religion Archives - Bahai World

By Elham Afnan

Two hundred years ago, a Child was born Whose life and work were to revolutionize human history. His name was Siyyid ‘Alí-Muhammad, and He would come to be known to history as the Báb. The setting of His birth was a modest house in Shíráz, a city in southern Iran known for its renowned poets and its gardens of unsurpassed beauty. As the bicentenary of His birth is being celebrated by the members of a world community in neighborhoods and villages across the planet, it is timely to recall the circumstances surrounding His appearance and to reflect on the significance of His mission. Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, Himself born two years earlier, lauded the Báb as Mine own previous Manifestation¹ and paid tribute to Him in these words:

No understanding can grasp the nature of His Revelation, nor can any knowledge comprehend the full measure of His Faith ….All else save Him are created by His command, and move and have their being through His law. He is the Revealer of the divine mysteries, and the Expounder of the hidden and ancient wisdom.²

The House of the Báb, where the Báb declared His mission on 23 May 1844 in Shiraz, Iran, before its destruction in 1979

Nineteenth-century Persia, once the cradle of a great civilization, was steeped in ignorance and corruption, the lives of its masses marked by disillusionment and hopelessness. Nor was the world at large faring much better, subject to the blights of war, imperialism, and slavery, and suffering the oppression of prejudice, growing materialism, and loss of faith. Into this darkness came the blazing figure of the Báb, shedding light upon the world and guiding a lost humanity in a new direction. Eulogizing the night on which the Báb was born, Bahá’u’lláh writes:

Blessed art thou, O night! For through thee was born the Day of God, a Day which We have ordained to be the lamp of salvation unto the denizens of the cities of names, the chalice of victory unto the champions of the arenas of eternity, and the dawning-place of joy and exultation unto all creation.³

Human and Divine Stations

A robe worn by the Báb

The Manifestations of God have two stations. The first is Their human station, the station of individual characteristics and temporal limitations; they love, suffer, and die, as do all human beings. The second is their divine station, one in which they manifest the majesty and power of God, in which their voice is the voice of God Himself. The Báb, while sharing this dual station with all the Prophets of the past, was unique in having a twofold mission, as the Bearer of a wholly independent Revelation and the Herald of One still greater than His own.⁴ His life and Writings are thus marked by a unique richness arising out of this twofold mission, which, in the words of Shoghi Effendi, constitutes the most distinctive feature of the Bahá’í Dispensation⁵ –the appearance of two Manifestations of God in close succession.

The complementary nature of the human and the divine stations is clearly visible in the person of the Báb. He was a merchant by profession; He did not belong to any of the ecclesiastical orders of His time and had not acquired the learning current among them. His only schooling was what He received as a child in a traditional primary school, where children were taught to read the Qur’án and little else.⁶ Yet, in the course of six short years, from the time He announced His mission in 1844 until His martyrdom in 1850, voluminous writings, revealed with unimaginable rapidity, flowed from His pen. He states that He revealed no less than a thousand verses within the space of five hours, limited only by the capacity of His amanuensis to set down His words. ⁷ The power of His Writings, coupled with the meagerness of His schooling, is, as He Himself attests, proof of His innate knowledge and divine mission:

God beareth Me witness, I was not a man of learning, for I was trained as a merchant. In the year sixty⁸ God graciously infused my soul with the conclusive evidences and weighty knowledge which characterize Him Who is the Testimony of God—may peace be upon Him—until finally in that year I proclaimed God’s hidden Cause and unveiled its well-guarded Pillar, in such wise that no one could refute it.⁹

Qur’án belonging to the Báb

The Revealer of these words, the gentle, the youthful and irresistible person of the Báb was matchless in His meekness, imperturbable in His serenity, magnetic in His utterance.¹⁰ He exemplified honesty and fair-mindedness in His business dealings and was gracious and generous towards His family and associates. His tenderness and consideration for His mother and His wife are poignant. A letter He wrote to His wife, Khadíjih Bagum, reflects His deep affection for her:

My sweet love, may God preserve thee. God is my witness that since the time of separation sorrow has been so intense that it cannot be described.¹¹

At the same time, He addressed the people of the world and the rulers of His day with power and authority. Summoned to an examination of His claim before the assembled dignitaries of the land, the Báb, having seated Himself in the place of honor that had been reserved for the heir to the throne, gave His celebrated answer to the question put to Him by that assembly, Whom do you claim to be?:¹²

I am, I am, I am the Promised One! I am the One Whose name you have for a thousand years invoked, at Whose mention you have risen, Whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of Whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten. Verily, I say, it is incumbent upon the peoples of both the East and the West to obey My word, and to pledge allegiance to My person.¹³

He fearlessly proclaimed His mission in countless Tablets revealed by His pen, among them these words with which He addressed Muḥammad Sháh, the reigning monarch of Persia, from His prison cell in the fortress of Máh-kú:

I am the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things. I am the Countenance of God Whose splendour can never be obscured, the Light of God Whose radiance can never fade. Whoso recognizeth Me, assurance and all good are in store for him .…¹⁴

The Writings of the Báb

An illuminated tablet of the Báb

The Báb affirms that the verses revealed by a Manifestation of God are the greatest proof of His mission. His own vast Writings, comprising over two thousand Tablets, epistles, prayers, and philosophical treatises,¹⁵ were conclusive and sufficient testimony of His truth for thousands who came into contact with them. While His Writings are complex, unconventional, and at times esoteric, they are also possessed of a power that penetrates the hearts. They restructured the thoughts of their readers, so that they could break free from the chains of obsolete beliefs and inherited customs.

There is remarkable order and method in the Writings of the Báb. He Himself classified them in terms of five modes of revelation: divine verses, prayers, commentaries, rational discourse—written in Arabic—and the Persian mode, which in turn contains each of the other four. Within them, there is a complex but coherent system of symbols (including the symbolism of letters and numbers), extensive quotations from and allusions to the Qur’án and Islamic traditions, and references to concepts from Shaykhí ¹⁶ discourse. The Báb’s works are, moreover, linguistically innovative, distinguished by departures from grammatical conventions and neologisms.¹⁷ They attempt, as one writer puts it, to mine words for more than the meaning which is bound to them by usage and etymology.¹⁸ The complexity of the ideas and their philosophical and mystical depth, together with the uniqueness of their language, make the Báb’s texts difficult to understand but also account for their richness, beauty, and fascination.

