Christianity vs Buddhism

Christians teach that ultimate reality is one God, maker of heaven and earth, who exists eternally as three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.¹² This is the Trinity. Each person is fully God, yet the three are really distinct from one another.²

The branches differ over one phrase about the Holy Spirit. The creed as used in Orthodox churches says the Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Latin tradition used in Catholic worship adds "and the Son," in Latin filioque, and Reformed Protestant teaching holds the same.³²⁴ The Catechism holds that the two wordings can complement each other, provided the complementarity does not become rigid, while Thomas Hopko (1939 to 2015), an Orthodox priest, holds the addition unacceptable to Orthodoxy.²⁵⁶

Buddhist teachers point to nirvana, the end of craving and suffering.⁷⁸ Theravada teachers, in the branch found mainly in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, most often describe it as the one unconditioned reality, unborn and undying.⁸ Mahayana teachers, in the branch common in East Asia, stress emptiness, the teaching that nothing has a permanent, independent existence of its own.⁹¹⁰

Buddhist teaching holds that there is no creator God.¹¹¹² Nyanaponika Thera, a Theravada writer, wrote that an eternal, all-powerful creator is incompatible with the Buddha's teaching.¹¹ The Dalai Lama, a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, says that for Buddhists there is no creator, only the law of cause and effect.¹³ Buddhism has recognized gods since its earliest texts, but as beings subject to death and rebirth.¹⁴

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke say that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth, in Galilee.¹⁵ He preached that the kingdom of God was near and was crucified after Pontius Pilate handed him over.¹⁵ Christians hold that God raised him on the third day and that at Pentecost in Jerusalem the Holy Spirit came upon his followers.¹⁵ Catholic teaching holds the resurrection to be a real event in history.¹⁶

Dale Martin of Yale tells students that reputable historical scholars all accept that Jesus of Nazareth existed.¹⁷ A chronology made for the PBS series From Jesus to Christ places his birth around 4 BCE and his death around 30 CE.¹⁸ Historians describe his followers as a movement within Judaism, convinced that he had been raised.¹⁷¹⁹²⁰

Buddhist scripture says the future Buddha was born at Lumbini, in the land of the Sakya clan.²¹ It says he left home at twenty-nine, reached awakening near Uruvela, and gave his first teaching in the deer park near Varanasi.²¹ By the Theravada reckoning he was born in 624 BCE and died in 544 BCE, and other Buddhist traditions count differently.²²²³

Mark Siderits lists as relatively uncontroversial that the Buddha was born into the Sakya clan, left home, studied with ascetics, reached what Buddhists call awakening, and taught for forty-five years.²⁴ Heinz Bechert reports that most Western and Indian scholars calculate his death at 487 or 486 BCE, and he favors 420 to 350 BCE.²³ Siderits reports that many scholars now hold a death around 405 BCE.²⁴

The Christian sacred text is the Bible, made up of the Old and New Testaments.²⁵ Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches accept the same 27 New Testament books, but their Old Testaments differ: Catholic Bibles have 46 books, Protestant Bibles 39, and Orthodox Bibles add others.^2526272829 Christians hold that God inspired the human writers, who in Catholic and Orthodox teaching were true authors whose words were their own.²⁵²⁷³⁰ The early church writer Irenaeus names the four Gospel writers as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.³¹

Historians study how the books were written. Christine Hayes of Yale describes the Hebrew Bible, the core of the Old Testament, as an anthology written and edited over a long period.³² Dale Martin says Paul's letters are the oldest New Testament writings, the earliest probably from around 50 CE, and that many modern scholars regard the Gospels as anonymous.³³

Buddhist scriptures fill several large canons, or bounded collections whose contents differ by edition. The three main ones are the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism, the Chinese canon of East Asia, and the Tibetan canon.³⁴ There is no single Buddhist canon: few texts appear in all three, and no central authority has closed one canon for all Buddhists.³⁵³⁴ Theravada tradition holds that the Pali canon was first written down in Sri Lanka in the first century BCE.³⁵³⁶ Mahayana tradition holds that the Buddha himself taught the further scriptures called Mahayana sutras.³⁷³⁵

Historians accept that the texts began as oral tradition but differ on how much goes back to the Buddha.³⁸³⁴³⁹ Charles Prebish writes that virtually all scholars of Buddhism question whether the first council happened as described.³⁶ They date the first Mahayana sutras to about the start of the common era.³⁷³⁴

Christians teach that sin has broken humanity's friendship with God, and that its effects reach every person and the world itself.⁴⁰⁴¹ Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant teaching all read the story of Adam and Eve as the account of the first sin, the Fall.^4041442

The branches describe the results differently. Catholic teaching holds that all of Adam's descendants are born with original sin, apart from Mary, who was preserved from it. It is a state inherited rather than an act committed, and it leaves human nature wounded but not totally corrupted.⁴⁰ The Westminster Confession says the guilt of the first sin is counted to all the descendants of the first parents.⁴ An Orthodox Church in America answer holds that everyone bears the consequences of the first sin, above all death, but only Adam and Eve are guilty of it.⁴³

Buddhist teaching holds that life as usually lived is marked by dukkha, a word meaning suffering or unsatisfactoriness, caused by craving and ignorance.⁴⁴⁸ In the discourse that Theravada tradition counts as the Buddha's first sermon, the second noble truth names the cause as craving for sensual pleasure, for continued existence, and for nonexistence.²¹⁸⁴⁴ Craving keeps beings in samsara, the beginningless cycle of birth and death.⁴⁵

The schools stress different roots. In Tibetan teaching, the Dalai Lama holds that the ignorance at the root of the mental afflictions is the misconception that things truly exist on their own.⁴⁶ Jodo Shinshu, a Pure Land school devoted to Amida Buddha, stresses the grip of the ego. Its founder Shinran (1173 to 1263) wrote that passions obstruct my eyes and I cannot see the light⁴⁷.⁴⁸

Christians teach that salvation comes from God through Jesus, whose death and resurrection reconcile people to God and defeat death.⁴⁹⁵⁰ The branches differ on how a person receives it. Catholic teaching holds that justification, being made right with God, is given in baptism and establishes cooperation between God's grace and human freedom.⁵⁰ Lutheran teaching holds that people are freely justified for Christ's sake, through faith⁴², and Reformed teaching calls faith the alone instrument of justification⁴. Orthodox teaching describes the purpose of human life as theosis, Greek for deification, or sharing by grace in God's own life.⁵¹⁵²

Buddhist teachers hold that suffering can end, though the branches picture the goal and the road differently. The Pali discourses present the Noble Eightfold Path as a middle way between indulgence in pleasure and harsh self-denial.²¹ Theravada teachers group its eight factors into ethics, stability of mind, and wisdom, and describe four stages of awakening that end with a person who will never be reborn.⁸ Mahayana teaching holds up the bodhisattva, one who aims to become a Buddha for the sake of all beings.⁵³ Jodo Shinshu teaches receiving rather than striving, through Amida Buddha's Primal Vow, which promises awakening to all beings.⁴⁷⁵⁴

Christians teach that every person will face God's judgment and that the dead will rise in body to everlasting life or to condemnation.³⁴²⁴ The Nicene Creed ends with that hope: I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.³

The branches differ on what comes between. Catholic teaching holds that each soul is judged at death and either enters heaven, perfect life and love with God, at once or after purification in purgatory, or is condemned.⁵⁵⁵⁶⁵⁷ The Catechism calls hell a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed⁵⁸. The Westminster Confession holds that there are only two places for souls, heaven and hell.⁴ In Orthodox teaching, as Thomas Hopko presents it, God's presence will be paradise for those who love God and hell for those who hate him.⁵⁹

Buddhist teaching holds that until liberation, beings are reborn according to their karma, intentional action and its results. Good actions lead to rebirth as gods, demigods, or humans, and harmful ones as animals, ghosts, or hell beings, but no such life lasts forever.⁴⁵¹¹ The new being is neither the same as the old nor wholly different, but part of one continuing stream, and no soul passes from one life to the next.⁶⁰

The branches differ on the time between lives and on the goal. Classical Theravada teaching denies any in-between state, while Tibetan and East Asian teaching describe one, the bardo in Tibet, lasting up to forty-nine days in the standard account.⁴⁵⁶¹ In the Theravada, the final goal is to end rebirth.⁸ Mahayana teachers name Buddhahood as the goal, and Pure Land traditions look to rebirth in Amida's pure land.¹⁰⁴⁵

At the center is Jesus. Christians hold that he is the Son of God, who became human, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and rose from the dead on the third day.¹ The Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE taught that he is one person in two natures, divine and human.⁶² The Oriental Orthodox churches follow Cyril of Alexandria in speaking of one nature of the Word Incarnate, and official dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox has since produced agreements on this teaching.⁶³

Other key figures include Peter, one of his original disciples, and Paul, whose letters are part of the New Testament.²⁰⁶⁴ Catholic and Orthodox Christians also hold Mary, his mother, in special honor.⁶⁵⁶⁶

At the center is the Buddha, whose title means awakened.⁶⁷ Early texts present him as human, not divine, and later traditions describe him with increasingly divine qualities.¹⁴ In the Mahayana Lotus Sutra, he reveals that he originally reached awakening in the far distant past.⁶⁸ As the Mahayana developed, bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, became extremely important, and Pure Land Buddhists look to Amida Buddha.¹⁴⁶⁹⁷⁰

Other key figures include the emperor Ashoka, who in the third century BCE supported the Buddhist community, and Buddhaghosa, whose fifth-century CE Path of Purification is still a handbook of Theravada teaching.⁷¹⁷²³⁸ The line of Dalai Lamas is linked with the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.⁷³

Christians teach that a person should love God completely and love others as themselves. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus names these as the two greatest commandments and tells his followers to love their enemies.¹⁵ Reformed teaching, as in the Westminster Confession, holds that prayer belongs in private, in families, and in public worship, and Jesus taught his followers the Lord's Prayer.⁷⁴¹⁵

Catholic, Orthodox, Presbyterian, and Southern Baptist teaching all keep Sunday as the Lord's Day, because Jesus rose on that day.^75767477 Catholic and Orthodox worship centers on the Eucharist, the shared meal that Christians trace to Jesus's last supper.⁷⁸⁷⁹ The churches differ on the number of sacraments, rites that signify God's grace: Catholic teaching counts seven, Orthodox teaching usually seven, and the Westminster Confession two.⁸⁰⁷⁹⁷⁴

Buddhists teach a life of ethical restraint, meditation, and wisdom, guided by the five precepts: to abstain from taking life, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxicants.⁸¹ A person becomes a Buddhist by going for refuge to the Buddha, his teaching (dhamma), and the community (sangha).⁸⁸² Theravada teachers count loving-kindness toward all beings among the perfections a person develops, and Mahayana ethics adds the bodhisattva's care for all beings to the inherited precepts.⁸¹⁰⁸¹

Practice differs by branch. In the Pali discourses, serenity and discernment both play a part in realization, Soto Zen centers on seated meditation, and Pure Land Buddhists chant the name of Amida Buddha.²¹⁸³⁶⁹ Monks and nuns follow a detailed code of discipline, and the number of rules differs by branch.⁸⁴⁸⁵

These statements come from Catholic, Orthodox, and evangelical sources, not one church. Nostra Aetate (1965), a declaration of the Catholic Church, says that Buddhism, in its various forms, teaches a way to perfect liberation or supreme illumination.⁸⁶ The Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions.⁸⁶ It also proclaims Christ as the way, the truth, and the life, in whom people may find the fullness of religious life.⁸⁶

In reply to a reader's question, the Orthodox Church in America's website says that Orthodox Christianity would not equate Buddhism with the devil.⁸⁷ It says Buddhists are to be respected for their devotion to meditation and that their concern for others is a good thing.⁸⁷ It adds that this concern is incomplete without the conviction that every person bears the image of Jesus. It also says that the salvation that comes through Jesus is not found in Buddhism, and that the goal of Christianity is radically different from the goal of Buddhism.⁸⁷

The evangelical Cape Town Commitment (2010) calls people of other faiths neighbors, repents of failing to seek friendships with Buddhists and others, refuses to promote lies and caricatures about other faiths, and affirms the uniqueness of Christ.⁸⁸

Buddhism has no central authority, so this side draws on Tibetan and Theravada teachers, and East Asian Buddhist statements are not represented here.³⁴⁸ The Dalai Lama spoke in 2013 with Laurence Freeman of the World Community for Christian Meditation. He said that the religions have the same message of love, compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness, although their philosophical views differ.⁸⁹ When Freeman described how he relates to Jesus, as a universal teacher and a model for living, the Dalai Lama replied that this matched his own understanding of Jesus. He also agreed that one may be both Buddhist and Christian for a while but eventually gravitates to one or the other.⁸⁹

Nyanaponika Thera wrote of belief in God in general that a moral theist may expect a favorable rebirth, but that the belief mistakenly affirms permanence and stands in the way of final deliverance.¹¹ Bhikkhu Bodhi replied in 1995 to Pope John Paul II's book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, quoting its description of Buddhist teaching on salvation as almost exclusively negative.⁹⁰ What is negative for one, he wrote, may turn out to be another's supreme ideal, and to one who seeks nirvana a doctrine of everlasting union between God and the soul can seem founded upon wishful thinking and unacceptable articles of faith.⁹⁰