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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
542
Ātman and Moksa
atheist, nature may be beautiful and sublime, but it must be, above all terrible. Nature stands to him in place of Deity, but is the mere embodiment of force, the god of the iron foot, without ear for prayer, or heart for sympathy, or arm for help. It is immense, it is sublime, it sparkles with beauties, but it is senseless, aimless and, pitiless. It is an interminable succession of causes and effects, with no reason or love as either their beginning or end; it is an unlimited ocean of restlessness and change, the waves of which heave and moan, under the influence of necessity, in darkness for ever more; it is an enormous mechanism, driving and grinding on of itself from age to age, but towards no goal and for no good. We can only be rationally free to enjoy nature when we have confidence that one hand of an almighty Father is working the mechanism of the universe and another guiding His children in the midst of it so that neither wheel nor hammer shall injure one hair of their heads."? Thus, the necessity of God is supreme for the satisfaction of the human heart. God must not be only kind and affectionate but He must possess absolute power to control nature and its working so that He can combat any evil arising out of it successfully, and can extend protection and security to His children unfailingly. God must, therefore, be omnipotent and the final authority, the sovereign invincible power that can threaten, frighten and destroy evils of any magnitude that harass His children on the earth and against
1 Flint Robert : Anti-Theistic Theories, p. 31.
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