limbo’s out
April 22, 2007 by thinking girl
so, apparently, the Pope has decided that limbo is just a bunch of crazy talk. He’s revising the catholic church’s position on limbo - and abortion is partly to blame. The thought of all those little souls not going to heaven to be with Jesus was just too much for old Benedict. Original sin be damned! Those innocent little fetuses are apparently now going straight to heaven - but of course we all know where their super-slutty moms are going, don’t we?
Anyway, I laughed out loud when I read about this. Seriously, I was basically in a fit of the kind of laughter where you can’t talk or breathe and don’t make any sounds but the occasional snortle and wheeze. I’m not at all even a little bit catholic, and never was. In fact, I’m what you’d call a non-believer - agnostic with atheistic leanings. But I have to admit, the idea of limbo always stuck in my craw. Just struck me as completely ridiculous, and an obvious (to me) piece of evidence for the made-up nature of organized religion. Now, I don’t believe in heaven or hell either, but limbo - now that just seemed really made up to me.
And it turns out, I was right! Now even the freakin’ POPE is saying that limbo isn’t really all that important!
So, next question: since every human is supposedly born in a state of original sin, and limbo was supposed to be a way for babies who hadn’t been baptized (and thus cleared from the stain of original sin) to not go to hell, and now there’s no limbo (if that’s indeed what we can take from the Pope’s decree), then doesn’t that mean that original sin is kind of a load of bull as well? I’m gonna go with YES.
“If there’s no limbo and we’re not going to revert to St. Augustine’s teaching that unbaptized infants go to hell, we’re left with only one option, namely, that everyone is born in the state of grace,” said the Rev. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame.
So, just wanted to say three cheers for recognizing the idiocy of limbo! What do y’all think?
Wait I don’t get it. If there’s original sin, and infants and unborn fetuses don’t go to limbo anymore, do they go to hell or not? If you follow the “logic” behind original sin, I don’t know how you can suddenly just say they’re all going to heaven. It just doesn’t seem to add up. I mean, isn’t the basic premise behind original sin that if you don’t embrace god, you can’t get into heaven? This is an argument that is destined to be convoluted by all sorts of theological jargon and technicalities from all sides, and considering the depths of the various realms of philosophy and spirituality that it delves into, you can be sure that there is no simple answer to account for everything that has been written about it or the contradictions that occur from one body of scripture to the next. Wait, never mind I found one. It’s ‘cause it’s all bullshit. That was easy.
I have to say though, I am a bit sad to hear there’s no limbo, because the idea always sounded kind of cool to me. I always used to tell myself that if I’m completely wrong and there actually is a God, I’d ask him to send me to limbo instead of heaven or hell. I’m not sure what the bible says, but I always pictured being in limbo like constantly being inside one of those wormhole things from Stargate. Like a perpetual intergalactic rollercoaster filled with a bunch of babies whizzing past you at all times. Sounds pretty kickass to me. Ask yourself, Benedict, do you really want to get rid of this?
On a serious note though, it may seem like this will, unfortunately, add more weight (for believers) to the anti-choice movement, but I think it may actually do some good for the pro-choicers in an indirect way. Think about it: if a tenet of Catholicism that has existed for hundreds of years can suddenly be overturned at the whim of one gargoyle-looking old man because it makes no sense, what’s to stop the church from abandoning other random shit that makes no sense in the future? Like its stance on gay marriage, its stance on pre-marital sex…um, creationism, that crap about the flood, people walking on water and shit, talking snakes, pillars of salt…um…pretty much everything else…
I would say this is a good sign. Except my hopes for a Stargate wormhole in the afterlife are out, so that sucks.
I’m going to quote Eddie Izzard on this one:
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I did an original sin. I poked a badger with a spoon.”
I’m pretty much with you on the agnostic sort of feelings. Although I think Buddhism is interesting. Oh and we have a ‘pit preacher’ at my college…and I’ve been told I’m going to Hell. But hey, I’ll be in good company. All the awesome people go there.
