It is sometimes said that Jainism is atheistic nastika. If
nastika means an unbeliever in a life beyond, i.e., �one who does not
believe in a surviving self,� then surely Jainism is not at all nastika.
If nastika, means one who repudiates the authority of the Veda,
then Jainism is certainly nastika. If nastika means one who does not
believe in God, then a categorical answer is not possible to make, for
although Jainism does not believe in a creative God, it does believe in
godhead. Jainism deliberately rejects the conception of a supreme
personality responsible for the creation of the world. The Nyaya
philosopher says that the world is of the nature of an effect and that it
must have been created by an intelligent agent, the agent being God (Ishwar);
but the argument is conclusively controverted by the Jaina. (1) The cause
of an effect need not necessarily be intelligent, and if God who is
regarded as the cause of the creation be regarded as intelligent on the
analogy of human causation, then he must be admitted to be imperfect like
human beings. (2) Also God must be admitted to have a body, for we have
never seen any intelligent creator without a body. (3) Even if it is
admitted for the sake of argument that a bodiless God can create the world
by his will and activity, did he take to creation through a personal whim
and give high status to some and poverty to others quite arbitrarily? If
the creation took place simply through his own nature, then what is the
good of admitting him at all? Professor Dasgupta sums up the rest of the
argument like this:
�Assuming for the sake of argument that God exists you could never justify
the adjectives with which you wish to qualify him. Thus you say that he is
eternal. But since he has no body, he must be of the nature of
intelligence and will. But this nature must have changed in diverse forms
for the production of diverse kinds of worldly, things which are of so
varied a nature. If there were no change in his knowledge and will then
there could not have been diverse kinds of creation and destruction.
Destruction and creation cannot be the result of one unchangeable will and
knowledge. Moreover, it is the character, of knowledge to change, if the
word is used in the sense in which knowledge is applied to human beings,
and surely we are not aware of any other kind of knowledge. You say that
God is omniscient but it is difficult to suppose how he can have any
knowledge at all, for as he has no organs he cannot have any perception,
and since he cannot have any perception, he cannot have any inference
either. If it is said that without the supposition of a God the variety of
the world be inexplicable, this also is not true for this implication
would only by justified if there were no other hypothesis left. But there
are other suppositions also. Even without an omniscient God you could
explain all things merely by the doctrine of moral order or the law of
�Karma.�
Jainism rejects the conception of creative divinity as self-discrepant.
Its belief is that there is no God and that the world was never created.
In the view the Jaina is curiously enough in agreement with the Mimansaka,
the upholder of strict orthodoxy. But as we mentioned above, although
Jainism does not believe in a creative God, it does believe in godhead.
Theistic systems are generally anthropomorphic, they bring down God to the
level of man. Jainism, on the other hand, looks upon man himself as God
when his inherent powers are fully in blossom. Every liberated soul is
divine. God in Jaina theory being only another word for the soul at its
best. In rejecting God who is so by his own right and with it also the
belief that salvation may be attained through his mercy, Jainism
recognizes that karma by itself and without the intervention of any divine
power is adequate to explain the whole world of experience and thus
impress on the individual his complete responsibility for what he does.
�Jainism more than any other creed gives absolute religious independence
and freedom to man. Nothing can intervene between the actions which we do
and the fruits thereof. Once done they become our masters and must
fruitify.�
God in Jainism is the ideal man, that is to say, the ideal of man; there
is a way to achieve it and that is the Jaina ethical way. Others have
striven in that way and achieved it in the past, and their example is a
constant inspiration to us. �Such an ideal carries with it all necessary
hope and encouragement, for what man has done, man can do.�
