Jainism and World Problems

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 27

IDEALS FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER
undertake to remove the obscuring veil in the course of the present speech, for want of time But I will content myself by merely saying that a study of comparative religion at once reveals two things, in most religions, namely, a surface dogmatic creed which differs from all other creeds and harmonizes fully with none, and an undercurrent of rationalized doctrine, which is common to all religions and religious systems, and which can be readily reduced to a scientific form with a little effort.
To take but one instance, that of Christianity, with which most of us are familiar it has its gnosis, or secret knowledge, as well as an exoteric form. Of these the secret teaching is found to be scientific and in agreement with the true tenets of all other similar systems and creeds, but the exoteric form is not in full agreement with any one of them, not even with Judaism and Muhammadanism which arc most intimately related to it.
19
I shall now show you from the writings of the most authoritative Christian sources that Christianity had really been understood at first as a science, though it could not be preached openly, for fear of the swine' and the dog.' Origen defines religion as a set of "laws which insure happiness to those who live according to them" (Ante Nicene Christian Library xxiii. 194). In the 24th vol. of the A. N. C. L. series it is said:
"For scientific knowledge is necessary both for the training of the soul and for gravity of conduct... For what is useful and necessary to salvation, such as the knowledge of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and also of our own soul, are wholly requisite; and it is at once beneficial and necessary to attain to the scientific account of them."-p. 126.
I shall now show you by going over the subject of salvation, point by point, in the writings of the Ante Nicene