That Buddhism approves of mercy or of self-restraint is not to say that it
is specially like Christianity; it is only to say that it is not utterly unlike all human existence. Buddhists disapprove in theory of cruelty or
excess because all sane human beings disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess. But to say that Buddhism and Christianity give the same philosophy
of these things is simply false. All humanity does agree that we are in a net of sin. Most of humanity agrees that there is some way out. But as to
what is the way out, I do not think that there are two institutions in the universe which contradict each other so flatly as Buddhism and
Christianity.
Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing
about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of
representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in
a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it
is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and
harmonious body, but his
eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The medieval saint’s body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be
any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are
perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a
peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards.
Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
License
I have written an e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which is free to anyone. To download that book, in several formats, go here.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
Sunday, January 03, 2016
Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 54
Labels:
Buddhism,
Chesterton,
Christianity,
G. K. Chesterton,
Orthodoxy
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