The Buddha said, in the early Buddhist scriptures, that if there were a self, an absolute unconditional soul within the person, the religious life would be either impossible or unnecessary. By definition, an unconditional self cannot change. If it were already perfect, the religious life—and all moral improvements, all striving for progress—would be unnecessary. Nothing else would matter; everything other than this true unconditional self would be just surface illusion and of no consequence. Conversely, if it were imperfect, religion, morality, striving would be impossible: nothing could change it.
~Brook A. Ziporyn, in Emptiness and Omnipresence
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