Do we really need Īśvara? A dialogue with a secular humanist

This article is a continuation of my article From isolation to belonging: Seeing life as an intelligent whole It takes seriously a question many thoughtful readers are likely to ask: Is this perspective really necessary? Through a dialogue with a secular humanist, I explore whether ethical living, psychological maturity, and realism can stand on their own, without invoking Īśvara, and what, if anything, the Vedāntic vision adds beyond these forms of maturity.

SH (Secular Humanist): Let me state my position clearly. I don’t see the necessity of introducing Īśvara into my life. I can be ethical without God, psychologically aware without theology, and responsible without metaphysics. I can accept my limits, care for my body, and act with compassion. Why add this idea of a “grand order of Īśvara”? What exactly does it give me?

V (Vedāntic Interlocutor): That is a fair position, and traditional Advaita Vedānta would not dismiss it. In fact, it fully accepts that a great deal of human maturity is possible without invoking Īśvara. Ethical living, psychological integration, realism, and responsibility do not require religious belief. There is no disagreement there.

SH: Then we agree. If maturity is possible without Īśvara, why bring it in at all?

V: Because the question is not whether maturity is possible, but whether maturity alone is sufficient to address a deeper unease that even mature individuals experience, often silently. Let me ask you something. When life presents outcomes that are irreversible, opaque, or disproportionate. Like a loss that cannot be repaired, suffering that seems excessive, effort that fails without clear reasons. How do you understand the status of the universe itself in those moments?

SH: I accept that life is unfair at times. Some things don’t have reasons we can access. That’s just the nature of reality.

V: And that acceptance is itself a form of maturity. But notice what you just said: “That’s just the nature of reality.” Is reality, then, finally arbitrary? Or is it lawful but not fully transparent to us?

SH: I would say lawful in parts, random in others. We understand some things; others are simply chance.

V: That distinction is precisely where Advaita Vedānta introduces Īśvara, not as a belief, but as an explanatory principle. Īśvara names the recognition that the totality functions according to an intelligible order, even when the specific connections escape our understanding. Without Īśvara, the universe remains only partially intelligible. With Īśvara, it is fully intelligible in principle, though not always traceable in detail.

SH: But isn’t that just a psychological comfort? Saying “there is an order” when I don’t know what it is?

V: It would be, if it were merely asserted. But Advaita arrives at this recognition by observing that every domain we do understand that is physical, biological, psychological, or ethical, operates lawfully. There is no empirical evidence of randomness within any known order. What we call randomness is usually a name for ignorance of factors, not absence of order. Īśvara extends this recognition consistently to the whole.

SH: Even if I accept that, I still don’t see why I need it for my life. I can accept uncertainty without invoking cosmic order.

V: You can. But notice the psychological posture that remains. You are still an individual standing in front of life, coping with it, managing it, adapting to it. You remain, in a subtle way, alone before an impersonal universe. Advaita’s question is not about coping, but about belonging.

SH: Belonging to what?

V: To the whole you are already part of. Without Īśvara, acceptance often carries an undertone of resignation: “This is how it is; I’ll deal with it.” With Īśvara, acceptance becomes integration: “This is how the whole functions, and I have a place within it.” The difference is not dramatic, but existential.

SH: But I don’t feel particularly isolated. I have relationships, work, meaning.

V: Isolation here does not mean social loneliness. It refers to a deeper sense of existential separateness: the feeling that you are ultimately on your own with respect to life itself. Many accomplished, ethical, socially embedded individuals still experience this, especially when confronted with limits that no amount of maturity resolves.

SH: Are you saying Īśvara removes suffering?

V: No. Advaita Vedānta is very clear: Īśvara does not eliminate pain, loss, or limitation. What it removes is the personalisation of the universe. Events stop being silent verdicts on your worth or intelligence. Results are understood as outcomes of a vast, impersonal order (karma-phala-niyama), not as rewards or punishments directed at you.

SH: Psychology already teaches not to over-identify with outcomes.

V: Yes, and it teaches how to manage that identification. Īśvara explains why that identification is misplaced. It shifts the understanding of results from “what this says about me” to “what this says about how the whole functions.” That shift is difficult to achieve through psychology alone.

SH: So you’re saying Īśvara adds a kind of metaphysical humility?

V: More than humility. It adds ontological relief. Your limitations are no longer experienced as failures, because finitude belongs to the individual by design (śakti–aśakti-niyama). Omniscience and omnipotence were never on the table. Nothing has gone wrong with you.

SH: I can see the appeal. But isn’t this still optional?

V: Absolutely. Advaita Vedānta never claims Īśvara is necessary to live well. It says Īśvara becomes relevant when the question shifts from “How do I function well?” to “What is the nature of the whole I am functioning within?” At that point, Īśvara is no longer an addition, it is an explanation.

SH: And without that explanation?

V: One can be mature, ethical, and integrated, and still stand outside life, managing it. With Īśvara, the same person discovers they were always within the whole, participating rather than confronting. That is the difference.

SH: So psychology heals fragmentation, but Īśvara addresses separation?

V: Precisely. That is the quiet but radical claim of traditional Advaita Vedānta.

SH: I may not be ready to accept Īśvara, but I can see now what problem it is meant to address.

V: And that, from the Vedāntic standpoint, is already a meaningful beginning.

This dialogue does not settle the question of Īśvara. Nor is it meant to. It only clarifies what is at stake. Psychological maturity, ethical responsibility, and realism can indeed stand on their own. And many people live well on that basis.

Yet something subtle remains unresolved: not dysfunction or immaturity, but the deeper question of how one understands the universe itself. What if one already feels aligned with life? What if the universe is already trusted, without anxiety or resistance? Does the language of Īśvara still have anything meaningful to offer? I will attempt to answer this question in the form of another dialogue in my next article.