Reincarnation & Resurrection

     In the third to last episode of Matt Smith’s tenure as the eleventh Doctor, he and his companion Clara reach what is supposed to be his tomb, a massive TARDIS having aged to the point where its dimensional engineering could no longer contain its actual mass and interior size. Much to Clara’s surprise, when they enter his tomb, they don’t find a body. Instead, they find a kind of thread of energy looping and folding back in on itself in a complicated knot. Clara asks the Doctor, “What is that?” The Doctor responds, “It’s my time stream. Well, what did you expect, a body? Which one would it be?” He was referring of course to the fact that the Doctor, when his body comes to the end of its ability to repair itself, regenerates all of his cells into a new body with a new face and even a slightly different personality, and can be either a man or a woman of any race. The Doctor becomes both an entirely new person even as he or she remains the same person with each regeneration.

     Hypothetically speaking, and as a thought experiment, let’s return to the discussion of reincarnation, and specifically whether reincarnation is compatible with the resurrection of the body taught in the New Testament. Now, we’re not talking specifically about karmic reincarnation as in Hinduism or Buddhism, where one’s actions specifically impel the re-infleshment of a soul (though of course that could fall under this), but rather the general idea that a soul or psyche could be reborn into a new body after having passed out of a previous body upon that body’s death regardless of the cause.

     One of the arguments against reincarnation being compatible with the New Testament is that of the resurrection of the body. “Which body would it be in the resurrection if the person had lived more than one life? Would it even be a man or a woman?”

     As I thought this question over, it occurred to me how much it sounded like the question of the Sadducees in the Gospels where they ask Jesus the question of the woman who had married seven brothers in turn, one dying right after the other, “In the resurrection, whose wife would she be, for she had been married to all seven?”

     Jesus’ answer to this question is, to loosely paraphrase it, “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Because in the resurrection they will neither marry nor be given in marriage but will be like the angels of God in heaven.” And, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that His answer could also apply to the question of reincarnation and resurrection as well.

     Let us suppose that a particular soul was born three thousand years ago, and went through many different reincarnations since that point as both man and woman and eventually reached the resurrection as one who had been joined to Jesus Christ by baptism into His death, burial, and resurrection. During that time, while each physical incarnation could not remember the last, could not each person’s memories be imprinted on that psyche forming parts of the larger whole of who that individual person is? While human beings may see many different people, God only sees the one individual soul growing and learning through each reincarnation. And in the resurrection, when that soul is given an immortal physical body of spirit, as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 15, would it not then reflect the physical form of the individual, immortal psyche itself, the aggregation of all those thousands of years of memories, experiences, and growth? As Jesus said, it would be neither man nor woman, or at least it would likely be without gender as the angels are without gender.

     Part of the thinking on this is that the individual psyche is more than just the biology and experiences of this life, but is ultimately comprised of the natural and experiential influences and memories of every incarnation to which that psyche has been exposed. That there is more there under the surface of the conscious and even subconscious mind than we can realize comprising the entire whole of the person. That, like the Doctor in Doctor Who, each individual regeneration is their own personality as well as the same person from regeneration to regeneration. So then, the body with which our reincarnated fried is resurrected is not that of any one individual incarnation, but one which reflects the aggregate of all of them into who the whole individual person truly is, rather than any one part preferred over the other. A new immortal incarnation with perhaps a new name to reflect the whole instead of just the parts.

     As I said, it’s a thought experiment, a hypothetical to go along with my previous musings about the possibility or not of reincarnation. 

Brief Thoughts on Paul's Writings About Women Being Silent in the Church

      I am going to posit something that will be highly controversial among Bible folk. After nearly coming to the end of 1 Corinthians 14, I'm no longer at all certain that Paul actually wrote 33b-35, or that it was originally a part of his letter to the Corinthians. I'm probably wrong, but there's just something not right here. First, the context. He had just been talking about an order of how to do tongues and prophecy from verse 26 to 33a, and verse 36 seems to actually immediately conclude this train of thought. If you pull 33b-35 out, there's no break in continuity and it flows as a single continuous progression of thought. 33b-35 however actually breaks this train of thought. It looks shoehorned in, and there's something unpauline about him using "just like the Torah says" in verse 34 to back up a regulation about service practice. That feels much more like what a Judaizer would say than Paul who went to great lengths to explain why the regulations of the Torah shouldn't be imposed on Greeks, and he is writing to Greeks here.

      There's just something really off about this, something very unlike Paul here, that I didn't see before now. For reference, the passage in question is the one about women keeping silent in the church and only questioning their husbands if they want to learn something.

      So, after entertaining the possibility that Paul himself did not actually write 1 Corinthians 33b-25, where it tells women to be silent (really, to shut up) in the churches, and that someone added it after the fact, I decided to look at the other passage in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 which seems to echo this sentiment.

