(a) Can there be a religion without morality? Discuss. (10 marks) (b) Write a note on the notion of absolute truth in the context…

(a) Religion and Morality

The relationship between religion and morality spans from total identification to functional independence. One view holds that religion can exist without morality. In early animistic cults and certain antinomian Tantric traditions, the central concern is metaphysical power, ritual propitiation, or transcending dualities, often deliberately violating conventional ethics. Sociologically, Émile Durkheim showed that religion primarily generates social cohesion through the sacred-profane dichotomy, where moral rules are secondary derivations. Pūrva Mīmāṃsā's ritualism treats dharma as what Vedic injunctions command, and Kierkegaard's 'teleological suspension of the ethical' in Abraham's case places faith above universal morality.

Conversely, Immanuel Kant argued that morality is autonomous and leads inevitably to religion ("religion within the bounds of mere reason"), reducing authentic faith to the recognition of moral duties as divine commands. In Indian thought, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan maintained that religion is fundamentally anchored in *dharma*—the moral and cosmic order—rendering an amoral religion a contradiction in terms; Buddhism and Jainism are religions centred on ethics even without a creator God. Plato's Euthyphro dilemma adds that if goodness depended only on divine command it would be arbitrary, so morality has some independence from religion. Thus, while ritualism can operate amoralistically, religion as a holistic soteriological framework necessarily integrates moral values.

(b) Absolute Truth in Religion

The concept of absolute truth in religion posits an ultimate, universally valid metaphysical reality. In Western theology, this generates three distinct paradigms. In Indian thought Brahman is defined as 'satyaṃ jñānam anantam' (truth, knowledge, infinity), and Gandhi held that 'Truth is God'. Religious exclusivism asserts unique, uncompromised access to saving truth, reflecting Pope Benedict XVI’s critique of the modern "dictatorship of relativism." Inclusivism, articulated in Vatican II's Nostra Aetate, acknowledges salvific elements in other traditions while maintaining fulfillment in a single revelation. Religious pluralism, formulated by John Hick, treats absolute truth ("the Real") as transcendent and noumenal, with historical religions being culturally conditioned, phenomenal responses.

In contrast, Indian philosophical systems offer non-absolutist paradigms. Jaina Anekāntavāda and Syādvāda argue that reality is multi-faceted, making every doctrinal claim relative and perspectival. Similarly, Buddhist Śūnyatā deconstructs all claims to self-existent, absolute essences (svabhāva). A constructive approach treats absolute truth not as an exclusive dogma, but as a regulative ideal guiding spiritual inquiry.

(c) Liberation (Apavarga) in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika

Nyāya Sūtra 1.1.2 gives the chain: false knowledge produces defects, defects produce activity, activity produces birth, and birth produces pain; when each earlier link is destroyed the next ceases, and this is apavarga. Apavarga is thus defined as the absolute and irreversible cessation of all twenty-one kinds of pain (duḥkha-atyanta-vimokṣa). The root cause of bondage is mithyājñāna (false knowledge), which generates defects (doṣa: attachment, aversion), driving rebirth (janma) and suffering.

Liberation is attained through *tattvajñāna*—the discriminative knowledge of reality structured into the seven categories (padārthas) in Vaiśeṣika, or the sixteen philosophical topics in Nyāya. Central to this is realizing that the self (ātmā) is an independent substance wholly distinct from the body, senses, and mind (manas). Because consciousness (caitanya) is an accidental quality (āgantuka-guṇa) produced only when ātmā contacts manas, the liberated state is completely devoid of cognition, feeling, and bliss. Classical Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika (Vātsyāyana, Praśastapāda, Śrīdhara) describes liberation as the absolute cessation of the self's nine specific qualities (cognition, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, effort, merit, demerit and impressions), with adṛṣṭa exhausted. This sharply distinguishes it from Sāṅkhya's kaivalya and Advaita's mokṣa, which preserve consciousness as an eternal, self-luminous essence. Critics mocked such a stone-like liberation, and a later Naiyāyika, Bhāsarvajña, argued that liberation includes eternal bliss.

(d) Role of Reason in Religion

Reason in religion operates dialectically between rational justification and transcendent revelation. Thomas Aquinas proposed a harmonious synthesis (building on Anselm's fides quaerens intellectum), wherein natural reason establishes the "preambles of faith" (e.g., God’s existence), while supernatural mysteries require revelation. In sharp contrast, Søren Kierkegaard rejected rational mediation, contending that religious commitment demands a passionate, supra-rational "leap of faith" into the absurd.

In Indian philosophy, Advaita Vedānta assigns reason (yukti) a critical role: Śaṅkara accepts śruti as the primary pramāṇa for transcendent reality, yet uses rigorous reasoning to eliminate contradictions until scriptural truth is directly realized in intuitive experience (anubhava). In modern epistemology, W.K. Clifford’s evidentialism asserts that belief without sufficient evidence is irrational and immoral, whereas Alvin Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology argues that theistic belief is "properly basic," requiring no propositional proof. Reason thus serves as an indispensable critical corrective against dogmatism without exhausting the transcendent.

(e) Analogical Nature of Religious Language

Religious language faces the dilemma of describing an infinite, transcendent reality using finite empirical terms. Thomas Aquinas resolved this through the doctrine of analogy, avoiding both univocity (which reduces God to creaturely limits) and equivocation (which renders theological statements meaningless). He distinguished the analogy of attribution (divine perfections belong primarily to God and secondarily to creatures) from the analogy of proper proportionality (God's goodness is to God's nature as a person's goodness is to human nature).

Ian Ramsey advanced this by showing that empirical "models" combined with logical "qualifiers" (e.g., "infinitely good") trigger "disclosure situations." Paul Tillich similarly distinguished symbolic language, which participates in the reality it points to, from literal assertion. Critics like Duns Scotus argued that analogy secretly depends on a univocal core to maintain coherence, while logical positivists dismissed it as non-cognitive and Antony Flew argued that qualified theological claims 'die the death of a thousand qualifications'. Indian thought faces the same problem through the negative way (neti neti) and Advaita's use of implication (lakṣaṇā) in reading great sayings such as 'tat tvam asi'. Nonetheless, analogical language remains vital: it marks the boundary where discursive reason acknowledges its limits while communicating absolute metaphysical claims.