The story seems clear and timely to me and in the context of an extended interfaith discussion. It was not pointed towards any individual and the principle is just as much for me as anyone else.
Often with intellectual prowess comes ego, and with knowledge of religion, attachment.
Hmmm! So is the fact that some have grasped the "water-snake" carelessly and been bitten a good reason to abandon all our individual attempts to grasp it and wait for it to be handed to us by a divinely authorized charmer? Or is the sweet water of philosophical knowledge - the power of individual human reason - to be forbidden to all because some have choked on it? (see Averroes,
The Decisive Treatise, 12th century). A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but surely failing to address our thirst for it with clean, clear 'water' will spell the death of the intellect altogether - and what hope for independent investigation then?
And that is the problem with a revelation "first and last" approach to knowledge. If the revelation is genuine then surely it must stand up to even the most rigorous philosophical probing - which was the point that Averroes (following Aristotle) was making. It is also the point the early English Deists like John Toland (
Christianity Not Mysterious, 1696) and Matthew Tindal (
Christianity as Old as the Creation, 1730) were making about Christianity in the 18th century. If the revelation cannot withstand the intellectual probing of reason and, yes, even ridicule, is the revelation genuine? Is a faith based on it sound? Or just "blind"?
So any independent investigation would surely have to take a philosophical (or scientific) approach as well as (if necessary) an appeal to "revealed truth" - wouldn't it? In any case, how could any revealed truth be greater in profundity or scope than the human mind in which it was 'revealed' could accommodate?
Baha'u'llah seems to agree here:
"To whatever heights the mind of the most exalted of men may soar, however great the depths which the detached and understanding heart can penetrate, such mind and heart can never transcend that which is the creature of their own conceptions and the product of their own thoughts. The meditations of the profoundest thinker, the devotions of the holiest of saints, the highest expressions of praise from either human pen or tongue, are but a reflection of that which hath been created within themselves, through the revelation of the Lord, their God." (Gleanings, no. 148, pp. 317–18)
The "truth" must surely then be as amenable to human reason as any "revelation" - mustn't it? Or to put it another way, isn't it quite possible that "divine truth" may be "revealed" BY the power of human reason, since it is unquestionable that any revelation - however mundanely or miraculously induced - must be amenable to human reason if it is to have the desired (or any) effect on human minds?
That being the case, is it not also true to say that any "revelation" about the Nature of Ultimate Reality (aka "God" if we want use that term) is,
in fact, true for the humans in whose minds it is revealed? And by definition, the same revelation is,
in fact, false for the humans in whose minds the revelation fails to be accommodated?
So a more apt illustration about our vision of "truth" - as opposed to "grasping" one "Truth" or imbibing from one pool of unchanging "Divine Wisdom", might be to say that although we are all looking at the same "mountain", we each view it from a different vantage point and see the same reality differently but (at least potentially) with equivalent accuracy and acuity. Or perhaps rather with equivalent obscurity and opacity - like the blind men in the old Hindu fable who wanted to 'see' what an elephant was like.
The Baha'i position is, of course, in keeping with the earlier Islamic tradition that it (essentially, socially and religiously) grew out of, that the Ultimate Reality is entirely ineffable and unapproachable in its effulgent glory and splendor - infinitely beyond the comprehension of human minds - which position raises the question of why anyone would imagine that any 'revelation' in any human mind (divinely or mundanely revealed) should be much (if at all) superior to a 'revelation' in any other human mind.
If the revelation of Christ or Buddha or Baha'u'llah is, in fact, genuinely superior to other revelations then that must surely be because the mind of Christ or Buddha or Baha'u'llah was superior to other minds - otherwise, how did their minds grasp the revelation in order to propagate it? And if their minds were superior anyway, what need had they of supernatural revelation which could, in any case, reveal only as much as their natural minds could accommodate?
If, on the other hand, we are holding that the measure of the revelations is not the greatness of the mind of the recipient, but rather the greatness of the 'movements' and 'civilizations' they inspired (as one of the main strands of the Baha'i argument in this thread has suggested repeatedly) then I would respectfully suggest that this is the theological equivalent of shutting one's eyes and 'grasping' an elephant by the tail to find out what one is like. And woe betide anyone who strives with closed eyes to examine an elephant (let alone "Christian" or "Islamic" culture) from behind!
But perhaps in the end there is no Ultimate Reality at all. Perhaps there is just a kind of "Divine Attractor" "pulling" civilizations and societies towards a "moving target" kind of "Omega Point" that is the asymptote of human potentiality (maybe that is what, each in their different ways, Christ, Buddha and Baha'u'llah represent) - a point - a unity - perhaps a 'singularity' of human 'purpose' - that is always before us but always tantalizingly beyond our grasp. It represents the best possible outcome from our various current vantage points, of all past and current human striving in a world in constant flux. The (currently apparent) ultimate synthesis in a fundamentally dialectical reality of unending process of change and opposition (God/no God, self/no self, me/not me...etc.). A point we will never actually reach - the end of our rainbow - a noble but ultimately unattainable goal that whilst unquestionably glorious and effulgent in the distance, is no less subject to change and decay than we are ourselves - and yet it is always 'there'.
So maybe the "greatness" of these "Beings" (Human Beings - if they existed at all as the individuals described in the traditions they inspired) is not so much in the fact that they inspired great civilizations (etc.), but that they provided (they are) an "omega point" towards which the societies of their times (still current in some cases) aspire(d). All equally valid, but not necessarily in all times or all places. But what makes (or made) them "great" is not the resultant cultural movement they trailed behind them, but the fact that in their time (in the time during which their influence prevailed) they set before us a vision, a model, that resonated with a large number of human intellects. None were either more or less "right" or "true" than the others - just more or less appealing to certain human audiences in certain times.
If this is right then God becomes the Divine Attractor and the "Divine Manifestations" are the Omega Points. God becomes the Divine Attractor, but the Divine Attractor does not need to be "God" - it could equally be "no God". It could be Human Wisdom. After all, there could be nothing in its "revelations" to us that cannot be accommodated and encapsulated within the span of human wisdom. But it is easy to see why it might wear the mask of God. I have no problem with that - but I also think there is a clear and present danger in refusing to unmask it at least occasionally so we can observe its expressions and see where it seems to be leading us - and why.