Does Job 38 allow for a LDS preexistence?

“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”. (Job 38:1-7)

Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, teach of a preexistence in which all of humanity existed as spirit children of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother before the world was created. This LDS doctrine is heralded as one of the most precious truths of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and often evokes quite an emotional response by those in the LDS Church.

Yet Christian doctrine teaches that humans were created with both a body and a spirit, and that we did not preexist prior to being born on earth. The question of preexistence in the Bible was something we addressed in one of our previous God Loves Mormons videos (https://youtu.be/GHQbcBSG8us) One often quoted passage that supports this idea is John 8:23. Yet there was another helpful text that we didn’t include in that video which speaks to this idea: Job 38:1-7.

 In this video, we explain why the Mormon view of a preexistence is incompatible with the teaching of Job 38. Joseph Smith taught this doctrine that had previously not been taught in the Bible, and that is made clear when one considers the host of verses that reveal that there is no such thing as the preexistence.