The choice of Buddha (about 560 B.C.)(1):
Buddhism is a philosophic spiritual belief-system (about three hundred million adepts in the
world today).
Buddha, the founder, was the author of teachings known as Dhamma-Vinaya (the doctrine
and discipline) advocating a system of ideas consisting of research methods on oneself in
order to control pain (dukka) (2) and to achieve universal knowledge (3).
Buddha has denied the existence of God in precise statements attributed to his dialogue
with Ananthapindika, a rich young man.
The following arguments resume these statements (4):
1. If God is the maker of all things, then they all should have to submit to His power silently.
They have to be like the vessels produced by the potter, without any individuality of their
own. If this is so, how can they all practice virtue?
False; retort to this argument: first, Buddha mixes up between things, animate or inanimate,
and human beings. If the quality of virtue belongs to humans, condition to ‘practice', then
the reference in terms of the absolute ‘all things' as practicing virtue, is false. Furthermore;
if the rock, being part of all things, practices virtue or not, it does not mean that God is not
the maker. God can very well be the maker of all things including virtue. If we admit, and for
the sake of the argument, that all things must, according to Buddha, practice virtue and do
not need a maker, then there is nothing that stops them from practicing virtue. In fact
Buddha omits the possibility of freedom and the possibility of practicing virtue event hough
things are created by God. Second, there is nothing that proves the statement that ‘things
practice virtue'. Thirdly, ‘virtue' is an ambiguous emotional subjective term where definition
is second to impossible. Fourth, the argument is ‘non sequetor', for no relationship between
the ‘if' and ‘then' is established. Fifth, why should things practice virtue if God is the creator?
Things, created by a God, do not have to practice virtue by necessity. No compulsion for
things to practice virtue. Buddha is assuming only. Sixth, the analogy between a potter and
God is false for there is no comparison between the two; vessels made by the potter are not
the same as human beings, animals, plants, stars and galaxies. Diversity and life distinguish
vessels formed by the potter. Furthermore; the potter himself can be created by God.
Seventh, Contrary to what Buddha assumes, vessels produced by the potter can have,
always had, individualities of their own. Eighths, Buddha does not explain the presence of
things, nor their origin or their reason of being. He simply assumes that things are and are
not created by a God. No one evidence is produced in support for his argument. The
argument to deny the existence of God is founded on the personal choice of Buddha.
2. If the world is indeed created by God, then there should be no such thing as sorrow or
calamity or evil, for all the pure and impure deeds must come from Him.
False; Buddha assumes in this argument that if God exists then there should be no sorrow,
no calamity or evil. He assumes further that God is the author of all pure and impure deeds.
The first argument leads to the second. Both premises are false. The first premise is false since
nothing proves why God should be the author of happiness, security and good, only. Nothing does
not permit that God can be the author of opposites such as happiness as well as sorrow, security as
well as calamity and good as well as evil. Why should God be the author of one category of qualities
and features and not the other qualities and features? Why should pure deeds only come from
God? Where do the other impure deeds come from? God can very well be the author of all deeds
good and bad pure and impure, nothing stops this.
3. If that is not the case then there must be some other cause besides God which is behind Him, in
which case He would not be self-existent.
False; for nothing forbids God to be the author of good and evil, pure and impure. Furthermore;
why should there be two authors? One behind the other? One that produces good and the other evil?
Buddha's argument is again ‘non sequetor'. The assumption of the existence of another god is
invalid, it could twenty five gods. In this argument he is begging the question.
Buddha assumes the presence of another god to conclude the idea of non self-existence, which he
ascribes to God. Neither the assumption of another god nor ‘self-existence' of God can assume to
prove the non existent of a God.
4. It is not convincing that the Absolute created us, because that which is absolute cannot be a
cause. All things here arise from different causes. Then can we say that the Absolute is the cause
of all things? If the Absolute is pervade them, then certainly It is not their creator.
False; we can precisely argue the opposite argument namely, the Absolute can be the cause of the
creation of all things. Buddha's argument id founded on the assumption that: ‘It is not convincing that
the Absolute create us'. This can be retorted to simply by: ‘It is convincing that the Absolute created
us.' Then we can build an argument opposite to that of Buddha's. It is question of choice on which
side you would like to be: for or against, i.e., concluding that ‘if the Absolute is pervade them, then
certainly It is their creator. Nothing can prove or contradict one argument or the other. But, neither
the first argument nor its contrary gives evidence to the existence or non existence of an Absolute.
