Buddhism and Christianity Contrasted
Comparative religion is one of the most fascinating studies. In
Christian lands well-informed people are ever ready to receive any
new light on any of the principal religions of the world. In the East
also there is inquiry after the tenets of differing faiths. It is true
the inquiry in the Orient is confined to a few of the most advanced
minds, and it is also doubtful if the inquiry is often fairly made. The
disposition seems to be to assume, to begin with, that some religion
like Hinduism, or Buddhism, is the religion of most truth, and then to
show that Christianity has some things in common with these faiths. The
deduction is then easily drawn that one can be an eclectic in religion.
I have seen Europeans in the East who, in an off-handed way, would
say: “It is wrong to try to convert the Burmese from their Buddhism
to Christianity. Their religion is better for them than ours would
be.” I have not heard such a remark from any one who pretended to be
a Christian in any devout or spiritual sense. He would be a Christian
only in the sense that he belonged to the European community, who are
always called “Christians” by those of other faiths.
Buddhism has had much praise for its moral precepts, and its general
practice of total abstinence from all alcoholic drinks. This
prohibition has been widely observed. It is probable that Buddhism was
the first religion to require total abstinence. Then Buddhism gave
woman a freedom that no other religion of the East allows. Contrasted
with Hinduism or Mohammedanism in this respect, Buddhism must be highly
commended. But it is another matter when men assume that one religion
is as good as another, or estimate Buddhism as a religion of comfort
and light, when it has neither.
It is not the purpose of this book to attempt a comprehensive statement
of comparative religions, much less a discussion of that idea. But
it is my purpose to set before the reader that wherein Buddhism is
contrasted with Christianity, believing that Christianity, and it
alone, satisfies the wants of any human soul. I have desired to
show wherein Buddhism fails in all essential features to measure up
to this need of man for a perfect religion. It is not intended to
disparage any incidental good that Buddhism may possess, but to show
the contrast with Christianity in its fundamental teachings. In this
I am not dependent on my own research, but can accomplish my purpose
best by quoting from Sir Monier Williams. This great scholar and author
published his works on Buddhism as a culmination of extended studies in
the great religions of the world. It is the ripest fruit of his high
scholarship. He published this work just a few years before he died.
From his chapter on “Buddhism Contrasted with Christianity” I have
quoted at length, believing his contrasts are exhaustive and entirely
truthful.
This eminent author doubts if Buddhism is a religion at all. After
postulating that every system assuming to be a religion must declare
the existence of an eternal God, and the immortality of the soul
of man, he further declares that such a system must satisfy four
requisites:
“First. It must reveal the Creator in his nature and attributes to his
creature, man.
“Secondly. It must reveal man to himself. It must impart to him a
knowledge of his own nature and history--what he is; why he was
created; whither he is tending; and whether he is at present in a state
of decadence downwards from a higher condition, or of development
upwards from a lower.
“Thirdly. It must reveal some method by which the finite creature may
communicate with the infinite Creator--some plan by which he may gain
access to him and become united with him, and be saved by him from the
consequences of his own sinful acts.
“Fourthly. Such a system must prove its title to be called a religion
by its regenerating effect on man’s nature; by its influence on his
thoughts, desires, passions, and feelings; by its power in subduing
all his evil tendencies; by its ability to transform his character and
assimilate him to the God it reveals.”
This writer claims what all must admit, that early Buddhism failed in
all these requisites, and was not a religion. It refused to admit a
personal Creator, or man’s dependence on a higher power. “It denied any
external Ego in man. It acknowledged no external revelation. It had no
priesthood--no real clergy; no real prayer; no real worship. It had no
true idea of sin, or of the need of pardon, and it condemned man to
suffer the consequences of his own sinful acts without the hope of help
from any Savior or Redeemer, and indeed from any being but himself.”
A few years ago a former bishop of Calcutta saw a Buddhist in a
temple, and asked him, “What have you been praying for?” “I have been
praying for nothing.” “To whom have you been praying?” He answered, “I
have been praying to nobody.” “What, praying for nothing to nobody?”
said the astonished bishop. This is a fair sample of the religious
expression of Buddhists.
