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Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by ground »

Coyote wrote:How would a Buddhist respond to western ideas of ontology, specifically as it relates to the understanding of a God or first cause/undependant principle?
I guess there is a variety of responses depending on a variety of Buddhists. From my perspective the most appropriate response would be to discern ideas as ideas.

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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by tiltbillings »

contemplans wrote:The argument goes as follows:

1) The concept of the Greatest Possible Being (GPB) is coherent (and thus broadly logically possible).
Not that you have shown.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by tiltbillings »

The following is something I pulled together a number of years. While the focus here is on what the DL says about the subject of a god, everything he says can also be drawn from the Pali suttas. (Given the that is compilation is years old, i doubt that the links are functioning.)
  • Now, as for what the Dalai Lama has said about the idea of a Creator.

    In THE GOOD HEART: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of
    Jesus (pub by Wisdom), the Dalai Lama comments on a number of
    Gospel passages and has dialogues with a number Christians about this.
    It is a wonderful book, showing that dialogue is possible and showing
    the kind of work that such dialogue entails, in this book the Dalai Lama
    states:

    "The entire Buddhist worldview is based on a philosophical standpoint
    in which the central thought is the principle of interdependence, how all
    things and events come into being purely as a result of interactions
    between causes and conditions. Within that philosophical world view, it
    is almost impossible to have any room for an atemporal, eternal,
    absolute truth. Nor is it possible to accommodate the concept of divine
    Creation [page 82]" "The belief in creation and divinity is not universal
    to all major religious traditions. ... Buddhism, which is a nontheistic
    religion.... [page 74]."

    In the World Tibet Network News
    Thursday, May 20, 1999

    the Dalai Lama states:

    "I mentioned the Buddhist law of causality, cause and effect,
    which means no beginning, therefore no Creator."

    On http://www.cuenet.com/~fpmt/Teachings/ironbird.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

    the Dalai Lama states:

    "Basically, religions may be divided into two groups. One group,
    including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and some ancient Indian
    traditions, I call God religions. Their fundamental faith is in a Creator.
    The other group of religious tradition, including Jainism, Buddhism, I
    usually call godless religions. They do not believe in a Creator."

    A HUMAN APPROACH TO WORLD PEACE by His Holiness Tenzin
    Gyatso, The Fourtheenth Dalai Lama:

    "While pointing out the fundamental similarities between world
    religions, I do not advocate one particular religion at the expense of all
    others, nor do I seek a new 'world religion.' All the different religions
    of the world are needed to enrich human experience and world
    civilization. Our human minds, being of different caliber and disposition,
    need different approaches to peace and happiness. It is just like food.
    Certain people find Christianity more appealing, others prefer Buddhism
    because there is no creator in it and everything depends upon your own
    actions. We can make similar arguments for other religions as well.
    Thus, the point is clear: humanity needs all the world's religions to suit
    the ways of life, diverse spiritual needs, and inherited national traditions
    of individual human beings."

    On http://www.uky.edu/StudentOrgs/UKBA/dependento_DL.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

    the Dalai Lama states:

    "This principle [of Buddhism] means that all conditioned things and
    events in the universe come into being only as a result of the interaction
    of various causes and conditions. This is significant because it precludes
    two possibilities. One is the possibility that things can arise from
    nowhere, with no causes and conditions, and the second is that things
    can arise on account of a transcendent designer or creator. Both these
    possibilities are negated."

    Hinduism Today Feb 1998 states of the Dalai Lama:

    "He also gave a bold voice to the Buddhist belief that there is no creator
    God. It was a defining moment of these sessions. In all such interfaith
    meetings religious leaders speak in terms of God, intone prayers to God,
    write their formal statements of purpose in acknowledgement of God. To
    the Buddhists this Creator-centric presumption is presumptuous. It leaves
    them out. The Dalai Lama was challenging them, in his sweet way, to
    find words and concepts that could bridge the Abrahamic world and the
    Buddhist/Jain world."
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by mikenz66 »

The Dalai Lama is cool... :sage:

I've personally noticed that about interfaith things. People think they are being very inclusive when they say things like "you can invoke the God of your choice", and I'm left thinking, umm.... :thinking:

Though I can sometimes relate "surrendering to the will of God" to the Buddhist concept of conditionality...