The Writings of the Báb range from brief personal letters written to members of His family to the Kitáb-i-Asmá’, a book of more than three thousand pages, in which He discusses the names and attributes of God and how all of reality can be spiritualized through the recognition of the Source of divine revelation.¹⁹ His works seek to reconcile the life of the individual soul to the process of history, by asserting the potential and ultimate meaningfulness of all created things, from the highest to the lowest.²⁰

In the first, greatest and mightiest²¹ of His books, the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá’, a commentary on the Súrih of Joseph, the Báb goes beyond merely commenting on the Súrih of the Qur’án, but finds in the figure of Joseph the archetype of His—and eventually Bahá’u’lláh’s—suffering and ultimate triumph. The story of Joseph thus becomes a link binding the Dispensations of the Manifestations of God throughout history. Similarly, the Persian Bayán, the Mother-Book of the Bábí Dispensation,²² is not only the repository of the laws ordained by the Báb, but also the link between the Faith of the Báb and that of Bahá’u’lláh.

The Purpose of Laws

The laws of the Báb are a distinctive feature of His Dispensation. They were designed to abolish at a stroke the privileges and ceremonials, the ordinances and institutions of the past, and to bridge the gap between an obsolete system and the institutions of a world-encompassing Order destined to supersede it.²³ The laws in the Báb’s early works were closely linked to the laws of Islam. They constituted at times a restatement and at times a restriction on some Islamic laws, thus beginning the process of gradually refashioning them. With the independence of the new Faith established, the laws revealed in His later works, particularly the Persian Bayán, had a different aim.²⁴ They were presented as a more definite break from the past, but their ultimate purpose was to pave the way for the future: the Báb was preparing His followers for the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.

Thus, the fundamental purpose of the Bayan is twofold. The first is to explain that the recognition of God and of the shared truth of divine religions can be achieved only through the recognition of His Messenger in every age and by adherence to His laws and ordinances: True knowledge, therefore, is the knowledge of God, and this is none other than the recognition of His Manifestation in each Dispensation.²⁵ The second purpose is to herald the coming of Bahá’u’lláh, the Promised One designated by the Báb as Him Whom God shall make manifest, about whom He writes: The Bayán is, from beginning to end, the repository of all of His attributes, and the treasury of both His fire and His light.²⁶ The laws of the Bayán are formulated to promote and clarify this twofold purpose. For example, the law enjoining the believers to repeat ninety-five times each day the name of God, the All-Glorious (Alláh’u’Abhá)—a law later confirmed by Bahá’u’lláh—was meant to enable the one reciting it to attain to divine guidance so that he would recognize the Promised One when He appeared.

The Báb made the implementation of His laws subject to the sanction of Him Whom God shall make manifest, while at the same time making it clear that His advent was near at hand. In other words, the laws of the Báb created a bridge between the religious dispensations of the past and that of Bahá’u’lláh. Among the laws of the Bahá’í Faith that are based on the teachings of the Báb are those of pilgrimage, marriage, burial, and inheritance, the law of Huqúqu’lláh, and the Badí‘ calendar.²⁷

A calendar brought by a Manifestation of God is more than a practical tool; it gives meaning to the passage of time and the movement of history. In its letter announcing the common implementation of the Badí‘ calendar throughout the Bahá’í world, the Universal House of Justice writes:

The adoption of a new calendar in each dispensation is a symbol of the power of Divine Revelation to reshape human perception of material, social, and spiritual reality. Through it, sacred moments are distinguished, humanity’s place in time and space reimagined, and the rhythm of life recast.²⁸

The implementation of the calendar initiated by the Bab marks, therefore, a historic step in … the unfoldment of Bahá’u’lláh’s World Order,²⁹ that same Order which the Báb extolled in the Bayán when He wrote, Well is it with him who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Bahá’u’lláh and rendereth thanks unto his Lord!³⁰

Striving for Perfection

The Báb exhorted His followers to display the highest degree of purity and refinement, both outwardly and inwardly, so that they would be worthy of receiving Him Whom God shall make manifest when He appeared. The promotion of excellence is a salient and recurring theme in His Writings. In the Persian Bayán, He defines the most perfect state of each thing as its paradise and writes:

He hath ordained for each thing that they who possess power over it should raise it to its highest station of perfection, so that it may not be deprived of its own Paradise.³¹

Although the Báb was condemned to a life of exile and imprisonment, yet, in the midst of His sufferings, His life was characterized by the highest degree of refinement and virtue and by His love of beauty³², which is evident in His exquisite handwriting. One example of His calligraphy is a beautiful scroll on which were inscribed, in the form of a pentacle, no less than three hundred and sixty derivatives of the word Bahá.³³

The prison of Máh-kú

The prison of Máh-kú, the first of two prison fortresses where He spent His last years, was a dungeon on a mountain top, so remote, so inhospitable and dangerously situated a corner of the territory of the Sháh,³⁴ in which His companions were two men and four dogs.³⁵ In His presence there [was] not at night even a lighted lamp!³⁶ And yet, in such a place, the Báb’s qualities of rare nobility and beauty, His gentle yet forceful personality, and His natural charm, combined with infinite tact and judgment, won over almost all with whom He was brought into personal contact, often converting His gaolers to His Faith and turning the ill-disposed into admiring friends.³⁷

The life and character of the Báb until the last moments of His life reflected the perfect Light of Which He was the personification. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said of the Báb:

