Change, Impersonality, Abstraction, Dealing with Shame and Guilt: Buddhism vs. Christianity

Yesterday, a Buddhist nun addressed and interacted with the class I am teaching about Buddhism. She did a fine job of articulating basic Buddhist thought and on the whole fielded questions quite well. As I reflected on our time with her the following points come to mind:

1. Some students asked perceptive questions about how Buddhists deal with shame and guilt. This led to discussion about the Buddhist view of punishment. It became plain that our guest could not countenance any concept of punishment as mere retribution. To her it was self-evident that punishment can only be warranted if it is educative, remedial, reformatory. This is in sharp contrast to biblical thought. While there is ample material in the Bible showing how God disciplines his people, it is nevertheless fundamental to biblical thought that true justice must be essentially retributive: giving to people that which they deserve.

2. She constantly stressed the principle of impermanence, especially in terms of the Buddhist doctrine of dependent arising. Everything is always changing, she emphasised. Ironically, however, the very foundations on which she built her thought, including the law or principle that “everything is always changing” are fixed, permanent, unchanging. This would appear to be a fundamental inherent inconsistency in Buddhist thought. Furthermore, she did not seem to appreciate that many schools of philosophy do not agree that ‘everything is always changing’ and that the Buddhist commitment to this as a supposed universal law is not based on the fact that it is a self-evident truth but is rather a faith-commitment, a presupposition. This has always been contested in secular philosophical thought. Certainly, biblical thought in stressing the reality of an unchanging God who creates the universe and secures the independent integrity of particular creations is at odds with Buddhism at this point, though it takes seriously the reality of change and encourages us to devote our lives to that which is of eternal value.

3. Her insistence on impermanence, non-self and dukkha as foundational realities highlighted the fact that Buddhism is rooted in impersonal abstractions and, therefore, necessarily presupposes that attainment of the ultimate state is itself an impersonal abstraction. Even the innumerable Buddhas of Mahayana Buddhism in their innumerable Buddha worlds are evacuated of personal individuality and are effectively impersonal cosmic forces, portrayed in a manner abstracted from reality as experienced by our senses. By contrast, biblical thought begins with a Person, God the Creator and with intimate personal relationships and, therefore, the attainment of the ultimate state is invested with the experience of rich interpersonal relationships which, while on a scale transcending our current fallen state, nevertheless bears a close connection with reality as currently experienced by our senses.

Posted August 12, 2011

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