:anjali:
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by ancientbuddhism »

Jason wrote:From my reading of the Pali Canon, it seems to me that the Buddha's teachings generally tend to avoid metaphysics, including ontology, …
"Buddhist response to Western Ontology” seems a poorly framed topic, but as to Jason’s stock reply, this is simply wrong. The assumption of self (ātman) and ‘I am’ (asmī) as support of the khandhas was rooted in the Upaniṣads, as we find in Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad I. 4.1 (S. Radhakrishnan):
  • THE CREATION OF THE WORLD FROM THE SELF

    I. ātmaivedam agra āsīt puruṣavidhaḥ, so’nuvīkṣya nānyad ātmano’paśyat, so’ham asmīty agre vyāharat; tato’haṃ nāmābhavat, tasmād apy etarhy āmantritaḥ; aham ayam ity evāgra uktvā, athānyan nāma prabrūte yad asyabhavati. sa yat pūrvo’smāt sarvasmāt sarvān pāpmana auṣat, tasmāt puruṣah; oṣati ha vai sa tam, yo’smāt pūrvo bubhūṣati, ya evaṃ veda.

    I. In the beginning this (world) was only the self, in the shape of a person. Looking around he saw nothing else than the self. He first said, ‘I am.’ Therefore arose the name of I. Therefore, even to this day when one is addressed he says first ‘This is I’ and then speaks whatever other name he may have. Because before all this, he burnt all evils, therefore he is a person. He who knows this, verily, burns up him who wishes to be before him.
The Buddha put Upaniṣadic ontology in a proper context by deconstructing what props up the assumption of self through an analysis of the khandhas. And In MN. 22 this ontology of ātman was soundly refuted as a doctrine of fools (bāladhammo), which is in effect a denial of both soul and God. Clearly the Buddha took a position on these matters, but it was no mere view.
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by tiltbillings »

contemplans wrote:Often these arguments are things like “Omnipotence and omniscience are impossible to have, because if God knows in advance what He’s going to do, He can’t do anything else!”
Which is a silly argument, but an unsilly argument would be that I cannot do anything other than what god already knows, by the virtue of its creation, I am going to do.
  • a] Since god is an absolute, god is beyond the created, temporal conceptions and relative considerations of time. The notions of past, present, and future would have no limiting bearing on god; otherwise god could not be omniscient or omnipotent.

    b] Since god is an absolute with absolute knowledge and is not limited by the concept of time, there is nothing past, present and future that is not fully known by god as an "eternal nowness" -- omniscience cannot mean anything less.

    c] Since god is an absolute with absolute power, there is no action beyond god's purview, except that limitation of being all-good. God cannot do evil.

    d] Since there can be "no creature without a Creator," all that is, is because god allows it to be, setting in motion its existence. Being absolute, with no limitation except being unable to do evil, god could also not allow something to be.

    e] The physical world is god's creation. Its handiwork is not only the blue sky and the majestic mountain, but also the TB bacillus, AIDS virus, the earthquake, and any other natural phenomenon one cares to point to.

    f] Since god is omniscient there can be no question that not only does god know the results of a process that god has absolute atemporal knowledge of and absolute control over, but what is, is because god wanted it to be as it is, and what is, is what is in what we call past, present and future, is fully known to god.

    g] We can grant that god may have not created the TB bacillus or AIDS virus directly, but given omniscience and omnipotence, it is a necessary argument that god, setting into motion the processes of nature that would give rise to the TB bacillus and the AIDS virus, that god had full atemporal knowledge of AND control of the results of god's creation ("Whatever happens is His will”) --- the AIDS virus, the TB bacillus.

    h] Being omnipotent there is no question that god could have done otherwise, since god is without limit.

    i] If I were to build a dam, knowing even before it was being built that it would fail due to its design, then I would be held legally and morally responsible for the damage, suffering, and death caused by the dam's failure, and my failure to get the downstream inhabitants to safety.

    j] Occurrences of natural disasters, disease and other natural phenomena that cause suffering can be seen as following from god's design. God is, therefore, liable for the suffering caused by god's design. This is particularly the case since god has absolute control over god's creation and god knows absolutely that a natural disaster, part of the process god set in motion, is going to happen -- killing and causing suffering. Since god is omniscient there can be no question that not only does god know the results of a process that god has absolute atemporal knowledge of and absolute control over, but what is, is because god wanted it to be as it is, and what is, is what is in what we call past, present and future, is fully known to god. So much for natural phenomenon.

    k] Since god is all-good what god wills is all-good.

    l] Human freedom of will to be meaningful must mean freedom to act contrary to god's will; otherwise, we would be just automata following the programming set for us -- god's will.

