Classical Theism and Buddhism

Connecting Metaphysical and Ethical Systems

Tyler Dalton McNabb, Erik Baldwin

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781350189157
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Filosofía de la religión

As an atheistic religious tradition, Buddhism conventionally stands in opposition to Christianity, and any bridge between them is considered to be riddled with contradictory beliefs on God the creator, salvific power and the afterlife. But what if a Buddhist could also be a Classical Theist? Showing how the various contradictions are not as fundamental as commonly thought, Tyler Dalton McNabb and Erik Baldwin challenge existing assumptions and argue that Classical Theism is, in fact, compatible with Buddhism. They draw parallels between the metaphysical doctrines of both traditions, synthesize their ethical and soteriological commitments and demonstrate that the Theist can interpret the Buddhist's religious experiences, specifically those of emptiness, as veridical, without denying any core doctrine of Classical Theism. By establishing that a synthesis of the two traditions is plausible, this book provides a bold, fresh perspective on the philosophy of religion and reinvigorates philosophical debates between Buddhism and Christianity.

1

Can a Buddhist Be a Classical Theist?

C. S. Lewis famously used the term “Mere Christianity” to refer to the fundamentals of the Christian faith that could be agreed upon by Christians of all stripes.¹ Following Lewis, we will use the phrase “Mere Buddhism” to refer to the core tenets of Buddhism that can generally be agreed on by most Buddhists. Jay Garfield summarizes the core tenets of Buddhism as follows:

Suffering (dukkha) or discontent is ubiquitous in the world …

The origin of dukkha is in primal confusion about the fundamental nature of reality, and so its cure is at bottom a reorientation toward ontology and an awakening (bodhi) to the actual nature of existence.

All phenomena are impermanent (anitya), interdependent (pratītya-samutpāda) and have no intrinsic nature (śūnya) …

Fundamental confusion is to take phenomena, including preeminently oneself, to be permanent, independent and to have an essence or intrinsic nature (svabhāva).

The elimination (nirvāṇa), or at least the substantial reduction of dukkha through such reorientation, is possible.

An ethically appropriate orientation toward the world is characterized by the cultivation of mudita (an attitude of rejoicing in the welfare and goodness of others, of mettā) beneficence toward others, and especially of karuṇā (commitment to act for the welfare of sentient beings).²

While there is much to be said about how these tenets are compatible with theistic belief, especially with the Abrahamic traditions, the central metaphysical claim that “All phenomena are impermanent (anitya), interdependent (pratītya-samutpāda) and have no intrinsic nature (śūnya)” seems to be what is most relevant for determining whether a Mere Buddhist can be a Classical Theist. Call these fundamental metaphysical doctrines FMD for short.

In this chapter, we will argue that Classical Theism is compatible with FMD, at least, FMD according to Garfield. In addition to this, we will resolve apparent conflicts between Buddhist philosophy and other doctrines that Classical Theists will want to preserve. However, in order to do any of this, we will first need to unpack FMD. We then will clarify what we mean by Classical Theism. This will finally lead us to argue that FMD is compatible with Classical Theism.

Interdependence, Impermanence, and Emptiness

The standard formulation of the doctrine of dependent origination goes as follows: “When this arises, that arises; when this does not occur, that does not occur.”³ David Burton summarizes the doctrine by stating that, “all entities have a dependently arisen and conceptually constructed existence ….”⁴ Jan Westerhoff describes the dependence thesis in terms of existential dependence. He defines the dependence thesis in the following way: “An object a existentially depends on objects falling under the property F iff necessarily, if a exists there exists something falling under F.”⁵ The doctrine, however, can be understood even more precisely.

Dependent origination can be broken up into three parts.⁶ First, there is causal dependency. As Garfield puts it, “All events in time, all Buddhist philosophers agree, occur in dependence to prior causes and conditions, and all states of affairs cease when the cause and conditions that are necessary for their occurrence cease.”⁷ When someone asks, “what caused a tree to grow in the garden?” there are prior conditions that one can appeal to in response. For example, there was a seed that was put into the soil and the seed was watered. There being a seed in the soil also relies on prior causes. Those causes rely on other causes. In like manner, all states of affairs are causally interdependent.

