Skip to main content
Sriramchandra.org | Imperience.org
   

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

THE PROBLEM OF BELIEF IN GOD

 

The belief in God cannot become a problem till one experiences the need to grant an ultimate explanation of the world in which we live. Scholars feel however that it becomes a problem when one undertakes to construct a metaphysical system which includes value-experiences. A system is an explanation of all facts of experience including value-experiences. Some thinkers hold that God is the most significant explanation of the existence, evolution, and so on of all the worlds. The Vedanta considers God to be the explanation of all the creation, sustention, destruction of all the worlds. But there are others who consider that Nature is capable of explaining all facts. Some consider human imagination is quite capable of explaining all facts. But there are some who hold that neither Nature nor human imagination can be the explanation or cause of this universe.

Thee are conflicting conceptions of God. We ought to know what we mean by God before we begin to define whether such a God exists or is an explanation.

There are theories such as atheism- which deny belief in the existence of God or rather deny that such a God as the creator exists. The reasons are manifold. Firstly he denies God because it  cannot be explained all by means of thepresent day science. Science relying on the sensate knowledge would come to halt if it has to take explanations from trans-scientific data. Science will come to stop and superstition will step in. It is this fear of arrest of scientific effort that has led to the dogmatic denial of God.

The others are all having belief in God. The conception of polytheism is that there are several Gods. The corollary is that these gods are not in quarrel with each other. But mythologies have created myths wherein these gods are in rivalry. Popular religion is polytheistic and mythological. The Gods are several superhuman powers but in conflict and competition with one another. This is denied because all Gods finally elect a God who is superior to them and is the god of the Gods. Thus a rotational Godhead or henotheistic Godhead emerges as a necessity in the interests of the System of the Universe. Thus Monism involves monotheism. One system involves One God.

Further all Gods represent several powers or values. All values finally are regulated by the harmonizing value which is to be one only. Thus there should be One Rulling Godhead regulating all others.

These two above formulations do not however exhaust the conceptions of God. God is held to an Object of human experience. It is held that superhuman individuals  do not need a God at all. Because they are gods. This explanation however is simply unconvincing since supershumans will have to have a regulative harmonizing factor and this will their God. God thus is a human experience or object of it, but it does not justify the conclusion that it is not the object of the gods.

Some thinkers pose the problem of Reality as all inclusive and God is said to be a part of that Reality. This reality which is all embracive is the whole of which God is a part. This view is not quite correct since though God is a part of Reality,he governs the whole unity of Reality and as such is the Sovereign of the whole and as such the word part is entirely a misconception. God is not outside Nature governing it, for Reality will embrace both the Godhead and Nature Similarly the expression that God is All Nature (Pan-thesim) or All is God is a principle of absolute logical groundedness of all things in God and His Nature. All pantheism goes beyond to the spiritual concept of dependence of all on God. God’s spiritual Nature goes beyond all nature but immanently or interiorly governs all spiritually. It is not the monistic materialism of Heackel that is meant by Pantheism. The alternative whether Nature is a part of God again poses the problem of dependence on God for its very existence as nature. The world is a part of God only in this sense that it is what it is because of the Godhead’s nature.

All these points are clearly answered by the views of Sri Ramanuja who held that God is All, in so far as He holds all material nature and the souls under His regulative direction in respect of being, becoming and release or realization or change. Nature and souls are parts of God in so far as they are dependent on Him, and He is in them all as the indwelling Being and above them all in so far as He regulates all processes whether of creation or sustention or destruction or redemption. God cannot be considered to be the Unconscious producer of values, for values are being built up by consciousness not otherwise.