Reincarnation among Catholics?

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Ahimsa:
I’m non-Catholic, but curious as to how Catholics in the pews view the idea of reincarnation. I know reincarnation is officially not part of Catholic tradition, but I’ve found in this forum that Catholics are just as diverse – if not more diverse – than those dreaded Protestants. 😃
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We’re certainly diverse 😃​

As to reincarnation - one problem with it, is that doesn’t really fit with belief in judgement at the end of one’s life; no matter how much one might try to make a place for it.

Another is, that reincarnation is incompatible with the character of the Gospel as a Gospel of Grace. For me, this is a fatal objection to all attempts to find a place for reincarnation in Christianity. Bhakti in some form would be admissible, AFAICS - but not a long cycle of perpetual rebirths.

A reason for not believing in continued rebirths, is that Christianity is a religion which takes history very seriously - it is not (in that sense) a mythological religion. It is basic to Christianity that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended into Hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sits upon the right hand of the Father…”

The mythological language is anchored in everyday history by being linked to a crucifixion under a Roman prefect of no great distinction but certain date (26-36 AD, for those interested); the crucifixion of God is one of the most important events of all time. And it is unrepeatable, final, canonical, redemptive, and creative. And Christians are implicated in it. So are all men. So there is no room for a cycle of rebirths or of etere nal recurrences: every event is unique in value, and definitive because it is caught up into the coming of the Definitive Christ.

I don’t have a problem with the notion of human pre-existence - I don’t believe it myself (I don’t know anyone claiming to be Christian who does) but I don’t think it is as much of a difficulty to the “mere Christian” POV (or to a specifically “Papist” one) as reincarnation.

I do sometimes wonder whether there is a common stock of religious ideas - purgation, hell, gods as avatars of greater gods, one god as many and many as aspects of one unique deity, fasting, ecstasy, poverty, salvation, sin, etc.,etc., etc., - because a lot of ideas & things do seem to turn up in some surprising guises and in unlikely places.

But that doesn’t answer your question 😃 ##
 
OK, let’s say a Catholic has read all the objections against and arguments in favor of reincarnation, and has developed a way to synthesize reincarnation along with the Last Judgement and Resurrection (however implausible such a synthesis of beliefs might appear) – would that Catholic have to confess weekly her sin of believing in reincarnation?
 
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Ahimsa:
OK, let’s say a Catholic has read all the objections against and arguments in favor of reincarnation, and has developed a way to synthesize reincarnation along with the Last Judgement and Resurrection (however implausible such a synthesis of beliefs might appear) – would that Catholic have to confess weekly her sin of believing in reincarnation?
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If they could be synthesised, then no harm would be done to the Catholic’s subjective apprehension of what the Church teaches; nor to the objectively-existing reality of the deposit of faith, so far as this is apprehended by the Church at large.​

However, it would be very rash not to get a second opinion - just in case one’s own brilliant synthesis, however satisfying from one’s own POV, were flawed in a way which only another person would be able to see. This is a reason why believing is a social activity: we need to be able to corrected by others when we miss what they can see; and to help them, when they miss what we can see.

ISTM that what we are forbidden to hold, is anything that undermines the dogmas to which reincarnation is opposed: the prohibitions on believing what is incompatible with acceptance of them, are meant as safeguards for them, so that they are not obscured, denied, forgotten, or allowed to become uncertain of meaning. Belief in reincarnation is not the problem, so much as anything which obscures what it seems to obscure. If the two sets of beliefs - Catholic doctrine on the Last Things, and, reincarnation - could be synthesised so that the Catholic doctrine were enriched by some sort of belief in reincarnation (not all expressions of belief in it would be admissible): then we would have a different set of affairs to deal with.

But unless belief in reincarnation is to cease to be belief in exactly that, I don’t see that they can be synthesised. Not least because Christianity is the religion of the Incarnation of the One God in historical time. And that alone sets it apart from Hinduism: AFAICS, anyway. The two religions seem to have very different notions about time, history, and human existence. If this is so, then the prospect of a synthesis seems unlikely.

