Reason 2 of 10
The Buddhist texts call belief in a Creator a mistake
The Pali discourses tell how the god Brahma falsely imagines he created the world, and how a monk who repeats it is deceived. The Bible says the Creator is real, and is not a confused god but the Lord who made the heavens.
How the Pali discourses explain belief in a Creator
The first discourse of the Long Discourses, the Brahmajala Sutta, explains belief in a Creator as a misunderstanding. After a cosmic contraction, one being is reborn first in an empty heavenly mansion, wishes for company, and when other beings arrive he concludes that he created them. They agree, because he was there first. A monk who later remembers that past life repeats the mistake on earth.
In the Kevaddha Sutta a monk travels in meditation up to the Great Divinity and asks him a question. The god answers three times with a list of his own titles, then takes the monk aside, admits he does not know, and sends him to the Buddha.
Now, the being who was reborn there first thinks: ‘I am the Divinity, the Great Divinity, the Vanquisher, the Unvanquished, the Universal Seer, the Wielder of Power, God Almighty, the Maker, the Creator, the First, the Begetter, the Controller, the Father of those who have been born and those yet to be born. These beings were created by me! Why is that? Because first I thought: “Oh, if only other beings would come to this place.” Such was my heart’s wish, and then these creatures came to this place.’ And the beings who were reborn there later also think: ‘This must be the Divinity, the Great Divinity, the Vanquisher, the Unvanquished, the Universal Seer, the Wielder of Power, God Almighty, the Maker, the Creator, the First, the Begetter, the Controller, the Father of those who have been born and those yet to be born. And we were created by him. Why is that? Because we see that he was reborn here first, and we arrived later.’
Digha Nikaya 1:2.5.1-2.5.12, The Divine Net (tr. Bhikkhu Sujato) · context
‘He who is the Divinity—the Great Divinity, the Vanquisher, the Unvanquished, the Universal Seer, the Wielder of Power, God Almighty, the Maker, the Creator, the First, the Begetter, the Controller, the Father of those who have been born and those yet to be born—by he we were created. He is permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, remaining the same for all eternity. We who were created by that divinity are impermanent, not lasting, short-lived, liable to pass away, and have come to this place.’
Digha Nikaya 1:2.6.7-2.6.8, The Divine Net (tr. Bhikkhu Sujato) · context
‘Respectable sir, where do these four principal states cease without remainder, namely, the elements of earth, water, fire, and air?’ The Great Divinity said to him, ‘I am the Divinity, the Great Divinity, the Vanquisher, the Unvanquished, the Universal Seer, the Wielder of Power, God Almighty, the Maker, the Creator, the First, the Begetter, the Controller, the Father of those who have been born and those yet to be born.’
Digha Nikaya 11:81.3-81.5, With Kevaḍḍha (tr. Bhikkhu Sujato) · context
Then the Great Divinity took that mendicant by the arm, led him off to one side, and said to him, ‘Mendicant, these gods think that there is nothing at all that I don’t know and see and understand and realize. That’s why I didn’t answer in front of them. But I too do not know where these four principal states cease with no residue left behind. Therefore, mendicant, the misdeed is yours alone, the mistake is yours alone, in that you passed over the Buddha and searched elsewhere for an answer to this question. Mendicant, go to the Buddha and ask him this question. You should remember it in line with his answer.’
Digha Nikaya 11:83.6-83.11, With Kevaḍḍha (tr. Bhikkhu Sujato) · context
What is wrong with that explanation
The story is not evidence; it is a claim about events in other worlds, known only by the Buddha's own recollection in meditation. Nobody can check it. And it answers a different question from the one the Bible answers. Brahma in the story is a creature inside the cosmos who arrives in a world that already exists. The God of the Bible is not a being inside the world at all; he brought the world itself into being.
The Bible agrees that false gods exist in people's imagination, and it mocks idols made by hands. But the true God is not an idol or a confused deity. He knows all things, he speaks, and he can be known because he has made himself known.
24Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb says: “I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself;
Isaiah 44:24 (WEB) · context
5I am Yahweh, and there is no one else. Besides me, there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not known me, 6that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is no one besides me. I am Yahweh, and there is no one else. 7I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.
Isaiah 45:5-7 (WEB) · context
18For Yahweh who created the heavens, the God who formed the earth and made it, who established it and didn’t create it a waste, who formed it to be inhabited says: “I am Yahweh. There is no other.
Isaiah 45:18 (WEB) · context
3But our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. 4Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. 5They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see. 6They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. 7They have hands, but they don’t feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk, neither do they speak through their throat. 8Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.
Psalms 115:3-8 (WEB) · context
13There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
Hebrews 4:13 (WEB) · context
The God who came looking for us
In the Kevaddha story the monk climbs up through the heavens to find an answer. In the Bible God comes down. The Word who made all things became flesh and lived among us, so that people could see the Father in him.
14The Word became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the only born Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 (WEB) · context
18No one has seen God at any time. The only born Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him.
John 1:18 (WEB) · context
9Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
John 14:9 (WEB) · context
What Buddhists answer
Buddhists answer that the Buddha did not deny that gods exist; he denied that any god is the eternal, all-knowing Creator, and taught that even gods are bound in the cycle of rebirth. Many Mahayana teachers add that a Creator would be responsible for all suffering, which they find incompatible with his goodness.
Why that answer falls short
That is exactly where the two faiths divide. If there is no Creator, then the moral law the Buddha taught has no lawgiver, and the cycle has no purpose. And the problem of suffering is not removed by removing God: Buddhism still has to explain why a beginningless cycle is full of pain, and its answer is that every sufferer earned it (see reason 6). The Bible's answer is that a good world was spoiled by sin, and that the Creator himself entered our suffering to end it.
Where scholars and traditions differ
- Scholars read the Brahma stories in different ways: some (for example Richard Gombrich) see them as satire aimed at the Brahmin teaching of his day; traditional Theravada commentaries read them as literal accounts.
Sources
- Earliest source Digha Nikaya 1 (Brahmajala Sutta) 2.2-2.6; Digha Nikaya 11 (Kevaddha Sutta) 80-85. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0), SuttaCentral.
- Richard Gombrich, What the Buddha Thought (London: Equinox, 2009), on satire of Brahmin teaching.