How to prove Jesus's divinity to those who believe in Eastern philosophy?

[Ben_Sinner]

A good way to evangelize people in the West is to point to the resurrection of Jesus as proof that he is the way, the life, and the truth.

The west has a more common view of there only being one life followed by an afterlife, or nothing at all.

The East views life as an infinite cycle where people are re-born/reincarnated until they reach enlightenment.

So if we were to use the ressurection of Jesus to them, they would say *“He was reborn, so he is a fraud. If he was the truth he would have broken the cycle of rebirth and never came back, like Buddha did”
*

So my question is, how to we try to prove Jesus as The Way to people who are adamant believers in re-birth/reincarnation?

 

[frangiuliano115]

A good way to evangelize people in the West is to point to the resurrection of Jesus as proof that he is the way, the life, and the truth.

The west has a more common view of there only being one life followed by an afterlife, or nothing at all.

The East views life as an infinite cycle where people are re-born/reincarnated until they reach enlightenment.

So if we were to use the ressurection of Jesus to them, they would say *“He was reborn, so he is a fraud. If he was the truth he would have broken the cycle of rebirth and never came back, like Buddha did”
*

So my question is, how to we try to prove Jesus as The Way to people who are adamant believers in re-birth/reincarnation?

Reread your 4th pp and then ask yourself Why Bother? They’ll believe what they believe.

However, as proof text for Christianity it would be this:

It is appointed for man to die ONCE and then the judgement.
Hebrews 9:27

Which cycle is it that Buddha broke? Your comment is unclear. Buddha never came back because he wasn’t God and never claimed to be God. Jesus said He was God and proved it with the resurrection.

There is no cycle…

Fran

 

[John_Martin]

It is necessary, Ben, that they see you are a member of “A People”, and that they are not members of that People. They can see you in front of them, see this People in their midst, but they are “outsiders” to this People.
Consider the sermon on the Mount - Jesus saw the crowds (which you could equate with those following eastern religions or philosophies), and so he did not call them, but he called to his disciples (the beginnings of the Apostolic Succession). He went, then, up onto the mountain and these disciples followed obediently behind him. The crowds saw this, just as those following eastern thought can see us as a People. Then Jesus sat down and taught his disciples, and the crowds, of course, listened in as Jesus was telling his disciples, this New People, who they are, “The salt of the earth”. So the crowds heard this Jesus person, who did so many wonderful things, telling his disciples they are the preservers of the world, by their virtuous lives of Grace in the midst of the world.

Seeing it from the outside, works on a person’s appetites to desire inclusion. The crowds and those following eastern teachings do not yet have the Holy Spirit, so they cannot yet grasp heavenly things. But they can see earthly things (such as us in their midst, and our earthly appearing actions) and can desire to join us. Once baptized, they are granted the Holy Spirit, with His Grace now infusing them, and new capacity and light in their souls to understand spiritual things, and to will the Father’s will, doing things now virtuously in the world themselves, driven by love for God with Them.

You are glad for your union with God, with Christ - they do not yet experience that goodness, but can see you (in your operations of love in the world) being glad. You will not convince them about heavenly ideas, but you can be Christ in their midst, so they would want to join in following after him and learn from him rather than being at a distance from him.

 

[crystal_waters]

We can’t make them believe…but what we can do is pray for God to grant the person the grace of conversion and all the graces they need to believe and be converted…and that includes praying for God for the person to receive the grace to believe that Jesus is the way, the life and the truth…

God bless you

Crystal waters

A good way to evangelize people in the West is to point to the resurrection of Jesus as proof that he is the way, the life, and the truth.

The west has a more common view of there only being one life followed by an afterlife, or nothing at all.

The East views life as an infinite cycle where people are re-born/reincarnated until they reach enlightenment.

So if we were to use the ressurection of Jesus to them, they would say *“He was reborn, so he is a fraud. If he was the truth he would have broken the cycle of rebirth and never came back, like Buddha did”
*

So my question is, how to we try to prove Jesus as The Way to people who are adamant believers in re-birth/reincarnation?

 

[AttendeDomine]

The East views life as an infinite cycle where people are re-born/reincarnated until they reach enlightenment.

They think this because they see growth in holiness and perfection as being solely the result of personal effort. How on earth could a dumb human being accomplish great sanctity when they’re constantly falling and constantly doing bad things? Obviously, they will say, one lifetime is not enough.

Ah! But the Christian understands the place of grace, and this is your entry-point.

For with grace, all things are possible.

Moreover, consider the life of Christ: God being incarnate, not to live in palaces and have thousands of virgins, not to live in utter pleasure, not to constantly make merry and have wonderful and opulent parties … like some of the Eastern gods … but to be beat and spit upon and scourged and mocked and crucified and killed.

