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JAINISM, CHRISTIANITY & SCIENCE
creator, and as such to be loved with one's whole heart; for all the good things in the world which the soul enjoys are due to its own divinity.
The only work of Gods, is the salvation of men, not the creation of anything:
"No one will be so impressed by the exhortations of any of the saints, as he is by the words of the Lord Himself, the lover of man. For this, and nothing but this, is His only work--the salvation of man."--(Clement) A.N.C.L. vol. iv. p. 83.
"... now it is well pleasing to Him that we should be saved, and salvation is effected through both well-doing and knowledge, of both of which the Lord is the teacher."-(Clement) A.N.C.L. vol. xii. p. 376.
Gods, that is those who have attained to Godhood, enjoy unbroken bliss, which is incompatible with the idea of creation.
Salvation, too, is not and cannot be forced on any one. The Gods only imparted the Teaching of Truth to men before entering Narvana. For no Teacher or God or Goddess can possibly help another from outside, except in so far as instruction is given, as already stated.
"But those who know Him not He does not heal: not that He does not wish to do so, but because it is not lawful to afford to those who, through want of judgment, are like to irrational animals, the good things which have been prepared for the children of the kingdom."--(Clementine Homilies) A.N.C.L. vol. xvii. p. 59.
"It is impossible for a man to be steadily good except by his own choice. For he that is made good by compulsión of another is not good ; for he is not what he is by his own choice. For it is the freedom of each one that makes true goodness and reveals real wickedness. Whence through these dispositions God contrived to make His own disposition manifest."—(Syriac Documents) A.N.C.L. vol. xxiv. p. 167.
