Someone recently asked me about the eastern teaching on karma. Specifically, he wondered if it was consistent with a biblical worldview and if it was rationally defensible. For most of us the concept of karma is not completely foreign. I remarked to a friend of mine about the rising popularity of the idea of karma here in the west when, about a year or so ago, a new comedy aired on TV called, “My Name’s Earl.â€Â The show portrays a typical American redneck who comes to believe and trust in the law of karma. However, in the show, the main character’s karmic actions are seen within his lifetime, even within a matter of days.Â
Traditionally, karma is the belief that all of our actions in one life function as seeds which are sown into the soil of our experience of the next life. So, karma is a rule/law of action and consequence. If your actions, beliefs, attitudes, etc. are right in this life, you will experience a higher or better rebirth in the next life. And conversely, if your decisions are evil in this life, you will be worse off in your rebirth in the next life. But no matter how good your karma is—in a very real sense—it’s all bad. It’s bad for you. This is because your actions—good and bad—are the very things which keep you tied to the eternal wheel of birth, death, and rebirth (reincarnation). The ultimate goal within much of eastern thought is not simply to have a better rebirth, but to have no rebirth at all. Once we cut the strings of karma which bind us to life and the world, we will achieve Nirvana or some reality in which we finite humans are absorbed into the One, impersonal, infinite everything.
IS THIS BIBLICAL?
The biblical concept of forgiveness is diametrically opposed to the teaching of Karma. While the law of Karma is a system of compensation and retribution, or paying back what is owed, the Jesus of the Bible offers the removal of sin by another—himself (1 Jn 1:9; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 2:24). Both worldviews (Christianity & Eastern mysticism) view the removal of sin as important. Within Buddhism, for instance, we have to do the removing ourselves over innumerable lifetimes. Yet, Jesus tells us that the only way to remove sin is through applying what he has done for us (his death on the cross). So, in the matter of the removal of moral debt, it comes down to the difference between do and done. The Christian faith teaches that none of us can be made right before God by being good enough ourselves (Rom 3:20; Gal 2:16; 3:11), and that those who try to “go it themselves†will be cut off from the only one who can save (Gal 5:3-4).
IS THIS REASONABLE?
Aside from karma running contrary to the Bible, it also suffers from several other problems.Â
1. Eastern thought (e.g., Buddhism) teaches that each life we live is paying for the karmic actions of previous lives. The problem with this belief is that it is unable to give an answer to a very basic question. If each life is simply a payment for a previous life, what was one paying for in his or her first life? To this question Gautama Buddha suggest that there was no first life, and that the series of lives goes back infinitely. Do you see the dilemma? We’re asked to believe that each life is a contingent effect with no first cause. However, this is an impossibility. If there were an infinite series of lives behind us then how long would it take us to reach this current life? It would take an infinite amount of time. But since it hasn’t been an infinite amount of time (after all, we’re still adding on seconds, minutes, hours, and years) this explanation of time and life cannot be possible.Â
2. A related problem is that Buddha claimed to recall an infinite number of previous births or lives. However, he also had a final birth. Again, we detect a problem. How can an infinite number have finality? It can’t. If it had finality or an end, then it couldn’t have been infinite.
3. As stated above, everything we live through in one life is the fruition of all that we’ve planted ourselves. But how can we be sure that we are really managing our moral debt? In his fantastic little book, The Lotus And The Cross, Ravi Zacharias puts it this way, “You were not free from debt when you were born, and you won’t be free from debt when you die . . . [Yet], how does one pay? With what does one pay? And to whom does one pay? The creator haunts but isn’t there.â€Â Just as a moral commandment (Do or do not do something) requires a giver and a receiver, so the payment of a moral debt only makes sense in the context of personhood. It also requires at least two persons—a giver and a receiver. Yet, Buddha taught that the question of God was completely irrelevant to the issue of removing of moral debts (Buddha was technically an agnostic, though practically and atheist).
REFLECTIONS QUESTIONS:
1. What do you think people’s attraction is to the concept of karma?Â
2. How can you use the contrast between Jesus’ teaching on divine forgiveness and the Eastern concept of karma as a way to share the Gospel message?
8 Comments on “Is Karma reasonable or biblical?”
I believe the attraction that people have to the concept of karma stems from man’s desire to avoid facing the fact that we can’t save ourselves. As in other religions, karma provides a means for one to “fix it” his or herself through “works” and avoid yielding his or her will, bowing down to a Holy and Righteous God, stripped of all pride and self righteousness. Admitting one’s works are as Paul put it, “…filthy rags.” People don’t want to have to answer to anyone.
I’m no fan of past lives. However, I’m confused by the argument about infinities, which I encountered before in “Unshakable Foundations” by Norman L. Geisler, Peter Bocchino. The idea seems to be that an infinite sequence can’t have an end. This is false. A simple counter example is the set of integers less than 5:
{… -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4}
This set is obviously infinite, and it ends with 4, the largest integer less than 5. (There’s nothing special about 5, any number will work.) Am I missing something?
Gavin,
You are correct in pointing out an infinite set. However, we’re talking about two different kinds of infinites. What you’re describing is called a “potential infinite.†And what I was referring to (and I’m guessing Geisler & Bocchino are as well) is called an “actual infinite.†A potential infinite is any successive process of adding to a series (as in your example of numbers). So, any series to which you can potentially add is called a potential infinite. My argument is that a potential infinite only works in the theoretical or the abstract. However, a potential infinite can never be actualized. That is, an actual infinite series of finite events is an impossibility. This becomes more obvious when you try to instantiate a potential infinite into an actual infinite (in the real world).
An actual infinite would be something like this: Suppose you had a library with an infinite number of books, half of which were red and half of which were blue. If you removed all the blue books from the library, how many red books would remain? The number would have not changed. We begin to see the problem with an actual infinite. It’s nonsensical.
I’d suggest that the easiest way to get your mind around the problem of an actual infinite series of past finite events is by imagining something like I tried to explain in the initial post above. If there truly were an infinite series of past events behind us in time (an actual infinite) then it would’ve taken an infinite duration of time of reach the year 2007. But clearly we haven’t traversed an infinite duration of time because we continue to add new years (e.g., 2008). So, looking into the future all we can refer to is a potential infinite, because we’re speaking really of numbers—the counting of successive finite events which could potentially occur.
I hope that makes more sense. There is a helpful chapter on God’s eternity in Thomas Morris’ book, “Our Idea of God,†in which he discusses the Atemporal Eternal (existing outside of time) vs. the Temporal Everlasting (existing inside of time) views of God. There’s an even more helpful chapter from a book that I’ve read on this, but (of course!) I can’t seem to remember/locate the source. If I recall it I’ll add it to this thread later.
I don’t see the contradiction. You can add more items to an infinite set. For example I could add 5, 6, and 7 to my set above. You can add more years onto an infinite set of years.
I’m actually quite comfortable with infinities, since, as a theoretical physicist, I work with them all the time. Results like the one you mention with the library are surprising at first, but they are perfectly sensible. I see no reason why actual infinities cannot exist, and researchers consider the question open at this time. In particular, we do not know if the universe is infinitely old (as in the theory of eternal inflation which has a infinite period prior to the big bang), will last for an infinite time (this seems likely now that we’ve discovered dark energy) or if it is infinitely large. We just don’t know.
Gavin,
I think the problem is that you’re thinking in terms of numbers instead of events (as I stated earlier, numbers are potential infinites). Let me give a couple examples that, I think, do a pretty good job of showing the impossibility of an actual infinite series of events.
First, imagine a line of dominos that are set up to knock one another down in succession. Now suppose that you are standing at one place along the line. In fact, you’re standing directly in front of one particular domino which is green instead of black. Each domino in the line represents not a number but an actual event in time. Now suppose someone told you that there are an infinite number of dominos behind your green domino. If this were so, Gavin, tell me how long would it take for your domino to get knocked down? The answer is never. It would take an infinite amount of time for the green domino to get knocked down. In which case, it would simply never occur. However, various events in history (e.g., me typing on my computer right now) have been reached. Therefore, there cannot have been an infinite number of past events which preceded my typing.
Have to run, but I can comment more later.
Brent asks: “If this were so, Gavin, tell me how long would it take for your domino to get knocked down?”
I don’t agree with your answer, “an infinite amount of time,” because your question is ambiguous. How long after what? The first domino? There is no first domino, so that doesn’t make any sense.
The basic question isn’t when the green domino will fall, it is whether it will fall. This question is easier, because the answer is either yes or no. Let’s make a little chart. The first column is the number of dominoes, the second is the answer to the question “Does the green domino fall?”
1 Yes
2 Yes
3 Yes
4 Yes
…
We have trend here. When do we start getting “no” in the second column? We never do. Looks like in every case answer is yes, the green domino will fall. The answer to this question is a well defined “yes” for an infinite string of dominoes. The answer to your question is not well defined for an infinite string of dominoes.
Let me just add that, while it is fun to discuss this, our discussion does not change the fact that whether the past is finite or infinite is an open question. There are thousands of very smart cosmologists and physicists who think about these things and they agree that the answer is unknown. If some clever little domino analogy was going to solve this they would have stopped talking about it a long time ago.
Gavin,
I’m merely responding to your initial question in comment #2 above. You stated that you didn’t understand the argument being made about the impossibility of an infinite regress. And I recognized in comment #3 that thinkers do differ over explanations of time (even theists themselves). However, I’m simply giving arguments for a finite understanding of past events.
If there were any ambiguity in my explanation of the domino example, let me clear it up. My point was that if there were an infinite series of events behind the green domino then it would also take an infinite amount of time to go back forward (from eternity past) toward the green domino. You are right–if there is no first domino, it doesn’t make sense–which is exactly my point from the initial post above.
Think for just a moment about what someone is claiming (regarding the nature of the universe) who argues that the universe consists of an infinite series of finite past events. They are claiming that the nature of the universe in “infinitely finite!” The statement itself is nonsensical. You might as well talk about a square-circle. This is a contradiction in terms.
Gavin, you said, “There are thousands of very smart cosmologists and physicists who think about these things and they agree that the answer is unknown.” Do you mean to say that even with all the discoveries in astrophysics in the past century, there is not a general acceptance of big-bang cosmology? Though it is not my field, it is my understanding that this general cosmological consensus is explained best by an initial singularity in a particular point in the past, which is the very beginning of space, time, and matter.
Yes, everyone agrees on big bang cosmology. 13.7 billion years ago there was a huge explosion in which space itself expanded very rapidly, and it is still expanding to this day. It looks like this explosion was initiated by a period of exponential expansion called inflation. (We see evidence for inflation in the cosmic microwave background.) If you compare it to a fire-cracker, inflation is the burning of the explosive, and the big bang is the explosion.
We don’t know how long inflation lasted. It had to last at least 10^-35 second, which isn’t very long. However, it could have been going on for an infinite amount of time, a theory called eternal inflation. If inflation only went on for a finite amount of time, then we might have started with some sort of singularity, as you say.
Thanks for explaining the argument to me. Since it is based on misconceptions about infinity, the argument is fatally flawed. However, I do understand it now, which is what I asked for.