The Plains of Heaven by John Martin

Longtime reader and friend of the blog Kapios wrote in to my post about how the Lord uses broken tools to do His work with an interesting series of questions:

Could it be that sin must absolutely exist for humans to be content? Do we have to base our lives in relativity to be truly humans? Just like sin there is ugliness, which makes beauty count, and the taste of success is what makes it satisfying if it wasn’t for the bitterness of failure. I don’t know if there must be equal balance between good and bad, but I guess perception plays a big role here. Two people can sit in the same room and have a totally different experience based on what they have trained themselves to perceive.

On murder, rape and robbery, perhaps a punishment that fits those crimes is banishment from one’s society. It forces you to give up all attachments to anything and rebuild your character from scratch. The other option is to send the sinner to a community that holds the opposite values. I heard the Amish had no problem taking in someone who murdered one of their own and then put him to work on a building project of their own. That takes some serious discipline to pull off. I don’t know the full details of that story, but I heard that sending criminals to these types of communities is a way to reform them.

Lastly, there is reincarnation. Something that was part of Christian teachings but got erased by a king who wanted to go on a book burning spree. If you screw up in your previous life, here is your chance to make it up again. If you did well, you might get another life just to be more awesome or just show those around you the correct path. Heh!

There is a lot to get through here, so let’s unpack it one step at a time.

On the subject of sin being necessary in order for humans to be content:

This is definitely not what the Bible says. Assuming that you believe the story of the Fall – I have some reservations about it, but I have no problem with its core argument that sin came into the world because of Man’s exercise of his free will to ignore the Lord – then you will note that, in the prelapsarian world, the very first man with a soul lived in a blissful Paradise, ignorant and innocent, and perfectly content to remain so.

Sin is what separates us from God – and you do not necessarily sin purely from doing evil things. You can do it just as easily by ignoring that small, quiet voice in your mind that tells you what to do in hard situations.

The reason why sin and suffering exist is because Mankind has the priceless gift of free will, and we can use it as we want to do both good and evil. But that does not mean that sin itself is necessary.

The story of the Fall tells us that Man was separated from God through sin, and that this separation scarred God Himself so badly that He cannot stand to be in the presence of sinners, at all, without significant intercession.

Now, Kapios’s question is not specific to the Bible or Christianity here. Some Eastern philosophies, in particular, and several Gnostic Christian heresies, have a very dualistic, even Manichean, view of the world, and argue that there is a constant battle between good and evil, light and dark, and that harmony is achieved when these forces are in balance. This is very much an Eastern way of thinking, but it is flawed because it has no objective understanding of what is truly “good” and what is truly “evil”.

The problem with seeking “balance” between good and evil is that you have to tolerate the presence of evil in the world. And while it is impossible to exterminate evil, at least by merely human means, it is also this idea of “balance” that gets humanity into constant trouble.

Was it the maintenance of “balance”, sought for so long by Reichskanzler Otto von Bismarck through his signature philosophy of realpolitik, that maintained European civilisation in the early 20th Century?

No, because that balance came completely undone due to all of the endless compromises and ever tighter globalist ties that bound the European powers together, and it all ended in blood and fire and the deaths of millions in the slaughter-pens of the Great War.

Was it the maintenance of “balance”, which is what President Nixon and Henry Kissinger sought, that ended the Cold War?

No, it was Ronald Reagan’s belief in the good, the beautiful, and the true that pushed America through to victory in what may well be known to future historians as the Third World War.

As for the idea that you need to taste failure, defeat, and suffering in order to savour success, victory, and comfort, I agree with this. Several notable philosophies argue along these lines – my personal favourite, Stoicism, argues that suffering must be endured and borne in order to appreciate what we have, and I agree with that. The Bible itself also explicitly states that we should glory in our sufferings (Romans 5).

But that does not mean that sin must always exist – because if that were true, then God would not promise Mankind a way out of sin and suffering, and would not promise us a final victory over the Prince of Lies.

On the idea that social isolation and exclusion is an effective way to punish truly heinous crimes:

This is largely correct. Social ostracism is something that humans greatly fear. Not without reason is solitary confinement now being called “cruel and unusual punishment” by the regressive Left. Social exclusion is horrible for your mind and body. We humans are social animals and need to be around other people. We need to be, well, needed. We need to be a part of a family or organisation of some kind.

