Buddhist understanding of causation in

comparison with traditional Judaic-

Christian arguments for the existence of God.

Judaic-Christian arguments for the existence of God.

• The two main Judeo- Christian arguments for the existence of God that we are going to look at are the Cosmological argument and the Teleological argument.

• The Cosmological Argument

The Cosmological argument claims that by examining the fact that the universe exists, you can work out the cause of its existence.

• Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) wrote in the ‘Summa Theologia’, of five ways in which God’s existence can be demonstrated. These are:

• The argument for an unmoved mover• The argument for an uncaused cause• The argument from contingency• The argument from gradation• The argument from teleology• It is the first three ways that are used in the cosmological argument.

The argument for an unmoved mover.

• We can observe that things in the world are in a process of motion.

• Everything that is in a process of motion is changing from a potential state to an actual state.

•Everything in this state of motion must be put into this state by something else, creating a chain of movers.

• This chain cannot be infinite as then there would be no first mover to cause all of the others.

• So therefore “it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put into motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.”

The argument for an uncaused cause.

• This follows a similar pattern.

• Nothing is an efficient cause of itself.

• Efficient causes follow in order: so a first cause causes a second which causes a third and so on.

• It is not possible for a chain of efficient causes to be infinite as if there is no first cause, no other causes will follow.

• It is therefore “necessary to admit a first efficient cause to which everyone gives the name of God.’’

The argument from contingency

• Everything in nature has contingent existence, meaning that at one time in the past it did not exist and at some time in the future it will not exist.

• If everything at one point did not exist, there would have been nothing in existence.

• Something must, therefore, exist which has necessary existence.

The Teleological argument

• This is an argument for Gods existence by looking at things in the universe and trying to show that they have been designed for some reason or purpose.

• There are two types of Teleological argument:

• Arguments based on regularity – Thomas Aquinas

• Arguments based on purpose – William Paley

Aquinas

• Aquinas bases his argument on the fact that everything follows certain natural laws. This is known as the regularity of succession.

• When you look at the natural world you can see that everything in it follows natural laws.

• If things follow natural laws they tend to have some goal or purpose.

• If a thing cannot think for itself, it has no goal or purpose unless directed by something that does think.

• Everything in the natural world that does not think for itself heads towards a purpose because it is directed by something that does think. This thing is God.

• Aquinas was a follower of Aristotle’s theories. He uses the Four Causes theory in his argument, but links the final cause to God.

William Paley

• If you go for a walk and found a rock, you could conclude that it had been there forever and not think any more about it. If, however, you found a watch you could examine it and find it had moving parts which demonstrate that:

• The watch was for a purpose – telling the time

• The parts work together or are fit for a purpose

• The parts are ordered and put together in a certain way to make it function

• If the parts are arranged in a different way it does not work

• Therefore the watch must have had a maker that existed at some time and designed it for the purpose that it has.

• He continues the analogy saying that:

• Suppose the watch had an imaginary function - to produce other watches

• If this was the case, your admiration for the watch maker would be increased

• Therefore the design of the watch implies “the presence of intelligence and mind.”

Buddhist understanding of causation.

• The Buddha became enlightened when he was able to figure out the causal chain responsible for rebirth.   The Buddhist term for this causal chain, pratityasamutpada ("Interdependent Origination"), points to the way that various elements are linked, with one step laying the groundwork for others in the chain.  According to one account, the Buddha started at the end, contemplating suffering and death (which he wanted to find a way to avoid), and worked his way backward to see what they depended on. 

The 12 Nidanas or 12 Links of Conditioned Existence

• There are twelve Nidanas (literally "fetters," but more broadly preconditions) in this chain, Buddhist scholars take pains to point out multiple possible feedback loops, reinforcing off the other elements. One common metaphor for this process is of water rushing from trickles to streams to rivers to oceans (getting more volume all the time). 

• For example, breaking one's leg in an accident could affect one at multiple levels: the samskaras (number two, since one might avoid that place or situation in the future), name and form (number 4, since one's form had been altered), feeling (number 7, since one would be feeling pain), and craving (number 8, since one would seek to avoid it in the future). 

