Abstract
It is my thesis that Early Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, and the Protestant Reformation each developed constructs to address impermanence and unsatisfactory problems associated with time. I will explore these differences through the Roman Catholic Purgatory, the Protestant Reformation that rejected Purgatory, and Early Buddhism that saw enlightenment as an end to the ignorance of trying to make permanent that which is impermanent.
Similar content being viewed by others
Pali Canon Buddhist Texts Referenced
I. B. Horner (tr.) (1999) The Middle Length Sayings, Vol. III (Oxford: Pali Text Society).
C. Rhys Davids (tr.) (1980) The Book of the Kindred Sayings, Vol. III. (Oxford: Pali Text Society).
References
L. Blanchard (2012) ‘Burning Yourself: Paṭicca Samuppāda as a Description of the Arising of a False Sense of Self Modeled on Vedic Rituals’, Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies 2, 36–83.
S. Collins (1996) Nirvana and other Buddhist Felicities (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).
B. Dessein (2016) ‘Progress and Free Will: On the Buddhist Concept of ‘Time’ and Its Possibilities for Modernity’, Asian Studies 4:1, 11–33.
C. M. N. Eire (2010) A Brief History of Eternity (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
F. J. Hoffman (1987) Rationality & Mind in Early Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal Banasaridass).
D. Keown (2001) The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (New York: Palgrave).
C. Ketcham (2015) ‘Meaning Without Ego’, Journal of the Philosophy of Life 5:3, 112–133.
S. B. King (1991) Buddha Nature (Albany, NY: SUNY Press).
J. Le Goff (1984) The Birth of Purgatory A. Goldhammer (tr.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
J. Li (2016) ‘What is Time? Yogācāra-Buddhist Meditation on the Problem of the External World in the Treatise on the Perfection of Consciousness-only (Cheng weishi lun)’, Asian Studies 20:1, 35–57.
P. Marshall (2015) ‘After Purgatory: Death and Remembeerance in the Reformation World’ in T. Rasmussen and J. O. Flaeten (eds.) Preparing for Death, Remembering the Dead (Gottingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, GmbH & Co.), pp. 25–44.
D. Matsunaga and A. Matsunaga (1972) The Buddhist Concept of Hell (New York: Philosophical Library).
H. S. Prasad (1991). Essays on time in Buddhism. Delhi, Sri Satguru Publications.
F. H. Ross (1953) The Meaning of Life in Hinduism and Buddhism (Boston: Beacon Press).
J. D. Scotus (1994). Contingency and Freedom: John Duns Scotus Lectura I 39 A. Vos Jaczn, H. Veldhuis, A. H. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker, N. W. Den Bok (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers).
M. Siderits (2007) Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing).
M. Weber, R. Baehr, and G. C. Wells (2002) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism And Other Writings (New York: Routledge).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ketcham, C. (2017). Issues of Impermanence: Christian and Early Buddhist Contemplations of Time. In: Vanhoutte, K., McCraw, B. (eds) Purgatory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57890-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57891-0
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)