meaning and their affected meaning is determined by the context in which they are used. In English the word "ruler" could mean "a stick for measuring" or it could mean "a leader of people." Context will always determine meaning of the word "ruler" just as context should determine the meaning of arche. Arche can mean either "ruler" or "beginning" but context must determine meaning, not a priori reasoning or poorer translations (see KJV vs. the more modern NIV I gave you).*
*Some Revelation 3:14 elaboration
What is often ignored in the discussion of Revelation 3:14 is that arche is often a prefix used in other words to denote that the title holder is the "ruler over" a given group. In Greek the archagos is a leader of a group, the archiereus is the ruling high priest, the archepoimen is the leader of shepards, the archesunagogs is the ruler of the synagogue, the archetektos (from which we get architect) is a leader of those who build, the archetelones is the leader of tax collectors, the archetriklinos is the leader of servants. In fact, the verb for "rule" in Greek is archo. A judge is called an archon and, finally, an arche is a ruler. The entire LDS (and JW) Revelation 3:14 argument is based on older less accurate English translations of the Bible.
Like the word "ruler" in English, arche can have another meaning if context demands it, but there are no such demands on its meaning "beginning" here. In all the verses prior to Revelation 3:14, Jesus is seen as holding authority. In Revelation 1:5, Jesus is called the "ruler over the kings of the earth." The Greek word for ruler here is archon. NIV reads "ruler" KJV reads "prince." In Revelation 1:18, Jesus holds "the keys of death and Hades". Revelation Jesus is "the first and the last" denoting authority. See also the authoritative descriptions of Jesus in Revelation 2:12, 2:18, 2:26 (he has the authority to give authority), 3:7, etc. I do strongly feel that Revelation 3:14 is greatly in favor of being translated "the ruler" though some will persist that he is "the beginning." My point is still valid that both of us see this passage as "fitting perfectly" with our theological view point.
I'm going to move back to John 3 and 8 in my next post.
GT
The conclusions you have made from the passages in your last post are excellent examples of how some passages "fit perfectly" with an a priori theological view without "proving" that theological viewpoint true. For example,
(1) JWs believe that the Father alone is God and Jesus is the first of God's creations. Jesus is the most important of all God's creation playing the role a firstborn in a family would assume. Because he is part of creation and the first of God's creations we call him our brother. Because Jesus is God's creation, he is obedient to God.
(2) Evangelicals believe that although Jesus was in the form of God, he humbled himself and became submissive to the Father. By taking on flesh, he became our brother. He didn't just take any brotherly role, he took on the responsibilities expected of a firstborn child.
(3) LDSers believe that Jesus is literally our "Big Brother" the firstborn of Heavenly Father. Just as we have, he took on flesh and as the firstborn had the responsibility of leading his brothers and sisters to salvation. He is not the same person as the Father, but the literaly a son of the Father.
So when JWs, LDSers and Evangelicals read the following verses, all see them "fit perfectly" with their theological viewpoint.
"Jesus replied...the Father is greater than I."
John 14:28
"He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation."
Colossians 1:15
"Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers."
Hebrews 2:11
In none of these verses do we find a clear contradiction between each of the three theological views. More evidence is required to resolve this issue. Now I don't agree with some people who say, "You can make the bible say anything," because that's simply not true. You and I both know (as do JWs) that Jesus had a preexistence. That's an indesputable teaching from the Bible. Below I will show how none of the passages you quoted are contradiction with my theological view and your theological view. To resolve this issue we need some solid road blocks that says "You can come this far, but no farther." One of us (or both) need to run into passages that stop us in our theological tracks. But before I discuss these showstopper passages, here's a review of each passage with a summary of your beliefs and mine.
.........................................
"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will..."
Ephesians 1:4-5 (See also: Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:20)
LDS View
God's "foreknowledge" means that he "literally" knew us in our preexistent state. As a Father, he had plans for us ahead of our incarnation and mortal state.
Evangelical View
God's "foreknowledge" means that God can "literally" know persons, places and things before their actual existence. Because he is Sovereign, he plans out the adoption of those who are to be sons even before they have a chance to choose right from wrong so that salvation depends not on the desires and effort of man but the will of God who chooses us.
.........................................
"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
Ecclesiastes 12:7
LDS View
Our spirits began with God in heaven. When we die, our spirits return to heaven where they came from.
Evangelical View
Our spirits were given to us on the earth. When we die, our spirits return to God who gave us our spirits (which is actually closer to what the verse is saying).
.........................................
"...[Jesus is] the firstborn over all creation."
Colossians 1:15
LDS View
Jesus is literally the first of Heavenly Fathers creations and therefore takes on the role of the firstborn. As firstborn, he rules over all the other creation. "Firstborn" means the Jesus was literaly the first to be born among the sons of God. Why would the bible use such as simple and clear term if it didn't mean a literal firstborn?
Evangelical View
Although Jesus is God and had no created beginning, he emptied himself to become a man and as a man humbled himself to obedience under the Father. As God in the flesh his default role as a man would be that of the firstborn. Jesus is like King David, who, although David was the youngest in his family and was not the first to be king, was given the title of "firstborn" (Psalms 89:27). Firstborn is the title of the Messiah's role, not his literal state of existence.
.........................................
"...[Jesus is] the beginning of the Creation of God..."
Revelations 3:14
LDS View
Jesus is the beginning of God's creation. The words in Revelation are clear and speak for themselves. How can you argue against such a clear statement? Again, the bible says what is means and you have to perform theological gymnastics to teach another view.
Evangelical View
The Greek word translated "beginning" in the KJV (not in more modern version) is "arche" (pronounced "ar-kay") and is a title of supremecy. Some words have a semantical scope of meaning and their affected meaning is determined by the context in which they are used. In English the word "ruler" could mean "a stick for measuring" or it could mean "a leader of people." Context will always determine meaning of the word "ruler" just as context should determine the meaning of arche. Arche can mean either "ruler" or "beginning" but context must determine meaning, not a priori reasoning or poorer translations (see KJV vs. the more modern NIV I gave you).*
*Some Revelation 3:14 elaboration
What is often ignored in the discussion of Revelation 3:14 is that arche is often a prefix used in other words to denote that the title holder is the "ruler over" a given group. In Greek the archagos is a leader of a group, the archiereus is the ruling high priest, the archepoimen is the leader of shepards, the archesunagogs is the ruler of the synagogue, the archetektos (from which we get architect) is a leader of those who build, the archetelones is the leader of tax collectors, the archetriklinos is the leader of servants. In fact, the verb for "rule" in Greek is archo. A judge is called an archon and, finally, an arche is a ruler. The entire LDS (and JW) Revelation 3:14 argument is based on older less accurate English translations of the Bible.
Like the word "ruler" in English, arche can have another meaning if context demands it, but there are no such demands on its meaning "beginning" here. In all the verses prior to Revelation 3:14, Jesus is seen as holding authority. In Revelation 1:5, Jesus is called the "ruler over the kings of the earth." The Greek word for ruler here is archon. NIV reads "ruler" KJV reads "prince." In Revelation 1:18, Jesus holds "the keys of death and Hades". Revelation Jesus is "the first and the last" denoting authority. See also the authoritative descriptions of Jesus in Revelation 2:12, 2:18, 2:26 (he has the authority to give authority), 3:7, etc. I do strongly feel that Revelation 3:14 is greatly in favor of being translated "the ruler" though some will persist that he is "the beginning." My point is still valid that both of us see this passage as "fitting perfectly" with our theological view point.
I'm going to move back to John 3 and 8 in my next post.
