Evidence · Case 14 · Buddhism
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “No-self or Not-self?”
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
This Theravada teacher names the difficulty directly: the no-self teaching does not sit easily beside karma and rebirth, since if there is no self it is not obvious what experiences the results of karma or takes rebirth. He then argues that it dissolves once anatta is read as a strategy for release rather than a metaphysical claim about what exists.
Sources
Objections & responses
- Christianity has a parallel tension: personal identity through death and resurrection is a philosophical puzzle too. Why present identity over time as a problem unique to Buddhism? And Thanissaro raises the tension only to dissolve it.
Personal identity is a hard problem for everyone, and that should be said. The difference is that Christianity affirms an enduring self that makes moral continuity intelligible, and its puzzle is about the mechanism, whereas Buddhism denies the enduring self and so has to explain how moral continuity works without one. Thanissaro’s resolution, that anatta is a strategy rather than a metaphysical claim, deserves to be presented whole; the question that remains even on his reading is what the moral agent is. The Buddhist answer, the causal stream, is coherent, and who gets free is a fair question to ask rather than a refutation.