July 2021

The Problem of Evil

The problem of evil refers to the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil in this world with an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God. The argument for the problem of evil goes as follows: We can see that evil exists in this world—cheating, misery and suffering, poverty, disease, etc. Why would God create a world in which this evil...

Philosophizing in Six Perspectives

In my first book—Six Causes—I described a theory of creation that comprises six causes, namely, Material Cause, Efficient Cause, Personal Cause, Formal Cause, Instrumental Cause, and Systemic Cause. This was in a way a contrast to the Greek use of four causes (Final, Efficient, Material, and Formal). Now, as I work on the Six Systems of Vedic Philosophy, there is another...

How Shankaracharya’s Philosophy Made India Weak and Poor

There is a popular narrative in India at present that Islamic Invaders and British Colonialists destroyed India’s traditional culture and civilization. That is not entirely false. But any serious student of history is led to ask: Why did these invaders succeed in conquering India when numerous such invasions were repelled previously? The Mauryan Empire in India (beginning with around 200 BCE)...

The Philosophy of Contracts

Modern society is constructed on the idea of contracts. This idea can be traced back to Judaism which instituted a “covenant” with God in which God will do certain things for Abraham if Abraham did some things for God. The first covenant of Judaism for instance says: “You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be...

An Illustration of Semantic Addition

As a follow-up to an earlier post, where I described how natural laws arise as a result of qualities, this post explores this idea further using an example. Since modern science grew out of the idea that matter is res extensa—i.e., that it has only one property of extension in space—this post also illustrates the lawfulness as a result of the...

Krishna is Jealous and Nonchalant

Many people say that the God of Abrahamic religions is a “jealous” God. However, they don’t ask: If we can be jealous, then why can God also not be jealous? Similarly, if we can be non-jealous, therefore, God must also be non-jealous. This contradiction makes it very hard to understand God’s nature.