GT
Thursday, September 27, 2007
More Evidence of Pre-Mortal Existance from Scripture
1. In Ephesians we clearly have this premortal existence taught. First we must remember that Christ prayed to His Father thusly: "You loved me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24). The Ephesian saints had that same relationship with the Father. "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4) The same phrase that refers to Christ's premortal life must also refer to the premortal existence of the saints. Interestingly when we turn to the Greek, we find the Greek phrase is exactly the same in John 17:24 and Ephesians 1:4, thus demonstrating very clearly the premortal existence of Christ and the saints
2. The Greek of Ephesians as well as that of Romans 8 contains a number of words which refer to the premortal existence. Pro before a Greek verb adds the idea of beforehand, a prefix in the borrowed word prognosis which, of course refers to what is known beforehand about the future condition of a patient. The same Greek verb is used of the Father's knowing Christ and men before mortality. This is best seen in the 1881 Revised Version that made the Greek proginosko consistent in the following two passages. Peter taught the clear New Test. doctrine that Christ "was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:20; also the same phrase as in Eph. 1:4 and John 17:24 in the Greek). And we find Paul teaching the same doctrine! "For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren; and whom he foreordained, them he also called" (Rom. 8:29-30, RV). The "calling" is about conversion of souls here on earth, but there are two stages before that, God's foreknowledge and foreordination. In the case of Christ, Peter's language refers not merely to conceptualizing his future existence but to knowing him personally as a premortal spirit. Does Paul use foreknowledge of God merely preconceiving the future existence of the many brethren? This is an arbitrary switch of ideas. As surely as Peter spoke of Christ's preexistence, Paul spoke of those yet to become earthly Saints as personally alive and known by their Father when he made decisions about their foreordinations.
3. Justin Martyr taught that at death the soul goes back to the place from whence it was taken. The early Christian writing 2 Clement teaches that the first church was created and organized before the sun and the moon. The early Christians as well as the Bible clearly taught and believed in all people's souls having a premortal existence with Christ in heaven.
4. Our bodies are formed from the dust of the earth, but are our spirits made from the same materials? If they were, then at death, they would return to the dust; but as they are not reduced to dust, like the body, they must be formed of materials far superior to those of the earth. Where did those materials come from? They came from God according to the Bible. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall RETURN unto God who gave it." Interestingly the Hebrew shuwb, (return) means, among other things, to bring back home again, according to Strong's Concordance. The spirit, according to the Bible here, came from God, not the dust of the earth. The spirit also returns (goes back home again) to God, who gave it we are told. Could the spirit return to God if it never were in His presence?
5. Revelations 3:14 calls Jesus "the beginning of the Creation of God" while Paul says Jesus is the image of the invisible God - the FIRST BORN of every creature (Colossians 1:15). Romans 8:29 says Jesus is the First Born among many brethren. And Hebrews 2:11 says that He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified, are all of One: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren. The brethren here are sons of God begotten by the same Father that Jesus was, as is seen at Hebrews 12:9, We have had fathers of our flesh... shall we not rather be in subjection unto the FATHER OF SPIRITS and live? Now Jesus clearly was NOT the FIRST BORN among many brethren here on earth. This is clearly talking about a premortal existence with Christ and all of us among the children of God.
6. Now when we understand that God promised eternal life before the world began (Titus 1:2) and that Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20), and that He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3,4) is in not rather obvious that we all were in a premortal existence with God and Christ? The Bible so teaches.
7. "Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." (Psalms 45:7) He asks Who were his fellows? His faithful Apostles and followers in the pre-existence.
2. The Greek of Ephesians as well as that of Romans 8 contains a number of words which refer to the premortal existence. Pro before a Greek verb adds the idea of beforehand, a prefix in the borrowed word prognosis which, of course refers to what is known beforehand about the future condition of a patient. The same Greek verb is used of the Father's knowing Christ and men before mortality. This is best seen in the 1881 Revised Version that made the Greek proginosko consistent in the following two passages. Peter taught the clear New Test. doctrine that Christ "was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:20; also the same phrase as in Eph. 1:4 and John 17:24 in the Greek). And we find Paul teaching the same doctrine! "For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren; and whom he foreordained, them he also called" (Rom. 8:29-30, RV). The "calling" is about conversion of souls here on earth, but there are two stages before that, God's foreknowledge and foreordination. In the case of Christ, Peter's language refers not merely to conceptualizing his future existence but to knowing him personally as a premortal spirit. Does Paul use foreknowledge of God merely preconceiving the future existence of the many brethren? This is an arbitrary switch of ideas. As surely as Peter spoke of Christ's preexistence, Paul spoke of those yet to become earthly Saints as personally alive and known by their Father when he made decisions about their foreordinations.
3. Justin Martyr taught that at death the soul goes back to the place from whence it was taken. The early Christian writing 2 Clement teaches that the first church was created and organized before the sun and the moon. The early Christians as well as the Bible clearly taught and believed in all people's souls having a premortal existence with Christ in heaven.
4. Our bodies are formed from the dust of the earth, but are our spirits made from the same materials? If they were, then at death, they would return to the dust; but as they are not reduced to dust, like the body, they must be formed of materials far superior to those of the earth. Where did those materials come from? They came from God according to the Bible. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall RETURN unto God who gave it." Interestingly the Hebrew shuwb, (return) means, among other things, to bring back home again, according to Strong's Concordance. The spirit, according to the Bible here, came from God, not the dust of the earth. The spirit also returns (goes back home again) to God, who gave it we are told. Could the spirit return to God if it never were in His presence?
5. Revelations 3:14 calls Jesus "the beginning of the Creation of God" while Paul says Jesus is the image of the invisible God - the FIRST BORN of every creature (Colossians 1:15). Romans 8:29 says Jesus is the First Born among many brethren. And Hebrews 2:11 says that He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified, are all of One: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren. The brethren here are sons of God begotten by the same Father that Jesus was, as is seen at Hebrews 12:9, We have had fathers of our flesh... shall we not rather be in subjection unto the FATHER OF SPIRITS and live? Now Jesus clearly was NOT the FIRST BORN among many brethren here on earth. This is clearly talking about a premortal existence with Christ and all of us among the children of God.
6. Now when we understand that God promised eternal life before the world began (Titus 1:2) and that Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20), and that He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3,4) is in not rather obvious that we all were in a premortal existence with God and Christ? The Bible so teaches.
7. "Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." (Psalms 45:7) He asks Who were his fellows? His faithful Apostles and followers in the pre-existence.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Jeremiah 1:5 and the Sovereignty of God
Justin!
Before anything else, I'm thrilled to see your post! I'm now going through piece by piece, but I want to make sure I am being careful and thorough. So let me respond and dialogue one part at a time. The first part I wanted to address is what you wrote in one of your reponses
I think you've missed a very important point in the story of Jeremiah--God's sovereignty. Did it occur to you that Jeremiah was appointed before he was even born and had a chance to choose between right and wrong? Remember that essential to the LDS doctrine of preexistence is a theology whereby we are to enter this mortal world in order to make choices for ourselves and determine our own eternal destiny. But that's not what happened to Jeremiah--he is appointed by God before he can even make this decision in his mortal state, a point decidedly against LDS theology (I will ellaborate more below).
A HUGE BIBLICAL THEME
The emphasis of God's knowledge in Jeremiah 1:5 is that all things play out according to God's plan and not our own. This is why he says
God had an appointed, sovereign purpose for Jeremiah before Jeremiah was born. Jeremiah could never say, "Lord, I'm so glad I chose to be your servant," because God was literally saying to Jeremiah, "Jeremiah, I have chosen you and the appointed you, you did not choose me." This language appears again when Jesus speaks to his disciples and says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit." (John 15:16). Jesus informs his disciples that they are chosen according to a sovereign plan with a purpose--"to go and bear fruit." They did not choose this plan, but he did. The language of the New Testament is most helpful to this matter where the words predestine and foreknow work hand in hand with God's plan. Wherever foreknowledge and appointments are made, God's plan is being played out. Notice God's sovereign plan working through his foreknowledge as Paul writes
Now if God's "foreknowing" refers to "all people who preexisted," then this passage would mean that all people would be saved since they would have been foreknown by God. But we know not everyone is saved, so Paul cannot be referring to a preexistence here. Paul is saying that those who God foreknew, he predestines to be like Christ and to be "called," "justified" and "glorified." The biblical sense of being known by God is a position of favor, not preexistence or even necessarily of factual knowledge. It's a chosen favorable position to be "known" by God. This is why Jesus says to some, "I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers." (Matthew 7:23). That is not to say that he does not have literal factual knowledge of these people. To know God is to be in a favorable position whereby one is saved.
To get back to the concept of "foreknowing" and "predestining," which are actual words in the Greek despite what some people claim to the contrary, the very notion that one is foreknown and predestined does imply that one is destined before they existed. In the same way, the amazing thing about Jeremiah is that before he was born and before he could choose right from wrong, he was appointed by God as God's prophet. The point--God is sovereign. This is against LDS doctrine which has men entering into a mortal state so that they can make choices for themselves. The biblical God chooses our destiny for us. The reason again is so that his sovereign purpose will stand (Isaiah 46:9-11). This is why Paul writes of Jacob and Esau
Jeremiah's appointment is an example of how "it does not depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy." (Romans 9:16) Read also Ephesians 1:11 how "predestination" is worked out "according to the plan" of God who "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will."
