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| AYURVEDA |
Vaachaspati Misra
Vaachaspati Misra gives voice to a possible objection to the possession of superabundant mercy by God on the score of the presence of undisputed suffering and pain in the created world. The usual explanation of the inequalities in the world under by reference to the unequal values of the past actions of individual souls is but a poor defence, in as much as these actions are not self productive of their results and if God abstains from dealing out the fruits of actions, the world-order would be destitute of the imperfections and limitations that are unfortunately ruling compact. **Vaachaspati Misra is the ** with his usual boldness. Although God is all-powerful and there is no limit to His mercy He cannot subvert the moral laws, which are by their nature immutable. God’s omnipotence is subject tot he supremacy of the moral law and the moral law is rather the law of His own being and also of the being of individual selves. There can be no escape from the consequences of moral actions except by enjoyment thereof. Man remains unfreeze so long as he is no absolves from the bonds of actions, good or bad, and the creation of the world is solely motivated by the supreme desire of God to create opportunities for the individual selves to work off the load of their actions. Suffering is not an unmitigated evil. It serves to make men feel disinclined to the things of the world and helps them to realize the vanity of worldly pleasures. This detachment and disinclination is the condition precedent for all spiritual progression, as it induces man to contemplate the means of escape from the worries of transmigration and he finds the means in the philosophic realization of the true nature of the self and the world and their mutual relationship. So suffering is a blessing in disguise. Unalloyed pleasure on the other hand would make a man forget the highest interests of life and its true mission and degrade him to the rank of the lowest brute. Suffering is thus a propaedeutic discipline and a necessary preparation for the achievement of the highest goal, viz. Unfettered freedom, the **summum bonum of life.
Motive for creation
Another difficulty is raised; Why should there be a will to creation at all ? All activity is normally motivated by some ulterior purpose of satisfying a need either in the way of acquisition of an advantage or avoidance of evil. In the case of God no such motive can be supposed to set free an activity, as He is ex hypothesis free from all disadvantages and is self-sufficient and self-satisfied. A God with an unsatisfied want will be a contradiction in ** tion is but a game and pastime with Him and no question of motive, therefore, can be argues as necessary. But Uddyotakara refuses to be convinced by this argument as even a play is not a motiveless activity. It is resorted to only with a view to enjoyment of pleasure which is derived from it and also because abstention from play causes uneasiness to those who are lovers of sports. But such a contingency cannot be conceived to be possible with reference to God, because He is absolutely free from all shades of uneasiness and worry. The theory of playful activity, therefore cannot be regarded as a satisfactory explanation for God’s creative impulse. The second theory that God’s creative activity is inspired by a desire for demonstrating His powers and glory in and through the inconceivable varieties and complexities of the created world does not seem to stand a better chance of success. The question arises why should He’be eager to give a demonstration of His glory? Certainly God does not gain any advantage from His adventure, nor do we conceive of any possible loss on His part if He ceases from this enterprise. If any advantage could accrue, God would be a lesser God-in other words, would cease to be God. What then is the explanation? No explanation can be offered beyond positing that it is God’s nature to do so. Cosmic activities are an essential part of His being and Godhood minus cosmic functions is an unintelligible fiction. It may be interesting to observe in this connection that Gaudapaada too in his Maandookya Kaarikaa has summed up these views in a couplet and draws the same conclusion with Uddyotakara that it is the essential nature of God to engage in creative activities, as no motive can be alleged with reference to one who has no unsatisfied want. There can be no questioning again with regard to ultimate facts and constitution of things. It is absurd to interrogate about the nature of even material objects as to why they should behave in the peculiar way they do and not otherwise. God is a dynamic principle and His dynamism is manifested in His cosmic activities and it does not leave any room for speculation as to why God should be dynamic and not be quiescent and inactive. The ultimate nature of things can be understood only from observation of their behaviour and not a priori, so no question of motivation is either legitimate or profitable.
God-an intelligent Principle
But the opponent raises another objection, Granted that God is dynamic by His very constitution and nature, but this would make His activity a perpetual necessity, since one cannot resist one’s nature, and perpetual cosmic activity would make the periodic dissolution of the world-process an impossibility. Moreover there would be simultaneous creation of all objects, but this is opposed to our experience. Things are produced on a graduated scale and the process of creation and dissolution, of distribution and redistribution of casual energies is attested to be the ruling order by scientific researches and is attested to be the ruling order by scientific researches and popular experience as well. Uddyotakara in reply observes that this objection would be insurmountable if the ultimate principle were conceived to be a blind force without intelligence and provision. But God is an intelligent principle and creates those things for which He thinks that there is an occasion and necessity and His cosmic activities although not compelled by an external necessity, are conducted and guided by a moral self-urge which takes the direction best calculated to bring about the deserts of actions accumulated by individual souls, in pursuance of intrinsic spiritual laws which have their seat in the fundamental morality and the spiritual nature of God and the fundamental morality and the spiritual nature of God and the souls, and the unfolded in the spatio-temporal order of the universe. So no such consequences are possible.
