Karma, causation, and divine intervention

·期刊原文

Karma, causation, and divine intervention

By Bruce R. Reichenbach

Philosophy East and West

Volume 39, no.2 April 1989 P.135-149

(C) by University of Hawaii Press.

P.135

According to the law of karma, our actions have
consequences not only for our dispositions and
tendencies (sa.mskaaras) , but also for the
nondispositional aspects of our body (for example,
our physical characteristics) and our environment.
The environment is affected in such a way that in
some future life it will be instrumental in
rewarding or punishing us according to the merit or
demerit resulting from our acts. For example, a
person might be mauled by a grizzly bear either in
retribution for a particular violent act he
committed or because of his pool of accumulated
karmic residues.

One can understand how desiring to act and then
acting in accord with those desires would create
dispositions in the person who wills and acts; and
where a continuous, substantial self is presupposed,
it is reasonable to hold that these dispositions
would be preserved and bear fruit in that self at
some later time. But that our acts also have cosmic
or environmental effects of a specific character in
subsequent existences is more problematic. How, it
might be wondered, can the acts we performed in some
past life affect the present material and physical
conditions of our environment or other agents? With
the exception of certain theistic systems, about
which we shall speak later, karma is held to operate
in a naturalistic fashion. That is, prior events
effect subsequent events without the intervention of
any supernatural agent. But if karma operates
naturally, is it reasonable to believe that there is
any causal link between the original cause (our
doing either one or many acts) and the (pleasurable
or painful, advantageous or disadvantageous) effects
we experience in a subsequent life? What causal
chain can be established between a person's doing
good actions in a previous life and the fact that
the person has the pleasure of owning a Cadillac,
has recovered from an attack of influenza, or has
had a tree that was blown down by a windstorm miss
his house?

The problem is exacerbated by the contention
that the law of karma is not empirically verifiable.
Yet its constitutive process of cause (one's action)
and effect (the pain or pleasure received) cannot be
understood in any way other than empirical.

Strange as it may seem, the precise connection
between our actions and the events which bring us
happiness and unhappiness in subsequent existences
is rarely dealt with in the literature of the
traditions which invoke the law of karma, Jainism
being the exception. What is focused on is the
effect (in terms of pain and pleasure) which the
original action has on us. not the process. Yet this
is not so strange, considering that the primary
concern of karmically oriented philosophies is with
how we can bring about our own salvation through
renunciation, nonattachment, and the overcoming of
ignorance. The literature attends to primary,
salvific relationships. Secondary relationships,
such as the relation between the original action and
the environmental effects,

P.136

fade into the background, to be attended to only
when they illustrate the basic point that our
actions will affect us in the future. Yet a
description of the way actions cause environmental
effects in subsequent lives is necessary if the law
of karma is to provide a plausible explanation of
our pleasant and painful experiences, that is, if it
is to resolve the problem of evil. Indeed, the
plausibility of the law of karma itself depends to a
great extent upon the plausibility of the
accompanying accounts of this causal relation.

Two different directions have been taken to
answer the question of how the original act and
subsequent environmental effects are related. The
commonly held view takes the relation to be natural;
less frequent is the appeal to the supernatural. If
they are related naturally, then either (1) there is
a causal chain (either direct or mediated through a
pool of karmic residues) outside of the agent, from
the environmental effects immediately brought about
by the original act to the environment which
produces his future painful or pleasant experiences,
or else (2) the connection is made through the
effects made on the agent himself, which in turn
produce relevant changes in the environment in
subsequent lives. To put it another way, understood
naturalistically, there is a causal chain between
the karmic acts and the things which produce
pleasure and pain which either (1) lies outside the
individual person, in the environment, or (2)
extends through and is mediated by the person
affected. We will first examine the adequacy of
these two naturalistic accounts. Should they prove
inadequate, we will turn to evaluate the appeal to a
supernatural causal connection.

KARMIC RESIDUES IN THE ENVTRONMENT

The first option (1) contains two possibilities. (a)
Let us suppose that there exists outside of us a
chain of causal conditions which directly links the
karmic action(s) that we performed in one life with
the environment that we experience painfully or
pleasurably in the same or another life. When we
perform a karmic action, that action has immediate
effects (phalas) in the world, and these in turn
(along with other conditions) have their effects,
and so on. Eventually, the morally relevant
environmental state is produced which affects us as
the agent of the original deed. This is not to deny
that there are other causal conditions relevant to
bringing about the particular situation experienced.
It is rather to assert positively that the
moral-consequence-bearing aspect could be traced
causally to our prior action(s).

