More on Buddhism and Christianity

Some comments on recent posts have defended Buddhism against my criticisms of it which, it should be noted, are criticisms only from what I regard as the higher viewpoint of Christianity. I have the greatest respect for Buddhism and for the Buddha himself whose achievement was unparalleled in the purely human sense. But Christ brought, indeed he was, a direct revelation from God which goes beyond anything purely human.

My comments regarding Buddhism are made from the position that what the Buddha taught and what Christ offers are two different things, even though there are substantial overlaps, and that this should be understood at a time when many people believe all religions say essentially the same thing. Buddhism teaches the truth beyond the self, which the Buddha didn't actually deny but which he saw as an impediment to spiritual realisation. For Christ, though, it is the self that is the ultimate means of reaching the state of union with God, a union that can be made more and more complete and ever fuller as that self develops in holiness. For the Buddhist, the self must be overcome completely but for the Christian it is sanctified though that does require its overcoming as a self-centred or phenomenal thing. 

The different attitudes to suffering bring out this distinction. The Buddhist seeks to escape suffering. That was the original motivation of Gautama, and a suffering Buddha makes no sense. He would be an unenlightened Buddha which is a contradiction in terms. The very definition of a Buddha is that he has gone beyond suffering. But Christ suffered, and for a Christian suffering can be redemptive not merely a result of past karma as in Buddhism. And this shows us the difference between Christian love and Buddhist compassion. Love is fully personal but compassion is universal, not really directed at one thing more than anything else and therefore, in a sense, impersonal. Because of this personal quality love, even spiritual love, is vulnerable. It does not dwell on a lofty plane far removed from everyday reality. It is deeply involved in reality to the extent that it can fully feel the pain of reality.

Here are some questions I would put to a Buddhist. Do you accept that consciousness evolves? Or that life is purposeful? Do you have an explanation for creation? And if Buddhism maintains that we exist in relationship, that, as it puts it, all is interdependence, what is relating?

It seems to me that a person who becomes a Buddhist must suppress something within himself in order to do so properly. Note that Buddhism is essentially a monastic religion. What is suppressed is love in the personal sense and if love is not personal, what is it? As we saw, this is tied up with suffering. In the Christian story, Jesus suffered. Even God suffers and that is because of love. In Buddhism suffering is what we need to escape from, what we need to free ourselves from. I know that in Mahayana Buddhism there is the figure of the Bodhisattva who renounces Nirvana until all sentient beings are released but this is somewhat at odds with traditional Buddhist teaching and possibly came about because of the tendency to nihilism that contains within itself. I am not saying it is nihilistic but it can seem so. And the fact remains that if the individual is not real, if the person is not real, then love cannot exist. If the person is real then God must be personal too as the greater cannot come from the lesser. Later Buddhism tried to incorporate the virtues and values of the personal but had to be logically inconsistent with itself and its core teaching in order to do so.

Buddhism is unsurpassed in its insights and its development of 'skilful means' to overcome the ego and dis-identify with the phenomenal self. However, despite the later statement that samsara (becoming) is not different to nirvana (being), it cannot incorporate the full reality of creation into its vision of life. To say samsara and nirvana are one really means it's all nirvana but actually diminishes the importance of the contribution and purpose of creation which is to bring about a higher development in which reality becomes a relationship of multiple individuals united in love. This entails the marriage of created reality and uncreated being and brings about something new and more than the latter (the nirvana state) on its own. Ultimately, the Buddhist rejection of God (and he is rejected because he is not fully accepted) turns out to be not its trump card as often seen by modern people, but its Achilles heel. Reality is not impersonal oneness but fully and gloriously and eternally personal. And this is what Christianity teaches us more than any other spiritual approach.

Added note: I am sure there is an aspect of reality which is impersonal oneness but this is not the preferred option desired by God for his creation or the reason for that creation in the first place.