Interfaith Dialogue

[Katy]

Sorry guys, I'm going to have to love you and leave you for two days. I hope the discussion doesn't progress too far before I get back.

[PadmaVonSamba]

The term can only have practical application (can only be used) within the context of "things" having inherent existence.

Can you outline your reasoning for saying this please? I can't just take your word for it, now can I? Why can't the word "God" be used for, say, emptiness?

What is emptiness?
Emptiness means that all apparent "things' lack intrinsic existence.
Thus, "God" or any definition of "God" also lacks any inherent existence.

You can change the name of "emptiness" to "God" if it suits you.
But why not change it to "Fred" ?
I like "Fred". That was my father's middle name.

[Katy]

We have just replaced a word with another word.

Just quickly, the Christian tradition does contain many teachings about cause and effect. Firstly, all things come from God (which is everything) and never departs from God, and then returns to it. That is, there are just changes in form, and nothing is independent. As for all the elements of the whole, such as human beings, "whatever you sow, you shall reap", and "the sins of the fathers will be visited on the sons", etc. These are teachings on the "conventional" level.

[Katy]

Emptiness means that all apparent "things' lack intrinsic existence.

That's a definition of the term "emptiness", I think you'll agree.

Any definition of "God" also lacks any inherent existence.

Yet if the word "God" shares the same definition as "emptiness", which you stated above, then it means the same thing.

I feel that it is likely that different traditions have gravitated to the same basic truths, and because they use different languages they end up using different words for the same thing. It makes it very confusing to work out. I can't prove this hypothesis, however. Even though it is speculation, it makes sense to me.

[PadmaVonSamba]

Whether Buddhists care at all about understanding people of other traditions is entirely up to them. I'd like to think that Buddhists would make an effort if they choose to engage with other traditions.

Most Buddhists I know engage with people of various traditions, religions, and cultural backgrounds all the time. I am sorry if somebody who comes to this forum thinks otherwise. I am a guest here myself. But the sign on the front door says "Dharma Wheel".

If a duck walks into a chicken coop and says "what I lay is also a chicken egg" , it is not the fault of the chickens if a disagreement arises. They did not go out looking for a duck to fight with. The duck came in by herself.

[PadmaVonSamba]

I feel that it is likely that different traditions have gravitated to the same basic truths, and because they use different languages they end up using different words for the same thing. It makes it very confusing to work out.

Yes, that is what you feel.
But maybe the confusion rests in thinking that everybody is talking about the same thing, when maybe they are not.
Although they might be talking about very similar things, meaning, for example, that if one person meditates on emptiness and another on God they might have a similar mental experience.

But, similarities appear because of the connections we imagine, not because they actually occur.
Bats and birds have both mastered flight, but if you are waiting to see bats hatch from eggs,
you will have to wait a very long time.

[Grigoris]

Why can't the word "God" be used for, say, emptiness?

Coz the majority of theistic minded individuals will look at you like you have lost your mind if you said to them "God is emptiness". You know why? Coz it's not the way that the majority of theistic minded individuals define God (even if God is actually emptiness). It would make as much sense to them as to tell them that God is brocolli, they would look at you in exactly the same way.

my god.jpg (37.17 KiB) Viewed 2159 times

PS I imagine that the reason Buddhists do not say God=emptiness is because God (for them) does not = emptiness.
AND God does not = emptiness for the majority of those that belive in, and thus define, God.
So it looks as if there is absolute agreement between theists and Buddhists on this particular topic.
It seems that problems arise when individuals try to mix and match their own defintions in order to try to give credence to (their own) two "opposing" views simultaneously. I once described it to some friends of mine with the following metaphor: a car has a brake pedal and an accelerator pedal. Both of them have their uses and fulfil their functions. Thing is though, that you can't press both pedals at the same time (well, you can but...).

[Acchantika]

We have just replaced a word with another word.

Just quickly, the Christian tradition does contain many teachings about cause and effect.

That may be so. It is still the case that changing the word "reality" to the word "God" tells us nothing about either.

[Preta]

God is piss.

[mañjughoṣamaṇi]

God is piss.

Well getting back to Spinoza, piss would be one aspect of God's mode of extension

[PadmaVonSamba]

I would like to offer this excerpt from the book,
Essence Of The Heart Sutra by HH Dalai Lama (p.117)
and hopefully it will remove some confusion:


"It is important to clarify that we are not speaking of emptiness as some kind of absolute strata of reality, akin to say, the ancient Indian concept of Brahman, which is conceived to be an underlying absolute reality from which the illusory world of multiplicity emerges. Emptiness is not a core reality, lying somehow at the core of the universe, from which the diversity of phenomena arise. Emptiness can only be conceived of in relationship to individual things and events."

So, this really gets to the bottom of it.
Whenever you interject the concept of "God", it can only pertain to the context of things having substantial reality to them, to the existence of self, to the existence of things as self-existing things.
Why so? Because any definition of "God" is also an expression of a self-existing "thing" whether you want to call it a person or a cosmic force or whatever. and it only has meaning as a term when assuming that objects or phenomena or events are inherently self-existing. So, you cannot assert any definition of "god" without asserting self-existence.

This is the direct opposite of the Buddhist theory of emptiness.
.
.
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[PadmaVonSamba]

Sorry guys, I'm going to have to love you and leave you for two days. I hope the discussion doesn't progress too far before I get back.

I seriously doubt that this discussion can ever progress, but it is entertaining and keeps me from thinking about the fact that I really need to clean up the house before Thanksgiving.

