Points of Difference between Christianity and Hinduism

In the last blog we saw how from Upanishads of yester-years all the tenets of today’s Hinduism have arisen. We also saw many differences between Christianity and Hinduism. In this blog I want to deal with a ubiquitous comment of every Hindu, whom we come across in our daily walk, that all religions teach the same and that there is one God whom different religions call by different names. Like different rivers which finally merge with the ocean, all religions are just different paths to reach one God. Is this correct? Is Jesus and Shiva or Vishnu or even Allah the same? Do even Hindus believe this? Or is it their way of assimilating the other religions into their fold, while keeping theirs intact? Because, if all religions are the same then why is this furore over conversion in India? Again, if there are no differences between religions why do people fight over religion and kill each other all over the world, throughout man’s history? We will analyze some of these issues in this blog.

First of all, Hindus worship many gods. They have no compunction in including many others as they go; they would even worship Jesus as one among their many gods. They are polytheists. Bible teaches that there is One God and He is the true God and there is no other God besides Him.[1] It is a strict Monotheism. All three religions that arose from Abrahamic faith, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are monotheistic religions. This biblical God, Yahweh, whom Jews worshiped, is also worshiped as God by Christians, for Jesus called Him his Father.[2] Jesus also promised to send his followers the Holy Spirit, as a Helper and Comforter.[3] Though this God Christians know as the Triune God, it is not three different gods, but made of the same substance and constitute one, single Godhead. It is not three different gods making a triumvirate like the Hindu gods of Brahma, the creator, Vishnu the sustainer and Shiva the destroyer. The Triune God, since beginning, starting with the creation of the world and in the working out of the plan of God for the salvation and redemption of the fallen human race,[4] and the on-coming final end of the world in consummation, have always worked as One.[5] So this is the first and the major difference between the two religions.

Secondly, though in Hinduism at the popular level many gods are worshiped as idols, in Brahminical Hinduism, which has Vedanta philosophy at the core as its belief, Brahman, their god, has no shape; it is one amorphous, effulgent, shining mass of consciousness, called Paramatman; there is no name or form or attributes. Christians hold their God as Spirit,[6] but we have in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who walked on earth, the very image of God.[7] God worshiped by Christians has attributes; He is merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth.[8] This is another major difference between the two religions.

Third, there is no karma theory and the connected caste system in Christianity. The hall-mark of Hinduism is karma theory, the cycle of repeated births and deaths and the resultant caste system. A person reaps the effects of his karma (bad or good deeds) done in the previous births; he suffers in this life, by being born in the lower castes and as out caste (Dalit), if he has done bad deeds in the previous lives; or enjoys life by being born in upper castes, if he had done enough good deeds in the previous births. The status of a person in the caste hierarchy is directly related to his karma. There is no escape from karma; even gods cannot forgive a person’s evil deeds; he has to pay it by suffering for it in the next births. This is the explanation that Hindus give for a person who is suffering in this life. They also do not believe in helping the suffering or the downtrodden to improve his life, because he has to pay up his penalty. Though this attitude is changing now, due to the influence of Christianity and the West, the basic attitude is that a leper or a man in the slums is paying his previous karma and he has to go through that. He is not to be helped. That will be interference with his fate!

Here in lies the major difference. In Hinduism no one, not even gods can forgive a person of his sins (mistakes, intentional and unintentional included); in Christianity, Christ has acclaimed that He, the Son of Man (another title of Christ), has the authority to forgive sins.[9] As a matter of fact, He is the only God who ever said that He has the authority to forgive sins. Peter in his very first sermon said thus to the people, who were cut to their hearts that they could be saved, if they repent of their sins, seek forgiveness from Christ and obtain remission of sins, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and receive the Holy Spirit.[10] We need do to do nothing; no working out our karma by doing good deeds; or trying to earn our way to heaven through good works. No, Jesus has done it all for us on the cross; he has paid the price for our sins; all that we have to do is to accept it in faith and seek His forgiveness, and then lead a godly life, guided and helped by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, Christians are always in the forefront doing good works, but that is not with an intention of earning merit before God, but because they have already been saved and included in the family of God, where they can call God their Abba, Father.[11] What a privilege and what a difference! Who dare say that there are no differences between various religions!

Another important difference is how the Hindu and Christian see the body. The former considers the body as a prison, which holds the spirit or soul captive; hence their mukti or deliverance is when the soul discards the body in death and rises above to merge with the Brahman. Nothing good comes out of the body for him. But in the case of the latter, the Christian, the body is precious because God created it and hence it is good; God created man in His own image;[12] secondly because the body is the temple in which the Holy Spirit resides.[13] How can that be evil? Body is good and when we die and are resurrected, it will be with the body that we will rise and stand before God for judgment.

