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The Jaina Philosophy
which is understood by universal intellect and universal reason. The religious community to which I have the honour to belong has from its beginning been a missionary conserving influence, on the one hand protesting in brotherly love against all forms of conceived error in thought and practice and on the other hand seeking to reconcile all men with the truth.
The grievous blunder as I conceive of, the Christian missionary movement lies in the fact of dogmatic aggressiveness - a spirit of antagonism of all other religions, which soon graduates into bitter denunciation. It first declares that all man kind - all human souls - are under the ban of divine displeasure. It declares that all men are conceived in sin and born in iniquity, and denies to human, nature every good thing. In this view all men breathe naturally only corruption.
The universal mind is a machine of evil and only evil. Its capabilities are toward destruction. Its capacities are reservoirs of darkness and sin. Its aspirations are downward toward perdition; its hopes, ill-founded, are blasting vagaries of corruption. It comes and goes eternally doomed. It cannot help itself and knows no source of help. This, in my view, is the Christian missionary's first postulate and ground of effort foe the so-called redemption of mankind.
Its second declaration contains a scheme of redemption - a plan of salvation, which to my thought (and not to mine alone) is as unreasonable and repulsive as its first proposition. It is that, men must be saved through the merits and blood vicariously shed or a saviour. It declares that acceptance of that saviour and reliance in that vicarious atonement are essential to human deliverance. Without the knowledge of this plan of salvation, it denies all moral possibilities and spiritual regeneration. Ignorance of the name of that saviour is no excuse and refusal to accept the dogmatic terms of salvation serves only to intensify the damnation
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