Evidence · Case 14 · Buddhism
The poisoned arrow, Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta (MN 63)
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
In this discourse the Buddha lists the questions he will not answer and explains why: they do not lead to peace, to direct knowledge, to nirvana. He is not asserting there is no God. He is declining the question as beside the point of liberation.
Sources
The primary text of the poisoned arrow and the undetermined questions.
Objections & responses
- Setting aside the God question looks wiser than Western insistence on answers. Why treat the Buddha’s refusal as a weakness rather than humility?
It can be humility, and there is something bracing about refusing to pretend to knowledge one does not have. The Christian reply is not that the Buddha should have speculated more, but that the question of God is not idle. If there is a Creator who made us for himself, then the deepest source of suffering is estrangement from him, and setting that aside would mean treating the wound while missing its cause. The claim is that God has stepped into history, so the question is no longer pure speculation but a response to something that happened.