The Eastern religions (that believe in deity) should come to realize how much their own gods are precisely the sort of thing one would want to believe in if they were making things up and making up pretty stories. But who on earth would make up something like the story of Christ? The Eastern gods make more sense to a human mind, but Christ?

This are things to reflect on for them. These aren’t “proofs” or formulas like F = ma, but they are points to ponder and they are openings for graces.

 

[frangiuliano115]

They think this because they see growth in holiness and perfection as being solely the result of personal effort. How on earth could a dumb human being accomplish great sanctity when they’re constantly falling and constantly doing bad things? Obviously, they will say, one lifetime is not enough.

Ah! But the Christian understands the place of grace, and this is your entry-point.

For with grace, all things are possible.

Moreover, consider the life of Christ: God being incarnate, not to live in palaces and have thousands of virgins, not to live in utter pleasure, not to constantly make merry and have wonderful and opulent parties … like some of the Eastern gods … but to be beat and spit upon and scourged and mocked and crucified and killed.

The Eastern religions (that believe in deity) should come to realize how much their own gods are precisely the sort of thing one would want to believe in if they were making things up and making up pretty stories. But who on earth would make up something like the story of Christ? The Eastern gods make more sense to a human mind, but Christ?

This are things to reflect on for them. These aren’t “proofs” or formulas like F = ma, but they are points to ponder and they are openings for graces.

Paragraphs 1 and 5.

Very good.

 

[thistle]

A good way to evangelize people in the West is to point to the resurrection of Jesus as proof that he is the way, the life, and the truth.

The west has a more common view of there only being one life followed by an afterlife, or nothing at all.

The East views life as an infinite cycle where people are re-born/reincarnated until they reach enlightenment.

So if we were to use the ressurection of Jesus to them, they would say *“He was reborn, so he is a fraud. If he was the truth he would have broken the cycle of rebirth and never came back, like Buddha did”
*

So my question is, how to we try to prove Jesus as The Way to people who are adamant believers in re-birth/reincarnation?

Modern Catholic Dictionary:

METEMPSYCHOSIS. The theory of the transmigration of human souls from one body, whether human or animal, to another. Taught by Plato (427-347 B.C.) and nowadays by theosophists, it is the single most characteristic feature of the Eastern religions, in the Vedic, mainly Hindu, and Buddhist traditions. (Etym. Greek meta, change + empsychos, animate.)

RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. The rising from the dead of Christ on the third day after his death and burial. Christ’s Resurrection is a basic truth of Christianity, which is expressed in all the Creeds and in all rules of faith of the ancient Church. He rose through his own power. The source of his Resurrection was the hypostatic union. The principal cause was the Word of God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit; the instrumental cause was the parts of Christ’s humanity, soul, and body, which were hypostatically united with the Godhead. When Scripture asserts (Acts 2:24; Galatians 1:1) that Christ was raised by God or by the Father, these statements are to be understood as referring to his humanity. All forms of rationalism in ancient and modern times – deceit hypothesis, apparent death hypothesis, vision hypothesis, symbolism hypothesis – deny Christ’s Resurrection. Yet nothing is more central in the faith as attested by Peter’s sermon on Pentecost and as defended ever since by the Church’s most solemn teaching authority.

The body of the risen Christ was in a state of glory, as is evident from circumstances of the appearances recorded in the Gospels and Acts, and from Christ’s supremacy over the limitations of space and time. The risen Christ retained the wounds in his transfigured body as tokens of his triumph over death (John 20:27).

Theologically the Resurrection, unlike the death of Christ, is not the meritorious cause of human redemption. It is the victorious completion of redemption. It belongs to the perfection of redemption and is therefore associated in the Scriptures with Christ’s death on the Cross as one complete whole. It is the model and, in the person of the risen Christ, the channel of grace for our spiritual redemption from sin and for our bodily resurrection on the Last Day.

 

[fred_conty]

The resurrection of Jesus is not a rebirth, but the same Jesus and therefore the same life as it had been and always will be. Death and rebirth means that that being is born of a mother, either the same mother or another mother. He did not have a rebirth from a mother, but he was life itself and proved he was God by remaining that life principle even in death. He was not reincarnated for he remains the same now and forever. Nor reborn but was remained alive even in death. In this way he showed that he was beyond rebirth/reincarnation.

 

[fisherman_carl]

I have a hard time believing that they would look at the Resurrection event and chalk it up to just another rebirth,like they see people being ressurected all the time.lol. I think the Resurrection would be a unique event for them as well.