The Wonderful Doctrine of Pre-Mortal Existence

     Although I was not privileged to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ until I was a late teenager, I grasped and believed the concept that we all lived as pre-existing spirits before our earthly births.  It has long been my conviction that our doctrine of pre-mortal existence is an essential answer to questions that people have about God’s justice in the differences in the circumstances and conditions under which people are born into this world.  I also recall having experiences which seemed to confirm some kinds of “deja-vu” memories of a prior existence. 

     Although all orthodox Christian churches have denied the doctrine of pre-mortal existence since the time of Augustine in the fourth century AD, there is evidence of such a belief among ancient Hebrews, early Christian fathers, a handful of dissident religionists, and Romantic era poets, including Blake, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, and Wordsworth.  As a young man, I memorized these powerful lines from Wordsworth:

         Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting

         The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,

         Hath somewhere else its setting, and cometh from afar, 

         Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness,

         But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

         From God who is our home. (William Wordsworth, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from  Recollections of Early Childhood”, from Poetical Works, 460-462)

      In fact, there is enough content about pre-existent life from all these and other sources for Latter-day Saint scholar Terryl Givens, to write a 388–page book on this very subject. (Terryl L. Givens, When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought, Oxford University Press, 2010.)

      Here are some thoughts about premortal existence, both from the standpoint of our personal intuitive experiences that support the doctrine itself and how such memories confirm our understandings of gospel principles:

      “How can I know my real self?  Your maximum unfolding depends partly on not yet knowing your infinite past; but also it depends on knowing what is deepest within you, while in mortality.  Such a learning process recollects more than it researches.  It is less discovery than recovery...

      “One begins mortality with the veil drawn, but slowly he is moved to penetrate the veil within himself...As one moves through life, half-defined recollections and faint but sometimes vivid outlines combine to bring a familiar ring to our experience...One has sacred moments in relation to persons, places, and situations which bear the subtle stamp of prior awareness, however elusive...One hears truths expressed, “hidden from before the foundation of the world,” and is pulled to them with overwhelming gratitude.  Jesus Christ, who promised He would bring all things to our remembrance, defined this and more when He said, “My sheep know my voice.””  (Truman G. Madsen, Eternal Man, Deseret Book, 1966, 6-7, 56-59)

      “All those salient truths which come home to us so forcibly to the head and to the heart seem but the awakening of the memories of the spirit.”  (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, 1916 (1969 edition), 13)

      “It was in our first estate that we were first taught the saving principles of the gospel.  Gospel principles no more originate in this life than we do.  We first learned them in Heaven.  They are godly principles, and they are thus the principles by which our Eternal Father sought to raise his children.  This is why they have such a strong ring of familiarity when taught to us in this life.  We know and recognize the truths of salvation as we do an old friend.  Missionary work is not a matter of conversion– meaning that those being taught must always reverse their course or exchange old views for new ones– but instead a matter of remembering or awakening to truths once known and lived.  Embracing the gospel is part of the process of returning home.  There is a nostalgic spirit about it.  It centers in family and friends.  It centers on a mutually shared responsibility.  The gospel covenant rings true to our soul’s memory because we know of it already... (Robert L. Millett and Joseph Fielding McConkie , Our Destiny: The Call and Election of the House of Israel, Leatherwood Press LLC, Sandy, UT, 2006, 43/First published by Bookcraft, Salt Lake, UT, 1993)