Second, there is part–whole or mereological dependence. Composite entities are dependent on their parts for their existence and the properties that they exemplify.⁸ Finally, there is a conceptual dependence. The things that exist at a phenomenological or conventional level depend on minds for their existence.⁹ While there are various different approaches to understanding what one means by conceptual experience, we needn’t get bogged down in the details. For our purposes, the brief sketch above is sufficient to understand what we mean by the doctrine of dependent origination, what we will now refer to as the interdependence thesis for sake of clarity and accessibility.

The interdependence thesis is usually conjoined with the impermanence thesis. Roughly, the impermanence thesis endorses that all things exist only momentarily. In order to clarify reasoning in favor of this thesis, it’s important to clarify the different types of change that are discussed in the literature on Buddhist metaphysics. Something can change in both a gross and subtle way. By affirming that something changes in a gross sense, one merely affirms that the thing changes over time. For example, a baby human turns into an adult human being. This sort of change entails subtle change. Subtle change is the change that occurs from moment to moment. At one moment, S possesses the property of being 259,104 hours old and soon S will lose that property and gain the property of being 259,105 hours old. Buddhist philosophers deny that a thing can experience subtle change while keeping its identity intact. Motivating this view is a radical interpretation of the Law of Identity, where any small difference between A and B makes it such that A and B are not identical.¹⁰

Interdependence and impermanence are supposed to lead to the doctrine of emptiness. There are various ways to understand emptiness. Nāgārjuna perhaps has the most well-known approach to understanding emptiness. Nāgārjuna argues that things at the ultimate layer of existence lack svabhāva.¹¹ Svabhāva is often translated as inherent existence or own being.¹² It can be more precisely defined as an entity having existence independently of anything else, including conceptual constructions.¹³

Nāgārjuna argued that the doctrine of emptiness is necessitated by the interdependence thesis. In the context of why dharmas, purportedly fundamentally existent entities roughly analogous to atoms, can’t possess svabhāva given the principle of interdependence, Garfield explains:

To have svabhāva in the sense relevant to Madhyamaka is to have one’s nature intrinsically, as the Abhidharmika believe that dharams have their natures. But Madhyamikas argued that to exist in this way would also require being independent. For if a dharma is caused by, or is the cause of, another dharma, as they must be, given the doctrine of dependent origination, then part of what it is to be a particular dharma is to be caused by particular predecessors, to cause successors, to be part of certain composites, and so on. That is, since it is of the very nature of all phenomena, including putatively fundamental dharmas, to be interdependent, then no identity conditions can be given for any phenomenon independent of others. So, since all phenomena are interdependent, and svabhāva requires independence, svabhāva is impossible, a property nothing can have.¹⁴

Similarly, impermanence makes it impossible for things to possess identity over time. Every thing ceases to exist as soon as it comes into being. It’s even difficult to talk about a specific “thing” existing, because prior to talking about it as an existing thing, the purported object has undergone change, and hence no longer is (at least not is as it was prior to linguistic conceptualization and description).

While Nāgārjuna’s understanding of emptiness isn’t affirmed by all Buddhists (for example, the Abhidharaa tradition affirms that dharmas are not empty of being), Nāgārjuna’s view is widely held. Nāgārjuna’s understanding of emptiness is robust. In addition to thinking that all things lack svabhāva, Nāgārjuna thought that there was nothing behind emptiness. For Nāgārjuna, even emptiness was empty. We don’t plan to synthesize this specific view with Classical Theism. Rather, when we refer to Nāgārjuna’s view of emptiness, we have in mind the view that emptiness applies to all things. If we can show that this understanding of Nāgārjuna’s notion of emptiness—the view that emptiness applies to all things—is compatible with Classical Theism, then other versions of Buddhism are also likely to be compatible with Classical Theism, too. Having now explicated FMD, we will now move to explicating what we mean by Classical Theism.

