Buddhism vs. Christianity: Core Beliefs and Moral Paths

Introduction: World Religions in Context

Christianity is the most widely followed religion in the world. Islam is second, and several other religions bring up the rear. Buddhism is followed by a comparatively smaller number of people worldwide. Jainism and Sikhism, two religions primarily followed in India, may be rarer still. Indeed, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism all originated in India, though strictly speaking, Buddhism arose in what is modern-day Nepal. Smaller religious movements that border on cults certainly exist, but they are not widely recognized outside immediate circles of followers, nor do they espouse grand philosophies capable of drawing the numbers that major religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism attract (Bowker 1997).

Each of the major religions has various sects. Among the Christian traditions are the Protestants, a sect that arose in Europe—specifically in Germany under the leadership of Martin Luther. From there, Protestantism spread through England and the rest of Europe. It is worth noting that Protestantism came to England partly because King Henry VIII embraced it in order to marry Anne Boleyn and divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, since the Catholic Church did not permit divorce. Before Protestantism emerged, Christianity was largely synonymous with Roman Catholicism. Today there are several Protestant sects: Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and others. Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses are also considered Christian, though their beliefs vary from one another and from other Christian denominations.

Even though Buddhism has one of the smaller global followings among major world religions, it encompasses several sects with differing beliefs: Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Tibetan, and Zen Buddhism, as well as more modern variants.

This essay is not, however, about a comparison of the variations among Christian or Buddhist sects. It is, first, about identifying the basic differences between Christianity and Buddhism. The second portion is devoted to exploring the question of how each religion addresses the ultimate completion or fulfillment of human life. Most religions preach good living and arose from humanity's need to identify with goodness and reject evil. The evolution of human civilization from primitive societies to modern ones is grounded in religio-moral precepts. Atheists espouse good civic and familial living; believers attribute their sense of goodness and its consequences to a deity. Human life is seen as full of trials and failings—what Christianity calls sin. A related concept in Buddhism, though not identical in meaning, is dukkha.

All religiously observant humans aspire to goodness, struggling against evil in hopes of one day attaining salvation. Buddhists call this enlightenment. Even followers of Islam believe that the travails of the world lead toward salvation, where those who enter paradise are greeted with unimaginable reward. In the New Testament, a passage near the beginning of one of the Gospels reads: "God became man (Jesus), so that one day, man might become God."

Fundamental Differences Between Christianity and Buddhism

The fundamental difference between Christianity and Buddhism is that Buddhism, in the strict definition of a religion, cannot easily be classified as one. Consider Christianity: Christians believe that God is an all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent entity who created heaven and earth and everything in them, and who gave his son so that humanity might be free from sin and achieve salvation. Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah—which is precisely where Jewish thought diverges from Christian thought. Christians also believe in the Blessed Trinity: God the Father, Jesus his Son, and the Holy Spirit. Among Christians, Roman Catholics and Protestants disagree on whether Mary, the human mother of Jesus, ought to be venerated or treated as a divine figure. Catholics, along with some Protestant sects, also believe in saints, whom they regard as intercessors before God on behalf of mortal souls. Most Christian precepts are firmly rooted in faith. There are no tangibles. Indeed, one of the most powerful Christian prayers, the Magnificat, contains the line: "Senses cannot grasp this marvel. Faith must serve to compensate."

In Buddhism, there is no deity. The beacon for Buddhists is Gautama Buddha, who achieved enlightenment under a Bodhi tree at a place called Bodh Gaya in modern India. Buddhism is principally concerned with good, decent living, achievable by following the Four Noble Truths of dukkha and the Eightfold Path to enlightenment. Gautama Buddha was born Siddhartha in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal. He was a prince who wanted for nothing and was sheltered from experiencing the hardships that befall ordinary human beings. His palace and courtyard were surrounded by high walls.

