Is Buddhism atheistic?
It has often been suggested that Buddhism is an atheistic
system of thought, and this assumption has given rise to quite a number
of discussions. Some have claimed that since Buddhism knew no God,
it could not be a religion; others that since Buddhism obviously was
a religion which knew no God, the belief in God was not essential
to religion. These discussions assume that 'God' is an unambiguous
term, which is by no means the case. We can distinguish in this context
at least three meanings of the term. There is firstly a personal God
who created the universe; there is secondly the Godhead, either conceived
as impersonal or as supra-personal; there are thirdly a number of
gods, or of angels not clearly distinguished from gods.
(1) As for the first, Buddhist tradition does not exactly deny the
existence of a creator, but it is not really
interested to know who created the universe. The purpose of Buddhist
doctrine is to release beings from suffering, and speculations concerning
the origin of the universe are held to be immaterial to that task.
They are not merely a waste of time but they may also postpone deliverance
from suffering by engendering ill will in oneself and in others. While
thus the Buddhists adopt an attitude of agnosticism to the question
of a personal creator, they have not hesitated to stress the superiority
of the Buddha over Brahma, the god who, according
to Brahminic theology, created the universe. They represent the god
Brahma as seized by pride when he thought to himself: 'I am Brahma,
I am the great Brahma, the King of the Gods; I am uncreated, I
have created the world, I am the sovereign of the world, I can create,
alter, and give birth; I am the Father of all things.'(from Dirghagama
T1.xxii, T24.i; Vibhasa T1545.iic)
The scriptures
are not slow in pointing out that the Tathagata is free from such
childish conceit. If indifference to a personal creator of the universe
is atheism, then Buddhism is indeed atheistic.
(2) We are, however, nowadays, if only through the writings of Aldous
Huxley, familiar with the difference between God and
Godhead as an essential feature of the Perennial
Philosophy. When we compare the attributes of the Godhead as they
are understood by the more mystical tradition of Christian thought
with those of Nirvana, we find almost no difference at all.
It is indeed true that Nirvana has no cosmological functions,
that this is not God's world but a world made by our own greed and
stupidity. It is indeed true that through their attitude the Buddhists
express a more radical rejection of the world in all its aspects than
we find among many Christians. At the same time, they are spared a
number of awkward theological riddles and have not been under the
necessity to combine, for instance, the assumption of an omnipotent
and all-loving God with the existence of a great deal of suffering
and muddle in this world. Buddhists also have never stated that God
is Love, but that may be due to their preoccupation with intellectual
precision, which must have perceived that the word 'Love' is one of
the most unsatisfactory and ambiguous terms one could possibly use.
But, on the other hand, we are told that Nirvana
is permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless,
unborn, and unbecome, that it is power, bliss and happiness, the secure
refuge, the shelter, and the place of unassailable safety; that it
is the real Truth and the supreme Reality, that it is the Good, the
supreme goal, and the one and only consummation of our life, the eternal,
hidden, and incomprehensible Peace.
Similarly, the Buddha who is, as it were, the personal embodiment
of Nirvana, becomes the object of all those emotions that
we are wont to call religious.
There has existed throughout Buddhist history a tension between the
bhaktic and the gnostic approach to religion, such as we find also
in Christianity. There is, however, the difference that in Buddhism
the gnostic vision has always been regarded as the more true one,
while the bhaktic, devotion, type was regarded more or less as a concession
to the common people.
It is generally found in philosophical thought that even philosophical
abstractions are clothed with some kind of emotional warmth when they
concern the Absolute. We have only to think of Aristotle's
description of the Prime Mover. In Buddhism, however, in addition,
a whole system of ritual, and of religious elevation, is associated
with an intellectually conceived Absolute in a manner which is not
logically very plausible, but which stood the test of life for a long
time.
(3) We now come to the thorny subject of polytheism. The Christian
teaching which has to some extent pervaded our education, has made
us believe that polytheism belongs to a past period
of the human race, that it has been superseded by monotheism, and
that it finds no response in the contemporary mind. In order to appreciate
the Buddhists' toleration of polytheism, we must first of all understand
that polytheism is very much alive even among us. But where formerly
Athene, Baal, Astarte, Isis,
Sarasvati, Kuan-Yin, etc., excited the popular
imagination, it is nowadays inflamed by such words as democracy, progress,
civilization, equality, liberty, reason, science, etc. A multitude
of personal beings has given way to a multitude of abstract nouns.
In Europe, the turning point came when the French deposed the Virgin Mary and transferred their affections to the Goddess of
Reason. The reason for this change is not far to seek. Personal deities
grow on the soil of a rural culture in which the majority of the population
are illiterate, while abstract nouns find favour with the literate
populations of modern towns. Medieval men went to war for Jesus Christ,
Saint George, and San Jose. Modern
crusades are in aid of such abstractions as Christianity, the Christian
Way of Life, Democracy, and the Rights of Man.
Literacy, however, is not the only factor which differentiates our
modern polytheism from that of ancient times. Another factor is our
separation from the forces of Nature. Every tree, every
well, lake, or river, almost every type of animal, could once bring
forth a deity. We are now too remote from Nature to think that. In
addition, our democratic predilections make us less inclined to deify
great men. In India, kings were held to be gods and, ever since the
days of Egypt, the despotism of a divine ruler has been a most efficient
way of keeping vast empires together - in Rome, in China, in Iran,
and in Japan. However much people may think of Hitler, Stalin,
and Churchill, they are disinclined to grant them
full divinity. The deification of great men is not confined
to political figures. The inveterate polytheism of the human mind
broke out in Islam and Christianity, through the crust of an official
monotheism, in the form of the worship of saints. In Islam again the
saints fused with the spirits which since ancient times had inhabited
different localities. Finally, we must realize that religious people
everywhere expect also immediate advantages from their religion. I
saw, recently, in an Anglican shop window in Oxford, that at present
Saint Christopher seems to be the only saint who
appeals to those circles. His medals protect from car accidents. Similarly,
the Buddhist expected from his religion that it would protect him
from illnesses and fire, that it would give him children and other
benefits. It is quite obvious that the one God, who soars above the
stars and has the entire universe to look after, cannot really be
bothered with such trifles. Special needs, therefore, engender special
deities to provide for them. At present, we have developed a kind
of confidence that science and industry will provide those needs,
and our more superstitious inclinations are reserved for those activities
which contain a large element of chance.
Among the populations which adopted Buddhism almost all activities
contained a large element of chance, and a great number of deities
were invoked for protection and help. The Buddhists would find no
objection whatsoever in the cult of many gods because the idea of
a jealous god is quite alien to them; and also because they are imbued
with the conviction that everyone's intellectual insight is very limited,
so that it is very difficult for us to know when we are right, but
practically impossible to be sure that someone else is wrong. Like
the Catholics, the Buddhists believe that a faith can be kept alive
only if it can be adapted to the mental habits of the average person.
In consequence, we find that, in the earlier scriptures, the deities
of Brahmanism are taken for granted and that, later on, the Buddhists
adopted the local gods of any district to which they came.
If atheism is the denial of the existence of a God, it
would be quite misleading to describe Buddhism as atheistic. On the
other hand, monotheism has never appealed to the Buddhist
mind. There has never been any interest in the origin of the universe
- with only one exception. About 1000ad Buddhists in the
north-west of India came into contact with the victorious forces of
Islam. In their desire to be all things to all men, some Buddhists
in that district rounded off their theology with the notion of an
Adi-Buddha, a kind of omnipotent and omniscient
primeval Buddha, who through his meditation originated the universe.
This notion was adopted by a few sects in Nepal and Tibet.
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