The Infinite Regression Problem and the Logical Challenge to Dvaita Philosophy
Dvaita philosophers often propose that this world was created by a separate, all-powerful God, and that we—His subordinate creations—fell into the grip of Maya, God’s illusory power. According to this view, although God remains untouched by Maya, we, the lesser beings, somehow got entangled in it and fell into ignorance. As a result, we were cast into a journey through 8.4 million species, enduring births and deaths until finally attaining a human form—the only gateway to liberation.
Now, let us entertain this claim. Suppose a soul, after great effort, attains liberation. What then?
If ignorance had a beginning once, it logically implies that it can begin again.
If the pure, liberated state can be lost once, it can be lost again and again.
Even those who are liberated would forever remain vulnerable to relapse.
This leads to an endless loop—a never-ending sequence of fall and redemption, bondage and freedom. Such a model of existence implies that no salvation is ever final. No security is ever secure. Liberation becomes a temporary relief, not a permanent state.
This presents a clear infinite regression problem—a philosophical absurdity.
It reduces the entire universe to a tragic theater of hope and loss,
where God’s grace can never guarantee ultimate freedom.
If even the liberated are not safe, then what is the point of liberation at all?
Such a worldview is not just logically unstable; it borders on cruelty.
Furthermore, the Dvaitic notion of an external God who demands obedience from His creation—while placing them in a deeply hostile world—creates even more moral contradictions.
How can a compassionate creator give birth to beings with limited understanding,
place them in a jungle of survival, temptation, and confusion,
and then hold them eternally accountable for not meeting His divine standards?
How can such a God be more punitive than a human parent?
A mother and father, even with limited power, will always try to give their children more than what they had.
They won’t punish their child for weakness—they nurture and guide.
But the Dvaitic God, as portrayed, creates flawed beings and then condemns them to hell if they falter.
Even nature testifies against this logic.
A deer that bows to drink water must watch for the crocodile below.
A newborn animal is stalked by hyenas even before its first breath.
Watch any wildlife documentary, and you’ll see—this is a world with no basic safety, no guaranteed justice, no accessible fairness.
If this is the creation of a separate and supreme being who is both loving and just, then either His design is sadistic, or His power is questionable.
Such a vision of God fails both morally and logically. It makes God a tyrant cloaked in holiness.
But Advaita Vedanta offers a deeper, more consistent answer.
It does not divide the world into God and creature, punisher and punished.
It proclaims that there is no second entity. There is only the One Reality—pure consciousness—which appears as many through the veil of Maya.
We are not created by God—we are God appearing as limited through illusion.
Ignorance is not a permanent stain but a mistaken identity.
Liberation is not granted—it is recognized.
The cycle of birth and death ends, not because God decides to forgive, but because we awaken to our true nature: unborn, undying, ever-free.
Only Advaita answers the problem of suffering, injustice, and meaning without invoking divine unfairness.
It restores dignity to the soul, reason to the cosmos, and harmony to the paradox of life.
Advaita is not just a philosophy—it is the only complete, rational, and compassionate understanding of existence.
