Scotus and Buddhism

With the first draft of my thesis due soon (January 15th, if anyone would like a copy), I've been spending some more time ruminating over Buddhism. I'm currently finding that Scotus' (and Anselm's) notion of two affections in the will is helping me to see both where Buddhism is insightful, and where it is deficicent.

A quick primer, before I get into matters: Buddhism teaches that we have one big problem. We suffer. We do not merely suffer when we have literal pain, but throughout life once we realize its transitoriness. In the end, joys end up producing as much suffering as anything else. The cure for this is to realize that we do not actually exist as enduring entities. The precise explanation for what this means differs between Buddhist traditions, but one would not be amiss in most of them to think that we are mere aggregates which are continuously changing, without any stable self or soul underlying the change. Once we realize this, we can let go and be unattached to any specific aggregate, realizing that it is as little "ourself" as the aggregate which comprises other people.

Scotus' theory of the will, which he borrows and develops from Anselm, includes the notion of two affections which can motivate the will to act: the affection for the advantageous, or what is good for ourselves, and the affection for justice, or what is good in itself. I see the problem with Buddhism (at least early Buddhism) is that it only recognizes the affection for the advantageous. It then rightly recognizes that if this is all that there is, then all that one can do is to quiet it, to realize that there really is nothing permanently advantageous, and so the best course of action is to let go of attachments to all thoughts concerning advantage or disadvantage.

If that really were all of which the will consisted, I think that it would be perfectly correct. As it stands, I think that some formulations are still tremendously insightful, and probably more helpful for dealing with life than, say, modern counseling (btw, an experience which I have found to confirm me in my thoughts that academic studies can sometimes be more useful for the art of living than so-called practical studies). However, the Christian can add something: there is a real final goal in life, something outside of oneself which nevertheless continuously pulls one on. This is only possible if one can have an affection for the good in itself, above and beyond desires for one's own good. This is not to say that sin does not dampen this affection, or that we can pursue God perfectly on our own, but simply that without the potential within the will not even God could restore us without making us non-human.

There is an extent to which the Christian might want to practice non-attachment; any person displaying holiness displays a selflessness, a love which seeks not its own, and a complete abandonment to the will of God. However, Christian thought also teaches a reattachment to our ultimate final cause, God. I think that some forms of Mahayana Buddhism realize something similar, but in the end simply struggle in trying to explain what this "something else" is within their own tradition (not that I would expect any Buddhist to accept this as a conclusive argument against their position; I respect their own thinking on the matter too much to pretend that I have refuted it. It's merely how I see their position in terms of my own).

This reattachment to God, further, gives worth back to the affection for the advantageous. Once our affection for justice is working properly and we seek that which is truly good in itself, and truly The Good in itself, we find that this Good also will satisfy our own good. More than that, but we can even speak of the advantageous because of the Good in itself. I take it that Buddhism is correct in saying that, without this ultimate final cause, there can be no true advantage, and so there cannot be a satisfiable affection for the advantageous. We attain our being because of our end, not simply because of our creation in the past. Because God has willed for us to attain Himself in the particular ways which He has decreed, we are what we are. In other words, God cannot be thought of as efficient cause without also being thought of as final cause, as well as present sustainer of the universe.