This eminent writer admits that later Buddhism has developed a great
reverence for Buddha, the law, and the monkhood, which is some
expression of man’s sense of need. But in reality this is a cry from
the hungry heart of man for God, which Buddhism does not recognize nor
foster. Pure Buddhism is atheistic. This author also considers what
claim Gautama has to the title, “The Light of Asia.” He first points
out that “his doctrines spread only over Eastern Asia, and Confucius,
or Zoroaster, or Mohammed, might equally be called ‘The Light of
Asia.’” He also maintains that Gautama was not a true light in any
sense; that he claimed little higher than intellectual enlightenment
resulting from intense concentration of all man’s intellectual powers
in introspection. He did not claim to have any voice regarding the
origin of evil, nor concerning a personal God. His “light,” in this
respect, was “sheer darkness.” And so the system he founded is as
devoid of “light” as midnight. “All that he claimed to have discovered
was the origin of suffering and the remedy of suffering. All the light
of knowledge to which he attained came to this: That suffering arises
from indulging desires, especially the desire for the continuity
of life; that suffering is inseparable from life; that all life is
suffering; and that suffering is to be gotten rid of by the suppression
of desires, and by the extinction of personal existence.”
Here he makes his first great contrast in the teachings of Christ and
Gautama, and says in part: “It is noteworthy that both Christianity and
Buddhism agree in asserting that all creation groaneth and travaileth
in pain, in suffering, in tribulation. But mark the vast, the vital
distinction in the teaching of each. The one taught men to be patient
under affliction, and to aim at the utter annihilation of the suffering
body.” Further: “But, say the admirers of Buddhism, at least you admit
that the Buddha taught men to avoid sin, and to aim at purity and
holiness of life! Nothing of the kind. The Buddha had no idea of sin
as an offense against God; no idea of true holiness. What he said was,
Get rid of the demerit of evil actions, and accumulate a stock of
merit by good actions. And let me remark here, that the determination
to store up merit, like capital at a bank, is one of those inveterate
propensities of human nature, one of those deep-seated tendencies in
humanity which nothing but the divine force imparted by Christianity
can ever eradicate. It is forever cropping up in the heart of man, as
much in the West as in the East, as much in the North as in the South;
forever reasserting itself like a pestilential weed, or like tares
amidst wheat, forever blighting the fruit of those good instincts which
underlie man’s nature everywhere.”
He shows the contrast of Gautama and Christ; the former claiming to
be self-sent, having no divine commission and no external revelation,
while the latter claimed to be sent from God; to be the Son of God,
whose every word has divine authority; that the gospel is to be
proclaimed to every man in all generations, and that Christ himself was
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He proceeds to contrast the Christian
Bible with the Buddhist: “The characteristics of the Christian’s Bible
are that it claims to be a supernatural revelation, yet it attaches
no mystic, talismanic virtue to the mere sound of words. On the other
hand, Buddhism utterly repudiates all claim to be a supernatural
revelation; yet the very sound of its words is believed to possess
a meritorious efficacy capable of elevating any one who hears it to
heavenly abodes in future existences. In illustration, I may advert
to a legend current in Ceylon, that once on a time five hundred bats
lived in a cave where two monks daily recited the Buddha’s law. These
bats gained such merit by simply hearing the sound of the words, that
when they died they were all reborn as men, and ultimately as gods.”
We are given another contrast in the kinds of self-sacrifice taught by
the two systems. “But again I hear the admirers of Buddhism say: Is
it not the case that the doctrine, like the doctrine of Christ, has
self-sacrifice as its keynote? Well, be it so. I admit that he related
of himself that, on a particular occasion in one of his previous
births, he plucked out his own eyes, and that on another he cut off his
own head as a sacrifice for the good of others; and that again, on a
third occasion, he cut his own body to pieces to redeem a dove from a
hawk. Yet note the vast difference of the sacrifice taught by the two
systems. Christianity demands the suppression of selfishness; Buddhism
demands the suppression of self, with the one object of extinguishing
all consciousness of self. In the one the true self is elevated and
intensified. In the other the true self is annihilated by a false form
of non-selfishness, which has for its real object not the good of
others, but the annihilation of the Ego, the utter extinction of the
illusion of personal individuality.”
The doctrines which Christ and Gautama bequeathed to their followers
present an equally great contrast. From the vast difference between
them it is comparatively easy to believe the statement from Christ that
he brought a divine revelation, and from Gautama that he was self-sent
and had no revelation to make to his followers. The contrast between
the two systems has been arranged by the same author.
