(9.118d) Then why go to the trouble of giving them the name “Ishvara”?

The Prasangikas then ask the very simple question of why do you then call it Ishvara? If it is just the four elements, why do you attribute a personality and God-like intentions?  If all we have are the four elements, then why add the extra God-like qualities?

There are many atheists who ask similar questions of Christians.  Some Christians answer this question by saying God started it all, but then everything else unfolded according to the laws of physics. God also created the laws of physics and phenomena have been unfolding according to those laws. Therefore, they see no contradiction between creationism, namely God is the creator of all, and modern science. But to this too, the Prasangikas could ask the question, why give that the name God? The cause of the Big Bang, for example, could simply be the collision of two universes, why give it the name God and God-like intentions and qualities?

The answer is typically that creation is so magnificent and so intricate only a God-like mind could have created such an amazing creation. But that is simply a variant on the logic of production from no cause. Just because we do not know all the causes and conditions that gave rise to the universe does not mean that there are not perfectly explainable causes and conditions, like the four elements and the variety of causes giving rise to the variety of appearances. There is no need to add additional conceptions of God-like intentions and God-like qualities.  

It is important to note that we should not have these sorts of conversations with others. If others want to believe in God, we should not undermine their faith. We should not poke holes in their beliefs. We do not like it when people challenge or criticize our beliefs, so we shouldn’t do the same to others. If others are generating minds of faith and the conclusions they are arriving at or causing them to engage in virtuous actions, then undermining that does no good. We could wind up being like the son of the woman who was able to cook stones by reciting a special mantra, despite the fact that her mantra was wrong. Because she had faith in the mantra, the mantra worked and she was able to cook the stones. But when her son pointed out that her pronunciation was wrong, her faith was shattered and then she was unable to cook stones whether she pronounced the mantra correctly or incorrectly. In exactly the same way, when we consider ourselves particularly clever and smarter than others because we can refute their, according to us seemingly naive religious views, we wind up being no different than this mother’s arrogant son.

Rather, we should understand that these debates are an internal dialogue we should be having with ourselves. We should identify within ourselves where we have the doubts expressed by the other schools, and then we use the Prasangika reasoning to dismantle those doubts within our own mind. This is the correct way to understand and relate to the debates. 

(9.119) Since the elements such as earth are multiple substances,
Impermanent, unmoved by mind, non-divine,
And something trodden upon and unclean,
They cannot possibly be Ishvara.

It is a contradiction to say that Ishvara, or in a modern western context God, is both everything and completely pure. There are plenty of impure and imperfect things, so either we have to say that God is not everything or that he is impure and imperfect.

The Prasangikas avoid this problem by saying that all things are created by mind. An impure mind creates an impure world and pure mind creates a pure world. The contradiction above only arises if we grasp at an external creator of all that is perfectly pure and perfectly good. As soon as we accept that mind is the creator of all, all these contradictions fall away and what we need to do individually becomes clear, namely purify our mind. The final conclusion of the Prasangikas is that we need to act as a good God would. If we are the creator of all, then we should be kind to our creation. All that we understand to be good about God is what we ourselves should do towards others. Jesus in many ways showed this example. He was willing to take all of the negative karma of all living beings upon himself so that others did not have to experience its effects because that is what a good God would do for his creation. We should do exactly the same.