Roger Morrison wrote:"...character that we brought with us?" is a more realistic observation than most made on this thread -- IMPO ... I endorse that cuz it agrees with the thesis of my book, Copulating Luck In Our Sort-of Christian World. Wherein I suggest, a person is born with an individual load of genes & DNA into an environment, not of their choosing, to be acted upon by influences -- good, bad, or indifferent. Again not of their choosing. How they fare in life might depend in large part on what they brought with them: intelligence, talent, strengths, weaknesses, etc. as much as where and with whom luck introduced them to... Functional, dysfunctional, warm, kind, patient, cruel, abusive, positive/negative nurturing, etc. Non of which God nor preexistence had anything to do with. In my world view.
Hi Roger!
I wonder what you think of what is known as reincarnation?
It is part of our body of teachings that finding Eternal Life is finding and cleaving to the Eternal Aspect of us - our Higher Soul, or whom we are in Christ. The outer aspect, our personality in this world, is likened to the temporary blossoms on a plant - they come and go. If we think we are simply the blossom, we live and then we die. But if we awaken to the Eternal Aspect of ourselves, we realize that we are instead the 'plant'. Blossoms come and go, but we as the plant remain awake and aware in our birth and death.
Often vines and plants are used in scripture to teach this point...
I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
We not only cannot do anything other than be bestial as simple branches, without awareness of the vine, we will be cut off, eventually die. The beast or blossoms comes and goes.
OK the point of this. According to our teachings there are two things that determine the characters or traits we come into this life with. One is called the karmic pattern - everything that our Higher Soul's previous incarnations has learned according to the law, or what is also called the evolution of the soul, and two, the moment and place of our birth. A fully human personality is not able to incarnate into a single 'branch' and so the moment and place of our birth determines what aspects of the fully human personality we will embody, what aspects our 'karmic pattern' will work through.
This is determined by God - the time and place of our birth, or what some call our astrology, based on what is needed, or where we are, in our Higher Self or Soul evolution. (A fully human personality would be a combination of all personalities - a single personality expressing all characters and traits.)
Such teachings are held in every True Wisdom Tradition, not just mine. Such is universally known by the Masters, or those who have found Eternal Life. In the West, the Catholic Church removed such teachings from their official dogma because this truth weakens the control that an organization, a church, has over its members.
Just imagine if each soul is on a unique journey, and at a unique place in that journey - we are going to have individuals all over the place in their understanding, and in their abilities and characters they bring into this world! How can any religious organization control people if everyone is 'different'?
Shalom!
Sheryl