카르마와 그리스도교 세계관에 대한 비판적 연구논문
카르마 개념에 대한 이론적 검토 및 그리스도교 세계관과의 비교
The underlying mechanism of morality along with that of justice have long been debated since the dawn of the civilization. Those adhering to the traditional Indic worldview assert that retributive justice is maintained through the universal law of karma which either directly or indirectly governs all beings, whereas those holding the Abrahamic worldview of morality regard God as the supreme being who is both capable of and responsible for impartial practice of retributive justice. Both recognize the existence of evil, but the latter attributes the Original Sin to explain the suffering while the former explains it in terms of the consequence of one’s past misdeeds; they both acknowledge the possibility of salvation, yet only one soteriological chance is given in Christianity while infinite chances of salvation are granted in Indic traditions. While it is incontrovertible that both do have weaknesses and strengths, I will attempt to argue that the savior-dependent theistic worldview takes better account of the complexity of the world compared to the karmic worldview and that the doctrine of karma is not an improved version upon the theistic notion of justice.
Meaning “action,” karma is a spiritual principle of causality. According to the Indic worldview, certain action creates a karmic residue which may either be (1) meritorious (dharma) and auspicious (punya), or (2) unmeritorious (adharma) and inauspicious (paap)─the former created by good actions and the latter by bad actions.[1] Either way, fortunes and misfortunes, happiness and sadness that one faces is a direct result of one’s past deeds. Umasvati goes further by arguing that karmic residue is attracted by mental, verbal, and bodily actions which function as causal antecedents that prearrange the type of being that one is going to be in the next life (jati), the length of its life (ayus), and “the affective tone of experiences (bhoga) the person will have.”[2]
The immediate problem that the theory[3] of karma raises[4] concerns the concept of rebirth. If an ordinary person, A, commits a crime in a lifetime L1, then, as long as A does not remove his negative karma, the karmic residue created by that crime will accordingly lead to afflictions in either lifetime L1 or L1+n.[5] But, given that A continuously gets to reborn and given that, at any given lifetime Ln, A is unable to recollect the past memories, it seems difficult to assume that A is responsible for his past deeds in his next life and, even if he is, there still lies the question whether the karmic theory is just and fair system, for “justice demands that one who is being made to suffer for a past crime be made aware of his crime and understand why he is being punished for it.”[6] There is yet another metaphysical problem: If a person in the lifetime L2 is responsible for the action of the person in the previous lifetime L1, it must be the case that A(L1)=A(L2), suggesting that there should be something that connects them─something that persists throughout the entire course of samsara. Although most Indic traditions (including Jainism and Hinduism) regard this essence as the soul or jiva, we still need to question whether jiva is equivalent to the identity. It has long been claimed, for instance, by various philosophers including H. P. Grice, John Locke and John Perry that the self is a “logical construction and is to be defined in terms of memory,”[7] and that memory “provides a criterion of personal identity.”[8] It is also evident from the modern psychological research that the personality traits and dispositions are the consequence of intertwined a posteriori experiences that makes modern biopsychosocial model of personality possible.[9] Given all this, it hardly seems plausible to argue that A(L1)=A(L2) is true even if A(L1) and A(L2) possess identical soul, for they have different memories, distinctive characteristics and dispositions in different bodies.