This illustrious Being arose with such power as to shake the foundations of the religious laws, customs, manners, morals, and habits of Persia, and instituted a new law, faith, and religion. Though the eminent men of the State, the majority of the people, and the leaders of religion arose one and all to destroy and annihilate Him, He single-handedly withstood them and set all of Persia in motion. How numerous the divines, the leaders, and the inhabitants of that land who with perfect joy and gladness offered up their lives in His path and hastened to the field of martyrdom! The government, the nation, the clergy, and prominent leaders sought to extinguish His light, but to no avail. At last His moon rose, His star shone forth, His foundation was secured, and His horizon was flooded with light. He trained a large multitude through divine education and exerted a marvellous influence upon the thoughts, customs, morals, and manners of the Persians.³⁸

The barracks square in Tabríz where the Báb was martyred

Him Whom God shall make manifest

Through His unique combination of kindness, heroism, and majesty, the Báb inspired the selfless allegiance and wholehearted devotion of thousands of followers. Owing to His influence, these men and women not only broke with centuries-old traditions but also laid down their lives to help usher in the new age the Báb had come to inaugurate. Yet, the Object of this matchless adoration directed His own devotion and allegiance towards Bahá’u’lláh, Whose advent He had come to herald. In the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá, the Báb addresses Bahá’u’lláh in these words:

O Thou Remnant of God! I have sacrificed myself wholly for Thee; I have accepted curses for Thy sake, and have yearned for naught but martyrdom in the path of Thy love. Sufficient witness unto me is God, the Exalted, the Protector, the Ancient of Days.³⁹

The expression of Bahá’u’lláh’s praise for the Báb is equally moving. In the Kitáb-i-Íqán, writing about His own tribulations and sufferings, Bahá’u’lláh proclaims:

Amidst them all, We stand, life in hand, wholly resigned to His will; that perchance, through God’s loving-kindness and His grace, this revealed and manifest Letter⁴⁰ may lay down His life as a sacrifice in the path of the Primal Point, ⁴¹ the most exalted Word.⁴²

In the Revelation of the Báb—marked by a profound recasting of the purpose of religion, by devotion to perfection and excellence, and by utter self-sacrifice—one finds the seed, endowed by the Hand of Omnipotence with such vast potentialities that was destined to germinate in the form of the still more compelling Revelation⁴³ of Bahá’u’lláh. The Twin Holy Days marking the birth of the Báb and the birth of Bahá’u’lláh, falling on successive days according to the lunar calendar and accounted as one in the sight of God, are fitting occasions to reflect on the distinctive characteristics of the life and teachings of the Báb and on their relationship to the message of Bahá’u’lláh.

The Shrine of the Báb

By Robert Weinberg

Accounts of the meteoric rise, captivating claims, and mysterious public execution of the Báb—born 200 years ago in Shíráz, Iran—not only made a profound impression on the land of His birth, but also much further afield. From the distant reading rooms of Indian and English seats of learning to the salons of Paris’s Left Bank, writers and artists were enthralled by the tragedy of the Báb’s life and the appalling treatment meted out to His followers by the fanatical authorities of the time. This concise survey explores how this particular episode in humanity’s religious history resonated so strongly through the decades that followed.

Observers of the Bábí movement

During the nineteenth century, exotic stories and images from the Orient exerted a peculiar fascination on European minds. There were those, such as the British statesman Lord Curzon, who were impelled to make the journey east, motivated by imperialist ambitions. Others, however, including the decidedly anti-imperialist Edward Granville Browne of Cambridge University, genuinely identified with the cultures they discovered and returned with a new understanding of the potentialities of the peoples they encountered. One writer has maintained that the political theme of Europe regenerating a lifeless Asia had its literary and artistic counterpoint in the thought that the less sophisticated world overseas might be able to rejuvenate a greying Europe.¹

The Comte de Gobineau’s Religions et Philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale (1865)—with its obvious parallels drawn between the life and martyrdom of the Báb with that of Jesus Christ—was the most influential volume in carrying the story to Western minds. The English poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold, in A Persian Passion Play, wrote that the chief purpose of Gobineau’s book was to give a history of the career of Mirza Ali Mahommed…the founder of Bâbism, of which most people in England have at least heard the name.² The notion that most people in England, in Arnold’s view, were aware of the Báb indicates how deeply His fame had penetrated into far-off societies.

An encounter with Gobineau’s text also launched Browne on his quest. His only visit to Iran in 1887–88, recounted in A Year Amongst the Persians (1893), lit a fire which…would prove inextinguishable.³ The memoir of his sojourn did much to familiarize English readers with the Báb, His gentleness and patience, the cruel fate which had overtaken him, and the unflinching courage wherewith he and his followers, from the greatest to the least, had endured the merciless torments inflicted upon them by their enemies.⁴

A. L. M. Nicolas, a French scholar born in Iran, was also intrigued by Gobineau’s work. Nicolas’s research, encompassing translations of several of the Báb’s major Writings, additionally contributed much to raising awareness of His life and teachings: My reflections on [The Seven Proofs by the Báb] that I had translated, filled me with a kind of intoxication and I became, little by little, profoundly and uniquely a Bábí. The more I immersed myself in these reflections, the more I admired the greatness of the genius of him who, born in Shíráz, had dreamt of uplifting the Muslim world…⁵ Nicolas maintained a lifelong admiration for the Báb, concluding: Poor great Prophet, born in the heart of Persia, without any means of instruction, and who, alone in the world, encircled by enemies, succeeds by the force of his genius in creating a universal and wise religion…. I want people to admire the sublimity of the Báb, who has, moreover, paid with his life, with his blood, for the reforms he preached.⁶

(L-R): Edward Granville Brown, Matthew Arnold. Credit: Simina Boicu

Poetic responses in Iran

The power of the written or spoken word is given great emphasis in the Bábí and Bahá’í scriptures. The Báb Himself cited a tradition, Treasures lie hidden beneath the throne of God; the key to those treasures is the tongue of poets.⁷ Among the early followers of the new faith were such distinguished poets as Táhirih, Varqá, Na’ím, and ‘Andalíb.⁸

Accounts of the Bábís generated an almost immediate response from writers in Iran itself. Mírzá Habíb-i-Shírází, known as Qá’iní, one of the country’s most eminent poets, was reportedly the first to extol the Báb in his work.⁹ The news of more than 300 Bábís under siege at the Shrine of Shaykh Tabársí who, despite their lack of military expertise, held off the forces of the Sháh’s army for almost a year—notably aided by an exceptionally devastating display of swordsmanship by the Báb’s first follower Mullá Ḥusayn, who was but a religious scholar—evoked the enthusiasm of poets who, in different cities of Persia, were moved to celebrate the exploits of the author of so daring an act. Their poems helped to diffuse the knowledge, and to immortalize the memory, of that mighty deed.¹⁰ In the West, reports of the beleaguered Bábís were extensively covered by the press¹¹, as well as described in travelogues by Robert Binning, Lady Sheil, and Jane Dieufloy.