The point of God's sovereignty and plan is reduced by the LDS preexistence view. Everytime such a view is eisegetically (externally) forced into the Bible, it reduces who God is. This is why I keep saying, only the biblical view of God exalts God to who he is. All other views reduce Him and exult us. The Bible warns us against belief systems that "neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him..." (Romans 1:21) It is the tendency of fallen mankind to "exchange the truth of God for a lie, and worship and serve created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised." (Romans 1:25)
And now for a moment of confession. I too used to believe in the preexistence of the soul. I used to believe (though not biblically) that we chose where we'd be born and the life we'd receive. I didn't really have any grounds for this, but I would have happily believed any of the arguments you've mentioned above. I use to hate the idea of God's sovereignty and predestination, so if you find this notion disturbing, I did too. But the Lord opened my eyes to see what his word said on the matter and then to accept them. It's really amazing how much peace you experience by accepting it because you know that nothing in your life plays out without being part of a good purpose. God fully intends to make everything work our for good and we can rest in the fact that it will indeed turn out as he has declared, he is in control.
I need to go to sleep, it's 12:52 AM. See you in the morning.
Greg
Before anything else, I'm thrilled to see your post! I'm now going through piece by piece, but I want to make sure I am being careful and thorough. So let me respond and dialogue one part at a time. The first part I wanted to address is what you wrote in one of your reponses
Notice three key words here: knew, sanctified, and ordained. The wording itself indicates that God literally knew Jeremiah and was familiar with his spiritual attitudes and abilities. In addition, God sanctified Jeremiah, a description not of foreknowledge but of an actual event with participants present. The process of sanctification, or setting something apart as holy, by definition requires that something (such as Jeremiah himself) be present to be set apart. Likewise, the act of ordaining a person—in this case a prophet—requires that the individual be present. These acts—sanctification and ordination—are not mental exercises, but actual events.
I think you've missed a very important point in the story of Jeremiah--God's sovereignty. Did it occur to you that Jeremiah was appointed before he was even born and had a chance to choose between right and wrong? Remember that essential to the LDS doctrine of preexistence is a theology whereby we are to enter this mortal world in order to make choices for ourselves and determine our own eternal destiny. But that's not what happened to Jeremiah--he is appointed by God before he can even make this decision in his mortal state, a point decidedly against LDS theology (I will ellaborate more below).
A HUGE BIBLICAL THEME
The emphasis of God's knowledge in Jeremiah 1:5 is that all things play out according to God's plan and not our own. This is why he says
"I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please...What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do."
(Isaiah 46:9-11)
God had an appointed, sovereign purpose for Jeremiah before Jeremiah was born. Jeremiah could never say, "Lord, I'm so glad I chose to be your servant," because God was literally saying to Jeremiah, "Jeremiah, I have chosen you and the appointed you, you did not choose me." This language appears again when Jesus speaks to his disciples and says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit." (John 15:16). Jesus informs his disciples that they are chosen according to a sovereign plan with a purpose--"to go and bear fruit." They did not choose this plan, but he did. The language of the New Testament is most helpful to this matter where the words predestine and foreknow work hand in hand with God's plan. Wherever foreknowledge and appointments are made, God's plan is being played out. Notice God's sovereign plan working through his foreknowledge as Paul writes
"And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified."
(Romans 8:28-30)
Now if God's "foreknowing" refers to "all people who preexisted," then this passage would mean that all people would be saved since they would have been foreknown by God. But we know not everyone is saved, so Paul cannot be referring to a preexistence here. Paul is saying that those who God foreknew, he predestines to be like Christ and to be "called," "justified" and "glorified." The biblical sense of being known by God is a position of favor, not preexistence or even necessarily of factual knowledge. It's a chosen favorable position to be "known" by God. This is why Jesus says to some, "I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers." (Matthew 7:23). That is not to say that he does not have literal factual knowledge of these people. To know God is to be in a favorable position whereby one is saved.
To get back to the concept of "foreknowing" and "predestining," which are actual words in the Greek despite what some people claim to the contrary, the very notion that one is foreknown and predestined does imply that one is destined before they existed. In the same way, the amazing thing about Jeremiah is that before he was born and before he could choose right from wrong, he was appointed by God as God's prophet. The point--God is sovereign. This is against LDS doctrine which has men entering into a mortal state so that they can make choices for themselves. The biblical God chooses our destiny for us. The reason again is so that his sovereign purpose will stand (Isaiah 46:9-11). This is why Paul writes of Jacob and Esau
"Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls..."
(Romans 9:11-12)
Jeremiah's appointment is an example of how "it does not depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy." (Romans 9:16) Read also Ephesians 1:11 how "predestination" is worked out "according to the plan" of God who "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will."
The point of God's sovereignty and plan is reduced by the LDS preexistence view. Everytime such a view is eisegetically (externally) forced into the Bible, it reduces who God is. This is why I keep saying, only the biblical view of God exalts God to who he is. All other views reduce Him and exult us. The Bible warns us against belief systems that "neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him..." (Romans 1:21) It is the tendency of fallen mankind to "exchange the truth of God for a lie, and worship and serve created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised." (Romans 1:25)
And now for a moment of confession. I too used to believe in the preexistence of the soul. I used to believe (though not biblically) that we chose where we'd be born and the life we'd receive. I didn't really have any grounds for this, but I would have happily believed any of the arguments you've mentioned above. I use to hate the idea of God's sovereignty and predestination, so if you find this notion disturbing, I did too. But the Lord opened my eyes to see what his word said on the matter and then to accept them. It's really amazing how much peace you experience by accepting it because you know that nothing in your life plays out without being part of a good purpose. God fully intends to make everything work our for good and we can rest in the fact that it will indeed turn out as he has declared, he is in control.
I need to go to sleep, it's 12:52 AM. See you in the morning.
Greg
Scriptural Evidence Pre Existence / Non Ex Nihilo
1. Jeremiah 1:5:
Some assert that the scripture is a reference to God's foreknowledge, and not to a personal knowledge of humans. Granting that God has limitless foreknowledge does not preclude a personal knowledge of individual humans, It is hard to deny the specificity of words used in 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."
Notice three key words here: knew, sanctified, and ordained. The wording itself indicates that God literally knew Jeremiah and was familiar with his spiritual attitudes and abilities. In addition, God sanctified Jeremiah, a description not of foreknowledge but of an actual event with participants present. The process of sanctification, or setting something apart as holy, by definition requires that something (such as Jeremiah himself) be present to be set apart. Likewise, the act of ordaining a person—in this case a prophet—requires that the individual be present. These acts—sanctification and ordination—are not mental exercises, but actual events.
Indeed, other modern Christian scholars have chosen to acknowledge the claim that Jeremiah 1:5 speaks of more than mere foreknowledge. In reference to the concept of premortal life, William de Arteaga stated:
"This question was hotly debated by Christians of late antiquity, and the faction of the Church which was bitterly opposed to preexistence gained the upper hand. By the sixth century belief in preexistence was declared heresy. All of this is quite astonishing in view of the clear and repeated biblical evidence for preexistence."9
The event referred to in the sixth century was an edict by Pope Vigilius in 543 AD that rejected the doctrine of preexistence taught by Origen of Alexandria. Historical records indicate that the edict, called Anathemas Against Origen, was actually penned by the Roman emperor, Justinian,10 and signed by the pope and other bishops present at the Second Council of Constantinople.11 The official document labeled Origen's teachings heresy and forbid them being taught in the church.12
2. Job 38:1–7:
"Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? "Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. "Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? "Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;"When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
In the course of reproving Job, the Lord indicates several key pieces of knowledge. First of all, in verse four the Lord asks "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Such a question, by its very nature, implies that Job was somewhere. Why would God ask Job a question which was not instructive, and why would the ancient scribes include the discourse if something could not be learned? Some indicate that the assertion that Job had to be somewhere (thereby supporting preexistence) presupposes that preexistence is a fact. Such circular reasoning can be just as easily applied to the position taken by McKeever and Johnson: one can only interpret the verse as saying that Job was not present when God laid the foundations of the earth if one presupposes that the spirits of men had no premortal life.
