"Uncaused Cause" (was Swami Chinmayananda on "God")

[Guest guest]

I respect Swami Chinmayananda for his great contributions to

Vedanta, but most philosophers would find problems with his

arguments for the existence of God as they appear in a dialog

posted to the advaitin list. (I have also CC-ed the advaita-l

list since the interests of the lists are the same in this

regard.)

 

The following points are to be noted as simple observations

only. I must reiterate that no disrespect whatsoever is

intended:

 

--- "R.S.MANI" <r_s_mani wrote:

 

[..]

> Swamiji smiled: "So, eggs come from hens, hens come from eggs,

> which again come from other hens, and so on, ad-infinitum. Can

> you, Ram, say with any certainty, which was the first cause?

> Egg or hen? How and why?

> Swamiji, now addressing all the devotees present, went on:

> "You see, God is not just a person or individual, sitting in a

> palace above the clouds, dispensing favours. It stands to

> reason that every effect must have had a cause prior to it.

> The watch that you are wearing did not make itself. Your

> breakfast did not cook itself. There was a cause, in each

> case. The cause must have emerged from a previous cause. GOD

> is now the first cause. The sole cause. The UNCAUSED CAUSE.

> There was no cause before Him.

 

The above argument is called the "First Cause Argument", one of

several "Cosmological Arguments for the existence of God" that

was propounded by St. Augustine, who lived around 400 AD.

Augustine's idea was that, "Every effect must have a cause, and

therefore God must be the first cause, the 'uncaused cause'."

 

There are several counter-objections to the above argument:

 

1) If you assume that every cause must have had a preceding

cause, then God, being a cause, must also have another cause

preceding him! So who or what caused God? What justifies your

claim that God is "uncaused"? Perhaps your "God" is also caused!

 

2) From the claim, "Every cause must have had a preceding

cause", it does not follow that the universe must have had ONE

cause. Why should there not be more number of causes? As

Bertrand Russell has pointed out, it is like saying, "All human

beings have a mother, therefore the entire human race must have

had one mother."

 

We can accept that individual events have causes, which DOES NOT

IMPLY that the entire set of causal events must have had a

single cause. What prevents the entire universe from having

evolved out of 23 causes (for instance)? Why limit it to ONE

cause (instead of 23 causes) for the universe? It is entirely

possible that the preceding causes go on ad infinitum.

 

3) Even if it be accepted that there is a single cause to the

universe, there is no reason to believe that the cause must be a

conscious being. Can this be "God", a supreme being that is

essentially inanimate?

 

You can read more at the following websites:

 

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-67539

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/cosmological.html

> He is the oldest, the most

> ancient, He was before TIME. The Sanaatanah, the Puraanah.

 

I'm not sure if Swamiji is saying that Vedantins give the

"uncaused cause" argument. But traditional advaitins have

considered and rejected this argument. In Vidyaranya's Shankara

Digvijayam, it is said that this is an argument of Kanada, which

Shankara refutes.

 

An extract from "The Sankara-dig-vijaya of Madhava-Vidyaranya",

by Swami Tapasyananda (Canto 9, "Master of All Learning")

follows:

 

---

Shankara replied, "The followers of Kanada say that, by

reasoning, we see that an effect must have had a cause. Through

this reasoning we can infer that, the world being of the nature

of an effect, it must have had a cause. That cause is God. To

arrive at God, this kind of reasoning is sufficient. No Vedic

authority is needed. The Vedic sentences on this subject are

merely confirmation of what is obtained by reason. Such is the

view of Kanada and several others. But the Vedas, on the other

hand, declare that Brahman is known through the Upanishads only.

How can then the view of Kanada - that even without the Veda,

through reasoning alone, God is known - be accepted?"

---

 

-Kartik

 

-

"As they say in Silicon Valley, where I live, if you haven't failed

recently, you're not trying hard enough." -Keith Devlin

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Namaste all,

bhaskar.yr wrote:

<<<<I think, swamiji here, was not talking with another vEdAntin >>>

Yes, I also feel he was.

Swamiji always took into account the listners capacity to digest the "food" he

serves. I remember on some lecture swamiji said:

"I was touring in America and camping in a particular city. I had all sorts of

mixture of audience. One morning around 10 am, one chap suddenly called on me,

and asked, while chewing the gum "Swamiji, what is this Vedanta about". I just

did not know what to answer him and he was in such a hurry. I just told him "It

is all about 'undressing and embracing'". The fellow said, "Oh it is that simple

and it must be very good".

Swamiji cotinued to say "What else I could say to a cap who is in such a hurry

and who wants to know all about Vedanta!".

Hari Om

(I also remember, when somone pointed out about the vulgarity in the language,

swamiji said "Vulgarity is in yur mind". All I said was drop or undress all your

vasanas and embrace the OM".

 

 

 

 

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