Reincarnation – an original Christian doctrine

22 The doctrines of salvation of the various denominations are certainly not convincing. • One would equally be justified to assert that people have indeed been freed from the clutches of the devil through Christ’s death of redemption, but that they can only gradually gain perfection through their own efforts, faith and good deeds through repeated lives on Earth, and through this, participate in God’s life. 7. Critical review of the Church’s doctrine The Church must adhere to all its proclaimed tenets in spite of all objections and doubt, because the dogma of the infallibility of its lectureship could not succumb to any mistakes, the way it sees them, during the Church’s history. The author Pryse recognised this correctly when he said: “The theological schematics is constructed in such a way that each and every part relies on one another, so that the whole construction comes tumbling down when any one of them is removed from it.” 26 Constricted and spiritually tied up through their own irrefutable dogmatic tenets, the Church finds the following concept unacceptable, namely that the spheres of heaven and hell might not remain in a constant state of consciousness, but that they might be in a process of development capable of eventually dissolving or changing into something positive. The natural science however verified within their own field of knowledge a long time ago that nothing throughout the whole cosmos remains unchanged, but that everything is subject to a constant process of evolution, something we can observe in the example of the development of human beings from prehistoric man to Homo sapiens. In concordance with modern scientists the philosopher Heraclitus said: “Everything flows!” Why should the realm of the spirit be subject to eternal stagnation? And then there is the question of how punishment without end can be reconciled with divine love and compassion? God’s sternness also remains incomprehensible, particularly if one considers that God in his omnipotence could have foreseen an eventual Fall from Grace of his created creatures, as he endowed them with their own free will. An eternity in hell as punishment for his wayward children would have been provided for in his structure of this world. The Church subjects the God of love to the same rigorous attitude when it insists that every human being only lives once on Earth and that this one life offers a chance of probation and decision to then either end up with God in heaven or exposed to eternal damnation for ever and ever. How many people are there that are born into this world in order to be physically and mentally abused without ever experiencing the sunny side of life? Doubts about God’s justness must surely arise when one looks at the dissimilar starting conditions for people. There is a considerable difference between growing up in a good or bad environment, between enjoying a good or bad upbringing, to be endowed with many or few abilities, to live in a peaceful or bellicose epoch or to be born into a developing country or a highly civilised industrialised society! What must also seem unfair are the different periods of time for one’s probation as well as the completely dissimilar test conditions for individual people. Some endure a lifetime of illnesses and worries whilst others live a carefree existence full of health and affluence. According to the Church, only those fortunate enough to have rued and confessed their sins just in time before their demise will go to heaven. Good human beings on the other hand, those that committed a serious sin just 26 Pryse, a.a.O, P. 61