Are All Moral Problems Mental? Reflections on Christianity and Hinduism

Last updated on: September 27, 2014 at 8:08 pm by Paul Louis Metzger

Are All Moral Problems Mental? Reflections on Christianity and Hinduism 2014-09-27T20:08:56-07:00 Paul Louis Metzger

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What is the problem of our human condition? What is the solution? Many views of human nature can be set forth in terms of answering these questions. Historic Christianity and Hinduism answer these questions very differently. The ultimate problem of human nature for many, if not all, orthodox Christians is moral separation from God and one another. The ultimate problem for Hinduism is mental or psychological.[1] While one can never truly separate moral and mental issues from one another, this fundamental distinction between these two religious traditions prevails.

The following quotation from the “Brhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad” illustrates the Hindu position well:

Without knowing this imperishable, Gārgī, even if a man were to make offerings, to offer sacrifices, and to perform austerities in this world for many thousands of years, all that would come to naught. Pitiful is the man, Gārgī, who departs from this world without knowing this imperishable. But a man who departs from this world after he has come to know this imperishable—he, Gārgī, is a Brahmin.[2]

Of course, the Bible emphasizes the need to understand and know God. Take for example Proverbs’ emphasis on acquiring wisdom (Proverbs 1:7, 9:10) and Jeremiah’s emphasis on knowing God rather than boasting in one’s riches, strength, or intellect (Jeremiah 9:23-24). And while knowledge in the Hindu sense is very different from ordinary knowledge,[3] the Bible places primary consideration on the transformation of the heart which also involves knowledge.[4] Regarding the transformation of the heart, consider Psalm 51:10-12 and 51:16-17:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence,

and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit…

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;

you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

In Hinduism, it takes a special kind of knowledge to comprehend and experience ultimate reality:

The breathing behind breathing, the sight behind sight,

the hearing behind hearing, the thinking behind thinking—

Those who know this perceive brahman,

the first,

the ancient.”[5]

Ordinary knowledge will not prove sufficient to realize the fact that all is one. Ultimately, there is no diversity. One must realize this to experience liberation:

With the mind alone must one behold it—

there is here nothing diverse at all!

From death to death he goes, who sees

here any kind of diversity.

As just singular must one behold it—

immeasurable and immovable.

The self is spotless and beyond space,

unborn, immense, immovable.

By knowing that very one a wise Brahmin

should obtain insight for himself.

Let him not ponder over a lot of words;

it just tires the voice![6]

In addition to there being no diversity ultimately, unconditioned freedom is also missing.[7] Regarding the latter point, which is bound up with karma, prior actions give rise to desires in past and present life forms, which in turn condition present and future actions:

We act out of desire, which itself is the result of some prior action recorded in the unconscious mind. That desire manifests itself as a resolve for action. The subsequent action leaves an impression in the mind, which then goes on to determine the nature of another desire, the root of future action. Here, then, is a picture of the human predicament as a cycle of psychological bondage. A great deal of Hindu yoga and meditation aims to free us from this limited and conditioned state.[8]

The fact that much is made in Hindu yoga and meditation of the needed effort to seek liberation from “psychological bondage” suggests that many Hindus would likely take exception to the charge of fatalism. To be fair to Hindus, Christians—especially those of the Calvinist persuasion (like myself)—often have to deal with the charge of fatalism for their belief in divine determination. Calvinists often respond by contending for a compatibilist framework and claiming that no matter the level of God’s determinism humans are still responsible and culpable for their actions. Will such practices as yoga and meditation on the part of Hindus or mental constructs and reasoning regarding combatibilism and human responsibility safeguard against the charge of fatalism and moral ineptitude or vacuousness?

In addition, Hindus and Christians have to deal with the issue of evil’s origin and how to address it. While the claim that God is sovereign over all affairs sometimes leads to the charge that God is the originator of evil, Christian theism with its claim that God is not identified with the world contends that God is not evil’s ground. Moreover, Christians are called to contend against injustices wherever they may be found. In a monistic framework such as with Hinduism, it is difficult to see how God (whether personally or impersonally conceived) is not the source of evil, when God is one with all reality; God is beyond good and evil as their origin or source. In such a context, is evil at last illusory or a mental construct that one eliminates simply by conceiving the “problem” differently, relativizing good and evil in ultimate reality? Should Hindus contend against injustices, if God and the world of good and evil forces are ultimately one?

____________

[1]Regarding Hinduism, see Leslie Stevenson, David L. Haberman and Peter Matthews Wright, Twelve Theories of Human Nature, 6th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pages 42-43.

[2]See the Upaniṣads, translated by Patrick Olivelle, Oxford World’s Classics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 3.8.10, page 45.

[3]See 2.4.14 of the Upaniṣads, page 30; see also the discussion on this subject in Twelve Theories of Human Nature, page 41: the true self or atman is not an ordinary object of knowledge or consciousness, but “the subject of consciousness” which is one with brahman—the All).

[4]Such transformation of the heart does not entail the banishing of the desires of the heart, as in the “Brhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad;” according to the latter, when such desires are “banished,” one “attains brahman in this world” (see the Upaniṣads, 4.4.7, page 65).

[5]See 4.4.18 of the “Brhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad” on page 67 in the Upaniṣads; note also the surrounding context.

[6]“Brhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad” in Upaniṣads, 4.4.19-21, page 67.

[7]See “Brhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad” in Upaniṣads, 4.4.5, page 65, and Twelve Theories of Human Nature, page 43.

[8]Twelve Theories of Human Nature, page 43.

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