* Notes from a talk I gave to a church high school group a few years ago.
Christianity and World Religions: Exploring the Differences
1. Question: What are some other religions besides Christianity? (List on board)
2. Big topic!
a. Christian teaching show H. Bavinck’s 4 volumes
b. Hinduism and Buddhism have extensive Scriptures
c. Q: How can we do an overview without being overly superficial?
3. Analogy: Tool chest vs. Leatherman tool
a. Leatherman:
i. Portable
ii. Effective
iii. Doesn’t do everything but it does a great deal!
b. We need a “Leatherman tool” for religions
4. Absolute Personality as our “Leatherman” concept[1]
a. Absolute
i. Creator and Sustainer of all things
ii. He has no need for anything else for his existence: Acts 17.25
iii. Self-existent and self-sufficient
iv. Nothing brought him into being and nothing can destroy him
1. He always was: Psalm 90.2; 93.2; John 1.1
2. He always will be: Deuteronomy 32.40; Psalm 102.26-27; 1 Timothy 6.16; Hebrews 1.10-12; Revelation 10.6
v. Lord of time (timeless): Psalm 90, esp. v. 4; Galatians 4.4; Ephesians 1.11; 2 Peter 3.8
vi. He knows all times and spaces with equal perfection: Isaiah 41.4; 44.7-8
vii. Answer to question 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
· God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
b. Personality
i. Capable of relationship
ii. Speaks/reveals himself
iii. Experiences wrath and anger
iv. Loves and forgives
v. Tri-personal Trinity
5. Exercise: Break up into two groups; look at a passage of Scripture and find the elements of Absolute Personality in these passages; make a chart
a. Isaiah 40.9-31
Absolute | Personality |
v. 10—might; arm ruling | v. 10—judge (reward + recompense) |
v. 12—measured waters and heavens | v. 11—gentle shepherd who tends his flock |
v. 13-14—no one has directed or helped him | v. 14—justice (needs a person to make sense) |
v. 15-17—greater than all nations put together | v. 27-31—God cares for his people; gives strength to the weary |
v. 18—no one like him | |
v. 22—sits above the earth; stretches out heavens | |
v. 23-24—powerful over all rulers and judges | |
v. 25—no one like him or equal to him | |
v. 26—Creator of all the stars | |
v. 28—Everlasting; Creator |
b. Acts 17.22-31
Absolute | Personality |
v. 24—Creator of all things | v. 27—we can seek him |
v. 25—he doesn’t need anything | v. 30—patient (“overlooked the times of ignorance”) |
v. 25—he gives to all life and breath and all things | v. 30—speaks and calls for repentance |
v. 26—made humankind and nations | v. 31—judges the world in righteousness through a Man |
v. 26—sovereign over history | v. 31—speaks through the miracle of the resurrection |
v. 27-28—Immensity +omnipresence (“not far from each one of us” | |
v. 29—not created by thought of humans |
6. Absolute Personality unique combination (“Leatherman” concept!)
7. Let’s try our “Absolute Personality” Leatherman to some religions
8. Hinduism
a. Difficult to describe
i. Multiple layers
ii. Multiple Scriptures
iii. Multiple expressions
iv. Theistic, pantheistic, polytheistic—??
b. Many gods Polytheism
i. Brahma: Creator
ii. Vishnu: Protector
iii. Shiva: Destroyer
iv. Apply our Absolute Personality concept:
· Absolute: no
· Personal: yes
i. Have I aligned myself with the right god? the most powerful one? the good one?
ii. These personal gods are part of something greater…
c. Pantheism everything is “god”
i. Atman is Brahman (from the Upanishads)
· The soul of each and every human being is the Soul of the Cosmos
· We are all “god”—the one, infinite, impersonal reality
ii. Maya illusion that keeps us from seeing the oneness of all reality
iii. Karma and reincarnation leading to moksha (liberation)
iv. Apply our Absolute Personality concept:
1. Absolute: Yes
2. Personality: No
v. Implications:
1. Our human personality is meant to be extinguished in the great ocean of oneness
2. “Scriptures” can be contradictory and never complete
· Truth and falsity are also one
· Language brings division
· Experience is the fundamental reality; words cannot adequately describe ultimate reality
9. Buddhism
a. Again, difficult to describe in short form every kind of Buddhism
b. Buddhism develops into different schools in its historical development
i. Theravada and Mahayana forms of Buddhism
· Mahayana: yana = raft; ferry // maha = great
· Hinayana = little raft; prefer to call their view Theravada
ii. Theravada Buddhism is more in line with the content of Buddha’s teaching as found in the Pali canon.
