Chapter 6 - What is an Incarnation of God

The Lord says: “Whenever religion declines and irreligion prevails, I manifest myself to protect the righteous, to destroy evil, and to establish true religion”.
     —Bhagavad Gita, IV, 7, 8.

Two great religions of the world advocate the belief that God, the supreme Ruler of the universe, incarnates in human form to help mankind—the one is Christianity, the other is the religion of Vedanta, which prevails in India.

Christianity, believing in the existence of one personal God who is the Creator, Governor, and Father of the universe, teaches that this heavenly Father incarnated Himself in human form as Jesus the Christ to show His love, His mercy and kindness for His suffering children as well as to save the world from eternal perdition. It may be interesting to many to know how this doctrine of divine incarnation, unknown to the earliest Christians of the first century after Christ, gradually grew and developed into its present form. Readers of ecclesiastical history are well aware of the fact that no problem troubled the minds of the founders of the Christian Church and of Christian theology so much as this one of the divine incarnation of Jesus the Christ. During the early periods of Church history, indeed, no other question was considered to be of such vital importance as that of the heavenly Father’s incarnation in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Although, for many of the uneducated masses, this problem appears to have been satisfactorily solved by the wonderfully subtle and apparently logical arguments of certain priests and theologians, still it is not unknown to the educated classes that the acceptance of their solution depended largely upon priestly power, upon anathema, and upon the persecution of those who refused to receive these arguments as the only correct solution of the problem.

Let us go back for a moment to that time, when Constantine the Great settled the disputes of the bishops regarding the incarnation of the supreme Being in the form of the Son of Man. In the first place, we should remember that the modern Christian idea of divine incarnation is founded upon the belief in the Trinitarian doctrine of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the memorable text of the First Epistle of John: ‘For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one’ (ch. v. 7). Before the doctrine of the divine incarnation of Jesus the Christ was established and accepted by the Church, the early Christians believed in the Trinity and constantly discussed the most subtle and profound questions concerning the nature, generation, distinction, and qualities of the three divine persons of the mysterious triad. At that time, the majority of Christian thinkers believed in Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God, but they did not dare declare that he was ‘God himself in human form’, the second principle of the blessed Trinity. It was Justin Martyr, a Christian convert of the Platonic school and a believer in the Platonic doctrine of the Trinity, who, about the middle of the second century for the first time, promulgated the idea that Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, was the second person in the Triune Deity and the creator of the universe. He is the earliest writer to whom the origin of this idea can be traced, and he did not ascribe opinion to the scriptures, but to the special favour of God.

The Trinitarian controversies, which first broke out in the Christian schools of Alexandria in Egypt, the land of Trinities, took a new form during the time of Constantine the Great, the chief point of debate being to define the relation of the son to the Father. The Church of Alexandria was the most powerful of all the Churches in this period, and it was ruled by Trinitarian bishops who took part in all these discussions. One of the most prominent candidates for the office of Bishop was Arius, the celebrated originator of the Arian doctrines and a Presbyter of the Alexandrian Church. He and his followers maintained, in opposition to other bishops, that the Son of God was merely a creature or a created being, that there was a time when he did not exist. He said: ‘If the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning in existence; from this, it is evident that there was a time when the Son was not in being, it therefore follows that he had his existence from nothing’. This argument was the strongest of all the blows which were given to the Trinitarian doctrine, as well as the most potent against the divinity of Jesus the Christ, because it evidently denied the co-eternity of the Father and the Son by proving the subordination of the Son to the Father, and, in consequence, inequality between them. It also indirectly implied that there was a time, when the blessed Trinity did not exist.

The question was vehemently discussed again and again in public debates by bishops and Christians, and gradually the strife spread so far that the Jews and pagans amused themselves by giving theatrical representations of the contest on the stage, the point of their burlesques being the equality of the age of the father and son. The violence of the controversy, at last, reached the point, where imperial force was needed for the decision. Emperor Constantine, being referred to, summoned the council of Nicea in a.d. 327, and settled the dispute of the bishops by formulating the famous Nicean creed and attaching to it the anathema: ‘The holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, that before he was begotten, he was not, and that he was made out of nothing or out of another substance or essence and is created or changeable or alterable.’

In this manner the so-called satisfactory solution of that most bewildering problem of the divine incarnation of Jesus was arrived at, and it was accepted, not because of the unanimous opinion of all the members of the council, but simply because the majority of the bishops were in favour of it. After this decision Arius was excommunicated for his heretical ideas, while his followers, who were quite numerous, were cruelly persecuted and their writings destroyed. Since that time, the bishops and clergy have been forced to accept the doctrine of the Trinity as also that of the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth.

