Indian Logic and Atomism: An Exposition of the Nyaya and Vaiceshika Systems c19.s2.8

c19.s2.8

Leaving aside these needless exercises of ingenuity, the argument for the existence of God rests on the fact that creation needs an agent. The argument runs, ‘Every effect must have an intelligent agent; the universe is an effect; therefore it must have an intelligent agent.’ This is the doctrine expressed by Çrīdhara¹ in commenting on Praçastapāda’s account of creation, in which the activity of a creator is assumed, but not expressly proved, and in the course of it he deals with some of the obvious objections to the theory. It is objected that God, having no unsatisfied desires, cannot possess the necessary impetus to action, to which the reply is that he acts for the benefit of other selves, which is a sufficient if not a selfish motive. The further objection that in that case he should create pleasure alone in the world is met by the retort that in his action God is moved by the necessity of conforming to the tendencies of beings conditioned by their former actions, and that pain is no unmixed evil since it leads beings to realize the vanity of mundane existence. Nor is it a disproof of his independent divinity that in creation he should award beings lots according to their deserts, which is the due mode for a master to treat his servants. The minor objection to creation that the knowledge of words would be impossible is incidentally refuted by the quaint argument that it is the pain of birth which causes ordinary beings to lose their memory while the mindborn sons of Brahman suffer no such pain, and from their past memory are able to revive at once the conventions of language.