Christians also have no such concept of merger with God as Hindus have. Creator God is always separate, pure and holy. Man in his death can never be so pure as to become one with God. The Creator and the created beings will always be separate.

Hindus see the world as an extension of Brahmans and believe that Brahman vibrates in all animals, humans and nature. That is also a reason why they are able to worship any and everything, including bird, animals and humans as gods. This is strictly prohibited in the Bible. No idol worship of any created being.[14]

Well, my friends, so if anyone is telling you that there are no differences between religions, he is simply ignorant or is trying to take you for a ride. There are deep and major differences. Only in the ethics, may be, some virtues as being good, god-fearing, respect to elders and parents, importance of alms-giving, etc, there is some kind of similarity. But in the core issues there are many deep and enduring differences. We need to be aware of these and be able to defend ourselves, when such casual remarks are thrown at us by our Hindu friends! And beware of the assimilating tendency and assimilating power of Hinduism!

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[1] Exodus 20:3

[2] John 15:9 and many such passages

[3] John 14:25, 16:13; Romans 8:15

[4] Galatians 4:4-6

[5] Genesis 1:26;

[6] John 4:24

[7] John 1:14

[8] Exodus 34:6-7

[9] Matthew 9:6

[10] Acts 2:38

[11] Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15-16

[12] Genesis 1:27

[13] 1 Corinthians 6:19-20;

[14] Exodus 20:4

Upanishads of Hinduism

In the last blog we saw the beginnings of Hinduism in the Vedic corpus, which is really the Brahminical Hinduism. Besides the four Vedas, the last to be included in the corpus was Upanishads, called Vedanta, meaning Ved-anta, end of Vedas. You will be surprised to know that more than the Vedas it is from these Upanishads that we can trace the beginnings of today’s practicing Hinduism. This is also the Vedanta philosophy that Swami Vivekananda took to the West and gave a thrilling address in the Parliament of World Religions in September 1893 at Chicago, USA.

So what is this Upanishads? How did that come about? What are its main tenets? We will see these shortly. We learnt that the Brahmins had kept for themselves the top notch in the caste system they invented, even above the warrior kings. The reason being they had the monopoly of the Vedic mantras and rites, and conducted the sacrifices to please their gods. Now, the kshtryas resented this and some of the princes retired to the forests to meditate and fathom what could be the right religion for them to follow. They were not happy with the huge sacrifices of the animals or the chanting of Vedas, which gave the Brahmins the monopoly over the religion, and the consequent power over the people.

We know that Prince Siddhartha, getting restless and unhappy over the existing state of affairs, gave up his married and worldly life and became Buddha after his enlightenment. Many others, after a lot of meditation and thinking came to certain conclusions and collectively these are known as Upanishads. Some fifteen or so of these Upanishads have survived and a good reading of these will give us an understanding of it. We need to remember that these are philosophical musings of a disgruntled princes and aristocrats to overcome the monopoly of Brahmins in the religion. Philosophy is basically man-made.

Upanishads’ concept of god is that it is the Supreme Self or Paramatma, the first principle. It is an impersonal one. It is called Brahman, and exists as an undifferentiated homogeneous mass of consciousness. It is divine but not a personal deity. The Self or atman is the individual selves or souls. These souls, when they apprehend the Brahman and merge with it, achieve mukti, the final liberation from life. This involves the obliteration of all distinction as individuals. It is a merging of the individuals in the Paramatma. Thereafter pure oneness alone remains. It is avidhya or ignorance, maya or illusion that makes the individual souls, the atmans to think that they are separate.

Herein lies the first difference from Christianity. Christians know their God as a personal God, who interacts with them and with the human history. The reality of the world, and human beings and all other objectives are affirmed because these are reality and created by God. Even after redemption and salvation, human beings never merge with the Creator God; they remain as the created beings separate from the Creator God.

Because there is no distinction between Brahman the Supreme Self and the atman the Self of the beings, including man, Upanishads proclaim that self or atman is god. The famous statement is “Thou art that,” meaning ‘you are that,’ ‘that’ representing Brahman or Paramatman. The equation is Brahman=Atman. The human beings are no different from the divine which pervades the whole world. The world itself is seen as the extension of Brahman and not a reality. Brahman is the only reality that is all-pervading, the source of everything into which everything in the final act will merge. This is the understanding of religion and existence after death by Hindus even today.