    m] Since god's will is the Good, action contrary to god's will is absence of the Good, that which can be called evil.

    n] The ability the choose -- the will not to choose the Good -- is god's creation.

    o] As a creation, will is something that god would have absolute knowledge of and control of, for there is no question that an atemporal god who is capable of absolute knowledge will have absolute knowledge of what choices humans will make. Even before the rise of life (creation) god knew with absolute certainty that Hitler would arise and do his great absence of Good -- omniscience demands no less.

    p] It is possible to conceive that Hitler could have acted differently, but the fact is he didn't, and given the absolute atemporal knowledge of god, there is no question that god could not have known that the human nature god set into motion could not but given arise to Hitler and the Holocaust.

    q] Human nature being god's creation is god's responsibility, since god knew even before he set any creation in motion how human nature would unfold -- that is, it would do evil, Hitler would arise.

    r] Therefore: "God, as the Creator of all things ['Whatever happens
    is His will'], is the creator of evil through man as His Instrument, as creator of man's will to do evil."

    s] If I were to make a robot that was capable of making free choices and one of those choices was to kill, it would be hard not to hold me responsible for a death committed by that robot. If I knew without question that it would kill and I set it loose anyway, it would be no different from my killing directly, and there would be no way I could absolve myself from responsibility.

    t] Whatever is evil that is to be done by humans, it IS known by god -- omnipotent, omniscient -- and it IS the result the nature of the creation god set in motion. God, therefore, is responsible for the evil done by god's creations. Since god is omniscient there can be no question that not only does god know the results of a process that god has absolute atemporal knowledge of and absolute control over, but what is, is because god wanted it to be as it is, and what is, is what is in what we call past, present and future, is fully known to god.

    u] If humans' have free will, then god is not all-good, or god lacks omnipotence or omniscience. Or if god is omniscient and omnipotent, humans lack free will.

    v] God, being omniscient, knows as an eternal truth each choice, each action, that each human will decide; how then can we say that we have a choice to act contrary to how god knows we are going to act? To act contrary would imply god is ignorant, not omniscient. How can we say we have free will when we cannot act other than how god knows we are going to act, which is to say to act according to how god created us?

    w] If god has chosen to limit the absoluteness of god's being in someway, there is still no absolution from responsibility.

    x] Through the creation of natural phenomena and through the creation of human nature, god, who has absolute atemporal knowledge and power, IS responsible for the pain and evil that arise from these creations.

    y] As r] states god is the creator of evil, which is in direct contradiction to the notion that god is all good. We have then a major incoherence: the evil creating nature of god and god being all good. God is a self-contradictory notion. And as we see in v] the notion of free will falls prey equally to the problematics of omniscience and omnipotence.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by ancientbuddhism »

tiltbillings wrote:Which is a silly argument, but an unsilly argument would be that I cannot do anything other than what god already knows, by the virtue of its creation, I am going to do.
Proving a Negative by Richard Carrier
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by tiltbillings »

ancientbuddhism wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:Which is a silly argument, but an unsilly argument would be that I cannot do anything other than what god already knows, by the virtue of its creation, I am going to do.
Proving a Negative by Richard Carrier
Huh? Image
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by Kim OHara »

tiltbillings wrote:
contemplans wrote:Often these arguments are things like “Omnipotence and omniscience are impossible to have, because if God knows in advance what He’s going to do, He can’t do anything else!”
Which is a silly argument, but an unsilly argument would be that I cannot do anything other than what god already knows, by the virtue of its creation, I am going to do.
  • a] Since god is an absolute, god is beyond the created, temporal conceptions and relative considerations of time. The notions of past, present, and future would have no limiting bearing on god; otherwise god could not be omniscient or omnipotent.

    b] Since god is an absolute with absolute knowledge and is not limited by the concept of time, there is nothing past, present and future that is not fully known by god as an "eternal nowness" -- omniscience cannot mean anything less.

You can stop right there, Tilt, and short-circuit all the rest with:
{c'] If God therefore knows everything that is going to happen in our future, our future is already completely determined and we have no free will.
[d'] None of our actions, therefore are virtuous or evil. None of our actions change what is already written in God's heart.
[e'] God is therefore stupid or grossly unjust to punish or reward us for our actions.
[f''] He's gonna do it anyway (it is foreordained, remember) or [f''] He never was gonna do it (it is foreordained, remember).
[g] Summing up c, d, e, f' and f'' : God's preferences are irrelevant. It's all gonna happen anyway. And, by the way, God has no free will either.

