Reïncarnation in Christianity – A New Vision of the Role of Rebirth in Christian Thought

By Geddes MacGregor.

185 Pages | Copyright 1978, fourth Quest reprinting 1989 | Softcover | Quest Books U.S.A. | ISBN: 0835605019.

Is there room for the 'rebirth concept' in Christian dogma?

The question, that bothered Dr. MacGregor was quite basic: Can a Christian believe in reïncarnation and still remain loyal to the Bible and the Church? He decided to find some answers. He researched into the annals of Christian theory - cut through centuries of religious emotionalism - gathered his material together and reported his findings in this landmark work.

From Chapter III - Some Interpretative Considerations (p. 34 & 35):

" The myth of reïncarnation may be interpreted, then, in many different ways. Pythagoras, on the one hand, if we are to believe his biographer Diogenes Laertius, seems to have taken human rebirth literally, for (according to Diogenes), Pythagoras was accustomed to say he had formerly been Aethalides, then Euphorbus, and that he had been mortally wounded by Menelaus at the siege of Troy. Plato, on the other hand, as is well-known, used transmigration as part of the general mythological scenery available in his time; but how precisely he regarded it is unclear. We know only that he made use of the notion in presenting his own thought, as he made use of other popular myths of his day.

The myth of reincarnation has also, however, an obvious connection with what Professor Eliade has called the myth of eternal return, which represents the rythmn of birth, death and rebirth as a cyclic reality at the core of the whole universe. 'According to this doctrine', he writes, 'the universe is eternal but it is periodically destroyed and reconstituted every Great Year. ' "