Reason 4 of 10
One life, then the judgment: not endless past lives
Scientology teaches that the thetan has lived countless lives before this one, and auditing addresses incidents from them. The Bible says we live once, then face God, and that Jesus has the words of eternal life.
What Scientology teaches
In Scientology, the thetan is immortal and has occupied many bodies across a very long history Hubbard called the whole track. Auditing can take a person back to incidents from earlier lives, and Hubbard taught that unhandled past-life experiences still cause difficulties in this one. Death is leaving a body and, in time, taking up another.
What the Bible says
The Bible teaches one life, one death and then the judgment. There is no cycle of returns. When the disciples asked whether a man born blind was suffering for his own sin, Jesus rejected the idea that his condition was payback for something he had done. To the dying thief who trusted him, Jesus promised paradise that very day.
The Christian hope is not another body in another life. It is resurrection: the same person raised whole and imperishable, as Jesus himself was raised.
27Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment,
Hebrews 9:27 (WEB) · context
1As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents, but that the works of God might be revealed in him.
John 9:1-3 (WEB) · context
42He said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” 43Jesus said to him, “Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:42-43 (WEB) · context
8We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:8 (WEB) · context
42So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. 43It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.
1 Corinthians 15:42-44 (WEB) · context
Why it matters
If there are endless lives, there is always more time. If there is one, the question Jesus asked is urgent: what does it profit someone to gain the whole world and lose their soul? The good news is that eternal life begins now, as a gift, for anyone who believes.
36For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?
Mark 8:36 (WEB) · context
24“Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
John 5:24 (WEB) · context
25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. 26Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25-26 (WEB) · context
What Scientologists often say
Scientologists say many people have recalled past lives in auditing, and that these memories feel vivid and real.
A Christian answer
Vivid is not the same as true. Memory is easily shaped by suggestion, expectation and the setting in which it is recalled; this is well documented in research on memory. The Bible gives a public test instead of a private feeling: a man who died and rose again in front of witnesses, and who says what comes after death.
Where accounts differ
- Christians agree that the soul survives death and that Christ will raise the dead; they discuss the details of the intermediate state. None of those views includes reincarnation.
Sources
- Scientology source L. Ron Hubbard, Have You Lived Before This Life? (1960).
- Scientology source L. Ron Hubbard, A History of Man (1952): the whole track.
- The Bible, World English Bible (public domain).