Mirza Habíb-i-Shírází. Credit: Simina Boicu

Táhirih, Qurratu’l-‘Ayn

The poet known as Táhirih, or Qurratu’l-‘Ayn, the first woman to follow the Báb, was rare among her gender at that time for her education and erudition. This ghazal, known as her signature piece, conveys her yearning devotion to the Beloved:

I would explain all my grief
Dot by dot, point by point
If heart to heart we talk
And face to face we meet.
To catch a glimpse of thee
I am wandering like a breeze
From house to house, door to door
Place to place, street to street.
In separation from thee
The blood of my heart gushes out of my eyes
In torrent after torrent, river after river
Wave after wave, stream after stream.
This afflicted heart of mine
Has woven your love
To the stuff of life
Strand by strand, thread to thread.¹²

More than any other element of the Bábí experience, it was the resolve and courage of Táhirih that seems to have excited the imagination of writers. Numerous volumes have been written about her—notably recalling her singular act of publicly removing her veil—not only in Persian, Arabic, and English but extensively in Urdu. Around 1870, after Bábís travelled to Mumbai, Táhirih’s story and poetry came to be well-known in the Indian sub-continent. The influential Punjabi-born poet, politician and philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal listed Táhirih among those whose songs bestow constancy to the souls because their songs derive their heat from the universe of inner-heat.¹³ In his Javid Nama (1932), Iqbal lists Táhirih as one of three martyr-guides.

Think you not Táhirih has left this world.
Rather she is present in the very conscience of her age.¹⁴

In Europe, as early as 1874, an Austrian novelist and women’s rights activist Marie von Najmajer, had written an epic poem, Gurret-ül-Eyn, believed to be the first composed in a Western language in honor of the new religion. Four years later, William Michael Rossetti mentioned both the Báb and Táhirih in a lecture given in various cities about the English poet Shelley.¹⁵ Rossetti observed that Táhirih had an almost magical influence over large masses of the population, ¹⁶ and that the protagonists of Shelley’s poem, The Revolt of Islam, anticipate both her life and that of the Báb. In this work, Shelley seems to have captured the spirit of expectation of that time, foreseeing the imminent advent of two Divine beings:

And a voice said: Thou must a listener be
This day—two mighty Spirits now return,
Like birds of calm, from the world’s raging sea,
They pour fresh light from Hope’s immortal urn;
A tale of human power—despair not—list and learn!¹⁷

Explaining the significance of a verse from Háfiz, the Báb had said, It is the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit that causes words such as these to stream from the tongue of poets the significance of which they themselves are often times unable to apprehend.¹⁸ In similar vein, Shelley had not long before declared that poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration, the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present, the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire….¹⁹ The creative forces that accompany the pronouncements of a Manifestation of God—or even anticipate them—thus appear to prompt the spiritual sensibilities of receptive souls.

Throughout the twentieth century, Táhirih’s fame spread further abroad. The journalist and outstanding Bahá’í teacher Martha Root, who penned a monograph about her, noted that, As I have travelled in the five continents, I have seen how her life has influenced women, and men too, throughout the world.²⁰ A 1960 public sculpture in Baku, Azerbaijan, by Fuad Abdurrahmanov, depicting a woman casting aside her veil, is said to have been inspired by Táhirih.²¹ And, as recently as in 2017, Azerbaijan’s National Museum of History held a celebration recognizing Táhirih’s dedication and contribution to the advancement of women. Táhirih is held in high regard, explained Professor Azer Jafarov of Baku State University. She influenced modern literature, raised the call for the emancipation of women, and had a deep impact on public consciousness.²²

Around the same time that Táhirih made her appearance unveiled at the Conference of Badasht in June–July 1848, the first women’s rights convention in the United States was being held at Seneca Falls, at which was launched the women’s suffrage movement in America. In the estimation of Western women, the acts of Táhirih were interpreted through the lens of their campaign for the right to vote. In Britain in 1911, the Women’s Freedom League newspaper ran a three-part article by campaigner Charlotte Despard titled, A Woman Apostle in Persia.²³ When an English Bahá’í, Mary Blomfield, petitioned King George V in person to ease the maltreatment of imprisoned suffragettes, an American Bahá’í dubbed her the Western Qurratu’l-Ayn.²⁴

(L-R) Allama Muhammad Iqbal, William Michael Rossetti. Credit: Simina Boicu

Charlotte Despard. Credit: Simina Boicu

The salons of Paris

The first European novel that was set against the episode of the Báb was published in France 1891. In Un Amour au Pays de Mages, A. de Saint-Quentin—a French consular official and colleague of Gobineau’s—created a love story between a humble dervish and the daughter of a cleric in Qazvín played out amid the events of Bábí history.

