This essay is part of our series on the teachings of the Bab, whose 200th birthday on October 29th is being celebrated by Baha’is all over the world. 

The opening paragraph of the Bab’s most important work- “The Bayan”, expresses a fundamental truth that is found throughout His Writings- the unknowability of God.

All praise and glory befitteth the sacred and glorious court of the sovereign Lord, Who from everlasting hath dwelt, and unto everlasting will continue to dwell within the mystery of His Own divine Essence, Who from time immemorial hath abided and will forever continue to abide within His transcendent eternity, exalted above the reach and ken of all created beings. The sign of His matchless Revelation as created by Him and imprinted upon the realities of all beings, is none other but their powerlessness to know Him. 

Now, admittedly, it seems strange to start a book that is intended to lay bare how humans can know God with the idea that God is unknowable, but it is a really important and fundamental idea, if we are going to have a discussion about the real truth of God.

Think about it a bit.  What exactly are we saying when we say we want to know God?  Are we hoping to meet him like we would Idris Elba, or some other famous person? It doesn’t take long to realize that any God that is worthy of the definition we give for God- the ultimate Source of all existence- is not something or someone we are going to be able to meet in a normal way like we “meet” other things. We aren’t going to be able to encompass God with our minds.  After all, our minds are limited and God- by definition- is unlimited. Our minds are limited to the concepts formed by our experiences and provided by our senses, our perceptions of the world of space and time relative to us humans, and a host of other specific factors that are true only for us.  An ant experiences the world in a completely different way.  Indeed, as the Bab points out in His Writings, if an ant were to conceive of God, it would probably give Him very big antennas that went up to the sky- essentially a perfect idea of its own self. 

In many ways, the Bab’s Revelation is going to be about answering this question- if the essence of God is unknowable, what exactly are we knowing when we know God?  What exactly are we connecting with when we feel close to God?  What is this religion thing all about if the whole object of it is to know something that is unknowable?

The remarkable fact is that- though it seems like the Bab is going to put God far off in the distance- He will actually bring Him closer than His readers could have ever imagined.