(This article also includes a podcast discussion. Click the play button below, or subscribe and listen on your Apple or Google podcast app.)
If we believe that humans have a soul, we must also believe that the soul comes from somewhere. Throughout history, Christians have come up with several theories to explain it, and today most of us hold to three main beliefs. Let’s look at one that is loosely held by many Christians and see if it explains the origin of our souls.
Pre-existence, aka “The Soul Bank”
Although this belief doesn’t have a specific beginning, it was made most popular by the Greek philosopher Plato. This was later adopted by Origen of Alexandria, an early church father from the early 200s. Origen taught that all souls were created in Genesis 1:1, or shortly after, and are waiting around for a body to be created so that they can be placed inside.
In other words, souls are believed to exist before the body, hence the term “pre-existence.” A more casual term for it is the “Soul Bank Theory” because the easiest way to picture this belief is that God has a large collection of souls stored somewhere in the universe and He will pull a soul from this “bank” and insert it into human being as soon as they’re conceived. This bank idea is further clarified within Jewish mysticism, where they call it ‘the Guff.”
Does the Bible support it?
There are two Bible verses used to support this idea:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)
Here, this speaks of God knowing us before we are physical beings. The understanding here is that for God to know us in this way, we must spiritually exist before our physical bodies.
for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (Romans 9:11-13)
Beyond simple familiarity with a soul before it enters a body, this shows action alongside God’s knowledge. Here we see that God didn’t just know someone, but made a decision about that person. It’s unlikely that God knew Jacob and Esau would one day exist and chose to love or hate them. Instead, it’s far more likely that He attached His love or hate to beings who already existed – the souls of Jacob and Esau that were waiting to be placed in a body.
At first glance, it seems to make sense that we had to exist before our physical forms. The language in these verses shows that God knows people intimately and specificly. But let’s dig deeper into this belief.
The problems with pre-existence
A major issue with the Soul Bank Theory is that it leads to problematic conclusions. Two conclusions have been held by religions outside of Christianity, and a third completely negates another important verse in the Bible.
Mormons still believe in a version of this, insisting that souls have always existed with God even before the creation of the universe. This would mean that souls are just as equal to God’s eternality, and that will logically require that our souls are just as capable of everything else God can do. This belief is a primary motivator in their belief that humans are just weaker versions of God who will one day be equal to His current amount of power.
Other religions believe that souls exist in limited supply as well. This is where the belief in reincarnation comes from. This belief says that when we die, our soul will be placed in another body. Of course, this idea flies in the face of so much of the Bible’s teaching, but it remains an aspect of pre-existence.
The final conclusion is that Genesis got Adam’s creation wrong.
Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)
Scholars agree that the language here is very clear. This isn’t just about man becoming a physically living creature, but that this shows when Adam was considered to exist. This moment of going from “not existing” to “existing” simply doesn’t make sense if verses like Jeremiah 1:5 and the Romans 9 passage mean that our souls, the core of who we truly are, existed before our bodies.
Another issue is that pre-existence diminishes what the Bible says about the uniqueness of our bodies, as well as our souls. If our bodies are just storage tanks for a soul, then we get into a whole host of new issues that we’ll more fully address in the next option for the origin of the soul. It also presents questions on whether these souls are corrupted by sin before birth, what happens to souls not put in a body, and why children seem so similar to their parents if the core of who we are has no real rhyme or reason for which soul goes in which body.
With these issues in mind, it should be no surprise that this teaching was labeled as heresy about 300 years after Origen. The church simply couldn’t find a way to read the Bible responsibly and believe that God created all the souls that would ever exist and stored them somewhere.
Explaining those verses and final thoughts
Origen and the Mormons read these verses in a way that must pull God down to our level to understand them. They assume that God’s knowledge of a person must work like ours, where we can only know those who exist. But the creator of the universe isn’t so limited.
Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; (Isaiah 46:10)
God doesn’t require our body or soul to exist to know us. As an eternal being, God exists outside of time and therefore doesn’t need to experience its passage as we do. In this verse, we are reminded that God isn’t just a really powerful being with good intuition. He is the all-powerful and all-knowing God over all, seeing the future as clearly as the past and doing whatever pleases Him.
Again, this idea of pre-existence isn’t one that’s easily defended or widely believed. It makes sense on the surface, but there’s a reason that Christians haven’t held this belief for the past 1,500 years. In Part 2 we’ll look at a much more popular belief on the origin of the soul, then conclude with one that most Christians have never heard of.
Check out part 2 and part 3 of this discussion
[originally published 12-27-19]
