Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Schöpfung, das Böse - Buddhismus (dukkha, kein Schöpfungsmythos); Buddhismus - Aristoteles; christliche Position

Kurzinhalt: Buddhism focuses attention on the problem of suffering, while Christianity views this as secondary to the problem of evil. This also reflects divergent approaches to the question of creation.

Textausschnitt: Buddhism

19a We have already considered some of the differences between the Christian understanding of the human condition and that of Buddhism. Buddhism focuses attention on the problem of suffering, while Christianity views this as secondary to the problem of evil. This also reflects divergent approaches to the question of creation. For Buddhism there is no real sense of creation as the product of a divine creator. The world simply is, and is eternal. Buddhism has no creation myth, and the Buddha was not interested in metaphysical speculation about the origins of the world. For Buddhists, what "creates" the world is the mind, and this is in some sense an illusion. The materiality of the world is "unreal," an illusion that we create in living our lives. The aim of Buddhism is enlightenment, to see through the illusion of the world and the desires that go with it. When we see through the illusion of creation we can eliminate our desires, and with it the suffering (dukkha) that these desires cause. When all desire is finally eliminated, we reach nirvana, or extinction. (Fs) (notabene)

19b We can analyze this position from a Christian perspective in light of some of what we have discussed above. If one assumes that the world has no creator, no origin, but is eternally existing, then it has no fundamental intelligibility grounded in a creative act of a wise and loving God. It comes closer to the view of Aristotle that God creates out of preexistent matter, only without God. Hence, there is not real order in creation, only the order imposed on it by the mind, in a desperate attempt to avoid total chaos. But this order is illusory, and our desperation for order leads us to desire the things of the world and so leads to suffering. In a sense, Buddhism is overwhelmed by the omnipresence of suffering, in which it can find no value or meaning. The only solution can be escape from our suffering and finitude by the elimination of all desire and resultant personal dissolution. (Fs) (notabene)

19c This is very different from the Christian position, which affirms both the reality and the goodness of the material world, grounded in the wise and loving act of God. For Christians the problem of the human condition is not suffering and desire but evil and the distortions of desire that occur in sin. Indeed, Christianity can envisage a positive role for suffering in overcoming evil. Rather than eliminate desire, the redemption that Christianity seeks liberates our desires to embrace the totality of the good, the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of justice and peace. Christians are actually called to a life of desire, but a desire for all things that are good, each desired in its proper proportion. Death then brings not extinction but the fulfillment of our ordered desire in the vision of God. (Fs)