• From a religious perspective, the two most important steps are the first (ignorance), and the seventh (craving), since these are the two points at which human beings can consciously act to disrupt this causal chain, and thus bring it to an end. Each of the twelve Nidanas is traditionally associated with an image, which means that this teaching would have been accessible to illiterate people.

1.  Ignorance (avidya) A blind old woman.Avidya is the lack of wisdom (vidya)--it is not just that people haven't learned some fact that they need to know, but rather that their habitual ways of perceiving the world are fundamentally mistaken, and thus they are "blinded" (by greed, desire, lust, etc.). 

2.  Karmic formations (samskaras) A potter making pots.In Indian philosophy, pots are common images--they come into being when they are made, get broken, and in between are useful everyday items.   These karmic formations (particularly the deeply embedded idea of having a "Self," the activity of body, speech and mind, as well as more individual tendencies and predispositions) are important factors in forming a personality (and like pots, they are subject to change over time).

3.  Consciousness (vijnana) A monkey scampering across a rooftop. The monkey is one of the traditional images for human consciousness--just as monkeys run here and there, human consciousness wanders as the objects of perception (physical and mental) change.  Connecting a consciousness (of something) with ideas of a Self is the work of the samskaras. 

4.  Name and Form (nama-rupa) Two Men in a Boat"Form" refers to the physical component of a person's experience (the body), and "Name" to the non-physical components (sensation, feeling, samskaras, and consciousness).  Both of these elements exist in one personality, just as the two separate men are both in the boat.  For Buddhists, the error is in supposing that Name and Form are components of some  unchanging, continuous personal Self (which Buddhists deny exists, since all components of personality are changeable).

5.  The Six Senses (shadayatana) A house with six windows.The six senses are sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and the mind (which perceives and processes mental objects).  As our source of sense data, they are clearly involved with our interactions with the world.

6.  Contact (sparsha) activity of the sense organs brings one into contact with the objects in the world (if there were no sense organs, or one was deficient, this would be impossible). 

7.  Feeling (vedana) A man with an arrow in his eye.Contact gives rise to feelings of attachment and aversion, depending on the nature of the contact.

8.  Craving (trshna) A picnic (eating and drinking)When one has generated mental feelings based on the sensations given by the sense organs, one will desire to obtain the pleasant ones, and to avoid the unpleasant ones.  This then can become reinforced into habitual patterns of attachment and aversion.

9.  Grasping (upadana) A monkey picking fruit.Once one has developed desires to obtain something (or to avoid something), one takes concrete steps to try to get it.

10.  Becoming (bhava) A pregnant woman (this is the traditional explanation for the image for this stage.)Once one purposefully strives to gain (or to avoid) things, this pattern of intentional activity sets up the operation of karma, which lays down causes whose effects become manifest in the present and future lives.

11.  Birth (jati) A woman giving birth.One's karmic activities lead to rebirth in a state that reflects the quality of that karma.

12.  Old Age and Death (jara-marana) A corpse being carried away (and bodies on the ground). Once one is born, death is inevitable.  Old age can be avoided by dying young, but few people are hot to do this.  Old age, illness, and death are a shorthand rendition of the problems that afflict human existence, and to which the Buddha was trying to find an answer. 

Conditioned Genesis

• This is the understanding that any phenomenon ‘exists’ only because of the ‘existence’ of other phenomena in an incredibly complex web of cause and effect covering time past, time present and time future.

• Everything in the universe is interconnected through the web of cause and effect so that the whole and the parts are mutually interdependent. The character and condition of entities at any given time are intimately connected with the character and condition of all other entities that superficially may appear to be unconnected or unrelated.

• Because all things are thus conditioned and transient (anicca), they have no real independent identity (anatta) so do not truly ‘exist’, though to ordinary minds this appears to be the case. All phenomena are therefore fundamentally insubstantial and ‘empty’ (sunya).

Evaluation

• Whilst Philosophy of Religion and Buddhism suggest a theory of causation, Buddhist beliefs see no need for God or an external power.

• Does this mean that either is more correct than the other, or that one is more believable.

• Consider how powerful the Judaic-Christian arguments for the existence of God are in comparison with the Buddha retaining a noble silence when questioned about the supernatural.

Now you are going to draw the ‘agitated monkey Nidana’ with your own interpretation of it….special prize awarded.