Buddhism & Christianity: Sin, Salvation, Overlap

Let’s move on to two other questions:

For Buddhism and Christianity:

1. Are humans fundamentally good?
2. What goes wrong?

For Christianity, as we know, humans are created in God’s image, enlivened by the Spirit of God. Life in Eden marks the original plan for human beings. Unity between humanity and God and balance in creation was the reality in the beginning. But with Adam and Eve’s fateful decisions, a shift occurs. Christians have deemed it the Fall.

A fall into what? Into the reality of sin. From the bite of the bitter fruit thereafter, sin marks human life.

There are differences of opinion on how deep the effect of Adam and Eve’s sin goes. The line of Augustine, which crosses the Catholic-Protestant divide into Luther, and Calvin, the Augustine line says sin runs very deep, arguing that the guilt for the original sin of Adam and Eve is passed on to every human born thereafter. Even infants carry the guilt of original sin and due to the consequence of judgment and punishment sin carries.

The line of the Cappadocian fathers in the Eastern church have a more positive view of things, arguing that humans don’t inherit Adam and Eve’s guilt for sin, but do inherit their propensity to choose sin. I use the difference between inherit cancer at birth versus inherited a cancer gene, meaning you have a predisposition to develop cancer.  

So, what does this mean? Does Christianity say we are good by nature? The Augustine line is a clear no, we are sinful by nature. The Cappadocian fathers would say, deep down, in theory, yes we carry the image of Good in us, but in practice, no because of sin. Though the image of God is still real within each of us, the propensity to sin thanks to Adam is real as well. If we’re good by nature, we’re also prone to sin by nature.

What about Buddhism? Are we good by nature according to the Buddhist teaching?

The Buddhist answer resembles the Eastern Orthodox answer though the language is very different that yes, in theory we’re good, but in practice, we are tainted by sin.

Like Christianity, there are two lines of thinking that slightly vary. The first line is the Theravada line. Mainstream, traditional Buddhism “believes that ordinary beings in the cycle of rebirth are already born in a state of delusion and thirst, i.e., with quasi-‘sinful’ inclination.” However, for humans, there the potential to, through the Buddha’s help, improve on your state and be reborn into a better life.

The second line is the Mahayana line. Mahayana develops a more positive view of humanity. Not only is there potential to improve on your state, the potential to become an enlightened being in this life is there within humans. Mahayana comes to develop an even more positive view of things. A school of Mahayana comes to teach that not only is the potential for enlightenment, aka Buddhahood, within us, Buddhahood is already a reality within us. It is latent, but it is real. Each of us possess what is called Buddha-Nature. Our true selves are enlightened. We simply need to actualize our true selves.

This brings up something I mentioned last week. True Self. Zen Buddhism which is a later form of Buddhism that develops in China around 600 CE. Zen develops a notion of True Self, which is another name for Dharmakaya. Remember we talked about how Dharmakaya, body of truth Buddha, is as close to the Christian God that Buddhism gets. Well, True Self is akin to God. As for us, we are born as carrier of that true self within us. As we live our lives, that true self becomes sullied and covered with dirt and we live as human selves and often in a selfish way. In the process, we distance ourselves from who we truly are. We distance ourselves from the True Self within us.  The idea of Zen practice is to get actualize True Self, which is our original nature.

So again, Buddhism runs the gamut. Theravada says there’s potential in us to improve our state in the next life and even eventually become a Buddha in lives to come. Mahayana in its most developed form says, we each are born with Buddha-nature waiting to be actualized so we become Buddhas in actuality, not in just theory.

That brings us to the question, what’s wrong with us? What’s the problem? Why don’t we realize our potential and actualize what is latent within us?

Christianity says sin, which means separation from God. Buddhism asserts something similar, albeit in different language. Remember the 2^nd noble truth - we suffer because we grasp onto and crave things that in the end are impermanent and will never satisfy. Tied to our grasping and craving is our incorrect view of the world. We see our selves first and foremost and everything else as secondary. This kind of ignorance and arrogance along with our built in grasping onto and craving after things, whether it be wealth, sex, fame, etc., taken together looks like the Christian notion of sin. We grasp and grovel for worldly things, out of the ignorant idea that me first.

Put another way, basic Buddhism says we suffer because we’re distant and separated from the truth of interdependence – that we’re all in this together and rise and fall together - and instead choose to live the way of selfishness.

Christianity would say we’re distant and separated from God but instead live the way of sin, and so we suffer.

A lot of overlap there, right?

 

Okay, what is salvation?

In the first session, we discussed what salvation looks like in basic Buddhism. The eightfold path.

Right view and thinking, Right speech, action, and livelihood, Right resolve, mindfulness, and meditation.

This amounts to trusting the Buddha and the Buddha’s teaching and living according to that truth. From this, suffering, craving, ignorance, selfishness is overcome and we live a liberated life.

In Christianity, we know what salvation is. Faith in Christ and in his work of forgiveness and redemption on the cross and a following of Christ and a living of his way means a saved life.

Now, in both religious traditions, there developed a radical view that said humans are so far gone that we cannot rely on good deeds in the process of salvation. Only grace can save us. Works are meaningless.

In Christianity, we see this in Luther especially. Sola gratia and sola fide – by grace alone and by faith alone. Only grace and our reliance upon that grace can save. The sinfulness of humanity rules out any human effectiveness in the work of salvation.

In Buddhism, we see this same idea in Pure Land Buddhism, namely the Shin Buddhism of a Buddhist figure named Shinran of Japan. Only Grace found in Other Power and our reliance upon that Other Power and it’s grace can save. The sinfulness of humanity in this age rules out effectiveness in human self power in the work of salvation.

Lest we think Shinran is stealing from Luthernaism, Shinran predates Luther by some 400 years.

Fast forward some 200 years from the time of Luther to a man named John Wesley, founder of the Methodism. Wesley believed Luther was too quick to give up on the importance of sanctification in the salvation process. Yes, salvation in Christ means we’re made right, we’re justified, before God. But how do we know this being made right, this justification is real? How do we know salvation itself is real? Well, Wesley preached sanctification. Christians will naturally seek to live a holy life, a sanctified life, if salvation really took.  Without sanctification, our justification, and our salvation as a whole, should be in doubt. For salvation relies on both justification, us being made right before God, and sanctification, us being made holy.

Well, some 600 year before Wesley, a Korean Zen monk named Jinul taught something similar. He taught that sudden enlightenment is crucial to living the way of the Buddha. Sudden enlightenment amounts to a sudden glimpse into the truth of the Buddha and that the Buddha is right here, right now, within us, connecting us to all in the universe.

We might see Sudden Enlightenment as parallel to the moment of Christian salvation, where we really see who Christ is and all he’s done and fall at his feet as if he was right in front of us.

But Jinul said sudden enlightenment is not enough. We need gradual cultivation.  

 We might realize the Buddha is within us and that the truth of interdependence he taught means we’re connecting to everything else in the universe. But we must in turn actualize that truth by cultivating ourselves, living like the Buddha and living in accordance with our connection to other things in the universe. If I know I’m connected to you, that we are related somehow, that you are my brother or sister in the Lord, I will treat you with love and kindness, as I love and am kind to myself