Men in particular need to have a sense of belonging to a unit made up of their brothers. Women in particular need to be able to talk endlessly about anything that comes into their minds. Men think, do, and talk. Women combine thinking and doing into talking.

Social isolation destroys our ability to bond with other people and fulfill ourselves creatively, morally, spiritually, and in other ways, through other people. The worst kind of solitary confinement results in 23 hours a day of no contact whatsoever with other people. Complete isolation, combined with sensory deprivation, leaves you with basically two options: talk to God, or go insane.

Among the aforementioned Amish community, for instance, excommunication and expulsion from the community is the most severe punishment for the worst offenders, and with very, very good reason. If you cut off a man from every possible aspect of social interaction and community, he will go insane – in fact, he will not even be recognisably human anymore, because humans are defined by our ability to interact with each other.

I don’t know for sure if the Amish accept murderers and criminals into their communities and then put them to work. I haven’t found any evidence of that happening, but I haven’t looked for it much. It may well be true – I have no idea. If it is, I’m sure Kapios can provide evidence for it.

On the subject of reincarnation as an original Christian doctrine:

I have written about reincarnation and the illogic thereof before. It does not take much to see that the entire idea is absurdly silly and leads to both personal and societal laziness.

Basically, in order for reincarnation to work, you have to impose a whole bunch of rules around reincarnation so that people who do bad things come back as humans, not gnats or maggots or pond scum or whatever. If those rules exist, then they would have to be explicated very clearly by whatever intelligence imposed them.

None of the books of the Old Testament mention reincarnation as we understand it – where the body dies but the soul and/or spirit (depending on which denomination you are, you might or might not see the latter two as identical or distinct) is transported into a different shell.

Whatever research I have done into the subject indicates that the “Christian” texts which mentioned reincarnation are in fact Gnostic texts. The Gnostics were considered heretics by the early Christian Churches, and with very good reason.

Kapios asserts that reincarnation was part of original Christian teachings but these parts of the Bible were “erased by a king who wanted to go on a book burning spree”. Actually, my research indicates that it was a queen who did this – Theodora, the wife of the Emperor Justinian.

The link that I provided just now goes to a page that insists that reincarnation was part of original Christian teaching, and was taught by early church elders like Origenes, Basilides, St. Gregory, and Nestorius. It also insists that no just and benevolent God would ever allow one child to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth and leave another child to starve on the streets in his or her one and only life on this Earth.

It doesn’t take a king (or queen) on a power trip to strip out the Gnostic texts. The Gnostics were a direct heretical challenge to the Christian faith, and all real Christians reject the nonsense that they preached. All you have to do is look at what the Bible actually says, and compare it with what supporters of reincarnation assert that it says.

To show you why, I have to go into a bit of a digression, so I hope you will forgive me if what follows here seems completely unrelated to the issue of reincarnation.

So: when it comes to understanding why the Gnostics are not taken seriously by modern Christians, all you have to do is look at where the Gnostic texts came from, and compare them with what the Bible said.

Quite apart from all of the politics surrounding the compilation and canonisation of the Christian Bible, there is the fact that the Gnostic Gospels were not written contemporaneously with Christ’s life. One thing you have to understand when analysing the early Christian texts for validity and coherence is that a huge amount of early material surrounding the life of Christ is apocryphal.

In order to assess which texts are true and which ones are false, you have to resort to forensic methods of analysis and cross-examination.

Once you do this, you will quickly realise that the reason why the four canonical Gospels are, in fact, canonical, is because they act like eyewitness testimonies.

While the four main Gospels disagree with each other on a number of points and relatively trivial details, when it comes to the core facts about Christ’s life and ministry, they are in complete agreement. They are written from four very different perspectives – Luke was a physician, while Matthew was a tax-collector, John was likely a fisherman, and Mark was perhaps an interpreter or a merchant.

They did not all know Christ personally. Luke did not, Mark might have – but Matthew and John absolutely did. Yet they all agree on the core points of Christ’s life, viewed through very different lenses.

