Buddhism

Non-theism — there is no Creator God; the ultimate problem is suffering, not sin against God

Their basis
The Buddha declined to affirm a creator or a personal God, treating such questions as unhelpful distractions from the urgent task of ending suffering (the 'poisoned arrow' parable — remove the arrow, don't debate who shot it). Reality runs on impersonal law (dependent origination and karma), not a divine Person. The human predicament is dukkha (suffering/dissatisfaction), and its root is craving (tanha), not offense against a holy God.

Scripture answers
God is not an unanswerable distraction — He is the Maker who is there and has made Himself known, first in creation and finally in His Son. Paul, standing among the philosophers of Athens, named exactly this gap: he proclaimed 'the God who made the world and everything in it' as the true object of a groping human search. Creation itself testifies to Him, so that non-theism is 'without excuse.' And our deepest problem is not merely inner craving but that we have sinned against this personal God — which is also why the cure is a Person, not a technique.

Acts 17:24-28Genesis 1:1John 1:1-3Romans 1:19-20Hebrews 11:6

In fairness: Buddhism sees something true and unflinching: suffering is real, pervasive, and woven into fallen existence, and disordered craving/attachment truly does enslave the human heart. Scripture agrees that misplaced desire is a root of misery (James 1:14-15) and that this present world groans (Romans 8:22). The Buddha's honesty about suffering is more clear-eyed than much cheap optimism.

Self-liberation by the Noble Eightfold Path — you save yourself through your own effort, discipline, and insight

Their basis
The Buddha's first sermon (the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta) sets out the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path (right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration). His parting words are often rendered 'Be a lamp unto yourselves… work out your own liberation with diligence.' In the mainstream (Theravada especially), no outside savior rescues you; each person must walk the path themselves.

Scripture answers
This is the opposite of the gospel: no amount of self-effort can bridge the gap to God, because 'by works of the law no one will be justified.' Salvation is a gift received, not an achievement earned — 'by grace you have been saved through faith… not a result of works, so that no one may boast.' A savior outside ourselves is precisely what we need, and there is only one: 'there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.'

Ephesians 2:8-9Titus 3:5Galatians 2:16John 14:6Acts 4:12

In fairness: The Eightfold Path names real virtues — honesty, non-violence, right livelihood, disciplined attention — that overlap the moral wisdom Scripture also commends (Philippians 4:8). The instinct that the human heart is disordered and must be transformed is right. Even within Buddhism the sufficiency of self-effort was doubted: the Pure Land schools reach for the 'other-power' (tariki) of Amida Buddha rather than trust their own striving — a striking testimony that the human heart senses it needs rescue from outside itself. The fatal error is the direction: transformation as the ground of rescue rather than its fruit, and a reaching that stops short of the living God who actually saves.

Karma and rebirth (samsara) — moral cause-and-effect drives an endless cycle of rebirths until liberation

Their basis
Actions (karma) carry moral consequences that condition future rebirths; beings are reborn again and again across countless lifetimes, reaping what they have sown, until craving is extinguished and the cycle is broken. This is taught throughout the suttas and is foundational across virtually all Buddhist schools.

Scripture answers
Scripture affirms the moral seriousness beneath karma — 'whatever one sows, that will he also reap' — but flatly denies the wheel of rebirth: 'it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.' One life, then we stand before God. And the good news is that the debt we could never work off across a thousand lives, Christ absorbed once: 'He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree.' He, the sinless one, took our account so we could receive His — the cycle broken not by our striving but by His cross.

Hebrews 9:27Galatians 6:72 Corinthians 5:211 Peter 2:24Romans 6:23

In fairness: Karma grasps a genuine truth that a just moral order underlies reality — we do reap what we sow, and evil is not consequence-free (Galatians 6:7). What it lacks is grace and finality: a way for the guilty to be forgiven rather than endlessly repaying, and an end to the striving. That is exactly what the cross provides.

Anatta (no-self) and nirvana — there is no permanent soul; the goal is the 'blowing out' of the self into nirvana

Their basis
The doctrine of anatta teaches that what we call the 'self' is a temporary bundle of changing processes (the five aggregates) with no permanent, abiding soul — clinging to a self is itself a cause of suffering. The final goal, nirvana (literally 'extinguishing/blowing out'), is the cessation of craving and of the cycle of rebirth. Buddhism is careful here: the Buddha refused to define nirvana as annihilation (or as eternal existence) — it is the unconditioned, described more by quenching than by eternal personal life with a God.

Scripture answers
The Bible teaches the opposite of both the diagnosis and the goal: the human person is real, enduring, and made in the very image of God — 'God created man in His own image.' The self is so real that Jesus warns of the One who can destroy both soul and body. And the goal is not the fading of the self but eternal, conscious, personal life in relationship with God: 'this is eternal life, that they know You.' The redeemed person is not blown out but raised and made whole, wiped of every tear, dwelling with God forever.

Genesis 1:27Matthew 10:28John 17:31 Corinthians 15:53-54Revelation 21:3-4

In fairness: Anatta rightly detects that grasping self-centeredness is a source of misery — and Jesus Himself says whoever would save his life will lose it (Matthew 16:25), calling for a real death to self. The difference is what lies on the far side of that death: not the erasure of the person, but a self surrendered and then resurrected into fullness of life with God.