Hinduism vs. Christianity - Forgiveness for Sins

Christianity is often touted as a better religion because it offers forgiveness for sins and hence redemption. However, Dharmic traditions do not propose forgiveness for sins.  Does that mean Christianity is a better religion?  Are  followers of Dharmic tradition in a fix because they receive no forgiveness, no redemption?

When contemplating on this loaded question, Hindus should realize that concept of sin in Christianity is non-existent in Hinduism.  Without the burden of sin, there is no need to seek forgiveness, there is no need for redemption.  The idea of sin is a heavy burden thrust upon its followers by Christianity. To moderate its effect, Christians then speak of forgiveness.  

Unfortunately, this concept brings other burdens on the already suffering.  Imagine that a lady you know was raped.  Can you ask her to forgive the rapist?  Does she have to forgive?  Does she have a choice not to forgive?

Contemplate on what the bible says regarding forgiveness.  

Matthew 6:14-15

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Colossians 3:13

Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Most Christian apologists defend the above biblical position by saying that forgiveness is a way to cope with bitterness.  It is not.  Forgiveness is saying that the person who inflicted the pain and suffering is freed of the blame.  There is simply nothing worse than imposing on the victim to forgive the offender: forgive or else you will not be forgiven.

Hinduism does not consider human beings to be stuck in the inescapable condition of sin. On the contrary, Hinduism considers the essence of human beings to be non-different from the Supreme Being. There is no sin but only ignorance in Hinduism.  Due to ignorance human beings are caught up in the stranglehold of Maya. Once freed from the veil of ignorance, human beings understand that Atman and Paramatman are one and the same.

Bhagavad Gita 4:36

Even if you were the greatest sinner, you will still cross the sea of past sin aboard the ship of (transcendental) knowledge.

You need redemption only when you are stuck in the inescapable condition of being a sinner. 

Revealed Religion & Morality

by Thomas Paine

from Age of Reason Part II

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. ... Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man?...

Some Christians pretend that Christianity was not established by the sword; but of what period of time do they speak? It was impossible that twelve men could begin with the sword: they had not the power; but no sooner were the professors of Christianity sufficiently powerful to employ the sword than they did so, and the stake and faggot too; and Mahomet could not do it sooner.... Besides this, Christianity grounds itself originally upon the [Hebrew] Bible, and the Bible was established altogether by the sword, and that in the worst use of it -- not to terrify, but to extirpate. The Jews made no converts: they butchered all. The Bible is the sire of the [New] Testament, and both are called the word of God. The Christians read both books; the ministers preach from both books; and this thing called Christianity is made up of both. It is then false to say that Christianity was not established by the sword.

The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers; and the only reason that can be given for it is, that they are rather Deists than Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ, and they call the scriptures a dead letter. Had they called them by a worse name, they had been nearer the truth.  It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of the Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial miseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick among mankind, to expel all ideas of a revealed religion as a dangerous heresy, and an impious fraud. What is it that we have learned from this pretended thing called revealed religion? Nothing that is useful to man, and every thing that is dishonourable to his Maker....

As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly scattered in those books, they make no part of this pretended thing, revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience, and the bonds by which society is held together, and without which it cannot exist; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all societies. The [New] Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject, and where it attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous....

Loving of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that he does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political sense, for there is no end to retaliation;... but to love in proportion to the injury, if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for a crime. Besides, the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like a proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and prejudice, as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes in politics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal intention; and it is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to our own tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing that it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes no motive for love on the other part; and to say that we can love voluntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physically impossible.

Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties that, in the first place, are impossible to be performed, and if they could be would be productive of evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. The maxim of doing as we would be done unto does not include this strange doctrine of loving enemies; for no man expects to be loved himself for his crime or for his enmity.

Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies, are in general the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own part, I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulous morality; yet the man does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution, or in the French Revolution; or that I have, in any case, returned evil for evil. But it is not incumbent on man to reward a bad action with a good one, or to return good for evil; and wherever it is done, it is a voluntary act, and not a duty.

