The non-reality of free will (2.5.97)

Dennis Waite dwaite at INTERALPHA.CO.UK
Sat May 10 09:18:35 CDT 1997


I hesitate to reply to anything of Jaldhar's (fearing the wrath of his
scholarship!) but the statement that "Brahman is limitless and is capable of
doing anything. In fact it does do everything.  It is everything.  So you
cannot say Brahman lacks free will." does not ring quite true to my
understanding.

I thought that, in this context, Brahman could be compared to the petrol in
a car. Without the petrol, the car can do nothing but in no sense could the
petrol be said to be acting. Similarly, electricity enables a refrigerator
to beome cold but the electricity is not cold, or it enables a cooker to
become hot but is not itself hot. In an analagous manner, no-one and nothing
can act without the support of aatman but aatman itself does not act. It
will support the actions of a murderer just as much as those of a doctor in
the same way as the petrol will enable both tank and ambulance to perform
their respective functions.

Is this an incorrect view?

Dennis



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