      On the surface, this is clearly Paul's writing, at least in my opinion. But how it is generally translated, I think, coupled with the questionable section in 1 Corinthians 14, is what is at issue. The word in that passage means "to be quiet, to be silent, to shut up" specifically. Here, the word normally translated as "be silent," or "in silence" refers to being at rest, still, quiet. It's the root word for the word "Hesychasm," which is an Eastern Orthodox practice of meditation not too removed from the practice of Zen, and is still practiced today as an integral part of deep, Orthodox meditation and prayer. Another point is that the word translated as "have authority over literally means, "to have FULL authority over" or "to commit murder," and the closer meaning is the murder one, as the cognate word meaning "one who does this" literally means "murderer." Also the word translated as "permit, allow" literally means "to turn towards, to be inclined to." So, lets re-translate these two verses, and remember the context is the women adorning themselves with good works and modesty instead of jewelry and cosmetics as befitting devout women:

      "Let a woman learn with stillness with all submission; yet I'm not inclined towards a woman teaching neither murdering [probably more like "holding full authority over"] a man] but to be with stillness."

      Notice also that he doesn't say, "with all submission to the men," he just says, "with all submission." Are not the men too also to be submissive to Christ?

      Paul was a man of his time period. I certainly don't believe he was a misogynist, because, as he wrote, there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus, something he would have been keenly aware of. But men and women did have certain roles in Greco-Roman society, and Paul was keen on not causing offense to those on the outside of the church with behavior outside of the normal protocols and cultural etiquette from those inside the church. Thus, he strongly encouraged the women to veil. Thus, he wasn't inclined towards women teaching or murdering... er, I mean, having full authority over the men. It wasn't about suppressing or enslaving the women, it was about being above reproach in the society in which they lived. Thus also he sent Onesimus back to his slave owner and offered to pay Philemon, a fellow Christian, anything that was owed him out of his own pocket, even after encouraging the church at Corinth to use the opportunity for freedom if it presented itself (Onesimus would later become the bishop of Ephesus if I remember right).

      The bottom line here for Paul is that our lives, men or women, are no longer ours but Christ's, and the priority was displaying Him to the world, not our own rights or desires.

1 Corinthians 10-11: Taking the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ Seriously and the Consequences of Treating Him with Contempt

     In 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Paul is not so subtly explicit in his warning to the Corinthians about their behavior and the temptations they were facing. 

     First, he identifies the ancient Israelites using them as a type for Christians, using the not so subtle imagery of the Israelites engaging in types of the Sacraments of Baptism (being baptized into Moses with the cloud and the sea) and Holy Eucharist (spiritual food and spiritual drink). Then he warns the Corinthians not to engage in things like idolatry, whoring, tempting Christ, grumbling, and so on just like they did and faced disastrous consequences from God (twenty three thousand fell, they were destroyed by snakes, they were destroyed by the one who makes women shriek from the loss of their men and children).

     Notice, this passage is immediately after when Paul was talking about competing like an athlete against his own body so he wouldn't be found unproven or disqualified. After saying these things about competing against his body, this is then a further explanation of his reasoning, and he is essentially saying be careful not to treat your union with Christ unseriously or callously like the ancient Israelites treated Yahweh and everything they had been inducted into with contempt. Disastrous consequences will follow. It is the same thing he said in Romans where he said that if God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you being a grafted branch either.

     A Christian treating Jesus Christ with contempt, treating Him like a joke, knowing who He is, what He's done, and knowing his or her union with Him is blaspheming the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit within them. It is the same as the man at the wedding feast who wasn't wearing the wedding clothes, and will evoke the same response from God. It is the same warning as Hebrews 10:26-31, "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the Living God."

     Paul tells the Corinthians, "A temptation hasn't gotten you except what is human; and God is trustworthy who won't let you be tempted beyond what you're capable of but will make together with the temptation also the way out with being able to bear up under it."

     That way out is always submission to Christ within you, and asking and trusting Him to act and speak through you just as He asked and trusted the Father to act and speak through Him. All the temptations which we face are things which trigger the malfunctioning human survival responses of fear, aggression, feeding, and sexual drive to react to things to which we are attached or things to which we are averse. Every human being descended from Adam experiences these responses regardless of what triggers them and God has already made the way out through joining you with Jesus Christ through Baptism into His death, burial, and resurrection. Ask Him, remain in Him, and turn over all control to Him and trust Him in that moment, every moment.

      Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 with being careful concerning eating what's sacrificed to idols is worth taking note of, though it may not sit well with the anti-Sacramental branch of Christian theology. Paul's argument is that eating from temple sacrifices, any temple sacrifices, is communing with the sacrifice and what it was sacrificed to. This is actually a common understanding all the way around the Mediterranean Sea at the time. A sacrificed was validated by eating it, and the rite wasn't considered complete or legitimized until you ate it. 

