Interfaith Understanding in the Buddhist-Christian Dialogue

Abstract

Interfaith understanding is an understanding among members of different religions in order to save the world and live peacefully together. Interfaith understanding is crucial to the present world because it is the only means of fostering unity and an altruistic love of all humankind. Since human beings follow different religious doctrines and ways of life, it is necessary to try to understand one another in order to cooperate in building a more perfect world. Thus far, however, most people have believed that their own religion is the best and the only way to salvation. Such an attitude contradicts all valid religious principles and tends to generate more evil and defilements in the human mind than already exist. In fact, all religions provide spiritual support. They are founded and exist in order to eliminate human selfishness and to help resist materialistic domination. On the other hand, modern technology and development are conducive to materialistic growth and not to spiritual enlightenment. They empower base human instincts, selfishness, and capitalism since their primary concern is to provide human life with convenience and affluence. Thus, religions are necessary to counteract this negative influence of materialism. And their protective power can be strengthened by interfaith understanding. In order to understand other religions, one should be reminded that the world is composed of various kinds of people, cultural bases, and ways of life leading to numerous sets of beliefs and practices. Thus, there must be more than one religion in the world. The religions of the world today can be classified into three categories, namely, religions of faith, religions of spiritual discipline, and religions of wisdom. Religions of faith demand from their members a faith in a supernatural force and authority. This is the primordial form of those religions in world history where human beings, confronted with their unknown nature, sought divine assistance. In those days, human beings believed in a countless number of divine beings and participated in many religious rites. In addition, they believed in anthropomorphic gods/God. Due to their narrow experiences and misconceptions, they could not understand God as an impersonal force or as