Thus, both interpretations can be seen to be on an equal footing when the singular verse is examined. The Lord, however, does not leave the matter alone for long. In further questioning Job, he asks (in essence) where Job was "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Here, again, is the assertion that Job had to be somewhere. Not just Job, however, but the morning stars and the sons of God. And these were not silent participants in the framing of the world, but singers and shouters, indicating they were possessed of independent capabilities of thought and action. Taken together, these two verses provide a strong case for the concept of a premortal life.
3. Ecclesiastes 12:7:
"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
The simple question remains as to how something could return to a point it had not been to before. If the scripture is best translated, as some assert, as only having reference to returning to a God who created the spirit,13 then the only difference between their understanding and that of the LDS is a matter of timing. We believe that God created the spirit of man—just that it was done long before the mortal birth. Either way, the spirit still returns home to God.
But there is a deeper problem with the interpretation of this scripture offered by some. By rejecting the concept of premortal existence, one must swallow the concept that the spirit of man springs into existence at some time between conception and birth.14 If the scripture is to be interpreted literally, and as a parallel linguistic construction, then dust returns to dust, as it was without life, and spirit returns to its former uncreated condition, meaning without life as well. Thus, the problem is that the scripture could just as easily be used to justify a doctrine of there being no life after death.
4. John 9:1–2:
"And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
"And his disciples asked him, saying Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?"Was this a rhetorical question on the part of the disciples? No, the question indicated that the disciples thought one possible answer to the blindness of the man was that he had sinned. Since he was born blind—a fact the record indicates that both Jesus and His disciples knew—then the wording of the question indicates that the sinning must have taken place before the birth of the man, by the man himself. How could the man have sinned, resulting in a punishment of being blind at birth, unless he had lived before he was born?If the concept of a premortal life was in error, then the Master Teacher had a perfect opportunity to correct His students. His answer is recorded in John 9:3:
"Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."Jesus then proceeded to heal the man, foregoing any opportunity to correct the concept of the man having lived before birth. Instead, He acknowledged the concept by saying that the man had not sinned.15 In the words of one non-LDS scholar:
"The question posed by the disciples explicitly presupposed prenatal existence. It will be also noted that Christ says nothing to dispel or correct the presupposition. Here is incontrovertible support for a doctrine of human preexistence.
"It is perfectly reasonable to surmise on the basis of this episode that Jesus and his followers accepted preexistence and thought so little of it that the question of prenatal sin did not even call for an answer."16
5. Colossians 1:16 that the "Greek text does not teach ex nihilo, but creation out of pre-existing raw materials, since the verb ktidzo 'carried an architectural connotation...as in to build or establish a city....Thus, the verb presupposes the presence of already existing material One must not overlook 2 Corinthians 4:18, which states that "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal"—suggesting that aspects of the created "unseen world" are eternal, despite the exercise of God's creative power upon them.
6. Hebrews 11:3 states, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (KJV). It seems here that God made the world out of invisible matter (Romans 1:20), or as Plato would say, "inert gas." It seems that the writer of Hebrews is understanding Genesis 1:2 as the LXX did because tohu is translated as "unseen" or "invisible." Is the "word of God" in Hebrews 11:3 the Logos that created the world in John 1:1-3? It may also be similar to Plato’s world of ideas, the logos, and even more closely to Philo’s use of logos.
7. Romans 4:17 says, "the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they are" (NIV). This is in the context of the birth of Isaac. A similar comparison is found in Xenophon’s Memorabilia that parents "bring forth their children out of non-being" (II,2.3; May, 8). This does not mean that children are creatio ex nihilo.
8. The LXX translates בראשת as a prepositional phrase modifying the verb arb (created), which I literally translate "In beginning the God made the heaven and the earth" (Wevers, 1993, 1). The Hebrew בראשת (beginning) is unarticulated which means it does not have the article "the" modifying it; therefore, the LXX translates it with no article as En arch, which literally means "in a beginning." This same phrase is found in the NT unarticulated in John 1:1
9. John 1:1 follows the LXX in translating בראשת as unarticulated. Peter Borgen argues, "John’s prologue is essentially a targumic exposition of Gen.1:1-5" (Hamilton, 1990, 144). Burney believes that Colossians 1:16-18 is a midrashic exposition of the first word of Genesis 1:1, בראשת (Hamilton, 1990, 145). Paul connects the tyvar of Genesis 1:1 and the "wisdom" in Proverbs 8:22 with Christ which Genesis Rabbah interprets as the "torah" (I.I,2.H; Neusner, 1985, 2).
10. Created - The Hebrew word arb may come from the root which originally meant "to cut, or separate." Most of creating involved a separation of things. arb does not imply ex nihilo creation since it is used in parallel to "make" (NIDOTTE, 1997, Vol. 1, 731). The verb arb is Qal active, and occurs 49 times in the OT. In the Piel stem arb means "to cut." In Numbers 16:30 arb even in the Qal stem clearly means "cut" or "separate" with Yahwah as subject. Van Leeuwen states, "This root begins in the OT with a theologically rich wordplay. But it also, in a punning way, accents the manner in which God gives order to his creation: he divides its various cosmic components from one another through a series of 'cuts or separation'" (NIDOTTE, 1997, Vol.1, 732).
11. arb seems to have more the sense of "separate" than "create" especially out of nothing in Genesis 1:1. Nothing is said about where the darkness and watery deep came from. It was probably considered eternal. Isaiah 45:7 says, "I create the light, and form the darkness: I make peace, and create evil" (KJV). This is more a separation than ex nihilo creation. God is like a builder who makes the world by separating the abyss. Once unformed elements are separated and named, they are considered ordered or "created." This is much different than our normal way of using "create" in our English language. Genesis as well as Isaiah sees the created world as sets of binary opposites, like heaven/earth, earth/sea, light/darkness, day/night, man/woman, peace/evil (Deroche, 1992, 20).
12. And the Earth WasHebrew Texthtyh xrahw - And the earth was The Hebrew verb htyh means "was" not "became" in this context (Waltke 1974, 18-36). There is no room for the gap theory here. The earth did not become waste and void. No ancient translation or commentary that I know of has this meaning. It is describing the state or condition of the earth before creation. The question of where this pre-creation state came from, is not answered. The LXX takes a different view that imbibes the platonic world of ideas.
13. Desolate and LifelessHebrew Text whbw wht - Desolate and lifeless This pair of words appears three times in the OT, Gen.1:2, Isa.34:11, and Jer.4:23. It appears as a juxtaposed phrase in Gen.1:2 and Jer.4:23, and as a parallel word pair in Isa.34:11 (Tsumura, 1989, 23). This phrase seems to be used mostly around the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Isaiah 34:11 says, "And He (God) shall spread over it (Edom) the line of desolation (tohu) and the plum stones of barrenness (bohu; my own translation). This is a return to chaos before creation. Jeremiah 4:23 says, "I (Jeremiah) looked on the earth and behold, (it was) a dark desert and void of life, and (I looked upwards) to the heavens, and there was no light" (my own translation). This seems to be a return to chaos before the world was ordered. There is a chiastic structure here in Jeremiah 4:23 and in Genesis 1:2 as well, tohu wabohu//hosek, and earth = abyss. The LXX h de gh hn aoratos kai akataskeuastos - But the earth was invisible and unformed The LXX translates tohu wa bohu as aoratos kai akataskeuastos which means "invisible and unformed." This same word aoratos "invisible" is similar to Hebrew 11:3 ek fainomenwn, meaning "out of unseen things" the world was created. This seems to be related to the platonic ides that the visible world came from the invisible world including the idea of logos.
14. Enoch has very similar view which says: Before anything existed at all, from the very beginning, whatever is I created from non-being, and from the invisible things into the visible.Before any visible things had come into existence, and the light had not yet opened up, I, in the midst of the light, moved around in the invisible things, like one of them, as the sun moves around from east to west and from west to east. But the sun has rest; yet I did not find rest, because everything was not yet created. And I thought up the idea of establishing a foundation, to create a visible creation (Charlesworth, 1983, 143). It seems from 2 Enoch that the invisible things are eternal with God. God could not rest until he created. Note that "non-being" does not mean ex nihilo, but the invisible things (Ibid, 142,n,f).