Hm… I thought limbo was nixed last fall, like October? I decidedly remember talking it over with a few ex-Catholics in a course back then. I was staggered by the timing, because that same week (whenever it was) there’d been a couple of trucks driving around Center City with bloodied aborted fetus photographs plastered all over the side.
Well, perhaps it just went up for consideration then, not unlike (again) the federal abortion ban case began in 2003 and sneakily pushed through while we were all inundated with Virginia Tech reportage.
Anyway, I peeped at the site to see what language was used to describe the reversal of this decision… because when Mormon church leaders need to make a decree or decide a punishment for their erring youth, the word is that they ask God and see how he feels about it right then. The limbo decision all sounds very legal: the Pope “approved” a report on “serious grounds” that limbo wasn’t really a sin. Heh.
I see a discussion on limbo about as enlightening or useful as a discussion on whether Superman or Mighty Mouse would win in a fight. There’s a reason religion doesn’t make sense.
One could argue about all sorts of illogical things in religion. My favorite is the notion of the ’sacrifice’ of Jesus. Would YOU consider it a sacrifice if someone told you that you would die if you knew in advance that you’d be resurrected only three days afterwards, and then live for eternity as the ruler of the universe? Doesn’t sound like much of a sacrifice to me. A real sacrifice would be, you die, and you’re dead, and you don’t come back. Period.
Kyassett - well, the rules of logic don’t really apply to religion anyways, but you’re absolutely right - IF original sin is actually correct, and we are ALL born with the stain of Eve and Adam (but, of course, mostly EVE)’s sin of eating that deliciously forbidden piece of fucking fruit, AND we need to accept Jesus as our personal saviour in order to go to heaven when we die, AND we die before we do that, THEN we go to hell. logically.
See, that’s the problem: nobody likes the idea of little babies burning in hell, babies who logically haven’t had the opportunity to actually DO anything “wrong” or sinful, who haven’t had the opportunity to accept Jesus as their personal saviour. So then they decide to baptize babies in order to wash away their original sin (which is a teaching they need in order to cling to the whole idea that if we don’t love Jesus we’ll go to hell even if we’re really really good and don’t ever do anything wrong or bad or mean or sinful not even once ever) - but of course, not all sweet little innocent babies get to be baptized before they die (particularly those little angelic original sinners whose mommies viciously murder them in the womb so they can continue to be irresponsible party-going tramps). So they needed something else to save the babies from hell, and so took up the idea of limbo (which is not in the bible at all, not even once, I kinda think it was invented by Dante in the Divine Comedy). but then again, catholics don’t even really use the bible, just the catechism. And catholics are really the only christians who believe in limbo, the rest of them recognize its ridiculousity, although most do accept the concept of original sin.
See, but most protestants believe that Jesus was sent to the world to become man and die on the cross to absorb original sin, so the rest of us would be absolved of that. So then, all we must do is believe in Jesus and we can go to heaven, and all the original sin and the other actual sins we commit during our lives can be forgiven. Otherwise…. straight to hell. (but then, some christians believe that we have to be forgiven for every sin we commit or we’ll lose our salvation, meaning we go to hell if we die before being forgiven [catholics and others feel a priest must be an intermediary to god and hear confession and give out penance and forgiveness, while protestants feel a person can develop a personal relationship with god and do the confessing through prayer and be automatically forgiven] and others think you never lose your salvation once you believe in Jesus.)
And that is all I know about original sin. Phew!
riotgrrrl - ah, hell. whatever. don’t sweat it.
Yeah, buddhism is interesting. But, no god there, so it’s all good for me.
tanglethis - oh, yeah, they’ve been talking about this for a long while now. The declaration was just published on the 20th of April, however.
