UTILITY OR BENEFIT OF BELIEVING IN GOD

Everyone is desirous of obviating death or minimizing pain. All human beings are exerting to fulfill their desires to minimize their pains through different institutions. Farming or cultivation, business and art, hospitals, courts et cetra, all have a common objective of minimizing pains of the human beings.

As said earlier, all the institutions come into existence with the only objective of minimizing pain of human beings. But, still Ved says that to cross the ocean of pain and to have victory over death, belief in God is must.

What does Ved mean by such a slogan? Can we not lead our life happily without God? Is theism such an integral part of our life that without it, it is not possible for us to move ahead in life? Do all theists enjoy pleasure? Do all atheists suffer from pains? Are the people, who believe in enjoying the pleasures of life even by hurting others, not happy? Do the success of human society lie only in theism? Until and unless these questions remain unanswered, there is no meaning of pondering over the idea of God.

Advocates of theism will say that there is a great use of believing in God in our routine behaviour. Some cultured people say that instead of pondering over the question-‘Who am I?’, we should lay stress over the question-‘What should I do?’. If the question-‘Who am I?’ is irrelevant for the cultured people then the question-‘What is God? is more meaningless and unnecessary. Our life is very short. If some time of this short life is spent in pondering over the unnecessary questions, then we won’t get sufficient time to fulfill our duties.

Many people feel that if this idea of God, can be brought out of the mind of certain races, who spend a lot of time running after this mirage to the extent of madness, then, they can utilize this time in other important activities. This is the reason why literate society is moving away from such sort of questions. But this is our folly. Our pains get increased by our moving away from these questions. No doubt, different institutions of our society have been primarily formed with the purpose of alleviating our pains. But these institutions cannot deliver the desired results until and unless we become true believers of God.

The fact is-we cannot decide our duties well without getting the answer to the question-‘who am I?’. There is a link between ‘what a person is’ and his duties. Duties of a person are not decided without knowing his status. If one feels that the question-‘Who am I?’ is meaningless, then he should understand that he cannot have the knowledge of his duties also. For example, duties of a clerk and a manager of a company differ and these duties cannot be fixed without knowing their status. Similar is the position in case of man, animals and non-living beings. Obtaining answer to the question-‘Who am I?’ is the first step towards theism. Now, the principle comes up-‘duties of a person are decided by the degree of theism present in that person’. Are there degrees of theism? Yes! Let’s imagine that one hundred units required for perfect theism. Now, all the persons having number of units more than 0 and less than 100 may be called as theists. A true theist cannot even think of ill of any person even if the other person commits an immoral act. He thinks and thinks of other person’s welfare only and even if, he punishes the guilty, his idea is guilty’s welfare. Degree of complying with this criterion  determines grade of theism.

            There are many different thoughts regarding God. The question arises whether behaviour and ethics of persons having different notions about God can be same. Not at all. Man’s actions are guided by his thoughts. Behaviour of a person, who believes that he is nothing else than the body, he was non-existent before birth and his existence will vanish after his death, will revolve around his body only. His thoughts cannot go beyond his body and he will be engrossed till his end in the bodily pleasures. Such persons will never do welfare of others, if that act brings pain to their body. Similarly, persons, who think this world and their bodies as zero cannot be inspired by anything for their dutifulness. As such, it is wrong to say that there is no necessity of thoughts regarding God in human life.

Let’s think of the purpose of human life, without giving a thought to the idea of God or in other words without considering whether God is or is not. If we consider that alleviation of pain is the purpose of humans, then animals too spend their whole lives for alleviation of their pains. Is there no difference between the purpose of human life and that of animals? To resolve this issue, we will have to link the purpose of human life with belief in God or theism.

Modern scholars have explained ethics without the idea of God. One of different sects of it is Utilitarians, who say that we should do only that act which brings benefit. But what sort of benefit? Benefit of money, wealth or health? Some people get benefit by the acts of stealing, befooling others, incontinence et cetra. Can such acts be called right for social-health? Some utilitarians say that we should do that act which brings greatest happiness to the greatest number of men and this should be the purpose of our life. But utilitarians cannot answer the questions-why should man try for the benefit of others by losing his life? What will he get by such an act?

Some people feel that morality has been bound by the idea of God or that of theism. The only reason of people not telling a lie, not indulging in stealth or not doing other immoral acts is ‘fear of God’. Whereas virtue should be done for the sake of virtue only. These people do not go deep in the idea of theism.

Fear is an emotion inherent in man and we should make best use of this emotion for the welfare of man. Undeveloped men are more fearful than developed men. Now, we are to see how ‘fear’ helps man in becoming moral. For example, rule of speaking the truth brings welfare to the whole of mankind. As such, human society has made a rule of speaking the truth and anyone not following this rule is punished by the society or the state. The developed men will speak truth not for the reason of fear of punishment but for the sake of welfare of mankind but undeveloped men will have to speak the truth for the fear of punishment. Only fear can make undeveloped or underdeveloped men to follow the rule. But where from will such fear (not originating from the society or state) come? A theist will avoid doing immoral acts even at a time when the society or state is not watching him. And opposite to this, an atheist in such circumstances will find an immoral act as virtue.

There is difference in fear of God and fear of other worldly things. A person, who fears from God fears from nothing else and a person, who does not fear from God fears from everything else.

As already said, fear is an important emotion which saves low people from doing immoral acts. But this fear takes man slowly towards love also. People, who fear from God slowly start loving Him and this emotion of fear gets transformed into love. Fear from God and love with God meet in the end. Love is the greatest emotion and this greatest emotion progresses only when self is engrossed in God. In reality, there is nothing else than love for God, which can make man ethical or moral. All the rules of ethics or morality are included in love for God. If we accept the view of utilitarians that ‘maximum benefit for the maximum people’ is the purpose of human life, even then there is no other mean than love for God to achieve this objective. One, who loves God, automatically loves his children. Love for God moves further. Are human beings only and not other beings children of God? A true theist cannot even think of harming other beings. He considers all the beings as his friends. In the world, we see that brothers are connected with each other through their parents. Likewise, all the beings can be connected with each other through the string of theism only.

It is true that in the world, we see many people, who are considered God-loving but who are ready to do all immoral acts for their self-benefit. Such people are not true theists but are in the disguise of theists. As such, we should know the principles on the basis of which, we can judge theists and atheists.

Two, like other qualities, theism too progresses slowly through study and practice and has many grades. Actually, theism is the highest state of self. Generally, we find that theists are of different grades. Not finding true theists does not lower the utility of theism. People, whom we find theists of very lower grade would have been worse, had they not received any light of belief-in-God. Belief-in-God helps men not to be slave of their senses.

Ethics or morality which is confined to the acts like not telling a lie, not stealing et cetra, can lower the pains of other beings or enhance their bodily pleasures but these acts cannot give self-satisfaction and aanand until and unless we believe over an entity higher than self, that is, God. Only God has this quality of bliss or aanand. If we require aanand, we will have to go to Him. A person can enjoy more and more bliss, if he goes nearer and nearer to God.

-Thoughts of Pandit Ganga Prasad Upadhayay