Buddhism is straightforward, remaining on a single path.
(i) Gautama seeks the way to the end of suffering.
(ii) He realizes his enlightenment, thus becoming the Buddha.
(iii) The Buddha teaches the Way and founds the Sangha.
(iv) He dies in old age.
I have no fundamental problems with either the teaching or the practice. I accept:
anatta (no soul);
karma (action);
good or bad consequences of either right or wrong actions;
dukkha (suffering);
mental grasping as the psychological cause of suffering;
right actions and meditation as the way to the end of suffering;
compassion.
I do not accept rebirth which looks like a hangover from Jain/Hindu reincarnation.
Christianity is more complicated, changing direction three times.
(i) Jesus preaches the imminence of the kingdom.
(ii) Jesus thinks that his vicarious suffering will initiate the kingdom.
(iii) He dies realizing that this approach has failed.
(iv) Peter proclaims that Jesus is risen.
(v) Paul proclaims that Jesus's death was the ultimate blood sacrifice (!)
(vi) Paul and other Apostles found churches.
The three changes of direction:
from Jesus preaching the kingdom to Jesus as the Suffering Servant;
from the trauma of the crucifixion to the proclamation of the resurrection;
the transition to a universal Gentile religion expecting not an imminent kingdom but a remote Second Coming.
Of (i)-(vi) above in Christianity, I sympathize only with (i) and that only in the sense that a new society and a new consciousness are potentially imminent.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI agree with some bits of Buddhism:
I disagree about "anatta."
I agree that "actions," karma, good or bad, happens.
I agree that actions can have good or bad consequences.
I agree suffering exists.
I don't agree covetousness is always the cause of suffering.
Right actions can help. And sometimes meditation as well.
I completely disagree with your view of Christianity. Because you stripped out the supernatural from the story of Christ. Either Christ was and is truly God as well as man and did and said the things recorded of Him in the Gospels, including His resurrection, or He was a madman.
While he was, mostly, an agnostic, I think it's plain from stories like "A Chapter of Revelation," that Poul Anderson disagreed with "demythologizing" arguments like yours. Anderson's view was that Christianity only made sense if its supernatural claims were accepted.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteI think that Jesus began, like the Baptist, by preaching the kingdom and that the story of what he said did grew in the oral tradition and in the writing of the NT documents, which are propaganda, not biography or history.
Christianity is differentiated as such by the central belief in the unique Resurrection of Christ whether understood as "spiritual" (Paul) or physical (the Evangelists). I agree that, if we do not accept this belief, then we do not accept Christianity.
I regard grasping/attachment as the psychological cause of suffering. There are also physical causes.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteChrist BEGAN by preaching about the kingdom of God, THEN gradually revealed more and more about Himself. Such as His miracles and then the revelation about His divinity. So, I disagree with demythologizing arguments. Once that is accepted, then it's plain the NT has much which is biographical and historical.
And you are quite simply wrong about St. Paul's view of the Resurrection of Christ. Paul made it amply plain in his Letters that
he believed in the actual resurrection of Christ. E.g., see 1 Corinthians 15.12-20.
And there are more reasons, psychologically, than simply "grasping" for suffering. Even tho I agree covetousness of various kinds covers a lot of ground.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeletePaul believed in the actual Resurrection but he saw it as a different kind of body, a spiritual body, rising from the dead body that had gone into the earth just as a plant rises from a seed that has gone onto the earth. He did not see the Resurrection as a revivified corpse leaving an empty tomb behind it.
What are the other psychological causes of suffering?
Paul.
"Covetousness" is too specific to express the term that is variously translated as desire, craving, attachment, grasping, clutching for support etc. I think that its root meaning was "thirst." The false ego or self-image clings to stability, security, self-preservation in the midst of change, flux and impermanence like someone who can't swim, falling into water, grasping for support that is not there and thus forcing their head under the surface.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI think I understand now why we are having difficulties here: the problem is the TERMINOLOGY being used. What you said of Christ undergoing a "spiritual resurrection," Catholics would more likely say Christ's Risen body was GLORIFIED, a truly and physically risen body, but TRANSFORMED by the now unveiled divinity and glory of the Incarnate Second Person of the Trinity.
So I and St. Paul would still disagree, the GLORIFIED physical body of Christ rose from the dead. That is a stronger and more exact way of describing the Resurrection, better than the weak "spiritual resurrection" (with you still continuing to deny also included Christ's body returning to life).
And it was Lazarus, raised from the dead by Christ, who returned to live in a revivified but ordinary body.
When I mentioned "covetousness," I probably had in the back of my mind the Seven Deadly Sins as being the causes of suffering, besides the Buddhist concept of "grasping." My idea is that suffering can be caused by Wrath, Pride, Sloth, Greed/Covetousness, etc.
Ad astra! Sean