2.5 Why We Live Many Lives
Multiple Lives
The idea of repeated earthly lives is not new. It appears in very ancient traditions and was known among peoples of remote antiquity. Pythagoras did not originate it; he inherited it from earlier sources. The age of a doctrine does not prove it true by itself, but neither does antiquity count against it. When an idea passes through centuries and is received by many thoughtful minds, it suggests that the idea answers something deep in human reason and experience.
Yet an important distinction must be preserved. Ancient metempsychosis taught the transmigration of souls between human and animal bodies. The doctrine of reincarnation rejects that. Human spirits do not become animals, nor do animal souls become human. Reincarnation concerns the successive bodily lives of the same spirit within the human order of development.
Understood in this way, the plurality of existences appears free of superstition and in harmony with divine wisdom, natural law, and moral progress. Even if one sets aside all spiritual communications and examines the matter only through reason, the question still remains: which is more coherent, a single earthly life or a succession of lives?
Resistance to Reincarnation
Many reject reincarnation simply because they find it unwelcome. One life, they say, is enough. The thought of returning to Earth disturbs them. But reality does not adjust itself to preference. If reincarnation is true, refusing it changes nothing.
Such objections resemble the protest of a sick person who says, “I have suffered enough today; I do not wish to suffer tomorrow.” The illness does not end because the patient refuses treatment. Or they resemble a child who does not want to go to school, or a convicted person who does not want to go to prison. Protest does not alter necessity.
There is, however, less to fear in reincarnation than many imagine. A future existence is not an arbitrary punishment. It is linked to what the spirit makes of itself now. Each new life is happy or painful according to the use made of the present one. Improvement in this life prepares better conditions in the next and helps prevent a return to the same moral mire.
Reincarnation and Human Hope
Anyone who believes in a future life must also admit that all souls cannot share the same destiny regardless of how they lived. If good and evil led to exactly the same end, moral effort would lose its meaning. Why restrain selfish desires? Why practice sacrifice or justice, if the future were unaffected by conduct?
But if the future condition of the soul depends on its actions, then every person naturally desires the happiest future possible. Few would sincerely claim to have already reached such perfection that nothing remains to be corrected. Most must admit that they occupy an intermediate state: neither utterly depraved nor fully purified.
Placed in that condition, what would a reasonable person choose if told: “Your present state is not the best possible. You may rise higher if you begin again and do better than before”? Who would refuse such an opportunity, even if it required repeated effort? Measured against eternity, the duration of a human life is almost nothing. A few decades of labor are like a moment compared with the endless future toward which the soul advances.
Reincarnation, then, is not a sentence of despair but a doctrine of hope. It says that no sincere effort is wasted, no failure is final, and no soul is forever excluded from progress.
Divine Justice and the Means of Reparation
Some object that divine goodness would not impose a fresh series of trials and sorrows. But would goodness be better served by condemning a soul forever because of errors committed in a few short years? There is more mercy in granting opportunities for reparation than in declaring an eternal sentence with no remedy.
Imagine two employers whose workers fail in their duty. One dismisses the worker permanently, despite all pleading, and leaves him to ruin. The other says, “You have done badly and must make amends, but begin again tomorrow. If you work well, you may still attain the position once promised to you.” The second acts with far more humanity. Divine clemency cannot be less generous than human kindness.
The thought that one brief earthly life fixes destiny for all eternity has something severe and heartbreaking in it, especially when perfection is clearly unattainable here below. The contrary idea consoles because it preserves hope. It does not excuse wrongdoing; it gives the wrongdoer a path toward repair. It does not deny justice; it fulfills justice by joining consequence with possibility.
The Problem of a Single Existence
If there is no reincarnation, then each soul has only one bodily life. In that case, either the soul exists before birth or it does not.
If it does not exist before birth, then it must be created at the moment of birth. But this view immediately raises difficult questions.
If all souls are created equal at birth, why do they display such unequal aptitudes? Why are some children gifted from the earliest years with remarkable intelligence in science, art, or morality, while others remain mediocre despite every advantage? Why do some seem to bring intuitive knowledge, natural dignity, or instinctive goodness, while others reveal early tendencies toward vice, pettiness, or coarseness, even when raised in favorable conditions?
Why are some persons, despite similar education, clearly more advanced than others? Why do different peoples stand at such different levels of development? Can these differences be explained by the body alone? If so, human beings become mere machines governed by matter, and moral responsibility is undermined. Conduct would be attributed chiefly to organization rather than to the soul.
If, on the other hand, souls are unequal from the moment of creation, then God must have created some superior and others inferior. That would imply favoritism at the very root of existence, which is incompatible with equal justice and equal love.
The Inequality of Aptitudes
The plurality of existences offers a simple explanation. At birth, the soul brings the fruits of what it has already learned and become. One spirit is more advanced than another because it has lived more, progressed further, or made better use of previous opportunities.
