Infallibility

[TransmutingSoul]

Perhaps - but do I really need to have cancer so that I can appreciate good health? I think not.

That is the perfection of choice. Health can not be appreciated until we know of the lack of health.

We have been created with the potential of all health, why is the world so sick, why have we chosen this sickness?

Christ gave a simple solution, but also very profound. 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. If we choose not to do this...sickness starts.

Regards Tony

 

[lukethethird]

That is the perfection of choice. Health can not be appreciated until we know of the lack of health.

We have been created with the potential of all health, why is the world so sick, why have we chosen this sickness?

Christ gave a simple solution, but also very profound. 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. If we choose not to do this...sickness starts.

Regards Tony

Is that really how it works?

 

[Dawnofhope]

So we can play these games back and forth and imagine what an omnipotent God may or may not have done - but what it boils down to in the end is what one chooses to believe. For me, I prefer evidence and reason

Perhaps we can agree that both the resurrection and virgin birth narratives play an essential role in understanding the Christian message. Whether or not they are literally true is a secondary concern.

The virgin birth story speaks to me of the exalted and sanctified nature of Christ. The resurrection of the Power latent within the Word of God to transform the hearts of individuals and communities. Beyond that the hope that is life eternal.

I agree that it comes down to what we choose to believe. Evidence and reason are essential determinants. For me they are not the sole factors. Being a Baha’i works for me as being on the periphery of religion works for you. Abdul-Baha once remarked you try your way and I’ll try mine.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I see it the opposite way round - it is our focus on self that separates us from creation - and that finds (perhaps) its ultimate expression in traditional monotheisms where the "holy" is entirely screened off from the "profane" behind an impenetrable curtain. Yet the "temple" (the true temple) is (unavoidably) a physical structure - and whether or not we find the divine within depends on the extent to which our "mind" (our "spirit") can be separated, not from "this creation", but from the conceptual (imaginary) boundaries that define our "self" and set us over and against our "not-self". And to be honest - I think if we truly can find the "divine" within this "earthly temple", then infallibility and fallibility (of spiritual guides and prophets, of "divine revelations" and retellings thereof) become irrelevant - because once we've "been there" we no longer need either guide or prophet to lead us - but that's not to say we can't still learn from others - its all "grist to the mill" of a continually unfolding "becoming" and seen from countless different angles and through different filters. Some that please, others that grate on the senses of our spirit.

Now this is where the line I noted to Adrian above needs to be considered.

God is unknowable and beyond all creation, all thoughts of God are erroneous.

Mírzá Ḥusayn-`Alí Núrí and Jesus are men like us. It is what they are born of, that is the Holy Spirit, which is all we can know of God. They are the first and last of all creation and from them we all and everything have life, both spiritual and material life.

We can not even reach this level, let alone be God, we can only reflect what is from them by giving self to the potential attributes within us.

Why we see no earthly power from these Manifestations, is because none of them live for this life, they are given to guide us. As such many men who see them feel they have power and knowledge well in advance of them.

Regards Tony

 

[siti]

We have been created with the potential of all health, why is the world so sick, why have we chosen this sickness?

Christ gave a simple solution, but also very profound. 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. If we choose not to do this...sickness starts.

Is that really how it works?

Not really - but its a good start. The rest is more to do with how we treat the "earthly temple" that is the dwelling place of "God's spirit" (John 2:21; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 2 Peter 1:13) and - importantly - the "earthly courtyard" that is "His footstool" (Isaiah 66:1). If we get that right, building with durable materials, as it were (compare 1 Corinthians 3:12-15), then we will have no need to say "I am sick" (Isaiah 33:24). And of course, how we treat others - as Tony has already said.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Is that really how it works?

That is one small atom of knowledge in a universe of atoms.

All attributes are part of the animating force and I get that thought from this quote;

"Praise be to God Who hath ever caused His Names and Attributes to penetrate the degrees of existence; Who hath made the effects of those Names and Attributes to shine resplendent and their signs to be firmly established in both the hidden and manifest worlds. By them He hath made the holy realities that are informed by His grace and are the recipients of His outpourings to be the sole revealers of all that pertaineth unto Him, and hath caused them to move through the firmament of perfection in arcs of descent and ascent. He hath ordained these Names and Attributes to be the first and foremost origin and cause of being in the world of creation and the source of the different grades of realities in the degrees of existence. When, through its power of attraction and propagation, the Day-Star of Names and Attributes shone upon the hidden realities in the heart of the unseen realm, they issued forth, were spread abroad, scattered about, set in order, became the recipients of the grace of God and His outpourings, and were made to be the sole manifestations of the Divine conditions and Eternal signs. Emerging from behind the veils, they appeared clothed in raiments of light, moving in the firmament of the unity of God, in orbits of sanctity and circles of glorification...."

