In the Nyaya-sulra of Gautama we find short but explicit references to God. Though in the Vaisesika-sutra there is no explicit mention of God by name, yet the commentators interpret some of the sutras as referring to God.

But the later Nyaya-Vaisesika school gives us an elaborate theory of God and connects it with the doctrine of liberation.

According to these thinkers, the individual self can attain true knowledge of realities and, through it, the state of liberation only by the grace of God.

Without God’s grace neither the true knowledge of the categories of philosophy nor the highest end of liberation is attainable by any individual being 0f the world. So the questions that arise are: What is God? How to we know that God exists?

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The Idea of God

God is the ultimate cause of the creadon, maintenance and destruction of the world. He does not create the world out of nothing, but out of eternal atoms, space, time, ether, minds (manas) and souls.

The creation of the world means the ordering of the eternal entities, which are co-existent with God into a nioral world, in which individual selves enjoy and suffer according to the merit and demerit of their actions, and all physical objects serve as means to the moral and spiritual ends of our life.

God is thus the creator of the world in the sense of being the first efficient cause of the world and not its material cause, i.e. a sort of demiurge or a builder of the ordered universe.

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He is also the preserver of the world insofar as the world is kept in existence by the will of God. So also He is the destroyer who lets loose the forces of destruction when the exigencies of the moral world require it.

Then, God is one, infinite and eternal, since the world of space and time, minds and souls does not limit Him, but is related to Him as a body to the self which resides in it. He is omnipotent, although.

He is guided in His activities by moral considerations of the merit and demerit of human actions. He is omniscient insofar as He possesses the right knowledge of all tilings and events.

He has eternal consciousness as a power of direct and steadfast cognition of all objects. Eternal consciousness is onlv an inseparable attribute of God, not His very essence, as maintained in the Advaita Vedanta.

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He possesses to the full all the six perfections (sadaisvaryya) and is majestic, almighty, all- glorious, infinitely beautiful, and possessed of infinite knowledge and perfect freedom from attachment.

Just as God is the efficient cause of the world, so He is the directive cause of the actions of all living beings. No creature, not even man, is absolutely free in his actions.

He is relatively free, i.e. his actions are done by him under the direction and guidance of the Divine Being.

Just as a wise and benevolent father directs his son to do certain things, according to his gifts, capacities and previous attainments, so god directs all living beings to do such actions and feel such natural consequences thereof as are consistent with their past conduct and character.

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While man is the efficient instrumental cause of his actions, God is their efficient directive cause (prayojaka karta).

Thus God is the moral governor of the world of living beings including ourselves, the impartial dispenser of the fruits of our actions (karmaphaladata) and the supreme arbiter of our joys and sorrows.