Lady Ann Conway and Her Questions
December 30, 2009 4 Comments
The most prolific of the Cambridge Platonists, Henry More, put his views on preexistence into poetry (1647). Ann Conway wrote to him several years later with the following very interesting questions which I have edited slightly for readability:
1. Did God create matter for the enjoyment of (preexisting) souls, since they fell by it? (becoming embodied was a step down)
2. Could a soul enjoy matter without being clothed [embodied] in it? If it could not, how can it be the Fall of the Soul that makes it Assume a Body?
3. Your supposition is that most of the souls fell. Why didn’t they all assume bodies together: and how can Adam be said to be the first man, and all men fall in him, since they fell before: and how the souls of beasts and plants came into bodies?
4. How can man be restored to what he fell from and why the devils who also fell, cannot? Why Christ’s death should extend more to one than the other?
Of course all this fits in the background of preexistence discussions from the time of Augustine and before. The CPs were basically “Origenists.” Origen held that souls either “fell” from their heavenly estate by sin, or chose to yield to the “temptation” of embodiment. Augustine added the possibility that they were “sent” from heaven to earthly dwelling houses (bodies). Conway’s questions were penetrating and apply in some ways to certain aspects of Mormonism. By the way, if you want to read something verging on the ridiculous, check out the wikipedia entry for preexistence.
I found Conway’s questions in Givens’ book When Souls Had Wings.