What Is the Nature of the Religious Ultimate?
Hinduism is a family of many different traditions that are the product of some 4,000 years of development in India. Hinduism includes a variety of views about the religious ultimate. A Hindu may believe in one God, many gods, or no god. The idea that the religious ultimate can be understood and experienced in many different ways is widely accepted. Most Hindus, however, accept Brahman as the Supreme Being and sustaining power of the cosmos. But there is disagreement over the nature of Brahman and its relation to the human person. Hinduism includes both monistic and theistic traditions. The Advaita Vedanta (Non-Dualism) tradition, for example, claims that the sole reality is Nirguna Brahman, a nonpersonal reality utterly beyond human concepts and categories. The Vishisht Advaita (Qualified Non-Dualism) teaches that there is only one reality, Saguna Brahman, or Brahman with personal attributes. Brahman is thus a personal Being, and the world is the “body” of Brahman.
Buddhism originated from the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (traditionally, 563–483 BC), who was determined to find the cause of suffering and pain. After much meditation and ascetic discipline, Gautama experienced an “awakening” or “enlightenment,” and for the next forty years he traveled throughout India preaching the dharma (truth) and attracting a large following. A variety of terms are used for the religious ultimate in Buddhism. For the Theravada tradition it is nirvana, which alone is permanent, unconditioned, and ultimately real. But nirvana is not heaven; it is the state that obtains when the fires of desire and the conditions producing rebirth are eliminated. The ultimate reality in Mahayana Buddhism is the Dharmakaya, or the all-inclusive Buddha essence, sometimes called the Void or Emptiness (Sunyata). Neither nirvana nor the Dharmakaya can be thought of as a personal being. Buddhism clearly rejects any idea of an all-powerful creator God; in this sense it is atheistic.
Islam maintains that Muhammad (AD c. 570–632) was the last and greatest in a long line of prophets sent from God. Muhammad received revelations from Allah that are contained in the Qur’an, which is understood by Muslims to be the Word of God. All branches of Islam embrace a strict monotheism. The religious ultimate is Allah, the one God, creator of everything else that exists. Islam calls for total submission to Allah’s sovereign will in all of life.
What Is the Nature of the Human Predicament?
According to classical Hinduism, the human predicament consists in the repeated reincarnation of the atman (the soul) as it passes from one life to another. Repeated births are regulated by karma, a metaphysical principle that determines current and future states on the basis of past actions and dispositions. The traditional soteriological goal of Hinduism is moksha, or liberation from rebirths through breaking the causal conditions of karma.
The human predicament in Buddhism consists in our being trapped in a cycle of repeated rebirths and the fact that all existence—apart from nirvana—is characterized by pervasive suffering or dissatisfaction. The goal in classical Buddhism, then, is to break the chain of causal conditions resulting in rebirths, thereby attaining nirvana. The Four Noble Truths present a diagnosis of the cause of suffering (desire or attachment) and a way to the elimination of suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path sets out ideals in moral self-discipline, meditation, and wisdom that provide the way to eliminate desire and thereby suffering.26
In Islam, the human predicament consists of the fact that human beings do not submit to Allah and his ways but rather disobey his will, thereby producing the evil and suffering in our world. Human beings have a weakness of will and a general tendency toward sin. But although tempted by Iblis (the Devil), it is within the power of humankind to resist evil and to remain faithful to the will of Allah.
What Is the Nature of and the Conditions for Attaining Salvation/Liberation/Enlightenment?
Traditionally in Hinduism there are three ways to attain liberation. (1) The way of right action (karma marga) involves living in accordance with one’s duty as determined by gender, caste, and stage in life. (2) The way of liberating knowledge (jnana marga) is advocated by Advaita Vedanta, which teaches that what breaks the cycle of rebirths is the existential realization of one’s own essential identity with Brahman. (3) The way of devotion (bhakti marga) involves love, reverence, or adoration for a particular deity, and performing ritual worship of deities such as Vishnu, Shiva, or Krishna.
Different schools of Buddhism have slightly different teachings, but most Theravada traditions emphasize strict adherence to the Noble Eightfold Path, which includes proper understanding of the nature of reality—including the Buddha’s teaching on the impermanence of all things—and rigorous meditation. Mahayana traditions tend to emphasize seeking enlightenment in this life through meditation. Theravada Buddhism emphasizes self-effort in attaining nirvana; each person is said to be responsible for attaining his or her own liberation, which is restricted to the few who can master the required disciplines. Mahayana opened the way to the masses by acknowledging a vast multitude of spiritual beings, such as the bodhisattvas, who assist in the quest for enlightenment and liberation.
Islam teaches that our present world will one day be destroyed by Allah and that all humankind, past and present, will then be raised to face divine judgment. In the judgment each person’s deeds will be impartially weighed in the balance. Salvation is strictly on the basis of submission to Allah and faithful adherence to the teachings of Islam. Some will be admitted to Paradise; others consigned to Hell. Islam denies the need for a savior and the substitutionary atonement, as found in Christianity.
5. The Problem of Conflicting Truth Claims
As seen above, the major religions acknowledge that our world is not as it should be; there is a deeply rooted problem that needs to be addressed. The religions offer different perspectives on what the problem is and how it can be overcome. The Indian religions—such as Hinduism and Buddhism—typically adopt a medical analogy in expressing their views. Using this analogy, the philosopher Keith Yandell reminds us that the concept of truth is embedded in the deep structure of religious worldviews:
A religion proposes a diagnosis of a deep, crippling spiritual disease universal to non-divine sentience and offers a cure. A particular religion is true if its diagnosis is correct and its cure efficacious. The diagnosis and cure occur in the setting of an account of what there is—an account whose truth is assumed by the content of the diagnosis and cure.27
In other words, the concept of truth is central to the religions. But how should we understand religious truth? In religion, as in other domains, truth is fundamentally a property of statements or propositions, and by extension, of beliefs. A statement or belief is true if and only if the state of affairs to which the statement refers is as the statements asserts. Otherwise it is false. Thus, the statement “The universe was created by God” is true if and only if the universe was in fact created by God. The belief that “The only reality not undergoing continual change is nirvana” is true if and only if the only reality not undergoing continual change is nirvana. And so on. Religious beliefs, like other beliefs, can be clear or vague, easy to understand or difficult to interpret. (True statements in physics or history can also be vague or difficult to understand.) None of that affects their truth status.28
The fact of religious diversity leads to the problem of conflicting truth claims. Diversity by itself, of course, does not necessarily indicate disagreement. Moreover, we should acknowledge that there are some commonalities among the religions (e.g., the ethical principle behind the Golden Rule is reflected in the teachings of many religions). Nevertheless, it is clear that Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims adopt fundamentally different perspectives on basic questions about the religious ultimate and our relation to this reality. Christians and Muslims, for example, believe that the universe was created by an eternal Creator; Buddhists deny this. Advaita Vedanta Hindus maintain that the ultimate reality is Nirguna Brahman; Buddhists reject this. Christians insist that Jesus Christ was the incarnate Word of God, fully God and fully man; Muslims dismiss this as blasphemous.
While all of the religions acknowledge that the present state of the world is not as it should be, they disagree over the cause of this unsatisfactory state and its proper remedy. For Christians, the root cause is sin against a holy God and the cure consists in repentance and reconciliation with God through the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. For Buddhists and Hindus the cause lies in a pervasive ignorance, a fundamentally mistaken view of reality—although they disagree sharply among themselves over just which beliefs are false and should be rejected. Hindus believe in enduring, substantial souls which are reincarnated in multiple lives. Buddhists deny that there is an enduring, substantial soul which passes from one life to another.