     Paul argues that the cup and the bread of the Holy Eucharist or Holy Communion is communion with the body and blood of Jesus Christ and communing with His body and blood is no different than those who eat what's sacrificed in a temple. He continues this line of thinking in 11:23-30. As far as Paul is concerned, the bread and the wine in the cup are one and the same sacrifice as Jesus Christ on the cross, His broken body and shed blood. His real presence. And sharing in the bread and wine is communing with Jesus Christ on the cross, validating and legitimizing His sacrifice. Otherwise, his argument involving communing with sacrifices would be pretty empty.

In 1 Corinthians 11:23-34 Paul writes:

     "Because I got from the Lord what I also handed over to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which He was handed over He got a loaf of bread, and having given thanks He broke it and said, 'This thing is MY body which is for you (people); do this thing for My memory.' In the same way also the cup with the dining saying, 'This cup is the fresh contract with My blood; do this, as many times as you would drink it, for My memory.' Because as many times as you would eat this loaf of bread and drink the cup you announce the death of the Lord until which (time) He should come.

     “So as whoever should eat the loaf of bread or drink the cup of the Lord undeservingly, he will be culpable for the body and the blood of the Lord. Yet let a human being examine himself and thus let him eat from the loaf of bread and drink from the cup; because the person eating and drinking eats and drinks judgment for himself not setting apart the body. Because of this many among you are ill and sick and enough sleep the sleep of death. Yet if we have set ourselves apart, we would not be judged; yet being judged by the Lord we are schooled, so that we would not be condemned together with the world. So as, my brothers, coming together for the eating, wait on one another. If someone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you don't come together for judgment. Yet the rest of the things I will draw up as I would come."

      Paul's argument here in chapters 10 and 11 of 1 Corinthians are the strongest argument possible for his belief that there was no difference between the bread and the wine and Christ on the cross. By eating the bread and drinking the cup, you hold communion with His sacrificed body and blood. Were these just symbols or representations, Paul's argument would fall apart regarding eating both the things sacrificed to idols and the bread and cup of the Lord's supper, there should be no cause for the severity of his warning, and there would be no reason behind the Corinthians' illnesses and fatalities. Just this last part alone should give anyone pause about treating the bread and the wine like any other common meal.

     Paul then points out the serious implications of eating both what is sacrificed to demi-gods in 10:18-22 (or demons, the word can be translated either way) and eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus Christ (presumably for those who still believe the idols or what's sacrificed to them means anything). Referencing what he just said in the beginning of chapter 10 where he used the Israelite's flippancy and not taking God seriously and the disastrous consequences of it to warn about taking Jesus Christ seriously and the consequences of not doing so, he says, "Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? We aren't stronger than Him, are we?"

     Eating the idol sacrifices wasn't a big deal to Paul personally or to others in the Corinthian church, but to some of them it was tantamount to mocking Christ's sacrifice or treating it flippantly, and this was concerned Paul. Perhaps not for Paul, but for some of the Greek Christians in particular, it was approaching blasphemy of the Spirit of Christ and this was what Paul was warning against. Not being flippant with Jesus Christ.

     In this entire passage, Paul is continuing with the expectation of treating the bread and the cup like Christ on the cross, the victim of the sacrifice the eating of which validates the sacrifice. He began this reasoning in the previous chapter and his train of thought and line of logic hasn't changed at all. His warning about eating the bread and drinking the cup "undeservingly" or "unworthily" is a warning about consuming the sacrificial victim disrespectfully and hearkens back to his warning about God's judgment on Israel when they treated Him contemptuously. Ignorance is forgivable and can be disciplined, but knowing what it is and treating it like it was nothing is pushing blasphemy of the Spirit of Christ. Just like Israel was disciplined for treating God with contempt, so also many of the Corinthian Christians became ill, sick, and some even died because they were disrespecting the bread and the cup, the real presence of the sacrificial victim, Christ on the cross.

     Another point of interest in 1 Corinthians 10 are the pains which Paul takes to not trigger someone else's conscience, that is, their sense of "good/evil" or "right/wrong." Pertaining back to my last post, the conscience is this malfunctioning survival response which then declares what we attach to "good" and what we are averse to "evil" and did not occur among the human population until the incident in Genesis 3. Judging something or someone, deciding whether they are good or evil, is, fundamentally, the decision of whether you are attached or averse to some aspect of that thing or person, whether it pleases or displeases you or whether you agree with it or disagree with it, and it becomes complicated when it pleases you but you disagree with it, or it displeases you but you agree with it. This is where cognitive dissonance occurs and mental illness can follow if it is not reconciled.

     It is my belief that Paul understood these things well enough to avoid judgment of others and especially the unbelieving as much as possible, even as Jesus taught, "Don't judge so you won't be judged," and to take great pains to not trigger the other person's conscience and so initiate their malfunctioning or "sin" response.

