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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 6/18/2009 5:41 AM (GMT -6)

Ya'll see this?

www.fox8.com/wjw-reincarnation-txt,0,1190900.story

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 6/21/2009 3:11 PM (GMT -6)

What do you think about this, Tom?

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 6/21/2009 11:51 PM (GMT -6)

Well, I obviously can't explain it. And I have good biblical/theological reasons to think reincarnation at the very least isn't something God intends should happen, as if it was a policy he adopted for populating the earth. There are reasons to think it just flat out doesn't happen. You know the same passages I know. Hebrews comes to mind--"It's appointed for a person once to die and then face judgment." That sure looks pretty policy-ish to me. But of course Lazarus (or anyone else who's every died and been raised to life) technically speaking is an exception to the rule. Lazarus died TWICE and then faced judgment. But that's "resurrection" and is easy to make "fit." It's another thing entirely to say that the soul or spirit of a person who dies later "reincarnates" in another body.

I'm afraid to ask what you think... ;o)

I did think it was interesting that this boy had the WWII soldier's MEMORIES. Remember all the ranting we did about memories? You said that since they're written on the brain and the brain can be damaged, the memories can be lost. But this suggests that the "soul" or "spirit" doesn't lose those memories. It's the whole body-mind relationship.

Bbhhhahahaha!

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/21/2009 11:56:02 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 6/22/2009 11:10 AM (GMT -6)

Collective Unconscious

Akashic records

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 6/22/2009 11:13 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:
I did think it was interesting that this boy had the WWII soldier's MEMORIES. Remember all the ranting we did about memories? You said that since they're written on the brain and the brain can be damaged, the memories can be lost. But this suggests that the "soul" or "spirit" doesn't lose those memories. It's the whole body-mind relationship.

To me, this story mainly talks about NON-LOCALITY of human memory. I don't think anyone would really think that these human memories (from WWII) are originating from the boy's brain itself alone. It's not saying WHERE those memories are coming from (reincarnated human spirit, angelic/demonic forces working, etc)...but it definitely seems to be a prima facie blow against the strict belief that we are NO MORE THAN just our brains working.

The boy's mind/brain unity is in contact with SOMETHING OTHER than itself in all this. That's the least that a reasonable person would have to say about this.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 6/22/2009 11:16:10 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 6/22/2009 11:19 AM (GMT -6)

D: The boy's mind/brain unity is in contact with SOMETHING OTHER than itself in all this. That's the least that a reasonable person would have to say about this.

T: OK. So what do YOU do with it? We either identify the individuals (I mean the human spirit which is this boy and the spirit which is the soldider), in which case you have a genuine case of re-incarnation. The soldier has been reborn, come back. IF NOT THAT, then just the memories of the soldier got downloaded into the boy through some sort of metaphysical computer glitch.

What do you do?

T

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 6/22/2009 11:24 AM (GMT -6)

Well, if "hypostasis" is NOT COMMUNICABLE by any means...AND we say that the hypostasis of the soldier is IMMUTABLY HYPOSTATICALLY DISTINCT from that of the boy...

then...

it can't be the case that the boy is the SAME hypostasis as the soldier, just in another human being. One hypostasis per human being, right?

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 6/22/2009 11:33 AM (GMT -6)

And this is interesting.

This would seem to suggest that the essence of personhood (hypostasis) CANNOT be in memories of personal, historical narrative, even memories of self-reflection, because those "memories of self" can be shared by multiple human persons.

And true hypostasis is incommunicable, right? biggrin

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 6/22/2009 1:04 PM (GMT -6)

Hypostasis is incommunicable, right. But what reincarnation could say (if it wanted to adhere to this as well), is that you don't have a communication of hypostasis form one hypostasis to another. You have one and the same hypostasis--that of the soldier now getting to live another in another time and place (body), not in another person or another human being with its own hypostasis; just in another BODY only. Same person, so that boy IS the soldier, just in a different body and now adding new memories to one and the same person. Reincarnation folks wouldn't say you've got TWO hypostases here.

How would we falsify the claim that it's either possible or that it actually happens?

