Month: April 2019

God is not trying to trick us!

Published April 14, 2019 by admin

We all love science because it explains to us the fundamental forces of life and then we can understand the world in a coherent way. Gravity causes objects to attract depending on their mass, and it works the same throughout the world. It might cause coconuts to fall off trees in the Caribbean and apples to fall of trees in Vermont but it is still just gravity. At one time, people might have thought that coconuts and apples fall for different reasons, but once we understood what gravity was and how it works, we were able to explain a whole host of phenomena all over the world, because we understood these processes on a fundamental level. We understood a basic and fundamental force of physics.

In the last essay, we started to present the basic principles Baha’u’llah revealed to help us understand religion. We reviewed how God is an Intelligence at the basis of everything we experience and upon which everything depends. “Religion” is the expression of the desire by humans to connect with that Ultimate Reality, and two of the main ways we do that is by trying to connect through nature or through internal explorations of our own selves, both of which reflect the revelation of God within them. We can see the expressions of this in the religions of the past, whether it is the “natural religions” of antiquity that saw the Divine in nature, or more recent religions that were more mystical and focused on finding the Divine within ourselves. From the perspective of Baha’u’llah, these approaches are both true expressions of humanity’s connection with God. In an illuminating passage, Baha’u’llah tell his followers to be guided by the “blessed words” that “All things are of God” and says that this “exalted utterance is like unto water for quenching the fire of hate and enmity which smolders in the breasts of men. By this single utterance, contending peoples and kindreds will attain the light of true unity”. God is universal and seeing the different expressions of religion in the world in a universal way is fundamental to creating unity among peoples.

We also noted however, that most people’s experience of God is mediated through revealed religion, based on the claim of an individual, like Christ, Muhammad, or Baha’u’llah himself, to represent God to humanity. This is where a lot of the confusion and conflict have arisen in religion, and also the part that seems the least coherent, as the followers of the great religions have often interpreted their revelations in mutually contradictory ways. The incoherence and disunity has led many thoughtful people to reject revealed religion and choose to see God as a more impersonal Force or abstract entity, if they believe in God at all. “Divine revelation” itself is increasingly seen as a relic of humanity’s past, relegated to an age when we believed in all kinds of supernatural entities, most of which have been debunked by science.

Baha’u’llah’s revelation impacts our consideration of these issues profoundly and adds a significant new factor to the whole equation. Most significantly, He has brought a new revelation, itself an incredible wellspring of beauty and truth. It might be appropriate to consider “divine revelation” a relic of the past when we are faced with claims that are at least 1400 years old, but if it has happened again, in the modern era, it clearly impacts how we think about the phenomenon of divine revelation itself.

Beyond that, Baha’u’llah has also explained the nature of revealed religion itself and made it coherent. In contrast to the often conflicting claims of its followers, Baha’u’llah has explained that all the revealed religions are actually part of one unfolding religion- “the changeless Faith of God”- that manifests itself to humanity based on different circumstances, but whose essence is One Reality. Speaking of the Founders of the great religions of humankind, He says-

Every one of them is the Way of God that connects this world with the realms above, and the Standard of His Truth unto every one in the kingdoms of earth and heaven. They are the Manifestations of God amidst men, the evidences of His Truth, and the signs of His glory.

The Manifestations of God have “appeared clothed in divers attire”, and if we “observe with discriminating eyes, thou wilt behold Them all abiding in the same tabernacle, soaring in the same heaven, seated upon the same throne, uttering the same speech, and proclaiming the same Faith.”

He termed this process of the Faith of God unfolding throughout history as “progressive revelation”:

Know thou assuredly that the essence of all the Prophets of God is one and the same. Their unity is absolute…They all have but one purpose; their secret is the same secret. To prefer one in honor to another, to exalt certain ones above the rest, is in no wise to be permitted. Every true Prophet hath regarded His Message as fundamentally the same as the Revelation of every other Prophet gone before.

A review of the world’s scriptures strongly supports the concept of “progressive revelation”. When Christ came into the world, He claimed to fulfill the past revelation of Moses, saying “If you had known Moses, you would know Me” and promised that one would come after Him- the “Spirit of Truth” who would “lead you into all Truth”. Muhammad recognized over two dozen previous revelations in the Quran, explaining that His revelation was part of one religion- “The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah…and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: Namely, that ye should remain steadfast in religion, and make no divisions therein:…”

In the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu masterpiece, whose origins are unknown but was recorded about 2500 years ago, the Lord Krishna says “Though myself unborn, undying, the lord of creatures, I fashion nature, which is mine, and I come into being… Whenever sacred duty decays and chaos prevails, then I create myself, to protect men of virtue, to set the standard of sacred duty, I appear in age after age…” Even in the teachings of Buddha, there is a dialogue about previous “Buddhas” whose “path” had been lost over time and he was renewing it.

Indeed, the concept of “progressive revelation” is a fundamental element of each of the world’s great scriptures, as each of the Manifestations of God explicitly framed their teachings as the next installment of the same religion that people had recognized in the past. In other words, God is not trying to trick us!

The problem is that the followers and religious leaders of these great religions have chosen not to accept any of the revelations that come after the Founder of their religion. Traditional Jewish belief is that God revealed Himself to the Jewish people but no claim to revelation after that is true. Christians believe Christ was the fulfillment of the promises of the Hebrew scripture, and that Christ will return, but only to save Christians who believed in his first revelation. Orthodox Muslim belief accepts all the Prophets that appeared before Islam, but teaches that Muhammad was the “Seal of the Prophets” and that God will not send another revelation to humanity. In other words, each of the great religions accepts all the revelations before theirs, but none after.

In place of the expectation of another revelation similar to the first, traditional religions have forecast a “time of the end”- an “apocalypse”, a “Day of Judgment”, a “Day of Resurrection”- when believers will be rewarded and non-believers punished, usually presented as an other-worldly event that would suspend the laws of nature. The major challenge to this traditional religious worldview is that people have been forecasting such an event for thousands of years and nothing like it has actually occurred. As the centuries march on, it seems more and more like a fantasy. Most people, even most religious people, no longer believe in these ideas at all- but where does that leave traditional religion? For many people, it leaves them with theologies that no longer seem relevant to the modern world.

Baha’u’llah’s revelation was preceded by the claims of a young Prophet known as the Bab, who proclaimed a new religion within a Muslim society and prepared the way for Baha’u’llah. The Bab deals with these issues directly and pointedly throughout His writings. He taught that progressive revelation was a natural process, that the “Day of Resurrection” was a “day on which the sun rises and sets like any other” and that the descriptions in the scriptures for the “end of time” are metaphorical and represent the spiritual impact of a new Revelation upon human hearts.

