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Updated: May 13, 2025
It is not so peculiarly Indian as the other ideas mentioned, but even at the outset it is well to insist on its prevalence during the last two thousand years because a very false impression may be produced by ignoring it. There also runs through Indian religion a persistent though inconspicuous current of non-theistic thought.
If, then, we want to make the argument absolutely universal with regard to religious beliefs theism included and not presupposed and so to make it available for apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must inquire whether any basis can be found for it in non-theistic philosophy; whether, prescinding from Divine governance and from an intelligent purpose running through nature, the adaptability of a belief to the higher needs of mankind can be considered in any way to prove its truth.
But no! Amid all the millions of mechanisms and habits in organic nature, all of which are so beautifully adapted to the needs of the species presenting them, there is no single instance of any mechanism or habit occurring in one species for the exclusive benefit of another species although, as we should expect on the non-theistic theory, there are some comparatively few cases of a mechanism or a habit which is of benefit to its possessor being also utilised by other species.
It therefore seems probable, though not proven, that the origin of these ideas is to be sought not in the early Brahmanic schools but in the intellectual atmosphere non-theistic, non-sacerdotal, but audaciously speculative which prevailed in the central and eastern part of northern India in the sixth century B.C. The Sâṅkhya recognizes no merit in sacrifices or indeed in good works of any kind, even as a preliminary discipline, and in many details is un-Brahmanic.
In the face of nature the non-theistic Richard Jeffries experiences all the feelings of mental enlargement and emotional transports that Mary Alacoque or Santa Teresa experienced in their visions of the 'Risen Christ. It is idle, then, to sneer at 'medical materialism, and stigmatise it as superficial.
The same rapture, the same sense of omniscience and of ability to comprehend the scheme of things, the same peace and freedom are experienced by both theistic and non-theistic sects, just as they have also been experienced by Christian mystics. They suggest that it is something wrought by the mind for itself and without the co-operation or infusion of any external influence.
After all, want of knowledge only proves want of knowledge; and Sir Oliver Lodge would warn Prof. Thomson of the extreme danger of resting an argument on the ignorance of science at any particular time. I note this statement of Professor Thomson's chiefly because it illustrates a very common method of dealing with the mechanistic or non-theistic view of the universe.
It is strange too that asceticism, sacrifices and modern tantric rites which seem to us concerned with the relations between man and God are in India penetrated by a non-theistic theory, namely that there are certain laws which can be studied and applied, much like electricity, and that then spirits can be coerced to grant what the ascetic or sacrificer desires.
But forasmuch as the final act of purifying the conception of Deity consists, according to Mr. Fiske, in expressly removing these particular attributes from the object of that conception, does it not follow that the conception which remains is, as I have said, not theistic, but non-theistic? Here my criticism might properly have ended, were it not that Mr.
And this is just what we find to be the case. Therefore, without the need of resorting to wholly arbitrary assumptions concerning transcendental reconciliations between apparently needless suffering and a supposed almighty beneficence, the non-theistic hypothesis is saved by merely opening our eyes to the observable facts around us, and there seeing that pain and misery, alike in the benefits which they bring and in the frightful excesses which they manifest, play just that part in nature which this hypothesis would lead us to expect.
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