Reincarnation and the Law of KarmaTheosophy / New ThoughtMystical / EsotericEnglishShareReincarnation and the Law of Karma 39Project Gutenberg #26364 - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableProject Gutenberg #26364LanguageEnglishEspañol‹Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 1Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 2Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 3Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 4Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 5Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 6Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 7Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 8Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 9Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 10Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 11Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 12Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 15Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 17Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 19Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 20Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 22Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 24Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 25Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 27Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 28Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 30Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 32Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 34Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 36Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 38Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 39Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 41Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 44Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 16Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 52Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 53Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 54Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 55Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 56Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 57Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 58Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 60Reincarnation and the Law of Karma 61›Part Of The Sentence Has Already Been Undergone And That There Is NoReincarnation and the Law of Karma 39ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1hope that any portion of it will ever be remitted. Truly the tender mercies with which the theologians have credited the Almighty are cruel indeed!" 2But, by the irony of progress, the orthodox churches are gradually coming around to the one much-despised Platonic conception of the naturally Immortal Immaterial Soul--the "pagan and heathen" idea, so much at variance with the opposing doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body, which doctrine really did not teach the "immortality of the soul" at all. As Prof. Nathaniel Schmidt says, in an article in a standard encyclopedia: "The doctrine of the natural immortality of the human soul became so important a part of Christian thought that the resurrection naturally lost its vital significance, and it has practically held no place in the great systems of philosophy elaborated by the Christian thinkers of modern times." But still, the letter of the old doctrine persists on the books of the church and in its creeds, although opposed to the enlightened spirit now manifesting in the churches which is moving more and more toward the "pagan and heathen" conception of a naturally Immaterial and Immortal Soul, rather than in a Resurrection of the Body and an eternal life therein. 3It is scarcely worth while here to contrast the two doctrines--the Immortal Immaterial Soul on the one hand, and the Immortal Body on the other. The latter conception is so primitively crude, and so foreign to modern thought, that it scarcely needs an argument against it. The thought of the necessity of the soul for a material body--the same old material body that it once cast off like a worn out garment--a body perhaps worn by disease, crippled by "accident" or "the slipping of the hand of the Potter"--a body similar to those we see around us every day--the Immortal Soul needing such a garment in order to exist! Better accept plain Materialism, and say that there is no soul and that the body perishes and all else with it, than such a gross doctrine which is simply a materialistic Immortality. So far as this doctrine being "the highest conception of the Immortality of the Soul," as contrasted with the "pagan and heathen" doctrine of Reincarnation--it is not a "conception of the Immortality of the Soul" at all, but a flat contradiction of it. It is a doctrine of the "Immortality of the Body," which bears plain marks of a very lowly "pagan and heathen" origin. And as to the "later" Christian conception, it may be seen that there is nothing in the idea of Re-birth which is inconsistent therewith--in fact, the two ideas naturally blend into each other. 4In the above discussion our whole intent has been to answer the argument against Reincarnation which charges that the latter is "derived from pagan and heathen sources, and is not in accord with the highest conceptions of the immortality of the soul." And in order to do this we have found it necessary to examine the opposing theological dogmas as we find them, and to show that they do not come up to the claims of being "the highest conception," etc. We think that the strongest point against the dogmas may be found in the claims of their advocates. That the Church is now growing away from them only proves their unfitness as "the highest conception." And Reincarnationists hold that as the Church grows in favor of the Immaterial Immortal Soul, so will it find itself inclining toward the companion-doctrine of Pre-existence and Re-birth, in some of its varied forms, probably that of the Early Fathers of the Church, such as Origen and his followers--that the Church will again claim its own. ‹Previous chapterReincarnation and the Law of Karma 38Next chapterReincarnation and the Law of Karma 41›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the USA