Yeah, I know - “serious grounds” - like what, we really really don’t like the whole original sin/babies going to hell deal? We really really don’t even like the idea of limbo after all, and want to believe they can go to heaven instead, be with Jesus? Cauze we really really think they should and we want to be with them in heaven one day? ridiculous.
DBB - yep, good point. To me, just all of it makes no logical sense, not even a little. just silliness. And I love the whole “but that’s the point of faith, to believe in what doesn’t make sense logically”!! LOVE IT.
Silly, everyone knows evil babies go straight to H-E- double-hockey-sticks. You can just see the evil in their big round eyes.
Anyways, think about how pleasurable it is to sink your nose into a soft, fragrant head of downy baby hair. We all know pleasure is evil.
Actually I’ll be curious to know what the doctrinal answer will be on the question of unbaptized babies.
I can’t remember now, but there’s an answer to the problem: “Did all pagans (who hadn’t yet heard of Jesus) go do hell?” I imagine the answer could be the same.
For the first entire paragraph of this post, I thought you were referring to the dance.
*hangs head in shame*
*shimmies under a broomstick*
Red Jenny - oh, that’s the doctrine of “limbo of the fathers” - the guys who led a good life (because obviously, women couldn’t possibly have done this, so they’re automatically excluded by sexist language) before Jesus came along got to go to limbo. cause it wouldn’t be fair to send them to hell. nope. not fair at all. or something.
RG - thanks for my laugh of the day!!!!!
My brother-in-law and I were talking about the “willing suspension of disbelief” the other day. When people read Superman, they accept the fact that he can fly, turn the world around, and is only hurt by kryptonite. But what they absolutely will not accept is how the other comic book characters can’t figure out that Clark Kent is Superman. He just puts on glasses for pete’s sake!
I’m getting the same feeling about limbo. Yeah, there’s this arbitrarily defined afterlife destiny for all of us as dictated by God and his kid Jesus, but what we really have a problem with is this in-between space of limbo.
RG - very good analogy, I think. willing suspension of disbelief - yeah! Limbo’s just taking that a bit toooooo far… it’s kinda like pureland buddhism in a way. Ever read up on that? it’s a magical place, where the trees are all covered in jewels and everything is perfectly attuned to your every whim and desire, and all you have to do to get there is chant the name of this particular boddhisatva at the exact moment of your death! And even better, once you reach pureland, the next stop on the reincarnation train is nirvana, so you’re doubly lucky!
I’ve been thinking about this whole thing since I read the news… if they decide that the original sin is gone, and that the little aborted fetuses go up to heaven…
Hrm…
Doesn’t that sort of mean that you’re doing the fetus a favor if you abort it? I mean, you’re ensuring that it makes it to heaven by not giving it a chance to sin, and end up in Hell.
In fact, I’m going to take this massive illogic a step further: I submit that women who get abortions are actually even more deserving of heaven than women who don’t.
A woman gets an abortion, ensuring her fetus goes to heaven, but sinning in the process, because abortion is a dirty, dirty sin. Thus, she should go to hell. But, that means that she was making the ultimate sacrifice for her unborn child- she was giving it the best possible future by making sure it went to heaven, at the greatest possible cost, her enternal soul.
Who deserves heaven more than someone who would make the greatest sacrifice that it’s possible to make, while ensuring that her baby has the greatest possible future?
Okay, maybe that’s just me being irreverent.
Roy - I like the way your twisted little mind works! good work, my friend!
I’m not sure that this is actually such a bad thing. I think that now that we have an eastern European as pope after mazillions of years of an Italian one, we’re kinda seeing the differences between the different ways the Catholic faith can be - literally - translated.
I think he may actually be giving the Catholic a’ok to abortion on this one - stay with me for a sec. If the soulz er whatever aren’t going to hell, then nobody’s to blame for killing them. Why ban a victimless, blameless ‘crime’ against not-yet-humanity?