How do Islam and the Quran look without divinity?

Part III:

How do Islam and the Quran look without divinity?

Let us consider how Muhammad received the revelation from an Islamic point of view. 

The oldest surviving biography of Muhammad is that of Ibn Hisham (died 833 CE). In this biography, According to Ibn Hisham, before the revelation of the Quran, Muhammad used to visit a cave in the mountain called Hira in Mecca for a month every year. When Muhammad was finished with his seclusion in the mountain, he would return to circumbulate the Kaba seven times before heading home. In 610 CE, as in the years before, Muhammad visited Hira. This time, Muhammad claimed that he was visited by a stanger (later identified as Angel Gabriel).  According to Ibn Hisham, Gabriel appeared to Muhammad in his sleep, carrying a book. He commanded him to “read.” Muhammad refused twice the order before finally asking what he was supposed to read.  Muhammad went home in shock and spent the following few weeks in shivers and fears. His wife, Khadija, sought the help of Waraka, a relative and Christian priest, who immediately diagnosed the condition as a sign that Muhammad was going to be a prophet. Khadija agreed with that diagnosis. A few weeks after this incident, Muhammad made the claim to be a prophet and started his campaign to convert the Arabs, and the world, to his religion. 

Devout Muslims believe that the stranger who appeared before Muhammad was indeed the Angel Gabriel and that the Quran, that was communicated to humanity through the otherwise illiterate Muhammad , is the world of Allah.

If we strip divinity off this story, what do Muslims have to show for Muhammad's experience in the cave?  What about the contents of the Quran?  Without divine origin, what is the source of Quran?  Of what value are Quran's claims?  What do we make of violent attacks of Muhammad on idol worshippers of his time and destruction of idols?  What do we make of all the religious wars waged by Muhammad, destruction and looting that followed in the name of Allah's cause? What do we make of all the Muslims in independent India who bow in the direction of Mecca in Saudi Arabia?

Stripped of divinity, Muhammad's story would turn into one of mass deception, intolerance to believers of other deities, and waging wars by imposing fear of Allah.  Quran would turn into a dictionary of banal statements.  It is an ridiculous presupposition for a Muslim to agree with in order to enter a discussion with a "scholar".  It is a heartless act of torture to make a Muslim accept that Muhammad is not a prophet and Allah is not the God.  Indeed, that is what a secular "scholar" would presuppose, but to ask a Muslim to contemplate on that presupposition and participate in a "scholarly" debate?  Removing divinity alters everything about the story, reducing it to a farce.  If such an idea is forced on Muslims, that would be tantamount to tampering with his freedom on conscience.  No free-thinking Muslim will engage in a "scholarly discussion" of Muhammad's history or the Quran with the presupposition of removing all divinity involved in delivery of Quran to humanity.  

Similarly, no free-thinking Hindu should accept the presupposition thrust upon Hindus that all divinity be stripped from a Maha Kavya (Ramayana, Mahabharata for example) in order to have a "scholarly discussion" of it. 

Stripping divinity from Sanskrit Works - Part I

Rajiv Malhotra rejects Sheldon Pollock's approach of first stripping divinity from Sanskrit works, then using a political lens to deconstruct those Sanskrit works, and finally pushing his political interpretations as history on to India and Hindus.

Rajiv Malhotra's rejection is justified in saying that divinity is crucial to interpretation of sanskrit works. Is that justification a reasonable position?

Is the sacred dimension of scriptures necessary for Abrahamic religions as well?  

How critical is the sacred dimension to those religions?  Let us look at the case of Christianity in this article.

In his deliberations on Christianity, Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his Autobiography:

I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice, and a divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the Cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it my heart could not accept.

Now, Gandhi can say this as a non-believer.  He was not a Christian.  But he did not push these views on Christians as "scholarship" the way Sheldon Pollock is pushing.

Gandhi was not alone.  Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of America, compared miracles in the bible, and hence divinity of Jesus, to dung hill.

In 1813, in a letter to John Adams, Jefferson wrote: 

"... We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill."