I see such simple explanations have a profound scientific ramification.

Regards Tony

 

[siti]

God is unknowable and beyond all creation, all thoughts of God are erroneous.

Yes - that is the traditional idea of God in the monotheistic faiths. I don't agree with this.

It does not accord with my own experience - either as a practicing monotheist (when I was one) or as a non-theist who has had profound "spiritual" experiences.

It does not accord with my intuition. It does not resonate with my "feeling" of being part of something so much greater than I am to suggest that the greatest of all "beings" is entirely apart from that.

It does not accord with reason - for reasons that I could expand on at extraordinary length but will not do so here. Suffice it here to say that I just don't see how something that is so fundamentally APART FROM "creation" could possibly have anything to do WITH "creation".

It does not accord with evidence, not there is very much of that to be had where God is concerned, but what evidence we do have does seem to suggest the Almighty's intervention is required less and less the more we learn about reality.

It just doesn't work for me - and its fine that it does for you.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Yes - that is the traditional idea of God in the monotheistic faiths. I don't agree with this.

It does not accord with my own experience.

It does not accord with my intuition.

It does not accord with reason (for reasons that I could expand on at extraordinary length but will not do that here).

It does not accord with evidence, not there is very much of that to be had where God is concerned, but what evidence we do have does seem to suggest the Almighty's intervention is required less and less the more we learn about reality.

Thats all good Siti, you always raise elevated thought which we all learn by, I thank you for the discussions.

Baha'u'llah offered the advice of history as to what happens when we reach the point in life when God is considered redundant. I am thankful some of those times have already visited me and this what to come is all to be embraced. I will embrace what is to come and it will be significant.

"...Whither are gone the proud and their palaces? Gaze thou into their tombs, that thou mayest profit by this example, inasmuch as We made it a lesson unto every beholder....."

In the end we have our choices.

I wish you always well. Regards Tony

 

[siti]

...what happens when we reach the point in life when God is considered redundant.

I don't believe God is redundant - I just don't believe s/he is what my ancestors used to think s/he might be a few thousand years ago.

But in any case, it matters not whether one believes this or that because in the end "all things come alike to all" and "there is one event unto all...the living know that they shall die...but the dead know not anything" and "that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other" (Ecclesiastes 9:2-5, Ecclesiastes 3:19). Death is the ultimate leveller - its what we DO in life (whilst we have it) that makes a difference.

 

[Dawnofhope]

Death is the ultimate leveller - its what we DO in life (whilst we have it) that makes a difference.

I agree strongly with this. Its about who we become and what we do. If our beliefs do not make us better people what is the point?

Religion should be the Cause of Love and Affection

Religion should unite all hearts and cause wars and disputes to vanish from the face of the earth, give birth to spirituality, and bring life and light to each heart. If religion becomes a cause of dislike, hatred and division, it were better to be without it, and to withdraw from such a religion would be a truly religious act. For it is clear that the purpose of a remedy is to cure; but if the remedy should only aggravate the complaint it had better be left alone. Any religion which is not a cause of love and unity is no religion. All the holy prophets were as doctors to the soul; they gave prescriptions for the healing of mankind; thus any remedy that causes disease does not come from the great and supreme Physician.

Bahá'í Reference Library - Paris Talks, Pages 127-134

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I don't believe God is redundant - I just don't believe s/he is what my ancestors used to think s/he might be a few thousand years ago.

But in any case, it matters not whether one believes this or that because in the end "all things come alike to all" and "there is one event unto all...the living know that they shall die...but the dead know not anything" and "that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other" (Ecclesiastes 9:2-5, Ecclesiastes 3:19). Death is the ultimate leveller - its what we DO in life (whilst we have it) that makes a difference.

That is great to hear and the offer Christ gave us all, is to be Born again and explains that the first death is possible while we are still yet alive and that the second death need not overcometh.

Revelation 2:11'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.'

Regards Tony

 

[siti]

The virgin birth story speaks to me of the exalted and sanctified nature of Christ.