Some assert that the scripture is a reference to God's foreknowledge, and not to a personal knowledge of humans. Granting that God has limitless foreknowledge does not preclude a personal knowledge of individual humans, It is hard to deny the specificity of words used in 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."
Notice three key words here: knew, sanctified, and ordained. The wording itself indicates that God literally knew Jeremiah and was familiar with his spiritual attitudes and abilities. In addition, God sanctified Jeremiah, a description not of foreknowledge but of an actual event with participants present. The process of sanctification, or setting something apart as holy, by definition requires that something (such as Jeremiah himself) be present to be set apart. Likewise, the act of ordaining a person—in this case a prophet—requires that the individual be present. These acts—sanctification and ordination—are not mental exercises, but actual events.
Indeed, other modern Christian scholars have chosen to acknowledge the claim that Jeremiah 1:5 speaks of more than mere foreknowledge. In reference to the concept of premortal life, William de Arteaga stated:
"This question was hotly debated by Christians of late antiquity, and the faction of the Church which was bitterly opposed to preexistence gained the upper hand. By the sixth century belief in preexistence was declared heresy. All of this is quite astonishing in view of the clear and repeated biblical evidence for preexistence."9
The event referred to in the sixth century was an edict by Pope Vigilius in 543 AD that rejected the doctrine of preexistence taught by Origen of Alexandria. Historical records indicate that the edict, called Anathemas Against Origen, was actually penned by the Roman emperor, Justinian,10 and signed by the pope and other bishops present at the Second Council of Constantinople.11 The official document labeled Origen's teachings heresy and forbid them being taught in the church.12
2. Job 38:1–7:
"Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? "Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. "Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? "Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;"When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
In the course of reproving Job, the Lord indicates several key pieces of knowledge. First of all, in verse four the Lord asks "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Such a question, by its very nature, implies that Job was somewhere. Why would God ask Job a question which was not instructive, and why would the ancient scribes include the discourse if something could not be learned? Some indicate that the assertion that Job had to be somewhere (thereby supporting preexistence) presupposes that preexistence is a fact. Such circular reasoning can be just as easily applied to the position taken by McKeever and Johnson: one can only interpret the verse as saying that Job was not present when God laid the foundations of the earth if one presupposes that the spirits of men had no premortal life.
Thus, both interpretations can be seen to be on an equal footing when the singular verse is examined. The Lord, however, does not leave the matter alone for long. In further questioning Job, he asks (in essence) where Job was "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Here, again, is the assertion that Job had to be somewhere. Not just Job, however, but the morning stars and the sons of God. And these were not silent participants in the framing of the world, but singers and shouters, indicating they were possessed of independent capabilities of thought and action. Taken together, these two verses provide a strong case for the concept of a premortal life.
3. Ecclesiastes 12:7:
"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
The simple question remains as to how something could return to a point it had not been to before. If the scripture is best translated, as some assert, as only having reference to returning to a God who created the spirit,13 then the only difference between their understanding and that of the LDS is a matter of timing. We believe that God created the spirit of man—just that it was done long before the mortal birth. Either way, the spirit still returns home to God.
But there is a deeper problem with the interpretation of this scripture offered by some. By rejecting the concept of premortal existence, one must swallow the concept that the spirit of man springs into existence at some time between conception and birth.14 If the scripture is to be interpreted literally, and as a parallel linguistic construction, then dust returns to dust, as it was without life, and spirit returns to its former uncreated condition, meaning without life as well. Thus, the problem is that the scripture could just as easily be used to justify a doctrine of there being no life after death.
4. John 9:1–2:
"And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
"And his disciples asked him, saying Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?"Was this a rhetorical question on the part of the disciples? No, the question indicated that the disciples thought one possible answer to the blindness of the man was that he had sinned. Since he was born blind—a fact the record indicates that both Jesus and His disciples knew—then the wording of the question indicates that the sinning must have taken place before the birth of the man, by the man himself. How could the man have sinned, resulting in a punishment of being blind at birth, unless he had lived before he was born?If the concept of a premortal life was in error, then the Master Teacher had a perfect opportunity to correct His students. His answer is recorded in John 9:3:
"Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."Jesus then proceeded to heal the man, foregoing any opportunity to correct the concept of the man having lived before birth. Instead, He acknowledged the concept by saying that the man had not sinned.15 In the words of one non-LDS scholar:
"The question posed by the disciples explicitly presupposed prenatal existence. It will be also noted that Christ says nothing to dispel or correct the presupposition. Here is incontrovertible support for a doctrine of human preexistence.
"It is perfectly reasonable to surmise on the basis of this episode that Jesus and his followers accepted preexistence and thought so little of it that the question of prenatal sin did not even call for an answer."16
5. Colossians 1:16 that the "Greek text does not teach ex nihilo, but creation out of pre-existing raw materials, since the verb ktidzo 'carried an architectural connotation...as in to build or establish a city....Thus, the verb presupposes the presence of already existing material One must not overlook 2 Corinthians 4:18, which states that "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal"—suggesting that aspects of the created "unseen world" are eternal, despite the exercise of God's creative power upon them.
6. Hebrews 11:3 states, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (KJV). It seems here that God made the world out of invisible matter (Romans 1:20), or as Plato would say, "inert gas." It seems that the writer of Hebrews is understanding Genesis 1:2 as the LXX did because tohu is translated as "unseen" or "invisible." Is the "word of God" in Hebrews 11:3 the Logos that created the world in John 1:1-3? It may also be similar to Plato’s world of ideas, the logos, and even more closely to Philo’s use of logos.
7. Romans 4:17 says, "the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they are" (NIV). This is in the context of the birth of Isaac. A similar comparison is found in Xenophon’s Memorabilia that parents "bring forth their children out of non-being" (II,2.3; May, 8). This does not mean that children are creatio ex nihilo.
8. The LXX translates בראשת as a prepositional phrase modifying the verb arb (created), which I literally translate "In beginning the God made the heaven and the earth" (Wevers, 1993, 1). The Hebrew בראשת (beginning) is unarticulated which means it does not have the article "the" modifying it; therefore, the LXX translates it with no article as En arch, which literally means "in a beginning." This same phrase is found in the NT unarticulated in John 1:1
9. John 1:1 follows the LXX in translating בראשת as unarticulated. Peter Borgen argues, "John’s prologue is essentially a targumic exposition of Gen.1:1-5" (Hamilton, 1990, 144). Burney believes that Colossians 1:16-18 is a midrashic exposition of the first word of Genesis 1:1, בראשת (Hamilton, 1990, 145). Paul connects the tyvar of Genesis 1:1 and the "wisdom" in Proverbs 8:22 with Christ which Genesis Rabbah interprets as the "torah" (I.I,2.H; Neusner, 1985, 2).
10. Created - The Hebrew word arb may come from the root which originally meant "to cut, or separate." Most of creating involved a separation of things. arb does not imply ex nihilo creation since it is used in parallel to "make" (NIDOTTE, 1997, Vol. 1, 731). The verb arb is Qal active, and occurs 49 times in the OT. In the Piel stem arb means "to cut." In Numbers 16:30 arb even in the Qal stem clearly means "cut" or "separate" with Yahwah as subject. Van Leeuwen states, "This root begins in the OT with a theologically rich wordplay. But it also, in a punning way, accents the manner in which God gives order to his creation: he divides its various cosmic components from one another through a series of 'cuts or separation'" (NIDOTTE, 1997, Vol.1, 732).
11. arb seems to have more the sense of "separate" than "create" especially out of nothing in Genesis 1:1. Nothing is said about where the darkness and watery deep came from. It was probably considered eternal. Isaiah 45:7 says, "I create the light, and form the darkness: I make peace, and create evil" (KJV). This is more a separation than ex nihilo creation. God is like a builder who makes the world by separating the abyss. Once unformed elements are separated and named, they are considered ordered or "created." This is much different than our normal way of using "create" in our English language. Genesis as well as Isaiah sees the created world as sets of binary opposites, like heaven/earth, earth/sea, light/darkness, day/night, man/woman, peace/evil (Deroche, 1992, 20).
