Now lets examine the idea of Karma, and Reincarnation, from a practical standpoint, imagine the Reincarnation of Hitler, or Stalin, mass murderers in a colossal scale, this imply their rebirth in many bodies of Hitler and Stalin who by karma theywould have to experience assassinations at the hand of somebody, I got no problem with them getting what they deserve, however my problem is with their eventual killer who by murdering Hitler, or Stalin reincarnation, they bought themselves a ticket to be killed, as well as their killer, and his killer! This will impose a compulsory chain of killings exponentially to infinity, then what about free will? Where this Karmic determinism would end?
CHRISTIAN REBUTTAL
Vivekananda states, “The murderer too is God.”
Rajneesh exclaims in expounding on the Bhagavad-Gita : “Even if you kill someone consciously, while fully conscious it is meditative. That is what Krishna was saying to Arjuna…Kill, murder, fully conscious, knowing fully that no one is murdered and no one is killed….Just become the instrument of Divine hands and know well that no one is killed, no one can be killed.”
Rajneesh also states, that you are ignorant of your alleged deity: “This is the sin–not that you have murdered somebody or stolen; that is nothing. Those are minor sins.”
In his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation, writes regarding Arjuna, that he should attain “a state of consciousness which will justify any action of his and will allow him even to kill in love in support of the purpose of evolution.”
From a related idea we read in the Kaushitaki Upanishad (3:1,2): “The man who know me as I am loses nothing whatever he does. Even if he kills his mother or father, even if he steals or procures an abortion, whatever evil he does, he does not blanch if he knows me as I am.”
Furthermore, there are other significant philosophical (e.g., metaphysical/ontological) critiques that need to be considered relative to reincarnation and transmigration (e.g., relative to the worldviews in which these views generally occur, i.e., polytheism, pantheism, and panentheism). For instance, the worldviews in which most reincarnationists’ and transmigrationist’s views are found do not allow for an ethically justifiable or adequate answer to the problems posed in this paper. That is, the views of reincarnationists and of transmigrationists are not consistent with, nor do they logically or ontologically follow from the worldviews most commonly held by reincarnationists: polytheism, pantheism and panentheism.
For example, in a pantheistic or panentheistic universe, reincarnationists (all of us for that matter) must realize that, ontologically, evil emanates or flows naturally and necessarily from the very nature of the deity or the One.Creation flows from the will or very nature of the deity. Creation and the existence of evil are synonymous and simultaneous.This entails that death, destruction, evil, suffering, and so forth are part of the divinity’s or ultimate Beings very essence or nature. Good and evil are both aspects or facets of the One. All is contained in, arises out of, or is a manifestation of the absolute universal Reality or divinity or principle–the One. Evil is ultimately and necessarily part of the One which is all. Therefore, in one sense or another, the divinity (or whatever term is used) is responsible for all the pain, suffering, and evil that has, does, or ever will exist.
In a pantheistic or panentheistic world good and evil are so to speak just different sides of the same coin. Moreover, since the divinity manifests itself in polarities or dualities, such as light-dark, positive-negative, or good-evil, evil is a necessary part of the universe. Thus, who or what brought evil into existence? Evil must ultimately derive from the divinity that many reincarnationists and transmigrationists say they worship.
Eternal Evil
Whether in a polytheistic, pantheistic, or panentheistic universe, we can have no assurance that the deity(ies) or divinity can or wants to defeat evil. Nor can we be sure that this is even an appropriate question, since in the latter two worlds evil is always part of the deity’s or One’s very nature. Likewise, many if not all reincarnationists who are simple polytheist (i.e., not pantheist or panentheist as well) also view the gods and goddesses as possessing evil in their nature. Therefore, evil will no more cease to exist than these entities or the deity itself. In other words, evil is eternal. It will always be with us–always exist!Evil is eternal because :
(1) it is either an aspect of the very nature of the divinity which creates and composes all (pantheism, panentheism),
(2) these deities also contain evil in their nature, and/or
(3) are too limited or inept to permanently accomplish the task (polytheism). Only an infinite (e.g., omniscient, omnipotent) and benevolent personal God could and will banish evil from the universe.
Given the nature of reality in a pantheistic or panentheistic universe, theoretically speaking, even if evil were to be eradicated or silenced for a period of time, it would only inevitability return again with a shrill scream.