If Christ could be relativised, so as to become one of many avatars of (let us say) Brahma - or of a being similar in character to Brahma - then it might be possible. But for Catholics, this would be impossible; it would gut Christianity.

Which brings us up against the scandal of the “particularity” of Christ: the stumbling-block of how Jesus of Nazareth can be the definitive, full, final, supreme & canonical Revelation of the One God - given the sheer scale of the history of the universe; its vast size; the length of human history; and the sheer number of the entire population of the globe throughout the ages from the first person to the last. FWIW, I think this problem is not nearly as formidable as it may seem. ##
 
Gottle of Geer:
Which brings us up against the scandal of the “particularity” of Christ: the stumbling-block of how Jesus of Nazareth can be the definitive, full, final, supreme & canonical Revelation of the One God - given the sheer scale of the history of the universe; its vast size; the length of human history; and the sheer number of the entire population of the globe throughout the ages from the first person to the last.
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Isn’t the “stumbling block”, dependent, though, upon the non-existence of extra-terrestrial intelligent beings? Because if aliens do exist, and if their first “Adam and Eve” had sinned, then would not God have had sent an Incarnation to them as well?
 
Perhaps it is an oversimplification, but Reincarnation simply contradicts and denies the entire Christian concept of Divine Mercy. Karma is the eternal law of Judgement/Justice. Under the Karmic Law, if it is true that Jesus died for “our” sin, then not only do we have our own sin to account for, but also the sin of his death as well.

From a Christian concept, Karma, and therefore its remedy of Reincarnation, compounds our separation from God, not alleviates it. Otherwise, you have to deny that even Jesus died as any sort of reparation for us, and that only those directly responsible for his death carry any blame. This “solution” fails, as it thouroughly denies the faith that is defined as “Christian”.

As a personal failure to envision, I could never see the appeal to Reincarnation. Not only do I have to not incur Karma in this life, but I am being punished for countless other lives that ended with a Karmic debt, none of which I can actually atone for as I have no knowledge of them, only the “fact” that since I am here at all, then I must have some karmic “baggage” to work off somehow to let me know it is there.

Just my opine…
 
To be Catholic is to believe in one birth, one death. To do otherwise is to not follow Catholic Teaching.

Those who call themselves Catholic and yet cling to a belief of reincarnation are not practicing Catholics.
 
Let’s put it this way. We believe in the resurrection of the body (according to the Apostles’ Creed). How does that jive with reincarnation? It doesn’t!! In that case, which body would we be resurrected as? What about Lazarus? How was he raised from the dead if he had already been reincarnated? It doesn’t make sense. That is why the official Church teaching is against it.
 
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Ahimsa:
But could “once” be understood symbolically, or non-literally? Did Jesus himself ever speak on this issue?
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It can be “understood” in any clownish manner, and often is. But it is how it was intended by the Sacred author that matters. 😉

According to Catholicism, there is no reincarnation. Any contrary clownish interpretations of Scripture, notwithstanding.
 
The oral torah has been around since Moses, so I guess you’d have to say early Jews believed in reincarnation.
 
Have you read Josephus? He wrote that reincarnation was a common teaching among the Jews.

How about the New Testament? In Matthew 16, Jesus asked his disciples “Whom do men say that I am?” and they said that some people said he was John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah, or another of the prophets.
 
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itsjustdave1988:
This just proves that Judaism is not immune from clownish ravings. Did Jews teach reincarnation in the 1st century or anytime prior to it?
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Seems that the only clown raving around here is you, Dave. If you had bothered to do any study of Jewish theology, or history, you would know that even the Pharisees believed in reincarnation of the prophets.

…but then of course, I’m sure you know more about this than Josephus.
 