12. And the Earth WasHebrew Texthtyh xrahw - And the earth was The Hebrew verb htyh means "was" not "became" in this context (Waltke 1974, 18-36). There is no room for the gap theory here. The earth did not become waste and void. No ancient translation or commentary that I know of has this meaning. It is describing the state or condition of the earth before creation. The question of where this pre-creation state came from, is not answered. The LXX takes a different view that imbibes the platonic world of ideas.
13. Desolate and LifelessHebrew Text whbw wht - Desolate and lifeless This pair of words appears three times in the OT, Gen.1:2, Isa.34:11, and Jer.4:23. It appears as a juxtaposed phrase in Gen.1:2 and Jer.4:23, and as a parallel word pair in Isa.34:11 (Tsumura, 1989, 23). This phrase seems to be used mostly around the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Isaiah 34:11 says, "And He (God) shall spread over it (Edom) the line of desolation (tohu) and the plum stones of barrenness (bohu; my own translation). This is a return to chaos before creation. Jeremiah 4:23 says, "I (Jeremiah) looked on the earth and behold, (it was) a dark desert and void of life, and (I looked upwards) to the heavens, and there was no light" (my own translation). This seems to be a return to chaos before the world was ordered. There is a chiastic structure here in Jeremiah 4:23 and in Genesis 1:2 as well, tohu wabohu//hosek, and earth = abyss. The LXX h de gh hn aoratos kai akataskeuastos - But the earth was invisible and unformed The LXX translates tohu wa bohu as aoratos kai akataskeuastos which means "invisible and unformed." This same word aoratos "invisible" is similar to Hebrew 11:3 ek fainomenwn, meaning "out of unseen things" the world was created. This seems to be related to the platonic ides that the visible world came from the invisible world including the idea of logos.
14. Enoch has very similar view which says: Before anything existed at all, from the very beginning, whatever is I created from non-being, and from the invisible things into the visible.Before any visible things had come into existence, and the light had not yet opened up, I, in the midst of the light, moved around in the invisible things, like one of them, as the sun moves around from east to west and from west to east. But the sun has rest; yet I did not find rest, because everything was not yet created. And I thought up the idea of establishing a foundation, to create a visible creation (Charlesworth, 1983, 143). It seems from 2 Enoch that the invisible things are eternal with God. God could not rest until he created. Note that "non-being" does not mean ex nihilo, but the invisible things (Ibid, 142,n,f).
External Evidence of Pre-Existence / Non Ex nihilo
Early Jewish
1. The first mention of "out of nothing" is in 2 Maccabees 7:28 which says, "look upon heaven and earth and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also" (Douay Version, or DV). The Greek is ex ouk onton. This phrase "out of nothing" is best understood as "out of non-being" or "out of invisible matter" because at that time they still believed in the preexistence of matter. Matter was consider eternal (Goldstein, 1983, 307-10).
2. The Wisdom of Solomon 11:17 states, "For thy almighty hand which made the world of matter without form" (DV). This verse teaches that God made the world out of formless (eternal) matter (Winston, 1971-2, 185-202; Goldstein, 1984, 127-35). In chapter 7:25 wisdom is seen as a "pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God" (DV).
3. Philo sees Genesis 1:1-3 through platonic eyes. This is the creation of the invisible world of ideas (On the Creation, 26-37, compare Plato’s Timaeus 29E). The book of Hebrews also seems to follow platonic ideas. The visible world comes from invisible matter (Heb. 11:3). Philo sees preexistent matter alongside of God at the beginning. This invisible matter was eternal (On the Creation, 12). God is the active principle, the formless matter is the passive principle (May, 10). Philo even uses the phrase ek mh ontwn, meaning "out of non-being," and not "out of nothing" (Allegorical Interpretation III. 10). Clearly, there is no ex nihilo creation in Philo.
Early Christian
1. The early church fathers seem to believe the platonic idea of eternal matter from which God fashioned the world. Justin Martyr is an example. In The First Apology of Justin he says, "He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man’s sake, created all things out of unformed matter" (Chapter 10). Justin and Plato in Timaeus both agree that everything came into being through God (Apology I:20, 4). Justin says that Plato took his ideas about God making the world out of unformed matter from Genesis. Justin states, "Plato borrowed his statement that God, having altered matter which was shapeless, made the world (Apology I:59). The world was made out of preexistent matter.
2. The successor of Justin Martyr was Athenagoras who was an Athenian philosopher who became a Christian. His Apology or Embassy was presented to Emperors Aurelius and Commodus about 177 AD. He explicitly believed in the pre-existence of matter (Chadwick 1966, 12, 47).
3. Clement of Alexandria three times "declares that the world is made 'out of nothing', but in each case the phrase he employs is ek me ontos, not ex ouk ontos; that is to say, it is made not from that which is absolutely non-existent, but from relative non-being or unformed matter" (Chadwick 1966, 46).
4. May in his book Creatio ex Nihilo argues very persuasively for the second century AD development of the doctrine of "creation out of nothing" (1994). It was not until the second century AD that the church fathers saw a theological problem with eternal matter. It was their conflict with the Gnostic and middle platonists that developed the idea of God creating "out of nothing."
5. Christian groups in the early Christian centuries taught the same doctrine (cf. Origen, De principiis 1:7; 2:8; 4:1), and that it is also to be found in Jewish belief of the same period, including Philo (De mutatione nominum 39; De opificio mundi 51; De cherubim 32); in some apocryphal writings (Wisdom of Solomon 8:19-20; 15:3); and among the Essenes (Josephus, Jewish War 2.8.11, as well as in the Jewish Talmud and Midrash).
6. Clement of Alexandria, commenting on the scriptural passage in Jeremiah 1:5 (which is also addressed more fully in the next section), generalized the doctrine as having universal application. He wrote:
"…the Logos is not to be despised as something new, for even in Jeremiah the Lord says, 'Say not "I am too young," for before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee, and before thou camest forth from thy mother I sanctified thee.' It is possible that in speaking these things the prophet is referring to us, as being known to God as faithful before the foundation of the world."6
7. Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185–254 AD). Writing in the third century, he stated a belief that differences evident among men on earth were attributable to differences in rank and glory attained by those men as premortal angels. According to Origen, God could not be viewed as "no respecter of persons" without such a premortal existence. In fact, if the differences of men on earth were not related in some way to our premortal condition, then God could be viewed as arbitrary, capricious, and unjust. Origen felt that just as there would a judgment after this life, that a sort of judgment had already taken place based on our premortal merit, with the result being the station to which we were appointed in this life. As an example of this concept supported in the Bible, Origen referred to the Old Testament story of Jacob being preferred over Esau. Why was this so? According to Origen, because "we believe that he was even then chosen by God because of merits acquired before this life."7
8. In the course of his writings the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote about the beliefs of the Essenes. He reported they believed "that the souls are immortal, and continue for ever." He further related that the Essenes believed that the souls of men "are united to their bodies as in prisons" and that when the spirits are set free they are "released from a long bondage" and ascend heavenward with great rejoicing.8 Josephus' description of Essene doctrine has surely taken on greater validity in light of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. Together these records provide primary evidence that contemporaries of Christ and the apostles believed in a premortal life—
