Pre-existence is the belief that an individual has lived a lived before his earthly birth, or that the soul has had a separate existence before its human birth, a belief which is both ancient and modern.
The pre-existence of the soul in the eternal world, before becoming involved in the genesis and conditions of the earth-life, was generally believed.
Every cause must produce an adequate effect and nothing which we see as an effect can be without a pre-existence cause. Moreover, if this is a universal law it must apply to the conditions of birth as well as to subsequent life.
Come away from those authoritative records of Christianity to the writings and teachings of those who lived in the early centuries after Christ, and see how often in the writings of the great Fathers of the Church this doctrine of the pre-existence ...
This same belief in the pre-existence of a far more spiritual race than the one to which we now belong can be traced back to the earliest traditions of nearly every people.
Coakley writes: "the formative christological discussion of the fourth and fifth centuriestake Christ's substantial pre-existence and divinity for granted."[84] The contrast between the human and the divine aspects of Jesus has been sharpened.
" And every fair-minded opponent must agree with what is said in Butler's Lectures on Platonic Philosophy -- "that the feeling of extravagance with which it (pre-existence) affects us has its secret source in materialistic or semi-materialistic ...
 See also: Spirit, Philo, World, Anima, Death
  
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