This scenario, though logically possible, is
implausible. Were the temporal gap between cause and
effect restricted to a slice of our present
existence, one might reasonably claim that such a
connection could be made, though it would become
less likely as the time between the original act and
the later effect increased. But when the time
between the karmic action and the morally relevant
consequence is spread over several, if not hundreds
of, incarnation, that a direct causal connection
could be present in nonconscious,

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matenal, or physical conditions, and that this
causal connection would operate not only on the
appropriate moral agent but also to a degree
determined by impersonal cosmic justice, is beyond
reasonable belief. Yet all three conditions--direct
causal relation, action on the agent of the original
karmic action(s), and appropriate compensation--are
necessary for the implementation of the law of
karma. It would appear that a different explanation
of the causal relation is necessary for the doctrine
of karma to be plausible.

(b) The second possibility under the first
option is that the original karmic act contributes
to a pool of karmic residues. These residues,
consisting of invisible moral forces, potencies, or
qualities, exist in things outside of us which, by
virtue of these moral forces, have the ability to
cause events in the world.

But this option not only faces the same
difficulties which option (a) faced, it encounters
the difficulty of explaining how these accumulated
forces are created in the first place, in what
manner they continue to exist in the universe, and
how they effect, in whole or in part, events at some
later date. That is, not only is the causal process
nonverifiable, but the invisible karmic potencies
which are responsible for causing the event (at
least in part) are indescribable and nonverifiable.

KARMIC RESIDUES IN THE AGENT

According to the second naturalistic explanation
(2), karma operates causally through the agent of
the original action. The performance of the original
action causes effects of a certain kind in the
agent, and these effects in turn bring about changes
in the agent's environment at the appropriate time.
The nature and character of these effects is
explained differently within the various traditions.
In this and the following section I want to piece
together in detail how different traditions explain
these effects. Following that, I will explore how
these effects allegedly condition our environment in
karmically relevant ways.

According to the Miimaa^msaakas, a karmic act
produces effects in the form of potencies (apuurva)
.(1) Since these potencies are characterized as
dharma and adharma (merit and demerit), the very
moral quality of the action is preserved in the form
of a potency within the doer of the act. They can be
accumulated in units of higher and lower order and
exist unseen (ud.r.s.ta) within the aatman until the
proper time for fruition, when they causally
condition the environment to produce the proper
experience for the agent.

A similar view was advocated by the
Vai`se.sikas. According to them, among the effects
that karmic action creates are special qualities
called ad.r.s.tas. Ad.r.s.ta refers to invisible
qualities of merit and demerit which are capable of
producing effects. In the nonmoral sphere,
ad.r.s.ta was invoked to account for events which
could not be explained by physical processes already
known. For example, it was invoked to explain the
ability Of magnets to move things,

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the circulation of sap in trees and plants, the fact
that fire rises rather than descends as other things
do, and the movement of atoms, including the mind
(manas).(2) In the moral sphere, it referred to the
qualities of merit and demerit, which are produced
by actions. These special, invisible qualities,
which are attached to the self or aatman, function
as causal conditions, such that, like any other
causal condition, their presence or absence helps to
determine whether an effect will occur or occur in
a particular way. Specifically, they condition our
desires and aversions, which in turn drive us to
further karmic actions.(3)

The Jainas, on the other hand, treat the causal
sequence more materialistically. They hold that
there are two kinds of karmas. Spiritual karma
consists of our passions, privations, and the
perversions of our self's capacities. This karma
constitutes the bondage of the self. Material karma
is a substantive, material force; it is matter in a
subtle form which is omnipresent in the world. This
is the karma which causes and in turn is caused or
attracted by our bondage.

Our actions arise from our passions. These
actions and passions, in turn, attract material
karma. It is attracted as if by a magnet and affixed
to the jiiva, infecting, it with
liberation-retarding matter. The passions which
cause bondage (for example, anger, pride, deceit,
and greed) are called sticky substances (ka`saayas)
because they act like glue in making matter
particles stick to the self. According to the
varying strengths of the passions, atoms with
different units of intensity are attracted. The
stronger the intensity, the greater the bondage and
the farther one is from liberation.

The material karma acts directly on and changes
the immaterial jiiva, causing passions and
obstructing its knowledge, thus deluding it. These
changes are variously described as a coloration
(white, black, or a mixture of white and black) or
an actual weighing down of the jiiva. However,
subtle karmic matter is believed not merely to
affect the jiiva. but to penetrate it, accumulate,
and build up a special body called
kaarma.na-`sariira, which transmigrates with the
self and does not leave it until its final
emancipation.(4) The self in bondage, it is held,
actually possesses a material form. There is, then,
a cycle: passions attract material karma, which is
transformed by the self into a subtle, karmic body,
which in turn causes passions, and so on.