In summation, there are only so many options regarding the future of evil given the reincarnationists’ worldviews:
1) The gods and goddesses cannot and/or will not bring an end to evil (polytheism).
2) The gods and goddesses or divinity cannot and will not stop evil because evil is part of their or its very nature, therefore, also the part of the very fabric from which the universe it cut (pantheism, panentheism). Hence, since evil is part of the very nature of the deity it is also inherent to creation. Therefore, evil is eternal.
Thus, reincarnationists and transmigrationists have no justified hope or expectation that evil in its multitude of manifestations will ever be banished. They have no grounds to believe that the divinity can or ever will put an end to the misery and suffering that pervasively invades our world, nor that they could ever ultimately escaped from samsara.
Evil: No Exit
The problem of evil is an acute dilemma, indeed, an Achilles’ heel for reincarnationists and transmigrationists given their worldviews. There is no way for them to get around it.
Nor will it do for them to say that the divine is “beyond good and evil,” or neither “good nor evil.”
Nonsense. These types of statements have no ultimate meaning or significance. More deplorable yet, this statement can result in diabolical consequences. For instance, imagine burning a reincarnationist’s house to the ground. If they said that what was done was wrong (evil even?), one could reply that like the deity these concepts did not apply to them because they were beyond right or wrong, good or evil. Rightly, we do not believe the that the reincarnationist would accept their reply. But, once again the glaring inconsistency between avowed view and practice. The only thing that is beyond anything here is that it is beyond my understanding how reincarnationists can actually make these nonsensical statements. The deity is not beyond evil, it is evil!
BUDDHISM
This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible.
It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance.
It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old.
It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces, and comparisons.
It is that which you see before you — begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error.
It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured.
The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and the sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood.
By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind.
Even though they do their utmost for a full eon, they will not be able to attain to it.
They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings.
It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifested in the Buddhas.”
Huang Po
ADVAITA VEDANTA
Advaita Vedanta is the philosophy of Monism, or Oneness. In this philosophy, the only reality in the world is said to Brahman, the ‘Oneness’. All the world that we see around us is said to have relative reality only, and it is Brahman alone at the base of the world which has absolute reality. Even our own individual consciousness is only a relative reality, and it is Brhaman which lies at the root of our consciousness which is our true identity. This means that we are, right at this moment, Brahman itself, and we can rejoice in the supreme bliss of being Brahman if we can break out of our individual identity. This is to be done through Yoga. We can then achieve Spiritual Awakening and realize the Truth of our existence.
‘Advaita’ means ‘non–dual’, that there is only one. Dvaita means two, and hence Advaita means not–two.
Advaita philosophy is based on the Upanishads or ’Vedantas‘, which are a part of the Vedas, the main religious scriptures of Hinduism.
Vedanta philosophy or Upanishadic philosophy has three main schools, Dvaita, Vishista–dvaita and A–dvaita.
All these three schools are based on the same sriptures, the Upanishads, and derive their difference because they interpret the sutras of the Upanishads differently. The Upanishadic sutras are short, terse passages, and lend themselves to different interpretations, and hence we have these three schools of Vedanta philosophy, all of which claim that their philosophy is the true philosophy of the Upanishads and the others are misinterpretations.
Dvaita means dualism. Here there are two separate existences, God and the world. God has created the world, and the two are completely separate existences, with God being the higher perfect existence and the material world, including all humans, being a lower existence. There is thus no commonality between us and God.
Vishista–dvaita is the path of qualified monism. Here also God has created the world but he has created it out of his own substance. Hence the world, including us, are not an entirely separate substance from God, we also have the Divine within us. But we are imperfect parts of the divine and it is only God who is wholly perfect, and we have but a ’spark‘ of this divinity within us.
The third school of Vedanta philosophy is the school of Advaita Vedanta. In this, the only reality that exists is Brahman. This does not mean that the world does not exist, but that it has a lower level of reality. In Advaita Vedanta philosophy, the world exists, but it exists with only ambiguous reality, and it exists with Brahman at its root. Hence the true reality of the world is Brahman and the reality that we see around us is a false reality, an ambiguous reality. So the world is really Brahman, that which is not Brahman has only relative reality and is to be disregarded.