Although the question of the incarnation of the omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient heavenly Father in human form was thus apparently solved by the Church and theologians, still it has not ceased to rise again and again in the thoughtful minds of different people in different countries, disturbing their peace, and frequently driving them into agnostic and atheistic beliefs. Many a soul has often cried aloud in despair: ‘What Creator and Ruler Of the infinite universe should be born in a ma?ge? should suffer from hunger and thirst, should be tempted by the devil, chastised, and scourged by ordinary mortals and forced to ignominious death upon the cross!’ Devout Christians do not dare to see this absurdity or to express their opinion for fear of blasphemy and punishment; but truth-seeking, rational minds cannot rest content with mere doctrines and dogmas based upon the quicksand of the authority of some book or person.

The question presents itself: ‘Is there any other way of understanding what is meant by an incarnation of God?’ Outside of the Christian religion, there is one other religion or religious philosophy—that of Vedanta—which explains, through reason and logic, the problem of divine incarnation in human form upon this earth. India is the only country, where the origin of this idea can be traced back and where the belief has prevailed from prehistoric times. Long before Jesus of Nazareth was recognized as the incarnation of Divinity, the Hindus had a clear conception of this idea. Volumes upon volumes have been written in Sanskrit describing why and how the supreme Being manifests Itself in human form at different times among different nations.

One of the principal points, in which the Hindus differ from the Christians, is in maintaining that, if God incarnates or expresses His divinity in human form, His incarnation cannot be limited by time, place, or nationality. The Hindus believe that there were many incarnations before and have been many since the advent of Christ, and that all these incarnations of God are equal in greatness, majesty, wisdom and divine powers, especially in the power of saving mankind by setting forth the highest ideal of life and by leading men from the path of unrighteousness to the ultimate goal of all religions. Who could have understood and realized the highest aim and purpose of human existence, who could have solved the most bewildering questions and problems concerning the true nature and destiny of human souls, if Cod himself had not revealed these things to mankind from time immemorial? Could ordinary human beings with their shortsighted intellect and imperfect understanding, living constantly on the animal plane of the senses, deluded by the phantoms of phenomenal appearances and always mistaking the unreal for the real, have ever discovered the ultimate purpose of life and the true nature and destiny of human souls? Think of the innumerable opinions of atheists and agnostics’, materialists and thinkers of different capacities, which have bewildered the intellect arid understanding of the vast majority of people!

All true knowledge is but the expression of divine wisdom. All the powers that make one great, spiritual, righteous, and wise, are only the divine powers manifesting through human forms. Therefore, it is said in Vedanta: ‘All that is glorious, grand, extremely righteous, or spiritual, is the outcome of the powers which proceed from the infinite source of all forces and of all energy in nature. Wherever there is anything that is extraordinary or unusually uplifting to the soul, there is a special expression of the divine power.’

According to the religion of Vedanta, the incarnation of God means the embodiment of divine qualities and divine powers. It takes place whenever and wherever such a manifestation is necessary. ‘The blessed Lord Krishna, one of the great incarnations of Divinity, who appeared about fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, in speaking of divine incarnations, said:

‘Wherever true religion declines and irreligion prevails and whenever the vast majority of mankind, forgetting the highest ideal of life, travel on the path of unrighteousness which leads to the bottomless abyss of ignorance, misery, and sorrow, the supreme Being manifests His divine powers to establish righteousness and true spirituality, by assuming a human form and living in our midst, but at the same time showing to all that He is the real master of nature and absolutely free from all the bondages of the world and its laws’.

Such embodiments may take place at any time in any country. The Hindus believe that there have been many such incarnations of Divinity in the past and that there will be many in the future. Krishna, Buddha, Jesus the Christ, Chaitanya and Ramakrishna, each one of these has been considered to be the embodiment of divine qualities and divine powers. The lives and deeds of all of them were superhuman, consequently divine. They were full of the manifestations of such powers as ordinary mortals do not possess.

A divine incarnation is one who shows from childhood that he is a born master of mind, body, and senses, and the real lord of nature, yet who never forgets even for a moment that he has come to the world to help mankind. He is always conscious of his divine power, and he manifests divine glory through every action of his daily life. He never loses consciousness of his oneness with the eternal Truth, or the Father of the universe, the infinite source of wisdom and intelligence. He lives in the world like an embodied soul, possessing perfect peace, tranquillity, happiness, and blissfulness, without depending upon the conditions and environments which apparently bind the souls of ordinary mortals.