Writer Jules Bois had also been so moved by the story of events in faraway Iran that, during a journey through the Holy Land, he had stopped at Mount Carmel to place flowers on the tomb of the Báb.²⁵

Writing in 1925, Bois recalled that, All Europe was stirred to pity and indignation over the martyrdom of the Báb, July 9 1850 … among the littérateurs of my generation, in the Paris of 1890 the martyrdom of the Báb was still as fresh a topic as had been the first news of his death. We wrote poems about him. Sarah Bernhardt entreated Catulle Mendès for a play on the theme of this historic tragedy …. I was asked to write a drama entitled Her Highness the Pure, dealing with the story of another illustrious martyr of the same cause—a woman, Quarratul-Ayn [sic] the Persian Joan of Arc and the leader of emancipation for women of the Orient.²⁶

Neither of the proposed plays of Mendès or Bois materialized. However, Bois did meet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Paris on 11 November 1911, at the home of composer Hermann Bemberg, where they performed extracts from an opera they had co-written with Eustache de Lorey, titled Leïlah. Set in Shíráz, the opera contained many references to mystical Persia. It was staged in Monaco three years later.²⁷

In 1910, the Paris-based American heiress Laura Clifford Barney—who would be active in the International Council of Women in the following decades and its representative to the League of Nations—had published her own, never performed, drama, God’s Heroes, centering on Táhirih. In its preface, Barney described her play as but a fragment of one of the most dramatic periods in history and … but a limited presentation of the most vast philosophy yet known to man.

The theatre, like all other forces may upbuild or shatter. It can be a mighty instrument for spreading ideas broadcast; and, for this reason, I believe that the wave of regeneration, which is sweeping over the world, should take form also on the stage; and am trying, therefore, in this play, to bring before the public some of the most inspiring events of our epoch.

I have, therefore, presented to the public a few episodes in the early Babi history, and only a few of the noted characters of that period: yet, even this imperfect sketch should suffice to give an idea of the vastness of the movement.²⁸

Barney thought it preferable not to portray the Báb or Bahá’u’lláh in any way for certain beings cannot be adequately impersonated. However there is no such self-restriction in her depiction of Táhirih, who stands forth in history as an example of what the disciple of truth can accomplish despite hampering custom, and violent persecution.²⁹

At one moment in the play, Barney gives to Táhirih words that proclaim the advent of a new Revelation:

From all sides I see new life rising; the struggle between the hardened soil and the maturing seed is over. Soon, upon all things, summer will spread victorious beauty!
… even the end has a beginning for spring will again conquer, sister mine. So, when, as now, ancient faiths have become rigid in cold dead forms, a new faith germinates in the souls of men.³⁰

By then a devoted Bahá’í herself, Barney’s intention in presenting this history on stage was made clear to her readers at the outset: … I hope, notwithstanding, to give you a glimpse of Eastern glory, and to awaken your interest in this great movement, the universal religion—Bahaism, which is today bringing peace and hope to expectant humanity.³¹

Jules Bois. Credit: Simina Boicu

Laura Clifford Barney. Credit: Simina Boicu

A Russian stage drama

In God Passes By, published in 1944 to mark the centenary of the Declaration of the Báb, Shoghi Effendi recorded for posterity another piece of theater:

A Russian poetess, member of the Philosophic, Oriental and Bibliological Societies of St. Petersburg, published in 1903 a drama entitled The Báb, which a year later was played in one of the principal theatres of that city, was subsequently given publicity in London, was translated into French in Paris, and into German by the poet Fiedler, was presented again, soon after the Russian Revolution, in the Folk Theatre in Leningrad, and succeeded in arousing the genuine sympathy and interest of the renowned Tolstoy, whose eulogy of the poem was later published in the Russian press.³²

The drama was penned by Izabella Grinevskaia, who probably first encountered the story of the Báb while researching in a St. Petersburg academic library. Several Russian scholars—including Aleksander Kazembeg, Albert Dorn, Captain A. M. Tumansky and Baron Victor Rozen—had published articles about the Báb. Published in April 1903, Grinevskaia’s play, received favorable reviews in the press, some of which quoted from it at length. One noted that the story could move a Russian as well as a Persian. It is almost strange that in our literature no-one has come to write about such a wonderful, true-to-life tragedy.³³ First seen in St. Petersburg on 4 January 1904, the work conveyed its message of peace, love, tolerance, and brotherhood so successfully that, after four performances, it was banned for five years by the Tsar’s censor. It was, however, performed in Baku on 28 April and Astrakhan during the first week of December 1904. A second edition was published in 1916 and staged the following year. In 1922 the last recorded staging took place in Ashgabat in Turkmenistan.

Among those who praised Grinevskaia’s play was Leo Tolstoy. A Russian journalist visiting the great author in 1903, described finding Tolstoy deeply immersed in reading the drama and was charged by him to give his admiring appreciation to it author. ³⁴ But Tolstoy’s curiosity about the Báb preceded his receiving Grinevskaia’s text. In April 1899, for example, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke paid a visit to Tolstoy with the Russian psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé and her husband, the orientalist Friedrich Carl Andreas, who had published a paper about the Bábís. Salomé later reported that Tolstoy paid little attention to her and Rilke, rather his interest was more focused on deep and invigorating discussions about the Bábí movement with her husband.³⁵

In a letter to Grinevskaia, Tolstoy wrote, I have known of the Bábís for a long time and am much interested in their teachings. It seems to me that they have a great future … because they have thrown away the artificial superstructures which separate [the religions] from one another and are aiming at uniting all mankind in one religion …. And therefore, in that it educates men to brotherhood and equality and to the sacrificing of their sensual desires in God’s service, I sympathise with Bábism with all my heart.³⁶

Isabella Grinevskaia. Credit: Simina Boicu

Leo Tolstoy. Credit: Simina Boicu

Response in the twentieth century

The Báb and His followers were thus a source of curiousity and inspiration to many writers, intrigued by His teachings and captivated by the heartbreak of their story. Later, as the Heroic Age of Bahá’í history came to an end with the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1921, the Bahá’í Faith, under the direction of its Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, began to evolve into a distinct and independent, world-embracing religion, spreading to an ever-increasing number of territories. One of the reasons for Shoghi Effendi’s translation of The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá’í Revelation was to give newer Bahá’ís in the West both a vivid introduction to the origins of their Faith, much of which was unknown to them, and an inspirational tool to encourage their own sacrificial services in the Faith’s progress. It was also the Guardian’s hope that The Dawn-Breakers would provide artists with source material for their work: It is surely true that the spirit of these heroic souls will stir many artists to produce their best. It is such lives that in the past inspired poets and moved the brush of the painters.³⁷

In comparison to the outpouring of those early decades of literary responses to the Báb, general works inspired by the Bábí period may have dwindled for much of the 20th century. However, following the publication of The Dawn-Breakers up until today, Bahá’ís themselves have paid homage to the Báb and the heroes of Bábí history through countless works of art, poetry, theater, film, and music, in a wide range of languages and forms of cultural expression. Two American Bahá’ís who received widespread public acclaim in the pursuit of their art and deserve brief mention here, to exemplify how The Dawn-Breakers has impacted upon creative practitioners, are the painter Mark Tobey and the poet Robert Hayden.