The soul's activities and passions are held to
attract karmic matter just as a magnet attracts
filings or a lamp draws oil into its wick. But what
is there about activities and passions which gives
them such a power, and what, specifically, is this
power? (It should be noted that the power is not
merely one of attraction, but of attraction of
matter appropriately and justly proportionate to the
moral quality of the activity or passion.) Further,
how does karmic matter in the subtle body cause the
passions and delude the self? Karmic matter, it is
said, infects or circumscribes the self; forms a
crust on or covers the self; mixes with the self as
milk mixes with water or fire with iron;

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obscures, obstructs, and distorts the self's
knowledge, intuition, bliss, freedom, and energy,
and pollutes and destroys the purity of the soul.(5)
Peering behind the analogies, we see it is clear
that some of the specific activities of karmic
matter can be understood causally: for example, how
the karmic body might make awakening from sleep
difficult, cause pleasant and unpleasant feelings in
us, or be a factor in producing our body. But how it
deludes knowldege or causes anger, pride, deceit, or
greed, or "obstructs the inclination for making
gifts and charities" is more difficult to see.
Perhaps one could understand how matter could cause
greed, for when we see others' material goods, we
covet them for ourselves. But this kind of
commonsense explanation will not suffice here, for
karmic matter is invisible and works more in the
sense of an efficient cause. Perhaps the cearest way
to understand this is to see the karmic body as
limiting the moral energies of the self. Without the
unlimited energies it would have in its pure state,
the self cannot adequately control its passions and
activities. Consequently, it is more easily aroused,
enticed, and deceived by what it encounters in its
environment. It angers more easily, is greedier,
displays less concern for the truth, and acts out of
pride.

Whatever the true causal account, for our
purposes it is important to note that, for the
Jainas, karmic residues are passed on and preserved
in the agent as both spiritual and material karma.
As spiritual, they are the passions and privations,
actual and potential, which exist in the person.
Since "the soul, at any instant of its worldly
existence, is the integrated whole of the
dispositions, actual and potential,"(6) karma is
stored in the dispositions to manifest these
passions. Even as dispositions they continue to be
affected by the material karma which they attract.
As material, karmic residues are attracted to and
preserved in the person until removed or eliminated.
Indeed, they constitute a special, subtle body which
accompanies the self and continues to affect it by
limiting its moral energy, until its liberation.

KARMA AND CAUSATION IN BUDDHISM

The Buddhist analysis depends upon its own unique
theory of the nature of reality and causation.
Reality is analyzed, not in terms of static
substances, but in terms of events (dharmas). Events
do not exist without a cause and are in turn causes
of other events. That is, events are functionally
dependent upon other events. Causation is also the
relationship which provides the continuity between
events.

How does this apply to the problem at hand
regarding how karma is passed on? Two of the
elements (skandhas) which go to make up what is
termed the person are dispositions and consciousness
(as awareness, acts of the mind, or thoughts).
Dispositions are important in explaining an
individual's behavior, particularly because they
eventually give rise to desires. And since they
condition consciousness, they in part account for a
person's psychophysical

P.140

personality. Our current dispositions and
consciousness are caused by prior dispositions and
consciousness, and these in turn cause subsequent
dispositions and consciousness. Since we act out of
our dispositions and consciousness, they become the
vehicle through which karma is causally transmitted.

But how are karmic residues causally
transmitted, particularly if there are no persistent
substances, only events? The Buddha asserted that
all events are causally conditioned, but at the same
time refused to become embroiled in the metaphysical
controversies which surrounded contemporary
discussions of causation.(7) His was, as David
Kalupahana often reminds us, an empirical theory of
causation, and the law of karma extends beyond
empirical verification. Thus, in effect, how karmic
residues in one event affect subsequent events is
one of the great mysteries. However, usually the
matter is not left here, for simply to describe this
fundamental relation as inexplicable raises the
question of the intelligibility of the karmic
thesis.

The various Buddhist schools developed theories
to explain the transmission. Being willing to offer
analyses of the process created particular problems
for scholastic or AAbhidharma Buddhists, for whom
events are momentary and, since production takes
time, lack transitive force.(8) The cause and effect
are not contemporaneous with each other, but are
momentary events connected sequentially. Thus, how
can an event which has ended and disappeared bring
about an effect? And how can an event whose only
nonarising, decaying, or ceasing moment is static
have causal efficacy? Further, since nothing but
momentary or transitory events exist, there are no
permanent, subsistent entities and hence no selves
to convey dispositions, consciousness, or karmic
residues.(9) Yet they contend that karmic acts and
accumulated karma are the causal conditions which in
part determine or condition all subsequent human
experience. How is this to be explained?