The difference between an ordinary human being and an incarnation of God lies in the fact that the individual soul of a common man takes birth subject to the law of karma, or the laws of causation and of action and reaction, in order to reap the results of the works of his previous births and to fulfil the desires that are latent in him; while a divine incarnation is the embodiment of his own free will, which alone governs him. Being absolutely free, he is not forced, by the law of karma or any other law, to take a human body, nor doses he wish to fulfil any of those desires that proceed from the selfish nature of ordinary mortals. His soul is not subject to the law of evolution like that of any other being. He is absolutely perfect from the very moment that he assumes human form through the inscrutable power of his own omnipotent, supreme will or maya. Although such an incarnation of God is beyond birth and death, he still apparently submits for the time being to the conditions of the human plane, and obeys the laws that govern that plane; yet, at the same time, he makes people realize that he is the master of nature, not its slave, and that, in reality, he does not obey its laws, but that the laws of nature obey his omnipotent will. Ordinary people, whose spiritual eyes are not open, may not see the difference that exists between his actions and those of a common mortal and may treat him like an ordinary man; but those, who are highly advanced in spirituality, who understand the true nature of the individual soul and of God and of their mutual relation, see the difference at once, recognize his divinity and worship him as the ideal embodiment of divine powers and divine qualities.

It is for this reason that the blessed Lord Krishna, the Hindu Christ, says in the Bhagavad Gita: ‘People who are deluded by my mysterious power of maya, do not know Me as unborn and unchanging; I am not manifest to them. They unintelligently regard Me in the light of an ordinary being with a material form which is the result of past actions, and know not that I assume at will glorious and holy forms for the protection of the world’.

The religion of Vedanta teaches that such incarnations of Divinity are not limited by distinctions of sex; they may appear in masculine or in faminine [feminine] form, according to the needs of time and place. To the sexless supreme Being who is both the Father and Mother of the universe, the masculine and the feminine form are of equal value and importance. It is for this reason that amongst the Hindus in India are to be found many incarnations of Divinity in the form of woman.

The latest divine incarnation was one who appeared in the middle of the nineteenth century. He lived near Calcutta and his name was Ramakrishna. He is today worshipped by thousands of educated Hindus just in the same way as Jesus the Christ is adored and worshipped in Christendom. From his childhood he showed his divine power and set an example of absolute purity and divine spirituality, like an embodiment of those blessed qualities which adorned the characters of previous incarnations, such as Krishna, Buddha, or Jesus the Christ. Those who had the good fortune to see and be with him even for a short time, had their eyes open to the truth that he was absolutely superhuman. Although he had received no school education, his wisdom was vast. He was the storehouse, as it were, of unlimited knowledge, and he showed at every moment of his life that he was the absolute master of his mind, body, and senses, that he was entirely free from all the conditions that make an ordinary mortal a slave to passions and desires. He was like the personification of the Sermon on the Mount. No one could ever find the slightest flaw in his noble and divine character.^[1]

At one time, he was asked: ‘What is the difference between a holy sage and an incarnation of God who is called the Saviour of mankind?’ He answered: ‘A holy sage is one who has realized God through great pain, long prayers, and severe penances and after much trouble has saved himself from the attractions of the world, but he has not the power to save others; while a Saviour is one who can easily save hundreds without losing his own spirituality. A holy sage may be compared to a reed floating in the ocean of life, which cannot bear the weight of even a crow, but, when a Saviour descends, He easily carries thousands across the ocean like a large, powerful steamer which moves swiftly over the waters towing rafts and barges in its wake. The Saviour, like the most powerful locomotive, not only reaches the destination himself, but at the same time draws with him loads of passengers eager to go to the abode eternal of truth.’

Such is the power and strength or an incarnation of God. An ordinary person may strive and after a long struggle may attain to the realization of truth which is salvation, but with a Saviour, this is not the way; he comes to help and save others. Whosoever worships and is devoted to any of these Saviours will, through that power of devotion alone, reaches the.ultimate goal of all religions.

As Jesus the Christ said: ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’, so the other incarnations of Divinity like Ramakrishna, Buddha, and Krishna spoke to their followers, saying in the words of Krishna:

‘Giving up all the formalities of religion, come unto me, take refuge in me, and I will give thee rest and make thee free from sins; grieve not, I will also give thee eternal peace and everlasting happiness.’

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Those who wish to know more about the life of this divine man and why he is worshipped as a Saviour of mankind, may read Swami Vivekananda’s lecture on My Master, or Life and Sayings of Ramakrishna, by Prof. Max Müller.