Hinduism

How should a Christian apologist structure his argument against Hinduism? One way of answering the question is to ask where the burden of proof lies. If the Hindu has no reason for believing as he does, then there’s nothing to disprove.

Put another way, his reason may not be intellectual, but sociological. He’s Hindu because he’s Indian. It’s as simple and complicated as that.

Of course, a geographical accident is poor reason for believing in something, and disbelieving in something else. For reality is no respecter of race or ethnicity. Buddhism doesn’t become true when you cross the border into China, for false when you cross back into India.

Insofar as Hinduism has certain beliefs about the world, the world must be like these beliefs in order for them to be true. And if, in fact, the relation between belief and reality breaks down, then these beliefs about the world are not, in fact, beliefs about the world as it is, about the real world, but are merely fictitious.

And in what sense do you really subscribe to an article of faith if you don’t care whether or not it describes the actual world? If the article of faith fails to correspond to the way the world is, then your belief in that article fails to correspond to article itself if this is a personal belief in a traditional belief about the way the world works.

So there is a breakdown at two levels: between the believer and his belief, between his subjective belief and the external object of his belief. Faith is a three-way relation between believer, belief, and object. And if the relation breaks down at one relation, it breaks down at the corollary relation as well.

So the onus is on the Hindu. And where, in fact, does the Hindu stand in relation to the burden of proof?

Surendranath Dasgupta was the greatest historian of Indian philosophy of his generation. This is what he has to say about the historical relation between faith and reason in Hindu piety. One will see, in the course of his historical review, that what he says about basic Hindu dogma is applicable to Buddhism as well.

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Throughout the entire course of the history of Indian philosophy, no one except the Carvakas raised any dissenting voice against this theory of rebirth. We do not know how this doctrine originally crept into Indian thought, but once it was there, it was accepted almost universally without a discussion. The few arguments that are sometimes adduced in its support (e.g., in the Nyaya Sutra and the Caraka Samhita) are trivial in their nature and may be regarded as offered in support of a faith and not as determining philosophical conclusions. The doctrine of rebirth is therefore a dogma of Indian philosophy. The Hindus believed in it; the Jat5akas represent Buddha as remembering his past lives, but the Carvakas denied it. It was a philosophical dogma or creed, which might safely be regarded as unproved.

We nest come to the theory of Karma. This also can be traced to the Upanishads, and it is not improbable that it originated from a belief in the magical efficacy of sacrificial deeds. It is supposed to explain the inequalities of this life by the unknown actions of the past lives, but it refuses to explain any question regarding original inequalities of circumstances and advantages by a clever dodge that there is no beginning in the series of lives.

The difficulties of the theory of karma are further realized in other directions also. It the fruits of the karmas of the past cannot be avoided, how can, then, anyone attain emancipation which must necessarily mean cessation of Karma? In reply to such a question, other dogmas regarding the fruition of Karma are introduced, all of which may be regarded as mythical. It is also held that when true knowledge is attained, or when desires are extinguished, the bonds of karma are burnt up.

So far as I can remember, I suppose, no attempt has been made, anywhere in Indian philosophy, to prove any of these propositions regarding the operation of the laws of Karma in a serious and systematic manner. The law of Karma, therefore, involves a number of unattested propositions, which have never been proved to be true, nor are capable of being proved so.

This is, therefore, the second set of unproved dogmas of Indian philosophy, which has been almost universally acknowledged as true, not as a philosophical conclusion, but as an article of faith. It is only the Carvakas who dared protest against it, but no one ever cared to list to them.

We next come to the doctrine of Mukti, Moksha, Apavarga or Nihsreyasa, and Nirvana…Though this belief in a final and ultimate achievement, extinction or liberation was universal in all systems of Indian thought except the Carvaka, not attempt seems to have been made anywhere in Indian philosophy to prove the reality of this state. In this case direct testimony from personal experience could not be available, for he who attained salvation could not be expected to return back to normal life to record his experience.

But in this case also another fiction was introduced and it was supposed that even after the attainment of this final liberation, one may with the help of another pure mind communicate his experiences for the benefit and instruction of other seekers after Moksha. This theory also has not been proved as a philosophical proposition anywhere. The doctrine of Mukti may, therefore, be regarded as another unproved dogma of Indian philosophy.

The theory of rebirth, the theory of Karma and the theory of Mukti may thus be regarded as the three most important dogmas through which Indian philosophy has been made subservient to ethics and religion. The influence which these dogmas have over the moral and religious well-being of the Indian people cannot be overestimated. Not all Indians are believers in God, not all of them believe in prayers, divine grace, or devotion as the best mode of approach to God, but all of them believe in these articles of faith. They have thus held together the entire relgio-moral fabric of the Hindu-Buddhist-Jaina culture.

Philosophical Essays (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1982), 224-28.

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