T

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 6/23/2009 2:19 PM (GMT -6)

I thought that, for human beings, there was ONE hypostasis per mind/brain unity. That human hypostasis was not solely located in the intelligible, non-corporeal aspect of the human body. For example, whenever Jesus' incorporeal aspect was "separated" from his flesh in the tomb, the dead cadaver in the tomb was STILL Jesus' hypostatically-owned body. We don't believe that the human body of Jesus temporarily housed the Eternal Son of God's personal presence. We aren't quasi-docetists. Jesus' one hypostasis included body AND soul, even in death...a true union. To say that reincarnation occurs, one would have to locate the created human hypostasis in the non-corporeal aspect of human nature alone...and that's not how it works with Christian anthropology, as I understand. For if this were human nature, then we'd HAVE to say that God the Son's hypostasis didn't personally "own" any human body any more or less than any OTHER reincarnated person "owns" their bodies. See the issue?

Something else. If the resurrection involves the eternalization of human incorporeal and corporeal aspects...AND if the hypostatic activity of any individual human mind/brain unity is irreducibly unique from any other individual human ever existing...then the resurrected WWII person MUST be hypostatically distinct from the 11 year old boy. They would meet EACH OTHER in the resurrection. See what I'm saying?

So, taking all this...if the "self" of the mind/brain unity of the WWII soldier is ONE human hypostatic unity...and the "self" of the mind/brain unity of the 11 year old boy is ANOTHER human hypostatic unity...then it CANNOT be the case that the "self" of the 11 year old boy IS the "self" of the WWII soldier...not if human hypostatic being is incommunicable from human to human.

But then what about boy's self-reflective memories of the WWII pilot... the "The Japanese shot me down!" stuff. Surely if this memory is being articulated by the boy as part of his own apparent self-reflection...it HAS to be the case that the boy and the dead pilot are the same "hypostasis", right?

Wrong.

Hence, what I say: It seems that the essence of personhood (hypostasis) CANNOT be in memories of personal, historical narrative, even memories of self-reflection, because those "memories of self" can be shared by multiple human persons. If self-reflective human memory can be shared across individual human mind/brain unities, then it CANNOT be of "hypostasis" BECAUSE it can be so shared.

Right?

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 6/23/2009 2:49:38 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 6/23/2009 2:41 PM (GMT -6)

I'll give you an thought experiment.

Let's say that the boy has the soldier's memories of FAITH. Let's assume this is Christian faith.

Let's further say that the boy has faith in Christ of his own.

Whenever the boy would call out to Christ in faith in the present, WHO would be doing that? The boy or the dead soldier?

I'd say it would be the boy himself, even if the boy self-reflected in terms of the soldier's memories...because it's actually the boy's individual, particular human hypostatic unity (with it's own individual logos circumscribing his hypostatic unity's becoming) "who" is in the present with God in his human hypostasis, not the fallen soldier's.

Make sense?

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 6/23/2009 2:45:14 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 6/23/2009 2:56 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
How would we falsify the claim that it's either possible or that it actually happens?

Ask the question:
Do you believe that crucified body of Jesus in the borrowed tomb personally "belonged" to God the Son, even in death?

In other words, when Jesus "gave up his spirit" to the Father and died...was the human corpse that was carried to the tomb to lay for days still an aspect of God the Son's personal self-experience, as human?

If so, then it follows that for every one human hypostatic unity, both the intelligible/incorporeal AND sensible/corporeal are related to THAT one hypostasis...and ONLY that hypostasis. If Jesus is TRULY human...and if every human hypostatic unity is irreducibly unique and incommunicable, then there you go.

If not, then it opens up the possibility that human hypostasis is not essentially related to the sensible/corporeal realm...and eternal incorporeal human persons can wear corruptible human "flesh" suits throughout time...docetism style.

I'd say yes, because I thought that's part of what Jesus' ressurection was about: the eternal RE-union of his personally-owned soul and body in glorification, having suffered the separation involved with human death.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 6/23/2009 3:03:28 PM (GMT-5)

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