The obvious complication this provokes is that we may have to experience tribulation due to the negative karma caused by “deeds of someone about whom we remember nothing.”[10] Monima Chadha and Nick Trakakis try to show the rationale behind this by suggesting that (1) “being made aware of one’s crime ...such demands are clearly met by the theory of karma since the theory explains present suffering as a necessary consequence of wrongdoing in the past”[11] and (2) just like a drunken driver, who kills a pedestrian and then loses memory, is still legitimately responsible for his action, the theory of karma “requires us to acknowledge our past mistakes, but not by remembering in detail what we did wrong in some past time and thence repenting for it.”[12] However, the former is not sufficient to refute the previous objection since it does not in any way explain how one is made aware of his crime. The latter similarly has its own limitation, for, we can still affirm that there is a tight connection between “the driver before losing memory” and “the driver after losing memory” by considering the probability of retaining the lost memory whereas the only thing that A(L1) and A(L2) have in common is that they supposedly share the same soul. Believing something and knowing something is different. This is, of course, not to say that the unverifiability of the sameness of two individuals, A(L1) and A(L2), is sufficient to reject the karmic theory; this is rather to indicate that the analogical argument that Chadha and Trakakis use fails to delineate how the doctrine of karma can adequately solve the 'identity problem,' as Kaufman notes:
Karma tells us that our present sufferings are correlated with past deeds, and that’s the end of the discussion. It should suffice that one knows one is being punished for an unspecified wrong committed at an unspecified past time and place, because that is what karma says.[13]
If we take Kaufman's criticism at face value, there seems to be no need for criminals to repent or feel guilty because the punishment will likely take place in one of the next lives. In fact, a similar claim was proposed by Reichenbach, Francis Clooney and many others in an attempt to criticize the quality of moral agent in the karmic universe. Kaufman asserts: “...the rebirth theory fails to respect the moral agency of the sinner in that it is apparently indifferent to whether or not he understands that what he had done is wrong.”[14] Perhaps it may be objected that there are rational reasons even for criminals to repent, for repenting creates a positive karma that may reduce the amount of negative karmic residue, making their future selves less burdened.[15] But is this really a satisfying solution? If whatever A(L1) does now will result in A(L2), whom A(L1) knows nothing about and shares nothing but the soul, experiencing either miserable or pleasurable circumstances, why does A(L1) need to care about what A(L2) has to undergo in the first place? Just how important is the individual soul, if one is going to lose his/her memory and personality anyways? While Hindus believe that remembering the past misdeeds is possible through Maya and Jainas believe that the soul may become omniscient once it gets rid of the ignorance (ajnana),[16] the incidence of people successfully reaching such an omniscient state appear to be rare, if not impossible. In this sense, even though karma one day turns out to be the natural law of universe, it seems implausible to assert that the belief in karma provides a firm reason for its believers to act morally, for the rebirth of soul may not necessarily mean the rebirth of the self with the same identity. This signifies that, whatever A(L1) chooses to do, there is nothing stopping him from acting immorally since there is no reason for A(L1) to regard A(L2) as himself; without shared memories, sensations, body and dispositions, it is difficult to imagine A(L1) viewing A(L2) other than a total stranger.
It is noteworthy here that Christian doctrine is free of the 'identity problem' since it denies the concept of rebirth and thus Christians have moral obligations that ought to be followed. For Christians, this life is the only chance bestowed upon all. This is, again, not to proclaim that karmic doctrine is per se indifferent to moral obligations, but only that it does not provide rigorous moral demands for us to the extent that Christianity provides since it leaves room for immoral actions by introducing infinite chances of salvation. One may validly claim, for sure, that Jainism is grounded on a firm non-violence principle (ahimsa) and it therefore demands its followers to adopt a set of strict moral precepts. Nonetheless, the fact that Jainism does indeed have a rigorous moral precept is tangential to the previously raised objection that karmic doctrine does not provide a sufficient reason for its believers to act righteously: Ahimsa is important precisely because non-violence is the key to reduce negative karma and thereby reducing the painful experiences in the future lives. This also insinuates that, once A(L1) decides not to care about what A(L2) has to undergo in the future, the principle of ahimsa becomes completely useless. But, is it not true that Christian doctrine, too, regards the Original Sin which is committed “at an unspecified past time and place” as the cause of evil because that is what the Biblical scripture says? To this claim, it may be pointed out that suffering caused by karma has an arbitrary origin since no one can certainly state exactly which action causes which consequence whereas the suffering introduced by the Original Sin is more specific, for we know who (Adam and Eve),[17] why (tempted by a serpent),[18] how (cursed by God),[19] when (sometimes after the creation of the world and some scholars argue that this is approximately 6~7000 years ago), where (the garden of Eden)[20] and what (the fruit of knowledge of good and evil)[21] caused the Original Sin. Hence the cause of suffering in karmic system seems to be arbitrary while the origin of suffering in Christian doctrine seems to be more specific.
