To Love Life is to Love God

Millions of people live by religion and the idea of God. Millions of lives are sustained simply in the hope of justice meted out by some supernatural hand. Millions of thoughts, philosophies, religions and ideologies are pieced together in the name of that other-worldly contentment. Element of Chance is vital in life. In fact Tolstoy, in his War and Peace, goes to the extent to say, “If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.” Because there is uncertainty in life and no amount of rational knowledge can pre-empt the twists and turns life is going to take in the future, we inevitably have to resort to the idea of Chance. Had life been completely defined by rationality and reason, we would not have needed ideas of Chance and God. But then the “possibility of life would have been destroyed.” Life is possible only because the next moment is decided by Chance.

Chance and God then become the central idea around which life revolves. But perhaps that is a rash conclusion drawn from an incomplete story. While it is true that life is determined only by existence of Chance, it is equally true that idea of Chance and God is determined only in the context of life. It is only because human life is possible that God and Chance have a meaning. Had there been no life, God and Chance would have been superfluous concepts. It is the human life that is central and around it revolves the ideas of God & religion. It is thus the human being who has created the idea of God to harmonise the contradictions of life and it may not be the other way round.

Will Durant, while arguing for the relevance of religion and the need for the idea of God, tells about his old uncle. His ninety year old uncle used live in a lonely and secluded house in the mountains. His limbs had grown too weak to allow him any physical work. He would sit by the fire and read the gospels. Only on the Sundays he would come out of his quilts and walk to the nearby church. It was his faith in god and his belief in the gospels that provided him solace and comfort that the rest of the world couldn’t. The metaphysical promises of the ‘bliss to come’ were the only reasons for him to sustain his otherwise doomed life. Durant argues that “I shall not think of casting doubts upon such hopes. Why shouldn’t he be consoled by the promises of the gospel?”

Durant’s argument is quite appealing. A faith in God, a belief in miracle, a hope rested in element of chance is the life blood of so many people like Durant’s nonagenarian uncle. If we consider Durant’s argument closely we see that it is built upon the basic premise that human life and existence is the yardstick to judge religion, faith and belief. It is the deification of human life that the argument reflects. The idea of god and the promises of the supernatural bliss would be meaningless had it not been in the context of Durant’s uncle. It was only in the context of the old man’s life that gospels, faith in god, hope in element of chance, bliss of the supernatural justice have a meaning.

A similar opinion is expressed in Tolstoy's words- “Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves- and that movement is God. While there is life there is joy in the consciousness of Divine. To love life is to love God.” To be noted here is that cognition of God arises entirely out of 'changes and movement of life'. And the 'joy in that cognition of the Divine' rests only in the context of life. So true was the great existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre when he says- “Human existence is the pivot around which all customs, conventions, traditions and above all God and religion revolve”

 Suyash Saxena,

B.Sc. (H) Physics
St. Stephen’s College.