Genesis: Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism by Allan Kardec

Author:Allan Kardec [Kardec, Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781948109161
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Edicei of America
Published: 2011-06-23T05:00:00+00:00

Reincarnation

33. The principle of reincarnation is a necessary consequence of the law of progress. Without reincarnation, how can one explain the difference between the present societal state and that of the times of barbarism? If souls are created at the same time as the body, those being born today are as new and primitive as those who lived a thousand years ago. Adding the fact that there would be no connection or necessary relationship between the two groups and that they would be completely independent of each other, why then are souls today better endowed by God than those of their predecessors? Why do they possess greater understanding? Why do they possess finer instincts and gentler customs? Why do they have an intuition about certain matters without having learned them? This dilemma is a challenge to solve if we are led to believe that God creates souls of different qualities according to times and places, a proposition irreconcilable with the idea of supreme justice. (See chap. II, no. 19)

On the contrary, if we say that the souls of today have already lived in far-off times; that they could have been barbaric in barbaric times, but have since progressed; that for each new existence they bring with them what they acquired in previous lives; and that, consequently, the souls of civilized times are not souls created more perfect, but rather, souls that have been perfecting themselves over time, then you will have the only plausible explanation for the cause of social progress. (See The Spirits’ Book, chaps. IV and V).

34. Some persons believe that the soul’s various existences are accomplished by going from world to world, and not on one and the same globe, where each spirit would appear only once.

This doctrine would be acceptable if all earth’s inhabitants were at the same intellectual and moral level. In that case, they could not progress except by going from one world to another, and their reincarnation on earth would be pointless. God, however, does nothing pointless. On earth we find all degrees of intelligence and morality, from primitivism bordering on animality to the most advanced civilization; hence it offers a vast field for progress. It would bear asking why primitives would be obligated to seek the next evolutionary level elsewhere when it and successive levels lie right next them where they now are; why advanced humans could take their first steps only on less evolved worlds when beings analogous to all such worlds are all around them; and why there are different degrees of advancement, not only from culture to culture, but within the same culture and the same family. If such were the case, God would have done something useless in placing ignorance and wisdom, barbarism and civilization, good and evil side by side, when in reality it is precisely such contact that enables stragglers to progress.

There is therefore no more need for humans to change worlds at each step than there is for a student to change schools at each grade.

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