INTRODUCTION.

It is essential to emphasize and clearly realize that there are two distinct categories: the Perfect and the Imperfect. Only the pure, disembodied soul is perfect. The worldly soul, clothed in matter, is imperfect. By "perfection," we mean a state that cannot be improved upon forever. For example, a person might want £100. For them, nothing seems better at the moment than receiving that money. However, there is no guarantee that they will want nothing else once they have the £100. Perfection is a state where there is no want, no need, and no desire—there is no room for further improvement or betterment.

Perfect desirelessness, complete non-attachment, and imperturbable Vitaragata original: "Vit-rag-ta"; the state of being completely free from all attachment and aversion are the defining characteristics of perfection. Because of this, Jainism does not believe that God—defined as an almighty, perfect, and conscious soul—is a "Creator" in the traditional sense. Creation usually means bringing something into existence that did not exist before. When a worldly soul becomes a perfect, pure soul at the end of the 14th spiritual stage the final level of spiritual development in Jainism, where the soul sheds the last of its karmic bonds, it certainly creates its own perfect condition of infinite perception, knowledge, power, and bliss.

In this sense, and only in this sense, can God or a Siddha a liberated, perfected soul be called the "Creator" of the entire universe—past, present, and future. This is because the Siddha is omniscient (all-knowing). The entire universe, with all its substances and all their various attributes and changes across all time and space, is reflected within this all-seeing omniscience. Thus, the soul may be said to "create" the universe through its total knowledge of it. In this context, "creation" means the attainment of perfection, omniscience, the power of godhood, or Siddhahood the state of being a Siddha.

Jainism does not allow for any other definition of creation. If "creation" means making or bringing something into existence that did not exist before (other than the soul bringing its own state of self-perfection and omniscience into being), it would imply the conscious creation of something either necessary and useful, or unnecessary and useless. If it were the former—something necessary—then why...