The philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel criticised western religion’s implied view that God is the same whether anything else exists or not because it separates the Creator from the rest of creation, making all his attributes independent of it. It’s an important observation because if God were perfect and his perfection was not affected by anything else, then where was the need for him to create anything? Or, as Hegel put it, “if God is all sufficient and lacks nothing, how does he come to release Himself into something so clearly unequal to him?” According to some interpretations of Hinduism , it’s possible God gets bored and, therefore, has to extend Himself out but that would immediately mean he’s capable of getting bored in the first place. How perfect is that? Nor could he have created anything out of sheer capriciousness or curiosity as that, too, would require him to be lacking in some respects.

Even he does it for a reason like wanting to spread his love, it still implies he has a need to do that; yet God, by definition, needs nothing. If he does it because he wants to be worshipped, then that also indicates a deficiency on his part. In short, no true believer can believe that God creates the world when there’s no requirement for him to do so.Unless of course — and this is the only conclusion Hegel could finally reach — God is somewhat less than being completely perfect, all powerful, totally omniscient or fully pervasive. Meaning, he too is evolving along with the universe and must have been a creation of the universe that predates him by an eternity.