Astro Cat wrote: ↑Sun Jan 15, 2023 4:35 am
It is logically impossible for God to have created people with omnipotence because there can only be one omnipotent being (lest you run into the immovable object/irresistible force paradox).
However, there isn’t anything illogical about making other omnibenevolent or omniscient beings.
Why did God not make humans omniscient and omnibenevolent to avoid the instantiation of evil and suffering? Why not make angels that way too (to avoid Satan existing as a deceiver)?
Actually, God did not want to give souls the freedom to choose negative actions. But souls deeply yearned (craved) for complete freedom. So, He gave them the freedom to choose even the negative factors if they wanted. But He strongly advised them not to select such factors by repeatedly blowing these warnings into their ears! If this freedom to choose the negative were not given, the state would be the same state of strict discipline as in the Kṛta Age. Even in this strict discipline of the Kṛta Age, when the freedom to choose the negative was absent, the freedom to choose anything good or positive was present.
To explain this more clearly, we can say that in the strict discipline of the Kṛta Age, we were advised to eat any good fruit. But we were restricted from eating any poisonous fruit. After a long period, we got bored with the strict discipline and so to satisfy us, we were given the freedom to eat any fruit that we chose, including poisonous fruits. Along with this new freedom, repeated advice was given to us to eat only good fruits and not eat any poisonous fruit. In spite of all the excellent advice given by God, the granted freedom caused us to eat some poisonous fruits.
It led to the inevitable punishment, suffering, and the restriction of our God-given freedom. Note that this freedom to choose the negative was our desire. Even though God gave us this freedom, as an antidote, He gave us more than sufficient advice to avoid bad and negative things. This completely frees God from any blame. On one side, we blame God for giving this freedom to choose the negative. On the other side, we criticize God if He does not give us that freedom! God showed the best balance by giving us our desired freedom while simultaneously giving us a strong warning about avoiding the misuse of that freedom. Still, we manage to blame God! In that case, we should suggest a better way than what He did!
Why was bad created?
One question immediately pops up. Why did God create negative or bad fruits? Why did He not create only good fruits? The reason is simple. Good and bad are relative. Can there be good without the relatively bad? Can there be day without night? The recognition of the positive requires the presence of the negative. Leave God’s creation aside for some time. Do we prepare our meals without any hot dishes? Do we produce movies with only pleasant scenes, without a single tragic scene? Is there any game where there are only winners and no losers? If God had created creation with only good and no bad, we would be the first to blame God for creating such a meaningless one-sided creation! Hence, God planned creation consisting of sattvam which is good qualities, and rajas and tamas, which are the bad qualities. This plan of creation is just like the storyline of a movie which is fixed before the production of the movie.
The Kṛta Age was like the childhood of souls. Parents take complete care of the child, without giving any freedom to the child so as to protect it from bad factors. As the child grows into a youth and an adult, he or she aspires for full freedom. The youth wants the parents to only provide good advice and not force him or her to do anything. God did exactly what good parents do to their children. Some grown-up children listen to their parents’ advice and enjoy peace and happiness in their lives, whereas some grown-up children do not listen to their parents and end up in problems.
Do you blame the parents or the grown-up children for their mistakes? If we blame God for the sins and suffering of souls it is exactly like blaming parents for the mistakes of their grown-up children. When parents are not expected to control their grown-up children using force, how can we expect God to control souls using force! If all grown-up children in the world were not listening to their parents, there would at least be a possibility of thinking that there might be something fundamentally wrong with the system. If all the students in a class were to fail, and not a single student were to pass, it might point to a possible defect in the teacher. But we know that there are several grown-up children who listen to their parents’ advice, and there are several students in any class, who pass the examination with a distinction.
Even in this worst age, which is called the Kali Age, there are several good devotees, who totally surrender to God. They follow His divine scriptures which are properly explained by His devoted messengers and His Incarnations. There is a chance that the human parents and teachers might be defective or wrong. But the omniscient God can be never defective or wrong. Even then, God never tells us to follow His advice blindly. He wants us to logically analyze His words thoroughly. This is the last statement told by God Krishna to the soul, Arjuna in the Gita (Vimṛṣyaitadaśeṣeṇa—Gita). God has already given us a powerful intellect to analyze and decide what is good and bad. He also clearly preaches to us again and again regarding the fruits of good deeds and the fruits of bad deeds.
Coming back to our starting point, in the Kṛta Age, the souls were acting, speaking and even thinking as per the direction of God given to them through the divine scriptures. They were like babies in the hands of their parents. With reference to that disciplined state, I had said that souls were given full freedom to choose their actions by God in the subsequent ages. The full freedom given to souls means the maximum freedom that can be given to souls.
As such souls can never have absolute God-like freedom in any of the four ages. In the Kṛta Age, the souls were like robots working as programmed by God. They did not have the full freedom to act as they chose. So, God took the total responsibility for their thoughts, words, and deeds. After a long time, the souls were very bored with that perfect and total discipline. It is just like a child on growing up becomes reluctant to follow the strictly enforced discipline of his or her parents. Neither did the souls want the absolute freedom of God nor did God give His absolute freedom to the souls. The full freedom given to souls, means the maximum freedom initially granted to souls. Later, souls, using this very freedom, chose bad deeds which reduced their freedom and caused suffering to themselves.
In the beginning, when God asked Adam and Eve not to eat a specific fruit, both were following the order of God strictly like robots. In this initial stage, all souls, both males and females, lived in strict discipline as per the laws given by God. After a long time, they got bored of their disciplined life. God understood their feeling of boredom and gave them the freedom to think, speak and to do whatever they liked. God strengthened the faculty of their intellect. The mind is the mental faculty that brings in doubts or different alternatives. It starts an internal debate (Saṅkalpa vikalpātmakaṁ manaḥ). The intellect is the mental faculty that analyzes the various options to arrive at correct conclusions.
When logical analysis starts, it is called intelligence. The expected result of the logical analysis is the right conclusion (Adhyavasāyātmikā buddhiḥ). The mind and intelligence did not have much work in the Kṛta Age. Later, God gave freedom to the mind and intelligence of souls after which they started working very hard. The mind is not that important since it only starts the basic doubt which is needed for analysis. But intelligence is very important. When its analysis is wrong, it arrives at a wrong conclusion. When the analysis is correct till the very end, it arrives at the right conclusion. Intelligence is the driver and the individual soul is the owner of the vehicle as said in the Veda.
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