This article discusses how pre-existence is related to eternal progression, and contrasts it with what the Bible teaches. It also shows how the Book of Mormon contradicts and disproves their own doctrine on the pre-existence of man.



INTRODUCTION

Twelve years after the formation of the LDS church, their prophet Joseph Smith introduced a new and revolutionary doctrine called "the law of eternal progression." This then became the base upon which their entire belief system was built. Solely because of the introduction of eternal progression, all of their previous doctrines, including those on deity had to be changed radically. And It was at this stage that the doctrine of pre-existence was introduced.

God has all wisdom and knowledge. So if Joseph Smith's revelations and guidance had truly come from Him, the LDS's teachings would have been accurate from the very start, and they wouldn't have had to keep on changing them the way they have done. (The Christian church still teaches exactly the same doctrines that were taught by the primitive church all those years ago, as recorded in the New Testament, because truth never changes.)

The LDS leadership has the habit of sanitizing their past, and does its best to cover up the fact that Mormonism of today has changed to the extent that it now bears very little resemblance to the Mormonism of the early days of the church. Records reveal that every single major doctrine in Mormonism has been changed radically over the years. This indicates that their leadership must have taught them error either before the changes or after the changes. They can't both be truth. So their claims of being the sole possessor of truth, and that God would never allow their leadership to teach error, don't stand.

In direct contradiction of the LDS claims concerning pre-existence, the Bible emphatically teaches that mankind originated through an act of creation by the eternal God, as recorded in the book of Genesis (1:26-27). And it is a fact that creation and procreation have nothing in common.



LDS TEACHINGS DISPROVE PRE-EXISTENCE

Joseph Smith wrote his Book of Mormon at about the time the LDS church first came into being. So it reflects the doctrines that he followed prior to his change over to pre-existence and eternal progression twelve years or so later. Consequently, the Book of Mormon teaches that mankind was created by God, thereby contradicting his later revelations on pre-existence:

And Ammon said: Yea, and he looketh down upon all the children of men; and he knows all the thoughts and intents of the heart; for by his hand were they all created from the beginning. (BOM, Alma 18:32) (Italics inserted by writer.)

Ammon said unto him: I am a man; and man in the beginning was created after the image of God, and I am called by his Holy Spirit to teach these things unto this people, that they may be brought to a knowledge of that which is just and true. (BOM Alma 18:34) (Italics inserted by writer.)

Now when Ammon had said these words, he began at the creation of the world, and also the creation of Adam ...... (BOM, Alma 18:36) (Italics inserted by writer.)

For behold by the power of his word man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word. Wherefore, if God was able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then why not able to command the earth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure? (BOM, Jacob 4:8) (Italics inserted by writer.)

It needs to be noted that the Book of Mormon also teaches that God is spirit, in line with the Bible and with Joseph Smith's earlier teachings, and in contradiction of today's Mormon beliefs. This subject is fully covered in other articles on this site.



ETERNAL PROGRESSION

The LDS maintains that we all originally existed as intelligent matter and later on progressed to the stage of spirit beings by being conceived and born in the normal way, i.e. through procreation. They maintain that at that point we were born as spirit beings into the family of God, our Heavenly Father and his polygamous wives, all of whom had bodies of flesh and bone. However, this story doesn't jell. It is a fact that kind reproduces kind, so how could beings of flesh and bone have reproduced children who did not have fleshly bodies, but were in a spirit form?

They go on to teach that we lived in this spiritual pre-existence, which they call our first estate, until we were ready for the next step in our eternal progression. This involved taking on bodies of flesh and bone, by being born all over again, but this time to earthly parents. Whilst on earth we would be required to serve a period of probation. And through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the LDS gospel, it would be possible for men to be exalted to godhood, in the same way as our Heavenly Father had been before us. With this end in mind, a council was called in heaven to work out the details of how all of this would be managed (c/f Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pages 348-9, 365, POGP Abraham 3:24-28, Doctrine and Covenants 29:36-40).



WAR IN HEAVEN

The teaching of the LDS is that the fall of mankind was planned by the above council, and Jesus, the oldest son of the Heavenly Father, was chosen as the Redeemer. However, Lucifer, who was Jesus's brother and ours too, came up with a counter-plan, whereby the whole of mankind could be saved by not permitting anyone to have free agency (the right to choose their own actions and make their own decisions). There was some controversy over this, which culminated in a war in heaven, where a third of the hosts of heaven fought on the side of Lucifer. They were all cast down to earth, and were not permitted to obtain physical bodies. This meant that they would not be able to progress any further than they had done at that stage.

The 1992 edition of Gospel Principles, pages 18 to 19, explains:

"Because we are here on earth and have mortal bodies, we know that we chose to follow Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father ..... When he became our Savior, he did his part to help us return to our heavenly home. It is now up to each of us to do our part and become worthy of exaltation." [Exaltation is an LDS term used denoting progression to godhood and eternal life, which are one and the same thing in Mormonism.]

Some of those who were not valiant in the war in heaven were given black or coloured bodies here on earth. Others were born into non-Mormon families. In other words, their race or the fact that they weren't born as Mormons was a direct consequence of their performance in the pre-existence.

