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An Argument for God As A Blue Boy II

November 8th, 2005

November 8, 2005
Govardhana

I received helpful feedback about my argument for God as a blue boy. I’ll share that below and then include my response to the final letter.

“Watch out for reasonable arguments. It might also be reasonable that He would assume many different forms to enjoy in different ways.”

“The argument below is for an absolute entity that functions according to its own pleasure and thrives on love. It does NOT provide an argument for God as a blue boy. You should re-work the title and the first sentence.”

“God as a blue boy is a sharp contrast to a brooding old man waiting to send people to eternal hell.”

“Yes, of course. But what about the ‘blue’ component? Is there some way that the blueness relates to this?”

Thanks for picking that up. Let me clarify.

I was not making the argument that Krishna being blue is reasonable, but arguing that Krishna (who is blue) as God is reasonable. Perhaps I could have made that more clear. Would the article be better titled, “An argument for God as Krishna, a blue boy”?” I believe so.

Now let me try to make an argument that Krishna being blue is reasonable.

God is causeless. Logic is based on cause and effect -how things operate in this world under the observable laws of nature. By definition, the nature of God, such as his color, can never be proved by logic as that would subjugate Him to the laws of nature. Thus the only explanation for God being blue is His own sweet will.

I can argue that God is blue. How? If it is His own sweet will what color He is, then certainly He can be blue. But all that says is that He can be anything He wants and such arguments lead to the absurd.

Our real argument concerns pramana, our means of knowing. If we can establish that sabda-brahman (revealed scripture) is reasonable, we then can argue about the nature of God on the basis of sastra.

Finally Mahamuni dasa sent me a simple analysis of the argument:

The argument breakdown:

Premises:
1. For something to be reasonable it must in some way conform to some type of accepted experience.
2. Every being moves for their own pleasure.
3. The greatest pleasure is love.

It seems that the conclusion is:

If there is a (personal) God, then it is reasonable that God would move for his pleasure, and therefore for love. And Krishna as manifest in Vrndavana seems to be a reasonable way that God would do so.

What’s missing is an elaboration of why Krishna as manifest in Vraja would best manifest love, but I suppose that when speaking among devotees, it is pretty clear why. Also note that no argument for God’s existence is made here. The conclusion is in the form of a conditional: IF there is a God…

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