“…What is intended by the Day of Resurrection is the Day of the appearance of the Tree of divine Reality (a new Manifestation of God), but it is not seen that anyone of the followers .. hath understood the meaning of the Day of Resurrection; rather have they fancifully imagined a thing which with God hath no reality. In the estimation of God…, what is meant by the Day of Resurrection is this, that from the time of the appearance of Him Who is the Tree of divine Reality, at whatever period and under whatever name, until the moment of His disappearance, is the Day of Resurrection. For example, from the inception of the mission of Jesus..till the day of His ascension was the Resurrection of Moses.”

So the “end of times” is only the end of a religious era. It is a “Day of judgment” on old ideas that no longer meet humanity’s needs, and a “Day of resurrection” as a new Revelation has come into the world to revive human hearts and provide a path back to God after it has been lost. “Resurrection” is like the springtime, when the flowers spring from the ground announcing that a new energy has been infused into all reality. In a wonderful Tablet, God speaks directly to Baha’u’llah- His “Pen”- announcing the Divine Springtime has arrived-

The Divine Springtime is come, O Most Exalted Pen, for the Festival of the All-Merciful is fast approaching. Bestir thyself, and magnify, before the entire creation, the name of God, and celebrate His praise, in such wise that all created things may be regenerated and made new.

The Bab explains that people often miss the significance of a new revelation because they judge it by their own standards-

“Since all men have issued forth from the shadow of the signs of His Divinity and Lordship, they always tend to take a path lofty and high. And because they are bereft of a discerning eye to recognize their Beloved, they fall short of their duty to manifest meekness and humility towards Him. Nevertheless, from the beginning of their lives till the end thereof, in conformity with the laws established in the previous religion, they worship God, piously adore Him and bow themselves before His Divine Reality…At the hour of His Manifestation, however, they all turn their gaze towards themselves and thus are shut out from Him, inasmuch as they fancifully regard Him as one like unto themselves. Far from the glory of God is such a comparison! Indeed the august Being resembles the sun. His verses are like its rays, and all believers, should they truly believe in Him, are as mirrors wherein the sun is reflected. Their light is thus a mere reflection.”

The Bab frequently used the metaphor of the rising and setting of the sun for the revelations of God coming to humanity, saying further that “were the risings of the sun to continue till the end that hath no end, yet there hath not been nor will there ever be more than one sun…”. The Bab connected the revelations of God to the natural world saying- “The process of His (God’s) creation hath had no beginning and can have no end, otherwise it would necessitate the cessation of His celestial grace.” Just as the natural world is always in motion, creative and evolutionary, revelations were also a natural process and that “God hath raised up Prophets and revealed Books as numerous as the creatures of the world, and will continue to do so to everlasting” as humanity’s knowledge of God always evolves.

He referred to the time a Manifestation was alive on earth as the “day of God”, whereas the time between the revelations was like the “night”, saying that religious leaders were like stars who shine during the night but should “fade into utter nothingness before the dazzling splendor of the Sun” when a new Revelation comes. Unfortunately, it was often religious leaders who most persecuted the new Manifestation, led people astray, and deprived them of the bounties of the new religion. According to the Bab, it was because people worshipped the outer form of the religion and fail to seek the inner essence of faith, the part that is renewed in each new revelation. “By adhering unto forms”, He said, people “deprive themselves of the good pleasure of their Lord.”

As the passage states above, it is also because people are trying to do the right thing, to “take a path lofty and high”, to protect what they consider sacred, that they “fancifully regard” the new Manifestation as “one like unto themselves”. Baha’u’llah, in another passage, points out further why a new revelation is such a challenge to accept for people who are committed to their religion. “Consider how men for generation have been blindly imitating their fathers, and have been trained according to such ways and manners as have been laid down by the dictates of their Faith. Were these men to discover that suddenly, a man, who has been living in their midst, who with respect to every human limitation hath been their equal, had arisen to abolish every established principle imposed by their faith- principles by which for centuries they have been disciplined- they would of a certainty be veiled and hindered from acknowledging this truth”. After centuries of belief, the Manifestations become almost mythical, and we forget that they were actually people who lived real lives and, if they came again, and passed us on the street, they would look the same as everyone else.

It is these kind of challenges that have made it difficult for people to see the revelations of God as part of one process. Even though they are like us, the Manifestations of God are not just human beings. What makes them special is not their outer physical appearance but their inner spiritual reality and the words they speak to attract our hearts. They represent God to humanity and have an essence that it is transcendent. As the passage states above, their inner reality is the Sun of Truth in relation to us, providing spiritual teachings that provide for our growth and well-being just like the physical sun is the source of life for the planet.

Similar to gravity, which is a fundamental force that manifests itself in various ways by acting on different objects, the revelations of God are also the manifestation of a single Force. Describing that Force in abstract terms can get pretty philosophical, but it’s worth connecting the dots because it is intellectually and spiritually illuminating. If we go back to our analogy of the painting, with God being the painter, we can think of the inner essence of each of the Manifestations- the Reality that is common to each of them- as being like the paintbrush. It is the aspect of God that acts in the world, the part that we see most clearly. We can’t see into the mind of the painter, but we see her brush.

The Bab had a name for this force, the “paintbrush” that acts in the “painting” that is the world we live in. He called it the “Primal Will’ of God- “primal” in the sense of “first”- as in there is nothing more fundamental to it except the Essence of God, which is unknowable. He said that it is the Primal Will that “appears resplendent in every Prophet and speaks forth in every revealed book” stating further that it “knows no beginning” inasmuch as even the very idea of “firstness” owes it existence to it, and “knoweth no end, for the Last owes its lastness unto It.” The creativity in nature is also fundamentally an expression of the effects of the Will. From the perspective of those living in the painting, the paintbrush is how we experience God. It is God to us, so the inner aspect of the Messengers of God is our true Beloved. It is in this sense that Baha’u’llah states about His own Revelation-

Naught is seen in My temple but the Temple of God, and in My beauty but His Beauty, and in My being but His Being, and in My self but His Self, and in My movement but His Movement, and in My acquiescence but His Acquiescence, and in My pen but His Pen, the Mighty, the All-Praised. There hath not been in My soul but the Truth, and in Myself naught could be seen but God.

For those familiar with Christian theology, the “Primal Will of God” is the same as the “Logos” or “Word of God”, as in the first paragraph of the Gospel of John- “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Baha’u’llah also uses the term “Word of God” to describe the same reality, stating that “The Word of God is the king of words and its pervasive influence is incalculable. It hath ever dominated and will continue to dominate the realm of being… It is an ocean inexhaustible in riches, comprehending all things. Every thing which can be perceived is but an emanation therefrom.” To go back to our analogy, everything in the painting is an emanation of the painters mind and the paintbrush that forms it

Not only is the divine revelation in its essence the expression of the Will of God, nature’s laws are also an expression of it. Both are natural in the truest sense of the word. It is these connections that the Bab and Baha’u’llah make that allow us to see divine revelation and the creative energies in nature as part of one singular reality, connecting our outer lives with our inner lives in a profound and intensely beautiful way. It is the foundation of the true harmony between the different revelations that have come to humanity, and also between science and religion, as all are fundamentally expressions of the same metaphysical Force. When we turn with our minds to studying the natural world, we are studying the Will of God as expressed in nature, and when we turn our hearts to the Word of God as expressed in each of the revelations, we are experiencing the same reality from a different part of our being.