I think this is the Church catching up linguistically to the West’s pro-woman abortion laws. Let’s not knock it til we see how the non-Donohue&Co Catholics interpret it, is my 2 cents.
[i.e., I don't think that Roy's necessarily being irreverent - I think he's right on the money. Who's in hell in Dante's inferno? The people who *pretended* to follow God's Lawand were hypocrites. The innocent 'babies' or pre-Jesus pagans, well, no, they're in limbo, waiting for heaven since there was no heaven through The Son during their time. Rich man...eye of needle...yeah, Bush & Cheney aren't going to Heaven(or whatev). Laura and the Jennas may well, on the other hand - they're just the innocent bystanders in the family. (I expect to see Barbara there with Bush Sr., though, to be honest)]
Also: compare an Italian pope’s Latin language impact on Anglo-Saxon/Romantic-language Christianity (it’s been like a decentralized second Martin Luther all over again in America, has it not?)
versus: what the non-Romantic-language speaking half of Europe has gone through versus the left-hand “Western” (Anglo-Romantic) part of Europe?
It’s like, say, the sound and the fury (not the book, just the title) - Pope John Paul 457 has been talking in our ear for almost literally a century. Now, New Pope Benedict (to us here in the US, we can’t help but think of Benedict Arnold - and perhaps we should if we make Teh Church = America for this analogy) is “talking in our other ear”…there’s gonna be some dis/chord for a while in our cultural ‘head’ while we get the two, er, hemispheres of thought worked out. Eventually, though, I think we’ll get it all sorted.
[I'm kinda working on a whole rambling theory about how the human brain *is* the trinity and the eyes and hemispheres *are* the yin/yang lookin' in at itself. "Global integration" (or, again, whatever) is like getting our color spectrum back in balance I think, and we're all Narcissus. Tv, by the way, is the "water"/mirror, and the fact that my eye doctor told me that my eyes are re-sphericalizing since I sleep in my contacts is a big part of this theory...I'd forgotten for a while there to notice that I'm going to lose my hearing in the next ten years according to my family's genes. "Don't read in the dark" and "don't sit close to the tv" *are* good advice - sorry mom! - and the advent of flatscreen tvs and laptops really has brought America to the brink of insanity in terms of our "visual awareness" of the world.
see: me sick in bed with crohn's (or, I'll posit, Cronus's - tricked-to-death Daddy of Zeus) disease *and* stockholm syndrome, for a year. probably would've been a lot shorter had i not been an emotional Anne Freaking Frank the whole time, and had my swiss-american boyfriend not needed a "kitten" to m'other to suit *his* twisted needs.]
to continue mixing n matching mythologies, me-as-Anne Frank is the same thing as color tv meets the end of the twentieth century. apparently i’m not ’smart’, i’m a bipolar dyslexic chick who can read ok if her words are glowing at her (and who would do well to eat better, sleep and exercise if she wants to keep her cronus’s disease in order.
the 90s brought us teens worshipping manic/panic hair *color* and blasting marilyn/manson into their ears. everything about mansonII that made him ’scary’ was - i think - the Uncanny Valley…only I watched way too many horror movies as a kid and don’t understand anymore what I’m supposed to be scared of (I’m getting a better handle on it now that I’m literally this much smaller than Anne Frank’s diary-editing Dad in this scenario).
If she had lived, there would have been a lot more sex-thoughts in her diary. And we might not associate the Madonna version of Job (Elie Weisel, fer sure - brilliant, suffered, has managed to make a living of analyzing his the world through that ‘lens’ in his brain) with the Virgin Queen half of the *Elizabethan* Renaissance.