Another difference is quickly seen here with Christianity. Christians never consider themselves as gods. They are the created beings, created and separate from the Creator, God. God told Moses to go and tell the Israel people under slavery in Egypt, that His name is “I AM that I AM” and that “I AM” has sent Moses to them to deliver them from slavery.[1] It was never ‘you are that,’ or ‘you are god,’ but I AM, a positive affirmative proclamation of deity of God. This difference between the Creator God and the created beings, animate or inanimate, is not there in Hinduism. That is why we will notice even today Hindus can accept any one as god, and will build you a temple and worship you if you have done something good for the community.

The distinction that Brahman is separate and human beings or the world is separate from Brahman is the work of maya (illusion) or avidhya (ignorance). Because of this ignorance, human beings think the world is real and get involved in it and become enmeshed in samsara (life in general). They marry, give birth to children, raise them up and are so attached to them, all because of maya. They live and die and again and again take birth and live and enter into the never ending cycle of birth and death or the samsara. On achieving true knowledge that the Self is the Brahman, this ignorance ceases and the Self or Atman escapes from samsara, the world cycle of repeated birth and death, and gets absorbed in Brahman, shining as pure and effulgent as Brahman. 

Well, this in nutshell is the core of Upanishads. Because the world and its activities were considered as not real but imaginary, the best of Hindu minds went into contemplative mode rather than take interest in life and improve it. Objectivity was lost and creativity got lost as well. We had no industrial revolution or great Nobel Prize winners in our country mainly because science, physics, biology were all neglected as being not relevant and result of maya.

This concept of samsara, or repeated cycle of birth and death, got enmeshed with the caste system. It became rather a tool in the hands of the clever Brahmins, who not only embraced and incorporated Upanishad teachings within Vedic corpus, but also legitimized caste system with this concept of samsara. The idea of karma theory started to develop. The soul or atman took repeated births because of its deeds or karma. The accumulated karma of previous births led a person to be born in a particular caste. If the bad deeds or bad karma were more, then the person was born in a low caste or even out of the caste or even out of humankind, as an insect or a dog or a crow. If the good karma outweighed the bad karma, then he was born in the higher hierarchy of caste, even as a Brahmin. Thus a person with leprosy or any such disease or blindness or deafness was attributed to his bad karma from the precious births and lives. We see this trend even today.

What gave the karma theory more teeth as the Kshtrya philosophers agonized over the injustices happening in the world? How come bad things happen to good people in this world? What could be the reason why one person is born as a leper or blind or lame of deaf? They reasoned it out that it must be because of the person’s previous karma or bad deeds. This crunched the issue. A man-made reasoning, a finding that was possible with the tiny brain that we all have within our cranium, created such a horrible system, where people for centuries remained in a backward and low status thinking that they are suffering so in this life, because of their bad karmas of previous lives. So instead of improving his life, he was despondent that his fate or karma was the reason for his state and that it can never be improved. Fatalism and pessimism corroded the confidence of the population. It sucked the life blood out of India and her people suffered for millennia under the yolk of caste system and karma theory. It still continues in the rural areas in India.

On the contrary, in Christianity we see life as a gift from God, whatever may be the difficulties, we have the confidence that we have a prayer-answering God who knows what we go through and is concerned about our welfare. That is because Christ came and lived as a man in this world. The goal of religion in Christianity is not escape from the world; body is not a prison for the soul; we believe in a life after death, a bodily resurrection and a life lived in the glorious presence of God and Christ. Jesus died, but rose on the third day, giving us a hope that we will do so also.

There is only one life and that is this life which we are living. The destiny as to where we end up after death, whether in heaven with God and Christ eternally or in hell with Satan and his minions eternally, will be decided on what we do with this life. That is why Christ said “Repent and return for the kingdom of God is near.” The emphasis is not on doing good karma to earn brownie points but to repent of the wrongs done and accept Jesus Christ as God and Savior, who is able to forgive our sins and grant us the Holy Spirit, who is able to keep us on the path of righteousness.

We do good deeds not to earn salvation, but because we have already received salvation in Christ. Out of that gratitude and love for others which is the flow of love from Christ and God that we warn others to repent and accept Christ when there is still time. It is not arrogance that makes us urge others to accept Christ as the only true God, but because we know the dire consequences of someone who refuses so great a salvation.  Will you listen my friend and act today and save your soul? God guide you to decide on this matter of eternal consequence, so that you don’t regret later.

God bless you and keep you.

Amen.

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[1] Exodus 3:14