Do souls exist in heaven before we enter earth?

[qfnol31]

Wanna get confused, talk about "imaginery time."

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Nov 9 2004, 06:00 PM'] The problem with us having eternal souls is that we wouldn't change, meaning we wouldn't have free will. [/quote]
Ah, but just because we would exist in a higher dimension - a "sub" eternity-eternity - doesn't mean we would exist in infinity...God alone is infinite; eternity is merely an attribute of infinity and refers to time. Thus, there could be a higher plane of time outside of space-time in this universe and there would still be infinity (where changlessness resides) beyond that. Hugh Ross (an evangelical astro-physicist) wrote an interesting book about this, I think. When my wife gets home, I'll copy the essay I wrote on her laptop over to this site.

[cmotherofpirl]

Definitions help:
ETERNITY. In its full sense, duration of being without beginning, succession, or ending. Only God possesses the fullness of eternity, since only he always existed (no beginning), has no succession (no change), and will never end (no cessation). It is defined Catholic doctrine that God possesses the divine Being in a constant undivided now. His eternity is the perfect and simultaneous total possession of interminable life.

Rational creatures share in God's eternity, but only approximate it, by participation. Angels have a beginning, and they have a succession of past, present, and future, but they have no cessation since they are pure spirits that will never die or cease to be. Human beings likewise have a beginning and they have succession, but unlike the angels they will die in body, to be later resurrected, while the souls live on forever. In God's absolute power, however, angels and human souls could be deprived of existence. Their eternity depends on the goodness and will of God.

[homeschoolmom]

I think Mormons hold to the idea that souls are in heaven waiting for bodies... sorta like a cosmic gumball machine... if your soul is next, you get the next body born...

[franciscanheart]

Yeha the soul to my understanding, as it has already been stated, is not created until conception.

BAH--->what zach and micah said.


and the whole eternity thing.... its confusing the mess out of me. i mean i follow what yall are saying but to think about it.... its confusing. it really is beyond our understanding.

[cmotherofpirl]

God possesses eternity, since he has been around the whole time. We take part in eternity because God permits us to. We are the actors, he is the playwright.

Edited November 10, 2004 by cmotherofpirl

[qfnol31]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Nov 10 2004, 06:48 AM'] Definitions help:
ETERNITY. In its full sense, duration of being without beginning, succession, or ending. Only God possesses the fullness of eternity, since only he always existed (no beginning), has no succession (no change), and will never end (no cessation). It is defined Catholic doctrine that God possesses the divine Being in a constant undivided now. His eternity is the perfect and simultaneous total possession of interminable life.

Rational creatures share in God's eternity, but only approximate it, by participation. Angels have a beginning, and they have a succession of past, present, and future, but they have no cessation since they are pure spirits that will never die or cease to be. Human beings likewise have a beginning and they have succession, but unlike the angels they will die in body, to be later resurrected, while the souls live on forever. In God's absolute power, however, angels and human souls could be deprived of existence. Their eternity depends on the goodness and will of God. [/quote]
Cmom, would you say that eternity means for angels and humans immortality?


For everyone else, the definition of eternity that I have learned in philosophy is close to one moment. Only an unchanging being (God) can be eternal. Other creations (with rational souls) are immortal, and they only partake in eternity through time or aeveternity.

[Apotheoun]

The idea that souls pre-exist their life on earth was condemned at the 5th Ecumenical Council of Constantinople III in its anathemas against Origen. As the Council Fathers put it, "If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema."

[qfnol31]

There you are.

[Paladin D]

Wow, thanks guys!

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Nov 10 2004, 02:34 PM'] The idea that souls pre-exist their life on earth was condemned at the 5th Ecumenical Council of Constantinople III in its anathemas against Origen. As the Council Fathers put it, "If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema." [/quote]
But what is being theorized here is not that the souls weren't created (true pre-existence) but that after having a beginning, and ultimately participating in the divinity of God, they may exist in a dimension outside of this universe's time-space, though still in a time-space of their own. And, since that time-space would be able to perceive this universe's time-space as we might perceive a single straw, with a beginning (creation) and an end (culmination), it would then - from the straws perspective - be eternal, yet still subject to the infinity the pervades and extends beyond it (God; true eternity).

[Ziggamafu]

p.s. regardless, i don't assert, teach, or fully believe that. it's just something i've been thinking about as a possability and so far don't see being contradictory to anything in the Deposit.

[Guest Aluigi]

no. eternity is made subject to time for the sake of bringing human souls into eternal life. someone enters heaven at a point of time, while heaven exists outside of time.

[Guest Aluigi]

yeah, anyway, i remember thinking up an idea like that a couple years ago.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' date='Nov 10 2004, 07:13 PM'] But what is being theorized here is not that the souls weren't created (true pre-existence) but that after having a beginning, and ultimately participating in the divinity of God, they may exist in a dimension outside of this universe's time-space, though still in a time-space of their own. And, since that time-space would be able to perceive this universe's time-space as we might perceive a single straw, with a beginning (creation) and an end (culmination), it would then - from the straws perspective - be eternal, yet still subject to the infinity the pervades and extends beyond it (God; true eternity). [/quote]
Souls are not 'eternal' in the proper sense of the term, because they are created and they come into being at a particular moment in time. Now, when a man particpates in the uncreated grace of God he takes on certain attributes of God in an [i]energetic[/i], but not in an [i]essential[/i] way, and thus man becomes uncreated and eternal through his participation in God's uncreated energies. But it is heretical to say that man is by nature 'eternal', i.e., [i]essentially[/i] eternal, so anyone who speaks of souls pre-existing before this earthly life is proposing a heretical proposition already condemned by the Church. It is important to distinguish between the [i]essential[/i] and [i]energetic[/i] modes of God's being, the former is incommunicable, while the latter is communicable.