And the printingpress2.0 wouldn’t be causing such a hemispherical ‘rift.’ Mind The Gap (literally - ‘mind it’ by forgetting that it’s a clothing brand, and think of it as the space you shouldn’t step into lest the train run you over)! Left brain - western hemisphere looking eastward (inward) at its reptile brain. Right brain - eastern ‘orthodox’ Abrahamic religions looking outward at the ’superego’ over here, masturbating on a couch to the pretty moving pictures. Ego - Jung understanding that Archtypes like the ‘apple’ of knowledge aren’t literal apples, and Freud not being too specific about which Greek characters he uses to name his theories (see: Electra = Oedipus, only he gouged out his eyes and became king while she went nuts with guilt. also see: Bush Jr. in a couple years after it’s all had time to sink in, once he’s on extended summer vacation at the ranch and doesn’t have to think of election cycles as ’school years.’ finally - also see Who’z In Control of Teh Wombz as the be-all-end-all in What Makes Ppl Ppl in late 20th c. America)
k, make that bipolar, manic-post-anesthetic fog from surgery, and reallyreally philosophical angry feminist.
and the Reicht Wing the literal fascist party, and Rush Limbaugh as the fat jester who could get away with making up the word “feminazi” when we were all just *listening* to him…versus Ann Coulter, the Barbie to Dick Cheney’s He-Man (and the she-ra fan who was fascinated by the doll whose head could actually spin and make her two-faced being, still, me-as Anne Frank).
I got ‘dizzy’ from 2001-2007, except my eyes have their eye-aids and I had to take it out on my guts. Scarred’s fear-as-death post is sort of what got me into this train of thought (still!), and how me-looking-backwards on 9/11 sees the Tower of Babel. At the time, though, it was just a Big Bang, y’know? And I’ve spent this time - again with the literally - *living* in the space between when my then-boyfriend told me via aim that manhattan was flat and the five seconds later than i turned (counterclockwise, perhaps not surprisingly) around to turn on the tv and saw that there was still a manhattan, just not a wtc…which by now we’ve all gotten used to not seeing in the background. For a while there, it looked just plain insensitive when a broadcaster would let a shot of America’s phallus sneak into the frame, didn’t it? Well, now the Dick is numb and fading and the memory doesn’t hurt Bush so much - the Shrub grows up! (it’s all xtianity’s assimilation of maiden-mother-crone, i think - with father as mother, id as crone and superego as maiden. let’s say, demeter, hades, persephone. sperm = “pomegranate” seeds).
Well I, for one, would like to hear a few more thoughts on how badass limbo would be.
What is interesting to me [and also frustrating] is the literalism and overwhelming modernism that guides the logic here. While I’m sure Ratzinger [aka Benedict], being the watchdog of the faith still, is utilizing the long tradition of theology, I can’t helpl but see the influence of modernity’s evangelical C/christianity. Whatever happened to nurting the divine presence in all of us? Perhaps we’re all in limbo here? If so, this limbo is severely and radically different than the religious limbo that the institution of the church discusses and perpetuates!
Just some thoughts…
Yeah limbos all based on the idea of original sin. Something that doesn’t exist in the other abrahamic faiths. Original sin is basicly a necessity for the idea of vicarious atonement of christ which is the heart of christianity. Intresting though, that the symbolism of having a white coffin for a baby dying seems to contradict the notion of origninal sin. It all fits in i suppose with the point made by TG that nobody, not even the biggest religious zelot can stomach the idea of eternal damnation of babies lol.
TG you said this:
“Yeah, buddhism is interesting. But, no god there, so it’s all good for me.”
This just brought to mind an essay i wrote for relgious studies a couple of years back, which i thought might be intresting, i argue that buddhism isnt so at odds with monotheism, forgive me for posting it here, just thought it might be of intrest.
Is Buddhism a religion without God?
Buddhism is often seen in a paradoxical light, on one hand it is often postulated that it is an atheistic religion, which has based on the teachings of the Buddha in the Pali Canon. But on the other hand these same sources include within its framework an idea of many deities occupying varying realms within samsara.
In the west for people who have wanted to shed its Christian theistic heritage but have had a sense of dissatisfaction with the materialistic based ideologies that have replaced Christian theism they have avidly welcomed the idea that one can satisfies ones spiritual self without having to accept the doctrines that they have rendered into the dustbin. Buddhism has fit this bill.
