Conference tecrus::mormonism

Reincarnation is not part of the Lord's Plan as revealed to us.  And giving the
nature of the plan, I don't think it is in any unrevealed portions either --
the Lord's plan is specific in the areas of the nature of man and eternal
progression and my understanding of the Lord's plan doesn't allow Reincarnation
as a part.

Chad

    Reg.1
    
    I agree with your assertion that reincarnation is NOT a part of
    the Lord's Plan. However, I am not certain or comfortable with
    indicating where this supported by scripture referances or specific
    teachings of the Prophets. In addition, I have a friend that thinks
    that the word resurrection was substituted for reincarnation at
    some early point in the translation of Bible from the original source.
    I would greatly appreciate further information on this subject.
    
    Thanks,
    
    John

	RE: Note 292.0 CLSTR1::SPENCER - REINCARNATION


	Joseph Smith (Teachings pp. 104-105) indicates that it doctrine from
	the devil.  

	HEB. 9:27	"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, ..."

	Once risen, or resurrected, man shall not die again is referred to in 
	Alma 11:45, 12:18 and D&C 63:49.  This information is from Mormon
	Doctrine, pp. 624-625.

		In further reflection upon the subject, it seems that this
	doctrine of reincarnation refutes the concept of this mortal life
	being the "probation" of our existence.

	D&C 29:43	"And thus did I, the Lord God, appoint unto man the days
			 of his probation - that by his natural death he might
			 be raised in immortality unto eternal life, even as
			 many as would believe;"

	The concept of probation is covered extensively in the Book of Mormon :

			1 Nep 10:21;    12:24; 15:31-32; 42:4,10,13; 
			2 Nep  2:21,30;  9:27; 33:9
			Hela  13:38
			Mor    9:28

    reg 292.3
    
    Thanks for the additional information. I will read and pray about
    these scriptures. Later, I will add my comments regarding my reactions
    and feelings. However, I do not have a copy of Joseph Smith Teachings
    and will attempt to borrow a copy from a friend. 
    
    I would be interested in hearing from someone regarding the original
    interpatation of the word "resurrection". Is there any basis to
    the speculation that "reincarnation" was replaced by "resurrection"
    when translated from the original Hebrew scriptures?
    
    Thanks, John
    
    

    
    
    Re: last few messages.
    
    Odd that this comes up. I was just on the phone last night talking
    to Lyndon Cook,(author, researcher, writer of several books on Joseph
    Smith). In our conversation he alluded to some papers which should
    be released in 1990 from the Snow family papers. The waiting period was due
    to family privacy, etc. The papers should shed some light on the
    Prophet Joseph's teachings on reincarnation. I can't elaborate here 
    on the material, but be aware that it might be coming out soon.
    
    Kevin 
    
    

    
    >            <<< Note 292.3 by BSS::RONEY "Charles Roney" >>>
    >                     -< Doctrine is of the devil. >-
    
    And the Devil, in his infernal cleverness, has implanted in the 
    memories of some of us recollections of persons, places and events,
    some of us before we were even aware of the evilness of (believing
    in) reincarnation. He even gave these poor, deluded souls certain
    talents, abilities and urges that were comensurate with those supposed
    previous lives. Why, oh Why, hos God permitted such trickery?
    
    
    Neal/B (from note 171)

    As the author of this note I would like to add my $.02 worth. I
    look forward to a greater understanding off the scriptures and in
    the process sometimes uncover information from questionable sources.
    When a friend (non-member) makes a referance to the
    resurrection/reincarnation connection; I became curious about how
    the subject was address by the Church. It is NOT my wish to indicate
    that I believe in reincarnation. I do Not believe in reincarnation.
    I can find no scripture or Church authority which even would suggest
    such a thing as reincarnation could exist. I have also prayed about
    this matter and feel that my answer was consistent with all that
    I have read. Reincarnation is not part of the "plan of salvation".
    
    This is my testimony in Jesus name; Amen.
    
    John

Re .2

Hi John,

>    In addition, I have a friend that thinks
>    that the word resurrection was substituted for reincarnation at
>    some early point in the translation of Bible from the original source.
>    I would greatly appreciate further information on this subject.
    