1. Interpretating Advaita as starting from a realistic ontology/metaphysics as opposed to an idealist ontology/metaphysics
2. Rejection of a soul or Atman as an independent entity apart from our individual consciousness
3. Rejection of the Reincarnation theory
4. Rejection of the law of Karma as a deciding factor in what happens on death ( if Moksha is promised on liberation, it must be for all or for nobody, there cannot be any law or mechanism to choose at the time of death).
ISLAM
Not so different of the Tawhid of Islam (God is One) , this is not only to express the non existence of other Gods, but as Wahdat al Wujud; (Oneness of Being) God as the Real, the only Existent, meaning this you, he, they, me, are all but His Manifest presence, with no real Ontological individuality, being ourselves the vehicle of God, our sense of individual self the veil that separate us from Himself!
Reincarnation presuppose an autonomous Real existence, a Soul that is immortal, separated from God, and therefore in contra-position to Him, and of course this Ontologically, or Theologically is impossible since the contingent can’t be independent from the Necessary Being, a dualistic position that split the Unity of God setting men not as part of but independent from! This put forward a whole old set of Philosophical problems some mentioned above, the dualistic, polytheistic weltanschauung (Cosmology, or world view) that are intrinsically part, and at fault of our general poor understanding in a mass level of Ontology. In other words the soul or whatever other entity, vehicle or aggregate remain after death, can’t posses and independent existence from God, or any other name you may choose to give to the Divine. By necessity the soul or aggregates have to come from the only source of Existence, or Being, if this wouldn’t be so, automatically you Deny the Unity of God (Tawhid ) and this would strip the Divine of his Attributes, like the Everlasting, The Creator, the Almighty, the Infinite, the All Powerful, The Omnipotent, the Incomparable, etc. Since this would confer the soul, or aggregate with similar attributes, and this would negate the aforementioned Attributes of God, it will split the Divine conferring the soul, or aggregates with self existence, nullifying God’s Attributes. And how you could explain an absorption to the Divine if the soul, or aggregate posses an existence of it’s own, non dependent of God? And if the soul or aggregate come from the Divine, and therefore dependent of the Divine for existence what need it has for existence after death? Reincarnation as a school of the soul for perfection sound nice, but what need God, or Divinity has of perfecting Itself? Again if God or Divinity wouldn’t be perfect it wouldn’t be God…so reincarnation demands autonomy, and independence from the source, and that it is just Illusion!
Of course, for those who have no knowledge of this Ontological, and Theological problems reincarnation seem to provide an easy answer, ignoring that on the contrary, brings forward a host of new, and more fundamental problems to this fallible Cosmological view, as most Human beings, we yearn for answers to the Mysteries of Existence, each Religion on their own way try to give us an answer to this riddle, however God wouldn’t be God, neither he would posses the Attribute of Incomparability if we could answer this Mysteries so easy!
All this problems that had been dealt all along by some of our great Philosophers through the ages like the Prophets of Israel, the Old fathers of the Christian Church, the great Muslims Mystics and Theologians, Western philosophers like Fitche, and Hegel, all we got to do is read them. Alas!
Kone, Krusos, Kronos 
We need to hang out. Reading all this just makes me want to talk about it with you.
Well, I hope we can do that soon.
Hi,
Interesting article. There is just a point I don’t agree with.
“For example, in a pantheistic or panentheistic universe, reincarnationists (all of us for that matter) must realize that, ontologically, evil emanates or flows naturally and necessarily from the very nature of the deity or the One. Creation flows from the will or very nature of the deity. ”
Not necessarily. When referring to pantheism, there is no need for a creative deity. Divinity or the One is equated with equilibrium rather than as a creative force – whilst evil is a manifestation of man’s unbalance i.e. the breaking away from the harmonious unity.
First let me express to you that those views about Christianity vs reincarnation are not mine, I simply took the views of a Christian Theologian, Professor Craig S. Hawkins to expose one of the many problems of reincarnation from the point of view of a particular Christian, I could have included many other points of view, but this would make the small article way too long!
