Some Jain Concepts and Conduct

Author(s): Sushma Singhvi
Publisher: B J Institute

Page 68

The Concept of Ātman]
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must be borne by him. So there is no denying of the responsibility.
Christianity does not consider it necessary to give any argument to prove God. The old Testament presupposes the existence of God. It teaches us to worship the one God and not to pay any attention to deities. God is one.21 He is spirit, holy and righteous, merciful and forgiving 22 he cares for the lowliest. Jesus, who is the son of God. Knows his father as no other can. God father, His Christ son and the spirit makes the Holy Trinity of Christianity complete. Hastings remarks: the father is the primal source, the son of the mediating power, the spirit the executive energy; and every divine act is to be understood as a working of the Father, through the Son in and by the Holy Spirit.23 The mediating power Christ can be compared to the incarnation of Hinduism. Sikkhism and Arya Samāj also deny deity other than God.
Islam lays even greater emphasis on oneness of God and condemns the trinity of Chritianity.24 Muslim theologians have given the following seven attributes of God :
(i) hayat - Life (ii) ilm - knowledge (iii) qudra-power (iv) irada - will (v) sam - hearing (vi) basar-seeing (vii) kalamspeech.
To sum up we can say that these theistic religions believe in one omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient God who is considered as creator of this universe. The theory of God is based on the idea that every action must have an agent so there should be some power which created this universe, and the power is God. Here the question arises whether the assumed God has created this universe out of nothing or any existing material ? The first alternative is not possible because, there is no existence out of non-existence nor is there destruction of what exists, "says Gitā.25 The other alternative, that God created this universe out of a pre-existent matter, could not answer how