Jainism Christianity and Science

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: The Indian Press Allahabad

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CHAPTER 4
IMMORTALITY
The Jaina doctrine about Immortality is this that the soul is a substance and that it is a simple thing as distinguished from a compound. Compounds are perishable, but not so simple things. The idea of death or destruction is only this: that a compound is dissolved into its component parts, but there is no destruction or vanishing of the parts (i.e., of the ultimate particles) themselves. The views of early Christianity are given below:
"And these (objects formed) of one (substance) were immortal, for (in their case) dissolution does not follow, for what is one will never be dissolved. These (objects) on the other hand, which are formed out of two, or three, or four (substances) are dissoluble; wherefore also are they named mortal. For this has been denominated Death, namely, the dissolution of connected (bodies)."-(Hippolytos, vol. i) A.N.C.L. vol. vi. p. 394.
"Nor is there at all any composite thing, and creature endowed with sensation, of the sort in heaven."—(Clement) A.N.C.L. vol. xii. p. 242.
"... That the Soul is a substance is proved in the following manner. In the first piace the definition given to the term substance suits it very well. And that definition us to the effect, that substance is that which, being ever identical, and ever one in point of numeration with itself 18 yet capable of taking on contraries in succession. And that this soul without passing the limits of its own proper nature takes on contraries in succession, is, I fancy, clear to every. body.... And in the second place, because if the body is a substance, the soul must also be a substance. For it cannot be
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