I respect your point of view, however you need to understand that those who see God as Immanent, regardless of the existence of a Transcendental point of view, (we may talk about this two positions in a future article) can’t agree with a vision of God as a neutral force in Existence, specially most of Christianity that is based in a vision of a God made man in the figure of Christ, that intervene Universally in every affair, specially Human ones. Regardless of your, or my thoughts about it, is their vision, I just presented it here, like I did a Buddhist, Vedanta, and a Muslim view, or I could have used a Hebrew view, (ask for forgiveness for the sake of briefness) views that by the way can’t be Universal since all Religions are divided in different denominations, regarding their particular beliefs due to Theological, and Ontological differences.
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That was an excellently written essay, thank you so much.
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Dear Mr. Brigido, thank you for this Uranic post ))) Great!
Thanks to you for reading it, and commenting. 🙂
You have made an extraordinary treatise that can not be overlooked. An uplifting reading.
Thank you Manuel! 🙂
You do not use philosophy to discuss the laws of nature. No amount of philosophy can, for example, describe the death of humans. Death is a law of nature. Death must be observed in nature and taken as it is. Same is true for Reincarnation, which is a law of nature, it must be observed. There are thousands of observations of reincarnations. Here is one example from literature.
A baby boy was born in a hospital with birthmarks of a bullet wounds on his chest and back. Doctors, nurses, and parents confirmed the observation. When the boy learned to speak around the age two, then over a period of time he talked about his past life, which can be summarized in the following way, without the loss of generality. The boy‘s name was N in previous life. He died in hospital H of town T on date D, due to a gunshot wound on his chest. Over time, the research scholars, news reporters, parents visited the hospital H and verified everything that the boy had said from the autopsy records of the man named N, who indeed died on the date D.
Such a kid, who remembers his past life, is known as Jatiswar in Sanskrit. In another such a Jatiswar case, the boy had complications, and the doctors had to perform surgery on the boy to save him. The doctors found the complete straight line bullet path inside the body of the baby, exactly matching the autopsy record of the dead man of the boy‘s previous life. For more details take a look at
https://www.academia.edu/38590496/A_COMPARISON_OF_MODERN_SCIENCE_WITH_VEDIC_SCIENCE
Death its a law of nature as you said, but it does not imply reincarnation its also a law.
Those called thousand of examples you mention most have been proven to be fraudulent, or hardly studied to be proof, besides even if true, there’s a more simple explanation, as for example Spirit is One, not many, but its within every existent thing, therefore if anyone can recall to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra, or Napoleon, two of the more egregious examples in Western countries claimed by many to be their reincarnation, well all there will be right.
Furthermore Spirit being Omniscient it knows everything and Spirit was Cleopatra, and Napoleon, Yourself and me.
In other words we all can claim as Spirit we had incarnated into everything else, but its not John, Mary, Arjun, or Saanvi who incarnate but Spirit.
The problem with reincarnation, it presuppose a vehicle such as Soul with Real existence, when we cannot claim soul exist beyond death.
One of the problems with that it presuppose the existence of a soul as a duality from Spirit, when supposedly you can acquire liberation just by transcending illusion, then tell me the soul its not illusion?
In fact the Buddhist do not believe in the existence of a soul, they call it aggregates of consciousness, (things you learn from your five senses) but some of them endorse reincarnation, no wonder when Buddhism recently expanded to Western shore many of them are discarding reincarnation!
A Western will ask you if there is no such a thing as soul, what its then that reincarnate?
Former Buddhist monk Stephen Batchelor, and many other just did that, he has many youtube videos you can watch him talk, also he has many articles.
And not least, how you can conciliate reincarnation with not two?
‘Advaita’ means ‘non–dual’, that there is only one. Dvaita means two, and hence Advaita means not–two.
And the reason New Advaita it’s discarding karma and reincarnation, period.
1. Interpretating Advaita as starting from a realistic ontology/metaphysics as opposed to an idealist ontology/metaphysics
2. Rejection of a soul or Atman as an independent entity apart from our individual consciousness
3. Rejection of the Reincarnation theory
4. Rejection of the law of Karma as a deciding factor in what happens on death
An interesting discussion. You hit the nail on the head when you say that reincarnation’s appeal lies in the fact it offers an “easy” answer to the perceived injustice in the world.
The Christian view, of course, is that a just and holy God created human beings with an eternal soul, granting them the freedom to choose between good and evil. Many choose evil which is why history is characterized by crime, corruption, and wars. However, those who freely choose evil will face eternal punishment.
Thank you for your comment, few people seem to care about these things.