Followers of Buddhism believe in the tangibility of what the senses experience and hold that goodness can be found within human beings—implying, though not stating explicitly, that divine inspiration is unnecessary. Christians, by contrast, believe that everything began in a state of perfection and bliss—the Garden of Eden—and that humanity has deteriorated from that original state. That deterioration, in Christian belief, cannot be stopped or reversed without the acceptance of Christ as the ultimate redeemer. Buddhists do not hold that a virgin birth is possible, whether understood metaphysically or literally. They also do not believe in heaven or hell as realms separate from the earth (Bernstein 1993), nor do they believe that an intermediary—such as Christ for Christians—is needed to attain enlightenment.

Buddhists do not believe that the ultimate test of salvation comes at the end of time, which is the basic premise of the Christian Apocalypse as described in the final book of the Bible, Revelation. Christians believe that God is both benevolent and, at times, a God of judgment—a theme that figured prominently in Pilgrim theology, which held that self-sacrifice was necessary to appease God. Christians also believe that Christ was the Son of God, come to fulfill the messianic prophecy expressed by sages in the Old Testament. For Christians, virtues such as goodness, kindness, generosity, and honesty are divinely inspired. Good deeds performed without true faith are considered insufficient.

The Lives of Buddha and Christ: Parallel Journeys Through Suffering

One day, Siddhartha and a friend slipped away from the palace, driven by curiosity about what lay beyond its high walls. What he encountered outside that cocoon of privilege and wealth was revelatory. He saw rampant poverty and human struggle—conditions utterly foreign to him. He saw an elderly person, a person ravaged by disease, and finally, a funeral procession. These experiences became a waking moment in his life. He decided, perhaps naively, that he wanted to attain a state of bliss that would allow ordinary mortals to transcend the despair of age, disease, and death. He left his home, renounced his riches, and spent the rest of his life seeking enlightenment, which he ultimately achieved. It was man struggling against the ills that befall man—no deity was invoked.

Even if one draws a parallel between the ministries of Jesus and Gautama Buddha, the parallel ends at a fundamental point: Christ always looked to his Father—God—for divine guidance, both before beginning his ministry and as a supplicant in the moments before his arrest and crucifixion. In all things, Jesus proclaimed that he represented his Father and had come to earth to establish his Father's kingdom—a kingdom in which the stain of original sin would be removed.

Original sin is the sin of disobedience that led to Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. God had expressly forbidden them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, but Eve was tempted and ate the fruit. The temptation was the attainment of knowledge—of God-like status—the same elevation that Christ came to earth to make possible for all of humanity.

Even from a historical standpoint, if Christ (who is tangible in that he became flesh and blood) is compared with Buddha, both figures demonstrated that enlightenment or salvation requires self-discovery, communal engagement, and the endurance of human suffering. Both preached that true knowledge comes through suffering rather than through the easy path. For several years, Buddha practiced extreme austerity—said to have eaten a single grain of rice per day before abandoning food entirely for four years, devoting all his time to meditation. Yet this practice alone did not grant him enlightenment. Similarly, Christ endured the turmoil of suffering, the temptations of the flesh, fear, the pain of scourging, the crowning with thorns, and ultimately the agony of crucifixion.

Conclusion: A Common Moral Foundation

When distilled down to an individual's way of life, whether through internalization (Buddhism) or through adherence to divine edicts (Christianity), the most revealing measure of religious belief is how it manifests in a person's behavior toward fellow human beings in society. From that standpoint, the moral thoughts, words, and actions of a devout Christian and a devout Buddhist are not easily distinguishable from each other. Whether one is overcoming sin or working through dukkha, the ills of this world carry a kind of permanence, and how we live with and through them is a testament to our beliefs. There is no doubt, therefore, that Christians and Buddhists can live and work alongside one another, recognizing that whatever the inspiration and background, both traditions ultimately work toward a common good.

Bibliography

Bernstein, Alan E. The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993.

Bowker, John Westerdale. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Easwaran, Eknath. The Dhammapada. Petaluma, Calif.: Nilgiri Press, 1986.

Meeks, Wayne A. The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Centuries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.

Raatnam, Ram Kumar. Dukkha: Suffering in Early Buddhism. Ed. Digumarti Bhaskara Rao. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House, 2003.