Classical Theism

Classical Theism is, roughly, the thesis that God exists and that God is strongly immutable, impassible, and metaphysically simple. We will now proceed by explicating each term in turn. The philosophical literature makes a distinction between weak immutability and strong immutability. Weak immutability is in reference to God’s character not changing while strong immutability is in reference to God being wholly unchanging.¹⁵ On the latter view, God does not gain or lose properties, with the possible exception of relational properties, also known as “Cambridge” properties. For example, Xanthippe has the property being a wife before Socrates drinks the hemlock. After Socrates drinks it, she loses that property and acquires the property being a widow. Xanthippe’s “change” depends entirely on standing in certain contingent relations to Socrates, factors that are external to her intrinsic nature. Similarly, if God gains or loses relational or external properties, that wouldn’t bring about actual change in God’s nature.

The doctrine of immutability helps motivate the doctrine of impassibility, the thesis that God is not affected by external forces. Since God is wholly immutable, God can’t be affected by anyone or anything. God might have passions, but He has experienced all of His emotions simultaneously for all eternity.

While immutability and impassibility are closely connected, these attributes are not as clearly connected with God’s simplicity. The doctrine of divine simplicity is, roughly, the thesis that God lacks parts. Most Classical Theists deny that God possesses various properties, at least, in a strict sense. Classical Theists recognize that God cannot depend on the existence of those properties because then it would follow that those properties would be more fundamental than God. One line of reasoning for this is as follows. To suppose that God has parts is to introduce a distinction between the being of God and the nature of God. If we understand God’s nature in terms of the essential properties God must have in order to be God, then making a distinction between God’s being and God’s nature in turn presupposes that those properties (the ones God must have in order to exist) exist, in some sense, prior to or independently of God’s being. This, of course, goes against God being a se, and this would be a conclusion that Perfect Being theologians would want to avoid.

The Classical Theist denies that we can understand God’s attributes in a univocal sense. Classical Theists deny that God and humans are univocally good, good in the same exact sense, and they deny that God and humans are good in completely different, or equivocal, senses. They affirm that while the goodness of God and the goodness of humans are different, there is an analogical sense in which the goodness of God and the goodness of humans overlap. And this is the case with all of God’s attributes, not just God’s goodness. Classical Theists then, refer to language about God as being analogical.

For the Classical Theist, not only is it proper to say that God’s existence and essence are identical, but it would be proper to say that God’s power is identical to His goodness and His goodness is identical to all of His other predicates. Clearly, on this picture, it wouldn’t make sense to understand God’s power or God’s goodness univocally. Again, in God, not only are power and goodness identical to each other, but God is identical to His power and to His goodness. William Vallicella, using properties in a loose sense, states, “It is not just that God has properties no creature has; the properties he has he has in a way different from the way any creature has any of its properties. God has his properties by being them.”¹⁶

At this juncture, one might raise the objection that if God has His properties by being them, then that makes God out to be a property. For instance, Alvin Plantinga writes:

[I]f God is identical with each of his properties, then each of his properties is identical with each of his properties, so that God has but one property … if God is identical with each of his properties, then, since each of his properties is a property, he is a property … Accordingly God has just one property: himself … [but] if God is a property, then he isn’t a person but a mere abstract object.¹⁷

Responding to Plantinga’s objection, John Lamont argues that Aquinas would deny that if God is a property, then God is an abstract object. According to Aquinas, properties are not abstract objects, for there are no abstract objects. Rather, he maintains that all existent things are actual, having a location in space and time.¹⁸ (Note again that God is not a thing that exists in space and time but is existence itself.) Moreover, God’s nature is not an abstract or immaterial individualized form, for matter is that which individuates form, and God is not material.¹⁹ Lamont argues:

The properties that we attribute to the divine nature are not like determinates that admit of no further determination. There are many different kinds of power, wisdom, goodness, beauty. Even in created things there are forms of one of these properties that are also forms of another; being a good painting is the same as being a beautiful painting, for example, although being a good X is not the same as being a beautiful X. Thus it is quite possible to suppose that there is a property that falls under all these different general properties that we attribute to God, and is the highest form of every one of these properties. We have no idea what such a property would be like—as Aquinas is the first to point out—but that is no reason to suppose that it does not exist.²⁰

On Aquinas’s view, we can truthfully ascribe to God’s properties in their literal albeit analogical sense because these property ascriptions are general in nature. Moreover, ascribing a property to God (e.g., God is good) is really...