Did God give Buddha Salvation?

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Adrian169

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Buddha was known as an Enlightened human being, which means that he was aware of his own nature and accepted it. God allows those who don’t know Him, to be saved under their own circumstances. Since Buddha did not know God, and lived life peacefully, was he saved after his death?
 
It’s certainly a possibility - Buddha strikes me as one who was very sincerely and diligently seeking knowledge of the divine and gave up earthly riches and pleasures in his quest. Then too, he could not be expected to have ready access to or knowledge of the Abrahamic faiths given the time and place he lived.

More than that we cannot say.
 
The Church doesn’t canonize non-Catholics, so we have no way to know.
So the answer is “maybe”
 
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The Catholic Church never says who is saved and who becomes a lost soul when they die.
It is very possible that there are more people in heaven who had been non-Catholics than who had been Catholics.
I agree that God allows people who don’t know Him to be saved.
Frankly, I find much about Buddha that is admirable, myself.
 
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There is the distinct possibility that he who thought that life was an illusion is now disillusioned. Yet, his search for truth was certainly commendable. Bottom line: No one this side of the door to eternity knows. Could he be in purgatory? For this very reason, we pray for those souls.
 
Although such ideas have been attributed to him, there is no reference to life being an illusion in the early Buddhist texts. He did, however, observe that life involves suffering. If one doubts this, I recommend watching any nature documentary, such as Disney’s wonderful Bears.

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There are statements that have been interpreted that way later, such as life being like a soap bubble or a dewdrop. But read in context, they are talking about the impermanence of life. How a loved one may be here one day, and gone the next. How one’s own life might suddenly end.
 
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
The Church doesn’t canonize non-Catholics, so we have no way to know.
So the answer is “maybe”
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Erm… In this particular case the Church did canonize a non-Catholic. See Barlaam and Josaphat:
The story is a Christianized version of one of the legends of Buddha, as even the name Josaphat would seem to show. This is said to be a corruption of the original Joasaph, which is again corrupted from the middle Persian Budasif ( Budsaif=Bodhisattva ).
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Barlaam and Josaphat were downgraded to the second rank in the general clearing out of saints in 1969. Perhaps the Church might want to reinstate the Buddha in the spirit of ecumenism? 😃
 
Adrian169 said:
Since Buddha did not know God, and lived life peacefully, was he saved after his death?
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It is possible that he knew God better than most but did not use that term since in his time and place it would have been confusing. His was what we would call and apophatic spirituality or Via Negativa. We have more in common than we usually think.
 
Objectively, no, because he was outside of the true religion (which in his time would have been Judaism).

Subjectively, we have no idea, maybe. We have no real way of knowing how God ultimately judges non-Catholics apart from the natural law. I would hope that he was among those saved in the Limbo of the Fathers when Christ descended to hell. But we won’t know definitively until we die.
 
God offers Sidharth the “hope” of salvation, just as he offers it to you, me, Catholics, and non-Catholics, alike.

Speculation by mortals is often subjective, and that is why salvation is left to the Lord.

Pray for the salvation of Buddah, as you would pray for the salvation of your friends, loved ones, or yourself…or even your enemies, as commanded by Jesus!
 
Bonaventurian said:
Objectively, no, because he was outside of the true religion (which in his time would have been Judaism).
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Subjectively, but certainly not objectively.

“True Religion” is an oxymoron. The Pharisees were strictly “religious”; Jesus was “religious”, but not did not interpret the will of God as rigidly as the Jews (“I came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it”).

Buddah, Mormons, Seven Day Adventists, Evangelicals, and Catholics have the same hope for salvation.
 
For Judaism, the issue is literally whether Buddha practiced what he preached, the same issue as for all people. If he did, then he has a place in the World to Come.
 
For all we know nobody is in hell. Only the Father knows for sure. Therefore, we should always hope and pray for those who have gone before us
 
You will have to ask God; but getting an interview is a bit problematic.
 
It is possible. There were many good qualities about Buddha. We won’t really know until we die.
 
This is a very interesting question. It’s certainly possible.
 
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