9. St. Augustine entreated the notion, and there had developed four hypothesis concerning the pre-existent doctrine: In De Libero Arbitrio III.20 & 21 (circa 395 C.E.), when Augustine first attends to the question of the soul's origin in a manner that focuses upon particular possibilities, he does so as part of an anti-Manichean theodicy intended to show that it is the human soul rather than God that is responsible for the presence of moral evil in the world. Thus, as he later points out in Letter 143 (circa 412 C.E.), he is not concerned to adjudicate between these competing hypotheses, but merely to show that each is consistent with a non-Manichean, Neoplatonizing account of moral evil. Nonetheless, the four hypotheses he does advance are important evidence about how he understands the conceptual landscape [O'Daly 1987, pp. 15-20; Mendelson 1998, pp. 30-44], and the anti-Manichean polemic notwithstanding, it is instructive that he makes no attempt to choose between or even to offer a tentative ranking of them. { Saint Augustine - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Mendelson, Michael, "Saint Augustine", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2000 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)} To further articulate the nature of Saint Augustine and his understanding of the Pre-Existent of Man's soul, Mendelson continues:Interestingly enough, two of the four hypotheses require the soul's existence prior to embodiment. On the first, the soul is sent by God to administer the body (henceforth the "sent" hypothesis); on the second, the soul comes to inhabit the body by its own choice (henceforth the "voluntarist" hypothesis). In later presentations of these hypotheses (though not in De Libero Arbitrio III), Augustine treats the voluntarist hypothesis as involving both a sin on the soul's part and a cyclical process whereby the soul is subject to multiple incarnations [Letter 166.27]. The other two hypotheses, the "traducianist" and the "creationist," do not involve pre-existence, but there is nonetheless a significant contrast between them. On the traducianist account, all souls are propagated from Adam's soul in a manner analogous to that of the body, thus linking each soul to all previous ones by a kind of genealogical chain. On the creationist hypothesis, however, God creates a new soul for each body, thus creating a kind of vertical link between God and each individual soul. { Ibid.}And to which concept and logical possibility did Saint Augustine give himself over concerning one of these four hypotheses that were prevalent in his time:These hypotheses do not exhaust the logical possibilities, but they were the main contenders in Augustine's time. There remains controversy over the extent to which Augustine himself was inclined towards either of the hypotheses that required pre-existence [O'Connell 1968, O'Daly 1987, pp. 15-20; O'Donnell 1992 II.34-5], but there are passages in the Confessions [see Confessions I.6-8] and elsewhere [e.g. De Genesi Contra Manicheos 2.8 (circa 388-9 C.E.) and De Genesi ad Literam Imperfectus Liber 1.3 (circa 393 C.E.)] that have led some to regard it as a possibility he takes very seriously indeed, perhaps even preferring it, at least until the early part of the fifth century [O'Connell 1968; Teske 1991]. Moreover, given the Neoplatonic architectonic of the Confessions, this would not be all that surprising, for the notion that the preexistent soul falls into the body is a conspicuous feature of Plotinus' thought as well as of Neoplatonism in general [e.g. Plotnius, Enneads IV.8; Origen, On First Principles 1.4.4]. In this regard, it is also not surprising that Augustine should have come to identify the hypothesis of the soul's voluntary descent into the body as involving both sin and cyclicism. Not only are these features reminiscent of what he eventually came to learn of Origen's view, but given the Neoplatonic framework underlying his conception of the soul's origin, it is difficult to construe the soul's choice of embodiment in positive terms. {Ibid.}
Current Christians
1. Thomas Jay Oord - The vision of an essentially relational God that I propose corresponds well with the creation narrative of Genesis 1 and with various Christian voices of the early Church. Regarding Genesis, Jon D. Levenson leads a growing number of scholars who openly acknowledge that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is not present therein. “We must face the implication of the affirmation that God, as the creator of the world, confronts forces that oppose divine creation,” he suggests. “To say that creation is directed against something should be taken as a denial of the venerable doctrine of creatio ex nihilo” (Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994; New York: Harper & Row, 1987], xix). Early Christian theologians and philosophers, including Philo, Justin, Athenagoras, Hermogenes, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen of Alexandria found no good reason to affirm the creation-out-of-nothing hypothesis. Philo, for instance, postulated “a pre-existent matter alongside God” (Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Thought (trans. A. S. Worrall [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994], xiii). My proposed vision of an essentially relational deity finds much in common with these early church scholars and with the Christian canon. For other work arguing the inadequacy of creatio ex nihilo, see Sjoerd L. Bonting, Chaos Theology: A Revised Creation Theology (Ottawa: Novalis, 2002), James Edward Hutchingson, Pandemoneum Tremendum: Chaos and Mystery in the Life of God (Pilgrim, 2000), David Ray Griffin, “Creation out of Chaos and The Problem of Evil,” in Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy, 2nd ed., Stephen T. Davis, ed., (Atlanta: John Knox, 1999), Catherine Keller, The Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming (Routledge, 2003), and Michael E. Lodahl “Creation out of Nothing? Or is Next to Nothing Enough?” in Thy Nature and Name is Love, 217-238. Amos Yong offers an
2. David Ray Griffin - DRG: I think of the doctrine of creation out of nothing--in the sense of absolute nothingness--as the root of all theological evil. That's an exaggeration, of course, but this doctrine, which even Darwin continued to presuppose, does lie behind many of our problems. Although it has been widely accepted on the assumption that it is the biblical doctrine, the Bible, like Plato, presupposed creation out of chaos. The ex nihilo doctrine was affirmed only at the end of the second Christian century. (I have summarized Jon Levenson's and Gerhard May's arguments for this view in the new edition of Encountering Evil, edited by Stephen Davis.) Although Hermogenes warned his fellow theologians that this innovation would lead to blaming God for evil, theologians such as Irenaeus and Tertullian went boldly--and foolishly--forward, saddling God with a kind of power that would not have required billions of years to create a universe and that could have produced all the goods of our universe without the risk of all the evils. Process theism returns to the view of Plato and the Bible--that the creation of our world is not the beginning of finite existence as such (Genesis 1 does not describe a "singularity," in which time itself began), and that, as Plato put it, God creates as much good "as possible." Given process philosophy's assertion that the creatures have their own degree of power--we share Berdyaev's view that our world was created out of relative nothingness, hence out of "meontic freedom"--we can understand why a world such as ours had to be created through a long, step-by-step process (with saltations, to be sure, but no supersaltations). We can also understand why, in spite of the perfect goodness of the creator, so much evil has been possible--especially after the emergence of human beings, whose extraordinarily high capacity for good necessarily entails an equally high capacity for evil.
1. The first mention of "out of nothing" is in 2 Maccabees 7:28 which says, "look upon heaven and earth and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also" (Douay Version, or DV). The Greek is ex ouk onton. This phrase "out of nothing" is best understood as "out of non-being" or "out of invisible matter" because at that time they still believed in the preexistence of matter. Matter was consider eternal (Goldstein, 1983, 307-10).
2. The Wisdom of Solomon 11:17 states, "For thy almighty hand which made the world of matter without form" (DV). This verse teaches that God made the world out of formless (eternal) matter (Winston, 1971-2, 185-202; Goldstein, 1984, 127-35). In chapter 7:25 wisdom is seen as a "pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God" (DV).
3. Philo sees Genesis 1:1-3 through platonic eyes. This is the creation of the invisible world of ideas (On the Creation, 26-37, compare Plato’s Timaeus 29E). The book of Hebrews also seems to follow platonic ideas. The visible world comes from invisible matter (Heb. 11:3). Philo sees preexistent matter alongside of God at the beginning. This invisible matter was eternal (On the Creation, 12). God is the active principle, the formless matter is the passive principle (May, 10). Philo even uses the phrase ek mh ontwn, meaning "out of non-being," and not "out of nothing" (Allegorical Interpretation III. 10). Clearly, there is no ex nihilo creation in Philo.
Early Christian
1. The early church fathers seem to believe the platonic idea of eternal matter from which God fashioned the world. Justin Martyr is an example. In The First Apology of Justin he says, "He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man’s sake, created all things out of unformed matter" (Chapter 10). Justin and Plato in Timaeus both agree that everything came into being through God (Apology I:20, 4). Justin says that Plato took his ideas about God making the world out of unformed matter from Genesis. Justin states, "Plato borrowed his statement that God, having altered matter which was shapeless, made the world (Apology I:59). The world was made out of preexistent matter.
2. The successor of Justin Martyr was Athenagoras who was an Athenian philosopher who became a Christian. His Apology or Embassy was presented to Emperors Aurelius and Commodus about 177 AD. He explicitly believed in the pre-existence of matter (Chadwick 1966, 12, 47).
3. Clement of Alexandria three times "declares that the world is made 'out of nothing', but in each case the phrase he employs is ek me ontos, not ex ouk ontos; that is to say, it is made not from that which is absolutely non-existent, but from relative non-being or unformed matter" (Chadwick 1966, 46).
4. May in his book Creatio ex Nihilo argues very persuasively for the second century AD development of the doctrine of "creation out of nothing" (1994). It was not until the second century AD that the church fathers saw a theological problem with eternal matter. It was their conflict with the Gnostic and middle platonists that developed the idea of God creating "out of nothing."
5. Christian groups in the early Christian centuries taught the same doctrine (cf. Origen, De principiis 1:7; 2:8; 4:1), and that it is also to be found in Jewish belief of the same period, including Philo (De mutatione nominum 39; De opificio mundi 51; De cherubim 32); in some apocryphal writings (Wisdom of Solomon 8:19-20; 15:3); and among the Essenes (Josephus, Jewish War 2.8.11, as well as in the Jewish Talmud and Midrash).
