PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: A contemporary introduction

NONMONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONS 109

be concluded thus far is that analogies to perception and theories of perception seem
not helpful in coming to terms with the core of the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta.

Jainism and Buddhism

A radical substance-view (Jainism) and a non-substance-

view (Theravada Buddhism) compared and contrasted

Jainism and Buddhism agree that our great need is to escape the circle of rebirths and
achieve enlightenment and release. But they differ in what the enlightened person
finds at the end of her search, and they disagree about what the nature of the searcher
is. This difference is both religious and philosophical, and will be explained in both its
religious and its philosophical contexts.

Jainism and persons: persons are substances^18

For Jainism, consciousness is always someone’s consciousness. There can no more be
consciousness without persons than there can be triangles without angles.
A Jain text tells us the following:

The distinctive characteristic of a substance is being. Being is a simul-

taneous possession of coming into existence, going out of existence,

and permanence. Permanence means the indestructibility of the es-

sence of the substance... substance is possessed of attributes and

modifications... attributes depend upon substratum and cannot be

the substratum of another attribute. Modification is change of at-

tribute.^19

We are told that there are things (substances) that have qualities (attributes,
properties) without themselves being qualities. These qualities are inherently
first-order qualities (qualities of things that are not themselves qualities) and
they begin and cease to be – they come into existence and go out of existence.
For a quality to come into existence is for a thing that did not have it to come to
have it; for a quality to go out of existence is for a thing that did have it to come
to have it no longer (this is what it is for substances to undergo modifications).
When things undergo modification (change of attribute) in the sense that they
gain and lose qualities, they remain the same things (enjoy permanence)
throughout the modifications that they undergo. Change presupposes that
something is changed, and hence that something endures through the change.