One of my close friends believes in reincarnation. My Catholic education and faith leave me with no reason to believe in multiple lives. Among other things, my friend claims that all mention of reincarnation was removed from the Bible in the early centuries of the Church. Please provide me with some background on reincarnation, its presence in the Bible at any time in history and the Catholic Church’s position on it.
In A Concise Dictionary of Theology (Paulist, 1991), Jesuits Gerald O’Collins and Edward Farrugia describe reincarnation as “the belief, also called metempsychosis (Greek ‘animate afterward’), that souls inhabit a series of bodies and can live many lives on this earth before being completely purified and so released from the need to migrate to another body.
“According to this belief, the soul preexists its embodiment, and after death exists in a disembodied state before animating [inhabiting] once again a body of the same or a different species. In various forms, reincarnation has been accepted by Buddhists, Hindus, Neoplatonists and others.
“Belief in resurrection and official rejection of the preexistence of souls…rule out reincarnation. By maintaining an indefinite series of chances, the doctrine of reincarnation reduces the seriousness of God’s grace and human liberty exercised in one life that is terminated by a once-and-for-all death.”
In 1991 the Holy See’s International Theological Commission published Certain Aspects of Eschatology, which says: “Christianity defends duality, reincarnation defends a dualism in which the body is simply an instrument of the soul and is laid aside, existence by successive existence, as an altogether different body is assumed each time.
“As far as eschatology is concerned, the doctrine of reincarnation denies both the possibility of eternal damnation and the idea of the resurrection of the body. But the fundamental error is in the rejection of the Christian doctrine of salvation. For the reincarnationist the soul is its own savior by its own efforts” (Section 9.3).
Reincarnation denies the need to convert, about which Jesus spoke often. If souls keep recycling, won’t they all end up in the same place eventually? If so, why are our decisions today important?
Arguing that some major doctrine was originally in the Bible but was later removed strikes me as too easy a solution.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “When ‘the single course of our earthly life’ is completed, we shall not return to other earthly lives: ‘It is appointed for men to die once’ [Hebrews 9:27]. There is no ‘reincarnation’ after death” (#1013).
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6 thoughts on “What about Reincarnation?”
Dear Sir
There is, in my opinion, nothing in the Christian religion against reincarnation. This is especially intersting in that the Christ himself never spoke about this. On the other hand, your article premiss: “As far as eschatology is concerned, the doctrine of reincarnation denies both the possibility of eternal damnation and the idea of the resurrection of the body. But the fundamental error is in the rejection of the Christian doctrine of salvation. For the reincarnationist the soul is its own savior by its own efforts” (Section 9.3)” is likely wrong. I will not comment on eternal damnation, another “church created concept”. Though, the ultimate destinate of a soul is to be unified with the Christ, which suppose some efforts, believing, and not simply driving around… which can need a few existences, not true ?
Thank you for your understanding, best regards, Pierre
Catholics and Reincarnation are a mess now and the Pope should make a statement if we want to believe in it, to believe
Does not Jesus’ claim that John the Baptist is “Elijah who was to come” (Matt 11:14) suggest that Christ Himself believed a human soul could reincarnate in a second human form on Earth? If a soul can reincarnate in a new body for the fulfillment of divine prophecy, does it not also stand to reason that this may similarly occur outside the realms of prophetic fulfillment?
We must first define our terms and then debate; otherwise we will go around in circles. Resurrection, duality, salvation, savior, and convert, just to name a few from this article.
In some ways cyclical reincarnation, leading up to a final, “end of the age” resurrection of all souls, makes better sense to me than the idea of physical (matter) resurrection. The cosmos, which is looking more and more like it’s infinitely cyclical (as Nobel laureate Roger Penrose posits), seems the ideal architecture to manifest a cyclical life of the soul rather than any entropy defying “matter reassembly” (physical resurrection). Some kind of Divine karmic “law of nature” must undergird this cyclical universe. And proposing this concept cannot negate our Christian hope although it would challenge reflexive (dogmatic) views of the path to the eternal afterlife. I think karma and trans migration of souls make far better sense of the here and now, as well as the world to come.
Can General Relativity be applied to human life if so who knows what may be possible.