Christianity starts with a personal God and holds up before
the believer the goal of perfection for his own personality. It finds
man without a self and confers a real selfhood upon him.
Early Buddhism taught that salvation is accomplished by the individual
alone. It denies the possibility and the necessity of help from a divine
source. Subsequent history has proved this to have been wrong. In India,
Buddhism has been displaced by Hinduism, and in China, and Japan, the
Mahayana has developed the idea of salvation through another. The great
stream of Buddhism has recognized that man by himself is helpless. He
must have the help of a divine power in order to obtain salvation.
Christianity asserts that salvation is possible only through the
intervention of God. The incarnation, the life, death and resurrection
of Jesus and his work in the world through the Holy Spirit on the one
hand are the expression of God's solicitude for man, and, on the other
hand, correspond to the deep need which men of all ages have felt, for a
power above themselves. From the early stages of magic to the highest
reaches of religion we find this constant factor recognized by human
groups all over the world. They bear witness to a power above themselves
to whom they continually appeal. In Christianity we find this main
tendency enunciated most clearly. The individual cannot save himself.
Mankind cannot save itself. Both must rely upon the assistance of the
divine power which started this universe on its way and which is the
ever present creative force.
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