The Vaibhaa.sikas, a school of the Sarvaastivaadins,
attempted to provide an explanation by postulating
the existence of an unseen product of a volition
(avij~napti). Every physical, verbal or mental act
must have a result. Often the results are visible,
but frequently they are not. This is particularly
the case with respect to the production of moral
qualities and dispositions in the agent. Hence, they
postulated an invisible result to explain cases
where no result was observed. Some held that this
result was neither mental nor physical; others held
that it was physical when it resulted from physical
or verbal acts, and mental when it resulted from
mental acts; still others (the Yogaacaarins)
affirmed that it was material, dependent on the four
fundamental elements (earth, water, fire, and air).
In any case, it resided in the agent where it
functioned as an invisible cause of future events.
It was able to cause events at a later time because
events are eternal in their ideal being. Both the
past and the future exist; only their mode of
existence varies. What makes events in the past,
present, and future differ is not their existence,
but their temporal mode. Accordingly, the
avij~napti, existing through these various modes,
can

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cause effects at times later than its creation. Thus
they postulated an existent which, although its mode
changes, its substance does not.

Others, for example the Sautraantikas, rejected
the thesis that all events (past, present. and
future) exist. Past acts do not exist and cannot
directly cause future events. They also rejected the
postulation of an unseen entity enduring through
various temporal modes. Rather, karmic acts are
causally efficacious because they "perfume" the
bundles of skandhas, creating in them invisible
potencies or traces (vaasanaas), which later will
bear karmic fruit. These potencies exist in and
through the five skandhas, as seeds waiting to
produce their fruit. The seed, then, is an analogy,
a fruitful fiction, to help explain the transmission
of karmic residues.

But how is the analogy of the seed to enlighten
us as to the nature of the transfer of karma or
karmic efficacy? The answer is not always clear.
Indeed, it often appears that, as with the concept
of avij~napti, a kind of substantialist thinking is
being, used to provide an explanation for that which
is allegedly nonsubstantial, for the seed is at
least commonly perceived as a substance, enduring
until it ripens. Indeed, the Sautraantikas
approached the substantialist thinking they rejected
in others when they introduced a kind of substratum
which supported these ongoing potencies. Yet surely
the concept of a seed understood as a substance
existing over time cannot be used by the
nonsubstantialist Buddhist thinker to explain karmic
causation.

To avoid substantialist language and yet retain
the significance of the seed analogy is difficult.
The seed represents our potencies, dispositions. and
consciousness, which are causally conditioned by
previous events. It, as functionally dependent upon
and occasioned by prior, skandhic conditions, lies
in and works through the complex of skandhas, to
mature and bear fruit in the proper circumstances.

This, of course, does not explain how
dispositions and the other skandhas are conditioned
to exist, for an analysis of causation in terms of
functional dependence is circular. Causation is
defined as a functional relationship of dependence
between events. But what kind of dependence is this?
Clearly, it must be a causal one. But then, contrary
to what might appear, we have not been provided with
an analysis of causation. Rather, causation is a
primitive concept in terms of which other analyses
are understood. In effect. on the Buddhist account,
since causation is a primitive or basic relational
concept, no further explanation of the causal
conditioning of human dispositions and tendencies is
possible.

This can be seen in another way. To be real is
to be a cause. But when it is noted by the
AAbhidharmists that what is real is momentary and
consequently inactive (since being momentary it
lacks the time necessary to do anything), the
response is that its causal activity or efficiency
is its very existence. Causation is identical with
reality. Causation, then, must be a primitive or
basic relational concept, not further analyzable
into anything more fundamental.

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There is, of course, no problem in treating
causation as primitive. What creates the difficulty
is coupling this causal perspective with a
metaphysic which denies the existence of persisting
substances. Though Buddhists are clear that karmic
residues continue to exist in individuals as
dispositions and consciousness, how this can occur
given an event metaphysic is left unexplained,
except that these are conditioned by prior
dispositions and consciousness, The problem is that
it is difficult to understand how events (and this
is compounded if they are momentary) can condition
other events in any way which involves their
production.

To summarize these last two sections, we have
seen that there is a variety of interpretations
concerning the manner in which karmic residues are
transmitted from the original act to subsequent
experiences of the agent. What all these views have
in common is that causation is a feature of
(phenomenal) reality, that karmic residues are
transmitted through the agent, that the medium of
transmission is invisible, and that justice in the
form of retribution and reward is preserved in the
very passage of karmic residues from the original
act to subsequent states of affairs. Where they
differ concerns the nature of the karmic quality.
For all except Jainism (for whom the moral quality
is also embodied in the physical), the causation
under consideration is the passing on of a moral,
psychic, or dispositional quality rather than a
physical quality. It is either an invisible moral
potency or quality of merit and demerit, a
disposition or tendency which either exists in a
persistent self or is causally conditioned by prior
elements of the person, a subtle material quality,
or a combination of these.

