A Buddhist Critique of the Christian Concept of God

Gunapala Dharmasiri.
Golden Leaves, 1988.
Reviewed by Taner Edis

Early Buddhism incorporated a rejection of Hindu concepts of theism, with arguments similar in many cases to the Western philosophical atheism responding to Christianity. This book is a modern exposition of the Buddhist critique of classical Theism, relying extensively on the Western philosophical vocabulary, indeed almost the full range of atheistical arguments, and correlating this with the Pali canon. As a thorough attack on the God concept, it is comparable to excellent reference works such as Michael Martin's Atheism: a Philosophical Justification, 1990, or J.L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism, 1982.

However, the interest of such a book for humanists is beyond its uncompromising atheist nature. Saying: "The Buddha did not accept the existence of God. He also rejected the idea of a soul though he advocated the possibility of salvation," Dharmasiri defends an explicitly religious atheism. Indeed, his few passing references to humanism are decidedly negative. Among the factual claims made that most humanists would be skeptical of are the reality of reincarnation---which sets the stage for salvation as extinction; and psychic powers---which provide a means to apprehend the reality of continual rebirth. But these differences are not all. Even with the remarkable similarity in the arguments rejecting the God concept, early Buddhism ends up with a significant difference in attitude compared to typical humanist approaches, which has ethical implications as well.

Humanism claims to move beyond bare atheism in providing a outlook of life; though its success in this is dubious at best. A denial of theistic claims and attitudes constrains a philosophy of life but a little, and continually criticizing theism is but reactive. The early Buddhist views' different form of atheism is valuable in reminding humanists of this. It also helps us see, universalistic ambitions aside, how historically contingent our ethical-political philosophies are. Buddhism is revealed as bearing the stamp of its birth in a Hindu religious context; Western humanisms are similarly unintelligible without a history of Christianity.

In short, I highly recommend this book for what it indirectly prompts humanists to think of, besides its determined and usually accurate criticism of the very fundamentals of Christianity.