culaavuso wrote:SarathW wrote:
Say some one ask the question "Who create God" when some one answer "God create the world"
Can the answer be "You have gone too far .......... etc"
All of the previous questions in the series of MN 44 have a definite observable phenomenon as their answer. When asking "Who first created the world?" the answer seems to be given in SN 15.3:
SN 15.3: Assu Sutta wrote:
From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on.
Thus answering "God created the world" is construing what is inconstruable, or to use the words of the Culavedalla Sutta the question has "gone too far".
I think the question has "gone too far" in that it is being asked.
To say "answering "God created the world" is construing what is inconstruable" is based on the conviction that one _knows_ the exact mental state and qualification of the person who says "God created the world."
It is typically theists who say "God created the world." Can we really say we know their exact mental state and qualification for making that claim? I don't think we do. Perhaps they are in fact telling the truth, but it is us who are unable to see it.
I think "Who created the world?" is going too far because it is a basic existential question. It is in the nature of basic existential questions that we cannot meaningfully ask them of anyone, because they are such basic existential questions.
"What is the meaning of my life?", "Who am I?" are further examples of basic existential questions.
Consider what happens when one asks someone a question like "Who created the world?", "What is the meaning of my life?", or "Who am I?".
Of course, many people are all too willing to reply to such questions. And typically, the asker is not satisified with the answer (at least not satisfied for long). There can be a feeling of being violated, abused by the reply, the reply seems to be forced upon oneself somehow.
I think this is because those questions are such that there would need to exist a relationship of total trust in order for the asker to accept the reply; the asker would need to totally trust the person whom they are asking those questions. But since that trust typically doesn't exist between the asker and the replier, there is a sense of being violated by the reply.
Basic existential questions necessarily address issues pertaining to the person asking the question and to their relationship to the person of whom they are asking the question. And as long as those issues are not cleared up, asking basic existential questions necessarily goes too far.
I've never yet seen this explanation before, it is the only one that makes sense to me. I think it also fits in with Buddhism. I find that the way the Buddha answers questions in the Pali Canon is such that it requires no or minimum trust. So that a person asking a question, even though they are asking a basic existential question, typically doesn't leave the Buddha empty-handed, violated or confused, instead, they leave with something they can actually work with. (Whereas the usual experience of asking basic existential questions is that one leaves the replier empty-handed, violated or confused, at a loss what to do next.)