In order to get a partial answer, I looked up in Strongs dictionary all
occurrences in the KJV of the word "resurrection".  They were all from the
New Testament, and three Greek words were involved.  The Greek words concerned
"rising from the dead", a meaning that is general enough that it could refer
to either reincarnation or resurrection.


Re general comments

My opinion on the matter is that I don't believe in reincarnation, but I think
that both the Bible and LDS scriptures are vague about this topic, and I can
understand how others might believe in it.  In my comments below, I refer
to "both doctrines", which are the traditional doctrine of resurrection and
the doctrine of reincarnation.

The scriptures teach that man is a unique eternal being, and both doctrines
fit in with this.  Some of you may question my statement that reincarnation
fits in with our being *unique* eternal beings.  Reincarnation teaches that
we die & come back into mortality as someone else, so our mortal existence
isn't unique, but the spirit that is being reincarnated is unique.  As an
analogy, an actor can portray various roles on a stage and still be the same
unique actor.  According to reincarnation, our spirit could portray various
roles on the stage of mortality and still be the same unique spirit.

The scriptures teach that we had a pre-existance, and both doctrines fit in
with this, because both doctrines allow for a unique spirit.

The scriptures teach that mortality is our time of probation, and
both doctrines fit in with this.  The difference in the two doctrines is 
whether we get one chance or more than one chance at this time of probation.

The scriptures teach that there is life after death, and both doctrines fit
in with this, again because both doctrines allow for a unique spirit.

The scriptures teach that all people will be resurrected, and both doctrines
fit in with this, if we think of reincarnation as being several loops through
mortality before the resurrection occurs.

If I understand your request from .0, John, you were hoping that we would
give a detailed scriptural explanation of our stance toward reincarnation.
Except for the brief comments from Charles, we haven't done this.  I guess
everyone is busy with their own interests.

Allen

    reg .9
    
    Thanks Allen for your comments on the similarities and differances
    between ressurrection and reincarnation. Your views on this matter
    are very close to my own. Like you, I would like more information
    on the original source. I am, however, in the process of leaving
    the Dec ........My LAST day is 12/29; this friday. So thanks for
    your help; maybe we hook up again in the next life(ha!ha!) or should
    I say next company. 
    
    Best of luck to all those that seek the truth !
    
    John
    
    ps: Allen I appreciate your efforts and willingness to share your
         time and energy on so many topics in this notes file........

    Good luck in your next life (job), John!  :-)

    Re: Note 292.9 by CACHE::LEIGH
    
>                    -< Not as clear cut as we might like >-

    I must disagree that this is not clear. After reading the references
    noted by Charles in .3, I think that it is pretty clear that the
    churches position is that the doctrine of reincarnation is incorrect,
    and that this position is supported by the scriptures. 
                                                    
    Bruce R. McConkie's book, Mormon Doctrine, speaks on this subject,
    denouncing this doctrine as a false doctrine and includes the following
    passage: 
    
         Man is appointed "once to die" (Heb 9:27), once to be resurrected,
         and thereafter to "die no more." (Alma 11:45; 12:18; D&C 63:49) 
       
    If we die but once, we cannot die over and over again, as reincarnation
    would indicate. If, when we are resurrected, we die no more, then we
    cannot die any more, as reincarnation would indicate. If, in the
    resurrect our same spirits are reunited with our bodies, which are made
    incorruptible in the resurrection and cannot die, then this means that
    resurrection is something far different from reincarnation. 
                                     
    Furthermore, as direct evidence that we are not reincarnated as
    different persons after death, and that the word "resurrection" was not
    substituted for "reincarnation" in the scriptures, consider the
    resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and of those who came forth
    from the graves at the same time. They came forth as themselves, and
    not as diffrent persons, as reincarnation would indicate. 
                   

Hi Rich,

I'm glad you posted your comments, because I didn't want to leave my comments
dangling and subject to misinterpretation.

When i said "Not as clear cut as we might like" I was referring to the
scriptures not to the Church.  Church leaders have always made it clear in
their sermons that reincarnation is not part of the Gospel.