Whilst it is largely accepted that Buddhism is indeed an atheistic religion put most forcibly by Von Glasenop in his book ‘Buddhism – a non theistic religion’ there have been others who have argued otherwise, and noted within Buddhism doctrines such as the Unbegotten Nirvana parallels between certain strands of theistic thought. It is therefore the task of this essay to assess the merits of these claims and once this has been commenced will be able to assess whether Buddhism is indeed a religion without a God. In the process of this discussion it will be necessary to give a definition of basic monotheism, the differences of Buddhism with theism, Buddhist parallels with theistic doctrines, and then there will commence a discussion of the merits of theism and Buddhism in which the question will be answered.
Before entering into this discussion it should be noted that in Buddhism and in monotheistic traditions there are widely varying conceptions of the understanding of their philosophical traditions and therefore the reader should not be mislead into thinking that any representations offered here of such traditions are in any way definitive. I have chosen to focus on comparing and contrasting Buddhism with monotheistic teachings since the question seems to indicate that it is monotheist ideas of God we are discussing when it asks ‘is Buddhism a religion without God’. There will be mentioned, in the course of this discussion, upanishadic teachings which are set within the context of polytheistic Hinduism, however, it is well known that these teachings are in fact henotheist, i.e. that the highest truth is that there is but One God.
In the three main monotheistic traditions there is an idea of creation of the universerse by a single Higher Power. This Deity and Its workings is known primarily through the vehicle of revelation to seekers known as Prophets, and the words of these prophets are recorded in scripture which is considered to be the basis for the adherent of the religion to understand the Deity. Common attributes such as omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience are attributed to this Deity in all the monotheistic traditions. Emphised especially in the monotheistic traditions is the idea of a single, supreme deity for example the Quran states in Surah Ikhlas “Say He: Allah is One, and Only”[1]. This Deity has a purpose for the universe and in particular humanity who are receptive and can vaguely perceive this Deity, or at the very least can learn of this Deity through the process of hearing revelation. It is taught in the monotheistic traditions that there is a life after death and whilst they differ slightly on the details, all are agreed that adherence to the Will of this Creator or lack of adherence to the Will of the Creator will determine the nature of whether ones afterlife will be pleasurable and painful. There is no idea of reincarnation unlike the eastern religions and once one has departed from this life they will abide eternally in the realm that will be a reward or punishment for their good acts and faith, or their wrongdoing and lack of faith. Once merits are determined on whether one has faith in the Deity and if one follows faithfully the moral code that is the revealed Will of the Deity in their holy scriptures. Except perhaps in Christianity where there is an idea of the Deity personified and thus the nature of the Deity can be seen in human term, monotheistic traditions tend to emphise an ineffable nature of the Deity that the Deity is beyond the grasping of any human conceptualisations. However equally also, there are strands within the monotheistic traditions such as the mystical strands that teach that the Deity can be experienced in this life, and ultimately the believer can unite with the Deity. The universe in monotheistic traditions is dependant on the deity sustaining it, the Deity is the first cause however, the Deity itself is not caused, and it is unbegotten.
