Buddhism and Theism: Only As Different as a Toyota and a Nissan

Buddhism and Theism: Only As Different as a Toyota and a Nissan

The difference between Buddhism (which does not believe in a Central Creator God) and God-based faiths seems pretty vast. But if you think about it; the difference is astonishingly minor. I hope by the time you have read this essay you will agree that it really is only as different as a Toyota and a Nissan.



 
  Just as “car” is a convenient term for the all the parts that make up a car; so too is  the word "God" a convenient term representing the many qualities it represents. The term "God" is made up of several key concepts in the same way as a car is composed of a chassis, wheels, engine etc. Without being exhaustive, the key features of God (nowadays) are: All-powerful (omnipotence), All-knowing (omniscience and omnipresence), the force behind good and evil, the Supreme Being, the Creator, responsible for three worlds of heaven, earth and hell, the Unborn, Uncreated and the Unconditional Absolute.

The All Knowing
Most of the main features; namely omnipotence, omniscience etc. are in fact the very characteristics of kamma as taught by the Buddha. Just like physical laws; kamma or the Law of Conditionality operates throughout the universe, unfailingly and with complete impartiality. It is a natural yet omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent force that no one can escape or hide from.

Since good actions lead to good results and bad to bad ones, the all-powerful dhamma (truth) of kamma is also the creator of the heavenly and hellish realms. So the point is that the Law of Kamma, for those who accept it, is like a bowling ball that just about bowls over most of the bowling pins that in-combination; make up the term God. And we should always remember both the Buddhists and Judeo-Christian religions accept the basic karmic premise of “as we sow, so shall we reap" - which is an expression taken from the Old Testament.

the holy trinity

The Supreme Being or Three-aspected Being
Do Buddhists believe in a Supreme Being? Far from not believing in Supreme Being, there is in Buddhism it seems to me; indeed not just one but three Supreme Beings. This makes it similar to the Christian concept of God the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit.

The first and foremost Supreme Being in Buddhism, wait for it, is the Buddha of course. Albeit a category of beings, from the Buddhist perspective there is no being superior to a Buddha. So this makes the Buddha similar to God in the Christian Trinity. The Buddha described himself as  “The supreme teacher of gods and men”. So in Buddhism the supreme being was a real life being who once walked on this earth. He wasn't the Creator of the world but a fully self-enlightened being who had "entered" Nibbanna -which is described as the Unborn, Uncreated, Unconditional and the Absolute .

the Teacher of gods and men

The second “supreme being” in Buddhism, and this is my own view, is ourselves in the sense that “we ourselves must walk the path, no else can and no one may. Buddha merely shows the way”. Just as a person needs first to accept the notion of “God” for “God” to have any meaning in his life, in the same way a Buddhist needs to accept the Buddha’s Dhamma (truth). And even then; one has to use his or her own effort to save himself or herself.

So if the only person who can really save you is you, and if you are the sole owner of your deeds then are you not a sort of a "supreme being"? This is because your kamma is entirely your “kingdom” over which no other being can preside.

as we reap, so we shall sow

The third Supreme Being which we read about in the Buddhist suttas is the very first being which that comes into existence in a universe. According to the Buddha all things including the universe are impermanent. So even this universe will one day come to an end and according to the Buddha this has happened countless times before. From my understanding of the suttas, at the end of a universe all beings go into a body-less state and exist as a mind-only potential. The first stanza of the Dhammapada puts it this way:

“mind is the forerunner of all states”.

With the end of one universe the conditions are set for the beginning of the next universe. When the new universe begins and when the conditions are right the first being will appear in it in accordance with its kamma, this being finds himself (or herself) to be all alone in the whole universe, and (quite reasonably) believes himself/herself to be spontaneously created. The Buddha used the sanskrit term Brahma (God) for the first occupant of a new cycle of samsara. After a certain period of existence as the sole occupant of the known universe; a Brahma desires for companions and when other beings appear in the universe he/she mistakenly believes they were created by him/her.

This would be like an only child wishing for siblings, and when siblings are born, the child mistakenly attributes these as its own creation. (read section 38 of the Brahmajāla Sutta here) And so a Brahma forms the self-view as a creator of all beings. However the Buddhist Brahma is a godly being who upon the expiry of their kamma will die and be born as some other type of being.By this teaching the Buddha once again, takes the middle ground between two extremes, in this case between atheism and theism.


