Reason 5 of 10
Karma keeps the books. It can never forgive.
In Buddhism, deeds are intention, and every deed bears its fruit. Nobody can carry your debt or cancel it. The Bible's message is the opposite: God forgives, because Jesus paid.
What the texts teach about kamma
The Buddha defined kamma (karma) as intention: a choice that then becomes action of body, speech and mind. Beings, he said, are the owners and heirs of their deeds; deeds are their womb, relative and refuge. The opening verses of the Dhammapada compare the result of a corrupt intention to a wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
It is intention that I call deeds. For after making a choice one acts by way of body, speech, and mind.
Anguttara Nikaya 6.63:33.3-33.5, Penetrative (tr. Bhikkhu Sujato) · context
“Student, sentient beings are the owners of their deeds and heir to their deeds. Deeds are their womb, their relative, and their refuge. It is deeds that divide beings into inferior and superior.”
Majjhima Nikaya 135:4.1-4.3, The Shorter Analysis of Deeds (tr. Bhikkhu Sujato) · context
Intention is the leader of things; intention is first, they’re made by intention. If with corrupt intent you speak or act, suffering follows you, like a wheel, the ox’s foot.
Dhammapada 1, 1. Pairs (tr. Bhikkhu Sujato) · context
Intention is the leader of things; intention is first, they’re made by intention. If with pure intent you speak or act, happiness follows you like a shadow that never leaves.
Dhammapada 2, 1. Pairs (tr. Bhikkhu Sujato) · context
Why a law cannot save
Kamma is impersonal. It has no heart and makes no exceptions, so it can only give each person what they have earned. That sounds fair until you look honestly at your own life. Every one of us has done harm we cannot undo. Under a law of deeds, there is no forgiveness, only payment, life after life.
The Bible agrees that God is just and that sin has consequences. But it says God is also merciful, and that he found a way to be both: the Son of God took the penalty himself. Forgiveness is not a loophole in justice; it is justice paid in full by someone else.
23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23 (WEB) · context
10He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us for our iniquities. 11For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his loving kindness toward those who fear him. 12As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Psalms 103:10-12 (WEB) · context
25whom God sent to be an atoning sacrifice through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness through the passing over of prior sins, in God’s forbearance; 26to demonstrate his righteousness at this present time, that he might himself be just and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:25-26 (WEB) · context
5But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed. 6All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:5-6 (WEB) · context
8for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9not of works, that no one would boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (WEB) · context
13You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us. He has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross.
Colossians 2:13-14 (WEB) · context
Grace is the one thing karma cannot offer
A thief crucified beside Jesus had no time left to build good karma. Jesus promised him paradise that same day. That is grace.
42He said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” 43Jesus said to him, “Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:42-43 (WEB) · context
5not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
Titus 3:5 (WEB) · context
Other Buddhist texts
Larger Sukhavativyuha Sutra (Sutra of Immeasurable Life), the eighteenth vow of the bodhisattva Dharmakara Summary, not a quotation
Promises birth in the Pure Land to beings who entrust themselves sincerely and call on his name, except those who commit the five grave offences or slander the Dharma.
What Buddhists answer
Buddhists answer that kamma is not punishment but natural cause and effect, and that good deeds, merit and the transfer of merit to others soften its weight. Pure Land Buddhism goes further: Amida Buddha's vow saves those who call on his name, by his power rather than their own.
Why that answer falls short
Natural cause and effect is still a law with no mercy in it, and merit-making is still paying. Pure Land teaching shows how deeply the human heart longs for grace, but its grace rests on a vow made by a Buddha whom the texts place in a distant past age, with no history, no cross and no payment for sin. Jesus is a real person in history, who died publicly for sinners and rose again.
Where scholars and traditions differ
- Buddhist schools differ on how far merit can be shared or transferred (the practice is ancient in Theravada as well as Mahayana); Shinran, founder of Jodo Shinshu, taught that even the calling of the name is Amida's gift, not our merit.
Sources
- Earliest source Anguttara Nikaya 6.63; Majjhima Nikaya 135; Dhammapada 1-2. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0), SuttaCentral.
- Luis O. Gomez, The Land of Bliss (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996): translation and study of the Sukhavativyuha sutras.