Jain Theism

SR No.: 006509
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hemant Shah
Publisher: Hemant Shah
Publication Year: 1997
Total Pages: 218
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Religion
File Size: 10 MB

Page 28

Theism, Atheism and Jainism determined by the argument through which His existence is proved. God is the 'First great cause for those who put the cosmological argument. He is the supreme mind' as per assumptions of the teleological argument. He is a “supreme being' according to the ontological argument and a ‘moral God' according to the moral argument. Truth, beauty and goodness and such moral values moulding God into an absolute value, the supreme value is the axiological argument. Theism, like the philosophy of religion, must note the contribution paid by idealism and pragmatism. The main aim of the 19th century idealism was to disregard the inadequacy of the mechanistic view of the world to which science seemed more committeki then than now."? On the other side pragmatists have disclosed theisen in social life. But then, in the realm of philosophy in neral und philosophy of religion in particular, the new realism and emergent evolutionalism and their combination have proved to be the most remarkable during the present years. “The effect of these developments
n to strengthen decidedly the case for a modified realistic theism.'13 A discriminatingly critical realism, therefore, that accepts the phases of idealism and pragmatism that are rationally and empirically justified in the light of present knowledge, is, the proper standpoint for a student of the philosophy of religion.") 2.1.5 Conclusion
The concept of God in its traditional, religious or theological sense does not differ much between the Indian and the Western concept. Even the worship or the role of God as accepted and practised by the devotees in their theistic way has a great deal of resemblance. Moreover God, in view of the religious life, its asceticism, sacrifice, worship, etc. though treated differently by different people, enjoys, more or less, the same status.
But then Indian concept leads the meaning to a wider and deeper sense. The central force here is that of spiritualism and intuionalism. God is attached, here, not to the critical intelligence but to the inner consciousness. Theism and even the place of God in it, is a logical pursuit in the Western theology - God is proved and then accepted. On the otherside, in Indian philosophy, God is to be realised, and for that one has to accept Him by faith. Not reason but faith, not
12 Wright W.K.,A Students Philosophy of Religion (1958) p. 463 13 Ibid p.462
14 Ibid p. 463