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Pujya Dr. K.C. Varadachari - Volume -2
 

THEORIES ABOUT GOD

 

There have been many conceptions about the nature of God. Indeed they have ranged very much. The central conception is however that God is useful,and valuable. He is said to be capable of being and granting the most valuable things to man. Thus we can list all types of demands made on God.

i.       The Todas worship God and know Him as the milk supplier to all.

ii.      Bagundians in Central Africa consider him as the granter of health, wealth and success in war. So do so many others including the Modern nations. No  one  forget the prayers in churches and mosques and temples and congregations for Victory in War II.

iii.     Agricultural fertility is sought through prayer from God. Most seasonal prayers and thanks offerings are precisely these.

iv.     Buddha spoke about the conquest of lower desires including the desire to live. Whether Buddha even thought of God as capable of granting this is very doubtful. Unfortunately add this also as an example of persons seeking triumph over desire. God as one who conquest over desire is surely the opinion of some.

v.      Mercy is God according to Islam and Vaisnavism (Daya is the inseparable nature of God.) To limit this to Islam is being untrue to facts.

vi.     Cosmic oneness and Unity (Advaita) is said to be the Idea of God in Brahmanism.

vii.    Complete Actuality (Actus Purus) is God. In him there is no matter at all. Which restricts and limits His nature.

viii.   Complete and continous Joy is said to be the idea of God in Spinoza. He held that God is the one substance which alone can explain all attributes though the attributes are those through which alone we know Him. Resignation to God is his ethics.

ix.     Kant held God to be the source of the Highest Good.Nothing is Good except the good will.

x.      Mathew Arnod claimed God to be the power that makes for Righteousness. This is indeed the claim of Zarathustra also. Some scholars forgets this aspect.

xi.     God is held to be the ground of love between individuals and referring this to Eduard Hartmann as posing this view is to forget the great sage Yanjnavalkya whose basic concept was this.

These views are unfortunately Stated by some shoclars as found separately.  I have shown in my Idea  of God how all these are implicit in the Upanisads.

Scholars talk of scale Values and refer to the table of values or some such similar table. The significant test of a chosen value is whether an individual rejects other values for it. This rejection is always to be observed after enjoying a value so called. It is posteriori decision that is to be observed. God is sought after for all things but who seeks Him for Himself is the question?

Many scholars rightly take up the question that God is personified value or the value of values.

The consideration of Pantheism, Polytheism, Humanistic Godhead Monotheism are clearly studies which reveal the complex nature of the Idea of God.

Each one of these theories draws attention to the significance of God in relation to one view of reality. Thus polytheism illustrates the uniform connection of the God-idea with value experience as well as the wealth and variety of that Experience. God is in every function and operation of Nature and manifesting Himself in each appropriate to it. It reveals the multiplicity – the eternal multiplicity in the nature of God.

Henotheism which is called opportunistic monotheism also, or katheno-theism, reveals the identity of the Godhead in all the manifestations supremely manifesting one cosmic function at a time. God is unified powers, oneness in manyness, manifesting His oneness in and through each one of the many.

Monotheism is the view that there is only One Creater or God of the universe. Some persons consider that this involves the view that God is also the cause of the evil in this world -contrary forces to the values-dis-values so to speak. This seems to be the great barrier to the acceptance of Monotheism. Some thinkers however are bold enough to accept the view that all evel is illusion, which will pass when the Godhead is known.

Pantheism holds that God is All that is (Sarvam Khalu idam Brahma); this too is said to include the evil as such not acceptable. This is both monism and monotheism. Brightman rejects God could be the cause of evil – evil being an actual experience and ultimate- and thus rejects all philosophical attempt at a System. Herein lies the basic contradiction between dualistic religion and monistic philosophy.

Agnistic realism holds that God’s nature is unknowable beyond the means of our knowledge, though there is no doubt that He is the source of all being. This is said to have been entertained lastly by Herbert Spencer.

Humanism is the view that all knowledge is human knowledge, and has this peculiar quality of seeking to know Reality through human efforts and reason. It recognizes that the human ideals are precisely realisable in God- who is the above of all human values. God is not separated either by ideals or actualities which are beyond the human. Religion must find its evidence in the facts of human experience and understanding. It rejects firmly all aspirations and ideals that are not specifically recognized as human love, values and good and so on. Dewy and American thinkers have always counseled this nearness of God to man and humanness of God. They would deny God who is not human. Even Christianity is explained on the principle of the humanity of God.

God is superhuman and supernatural revealer of values which are not amenable to reasoning is the conception of transcendentalists. Kierkegaard, in recent times, Calvin and Luther held that God is revealed to man in a direct measure and as transcendent to man in every sense. Love and Grace and decending condescending waves of God’s nature, not as flowing equal to equal, man to man, fellowship or so.

There are some who hold that God is a system of values -not a person of love and so on. Impersonalism holds that this system has to be known.

Evolutionists have discovered that God could be said to be evolving in the same way as man has. It is the tendency of God to support or produce higher and
higher values, which is called the emergent values in evolution – unknown predicates of being, and deity. This naturalism or evolutionism has been held by Sameul Alexander, Wiemann and others.

God has been held to be the revolutionary principle introducing change in the very direction of evolution of man for the continuity of evolution this is seen to involve discontinuities requiring ingressions. This view is that of Whitehead and others.

Indian thought has provided a composite theory of God and Sri Aurobindo has explained the evolutionary possibilities of Deity (Refer  Idea of God by the author).