Perhaps a more accurate characterization of the theistic understanding of anatman would be as "
annihilationism" rather than nihilism.
Other omissions include such interesting figures as Gerrard Winstanley, Jacob Bauthumley, and Laurence Clarkson, whose
annihilationism had come within the purview of Burns (and Christopher Hill).
The emergence of this doctrine is connected with the Buddha's attempt to forge a "middle way" that avoids the extreme views of "eternalism" in regards to the soul and "
annihilationism" of the soul at bodily death.
45), King Lear, but since the very possibility of Renaissance
annihilationism has been called in question by New Historicist claims about the effective 'unthinkability' of real atheism in the period, the point seems worth establishing, though it might have been more economically done.
(One such heretic, not noticed by Watson, was John Lewes, whose execution in 1583 was recorded in a poem by Thomas Gilbart reprinted in Emrys Jones's Oxford anthology.) Much further evidence of
annihilationism in the period is adduced and Watson then devotes separate chapters to The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet, Measure, Macbeth, Donne's love lyrics, and Herbert's Temple.
No wonder we lost an entire generation of poets to linguistic
annihilationism. We can't go on in this way, that's clear.
(8) For what it's worth, I think this insight helps explain an unappreciated reason for which the Buddha himself resists
annihilationism, the view that those who achieve parinirvana are destroyed at the moment of death.
Pinnock, "
Annihilationism," in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, ed.
Malthus thus ascribed to the heretical theological doctrine of
annihilationism.
This principle plays a crucial role in making sense of the Buddha's "middle path" between eternalism (the view that persons have enduring selves) and
annihilationism (the view that we live for only a moment).
Adams seems to interpret anatman as an extreme form of nihilism, suggesting that Buddhist eschatology amounts to "utter eternal annihilation." (11) He makes passing acknowledgment that anatman is not "an assertion of strict
annihilationism"; (12) however, he pursues the discussion as though anatman and Buddhism as a whole are nihilistic; in the same paragraph, he again refers to his concern that his children "shall cease to exist forever"!
But, Kassapa, (if one thinks,) "The one who acts is one, the one who experiences (the results) is another," (then one asserts) with reference to one stricken by feeling: "Suffering is created by another." When one asserts thus, this amounts to
annihilationism. Without veering to either of these extremes, the Tathagata teaches Dhamma by the middle: "conditioned by ignorance are the constructing activities....