Jesus as Buddha, the Problem of
I’m not certain precisely when it became fashionable for some (perhaps) well-meaning souls to label Christ as a “buddha”, but I am certain that it’s no new thing. Efforts to diminish his identity and to strip him of his divinity while still rendering to him some token honor have been going on for centuries. C.S. Lewis addresses this at some length in his book, The Screwtape Letters, observing that every few years some academic takes up the task to craft and present a new “historical” Jesus, one who is, unhistorically, completely bereft of miraculous and divine power, soundly (in their estimation) demoted in status to that of a “great teacher”, one who promoted a number of seminal ideas that would come to form the basis of Western morality. But the effort to label him specifically as a buddha reflects a more recent trend toward attempting to reconcile non-Christian belief systems with Christianity, ostensibly to level the ground between them, and in a way, it succeeds. But in doing do, Christianity becomes sterilized, because Christ’s mission becomes pointless. Herein lies the problem with Jesus as Buddha: He isn’t.
A buddha, by definition, is a person who has attained enlightenment. This alone disqualifies Jesus from being a buddha, because for one to be enlightened, one must first have been in a state of darkness, which state Jesus has never known.
Compounding the problem is the greater truth of who and what Jesus is: Not only a man who has never occupied a state of unenlightenment, whether spiritually or intellectually, but, in fact, the One who is the very light which enlightens men’s and women’s understanding, for He said, “I am the light of the world,” and furthermore, “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
By this fact, Jesus makes of all men and women buddhas, as many as believe on Him and receive Him. And not buddhas only, but also what are called among Buddhists, “bodhisattvas”, at least after a sort, as ones having compassion on others, and working to help others to make their way to that same place of enlightenment in God.
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