Doing: me or God?

[Guest guest]

namaste dennis-

 

first of all, beautiful job on your

inquiry/dissertation!

 

now, as Patrick has provoked--and a

worthy observation:

> How can God be 'absolute' if He has no free will?

 

in short, and to get right to the guts

of the matter: God, by definition, is

*not* within the domain of the Absolute.

 

in other words, the Absolute doesn't

support a "God" as we typically define

Him (or technically Him/Her), since

any conceivable definition must yet

fall within the nature of Relativity.

 

similarly (and just as there can be no

free will if there is no jiva), there

can neither be 'free will' if there is

no [*anthropomorphically conceived* or

thus from the Relative perspective the

idea of an absolute] God.

 

i personally fully ascribe to there

being a God in/of the Manifest World--

which had been variously referred to as

isvara, hiranyagarba, avalokitesvara,

jaweh or JHVH, allah, etc.--but It is

not Absolute. how can it be? since

the Absolute is unknowable, ineffable,

attributeless [beyond even omniscience,

omnipotence, etc--for these are relative

attributes], how can the idea of God

possibly exist within It?

 

so, the question becomes: does isvara

have free will? i'm happy to say that

i don't know. since, to my understanding,

it can first of all be considered the

'executive head' of a world that is itself

a mystery. and secondly happy to not know

because it can be fun to sit around, discuss

and philosophize on things like this...

however, as i alluded to earlier, such

matters have no bearing on what should

*really* concern us: the nature of our

everpresent Being in the Absolute brahman.

 

OM shaanthi