§ 1. Theory of Preexistence.
Three theories have been advanced as to the origin of the soul First, that of the Preexistence of the soul ; secondly, that of Tra- duction, or the doctrine that the soul of the child is derived from the soul of the parent ; tliirdly, that of immediate Creation, or the doctrine that the soul is not derived as the body is, but owes its existence to the creative power of God.
Tlie doctrine of the preexistence of the soul has been presented in two forms. Plato held that ideas are eternal in the divine mind ; that these ideas are not mere thoughts, but living entities ; that they constitute the essence and hfe of all external things ; the universe and all it contains are these ideas realized, clothed in matter, and developed in history. There was thus an ideal, or in- telligible world, anterior to the world as actually existing in time. What Plato called ideas, Aristotle called forms. He denied that the ideal was anterior to the actual. Matter is eternal, and all things consist of matter and form — by form being meant that which gives character, or determines the nature of individual things. As in other respects, so also in this, the Platonic, or Aristo-Platonic philosoplu', had much influence on Christian The- ology. And some of the fathers and of the schoolmen approached more or less nearly to this doctrine of the preexistence, not only of the soul, but of all things in this ideal world. St. Bernard, in his strenuous opjiosition to nominalism, adopted the Platonic doc- trine of ideas, which he id*^.ntified with genera and species. These ideas, he taught, were eternal, although posterior to God, as an effect is in the order of nature after its cause. Providence applies the idea to matter, which becomes animated and takes form, and thus ("du monde intelligible est sorti le monde sensible ") "ex mundo intelligibili mundus sensibilis perfectus natus est ex perfecto." ^ Among modern writers, Delitzsch comes nearest to this Platonic doctrine. He says, " Es giebt nach der Schrift eine Priiexistena
1 Cousin, Fragments Philoicphiques, pp. 172-176. VOL. n. 6
60 PART II. ch. ni. — origin of tup: soul.
des Mensclien und zwar eine ideale ; . . . . eine Priiexistenz .... vermbVe vvelcher Mensch und Menschheit nicht bios ein fernzu- kiinftii^es Object gottlicher Voraussicht, sondeni ein gegenwartiges
Object gottlicher Anschauung sind iin S[)iegel derWeisheit
Nicht bios Philosophie und talschberiihmte Gnosis, sondern audi die Schrift weiss und spricht von einer gottlichen Idealwelt, zu welcher sich die Zeitwelt wie die gescbichtliche Verwirklichung eines ewioren Grundrisses verhalt.^ That is, " Tiiere is according to tlie Scrii)tures, an ideal preexistence of man ; a preexistence in virtue of which man and humanity are contemplated by the divine om- niscience not merely as objects lying far off in the future, but as present in the mirror of his wisdom. Nut only philosophy and the so called Gnosis, but also the Scriptures recognize and avow a divine ideal world to which the actual world stands related as the historical development of an eternal conception." It is doubtful, however, whether Delitzsch meant much more by this than that the omniscience of God embraces from eternity the knowledge of all things possible, and that his purpose determined from eternity the futurition of all actual events, so that his decree or plan as existing in the divine mind is realized in the external world and its history. The mechanist has in his mind a clear conception of the machine which he is about to make. But it is only by a figure of speech that the machine can be said to preexist in the artist's mind. This is very different from the Platonic and Realistic theory of preexist- ence.
Origeris Doctrine.
Preexistence, as taught by Origen, and as adopted here and there by some few philosophers and theologians, is not the Platonic doctrine of an ideal-world. It supposes that the souls of men had a separate, conscious, personal existence in a previous state ; that having sinned in that preexistent state, they are condemned to be born into this world in a state of sin and in connection with a material body. This doctrine was connected by Origen with his theory of an eternal creation. The present state of being is only one epoch in the existence of the human soul. It has passed through innumerable other epochs and forms of existence in the past, and is to go through other innumerable such epociis in the future. He held to a metempsychosis very similar to that taught by Orientals both ancient and modern. But even without the encumbrance of this idea of the endless transmutation of the soul, the doctrine itself has never been adoi)ted in the Church. It
1- Biblische Psychologies p. 23.