How is the world meant to allow both theists and atheists to justify their beliefs

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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So, is the world made in such a way that, if the world is made in such a way that people can be atheistic if they want to be or theistic if they want to be, then what decides? Isn’t there any conclusive evidence by which a person can choose to be theistic? There is strong evidence. Now, if you consider the design argument, is the design argument conclusive? It depends on whom you ask.
See, what I mean by that is that, let me say, see, if there is a weighing scale on which you, there is a non-transparent curtain which separates the two and you can see only this side. Now, if you see that the weighing scale on this side is going up and all that you can infer is that the weight on that side is bigger. Now, what is that weight? We can’t know.
It might be, here if you have a 20 kg object, there might be a 30 kg object there. There might be a 30 kg person there. There might be two people or whatever.
There can be a hundred things. I cannot infer anything specific about what is there on the other side except that it is heavier than this. Similarly, when we see design in this world, Ramacharya in his Srivastava commentary, in the commentary to Shastra Yonit Vata, he says, only by Shastra we can get knowledge about Brahman, about God.
There he actually counters the design argument which is used by Sankhyavadis. And he says that, people say that from this we can come to know that it is Ishwara. And he says, no.
The same argument which Ramacharya actually gave almost 700 years ago, that was given by Immanuel Kant in the West. And that was considered like devastating for the design argument in the Western world. He says that, ok, you may say there is a designer, but how do you know that the designer is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent? It could be just a very intelligent designer.
So, you cannot conclude from here that the designer for the world is the God who is described in scripture. Secondly, he also says that many times difficult things in this world are done by not one person, but by a team of people. So, you see design in the world, that could have been done by a team of designers, which would lead to polytheism as an inclusion.
Not one God, but many Gods. Or, thirdly, most damagingly, we could say that we see so much suffering in this world. So, we could say this world has been designed by an evil being, like Satan.
That’s what Immanuel Kant said. And here also he says, it could be an evil creature who designed the world. So, we cannot infer conclusively from the evidence in the world to the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent God.
So, that is not a, it’s a possible inference, it’s not a necessary inference. This could point to that, but it’s not necessary that it will point to that. So, that’s why there is forward reasoning and there is backward reasoning.
Backward reasoning means you look back from the evidence and try to find out the cause. So, backward reasoning is good, but it is not irrefutable. So, when people argue like that, in logic there is a call as the error of the antecedent.
Means if A, then B. Therefore, if somebody says B is there, so A must be there. So, that is the error of the antecedent because for that you have to prove that B cannot come by anything except A. So, example for this is say, if it rains, then the pavement outside my house will be wet. And if I, from this, next statement I make it, the pavement outside my house will be wet.
Therefore, it must have rained last night. Not necessarily. Somebody might have spilled water.
The gardener might have spilled water. There might be a leakage. So, like that, for us, most of us, when we use a design argument, we are going from B to A. We have seen the design and we are assuming a design, inferring a designer.
Yes, we can infer. Now, of course, Darwin tried to give an explanation that there was no designer. There was just natural forces, natural selection which worked.
That is not a very satisfactory explanation. But there is also another candidate which is there in the whole explanatory possibilities. We can argue about the merits of everyone.
And a good argument can be made for the omniscient being also. But it is not a definitive argument. But if we start the other way, if we, as like an axiom, we start that there is a God.
And then move onwards. Then the world we see has features that we would expect in the world. So, as I said, the cause-effect correlation.
The very possibility of science rests on a cause-effect correlation. So, sometimes we present God as an explanatory alternative to science. You see, this is so complex, science cannot explain it.
Therefore, there must be God. But there is another more universal and universally acceptable way of presenting God. God is not the explanation for the unexplainable.
He is the explanation for explainability. Why at all there is cause-effect correlation? That itself is because of God. So, if we start from God and move forwards, then we can explain the world better than what we would be able to explain if we start with atheism.
If we start with atheism, then we may be able to explain some of the disorderliness that we see in the world. But there is no, the orderliness is also a significant part of the world. We won’t be able to explain that.
So, in that sense, forward reasoning can make a much more cogent case for God rather than backward reasoning. So, design argument is useful in certain contexts. Say, for people who are not used to critical thinking, design argument can be very persuasive.
Because it is definitely a possibility. It is a logical possibility. But it is not the sole possibility.
So, we can use both ways. So, basically that’s why somebody can get faith in the existence of God through various means. They get some experiences, get some insights.
But when it is based on scripture, then scripture says this is God and then I see this evidence in the world. Therefore, we can correlate. So, in that sense, scripturally founded faith will be the strongest faith.
That’s what is called revelational theology and there is rational theology. Now, rational theology is also good. It is useful for people when they are starting off.
But eventually one has to come to the level of revelational theology. No matter how much rational analysis we do, we can’t prove that God is a blue skinned person with wearing a peacock feather and having a threefold bending palm. That is based on revelation only.
So, general inferences we can do. But the specific evidence is, specific knowledge about God has to come through scripture. So, that’s why, because the human mind can infer in different ways.
From the same evidence, that’s why it’s possible that people can come to different conclusions. The Bhagavatam also contains a verse, I think in the fifth canto, where it says that different philosophers argue differently and they keep debating with each other. And they are all deluded by the illusory energy.
And a wise person does not get involved in such debates. Of course, that does not mean that we don’t try to establish the truth. But if somebody is convinced about their idea, then we have to understand that they can’t be helped right now.
And just move onwards towards people who are more open to understanding.