So if all the revelations of God are in essence the expressions of a single transcendent reality, why do they differ one from another? Why are the laws that the Manifestations of God revealed different? Why do they use different theological concepts to explain their teachings, some of them even seemingly contradictory to each other?

Having reviewed the fundamental unity among the revelations of God in part 1 of this essay, part 2 will discuss why they are different and how those differences can be accommodated within a common framework.

Photo by Janus Clemmensen on Unsplash

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God is Not Dead- Part 2

God is Not Dead- Part 2

Published April 9, 2019 by admin

Baha’u’llah tells us that the beginning of our understanding of God is that God is unknowable. Seems like a funny place to start, but the point is that the Intelligence that is at the root of all that exists is not something we can know like we know other things. We understand ideas and objects by surrounding them with our mind. In the case of material objects, we weigh them, measure them, describe their color…etc, but God is not like that in any way. God surrounds us.

One of the best explanations of this comes from the great religion of Islam- from the Prophet’s son-in-law and the founder of Islamic philosophy and theology- Ali Ibn Abu Talib (“Ali”).

God is not like any object that the human mind can conceive. No attribute can be ascribed to Him which bears the least resemblance to any quality of which human beings have perception from their knowledge of material objects…He is with every object, not from resemblance or nearness. He is outside everything but not from separation or indifference towards His creatures. He works and creates but not in the meaning of motions or actions….He has no relation to matter, time and space.

Recognizing that God is not something we can conceive of in our minds is a really critical idea. Baha’u’llah’s son ‘Abdu’l-Baha’ made this point several times in his presentations in the West.

…That which a human being would conjure up in his mind is but the fanciful image of his human condition, it doth not encompass God’s reality but rather is encompassed by it. That is, man grasps his own illusory conceptions, but the Reality of Divinity can never be grasped: It, Itself, encompasses all created things, and all created things are in Its grasp. That Divinity which man doth imagine for himself exists only in his mind, not in truth. Man, however, exists both in his mind and in truth; thus man is greater than that fanciful reality which he is able to imagine.

What we see in the world is not God himself but the attributes of God, like how a painting reflects the qualities and attributes of the painter. Sometimes referred to as the “names and attributes of God”, these qualities- that everything in creation possesses- are the essential reality of every “thing”. Everything in creation, including us, is in its essence a reflection of the qualities of God that exist within it.

Let’s go over this again with a different framing. The Baha’i Writings tell us that, while God is beyond our ability to understand, the entire creation is itself a “revelation” of the qualities of God in all creation. The qualities of God are revealed to us through the world itself. In the passage below, Baha’u’llah gives an analogy that God is like the sun and the everything we know is the light that emanates from the sun.

God is immeasurably exalted above all things. Every created being however reveals His signs which are but emanations from Him and not His Own Self. All these signs are reflected and can be seen in the book of existence, and the scrolls that depict the shape and pattern of the universe are indeed a most great book. Therein every man of insight can perceive that which would lead to the Straight Path… Consider the rays of the sun whose light hath encompassed the world. The rays emanate from the sun and reveal its nature, but are not the sun itself. Whatsoever can be discerned on earth amply demonstrates the power of God, His knowledge and the outpourings of His bounty, while He Himself is immeasurably exalted above all creatures.

Baha’u’llah also tells us that “nature is, in its essence, the expression of” God’s will. This is a very important idea because people have a tendency to look for God in “miracles” or other events that break natural law. With this one simple statement, we are being told that nature itself is the miracle, that the world as we know it itself is the expression of the Divine Intelligence that underlies all reality.

So imagine you are a drop of paint living in a painting created by a painter you can never know directly. Or, to use a modern analogy, you are living in a video game, a virtual reality. What could you know about the video game maker? Since you are living in a different dimension of reality, you simply can’t know the creator directly, but you can connect to the qualities of the painter or video game creator as they are reflected in the world you live in.

This is what Baha’i Writings tell us- that God is “revealed” to us through creation itself- “to His creation through His creation”. Some people express that they feel God within nature and the beauty of the environment. That feeling is actually us sensing the presence of God in the grandness of creation.

Every created thing in the whole universe is but a door leading into His knowledge, a sign of His sovereignty, a revelation of His names, a symbol of His majesty, a token of His power, a means of admittance into His straight Path… (Baha’u’llah)

But the most profound sense of God we can have is the revelation of God that exists within our own selves-

“Behold with the eye of the heart. Verily, thy truth, the truth of thy being, is the divinity of thy Lord revealed unto thee and through thee. Thou art He Himself, and He is thou thyself, except that indeed thou art that thou art, and He is that He is.” (The Bab)

The purpose of life is for us to connect with our Creator and express the “revelation” of God within us most fully and most perfectly. When we do this, we are at the same time coming closer to God and coming closer to our own innermost true selves- as our essence is itself a revelation of God’s beauty. Humans are like “homing pigeons” for God, those birds that, wherever you take them in the world, they always find their way back home.

We are not born with these realities evident to us. We need to be taught. As we have observed, many people have a sense of God, a feeling of something transcendent within nature and within themselves, but it can remain undefined and veiled to us, and have no impact on how they behave or treat others. Baha’u’llah describes us as “unlit candles” who don’t realize the flame potentially within us. Imagine a child, a girl, in a poor ghetto of the world who is actually the most naturally gifted mathematician who has ever lived. Without some education, the child can never demonstrate the powers that lie within her. She could go through life completely unaware of her ability. But she is lucky and gets a good teacher who, through education, brings out the qualities that she inherently possesses and makes them manifest to others. This is where revealed religion comes into our understanding of God because the founders of the great religions are the educators that bring out the qualities that lie within us.

Let’s make a simple observation. Think of the people you know who believe in God and have an active spirituality. If you are like most people, your friends who do have a close relationship with God are aligned with one of the great religions of humanity- they are Christian, or Muslim, or a religious Jew, or Hindu. In other words, the energy for their belief and enthusiasm about God is not coming from some philosophical reflections, but a spiritual connection with a religion- in most cases- a revealed religion. There are always exceptions, but it is fair to say that people who have a strong belief and conception of God are almost always connected with a Christ, or a Muhammad, or one of the other founders of the other great religions. People who aren’t connected have a belief that tends to be more latent, if they have a belief at all.

