Reincarnation: revisiting the transmigration of souls as systematic and pastoral issue.

Abstract

The issue of reincarnation has factually been laid to rest in Christian theology at the end of Greco-Roman Antiquity. Not so in the cultural histories of European countries, where is revived continuously, most forcefully from the 18th century in onwards, as in Germany. This requires a new look at the idea, and at practices of ‘past-life regression’ that are widespread, from a dogmatic and pastoral perspective. Recent academic publications on the issue, reflecting different attitudes to it in theology, are therefore presented and discussed here, with further considerations added. The link of this issue to opinions about the post-mortal state of the soul, are thus included. In critique of ‘whole-death’ positions, in recent Protestantism and Catholicism, the Vatican’s renewed affirmation of a living soul in the post-mortal state, and the call of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, to review the rejection of reincarnation, are picked up for this presentation, that argues to connect these two.

Keywords

• re-incarnation
• past-life regression
• soul
• afterlife
• theological anthropology