Yet, should we not point out that Kaufman's criticism on the karmic theory[22] also applies to Christianity? Considering the Christian worldview, is it not unfair that all of us are born sinners?[23] To be cursed for deeds of someone we do not know, or rather, someone about whom we can only find in the first few chapters of Genesis? First, in Christian context, we are without excuse because we all sin against God.[24] Given the imperfectness of we human beings and given the holy nature of God, we do deserve the death penalty─not because of some malicious actions nor hideous thoughts, but because of our faulty nature that lives deep inside us. To say this is unfair is to believe he/she is sinless. But if one assumes that he/she is sinless, any criticism against Christian doctrine based on this presupposition is invalid, for Christian doctrine does not assume that stance. This is so because we are currently not dealing with a metaphysical theory─after all, the existence of karma is empirically untestable[25] and so is the existence of God.[26] We are instead examining the theoretical consistency within the theory/principle in question.[27] Hence, if everyone is sinner before God, our sin belong to us. The Fall of humanity was indeed caused by Adam and Eve, and death was its penalty from that point on. However, it is pointless to blame them for their misdeeds because we, as fallible and dependent beings, would have done the same thing.
Second, Christian theodicies explain that evil is a direct result of the Original Sin[28] and acknowledge that evil may come about by natural causes or sometimes for no reasons at all, as can be seen from the afflictions that Job had to undergo.[29] In either case, the fact that everyone is sinner and that everyone deserves death penalty does not change.[30] The Karmic worldview, on the other hand, interprets suffering solely as a cosmic consequence of past deeds. From this, it may be asserted that: (1) Abrahamic traditions take account of multiple factors to explain the existence of evil, sometimes that are explicitly independent to human misdeeds while the karmic worldview limits the origin of evil to accumulated negative karma, and (2) given that the karmic theory presupposes that all suffering has a reason, this doctrine “can be used to rationalize the status quo or justify oppression or unfairness on the grounds that their suffering is punishment for their prior wrongs”[31] The best example is the caste system in India which has been used as a means of oppression and sociopolitical discrimination and class segregation. Christian worldview does not face such problems: because everyone is equally sinful, no one is entitled to stand on top of another, and, likewise, Christians are obligated to love fellow human beings.[32] These arguments, moreover, appear to suggest that the karmic system fails to take account of the complexity of the world and that its implications are morally unappealing because it entails that “there is no such thing as innocent suffering, that everyone gets just what he deserve,” implying that “there can be no moral obligation to help others in distress, to protect, to rescue, perform acts of charity, or even to feel compassion for a sufferer.”[33]
But is this a valid accusation against karma? According to Kaufman’s coarse depiction, karma is a callous and inhumane mechanism apt to rationalize all kinds of injustice: one who occasionally rapes women, for example, may argue that he is acting morally because, by harming women, he is reducing the amount of negative karmic residue that that victims may have and thereby helping them to achieve moksha. Arvind Sharma, however, firmly reject this conclusion. Sharma believes “not everything that one suffers is always attributed to moral (karmic) causes” and that evil de facto can be attributed to the natural causes as well.[34] If this is true, (1) no one can ascertain whether a particular suffering is caused naturally or by the negative karma, (2) no one can rationalize his/her wrongdoing, for there is no guarantee whatsoever that one’s wrongdoing toward others is the result of accumulated karmic residue, which means (3) karmic law attributes multiple factors to explicate the origin of evil, thereby handling the complexity of the world, and thence (4) Kaufman’s postulation is based on his misunderstanding of the karmic doctrine and his argument is therefore invalid. Sharma’s argument is nevertheless quite vulnerable for several reasons.
First, if any given suffering can be attributed either to the natural cause or the cosmic law of karma and hence no one really knows what the true cause of a given suffering is, then it follows therefore that even karma is futile in explaining the origin of evil. This is a conclusion that essentially contradicts with a common belief that karma “can explain the suffering of innocent children, or congenital illnesses, with which Western thought has great difficulty”[35] because Sharma’s prima facie assertion merely leads us to a skeptic resolution─that no one truly knows why we suffer.
Another weakness of Sharma’s inference lies in the fact that there are handful of different interpretations regarding the mechanism of karma. Indeed, despite the fact that he defends his speculation by quoting Milindapanha which emphasizes that “what happens to one could have natural causes,”[36] a number of counterexamples also exist. The Noble Truth of Origin, for instance, states that:
(P) Suffering arises from excessive desire[37]
which allows two possible interpretations:
(P1) All suffering arises from excessive desire.
(P2) Some suffering arises from excessive desire.
If (P1) is a correct interpretation of (P), then it logically follows that even the Buddha himself had an excessive desire since he, too, suffered.[38] If (P2), on the contrary, is the right interpretation of (P), then this causes a contradiction within Buddhism because this indicates that not all suffering is controllable by simply being the master of desire. Even following the four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path would never eliminate suffering completely since there will always remain some sufferings that do not arise from excessive desire. What this illustrates is that the Noble Truth of Cessation, “suffering will cease when desire ceases,”[39] is virtually false since the Noble Truth of Cessation is deduced by the following argument:
P1.If there is excessive desire, suffering will be caused.
P2.There is no desire.
Q1(P1,P2).Therefore there is no suffering.
This argument takes the form of (1) if p, then q, (2) not p, (3) then not q. This format of argument is a manifest inverse error because it is inferring that the consequent of the major premise, P1, is false solely from the fact that the antecedent of this premise is false. For this reason we can observe that a contradiction occurs within Buddhism if there can be natural causes of suffering. Besides, one of the Buddhist sloka mentions a beggar, claiming that: “If the prime of life I am deprived of all virility, my leg is injured, and I am a beggar. All this is the result of my karma.”[40] which appears to suggest that, if what the beggar claims is the words of truth, all suffering is caused by karma because, by affirming that “all this is the result of my karma,”[41] this beggar is also affirming that “all this is not the result of natural causes, independent of my karma.” It is accordingly indisputable that the law of karma does indeed suppose that all suffering is caused by karma; after all, everyone disagrees with just how much karma is responsible for evil present in this world.
Furthermore, it has long been claimed that the law of karma determines one’s status once one reborns,[42] and the quality of experiences.[43] In other words, one can still rationalize social discrimination as can be seen from the caste system and the law of Manu because one can attribute one’s social status to one’s karmic residue.[44] Sharma may, of course, contend with this statement by advocating that not all birth is directed by karma. Yet this assumption unfortunately fails to solve the matter at hand because, if not all birth is directed by karma, then this implies that some births may occur without any intervention of it. This as a result leads us to conclude that “the type of being one is going to born into, the length of this life, and whether his/her experiences will be painful or pleasurable” can all be determined independent of the power of karma─not to mention that karma, that being the case, does not function equally for all beings, making it difficult to regard it as “a systematic law.”[45] This consequently contradicts with and thus seriously undermines the universality of the entire karmic theory as well as the rebirth theory. Kaufman’s initial argument remains unaffected by Sharma’s objection.
Although one may insist that Sharma’s claim, “not all suffering is caused by a karma,” is sound, there yet exists an obstacle to be solved: If the karmic residue (apurva) is merely an unintelligent entity, how can it be the case that karma “picks out the appropriate time and place for the pleasure or pain which constitutes the experience in the next life?”[46] For Christians, the precise operation of the retributive system or the legitimacy of its moral principles is not a problem for, as soon as one supposes the existence of omnipotent, omniscient and all-good God, this automatically implies that (1) retributive justice is perfectly regulated no matter how complex the world in question is, and that (2) the moral principles stated by God are always justified. One can surely denounce this notion by suggesting the possibility of its abuse such as massacre implemented by the Crusades in the Middle Ages or infamous Anti-Semitism that took millions of innocent lives. But it is necessary here to distinguish 'the abuse caused by the doctrine itself' from 'the abuse caused by misinterpretation of the doctrine that in reality lacks the scriptural basis.' For example, all kinds of oppression and discrimination is prohibited in Christianity by the categorical imperative “love thou neighbor as thou self”[47] and “love thou enemies,”[48] meaning that all oppression and discrimination occurring under the name of Christianity can be regarded as having no doctrinal basis because no Christian doctrine supports injustice. The objection I have made against the karmic principle, on the other hand, concerns the problem that is directly caused by one of its doctrine, namely that “everyone’s social status is determined by karmic residue.”[49]
While there is no reason within Christianity to doubt the precise operation of retributive justice, this becomes an apparent trouble within the karmic theory simply because it is intuitively dubitable to conclude that the unintelligent karmic entity is capable of determining every facet of our lives─clearly a demanding task that requires a great precision. To resolve this problem, Sankara and Badarayana even claimed that the correct view “must be that God arranges things so that the resulting experiences match the merit or demerit characterizing the agent’s past acts”[50] which is essentially an acknowledgement that karma is incapable of working by itself without the external help of an intelligent being.