There is actually a profound statement about the nature of humanity’s relationship to God in that simple observation. While the universal revelation of God is present in all creation and within ourselves, and has been for all time, it is so general that we might not even recognize it, nor does it necessarily lead to a change in how we act or treat each other. For that reason, God speaks to us again “through His creation”, in the form of a human being who speaks our language and can manifest to us the Will of God in a manner we can easily understand and appreciate. These are the Revelations that have founded the great religions and make God “manifest” to us in a specific sense. That is why Baha’u’llah referred to the “Prophets” or “Messengers” of God as “Manifestations of God” because they manifest God’s will to humanity in a specific sense. Through them, humans learn to make these spiritual connections with themselves, with others, and with nature.

Baha’u’llah describes these Manifestations of God in many ways, using far more descriptive terms than just “Prophet’ or “Messenger”. Describing the Manifestations of God, He says-

“These sanctified Mirrors, these Daysprings of ancient glory, are, one and all, the Exponents on earth of Him Who is the central Orb of the universe, its Essence and ultimate Purpose. From Him proceed their knowledge and power; from Him is derived their sovereignty. The beauty of their countenance is but a reflection of His image, and their revelation a sign of His deathless glory. They are the Treasuries of Divine knowledge, and the Repositories of celestial wisdom. Through them is transmitted a grace that is infinite, and by them is revealed the Light that can never fade.…”

In another passage, He says they “are the channels of God’s all-pervasive grace. Led by the light of unfailing guidance, and invested with supreme sovereignty, They are commissioned to use the inspiration of Their words, the effusions of Their infallible grace and the sanctifying breeze of Their Revelation for the cleansing of every longing heart and receptive spirit from the dross and dust of earthly cares and limitations. Then, and only then, will the Trust of God, latent in the reality of man, emerge… from behind the veil of concealment, and implant the ensign of its revealed glory upon the summits of men’s hearts.”

The revelations of God are a natural phenomenon, as natural as gravity and the second law of thermodynamics. Actually, they are more like the spring time, which periodically comes and refreshes the world, causing flowers and trees to blossom and grow. A new Revelation is like a “divine springtime”, causing faith to again awaken in people’s hearts and reminding us of the spiritual connections at the root of who we are.

It is also what essentially defines our conceptions of God. So, for a Christian, his or her conception of God is formed by Christ himself, as Jesus said- “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship to the Father, has made him known”. And in another passage- “If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but God who sent me. For when you see Me, you are seeing the one who sent Me. I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in Me will no longer remain in the dark.”

Christ turned a nebulous abstract entity that we can’t quite grasp, into a reality that was palpable, that we could love in the way we love other people, a reality that was personal. In that way, by speaking to our humanity, we could then find the revelation of God within ourselves, in others, and in the rest of creation. How many people read the stories in the Gospels and found their inner selves as a result? It’s influence has been almost inconceivably great. And this all happened because God spoke in a way and through a medium we could understand. This truth was not confined to Christ, but to all the Manifestations of God. It is through them that our concepts of God are given form. It is through them that we know God’s will in a personal and specific way. As Christ said- “I am the Way, the Truth, and Life and nobody gets to the Father but through Me.” The Manifestations are not God, but they are God to us.

This fundamental principle is enormously important in understanding humanity’s relationship to God, both in history and in the modern day. Because it is the Manifestations of God that make God real to us, turn God from an abstract philosophical entity to something we can love and serve, the presence of God in our lives primarily means the presence of one of these Revelations in our hearts. They are the ones who make that intellectual and spiritual connection between the Supreme Intelligence at the root of all existence, and a good and moral life. When their power and influence on humanity wanes, so does belief in God as we no longer have the primary path we used to find Him in the first place. The reason less people believe in God today is because the religions that represented Him on earth no longer have the intellectual and spiritual power they once did. The Revelations of the past have become old.

As humanity’s knowledge of God is constantly growing and evolving, the religion of God also must be renewed. Baha’u’llah’s Revelation is the renewal of religion for our time. As He states-

“Know thou that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needs a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God. Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requires a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that best befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.”

We’ll go into more detail on the concept of “progressive revelation” in the next essay, but before we leave this topic, we need to address an area of discomfort for many people with revealed religion. Appropriately, we naturally repel from the idea that we are worshipping a “man”, as opposed to a Force or some other abstract reality. A person who claims to be God seems too personal, and a part of us would probably rather keep our conceptions of God more universal. Plus, for every Christ, Muhammad, or Baha’u’llah, there are scores of pretenders who make claims to divinity, some for sincere reasons, others not. It can be truthfully be said that the overwhelming majority of people who make claim to some form of divinity are deceiving themselves and deceiving others. How do I know I’m not worshipping some crazy guy?

The beauty of divine revelation through a human being is that it makes God personal and connectable on a human level, but that also adds a human factor that can feel strange, particularly before you have had a chance to study the religion in detail. After all, the person of the Manifestation is a man, who comes from a certain culture, speaks a particular language, follows certain customs- all of which may be foreign to you.

Baha’u’llah assuages our fears in this regard, pointing out that the man is inconsequential to what we are worshipping. We are actually worshipping the Reality that shines through the man- the Revelation of God itself, and human beings can naturally tell the difference. Baha’u’llah makes this point again and again in His Writings, like in His Tablet to the King of Persia-

O King! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing. And He bade Me lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to flow…This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred…The evanescent is as nothing before Him Who is the Ever-Abiding. His all-compelling summons hath reached Me, and caused Me to speak His praise amidst all people.

In another passage, Baha’u’llah states clearly that His whole purpose was not to call attention to Himself as a person, that he “had no intention of establishing any position or distinction for Himself. The purpose hath rather been to attract the souls, through the sublimity of His words, unto the summit of transcendent glory.. Unto this bear witness My heart, My Pen, My inner and My outer Being. God grant that all men may turn unto the treasuries latent within their own selves.”

While the Manifestations of God are human beings, the whole point is to see them in their true transcendent reality-

The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days being thus closed in the face of all beings, the Source of infinite grace (God), … hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness (the Manifestations) to appear out of the realm of the spirit, in the noble form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men, that they may impart unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being, and tell of the subtleties of His imperishable Essence…From Him proceed their knowledge and power; from Him is derived their sovereignty. The beauty of their countenance is but a reflection of His image, and their revelation a sign of His deathless glory.

God is our true ‘Beloved” who appears in different “attire”- a different outer form- from age to age, but invites us to recognize that inner reality.

O My servants! It behoveth you to refresh and revive your souls through the gracious favors which, in this Divine, this soul-stirring Springtime, are being showered upon you. The Day Star of His great glory hath shed its radiance upon you, and the clouds of His limitless grace have overshadowed you. How high the reward of him that hath not deprived himself of so great a bounty, nor failed to recognize the beauty of his Best-Beloved in this, His new attire.