When Tobey was on his second pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1935, Shoghi Effendi told him that he was free to depict the early heroes of the Faith but not its Founders. Up until that time, some of the early western Bahá’ís who were painters had not attempted to illustrate any events from Bábí history, let alone attempt to convey more mystical concepts. Tobey, however, conversant with the moves toward abstraction in modernist European painting, found that his emerging visual language could be deployed not only for evoking historical events but also metaphysical ideas.

One of Tobey’s most explicit Bábí-inspired works is Movement Around a Martyr (1938). In it, he draws on his deep knowledge of renaissance art, especially the pietà figure of the martyred Christ, to depict the physical and spiritual forces that circle about a saintly figure who has been put to death. The entire image, which from a distance might be read as an all-seeing eye or maelstrom, spirals out of a small central circle, perhaps the Primal Point, as the Báb described Himself, from which has been generated all created things. ³⁸ Swirling around the martyred figure, one lifeless arm hanging down, are mourners and worshippers, priests and helmeted guards, while more amorphous angelic figures circle above. In this work, Tobey draws an explicit parallel between the Bábí episode and the archetypal events from previous religious dispensations.

Meanwhile, in his poem, Dawnbreaker, the distinguished American poet Robert Hayden, who served from 1976 to 1978 as Consultant in Poetry to the U.S. Library of Congress, a role today known as U.S. Poet Laureate, takes as his inspiration the description of the humiliation of Hájí Sulaymán Khán, whose final punishment was to have holes gouged into his flesh into which were inserted burning candles:

Ablaze
with candles sconced
in weeping eyes
of wounds,

He danced
through jeering streets
to death; oh sang
against. The drumming
mockery God’s praise.
Flames nested in
his flesh

Fed the
fires that consume
us now, the fire that
will save.³⁹

(L-R) Mark Tobey, Robert Hayden. Credit: Simina Boicu

A continuing story

There are two aspects to the story of the Báb—His captivating personal demeanor and the harsh treatment of His followers—that particularly seem to have sparked the imagination of writers and then later, artists. The English divine Thomas K. Cheyne recorded that the Báb’s combination of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place him in a line with super-normal men …. ⁴⁰ Curzon noted, that [t]ales of magnificent heroism illumine the bloodstained pages of Bábí history …. Of no small account, then, must be the tenets of a creed that can awaken in its followers so rare and beautiful a spirit of self-sacrifice.⁴¹

To this day, the Báb continues to fascinate not only Bahá’ís around the world, but scholars of history and religion, artists, musicians, writers and dramatists. Anticipating the worldwide celebrations of both the bicentenaries of Bahá’u’lláh in 2017 and the Báb in 2019, the Universal House of Justice wrote:

At the heart of these festivities must be a concerted effort to convey a sense of what it means for humanity that these two Luminaries rose successively above the horizon of the world. Of course, this will take different forms in different contexts, extending to a myriad artistic and cultural expressions, including songs, audio-visual presentations, publications and books.⁴²

The bicentenary of the Birth of the Báb in October 2019 did indeed give rise to an outpouring of artistic expressions from people on every continent, a sure reminder of the profound influence that the life and mission of the Báb is continuing to have, and will increasingly exert, on artistic expression worldwide.

Much then is still to be seen and heard, drawn and painted, spoken and sung, acted upon the stage, or captured on film—as humanity increasingly responds to the advent of a Divine Revelation and its martyred Prophet-Herald, Who fascinated contemporary commentators in the middle of the nineteenth century, and Who continues to speak to hearts and minds in the twenty-first.

The author is grateful to Hillary Chapman, Sasha Dehghani, Jan Jasion, Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, Anne Gordon Perry and Louise Willneff for their assistance in the preparation of this essay.

By The Bahá'ís Magazine

The world’s great faiths have animated civilizations throughout history. Each affirms the existence of an all-loving God and opens the doors of understanding to the spiritual dimension of life. Each cultivates the love of God and of humanity in the human heart and seeks to bring out the noblest qualities and aspirations of the human being. Each has beckoned humankind to higher forms of civilization.

Over the thousands of years of humanity’s collective infancy and adolescence, the systems of shared belief brought by the world’s great religions have enabled people to unite and create bonds of trust and cooperation at ever-higher levels of social organization―from the family, to the tribe, to the city-state and nation. As the human race moves toward a global civilization, this power of religion to promote cooperation and propel cultural evolution can perhaps be better understood today than ever before. It is an insight that is increasingly being recognized and is affirmed in the work of evolutionary psychologists and cultural anthropologists.

The teachings of the Founders of the world’s religions have inspired breathtaking achievements in literature, architecture, art, and music. They have fostered the promotion of reason, science, and education. Their moral principles have been translated into universal codes of law, regulating and elevating human relationships. These uniquely endowed individuals are referred to as Manifestations of God in the Bahá’í writings, and include (among others) Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, the Báb, and Bahá’u’lláh. History provides countless examples of how these Figures have awakened in whole populations capacities to love, to forgive, to create, to dare greatly, to overcome prejudice, to sacrifice for the common good, and to discipline the impulses of humanity’s baser instincts. These achievements can be recognized as the common spiritual heritage of the human race.

Today, humanity faces the limits of a social order inadequate to meet the compelling challenges of a world that has virtually shrunk to the level of a neighborhood. On this small planet, sovereign nations find themselves caught between cooperation and competition. The well-being of humanity and of the environment are too often compromised for national self-interest. Propelled by competing ideologies, divided by various constructs of us versus them, the people of the world are plunged into one crisis after another—brought on by war, terrorism, prejudice, oppression, economic disparity, and environmental upheaval, among other causes.