The comparison with bodily life is helpful. If a thousand people from infancy to old age were gathered together and some veil hid their past years, one might wrongly suppose they all began life on the same day. Their differences in size, knowledge, strength, and maturity would then seem inexplicable. But once it is understood that each has lived for a different number of years, the inequality becomes natural. The same applies to souls. Successive lives are to the soul what years are to the body.
What seems like injustice arises only because human beings see the present life and not the preceding ones. The observed fact is undeniable: aptitudes and moral dispositions are unequal. If one explanation leaves that fact obscure while another explains it naturally and coherently, reason is drawn toward the latter.
Civilized and Uncivilized Peoples
The same principle applies to differences among peoples. If less developed populations are fully human, then they too must be included within divine justice. They cannot be a separate kind of being excluded from the privileges granted to others.
There are not several human species in the moral sense, but one humanity whose spirits occupy different stages of advancement. All are destined to progress. All can rise. Such a view is broader, more humane, and more consistent with divine justice than any doctrine that would treat whole groups as permanently inferior by nature.
The Future Life and Moral Equity
The same difficulties reappear when the future of the soul is considered.
If one earthly life alone determines eternal destiny, what becomes of those born in ignorance, in degraded conditions, or among peoples without access to moral and intellectual development? Are they placed on the same level as those who had every advantage, or are they forever deprived because circumstances prevented their growth?
What becomes of those who sincerely strive for improvement throughout life, compared with those who remained undeveloped through no fault of their own, but because they lacked time, education, or opportunity? Are people who did wrong because they were never enlightened to be judged as if they had knowingly chosen evil? What of the countless millions who die before education, religion, or civilization have reached them? What of children who die before they have done either good or evil?
Under the doctrine of a single life, these questions become nearly insoluble. Under the doctrine of successive lives, they are clarified. What was not achieved in one existence can be achieved in another. No one is excluded forever because of birth, circumstance, or early death. Each spirit advances according to real merit and receives the means necessary for its development.
No obstacle is final. No backwardness is absolute. The law of progress embraces all.
Reincarnation and Christianity
Some have supposed that reincarnation must be opposed to Christianity. But whatever is rational, moral, and consistent with divine goodness cannot truly be contrary to a religion founded on God’s justice and reason.
Religious understanding has often had to adjust when evidence became clear. Apparent conflicts have arisen before, and many vanished once deeper understanding showed that the contradiction was only on the surface. If certain doctrines or facts can be understood coherently only through the plurality of existences, then acceptance of that principle need not destroy faith. It may instead illuminate truths already present but imperfectly understood.
The principle appears in sacred teaching itself. After the transfiguration, when Jesus spoke of Elijah who was to come and restore all things, he added that Elijah had already come, though people did not recognize him and mistreated him. The disciples understood that he was speaking of John the Baptist. If John the Baptist was Elijah returned, this points directly to the return of the same spirit in another body.
Another saying is equally striking. In speaking to Nicodemus, Jesus declared: “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” When Nicodemus misunderstood and asked how an old man could enter again into his mother’s womb, Jesus did not withdraw the requirement of a new birth but affirmed it in spiritual terms: “Unless he is born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit.” The necessity of being born again is clearly stated.
Reason Before Authority
Even without relying on spiritual communications, the doctrine of the plurality of existences recommends itself through reason alone. Its strength lies first in its logic. It explains what otherwise remains confused: the inequality of aptitudes, the diversity of moral conditions, the fate of children, the condition of less developed peoples, and the justice of future reward and punishment.
No serious view should be accepted merely because it is ancient, popular, or transmitted by unseen beings. Everything must be tested. What is contrary to reason should be rejected, whatever its source. What accords with justice, morality, and observed facts deserves consideration.
In this respect, reincarnation stands out. It is not only coherent in principle; it also corresponds to many facts of human development that become intelligible once previous lives are admitted. Its explanatory power is one of its strongest claims.
The Consoling Character of the Doctrine
The plurality of existences is deeply consoling because it joins justice with mercy. It explains suffering without making God cruel. It affirms responsibility without shutting the door to recovery. It preserves moral seriousness while refusing despair.
Every soul remains accountable for its actions, yet every soul also retains the possibility of repair. Progress may be slow, and lives may be numerous, but the future remains open. The highest happiness is not reserved by arbitrary privilege. It is offered to all, and all may reach it.
For that reason, the doctrine of successive existences appears as a merciful provision within divine order. It is the means by which what cannot be completed in one life may be completed in another. It sustains hope, explains inequality without denying justice, and gives meaning to human effort across the whole course of the soul’s journey.
Whatever anyone may think of reincarnation, disbelief does not abolish it if it belongs to the laws of nature. The wiser course is not to reject it from impatience or fear, but to consider whether it best explains human life, divine justice, and the future destiny of the soul.