THE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL GOOD AND EVIL

Were we to understand the workings of karma strictly
subjectively, we could stop here. Our acts create
dispositions or accumulations of merit and demerit
that cause us to act in ways which bring us pleasure
and pain, to interpret our experiences in terms of
pleasure and pain, or to be vulnerable to certain
things in the environment (such as diseases) which
affect our body or mind and thus bring pleasure and
pain. These accumulations or dispositions affect our
experiences and their interpretations until we
eliminate them, as the metaphor goes, burning out
both the seed (using up the accumulated karma) and
its roots (destroying the dispositions and not
creating new ones). This is accomplished when we
achieve a proper understanding of the self, act no
longer out of desire for any fruits, have equanimity
toward all events, or cease mental modifications.

That this is a reasonable explanation of karma
interpreted subjectively does not mean that it is
without difficulty, however. The major difficulty is
to be found in assuring that the produced
dispositions, whether behavioral or bodily, and the
resultant pain and pleasure are justly appropriate
to the karmic

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act. We have no scale which correlates the amount of
pleasure and pain to be received with the moral
quality of the act performed. And even were we
provided with one, it would be difficult if not
impossible to carry out the relevant calculations.
Pleasure and pain are notoriously difficult to
quantify accurately.

But subjectively transmitted karma, the appeal
to dispositions or special moral qualities, is only
the first step in explaining how the law of karma
operates naturalistically. Karma also affects
ourselves as embodied and the environment which
mediates or is an instrument of karmic justice.
Karmic residues, whether found as unique moral
qualities (ad.r.s.ta), as invisible material bodies
(kaarma.na-`sariira), as dispositions (sa.mskaaras),
or as karmic seeds (karmabiija), condition events in
the environment which bring pain and pleasure to the
agent. That is, they are in part responsible for
certain events occurring as they do or things being
as they are. What, then, is the relationship between
this moral, materiall or dispositional quality which
exists in the person and the material environment?
The response is that this subtle karmic influence,
at the appropriate time, disposes us to act or
itself acts on the environment to produce the
appropriate state which causally contributes to
punishing or rewarding us for our prior action(s).

For example, "The creative power of ethically
relevant actions is as axiomatic to the Buddhists,
as it is strange to us. The environment in which
beings have to live is to a great extent, especially
in regard to its pleasantness or unpleasantness,
determined by their deeds (karma). The various
hells, for instance, are produced by the deeds of
the creatures who are reborn there. We have
waterless deserts in our world because of our small
merit. The world of things is really nothing more
than a kind of reflex of peoples' deeds."(10) There
is, it is held, a symbiotic relationship between
human actions and the environment. And this is to be
seen in terms of a causal chain. Our actions produce
moral qualities or condition tendencies or
dispositions to act. These bear fruit later in
actions. These actions, in turn, create or causally
condition events in our environment. These events in
turn affect us, bringing us pleasure or pain
according to our karmic merit or demerit. Thus, our
food and bad experiences and the ensuing pain and
pleasure have been brought upon us by our own deeds.

But how do human actions condition the
environment? We noted above that some Buddhists
attempted to provide an explanation by postulating
the existence of an unseen product of a volition
(avij~napti), which resides in agents, where it
functions as an invisible cause which emanates from
persons to affect their environment. But the
postulation of this unseen result helps us no better
to explain how we can be a causal condition of our
environment than the postulation of phlogiston helps
us to understand how things burn. Clearly the
avij~napti is a theoretical construct rather than
something for which there is empirical evidence.
Indeed, this was precisely the Yogaacaarins' con-

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tention against the Sarvaastivaadins; the former
held that, due to its nonempirical character, it was
only the product of creative imagination.

Now it is true to say that my actions can affect
my environment, and that my environment, in turn,
has a bearing on my happiness. For example, in a fit
of rage I might destroy a work of art, an act which,
when I return to my senses, I greatly regret; or
again, by our greedy timbering of the Amazon we are
rapidly creating an inhospitable desert. But
although we might affirm this connection for some of
our experiences, it is difficult to see how our
actions can have the cosmic implications necessary
to account for all natural evils. How can our
sa.mskaaras or ad.r.s.ta have the causal efficacy to
occasion natural evils such as earthquakes,
tornadoes, bubonic plaguest genetic deficiencies,
and the like?(11)