Bahá’u’lláh—as the latest in the series of divinely inspired moral educators Who have guided humanity from age to age—has proclaimed that humanity is now approaching its long-awaited stage of maturity: unity at the global level of social organization. He provides a vision of the oneness of humanity, a moral framework, and teachings that, founded on the harmony of science and religion, directly address today’s problems. He points the way to the next stage of human social evolution. He offers to the peoples of the world a unifying story consistent with our scientific understanding of reality. He calls on us to recognize our common humanity, to see ourselves as members of one family, to end estrangement and prejudice, and to come together. By doing so, all peoples and every social group can be protagonists in shaping their own future and, ultimately, a just and peaceful global civilization.

One humanity, one unfolding faith

We live in a time of rapid, often unsettling change. People today survey the transformations underway in the world with mixed feelings of anticipation and dread, of hope and anxiety. In the societal, economic, and political realms, essential questions about our identity and the nature of the relationships that bind us together are being raised to a degree not seen in decades.

Progress in science and technology represents hope for addressing many of the challenges that are emerging, but such progress is itself a powerful force of disruption, changing the ways we make choices, learn, organize, work, and play, and raising moral questions that have not been encountered before. Some of the most formidable problems facing humanity—those dealing with the human condition and requiring moral and ethical decisions—cannot be solved through science and technology alone, however critical their contributions.

The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh help us understand the transformations underway. At the heart of His message are two core ideas. First is the incontrovertible truth that humanity is one, a truth that embodies the very spirit of the age, for without it, it is impossible to build a truly just and peaceful world. Second is the understanding that humanity’s great faiths have come from one common Source and are expressions of one unfolding religion.

In His writings, Bahá’u’lláh raised a call to the leaders of nations, to religious figures, and to the generality of humankind to give due importance to the place of religion in human advancement. All of the Founders of the world’s great religions, He explained, proclaim the same faith. He described religion as the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world and of tranquility amongst its peoples and referred to it as a radiant light and an impregnable stronghold for the protection and welfare of the peoples of the world. In another of His Tablets, He states that the purpose of religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. The religion of God and His divine law, He further explains, are the most potent instruments and the surest of all means for the dawning of the light of unity amongst men. The progress of the world, the development of nations, the tranquility of peoples, and the peace of all who dwell on earth are among the principles and ordinances of God. Religion bestoweth upon man the most precious of all gifts, offereth the cup of prosperity, imparteth eternal life, and showereth imperishable benefits upon mankind.

The decline of religion

Bahá’u’lláh was also deeply concerned about the corruption and abuse of religion that had come to characterize human societies around the planet. He warned of the inevitable decline of religion’s influence in the spheres of decision making and on the human heart. This decline, He explained, sets in when the noble and pure teachings of the moral luminaries who founded the world’s great religions are corrupted by selfish human ideas, superstition, and the worldly quest for power. Should the lamp of religion be obscured, explained Bahá’u’lláh, chaos and confusion will ensue, and the lights of fairness and justice, of tranquility and peace cease to shine.

From the perspective of the Bahá’í teachings, the abuses carried out in the name of religion and the various forms of prejudice, superstition, dogma, exclusivity, and irrationality that have become entrenched in religious thought and practice prevent religion from bringing to bear the healing influence and society-building power it possesses.

Beyond these manifestations of the corruption of religion are the acts of terror and violence heinously carried out in, of all things, the name of God. Such acts have left a grotesque scar on the consciousness of humanity and distorted the concept of religion in the minds of countless people, turning many away from it altogether.

The spiritual and moral void resulting from the decline of religion has not only given rise to virulent forms of religious fanaticism, but has also allowed for a materialistic conception of life to become the world’s dominant paradigm.

Religion’s place as an authority and a guiding light both in the public sphere and in the private lives of individuals has undergone a profound decline in the last century. A compelling assumption has become consolidated: as societies become more civilized, religion’s role in humanity’s collective affairs diminishes and is relegated to the private life of the individual. Ultimately, some have speculated that religion will disappear altogether.

Yet this assumption is not holding up in the light of recent developments. In these first decades of the 21^st century, religion has experienced a resurgence as a social force of global importance. In a rapidly changing world, a reawakening of humanity’s longing for meaning and for spiritual connection is finding expression in various forms: in the efforts of established faiths to meet the needs of rising generations by reshaping doctrines and practices to adapt to contemporary life; in interfaith activities that seek to foster dialogue between religious groups; in a myriad of spiritual movements, often focused on individual fulfillment and personal development; but also in the rise of fundamentalism and radical expressions of religious practice, which have tragically exploited the growing discontent among segments of humanity, especially youth.

Concurrently, national and international governing institutions are not only recognizing religion’s enduring presence in society but are increasingly seeing the value of its participation in efforts to address humanity’s most vexing problems. This realization has led to increased efforts to engage religious leaders and communities in decision making and in the carrying out of various plans and programs for social betterment.

Each of these expressions, however, falls far short of acknowledging the importance of a social force that has time and again demonstrated its power to inspire the building of vibrant civilizations. If religion is to exert its vital influence in this period of profound, often tumultuous change, it will need to be understood anew. Humanity will have to shed harmful conceptions and practices that masquerade as religion. The question is how to understand religion in the modern world and allow for its constructive powers to be released for the betterment of all.

Religion renewed

The great religious systems that have guided humanity over thousands of years can be regarded in essence as one unfolding religion that has been renewed from age to age, evolving as humanity has moved from one stage of collective development to another. Religion can thus be seen as a system of knowledge and practice that has, together with science, propelled the advancement of civilization throughout history.

Religion today cannot be exactly what it was in a previous era. Much of what is regarded as religion in the contemporary world must, Bahá’ís believe, be re-examined in light of the fundamental truths Bahá’u’lláh has posited: the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, and the oneness of the human family.

