The concept of rebirth doesn’t really solve the problem of evil for god’s existence in Hinduism
I’m an atheist(don’t believe in god) and a philosophy enthusiast, I have always found this debate on existence of god interesting. Since I’m interested to know how theists and agnostics would respond to this, feel free to engage in a discussion on this topic.
The problem of evil remains one of the most important questions that abrahamic faith fails to answer. The problem of evil is the idea that a classical notion of god(all powerful, all knowing, all good) could not possibly exist considering the amount of evil and suffering that remains unchecked in this world.
It remains a trump card for atheism in the debate of existence of god. People have tried to provide an explanation for that, with the claims that it is a part of divine judgment because of the acts we’ve done at some point in our life, accumulating sin leading upto our own suffering, or that, it is a free will granted to humans by god and hence god cannot intervene in human affairs. But there still remains two unsolved problems, one, that the free will thing doesn’t explain natural or nature based suffering(where there is no human intervention), two if you say it is still because of our sins, then how does one justify early deaths in children because of biological conditions? They didn’t gain enough maturity to be punished for a sin in their lifetime.
Philosophers like Saint Augustine, Thomas aquinas and Anslem of Canterbury have tried enormously to provide a reasonable theodicy but have failed to give a complete answer, the only explanation that remains is that the rational order of god works in mysterious ways that is beyond human comprehension and so nonetheless we have to keep our faith intact.
On the other hand, in Hinduism, we have concept of rebirth, and apparently with the immortality of soul and concept of past karma, we claim to have answered the problem of evil, especially when the question of suffering in young infants were left unanswered by abrahamic religions, we answer it with the sins of previous life(now pragmatically and out of emotions, sometimes even if you’re a theist, you might reject this idea because you understand the depth of suffering but we need to understand here that this model is logically consistent and good enough to answer the problem of evil).
Unfortunately it doesn’t end here. I believe that Hindu philosophy gives a better framework to answer the problem of evil much better than the abrahamic faiths, but people don’t realise the number of new unanswered questions that arises which are more than the questions that are solved. I would love to share them one by one:
Moral relativism: this would’ve sustained even for the initial arguments before we discussed the rebirth. The issue with trying to solve the problem of evil with divine judgment is that it is pre assumed that the morals are objective, at least with respect to the religions which we’re talking about. Post Nietzschean and post modern philosophers have realised how morals are shaped by contingent cultural, geographical, and other factors specifications of an individual that go beyond the reach of an individual himself. So it’s pointless to punish an individual for not following a certain moral that isn’t absolute at all.
Absence of “self” and “free will”: expanding on the previous point, British empiricists have convincingly argued how the concept of self is an illusion and Nietzsche too has argued how free will is a myth. To me it is a very convincing idea, because even if one could argue that the tabula rasa theory(that everybody is a same blank slate when born, and the self of a person keeps shaping up as he grows depending on the environment he grows in) which Hume accepted is false, I would agree but that still doesn’t confirm the self or free will. Because what remains in a person when you takeaway his upbringing isn’t a blank slate, otherwise the concept of genetics would not even be a branch of science to study. So the slate might not be blank but the slate is definitely different for every person during his birth. And so there is no point in punishing a person, because a person was responsible for himself at the first place, what was responsible was a combination of his genetics and his upbringing.
The paradox of will to action: this might sound a weak argument but it still holds a pragmatic weight. If the Hinduism framework is sufficient in itself with the all powerful, all knowing, all good god, why is there a constant urge for will to action in the mythological/historical stories and why the need for divine interventions. Why the need for Vishnu to reincarnate as Narasimha and Krishna to save Prahlada and Arjuna to deal with hiranyakashipu and kauravas respectively, when he could’ve dealt with the judgement in the rebirths. Why the need for Arjuna to call for action, when he could’ve punished kauravas through their next births, a possibility could be that the god is under confident with his capability deliver divine judgements without the help of few chosen human beings. It feels like an astrologer making a certain prediction for a person and then conveying not to take any actions that could change the discourse or trajectory from the prediction.
Proof of rebirth: the two unverifiable and unobservable transcendental concepts; divine judgement and rebirth, act as a causation for each other, so divine judgement is only deemed possible if rebirth is deemed true, for which there is no proof.
Divine hiddenness of divine judgement: it would be foolish for a judicial system to convict or punish a criminal without conveying him the crime he has committed, and so if I’m suffering for something wrong I’ve committed, I need to be made aware of what wrong I have done, otherwise the punishment system is pointless.
Despite all this, Hindus can still convey the argument that was left out with the abrahamic faith followers, that is, god works in ways thy at we cannot comprehend and so the order is rational in itself but is beyond our understanding, but the fact remains that rebirth didn’t really solve the problem of evil for me.
Let me know what do you think of this.
Note: It might sound like I’m making a strong affirmative rejection of transcendental elements, but what I’m rather trying to convey is that the immanent structure we have is self sufficient in itself. I’m aware of how science fails to answer the questions that go beyond the boundaries of human reason but nowhere does that imply the existence of a transcendental truth, and nowhere at all to the existence of god.
Just to be clear, the concept of consciousness isn’t necessarily transcendental. People can argue that science or immanence cannot explain consciousness, no it can, consciousness arrived from another consciousness, what rather can be a metaphysical or unanswerable question for science is where the first consciousness originated from, or whether there was “first consciousness” at all at the first place, which is equivalent to asking the origin of universe itself.