It is, of course, reasonable to draw an inference that there still is a logical possibility in which physicalistic and materialistic karmic law may function flawlessly and yet perfectly operates without having any intelligence at all just like the law of gravity applies universally. This line of reasoning nonetheless has its limitation. In order for karma to work, it must operate in accordance to a certain set of moral precepts and/or value judgments which per se presupposes the objective morality. The doctrine of karma is, however, claimed to be “the law of universal causation,”[51] implying that the moral truth can be reduced to factual truth. The complexity of the world, however, cannot be comprehended without distinguishing moral truth from the factual truth, for it is virtually impossible to logically deduce a moral proposition from the factual proposition.[52] To put it in a different way, the doctrine of karma does not distinguish 'the action in terms of its moral value' from 'the action in terms of its causal function.' This is a major drawback of the karmic theory because, if the doctrine of karma is truly governed by a materialistic law of causality, the fact that the karmic theory actively takes account of the moral value of action into its causal calculation appears to be an inconsistent naturalistic fallacy.
The Karmic theory ipso facto encounters a dilemma: The doctrine of karma, logically speaking, can either be based on unintelligent processes or intelligent processes. The former does not make sense considering the necessity of the precise operation of retributive justice and, even if the precise operation of retributive justice by an unintelligent entity is possible,[53] such a postulation erroneously presupposes that the moral truth can be deduced from the factual truth. While the latter, which supposes that karma is governed by a deity or deities, may satisfactorily avoid the naturalistic fallacy, this in effect causes the fallacy of inconsistency since positing the existence of God to theorize karmic regulation contradicts with many Indic religions that deny the existence of God including Jainism, Upanishads and traditional Buddhism. It must therefore be concluded that karma operates either through imperfect, unintelligent mechanism or by the external intervention of omniscient being, which is fundamentally incompatible with many, if not all, atheistic sects of Indic traditions. From this it is manifest that Christianity, by positing the existence of God, takes advantage of perfectly just and impartial regulation of general justice over, at least, atheistic karmic theory.
As we could observe, while both the Christian worldview and the karmic worldview do have weaknesses and strengths, the former option seems to provide morally more appealing and coherent worldview which take better account of the vibrant complexity of the world over the latter. One may disagree with this conclusion by pointing out that qualitative superiority of a theory in question is merely a matter of individual preferences. But it must be noted that the coherency and theoretical consistency of a theory is the matter of fact and morally preferable option may also be ascertained in terms of a degree of its moral rigor and its moral implications which can unequivocally be applied in and thus significantly impact upon the real life situation. Although it must be admitted that there are many more serious topics and dilemmatic issues regarding the Christian worldview and the karmic worldview that could have been more thoroughly discussed, the hitherto presented arguments demonstrate that the Abrahamic worldview as a whole has many advantages that the karmic theory do not enjoy.
Bibliography
Baggett, David and Jerry L. Walls. God and Cosmos: Moral Truth and Human Meaning. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Chadha, Monima and Nick Trakakis. Karma and the Problem of Evil: A response to Kaufman. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007.
Dundas, Paul. The Jains. London: Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lym, 1992.
Jayatilleke, N. Facets of Buddhist Thought: Collected Essays. Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 2009.
Kaufman, Whitley. Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil: A Reply to critics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007.
Kaufman, Whitley. Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Philosophical Fragments. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Morreal, John and Tamara Sonn. The Religion Toolkit. Singapore: Markono Print Media Pte Ltd, 2012.
Murray, Michele. A Concise Introduction to World Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
O’Flaherty, Wendy, et al. Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indic traditions. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980.
Perry, John. Personal Identity. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008.
Rafiabadi, Hamid. World Religions and Islam: A Critical study. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2003.
Reichenbach, Bruce. The Law of Karma: A Philosophical study. London: Macmillan academic and Professional Ltd, 1990.
Sharma, Arvind. Karma, Rebirth, and the problem of Evil: An Interjection in the Debate between Whitley Kaufman and Monima Chadha and Nick Trakakis. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008.
Stevenson, Sinclair. The Religious Quest of India. London: Oxford University Press, 1915.
The Holy Bible, New International Version. Seoul: Korean Bible Society, 2005.
