ABSTRACT
The Christian faith and Buddhism are alternative views of life that purport to fulfil the same function by seeking to provide an answer to the same ultimate questions. In order to fulfil this common function they must be subject to common functional criteria. The fact that two people differ on the question of which view of life is acceptable implies that they agree: that their respective views of life exclude each other. A view of life may be free from contradiction in the sense that it contains no conflicting doctrines and thus no prescriptives that negate each other. It may nonetheless lack unity, because there may be no positive coherence between its various doctrines. A view of life has the function of determining and integrating one’s way of life. Any viable view of life must be able to refer to something or someone that impresses one as being more important than anything else.
