PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: A contemporary introduction

112 CONCEPTIONS OF ULTIMATE REALITY

We are told here that there are constituents that are transitory. Further,
there are collections of simultaneous constituents (call these
simultaneous bundles) and there are collections of successive
constituents (call these successions of bundles). Successions of bundles
are made up of sequential simultaneous bundles and so-called physical
objects are successions of bundles.^29 More importantly for our purposes,
so-called persons are successions of bundles. There are no constituents
that endure; each moment sees an entirely new constituent population.
Successions of bundles are the only candidates for possessing numerical
identity over time.

Review, comparison and contrast

1 Reincarnation and karma

The Jain and Buddhist traditions share belief in reincarnation and karma.
Reincarnation doctrine teaches that each person beginninglessly lives one life
after another, and will do so endlessly unless he becomes enlightened. Karma
doctrine (in its nonmonotheistic version, which is the version relevant to
Jainism and Buddhism) teaches that one inescapably receives the merit or
demerit due; right or wrong actions not disinterestedly done yield weal or woe,
and no one escapes their due recompense. Embedded in these doctrines is a
justice requirement: the recipient of the recompense must be the doer of the
deed for which recompense comes – she, and not another.

2 Change

On the Buddhist perspective described above, collections of simultaneous
constituents are replaced by new collections of simultaneous constituents. No
changes occur; replacement occurs.
A further Jain text reads:

There cannot be a thing which is devoid of its modifications of birth

and decay. On the other hand, modifications cannot exist without an

abiding or eternal something – a permanent substance, for birth, de-

cay, and stability (continuance) – these three constitute the charac-

teristic of a substance or entity.^30

“Birth and decay” refers to the comings and goings of qualities, “stability or
continuance” to substances. Change requires permanence.^31