Jefferson created for himself a "clean" version of bible called the Jefferson bible from which he stripped all divinity.  Again, Jefferson, like Gandhi, did not palm his views off on Christians as actual history.  

Would Christians accept interpretations of the bible that strip divinity?

Without Divinity, Christianity is Meaningless.

How does Jesus lead humanity to salvation?  

In his letter to the Church of Corinth, Paul writes:

Now, brothers and sisters, I want you to remember the Good News I told you. You received that Good News message, and you continue to base your life on it. That Good News, the message you heard from me, is God’s way to save you. But you must continue believing it. If you don’t, you believed for nothing. I gave you the message that I received. I told you the most important truths: that Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say;  1 Corinthians 15:1-4

This is a direct quote from the bible.  

Paul is saying in no uncertain terms that Christians have to believe that Jesus died to atone for the Original Sin of humanity.  If Jesus were just another human being, with no divinity, there is no atoning for Original Sin and no salvation for humanity via Jesus.  Jesus had to have had divine origin for the belief in salvation through Jesus.  If Jesus is not divine, then he is not the Lord, he is either a liar (he outright lied about his miracles) or a lunatic (imagined self-aggrandizement).

Divinity is crucial for Christianity to find honorable meaning in the bible and in the life of Jesus.  In fact, belief in divine origin of Jesus is so critical that all major Christian denominations require divine origin of Jesus.  Every major Christian denomation has codified the core belief of divinity of Jesus as part of their version of "Nicene Creed", a statement(the  of belief that all members of that Christian denominations have to hold.  

Divinity of Jesus is a core belief, an essential axiom, for Christians.  It is unwise for a Christian to accept an argument based on the supposition that Jesus is merely human with no divinity.  It is up to Christians to say what the axioms or the statement of their beliefs are and insist on only engaging in arguments that presuppose beliefs of divinity of Jesus. (Why is it a presupposition and not history?  Divinity is beyond common human experience and cannot be recognized as history even though history-centric religions claim history as confirmation for their beliefs.  Even if we grant that Jesus was born of a virgin mother, performed miracles, died on the cross and resurrected, it still does not follow that he is son of God.  Worse, one cannot even validate those human-observable events to be true.)

After reading the story in the bible, one is invariably struck with the following question:

What did Jesus really accomplish? 

There are many good - very nice - people who were killed mindlessly in the last two thousand years.  Look at Mahatma Gandhi.  He fought for a well-defined cause, made great strides towards that cause using only peaceful means, and finally died during the process but leaving behind a success story.  In contrast, Jesus achieved no improvement to the society and died in vain. Gandhi successfully used civil-disobedience to bring justice to millions of his people.  Perhaps, Jesus could have had the same effectiveness if he had used civil disobedience.

This is not a new thought.  Speaking on Mahatma Gandhi's death, Nobel prize nominee and legendary missionary E. Stanley Jones described Mahatma Gandhi as "the greatest tragedy since the Son of God died on the cross." 

Theodore Beza wrote in his work the Anti-Bellius in 1554:

“There is one way that leads to God, namely, Christ; and one way that leads to Christ, namely, faith; and this faith includes all those dogmas ...  If Christ is not true God, coeternal and consubstantial with the Father, how is He our Savior? How is He our sanctifier? How is He victor over sin, death, and the devil?  Unless He is true man, save for sin, how is He our mediator?”

If we take away divinity from Jesus, we are left with a Jesus who did not do any miracles (just a human so they must all be magic tricks).  His speeches no longer qualify as moral teachings but political antiestablishment speeches.  He was crucified then as one of many others who were crucified by Romans.  Jesus then lived the life of a trouble-maker who died without achieving anything.   Without divinity, all that Jesus has going for him is that he is a nice guy who accomplished nothing for his people and died in vain.

This basic argument was not lost on Christian thinkers.  