6. Clement of Alexandria, commenting on the scriptural passage in Jeremiah 1:5 (which is also addressed more fully in the next section), generalized the doctrine as having universal application. He wrote:
"…the Logos is not to be despised as something new, for even in Jeremiah the Lord says, 'Say not "I am too young," for before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee, and before thou camest forth from thy mother I sanctified thee.' It is possible that in speaking these things the prophet is referring to us, as being known to God as faithful before the foundation of the world."6
7. Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185–254 AD). Writing in the third century, he stated a belief that differences evident among men on earth were attributable to differences in rank and glory attained by those men as premortal angels. According to Origen, God could not be viewed as "no respecter of persons" without such a premortal existence. In fact, if the differences of men on earth were not related in some way to our premortal condition, then God could be viewed as arbitrary, capricious, and unjust. Origen felt that just as there would a judgment after this life, that a sort of judgment had already taken place based on our premortal merit, with the result being the station to which we were appointed in this life. As an example of this concept supported in the Bible, Origen referred to the Old Testament story of Jacob being preferred over Esau. Why was this so? According to Origen, because "we believe that he was even then chosen by God because of merits acquired before this life."7
8. In the course of his writings the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote about the beliefs of the Essenes. He reported they believed "that the souls are immortal, and continue for ever." He further related that the Essenes believed that the souls of men "are united to their bodies as in prisons" and that when the spirits are set free they are "released from a long bondage" and ascend heavenward with great rejoicing.8 Josephus' description of Essene doctrine has surely taken on greater validity in light of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. Together these records provide primary evidence that contemporaries of Christ and the apostles believed in a premortal life—
9. St. Augustine entreated the notion, and there had developed four hypothesis concerning the pre-existent doctrine: In De Libero Arbitrio III.20 & 21 (circa 395 C.E.), when Augustine first attends to the question of the soul's origin in a manner that focuses upon particular possibilities, he does so as part of an anti-Manichean theodicy intended to show that it is the human soul rather than God that is responsible for the presence of moral evil in the world. Thus, as he later points out in Letter 143 (circa 412 C.E.), he is not concerned to adjudicate between these competing hypotheses, but merely to show that each is consistent with a non-Manichean, Neoplatonizing account of moral evil. Nonetheless, the four hypotheses he does advance are important evidence about how he understands the conceptual landscape [O'Daly 1987, pp. 15-20; Mendelson 1998, pp. 30-44], and the anti-Manichean polemic notwithstanding, it is instructive that he makes no attempt to choose between or even to offer a tentative ranking of them. { Saint Augustine - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Mendelson, Michael, "Saint Augustine", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2000 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)} To further articulate the nature of Saint Augustine and his understanding of the Pre-Existent of Man's soul, Mendelson continues:Interestingly enough, two of the four hypotheses require the soul's existence prior to embodiment. On the first, the soul is sent by God to administer the body (henceforth the "sent" hypothesis); on the second, the soul comes to inhabit the body by its own choice (henceforth the "voluntarist" hypothesis). In later presentations of these hypotheses (though not in De Libero Arbitrio III), Augustine treats the voluntarist hypothesis as involving both a sin on the soul's part and a cyclical process whereby the soul is subject to multiple incarnations [Letter 166.27]. The other two hypotheses, the "traducianist" and the "creationist," do not involve pre-existence, but there is nonetheless a significant contrast between them. On the traducianist account, all souls are propagated from Adam's soul in a manner analogous to that of the body, thus linking each soul to all previous ones by a kind of genealogical chain. On the creationist hypothesis, however, God creates a new soul for each body, thus creating a kind of vertical link between God and each individual soul. { Ibid.}And to which concept and logical possibility did Saint Augustine give himself over concerning one of these four hypotheses that were prevalent in his time:These hypotheses do not exhaust the logical possibilities, but they were the main contenders in Augustine's time. There remains controversy over the extent to which Augustine himself was inclined towards either of the hypotheses that required pre-existence [O'Connell 1968, O'Daly 1987, pp. 15-20; O'Donnell 1992 II.34-5], but there are passages in the Confessions [see Confessions I.6-8] and elsewhere [e.g. De Genesi Contra Manicheos 2.8 (circa 388-9 C.E.) and De Genesi ad Literam Imperfectus Liber 1.3 (circa 393 C.E.)] that have led some to regard it as a possibility he takes very seriously indeed, perhaps even preferring it, at least until the early part of the fifth century [O'Connell 1968; Teske 1991]. Moreover, given the Neoplatonic architectonic of the Confessions, this would not be all that surprising, for the notion that the preexistent soul falls into the body is a conspicuous feature of Plotinus' thought as well as of Neoplatonism in general [e.g. Plotnius, Enneads IV.8; Origen, On First Principles 1.4.4]. In this regard, it is also not surprising that Augustine should have come to identify the hypothesis of the soul's voluntary descent into the body as involving both sin and cyclicism. Not only are these features reminiscent of what he eventually came to learn of Origen's view, but given the Neoplatonic framework underlying his conception of the soul's origin, it is difficult to construe the soul's choice of embodiment in positive terms. {Ibid.}
Current Christians
1. Thomas Jay Oord - The vision of an essentially relational God that I propose corresponds well with the creation narrative of Genesis 1 and with various Christian voices of the early Church. Regarding Genesis, Jon D. Levenson leads a growing number of scholars who openly acknowledge that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is not present therein. “We must face the implication of the affirmation that God, as the creator of the world, confronts forces that oppose divine creation,” he suggests. “To say that creation is directed against something should be taken as a denial of the venerable doctrine of creatio ex nihilo” (Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994; New York: Harper & Row, 1987], xix). Early Christian theologians and philosophers, including Philo, Justin, Athenagoras, Hermogenes, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen of Alexandria found no good reason to affirm the creation-out-of-nothing hypothesis. Philo, for instance, postulated “a pre-existent matter alongside God” (Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Thought (trans. A. S. Worrall [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994], xiii). My proposed vision of an essentially relational deity finds much in common with these early church scholars and with the Christian canon. For other work arguing the inadequacy of creatio ex nihilo, see Sjoerd L. Bonting, Chaos Theology: A Revised Creation Theology (Ottawa: Novalis, 2002), James Edward Hutchingson, Pandemoneum Tremendum: Chaos and Mystery in the Life of God (Pilgrim, 2000), David Ray Griffin, “Creation out of Chaos and The Problem of Evil,” in Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy, 2nd ed., Stephen T. Davis, ed., (Atlanta: John Knox, 1999), Catherine Keller, The Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming (Routledge, 2003), and Michael E. Lodahl “Creation out of Nothing? Or is Next to Nothing Enough?” in Thy Nature and Name is Love, 217-238. Amos Yong offers an
2. David Ray Griffin - DRG: I think of the doctrine of creation out of nothing--in the sense of absolute nothingness--as the root of all theological evil. That's an exaggeration, of course, but this doctrine, which even Darwin continued to presuppose, does lie behind many of our problems. Although it has been widely accepted on the assumption that it is the biblical doctrine, the Bible, like Plato, presupposed creation out of chaos. The ex nihilo doctrine was affirmed only at the end of the second Christian century. (I have summarized Jon Levenson's and Gerhard May's arguments for this view in the new edition of Encountering Evil, edited by Stephen Davis.) Although Hermogenes warned his fellow theologians that this innovation would lead to blaming God for evil, theologians such as Irenaeus and Tertullian went boldly--and foolishly--forward, saddling God with a kind of power that would not have required billions of years to create a universe and that could have produced all the goods of our universe without the risk of all the evils. Process theism returns to the view of Plato and the Bible--that the creation of our world is not the beginning of finite existence as such (Genesis 1 does not describe a "singularity," in which time itself began), and that, as Plato put it, God creates as much good "as possible." Given process philosophy's assertion that the creatures have their own degree of power--we share Berdyaev's view that our world was created out of relative nothingness, hence out of "meontic freedom"--we can understand why a world such as ours had to be created through a long, step-by-step process (with saltations, to be sure, but no supersaltations). We can also understand why, in spite of the perfect goodness of the creator, so much evil has been possible--especially after the emergence of human beings, whose extraordinarily high capacity for good necessarily entails an equally high capacity for evil.
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