Vai`se.sikas attempt to make this claim
plausible by suggesting that the self or aatman is
omnipresent and eternal. As omnipresent, its
activity is not restricted by the particular body to
which it is connected. It can act on all things. As
eternal, its action can cover spans of time and
incarnations, Since ad.r.s.ta is a quality of the
self, by means of this quality the self can causally
affect all of nature, and thus bring about
earthquakes, fires, diseases, and the like. "An
illustration of this is given in Uddyotakara's
Nyaayavaarttika [4.1.47]: if somebody waters a tree,
the success of his action, that is, the process of
fertilization and growth, may be influenced by the
karma of the person who at a later time will eat the
fruits of the tree; it becomes the function of the
tree, directed by the karmic potential of a soul
which may or may not be that of the person who
watered the tree, to provide an opportunity of
retributive experience, of enjoyment."(12) As such,
the dispositions or moral qualities of the person
directly affect things in the environment and
function as a causal condition of their acting, both
in general and on the agent. The gap between self
and environment is overcome.

The viability of this solution depends on the
adequacy of Vai`se.sika's description of the self as
pure substance, omnipresent and eternal. As pure
substance, it underlies cognitive qualities, but
possesses no essential psychological or physical
properties. Thus, which qualities the individual
self has at any given time, including consciousness,
is a contingent matter. But if it has no essential
qualities except omnipresence and eternality, how
can there be a pluralit of such substances? Are we
not reduced to a monism it rejects in Advaita
Vedaanta?

Beyond the particular problems elucidated, the
underlying and fundamental question concerns the
claim that moral calculations can be preserved
naturally. If one appeals to distinctive moral
qualities, are there such things in the universe?
How do karmic actions create them? And how do they
affect the environment so as to produce precisely
the appropriate experiences for the agent? If one
appeals to dispositions and tendencies, to potencies
and seeds, or to subtle material bodies, how are
merits and demerits not only

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preserved in them, but transferred to the
environment and returned in appropriate and just
proportions of happiness or unhappiness? For
example, how can the postulation of the avij~napti
assure that the external situation it conditions
will cause the appropriate and just experience for
the agent? In short, the naturalistic explanation of
the implementation of precise moral calculations
through the intermediating agency of the environment
is inadequate.

THEISTIC EXPLANATIONS

Because of the difficulty of accounting for the
action of the law of karma naturally, some have
argued that a god of some sort is a necessary
component of any system which advocates the law of
karma. There must be some sort of theistic
administrator or supervisor for karma, For example,
`Sa.nkara argues that the original karmic actions
themselves cannot bring about the proper results at
some future time; neither can supersensuous,
nonintelligent qualities like apuurva or ad.r.s.ta
by themselves mediate the appropriate, justly
deserved pleasure and pain. The fruits, then, must
be administered through the action of a conscious
agent, namely, God (II`svara).(13) In a similar
vein, Nyaaya uses this as one of its arguments for
the existence of God. Our karmic acts result in
merits and demerits. Since unconscious things
generally do not move except when caused by an agent
(the ax moves only when swung by an agent), and
since the law of karma is an unintelligent and
unconscious law, there must be a conscious God who
knows the merits and demerits which persons have
earned by their actions, and who functions as an
instrumental cause in helping individuals reap their
appropriate fruits. Though immobile, he affects the
person's environment, even to its atoms, and for the
reincarnate produces the appropriate rebirth body,
all in order that the person might have the
karmically appropriate experiences.(14)

Thus, the law of karma is a functioning law of
God's action in the world, The critical issue now
becomes how to characterize the law of karma as
applied to God. Is the law merely descriptive of
God`s activity, portraying how in general God brings
about effects, that is, in a rewarding and
retributive manner and generally according to a
constant regularity? If so, then the law must be
understood as merely contingent, one which can be
transgressed by God as he wills according to his
purpose to liberate us from the rebirth cycle. Or is
the law normative and hence necessary, so that God's
operations in the world must accord with its
dictates? If so, God cannot alter it by his will or
actions, but stands merely as the implementer of an
irrefragable law of karma.

A great deal rides on how one characterizes the
relation of God to the law of karma. Not only are
questions raised about the way God relates to the
world, but the very character of the law of karma as
necessary or contingent is at issue.

P.146

THE LAW OF KARMA AND GRACE

This issue can be clarified by asking whether there
is room for grace and forgiveness in a theistic
system which invokes the law of karma. The answer
depends upon how the law of karma is viewed.

On the one hand, if the law of karma is held to
be inviolable or necessary, there would be no room
for individual acts of divine grace and forgiveness.
Each cause would have its appropriate effect, each
individual would get the fruits of his actions,
according to the principle of just desserts. In
fact, appeal is often made to the inviolability of
the law of karma to show the superiority of karmic
systems over grace systems, for in a system which
allows God to intervene at his own initiative to
dispense grace to those whom he would, unfairness
and injustice are introduced into the world order.
The law of karma, on the other hand, is held to
support fairness and justice.

