Principle of equality
“Believe in no other God than the one who insists on justice and equality among men” (George Sand)
The "Principle of Equality" is a moral, philosophical and legal doctrine that states that "All human beings are equal" and should be treated equally before the law, “without distinction of any kind". This principle is so important that it is present in the constitutions of several countries. So we ask: If equality is such an important principle, how could it not be present in the Divine Laws? If God is infinitely Perfect, His Laws consequently cannot be inferior to human's laws!
The belief in the existence of only one life, and therefore in the absence of a fair cause that explains the sufferings and differences between people, leaves inexplicable "gaps" from a logical point of view. One of these shortcomings is the lack of a principle of equality. Let's see:
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"Why are some born perfect while others are born blind, disbled or with terrible diseases that inflict great suffering on them throughout their livest?"
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"Why are some born in families with a good material and moral structure, which give them all the resources to follow the path of good, while others are born totally devoid of any materiaand moral structure, abandoned since their childhood?"
We have already seen that the concept of Justice is "giving each one according to their merit". In this case, if we consider a group of individuals who possess exactly the same merit, we deduce that all should be subject to an equality criterion, that is, everyone should receive rigorously to the same extent, and there should not be any kind of privilege or favoritism to some to the detriment of others. If this criterion of equality is not met, obviously justice will not be done.
So let us analyze: If there were only one life, all the people who are born would have the same degree of merit, since they would not have had a previous life that could create a distinct merit for each of them and, even if we took into account the existence of the Called "Original Sin", all would be born under the weight of "the same sin" and, therefore, should be under the same equality criterion, but we find that this is not the case.
We can identify 3 main inequality situations in this system:
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First class: Individuals who die very young, when they are still a child. In this case, according to the traditional Christian Doctrines, such individuals would attain "eternal salvation" automatically, without doing anything to deserve it.
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Second class: Individuals who are born into families that give them an excellent moral formation, evidently giving them a greater chance of pursuing the path of goodness and thus achieving "salvation".
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Third class: Individuals who are born in promiscuous environments, who pull them away, since their childhood, from any moral principle, making it obviously more difficult for them to find the way to good and achieve "salvation."
So let us wonder: Would this be a fair criterion? If all individuals would have only "one chance", that is, only the short period of a lifetime to achieve something so important, which is the eternal salvation of their souls, would it be fair for them to be subjected to such unequal conditions?
Let us make an analogy to make our analysis easier: Let us imagine a group of individuals who will have to go through a "test": They will have to cross an arid desert to reach an oasis and thus save their lives. However, each of them is given totally different conditions to achieve this goal:
Some individuals will receive all support before the crossing: Supplies, instructions, maps and a compass, so that they can find a way in the middle of the desert and, thus, reach the oasis and to be saved. Others will receive little or almost no support: they will have to do the crossing without most of the items the first group received. Finally, a third group of individuals will be the most "privileged": They will be randomly selected in the middle of the crossing, withdrawn from the desert and taken immediately to the "oasis", without having to do absolutely nothing to receive such benefit.
Among this group of individuals, we would have those who were completely healthy and perfect, but also others with disabilities (blind, deaf, paraplegic), all of whom were subjected to the same "demands" to be able to save themselves.
Could we say that a fair criterion was applied? Of course not! Assuming that all the individuals in the group, submitted to the same "test", to achieve the same objective, had the same degree of merit, they obviously should have received the same conditions from the outset, that is, there should have been a criterion of equality. Otherwise we could never say that justice was done.
Some might argue that, even with the unequal conditions, some of the individuals who were more "fortunate" and given more resources, could get lost in the "desert" and could not save themselves, while others who were totally deprived of resources, could get to the so-called "oasis" and manage to save themselves. Really, this could even happen. However, the fact that individuals who received less initial resources can achieve their salvation does not change the conditions of inequality that are being questioned here.
What is at issue are the unequal criteria to which each individual was submitted from the outset and whether such criteria can be considered fair. Therefore, unless there was a justification that arose before the beginning of the "test", so that each one could receive such differentiated conditions, we can say that such criteria would be absolutely unfair!
Following strictly the same line of reasoning, when analyzing the doctrines that defend the existence of a single life, we find that they do not present a criterion of equality because, to achieve the same objective, that would be the "salvation of their Souls", people would be subjected from birth to absurdly unequal conditions, not only in the sense of deprivation and suffering, but also in conditions that greatly diminish the chances of those less fortunate to achieve such "salvation".
On the other hand some would receive salvation "automatically" in the case of those who die very young, receiving an "eternal" reward with absolutely no merit as justification. In this way, such Doctrines cannot offer any consistent explanation for the inequality among people.
Logical argument analysis
Premise 1: God is Fair
Premise 2: In a fair system, individuals with equal merit must be treated equally.