C.S. Lewis, one of the most celebrated Christian apologists, says that if we do not accept Jesus as God, then we have to either consider him a fool, a madman, or a devil.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: MacMillan, 1943), pages 55-56

I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse.. I have to accept the view that He was and is God

History-centric blind beliefs

Christian scientists have a difficult problem.  Christianity's history-centric beliefs and theological commitments to historical claims are what reasonable scientists would find objectionable.  This is what draws heated debates from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and others.

John Lennox, a well known mathematician at Oxford, speaks passionately for miracles. When he argues for miracles, he is merely arguing that scientists cannot insist that miracles are necessarily impossible.  As a rational scientist, John Lennox can only argue that his beliefs in miracles are not based on the impossible.  So far, so good.  However, there is a gap the size of Grand Canyon between impossible and reasonable.  Lennox cannot take this argument any farther into the realm of reasonableness.   Furthermore, Lennox does not clarify what he considers are reasonble miracles to believe in.  It is a huge leap of faith to go from belief in possibility (anything that cannot be proven impossible is possible) of some miracles to the acceptance of any biblical miracles.  Such are the privileges of beliefs, even when held by scientists.

Other times, Christian apologists argue from an abstract notion of God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.  They never bridge their arguments to the specific biblical god Yahweh and his actions as described in the bible.  

More importantly, they are totally silent on how they can accept historical evidence based on hearsay evidence that Jesus regained life after death, miracle if all miracles, and hence infer that that he must be son of biblical god.   Such evidence does not stand a chance in a modern court of law, leave alone a scientists scrutiny.  Is that enough to wage your existence on?  

What can we conclude from all this?  That scientists can have blind faith and beliefs just as well as any other human.  This belief has no bearing on their science.  

Yes, Hindus too are free to hold beliefs if they choose.  They too do not feel compelled to reject their beliefs.  However, their position is far better since they have no history-centric commitments that they have a burden to defend in the face of science.

Christianity vs. Hinduism in the context of karma-phala

No karma-phala without karma or Reaction without action is meaningless : to suggest that all human beings, even those not born, bear the consequences of Adam and Eve's Original Sin is meaningless.  For an action that is not done, no result can accrue. Only for action that is done can there be adrsta-phala, either punya or papa. If the action is proper, it will attract punya and if it is improper, it will attract papa.  Sankara argues that if an action that is not done can produce results, then that which does not exist, asat, can produce that which exists, sat. To say that a nonexistent thing can produce an existent thing is like saying that a non-existent mother can bear a son.

All karma begets karma-phala To suggest that grace of Jesus will guarantee entry to heaven regardless of all past actions is ridiculous.  It is contradictory to say that karmas that are done do not produce results. You cannot throw a stone and expect that there will be no result. There will be a result - especially if it hits someone! Something must take place; some kind of reaction will be there. Therefore, action without reaction makes no sense at all.

One cannot only beget punya-phala it is impossible for a person to perform only good actions, punya-karma. No one can avoid-doing papa-karma at some time or the other. All it takes is one unconscious swatting of a mosquito! Unknowingly, you are destroying millions of bacteria everyday. Nor are all the varieties of papa-karma known to you; some are unknown also. Therefore, you cannot avoid doing papa-karma altogether.  Karma is conscious action.  A waterfall killing an animal does not beget karma-phala.  

Statement of Hindu Position on Christianity

We are willing to accept Jesus as a noble human being.  However, we reject the idea that Jesus or Moses or anyone else had had exclusive access to God or to truth.  Every human being has the same potential to achieve what any other human being has achieved.

We see bible as it is - work of many men with some good and some truth in it.  We reject all beliefs which claim exclusive access or relationship for some, such as Jesus, to God and which limit human nature and potential.  In particular, we reject the belief that all human beings are born sinners.  We Hindus think that such limiting beliefs are part of human ignorance that need to be shed to achieve liberation; key is shedding such ignorance and recognizing at least that we all have equal access to the divine without the need for prophets as intermediaries.  A further liberating Hindu ideal is the core belief that, in fact, we are all ultimately inseparable from the divine, thus our true self is devoid of limitations and sins.  Thus, we do not need Jesus or anyone else to liberate us from sins.

