God in Four Parts

Nowhere is it so easy to misunderstand the nature of Buddhism as with regard to its denial of God. This is particularly true in Southern Buddhism with which we shall deal mainly in these chapters. For, contrary to the semi-deification of the historical Buddha by Northern Buddhism into a kind of metaphysical essence manifesting itself in a threefold manner ¹ strongly suggestive of the Christian Trinity, Southern Buddhism insists that the Buddha is essentially Ideal Man and flatly denies the existence of a Supreme God in any form whatsoever. To the traditional Christian mind, however, the question of God's existence is often a matter of all or nothing: either there is a living personal God, personal in some sort of humanistic sense, or there is only sheer mechanical process in the world, which leaves man, as a living person of infinite hopes and aspirations, high, dry, and alone upon a cosmic beachhead into nowhere. For the Christian, godlessness signifies the flight of all meaning and purpose from life, both cosmic and individual. Human existence is a pointless accident if God is denied. Spiritual life and ethical discipline seem worthless and fraudulent.