[Dechen Norbu]

There's also the interesting case of God not possibly being both omnipotent and good. He can only be either one or the other. If he is omnipotent, he is a sadistic prick. If he is good, he can't surely be omnipotent. Not when we think about a child dying of starvation and disease in a poor country, things that could be solved in a week in developed countries. Not when we think about his creation including a world (that we know of) where life is only possible by the killing and suffering of other beings. We just have to watch nature to understand this is a battle ground, 24/7. Now, if he can help and does nothing, he is not good. If he wants to help, but can't, he is not omnipotent. We can't have both, can we?

These arguments ring a loud bell. Where did you pick them up? Teilhard de Chardin or someone like that?

I really don't remember really. It's kind of vox populi among atheists. I think it is a twist of the omnipotence paradox (can God create a rock so heavy He can't lift it?), which is mostly a matter of semantics. But this argument doesn't hold much water (neither the omnipotence paradox). Just because we can put a few words together to form what looks like a coherent sentence doesn't mean the sentence really makes any sense without considering the whole context. This is the case with the Omnipotence paradox. It's a logical fallacy. My argument is a little stronger, but may fall down according to the definition of omnipotence we choose. But that's apologetics and nothing more, because its common sense that an omnipotent God which was good could not create suffering or stop himself of eliminating it, even if he had to change the game rules.
Still, I advanced it more like a little provocation.

Anyway, this discussion has become a matter of semantics and not a real discussion about God and Buddhism, if you ask me. I lost interest...

[Thug4lyfe]

I think we should debate about something more interesting!

I reckon batman can kick superman's ass!

[sangyey]

I reckon batman can kick superman's ass!

Do you have a line of reasoning to support this food_eatah? Batman can't leap over buildings in a single bound

[Thug4lyfe]

He'll trick superman into a false sense of security by pretending to give up. Then shoot him with a kryptonite tipped grappling hook!

[tobes]

Saying "this is my particular definition of God - let's debate that" is one thing; quite necessary for a coherent discussion.

Saying "I have privileged access to all the definitions of God, and I can determine which ones are or are not acceptable" is quite another; an extraordinary and untenable claim.

People can define "God" any way they want to. Endlessly, without any limitations. The term is not "taken" or copyrighted!
--However--
The term can only have practical application (can only be used) within the context of "things" having inherent existence.
That, i think, is undeniable.
If one holds the Buddhist view that things lack any substantial reality, then there is no place where any concept or definition of "God" has any meaning or serves any purpose.
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So, regardless of how you define the word, "God" always means that things inherently exist.
.
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Why precisely is this the case? Can you give an argument?

i.e. what is your reasoning or evidence that the term God, in order to have practical application, necessarily asserts the inherent existence of things?

[tobes]

Saying "this is my particular definition of God - let's debate that" is one thing; quite necessary for a coherent discussion.

Saying "I have privileged access to all the definitions of God, and I can determine which ones are or are not acceptable" is quite another; an extraordinary and untenable claim.

For the record I do not have privileged access to definitions, I do not determine which ones are acceptable, and I am basing my suggestions for a definition of God not on my ideas but upon the thinking of the ancient Jews who created the concept. Basically I'm saying they invented the idea, it's what "God " meant before the syncretists swiped it, and that the concept and word should remain linked according to early usage.

I don't think my position is anywhere near as arrogant as you make it out to be, and certainly far less arrogant than simply saying "I will define words to mean whatever I please, and if that leads to pointless wars and an inability to understand history and/or my fellow man, so be it, it's more important that I have it my way."

It's not arrogant, it is simply untenable in the extreme to claim that you've got the concept/signifier adequately traced through history.

To take your own example, the ideas and concepts of the ancient Jews have undergone thousands of years of intense hemeneutical/theological/philosophical contestation. There is no agreement on what the concept refers to. Judaism in particular, is a deeply hemerneutical tradition: a tradition based on the fluidity of interpretation.

And you cannot know what the ancient Jews themselves asserted; you only have access to it because of those thousands of years of hermeneutical enterprise.

In short, you do not have access to the thinking of the ancient Jews; only your interpretation of their thinking.....which I assume is mediated through other contemporary interpretations (i.e. the Church groups you used to be a part of).

Therefore, you do not have any basis to claim that you know the meaning of the concept as it stood originally.

[tobes]

Okay, I admit that I'm a bit of a contrarian, and I like a good philosophical argument.

So let me pose a question to people who conclude that the signifier God necessarily has no meaning, because it does not have an empirically findable conventional basis.

In comparison to something like "chair" , which although problematic from a Buddhist pov (because it imputes existence), can still be used in a conventional discourse (so, following Shantarakshita's epistemological distinction between conventionally valid and conventionally erronerous).

So, if you hold that conclusion, do you also necessarily abandon Buddhist signifiers and concepts which cannot be found in empirical reality?

i.e. Samskarah, Maitri, Karma,

If so, how does your practice and understanding of Buddhism remain coherent?

[PadmaVonSamba]

what is your reasoning or evidence that the term God, in order to have practical application, necessarily asserts the inherent existence of things?

The very notion of "god" itself is an assertion of an inherently existing thing.
Otherwise there is no point in thinking there is something to define,
much less, in making an effort to define it.

If you regard "god" as merely a compilation of component things (henceforth empty of inherent existence)
then saying "god is this " or "god is that" is totally pointless,
because you are not talking about a single entity.

This is why "god' pertains fully to discussions in which reality is viewed as being composed of inherently existing things,
but is completely irrelevant to Buddhism.