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Toward the Light  

Can Reincarnation and Christianity work together?

The idea of reincarnation - that we live not one but many lives on Earth, interrupted by "sojourns" in a transcendental world - is consolidating itself quickly in the Western world. In Italy it is still misunderstood in many of its aspects, because the strong Catholic tradition asserts the absolute truth of the Christian Catholic doctrine, advising Catholics from relying on what is considered to be a doctrine far removed from our mentality, appropriate only for the Oriental cultures.
In spite of this, also in this country many persons, and not only the younger generations, as it is often stated, feel attracted to the idea of reincarnation. To these persons it seems the natural development of a divine plan, which does not admit injustice or preferential treatment on behalf of the Divinity. So, today the idea of reincarnation does not count the sole followers of Buddhism or other Oriental beliefs. In fact, if we study Buddhism as well as other sources directly, stripping them of some obvious human interpolations which are to be found in all religions, we discover how in reality the foundations of this theory are strong and harmonious, assertive of the principle of life and justice as they are. We see how the theory of reincarnation can also be serenely aligned with the teachings of love of Jesus Christ - and in a more complete manner than is the case for the many dogmas created by man during the 2000-year-old history of Christianity. And so we witness how the idea of reincarnation is bringing with it into the Western communities still stronger winds of novelty and hope.
Many persons do not know that in the beginning also Christianity was quite comfortable with this thought, and that reincarnation has indeed always been the subject of uncountable fervent discussions among theologians. Origines (approx. 185-254), one of the fathers of the Church, sustained the pre-existence of the souls. This was to him the logical consequence of the doctrine of immortality. And Origines never succeeded in hiding his irritation over the ideas of his contemporaries regarding Doomsday and the resurrection of the dead, concepts which were not accepted by him. In spite of the less than correct circumstances of the Council of Constantinopolis in 553, the apparent ban of the doctrine of reincarnation and other doctrines of Origines' has been generally accepted by the Church. But in reality the decision of the Fifth Ecumenic Council (Second Council of Constantinopolis) which was to ratify the ban, is to be considered invalid - in fact, no representative of Rome was present. Pope Vigilius was in Constantinopolis, but he refused to participate in the Council. Actually, after the Council he protested vehemently against the decisions made, and tried to annul them. The man who actually decided that the Council was to be considered valid, was the Roman emperor Justinian, who had held Pope Vigilius prisoner for several years, in order to be able to play his own game. Thus, technically, even today nothing prevents the Church from "reviving" the doctrines of Origines. (Source: Catholic Encyclopedia, the 1913 edition, IV, pp. 308-9; XI, pag. 311.)
In Northern Europe the idea of reincarnation is widely accepted. Even if the citizens of the North are Christian by tradition (with a vast majority of Protestants), many among them do not see contradictions between the faith in God, Father and Mother, and the concept of many lives on Earth undertaken to learn, grow spiritually and compensate for wrongs done and suffered. For many, very many, this seems a more just universal order, than does the idea that man is born but once, rich or poor as it may happen, in the far East or in a Western capital city.
The book "Toward the Light" presents us with the following considerations on the justice of God:

                                                            Which God is the more just?

He who judges the human spirit after one brief life on Earth; who demands blind obedience and belief without understanding; who demands, through his emissaries, that true faith shall be propagated by the sword; who sanctifies war; who is the supreme war lord to one of the warfaring parties, to the other or to all of them, and who thus contradicts himself; who selects one people as his own in preference to all other peoples?

                                                                               or:

He who allows human beings a sufficient number of earthly lives to mature their spirit and overcome the power of Darkness; who compels no one to blind obedience and blind faith in human dogmas; who through His emissaries calls constantly to human beings: you shall not kill, nor take by force, nor rob, nor plunder; who turns away in grief from human beings, when they wage deadly wars; who does not select one people, but who says: all human beings are equal before Me, all stand equally close to My Fatherly Heart?

