Kant and Buddhism

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thinkandmull

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“Learning Zen is a phenomenon of gold and dung. Before you understand it, it’s like gold; after you understand it, it’s like dung.” Zen Saying

I am going to try to explain how I understand Buddhism by starting with Kant. Kant says there are things’-in-themselves that can never be known. They cause the less than real reality of the world, which is within the context of space and time. Even Eisteins space-bending or time distortions are within the world of phenomena. Surrounding these acts of physics is a general space and time that is not really a part of things-in-themselves or the phenomena of the world we experience. Imagine individuals wearing a pair of glasses. One piece of glass is space, the other is time. It is through these lenses that we know the world. Whether these glasses are a part of you and your mind (as Kant says) or something else (apart from you) is a kind of spiritual question I don’t need to address. This world view however detaches the individual from what is usually perceived as reality, but is also a stepping stone into Buddhism. For Buddhist’s, the nature of “reality” is different from Aristotle. Aristotle says that the more truth something has the more reality and being it has. Buddhists speak of meaning in place of truth, or maybe truth as well, but anyway for them the more meaning something has the more empty it is of all reality, of everything. Within this emptyness compassion and calm can be found infinitely and eternally, as long as one recognizes that the soul does not exist and the inner truth of everything is nothingness.

Now, I know a couple decades ago a Cardinal wrote a book about Buddhism. I haven’t been able to find it though. The Congregation for Interreligious Dialogue has had many meetings with Buddhists as well. So my question is whether Buddhism is inherently anti-thetical to Catholicism and its dogmas. It is truly against Catholic tradition with a small t. But can a Catholic be a Catholic Buddhist nonetheless?
 
It seems the largest problem is that it rehashes the same fundamental error of Manicheism and Albigensianism, which is that matter is bad. That doesn’t fit with two major doctrines - creation, and incarnation.

Also the idea of ultimate self-fulfillment apart from the aid of grace… that’s a big problem. Sheen’s paradigm of looking at East vs. West was “Man to God” or “God to Man”… We believe God must come to Man.

There are certainly good things to take from the thinking, but as a whole it is, I suggest, antithetical for those reasons.

Thoughts?
 
I think buddhists believe that matter is more of an illusion than bad in itself. Maybe any buddhists out there can comment… I don’t know about interpreting creation in terms of idealism. It’s a bit of a stretch. How can solid matter, like a rock, be said to be good though

P.S. I had a previous thread last year called “Hegel and Buddhism” that you might want to check out
 
Things are good in themselves - they all have being. A thing is always at least as good inasmuch as it exists (and is therefore created and sustained by God). A lot of things start to fall apart when this is touched… Metaphysics, ethics, the meaning of the Incarnation, etc.
 
G.K. Chesterton is relevant here:

" The rough shorthand way of putting the difference is that the Christian pities men because they are dying, and the Buddhist pities them because they are living. The Christian is sorry for what damages the life of a man; but the Buddhist is sorry for him because he is alive."
 
I liked Chesterton in high-school, but now that I’m older I feel like he does a lot of word games and isn’t fair to what the other side is saying. Buddhist are about finding eternal life, so of course they seem to be harsh about previous life(s). Vatican II spoke of Buddhism desire to find eternal truth and peace.

However, Buddhist paradoxes aare very different from those of Jesus. Jesus said that to find one’s life you must lose it. Buddhist say to find your soul you must deny that it exists
 
However, Buddhist paradoxes are very different from those of Jesus. Jesus said that to find one’s life you must lose it. Buddhist say to find your soul you must deny that it exists
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Right… So is it really eternal life, or non-life? Absorption into some primal force… It takes the exitus reditus thing a bit too far. It’s fine for ethics, but not for a metaphysics (and certainly not for explaining and defending doctrine).

I’ve always thought the Eastern religions were much more dogmatic than they would admit…
 
With modern materialism and its immoralities, bright digitally enhanced immodesty, and stuff that it, it is easier to lean towards buddhism than ever before. I don’t know if we can understand directly what they are speaking about from internet articles alone. I’d like to get to know a buddhist so I can get in his head, so to speak. Yesterday, I was flipping through a philosophy book of mine and just happened to turn to a section from Augustine on how evil is a deprivation of good. It made lots of sense, but then again this seems to be more complex than Augustine makes it out to be. Take masturbation and homosexuality. They exist as acts, as bodily acts. They have being. Yet they are evil. Sustaining creation is different from creation itself, but still, how can God sustain evil? If we say the devil sustains those acts, we still have “being in act” that is evil. I don’t know the solution here. I am not saying that Buddhism has the answer though

Finally, on Kant, I always thought his name was ironic. It is the formal English way of saying can’t, as in “I just can’t have faith, my name is Kant”. Always thought that was funny…
 
I thought about this hard yesterday, and I think Aquinas was right and Descartes was wrong: sustaining creation is not like a continual creation. First there is creation, then when the world is in existence it is sustained. Two very different actions. Therefore God does sustain homosexual acts, but He is not morally responsible for them because He is more separate from them than He is at the moment of Creation. Nor are homosexual acts beings or entities. They are acts of beings, which beings are good in their nature, but not necessarily in their physical acts.
 
thinkandmull said:
. . .sustaining creation is not like a continual creation. First there is creation, then when the world is in existence it is sustained. Two very different actions. . . .
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From eternity, creation is brought into being by God in every moment.
Nothing would exist without Him, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, present in and transcending each moment.
While creation exists within God’s eternal Now, at the beginning, it came to be in a step-wise fashion - from the basics to the eventual complexity of mankind. These and subsequent changes constitute time
The beginnings of process was different from what followed, but creation’s relation to God remains the same - He brings it all into being and remains in loving relation to it.
I have no idea what “God is not morally responsible” can mean. It is an irrational proposition that states that God would not do God’s will. God is Love.
From Revelation 13:8 and 1 Peter 1:20, we understand that God knows that sin is an outcome of free will. In order for His creatures to know and share in His love, they must possess the capacity to choose otherwise. From beyond time, God granted us the possibility of communing with the Divine through the sacrifice of the Word incarnate, the innocent Lamb, who is Love.
 
How would you explain how God is not morally responsible for holding the acts of masturbation and homosexuality in exist during the sin?
 
I am not talking about the sin in the soul of the doer, but evil in the physical aspect. Its like when we say there can’t be two men having sex in heaven even if they were not choosing it with their soul’s will or even enjoying it. The act is not only ugly but physically disordered
 
Is it possible that nothing is physically ugly? I feel like this is where this conversation is going…
 
I’m not sure what you mean by morality.
I see it as what God wants us to do in any particular situation.

Sin clearly exists a consequence of creating beings with a free will that offers the possibility of love. The fact of our existence as individual persons is pretty spectacular, to say the least.

Jesus, the innocent Lamb, took upon Himself on the cross all the sins of mankind. More than death, I imagine that is what caused Him to sweat blood in the Garden.
 
is homosexuality in animals immoral-unnatural (not that they are sinning mind you)
 
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