Sachchidananda 'The Life Divine' Book I,Ch.9, 10, 11, 12 - Track 1105

Fine! this may be an answer but does it does it satisfy, it may be argued has God no better method of training individuals, even we human beings, when we want to teach our children how to choose good, we are told don't punish, do not scold, explain, nurse them and love them, adored them and gradually bring them to the right path. So is God worse than man that he has no other method of training people excepting that punishing and putting them into all kinds of trouble, is he not capable of giving a better training than human beings are proposing.

 Or else let us go deeper and ask this question. What after all is choosing the evil, when I choose something that is evil, if you really examine the psychology, you will find that evil is the result of ignorance. I choose evil because I'm ignorant. I don't really know what is right and wrong. So, I fall into the trap and choose evil, ignorantly I choose something that is evil and you think I deserve to be punished? If somebody is ignorant and chooses something not right and I can't say that now, I punish you because you chose that thing and if you still go farther, you'll find that in many experiences of choosing evil there is some kind of mental disease or even mental ignorance can be called a kind of a disease. So, if people choose evil simply because they are mentally diseased, do they deserve to be punished? And God has found no other means than this to train individuals by punishing ignorance, is highly objectionable. If somebody is ignorant or chooses the wrong thing, we shall explain: Look! This is not the right way. Give the knowledge instead of punishing, what is this punishment?

All the religions therefore, which regard experience of punishment as a method of training on part of God all stand convicted of thinking of God in the image that is worse than man. Now there is on this basis another line of argument, which tries to save God from this problem. It simply says that God is of course good and omnipotent but individuals and their lives and their experiences are all according to the Law of Karma. I do an action and it has its consequence and God is just, He is good and omnipotent and just, so, somebody has done an action and if the consequence come to him, it will be injustice therefore, for every action there must be its appropriate consequence and that it should be so only proves the justice of God and if evil exists, it is only because of karma of individuals.

God is not responsible for evil; it is all resultant of man's actions and the natural consequences which are done according to Justice. To a God who is absolutely in balance, very good himself, very omnipotent and he allows all the individuals to carry out their own actions and accept their own consequences. But then the question arises who created this law, there is a justice you say who created this law that if you do this action, this consequence will come out, why did they create this law to combine an evil action with suffering, why did He do that instead of that He should have said that if you do an evil action, I'll give you knowledge, I will clarify to you, to do the right thing; instead of that he made a law, already allowed this law to come into existence, he's omnipotent he could have chosen another law. Why did he allow this law, if He is omnipotent, this is the argument. If he's omnipotent then this argument won't stand that there is a law which is just, a God who is good and just at the same time cannot allow this kind of law to the operate at all, he could have invented another law instead of this law. Or you go deeper, if the Law of action is a process of doing the action and suffering the consequences the first question is, who starts the first action, if out of action consequence comes about; the question is who starts the first action? If God is omnipotent, all energies must start from him all actions must start from him, for God must be responsible for everything that happens here, why should we suffer out of the consequences, he could have chosen otherwise.

So under the weight of this argument another argument starts which says that God does not exist at all. All these problems arise, if you grant God's existence, because God is good, just and omnipotent. The fact is that the world exists and there is evil, this punishment and that there is suffering, these are all facts and they are inconsistent with the theory39.14 that God is good, omnipotent and just. Therefore, you have got to make a decision and you can clearly see that if God  really existed, this could not have existed here this kind of world could not have existed but is evil exists therefore God must not be existing. In fact this is the argument of Buddhism; Buddhism argues that Law of Karma is inconsistent with the existence of an omnipotent, good God. If God is good and omnipotent and also just the Law of Karma cannot exist, but Law of Karma however exists, then God must not be existing, therefore, Buddhism denied the existence of God that is the clear logic of Buddhism, God and the Law of Karma are inconsistent with each other. Law of Karma exists; therefore, God does not exist. Fine, now supposing, God does not exist; the basic question still remains, how does Karma start, where does it start, why does it start; this question remains. Now, if there is no God and yet you have to explain how action starts and how the world of karma operates, if you want to explain it; you have got to say that at one point action started and then the consequence came about and then another action came out and then the consequence followed, was the very first action good or bad? If it was good, then all the chain must be the chain of good action, which is not the case, if the first action was evil then all the consequences must have been evil only.