Philosophy and Religion / J. C. Chatterji: Hindu Realism

Jagadish Chandra Chatterji

Hindu Realism

B—The Synthetic Aspect

No First Beginning.

The doctrines constituting the Synthetic aspect may be stated as follows:—

1. There is no creation of a universe,—that is to say,—orderly arrangement of things into a system,—which is absolutely the first creation. The beginning of a universe means the beginning of a system only, which under no circumstances is the first and only one created. On the contrary, it is merely one of a beginningless series.¹ | ² Thus if the present universe, as we find it to-day, had a beginning, there was another before it and if that one came into existence at some point of time, there had been another which had preceded it, and so on. This beginningless series of universes is called Samsara³ (lit. the constant moving on; or being born and dying repeatedly.)

Meaning of a First Beginning of Samsara.

That Samsara is beginningless can be supported as follows:—

An absolutely first beginning of the universal process can mean only one or other of the following alternatives:—

(i) That it was a first moulding or fashioning of their own accord, as a Universe, of the ingredients which were already existent, and had been existing for ever without a beginning.
(ii) That such eternally existing ingredients were moulded into the Universe by an intelligent being (or, which is the same thing, beings).
(iii) That it was created by an intelligent being out of nothing.

In the first alternative, the stuff must have existed for ever; in the second, not only the stuff, but the being, who moulded it into the Universe, must have existed for ever; and in the third alternative, it is the being that must have existed from all eternity.

In any case it must be admitted that something had existed from eternity and prior to the creation of the Universe.

Age of the Universe and Eternity.

Now the age of the Universe, however long, is yet limited, and must have begun, on the theory of a first creation, at a definite point of time in the past, however remote. And this age, however long, is surely insignificantly small as compared with the beginningless, that is, the eternal duration of the stuff or of the being, that is, God, as such a being would be called.

In view of this fact, it will be seen that on none of the three alternatives can a first beginning of the Universe be maintained.

The First, Meaning of an Absolute Beginning, Is Impossible. No Self-Movement of Inert Matter.

On the first theory, namely, the stuff fashioning itself of its own accord into the Universe, we have to ask if this stuff is something intelligent, that is, can start movements by itself, or if it is of the nature of inert matter. In the first case, it will not be very different from the being of the second theory, which we shall deal with directly. In the second case, how can an inert something start a new movement by itself? No inert matter can possibly start movements of its own accord, and as nothing can be shown to have come, so to say, from outside, to operate on the inert stuff and thus produce movement, it must be concluded that there have been always movements in this stuff, and therefore there has always been a creation, a moulding of the Universe.⁴ | ⁵

No Beginning of Samsara If Activity be Essential to God.

On the second and third theories, namely, of a being, that is, God, having moulded the Universe out of eternally existing stuff, or of creating the Universe out of nothing, we have to ask: Is this moulding or creative activity essential to God or merely accidental? If essential, then it has existed eternally with God; for nothing that is essential to a thing can be conceived as being ever absent from it.⁶ | ⁷And if the moulding or creative activity has always been with God, then a Universe also has always existed as a result of this activity. Nor will it do to say, that while activity is no doubt essential to God, it had existed from all eternity as a potentiality; and that only at a certain point in the remote past, it began showing itself as an actual process. For, even then it will have to be explained how a something which had existed from all eternity as a potentiality, could suddenly manifest itself as an actuality. And as this cannot very well be explained, we must maintain that the creative or moulding activity, if it is at all essential to God, has always existed as an actuality and not as a potentiality.

Creation Impossible If Activity be Accidental to God.

If, however, it be held that the activity is not essential to God, but only accidental, then He must have come by it at the time when He began moulding or creating the Universe. But how, whence, and in what way did He come by it?⁸ There is hardly any reasonable way of showing how a being that had remained perfectly satisfied without activity from all eternity, could suddenly start creating a Universe.

A First Beginning Is Morally Indefensible.

Even if we grant that God, not being unintelligent matter, could make such a sudden resolve, our difficulties are not solved. For, unless we dogmatically assume that in the beginning all were created alike, we cannot maintain, without contradiction, that God, who is conceived as a moral and just being, could possibly ever have created a world so full of partiality and suffering.⁹

Nor is the contradiction removed by saying that God created all beings equal and endowed them with freewill; and that they by their free choice made themselves happy or miserable, good or bad.¹⁰ For then the question will be: Why did He give free-will to created beings and thus make them behave one way or another so as to bring suffering and wickedness into the world? God is regarded as omniscient and lie must therefore have known the disastrous consequences which His gift of free-will was going to produce in the world.

As a matter of fact, however, God cannot possibly be conceived as having created these suffering or enjoying beings, or, as they would be called, souls, if they are regarded as everlasting. For nothing that is created or produced can possibly last for ever.¹¹ There is no known example of it. Nor can the souls themselves be brought forward as examples of such produced but everlasting things. For that is just what will be disputed and will have to be proved; and a thing which has to be proved cannot be brought forward as an instance of ascertained truth.¹² Moreover, we have seen that the real experiencers, that is to say, the Atmans, must be eternal, uncreate and immortal.

But even granting, for the sake of argument, that they are created by God and endowed with free-will, our difficulties are not removed. For even then we cannot hold God to be just, impartial and free from cruelty, if not positively merciful, if we maintain that He created or moulded this Universe for the first time, and made it, without any reason, full of suffering and partiality.

No Contradictions in a Beginningless Samsara.

All such objections and contradictions are removed entirely, as we shall see, if we accept the view that the universal manifestation never began, but that it is and has for ever been; and that, in short, it is an eternal process which has gone on for over and ever.

Footnotes

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