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MIRA AND MAHAVIR
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purpose ? But I will not force the issue. You have three options before you, and can choose. You may agree that Nature, because it creates persons like you, is like a Person itself, and its actions are meant to be good. In that case you will have identified Nature with God; for you will have associated Nature with a moral and spiritual aim, and that is nothing but God. Or you may say that because Nature creates not only persons but also other forms of life, it is partly like a Person and partly soinething else; and it is only to the extent to which you conceive of it as a Person, with a good object in view in all its actions, that you will think in terms of God. In both these cases you cannot deny God, and must believe in him. But you have a third option too, and may still adhere to your view that Nature, in spite of the fact that it creates human beings, all whose individual actions are directed to something good, is blind and purposeless, and the creation of Man is due to mere chance. If you do not believe in God,
that is the only course open to you. MAHAVIR-You argue fairly. I do not believe in God,
either in whole or part. Nature to me is blind and purposeless. If its object were good, why do we, who live in its midst, suffer so much sorrow and pain ? You do not suggest that there is no sorrow or pain in the world, and all that we see of it is an illusion ? I have heard this argument, but am not convinced, for I have myself experienced this sorrow and pain.