According to the Buddha; sentient beings are born in life-forms according to their kamma. All beings have the potential to becoming a Buddha or a Brahma (or for that matter any other type of being including titan, animal, ghost etc.) depending on their kamma. And all beings, but especially human beings, have the potential to attain Nibbanna.

if God made man in his image,
then why are we not invisible?

The Unseen Creator-Being
Buddhists believe beings create themselves in the image of what they desire. This contrasts with the theistic belief that man is created in God’s image.
 
The well known atheist Richard Dawkins said that he believes in just one god less than any theist (because theists reject all other gods but their own).  Buddhists however do not agree with that because we accept all the Gods and gods that were ever worshipped. We do this out of respect and also in recognition that any concept or thing is at least in some sense perfectly real. This is not done out of expediency, or out of political correctness but because even what we take to be our "true self" is also a conceptual reality. Remember that Buddhism is the only faith or religion that denies an absolute self as much as it does an absolute God-being.

We have no quarrel with those who wish to believe in God and indeed (amazingly) some persons who consider themselves Buddhists do also believe in God. Yes this is strange considering that the basic thing that makes one a Buddhist is the taking of the three refuges in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. But Buddhism being as open and inclusive as it is sees the belief in rites and rituals as something that will naturally fall away as one develops spiritually. Indeed one of the first marks of an enlightened person is the abandonment of rites and rituals.

with four heads
Brahma is All Seeing

As far as the creation of the universe and everything in it, well we agree with physicists that nature's physical laws dictate the physical universe but to this we add a magical Unseen which is mind. The volitional aspect of mind matter is in there at the quantum level shaping things along. No we don't think cars and gods came purely out of chance - minds made them!


The Unborn and the Undying
Another key characteristic of God is the Unborn and the Undying; the absolute and unconditional, perfect and pure. Far from rejecting these ideas these qualities in fact define something that is very dear to all Buddhists: nibbana which is our ultimate goal. The basic premise taught by the Buddha is that all conditioned things, even what we may term as the “soul” can go through countless changes and rebirths before meeting the right conditions for cessation (nibbana). Nibbana is the highest happiness and is the Unborn and Unconditioned - the absolute opposite of samsara. Nibbana “sits” outside the realm of existences and is untouched by the tribulations of the three worlds.

God as Love and Goodness

Mother Mary

The God in the Bible and Koran is depicted as a male Being who occasionally speaks. But it has become common these days to perceive God simply as Love. Is this depiction of God as an un-gendered energy of goodness something of the :New Age"? Well no - simply because this idea was something that was probably first promoted by the Buddha himself. The Buddha said that love is the highest goodness that can be developed, so lofty a feeling is true and unconditional love that it can rightly be described as being divine. Instead of calling it Love with a capital L he called it a "Brahma-vihara". Brahma means God and vihara means special place, and so it means "realm of the God".

The Buddhist definition of love is best kept for a separate article but one aspect of love is a deep and genuinely unconditional  kindness to all beings which in the pali language is called metta. (please refer to the Metta sutta). But that is just one quarter of Love; the other three qualities or aspects of Love are joy in the joy of others (mudita), compassion (karuna) and equanimity (upekha) in the face of all that samsara throws at you. These four qualities are together referred to as the brahma viharas.

Quan Yin is a Chinese Buddhist
deity of love and compassion

So in summary when the concepts of Kamma (Karma), Supreme Beings, Nibbana (Nirvana) and Brahma Viharas are taken into account it leads to the conclusion that every aspect of the God idea is accepted by Buddhists and that the difference between the theistic view and the Buddhist view is actually semantic and subtle!

I was educated in a Baptist kindergarten and an Anglican primary and secondary school which is why this topic is interesting to me. Initially I bought into the God notion but soon grew out of it much as a child grows out of Santa. While Buddhists don’t believe in God as a mysterious male being we do believe in all the key elements which make up the God notion. And the greatest “miracle” to us is the arising of a perfect Sammasambuddha who is able to guide people out of samsara by the miracle of his Teachings!

