I’m reading a book called “Reincarnation in Christianity,” by Geddes McGregor.

He seems to be an Anglican who values “Catholic” tradition, and contends that the Catholic Church has never formally condened reincanation.

He argues that purgatory (or the intermediate state) is best understood as a condition, not a place, and sees it as a state of reincarnation here on earth.

My only criticism would be that he seems to accept the opinion (prevelant in the Middle Ages) that almost everyone goes to purgatory (i.e. is reincarnated here on earth), and I see no reason to assume that.

He therefore gives reincarnation a much bigger role in God’s plan than I would see ( as my primary interest is in souls who never really lived in the flesh, like my sister.)

He doesn’t deny a final resurrection (to glory, with and through Christ), and neither he nor I would see much stength to the argument that Hebrews 9:7 says man dies only once (as it doesn’t say “only once,” or speak of “only one” judgement, and scripture testifies of men who died more than once.)

Any thoughts?

His view seems to parallel Hindu/Buddhist teaching on karma, which smacks against the teachings of Christian redemption.

Jesus seemed to teach (perhaps a loose definition) of karma, from what I understand of it:

Not that it’s even fulfilled in this life necessarily - but that seems to be a huge theme of his Sermon on the Mount. Redemption, to me, speaks of salvation from sin and not the consequences of sin necessarily… not that we can’t be saved from those, too.

Anyway, on the main topic of this thread, reincarnation seems an odd belief to me. I don’t see how someone could become another person. It just doesn’t make sense to me. It does make sense to me that in a way we are all one (especially viewing humanity from outside of time).

On the note of scripture, there’s only one reference I’m aware of that would seem at first glance to allow for reincarnation. There was a prophecy in Malachi:

And in reference to John the Baptist Jesus said,

This almost sounds like he was saying that Elijah reincarnated as John the Baptist, a controversial teaching “if you are willing to accept it.” But is it plausible? No, but why not?

Well, for one thing, the disciples all saw Elijah with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, but they didn’t identify him with John the Baptist in the least, which would be quite odd if he did reincarnate as the Baptist.

But there are other explicit references that demonstrate that he absolutely wasn’t, for instance from the horse’s mouth:

Then what’s the explanation for what Jesus said? Here it is:

He did the same thing that Elijah did in preparing for the prophet of grace, who for him was Elisha. Jesus’ qualification “if you can accept it” was merely to quell the belief that Elijah was going to literally descend from heaven and prepare the way, but that wasn’t the actual intent of the prophecy.

I’m sorry, but reincarnation is still one of those things that doesn’t make any sense to me. Though it might seem romantic and fantastical sometimes, as in the verses:

I think it’s far more romantic to say that we are all connected and live and die together, that we can know each other intimately, that we can empathize and love and forgive and be reconciled, and share the same deep bond with everyone. That the same Spirit that knows them deeply is the same Spirit that know us. I would much rather that be the case anyway, and have many more people to love, than a relatively (in comparison) few amount of souls…

On the topic of people who never really got to live, I understand that that’s what’s near and dear to your heart about this issue. But is it so bad to think that your sister is in bliss? Or perhaps that there’s a halfway realm for learning and growing. Jesse Duplantis has them in his own vision in heaven learning the oracles of God from the angels. I personally see no problem with that.

I see such a problem that I would have to reject the Bible as a hopelessly contradictory myth, if it clearly said that the unborn could simply skip this world and go straight to heaven (while talking about God working out some purpose here on earth. telling us to do our part with fear and trembling, and saying that we must enter bliss thru much tribulation.)

The problem is that it rings untrue, and makes everything we teach look like a combination of contradictory myths and wishful thinking.

It’s somewhat like what Universalists say about ET.

(That it leads men to doubt the reality of any post-mortem judgement, because it’s so unreasonable.)

The idea that my sister went straight to bliss is no comfort to me, because the more you insist on it, the less inclined I am to believe there’s any such thing as an afterlife (or a loving God with a purpose to anything He does.)

So you’re insisting that your sister go through some kind of tribulation before entering the kingdom? Very well, but that doesn’t discount some kind of halfway realm where she would learn and go through trials much like on earth. I don’t see any problem with that, either. I simply reserve the unknowns to God until it becomes insistent upon me to look into the matter. Why must it be such an issue when scriptures seem to be silent on the matter? Because of the vain theologies of man? Why not just trust in our ever-loving God and ask Him if He can enlighten your heart with an answer on it?

