Program / Course 18: World Religions / Lesson 3.4
What you will learn
- Describe how karma, rebirth and liberation are understood in Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh traditions.
- State the Christian teaching on death, judgment, resurrection and grace.
- Compare the two outlooks on the human problem and its remedy without merging them.
- Name the main Christian objections to rebirth and the main replies of its defenders.
The big idea
Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs speak of a cycle of birth, death and rebirth shaped by karma, and they hope for liberation from it. Christians teach that each person lives one earthly life, will be judged, and is called to resurrection and eternal life with God, given by grace through Christ. Both outlooks take moral life with great seriousness, and both see human life as needing rescue. They differ on what a person is, what the rescue is from, who accomplishes it and what the end looks like.
Key terms
- Karma
- Intentional action and its results. In Indian traditions, a law by which deeds shape future experience.
- Rebirth (reincarnation)
- The teaching that after death a being is born again in a new life. Buddhists often prefer rebirth, since there is no unchanging soul to pass on.
- Moksha / mukti / nirvana
- Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist terms for liberation from the cycle of rebirth, understood differently in each tradition.
- Resurrection of the body
- The Christian hope that at the end of the age God will raise the dead and give them new, imperishable bodies.
- Grace
- God’s free and undeserved favor, which for Christians is the source of forgiveness and new life.
- Particular judgment and last judgment
- In Catholic and Orthodox teaching, the judgment of each soul at death, and the general judgment at the end of the age. Protestants speak of a final judgment and differ on the intermediate state.
- Theosis (deification)
- The Orthodox teaching that salvation is sharing by grace in the divine life, so that a person becomes by grace what God is by nature.
Background
Almost every culture asks what happens after death and whether the world is just. Indian traditions answer with karma and rebirth: justice is worked out across many lives. The Christian tradition answers with God’s judgment and with resurrection. These two answers are often set side by side by modern writers, who may say they are the same teaching in different words. A careful student sees that they are not.
This lesson draws on the three Indian traditions of the previous lessons and compares them as a group with Christian hope. It does not speak of every Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh view, which vary a great deal. It aims to give each side as its own adherents would.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Karma and rebirth in the Indian traditions
In Hindu thought, the self (atman) passes through successive lives, and the quality of a person’s actions shapes the form of the next life. The cycle has no beginning and is seen as a burden, from which one seeks release. In Buddhist teaching, a stream of consciousness continues from life to life, driven by craving and by karma, though there is no permanent self. Sikhs hold that a person is born many times until union with God, which comes by grace.
In these traditions karma is not fate imposed by a judge. It is a law, like cause and effect in the moral realm. In Buddhism, intention is what makes an action karmic. Hindus and Buddhists generally teach that compassion is the right response to suffering, and not blame for the sufferer, though in practice the doctrine has been used to explain inequality in harsh ways.
Step 2: Liberation
Liberation is described differently. For Advaita Vedanta, moksha is realizing that the self is Brahman. For devotional Hindus, it is entering the presence of God in love. For Buddhists, nirvana is the ending of craving, hatred and delusion, and so of rebirth. Sikhs speak of merging with God, like a drop in the ocean, though some writers stress a continuing relationship.
In all these views liberation is a release from a condition of bondage and suffering. For some Hindus and for Sikhs grace is central, and for many Buddhist schools effort and insight are central, though Pure Land Buddhists depend on the saving vow of the Buddha Amitabha.
Step 3: The Christian account of death and hope
Christians teach that a person lives once on earth and is then judged: “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). The human person is a unity of body and soul, made in God’s image, and the body is not a prison. Christians hope in the resurrection of the dead, with Christ as the first fruits (1 Corinthians 15:20), and in eternal life in communion with God.
The Christian account of the human problem is sin, a broken relationship with God, and its consequence, death. Salvation is God’s gift in Christ, who bore sin and rose. A person responds in faith and love. In this account the remedy is not an achievement of knowledge or merit but a rescue by grace, though the traditions differ about how faith and works relate.
Step 4: The differences set side by side
On the human person, Christianity holds that each person is a unique creature, with one life and an unrepeatable story. Indian traditions teach a continuing being across lives, and Buddhism denies a permanent self. On the problem, Christians name sin against a personal God, while Indian traditions name ignorance, craving and attachment. On the remedy, Christians say God acts in history through Christ, while Indian traditions emphasize insight, discipline or devotion (with grace among Sikhs and many Hindus). On the end, Christians hope for resurrection and communion, in which persons remain, while Indian traditions describe release or union that goes beyond ordinary personal existence.
There are overlaps: the need for moral transformation, the call to compassion, the sense that the world is not as it should be, and the role of grace in some strands. But the shared words hide different structures.
Step 5: Questions each side puts to the other
Christians have argued against rebirth that Scripture speaks of one life and a judgment; that if memory is lost, the person who is reborn is not meaningfully the same; and that karma explains suffering in a way that can blame the victim. Early Christian writers, such as Origen, are sometimes said to have taught the preexistence of souls, but the Church did not accept the teaching of a cycle of lives.
Defenders of rebirth reply that one life seems too short to explain the differences in human fortune, that children’s apparent memories and the moral order of the world point to continuity, and that the Christian view struggles to explain why some are born into suffering. Some Christian philosophers argue against rebirth on philosophical grounds, and others treat it as a topic for respectful disagreement. Neither side claims to have a decisive proof.
- What does it mean to hope for liberation from life, and what does it mean to hope for the resurrection of life?
- How does karma differ from judgment by a personal God?
- Why might a person find the doctrine of one life harder or easier than the doctrine of many?
- How does grace function in Christianity and in Sikh or Pure Land teaching, and how does it differ?