Moreover , each of the Revelations also has a common inner Voice that we can learn to recognize and appreciate as being common to all the Revelations.

Strive, O people, to gain admittance into this vast Immensity for which God ordained neither beginning nor end, in which His voice hath been raised, and over which have been wafted the sweet savors of holiness and glory. Divest not yourselves of the Robe of grandeur, neither suffer your hearts to be deprived of remembering your Lord, nor your ears of hearkening unto the sweet melodies of His wondrous, His sublime, His all-compelling, His clear, and most eloquent voice.

As you can see, and will be more apparent as we explore the Writings of Baha’u’llah, He speaks with a Voice that is transcendent and sublime. You come to not see them as the words of a man at all. The same thing happened with Christ and the words of the Quran. In the heart of a Baha’i, as with a Christian and a Muslim, the words of the Manifestation of God are the Voice of God, spoken to us in a language and a form that we can understand and connect with. There is a mystical connection between that inner Voice of God, or the Word of God- as expressed through each of the Revelations- and our own souls. It’s hard to explain but not hard to feel. There’s a rhythm to the Word that starts our feet tapping and reverberates with us on a very intimate level.

So let’s summarize the main points. We started by reasoning from what we know about the natural world to conclude that it is reasonable to believe that there is an Intelligence at the root of all existence. We meditated a bit on that Intelligence and concluded It was vast and ancient, and we are completely dependent upon It. But we also pointed out that such an Intelligence is not the kind of thing we can encompass with our minds or meet face to face like we would something or someone else. Our relationship to that Intelligence has to be a very unique relationship, unlike any others that we have. From the Baha’i writings, and this is corroborated in the Quran and the Bible, we learned that the nature of that Intelligence is imprinted on the reality of all creation, including within ourselves, but that truth can be veiled to us without revealed religion. It is revealed religion that helps us make the connections between the spiritual things we natively feel, and educates us about the powers that lie within each of us. Those Revelations are critical to our belief and relationship to God. Without them, our belief wavers as we can no longer make the intellectual and spiritual connections to the Source of our life.

Photo by Anthony Gibson on Unsplash

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God is Not Dead

God is Not Dead

Published April 8, 2019 by admin

There is a common saying- “The God I believe in is not the same God you don’t believe in”. The saying highlights a fundamental point important in any discussion about God- we have to define what we mean by “God”. Conceptions of “God” vary greatly and what one person believes in may be nothing like what others conceptualize. If you define terms and are clear about what you are saying, people often will find that they actually believe very similar things, but label them differently. Baha’u’llah has given us a more comprehensive understanding of God than any previous revelation, and it is an understanding that is consistent with the nature of our world discovered by science, but ultimately transcends it. Let’s start with a essay about why it is reasonable to believe that there is a God, an Intelligence at the root of all being, based on our modern scientific worldview, and then we can build other ideas from there.

When we look at the natural world, as presented to us by the intellectual investigations of philosophy and science over the last several centuries, there are certain things we can comfortably conclude. First, the natural world is rational, meaning it follows consistent and logically derivable rules that are present across the known universe. Indeed, the nature of creation is mathematical. It is a remarkable and under-appreciated fact that we can make measurements in a laboratory, derive a mathematical equation, and based on purely abstract reasoning from that equation, derive further equations that then we can test back in the lab and find to be predictive of the physical system we are studying. This means that, underlying the physical processes that exist, there are abstract mathematical and rational principles that are discoverable by intelligence. In other words, the world is intelligible, and intelligible to us. In thinking about God, both of those facts are significant.

13.8 billion years ago- immediately after the Big Bang- matter in the universe consisted of just hydrogen and helium- two simple and relatively non reactive elements. Natural laws worked on those elements to produce structures of increasing complexity, that progressively manifested higher functions such as the ability to grow, reproduce, and eventually become conscious. The appearance of human consciousness was enormously significant landmark event in the history of the universe. With the appearance of humans, with our powers of rationality and inductive reasoning, nature had produced an entity that could then turn around and understand nature itself.

Imagine nature and the material stuff of existence are like a book sitting on a table. The book desired to read itself but had no power to do so, so it rearranged and evolved its own elements- the elements that made up the book itself- to create a reader who could sit beside itself and read the book. That is essentially what has happened. Nature, by creating humans, created free will, creativity, rationality, and the ability to understand itself. This simple fact, accepted by every serious thinker and scientist all over the world, is enormously significant when we address the question of what is at the ultimate root of existence. One can possibly see the natural world as mindless when it produces seemingly mindless entities, but when it produces a mind that can then turn around and explain itself to itself, we’ve crossed a threshold that profoundly changes how we should think about the ultimate nature of the universe itself.

While those observations may strongly lead us to conclude that there is an Intelligence at the root of the universe, that conclusion has a major competitor- materialistic philosophy, and it is related to science. One of the “rules” of science is that we try to avoid metaphysical assumptions about reality when doing science. We assume that the answers for why things are the way they are in the natural world reside in the natural world itself, using materialistic explanations that are confined to that world. Materialism is therefore a methodological assumption of science, and a highly useful one, because it keeps science as a coherent body of knowledge. Though highly effective as a “methodological approach”, as the “rules of the game” in science, when we broaden materialism to a philosophy of everything- the idea that nothing exists besides inanimate matter and the natural laws that define their functions- it gets more problematic. Philosophical materialism is very popular right now as it is seen as a simple and rational way of looking at the world. It is that. Moreover, it has a certain coherence that is attractive. The success of the materialistic assumptions that underlie science itself has made it even seem like a proven idea. The problem is that philosophical materialism ultimately has a very limited range of explanatory tools in its tool box to explain the broad picture of reality, seemingly too few to explain what we know about the universe. And the place it really struggles is explaining us.

Imagine you are walking in the woods and you find an iPhone sitting on the forest floor. You have never seen such a device but you begin to explore its function and soon find out about its marvelous abilities and the complexity of its structure. What is the probability that such an object could have arisen there on its own- that the natural elements could have arranged themselves mindlessly to produce such a complex and coordinated entity? Obviously, the possibility of that happening on its own is so low that nobody would regard it as a serious idea. But the iPhone is less complex than the simplest level of biological organisms.

One of the simplest biological organisms is a prokaryotic cell- the kind of cells bacteria are made of. There are billions of them on and in your body as you read this. But the prokaryotic cell is not a simple thing. If you were to shrink yourself and somehow get into a cell, you would find it to be an extraordinary dynamic and organized place. The average prokaryotic cell produces 2000 proteins/second off its DNA. Each of those proteins has a particular and very specific function and will be recycled after it completes its function. It is an environment with a whirring level of activity, all coordinated, regulated, with feedback loops and other strategies to allow the cell to structure its activity and respond to its environment. And the prokaryotic cell is one of the simplest biological organisms in creation!