What sort of a world is to be created? What is to be
the destiny of each creature in it? What direction
is history to take? These matters are not planned
and decided by God in advance.... The force of Karma
determins the direction of things to come.... There
is nothing arbitrary about it. God creates a world
which will give to every individual what he deserves
and give him also scope to escape from the working
of the law of Karma, fulfill his destiny and become
free.... He creates with the help of the law of
Karma.... If we do not accept the law, the whole
responsibility for evil and suffering in the world
is God's.(15)

On the other hand, if forgiveness and grace are
possible, then the law of karma is violable or
contingent. That is, a person might possibly receive
less or more than the strict compensation which he
ought to receive for his deeds. This is important,
it is argued, for if God cannot intervene in human
affairs according to his will and contrary to the
rigid dictate of the law of karma, what value is
there to religious observances and especially to
petitionary prayer?

But then one major reason for the introduction
of the law of karma disappears, for the purported
strength of the law is that it resolves the problem
of human pain and suffering by holding that what we
suffer is the just desserts of our former lives. If
God can and does intervene graciously at times on
our behalf, the connection between our previous acts
and our present condition is partially severed, and
one now has to ask why God intervenes as he does and
why he does not intervene more often to reduce the
enormous pain and suffering present in the world. In
short, the problem of producing an adequate account
of human suffering and pleasure is reintroduced.
Indeed, the problem of evil is now moved to a new
level. No longer are we explaining why humans suffer
or experience pleasure. We now want to know why God
brings about or allows our suffering. And since the
law of karma depends upon God's will and action, it
does not provide an answer to this question.

P.147

The point of the dilemma, then, is that if the
law of karma is inviolable or necessary, it
functions to resolve the problem it was introduced
to solve, namely, the problem of evil. But then
divinity can play little role in the religious life.
If the law of karma is violable or contingent,
worship of divinity has its place, but the law of
karma no longer solves the problem of evil.

Is there a way out of this dilemma? One
possibility involves making a careful distinction in
the concept of grace. God's grace must not be
understood as affecting the merit or demerit earned
per se. Neither does he give a person less or more
than his karma merits, nor does he forgive
accumulated karma. Rather, his grace comes through
the removal of impediments to attaining proper
insight into one's nature and through the
one-pointed mind necessary to achieve
liberation.(16) God facilitates liberation by
speeding up the karmaeliminating process. But
nothing is removed or facilitated which the devotee
does not merit. That is why he does not release all
persons from sa.msaara. The recipient of grace must
meet certain conditions to receive God's grace. He
must have purified himself from all evil tendencies,
impurities, and desires, and have perfectly
surrendered himself to God, and so deserve and be
willing to receive it.

It might be objected that the dilemma has not
been escaped, but merely moved to a different level.
The question no longer concerns the original
accumulation of karma, which both sides grant must
be accounted for, but now concerns the additional
conditions preparatory for divine intervention. With
respect to these conditions, is divine intervention
to facilitate the liberative process by removing
impediments an act of grace or not? If the devotee
worships God, purifies and surrenders himself in the
appropriate way, and requests aid, could God refuse?
If the devotee merits this intervention, then God
cannot refuse and the intervention is not an act of
grace. Where the preparatory acts of the person are
sufficient for divine intervention, there is no
grace. If the devotee does not merit this
intervention, that is, if his preparatory acts are
necessary but not sufficient, then God's
intervention is gracious, but then the question
arises as to why God does not intervene for others
as well who do not merit it. The problem of evil
re-emerges on another level.

The other possible response to the dilemma is
that grace is not directed specifically to one
person, but generally distributed. Divine grace is
likened to the sun which shines on all equally. Only
those who are properly, karmically, and spiritually
ready, like the mature plant, can receive and use
it.(17) Thus the criticism that God gives it to some
and withholds it from others is groundless. Grace is
simply there for the meritorious to take; it is
another external condition which the saint can
appropriate to further his own salvation. But this,
too, diminishes the religious significance of God;
he retreats into the background as more or less the
generic cause of the world, the administrator of
karma, and the creator of this external, general
condition. In short, the dilem-

P.148

ma remains, so that the theistic account of the
implementation of karma likewise is frought with
difficulty.

To summarize, we first explored naturalistic
accounts of the workings of karma. However, the
problems of explaining the causal operations of the
law of karma and of accounting for the precise moral
calculations it requires led to the appeal to a
theistic administrator. But the theistic view has
its own problems, not of causation, but of the
status of the law of karma. If the law of karma is
inviolable, there seems to be no room for the divine
grace and forgiveness essential to a religious
system. If there is room for personal grace
and forgiveness, the law of karma is not inviolable,
but the ability of the law of karma to provide a
reasonable and compelling explanation of human pain
and pleasure is lost. In short, both naturalistic
and supernaturalistic accounts occasion
difficulties, so that much work remains to explain
how the law of karma operates for those who want to
hold that the law of karma is plausible.