“According to Christianity: Fight, and overcome the world. According to
Buddhism: Shun the world, and overcome it.
“According to Christianity: Expect a new earth when the present
earth is destroyed; a world renewed and perfected; a purified world
in which righteousness is to dwell forever. According to Buddhism:
Expect a never-ending succession of evil worlds coming into existence,
developing, decaying, perishing, and reviving, and all equally
full of everlasting misery, disappointment, illusion, change, and
transmutations.
“According to Christianity, bodily existence is subject to only one
transformation. According to Buddhism, bodily existence is continued
in six conditions, through countless bodies of men, animals, demons,
ghosts, and dwellers in various hells and heavens; and that, too,
without any progressive development, but in a constant jumble of
metamorphoses and transmutations.
“Christianity teaches that life in heaven can never be followed by a
fall to a lower state. Buddhism teaches that life in a higher heaven
may be succeeded by a life in a lower heaven, or even by a life on
earth or in one of the hells.
“According to Christianity, the body of a man may be the abode of the
Spirit of God. According to Buddhism, the body, whether of men or
higher beings, can never be the abode of anything but evil.
“According to Christianity: Present your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy, acceptable to God, and expect a change to a glorified body
hereafter. According to Buddhism: Look to final deliverance from all
bodily life, present and to come, as the greatest of all blessings,
highest of all boons, and loftiest of all aims.
“According to Christianity, a man’s body can never be changed into the
body of a beast, or bird, or insect, or loathsome vermin. According to
Buddhism, a man, and even a god, may become an animal of any kind, and
even the most loathsome vermin may again become a man or a god.
“According to Christianity: Stray not from God’s ways; offend not
against his holy laws. According to Buddhism: Stray not from the
eight-fold path of the perfect man, and offend not against yourself and
the perfect man.
“According to Christianity: Work the works of God while it is day.
According to Buddhism: Beware of action, as causing rebirth, and aim at
inaction, indifference, and apathy.
“According to the Christian Bible: Regulate and sanctify the heart,
desires, and affections. According to the Buddhist: Suppress and
destroy them utterly, if you wish for true sanctification.
“Christianity teaches that in the highest form of life, love is
intensified. Buddhism teaches that in the highest state of existence,
all love is extinguished.
“According to Christianity: Go and earn your own bread and support your
family. Marriage, it says, is honorable and the bed undefiled, and
married life is a field on which holiness may grow and develop. Nay,
more: Christ himself honored a wedding with his presence, and took up
little children in his arms and blessed them. Buddhism, on the other
hand, says: Avoid married life; shun it as if it were a burning of live
coals; or, having entered on it, abandon wife, children, and home,
and go about as celibate monks, engaging in nothing but in meditation
and recitation of the Buddha’s Law--that is to say, if you aim at the
highest degree of sanctification.”
Then comes greatest of all distinctions, which separates Christianity
and Buddhism.
“Christianity regards personal life as the most sacred of all
possessions. Life, it seems to say, is no dream, no illusion. ‘Life
is real. Life is earnest.’ Life is the most precious of all God’s
gifts. Nay, it affirms of God himself that he is the highest example of
intense life, of intense personality, the great ‘I Am That I Am,’ and
teaches us that we are to thirst for a continuance of personal life as
a gift from him, nay, more, that we are to thirst for the living God
himself and for conformity to his likeness; while Buddhism sets forth
as the highest of all aims the utter extinction of the illusion of
personal identity--the utter annihilation of the Ego--of all existence
in any form whatever, and proclaims as the true creed the ultimate
resolution of everything into nothing.”
“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” says the Christian. “What
shall I do to inherit the eternal extinction of life?” says the
Buddhist.
Surely in this comprehensive list of contrasts the great scholar has
shown that there is an immeasurable height of moral and spiritual
philosophy, and revealed truth concerning God and man in the Christian
religion that Buddhism never conceived. It has no excellence in moral
precept that is not better stated by Christianity. Christianity sheds
a broad, clear light on the way to find salvation from sin. Buddhism
has no light, and no consolation. The human heart finds rest in the
one, but the other can not bring a moment’s peace to any anxious or
agonizing soul. Buddhism is a pessimistic, dark, and desolate system of
philosophy, mistaken for religion.