The most complex biological entity in creation is the human brain, with trillions of cells, each more complex than the simple prokaryotic cell, and all coordinated together to help you do all the things you do in life. The vast range of human invention, the products of the work of millions of minds over the course of history, are not even close to creating anything as complex and coordinated as the human brain. Moreover, there are no convincing materialistic answers for why humans manifest the distinctive qualities that we do- subjective consciousness (your sense of “I”), abstract thought, commitment to abstract ethical ideals like justice and mercy, and complex language. Even our love of music is a mystery. One can imagine that answers might be forthcoming as science advances, but we are still left with a fundamental question as to how material things grew to manifest these remarkable qualities on their own.

So let’s ask that question more directly. What is the chance that all that we know about the world and ourselves came into being on its own? Materialism ultimately provides only two possibilities for how mindless matter can organize itself into complex structures capable of these extraordinary functions- random chance and determinism (sometimes referred to as “necessity”). Remember, materialism has no recourse to mind in any form. No explanation can reflect intentionality or purpose. Things must happen by chance, or they reflect the inherent nature of a piece of matter and the natural laws that act on it. That is, things happen because they are “determined” to happen that way, by an objects inherent nature, which it cannot change.

In answering the question, we can pretty much rule out chance, but will come back to it in a minute. The other possibility- “necessity” or “determinism”- is that these qualities of material things- the ability to form more complex entities that can perform higher functions- is baked into the laws of nature and matter itself such that there are “determined” outcomes that unfold over time. But what does it say about the laws of nature and matter when it is baked into them to produce mind and consciousness? A system that is set up to produce- deterministically- mind and consciousness is a system that was more likely designed by something with mind and consciousness in the first place.

So then we are back to random chance as the best materialistic explanation, but our world is so vastly improbable to have happened by chance that it’s really not a serious idea. One popular theory is that there are an infinite number of potential universes and we just happen to live in the one in which these highly improbable events have occurred. Given an infinite range of possibilities, anything is possible! This is true, but it can hardly masquerade as a serious explanation. Any detective who came to a crime scene, looked at the evidence before him, shrugged his shoulders and said that maybe there are an infinite number of universes and “anything is possible”, would lose credibility quickly.

The more one meditates on these issues, the more evident it becomes that material things and mindless laws are not good candidates to be the ultimate root of life. Materialistic philosophy, though useful as a guide for science, is too limited for more fundamental explanations of reality. That is not the fault of science. Science is only as good as its assumptions, and its assumption is that everything is material, because material things are all science can study! There’s an old story in philosophy of a drunk who is looking for the keys he lost on the street, but he is only searching one side of the street. When someone asks him why he doesn’t search the other side, he says it is because there is no light posts on that side. Think of science as the light that shines on the street. It’s natural for materialistic science to look for the kind of answers it can prove are true, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t true answers that are non-materialistic! To look at the world in a purely materialistic way is not wrong- the world is made up of material stuff- but many people are afraid to stray out from under its canopy and find ways to shine light on the other side of the street, thus depriving themselves of a broader picture of reality.

From my personal perspective, the much more coherent view is that the ultimate basis of everything that exists is not material things in themselves, nor the mindless laws that define their actions, but intelligence. Like chess pieces on a chess board that don’t move themselves, but are propelled by intelligence, nature and matter are similarly the result of intelligence. It is simply a better and more coherent explanation for the reality of the universe and how it has evolved creatures like us. I’d like to say that I’m somehow uniquely clever to come to this conclusion, but I’m not. Most of the great philosophers and thinkers in the history of the human race have come to the same conclusion.

Now we can ask a second question- what is the nature of the Intelligence that produced the universe we know? We can say with certainly that it is a vast and ancient Intelligence that far transcends any intelligence we have. As we meditate further, we recognize that we are all completely and utterly dependent on that Intelligence. Without it, we would not have lived and nothing else we know would have ever existed. Everything we have ever known is dependent on that Reality for its very existence. Acknowledging and becoming consciously aware of that truth is not to believe in a “delusion”, but rather it is to awaken to the the true reality of our situation.

There are several analogies given in the Baha’i writings to explain our relationship to the Divine Reality. One is that our relationship to the Force underlying all existence is like a fish to water. It goes without saying that a fish depends on water. It is the medium in which it moves, how it gets its oxygen, and water permeates every organ and cell of a fish so completely that it has no life without it. But is the fish aware of its dependence on the water? Does the fish even know that water exists!? It’s so permeated and dependent on water that it might not even realize that it’s there. The relationship of God to us and everything in creation is like that.

There are also a few other simple conclusions we can draw from observations of humans and human societies, that tell us a little bit more about us and our relationship to God. It is clear that belief in an Intelligence or transcendent Force at the root of all being is pretty much universal among humans, even without philosophical consideration of the question. Virtually all societies had that conception, in some form or another. We can also say that the desire for humans to connect with that Force is extremely powerful, as manifested by the universal presence of religion in all societies until the modern period. In other words, we have a “spiritual instinct” that is an inherent part of our reality and consciousness. For many people throughout history, no more noble thing could be imagined than trying to understand and connect with the Root of all existence. Religion then is an expression of what it means to be human- truly human.

Many people, including scientists and philosophers all over the world, would not disagree fundamentally with the points above. Indeed, they are not infrequently voiced by leading intellectuals the world over. When Einstein said he wanted “to know God’s thoughts, the rest are mere details”, he was expressing a desire to understand the Root of all existence, which he believed to be intelligent. The issue then becomes, not whether there is a Divine Reality at the root of all life, but the nature of that Reality and Its relationship to us and to nature. It is in our “concept of God” where humans most often disagree. The belief in God is diminishing in many parts of the world, not because we no longer have a reason to believe in God, but the way we believed in God in the past is no longer coherent with our modern reality. Our concepts of God haven’t evolved as much as our knowledge and understanding in other areas of life.

In part 2 of this essay, we will explore the concept of God that Baha’u’llah brought into the world and how that illuminates our understanding of our relationship to God.

Photo by Adrien Converse on Unsplash

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Oneness of Humanity

Oneness of Humanity

Published April 5, 2019 by admin

He Who is your Lord, the All Merciful, cherisheth in His heart the desire of beholding the entire human race as one soul and one body.

The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. (Baha’u’llah)

In every Dispensation, the light of Divine Guidance has been focused upon one central theme…In this wondrous Revelation, this glorious century, the foundation of the Faith of God, and the distinguishing feature of His Law, is the consciousness of the oneness of mankind.

