Gautam Saha
Is God a figment of popular imagination, a conspiracy by organized religion, or is He the irrefutable Truth ?
In modern science, the Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the universe from the earliest periods through its subsequent large scale evolution. It suggests that the universe expanded from a very high density and high temperature state, offering an explanation for a broad range of phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure, and Hubble’s Law. Some estimates place this Big Bang moment at approximately 13.8 billion years ago, which is hence considered the age of the universe. After the initial expansion, the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements coalesced through gravity to form stars and galaxies.
What Big Bang fails to address
The Big Bang fails to explain the impulse within a seed or embryo for growth into a sophisticated living entity, the automatic metabolic functioning within every living body, and the controls for systematic functioning of all gigantic heavenly bodies with precision.
The statistical probability of a modern living creature evolving from rudimentary beings like amoeba and bacteria, as postulated by Charles Darwin, through a series of millions, billions or even trillions of random step changes, without plan, turns Darwinism from possibility or probability into sheer impossibility. If humans evolved from apes, which might be plausible, where did apes come from ? In any case, what was the step change to transform an organic chemical into a living being ?
Incidently, though Darwinism refers to biological evolution, creationists have appropriated it for the origin of life, and cosmic evolution, both of which are unrelated to Darwin’s work. The alternative to Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of life, is extraterrestrial influence, or divine actions.
What are the odds of the Burj Khalifa building in Dubai or the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, evolving from a series of billions of unplanned, random or haphazard moves, without an initial intent, blueprint, design or planning, and without professionals to oversee, nurture and control the whole project ?
Theology and Darwin
In the Old Testament, God (Jehovah) created heaven and earth, and everything else. He created the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, and all other creatures, and so, started off life for the variegated living entities. Subsequent to Creation, everything runs by fixed laws, such as described in physics and chemistry and biology. God does not interfere in the functioning of nature. Hence his role of intervention appears limited.
Though Charles Darwin admired William Paley’s famous argument that a good watch proves there is a watchmaker, he spent his whole life trying to negate God, since acceptance would have forced him to question various aspects of his own theory. He placed Christian theology, Hindu beliefs and barbarian practices on the same platform, which is irrational, indicating his ignorance, like most westerners those days, of the Vedic worldview.
Vedic Knowledge
Lord Brahma states (Brahma Samhita 5.47), “I worship the primeval Lord Govinda, Who lies down in the vast Causal Ocean (mahat tattva) in his plenary portion as Maha Vishnu, with all the universes generating from the pores of hair on His transcendental body, and Who accepts the mystic slumber of eternity.”
According to Vedanta, Krsna or Govinda, besides being the originator and very source of Creation, can change anything and everything at His fancy and sweet will. His intervention can change the fixed laws of the world topsy turvy. This understanding underlines His total control and domination over the material cosmos at every moment of time. Due to His will, material nature is functioning like clockwork, but not impersonally (Gita 9.6-8). By His desire or disposition, He can cause changes in natural laws at any moment.
With our severely limited faculties, it is impossible to comprehend the limitless dimensions and potencies of Krsna. With a little help from Him, one can see and understand Him, albeit to a tiny extent. Our empowerment is concomitant with surrender to Krsna, He having no self interest to be understood by us. Subsequently, He reveals Himself to us very lovingly (Gita 10.10). Krsna’s disclosures of Himself to mother Yashoda in Vrindaavan and friend Arjuna at Kurkshetra are authentic Vedic statements.
The dilemma of choice
An intelligent human must have contemplated at least once in his lifetime the possibility of the existence of God and His supremacy over Creation. Seeing the plethora of philosophies, views and counterviews, choosing to believe something appears difficult.
Karl Marx, in his quest for an equitable and just socio economic order, used materialistic eclecticism to denounce spiritualism and God, as opium used by organized religion to sedate the minds of otherwise creative and productive individuals. His philosophy, broadly termed as Marxism, was politically imbibed in large swaths of the earth during the twentieth century. Notably, it collapsed the same century, a historical misadventure. In order to perpetuate his own flawed theory, Marx, like Darwin, also refuted God.
Regarding the dilemma humans face on this question, Srila Prabhupada explains (commentary on Bhagavatam 2.2.26), “For a common man, both modern science and Vedic wisdom are to be accepted because none of the statements of either can be verified by him. The alternative for the common man is to believe either of them or both of them. The Vedic way of understanding, however, is more authentic because it has been accepted by the acharyas, who are not only faithful and learned men, but are also liberated souls without any flaws of the conditioned souls.” Conditioned souls, like human beings, are perennially afflicted by the infirmities of mistakes, illusion, imperfect senses and a propensity to cheat.
Can something come from nothing ?
Does science accept that something can ever come from nothing ? To create one molecule of water (H2O), it is necessary to have two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. Whatever be the process of water formation, without these two elementary building blocks, water can never be formed.
Science makes no attempt to understand the Lord Creator. It doesn’t explain what energizes a tiny combination of sperm and ovum inside the womb, or a seed, to become an individual living entity with an ego and identity of itself, driving its living force. Science doesn’t explain how a living body disintegrates into nonliving materials only after the soul vacates it, and not before. Existence of the soul is the foundation stone of Vedic Knowledge (Gita 2.12-13).
The Vedic worldview and philosophy encompasses and answers all questions raised by man. There is design and intent behind all actions and processes in the cosmos. Creation and its multifarious manifestations cannot happen by accident. Creation comes from the Creator, the supreme Lord Krsna, just as all souls which energize the trillions of living entities in the cosmos are sparks from the original Soul, Krsna. He is the original fountainhead of matter, of consciousness, of all souls and of life. Cause initiates effect. Input generates output.
A baby is born after the father contacts the mother. By itself, matter is dull and inert, neither intelligent nor creative. When Krsna (Visnu), the supreme Purusa, glances over material nature, it is infused or electrified with creative impulse, and the host of living entities spring into being. Any living entity, be it a plant, a mammal, reptile, fish, bird, or insect, is begotten by its parent. Without a parent, no living entity can arrive in this world. Going back further and further into the parentage or lineage of any living entity, we ultimately arrive at the original father, the Supreme Lord Krsna. Life cannot come from nonlife. Life comes only from life.
Gautam Saha
Acknowledgement :
Sadaputa Das (PhD) : Audio recording of the same title