In the Buddhistic conception God is an abstract vacuity; in the Greek, a static intellect; in the Christian, a dynamic will.  As is the conception of God, so is the conception and character of man.  The two are so intimately interdependent that it is useless at this time to discuss which is the cause and which the result.  They are doubtless the two aspects of the same movement of thought.  The following differences are necessary characteristics of the three religions: 

The Buddhist seeks salvation through the attainment of vacuity—­Nirvana—­in order to escape from the world in which he says there is no reason and no morality.  The Greek seeks salvation through the activity of the intellect; all that is needful to salvation is knowledge of the truth.  The Christian seeks salvation through the activity of the will; this is secured through the new birth.  The Buddhist leaves each man to save himself from his illusion by the discovery that it is an illusion.  The Greek relies on intellectual education, on philosophy—­the Christian recreates the will.  The Buddhist and Greek gods make no effort to help the lost man.  The Christian God is dominated by love; He is therefore a missionary God, sending even His only begotten Son to reconcile and win the world of sinning, willful children back to Himself.

In Buddhism salvation is won only by the few and after ages of toil and ceaseless re-births.  In the Greek plan only the philosopher who comes to full understanding can attain salvation.  In the Christian plan salvation is for all, for all are sons of God, in fact, and may through Christ become so in consciousness.  In the Buddhistic plan the hopeless masses resort to magic and keep on with their idolatry and countless gross superstitions.  In the Greek plan the hopeless resort to the “mysteries” for the attainment of salvation.  In the Christian plan there are no hopeless masses, for all may gain the regenerated will and become conscious sons of God.

The Buddhist mind gave up all effort to grasp or even to understand reality.  The Greek mind thought it could arrive at reality through the intellect.  But two thousand years of philosophic study and evolution drove philosophy into the absurd positions of absolute subjective idealism on the one hand and sensationalism and absolute materialism on the other.  The Christian mind lays emphasis on the will and accordingly is alone able to reach reality, a reality justifiable alike to the reason and to the heart.  For will is the creative faculty in man as well as in God.  As God through His will creates reality, so man through his will first comes to know reality.  Mere intellect can never pass over from thought to being.  Being can be known as a reality only through the will.

In consequence of the above-stated methods of thought, the Buddhist was of necessity a pessimist; the Greek only less so; while the Jew and the Christian could alone be thoroughgoing optimists.  The Buddhist ever asserts the is-not; the Greek, the is; while the Jew and Christian demand the ought-to be, as the supreme thing.  Hence flows the perennial life of the Christian civilization.