And, apart from the obvious impossibility of it, that would be what is wrong with it from my POV. Jesus to me is the "son of man" much more than he is the "Son of God" - his expressions are those of a wise man, not an omnipotent deity. He may have grasped a deeper sense of his own divinity (perhaps, although it is possible that his life as recorded in the Gospels is not that of a single individual but a collection of "sayings" and "acts" derived partly from Jewish prophecy, partly from historical events of the period and partly from mythological borrowings from other cultures) but he was essentially and fully human - and both his birth and death were perfectly natural in reality.

The resurrection of the Power latent within the Word of God to transform the hearts of individuals and communities.

Maybe that's what it was meant to convey - but again, I would say that the "revelation" as it is passed on is necessarily the "word of man" - even if the receiver got it directly from "God" - and of course when I say "God" I obviously don't mean the same thing that you mean when you say "God". Anyway, I've explained before that even given a genuine divine revelation, it has to be processed through fallible human faculties in order to be processed mentally and encoded in language so it can be passed on. There is no way - especially if Tony's thought about "all thoughts of God being erroneous" is correct - that the words we read in a translation of a rephrased version of a copy...can possibly be an infallible transmission. I doubt that even the receiver could be fully satisfied that their expressions are an infallible encapsulation of their experience of revelation. But I don't know. I have never received that kind of revelation so how could it really make sense to me?

 

[Dawnofhope]

And, apart from the obvious impossibility of it, that would be what is wrong with it from my POV.

Your POV makes the most sense in a rational humanistic world, where the God of Abraham either doesn’t exist or is an impersonal force as in deism. But then most everything we have learned about the God of Abraham throughout the Tanakh, the NT and the Quran is not true. We abandon these religions and rely on human learning. We each get to decide what is true and false. We work out our future for ourselves. We are alone in this universe, freed from the superstitions of bygone eras. We have science and human learning to rely on. We have no soul. When we die we die.

That’s not what I believe though.I believe in the God of Abraham who has revealed Himself through Moses and the prophets. Through Christ and Muhammad. In this world God is concerned for humanity and out of His love for us He makes His will known. He gets the final say about the reality of Christ and whether He was born a virgin or not. He may reveal truths that I didn’t expect but I have come to know Him, believe in Him and trust Him.It doesn’t matter to me one jot if Christ happened to be born in the miraculous way He tells us or not. But I accept His truth even though it doesn’t fit my views of how the world was or should be.

But I don't know. I have never received that kind of revelation so how could it really make sense to me?

It the God of Abraham is real His Revelation through Christ can never be completely understood by any of us.

 

[siti]

Your POV makes the most sense in a rational humanistic world, where the God of Abraham either doesn’t exist or is an impersonal force as in deism. But then most everything we have learned about the God of Abraham throughout the Tanakh, the NT and the Quran is not true. We abandon these religions and rely on human learning. We each get to decide what is true and false. We work out our future for ourselves. We are alone in this universe, freed from the superstitions of bygone eras. We have science and human learning to rely on. We have no soul. When we die we die.

Not really - you are presenting it as a false dichotomy - God OR no-God. Life OR no-life. Soul OR no-soul. And, perhaps most dangerous of all, divine revelation OR individual opinion.

Maybe there's a different way of looking at it - a different kind of God, a different kind of "soul" etc. Maybe God is a human creation (or at least a natural one) - maybe we - the natural living things - give super-natural "life" to God - maybe God evolves with our knowledge and our culture. Maybe God is the collective "soul" or "spirit" of a human society that is steadily - though not without tension and inherited fractiousness - growing together and learning together. And maybe, despite being freed from the superstitions of bygone ages (which is surely a positive thing) we are not "alone in this universe" at all, but we have each other - and we share our little corner of the universe with a living, breathing "biosphere" which certainly is, in a very real sense, "our mother" and to which we will return we die. And maybe the most important "revelations" are those that our collective effort to understand reveals. Maybe that is the profoundest act of worship - to try - against all the odds - to understand our place in a seemingly meaningless and arbitrary universe that cares nothing about what becomes of us individually. I get that we probably need God - at least in some form and at least for the time being - to do that for us - to rescue us from the fear of meaninglessness - but to do that, God has got to grow up with us, stop taking sides and accept that there are some things even God can't do.

God is our child, an exceptional prodigy for sure, but a child nonetheless. And looking at the world today - I'd say about 15 years old - invincibly powerful (at least in "his" own estimation), wilfully stubborn and yet at the same time still looking around for affirmation and endorsement from the very ones he thinks he has surpassed in knowledge, wisdom and strength.

