I always think reincarnation is a surprisingly unpopular doctrine within Christianity, given how many diverse issues it's a useful tool for dealing with:
1) Abortion. If the fetus is aborted, God could just reincarnate the soul into another fetus until it lives a decent life. No need for "limbo" or "what do we do with all the fetuses in heaven?"
2) Lived before Jesus / never heard the gospel preached? Simple, God reincarnates you until you get a chance to hear and be saved.
3) Heard the gospel but didn't accept it? No problem, perhaps given another go at it, in life number 2, or 3, in a different family / denomination / country / culture, you'd accept Christ as Lord.
4) God ends up having to send some people to hell, but doesn't really want them to suffer unduly. Fine, create another world like this one and reincarnate the people endlessly in it. Some Christians think that God doesn't "send" anyone to hell and rather people "choose" to go to hell rather than heaven / "heaven would be hell for them because of the presence of God" etc, well giving people an option of this world plus reincarnation seems a lot better than the burning fires of suffering in hell.
Given that reincarnation seems to be a useful tool for God to use on a range of theological issues, yet given it's standard Christian belief that this is not a tool he uses, is that because he can't use it? Does something prevent the omnipotent God from being able to reincarnate people? Or is this just a case of God having a useful method at his disposal but choosing not to solve a whole lot of issues?
With regard to point 4 itself, if a Christian wants to assert that 'hell' is worse than our current lives in the world (as most Christians do), and yet believes that God is powerful enough to create another world much like this one if he wanted (as most Christians believe he could), they have to answer as to why God would create needless suffering by sending people to 'hell' rather than to another world much like this one.
1) Abortion. If the fetus is aborted, God could just reincarnate the soul into another fetus until it lives a decent life. No need for "limbo" or "what do we do with all the fetuses in heaven?"
2) Lived before Jesus / never heard the gospel preached? Simple, God reincarnates you until you get a chance to hear and be saved.
3) Heard the gospel but didn't accept it? No problem, perhaps given another go at it, in life number 2, or 3, in a different family / denomination / country / culture, you'd accept Christ as Lord.
4) God ends up having to send some people to hell, but doesn't really want them to suffer unduly. Fine, create another world like this one and reincarnate the people endlessly in it. Some Christians think that God doesn't "send" anyone to hell and rather people "choose" to go to hell rather than heaven / "heaven would be hell for them because of the presence of God" etc, well giving people an option of this world plus reincarnation seems a lot better than the burning fires of suffering in hell.
Given that reincarnation seems to be a useful tool for God to use on a range of theological issues, yet given it's standard Christian belief that this is not a tool he uses, is that because he can't use it? Does something prevent the omnipotent God from being able to reincarnate people? Or is this just a case of God having a useful method at his disposal but choosing not to solve a whole lot of issues?
With regard to point 4 itself, if a Christian wants to assert that 'hell' is worse than our current lives in the world (as most Christians do), and yet believes that God is powerful enough to create another world much like this one if he wanted (as most Christians believe he could), they have to answer as to why God would create needless suffering by sending people to 'hell' rather than to another world much like this one.
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