That, combined with the fact that they all wrote the Gospels within a few decades of Christ’s death, and the fact that unsympathetic Jewish and Roman historianssuch as Josephus and Tacitus confirmed the existence of Christ and His message, tells us that the Gospels are true to a degree of certainty that is likely unprecedented in history.

We can conclude with reasonable accuracy that the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles were written and compiled before 70 AD – because none of those texts mention the first word about the savage Roman conquest of Israel and Judea (beyond the terrifying prophecy that Jesus made on the subject in Matthew 24:1-2), and nor do any of the Epistles of St. Paul. What this means is that almost all of the New Testament was compiled before 63 AD – which is to say, within 30 years of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Now let us apply the same standards of evidence and cross-examination to the Gnostic texts, which do mention reincarnation. What do we find?

That not a single Gnostic text was written within a century of Christ’s life and death.

The absolute earliest Gnostic text that we have available to us, in any reasonable form, is the Gospel of Thomas, and that is dated to perhaps the early 2nd Century AD.

Furthermore, once you read through the Gnostic texts, you will quickly realise that the philosophy that they espouse is completely incompatible with Christianity.

It is the Gnostic texts which espouse reincarnation, both spiritual and physical. They insist that reincarnation throughout many lives is often necessary before achieving true spiritual redemption, and that it is spiritual knowledge, not blind faith, that leads to redemption.

All of the above is so completely incompatible with what the Bible actually says that it is not possible to reconcile the two.

Once more, so we’re clear: reincarnation IS NOT COMPATIBLE with Christian doctrine. Can’t be done. Doesn’t happen. Not possible.

To understand why, we have to ask what the Christian view on salvation is.

Here, again, I have to tell you that I am a terrible example of a Christian. None of you should believe one single word of what I write on the subject without intense scepticism. Go look up what the texts themselves actually say. If I am right, then the Scriptures will back me up.

If I make a mistake here, that is on me, it is my fault, and I apologise unreservedly for any errors that I make.

The reason why Jesus Christ existed and was sent down to Earth was because humanity’s evils and sins – past, present, and future – had grown so great and terrible that the old methods of atoning for sin were no longer sufficient. The blood of animals used to be enough to wash away sin in the eyes of God, but humanity had strayed so far away from God’s original message that something far more powerful was needed.

That would be the blood of an innocent man – but because Man is broken and Fallen from birth, even though he is innocent from the day he is born until the time when he can understand good and evil, the blood of a mere man was not enough. The blood to be shed had to be Divine as well.

That is why God sent down His only Son, Jesus Christ, to live and dwell among us, so that He might be both God and Man – and so that He might, of His own free will, choose to give up His life for the rest of us. The blood that was shed redeemed us all in the eyes of God.

But we have to choose, each of us individually and of our own free will, to recognise that awesome sacrifice.

We have to choose to understand that Jesus died for us, individually – not for some abstract concept of “all of Mankind”, but for you, and for me, personally.

He died to save you. His blood was shed for you.

You have a chance, every day of your life, to acknowledge and accept that sacrifice – or reject it.

If you accept it, then it does not matter who you are – rich or poor, noble or peasant, healthy or sick, Jew or Gentile, man or woman, free or slave. Your sins are forgiven – completely and forever.

That does not mean that you can get away with continuing to sin. That’s not how it works. How can anyone possibly accept such an incredible sacrifice of that magnitude and then do everything to spit upon the man who gave up His life for him? Anyone who does so is a blatant hypocrite and utterly undeserving of redemption.

What it means, instead, is that each of us tries to live up to the teachings and memory of He who died for us, and tries to be better.

And that really is how Christianity works. That’s what actually happens. I’m living proof of it. I am not a good person, by any measure – but I try to be better than I am. I fail, of course, quite often and quite badly. But I’ll keep trying for the rest of my life to live up to the example of the One who died for me.

Notice that in all of this, reincarnation is not necessary in any way, shape, or form.

Now, one natural rebuttal to this line of argument – and a rather good one, actually – is that Jesus came to Earth long after most ancient peoples had lived and died, and the good news that He brought did not reach many millions and even billions more until millennia after His death. Surely, that means that, under Christian doctrine, BILLIONS of human souls died and went straight to Hell and eternal suffering, right?