Let all strive to grow in the light of the Sun of Truth, and reflecting this luminous love on all men, may their hearts become so united that they may dwell evermore in the radiance of the limitless love…When you love a member of your family or a compatriot, let it be with a ray of the Infinite Love! Let it be in God, and for God! Wherever you find the attributes of God, love that person, whether he be of your family or of another. Shed the light of a boundless love on every human being whom you meet, whether of your country, your race, your political party, or of any other nation, color or shade of political opinion. Heaven will support you while you work in this ingathering of the scattered peoples of the world beneath the shadow of the almighty tent of unity. (‘Abdu’l-Baha’)

Photo from Baha’i media bank of a children’s class in Panama.

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Oneness of Religion

Oneness of Religion

Published April 3, 2019 by admin

Baha’u’llah’s son- ‘Abdu’l-Baha’- was a great teacher and promoter of the unity of humanity. He came to America in 1912 giving introductory talks about Baha’u’llah’s Revelation. The talk below was delivered at a Unitarian Church in Washington D.C. It expresses the themes of the Oneness of God, the oneness of humanity, and the oneness of religion. Enjoy!

The doctrines and creed of this church, so capably expressed by its revered minister, are truly commendable, sanctified and worthy of praise and glorification, for these precepts are opposed to the deep-rooted religious prejudices of the day. It is evident that prejudices arising from adherence to religious forms and imitation of ancestral beliefs have hindered the progress of humanity thousands of years. How many wars and battles have been fought, how much division, discord and hatred have been caused by this form of prejudice! But inasmuch as this century is a century of the revelation of reality—praise be to God!—the thoughts of men are being directed toward the welfare and unity of humanity. Daily the mirage of imitations is passing away, and the ocean of truth is surging more tumultuously. All the existing nations had a divine foundation of truth or reality originally, which was intended to be conducive to the unity and accord of mankind, but the light of that reality gradually became obscured. The darkness of superstitions and imitations came and took its place, binding the world of humanity in the chains and fetters of ignorance. Enmity arose among men, increasing to such an extent that nation strove against nation in hatred and violence. War has been a religious and political human heritage.

Now it is enough! We must investigate reality. We must put away these superstitions. It is a self-evident truth that all humanity is the creation of God. All are His servants and under His protection. All are recipients of His bestowals. God is kind to all His servants. At most it is this: that some are ignorant; they must be educated in order that they may become intelligent. Some are immature as children; they must be aided and assisted in order that they may become mature. Some are sick and ailing; they must be healed. But the suffering patient must not be tested by false treatment. The child must not be warped and hindered in its development. The ignorant must not be restricted by censure and criticism. We must look for the real, true remedy.

All the Prophets of God, including Jesus Christ, appeared in the world for the education of humanity, to develop immature souls into maturity, to transform the ignorant of mankind into the knowing, thereby establishing love and unity through divine education and training. The Prophets have not come to cause discord and enmity. For God has wished all good for His servants, and he who wishes the servants of God evil is against God; he has not obeyed the will and emulated the example of God; he has followed Satanic leadings and footprints. The attributes of God are love and mercy; the attribute of Satan is hate. Therefore, he who is merciful and kind to his fellowmen is manifesting the divine attribute, and he who is hating and hostile toward a fellow creature is satanic. God is absolute love, even as Jesus Christ has declared, and Satan is utter hatred. Wherever love is witnessed, know that there is a manifestation of God’s mercy; whenever you meet hatred and enmity, know that these are the evidences and attributes of Satan. The Prophets have appeared in this world with the mission that human souls may become the expressions of the Merciful, that they may be educated and developed, attain to love and amity and establish peace and agreement.

In the world of existence the animal is a captive of nature. Its actions are according to the exigencies and requirements of nature. It has no consideration or consciousness of good and evil. It simply follows its natural instinct and inclination. The Prophets of God have come to show man the way of righteousness in order that he may not follow his own natural impulse but govern his action by the light of Their precept and example. According to Their teachings he should do that which is found to be praiseworthy by the standard of reason and judgment of intellect, even though it be opposed to his natural human inclination; and he should not do that which is found to be unworthy by that same standard, even though it be in the direction of his natural impulse and desire. Therefore, man must follow and manifest the attributes of the Merciful.

The imperfect members of society, the weak souls in humanity, follow their natural trend. Their lives and actions are in accord with their natural propensities; they are captives of physical susceptibilities; they are not in touch or in tune with the spiritual bounties. Man has two aspects: the physical, which is subject to nature, and the merciful or divine, which is connected with God. If the physical or natural disposition in him should overcome the heavenly and merciful, he is, then, the most degraded of animal beings; and if the divine and spiritual should triumph over the human and natural, he is, verily, an angel. The Prophets come into the world to guide and educate humanity so that the animal nature of man may disappear and the divinity of his powers become awakened. The divine aspect or spiritual nature consists of the breaths of the Holy Spirit. The second birth of which Jesus has spoken refers to the appearance of this heavenly nature in man. It is expressed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and he who is baptized by the Holy Spirit is a veritable manifestation of divine mercy to mankind. Then he becomes just and kind to all humanity; he entertains prejudice and ill will toward none; he shuns no nation or people.

The foundations of the divine religions are one. If we investigate these foundations, we discover much ground for agreement, but if we consider the imitations of forms and ancestral beliefs, we find points of disagreement and division; for these imitations differ, while the sources and foundations are one and the same. That is to say, the fundamentals are conducive to unity, but imitations are the cause of disunion and dismemberment. Whosoever is lacking in love for humanity or manifests hatred and bigotry toward any part of it violates the foundation and source of his own belief and is holding to forms and imitations. Jesus Christ declares that the sun rises upon the evil and the good, and the rain descends upon the just and the unjust—upon all humanity alike. Christ was a divine mercy which shone upon all mankind, the medium for the descent of the bounty of God, and the bounty of God is transcendent, unrestricted, universal.

The revered minister read from the words of the Gospel, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.” The century has dawned when the Spirit of Truth can reveal these verities to mankind, proclaim that very Word, establish the real foundations of Christianity and deliver the nations and peoples from the bondage of forms and imitations. The cause of discord, prejudice and animosity will be removed, the basis of love and amity be established. Therefore, all of you must strive with heart and soul in order that enmity may disappear entirely and that strife and hatred pass away absolutely from the midst of the human world. You must listen to the admonition of this Spirit of Truth. You must follow the example and footprints of Jesus Christ. Read the Gospels. Jesus Christ was mercy itself, was love itself. He even prayed in behalf of His executioners—for those who crucified Him—saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” If they knew what they were doing, they would not have done it. Consider how kind Jesus Christ was, that even upon the cross He prayed for His oppressors. We must follow His example. We must emulate the Prophets of God. We must follow Jesus Christ. We must free ourselves from all these imitations which are the source of darkness in the world.

