Has the pre-existence of souls been officially and clearly condemned? I know that the Fifth Ecumenical Council condemned various Origenists ideas, but the condemnation of pre-existence was a condemnation of that idea as connected to the idea of a restoration of the soul to its original, non-materially linked state:
ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xii.ix.html
It seems that one could hold to pre-existence, if one does not link it to a return to “the monstrous restoration”.
Thank you, Agnikan, for posting this. A teacher of theology at a Bible School which I attended for a year, stated that the Roman Catholic view is that “God has a bundle of souls up in heaven, and that he plunks one of them into each baby that is to be born, either at conception or at birth or some time in between.” So I always presumed this to be the case since I had never heard otherwise. But this seems to have been denied by the Fifth Ecumenical Council which you quoted above. So I did an internet search, and found in “Catholic Answers”, that the Catholic position seems to be that God creates souls from nothing at the moment of conception. Here is the link to the Catholic explanation of the origin of human souls:
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However, I think both views (pre-existence of souls and direct creation of souls) present the same problem. Why do children ofter resemble, in personality, one or both their biological parents? This suggests that their psychic (soulish or mental) natures were inherited from their parents. Also why would a newly-created soul possess a sin nature (tendency to sin)? Why should it not start out with a clean slate—no tendency toward either sin or righteousness?
My person view is that the New Testament references to soul (ψυχη = psyche) has the meaning of “self”. A self has both material and immaterial or mental aspects. They are both aspects of the single, unified human being. They cannot be divided. When a person dies, he is dead. He didn’t possess an immaterial, immortal “soul” which went somewhere at death. The apostle Paul seemed to indicate that our only hope for an afterlife is the resurrection of the whole man. If God or Christ doesn’t raise us from the dead, we’ll stay dead forever, so we might as well eat, drink, and make merry. Our Christian works will reap no results beyond this present life.
Catholic Answers*What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Corinthians 15:32)
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (I Corinthians 15:16-19)*](http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/since-a-childs-body-comes-from-both-the-father-and-the-mother-does-its-soul-come-from)
You have some good points there, Paidion. I agree with you that the soul is not some segregated part of our person. OT scriptures refer to the “soul” as more or less synonymous with the “life.” Living things don’t posses “souls;” they ARE souls. And the same word without differentiation is used to refer to animals as well as humans. Howsomever, God does point out that all souls are His and that at death, the soul returns to Him. And Jesus said, “All souls live unto Him.” He also said, “He that liveth and believeth on Me shall never die.” AND, “I give unto them (His sheep) eternal life and they shall never die.” That would seem to me to point to the soul as having an existence even apart from the body. (Unless He didn’t really mean “never,” but unless we can find good reason to suppose He didn’t (and I haven’t looked) then interpreting this according to our own theology sounds like “all” not really meaning “all.”)
Now scripture clearly teaches resurrection and redemption of our physical bodies, just as Christ was raised. Paul also says, that the body dies a physical body and is raised a spiritual body. But if Jesus’ resurrection body is included in that (which I see no cause to dispute), then that means the actual physical body becomes a spiritual body that functions more or less – more, in fact – as a physical body does. Jesus ate, could be touched, could manipulate physical objects, was recognizable to His friends (when He wanted to be), walked with His feet touching the ground, spoke in a normal voice . . . and of course there were those additional “super powers” of high-speed travel, walking through walls, rising up into the clouds, etc . . . not to mention rising from among the dead.
One could argue that the reason Paul said “if the dead are not raised we are of all men most miserable” was not because of the non-existence of the life once its body (host?) had died, but rather because Jesus’ resurrection was an absolute necessity for those He died for to enter into the LIFE He died to obtain for them. It was His death that freed us from the tyranny of sin, but His resurrection that allows us to live in newness of life – eternal (the God kind of) life.
Jesus has been raised – physically raised – and so of course He’s awake and extant. It’s possible we will not be awake betwixt our deaths and the resurrection. But as all souls return to God who gave them, I don’t believe the theory that says souls are non-extant for the period between death and resurrection. That doesn’t make sense to me. Paul’s euphemism regarding those who have “fallen asleep” works both ways. If we take it literally in order to “prove” soul sleep, we also have to apply the same standard to proposed non-existence. If we sleep, we do not cease to exist. Personally, I believe it IS an euphemism that tells us nothing – except perhaps (unless it’s literal) that this was the way Paul referred politely to death, just as we might say “so and so passed away this week.”
I call it “going home.” My dad went home about four years ago. I don’t speak of him in the past tense, because whether he’s conscious or sleeping, all souls return to God who gave them, and our Abba IS our home (and we are also His home). If his soul returned to God, then he still exists. Therefore it makes no more sense to say “I loved my father” (and make it past because of his death) than it would to use past tense merely because he had traveled to France for a month. If he is here I love him; if in France, I love him; and if he is with God then I love him still.
Anyway, my musings. And thanks, Paidion. It’s a great post, and it made me think. 
Blessings, Cindy
But did Jesus say that? It seems odd, does it not, that Jesus would say, “The one trusting in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and the one living and trusting in me shall never die”? Isn’t that a contradiction? If the one living and trusting in Him shall never die, then how can there be the possibility of someone trusting in Him and yet die as the first clause affirms?
What Jesus actually said, according to the literal Greek is, “The one trusting in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and the one living and trusting in me shall not die into the age.”
I see this as speaking of the resurrection of the whole person. Anyone entrusting himself to Christ, though he die shall live again in the resurrection. And anyone living and entrusting himself to Christ will not continue in a state of death right into the next age, but will be resurrected when Christ returns at the end of the present age.
Jesus said something similar concerning his “sheep” in the other verse you referenced, John 10:28 — “I give to them lasting life and they shall not be destroyed into the age.” They may be destroyed in this life (or possibly the word means “perish”), but this destruction is not permanent. It will not last into the next age. Rather they will be raised to life at Christ’s return.
P.S. By the way, I don’t believe in “soul sleep,” for I don’t believe in “souls” in the Platonic or Greek sense as an entity separate from the body. Your soul is you! As I see it, you cease to exist at death. As I mentioned in my previous post, at death you are dead, and will stay dead, until God raises you from death.