We need for God to grow up - and quickly - if the child is not to ruin the peace of our household forever.

 

[Dawnofhope]

Not really - you are presenting it as a false dichotomy - God OR no-God. Life OR no-life. Soul OR no-soul. And, perhaps most dangerous of all, divine revelation OR individual opinion.

Maybe there's a different way of looking at it - a different kind of God, a different kind of "soul" etc. Maybe God is a human creation (or at least a natural one) - maybe we - the natural living things - give super-natural "life" to God - maybe God evolves with our knowledge and our culture. Maybe God is the collective "soul" or "spirit" of a human society that is steadily - though not without tension and inherited fractiousness - growing together and learning together. And maybe, despite being freed from the superstitions of bygone ages (which is surely a positive thing) we are not "alone in this universe" at all, but we have each other - and we share our little corner of the universe with a living, breathing "biosphere" which certainly is, in a very real sense, "our mother" and to which we will return we die. And maybe the most important "revelations" are those that our collective effort to understand reveals. Maybe that is the profoundest act of worship - to try - against all the odds - to understand our place in a seemingly meaningless and arbitrary universe that cares nothing about what becomes of us individually. I get that we probably need God - at least in some form and at least for the time being - to do that for us - to rescue us from the fear of meaninglessness - but to do that, God has got to grow up with us, stop taking sides and accept that there are some things even God can't do.

God is our child, an exceptional prodigy for sure, but a child nonetheless. And looking at the world today - I'd say about 15 years old - invincibly powerful (at least in "his" own estimation), wilfully stubborn and yet at the same time still looking around for affirmation and endorsement from the very ones he thinks he has surpassed in knowledge, wisdom and strength.

We need for God to grow up - and quickly - if the child is not to ruin the peace of our household forever.

These ideas are very familiar to me as one of the most well known theologians in New Zealand has a similar perspective. His name is Lloyd Geering and he was unsuccessfully tried fro heresy in the 1960s.

Lloyd Geering - Wikipedia

I think you would like him and I have a number of his books. Obviously I don't hold the same perspective but a close relative does and so has given me a number of his books over the years.

 

[InvestigateTruth]

It is not helping - ABs argument is silly - and educated people in the 21st century accepting it is even sillier. I'm sorry, but that's that I'm afraid. Nothing you can say can rescue your prophets from absurdity. If it walks like a duck...

I don't feel that I need to do anything to rescue Abdulbaha, and my intention is not to defend anybody. I only discuss things logically.
But you seem to think the belief in virgin birth is silly, only because you cannot believe it. I didn't say that we can prove that virgin birth is possible directly. I showed you, if one insists that virgin birth is certainly impossible, he is illogical.
Moreover, there was a wisdom that God caused Jesus to be born from a virgin, which Bahaullah in the Book of Iqan explains. But when it comes to idea of standing still the Sun, what is even the wisdom for it as part of the overall Wisdom of God's Revelation and Creation?

 

[CG Didymus]

I don't feel that I need to do anything to rescue Abdulbaha, and my intention is not to defend anybody. I only discuss things logically.
But you seem to think the belief in virgin birth is silly, only because you cannot believe it. I didn't say that we can prove that virgin birth is possible directly. I showed you, if one insists that virgin birth is certainly impossible, he is illogical.
Moreover, there was a wisdom that God caused Jesus to be born from a virgin, which Bahaullah in the Book of Iqan explains. But when it comes to idea of standing still the Sun, what is even the wisdom for it as part of the overall Wisdom of God's Revelation and Creation?

How is your argument different than the Christian that believes Adam and Eve's creation story and the Flood story and the Resurrection of Jesus story? Their Scriptures say it. They believe those Scriptures came from God, so no matter silly they sound, that is what they believed really happened. But then Baha'is come along and say that most of the things in the Christian Scriptures didn't literally happened. But why oh why the Virgin Birth? If God did that then why not part the seas and have Jesus walk on water and rise from the dead? Isn't God able to alter the things in the physical world? Why would God be bound by the physical laws of science?

Of course believers in God would have to say "yes" God can do anything. But, if those things didn't happen, then again, I'd have to call those stories made up religious myth. And where does that get us? Would we go around saying that all religions of the past were filled with myth and legend? I'm good with that, but Baha'is can't be. Baha'is need God to be real and able to do miracles but to also have the miracles from the past religions to have an alternative explanation... one that fits with modern science. Why is that?