Conclusion: God could never treat with inequality individuals with the same degree of merit, granting some of them with undeserved advantages and privileges.
We have seen in the chapter "Logic basics" that, in order to refute an argument, we need to demonstrate that at least one of the premises is false or that there is no logical inference between the premises that leads to the conclusion presented. Therefore, to refute the above argument, we would need to do at least one of the three options below:
Demonstrate that 1st. premise is false: To do so, we would have to affirm that "God is not Fair" and, in this case, would not be Perfect either.
Demonstrate that 2nd premise is false: To do it, we would need to demonstrate that it would be fair for people with the same merit to be treated with inequality, with no motive justifying such unequal treatment. But there is no way to justify inequality without distorting the very concept of Justice, which is "to give each one according to his merit."
Demonstrate that the premises don’t lead to the conclusion: It is impossible to question the logical inference between the premises and the conclusion: If God is Fair (premise 1), and a Fair System does not allow inequality between individuals of the same merit (premise 2), consequently God, in his System of Justice, could never impose an unequal treatment between individuals with the same degree of merit. By doing so, God could be considered Unfair.
In this way, the above argument can be considered valid and consistent, because its premises are true and there is a logical inference between them that lead to the conclusion.
If justice is “giving each one according to his merit”, no one can ever receive more or less than he deserves. If there was only one life, all would be created "with the same degree of merit." Even with the supposed (and illogical) theory of original sin, everyone would be entering the world "with the same sin", so everyone should be subject to the same conditions of equality.
Therefore, if there was only one life and no just cause to explain human suffering, we could say that God would be committing two great injustices at the same time:
1. Making all people be “born in sin” and, this way, pay for the wrongs they have not committed (Original sin)
2. Imposing people, from birth, absolutely unequal conditions and sufferings, and giving some the privilege of acquiring "eternal salvation" without any kind of merit.
Therefore, how can one justify the tragedies that afflict certain people who die young in terrible accidents, or people who are afflicted with diseases that impose terrible suffering on them for years before their death? How to justify the pain of parents who lose their children? Why do some go through these tragedies and others not? Now, if all were born under the weight of the same sin (original sin), how can one justify this huge disproportion of suffering?
In fact, we can say categorically that, without Reincarnation, we will never find a logical and consistent answer to these questions.
Reincarnation = Absolute equality criterion
Reincarnation is the only doctrine capable of presenting an absolutely logical and rational explanation for the cause of inequality between people: Each one already brings back, from previous lives, a baggage, that is, a sum of acquired knowledge, as well as debts to be settled. There is not, in this way, any kind of injustice or any kind of inequality.
We can find in History several cases of "prodigal children" who, at a few years of age, have an extraordinary ability with musical instruments, which a normal person would take decades to develop, or others that may be considered "geniuses" in mathematics or any other kind of theoretical knowledge, demonstrating an innate and extraordinary ability from birth.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was probably the most brilliant of the prodigal children of all time. Mozart already showed a prodigious musical ability from his childhood. At the age of five, he was already composing and playing various instruments with mastery!
Some might suggest that the genius demonstrated in early childhood comes from a genetic inheritance of the child's ancestors. But we find cases of children with extraordinary talents who do not have any familiar reference that justifies such talent, and also cases of identical twins in which one of them demonstrates an extraordinary skill or knowledge and the other not. If such ability or knowledge was inherited genetically, both would have it.
If there was only one life and we were created by God at birth, then He would be using an absolutely random and unequal criteria to define who would be intellectual geniuses or the geniuses of music, painting or literature, and who would have only limited knowledge.
The Spiritist Doctrine, through Reincarnation, offers us the only logical explanation to this issue, since it teaches us that the skills and knowledge acquired by a spirit in a previous life are never lost and they bring such knowledge and skills intuitively to present life, demonstrating them from the earliest childhood. This is, by far, the most logical and consistent explanation we can find to explain the inequalities between people.
Still according to Spiritism, spirits are not all created at the same time, and their creation is continuous in the universe. But all are created absolutely equal , that is, "simple and ignorant". From then on, all spirits go their own way, since they are all endowed with free will and are strictly subject to the Law of Cause and Effect. Thus, they receive, in an absolutely fair way, the positive or negative consequences of their own acts in a long journey of learning. This explains very consistently the existence of huge inequalities between people.
Under the Reincarnationist view, God never, in any case, grants more conditions to some people and less to others. All are equal before the Supreme Creator, who grants everyone exactly the same infinite chances and opportunities for evolution.
Thus, in addition to not finding in Reincarnation the contradictions existing in the doctrines that defend the belief in the existence of one single life, through it we visualize an infinitely Perfect and Just Creator, who would never impose on his children any kind of difference or undeserved suffering.
