From the stage when man regarded
nature forces and animals like the crocodile, the snake and the monkey as God,
we rose to the stage of the ‘Trimurti’ concept and have presently reached the
vision of a single God. We may rightly say that our cogitation has indeed
progressed. It is true that in popular legends, many human vices have been
attributed to God. But, as civilization advanced, the tendency to attribute to
God the virtues of man along with his vices, a tendency which had been present
always became pronounced. This tendency is evident in the concept of the
Trimurthis. We have seen earlier that Vishnu symbolizes a full life while Shiva
stands for restraint and renunciation. We may, therefore, reasonably expect our
‘one God’ to be a harmonious blend of these two qualities. It would suffice to
refer to Him as just ‘God’, no other nomenclature is necessary. Once the labels
of Vishnu and Shiva are done away with, the stories they recall can also be
forgotten. Everyone - the Dwaitis, Advaitis and Vishishtadwaitis and others -
could accept without squabbling, the position that God is only one.
This synthesizing process had in
fact been at work in the minds of our people. The supreme deity of Dwaities and
Vishishtadwaitis,
Shiva is the Lord of all wealth –
‘ekaishwarye sthitaha’. He is not without wealth, only He is not attached to
it. In nonattachment and renunciation He surpasses ascetics; yet, He is no
stranger to love. He is ‘Ardhanareeeshwara’ (half man and half woman). When we
reach the point of recognizing in a single entity a synthesis of these two
principles - involvement and Withdrawal, enjoyment and detachment, passion and
renunciation, opulence and uninvolvement - we will have moved beyond mythology
and theology and will have taken the first step towards philosophy, that is, a
major step in our quest for truth.
Excellence-Related and Value-Related Qualities:
We have seen the list of human
shortcomings that have been attributed to God. Now, let us turn to His virtues,
which are of two categories. First, God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.
These underline God’s power and capabilities and His greatness. These qualities
(if they truly exist) may benefit the world or may not: that depends on whether
God chooses to exercise them, and, if He does, in what manner.
The second category of qualities
relates to the values that inevitably arise from any interaction between God
and living beings, values like justice, nonviolence, compassion and love. From
our point of view, these qualities are very important. Theologists may revel in
eulogizing God’s greatness; the ordinary man seeks help and sympathy from God.
We' need help and sympathy. Nature has no interest - neither love nor hatred at
all for us (that is, living beings). The sun sheds welcome warmth during winter
not out of his love for us but because heat is natural to the sun. An
earthquake is not caused by nature’s displeasure towards man: an earthquake has
to take place under certain conditions. Nature functions according to its own
laws. It never takes into account what is good or bad for us. If justice,
compassion etc., are what we are looking for, then, we must seek them
elsewhere. That is why we visualize a God. Therefore, from our standpoint, His
value-related qualities become more important than His powers.
But the exercise of values in
life demands power. Therefore, the qualities of the first category also have
their own value. Our feelings about God relate to both these categories. For
example, the fear of God is due to His powers: but devotion and love relate to
values. This then, isbroadly, the conclusion: an element of fear be may be
embedded in devotion.
Power-Related Qualities:
Let us admit that God, if He
exists, is omnipresent - that is, present everywhere. But as for His other two
power-related attributes - omniscience and omnipotence - can both these
qualities be present in the same person at the same time? Can God, in addition
to being omniscient, also be omnipotent?
The prefix ‘omni’, in the context
of time, includes the past, the present and the future. If omniscient, God must
have certain knowledge that a particular event will take place in future, that
it is inevitable and that is impossible for anyone to change or prevent it. If,
indeed, it is possible for anyone to interfere with that event, then God cannot
be said to know the future for, it is now uncertain. And If He does not know
the future, then He is not omniscient! Let us take an example. In 1986,
Halleys’ Comet came very close to the earth. If He is omniscient, God ought to
have known about it. Now if the comet had not, in fact, come close to the
earth, that would have belied God's omniscience. It had to come, and it had to
be beyond anyone’s, even God’s, powers to prevent its coming. But, if even God
did not possess the power to prevent that event, how can we call Him omnipotent?
One of my friends objected; “No,
this logic is not sound. God is quite capable of stopping the comet. But, He
just does not wish to do so”. Now, this argument is not tenable. How does this
gentleman know that God does not wish to stop the comet? Also, the relevant
issue is not whether God has the wish or not to stop the comet; Irrespective of
the desire He must have the power. If, with such powers, He had prevented the
comet from appearing, then His previous understanding (that the comet will
come) would have been falsified: His omniscience would then be open to
question. If He possesses that power, then, He cannot be omniscient: and
without that power He is not omnipotent. Logically omniscience and omnipotence
cannot both be present at the same time.
Value-Related Qualities
Let us now turn to the
value-related qualities. Our account of the qualities that God is said to
possess is in reality, only an account of what we yearn to see in Him. The
descriptions of God that readily come to mind are: ‘God is just, He punishes
the guilty and protects righteous people, He is compassionate and He is the
embodiment of Love’.