We reject the belief that sins of Adam are passed on by inheritance.  Such beliefs are counter to principles of accountability and responsibility that is core to institutions of law and justice.  We also reject the idea of vicarious redemption - that all human beings are relieved of the original sin of Adam by the sacrifice of life of Jesus.  One cannot be punished for wrong actions of another.  One cannot pay for wrong actions of another.  Such beliefs are counter to principles of responsibility and justice.


Accordingly, we reject the dogma of Nicene Creed in its entirety.  

Who died and saved you?

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics. You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded. Because the elements, the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars. And the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode. So forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be here today.”  

                                           - Lawrence M. Krauss

Miracles play a critical role in the bible - in both the Old Testament of the Jews and the New Testament of the Christians.  Bible mentions many miracles explicitly.  Other miracles are implied. 

Miracles are central to Christian belief.  The most important miracle for Christians is the miracle of resurrection: that Jesus died on the cross and then came back to life days later.  Without this central belief, the entire edifice of Christianity will collapse like a pack of cards.  

But why is the miracle of resurrection so important to Christians?

Supports claim that Jesus is Son of God:
Christians say that rising from the dead is impossible for humans, that bringing someone dead back to life is only possible for God.  Thus, Christians claim, resurrection of Jesus after his death on the crucifix proves that Jesus is himself God or that God has special reasons to resurrect Jesus after Jesus died on the crucifix.  

Supports claim that Bible is truth:
Christians argue that, since Jesus is either God himself or is so special to God, what Jesus said must be true.  Christians believe that  bible is an accurate depiction of what happened and what Jesus said.  Christians argue that, if the bible and Jesus has special status.

Non-Christians do not find such descriptions satisfactory. 


There are three ways in which non-Christains argue against Christian-belief centered on miracles.

One, miracles are a violation of natural order.  To believe in miracles, we should demand evidence commensurate with what we are asked to believe.  Since a miracle is an out-of-the-ordinary experience, evidence has to be that much stronger, rooted in facts.  In fact, the only reason that a miracle can be accepted is that non-acceptance of the miracle forces us to accept an even bigger violation of natural order. 

Suppose that we saw a completely collapsed 100+ story building reassemble itself from the rubble in a second right in front of our eyes. Let us say that we are rational humans with a strong penchant for truth. Let us also accept as fact that no engineering or technology marvel can accomplish such a fast reassembly.  We cannot simply ignore the stupendous event that we just witnessed and walk-away as if nothing happened.  We are left with only two choices for explaining the event: (a) say that the event was an extraordinary act of magic that fooled our eyes, or (b) call the event a miracle.  Without any further evidence, we cannot really say anything more specific.  We have to admit, however, that calling what we witnessed a magical event or a miracle is not really an explanation of the event but merely labeling the event.  Labeling events does not make us any wiser.

Two, even if one grants the possibility of miracles, there is no way of ever establishing that a miracle actually occurred to raise Jesus from dead.  The famous magician David Copperfield made the statue of liberty "disappear" right in front of hundreds of spectators.  Would we believe that he truly made the statue disappear?

Three, even if miracles actually occurred, and even if Jesus died on the cross and then resurrected, it does not follow that Jesus is God or son of God, or that he was born of a virgin, or that words ascribed to him in the Bible are true.  Strength of the challenge is that it does not concern itself with the question of whether miracles are possible.  Instead, the argument grants the possibility of miracles and focuses on the essential claim: Is Jesus God or son of God?  

No historical evidence can ever be offered to justify this claim.  Thus, in the final analysis, Jesus is son of God is merely a belief with no justification outside the Bible (in terms of history).  

Does the Bible offer justification for this critical dogma?

Does the Bible support the belief that Jesus is the son of God?

Looking closely at the Bible, we will not see a single statement by Jesus that only he is son of God.  In fact, we will find specific evidence to the contrary:

John 10:34
Jesus answered, "It is written in your law that God said, "I said you are gods."

