Absorb the implications of this quote from the Lotus Sutra, a text highly venerated by many Mahayana Buddhists:
There is no (real) Nirvana without all-knowingness; try to reach this (Chapter 5.74).
If you can’t achieve omniscience then you can’t experience nirvana. To say this is a tough ask is an understatement of an understatement. We might fairly ask: Is it remotely reasonable to expect anyone to acquire omniscience?
The Bible recognises only one Person as capable of such knowledge: “For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:20b).
The Lotus Sutra makes it clear that achievement of the ultimate state is effectively self-divinisation – a sheer impossibility.
In Isaiah 46:9-10 we read:
Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.
The omniscience of God goes hand in hand with his omnipotence. It is the God who knows all things who works out his irrevocable purpose. Ironically, the unevidenced Lotus Sutra promise of self-achieved omniscience involves the most fundamental expression of not-knowing, that is, ignorance of the omniscient God and his wonderful plan for creating a people for himself, a new humanity that realises all of its God-created potential.
Posted August 8, 2010
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