The following is drawn from 30 Philosophers. For a deep dive into existence, read chapters 6, 16, 22, and 31. For a deep dive into how humans are shaped by experience, read chapters 5, 7, 17, and 27.
Introduction
In most religions, especially the Abrahamic religions, your essence exists within another realm before your existence on Earth. In some religions, that essence is in the form of a soul, for others, it’s just the essence of you with no continuous connection to your new life.
In philosophy, this is known as the existence and essence debate. For sure, we are born, experience life, and become something in this life. We grow up, learn, and find our place in the world. In a real sense, at least on Earth, we exist first and then transform our essence with our occupation, hobbies, family, and friends. However, both philosophy and religion debate whether we exist before and after this life. That’s the existence and essence debate.
Let’s take this in two parts: existence before essence, then essence first.
Part 1: Existence Before Essence
The “Existence Before Essence” position of this debate says that you are born first, you exist as a blank slate with cognitive abilities and instincts, and then you and society mold you into you, into your essence.
In this view, humans are part of the animal kingdom and the question of a creator is a big part of what might be the most human of all traits: our awareness that we did not exist before, and will not exist again.
Aristotle once said,
“The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”
In my writing, I use the example of a chair. As in, the chair is something more than just pieces of wood. When a chair comes into existence, it has a lifespan. There exists a time before and a time after its existence. The chair was born from wood parts. It existed than it took on essence. Put a light Stain on it and it has a sense of formality. Stain it darker, a different type of essence. Remove the stain and paint it green, its essence is now that of a green chair. If a piece breaks, you replace it. It’s still that chair. Some day, it will no longer exist as a chair.
In science, philosophy, and religion, they are pursuing these questions trying to figure out whether there is a realm other than the material world. In philosophy, this is often referred to as substance. As in our realm is one substance and everyone is debating whether another substance exists, whether that other substance is heaven or something else.
Part 2: Essence Before Existence
The Essence Before Existence position argues that before you are born, your essence—your fundamental nature or purpose—already exists. Whether as a soul, an intrinsic purpose, or a predetermined essence, you are not simply a blank slate upon arrival. Your existence, then, is an unfolding of what was already there, rather than a construction from nothing. This is sometimes thought of as Platonic. As in a view like or within the context of Plato’s Realm of Forms.
Many religious traditions embrace this view. In Christianity and Islam, the soul preexists earthly life and continues beyond it, destined for a higher plane. In Hinduism, the essence of the self—atman—moves through cycles of reincarnation, shaped by karma. Even in non-theistic traditions like Platonism, the Forms suggest that the ideal version of something exists before its physical manifestation. To these worldviews, existence is not a random occurrence but the realization of something deeper, something predetermined.
Philosophically, this concept resonates in existentialism’s inverse: thinkers like Kierkegaard and certain interpretations of Heidegger suggest that we discover our essence rather than create it. In this sense, life is not about constructing meaning from nothingness but about uncovering the essence that was always there. Even those who reject the idea of a soul often seek meaning beyond the material—whether through legacy, purpose, or a belief in an interconnected universe. This impulse itself suggests that, on some level, many of us behave as though our essence precedes our existence.
Conclusion
Metaphysics, the branch of philosophy exploring being and reality, investigates what exists and how they exist. You are born a human, you can’t change that, but the essence of you, your identity either evolves as you age or you were born with your identity. In 350 BCE, Plato proposed a realm of Forms and said you are born with it all. Aristotle disagreed. In about 1000 CE, Avicenna said your “essence precedes your existence.” In the 1900s, Sartre comes along and says nope again, “your existence precedes your essence.” Meanwhile, science has largely sided with Aristotle and Sartre.