:shrug:
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by Coyote »

Didn't expect so many replies in such a short time, thanks everyone!
Goofaholix wrote:
Coyote wrote:1. Being exists
2. God is the source of being, is being and existance itself
3. Existance needs a source or foundation
4. Since Being exists, needs a source, and God is that source (substitute God here for Ground of being, first cause, Brahman ect), God therefore is self-evident and exists.
Seems like a reasonable line of reasoniong until you get to "God is that source". Who gets to decide that God is that source? Why not be open to the possibility that Coca Cola is that source? or something else for example? Then if we do decide God is that source who gets to decide what God is like?
While it makes sense to critique the idea that this "source" needs to be God as we understand it, in much of the "higher" philosophy of these ideas, "God" is just a label for the source of existance, independant of any revealed ideas or even other logical proofs. This philsopher-God is only the same God as the Christian one (for example) because it has been revealed to be so.
Kim O'Hara wrote:
You can stop right there, Tilt, and short-circuit all the rest with:
{c'] If God therefore knows everything that is going to happen in our future, our future is already completely determined and we have no free will.
[d'] None of our actions, therefore are virtuous or evil. None of our actions change what is already written in God's heart.
[e'] God is therefore stupid or grossly unjust to punish or reward us for our actions.
[f''] He's gonna do it anyway (it is foreordained, remember) or [f''] He never was gonna do it (it is foreordained, remember).
[g] Summing up c, d, e, f' and f'' : God's preferences are irrelevant. It's all gonna happen anyway. And, by the way, God has no free will either.

:shrug:
Kim
Surely there is a difference between knowing and making? God has given us free will, and knows what we will do before we do it, not because he already knows it, but because we have chosen it. God knows I will do a) because I have chosen to do a), not the other way around.
"If beings knew, as I know, the results of giving & sharing, they would not eat without having given, nor would the stain of miserliness overcome their minds. Even if it were their last bite, their last mouthful, they would not eat without having shared."
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by ancientbuddhism »

tiltbillings wrote:Huh?
Carrier gives similar reductio ad absurdum argumentation toward the end of his paper.
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by Kim OHara »

Coyote wrote:
Kim O'Hara wrote:
You can stop right there, Tilt, and short-circuit all the rest with:
{c'] If God therefore knows everything that is going to happen in our future, our future is already completely determined and we have no free will.
[d'] None of our actions, therefore are virtuous or evil. None of our actions change what is already written in God's heart.
[e'] God is therefore stupid or grossly unjust to punish or reward us for our actions.
[f''] He's gonna do it anyway (it is foreordained, remember) or [f''] He never was gonna do it (it is foreordained, remember).
[g] Summing up c, d, e, f' and f'' : God's preferences are irrelevant. It's all gonna happen anyway. And, by the way, God has no free will either.

:shrug:
Kim
Surely there is a difference between knowing and making? God has given us free will, and knows what we will do before we do it, not because he already knows it, but because we have chosen it. God knows I will do a) because I have chosen to do a), not the other way around.
Hi, coyote, and welcome back ... yeah, things have been happening while you weren't looking :tongue:
As for your question: If God - or anyone/anything - already knows everything that will happen in the future there is no free will: what we are going to do was written in stone in the first instant that the omniscient entity existed, or it can't have been known. Saying that God has given us free will is therefore meaningless - we are free to do exactly what he knows we will do, and we are not free to do anything else. If we have no free will, we can't make choices - however much we might feel we are free to make choices. God knows I will do (a) because I have been going to do (a) for the last eon or so.
Okay, it is (just) possible that our (hypothetical) God is omniscient but not omnipotent. In that case he didn't 'make' us do (a), but we still have no choice and still deserve no blame or praise for the choice.
But if he is omnipotent as well as omniscient, then yes, he 'made' me do it in that he set up the circumstances (starting with 'Let there be light,' if you like) in which I would be born, learn certain stuff and encounter the situation in which I did it.

:coffee:
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

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ancientbuddhism wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:Huh?
Carrier gives similar reductio ad absurdum argumentation toward the end of his paper.
Got it.Thanks. I was not able to read the article earlier.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Buddhist response to Western ontology

Post by tiltbillings »

Coyote wrote:Surely there is a difference between knowing and making? God has given us free will, and knows what we will do before we do it, not because he already knows it, but because we have chosen it. God knows I will do a) because I have chosen to do a), not the other way around.
Read through my alphabet soup above.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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