I posted my comment because I sat back and tried to look at this note from the
viewpoint of one who believed in reincarnation, and I decided the scriptures
didn't clearly teach that reincarnation was not Gospel.  This is understandable
since the ancient prophets likely weren't concerned about this question.  I
tried to invent a scheme of reincarnation that would "fit" in with most of the
scriptural teachings, and I came up with the scheme of a spirit child of God
living several lives in mortality before he was resurrected.  Then I thought
about the Gospel from this viewpoint and decided it was feasible to interpret
the scriptures in light of this scheme; hence my comment about the scriptures
not being clearly against reincarnation (this does not imply that the scriptures
teach reincarnation).

The scriptures teach that mortality is a time of probation, but they don't say
that one only gets to go through this probation one time.  We interpret those
statements in the context of "one time", but that is interpretation.  

The verse from Hebrews 12:9 is questionable.  First, Paul is only using it as
a simile to Christ coming once to perform his atonement.  Second, we know of
examples (both within and without the Church) where people have died and gone
to the Spirit world and then were allowed to return to mortality--those people
will (if we take that verse literally) have died twice.

My "scheme" of reincarnation does not propose that resurrected people would
be reincarnated, so your comments on resurrected people dieing again don't
apply.  In .9 I spoke of looping through mortality via reincarnation, not
looping through the resurrection.

Matthew does speak of people being resurrected at the time of Christ, but
it does not address the question of them them having only one or more than
one chance at mortality.  Again, my "scheme" of reincarnation only allows for
one resurrection after several lives in mortality.  Likewise, the resurrection
of Christ is evidence for his resurrection and it says nothing about people
living more than one time in mortality.

One glaring weakness to my "scheme" is which body would a person get in the
resurrection if he lived several times in mortality?  If he only gets one of
the bodies then the other bodies don't get resurrected, and the scriptures
are clear that all people (bodies?) will be resurrected.  Even that can
be rationalized by saying that the scriptures mean that all *unique individuals*
(i.e. spirits) will be resurrected but not necessarily all mortal bodies.

Why am I saying all of this, since I don't believe in reincarnation and don't
think the scriptures teach it and don't think it is part of the Gospel?  I
think we need to understand the difference between what the scriptures
explicitly say, what they don't explicitly say, and what we interpret them
to say.  That is, we need to understand the limits of our sources of knowledge
and where we have to use logical deduction and interpretation.

Allen

    I guess for me the passage in Hebrews that indicates that men are
    appointed to die once is clear enough on this issue. True, some have
    'died' and come back to life, but I don't consider this a complete
    death of the body, in the context of this discussion.
    
    On the other hand, the concept of reincarnation requires that a
    person's body die completely and that their spirit then inhabits
    another body, which will subsequently die. This amounts to multiple
    physical deaths for one spirit, which violates the statement in
    Hebrews. 
                                                 
    A lot of doctrines have been invented by men to try to explain things
    that were unclear to them either because of their experiences or things
    they did not understand in the scriptures. Reincarnation is one of
    these doctrines of men. Other examples include things like
    transubstantiation, limbo, infant baptism, the trinity, etc. 
    

I agree, Rich, that reincarnation is a false doctrine of man.  Most of the
Gospel truths have false substitutes created by men.  In this case,
reincarnation is a substitute for our pre-earth life.

I think that for me, one of the key points is that the scriptures are clear
that we are unique individuals, and I think this applies to our mortal life
as well as to our life as spirit children and later on as resurrected persons.
Reincarnation would have us be non-unique, and the whole purpose of the Plan
of Salvation would lose its meaning.

Allen

I was thinking last night while driving home, that my experience in inventing
a scheme of reincarnation that had a reasonable 1st-order fit to many of the
Gospel principles shows it is awfully easy for one to go off on tangents due
to using his own reasoning powers.  In my mind, this illustrates the 
importance of one following the Biblical pattern of having current revelation
from God to living prophets!

Allen

    > the Biblical pattern of having current revelation from God to 
    > living prophets!
    
    The Biblical pattern... or the LDS pattern?
    
    Ed
    

Hi Ed,

The Biblical pattern.  I've discussed this in note 4.

    4.8  The New Testament Church
    4.9  New Testament Church Guided by Revelation
    4.10 Authority From God

Allen

    Sorry, I still say "the LDS pattern". The concept of an individual 
    appointed "living prophet" over God's people is not as easily supported 
    as you would have us believe. I've read most of notes 4.8-4.10, and I 
    don't see the case for a "living prophet". I don't agree with your 
    argument about the need for an ongoing "official" body of 12 apostles, 
    either. I think your reasoning leaves much to be desired.
    