The Wrathful God for the God-fearing
Yet another very vital characteristic of God and what I suspect to various extents underlies belief and “praise” of God are the negative qualities of the god notion. Most gods that are worshipped have their wrathful and/or jealous sides. Sometimes much of the “praise” directed at powerful gods is simply out of the fear of what might happen to them if they did not. I would go so far as to say that pantheism (the worship of a multitude of Gods) could in certain individuals have as its basic motivation the fear of picking the wrong God. In pantheism protection and blessings are sought from any god or Gods, past or present.

sacrifice to gods was then and still is a
common religious practice

From ancient times there have been numerous Creator Gods that people have worshipped by different
names. It was the norm to perform sacrifices of animals and even humans to appease the wrathful aspects of Gods. These were done to keep God happy so that He/She would not wreak havoc at least on those who believed in Him. Even today echoes of the ancient sacrifices remain when, for example, in the act of drinking the blood of Christ which is conducted at mass by Catholic priests. This is a very fundamental point in the Catholic faith which I am simply acknowledging here and with no disrespect because I believe everyone has the right to believe whatever they wish so long as it does not impact on the rights of others.


For the purposes of this blog I will discuss all these various wrathful aspects of the as “the fear factor in religion”. Is there a fear factor in Buddhism? Once again I find that Buddhist religion is not very different because it too incorporates fear except the thing that is feared is not a Creator God but the immense potential for suffering that comes with any form of existence. Indeed the first Noble Truth is that life is suffering. The suffering that can occur in life (whether as a human or otherwise) is caused by ignorance, greed and hatred and is something to be greatly feared.

"fear not"

Instead of a God the Buddhist antidote to the fear-factor is personal virtue. Buddhists believe that pure conduct is what truly removes fear from our lives. Just as one can hold a poison in the palm of ones hand without being poisoned if one’s hand does not have an open wound, in the same way pure conduct in mind, body and speech is what gives true protection against low birth and sufferings.  

The Buddhist scriptures also mention the great harm that one can bring to oneself when bad things are performed against other beings. But it takes it one step further by saying that the greatest amount of harm that one can do is to harm directed at a holy being such as an elderly and pure-hearted monk or nun, or even a living Buddha. So in this way the similarity between the theistic faiths and Buddhism can again be seen: the fear of God’s wrath is substituted by a fear of the "wrath" of one's bad kamma (the fruit of bad actions) especially bad kamma against the Buddha and holy beings (of every faith or creed).

praising the Lord

God for whom Praise and Adulation is Due
Praise and adulation of God is another important aspect of God-based religions. How about in Buddhism? In Buddhism praise and adulation is directed at the holy trinity of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. The Dhamma are the Teachings and the Sangha are the enlightened beings, past and present all of whom, similar to the Buddha Himself, have all in one way or another acted as true friends to mankind. Once the Buddha’s closest aide the monk Ananda commented “Truly; half the holy life is friendship”, to which the Buddha immediately responded “Say not so! Say not so Ananda, truly it is the whole of the holy life, this association with true friends”. I believe what the Buddha was saying is that there is no truer friend than a friend who is virtuous and wise and who truly has your welfare at heart. Therefore it seems to me that when I bow to the Buddhist Triple Gem I am bowing to my true friends.

Boddhisatva Quan Yin

God from whom Favours are Sought
Praise and adulation is often mistaken for another aspect of religion: the asking of favours. These two are mistaken for each other because they often go hand in hand and look similar when they are being performed. In theist religions it makes perfect sense to ask for favours because the believer and the God belong to the same clan or tribe.

Asking of favours, it seems to me is much more prevalent in the Mahayana form of Buddhism. This form of Buddhism evolved in India about three hundred years after the passing of the Buddha. It was in my opinion partly out of the need for a deity for which favours could be directed that the Buddhist Bodhisattva deity evolved. This later evolved in China as Quan-Yin who is very similar to the Mother Mary of Catholicism and is sometimes depicted holding a baby.

Though Godless, Buddhism is true religion
In conclusion I think it is clear that Buddhism is not just a philosophy or a way of life (as even many Buddhists think) but a religion in every sense and should be accorded and regarded as such. However this should be done with a deep appreciation of the similarities and differences of the various world-views.