Weisberg, James and Francis J. Keefe. Psychological Factors in Pain: Critical Perspectives. New York: The Guilford Press, 1999.
Notes
[1] Michele Murray, A Concise Introduction to World Religion. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 353; O’Flaherty, Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indic traditions, 243.
[2] Paul Dundas, The Jains. (London: Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lym, 1992), 84; O’Flaherty, Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indic traditions, 63, 243.
[3] That is, if we regard the doctrine of karma as a systematic theory, as Max Weber, Peter Berger, Arther Herman and Kaufman argued.
[4] Kaufman, Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil, 18.
[5] Wendy O’Flaherty, et al., Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indic traditions. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), 259; Whitley Kaufman, Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 243.
[6] Kaufman, Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil, 19.
[7] John Perry, Personal Identity. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008), 119.
[8] Ibid.
[9] James Weisberg and Francis J. Keefe, Psychological Factors in Pain: Critical Perspectives. (New York: The Guilford Press, 1999), 58.
[10] Kaufman, Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil, 19.
[11] Monima Chadha and Nick Trakakis, Karma and the Problem of Evil: A response to Kaufman. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007), 535.
[12] Chadha and Trakakis, Karma and the Problem of Evil: A response to Kaufman, 536.
[13] Whitley Kaufman, Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil: A Reply to critics. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007), 557.
[14] Kaufman, Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil, 20.
[15] O’Flaherty, Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indic traditions, 87.
[16] Sinclair Stevenson, The Religious Quest of India. (London: Oxford University Press, 1915), 175.
[17] Genesis 3: 20.
[18] Ibid., 3: 1-6.
[19] Ibid., 3: 15-19.
[20] Ibid., 2: 8.
[21] Ibid., 2: 17; 3: 12.
[22] This refers to Kaufman's comment on karma that one has to pay for "deeds of someone about whom we remember nothing“
[23] Psalm 51: 5
[24] Romans 5: 12.
[25] O’Flaherty, Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indic traditions, 27.
[26] Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 40-1.
[27] This does not mean I don't regard Christianity and the karmic law as metaphysical theory. It only means that metaphysical issues (such as the existence of deity and the karmic residue) are not the focus of the discussion.
[28] John Morreal and Tamara Sonn. The Religion Toolkit. (Singapore: Markono Print Media Pte Ltd, 2012), 19.
[29] Job 1: 13-9; 2: 7-8.
[30] Because this is so, the origin of suffering is within us.
[31] Kaufman, Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil, 27.
[32] Matthew 22: 39.
[33] Kaufman, Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil: A Reply to critics, 559.
[34] Arvind Sharma, Karma, Rebirth, and the problem of Evil: An Interjection in the Debate between Whitley Kaufman and Monima Chadha and Nick Trakakis. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008), 574.
[35] Kaufman, Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil, 19.
[36] Sharma, Karma, Rebirth, and the problem of Evil: An Interjection in the Debate between Whitley Kaufman and Monima Chadha and Nick Trakakis, 574.
[37] Michele Murray, A Concise Introduction to World Religion, 390.
[38] Sharma, Karma, Rebirth, and the problem of Evil: An Interjection in the Debate between Whitley Kaufman and Monima Chadha and Nick Trakakis, 574.
[39] Michele Murray, A Concise Introduction to World Religion, 390.
[40] Stevenson, The Religious Quest of India, 174.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Hamid Rafiabadi, World Religions and Islam: A Critical study. (New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2003), 36.
[43] O’Flaherty, Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indic traditions, 244.
[44] Morreal and Sonn, The Religion Toolkit, 224.
[45] N. Jayatilleke, Facets of Buddhist Thought: Collected Essays. (Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 2009), 406.
[46] O’Flaherty, Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indic traditions, 258.
[47] Leviticus 19: 18.
[48] Matthew 6: 44.
[49] O’Flaherty, Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indic traditions, 244.
[50] Ibid., 258.
[51] Bruce Reichenbach, The Law of Karma: A Philosophical study. (London: Macmillan academic and Professional Ltd, 1990), 24.
[52] David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls. God and Cosmos: Moral Truth and Human Meaning. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 249.
[53] A super computer with an artificial intelligence which draws a solution to a difficult moral dilemma through intense computational processes, for instance, is not impossible to imagine.