The non-Christian naturally bridles at this suggestion – surely no loving God could possibly allow so many billions of souls to be lost to damnation? So surely that justifies reincarnation?

Well, no.

I am not a theologian, so please do not take my word on this subject as correct and proper. Do your own homework and research on this. All I can say, though, is that the Bible has this covered too – see Romans 2:12-16, for instance.

Simply put: God judges people by their faith in Him during their lives, and by their works. Good works come from good faith. If you were a virtuous pagan by the standards of Christian law, as many millions of people were throughout all of human history, then God judges you on the basis of what you did in your life.

If, on the other hand, you committed adultery, murder, infanticide, torture, ritualistic slaughter, and other horrible deeds in your life… then you’re screwed. And you damned well ought to be damned, if you do not regret what you did and try to atone for it.

Even if you do not understand that what you did was wrong, you still have to be punished for it. Consider a dog that shits on your living room carpet. It doesn’t have a clue that what it did was wrong, because it has no moral standard by which to judge its action. Does that mean that you let it continue to shit all over your clean room? Of course not. You whack the dog on the nose and paddle it and teach it through punishment and reward not to do that crap (pun intended).

This, by the way, does mean that, say, the Aztecs, or Iroquois, or Apache, or Carthaginians, or Inca, or even many of the Romans, went to Hell.

And they deserved to, because those cultures practiced abhorrent and horrific things.

So too did Hindus who burned innocent women on pyres just because their husbands died before they did.

So too did Muslims who married and had sex with girls at the age of 9, because that’s what their “prophet” did.

Let’s be clear: Hell and Heaven exist. Damnation and redemption are real. Without these two things, life is meaningless.

And that leads us to the third big problem with the idea of reincarnation as part of Christian doctrine: the Gnostics who proposed this were responsible for some of the worst and most terrible heresies that the world has ever seen.

The Gnostics were directly responsible for further offshoots of heretics like the Arians, the Manicheans, and eventually the Cathars. The Arian and Cathar heresies became so bad that they threatened massive civil wars and strife throughout all of Christendom, and the Cathar heresy in particular promoted such terrible and nasty perversions of the Word that it had to be put down by fire and sword in the Albigensian Crusade of the 13th Century.

Do your own homework into this, and you will quickly realise that the Cathars were not a bunch of peace-loving hippies. They were in fact a bunch of fornicating vegetarian lunatics who believed that matter is evil and that the God of the Old Testament was a deranged psychopath, while the God of the New Testament was a completely different entity.

In other words – everything that those heretics preached was, again, completely incompatible with Christianity.

To summarise – you don’t need reincarnation under Christian doctrine, partly because the very idea makes no sense, partly because those who insisted that it was part of the doctrine were largely making shit up as they went, and partly because the followers of those who insisted on reincarnation as being within Christian doctrine were themselves not very pleasant people.

On the need to not be a pompous tendentious repetitive windbag:

I realise that, as usual, I have gone on at rather greater length than was perhaps wise or necessary. But I hope that I have answered Kapios’s questions thoroughly and provided new avenues for people to pursue their own research and thought.

Oh, and one last point about books or ideas that were taken out of the Bible – that is true. Well, sort of.

See, depending on whether you are a Catholic, a Protestant, or an Orthodox Christian, your Bible might well have different book counts. And that is because certain books, particularly the deuterocanonical texts, were moved around by various editors – the best example is probably to be found in the original King James translation.

But they were never lost or purged outright.

They were simply moved because they didn’t “make sense” in the order that they were present originally. And subsequent printings got rid of them to save on space and cost.

They aren’t lost. You can find them very easily. Just go look for them.

Contrary to what atheists and non-Christians would like to believe – as I once did – the Christian faith is not opposed to self-investigation or critical examination. Quite the contrary, in fact. The reality is that the more closely you look at Christianity, the more sense it makes and the more it shows itself to be true.

If Christianity were not true, there would be no need for it. And if there were no need for it, then our entire modern world – everything around us that we hold dear today – is based on lies, because it is thanks to Christians who dared to delve deep into the mysteries of Creation that we have our modern world of abundance and wonders.