What do I think of Mark Albrecht’s book published by IVP? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Reincarnation is one of the major afterdeath theories in the world today. Despite that, very little seems to be written on it aside from maybe including it in a larger topic. In my search for a good book, I decided to go with Albrecht’s. Despite it being over thirty years old, I am sure it’s still good today.
Albrecht is gentle in his approach yet at the same time he does ask the pointed questions. He has researched the other religions of the world where reincarnation is dominant and has interacted with popularizers of reincarnation theories, like Ian Stevenson. He brings forward the best cases that he can including ideas of past life recall where people seem to remember things from before they were born.
Albrecht also looks at Biblical arguments that are put forward for reincarnation which involves looking at some of the history of the church. Today, it’s not uncommon to hear that the early church did teach reincarnation and yet it was taken out of the text. Albrecht makes a compelling case that reincarnation is entirely foreign to the Biblical worldview and does not fit at all. He also does this by interacting with the best material put forward again by those in favor of reincarnation.
Another great help to this is the theology of reincarnation. What does reincarnation if true say about God? What does it also say about the problem of evil? While reincarnation is seen as a solution to the problem of people being judged eternally for just one life, does reincarnation solve the problem? What if instead reincarnation raises more questions than it answers?
Albrecht’s book instead gives a Biblical counter to the worldview of reincarnation and shows how the problem of evil is not solved by this but rather complicated. One ends up with a lower god as it were. Biblical Christianity instead has a God who directly enters into our suffering in the person of Jesus Christ and does seek to deliver us from suffering in this world, but not by having us do all the work of it over and over.
That means that going against reincarnation and embracing resurrection should instead help us to appreciate grace all the more. Forgiveness is what is needed to show the weakness of the cycle of karma and rebirth. We do not have to go through many many lives in order to fully realize our destiny of being united to God. We just have to trust in the way that He has provided for us.
Reincarnation is still an option to much of the world today and in our Hollywood culture will often be seen as a serious contender. Christians need to be equipped to address this and we need to see more works out there dealing with this way of thinking. Albrecht’s is still a good one after all this time, but I’m sure he’d agree that other Christians need to take up the charge.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
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