Paul Derengowski, author of Biblical Forgiveness versus Mormon Forgiveness, and proprietor of the Capro.info Website, recently tweeted the following:
Mormons love to talk about a "pre-existence." But stop and think about what it means to exist in a state of PRE-existence. (URL)
Paul is a Trinitarian and so affirms the eternal pre-existence of Jesus. He would have no consistent answer to a Socinian (e.g., Sir Anthony Buzzard) if they tweeted the following:
Trinitarians love to talk about a “pre-existence” of Jesus. But stop and think about what it means to exist in a state of PRE-existence.
The “existence” LDS use (and those who affirm the personal pre-existence of Jesus use for Christ) refers to mortal existence; it is not a state of existing and not existing simultaneously. That is how the term has been used in Christological circles for centuries. So, not only does Paul think personal incredulity is a meaningful response to LDS theology vis-à-vis universal pre-existence, but also could not be consistent in his critique of LDS theology while affirming the eternal pre-existence of Jesus (double-standards).
In reality, the Latter-day Saint affirmation of universal pre-existence is the only model that allows for the true humanity of Jesus while affirming his conscious pre-existence. As I explained in a previous thread interacting with Anthony Buzzard’s arguments against personal pre-existence:
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.
Of course, this is tied into the area of Latter-day Saint Christology and how it is LDS Christology, not Trinitarianism, that presents the true biblical Jesus. Hopefully as one has seen, the critic’s personal incredulity and poorly-thought out “argument” backfires against him on many levels.