God-the Supreme Ruler
God again is the supreme ruler of the universe and this supremacy is co-eternal with His being. His powers are infinite and unlimited. Ordinarily power is acquired by moral excellence which again is achieved by moral exertion and activities. If God’s powers were co-eternal with His own being and as such not acquired by religious merits or moral activities, than the universality of the moral law would be untenable, as God would be placed above its jurisdiction. But this should not cause a difficulty. If the moral law is to be an eternal ruling principle it must be found to exist in its perfection ne plus ultra somewhere and it is found in God. The moral law is supreme because God is supreme and the law is but the manifestation of His being. In the case of moral and spiritual excellence, which too is actually acquired, no doubt. But this achievement is made possible by the eternal moral perfection that is in God and if the supremacy of God were the product of acquired moral excellence, the unobstructed supremacy of the laws of morality would be an impossibility and a chimera a consummation that might be piously hoped for but never possible of realization. Moreover the hypothesis of acquired supremacy in God would be tantamount to a denial of God and the eternity of divine, justice and the result would be a negation of the moral foundation of the world order.
Logical proof of God
The previous arguments have served to make it clear that God may be a plausible existent, but no proof has been adduced to establish the existence of God as a matter of logical necessity. Is there any logical proof of God? Is it absolutely necessary that we must admit His existence and that the world-order cannot be explained except on this hypothesis? We propose to consider the logical proofs that have been advanced by the philosophers to this school. Now we are familiar with three different classes of existents.
In the first place, there are objects which are obviously known to be products of intelligent and thoughtful agents such for instance as palaces, gates, walls, pens, chairs and tables.
In the second place, there are existents which are admitted by a general consensus of opinion to be destitute of any author and as such to be eternal existents, such for instance as atoms and space.
In the third place, we meet with existent facts which are susceptible of being suspected as made by some intelligent agent, viz. The body, the mountain, the sea, the tree and other such objects.
The suspicion of intelligent authorship legitimately arises with regard to the last mentioned category of objects on account of their striking similarity with objects of the first class and also on account of the divergence of views among philosophers of rival schools.
There is no categorical evidence for the absence of intelligent authorship either. It is certainly true that no man has seen them to have been produced by an intelligent author, but absence of perceptual evidence is no proof of the absence of an intelligent author, as such an author may legitimately be supposed to be invisible like atoms etc. Absence of perceptual evidence can be regarded as proof of absence of the object only when the latter is amenable to perception and not otherwise. In the case of the body, the tree, the mountain etc. they are known to have a definite origination in time and to be non-existent before their origination. Who has brought them into existence? It can be legitimately inferred that they have been brought into existence by an intelligent maker who had knowledge of the material causes and the process of production, just as palaces and roads are built by a knowing person. Both these sets of phenomena are seen to come into existence at a definite point of time and they evince the same intelligent plan and teleology. Why should then one set of phenomena be supposed to come into existence independently of a maker and not the other set, although we find very little difference between them so far as the teleological plan of their construction and their definite origination in time are concerned? But it may be objected that the origination of the grand phenomena of nature the mountain the sea, the forest, the river and so on-is not definitely perceived by any man whose testimony may be accepted as proof. In the circumstances how can an original be predicated of these doubtful objects, even if it is allowed that origination is proof of an intelligent agent? The answer is that objects which are capable of being divided into parts cannot be supposed to be ultimate existents and as the process of division and analysis shows the constituent factors, they must be supposed to have come into existence by means of a previous integration and combination of the component factors. And none but an intelligent being could bring about such a combination with a view to the result. This is certainly the case with regard to productions of arts and crafts. Why should there be a difference in the case of natural objects, though the same intelligent planning of means to ends is observable in them also? It should be admitted then that objects which are seen to be possessed of parts arranged according to a purposive plan must have been made by some intelligent maker.