The best way to proceed into a discussion of the differences between what the Buddha taught and theistic ideas is to look at the contrast between Buddha’s teachings and Upanishadic teachings. This is because the teachings that became collected in the Upanishads reflects the theistic tendencies that was circulating in the context of the evolving Buddhist doctrines and that the upanishadic teachings would be the closest to understanding the position of theism that the Buddha was aware of and critiqued. Buddhist teaching on the soul contrasts rather differently with the theistic upanishadic school of thought in Hinduism. They taught that each person had a permanent soul that existed from birth to rebirth, and that this self, the atman, was infact a reflection of the Brahman, the universal soul, i.e. God. However, in contrast to this teaching of a permanent soul, the Buddha taught that there was no atman, what exists is but an illusion, a non-self, anatman. Individuals, according to this teaching, are merely a collection of dharmas, which create the illusion of an individual. These dharmas work together and fluctuate and change and this is the process that leads to rebirth, but there is no permanent self which transfers from one birth to another. The upanishadic teaching was that one could gain liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth by discovering ones true nature that the Brahman and atman are one through meditative practices. The Buddha however taught that whilst there is the deity the Brahman, It too occupies samsara and is subject to impermanence. Brahman is therefore subject to the laws of creation and is not therefore a creator, who stands above the laws of creation without limits. According to the Buddha, as reported through the Pali Canon, samsara is eternal, and whilst it operates on laws of causality it does not have a First Cause like monotheists would argue was God. If faced with the idea that the universe is subject to causality, and that this sprung from a first cause a typical Buddhist response would take this logic further by posing the question, ‘what caused the Creator?’ Another factor a Buddhist would raise, is that given so many people argued that different deities were the supreme Creator (which happens in Hinduism) to Buddhist philosophers proved that all they were offering was idle speculations since no agreed truth had been arrived at[2]. It seems from this, that Buddhism does not agree with monotheistic ideas. However, an analysis of the Buddhist doctrine of nirvana seems to raise ideas that parallel monotheistic teachings of certain attributes of a supreme Deity. It is now appropriate to relay these parallels for this discussion.
Nirvana is not merely a psychological state it is in fact an independent realm[3]. It is something that is reached by a practioner by attaining arhatness, or buddahood not something that is produced by the path.[4] Nirvana is without source, i.e. it isuncaused, it is permanent. It is incomparable to all things in material existence, thus it is not material. Existing in the ultimate sense it is non-existent[5]. This bears similarity to the kabbalistic concept of the first sefriot keter, which is known as ayin nothingness, since it has more than any being in the world and thus cannot have individuality or thingness[6] since being a thing would delineate limits on its nature to distinguish it from other things, thus it is Nothing. As the Nahj al-Balaghah, an important Shia Islamic text states:
“It cannot be said that He came into being after He had not been in existence because in that case the attributes of the created things would be assigned to Him and there would remain no difference between them and Him, and He would have no distinction over them.”[7]
The Buddha has been attributed with the power of omniensce, though he does not exercise it all the time, it is a power he has access to. This must be inextricably linked with his reaching nirvana, and, it could therefore be postulated, that this attribute is linked to Nirvana, which has parallels with monotheistic teachings of an omnienscent deity.
In Theravada Buddhism, it appears that nirvana is an independent realm entirely separate from samsara, a dualistic sense of the nature of things. However, there must be some link between these realms otherwise there would be no way for someone in samsara to gain release into nirvana. It appears that the Mahayana’s view of nirvana and samsara is more explicitly true to this logic. They teach that “reality is non dual”[8] and that nirvana is a state of supreme Mind which “includes in itself all states of being of the phenomenal world and the transcendental world”[9]. Thus it can be said that samsara and nirvana are One and that it comes down to ones perception of existence as to what realm one believes oneself to be in. In samsara ones mind is impure and can see only multiplicity but by looking beyond multiplicity in nature, one can perceive the essence of the ultimate truth, which is ineffable, and beyond the attributes of the things we perceive with our ordinary eyes[10]. This is similar to the highest truth of Allah being beyond the attributes of this world, and thus having no attributes. In Islam there is the famous 99 attributes of Allah, which are qualities that one uses as analogies to God, not as things in and of themselves but as starting points to be transcended. The highest truth of Allah is God beyond attribution. “There is nothing like unto Him” - Surah al Ikhlas. This idea of Ultimate Truth being One parallels mystical strands of the monotheistic religions.