Jesus is referring here to Psalm 82:6
God Most High, say, "You are gods, my own sons."

Concept of soul according to Catholic Church

Concept of soul existed even before the Christian theological account of human body was developed by Thomas Aquinas.  

The Greeks and early Christian thinkers looked down upon human body as inferior to the soul.  Christian thinkers before Aquinas such as Clement of Alexandria, and Origen saw the soul as the image of God whereas the human body is the source of human imperfect actions.  Thomas Aquinas disagreed with this view.  He asserted that evil actions originate from free will and thus from the entire being.  Notwithstanding these differences, Origen and Aquinas saw resurrection as of the entire being: body and soul.

Thomas Aquinas believed the human body as an essential aspect of the human person. You cannot say a human being “has” a body when it’s the nature of a human being to consist of both soul and body. To be clear, Aquinas saw soul as incorporeal and subsistent as an entity.  Since human functions such as intellect are not of the body, Aquinas saw soul as separate from the body. However, Aquinas asserted, that soul should also constitute the essence of human form in order for the soul to experience via the senses.  If a man were just a mind, essentially unrelated to the body, he would not directly experience things that happen to the body, as he clearly does when he senses. Therefore, the human soul is in essence the substantial form of a human body, and body and soul together make up one substance.  Soul does not have an existence independent of the body.

When Jesus reappeared after death, he did have a tangible, physical body that ate and drank, with familiar wounds that were explored by the hands of followers.  Jesus resurrected as a full being: body and soul.  Christians believe that Jesus did not come to just save the soul but the human being - body and soul resurrected on the Judgment day.

According to the Catholic church, and its interpretation of the bible, human body is not something that the soul can trade in for another when it wears out.  The body is integral to who humans are.  Catholic church believes the immortality via resurrection of the soul and the body, not in the immortal soul separable from the body.  One thing is evident in the catholic view of soul: soul is not something that can have an existence independent of human body.  Soul and human body are not two natures united but form a single nature.  


Thus, the word soul is not to be used as a translation of the Sanskrit word Atman.

Following extract is from the official catechism of the catholic church.  

BODY AND SOUL BUT TRULY ONE

362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."  Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

363 In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person. But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man.

364 The human body shares in the dignity of "the image of God": it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body:i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.

367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people "wholly", with "spirit and soul and body" kept sound and blameless at the Lord's coming. The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul. "Spirit" signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.

368 The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of one's being, where the person decides for or against God.

Christianity and the Problem of Evil

Problem of evil is a troubling area for Christian theology.  While some Christians choose to let faith get around the problems of evil, others simply cannot get past them.  Theodicy is a Christian theological construct developed to vindicate Christian God, developed as the defense of Christian God's goodness and omnipotence in the presence of evil.  

Let us look into the problem of evil and why Christian answers are inadequate.

Christian God is characterized in Christian theology as Omnipotent (all-powerful), Omniscient (all-knowing), and Perfectly Good (morally perfect).

The argument of the problem of evil facing Christianity is as follows: 

1. Christian God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. If Christian God is omnipotent, then Christian God has the power to eliminate all evil
3. If Christian God is omniscient, then Christian God knows when evil exists.
4. If Christian God is morally perfect, then Christian God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
5. Evil exists.
6. If evil exists and Christian God exists, then either Christian God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil or doesn't know that evil exists or doesn't want to remove evil.
7. Therefore, Christian God does not exist.

Perhaps the thorniest issue in Christian apologetics is the problem of evil.  Thomas Aquinas, and Augustine before him, in his early thought, held that evil is not an entity but a deprivation or absence of good. But to this the opponent of Christianity may reply, “Well, granted all the suffering involved in those deprivations, an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God wouldn’t have allowed the deprivation any more than He’d have allowed a positive existent that was evil.” 

If there is no Christian God then humans are to blame for what is "evil and nasty," and not god; it is humans that are evil and nasty because they CHOOSE to be evil and nasty--not because they were born that way. Having a god therefore, allows them to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. However, this is exactly what needs to be avoided--humans NEED to take responsibility for what they do. If humans were taught to take responsibility for their own actions, they would have more of a tendency to do right.  There would no longer be the problem of evil.