iii. Comparison chart (Huston Smith, The World’s Religions, 126)
THERAVADA | MAHAYANA |
Human beings are emancipated by self-effort, without supernatural aid. | Human aspirations are supported by divine powers and they grace they bestow. |
Key virtue: Wisdom. | Key virtue: Compassion. |
Attainment requires constant commitment, and is primarily for monks and nuns. | Religious practice is relevant to life in the world, and therefore to laypeople. |
Ideal: the Arhat who remains in nirvana after death. | Ideal: the bodhisattva . |
Buddha a saint, supreme teacher, and inspirer. | Buddha a savior. |
Minimizes metaphysics. | Elaborates metaphysics. |
Minimizes ritual. | Emphasizes ritual. |
Practice centers on meditation. | Includes petitionary prayer. |
c. Key concepts:
i. Nothing is permanent including the human personality
ii. Sorrow and suffering is part of all seeming individuality
iii. No soul (anatman) individuality is an illusion
iv. Four Noble Truths[2]
First Noble Truth | The existence of suffering (dukkha). Life is dislocated and out of joint. |
Second Noble Truth | The cause of suffering is desire (tanha). Our lives are driven by desires and craving. |
Third Noble Truth | The ending of desire and suffering by “blowing out” the flame of desire in each one of us. |
Fourth Noble Truth | There is a path that leads to the ending of desire—“the eightfold path.” |
v. Eightfold Path[3]
1. Right Views | You must accept the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path. |
2. Right Resolve | You must renounce the pleasures of the senses; you must harbor no ill will toward anyone and harm no living creature. |
3. Right Speech | Do no lie; do not slander or abuse anyone. Do not indulge in idle talk. |
4. Right Behavior[4] | Do not destroy any living creature; take only what is given to you; do not commit any unlawful sexual act. |
5. Right Occupation | You must earn your livelihood in a way that will harm no one. |
6. Right Effort | You must resolve and strive heroically to prevent any evil qualities from arising in you and to abandon any evil qualities that you may possess. Strive to acquire good qualities and encourage those you do possess to grow, increase and be perfected. |
7. Right Contemplation[5] | Be observant, strenuous, alert, contemplative, free of desire and sorrow. |
8. Right Meditation | When you have abandoned all sensuous pleasures, all evil qualities, both joy and sorrow, you must then enter the four degrees of meditation, which are produced b concentration. |
d. Karma, transmigration (like reincarnation but no soul transferred), and Nirvana
e. Apply our Absolute Personality concept
i. Absolute: Yes, there is a form of it
ii. Personality: No
f. Implications:
i. No grace
ii. No communion with a personal God
iii. “Salvation” is attained by the self but there is no self in Buddhism!
In religion it is not enough for people to do the best that they can. That can never be enough. Our life is more perilous than that. Everything is on fire. We cannot put out the flames, for we too are engulfed. I pray to Jesus Christ not because he was the teacher who showed us how to do the best we can, but because he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Miserere mei, Domine (have mercy on me, O God). –John Buescher (former Tibetan Buddhist who came back to Catholicism)
10. Islam
a. View of God
i. Absolute Creator and Judge
· Allahu akbar “God is greater” (than all else)
· Allah is so far above mankind that he is almost impersonally related
ii. Unitarian view of God denial of Trinity
· Tahwid God’s absolute oneness
iii. Exalted view of God’s sovereignty
iv. No crucifixion; no atonement
v. No guarantee of forgiveness from Allah; Allah is so sovereign he can override all your good deeds
b. Using our Absolute Personality concept:
i. Absolute: Yes
ii. Personal: Not really; due to Allah’s lofty state
c. Importance of the Trinity
i. Eternally a Three-person relationship
ii. Love is an eternally expressed attribute of God!
iii. “So in order for Allah to actually be gracious and merciful, he has to first create the universe. In other words, Allah is dependent upon his creation in order to be Allah. He cannot be ar-Rahman[gracious] or ar-Raheem [merciful] until he creates the world to be gracious or merciful toward. Allah’s qualities are contingent upon creation. Therefore it is irrational to say, as does traditional Islamic teaching, that Allah is intrinsically gracious or merciful or any other relational attribute, whether found in the ninety-nine names or not. If Allah is a monad, he needs his creation to be relational.”[6]
d. Implications:
i. No communion with God in Islam
ii. No assurance of forgiveness
iii. Allah is ultimate power and you submit to power; you don’t need to love it
11. Other religions… polytheism (Asatru) or even atheism apply Absolute Personality concept
12. Review
a. God the Bible is unique Absolute Personality
b. Other religions compromise on this or borrow elements from the biblical view
c. Glory and worship with this truth the Absolute God loves you! You can know him and be known by him!
[1] I am using this concept as developed and taught by John Frame in Apologetics: A Justification of Christian Belief—2nd ed. (Presbyterian & Reformed, 2015), 34-39.
[2] Another way to put the four noble truths: (1) The truth of dukkha, (2) the truth of the origin of dukkha, (3) the truth of the cessation of dukkha, and (4) the truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha.
[3] There are various ways to describe the eight elements of the Eightfold Path. These definitions and wording come from Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Understanding Non-Christian Religions (California: Campus Crusade for Christ, Inc., 1982), 51-52.
[4] The Five Precepts: (1) Do not kill, (2) Do not steal, (3) Do not lie, (4) Do not be unchaste, and (5) Do not drink intoxicants. (Huston Smith, 107-108)
