Mormonism and the Doctrine of Pre-Existence Examined

Mormonism claims that the doctrine of Pre-existence stems from the Old and New Testament and therefore derivative of First Century Christianity.

Yet, when one looks at the doctrine and philosophy behind Pre-existence of Man's soul, one finds that this is based upon Plato's (327 - 347 BCE) assertions of the Origin and nature of Man's Soul. Furthermore, Origen taught that man's soul pre-existed, basing his assumption on Plato's philosophy.

Like Pythagoras, Plato admits the pre-existence of the nous,or divine soul of humanity, which chooses the existence for which it must incarnate. It survives the death of the body, and if it has not attained sufficient perfection to merit endless bliss, it must be subjected to new tests by reincarnating in order to attain further progress and perfection. In many other respects, particularly his emphasis on mathematics, Plato can be viewed as teaching in the Pythagorean tradition. { The Roots of Consciousness - Ancient Greece}

Origen's teaching on the Pre-existent soul departs the Platonic philosophy of man's pre-existent soul in this manner:

The earliest surviving Christian writings on the preexistence were from the Platonist Origen, who derived the doctrine from the writings of Plato. Origen believed that the soul was assigned a body as a penalty for its sin of looking downward toward the corrupt earth. The doctrine also derives in part from a repudiation of Greek thought by Tertullian, who argued that for each immaterial soul, a material body was created for it. {Wikipedia.org - Pre-existence}

But this was not the only resource into the idea of man's pre-existent soul. St. Augustine entreated the notion, and there had developed four hypothesis concerning the pre-existent doctrine: