CATHOLIC FAITH VERSUS BUDDHISM
Booklet: Buddhism from a Catholic Perspective
The Catholic Truth Society has published a booklet in the CTS Explanations
Series called Buddhism from a Catholic Perspective by Paul Williams who was a
Buddhist who has converted to Roman Catholicism. Williams is a Professor of
Indian and Tibetan Philosophy and was once president of the UK Association for
Buddhist Studies.
The booklet quotes the Vatican II Document, Nostra Aetate, with approval which
states that the Roman Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy
in Buddhism. The Church is not confusing the word holy - holy means devoted to
the one true God - with the word good.
Yet incredibly the booklet stands by the Catholic teaching that only God matters
and that Buddhism is all about the mind and not about God (page 45). If God is
of utmost importance as the Church teaches, then how could there be any holiness
in a religion that stands for not giving a toss about him? To say the mind
matters and not God is to oppose God for Jesus said that whoever wasn’t for
Jesus was against him so naturally whoever is not for God is against God.
The booklet rejects the claim of some ecumenical Christians that Buddhists
believe in God but don’t know it. It says it is not tolerance or broadmindedness
to hold that somebody who is against your belief believes the same thing but
doesn’t realise that. Well said! It's patronising and insulting. The people who
say Buddhists believe are ignoring the fact that it is Buddhist teaching that
God doesn’t matter even if he exists though it thinks he doesn’t. Some Buddhists
say they know there is no God. Those ecumenical Christians who patronise
Buddhism are too bigoted to want to see the truth.
Page 47 tells us that God is not about what I need or want for God is God. It
quotes CS Lewis who says that we must find God because he finds us and that any
other system means that what you adore is an idol of God made to suit yourself.
The fact that those who believe in a God unlike the Catholic God, such as the
Mormon God who used to be a normal man and evolved into a God, claim that God
found them is ignored. You would need to be able to refute every variant
religion and belief in God that differs from your own to be able to claim with
honesty that God found you and revealed himself to you.
Page 49 says that as far back as primitive Buddhism and following the attitude
of the Buddha himself the Buddhist religion has mocked God and the idea of a
Creator. The candour is refreshing.
Page 51 makes the assertion that Buddhism doesn’t believe in reincarnation in
the sense that you die and return again in another body at all. You really cease
to exist at death and what is reborn is an entirely different person to the
person who died. Williams says that many Buddhist scholars say this and he
thinks this is the correct interpretation of Buddhism. He says Buddhism denies
life after death. Just like people say your body dies and can become the raw
material for body for somebody else so the Buddhist says your parts become
somebody else after you die.
Some may compare the Buddhist idea of rebirth to the thought that you have a
candle flame. You light another candle with it and blow the first one out. It
seems there is a link between the two flames but they are not the same flame.
And so it is with Buddhist idea of rebirth. Buddhism does not indulge our hope
that we might live on after death. The Buddhist sees that desire as being based
on the ego. It is selfish, in Buddhist thought, to want to live on forever or at
least after death. Is it right about this?
Why worry about your future lives if you have none? Why bother trying to get
enlightened to stop rebirth?
Some Buddhists might say that it is unselfish to worry for you are saving the
persons you are replaced with and that is why you should try to stop rebirth.
Looks like Buddhism is attempted murder!
It would be selfish to say prayers and do good for the sake of an afterlife. It
would be selfish to spend years writing the laws down that you are going to make
when you become Emperor of the world for that is not likely to happen or you
can't be sure enough it will happen. So it is with the alleged afterlife.
Williams observes that if I want to keep myself in existence and I can only do
that by going into Nirvana then I have to get enlightened in this life. This is
assuming that he is right to say that when you are enlightened and you die you
go into Nirvana or bliss that this is not suicide but a new kind of existence.
Many scholars believe that Nirvana or peace is really like ceasing to exist as
well. Williams argues that it means you lose your body and desires and lose all
that makes you a person except the awareness of peace. That is all that is left.
"You" still exist but you aren’t a person in the normal sense any more. The
correct Buddhist view is that your experience continues but you are not under
the illusion that you are a person.
The starting point of Catholicism is that we are all to hate sin. We are to hate
our own sins and the sins we see others commit. But the problem with hate is, "I
want to hurt you because I think you are offending and hurting and threatening
me". Hate is to imagine that someone or something is the cause of your pain and
sense of danger and one must try to get it forcibly stopped with condemnation
and punishment. My desire to destroy the person or thing or sin that annoys me
is based on a mistake! I am the way I am made is the cause of the sadness and
upset and not the sins or the sinners. Buddhism does not believe in hating sin
for that is promoting an illusion and a mistake. We need to be enlightened from
it. You make your hate. It is you torturing yourself over somebody else's
actions or perceived actions. If you do that, you blame them for your pain and
you only fuel the hate.
If you do not get upset when the enemy insults and laughs at you, the other
person will suffer the pain of knowing he or she has no power over you. A
manipulator will feel he has learned something from your response. He will see
that his schemes will not work. The Buddhist will not get upset when abused and
laughed at for he knows all this. The Christian is to put God first so his
concern is not that knowledge but pleasing God. He only keeps calm because he
thinks God commands it and not just because it is wise. The enemy then has power
over you in this sense, you resist the hurt for the wrong reason. You do not
resist it because you won't let the enemy have power. If your devotion to God
vanishes then you are exposed to the attacks of the enemy.
Catholic mysticism says that thinking and reasoning only take you so far. To get
the rest of the way, you need God to reach down to you and give you mystical and
supernatural experiences. But these experiences do nothing when your body and
mind is sick. You still need the doctor. Having a relationship with God is
supposed to matter more than any doctor. That is a really unrealistic and insane
idea.
Conclusion
Catholic politeness about Buddhism is hypocritical. Buddhism repudiates
everything Catholicism holds sacred. There is no common ground. And that for me
is not a complaint against Buddhism but a compliment. The Buddhist who says he
has nothing against Catholicism and who may say it is a deep and beautiful
religion is just being a sweet-talker. Catholic tolerance of the Buddhist means
it cannot be seen as much of a deep and beautiful religion but as a spiritual
plague to put up with. Catholic morality is cosmetic peace and virtue - it's only
surface deep.