Buddha claimed that he witnessed the cessation of all things, including God. How could this be explained by a Christian?

[MonteRCMS]

I visualize God sitting in His Barcalounger and witnessing the Big Bang taking place.

 

[Aloysium]

I reject the error of seeing an internal mental construct as a truly existent part of the external world. Seen as internal mental constructs, they are not a problem. Mistakenly seeing them as a truly existent part of the external world creates problems and, in Buddhist terms, dukkha, suffering.

We are relational beings. Although we can separate a subjective experience from it sources, the knower and the known, outside of a purely internally generated state such as a delusion or halucination, what is involved is a self-other connection that is the fundamental reality of everything - love. While Reality itself might be said to be joyous, that joy is transcendent. Suffering is indeniable and its healing does not occur with denial or avoidance, but in taking it upon oneself to be taken beyond.

 

[feed_me]

Its called demonic possession. Translated he got decieved.

 

[BlackFriar]

Then “substance” is a compound entity, not a unitary entity. Hence we can analyse each component separately.

Indeed, but they cannot be considered mere “properties” which is what you endeavoured to do in too simplistic fashion a fashion asserting it was logically impossible that one could be eternal and the other finite. It is perfectly possible, just as the matter of the cosmos can be eternal with the things actually made from that matter constantly birthing and corrupting like ripples on an eternal pond.

I am talking more about the mental image of the wood in our mind than the external real word. Since our senses are imperfect we can never know the real wood…

Well if one takes this somewhat modern western attitude (as opposed to Buddhism) then no real knowledge of reality is possible including the alleged Buddhist proposition “all is change, nothing is eternal” is also but a “mental construct.”

I really don’t see the metaphysical relevance of the Buddhahood statue story to hylomorphism I am afraid. Its fairly clearly making a completely other point.

A chessboard can be both black and white because it is a compound of black squares and white squares. If it were single, not compound, then the law of the excluded middle applies: “X is black” and “X is not-black” cannot both be simultaneously true of the same X.

OK. So what has this to do with hylomorphism? Matter is eternal, forms are not. Therefore all concrete substances decay,…but the underlying matter clearly does not. It is maintained in existence by the new forms. How are the black and white squares on a chessboard in any way analogical to the component principles of hylomorphism. You do not understand what is meant by “co principles”.

No it is not eternal, unless your mind is also eternal and unchanging. A child’s mental image of a candy is different from the adult’s mental image of the same candy, especially when the adult is trying to lose weight.

Talk acorns. Both adult and child still recognise acorns when they fly to Hyde park from their distant countries. Acorn form exists in matter as well as in minds. To say its just a personal mental construct is silly. Its somehow based on reality and makes life possible.

 

[BlackFriar]

Useful and practical, yes, but not to be taken too seriously. Are the wood statues sacred or are they firewood? If someone hold too strongly to the “sacred” idea then that person will freeze.

Not sure what you are on about. If we could agree that anything is a mental construct surely its the notion “sacred”. It isn’t a property of wood for a start. As for wood burning and giving heat. That has always been true since the caveman. The story is not saying what you want it to say in this converse.

As I say it seems a little vague and unthinking re “mental constructs” to lump everything from raw personal perception (colors, sounds, textures) to social custom (sacredness) in the same grab bag.

It is not personal, it is scriptural:

It may well be. My small point was that above your final argument for impermanence of the world is Scripture. An appeal to authority rather than reason, just as many Catholics do to their own interpretation of the Bible or Dogma.

I find that strange in a man of science, let alone a Buddhist.
The Kalama Sutra would find this Western approach to Buddhist Scripture somewhat lacking in Buddhist insight I suggest. We are to penetrate to things as they are…that includes the opinion of others, all Scriptures, all traditions - even that of Buddha if he even had any of his own.

“Come Kalamas, do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing, nor upon tradition, nor upon what is in Scripture…”

But really, I have not come here to comment on Buddhism which is a perfectly consistent view of the Cosmos. What I have come here to do is merely show you that there are other ancient traditions that have equally consistent views that are different from yours.

That one needs to decry another ancient view as “wrong” in order to shore up one’s own is not an indication of being on the path to enlightenment. If you reread the Kalama Sutra I think you will find the Buddha would agree.

As I say, you really have a poor grasp of what ancient Greek hylomorphism is about and perhaps attack too quickly what you have never properly attempted to research and understand.

God bless.

 

[rossum]

ndeed, but they cannot be considered mere “properties” which is what you endeavoured to do in too simplistic fashion a fashion asserting it was logically impossible that one could be eternal and the other finite.

The designation “Creator” is a property, and a contingent property at that. The eternal/finite distinction is more than a property but instead indicates two or more separate entities in a larger compound. My apologies for not expressing myself more clearly.

Matter is eternal, forms are not.

This I do not accept. If you are talking about physical matter: protons, electrons etc. then they are not eternal since all had a beginning. If you are talking about some mental idealisation of matter then I reject it, of course.

It may well be. My small point was that above your final argument for impermanence of the world is Scripture.

I only quoted scripture because it seemed you implied that my ideas were my own, not part of the Buddhist tradition. Below you quote the Kalama sutta. I have tried Buddhist ideas, including the attitude to impermanence, change and souls, and have found that, “These things are good; these things are not blameable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness.”

rossum