Talk:Objections to the Doctrine of Karm and Responses:Karm and Rebirth

By Vishal Agarwal

Objection: Why does the doctrine of Karm have to be tied to the doctrine of rebirth? Several cultures believe in rebirth but have no definite views on Karm. Likewise, Abrahamic religions believe in a rudimentary form of the doctrine of Karm (action and consequence) but do not subscribe to the doctrine of rebirth. Secondly, when we are reborn, we become a different person from what we were in our previous life. Therefore, rebirth implies that one person commits the actions and another (reborn) person reaps their fruit.

Response: The science of Karm, taken together with the doctrine of rebirth, is the best possible explanation of the diversity of human experience. If Īśvara is just, He cannot arbitrarily create people unequal at birth, with differing health conditions, wealth, talents, or mental faculties.

As a modern teacher explains:

“One of the most powerful inferential arguments for upholding the fact of reincarnation is that, without the existence of reincarnation and karm (reincarnation and karm are inseparable in the philosophical system of Sanātana Dharm; you cannot have one without the other), the existence of human suffering has no satisfactory explanation and no coherent meaning. Logically speaking, we can only explain the meaning of suffering that we observe in the world by inferring the fact of reincarnation and karm.”

“The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) especially find it difficult to explain the reason for suffering and evil. Throughout the two-thousand-year history of Christian philosophy, for example, Christian philosophers and theologians have attempted to create innumerable explanations for the existence of suffering, so many that these attempts at explanation became a whole category of philosophical argument called ‘theodicies’. None of these attempts, however, has ever been proven philosophically sustainable, demonstrable, or satisfactory. The reason why is precisely because it is impossible to explain the existence of suffering without turning to the concepts of karm and reincarnation.”

“Without the soul being an eternal reality that existed before the creation of the material body, there is no explanation whatsoever that can be offered for why a good, merciful, all-knowing and all-powerful Bhagavān would allow some of His children to be born less than whole. Only the Dharmic path can give an intellectually satisfactory and spiritually comforting explanation for this reality of human suffering.”

The Sūkṣma Śarīra (subtle body) is the locus of karm and of the experiences of pleasure and pain arising from it. At death, the Sthūla Śarīra (gross physical body) perishes, while the Sūkṣma Śarīra continues and assumes another physical body upon rebirth.

Within this framework, the continuity of the Sūkṣma Śarīra ensures the continuity of moral responsibility across successive births. Consequently, the individual who performs actions is also the individual who experiences their consequences, despite the change of physical bodies through rebirth.