By the by, I just now started looking through your other thread on searching (which I hadn’t read before, sorry) and I’d like to say that I don’t think you are necessarily a heretic. I’m not inclined to pronounce such a thing, and I don’t really know what would constitute that, nor does it concern me. I could be labeled heretic for very many things that I believe. But whatever the case, I think your search is honest and touching, and deserves an answer from God at some point sooner or later.

I’m not even saying that limited reincarnation would necessarily be heretical, just that it doesn’t make sense to me personally. But what do I know? I’m a mere mortal; God is all-wise.

EDIT: I just saw the article linked in the other thread too, and want to respond to it:

I don’t necessarily believe that because a baby would be in a place that we call heaven or bliss that their free will would cease to exist. I don’t mean that a dead baby would automatically be saved and sanctified, but that perhaps it would end up in the place prepared for those who have sought and found God, and from there be able to make a choice for or against him. But as I said before, I’m not really sure one way or the other.

In the other thread, I said this:

I’m not sure that things have to happen in just such a way for everyone. It seems to me that the scriptural theme is of a collective fall and a collective redemption (which melds quite nicely with universalism as well). In Adam we all sinned. Perhaps even fetuses have some very small degree of choice as well? And perhaps John the Baptist did choose to be filled. I don’t know. Maybe that small amount of life was all that was necessary for your sister. Not even all of those who come to the so-called “age of accountability” develop to the same degree. After all, if it’s the spirit that has free will, then…

There’s also the belief (expressed in a vision that I respect, too) that as spirits we chose our mortal lives before we were born.

I think the “Uglies” in MacDonald’s “Princess and Curdie” were reincarnated people. The gift that the Grandmother gave to Curdie (the ability to perceive the animal that was growing withing a corrupt person) also pointed to that idea.

The TV series “Ashes to Ashes” was an interesting portrayal of purgatory also.

It all seems fair enough to me. If every person must cast off the old and put on the new, and if this must be done willingly, and is painful, the process must happen in a context where such things can happen. If we don’t leave sin behind in this life, perhaps we will in the next. Sooner or later, we must endure the fire. Whether this purification happens in our world or another is less important than knowing it will happen. But who can doubt the sooner it happens, the better.

Blessed are those who mourn. They will be comforted.

Reincarnation to me, feels like robbery; as it robs the person of his or her unique identity, or “personhood” - that which makes me, me, is effectively annihilated and cheapened by the constant reiteration of nearly completely separate lives. I cease to be me, but become instead thousands of other people, I no longer exist as a unique person - but as a conglomeration of forgotten memories, little more than fuel to animate an organic machine.

If I reincarnate, “Lefein” is annihilated and replaced with Susie, or Jim, or Bob…and whom ever this person that replaces me is, that person too is effectively annihilated when they die and are reincarnated. The only thing that passes on, is my “spiritual nutrients, and a spark” to light up another bodily machine.

In this mode, Christ does not love “me” - and I am nothing more than soul-coal to power an organic engine. My identity is stolen by a usurper, my “next life” isn’t mine, any more than Lefein’s life belongs to my “past life”.

On top of this, to me (and it might not make sense to others) but it feels ultimately gross to be reincarnated, and cheapening; and certainly impermanent. My experiences, my relationships (even with God), my hopes, dreams, legacy, destiny, and what ever goodness in me is without lasting value.

For me, for example. When I marry - my love and relationship with the girl I marry I intend to last forever. Even after the vows and contract system of marriage have been long dissolved in the resurrection - my love and relationship (the true binding of two hearts, Love not Law) shall continue in ever perfecting perfection. In essence, I and my dear girl shall be immortal, and immortally in love after we’ve shed our bodies and ended our pilgrimage here.

To me, marriage is more than a mere “utilitarian” relationship for making babies, and keeping yourself from fornicating…It is an actual true-love expression meant to last for as long as Love himself lasts.

If reincarnation is true, then my wife and I will reincarnate…and our love which was meant to last forever as a monogamous expression - didn’t last more than 80, 90. 120+ years. I lose the love of my life forever, she is replaced, and so am I, by people who are not us. We are eternally divorced, as well as annihilated. She, and I, die, and never live again. There is no resurrection, or continuance for us. We are superseded as beings by the next life, who use our life-essence as fuel, like a parasite on its host. And if this were not so, and infact by some shere dark miracle I did pass on as Lefein, and remained Lefein (and was not superseded by the life of Bob, or Susie, or Jim) - then I have still lost forever my true love…and to me, that is too much to bear.

Especially since I would feel in my spirit the pain of what to me, is adultery, and abandonment. My love (if she were not superseded by the next life in her cycle) would have been with, or found others…I no longer would have any place in her heart; or else if she did not, we’d be on a fruitless, painful, and torturous search for one another in a large world.

