The Bible and the fourth "Noble Truth"

The eight-fold path

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And this, monks, is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress: precisely this Noble Eightfold Path — right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.¹

It is the Noble Eightfold Path that defines Buddhist practice with the aim of attaining enlightenment and the end of dukkha. By bringing all eight elements into balance, a Buddhist can make progress by harmonizing with reality in order to extinguish craving. To do this, one must not only see rightly (aspects 1–2), but also lead an ethical life (aspects 3–5) and develop spiritual practices, especially meditation (aspects 6–8).

Buddhist ethics are found in aspects 3–5 of the Eightfold Path: right speech, right action, and right livelihood. These three dimensions of ethical life are further explained by the Five Precepts: (1) No killing, (2) No stealing, (3) No sexual misconduct, (4) No lying, (5) No mind-altering substances.² These rules demonstrate the Buddhist awareness of that morality which is embedded in every human heart. There is a human intuition that this standard of conduct is imposed on us by an external reality. This moral code remains in Buddhism even though the holy God who grounds it is no longer there. The universe of Buddhism is not fundamentally personal, but impersonal, which leads to a problem: Although morality is intrinsically personal, Buddhism does not have a personal God to be its foundation.

The system of karma does not correspond to human moral intuition, because our knowledge of good and evil is independent of consequences, whether they be in this life or in a future one. Even if the consequences of murder were good and those of generosity were bad, our moral judgment of these actions would not change. Furthermore, there are other actions with negative consequences that are not immoral. If I get tricked into giving money to a scammer, the fact that I suffer from it does not make the act itself immoral. In a mechanical universe without a personal God, the categories of moral and immoral lose their meaning. This means that the Buddhist acknowledgement of morality testifies—against Buddhism—that man is made in the image of God and is accountable to Him.

As for the ritual aspects of the Eightfold Path, although the idea is to seek enlightenment and not to worship a god, the human intuition for worship still manifests itself. Hagen claims, “Nor is a buddha someone you bow down to,”³ but many Buddhists do exactly that!⁴ And despite Buddhism’s insistence that enlightenment is attained through one’s own efforts, a core practice is to verbally “take refuge” in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma (the teaching), and the Sangha (the community).⁵ In some branches of Buddhism, people seek the favor of various beings, through devotion, to help them make progress on the road to enlightenment.⁶ The justification for reverential practices in Buddhism is unclear (hence Hagen’s claim about bowing). The face that they persist nevertheless testifies to the biblical truth that humans were made to worship the God who is worthy of all honor and glory.

Salvation

The Buddhist doctrine of the Eightfold Path testifies to human awareness that we belong to a God to whom we are accountable and who deserves our worship. The error in the Buddhist approach is to see these practices as the means of transformation rather than the result of it. There is an overestimation of human ability for each individual to transform himself. There is no savior for the disciples of Buddha as Jesus is the savior of his disciples, but the exhortation of the Buddha is: “Be a light unto yourself; betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth. Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves.”⁷

The solution offered by Buddhism is that each individual ought to transcend attachment and craving to attain enlightenment, but this idea assumes that human corruption is a superficial aspect of our nature that we can rid ourselves of on our own. The Bible sees more clearly that it is the heart itself that is corrupt (Jeremiah 17:9), and that man is “dead in his sins” (Ephesians 2:1). A person in this condition cannot escape what he is by his own efforts. In order for a man to transcend his corrupt nature and achieve glorification, the transcendent God must intervene to change him by power that comes from without.

In the Bible, the path of salvation is not a recipe for the dead to raise themselves, but a Person—Jesus Christ—who is the way, the truth, the resurrection, and the life (John 14:6, 11:25). He is the one who transforms our hearts to give us the ability and the will to live as we ought, to worship God in spirit and in truth, and to lead a life that aligns with his holiness. So, it is not through what we practice that the transformation is achieved, but it is because of the transformation given that our practice is conformed to God’s will. In this way, the doctrine of Christ the Savior incorporates and surpasses the doctrine of the Eightfold Path.

1. “Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion” (SN 56.11), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.than.html.

2. Access to Insight, « The Five Precepts: pañca-sila », 30 novembre 2013, en ligne, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sila/pancasila.html, consulté le 1 avril 2025.

3. Steven Hagen, Buddhism Plain and Simple. The Practice of Being Aware Right Now, Every Day, New York, Tuttle, 2011, p. 9.

4. « Bowing as Practice », Buddhism for Beginners, en ligne, https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/bowing-as-practice/, consulté le 1 avril 2025; Alan Peto, « Daily Buddhist Practice for Beginners », Learn Buddhism with Alan Peto, 9 mai 2021, en ligne, https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/alanpeto/episodes/2---Daily-Buddhist-Practice-for-Beginners-e10f792, consulté le 1 avril 2025.

5. Access to Insight, « The Threefold Refuge: tisarana », 30 novembre 2013, en ligne, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/tisarana.html, consulté le 2 avril 2025; « What Are the Three Jewels? », Buddhism for Beginners, en ligne, https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/three-jewels-of-buddhism/, consulté le 2 avril 2025.

6. Peter Harvey, Buddhism and Monotheism, Cambridge Elements: Religion and Monotheism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, p. 44, 49.

7. Steven Hagen, op. cit., p. 165.