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One Buddhist apologist has written: “Christianity is likewise
authoritarian and dictatorial -- " you must believe this or you
will be condemned" -- whereas Buddhism tends to be more liberal
and allows people to believe more or less whatever they like.
Christians ban certain teachings as heretical, evil and harmful,
but in general terms, Buddhists assert that anyone can believe
anything they wish and that there is some merit in any belief
system which has some spiritual views and respects the rights of
an individual, as long as it does not harm others”.
This idea that one can believe anything is a result of
Buddhism actually having no solid basis upon which to believe
anything. And one wonders whether believing “whatever they like”
includes Fascism and Satanism… again, there seems so little
attention paid to the implications of what is being said. If
there is right and wrong, then immediately there is thrown up
the question of truth and error, and therefore and thereby, the
whole question of authority. The sheer range of beliefs within
Buddhism indicates how there is no basis for ultimate Truth
within the religion. Consider all the different forms of
Buddhism: Zen, Theravada, Soka-gakkai; Tibetan Buddhism; Pure
Land Buddhism etc.
While in Christianity a person has one and only one chance of
being saved, Buddhism's teachings on rebirth mean that a person
has an infinite number of opportunities to attain Nirvana. This
also implies that everyone will eventually be liberated. The
absoluteness of the issues involved in rejecting or accepting
Jesus as the Son of God impart a verve and vitality to human
life. Buddhism teaches that it is all a matter of time; we may
be reincarnated as animals or bad people but in the end, the
cycle leads to Nirvana. This means that evil men like Adolf
Hitler will eventually reach ‘Nirvana’; there is no
responsibility for human action because we are merely
reincarnated beings. The Bible and the teaching which is in
Jesus radically transforms human life in practice. How we live
now is related to how we will be judged. What we sow is what we
will reap at judgement day (Gal. 6:8). For those who know God’s
ways and are responsible to Him, all that they do will in some
sense be judged. This inevitably leads us to watch our
behaviour. How we live becomes crucially important. There is no
second chance. Now is the today of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2);
today, if we will hear God’s voice and not harden our heart
(Heb. 3:7-15), we can “work out our salvation” (Phil 2:12). If
we are simply passing through a cycle, and will in the ultimate
end up in Nirvana, there is little motivation to change now. We
will always tend to go for the lowest level; we are satisficers,
minimalists, when it comes to spiritual endeavour. Both human
experience and the Bible’s view of human nature lead us to these
conclusions; and yet Buddhism denies them.
Buddhism seems to me to be a ‘designer religion’- you can
believe as you like, and extract from the vast range of Buddhist
writings what is convenient for you. Buddhism holds that
different types of teaching and guidance are going to be
appropriate to different beings, seeing we are all at different
stages in the endless cycle of development. This means that
there is no such thing as revealed truth. We are left wandering
and uncertain. God’s word is truth, Jesus taught (Jn. 17:17). We
all balk at the enormity of this claim- that the Bible is the
Truth. All I can do is invite you to systematically read it for
yourself. It has been observed that “even straightforward
teachings in moral matters can be modified, sometimes
intensified, sometimes relaxed in the course of teaching and
transmission”
(1). This means there is no such concept as
truth, therefore no understanding of right and wrong, and no
concept of sin. The varying Buddhist views over time and
geography regarding meat eating and violence are examples of the
intellectual and moral crisis of Buddhism. In passing, note that
the Pali Canon reveals that Buddha himself ate meat, but his
later disciples saw that his teachings about re-incarnation
meant that to eat an animal was to take a human life, and
therefore it was outlawed. Who has the right to modify moral
standards? If there are no inspired Scriptures, the basis for
authority can only be the monks. The lack of uniform morality in
Buddhism contrasts strongly with the one universal standard for
the Christian- “the law of Christ” (1 Cor 9:21???). By this I
understand we are to ask constantly and with relentless,
piercing honesty: What would Jesus do or say or feel, in this or
that situation which I meet in my life? For He was and is our
representative, and His life of suffering, and the fact He had
our human nature, enables us to know with confidence that He has
been in our shoes, in essence. True Christians are as it were in
a personality cult behind this man Jesus. This explains the
tremendous unity which is possible amongst true Christians. He
was not merely a teacher, an ideas man, as Buddha was. He was
the word made flesh (Jn. 1:14), His life was and is the express
articulation of all He and His Father have taught in their
words.
Notes
(1) Stewart MacFarlane, Making Moral
Decisions in Peter Harvey, Buddhism, p. 183
(London: Continuum, 2001).
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