Body of God
It has, however, been contended that this teleological argument is futile as it leads to self-contradiction. Even if it is granted that the world has an agent who is possessed of intelligence and forethought, there is no escape from antinomies (Conflict-paradox). The reason is that all knowledge is produced by an impact on our organic sensibilities and if the ultimate author of the universe be possessed of a psycho-physical organism, all his cognition would be contingent events and so he could not be regarded as omniscient. Moreover, all his cognitive activities would be subject to the limitation of sense-faculties, and he would not be able to envisage the super-subtle causes of the world and so would not be the creator. If it is supposed that God is independent of a physical organism, it will be extremely difficult to imagine how He can have knowledge at all and still further how He can operate upon the atoms, the ultimate constituents of the material world. If you deny a bodily organism to God, you will have to deny all intelligence and purposive activity on His part, and to think that He will have an eternal body associated with Him will lead to absurdities, as an eternal body is as impossible as an eternal world. And if He is possessed of a body of limited dimension, it will be liable to origin and destruction and furthermore He will not be in tough with all matters lying outside the body. If sense organs are added to the organism, all the cognitions and volitional activities will be as transitory as ours. The result will be that an unthinking and unintelligent God will have to be posited and this will be an absurdity. Nor can we suppose that God is entirely unassociated with a physical organism and is possessed of eternal intelligence, eternal desire and eternal will, because there is absolutely no warrant for this supposition, as all knowledge and volitional activity are seen from experience to be contingent on the possession of a nervous system and cerebral functions, which are sought to be denied of God. God thus becomes a chimera and a fiction of the imagination, whether we affirm a physical organism with a cerebral system and nervous organization or we deny the same of Him. It is better, therefore, if we desist from the supposition that the world-order has an intelligent author.
*Doctrine of final causes, the view that development is due to the purpose or design, that is served by them.
Relation of the Body to Psychical activities
In reply to these charges the philosophers of this school have pointed out that the opponents have failed to appraise the relation of the body to the psychical activities at their proper worth and to observe that voluntary activities are not in any way contingent on the possession of a foreign organism although from a surface view of things this may seem to be the necessary condition. What is the condition of voluntary activity – the association of the physical organism or the influence exerted by an active principle possessed of relevant caused efficiency? The mere association of the physical organism is irrelevant to volitional activity, as we do not find any such activity when a person is indifferent or in deep sleep in spite of the fact that the physical organism is present intact. So we must set down voluntary activity to the exertion of an active agent possessed of causal efficiency irrespective of its association with a physical organism, which has been found to have no bearing upon it. If the possession of a physical organism be a necessary condition for the exercise of voluntary activity we cannot explain how the agent can control his own body, a the help of another bodily organism cannot be available for the purpose. It can be contended that even in the controlling of the body the presence of the body is an essential condition. Yes, but the body is not present as the condition, rather it is the object of the controlling activity and in the case of God’s activity the object to be operated upon is present in the shape of the atoms to be operated upon is present in the shape of the atoms which are the constitutive principle of the material world. But it has been further urged that the controlling activity that is exercised upon one’s own bodily organism is made possible by dint of a desire and volitional urge and this desire and the volitional urge are seen to occur only in association with a bodily organism and not in its absence. So the presence of the bodily organism must be admitted to be the condition of these psychical activities which are admittedly the internal springs of the physical control, and thus the bodily organism will be the indirect coun-dition of all physical controlling movements. The presence of the physical organism is thus to be set down as the necessary condition of all voluntary activity and if God is ex hypothesis (by virtue of hypothesis or supposition) destitute of any such organism, the exercise of voluntary controlling activity will be impossible. But this argument too is not convincing. Even if it is admitted that the medium of the physical organism is a necessary condition for the emergence of psychical activities, for which there is no proof beyond the matter-of-fact evidence that we have no experience of a psychical activity except in association with a body which may be a mere accident, still it may be legitimately maintained that the causal efficiency of the physical organism with regard to bodily movements is not proved, although its bearing on such psychical activities as desire and volitional urge may be left a moot question. The controlling of the bodily organism and its movements and activities is urged by a purely psychical force without any assistance from the bodily organism, barring the fact that it is present as the object to be operated upon. The very fact that the spirit can control and activate an inanimate object simply by dint of a desire and voluntary exertion without any assistance from any bodily organism and for the emergence of these psychical activities at any rate. God will stand in need of a physical organism. Yes, the contention may have some plausibility with regard to these psychical activities which are events in time, but with reference to eternal psychical fact it has absolutely no force and no bearing. Nor is there any logical in compatibility in the supposition that God’s cognition, desire and volition are eternal varieties uncaused and unproduced. Of course these psychical phenomena are always observed to be transitory events in our experience but that is no argument that they cannot be eternal in any substratum. Such qualities as colour and taste are ordinarily perceived to be transitory, but they are admitted to be eternal verities in atom. The transitoriness or permanence of qualities is relative to the substrata in which they are found. So psychical attributes too may be permanent fixtures just like the physical attributes of colour etc. and there is no inherent logical absurdity in this supposition.
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