Jainism and World Problems

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

Page 57

NEED FOR THE JAINA DOCTRINE
19
The fear of a god or gods, is the outcome of an erroneous reading of the scriptures. I am not going to comment favourably or adversely on your religious books. It is for you to understand them correctly as best you can. But it has seemed to me that you have to read them carefully again. The main point is the belief in the existence of a god who creates and manages and rules over the world. We know liow difficult men have found it in this age to put faith ini such a belief. You cannot hope to convince even ten per cent. of the boys and girls who have read Geology and Biology to endorse this belief. And because they have come to reject this part of the religion, which is said to be the central dogma of faith, they are not ready to accept any other either. But I wish to invite your attention now to the opinions of some of the leading authorities from the Inte Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church on the subject.
The first authority is Clement of Alexandria who is reputed to be an inmediate disciple of St. Peter. This is what he says on the point :-- "But it is not as a portion of God that the spirit is in
each of us." --A.N.C.L. xii. 273. "But God has no natural relation to us .... Neither
on the supposition of his having made us from nothing, nor on that of having formed us from matter, ..., tieither portions of himself for his
children ..."-Ibid. paye to, Tile soul is described in the third volume of A.N.C. series as existing without an author (see page 305).
Tertullian, one of the most enlightened of the Inte Nicene Fathers, says about the soul : “ For if it had been possible: to construct it and to destroy it, it would no longer be immortal (see A.N.C.L. vol. xv. 138).
Origen, another of the most learned of these ancient writers, also tells us that God never made anything mortal (see A.N.C.L. xxiii. page 219).