My guess would be that the Baha'i Faith wants to distance itself from the miraculous things of the other religions because they sound too "superstitious". But why not just say those religious writers from the past made things up? Why come up with the explanation of those things being "symbolic"? Do you really think those writers cared about what we in the 21st century would think? They were writing to people who probably were just fine with Virgin births and the Sun standing still, and a world-wide flood and a rising from the dead God/man.

 

[InvestigateTruth]

How is your argument different than the Christian that believes Adam and Eve's creation story and the Flood story and the Resurrection of Jesus story? Their Scriptures say it. They believe those Scriptures came from God, so no matter silly they sound, that is what they believed really happened. But then Baha'is come along and say that most of the things in the Christian Scriptures didn't literally happened. But why oh why the Virgin Birth? If God did that then why not part the seas and have Jesus walk on water and rise from the dead? Isn't God able to alter the things in the physical world? Why would God be bound by the physical laws of science?

Of course believers in God would have to say "yes" God can do anything. But, if those things didn't happen, then again, I'd have to call those stories made up religious myth. And where does that get us? Would we go around saying that all religions of the past were filled with myth and legend? I'm good with that, but Baha'is can't be. Baha'is need God to be real and able to do miracles but to also have the miracles from the past religions to have an alternative explanation... one that fits with modern science. Why is that?

My guess would be that the Baha'i Faith wants to distance itself from the miraculous things of the other religions because they sound too "superstitious". But why not just say those religious writers from the past made things up? Why come up with the explanation of those things being "symbolic"? Do you really think those writers cared about what we in the 21st century would think? They were writing to people who probably were just fine with Virgin births and the Sun standing still, and a world-wide flood and a rising from the dead God/man.

Hi, if you read my previous posts, I have discussed why other miraculous things such as Sun standing still, and resurrection of dead are not literal, and why virgin birth is literal. It is not that the Bahai scripture just randomly chooses one as literal and others as symbolic, but rather it gives the reason, which is consistent with the overall ways of God. I would say, it is a much deeper subject. You would need to read the book of certitude as well as some answered questions on the subjects of Miracles, the virgin birth, the reason for symbolism in scriptures. It is a long discussion.

 

[CG Didymus]

Hi, if you read my previous posts, I have discussed why other miraculous things such as Sun standing still, and resurrection of dead are not literal, and why virgin birth is literal. It is not that the Bahai scripture just randomly chooses one as literal and others as symbolic, but rather it gives the reason, which is consistent with the overall ways of God. I would say, it is a much deeper subject. You would need to read the book of certitude as well as some answered questions on the subjects of Miracles, the virgin birth, the reason for symbolism in scriptures. It is a long discussion.

But these aren't manifestations writing these things. They were people. So what do you think happened? God planted in their brain to say symbolic things in the middle of telling about an historical event?

 

[siti]

you seem to think the belief in virgin birth is silly

No - that's not what I said - I said Abdu'l Baha's argument was silly because it relates the beginning of the universe to the idea of the virgin birth...there is no connection and to argue that because God is omnipotent and able to create a universe He can also cause a virgin to give birth is to open the door to any supernatural event no matter how preposterously unlikely - once you've done that, you cannot then fall back on naturalistic interpretations to deny that the earth stood still for Joshua, that there was a global flood in Noah's day, that God created the entire universe in 7 literal 24 hour days a few thousand years ago or that Jesus was physically resurrected from the dead.

If you are invoking naturalistic explanations to deny the possibility of these "miracles" then you also have to deny the virgin birth. And to say one is possible but the other not is completely arbitrary. It has nothing to do with logic - it is about consistency of argumentation. But you certainly don't have logic on your side in this - logic alone allows for any and all of the miracles I listed - but naturalistic science rules them all out.

Anyway, it was the argument I said was silly, not the belief - although it certainly would be silly for me to believe it given that I set a much greater value on naturalistic explanations than supernatural ones.

I also think there is another way that at least some of these "miracles" could be reconciled with both naturalism and belief in God's deliberate "intervention". God could simply have allowed people to experience a "vision" of, say, the sun standing still - or an exceptionally long day - or the bodily ascension of Jesus after his resurrection to implant in their minds a spiritual notion of divine support and favour. I'm not saying I believe this (I don't) - but I do think it is a more consistent way of understanding them than to suggest arbitrarily that this one was a genuine miracle whilst that one was merely a made-up story concocted for religious purposes.