We must choose by ourselves. What shall we think about such assertions? What shall we believe? How can we discover the truth?
Man has received a gift from God: spiritual life. It is our spiritual life that makes us different from the other living beings on this planet. And it is our spiritual life which gives us intelligence, thus enabling us to answer the questions we have, all our why's, with the help of another vital element: conscience.
Through conscience we may reach the truth, because conscience is the criteria which allows us to distinguish between order and confusion. However, we must pay attention: often our conscience tells us things which are contrary to what we thought to be the truth - until the moment when we firmly decide that we want to find the answer once and for all, following the route of objectivity. It can be arduous to succeed in following conscience, it entails a work of thought and of ruthless honesty towards ourselves, which the human being is not always willing to face. Sometimes it is easier and more comfortable to follow the already trodden paths.
So we end up continuing along those well-trodden paths. Until something serious happens to us. Perhaps a beloved person dies, and we do not understand the meaning of this loss. Or we are taken seriously ill, and we may even become angry with God, because we think we do not deserve this disease... unknowing that God has nothing to do with sickness or with death - these are things which are not part of His nature.
In such moments some lose faith, and some see their faith strengthened. But all feel lost before incomprehensible facts, which the Christian religions do not know how to explain. We are not satisfied with the consolation of Paradise, and Doomsday leaves us indifferent. We are even less satisfied by the assertion that God is mystery, and that only He knows, why these things must happen. Which God is this, a god who hides the truth for mankind, his creatures?
The questions return, more insisting than ever: Why did the life of this person have to be so short? Will he go to Paradise? Or to Hell... Perhaps he could be born again; perhaps God might let him return among us... The resurrection of the body is not even considered by intelligent persons: the earthly material, our physical body included, obeys the laws of nature, which are never broken by God. This leaves us with the possibility of the rebirth of the spirit - in another body, in another moment. Or with Nothingness, with the cold belief (yes, this is also a belief!) of the agnostics, according to which God does not exist, life is only what we see on Earth, and after death - nothing more. Nice to know, after all this work...
"God, why have you done this to me?" This desperate question is frequently pronounced by the person who is a victim of the confusion brought about by the Christian dogmas.
It is not God who performs the injustices of earthly life. It is not God who decides to "take away" from us a beloved person. It is not God who sends us diseases and suffering. If God is Love, it is easy to see the contradictions.
In the Catholic world the concept of "offering your suffering to God" is very common. In this way it seems suffering makes more sense. For some this may be so. Others are embittered and do not understand. Why do we have to suffer - perhaps God enjoys our suffering?
Jesus suffered on the cross, but I am a simple human being: why do I have to suffer? Whatever can I offer to God?
This is conscience which protests, rightly. There is nothing logical in the concept of offering your suffering to God. God is not happy, when we suffer. If we wish to offer God something truly precious, there are many valid alternatives: let us offer Him our sincerity, our curiosity of wanting to know the truth, our wish to know Him better. We must not be afraid to ask for His help to understand. It is important to begin this work of getting closer to understanding. It is a work which will take us far, very far, and which will give us unexpected joy - because nothing is more satisfying than reaching by ourselves the certainty of the pure and total Justice of our God and Father.
"Seek and you shall find". These words of the Bible are true - but it is also true that the person who does not seek will never find. The person, who thinks that all the truth that can be found has already been found within the sphere of religion, is wrong. Like the scientist will never stop searching and developing his discoveries, so neither the believer should stop before the neatly packed-and-ready religion. In a year or two the scientist will have made new discoveries, and so it is also within the spiritual area. Man is still growing, a hundred years ago he did not understand things which seem logical today, and in another hundred years he will look back and incredulously observe the darkness which surrounded human thought in the year 2000.
Reincarnation is one of the possibilities to study with greater commitment. It is not only a vague concept of a faraway Oriental religion. Reincarnation may be one of the Eternal Truths, one of those most misunderstood and mistreated.
It is a true alternative to the Hell and Paradise of our ancient Christian traditions, and it should be studied more in depth by everyone, theologians included.

                                                                                                                                                        U.S.Qvistgaard