Either way; Reincarnation as far as I’ve seen it leads to impermanence and cheapness of life’s experiences. Either by making those experiences a constant game of “tease the cat” between two souls (a cruel game, full of pain and agony) or it effectively annihilates the individual, and replaces it with another - the human being becomes little more than “soul-coal”.

This is why I find it displeasing.

As for babies being reincarnated, I still believe it implies the same as the above. The child’s identity - however, or where ever it may develop, here or in Heaven, or glorified Earth, or what have you - is effectively destroyed by the usurping-replacing next life in the cycle. In my opinion a baby named “Amy” if she died in the womb - would cease to be “Amy” if she reincarnated and lived her next life (for example) to ripe old age as a 90 year old biker man, a former marine named Seth McGruffingbuffic…nothing of Amy could possibly exist in that…except the soul-coal (formerly Amy) used to animate the would be Sergeant Seth.

Effectively, reincarnation doesn’t give “Amy” any experience in being “Amy” at all. Amy is annihilated, used as fuel, and then replaced with Seth.

As I’ve espoused in other threads, I do not see “growing to adulthood” or “going through a certain number of trials in a gauntlet” as a pre-requisite for being with God, or being perfected. Though I have a difficult time explaining it all myself, as I did in the other thread.

Grace through Faith, this is what defeated Death, and through God we overcome Death which separates us.

In our life, we are all doing two things - fulfilling our earthly destinies, however long, or short that may be (for what God has purposed us to do here); and also going through the process of overcoming Death.

Fulfilling our earthly destinies is simple enough. We enter the stage, we exist, we play our part, we go to God to wait for the play to finish.

Overcoming Death - Through Christ, Father and Holy Ghost; God who is a fire, who is the All Consuming Fire - we overcome Death as he did, and live. Being sanctified one way or another, cleaned of the dross or the dirt we pick up as we walk into the world, or through it.

A simplified way of speaking, but it is a quick way to just summarise that I don’t see how “skipping this world” (which isn’t skipping it at all, its just a shorter stay than yours is) somehow puts the children at a disadvantage or makes God unjust in his dealings with the lives of men - considering that the fallen world is temporary at best, and our Real Home, Real Lives, Real Selves, and our Real Experience is to be done in the Resurrection.

The New Heaven and Earth are not retirement, or the “end” - it is the actual, and eternal Life of mankind. This “fallen” phase of existence - is little more than God purging, and preparing the real thing to be “the real thing” as he intended.

As I often say; God made everything Good…He intends to make everything Glorious.

You feel that way because you’ve lived a life here.

You’ve developed a unique identity with interpersonal relationships and memories that make you “you.”

What would an infant who dies at birth have to be “annihilated” or “cheapened” by ccoming back and actually living a life outside the womb (as you have)?

Why could she not take whatever she had of a unique personality back with her, and build upon it the same kind of interpersonal relationships and memories that make you “you”?

Thank you.

I do not believe I have “developed” a unique identity, I believe that I am a unique identity already and have always been as long as I have existed; who has over time developed, expressed, and grown in it over time.

The development is not the source of my identity, my identity is the receiver of development, where ever that development may take place or how ever it might occur. In this world, or the next.

The issue is that the baby (whom I have hypothetically named “Amy”) does not come back. Amy ceases to exist upon reincarnation, being replaced by another ego, another person, another life.

The example reincarnation scenario equation is this; Amy (who died in the womb) reincarnates as Seth (who lives to be 80).

Amy does not really experience anything - Seth does. Amy does not have any interpersonal relationships - Seth does. Amy does not come back - Seth takes her place. Effectively, reincarnation does not serve to develop Amy, she is at best merely used as animating energy (in what amounts to solely benefiting the development of Seth). Amy effectively ceases to exist as a unique individual.

If the scenario were such however, that Amy came back as Amy and lived her life as Amy would have lived it (had she not died in the womb) and developed as Amy - then this is not reincarnation, but is effectively resurrection.

I do not consider you a heretic, just to be clear. Only, I do not see the viability, or importance of reincarnation (and think it a negative thing actually, and even the Eastern Religions ultimately find Reincarnation to be a bad thing).

I also do not mean to discourage you, considering the nature of your relative’s passing. I just think that there is something much better than reincarnation, that I simply have a significantly hard time expressing at the moment.

The unborn live, the dead at birth live, and the young dead also live. Grace through Faith has saved their lives as much as it has saved the life of the old and elderly pastor who has seen the whole world and lived through it. Not through works, or “karmic development, and perfection of the personhood” but through the living Life.