- Does the Christian hope imply that the body and the world matter, and how does that compare with the Indian view?
- What do these traditions each say about those who suffer most?
Examples
A Hindu funeral
At a Hindu cremation, family members offer prayers and scatter the ashes in a river, with the hope that the departed will go forward toward a good rebirth and eventually to liberation. The family describes the rites as help for the departed, who is on a journey.
A Christian funeral
At a Christian funeral, the congregation commends the departed to God, reads from the Gospels and the resurrection chapter of Paul, and states its hope in the resurrection of the body. The body is treated with care and buried or cremated with reverence, since it will be raised.
Two ways of reading a child’s suffering
A Buddhist teacher, asked about a child born with a serious illness, answers that the causes are many and that compassion is the right response. A Christian pastor answers that the world is under the shadow of sin and death, that God shares in suffering through Christ, and that the child is loved by God. Both decline to blame the child.
Different perspectives
Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh
Adherents of these traditions would say that karma and rebirth are not beliefs only but descriptions of how reality works, available to experience and reasoning. They differ among themselves on the self, on the role of God and on what liberation is. Many hold that the Christian idea of a single life seems to leave the unequal fortunes of human beings unexplained.
Catholic
The Catholic Church teaches that there is no reincarnation. Each person dies once, is judged and is destined for heaven, purification (purgatory) or hell, and the body will rise at the end (Catechism 1013). The Church holds that death is the end of the time of choice.
Orthodox
The Orthodox Church likewise rejects reincarnation and teaches the resurrection of the body. It emphasizes theosis and the continuing process of the soul after death, in which prayer for the departed matters. Many Orthodox writers prefer to speak with restraint about the details of the afterlife.
Protestant
Protestants hold that each person lives once, is judged and, if justified by faith in Christ, is raised to eternal life. Protestants differ on the state of the dead between death and resurrection, and on whether punishment is eternal, as some conditionalists hold it ends in destruction. Almost all reject reincarnation.
Scholarly
Scholars study reports of past life memories, especially those collected by Ian Stevenson, but most scientists consider the evidence unconvincing. Historians note that the idea of rebirth also appears in some ancient Greek thought, such as Plato, and in some modern spiritual movements.
Why it matters
The questions of death, justice and what a person is lie behind every religion. The Christian hope in resurrection is easily mixed up with the idea that souls return in new bodies. Seeing how the Indian traditions state their own hope, and how Christian hope differs, lets a Christian speak with a Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh friend without caricature.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Karma means everything that happens to a person is deserved.
Correction: Indian traditions teach that present circumstances are shaped by past action, but they also teach that suffering calls for compassion. Buddhist teachers explicitly reject the idea that all suffering is a punishment.
Misunderstanding: Resurrection and reincarnation are two names for one teaching.
Correction: Reincarnation is the return of a being in a new body in this world, in a repeating cycle. Resurrection is God’s raising of the dead to new life once, at the end of the age, with the body transformed.
Misunderstanding: Buddhists believe in a soul that is reborn.
Correction: Buddhism denies a permanent self and teaches that a stream of causes continues. The word reincarnation can mislead, and many Buddhists prefer rebirth.
Misunderstanding: Christianity has no teaching about justice across unequal lives.
Correction: Christianity teaches that God judges justly, that the last will be first, and that suffering in this life is not the last word (Luke 16:19-31, Romans 8:18). The Church admits the mystery of suffering.
Knowledge check
What is karma, and how does it connect to rebirth?
Karma is intentional action and its results, understood as a moral law like cause and effect. In Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh teaching, a person’s deeds shape the conditions of a later life, so the cycle of rebirth continues until liberation is reached.
What is the Christian hope concerning the body?
Christians hope for the resurrection of the body: that at the end of the age God will raise the dead and give them new, imperishable bodies, with Christ the first fruits (1 Corinthians 15). The body is not a prison to escape but a part of the person that God will redeem.
Name two differences between the Indian and Christian accounts of the human problem.
Christianity names the problem as sin, a broken relationship with a personal God, along with death. Indian traditions name it as ignorance, craving and attachment that bind a being to rebirth. Christianity also stresses that rescue comes through God’s act in Christ, while Indian traditions stress insight, discipline or devotion.
Why do Christians reject reincarnation?
Christians point to Scripture, which speaks of one death and then judgment (Hebrews 9:27) and of resurrection. They also argue that without memory the reborn person is not the same person, and that karma can blame the sufferer. Defenders of rebirth respond that one life cannot explain human inequality.
Think it through
- Which seems more hopeful to you, liberation from the cycle of lives or resurrection to one renewed life, and why?
- How might a Christian speak to a grieving Buddhist friend without disrespect?
- Does the belief in one life make this life more precious or more anxious?
- How should a Christian answer the claim that the reality of unequal birth demands rebirth?
Independent assignment
Two hopes side by side
In your notebook, write about 250 words stating, as a Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh would, the hope of liberation and how karma and rebirth lead to it. Then write 250 words stating the Christian hope of resurrection and grace in terms a Catholic, an Orthodox and a Protestant Christian could each accept. Finish with 150 words on one strong objection each side puts to the other, and your assessment of it.
Further study
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church Read the sections on the resurrection of the body and on the last things.
- Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word Read for the early Christian account of death and the remedy in the Word made flesh.
- Huston Smith, The World’s Religions Read the chapters on Hinduism and Buddhism for their accounts of rebirth and liberation.
- C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain Read for a Christian reflection on suffering, to compare with karma.
- Hebrews 9:27 Once to die and then judgment.
- 1 Corinthians 15:20 Christ the first fruits of them that slept.
- Romans 8:18 Present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come.