God should be the symbol of the
qualities we consider the highest and the noblest. Let us now, for the purpose
of argument, admit that God (if He exists) is the repository of all those
virtues. Since He Himself symbolises many great virtues, it is only natural
that righteous persons are dear to Him. Still, assertions such as ‘He is on the
side of justice, He punishes the guilty, He protects the righteous’ and so on
are debatable. It may be that God upholds justice. But if He should mete out
strict justice, would we, human beings, welcome it? Who can dare pray for pure
justice? Who knows how often the noblest of men have stumbled? The misery they
might have caused and the heinous thoughts that might have crossed their minds?
Can we pray for an absolutely just dealing for such acts and thoughts? And if
God so deals with man would He still be the Fountain of Mercy? In Shakespeare’s
play ‘King Lear’ these lines occur:
The gods are just, and of our
pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us[1]
(King Lear, V, 3, 170-1)
Should this be true, what fate awaits
us! There is no dearth of ‘pleasant vices’ in us. A human father is gentle with
his wayward son. God is the Father of the Universe; could His heart be harder
than that of man? Which should dominate His nature - compassion or the desire
to mete out strict punishment?
Fear of God; Fear of the Law, of Punishment
It may be argued that the fear of
divine punishment will make us watch our steps. In English, to call some one a ‘God-
fearing man’ is high praise. According to the Old Testament, when God saw that
‘the wickedness of man was great in the earth’, He caused a deluge and
destroyed the whole world (except Noah and his collection of animals). Later,
when evil again flourished in the renewed world He burnt to ashes the sinful
cities and unleashed terrible diseases on Egypt . Such stories evoke the fear
of God.
The question of fear is a complex
one. One may argue that ‘fear’ itself is deleterious. Some times fear drives us
to evil or wrong acts. Animals charge us out of fear. The fear that another
person may harm us provokes the evil in us. Perhaps the fear of God is an
exception. But should the fear of punishment keep us to the straight path? That
would mean that if one were certain of not being caught, one could be wicked.
And it would amount to virtual licence for the wickedness of nonbelievers.
Generally, it is not the fear of
God that keeps people righteous - although this cannot be entirely ruled out. I
remember a newspaper report of a priest appointed to perform worship in a
temple, stealing the jewels of the deity. Today (29-7-1990), as I prepare the press
copy of this book, the ‘Deccan
Herald’ has reported that servants have been regularly stealing money from
the hundi (collection box) at the
Tirupathi Venkataramana Swamy temple. Venkataramana is reputed to be a sternly
righteous God, who inflicts punishment if He does not receive the money or the
service that is His due. And yet, His own servants are reported to have looted
crores of rupees. Two Assistant Executive Officers are reported to have amassed
wealth to the tune of 70 lakhs to a crore of rupees. A servant of the temple is
worth 30 lakhs, it seems. And these are the persons who work right in the
presence of the Lord!
There are those who amass a crore
of rupees by unfair methods and then, a little troubled, say to themselves, “It
is prudent to remain on the right side of God”, and spend ten lakhs out of
their ill-gotten wealth and build a temple or present a crown to the Lord. The
Thugs, it seems, used to offer prayers to Goddess Kali, and set out on their
mission of murdering travelers, confident that the grace of the Goddess was
with them. There were people who believed that human sacrifice would bring them
the fulfillment of their desires. I am told that there are such people even
now. In such situations, the fear of God, far from deterring crime, emboldens
the criminal.
If the fear of God keeps even a
few persons on the path of righteousness, let us welcome it. But no matter
whether we have cause to fear some one or another, evil should be revolting
just because itis evil. We ought to love goodness because it is good. This is
the attitude we have to cultivate.
(We cannot say that fear has no
role at all in the world. It is difficult to imagine a civilized state without
the police the judges and those who carry out their judgments - when we recall
the level man has attained today! I have read in America reports of convicts
released on parole[2] committing
crime after crime. Here is one such incident: a convict on parole butchered the
very people who employed him and fed him and lavished affection on him, violated
their women and fled! I hesitate to concede that even a few persons are born
evil; but I cannot brush aside the possibility. True, such people are a rare
breed, but they are there. Fear of punishment is imperative in such cases) .
What is stated in the brackets
above refers to the fear in man - fear of the law, of punishment. Fear of God
is something different. Why cannot God transform wicked persons into good ones
instead of meting out punishment? After all, it should not be difficult for an
omnipotent God to do so! Instead of being the enemy of evil persons, He could
be the enemy only of evil. He can destroy evil and save the evil ones. If it is
true that He is ‘All Merciful’, only this course would be natural to Him.
[1] These
are the words of a character called Edgar. His view need not necessarily be
Shakespeare’s opinion.
[2]
Parole: A serving convict, who has displayed good behavior in prison, is
permitted to leave the prison for a specified period on a written undertaking
that he would be law-abiding even outside the prison. He is said to be on
parole.
The word for “Excellences” used
in the original is ‘mahatvagalu’. The
English word does not fully convey the connotation of the word ‘mahatvagalu’ - Translator
His popular book, Devaru (God), won (1992) the Pampa
This essay is from Chapter III (Stories about God) of the book, which was translated into English by Prof LS Seshagiri Rao and published by Kannada Sahitya Parishath, Bangalore in 1995
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