English
Similarly, the steady refusal to ascribe an 4 absoluta voluntas ’ to God in Spinoza is characteristic of his sustained polemic against 4 abstract ’ or 4 false universal ’—a polemic which is much more thorough-going and philosophical than Berkeley’s controversy over 4 abstract ideas ’ and more akin to the Hegelian criticism of the same. The denial in question alludes to an abstract content¬ less will—an absolutely indeterminate freedom of choice which is no less derogatory to the notion of 292 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDiNTA the Divine than that of a compelling vis a ter go. But mechanism, as we have already observed, is a note altogether alien to that high-pitched key, that edifying and passionate strain of ‘ amor intellec- tualis Dei,’ ‘ Acquiescentia,’ and ‘ Beatitudo ’ upon which he closes the Ethica. It is a strange ruling which abides by the initial statement of Spinoza’s own position, and refuses to check and evaluate it in the light of the whole as expressed in the closing note of ‘ acquiescentia ’ which is only “ the human echo of the verdict put into the mouth of the divine Labourer—‘ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.’ ”* In short, the idealistic superstructure that was raised on a crude naturalistic foundation is not only the coping- stone of the Spinozistic system as a whole, but furnishes the key to the interpretation of the whole. It is only a perverted fidelity or consistency which constantly appeals to the foundation in its under¬ standing of the edifice that is built thereon. How¬ ever, even admitting that the issue between Mechan¬ ism and Teleology in Spinoza is a dubious one, there is no room for misgivings that, in Spinoza’s opinion at least, the denial of an external, anthropocentric teleology fully squares with an admission of an internal teleology, the idea of a self-realising system, in reference to the standing problem of creation. Similarly, Kant in pronounced opposition to the old version of the Teleological argument for God’s existence or the Argument from Design, laid down the proposition that ‘ this arrangement of means * Pringle-Pattison, Idea of God, p... 888. ISVARA As CREATOR AND CREATION AS LILA 293 and ends is entirely foreign to the things existing in the world—it belongs to them as a contingent attri¬ bute.’ Adaptation there is in the world, but not necessarily Design; for Design implies choice and evidences are wanting for making out a case for * chosen adaptation.’ The adaptation which the world exhibits might, for aught we know, be due to certain mechanical forces shuffling into equilibrium. Such was the vein in which Lotze argued later. But Kant would denominate these alleged cases of ‘ design ’ as adaptations to external ends ( ausserc Zweclcmassigkeit) , and insist upon their supreme irrelevance in a theistic regard. While refusing to subscribe to the old form of the Teleological argu¬ ment and to believe in its efficiency in establishing the notion of an all-designing, benevolent God, Kant docs recognise in his Critique of Judgment a true type of teleology or what he calls adaptation to internal ends ( innere Zweckmassigkeit), exhibited by the organic creation as a whole, and herein he was too often tempted to construe this category of ‘ internal teleology ’ as a principle of cosmic teleo¬ logy in a constitutive or metaphysical reference, in spite of the initial warning or safeguard he had provided for (at the close of his Critique of Pure Reason) —by regarding ‘ the systematic unity of nature ’ conceived as ‘ complete teleological unity ’ ( Vollstandige Zweckmassige Einlieit) to be only a heuristic or regulative principle * of hypothetical validity.’ Here the same critical circumspection indicated by his characteristic ‘ as if ’ leads him * to regard all order in the world as if it originated from 294 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY 0E THE VEDlNTA the intention and design of a supreme reason ’ with the added proviso that ‘ the agency of a Supreme Being is not to be invoked by a species of ignava ratio to explain particular phenomena, instead of investigating their causes in the general mechanism of matter,’ so that in the end, ‘ when we have dis¬ covered such a unity it should be perfectly indiffer¬ ent whether we say God has wisely willed it so or nature has wisely arranged this.’ This wavering and vacillating attitude seems to have given way to an abiding outlook upon the world as a whole, when in the Critique of Judgment he attains to an al¬ together new set of categories in the aesthetic judg¬ ment of the Beautiful whereof the essence consists in a ‘ purposiveness without a purpose. ’ Here from this vantage-ground, the category of ‘ purposiveness without a purpose ’ conjoined to the problematic concept of ‘ an intuitive understanding ’ might con¬ ceivably offer a re-interpretation of the Kantian attitude towards the theistic problem, which could compare, not unfavourably, with the conception of Vila: In the light of the foregoing discussion it will readily appear that we can, in full consonance with the spirit of Sainkara’s utterances on the problem of creation, assert without exposing ourselves to a contradictio in adjecto that Uvara or God “ creates out of the abundance of his joy and for the fulfil¬ ment of the demands of morality. By looking upon creation as a cosmic game in which the Supreme Being indulges, Samkara brings out the purposive- ness, rationality, ease, and effortlessness with which I8VARA AS CREATOR AND CREATION AS LILA 295 the creation is sustained.”* But, as in Kant, the metaphysical predilections of Satpkara are ere long brought to bear on this position, and the theistic superstructure that had been so laboriously and rationalistically built up on the foundational hypo¬ thesis of a Ula on the part of the Creator, is relent¬ lessly levelled to the ground by the smashing criti¬ cism that these theistic texts are not to be under¬ stood in an absolute or metaphysical sense (a| murafaraT Is not this, the critic will probably urge, tantamount to a Sisyphean labour, hardly worthy of the vocation of an earnest philo¬ sophic thinker? “ But bow far,” Samkara would perhaps reply in defence, “ have you, philosophical theists, succeeded, starting from the human end, in dictating terms to, or legislating for, the whole? What, after all, do your explanations or assumptions amount to? Are you not simply indulging in figurative expressions, when faced with ultimate issues? What is the net value of the hypothesis or assumption, for example, that the karmas of indivi¬ duals about to be created are, as constitutive materials of creation, in God (who alone is the causa materialis ) and yet not in Him—in the sense of being not due to, or owned by, Him? Is it not simply a cloak for our ignorance of the ulti¬ mate question as to the relation between the Creator and the created? Has any other explanation in this regard fared any better? Why not frankly acknow- * Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, Yol. II, p. 551. f Com. on V.S., II. 1. xxsiv. 296 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA ledge, then, that the immanence of the Divine or the so-called Creator in his creation, or the Absolute in the individuals, is an ultimate mystery and as such incapable of a rational explanation—a position which has been ratified alike by 3ruti and Smjtis? Why not confess roundly your ignorance and sub¬ scribe to the wisdom expressed in the lines?— atafru i nwffw: #’ ” Indeed, lild is, after all, an euphemism for ignorance of the ultimate question —how One can be Many. All so-called theories of creation, when tracked out carefully, are found to have come to the end of their tether, and to a frank confession of an ignoramus. These are always making the pre¬ posterous attempt' of instructing the Deity in ‘ the art of world-making,’ as Hume aptly called it, or trying to be in the confidence of the Almighty so as to be able to pronounce the verdict as to whether the creation is to be viewed as a cosmic game ’ or lild, or as the fulfilment of a need on the part of God or the Creator. The essential mystery of the fact—of the relation of the Absolute to the Finite indivi¬ duals—is the theme on which Western philosophers, who have tried to envisage the problem by means of reason only, have so often harped. ‘ Our business,’ says Lotze, ‘ is not to make the world, but to under¬ stand the inner connexion of the world that is realized already, and it was this problem that forced us to lay down our limiting idea of the Absolute and its inner creation of countless finite beings. This ISVARA AS CREATOR AND CREATION AS DILI idea we found it necessary to regard as the concep¬ tion of an ultimate fact.’* No less sincere is Prof. Pringle-Pattison in his confession of this philo¬ sophic nescience : “ It is, in the very nature of the case, impossible that we should understand the relation (if one may even use such a finite term as relation) between a creative Spirit and its creatures, whether as regards the independence conferred or the mode in which the life-history of the finite being still remains part of the infinite experience.for to do so would be to transcend the conditions of our own individuality, to get, as it were, behind the con¬ ditions of finite existence and actually repeat the process of creation and realise the absolute experi¬ ence.