NOTES

1. For a detailed description, see Wilhelm
Halbfass, "Karma, Apuurva, and 'Natural' Causes:
Observations on the Growth and Limits of the Theory
of Sa.msaara," in Wendy D. O'Flaherty, ed., Karma and
Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1980), pp. 273-284.

2. Kanada, Vai`se.sika Suutra, V, 2, 7 and 13,
and 17.

3. Kanada. VI, 2, 11-15, see Halbfass, "Karma,"
pp. 284-290.

4. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy,
vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1923), p. 319.

5. The examples are taken from Nathmal Tatia,
Studies in Jaina Philosophy (Banaras: Jain Cultural
Research Society. 1951), chap. 4.

6. Tatia, Studies, p. 252.

7. "Because of the epistemological standpoint he
adopted, the Buddha was able to formulate an
empiricist theory of causality without getting
involved in either of these [Saa^mkhya and
Sarvaastivaada vs. Vai`se.sika and Sautraantika]
metaphysical doctrines." The former emphasized the
identity of cause and effect, while the latter held
to their difference (David Kalupahana, Buddhist
Philosophy: A Historical Analysis (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1976), p. 29).

8. Edward Conze (Buddhist Thought in India (Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1967), p.
149) argues that the concept of productivity is
absent in Buddhaghosa's analysis of causation.
"There is no real production; there is only
interdependence." On the other hand, David
Kalupahana (Causality: The Central Philosophy of
Buddhism (Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii,
1975), pp. 73. 75 and 81-S2) contends that causation
as production is found in the Sarvaastivaadins, the
Sautraantikas, and the later Theravaadins. The former
held that the static moment during which an event
existed had causal efficacy, whereas the latter two
assigned causal efficacy to the preceding event
(dharma).

9. Some speak of a consciousness which carries
over from one set of skandhas to another
(Kalupahana. Buddhist Philosophy, p. 32). But this
seems contrary to Buddhist metaphysics, where there
is nothing permanent to carry over between events.
Others speak of the consciousness which arises as
functionally dependent upon prior consciousness. For
example. Buddhaghosa speaks of a rebirth-linking
consciousness. This is not a consciousness which is
carried over from one birth to another, but newly
arises in the reborn, though as causally
conditioned. (See James P. McDermott, "Karma and
Rebirth in Early Buddhism," in Wendy D. O'Flaherty,
ed., Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian
Traditions, pp. 169-170.) But the Buddha also
denied that

P.149

things newly arise. This reflects the tension in the
Buddhist attempt to find a middle ground between
eternalism and annihilationism.

10. Edward Conze, Buddhism: Its Essence and
Development (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1951), p. 156.

11. Perhaps the recognition of this is part of
the reason some Buddhists deny that all pleasure and
pain result from past karmic deeds, or affirm that
karma is subjective and hence does not cause
material conditions, only the pleasure and pain that
we experience. (For a discussion of this in the
Kathaavatthu and Milindapa~nha, see James McDermott,
"The Kathaavatthu Kamma Debates," Journal of the
American Oriental Society 95 (1975): 426-428, and
"Kamman in the Milindapa~nha, " Journal of the
American Oriental Society 97 (1977): 465-466). To
hold to the first contention, the Buddhist must
sacrifice the thesis that the law of karma
completely suffices to explain good and evil, for if
some goods and evils do not result from past karmic
deeds, then either they are the product of chance
(which the Milindapa~nha seems to accept, but which
the law of karma was introduced to deny)-or else
they occur for some other reason (which is not
contradictory, but considerably weakens the karmic
thesis and the reason for accepting it by destroying
its universality) . The second contention is
problematic in that it is hard to see how karma
could account for our experiences without causally
influencing that which produces them (namely, the
environment and other agents).

12. Halbfass, "Karma," p. 290.

13. `Sa^nkara, Brahmasuutrabhaa.sya, III, 2, 38,
and 41.

14. Uddyotakara, Nyaayavaarttika, IV, 1, 21.

15. G. R. Malkani, "Some Criticisms of the
Karmic Law by Prof. Warren Steinkraus Answered," The
Philosophical Quarterly (India) 38 (October 1956):
159.

16. Pata~njali, Yoga-suutra I, 29.

17. Kewal Krishna Anand, Indian Philosophy
(Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1982? ), pp.
342-343. See also `Sa^nkara, II, 1, 34.