The race and nation in which men are born in this world is a direct result of their pre-existent life. All the spirit hosts of heaven deemed worthy to receive mortal bodies were foreordained to pass through this earthly probation in the particular race and nation suited to their needs, circumstances and talents. (Bruce R. McConkie, "Mormon Doctrine, 1993 printing," page 616)

Though he was a rebel and an associate of Lucifer in pre-existence, and though he was a liar from the beginning whose name was Perdition, Cain managed to attain the privilege of mortal birth. ..... Then he came out in open rebellion, fought God, worshiped Lucifer, and slew Abel. ..... As a result of his rebellion, Cain was cursed ..... The Lord placed on Cain the mark of a dark skin; he became the ancestor of the black race. (Moses 5, Genesis 4, TOPJS page 169) (LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie, "Mormon Doctrine, 1993 printing," pages 108-109.)

GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE DOES NOT MEAN WE PRE-EXISTED

When our doctrine on deity is wrong, all our other doctrines will be wrong too, because they all stem from our understanding of God.

Because some of the scriptures reveal God's foreknowledge about certain individuals, the LDS has jumped to the false conclusion that He must have known them in a prior existence. And the reason that they have fallen into this error is because they are completely unfamiliar with the attributes of the biblical God.

The limitations of their own deity have moulded the mindset of Mormons concerning their ideas of who God is and what He is like. Consequently they cannot even begin to grasp the fact that the eternal, infinite God of the Bible is not subject to any limitations. For instance, because He is spirit, His presence fills the entire universe (John 4:24, Jeremiah 23:24). That's why He sees everything and knows everything, and that's also how He hears all the prayers of every single person in the universe (see the article "Understanding the Biblical God," listed on the home page of this site.)

Furthermore, He is the source of everything that exists and is, always has been and always will be the only real God. (All other gods have originated in the minds of fallen men, and the Bible calls the worship of these other so-called gods, idolatry.)

The LDS God bears no resemblance to the God of the Bible at all. He is a far inferior, finite being with a body of flesh and bone, and is restricted in many ways. Furthermore, as he only reached his prior stage of becoming a spirit being after the universe had already been created, this means that he is not vital or even necessary to it, but instead is subject to it in exactly the same way as we are.

On the other hand, because the biblical God created the universe it is subject to Him and He sustains it by His almighty power. So He reigns supreme over all. He also created time and space. Consequently He is not bound by these dimensions or subject to them, as is the Mormon God. The whole of the universe and all that is in it, including time and space, is subject to Him. So to Him the past, present and future is one long panorama. That's why He is able to give His prophets accurate prophecies about what is to come. It's just as easy for Him to know the future as it is for Him to know the present or the past. His foreknowledge means that He isn't restricted, as we are, by the dimension of time.

Where the biblical God says in Jeremiah 1:5 that He knew all about Jeremiah even before he had been born, Mormons have jumped to the false conclusion that God must have known Jeremiah in a pre-existence. And instead of learning something about God's attribute of foreknowledge from Jeremiah 1:5, they have used it as a proof scripture for their doctrine of pre-existence.

A more explicit example of the biblical God's foreknowledge that can't be attributed to the possibility of a pre-existence, concerns Cyrus, the pagan king of Persia. Here is the relevant prophecy:

That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. (Isaiah 44:28, KJV)

In this prophecy Cyrus is actually named by God's prophet, Isaiah, 150 years before he began his reign in 550 BC. In other words, even before Cyrus had been born God foreknew that his parents would name him "Cyrus" and that he would become the king of Persia. He also foreknew that Cyrus would be instrumental in enabling the Israelites to return to Jerusalem after their captivity and dispersion. The fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy (and also another by Jeremiah), is as follows:

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The Lord his God be with him, and let him go up. (2 Chronicles 36:22-23, KJV)

It can now be clearly seen that the biblical God's attribute of foreknowledge concerning His calling of Jeremiah, has been wrongly used by the LDS as "proof" that God knew us all in a previous existence.

Another of the scriptures the LDS uses to vindicate their doctrine of pre-existence is Ecclesiastes 12:7. They maintain that it wouldn't be possible to return to God after death unless we'd lived with Him before we were born:

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. (Ecclesiastes 12:7, KJV).

However, this scripture doesn't say that the spirit lived with God before birth and then returns to Him after death. It says that the spirit will return to God who gave it. The Bible teaches that God creates our mortal bodies and then forms a spirit within us. Giving, creating or forming something is a completely different thing to procreating or reproducing it. Nowhere does the Bible say that our spirits were begotten by God in a previous existence. That is purely a Mormon fantasy.



THE BIBLE DISPROVES THE LDS DOCTRINE OF PRE-EXISTENCE

Not only is there no proof in the Bible that we had a pre-existence, but the following scriptures actually disprove this false LDS doctrine:

And he [Jesus] said unto them, Ye are from beneath [the earth]; I am from above [heaven]: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. (John 8:23, KJV)

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. (1 Corinthians 15: 45-47, KJV)

..... The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. (Zechariah 12:1, KJV) (Italics inserted by author.)

The following leads will take you to articles on major changes in LDS doctrine on deity:

The Mormon Gods, Past and Present

The LDS Jesus Christ is Not the Saviour of the Bible

The LDS Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost


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