Q; If we are eternal beings that live on after our physical bodies die, then where were Did we not exist ? Did we not exist ?

Jerry: The first premise of this question is false:

a....we are eternal beings....

This is leads to a false assumption:

b. Did we not exist prior to being born?

This leads to the false conclusion.

c. This means our souls pre-existed and continues through eternity.

This is where learning logic helps to arrive at a scriptural answer.

God is infinite, eternal and the Creator/cause of all that exists.

This is what God the Lord says—

the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,

who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,

who gives breath to its people,

and life to those who walk on it: Isaiah 42:5

“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,

“and my servant whom I have chosen,

so that you may know and believe me

and understand that I am he.

Before me no god was formed,

nor will there be one after me.

I, even I, am the Lord,

and apart from me there is no savior. Isiah 43:10 & 11

We are finite, caused/created/creature, and temporal.

...the Creator...who gives breath to its people.

Because God is eternal and we are created in His image, then the soul/spirit He breathed into us is eternal.

God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness...So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26 & 27

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man. Genesis 2:22

Notice that only Adam, the husband God berated into his body, the soul and spirit. But his wife's soul and spirit came from Adam's flesh.

This means the soul/spirit of child is created from the union of the father and mother to and eternal finite being from God's image.

There are three teachings on the organ of the soul

i. Pre-existence proposes that God created all human souls at the same time, prior to Genesis 1, and attaches a soul to a human being at the moment of conception. In other words, all the souls that will ever be were created and pre-existent before Adam. This view is not generally accepted as an orthodox option.

So from from what has been shown from the scriptures that only God is infinite and eternal, but we are finite and created. So this disproves this teaching. (source Theopedia)

ii. Creationism teaches that God directly creates all souls individually at the time of conception.

ii. Traducianism is the theory that a soul is generated in the process of procreation by the physical parents along with the body.

This view is biblical because we read:

One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor. Hebrews 7:9 & 10

Notice where the soul/spirit of Levi is mentioned:

Levi was still in the body of his ancestor.

This means our life begins at the moment of conception through the union of our parents. Our body, soul and spirit begins at the moment and continues from there.

Problems with the Creationism view

God is not the immediate cause of evil. So how can He be the direct creator of a sinful soul? Creationism seems to only work with a Traducian view of the sin nature.

Creationism makes God's work of creation continue past the Genesis sixth day where we are told that God ceased his creation activity.

Traducianism was held by Tertullian and many Westerns; since the Reformation by Lutherans; also by the Eastern church. Roman Catholics and most Reformed theologians are creationists, though Shedd and Strong favor traducianism. Modern studies in heredity and psychosomatic unity are indecisive, but can easily be interpreted on the traducianist side

Traducianist view

Support for Traducianism is as follows:

In Genesis 2:7, God breathed the breath of life into Adam, causing Adam to become a “living soul.” Scripture nowhere records God performing this action again.

Adam had a son in his own likeness (Genesis 5:3). Adam’s descendants seem to be “living souls” without God breathing into them.

Genesis 2:2-3 seems to indicate that God ceased His creative work.

Adam's sin affects all men – both physically and spiritually – this makes sense if the body and soul both come from the parents.

The weakness of Traducianism is that it is unclear how an immaterial soul can be generated from another soul. (source for quote is Theopedia)