I shall ask you a question: Did God create us for love or for enmity? Did He create us for peace or discord? Surely He has created us for love; therefore, we should live in accordance with His will. Do not listen to anything that is prejudiced, for self-interest prompts men to be prejudiced. They are thoughtful only of their own will and purposes. They live and move in darkness. Consider how many different nations and divergent religious beliefs existed when Christ appeared. Enmity and strife prevailed among them—Romans, Greeks, Assyrians, Egyptians—all warring and hostile toward each other. Christ, through the breaths of the Holy Spirit, united them, established fellowship among them so that no trace of strife remained. Under His standard they became united and lived in peace through His teachings. Which is preferable and more commendable? To follow the example of Jesus Christ or to manifest the satanic instinct? Let us strive with all our powers to unite the East and West so that the nations of the world may be advanced and that all may live according to the one foundation of the religions of God. The essentials of the divine religion are one reality, indivisible and not multiple. It is one. And when through investigation we find it to be single, we have a basis for the oneness of the world of humanity. I will pray for you, asking confirmation and assistance in your behalf.

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

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One God

One God

Published April 2, 2019 by admin

People sometimes ask- why is it important to believe in One God? It’s a really good question. The Oneness of God is a primary theme in the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism. Hindus also have a sense of one Force at the root of all existence, and many cultures that believed in many gods still had one God they worshipped above the others. The Oneness of God was an evolution and advancement in humanity’s conception of God and it had a lot of impact on how humans thought about the world.

Before these great religions, humans tended to see nature as the expression of forces controlled by the “gods”. It thundered because the gods were angry, rained because the gods were crying…etc. The perception of people was that they were at the mercy of these gods and the natural forces they controlled. The gods were not necessarily ethical- they were just glorified human personalities. People would make idols of these gods and sacrifice to them so that good things would happen and bad things would be avoided. Belief in these gods was more like superstition than anything else.

The Oneness of God was taught by Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as a fundamental doctrine and it made two connections that were significant. The first was that all these other gods were nothing in the face of the true abstract Reality that was the real Source of all being. Second, that One God was an ethical God who cared about humanity and wanted humans to achieve their full potential. To be like that One God was to take on the highest virtues of humanity. With the Oneness of God, humanity’s conception of the world also went from one that was very concrete, to one that was more abstract. Being able to think and see the world in abstract terms is an evolution in human thinking and spirituality that set the stage for other advances, both intellectual and religious. The Oneness of God actually provided the basis for science because it was understood that the world was a rational place, created by a single rational and benevolent God, and not the playground for a bunch of juvenile divinities that always fought each other.

There is a story in the Gospels where Jesus is conversing with a Samaritan woman at a well. Samaritan’s were not Jews and did not worship One God, and she noted that her god was in the mountains whereas Jews worshipped theirs in the temple. Jesus told her that God was a “Spirit and needed to be worshipped in spirit and in truth”. It wasn’t the place that was important, but the worship of an abstract reality that was the essence of Truth.

The Oneness of God was further developed in the revelation of Muhammad and Islam. The fundamental teaching of Muhammad was the “Unity of God”. To say God was one was even incorrect- God was beyond numbers and shouldn’t even be thought of in those concrete terms. Even idols became non-physical. An “idol” could be a physical idol, but also an “idol” we created in our minds, anything that caused us to worship something other than One True God who was the essence of compassion and mercy. As expressed by Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law-

“To know God is to know his oneness. To say that God is one has four meanings: two of them are false and two are correct. As for the two meanings that are false, one is that a person should say “God is one” and be thinking of a number and counting. This is false because that which has no second cannot enter into the category of number…Another meaning is to say, “So-and-So is one of his people”, namely, a species of this genus or a member of this species. This meaning is also false when applied to God, because it implies likening something to God, whereas God is above all likeness. As to the two meanings that are correct when applied to God, one is that it should be said that “God is one” in the sense that there is no likeness to him among things. Another is to say that “God is one” in the sense that there is no multiplicity or division conceivable in Him, neither outwardly, nor in the mind, nor in the imagination. God alone possesses such a unity.”

Baha’u’llah built on these concepts in His Revelation. God becomes completely abstract, only knowable through the qualities He manifests in all creation, including within us, and in the Revelations that come to humanity and explain His reality and our connection to It.

“Regard thou the one true God as One Who is apart from, and immeasurably exalted above, all created things. The whole universe reflecteth His glory, while He is Himself independent of, and transcendeth His creatures. This is the true meaning of Divine unity. He Who is the Eternal Truth is the one Power Who exerciseth undisputed sovereignty over the world of being, Whose image is reflected in the mirror of the entire creation. All existence is dependent upon Him, and from Him is derived the source of the sustenance of all things. This is what is meant by Divine unity; this is its fundamental principle.”

To worship that one God is to express it in pure and holy deeds of service to all humanity, irrespective of any particular characteristic- race, religion, political party or other divisions. To worship God is to worship love and justice in pure form.

Worship thou God in such wise that if thy worship lead thee to the fire, no alteration in thine adoration would be produced, and so likewise if thy recompense should be paradise. Thus and thus alone should be the worship which befitteth the one True God. Shouldst thou worship Him because of fear, this would be unseemly in the sanctified Court of His presence, and could not be regarded as an act by thee dedicated to the Oneness of His Being. Or if thy gaze should be on paradise, and thou shouldst worship Him while cherishing such a hope, thou wouldst make God’s creation a partner with Him, notwithstanding the fact that paradise is desired by men. Fire and paradise both bow down and prostrate themselves before God. That which is worthy of His Essence is to worship Him for His sake, without fear of fire, or hope of paradise. (The Bab)

The Oneness of God is the truth that connects our spiritual instincts with ethical behavior. It is the basis of all exalted forms of religion.

Quote from Ali from Wikipedia, “Tawhid” article. Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash

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The Three Onenesses

The Three Onenesses

Published April 1, 2019 by admin

“Every created thing in the whole universe is but a door leading into His knowledge, a sign of His sovereignty, a revelation of His names, a symbol of His majesty, a token of His power, a means of admittance into His straight Path…” Baha’u’llah

O true companions! All humankind are as children in a school, and the Dawning-Points of Light, the Sources of divine revelation, are the teachers, wondrous and without peer. In the school of realities they educate these sons and daughters, according to teachings from God, and foster them in the bosom of grace, so that they may develop along every line, show forth the excellent gifts and blessings of the Lord, and combine human perfections….(‘Abdu’l-Baha’)

God maketh no distinction between the white and the black. If the hearts are pure both are acceptable unto Him. God is no respecter of persons on account of either color or race…. Inasmuch as all were created in the image of God, we must bring ourselves to realize that all embody divine possibilities. If you go into a garden and find all the flowers alike in form, species and color, the effect is wearisome to the eye. The garden is more beautiful when the flowers are many-colored and different….(‘Abdu’l-Baha”)

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

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