Iesha Javed

[Your Name] [Instructor Name] [Course Number] [Date] Arguments Against the Creation of the World According to Jainism Jainism, concerned mainly about the causes of suffering in the world, denounces the idea of creation. Atheism in Jainism is founded upon arguments regarding the nature of the material world, the commonly accepted attributes of God such as transcendence, and the existence of suffering in the material world. Firstly, concerning the very nature of God, Jainism advances the argument that if God is assumed to be a spiritual being who is devoid of all modality and is transcendent, He could not logically have created the universe. The reasoning behind this is that if God is a spiritual being, he can not create the material world. And, if God is devoid of form, desires, and actions He could not have a desired to create, whereas, such a desire is a precursor to the act of creation. Also, if God is transcendent he would have no need to create anything according to Jainism. Secondly, Jainism rejects the idea of creation ex-nihilo i.e. the creation out of nothing as an absurdity. Thus, if matter was created from something as a natural process, the entire universe can come into existence through such a natural process without the need for a Creator. Thirdly, according to Jainism, considering the fact that evil, misery and suffering do exist in the material world, the idea of a god who overlooks all of it is itself termed fallacious. This is because if God created everything including evil He is then the cause of evil. Thus, Jainism rejects the doctrine of creationism as an evil doctrine that is unable to account for the existence of misery and suffering in the world and somehow justifies it as the will of a God. Now, if we analyze the above arguments, they are based on a number of assumptions and fallacies. Firstly, the assumption is made that God is universally accepted to lack all modality including action. However, major religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam believe that God is more than deity and posesses a will including the will to create and command things into existence. Further, Jainism claims that it is absurd for the the universe to have an origin. However, Jainism’s assertion that universe does not have a First Cause and is the product of an unending series of causes, is equally absurd. Similarly, as creation ex-nihilo is rejected by Jainism, on simillar premises, there is no good reason to believe that the world is eternal. Additionally, that the act of creation is somehow inconsistent with the transcendence of God is not convincing. There is no clear connection between the two aspects and it is logically possible that a perfectly independent being could create something. Also, just as a potter can make a clay pot while himself being made of totally different constituents, a spiritual being might create the material world. Further, Jainism assumes that God's intention in creating the world is that he is in need of it or that he created it in sport. Here other arguments are deliberately left out like the Christian concept of 'soul-making' or the Islamic concept of the world being a test for mankind. Thus, these arguments from Jainism are more like a critique of Hinduism than a refutation of creationism. In the absence of any belief in a god who created the material world, Jainism advocates that the world is eternal. It is therefore uncreated and indestructible like time and came into being due to the natural properties of the objects that form the material world. In fact, the world will continue to exist in its current state of affairs and the only way to escape misery and suffering is to follow the path of renunciation of material pleasures until the soul is free. This concept of eternity of matter is the alternative explanation for the origin of the world in Jainism.