Free will argument:  

A favorite Christian apologetic response is the free will.  C.S. Lewis argued that, if God intervened and corrected every evil, then human action is no longer determined by free will.  Taken to a logical extreme, even evil thoughts should be impossible.  Free will is no longer free because even cerebral matter refuses to cooperate the process of free will.

Failure of free will argument:  

The most common solution we hear for the problem of evil is a simple reference to man's free will.  We hear such statements as, “Evil came into the world by man's free will.  Man is the author of sin, not Christian God.”

Christians use that argument because that statement squares with the biblical account of the origin of sin.  Christian God created man with free will and that man freely chose to sin.  It was not the Christian God who committed sin but the man.  But where did man ever gain the slightest inclination to sin?  

Christians have no disagreement that man is basically of a sinful nature.  Nothwithstanding their sinful nature, they are all qualified to achieve salvation by the grace of Jesus.

Romans 3:23-24

 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

If man was created with a desire for and ability to sin, then a shadow is cast on the integrity of the Christian God, the creator.  If he was created with no desire for sin, then we must ask where that desire came from. The Bible tells us that we sin because we are sinners.  We were born with sinful nature.  We are fallen creatures.  

Perhaps the single biggest weakness of the "we are helpless sinners" argument is that it completely denounces all accountability to harm caused to others, it shows no concern for the victim.  If a rapist exercises his free will, does the free will of the victim to not be raped matter, even be more paramount?  

The argument of free will conflates the desire arising from free will with the action that follows.  In opposing the free will argument, we are not becoming proponents of thought police.  Where is tye rational thought that calls for restraint and ethical behavior?

There are five reasons why the defense of free will is inadequate:

1. Adam and Eve were not created fallen.  They did not have sinful nature.  They were good creatures with a free will.  Yet they chose to sin.  Why did Christian God make Adam and Eve, who were not born with a sinful nature, to have the ability for sinful thoughts and actions? As creatures with free will, it does not follow that humans should be able to sin.  Humans have limited abilities, and as the creator, Christian God had decided what he will not be able to do.  Thus, as the designer, Christian God already had made some choices on what humans would not be capable of doing.  Christian God had a choice in choosing what humans are capable of and not capable of.  Christian God has designed man with limited capabilities - so that he is incapable of doing some things.  This apparently did not restrict the human free will.  Why could not the Christian God design man to be incapable of sinning without restricting his free will?
2. If God created humans with a neutral nature, such that his nature did not guarantee a tendency towards evil, at least some humans would be sin-free.  What kind of free will is it that humans cannot choose to be sin-free but only to choose to be sinful?  It does not necessarily follow that free will should always lead to sin.  The only reason humans have sinful nature then is that God made them so.  Bible states that no human being can avoid committing sin.
3. Not all suffering comes from one's own free will choices.  Natives suffered brutally in the hands of colonialists.  Who is the perpetrator of evil?  Who suffered?  Perpetrators of evil prevailed and flourished.  Where is God's justice if his final judgment ignores and forgives the colonialists of all their free willed sinful actions just because they have faith in him at the time of their death?  
4. In the many biblical stories of God's intervention in human matters, God always took one side and punished those on the other side.  In the powerful movie God on Trial (2008), the end argument is indeed thought provoking: Yahweh in the Old Testament cannot be seen as good based on the morality instilled in our hearts.  All that one can say is that he was on the side of Jews.  How else can one see the Biblical God who calls for the death of EVERY first born child in Egypt (Exodus 11:5)?  It was not human free will that caused the indiscriminate suffering and death of all the first born in Egypt.  It was Christian God's free will.  And it was NOT good.
5. A final argument would be that Christian God did not make humans sinful.  Humans became sinful because Adam and Eve, their ancestors, did a sinful act.  Humans simply inherited the sinful nature from their ancestors.  Can Christian God be held guilty of acts of evil committed by man? The affirmative answer follows from omnipotent Christian God's choice of focusing on the transmission mechanism of the effects of the sinful choice of Adam and Eve.  Does that make any reasonable sense that humans are sinners even before they are born simply because their ancestors did something sinful?  Does this decision of Christian God to make all humans inherit the sin not impinge on the human free will?  

Ayn Rand says it best in her book For the New Intellectual. (1961, pages 136-137):

"A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet that is the root of your code. Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a 'tendency' to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free." 

Argument of Christian God's Inscrutable Nature:    

In order to challenge the argument for the problem of evil (stated above), the only recourse is to dispute one of the 6 premises.  One could argue that premise 4 is false, namely that a morally perfect Christian God has the desire to eliminate all evil.  Bible tells us that it is simply not so.  For example, Genesis 50:20, Acts 2:22-23.

The Christian defense says, in essence, that Christian God's actions, no matter what they are, cannot be questioned.  Why?  Because, Christian God’s actions are inscrutable to humans.  The Christian defense is that Christian God plans lawlessness, to use the language we find in Acts, he plans evil in order to accomplish his good-and-perfect-ends and that he does so in a way that leaves him without any guilt or blame.  The Christian God's choicy means for his actions can be justified simply by pointing to Christian God's inscrutable nature - we humans cannot figure out all things that Christian God does and hence we cannot judge him.

The argument in the defense of Christian God's "inscrutable nature" goes as follows: 

It is not simply evil but pointless and irredeemable evil, which would be incompatible with the character of God as Christians conceive him.  Hence the critic who claims to demonstrate an inconsistency in theism has to show that there would be no way of justifying the evil in the world.  It is important to notice that in this dispute the onus of proof is upon the critic of theism; for he has undertaken the stringent task of demonstrating an inconsistency in the theist's case.  It is, therefore, not enough for him to cast some doubt on the ways in which theists have sought to deal with this problem; he has to show that it is logically impossible that Christian God should have a morally-sufficient reason to allow evil of the sort we encounter in the world.

Failure of the argument of Christian God's inscrutable nature:

Sure.  We can take this challenge.  But to decide whether an act of Christian God is irredeemably evil or not, we have to use neutral ethical reasoning.  If all that a Christian has to know about God's actions is the Bible, then we have to look for justification within the scope of Bible.  If the justification is not explicitly found within the scope of the Bible, then the best explanation has to follow reasoning.

Firstly, the one adducing the theology should explain rationally based on theological foundations.  Trying to say that God's actions cannot be explained is simply saying that one does not have an answer.  In that case, there is no further argument.

Secondly, evils in the Bible have to be evaluated per ethical standards that we use in all matters.  Using Yahweh's own morals in the Bible to justify evil actions of Yahweh is far from satisfactory - it is committing the fallacy of authority.  For a rational person raising the argument, assumption that the bible is divine and hence cannot be questioned is not only unnecessary but is the very assumption that is being challenged. 

Third, saying that "we limited humans do not know" is not a defense for Yahweh's evil actions in the Bible.  It is a failure to defend.

The last straw...

Christian apologists resort to the moral argument for existence of Christian God by arguing that evil and good exist only if Christian God does.  Otherwise, they become arbitrary.

Ravi Zacharias and William Lane Craig argue for the existence of God as a necessity for morality (evil vs. good dichotomy) to exist.  Without God, the moral law giver, there cannot be objective or absolute morals they argue.  Since they also define God as perfection of goodness, therefore, there is no question of attributing any evil to him.  By definition, evil stays outside God.  Of course, they are silent whether this abstract notion of God that they argue for can ever be the Biblical God.  Can that abstract omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect God be the same Biblical God who took sides, called for the killing of ALL innocent first-born, and women in a genocidal rage against Canaanites?

Don't hold your breath for clarity.  They will never distinguish between the abstract notion of God with no-attributes and Yahweh, the Biblical God.  It serves their argument, but therein lays the real and complete failure of all their arguments.