Virtually all adherents of Western religions believe in post-mortal existence. Yet relatively few believe in pre-mortal existence despite the fact that this theological notion has surfaced repeatedly over the last three thousand years of Western philosophical and theological thought. Terryl Givens offers a brilliant intellectual history of this enduring notion that humanity's spiritual identity can be traced to a state or place that preexists mortal life. From Mesopotamian mythology and Plato to the Latter-day Saints and Carl Jung, belief in pre-mortal existence has fueled spiritualities that celebrate our inherent potential to envision and strive toward the sublime.
The intellectual power of this volume derives in part from its vast historical expanse. Givens chronicles varying interpretations of preexistence across some thirty centuries and countless European and American social settings. He does so by offering concise, masterful summaries of the many intellectual figures who have championed the belief that humanity belongs to a higher spiritual order. Versions of this notion are scattered throughout ancient Near Eastern religious traditions as well as the philosophical systems traceable to Pythagoras and Orpheus. It is, however, in Plato that we find the most eloquent explanation of how humanity's preexistence in a transcendent order sheds light on otherwise perplexing philosophical problems. In Plato's works the preexistence of the soul explains our cognitive capacity to apprehend universals, our ability to make moral judgments, our capacity for language, our spiritual yearnings, and our participation in a world that is fundamentally just despite observed imbalances between merit and circumstance. The unequaled respect accorded to Plato by both the early church and subsequent philosophers ensured some measure of ongoing legitimacy to this philosophical doctrine even when it eventually fell outside Christian theological orthodoxy.
Subsequent advocates of pre-mortal existence include Plotinus, Origen, Cambridge Platonists such as Henry More, Romantic poets ranging from Blake to Goethe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Beecher, Joseph Smith, sundry New Age advocates, and those contemporary theologians trying to recapture a Logos theology that has largely been dormant in Christian thought since Origen. A common theme in their advocacy of preexistence is faith in humanity's potential for creatively transcending all environmental conditions. The fact that we fundamentally belong to a higher order of things explains the better angels of our nature. Spiritual preexistence accounts for why we intuitively know things not gained through the senses: why we yearn for transcendence and the sublime, why we share a common moral sense, why we find an instant affinity with certain individuals, and why pain and misfortune are unevenly distributed in God's fundamentally just universe. Religious outlooks predicated on belief in spiritual preexistence typically (though not necessarily) align themselves with a strong affirmation of humanity's inherent potentials for progress and creativity. Since humans have origins in a realm of purer spirit, they are naturally inclined to creative and morally wholesome lives. Even more to the point, the fact that humans have origins in a realm of purer spirit implies that humans are in some fundamental way continuous with divinity.
It is the last of these implications that doomed the notion of preexistence to be deemed heresy in the eyes of Christian orthodoxy. Tertullian was among the first guardians of Christian orthodoxy to scout out the heretical tendencies inherent in the doctrine of preexistence. Whether in the blasphemous writings of the Gnostics or the more subtle deviance of Origen's Platonist theological leanings, Tertullian recognized that preexistence collapses the very distance between God and humanity presupposed in Christianity's claim to exclusive salvation through Christ and His church. The doctrine of preexistence is especially pernicious because it blurs the fixed limits that separate the creature from the deity. It implies what Tertullian and subsequent spokesmen for Christian orthodoxy have deemed an idealistic overestimate of the self, suggesting that divinity is reachable without the mediation of Christ or Christ's church. For this reason preexistence was deemed one of the recurring heresies that must be condemned by all who wish to maintain steadfast faith in the utter remoteness and sovereignty of God.
Givens' deft summaries of major figures in Western intellectual history are not themselves what distinguish this brilliant intellectual history. His goal is not to cast these philosophers and theologians in a new light, but to show how they participated in a grand conversation about the very essence of human nature. Readers from all backgrounds will find themselves engaged in this spirited conversation, pondering the relative merits of the partisan arguments advanced over the long course of Western thought. Intended by Givens or not, most readers will find it hard to escape a subversive conclusion: in their efforts to safeguard theological conformity, Western religious leaders have repeatedly condemned some of our most inspiring visions of humanity's relationship to the divine.
