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Re: Help Please!
Gopal Ganapathiraju Sree Ramana (gopal@ecf.toronto.edu) wrote:
>>In article <ghenDqs92E.4yt@netcom.com>,
>>Pradip Gangopadhyay <pradip@lism.usc.edu> wrote:
>> The knowledge of God is beyond the realm of logic. Nobody has ever
>>been able to prove or disprove the existence of God using logic. If you can
>>do that then God will come under the purview of science. Thus God can only be
>>"known" in a supersensuous experience (Aporakhsanubhuti). God is beyond our
>>senses. Thus the knowledge obtained in meditation is supersensuous knowledge.
>most difficult part of the post, to me, seems to be the excerpt above.
>"the knowledge of god is beyond logic" is a hypothesis, or a statement of
>fact, or proven theory? does the statement also imply "the knowledge
>of God is essentially *illogical*"?
>i also fail to understand the import of the word "Thus" used twice
>in the above excerpt. does not the statement -- ' nobody has ever
>been able to prove or disprove the existence of god using logic ' --
>only imply the status of *current* knowledge? is there a *flaw* in
>--if ever-- god coming under the purview of science? are we not
>taking a hypothesis to be a theorem when we imply 'thus god can only
>be known in supersensuous experience'?
Dear Gopalji
"The knowledge of God is beyond logic" is a current statement of fact.
It is neither a hypothesis nor a proven theoretical fact. The statement
implies that the knowledge of God is alogical in nature i.e. beyond logic and
not illogical. The alogical nature of God is deduced from the facts that (a)
nobody has yet logically proved or disproved the existence of God and (b) that
God is not experienced or felt by any of our senses. By alogical I mean that
human logic is inadequate to deal with the subject of God.
There will be a serious problem if God does come under the purview of
science as a result of someone succesfully proving the existence of God using
pure logic. Then the question will arise why our senses do not find any
evidence of God? The failure of logic in proving the existence of God is
strongly coupled to the fact that our senses fail to register any evidence of
God. Here the word "senses" includes all types of scientific instruments. I am
including scientific instruments since they significantly extend the range of
our senses. Otherwise someone may raise the objection that the imperfection of
our senses prevent them from experiencing God. Let me give an example to
clarify what I mean. We do not see a quark. In fact scientific theory says
that quarks can never be found in a free state. But we can still logically
deduce the existence of a quark through the interpretation of scientific
experiment. No scientific experiment has yet given any hint about God. If you
say that the existence of the universe proves the existence of God then I will
point out that current scientific theory claims that the entire universe has
come from nothing. Thus God can only be known in supersensuous experience.
You can of course take the position that failure of logic and the
failure of our senses to find any evidence for God proves the non-existence
of God. This in fact is the position of athiests. However, you can also take
the position that failure of logic and the senses merely proves that God can
only be experienced in a supersensuous manner. That is human logic and human
senses, including scientific instruments, are inadequate tools for experiencing
God. The only "evidence" for God can be found in the scriptures and in the
supersensuous experiences of people like Sri Sankara, Sri Ramanuja, Sri
Chaitanya or Sri Ramakrishna.
Regards
PG
