Shrimat Vijyasandsuri
6. Question:
What fallacy is there in believing that Ishvara is the creator of the world and of all things?
Answer:
There are several fallacies in maintaining this view.
7. Question:
Yours indeed is a curious statement. I have never heard that there is any fallacy in maintaining that God is the creator of the world. Please point out the fallacy in the view.
Answer:
Friend, tell me what sort of God you believe in, as the creator of the world.
8. Question:
Are there many kinds of Ishvara (God)?
Answer:
Do you not know that they believe in two kinds of God. One kind of God existed before the creation; there was no other material cause or being then. There was only one pure, intelligent, and blissful existence. This is what one class of people believe in. The other class believe in the beginninglessness or eternal existence of God pure, intelligent and of blissful existence, soul, atom, space, time, directions orQuestion:arters, (altogether nine substances) &c. of which the universe is made up. Both these existences are believed to be eternal. Which of these two views about God do you hold?
9. Question:
I hold the first view about God because the Vedas and the other scriptures declare thus.[1]
All these texts declare that there was) only one God before the creation. There was then neither the world nor the creator of the world. There was only one pure existence i. e. God. Christians and Mohammadans also hold this view. I too maintain the same opinion.Answer:
This view of yours renders the God imperfect.
10. Question:
How is God rendered imperfect if he is said to be the creator of the universe?
Answer:
In the first place there is no material cause of the universe, hence it can never be created, for that which has no material cause can never come into existence just as the horns of an ass.
From this spirit emanated ether; from ether emanated air; from air, fire; from fire, water; from water, earth; from earth, herbs; from herbs, food; from food, semen; from semen, man; the man is thus made up of food and fluid. Tattriaya Sakha.
O dear, He alone was in the beginning-one without a second; He saw and the multifarious beings were born. Chandogya Upanishad.
Neither was it nor was it not; nor was it existent nor non-existent &c &c. Rigveda.
Atma alone was in the beginning-not anything else. It saw and the beings were borne. Aitraya Brahman.