Have you read Josephus?
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Yes, I have.
He wrote that reincarnation was a common teaching among the Jews.
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Please provide the quote. If you mean this: “the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment.” (War 2.164), then it kinda contradicts reincarnation, no? In this schema, Bad karma = no reincarnation, but eternal punishment. Good karma = souls placed in other bodies. Couldn’t the context be *resurrected *bodies, as was taught by St. Paul, the former first century Pharisee? When Josephus writes elsewhere that the good souls “have the power to revive and live again” (Antiquities 18:14), most scholars find this to be with regard to the Pharisidic belief in bodily resurrection, not reincarnation.

According to Jewish scholarship, transmigration of souls was a doctrine “foreign to Judaism until about the eighth century, when, under the influence of the Mohammedan mystics, it was adopted by the Karaites and other Jewish dissenters. It is first mentioned in Jewish literature by Saadia, who protested against this belief, which at his time was shared by the Yudghanites, or whomsoever he contemptuously designated as “so-called Jews” (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/volume12/V12p232001.jpg; see Schmiedl, “Studien,” p. 166; idem, in “Monatsschrift,” x. 177; Rapoport, in “Bikkure ha-'Ittim,” ix. 23; idem, introduction to Abraham bar Ḥiyya’s “Hegyon ha-Nefesh,” p. lii.; Jellinek, in “Orient, Lit.” 1851, p. 410; Fürst, “Gesch. des Karäert.” i. 81).” (Jewish Encyclopedia - Transmigration of Souls, jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=298&letter=T)

Perhaps you know more about Judaism than the authors of this Jewish text?
If you had bothered to do any study of Jewish theology, or history, you would know that even the Pharisees believed in reincarnation of the prophets.
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I bothered to study Judaism in college. I got a B. http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon11.gif Yet, oddly enough, there was not one mention of reincarnation throughout the entire semester. Nevertheless, I’m thinkin’ the scholars who wrote the Jewish Encyclopedia would do better than a B in Judaism.
 
Aliens do not exist, and Jewish speculative teaching is null and void.

Stop arguing about something that’s not even important.
 
But we are given new flesh in Heaven as Catholics, right? So etymologically speaking this is sort of reincarnation, but not in the sense we are used to hear about in Eastern and other religions.

As far as the Jewish belief, Jesus came and instituted a revision of the Law, not of all of the customs that attached themselves to different Jewish sects.

God bless,
Aaron
 
Jesus did not speak on reincarnation because he didn’t.

Shouldn’t the fact that he didn’t talk about it speak to those with questions?
 
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St.Curious:
Jesus did not speak on reincarnation because he didn’t.

Shouldn’t the fact that he didn’t talk about it speak to those with questions?
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You seem to be saying that whether one accepts reincarnation or not, such a question is not the most important or essential issue in being a Christian (because if it were essentially important, then Jesus would have explicitly and openly spoken about it).

If that is what you’re saying, I would agree with you.
 
You seem to be saying that whether one accepts reincarnation or not, such a question is not the most important or essential issue in being a Christian (because if it were essentially important, then Jesus would have explicitly and openly spoken about it).
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If that is what you’re saying, I would agree with you.
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With all due respect, this shows a great misunderstanding of what the Gospels are. Jesus very cleary taught certain things; he comissioned apostles and founded a Church to teach things, and he gave us Scripture, which also contains teaching.

Now it would be POINTLESS (and also impossible), for Jesus to have had every single error that contradicts his teaching enumerated in the Gospels. Even the Church does not do this, rather she clarifies those teachings that need to be clarified at a given time.

Trying to argue that a sane Catholic could believe in reincarnation as consistent with Catholic teaching is appealing to a pure fiction. Plenty of them believe it even though they know it’s not consistent, out of lack of loyalty to Church teaching, or out of ignorance of those teachings.

Ahimsa, let me ask you this: Where in the Gospels does Jesus say that we should not approve of abuse of the elderly in nursing homes? Or where does he condemn incest, or rape? Driving drunk? References to his explicit condemnations do not exist, but still these hideous sins violate what we know to be true.

Reincarnation directly (very directly) violates what Christians know to be true. Christianity teaches that we are body (form) and soul (matter).

Reincarnation teaches that we are soul (atman, brahm) and the body is a shell–something dispensible.
 
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