________________
136
sider it as an existence without substantiveness is simply out of the question.
The word 'spirit' seems to have furnished a license for all sorts of rabid and fanciful speculation to unphilosophical theologians of the middle ages, and even to-day the vast majority of our race seem quite uncertain as to its precise significance. As a consequence of this philosophical obscurity which has gathered round the word, the term 'spirit' has become a prolific source of error and dispute. The idea that God is a spirit, when examined from the standpoint of rationalism, does not mean that he is altogether immaterial, but merely this that the substance which constitutes his being is not of the same kind as that of which the physical bodies are made. By the immateriality of spirit intellect understands, not that which is devoid of all substratum of materiality, or substantiveness, but that which is not matter in the popular sense. Hence, it is repugnant to intellect to maintain God to be devoid of all substantiveness what
soever.
The idea of space-occupation in the case of spirit is to be understood in the same way as that in which light occupies space. As the light of a lamp exists in space, but does not offer obstruction to other lights in illumining, hence occupying, the same space, so does spirit, being finer than light itself, occupy space, but not so as to interfere with other things; and just as the glances of an infinite number of living beings can be concentrated on a point in space, so can an infinity of spiritual entities, that is, souls, exist in one place.
The idea of infinity in relation to divinity is the next to
Jain Education International
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org