The second premise assumes that, ‘all things here arise from different causes'. This is called in
logic ‘argument in a circle'. Why should things arise from different causes? They can very well have
only one cause, as Aristotle argues, the ‘prime cause', the ‘first motor'. Buddha assumes that God
cannot create different things, for different things must have different causes. A false premise
leading to a false conclusion.
5. If we consider the Self as the maker, why did it not make things pleasant? Why and how should it
create so much sorrow and suffering for itself?
Buddha retakes his second argument to reiterate the pretext of the subject of sorrow. His argument
can be reduced to the following premise: If God is good then why should there be sorrow and s
uffering?' Why should God be attributed to create pleasant things only?
False; since Godcan be the source of good and evil, of happiness and sorrow, of felicity and suffering. There is no proof what God is. He is assumed to be the source of good only and why not the opposites? There is no evidence to the second premise-question that God creates sorrow and suffering for Itself. Two question-assumptions that are pure personal expressions of Buddha's conjectural imagination. He produces no evidence for these arguments.
6. It is neither God nor the self nor some causeless chance which creates us. It is our deeds which
produce both good and bad results according to the law of causation.
The first premise is an ‘assumption of assertion': ‘Its neither… nor'. It is not by repetitive assertions
that we can build a logical argument. The second argument takes the same form and content of
‘repetitive assertions': ‘It is our deeds'. Pure personal observation on the part of Buddha. Buddha
rejects the idea of a creator-cause by simple denial. But the question remains, how did we come
about and why should we have certain form and structure and why should we age, briefly why should we have a life-cycle? How did we come about into this life? How did all the manifestations of life come about? Denying simply a cause-creator, or multiple causes, does not constitute a solid argument against it.
7. We should therefore "abandon the heresy of worshiping God and of praying to him. We should stop all speculation and vain talk about such matters and practice good so that good may result from our good deeds.
Buddha concludes his own personal view about God choosing to reject the idea of a God. He advises ‘to abandon' what he terms as ‘the heresy of worshipping God' and ‘the prayer to God'. If Buddha chose to abandon the worship of God' it does not follow that everyone should the same. People have different views and if they choose to worship God they are free to do so. Prayers follows as well as a free ritual of acknowledging God open to every individual person. The argument of doing good can be rebutted that by a counter-religious argument that ‘all good is expressed by the acknowledgment of God, and all evil is expressed by the non-acknowledgement of God'. Good deeds come from God and bad deeds come from man himself.
The falsehood in Buddha's assumptions built on erroneous argumentations is not supported by any evidence or proof. It can be reduced to his personal choice of rejecting the idea of the existence of a God.
We observe only assumptions in all arguments proclaimed by Buddha. These assumptions are founded on a logic of ‘If…then'. The conditional ‘if' remains on the level of the probability of the condition itself. Nothing in the conditional provides for a solid argument, let alone evidence.
The problematic is that we are facing a universe and would like to explain it.
Buddha denies God as cause and creator, but does not in any way, apart from rejection, advance an idea of how this universe including man, came about? The second assertive argument does not explain our presence but deeds simply with our deeds that decides good and bad. Buddha bypasses the question of creation to leap to human deeds as the source of good and bad, in order to avoid the problematic of explaining our presence.
In the conclusion, Buddha negates the existence of a God by presenting his point of view. He has made a choice to disbelief in a cause-creator-God. Three hundred million Buddhists chose to follow his footsteps today. (5)
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1. Buddha, an honorary name, signifying the awakened, the illuminated (from Sanskrit budh), of the founder of Buddhism, of whom the most used names are Gautama, or Siddhartha, or Cakamuni. Michel Mourre,Le petit Mourre :Dictionnaire de l'histoire, Bordas, Paris, 1990. p. 98.
2. Ibid., p. 98.
3. Ibid., p. 98.
4. Jayram,Buddha and God, Hindu website, p. 1-2. Shaolin Monks, "The Shaolin Grandmaster's Text".
5. Rapidly, after the death of the first Buddha, his disciples were dispersed into three major schools or vehicles (Yana), distinguished by their doctrines, their rites as well as by geographic zones of influence: a) The Small Vehicle (Hinayana) which remained the most faithful to the letter of the message of Buddha; b) The Great Vehicle (Mahayana), that has, on the contrary, transformed little by little, the original Buddhism, an essentially monastic doctrine, into a religion worshipped by the multitudes, which puts above all the accent on universal compassion, that has its gods and its saints (the Buddhas and the Bodhisattva), its complex metaphysics and its ceremonial cults; c) the Diamant Vehicle (Vajrayana), later on (VII-VIII cycles) full of tantric influence, and gave itself an objective the concrete realization of the Deliverance by magical formulas and practices; it found its historical center in Tibet. Ibid., p. 98.
