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Goodbye Jesus

The Nature Of God In The Bahá'? Faith


zanOTK

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I have been asked to write an introduction to the Bahá'í beliefs about the nature of God and share it here on the forums. Originally, I had planned to write a short introduction, post it here, and then provide links to other, more detailed, articles and essays. Instead, I have decided to use this as an opportunity to deepen my own knowledge through writing a well researched article and submiting it to the US National Spiritual Assembly for review.

 

This will be my first attempt at writing anything more than a causual description of my beliefs, so I ask for your support and patience as I go through the process of researching, writing, and submitting the article for review. Any general research and writing tips would also be appreciated.

 

If it passes the review, I will publish the article to another website and then share the link on this thread.

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We believe there is only one God. In the Tanakh this God is known as Yahweh, El Elyon, Elohim, Eloh, etc. In the New Testament this God is most commonly called the Heavenly Father. In the Quran, Allah, as well as many other names. The name of this God in the Bhagavad Gita is Vishnu. From the Bahá'í perspective these are all speaking of one God. This is the same God Bahá'ís believe in.

 

On the trinity: we do not believe that God is composed of three persons. Christ is considered a Manifestation of God, meaning He manifests the attributes of God. But He is not God, in our belief. Neither is the Holy Spirit God, but rather the power and blessings of God made available through the Manifestation.

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Why would Baha'is want to worship Yahweh? He's not very nice.

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Bahá'ís believe in "progressive revelation". This means that we believe each religion was given what the people of that time and place were able to understand, and further revelations provided clearer information as humanity matured as a species. Thus Hinduism teaches polytheism, but Islam teaches monotheism. We believe that the different gods of polytheistic Hinduism actually represent aspects of one God, similar to how in the Bible, Quran, and our own Writings, God is given many different names which describe His attributes.

 

So yes, you could look at it as "correcting" past religions' beliefs on God. My opinion is that the better term would be "completing."

 

For now. Because also believe another Manifestaion will appear in the future and reveal MORE.

 

As for the unique Bahá'í view...

That's what I'm writing the article about. :)

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We do not know the name of the future Messenger of God. He or She may simply correct any errors that have crept into the Bahá'í Faith or may found a new religion. These things are up to God, and are not spoken of in the publicly available Writings (some of Bahá'u'lláh's Writings have not been translated or copied entirely in their original language yet. They are currently being preserved at the World Centre in Haifa until they can be translated, copied, and published). What is mentioned (in the Kitáb-i-Aqdás and another, the name of which I can't recall at the moment) is that They will not appear until after 1'000 years have passed since the declaration of Bahá'u'lláh.

 

On the matter of past views of God, they would be less reliable because they were incomplete, but not as bad as one may think. The majority of the scriptures of past religions do point towards a similar understanding of God as found in the Bahá'í Writings. Krishna speaks of there only being one God, as do Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. The Buddha's teachings as recorded in the Sutras do not mention a monotheistic God, but they do mention an Uncreated, Unknown, Ultimate Reality, which is another way the Bahá'í Writings speak of God. So none of them were wrong, simply incomplete. Errors were added by the followers of these religions as the centuries went by.

 

That is, at least, the Bahá'í belief.

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I will see what I can find.

 

On the 1'000 years bit: that's until the next Manifestation (to avoid confusion, a note: I use the terms Prophet, Messenger, and Manifestation interchangably to speak of the same individuals: the Founders of Divine Religions).

 

The Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá are being translated, as we speak, from Arabic and Persian. The reason why they haven't all been translated, or even distributed in their original language yet, is because of the massive size of the body of Bahá'í scripture. If you go to http:/reference.bahai.org you can read much of what has already been translated. But it takes time to translate texts from these languages into English, and time to prepare them for distribution in either their original language or English. The translation process can be especially slow because of the use of poetic and metaphorical language in the Writings, some of which doesn't translate well, or at all, into English.

 

Considering that the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh alone amount to a body of literature over 15 times the size of the Bible (that's OT and NT), I think they're doing pretty good. :)

 

As I said at the beginning, I will see what I can find on the concept if God as communicated in the Tanakh.

 

I do need to focus on research and writing, though. So it will be a while.

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