Reincarnation – an original Christian doctrine

6 This confusion of ideas also provides food for the contentious question of whether the soul is mortal or immortal. The latest theology designed an “Utterly-dead-theory” , that is to say, body and soul die when the body dies. See more about this under the chapter “The doctrine of eschatology” . The Church asserts in a sententia certa (secure school of thought) that the soul is created by God from nothing and united with the physical body the moment it is procreated, even though no definite written evidence can be found in the Bible for this theory. (Ludwig Ott, P. 121). Even Saint Augustin , the one who “really made the theory of original sin blossom” 12, could not relate to the thought that the soul is created by God from nothing the moment the human body is procreated, during his lifetime, because he could not harmonise it with the continuation of one’s original sin. This “secure school of thought” only turned into a prerequisite for the dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in the Dark Ages under the influence of St Thomas Aquinas thereby being indirectly elevated to a dogmatic theorem (see Ludwig Ott, Page 121). Karl Rahner (1904 – 1984), a leading theologian of our time, summarised it: “It is basically emphasised that the soul is instantaneously created by God from nothing , that it can therefore not be part of the divine substance and that it never led a pre-physical existence, but that it also has no physical origin . It represents the human vital principle and rates higher than the body. Its spiritual nature can be verified. Man consists of a spirit and a body, body and soul. The basic insight: Man’s spirit is created by God and in its (augustinically or thomistically understood) nature represents the soul of the body.” 13 2. Original sin or man’s Fall from Grace Even though the Church testifies about the origin of man that the soul is created by God from nothing at the time of procreation, it teaches in spite of this that every newborn child is born a sinner through the impact of original sin. The first dogmatic statements in regards to the theory of original sin can be read in Canons 1- 3 (DS 222/224) released at the Synod of Carthage in 418 A.D. introduced into the doctrine of the Church by St Augustine . This doctrine experienced a comprehensive reformulation at the Council of Trent (1546). The “decretum de peccato originali” unmistakably defines the following: “If somebody declares that Adam’s breach of duty only damaged him and not his progeny, that he lost the received sanctity and justice only for himself and not for all of us or that this befouled human being did transfer (literally poured) death and punishment of the body to the whole human race through the sin of disobedience, but not the sin that constitutes the death of the soul, he will be damned.” (DS 1512) This dogma officially defines that all souls are automatically branded sinners through the sin committed by Adam , because Adam, as mankind’s primogenitor, sinned. Accursed – condemnation, also called anathema or excommunication means: “The expulsion of a member of the Church from the community of believers with closely defined consequences, legally determined.” (Real-Lexicon for Antiquity and Christendom, publisher, Theodor Klauser, Bd. 7 P. 1, Stuttgart, 1969.) The excommunicated is excluded from the Holy Communion and loses the right for a Christian burial. The pronounced anathema imposed eternal damnation after death upon a person according to the view of the Church. 12 Rahner, Herders Theologisches Taschenlexikon, Bd. 2, P. 156. 13 Rahner, Herders Theologisches Taschenlexikon, Bd. 6, P. 396f.