Buddhists describe Nirvana as a realm, which is permanent. It is unbegotton. This idea of eternalness and unbegotteness and not subject to causality parallels monotheistic teaching of the nature of God who is eternal, Uncaused, Unbegotten, the Quran states this idea succinctly when it states in Surah Ikhlas “He begets not nor is He begotten” It seems clear that certainly in the aspects of the impersonal non anthropomorphic aspects of monotheism there are striking parallels with Buddhist teaching on Nirvana.
Now we proceed to a brief discussion of the contrasting merits. On one hand we have the stern rejection of the idea of a supreme creator. Samsara is eternal, the logic of causality means that there can be no first cause, if a first cause is postulated it begs the question what caused that cause. So on that alone the idea of a creation and its Creator, that is such an integral part of monotheism is rejected. However, the previous paragraph has shown parallels between other aspects of Buddhist teachings of nirvana and certain aspects of various strands of monotheism. Examples of these are the idea of nirvana being permanent, unbegotten, beyond human conceptual grasping, etc, which parallel monotheistic teachings of a supreme Deity. Also, the Mahayana idea of samsara and nirvana being One Realty, but samsara being a false perception of that reality is very similar to mystical strands of monotheist teachings of all is contained in One God. If nirvana and samsara are in reality One then it could be said that nirvana is omnipresent which is another defining feature of a monotheist supreme Deity. Whilst it seems that the Theravada school with the oldest Buddhist scriptures the pali canon seems to assert that reality is dual the Mahayana have developed the logic of Buddhist doctrines so it is thus justified to state that this is the intended teaching of the Buddha, since Mahayana teachings are a development of the logic that the Buddha laid down. The fact that the Buddha has access to omniensence seems to be linked to his attaining Nirvana is somewhat similar to a seerer gaining prophetic insight by union with the Divine. Thus, it seems that Nirvana and the Divine both possess the attribute of omniscience.
In conclusion, it seems reasonable to sum up by saying that the only differing point between Buddhism and monotheism is on the attribute of Creation, which seems to be denied. However despite this there are many teachings that parallel the idea of Deity in the monotheistic religions when it comes to the subject of the supreme state and realm, nirvana. So, despite appearances of otherwise due to the teaching on creatorship, it actually seems justified in stating that Buddhism is not a religion without a God, it does in fact have a God but that this God is called Nirvana. However, this conception of God is not exactly the same as the monotheist religions, which has a doctrine of the creative aspect of God. But, if one looks deeper and follows the logic that God ultimately transcends all conceptualisations derived from this world of multiplicity, and that God is eternal, and one parallels this with the teaching that samsara and Nirvana are One, and that Nirvana is eternal, this may be a way of even reconciling that difference with the creation aspect of the deity. Since the creator aspect of the deity only has relevance when looked at from a samsaric vantage point, from an enlightened point of view there is nothing but the Deity.
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[1] Multiligual Quran, Surah 112, http://al-islam.org/quran/
[2] Von Glasenapp H, Buddhism – A Non Thiestic Religion, London : George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1970. p 37
[3] Ward, Keith, Images of eternity : concepts of God in five religious traditions, Oxford, Oneworld, 1993. p 60
[4] Ibid p61
[5] Ibid p61
[6] Chanan Matt, Zohar The Book Of Enlightenment, Paulist Press 1983 p34
[7] Nahj al- Balagha, sermon 186, http://www.al-islam.org/nahj/186.htm
[8] Ward, Keith, Images of eternity : concepts of God in five religious traditions, Oxford, Oneworld, 1993. p64
[9] Ibid p64
[10] Ibid p65
Bibliography
Multiligual Quran, http://al-islam.org/quran/
Von Glasenapp H, Buddhism – A Non Thiestic Religion, London : George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1970
Ward, Keith, Images of eternity : concepts of God in five religious traditions, Oxford, Oneworld, 1993.
Chanan Matt, Zohar The Book Of Enlightenment, Paulist Press 1983
Nahj al- Balagha, http://www.al-islam.org/nahj