“He needs something that Christianity especially provides and offers, and that is redemption and forgiveness.”
True story, unrelated to Tiger’s situation except for the topic matter: A psychiatric hospital in Lansing, Michigan phoned the pastor at the church I was attending at the time. They asked him, “Do you Christians have any help to offer someone who needs to feel forgiven?” He answered, “We specialize in it!” It’s not just about a famous golfer landing in a heap of trouble. We’re all in a heap of trouble of one sort or another. Like no one else and like no other religion, Jesus Christ specializes in walking us out of it.
But, as Brit Hume has discovered, “speak the name Jesus Christ and all hell breaks loose.” I’m glad he’s been willing to look hell in the eye and keep speaking the name of Jesus.
Hat Tip: Stand to Reason
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Possibly related posts (automatically generated):
Hi Tom
The more I journey into the Christian faith the more I notice the antipathy of non-Christians toward Jesus Christ. No other ‘religion’ merits this reaction. I doubt the commentors on here and other sites visit Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu sites in an effort to ‘debunk’ their faith, but they will invest an inordinate amount of time and effort ‘debunking’ Christianity. Oddly enough, I take great comfort from that.
Hi Tom,
It seems the video isn’t showing up on your site (though I followed the link to Stand to Reason and eventually ended up here with the original clip and Hume discussing it with Bill O’Reilly).
It’s showing up on my browsers… anyone else having that problem?
Works for me! (Anybody remember the TV series \Hunter\? That was his tag line.)
While I agree that many of the responses are in bad form, I really think you guys are taking a martyr stance where it is not necessarily apt: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-5-2010/the-temple-of-hume
Martyr stance? How does a “martyr stance” look? Does acknowledging that people have sent angry emails amount to a “martyr stance”? If I disagreed with your comment #5 and you acknowledged it, would you be taking a “martyr stance”? If Brit Hume acknowledges that “all hell breaks loose” when one speaks the name of Jesus, the appropriate questions to ask would be, Is it true? and if so, Is he overreacting? I submit to you the answers are yes and no, respectively.
If I say he is looking hell in the eye, I would submit to you that the appropriate question again is whether that’s an apt description. And then if I say I’m glad he’s doing it, am I playing the martyr? Come on.
But actually all that I’ve just written is wrong in a way, because it accepts the premise that there’s something wrong with a martyr stance. Sure, in contemporary parlance it has come to mean something like playing up one’s victimhood. I can think of one group that has made that a very intentional part of their strategy. In the history of the church, however, starting with Jesus Christ who “for the joy set before him endured the cross,” then to the next Christian martyr in Acts 7, Christian martyrdom has been about victory, not victimhood.
Hugh Latimer said to his friend Nicholas Ridley, as the flames were being applied to their feet, “Be of good cheer, master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle in England, as I hope, by God’s grace, shall never be put out.” Not victimhood but victory.
So how do you define a martyr stance? Is Hume playing up his victimhood? I don’t think so.
I wonder instead if you were just looking for an opportunity to put the word out about this Jon Steward clip. But if a Heidegerian philosopher supports his points with reference to Jon Stewart, that raises a couple of questions too. I’ll let you think for yourself about what they might be.
For Canadians who can’t do without theDaily Show’s brilliant contribution, see the second video here:
http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/full-episodes/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart—january-4-2010/#clip251958
Hi Charlie
I think you want this link here
http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/full-episodes/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart—january-4-2010/#clip251957
Dave
Brit Hume Clarifies
Tom,
A “martyr stance”, as I am using it, is thinking that one is being singled out due to this or that action or statement of belief beyond the degree to which it is happening. The fact is that anyone going on a national news station with millions of viewers (many of them not sympathetic) who boldly claims that their religion is superior to another is going to get flack. This isn’t something unexpected or directed solely or even primarily at this or that group; heck, the baby who does the “angry face” on YouTube got a whole slew of incredibly hateful comments numbering in the hundreds and thousands! People get hate email for much more innocuous statements and there is probably very little directly related to the Christian message that is influencing that (except that it is bringing out comment by group A as opposed to group B; it will elicit a response from detractors, many of whom will be less than kind).
If someone said the exact same thing, but referenced Islam/Allah instead of Christ, they would get just as much flack, or if they made the same comparison between Islam and Christianity for Woods’ sinful actions, they would probably get much more (with Muslim blogs hailing the comparison as an expression of truth and parading around the hate mail the speaker had received as a sign of righteous martyrdom). The primary case made in the Daily Show clip is that the hate directed towards Hume because of his statement pales in comparison with the incredibly bigoted remarks by FOX newscasters and guests are making towards Islam/Muslims (Beck would have a field day with that kind of statement). Hume can hardly be called a martyr when good decent Muslims are being called to have a complete body search at the airport just because they are Muslim. Hume should have expected this kind of response and anyone making a similar claim in relation to a different tradition would have gotten a very similar treatment. So, yes, Hume is making too much of this.
Now, as for your last paragraph, I’ve been trying really hard for the last few hours to figure out why I all of a sudden became the subject of your scorn and insults. I didn’t mention Heidegger, nor was I planning on it because he is quite tangential to this conversation. I expected and very frequently have received more from you, Tom. I’m sorry if you are upset or if something in your life is making you want to lash out. Please let me know if I can do anything to help.
P.S. I seriously doubt that Hume is familiar enough with Buddhism to really be taken seriously in his claim…
Kevin,
No. Hume boldly claimed that Christianity offered something that other religions can’t offer. That’s a true statement so it’s not really that bold. Why the flack? I think it’s because people are (by choice?) reading something into what Hume said.
They might get just as much criticism, but so what? The question that matters is, is it true? Saying that the kind of redemtion/forgiveness that Christianity offers can’t be found in Muslim theology might get you flack, but is it deserved? No, it’s not.
SteveK,
Whether it is true or not is up for debate, hence the strong reaction he got. People don’t need to “read[] something into what [he] said” to find something to critique in his statement. Yet again, I also highly doubt Hume is familiar enough with Buddhism to really be able to make the claim with any degree of authority. The primary point, though, is that Hume is taking a victim stance, as if he somehow didn’t expect the response he got and as if he’s attributing the negative response to the uniqueness of the Christian message, not realizing that anyone else doing the same thing in relation to another faith tradition would get similar treatment.
As for your last claim, that is also up for debate. Anecdotally, I’ve gained much more from Buddhist meditation than I did from years of prayer and asking for divine deliverance from my problems/sins. I’m not just talking about an “I meditated and felt good feelings” kind of thing, but “I meditated and it transformed my life, from overcoming depression and addiction to vastly increased peace, joy, and openness and compassion to even complete strangers” kind of thing, a practically complete reversal of my previous self-despising self. The vast effects of meditation are currently being documented (this is a good place to star, as is this and, for a shorter read that won’t take as much time, this) and I’d be very curious if there are similar widespread and unprecedented (i.e. immense changes in neural activity that have never been seen before in history of neurological monitoring) neurological changes in Christians as there are in Buddhist monks. Buddhism is a powerful systematic practice for reducing craving/grasping and increasing contentment and universal compassion, which is no small thing. I think the fact that it makes such immense changes definitely increases its “market value” in relation to what people may or may not need to change their lives for the better.
I’m writing a report this morning and I only have a moment, but honestly, Kevin, where do you get this “victim stance” thing from? He acknowledged there are people out there who are speaking their intense disagreement with him. Do you acknowledge that several of us disagree with you? Does that mean you’re taking a victim stance?
I have much more to say, but it will have to be later today.
Hi Kevin,
But were you forgiven?
And by whom?
Since Hume is not expert enough to comment, but you are, tell us about Buddhist forgiveness.
Here’s poor Brit playing the victim.
http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2010/01/brit-humes-testimony-to-gods-rescue.html
I suppose that Kevin thinks that all forgiveness is the same, and that all spiritual transformation is the same. It’s not. Maybe that’s why he thinks Hume’s (ultimately Christ’s) statements are debatable.
If Tiger can get the same forgiveness and spiritual transformation by meditating, praying to Allah or worshiping Baal then Kevin is right (and Christ is wrong) and Tiger doesn’t need Christianity. Nobody does. But Tiger can’t get that elsewhere. That fact is not debatable. What is debatable (or, perhaps, mind boggling) is the equivocation or lack of understanding required to make it appear debatable.
SteveK,
I have never been a pluralist and never will be. I am very familiar with the different processes and aims of Christian salvation and Buddhist Buddhahood (in some very prominent Buddhist traditions, there is a difference between “attaining nirvana” and becoming a Buddha, hence my use of the latter). I find it debateable because I am more than a little familiar with Buddhism and it is not at all clear to me that at least one (very common) understanding of Christian salvation is truly “superior” to Buddhism.
Tom,
Hume attributes the cause of the hate mail and such to simply naming Christ, and naming Christ in particular. I’m simply saying that one could name anyone else, in the same format, with the same comparison, and still get the same backlash. The naming of Christ only determines who will respond, not that people will respond in such a negative and widespread way. I will admit that this is also in response to Dave above, who claimed, “No other ‘religion’ merits this reaction”. Forgive me if I have been projecting Dave’s comment onto your intended purpose in the OP.
Charlie,
I will definitely need more information before I can answer your questions.
First, what is forgiven?
Second, what is that-which-is-forgiven’s ontological nature such that it can be “paid for” in any significant sense, such that a monetary analogy is a good ‘fit’ for the process of forgiveness?
Third, what is the cause of that-which-is-forgiven, such that it occurs in the world (as opposed to not occurring, which I imagine you feel is possible)?
As for Buddhism, there is no “sin” and hence no need for “forgiveness” in the Christian sense. The basic fact accepted by Buddhism is that there is suffering in the world. Suffering is not the same as an unpleasant or painful feeling, as there are a plethora of examples of people who are feeling pain and in much-less-than ideal circumstances, but are happy: Victor Frankl in a concentration camp, Christian saints being tortured, Buddhist monks who were tortured for years by the Chinese but come out full of compassion for them, Bhutan, etc. On the flip side, the best research we have available on the causes of happiness place very little emphasis on material goods and pleasant or pleasurable experiences: after one’s basic needs are met, having more wealth does not significantly add to one’s happiness. So suffering is not caused by either pain or pleasure, but is caused by our constant aversion to pain (we try to push it away and try to safeguard ourselves such that we will never experience anything painful), grasping at pleasure (we try to get as much of it as we can and don’t want it to go away or turn into its opposite, pain), and we are ignorant of the exact causes of happiness (we think that if we continue to push pain away and grasp at more and more pleasure, we will be happy).
So everything that we do that causes pain in our lives and others is because we want to be happy but we’re delusional in what we think will make us happy. In the case of Tiger Woods, he is caught in a habitual pattern of adultery because he thinks it will make him happy, because sitting with the urges (with the realization that they will eventually go away) is too uncomfortable, causing discontent because he thinks he needs to act on them to be happy. One way of putting it is that he takes his urges to be too solid: he takes them to be something enduring, something that will not go away unless he acts on them. So his aversion and grasping are ultimately based on his ignorance (people who talk about Buddhism usually focus entirely on grasping/desire, but ignorance is the root cause of both grasping and aversion).
This process of suffering can easily be seen in our own lives: we suffer when someone leaves us because we wish they would stay, that they would be a permanent continuing presence in our lives. The addict suffers because, after his high, he wishes that the release from the compulsion to act that is experienced while in the midst of acting out would stay. Since the addict doesn’t know the causes of his own happiness and mistakenly thinks that it can be found in the midst of his addictive behavior, he stays in the cycle of addiction and suffering. Someone is criticized, or his intelligence is insulted, so he gets angry because he wants his delusion of his inability to be wrong to stay, so he feels threatened. Similarly, hedonism doesn’t work because at some point the pleasure has to end and, in many cases, the pleasure turns to pain: the first bite of cake is incredible, but the twentieth is painful; one can become physically exhausted from too much pleasure such that the pleasure turns into pain. It is because we ignorantly fight against these basic facets of human existence that we suffer and we cause suffering in others because we ignorantly think that happiness comes from serving our own wants, desires, and needs, which just isn’t the case.
Various meditation techniques are meant to help reduce our delusion, grasping, and aversion. By learning to simply sit with one’s desires and the impulses to act on them, one quickly robs them of their power by reducing the strength of the habitual pattern of simply giving in to them. This also helps in seeing that they are impermanent, that they will eventually go away and that, through these methods, theirs strength and persistence will be weakened. This thereby reduces our negative habitual acting, effectively (at least over time) eliminating the negative action. The desires for sex are not inherently bad, but our acting on them in ways that hurt others (and, ultimately, ourselves) isn’t wholesome. For those who are caught up in such negative behavior, the first step is to stop behavior and sit with the desire, not to demonize it and try to find some way to force it out (either through one’s own actions or through the actions of others). Sure, we can pray for some other being to take our desires away, or we could develop the skill of simply sitting with the feelings until they disappear.
Beyond this there are also the many practices devoted to developing empathy and compassion for other beings and their suffering. Our best neurological research locates the experiences of compassion for others and overall happiness in roughly the same area of the brain, showing that they are strongly correlated. Not being concerned with “grounds”, Buddhists understood this thousands of years ago as a basic fact of reality and thus sought ways of cultivating it. In the words of Shantideva,
All the joy the world contains
Has come through wishing happiness for others.
All the misery the world contains
Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself.
The Way of the Bodhisattva
If Woods cultivated this compassion, it would increase his compassion for the others, including (most importantly) his compassion for those whom he has hurt through his actions, thereby cultivating sensitivity to the effects of one’s actions on others. In expert meditators, doing these kinds of practices brought an 800% increase in activity in the left prefrontal cortex (the area correlated with both compassion and happiness), a level of increase that has never been seen before in the whole of modern neurological research. If this is consistently developed, Woods would not have done what he had done as the happiness of others, including his family, would be more important for him than his own happiness (which would inadvertently make him more happy, more content).
Naturally, the above is a very short explicating, but it is a place to start. The first part of Lama Yeshe’s Becoming Your Own Therapist (NOTE: link leads you to a PDF version of the book available, among a handful of other books, for free through the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive) goes into more detail, if you wish.
P.S. In browsing through it, the third chapter in the Lama Yeshe book, “A Glimpse of Buddhist Psychology”, is probably the most concise discussion of what I presented above in that book.
Actually I think in this case you may be correct: a prominent commentator on TV who promotes one religion will get criticized, regardless of which religion that may be.
On the other hand, I have observed (as have many others) that there is only one religious founder whose name is regularly used as a swear word, and that discussion of religion is typically met with “That’s cool” until Jesus is mentioned.
Brit Hume did not say that Christianity was the target of opposition. He said it was Jesus Christ himself. If anything like that happens in the case of Buddha, I sure didn’t know about it. Same with Hinduism (which does not have an identifiable founder). Antipathy towards Islam is usually not directed toward its founder, but towards violence practiced by some of its adherents. Nobody gets upset if you say you respect Lao Tzu or Confucius (not exactly founders of religions, but at least closely analogous). If you say you’re crazy about Zeus, no one gets mad at you, they just assume you should have stopped at the word “crazy.”
Jesus Christ came into the world intentionally to cause and to be a dividing line (Luke 9:50, Luke 11:23). Brit Hume, in recognizing this publicly, was not putting himself or Christ forward as a victim. Not a victim but a victor (Matthew 5:11-12).
From Peter Wehner:
I’ve read Hitchens, and I’ve heard him speak on podcast and in person, and believe me, he is extremely critical of Christianity. I don’t recall even the Right saying those criticisms were inappropriate for public debate. (Wehner certainly didn’t say that.)
Consider also how scathingly Dawkins has treated all religion, and yet with what respect he was allowed to present a series in Britain called “The Root Of All Evil.”
Hi Kevin,
You tell me. You’re the one disputing Hume on this.
Ah ha. Yes, exactly. So not only do you know what forgiven means you need no forgiveness, can offer none, and can receive none in Buddhism as you aren’t the same person who did whatever it was you did that was not a sin, nor is the aggrieved party the same person any longer. Neither is there a God against Whom you have sinned and by Whom you can be forgiven.
So Hume was right, bang on, in fact, when he said that Buddhism could offer no forgiveness like Christianity can, wasn’t he?
In fact, rather than forgiveness and redemption you offer Tiger education and freedom from delusion.
Seems to me Hume said nothing about Buddhism that you wouldn’t affirm.
Funny how every one and his dog, from TV pundits to other fallen athletes, gets to give Tiger advice on salvaging his public persona, apologize immediately, don’t apologize, take a break from golf, don’t take a break from golf, etc., but it is only Hume’s advice that is being discussed.
Charlie,
I said “there is no redemption in the Christian sense“, not simply that “there is no redemption [in Buddhism]“. In fact, you can find the word redemption used often enough, particularly in Western Buddhist discourse. Might I also add that your caricature of Buddhist ethics is a testament to your ignorance of Buddhist thought. I will not address it in detail as I am still waiting for your answers to my three questions.
Tom,
One of the differences is that Hume’s advice didn’t occur in a “public debate”. Of course Hitchens is going to talk religion when he’s promoting his book, which is about religion. It is far less obvious that Hume should proselytize when the issue is not the welfare of Woods’ soul, but how he can recover from the scandal.
Which was my primary point.
Which is more an artifact of our long-standing Christian culture (and the culture form which we came) than anything else, especially given that both believers (perhaps wrongly, in your view) and non-believers use it! Also, the nature of the swear word needs to be considered: it is not used as an insult (like calling someone Homer), but as a sign of surprise or discontent. The name itself, as a “swear word”, is not denigrated or made into something “bad”. This no doubt has ties to its original use, as an invocation for help in times of distress, though naturally thoroughly de-sacrilized (especially when used by non-believers).
That hasn’t been my experience, even in the times that I’ve defended Christianity against those who misunderstand it. I take it that my approach is what doesn’t bring this phenomenon about, but it’s hard to say as I haven’t experienced its contrary.
So you’re honestly saying that if someone said something to the effect of, “I think Tiger Woods needs something that only Allah [who is the “founder” of Islam] can provide, a religion of forgiveness and redemption that is superior to that of Christianity”, that people wouldn’t react in exactly the same way, perhaps more so given the current discontent that Islam is getting from the American people and the larger percentage of Christians than Buddhists in the USA? No doubt Allah would be denigrated, as he is all the time by those Christians (one of which was on the Daily Show clip I provided) who say that Islam is inherently a religion of violence and oppression, using similar arguments that (admittedly one-sided) atheists make against God in the Old Testament. Again, I’m not so certain that the target of the criticisms that people made was to the figure more than the claim and how it was made.
Kevin,
Let me get this straight. It’s okay to talk about one’s beliefs for self-serving purposes like promoting a book about religion. It’s not okay to talk what you think is true when it’s about another person’s welfare, when you think it might actually help another person. And Tiger Woods’s recovery from scandal is disconnected from the welfare of his soul.
Is that supposed to make sense?
Well, sure, it does, if one takes religion to be a matter of one’s personal menu selection, the club one has joined and wants others to come be a part of. It makes sense as long as the question isn’t about whether what Brit Hume said was actually true.
I know that part of your issue here has been that you don’t agree with Hume’s beliefs. I think you would be wise to recognize that it is not part of the question, it is the whole question. For if Jesus Christ is the one way for redemption, then Brit Hume absolutely did nothing wrong by saying so on television. In fact he did the caring, loving thing, in offering an effective answer to someone who needs it. Only if he was wrong in what he said could he have been wrong to say it. (It could have also been wrong if he had said it in an insensitive manner—it’s possibly to speak the right thing in the wrong way—but I don’t think he did.)
As to whether the name of Jesus Christ provokes more opposition than Allah’s or some other person’s, I think we ought to recognize that we’re working off of different experience bases and neither of us has access to definitive answer. I’m willing to let my claim rest in that place where we disagree but neither of us can claim certainty.
Good point, Charlie. I know you know why this is the case. It’s because only Brit Hume said something that matters to anyone other than Tiger. Everyone can stand back and be a disinterested advisor on these other matters. But if what Brit Hume said was true, then no one can be disinterested on that. If what he said was false, then of course he spoke wrongly.
And if (similar to what I said in the last comment), one thinks it’s not a question of truth or falsehood but rather a matter of one’s preference for one religious club over another, then whoever thinks that is just wrong.
Hi Kevin,
There is no need to answer your questions because you have answered them yourself to all relevance. You admit that Buddhism does not offer forgiveness or redemption in the way that Christianity does. This is what Hume said and which you acted as though reflected his ignorance of Buddhism.
Indeed, it’s impossible that Buddhism could offer the same redemption as Christianity does because it does not admit the existence of the kinsman redeemer and sacrificial atonement. It can’t offer the same forgiveness of sin because it admits no sin and admits no forgiving Creator God.
As for your charge again that I am caricaturing Buddhism and am ignorant of a field that you are supremely expert in and yet don’t understand enough to explain …
http://www.youaretrulyloved.com/enlightenment/the-buddha-teaches-a-lesson-on-forgiveness/
captcha: the deceiver
Well… I, for one, am pleased that Kevin has avoided playing the “martyr” card over Mr Hume’s dissing of the Buddha.
I find Buddhism facinating, I think it a mirror image of the naturalism (or physicalism) which is the reigning paradigm of the secular west. Two sides of the same coin. Both are essentially atheistic, no God (or gods). Each philosophy is the extreme terminus of a continuum which passes from hard materialism (western secular) to hard idealism (Buddhism); along which line we might plot an infinite number of dualist speculations ranked according to the ascendence each grants the ‘material’ or the ‘ideal’.
For the hard materialist, all idealism, including consciousness itself, is nothing more or less than illusion, noise in the machine, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” We control and rule reality by dominating the material.
But for the hard idealist (if that isn’t an oxymoron), it is the material world which is illusory, an accidental by-product of corrupted mental states. The material world is a chimera, a phantasm, created by our minds and having no objective existence outside the mind. We control and rule reality by regulating our mental states.
Each is monist, both reject good and evil, each is technique, both reject God. They each, in fact, mark the polar extremities of alienation from God; opposite ends of the continuum, yet with more in common than opposition.
Between these two extremes one will find Christianity, the stem, the hub, the vertical beam which joins heaven to earth, where the material and ideal are united in one substance, the Alpha and Omega.
Tom,
Let me repeat: I am not a pluralist nor will I ever be one, so these continual referrals to “menu selection” and “the club” are completely unnecessary.
That said, yes, you are right that if Christianity is true then Hume did a compassionate thing. The reason the thing grates me a little (not a lot) is threefold: first, that Hume (and probably the large majority of people who are applauding his act) seems to be ignorant of Buddhism (and the fact that Woods has said on a few occasions that he is not Buddhist), so the comparative aspect is ungrounded. It would be similar to me comparing the cooking capacities of two top chefs: I don’t have the requisite refinement of taste to be able to differentiate two excellent cooks and make a judgment on them, as I would simply enjoy the meal I was given. I’m still waiting for a good explication of Buddhism prior to criticizing it from an Evangelical so that the comparison can be aptly made. I wouldn’t mind if someone did claim that Christianity is “superior” if they would just get the others’ views right.
Second, that Fox News seems to be a “club” for Christians where such an assertion simply can’t and won’t be “debated”. This is simply one more issue in my continued negative relationship with Fox News and their incredibly biased approach. Whatever else may be said of NBC and other news stations, they do allow more opposition on their shows, frequently having people from the Left on their show, whereas Fox tends to only allow moderates or, at best, Right-leaning Democrats.
Third, as I’ve said, that this is taken to be an “example” of how Christianity is getting the raw end of the deal in America, or that they are getting special (negative) treatment just because Hume named Christ as opposed to anyone else. And getting a handful of negative comments and hate mail is somehow equivalent to “all hell breaks loose”? Referring again to The Daily Show, Hume is hardly going through hell for his beliefs and others are certainly getting a much rawer end of the deal (even at the hands of some Fox News hosts and guests). I will continue to assert that Hume is over-exaggerating his victimhood and that the reaction over his comments are, in fact, quite tame, incredibly common, and thus rather unremarkable and non-unique.
Charlie,
Yes, there is a need to answer my questions because, even if I did agree (and I don’t) that only Christianity has a notion of forgiveness and redemption and Buddhism does not, then we would have to determine what that notion is to see if it is even worth something, if the “superior” even means something. To use an analogy, let’s say we compared Chuck and Larry in relation to intelligence and we assumed that a standard IQ test would best determine the issue. Chuck scored 76 and Larry scored 77. Larry could be said to be “superior” in a strict sense, but it’s a difference without much of a difference.
I never claimed to be “supremely expert” in Buddhism (why do you continue to put words in my mouth?), but I do know more about it than Hume seems to and, given your comments, yourself. I really am trying to figure out how your linking a story about Buddha and forgiveness (which you seemed to have found by Googling “Buddha forgiveness” [it’s the third link to show up], since You Are Truly Loved is hardly a well-known source of Buddhist thought) is somehow supposed to convince me that you are, in fact, informed about Buddhism…
Let me repeat: Buddhism does not provide redemption in the Christian sense, which is not the same thing as saying that it does not provide redemption in any meaningful sense. But I won’t go into it more until you answer my three questions rather than simply dodging the issue.
Dave,
Yet again, you are showing incredible ignorance of Buddhism. Within the various schools of Buddhist thought, there is primarily one tradition that could coherently be called idealist: Yogachara/Mind Only School. And, in fact, if you pick up literature from practically any other school that discusses Yogachara, you will find unequivocal arguments against an idealist interpretation of reality, some that are exactly what you have provided. Also, earlier (faulty) translations aside, Buddha never said that this world is an illusion, but rather that it is like an illusion (a very important distinction): it comes, it goes, and it is possible not to grasp or be aversive to it when it goes (like one does not grasp or be averse to a dream).
Please, I’m begging you, actually become familiar with a particular religion before you think you’re educated enough to explicate it!! You just end up looking foolish and ignorant otherwise…
Okay Kevin, use English and make your questions make sense then.
Or just answer the first question I asked of you, in Buddhism, are you forgiven once you free your self of delusion and release your desires?
And by whom?
And who redeems you and from what?
And yes, that’s how I found that point on Buddhism and forgiveness. It was not meant to make the claim that I am informed but that I was relating a Buddhist claim about forgiveness. All your previous rambling did no more, so what do you dispute here?
And tell me what you mean by “worth something” when you say we have to determine if forgiveness and redemption in Christianity is “superior” to whatever the Buddhist notion of these might entail, if you would be so kind.
Charlie,
Like I said, I’m not going to answer your questions until you answer mine. Let me repeat them, in English (sorry, I was using German before):
First, what is forgiven?
Second, what is that-which-is-forgiven’s ontological nature such that it can be “paid for” in any significant sense, such that a monetary analogy is a good ‘fit’ for the process of forgiveness?
Third, what is the cause of that-which-is-forgiven, such that it occurs in the world (as opposed to not occurring, which I imagine you feel is possible)?
If there is anything unclear in the above questions, please ask for specific points of clarification.
If you don’t know what “forgiven” is how do you know Hume is wrong?
Charlie,
Stop dodging my questions. You’ve done it enough that I can only assume that you don’t have very good answers, so you’re trying to avoid them. Again, I’m not going to answer your questions until you answer mine. I’ve indulged your evasions enough already…
I find the fight in which some are engaging:
tiresome.
Go ahead, type,
Thanks for your indulgence and for your command, Mr. Winters. But I decline for the time being and again remind you that you pretended you knew what “forgiven” meant when you said that Hume was wrong. What’s more, you actually admitted that he was right when you conceded that your declaration relied upon a mysterious “notion” of forgiveness that Hume was not using.
Oh, and my question was on the board first. So tit that tat.
Good enough, Justaguy?
Hi Kevin
Yet again, you are showing incredible ignorance of Buddhism.
Again?
Within the various schools of Buddhist thought, there is primarily one tradition that could coherently be called idealist: Yogachara/Mind Only School.
What is “ultimate reality” in Buddhist philosophy?
And, in fact, if you pick up literature from practically any other school that discusses Yogachara, you will find unequivocal arguments against an idealist interpretation of reality, some that are exactly what you have provided.
As you will find in the various streams of materialism – hard materialism, compatabilism, incompatablilsm etc. I qualified my observation with the adjective “hard” idealists, i.e. Yogachara. I also observed that “Each philosophy is the extreme terminus of a continuum which passes from hard materialism (western secular) to hard idealism (Buddhism); along which line we might plot an infinite number of dualist speculations ranked according to the ascendence each grants the ‘material’ or the ‘ideal’. Your assertion that “primarily one tradition” is “hard” idealist is quite consistent with my observation. Not everyone may inhabit the extreme, if they did it would be the norm.
Also, earlier (faulty) translations aside, Buddha never said that this world is an illusion, but rather that it is like an illusion (a very important distinction): it comes, it goes, and it is possible not to grasp or be aversive to it when it goes (like one does not grasp or be averse to a dream).
From Wikipedia (for what it’s worth)
I did not, contra your interpretation, say, “all Buddhists are hard idealists.” While I do not claim expertise in all the subtleties of Buddhist phiosophy any more than I claim expertise in the manifold varieties of Christian theology, but the broad outlines may be discerned by the inquiring mind. I think my justaposition of Western materialism and Buddhist idealism is generally defensable as a fair reading of both philosophies.
And as I walk along I wonder…
Found during one of my aimless journeys through the virtual world of internet links.
Zen At War
http://www.amazon.com/Zen-War-Peace-Library/dp/074253927X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263235322&sr=8-1
The reviews are rather interesting as well.
Hi Dave:
Here’s an interesting link that also helps to understand Kevin’s “interesting” mischaracterizations: http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2010/01/in-light-of-the-brit-brawl-here-is-a-quick-comparison.html.
Holopupenko,
Christ’s claim to divinity is secondary to the coherence of the process of salvation. I’ll repeat my questions that are part of determining such, if you care to give an account of the “superior” salvation that is being offered:
First,what is forgiven?
Second, what is that-which-is-forgiven’s ontological nature such that it can be “paid for” in any significant sense, such that a monetary analogy is a good ‘fit’ for the process of forgiveness?
Third, what is the cause of that-which-is-forgiven, such that it occurs in the world (as opposed to not occurring, which I imagine you feel is possible)?
I’m sorry I had to take a hiatus over the weekend. Kevin, you wrote,
You wrote to Charlie,
And then to Holopupenko,
I’m going to try to answer all of these in one go.
You’ve also asked more than once, “What is forgiven?” and that’s where I’ll begin. Recently you followed that question by asking what is the ontological nature of that which is forgiven, which is an important question. I note in passing that Christ’s claim to divinity, that which is forgiven, and what forgiveness is—each of these is very central to Christianity. You are unhappy about Christians here arguing against Buddhism without understanding it adequately. I don’t know if you are unclear about these concepts in Christianity or merely trying to introduce them for debate, but if you are unclear about them, then you are displaying a surprising lack of knowledge of Christianity.
Anyway, that which is forgiven is sin, a condition of rebellion against God’s goodness, his love, his character, and his commands. There is sin as condition, and there are also sins as specific acts. Forgiveness applies to both. Sin’s consequence is alienation, separation. You see it among humans: when we hurt each other we alienate ourselves from one another, unless there is forgiveness. In relation to God, sin is a turning away from him, which results in separation from him who is ultimately the source of all love, joy, hope, peace, righteousness, justice—all goodness. Without forgiveness, we remain separated from that forever. Forgiveness from God means that he admits us back into relationship with him and passes over the consequence of sin. It means reconciliation with him.
Being reconciled with him also means that we live in relationship with him, which further means that by his Holy Spirit he gives us resources to live (or to grow toward living) in a way that is consistent with his goodness. This includes doing right things, and it also means maintaining hope when we do wrong, or when we are wronged. This life in Christ, as we call it, is what would help Tiger Woods right now, existentially, even as being forgiven by God would help him forever.
This forgiveness is offered by God through the life and through the sacrifice of the Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. He made it very clear throughout his public ministry that his identity as deity was central to redemption. It’s most obvious in the book of John, by far, but one finds it as early as Mark 2, when he did what only God could do, pronouncing forgiveness of a man’s sins. I could say much more about that, but perhaps later.
Buddhism, you say, does provide redemption but not in a Christian sense. What redemption there is in Buddhism is inadequate by far if we have truly sinned against a good God.
Now if all this is true, then this talk of comparing menus and chefs, or of comparing an IQ of 76 to one of 77, is of no relevance. If we have sinned against the one true God, and if he has offered one means of forgiveness, then there is no comparison to be done. That’s why last week I honed in on the importance of the question, “Was what Brit Hume said true?” The question is not, is Christianity more or less effective than Buddhism for healing life’s hurts. I think it’s a lot more effective, because as Dave was saying earlier, it takes reality for reality, and solves it as reality. It doesn’t say, try to overcome your desires. It says, God can overcome your real pain, and your real loss and alienation.
That claim itself is incoherent. You’re basically asserting salvation (or forgiveness or yadda, yadda) are prior to–ontologically or in terms of its meaning, importance or value (i.e., not in the temporal sense) the being actualizing salvation or forgiveness or what have you. It’s prone to navel contemplation rather than sacrifice for others.
Try again. Hint: the Beingness of God is His Essence. All other beingness and beings (including rational and physical actions) flow from that. You appear to have breathed the disorder of Buddhist disregard for the real world a bit too deeply. That’s why Buddhism is so prone to the idealistic mental gymnastics expressed (for example) in its koans. It also distantly echoes some of Kant’s ridiculous antimonies. It’s prone to the reductionist dehumanizing nonsense you’ve seen DL spout here (“we only know our ideas,” “humans are merely material mechanisms”), etc., etc.
Christ healed the blind man by spitting into mud and applying that mixture to the man’s eyes. He worked miracles as witnesses of what and who He is with material things. In that sense, Christianity is so much “closer” to the real world than the usual suspects of disordered -isms out there: idealism, scientism, atheism, Buddhism, positivism, transhumanism, secular humanism, etc. That is another reason, by the way, why (at perhaps a subconscious level) Christianity and Christ’s message sounds so scandalous (with Hume being the latest example). Christ is so close to us. He touches us… and then runs away–forcing us to chase our Lover. He wants to be our Lover. And, horror of horrors, He permitted His own creatures to commit deicide. Christianity has been found difficult and untried, to quote Chesterton, because it’s “too icky.” Blood, flesh, cruxifiction… ugh! How droll and unprogressive and unsophisticated… how all too human! A Buddhist would rather escape to Nirvana…
(Have you guys, by the way, see the “depression” reaction of some people after watching Avatar? Un-[censored] believable: “One can say my depression was twofold: I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place, but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth. I so much wanted to escape reality.” That’s only one example. It’s the false utopian (distopian, actually) and repugnant temptation of Rousseau’s “state of nature” in which people are neither good nor bad and (as such) men know neither vice nor virtue (in that state), and that their bad habits are therefore the products of civilization. In that sense and in others, it is a terrible film.)
Tom,
Well, it seems that every time I discuss your particular tradition of Christianity I get the response that I am thoroughly misunderstanding it. As such, I thought that beginning with asking you (or Charlie or whoever) to explicate your view would be the best place to start.
Your claim seems to be twofold: first, that forgiveness is given to specific acts of rebellion, such that I can be forgiven for, say, stealing something ten years ago. Second, that forgiveness also “regenerates” “sin as [a] condition”, which I take to mean our fallen nature. But you still haven’t addressed the question of the ontological nature of either the “sin” or the “fallen nature” such that it can be “paid for” by one individual’s suffering at a particular time and place. Let me go a little deeper into this with a few more specific questions.
Let’s say that, ten years ago, I severely beat someone because of a very strong hatred and rage that I had towards them (for whatever reason). There needs to be some coherent way that one can say that this “sin” is present, is “still with me” and, as such, still needs to be “forgiven”. Let’s also assume that since then I’ve worked on my anger issues, no longer have a hatred towards that individual or anyone else, in fact I have a lot of love and compassion for my fellow men, but I have never asked for forgiveness from Christ, or perhaps I’ve never even heard of him or that there is such a thing as “Christian redemption” and never will before my death. Is that sin still present and how is it so? Is such a change from being filled with such hatred to being filled with seemingly limitless compassion not possible without specifically asking for forgiveness from and explicitly submitting to Jesus Christ? It seems like we could say that I’ve certainly reduced my alienation from my fellow men and am acting in a Christ-like way towards them. Furthermore, it seems like we could coherently say that if Tiger Woods so developed such a widespread love and compassion he would not have cheated and, if he remained in such a compassionate state, would not again. So, again, how is that past sin present such that “being forgiven” adds something important that the above account doesn’t have?
Also, you haven’t addressed the issue of the aptness of the analogy of “paying” for sins through the physical and mental suffering of one individual? Given your description there doesn’t seem to be any reason why Christ would need to suffer as God could unilaterally choose to “admit[] us back into relationship with him and pass[] over the consequence of sin”, as he can in, say, Islam or Judaism. There seems to be a direct connection with how you would say the sin is present and why this analogy may be apt, but I cannot see what that would look like or if it would be coherent. See this for an argument against the penal substitution approach that I am sympathetic with (yes, it is from a Mormon perspective, but the arguments still merit a response and are not solely Mormon in nature, as his use of Quinn and Lewis should demonstrate).
Sin (a moral evil, and moral evil is found only in intelligent beings) is evil acted out–in word, thought, deed, or omission–and evil is the privation of good. (Definition of moral evil: “deviation of human volition from the prescriptions of the moral order and the action which results from that deviation.”) Per St. Thomas, sin (again, moral evil) is nothing else than a morally bad act not in accord with reason informed by the Divine law.
All evil (physical, metaphysical/ontological, moral) is essentially negative: it does not “acquire” or “gain” anything but results in the privation of something necessary for perfection. To not be a perfect human being is to be, in a real sense, less than human–less than the good God wants for us, and summum bonum “good” is, of course, God Himself. It is for this reason that sin–quite literally–dehumanizes us… it deflects us from the summum bonum or the ultimate source of good–Goodness itself–which is God. (God is not “good,” God is Goodness itself.)
(We, as rational animals, are the only creature on earth that can alter our own natures: through our actions we can become inhuman… tigers can’t behave less than their “tigerness.” We are also the only creatures on earth that can raise the ontological status of animate and inanimate objects: a piece of cloth acquires meaning beyond its mere physical appearance by our making it a flag; we treat brute animals human-ely–not so much for their sake but for our sake.)
One does not “fill” the “hole” or “scar” (metaphorically speaking) in one’s soul simply with time or with Kevin’s suggestion of merely “improving” oneself with time. First, the person who was beat up was dehumanized–their dignity was degraded. Kevin mentions nothing about asking them forgiveness… which I found quite revealing of the self-centeredness (a huge precursor to sin) at the heart of “improving oneself.” It jettisons any consideration of justice due to the person hurt. It jettisons “what you do to the least of these you do for/to Me.” It jettisons any sense of redemptive suffering–either ultimately on the part of Christ or proximately on the part of the perpetrator–to make things right. It is, while cast in pretty language, repugnant self-centeredness–a turning inward, an escape, to “I’ve worked on my anger issues” without considering others… or the Source of others. It’s disordered philosophy rather than Truth-centered, grace-accepting forgiveness. That’s what Buddhism is: pretty language masking self-centeredness and escapism.
(Here’s an excellent story–source lost on me–I tell my kids: A boy was very rebellious and hurtful of others at home. His father decided to take the boy to a post out in the field and to pound a nail into the post every time the boy sinned. After awhile, the post looked like a porcupine, and the boy recognized what damage his actions can have done to others and to himself. He started acting kindly–slowly but surely, because the habits/vices of sin are hard to break. The boy’s father started pulling nails out of the post for every kind and virtuous act the boy did. When, finally, the last nail was removed, the boy went out into the field and was horrified at all the holes left in the post… and he understood the lingering effects of sin–even if forgiven. To fill those holes–to “heal” the wood–new wood would have to be added: not just banging into (from an external source) chunks of wood but new wood would have to be regrown from the old. The boy realized that the only way it could happen would be for an internal change–new growth–to occur, which was impossible because the post was dead wood… and he began to understand what God’s grace does for our brokenness… hence “born again,” hence “new creature in Christ.”)
By the way, here’s an interesting article [ http://ignatiusinsight.com/features2010/schall_believingatheists_jan10.asp ] that mentions (among other things) atheism and Buddhism… and contains this little chestnut: “philosophical atheists are much easier to deal with intellectually than, say, Muslims or Buddhists who have fewer groundings in reason.”
Holo,
I liked the story about the boy and the wood post. Never heard it before. Thanks.
Holopupenko,
I think you missed a very important word that I used: compassion (I used it twice in comment 12, 7 times in comment 18, and 4 times in comment 46). I don’t know what dictionary you’re using, but as I understand it compassion is in fact the exact opposite of “self-centeredness”. In fact, quite to the contrary of your claim, Buddhism has a very strong (I and many other Buddhist practitioners would argue completely essential) emphasis on compassion and service to others. I’ve written about it here, if you want a more extended argument against your claim.
So let’s assume, in relation to my story, that from the great degree of compassion that I have cultivated I did in fact ask for forgiveness from the person that I harmed and that I did everything within my power to make amends, not to make myself feel better but to make them suffer less. What then? What am I missing that Christianity is offering?
You seem to be saying that the “sin” that is “redeemed” is a lack, a “hole” that needs to be filled somehow. My primary question: why can’t I, through similar practices implied in my story and in my link, repair that metaphorical hole? If your account is true, there must be something in the ontological nature of the “hole” and my own capacity to make amends and cultivate pure compassion that requires an external being to suffer in order for it to be filled. You said, quite explicitly, that one of the essential aspects of being human is our capacity to “alter our own natures”, but there must be some essential limits on that if we require a suffering figure, so what are they? Also, there must be something to that ontological nature that makes God simply saying, “You’re forgiven and here is my Spirit to help you live your life better”, impossible without the concrete suffering of an individual being. Why is a suffering Christ necessary to relieve the ontological presence of sin and the effects of sin?
Again, there seems to be an essential connection with the ontological presence of the “sin” and the need for a redeeming figure, but no one is spelling it out with anything beyond metaphors, and in fact metaphors that I am challenging in my questions (so referring to them as an answer is a form of question begging). I know this will sound very condescending, but surely such a “superior” redemptive ontology can do more than rest on vague metaphors with no real recourse to the concrete experience of committing non-virtuous acts and having its consequences.
I’ve heard that story before (a few times, as a matter of fact), but, again, you are dealing in metaphors and I’m asking for the concrete ontological reality of “sin”, not feel-good metaphors that never explicitly state what is happening in the redemptive process. What is the ontological equivalent of the “holes” that the boy could not fill?
As for your last link, I take it that neither you nor the author are familiar with the extensive argumentation of Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Buddhapalita, Chandrakirti, or (my personal favorite) Tsong Khapa. Or, if you would prefer a universally acclaimed modern exposition that is more accessible to Western minds, Jeffrey Hopkins’ extensive (but affordable) Meditation on Emptiness. Not that I’m expecting you to do any significant research on them, but I thought I’d mention them.
Kevin:
I used the term “self-centered” intentionally–not in the coffee-table, non-rigorous, pejorative approach (well, okay, there was a little snarkiness there), but in the sense of looking to an ultimate “thing” upon which to pin reality in one’s self. Buddhism is a form of Idealism… it may be a distant form, but it’s there. It jettisons external (extra-mental) reality for an internal “something”… to follow one’s own path.
Don’t get me wrong: sometimes it’s good to follow one’s own path or to tread upon new territory or to boldly go forth, yadda, yadda. But it’s a half-truth, and hence cannot be made an ultimate guide.
I’m also not suggesting there’s nothing Buddhism can teach. All faiths and philosophies have nuggets of good and true things we should mine. But at the end of the day, that’s all they are: good nuggets… and even a mountain of good nuggets doesn’t make a REAL summum bonum. Christianity doesn’t propose a philosophy or “nuggets.” It proposes THE Person with whom to fall desperately in love with, it proposes THE Cross, and it proposes one’s own crosses to bear. Christianity make reality so, well, real… that it hurts. If pain aversion (in the sense of pain not for its own sake but as redemptive suffering and growth) and escapism are the presuppositions even before learning about formal systems like Buddhism, then the outcome is predictable.
Dealing with Buddhism reminds me of dealing with moral relativists, and what you bring up is a good example: what could possibly, honestly, and objectively mean by “compassion” (your very important word) [or truth, or beauty, or goodness or forgiveness, etc.] when a self-centered, Idealistic, choose-and-follow-your-own-path as ultimate goal is proposed? It means nothing apart from the pretty words.
Holopupenko,
As I said earlier, there is really only one idealist school of Buddhist thought and that is the Mind Only school. The Dali Lama himself very consistently talks about “objective reality” and even of the correspondence of our ideas with reality. Heck, he describes our ignorance of extra-mental reality as one of the primary causes of our suffering! You can find arguments against idealism within many Buddhist traditions, often using similar arguments as you would make. I really don’t know where you are getting your information. In fact, please tell me what books on Buddhism you have read to come to such a (mis-)informed position.
Either way, you are ignoring my questions, responding instead with a sad caricature of Buddhism rather than explicating and defending your view. If any of my questions were unclear, please request specific clarification on particular questions (or particular parts of particular questions).
Kevin:
There’s a wise old joke used in the former Soviet Union: Q-What’s a Communist? A-A person who has read Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Q-What’s an anti-communist? A-A person who has read Marx, Engels, and Lenin… and understood what they wrote.
Take it to heart as it regards Buddhism and its commentators.
Yes, I have studied Buddhism–formally. Much less than I would have liked to, some time ago, and, no, I can’t off the top of my head provide you the references… although I’ll be happy to do so once I get home today.
Is that the point? You’re playing the same, tired old game you did with Dave: “yet again you’ve misunderstood Buddhism.”
Again?
Your assertion that I’m ignoring your question(s) is on its face false: I addressed compassion and forgiveness from the Christian perspective and why Buddhism fails. Others have similarly responded. I don’t feel inclined to repeat what they wrote just to satisfy you. Don’t play the childish game of claiming I’m “misunderstanding” your personal cherry-picking take on Buddhism. Also, I don’t care a hoot about what the Dali Lama says in terms of qualifying the deep-seated philosophical problems both IN Buddhism and engendered by it. It/They IS/ARE Idealism. Full stop. Deal with it.
Technical speaking, to have scientific (writ large) knowledge of something is to understand it substantially–to understand its essence–to understand its causes. I don’t need later accidental qualifications and modifications and commentaries (albeit interesting ones) on Buddhism to understand what Buddhism is. It is playing the same “death by a thousand qualifications” that positivism played… and lost.
Buddhism is, in its essence, a form of escapism. Christ offering us the Cross is anything but. “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “what you’ve done to the least of these you’ve done to Me” are binding commitments to sacrifice for the sake of others here in this life–its is not and “otherworldy” focus and escapism. If anything–hence the irony–it is you who are mischaracterizing Christianity and what it offers broken people, i.e., to all of us.
Holopupenko,
Yes, I would be interested in your sources, so please let me know.
It seems incredibly obvious that we aren’t going to get anywhere with the discussion on Buddhism, but you did ignore my questions: most of them related to your understanding of the process of salvation in Christianity, which you ignored. In fact, only the first paragraph was related to Buddhism while the next three dealt explicitly with your explication of Christian redemption. I’ll repeat them:
Your only response after that was, “Christianity doesn’t propose a philosophy or “nuggets.”” In fact, I would bet that both Tom and the large majority of Evangelical apologists would take issue with the claim that “Christianity doesn’t propose a philosophy”. Yes, they would agree that it also proposes a person, Christ, but they would certainly push the importance of correct philosophy as a central aspect of Christian discipleship (see Moreland’s works for this). So what I’m asking for is this philosophy, particular as it relates to the ontology of redemption.
P.S. If I’m mishcaracterizing Christianity, please set me straight. That’s all I’m asking for. Just saying I get it wrong doesn’t help me at all and is surely not a very compassionate response…
Kevin:
I thought I was clear: “Buddhism is a form of Idealism… it may be a distant form, but it’s there.” No, it’s not Berklelian or Platonic or what have you, but (correct me if I’m wrong) it does base its attempts to overcome/resolve “here and now” problems in human consciousness (with strong risk of individual human or some Averroist-like “world consciousness” depending on the school). Maybe you don’t like the term Idealism in the fully rigorous sense (granted–there is a lot of debate among philosophers as to what qualifies as “Idealism”), but it is at the very least Idealistic.
Also, my response to you was to contrast with examples. And, while I did provide metaphors regarding sin, I most certainly did provide a fairly rigorous explanation of sin and its effects. How could I be any more clear: forgiveness starts with the act of a person–not some subsequent idea(lism) of sin or forgiveness or what have you. And, you continue to look at sin as a something rather than a privation of something–good; a shadow is not a thing in the sense of having an essence, it’s a lack or privation of something–light. That should make you focus on the good FIRST and the Source of goodness FIRST. Existence of things must be met head on… Finally, please don’t forget that very crucial aspects of theological concepts are derived from Biblical knowledge as revealed knowledge–much, much, much different from the Idealistic source of Buddhist knowledge.
Holopupenko,
Yes, your statements were clear, but you are still getting most forms of Buddhism wrong. You say:
True, but it is a “human consciousness” that is essentially related to an outside world, to others, to etc. (per interdependent co-origination; in most schools of thought, a mind without a world to relate with wouldn’t be a mind, it would be contentless, meaningless, impotent, etc.). The “problems in human consciousness” are, first and foremost, caused by ignorance (the most important klesha) of the nature of reality and one’s relationship to it. So one “overcome[s]” their problems by bringing their view of reality in line with reality itself, to correspond to it. Yes, it doesn’t happen by changing the outside world, because changing the outside world is, at best, hacking away at the limbs rather than the root (or covering the world with leather instead of wearing shoes, as one common metaphor puts it), which is a mistaken/ignorant human consciousness. So, yes, one “overcome[s]…problems in human consciousness”, but that is done by examining reality, by making one’s relation with how things are coherent, authentic, direct, etc.
Which also raises another point: Buddhism (as opposed to the hippy-ish forms of Buddhism, which is what you are primarily critiquing, it seems) isn’t about “follow[ing] one’s own path”. In fact, the Fourth Noble Truth and the various lamrim texts that are within various schools of Buddhist thought/practice gives very specific and concrete proscriptions of the Path. It is not, “If you think acting selfishly makes you happy, then do so and that’s ok,” but, to quote Shantideva,
With that said, there is the claim that if one knew one’s mind thoroughly then one would discover the Path naturally, spontaneously, but that’s because of a specific claim about the nature of the human mind and suffering, an ontological claim about the mind’s inherent luminosity and openness that makes both kleshas and enlightenment possible (the mind’s luminous nature can very profitably be seen as a transcendental ground of experience, in a Kantian sense). So even if we look at this claim we cannot make a cleft between the mind and its world. Sure, the mind has some primacy, but it is essentially related to an outside/extra-mental world in Buddhist thought (again, with the primary exception of the Mind-Only School).
So, yes, I have huge reservations about saying that Buddhism is idealist, for the above reasons. Using the term simply causes confusion.
Lastly, in relation to your clarification, I’m sorry, but it isn’t clarifying much for me. Let me start by saying, per the Sermon on the Mount (and, I would argue, Buddhism agrees), the beginning of sin is not an act, but a motivation of either greed or envy or lust or etc. When this motivation is lacking there will be no harmful/sinful action; there is a direct causal relation between the two such that the latter would not occur without the presence of the latter (though the converse doesn’t have to be the case). In your previous post you said that we, “as rational animals, are the only creature on earth that can alter our own natures”, but your story seems to imply that there are limits to this, as the boy realizes “the lingering effects of sin–even if forgiven”. We both seem to agree that we, as human beings, can change our motivations in some way, but you are making the further claim that that isn’t enough, that there are still “holes”. My questions remain: what is the ontological (or, if you prefer, psychological) equivalent of these holes? What is it about this ontological nature that requires an external source in order for them to be “healed”? How does the suffering of one being “regrow” the hole? Lastly, why must we have such a suffering being when it seems completely in God’s power to “regrow” our damaged wood by divine fiat, rather than needing an intermediary?
These are all important and central issues in relation to the soteriological claims of Christianity.
Kevin,
Your question (12:31 am yesterday) about sin and recovery apart from Jesus Christ is a good one. Can a person recover and grow to have “seemingly limitless compassion” apart from Christ’s forgiveness?
Sin is defined in biblical terms by the literal translation of the term, hamartia, which means “missing the mark.” We all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Sin is missing the mark of God’s perfection. “Seemingly limitless compassion” is not the mark; limitless compassion is. So the recovery and growth of which you speak is not sufficient for humans who stand in need of God’s grace and forgiveness.
Every sin we commit leaves a stain on our character. We can’t wash ourselves clean of it, any more than you can launder a shirt with the same mud that soiled it. The word “stain” is of course metaphorical, but it speaks of an ontological conditionof moral uncleanness or imperfection; and that which is not clean falls short of God’s glory and his perfection.
You ask Holopupenko,
The wood of that fencepost is damaged, injured, riddled with fault in fact. It cannot heal itself. You are damaged through sin, injured, and riddled with fault before God and in yourself. The imperfect cannot supply perfection to itself; the dirty cannot wash itself clean.
You say of Buddhism, and apparently of Buddhism in general,
If this is true for all of Buddhism, then it provides a good statement of the problem with Buddhism. Our fundamental problem is not lack of knowledge, or wrong perspective, or wrong desire, or misunderstanding of the nature of reality. Holopupenko did not that Buddhism contains truth, and in truth all of those are significant problems for all of humanity. But they are not our fundamental problems. Our fundamental problem is estrangement from God, the source of all knowledge, reality, goodness, compassion, love, righteousness, and truth. Suppose we knew more about God, and suppose we even knew truly about God through Buddhism (I don’t think Buddhism leads to full true knowledge of God, but let’s suppose it did.) Would knowing more heal our fundamental estrangement? No. If I were estranged from my wife, I would not heal my relationship with her by studying her more deeply. I would heal it by reconciling with her on every level. Oh, and since my wife is not God, there is a distinction to note: reconciliation with God is on his terms, not mine.
Tiger Woods has three problems (and you and I do too): his alienation from other persons he loves, his alienation from God, and the character weakness that causes that. Character can be worked on. People can certainly improve. People can love more, and commit less harm and make fewer mistakes, as they move through life. Sometimes this can even lead to healing of human relationships.
But the stain of sin remains, and alienation from God has only one solution: forgiveness and reconciliation through Christ. Now, that reconciliation has multiple benefits. One of them is cleansing, and the opening of a door to relationship with Christ. Another is that God’s relationship with us includes an intimate experience with him that we call the filling or indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who effects in us character change beyond behavioral adjustment. So it is very frequently the case that persons who follow Christ find through it the ability to heal their relationships with other persons, too.
“Paying” for sins is metaphorical language expressing actual reality through analogy. The “debt” one owes for sin is alienation, separation, and death. This is what is right and proper: justice demands, does it not, that sin and crime not be treated the same as goodness and righteousness. But God is a God of mercy who planned a way to satisfy justice while yet opening the door for forgiveness: Christ “paid” that debt by dying for us in our place.
Kevin:
With tail between my legs, I cannot find the one book in particular used during a course in the 80′s on Buddhism. It’s got a red cover and I can’t remember the author… but that doesn’t help you. The further unfortunate thing for a book-lover like me is this has “revealed” other missing books… so I may have to do some hunting at my folks home. So, apologies, for now…
Apart from that, I’m not going to pursue this discussion further–Tom did an excellent job of further clarifying questions you asked. Moreover, there is little doubt in my mind Buddhism is a form of Idealism–perhaps a distance one, but nonetheless there. I do note that even with your qualifications of certain schools of Buddhism not rejecting the external world, what is conspicuously missing is an objective foundation for the “compassion” or happiness or avoidance of misery for others through self-centered pleasure for oneself. WHY? On what objective basis does Buddhism–any school of Buddhism–deem these moral goods in themselves? Given this, my suspicion (albeit from earlier study) Buddhism either presupposes these goods or seeks their basis internally–hence at least part of the Idealism.
Hello Kevin
If I may add some more thoughts –
I think the Buddha was a sensitive, perceptive, and compassionate person who looked about himself and discovered a world in agony.
Being a sensitive man, the suffering he witnessed cut deep into his soul. He understood that suffering was not the natural state of the world, that something had corrupted the world, and that this discord, this disorder, was the source of suffering. He was a sensitive man, he could feel the suffering. He empathized with those who suffered. He could not, in good conscience, persist in his priveleged state while the world suffered; he abdicated his throne and began a lifelong quest to overcome suffering.
Being a perceptive man he understood that life is not merely matter in motion; we are physical beings inhabiting a physical world; but in addition to the physical dimension we also inhabit a spiritual dimension, the dimension of mind and consciousness and imagination. Body and soul, mind and meat, living creatures are composite beings.
The physical world is demonstrably temporary, temporal, the abode of impermanence and flux. In the temporal, physical dimension, you die, I die, we all die; utensils break, tools wear out, even the very mountains are brought low by time. It is only in the dimension of the mind that we may percieve permanence, peace, and eternity; so it is in permanent, eternal, realm of mind where we will find the antidote to suffering.
It is because the Buddha looks to mind as ultimate reality and the source of redemption (enlightenment) that Buddhism is idealist. Materialism seeks redemption through the control of matter, through technology and tools, the discipline of material resources. The Buddha seeks enlightenment (redemption) through spiritual displine, the control of mind. (This is not a criticism – it is an observation – I am of the opinion that both idealism and materialism contain valuable truths about the nature of the world as it is, but that each is deficient)
As a compassionate man the Buddha, as he learned and developed the dharma he passed on his insight to disciples, giving them the spritual tools and techne to discipline the spirit and find redemption. He was, by all accounts, a gentle and humble man whose only desire was to bring harmony where there is discord and order where there is disorder. Which is to say he wanted to save the world.
Certainly the idealism of the Buddha is more humane than the idealism of Plato; and convinced by the too-often nightmarish quality of the physical world – surreal, impermanent, and dying – that materialism is an inadequate ground for redemption, Buddha embrace his idealism; and perhaps he was, even then, aware of the redemptive inadequacy of idealism as well.
So close, yet so far. But very, very, close. Like Plato, Aristotle, Confucious, and other great thinkers without access to direct revelation, the Buddha read natural revelation like a book. He perceived the discord and disorder in the world and he knew it was a degenerate condition – there is something wrong in the world. Cut of from direct revelation, limited to his own perception, and to his own reason, his solution is human centered; akin to lifting ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
You asked, “What is sin?” Technically, sin is putting our selves before God. Rather than follow the divine plan for the world, following the instuction manual, our first parents aspired to be gods in their own right, to decide right on wrong by their own standard, to make their own rules. Gen 3:5 Through their disobedience, Adam and Eve, as the stewards (guardians) of creation, brought discord into the world, affecting everything over which they had dominion. Gen 3:17-19
The Buddha was a perceptive man, he saw the discord and the suffering it brought to the world, but he did not know, he could not know, the source of the discord. He could only know its consequence and, quite rightly, it horrified him. Sin is the source of all suffering, it is the cosmic consequence of the rebellion of humanity against the divine plan of God. The Buddha’s answer to the problem of sin is for us, through the practice of spiritual discipline, to change ourselves – but we can’t do it any more than the dead can raise themselves. Eph 2:1-5 It seems, no matter how hard we try, we continue to do the wrong thing, or not to do the right thing. Rom 7:15-20
How do we “pay” for sin; or how do we “redeem” the sinner? What relation has a financial metaphor to the suffering in the world?
I think we are here faced with a translational/cultural misapprehension.
Redemption:
Picking apart the Latin construction, we get two basic parts:
1.re(d)-, an extremely common Latin prefix meaning essentially “again” or “back to the original place”
2.emere, a Latin verb meaning “to buy,” itself consisting of the prefix e(x)-, meaning “out of,” and merere, “to deserve” (cf. English “merit”).1 Together, then, as emere, it means “that which is earned.”
Redemption often refers to the manumission of slaves and the Bible describes humanity as “slaves” to sin. Rom 8:16-18 God redeems us (buys us back) from our slavery to sin and death, not by gold and silver, but through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, who is Himself the God who made the world and all that is in it. He gives His life to us, and for us; that we might be freed from our bondage to sin, and its consequent, suffering.
The Buddha also pays a price for the redemption of the world. He, in a very real sense, rolls up his metaphorical sleeves and goes to work on his spiritual discipline, giving his life for the world. He is “paying” a price with his labour and his (human, temporal, and tainted) life. The Buddha is, no doubt, a good and pious man, but he is only a man. He cannot lift himself up by his own bootstraps any more than you or I. We need a skyhook.
Jesus Christ is the living God incarnate. He put on human flesh, was born of a woman, and lived the exemplary life for us, we sinful men who cannot lift ourselves.
“The world thinks that men are good and saints are better; the church knows that men are sinners and saints are a miracle.”
Kevin:
Update: a small pile of books (of mine) have been found at my folks home, so just to let you know I’m still working on fulfilling your request… just don’t know how soon. Thanks for your (inadvertent) bringing to my attention that my library remains scattered.
Holopupenko,
Most forms of Buddhism do not worry about “an objective foundation”, or what the Buddha called “metaphysical questions”. The basic fact, as they understand it, is that when we examine our lives deeply we find that there is suffering (First Noble Truth), there are specific causes for our suffering (Second Noble Truth), there are specific causes for our happiness (Third Noble Truth), and there are practices whereby we can reduce the former and cultivate the latter (Fourth Noble Truth), even up to the point of completely eradicating the former and resting skillfully in the latter. The claim is then that anyone performing this kind of deep analysis will find the same thing, so it is accepted, not as some accident of this or that individual experience or mind (idealism), but as the basic nature of reality that anyone who has done the proper analysis can see.
Let me add that my “qualifications” are not even close to being near inconsequential. There is no clear cut between mind and world in Buddhism. Both are essentially connected (a claim that seems contrary to the nature of any kind of idealism, soft or hard) and any kind of disconnect is deemed a delusion or hallucination, a clear cause of suffering. This isn’t a “distan[t] form of idealism, but is perhaps best described as a middle way between the extremes of idealism and realism. I doubt any of the above will dissuade you or your trust in the one book that you read (not an insult, just a statement of the reality of the basis of your judgment), but I thought it should be said.
Tom,
I do thank you for your attempts at clarification.
On the first point, the “seemingly limitless compassion” was part of my story, but the claim in Buddhism is that limitless compassion is in fact possible. I’ve mentioned this a few times, but it warrants repeating: neurological studies done on meditation adepts practicing a form of compassion meditation had an 800% increase in activity in that part of the brain most correlated with compassion (which includes motor areas, so this isn’t just some nice intellectual simulation or goody-goody feeling). A neurological increase of that magnitude has never been seen before in neurological literature in relation to any part of the brain such that the researchers were certain at first that something had malfunctioned, though further analysis proved otherwise. Assuming a relatively normative relationship between neurological activity and human experience, that is a significant and important demonstration of the efficacy and extent towards which we can cultivate compassion through meditative practices. We could (and, who knows, maybe we will) argue about what percentage would be necessary for this to be considered “limitless”, but the basic claim is that the human mind is capable of cultivating limitless compassion.
Next, I’m still not seeing an argument for why the “stain” must remain un-cleanable by us. You seem to agree that we can do at least a significant amount of cleansing, but what is stopping us from being able to do a complete cleanse? What is it about sin and/or our natures that make cleaning the 80% (I don’t know what percentage you would use) possible, but somehow makes the last 20% impossible? Within Buddhism it is not an issue of time, if you accept some form of reincarnation. Even if you don’t accept reincarnation, as I don’t, there doesn’t seem to be any ontological reason why such isn’t possible.
On your third point, the issue is not “studying [your wife] more deeply”, but studying the nature of your own mind and its habitual patterns based on discontent, which is the cause of your selfish thoughts, words, and deeds. Obviously, I can’t go into more detail because I don’t know exactly what the issues are in your hypothetical, but I’d be glad to do it if you want to expand more on it.
What I find interesting here is that ignorance is in fact a central issue in your own claim, though not explicitly stated as such. First, we would both agree that most people are ignorant (or, another term I like, deluded) in that they think that acting selfishly will make them happy, that getting more things and having more constant pleasures will bring them fulfillment. Second, you would most certainly argue that people are ignorant of God as the only source of eternal happiness. On a deeper level, there are even those who “know” in a cognitive/intellectual sense that the previous claim is true but do not really “know” in a more experiential and practical sense (so that “know” is equivocal, and in an important sense). In Buddhism a common distinction is between knowledge (seen as intellectual and cognitive) and realization, which matches pretty well your distinction between “studying [your wife] more deeply” and actually “reconciling” with her; in the former case, we can know her and our own nature, we can know how to make things better, but we do not embody it, as in the case of the latter. A few accounts I’ve been reading are incredibly close to Dreyfus’ account of “ethical expertise”.
On your last two paragraphs, let me first say that Buddhist practice is certainly concerned with more than just “behavioral adjustments”. True, that is a beginning point, but the ultimate aim is the dissolution of negative habitual patterns of motivation, ones that lead to suffering for both self and other. It is not a mere external change of doing or not doing this or that deed, but a fundamental change at the level of the causes of those negative deeds, which is our selfish and self-centered cherishings and delusions.
What I still find missing, beyond the reason to assume that a full cleansing is impossible, is why Christ and his suffering are necessary. As argued in the link I gave above, the “paying for” analogy doesn’t seem to make sense. Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be a reason why God would need an intermediary as opposed to just proclaiming by divine fiat that so and so is redeemed, that he has remove the estrangement and will hereafter cleanse so and so through the workings of the Holy Spirit. What limit is there on God’s power such that it is impossible for him to do so?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/19/sportsline/main6223844.shtml?tag=latest
Tiger Woods on his Buddhism – he will redeem himself.
I, me, you, oneself.
Brit Hume was right – this is not the redemption and forgiveness that Christianity delivers.
Hi Charlie
Poor Tiger. I can sympathize with his difficulties.
Dave
Me too. Even when we know better it is easy to try to do it yourself.
Not only difficult, but impossible in principle.
Me too. I recently lost my Accenture and Nike endorsements and the paparazzi won’t leave me alone.
Why is it “impossible in principle”? We all seem to agree that we can make positive changes in our lives to genuinely increase our love, service, etc., but why can we improve the 25% (or whatever percentage you would like to use) and not the rest of the 75%? For a larger explication of this question, see my previous post of January 19, 2010 at 9:41 am (#63).
Because the forgiveness and redemption that Christianity offers, as per Brit Hume’s original statement (which caused you to charge him with ignorance), do not and can not come from oneself but rather from the Creator of the universe, the One against Whom all sins ultimately are committed and Who alone can provide the atonement of the redemption.
As he said, if I recall, their is a forgiveness and repentance that Christianity uniquely offes. You’ve admitted such by stating that the terms don’t apply in the same way in Buddhism.
I didn’t say anything about improvement, and especially not about self-improvement. Why did you think those concepts were applicable?
Charlie,
You just answered my questions by repeating the claim without justifying it: why can’t forgiveness “come from oneself”? It seems that we agree that we can make good positive change in our lives, but what is stopping us from being able to do that completely? Supposedly it is impossible “in principle”, but why? Christianity can’t claim a “superior” soteriology to Buddhism unless it can make a decent claim on why a complete change from one’s own efforts (i.e. without the divine decree of a Creator) is fundamentally impossible. Or would you even take issue with the claim that we can, through our own work, make any positive changes in our lives, even small ones?
Hi Kevin,
I don’t need to justify it. The question is what does Christianity offer? I don’t have to prove it is true. You just don’t seem to get that, even though you admitted it practically out of the gate.
I’m not talking about positive changes, complete or incomplete, did you not notice that?
It does just that. And why are you using the word “soteriology” in the context of Buddhism? From what is the improved and changed-for-the-better Buddhist saved? Do you know what the Christian is saved from (and for)? And by Whom?
You’ve already admitted that Hume was right and that Buddhism does not offer the forgiveness or redemption of Christianity, so why do you keep trying to make this about something else?
I see from your emotional and charged critique over on Stand To Reason that you have been reading theology for years and you seem to want to restrict your remarks to subjects of which you are not ignorant so your problems here with the Christian conception of redemption and forgiveness is puzzling.
http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2010/02/mclarens-new-kind-of-christianity-is-old-and-false.html?cid=6a00d83451d2ba69e20120a8ca45a7970b#comment-6a00d83451d2ba69e20120a8ca45a7970b
Charlie,
Nice deflection. My questions still remain unanswered, either by you or with a reference to another work that directly addresses them.
Hi Kevin,
No they don’t.
Charlie,
Then please be so kind as to show me where in this discussion they have been answered or a resource where the answers were addressed. The claim is that it is “fundamentally impossible” and that “in principle” it is impossible to change oneself completely, so there must be some logical (i.e. non-dogmatic) reason for this impossibility.
No Kevin, you are reading me quite badly.
When did I claim anything about changing oneself completely and what has that to do with forgiveness and redemption? Have you retreated into a fragment of a dictionary definition rather than the Christian meaning of the words in order to defend your accusations?
Here are relevant highlights from the latest statements that you are questioning. Note, you are questioning them long after already admitting that Buddhism does not recognize or address redemption or forgiveness in the Christian sense of the word, and doesn’t even recognize sin, so there is nothing to forgive.
Does Buddhism recognize the Creator of the universe? the ultimate moral giver? a Saviour?
In all your readings over the many years have you read about Grace and Faith?
Charlie,
Is not redemption a complete change in one’s fallen nature? How can one have redemption without change of some kind? If that is not redemption, if it is some “fragment of a dictionary definition”, then what am I missing? Change is exactly the issue of redemption and as it deals with one’s nature it must be a complete change (even the change of one single essential quality is a change in nature according to your metaphysic)!
That said, of course “Buddhism does not recognize or address redemption or forgiveness in the Christian sense of the word” or else it would be Christian and not Buddhist. That’s just a simple matter of definition. The issue is whether Christianity is “superior” in its account of the human condition, which is what I’m trying to figure out through discussion. If there is no (non-dogmatic) reason to accept the claim that we need an outside Being, then it is not a superior account, but an inadequate account. You will also remember, if you look back far enough, that Tom and I were discussing “positive changes”; just because we haven’t been discussing it doesn’t mean that I’m “making things up” as the issue was already part of the discussion and it hasn’t been addressed (Tom’s a busy man, so I understand).
So you answer my questions yet again with just repeating yourself: why is it “[n]ot only difficult, but impossible in principle” “through oneself” to change oneself? This is an apologetic blog, a place to give reasons for one to believe Christian claims, so I’m waiting for a reason to accept this claim that is simply being repeated to me ad nauseum.
1) A man who commits wrongdoing forgives himself.
2) A man who commits wrongdoing is forgiven by the US legal system.
Seems obvious to me that the forgiveness is different/unique in both cases. Which one you need is a separate question. Also, denying the existence of the US legal system doesn’t change the fact that, in principle, you can’t get the kind of forgiveness/redemption in (2) via the methods in (1).
No Kevin, that is not the sum of what redemption means when an evangelical Christian or a theologian discusses it. You ought to know this from your many years of study or from your reading of the comments here. It is a transaction and requires the satisfaction of God, which He says cannot be achieved by our own efforts.
Correct. So Brit Hume was right when he said that Buddhism does not offer the same kind of redemption and forgiveness that Christianity offers and delivers and he was not demonstrating the ignorance you charged him with when he said this.
Is that what you’re trying to figure out? Well, like I said, I’m not trying to prove Christianity here. In fact, to make the claims about self-redemption and self-forgiveness that you have you male it seem ratehr that you are not trying to figure this out but have already decided that Christianity is wrong (“superior” being an unusual way to keep putting it).
You’re right. I’m sorry I said that and, as you see from the comment that survived my edit, I removed that.
But you have addressed my comments to impose that “positive change” aspect on me as though I’m supposed to care about your extra conditions and concerns. I have made clear many times what I am talking about. I’m not reducing redemption and forgiveness to positive change and I’m not demonstrating the veracity or the pragmatic value of the Christian claims.
I am saying Brit Hume was correct, as evidenced by your own statements as well as by Tiger’s, that Buddhism does not offer the same kind of redemption and forgiveness that Christianity does. To say it does is already to presume that Christianity is false.
It’s like saying that only the ignorant would claim Allah and Zeus are not the same God unless you can prove one exists or is more useful.
I am not ceding that presumption or accepting that burden as it is irrelevant.
Does that logically entail that every comment needs to be an apologetic? Do I have to demonstrate the truth of Christianity in order to tell you what it says? No, of course not. That does not follow at all. If you want evidences of Christianity then you are right, explore this blog. But you seem much more interested in your blog works in claiming evangelicals are always wrong about everything they say.
Lol.
What did you tell me before about brevity, Steve?
Nicely answered.
I forgot to answer this bit:
Why are you quoting me and juxtaposing my quote against something I am not addressing, have never claimed, and have told you many times is not relevant to my statements?
You almost make it look like you are questioning a claim I have made when you do that.
Kevin (mostly),
While I practiced Buddhism for a time, I confess that I am not an expert, and while I also practiced Christianity and served in teaching capacities at times, I am also not qualified to be an apologist.
Those disclaimers out of the way, what I find compelling in this exchange is that the question(s) that you ask seem to be on the order of, “Tell me why there can’t be a checkmate in football.”
There may be some things which are common to football and chess – strategy, pawns working toward a common goal, sacrifices (think the option play in football), etc. – they are not 1:1 analogs of each other and never will be, so the question posed is simply inappropriate.
Without discussing the merits and shortfalls of either paradigm, the clearest answer to your question is that in the sense of the Christian definition of redemption, there is no redemption in Buddhism. The Buddhist system doesn’t provide for that, just as the Pittsburgh Steelers don’t strive to take out the queen.
Self-improvement is simply not redemption in the Christian paradigm, just as a quarterback isn’t a queen (gay jokes for poorly performing quarterbacks aside).
One can surely redefine the term “queen” and “redemption,” and try to overlay the systems, but it is mostly folly to do so.
I believe you are a bright guy, and according to another here, you seem to be familiar with the Christian paradigm and its tenets, so I find myself questioning the true purpose of your question(s). [The obvious answer is that you're p*ss*d off that Buddhism got dissed and you're jumping to its defense.]
I AM curious as to why you’re not seeing/accepting another’s Christianity phenomenologically, and that/those person(s) as just another part of the “one” which is different than you, yet is of the same organism. One expects the responses of the Christians to be as they are – there is a duality in it (or at least in its current western culture), but I find it odd that you are seeking (provoking?) conflict instead of simply accepting and attempting to assimilate this Christian piece of the one into your identity.
justaguy
Kevin,
It appears that while I was typing others typed the same sort of thing: Different systems, terms are different, Christian redemption exists in Christianity, and Brit believes that’s what Tiger needs (not self-improvement).
Apologies for seeming to pile on.
Charlie,
So you are focusing on the distinction between making positive changes in our lives and God saying, “I’m satisfied”? So let’s look at a thought experiment: let’s say that someone works exceptionally hard and eradicates all selfishness from his life and cultivates limitless compassion towards his fellow men. He never gets angry at others, he is free with his possessions, he visits the widow, the fatherless, those in prison, etc. (the essence of “pure religion”). When you look at his life and deeds at the practical level there is literally nothing you can find fault with: he is obviously compassionate with everyone, even “enemies”, and he wisely gives people what they need, not necessarily what they want, at the appropriate time (he has wedded wisdom and compassion). Let’s also add that he is not Christian, he has never heard of Christ, and he will never hear of Christ before he dies. Given your distinction, would God not be pleased with this man? And if we’re going to assume some form of Calvinism, let’s go ahead and assume that he is not among the saved. What’s your take on this?
In relation to my focus on the pragmatic issues, that is exactly what Hume was focusing on: he began his discussion with O’Reilly by talking about the “content of [Woods’] character” and that a “total recovery” requires Christianity. This is accentuated near the end when he says that a “true conversion…would show through in [Woods’] being”, so that the pragmatic aspect is the center of his focus. I could even include the fact that such pragmatic changes are central to the Biblical narrative of the lives of the saved, mentioned more and focus on more than the satisfaction issue that is your central concern. True faith inevitably results in good works, in positive changes in how one relates with one’s fellow men with more love, compassion, and whole-hearted service. So while you are not focusing on it, it is a central and important aspect within the Biblical text.
Furthermore, it is very important for me personally. I have been afflicted by depression and addiction throughout much of my life. I tried for years and years following the suggestions of my fellow Christians: read my scriptures, pray, fast, even seeing a psychologist, none of which helped even after years and years of diligent and motivated pleading for deliverance. None of it even put a dent in those two pervasive issues. It was not until I started meditating regularly, including my yoga practice, that these lost much of their strength and ubiquity. Now I am happier and more open to my fellow men than I have ever been in my entire life.
Beyond this pragmatic aspect, I have also never been philosophically content with the “answers” to the questions that I am asking; they don’t make sense to me, both at the levels of soteriology and theism (i.e. some form of the problem of evil, the problem of Calvinistic redemption, the apparently fundamental inadequacy of the metaphor of “paying for sins”, etc.). Buddhism seems to be more coherent, more in line with my experience of my human condition, and has stark pragmatic effects that seem to be directly correlated with the practices themselves (they don’t seem to be tangentially related). So the possibility that Christianity offers something that Buddhism does not makes me wonder, “But is what it is offering really adequate or worthwhile?” I see little reason to assume that it is either, which is why I’m incessantly asking the questions that I am. I’m more than willing to admit that it is different, and I’ve done so on a few occasions here, but if it is more adequate or more rational is a very open and very important question in my mind. Buddhism also offers things to Woods that Christianity doesn’t, but that doesn’t in any way answer the question of whether this difference is either useful or true.
So, yes, on some level I have decided that Christianity is false, but that’s no difference than your already having decided that Buddhism is false. I don’t feel like my “decision” (inasmuch as we “decide” what is rational to us and what is not; cogency is not a decision, but something that comes on us as we listen to this or that reason) is just some ignorant assumption as it is something that I have thought about for some time. The answers I have heard are inadequate, as far as I can tell from the level and degree of analysis that I have devoted to that question (which is not exhaustive, but is also not insignificant). I’m open to hearing alternatives, but my questions are not being answered. Sure, I’ll accept that answering these questions is not your current project and that is fine and perhaps as it should be, but they are very important to me and the deafening silence I’m hearing here isn’t helping Christianity’s case in my mind. Indeed, how can I change my mind unless I’m given reasons to do so? In relation to Hume’s claim, difference is far from demonstrating importance or cogency; there are plenty of other religions that offer something different from Christianity that adherents of that religion may feel that Tiger “needs”, but that doesn’t demonstrate much.
Hi Kevin,
I have about 30 seconds so I’ll have to read the rest of your comment later, but I can certainly start by going off topic with you on your thought experiment:
You are misrepresenting Calvinism. A perfect, faultless man like you have (claim to have) described can stand before God on his own merits. The rest of us are sinners and the wages of sin is death so our only hope is to throw our lot in with Christ and throw ourselves upon the mercy of our loving God. And no amount of subsequent good deeds can pay back even one sin. If you owe a fine you can’t unilaterally decide how you are going to work it off.
Kevin,
I appreciate you sharing some of your story. How painful and frustrating it must have been for you, and how helpless and desperate you must have felt.
If I’m reading you correctly – you were miserable, and Christianity simply didn’t work? It failed to bring you the rescue from addiction and/or the cure for depression? Is that about right?
Charlie,
I seem to misrepresent Calvinism every time I mention it, or so I’m told.
Yes, the individual in my example did sin much more than once. But then you are bringing up what I see as a problematic metaphor: how does the sin remain for this hypothetical individual such that it can be fruitfully compared to a debt? How is the “wages of sin” still present with the hypothetical individual? Is it just because God remembers his past sin and, despite his present perfection and embodiment of everything else that is considered “pure religion”, still holds it against him? I really don’t see how this works, primarily because the metaphor used every time someone tries to describe it seems problematic and does not have any ontological correlate. Debt repayment makes sense, but I don’t see a close fit between that and the redemptive process or God’s desire for our happiness, which I take as God’s ultimate goal as a natural byproduct of his love, that is if I believed in God. I guess I should mention that I don’t think theism is inherently irrational and there are certain forms that I find compelling, but they are also ones that fit closer to a Buddhist ontology/soteriology than a monetary and judiciary metaphor.
justaguy,
Yes, that is a decent summary of one aspect of my experience, the other, again, being the philosophical difficulties that I see. I realize we can’t expect God to work like clockwork, that we can pray to him so many times with x degree of intent and the change happens. But that nothing happened until I started on another path whose practices seem to be directly related to the relief I was looking for is not a small thing for me. I’m not appealing simply to personal experience as there has also been some fascinating scientific data on the effects of meditation that I’ve mentioned earlier that further increase my faith in the direct efficacy of Buddhist practice in both behavioral and motivational reform. Also, it seems to fit everything I’ve read in my psychological studies and in my own introspection as I’ve looked at my beliefs, habits, motivations, etc., how they come about, how they are perpetuated, and how they can be dissolved. My belief and faith in Buddhist practice (with some caveats on some beliefs, such as reincarnation) is multi-pronged and isn’t reducible simply to personal experience.
Hi Kevin,
As I read the rest of your comment let me say that I am sorry for your past troubles and am very glad that you have found relief and improvement.
How can it not? No number of good deeds will pay the fine and no number of good deeds will erase the sin debt. All that can take care of that is repayment/forgiveness.
Don’t gloss over the fact that Hume admired Woods for what he thought was his previous exceptional character although Woods was a BUddhist and not a Christian. Hume is obviously not saying Christianity is a necessary and sufficient requisite for character as he had previously credited Woods with it.
Yes, we expect, and see, that Christianity has many positive effects on the lives of its adherents and statistical analysis bears this out. But that is the result and not the cause of having been justified by God. Christianity is not a tool or treatment and there are many ways to obtain positive life results without it. Weightlifters get stronger, runners build endurance, musicians practice and improve, mental disorders are healed -all by different methods and without belief in God or Christ’s Atonement. Not the point.
Who have you read? Augustine? Aquinas? Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, Edwards, , Kreeft, Lewis, Wright, Plantinga, Moreland, Craig, Swinburne …?
Exactly. And if somebody said “Buddhism offers reincarnation, which Christianity does not” I wouldn’t repeatedly mock him as ignorant and lacking authority to make such a proclamation.
Buddhism might even improve his golf game in a way that Christianity wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. Practice, active visualization, calming exercises, flexibility training, etc., would as well.
You could read the blog.
Or, if you are genuinely interested in conversation rather than the the demeanour you exhibit on various blogs I would love to actually discuss my faith and my trust in its answers with you.
Hume wasn’t trying to demonstrate anything. It looked to me as though he was reaching out to Tiger Woods in his pain with the best help there is (ultimate, not merely fleshly) and with his sincere hopes that Tiger would be able to accept it.
Imagine how “evangelicals” feel every time they see your name in the comments on their blogs.
Kevin,
Here is the problem, Kevin. It goes back all the way to the beginning. Your hypothetical self-improver does not and cannot exist. Let me explain.
First, recall that your hypothetical person is currently perfect, sinless, always does the most loving, wise, giving, etc. act for all persons at all times. Second, recall that in your hypothetical, this person has not always been that good.
The first was possible once. The first humans existed in that condition of rightness before they first rebelled against God. That didn’t last, however. Now we all live in a world of rebellion against God, and we all ratify that first couple’s decision by practicing our own rebellion against God’s ways.
This rebellion is multi-faceted. It expresses itself in sins, as sins are commonly thought of: selfishness, lack of compassion, anger, jealousy, theft, sexual immorality, unfaithfulness, and so on. These seem to be the kinds of things you are focusing on in this hypothetical person’s quest for perfection.
But the same rebellion also manifests in independence from God. God did not create us to live life on our own, no matter how well we might live it. He created us in love for a loving relationship with him and with each other. Your hypothetical person is one who gets everything right but the most important thing of all: relationship with God.
I should add yet another most important thing, too, though, and it is found in the first few of the Ten Commandments: worshiping this loving creator God. Your hypothetical person achieves great moral perfection except in the first items on the list! Note also the same thing at the heart of the famous Hebrew Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-6, reiterated by Jesus as the first Great Commandment, Matthew 22:37-39.
So your hypothetical person, who has at some point in his history committed some wrongdoing, has entered a state of rebellion against God and (taking the hypothetical as if it were actual) has succeeded in working his way out of every kind of wrongdoing and sin except for the very most central and most important of all.
We can never think of our relationship with God as something extra, tacked on to something other, something else that’s really important by comparison. It is foundational to all, for God is foundational to all. Which brings up a further problem with your hypothetical, which is that the moral improvement of which you speak is strictly and absolutely impossible apart from God. He created us, as I said, to live in a loving and dependent relationship with him, as creature to creator, and with that relationship severed by rebellion, we lose touch with the resources required to succeed in doing all that God calls to do, and being all that he calls us to be. No one could live in perfect love without connection to the source of perfect love.
You may think that the 800% improvement in compassion (however you want to interpret that result) that you mentioned qualifies as perfection. It doesn’t. It’s not an infinite improvement. And compassion is not the only good, anyway; there is also justice, for example. There is tough love, for another example; love that may seem for the moment to contradict compassion, but which in the long run builds and edifies the object of that love. So I strongly dispute your claim that a person can perfect himself apart from God. Improve, yes, in some senses. But not in all senses, not even in all this-world senses, and certainly not in relation to our loving, worshipful, yielded relationship to God himself.
I tried for years and years following the suggestions of my fellow Christians: read my scriptures, pray, fast, even seeing a psychologist, none of which helped even after years and years of diligent and motivated pleading for deliverance.
It’s about Christ the person, not things accidental to Him. I mean no disrespect, but the way you presented your “attempts” at Christianity left me with the impression you we’re trying to find a “formula” that works.
Sooner or later, you’re going to have to come to grips with WHO Christ is… including the fact that He’s NOT offering you a rose garden but the Cross (nails, crown of thorns, splinters, scourging included) as the path to Him. Peace and healing are NOT the goal. HE is the goal… peace and happiness and healing are outcomes of that Goal. If there’s significant healing (perfectizing?) to be done, expect deep, significant [warning: euphemism ahead] change.
Great comments, Tom. I had all of those ideas stirring in my head and was looking to put them into a comment. Thankfully you beat me to it and saved me the time.
Kevin, I should also add that I feel compassion for you in your prior quest for deliverance from depression and addiction. I can understand having a deep desire for a way out. I have been through depression, too. I don’t know how to say how hard it is without trivializing it.
The full test of a solution to such a thing is not whether it works, for we might settle for too little. We might settle for what soothes our feelings or corrects our behavior. These things can be addressed and improved without getting to the real problem. Even psychotherapy in its quest for the deep roots of human issues may not get to the real root. The root must lie in the truth of who we are, who we were meant to be,and what went wrong with it. From there we can begin to grasp what a solution might look like.
I’m not sure what Buddhism implies about who we are. It seems to imply that what we were meant to be (by whoever or whatever did the “meaning,” if such a thing can be thought of in Buddhism) was organisms without desires. I don’t know how Buddhism explains what went wrong along the way.
But I think that overcoming or ceasing desire is to overcome or cease to be who we really are and who we were meant to be. God’s desire for us is fullness of life and of joy in the fulfillment of real desire. I have a blog post coming soon to expand that thought more fully.
You haven’t told us more than the bare outlines of your story, but if it ends with you ceasing or overcoming desire, then you have settled for less than what you were meant to settle for.
I must close this by noting that it is all meant as a footnote to Holopupenko’s last comment. The other truth about who we are and who we were meant to be is found, as he said, in Jesus Christ.
DL has a similar hangup with his Bayesian, scientistic methodism.
I want to respond but am not having a particularly good day and I don’t want to take it out on any of you. Will respond when I can.
Kevin,
Sorry the day isn’t going well. Thanks for your participation and openness. I look forward to engaging with you some more.
Hi Kevin,
I’m sorry you aren’t doing well today.
If you decide as indicated above that you want a different kind of discussion about my beliefs and reasons please get my email from Tom.
Take care.
Al Mohler on Tiger, BUddhism, and forgiveness.
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/02/22/newsnote-tiger-woods-buddhist-confession/
R.C. Sproul on forgiveness.
http://www.ligonier.org/rym/broadcasts/audio/only-cure-forgiveness/
http://www.ligonier.org/rym/broadcasts/audio/recieving-gods-forgiveness/
FYI on depression.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100223132021.htm