of supernatural thinking, and to work towards locating those elements that
might be most effective today in the domain of ethics. Following these
four exercises in critical thinking, a few suggestions are offered about the
emergence of a naturalized concept of karma.
The first dimension of the Buddhist doctrine of karma that warrants reflective
scrutiny is its assertion of ultimate cosmic justice. All of the world’s
major religions have longstanding traditions of promise that, at some point,
good and evil lives will be rewarded with good and evil consequences, and
that everyone will receive exactly what they deserve. But all of these religions
are also forced to admit that this doctrine contradicts what we sometimes
experience in our lives. Good people may just as readily be severely
injured or die from an accident, or die early of disease, as anyone else, and
people who have lived unjustly and unfairly will not necessarily experience
any deprivation in their lives. Some people seem to receive rewards in proportion
to the merit of their lives, while others do not. Among those who
don’t appear to get what they deserve, some seem to receive more than
merit would dictate, and others, less.
That all of these outcomes are common and unsurprising to us should
lead us to question the kind of relationship that exists between merit and
reward. One way to face this realization is to conclude, at least provisionally,
that the cosmos is largely indifferent to the sphere of human merit as well
as to our expectations of justice. If a morally sound person is no more or
no less likely to die early of a disease than anyone else, then maturity and
honesty of vision on this matter may require that we question traditional
assumptions that cosmic justice must prevail. Although we certainly care
about matters of justice, it may be that beyond the human sphere we will
not be able to find evidence of that kind of concern.
The religious claim that there is a supernatural connection between
moral merit and ultimate destiny may derive from our intuitive sense that
there ought to be such a connection. We all sense that there ought to
be justice, even in settings where it seems to be lacking. That the corporate
criminal ought to be punished, that the innocent child ought to live
well rather than to suffer from a devastating disease, and that some things
ought to be different from what they appear to be, are all manifestations of
our deep seated sense of justice. Virtue and reward, vice and punishment,
ought to be systematically related, and where they are not, we all feel a
sense of impropriety. But whether that now intuitive internal sense is sufficient
reason to postulate a supernatural scheme of cosmic justice beyond
our understanding and experience is an open question that has remained as
closed in Buddhism as it has in other religions. The form that this closure