The idea that God has of each of us is good, beautiful, eternal and indestructible, and God will not rest until that idea is actualized. He is the potter. Whether it takes one life or several for God to form the pot to his liking, who can say? It’s sheer speculation. Perhaps when you are perfected, all your past lives will come flooding back, and you will be a far greater being than if you had lived but one life and been but one “personality”. Even in this life, most of what I’ve experienced has been forgotten. That also is daylight robbery, but since I believe no good thing will be lost, I can live with that. In God’s good time, He will give me back those memories, but only when I am ready to know what to do with them.

Thank you Allan.

I wrote a novel a few years ago where the main villain was utterly destroyed. On reflection, I realized much of her evil character was caused more by ill-chance than by ill-choice, and now I’m working on her redemption. The idea is to have her reborn under better circumstances and grow into a good person. She then must battle her evil self, when the horrible reality of her past life is revealed. It’s like the Gollum-Smeagol conversation, except Smeagol is given a much better chance of winning the argument.

I would be exceedingly displeased if I were a reincarnated being (just being honest here).

I am not built to be a recycled being, even if it would make me somehow greater - I am built to be immortal. As are my relationships meant to be immortal ones.

It would serve me little benefit if all my “good memories of past lives” flooded back to me, only to realise that my most precious moments and relationships in even one of these lives (which I’d thought were special) were infact merely utilitarian, convenient for the time…temporal, or circumstantial - not eternal. Under reincarnation, I am not beautiful as a being, and my once special relationships would be made bland, also my most long for ideals will never be realised, and will infact be invalidated, or denied.

And worse, in all of this I would have no exclusive place to offer to the one whom will have that place eternally throughout every possible age of our existence. It wouldn’t be worth giving, to me reincarnation subjects me to the definite loss of what is to me almost a form of spiritual virginity, if that makes sense. It would also mean the destruction of my identity, as I’ve expressed before; it would not enhance me or make me greater - “me” would exist no more, not perfected but lost, or lost under (thousands?) of other lives.

Lefein,
I agree with you. My thoughts of reincarnation have taken me down the same path. When we speak of being perfected then exactly how is it that reincarnation really addresses the issue? How many times must a person reincarnate and is there really such a status as “prefect”? Do we reach godhood?

If I believe God is eternal then an obvious question (we’ve all thought of at some time or another) is how many creations are there. Similarly we think the only thing that makes a person a person is that they get to experience what we think they must in order to be a person. I doubt this life is required to make a person. Def. life is required for experience but I see no contradiction in God making a fully aware and learned person, like asking, did Adam have a belly button. Well I assume the answer for some (libertarians) is no God could not have made it such because the belly button requires an embilical cord (spelling). Where I see no contradiction in saying if God can make food from the sky then I assume he could have made Adam with a button (and no I don’t real the Eden story literally - I’m only using it as an illustration).

But to say that I will one day awaken to all my past relationships and realize that my daughter was someone else’s daughter and my mother was only one of many, makes me cringe. If an infant dies, I see no reason why God can’t raise up that child in his kingdom to a fully mature person. That person will surely lack the experience that we receive but perhaps God has other plans for that person.

Similarly, it reminds me of Craig Lane who argues that when we get to heaven we will no longer have free will. Where as I understand Talbott to say that’s where free will is most fully blossomed. I agree with Talbott - in Christ we are free because we no longer live in ambiguity. Whereas, Craig (relying heavily on a Free Will defense - molinism) seems to see the greatest facet of life, that is we’re free from God to choose and in heaven we’ll be envoloped with God that we’re no longer free but enslaved to righteoussness. (I’m speculating on Craig’s views on such matters from reading his essays).

Aug

Sleep is like death, and every awakening is a mini-reincarnation. The person who goes to bed is not quite the same as the one who gets up in the morning. Some molecules are different. The relationship between them is different. Most memories have been lost. Some understanding has been gained. The personality changes by a whisker.

Over time, the effect is considerable, for good or ill. I bear little resemblance to the toddler I once was. Were I to meet that child in a time-warp, I doubt I would recognize my own self. In the same way, many say their spouse is “not the person I married.”

I believe God will restore and reconcile all things, including all my past experiences. How far back those forgotten memories go, into what other worlds, I cannot say. “Before I was formed in my mother’s womb, You knew me,” says the psalmist. It’s fun to speculate on, but nothing more. If I one day discover I am far, far older than I thought, I’d not be surprised. Then again, every creature must at some point be created, and maybe for me, the moment of my conception was indeed that point.

Then I suppose the tires on my car are experiencing reincarnation? After all they change as well; molecules are lost, some are oxadized and hardened. - lol I knew you would love that one Allan.