Ways of Understanding the Concept of Reincarnation

Abstract

Before we consider the possibility that a form of reincarnationism might be compatible with Christian faith and examine such warrants as we may find in the New Testament and patristic writings, we must first inspect more carefully what the notion of reincarnation may mean. We shall find that its meanings are as varied as are the meanings that have been attached to the notion of immortality. So we need to clear this ground in order to determine what form or forms of reincarnationism, if any, might possibly fit a genuinely Christian mould of thought and which must be ruled out.

Under the term Wiedermenschwerdung, metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, a great variety of ideas may be understood. Désiré Joseph Mercier, Cardinal Archbishop, Psychologie