In a previous post, I linked to two of the best studies from an LDS perspective on the biblical evidence for the LDS teaching that all humans pre-existed their birth. However, I am sure that most Latter-day Saints will admit that the biblical evidence is, at best, strongly implicit, for pre-existence, but not explicit. In this brief blog post, I will present what I think is a pretty air-tight theological defence of the necessity of all humans, not just Jesus, pre-existing, if one holds to the deity and personal pre-existence of Jesus Himself (I will label this the “Christological Necessity of Universal Pre-Existence”).
Latter-day Saint Christology affirms the true, full humanity of Jesus. Indeed, LDS Christology has a great advantage over Trinitarians when dealing with groups such as the Christadelphians and other Humanitarian Unitarian/Socinian groups—we don’t believe personal pre-existence to be unique to Jesus, but something that is normative for all people. As a result, our Christology is not compromised by holding to both the true, full humanity of Jesus and his pre-existence. Trinitarians, Arians, and Socinians all agree that humans did not have personal, conscious pre-existence. Trinitarian and Arian (e.g. Jehovah's Witness) Christology states that Christ pre-existed, but Socinians reject the personal pre-existence of Jesus. The difficulty this poses for Trinitarian and Arian Christology can be summed up in the following presentation by a leading defender of Socinian Christology, Sir. Anthony Buzzard:
Buzzard, who has written some of the best pro-Unitarian books on the market in recent years, has tended to stump Trinitarians in debate on this particular issue, and for good reason, Trinitarians (and also Arians who affirm pre-existence, albeit, not eternal pre-existence of Jesus) cannot provide a meaningful, theologically consistent answer.
If Sir Anthony’s (and the Trinitarian/Arian) a priori assumption is true (viz. it is not normative of humans to have a pre-mortal existence), then pre-existence severely undermines the true humanity of Jesus, something affirmed in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 C.E., as well as Arian Christology. However, as personal, conscious pre-existence is normative in LDS theology (e.g. D&C 93:29), there is no issue.
Many Trinitarian scholars are forced to admit that one cannot speak of “Jesus" pre-existing unless pre-existence is normative of what it means to be “human.” Much work has been done in recent years in what is called, “Spirit Christology,” focusing on what precedes “Jesus”—the Word in John 1—as God. What follows are two quotes from leading studies on this issue, and how only holding that all humans, not just Jesus, pre-existing can one speak of the “pre-existence of Jesus.”
The first comes from Bernard Byrne, "Christ's Pre-existence in Pauline Soteriology," Theological Studies, June 1997, 58/2:
By the same token, it is important to stress that in speaking of pre-existence, one is not speaking of a pre-existence of Jesus' humanity. Jesus Christ did not personally pre-exist as Jesus. Hence one ought not to speak of a pre-existence of Jesus. Even to use the customary expression of the pre-existence of Christ can be misleading since the word "Christ" in its original meaning simply designates the Jewish Messiah, a figure never thought of as pre-existent in any personal sense. But in view of the Christian application of "Christ" to Jesus, virtually as a proper name and in a way going beyond his historical earthly existence, it is appropriate to discuss the issue in terms of the pre-existence of Christ, provided one intended thereby to designate simply the subject who came to historical human existence as Jesus, without any connotation that he pre-existed as a human being.
The second comes from Roger Haight, "The Case for Spirit Christology," Theological Studies, June 1992, 53/2 (emphasis added)
And with the clarity that historical consciousness has conferred relative to Jesus' being a human being in all things substantially like us, many things about the meaning of Incarnation too can be clarified. One is that one cannot really think of a pre-existence of Jesus . . . But one cannot think in terms of the pre-existence of Jesus; what is pre-existent to Jesus is God, and the God who became incarnate in Jesus. Doctrine underscores the obvious here that Jesus is really a creature like us, and a creature cannot pre-exist creation. One may speculate on how Jesus might have been present to God's eternal intentions and so on, but a strict pre-existence of Jesus to his earthly existence is contradictory to his consubtantiality with us, unless we too were pre-existent.
LDS theology, which holds that personal, conscious pre-existence is normative of the human condition, can engage in a Spirit Christology more than other Christologies that have developed since New Testament times, such as various Arian and Trinitarian Christologies, as a result of this notion, and so, "Jesus" as a personal being and a chosen Messiah could pre-exist both as man and as the second member of the Godhead.