     "Everything is permitted, but not everything brings it together or is a benefit. Everything is permitted, but not everything is constructive. Don't let anyone look for his own thing, but for the thing of the other person." Interestingly, "the other person" in v. 24 is "heteros" in Greek, meaning "another of a different kind" as opposed to "allos" meaning "another of the same kind." It's the same word he uses to describe the unbelieving host who serves idol sacrifices in v. 29. Paul isn't just concerned with the weak brethren, but also with the consciences of the unbelieving pagans as well for whom the sacrificed meat would definitely mean something, and who knew the implications of eating it.

He reiterates his driving philosophy regarding these things which he himself practices and follows, "Whether then you eat or you drink or anything you do, do everything for God's glory. Become harmless to both Judeans and Greeks and the congregation of God, just like I also appease everything for everyone, not looking for my own benefit but the benefit of the many, so that they would be delivered."

     

A Ramble About Morality

      The biggest impediment to the Cross and the path of Jesus Christ is personal morality, and especially personal morality projected and imposed on others. The healthy do not need a doctor, only those who are sick.

     What do I mean when I say that morality is the biggest impediment to walking the path of Jesus Christ? Do I mean empathy for others? Of course not. What I mean is the internal judgments of one thing as good and another as evil, one thing as right and another as wrong, because these internal judgments are always based on what pleases us and what displeases us, what we agree with and what we do not agree with, what we're attached to and what we are averse from. The path of Jesus Christ disengages from this internal judgment wiring completely and instead focuses on empathy and compassion towards everybody and everything regardless of who they are or what they've done, are doing, or intend to do. The path of Jesus Christ does not ask, "Is this good or evil?" The path of Jesus Christ asks, "Am I feeling what this person is feeling, and am I responding with love towards them?" The path of Jesus Christ bypasses the internal judgment mechanism altogether and seeks to see everyone as the Father sees them, their pains, their hurts, their twisted reasoning, their loves, their fears, their needs, and so on; both theirs and ours. The Father sees all of this imminently and immediately all the time with everyone and everything. He does not pass judgment because He knows who we are and what we go through and what's wrong with us. He has committed all judgment to the Son, who Himself did not come to condemn the world, but so that the world might be delivered through Him.

     Morality is the judgment that some things and people are evil. Not that they are good, because good is a given and everything God created is good. But it is the arbitrary decision that some things or people are evil because "I don't like that" or "that hurt me or something/someone I like." Morality is different from empathy. Empathy seeks to feel what the other person is feeling and to treat them at least how you would want to be treat or to treat them as you treat yourself. Morality is fundamentally self centered where empathy is fundamentally others centered, or at least brings others up to the level of importance as the self.

     Human morality began with a toxin introduced into the brain from a piece of fruit modern humanity's ancestors weren't supposed to eat. This toxin created a malfunction in the limbic system of the brain (affecting the hypothalamus especially) and caused it to treat every adverse condition, including abstract thoughts, as survival threats. Thus whereas evil was an unknown condition to the human mind prior to this poisoning, it became obsessed with it afterwards. The human brain malfunctioned and passed down this malfunction genetically ever since.

     Everything Jesus taught as conditions for discipleship, and the bulk of His teaching on practice immediately addresses and contradicts the way the malfunctioning human brain is hardwired. Letting go of possessions, relationships, beliefs, and so on from which we derive our personal identities immediately sends up survival red flags to the hypothalamus which then reacts and frequently creates cognitive dissonance as we recognize and agree with the truth of what Jesus taught. This is why our own psychology must be disengaged from. This is why it becomes necessary for us to be joined to Him and for us to request and submit to the control of His psychology within us.

     Fundamentally, morality feeds on legislation and rules. The written declaration that one thing is good and another is evil is what it thrives on, either clinging to the rule as necessary to survival or pushing it away as antithetical to survival. Morality does not understand that rules frequently need to have exceptions in order to be healthy, and it takes great effort to adjust and update its definitions of "good" and "evil" to encompass exceptions. If it is "good" for me, then it is "good" for everyone, and if a little is "good" then a lot is better. The same is true of "evil." Balance is a difficult concept for morality, and it is frequently ignored or balance itself declared "evil" for this reason.

     The path of Jesus Christ passes no judgment on anyone, and condemns no one. The path of Jesus Christ empathizes with and is compassionate towards everyone. The path of Jesus Christ declares no one "evil" but malfunctioning and offers a way to be delivered from that malfunction in this life. The path of Jesus Christ forces no one to walk it, but asks that one considers the consequences of not. Not condemnation by God, but the continued descent into personal insanity and need for restraints described as the outer darkness.

     Morality is the antithesis of the path of Jesus Christ, and what He came to deliver us from.