    In my opinion, there is no clear precedent for the office of "living
    prophet". Not now, not in the Old Testament, and not in the New
    Testament.
    
    I had to say this because I take exception to your labelling the
    concept as "Biblical" when I believe that it definintely is not. To 
    me it is just another attempt at enhancing the credibility of Mormon 
    beliefs by calling them "Biblical".
    
    Ed

Hi Ed,

Well, I guess we understand the Bible differently.

Perhaps, Ed, you would like to give us some case histories from the Bible
where God did not deal with His people through living prophets?  We will
need to switch to another note to avoid fragmenting this one; there is no
note discussing the "biblical pattern" of God using or not using prophets,
so it will probably be a good idea for you to start a new one, Ed.

Allen

	RE: Note 292.6 CAPO::BARNETTE_NE
    
>    And the Devil, in his infernal cleverness, has implanted in the 
>    memories of some of us recollections of persons, places and events,
>    some of us before we were even aware of the evilness of (believing
>    in) reincarnation. He even gave these poor, deluded souls certain
>    talents, abilities and urges that were comensurate with those supposed
>    previous lives. Why, oh Why, hos God permitted such trickery?


	God has only permitted man to be lead astray by doctrines that please
	the "itching ears" of man.  He allows mankind to believe whatever man
	wants to, and man has always been most ready to accept that which 
	pleases the most.  The doctrine of agency is one from God that made
	the devil the way he is in the first place.

	In the pre-existence we did develop our abilities and talents.  And
	we also observed the things which happened on our designated estate of
	trials and tribulation for mortal probation.  Even though the body is,
	for the most part the majority of time and in most cases, an excellent
	veil over our spiritual remembrance, it can not always hold back the
	strongest of desires of the spirit.  Therefore, some of our pre-mortal
	knowledge comes into our consciousness.

	Reincarnation is an evil ploy of Satan in that it would give those who
	hold to it the false sense of hope in salvation by allowing the evil
	things of the world with the assurance of repenting of them in a latter
	life.  There is only one probationary time period for the soul of man
	to reconcile himself with God.  The devil would have mankind believe
	otherwise and so try to thwart the designs of God.  The devil has done
	a good job with so many of God's children following this evil doctrine.

	Charles

> Well, I guess we understand the Bible differently.

I'm certain of that!

Allen,

Firstly, I did not say that God did not deal with His people through 
prophets. Clearly (hi, Steve) it was his chief means in the Old 
Testament, and prophets played a role in New Testament times as well.

If I did not make myself clear before, my objection was to the LDS idea 
that there is a Biblical precedent for the office of "living prophet" as
head of the church on earth, which was previously mentioned in another
note by Rich. If your statement was only to point out that God frequently
dealt with His people through prophets, then I should not have objected.
However, it sounded like the kind of lead-in so often used to point out
how "Biblical" the Mormon church is, which often turns out to be only
loosely based on the Bible. 

>Perhaps, Ed, you would like to give us some case histories from the Bible
>where God did not deal with His people through living prophets?  

Well, just off the top of my head, how about: Adam and Eve, Cain, Abel,
Enoch, Job, Sampson, Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph. I suppose this list
could change depending upon how one defines "living prophet", though.

This does not in any way negate the role of prophets, but I think that
perhaps you were baiting me... And no, I do not wish to start a note on
"Biblical patterns" at this time. I can barely keep up with what's
already here, and I don't think this is important enough to give it
priority.

Actually I regret entering the reply that generated this exchange. 
The note you entered - the one that prompted me - probably did not call 
for my original response, but hindsight is 20/20 and we sometimes reply 
too quickly.

Regards,

Ed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Ed,

Well, I guess we understand the Bible differently.

Perhaps, Ed, you would like to give us some case histories from the Bible
where God did not deal with His people through living prophets?  We will
need to switch to another note to avoid fragmenting this one; there is no
note discussing the "biblical pattern" of God using or not using prophets,
so it will probably be a good idea for you to start a new one, Ed.

Allen