Bahá’u’lláh set an uncompromising standard: if religion becomes a source of separation, estrangement, or disagreement—much less violence and terror—it is best to do without it. The test of true religion is its fruits. Religion should demonstrably uplift humanity, create unity, forge good character, promote the search for truth, liberate human conscience, advance social justice, and promote the betterment of the world. True religion provides the moral foundations to harmonize relationships among individuals, communities, and institutions across diverse and complex social settings. It fosters an upright character and instills forbearance, compassion, forgiveness, magnanimity, and high-mindedness. It prohibits harm to others and invites souls to the plane of sacrifice, that they may give of themselves for the good of others. It imparts a world-embracing vision and cleanses the heart from self-centeredness and prejudice. It inspires souls to endeavor for material and spiritual betterment for all, to see their own happiness in that of others, to advance learning and science, to be an instrument of true joy, and to revive the body of humankind.

True religion is in harmony with science. When understood as complementary, science and religion provide people with powerful means to gain new and wondrous insights into reality and to shape the world around them, and each system benefits from an appropriate degree of influence from the other. Science, when devoid of the perspective of religion, can become vulnerable to dogmatic materialism. Religion, when devoid of science, falls prey to superstition and blind imitation of the past. The Bahá’í teachings state:

Put all your beliefs into harmony with science; there can be no opposition, for truth is one. When religion, shorn of its superstitions, traditions, and unintelligent dogmas, shows its conformity with science, then will there be a great unifying, cleansing force in the world which will sweep before it all wars, disagreements, discords and struggles—and then will mankind be united in the power of the Love of God.

True religion transforms the human heart and contributes to the transformation of society. It provides insights about humanity’s true nature and the principles upon which civilization can advance. At this critical juncture in human history, the foundational spiritual principle of our time is the oneness of humankind. This simple statement represents a profound truth that, once accepted, invalidates all past notions of the superiority of any race, sex, or nationality. It is more than a mere call to mutual respect and feelings of goodwill between the diverse peoples of the world, important as these are. Carried to its logical conclusion, it implies an organic change in the very structure of society and in the relationships that sustain it.

The experience of the Bahá’í community

Inspired by the principle of the oneness of humankind, Bahá’ís believe that the advancement of a materially and spiritually coherent world civilization will require the contributions of countless high-minded individuals, groups, and organizations, for generations to come. The efforts of the Bahá’í community to contribute to this movement are finding expression today in localities all around the world and are open to all.

At the heart of Bahá’í endeavors is a long-term process of community building that seeks to develop patterns of life and social structures founded on the oneness of humanity. One component of these efforts is an educational process that has developed organically in rural and urban settings around the world. Spaces are created for children, youth, and adults to explore spiritual concepts and gain capacity to apply them to their own social environments. Every soul is invited to contribute regardless of race, gender, or creed. As thousands upon thousands participate, they draw insights from both science and the world’s spiritual heritage and contribute to the development of new knowledge. Over time, capacities for service are being cultivated in diverse settings around the world and are giving rise to individual initiatives and increasingly complex collective action for the betterment of society. Transformation of the individual and transformation of the community unfold simultaneously.

Beyond efforts to learn about community building at the grass roots, Bahá’ís engage in various forms of social action, through which they strive to apply spiritual principles in efforts to further material progress in diverse settings. Bahá’í institutions and agencies, as well as individuals and organizations, also participate in the prevalent discourses of their societies in diverse spaces, from academic and professional settings, to national and international forums, all with the aim of contributing to the advancement of society.

As they carry out this work, Bahá’ís are conscious that to uphold high ideals is not the same as to embody them. The Bahá’í community recognizes that many challenges lie ahead as it works shoulder to shoulder with others for unity and justice. It is committed to the long-term process of learning through action that this task entails, with the conviction that religion has a vital role to play in society and a unique power to release the potential of individuals, communities, and institutions.

By Matt Weinberg

Technological change is inherent to human progress. Technology, by definition, serves to augment human capacities and in so doing alters the environment in which we act. In a very real way, social reality and technology co-evolve or are co-constructed. It could be said that the industrial and information revolutions have fundamentally transformed the functioning and conception of human society. Further, the relentless pace of technical and industrial advancement over the last century has redefined the relationship between human beings and the natural world. Technology is a dominant fashioner of reality, influencing social arrangements, goals, and assumptions in a way that profoundly affects collective development, individual behavior, and the ecosystems upon which we depend. Its multifarious impacts thus must be carefully scrutinized.

A major idea emanating from current academic discourse is that technology both shapes and is shaped by social, economic, political, and cultural forces. As one writer has put it, A technology is not merely a system of machines with certain functions; rather it is an expression of a social world.¹ Automobiles and road networks, power and communications systems, and the Internet are not simply technical systems but also social processes shaped by social context. Technologies can empower us but may also embody or express existing relations of power and characteristics of culture, reinforce social inequities or pathologies, or manifest ideological or strategic goals.² Notably, technology, in the words of one thinker, has become a powerful vector of the acquisitive spirit; it expresses wants or desires—and sometimes feeds them.³ Our technical choices define a social reality within which the specific alternatives we think of as purposes, goals, uses, emerge.⁴ Our identity and roles in contemporary society are strongly mediated by technology; it is something we create, but it also recreates or redefines us.

The Critical Issue of Technological Choice

Technical choices shape the contours of everyday life and give real definition to modernity. These choices take place at the level of societies as well as individuals. The variety of technologies we confront—and the uncertainty about how best to use them, if at all—is daunting. Further, when we consider complex technical systems that evolve at the macro level, such as the Internet, our ability to influence the overall development and deployment of these systems seems quite limited. Nevertheless, because complex technical systems and the specific components and innovations underpinning them are socially constructed, human volition and values define their purpose and impact. We find, for example, that the intentions and values of a designer or of a corporation behind a product are embedded in ways that often are not obvious. So a simplistic notion that technology is a neutral means to freely chosen ends is not tenable. Technological advancement increasingly shapes the moral terrain on which we make decisions.⁵

For many decades, the subject of technology has been integral to public discourse concerning processes of social and economic development. Various objectives and descriptors have been used to define the appropriateness of technology in relation to development activity: small scale, labor intensive, advanced, intermediate, indigenous, energy efficient, environmentally sensitive. ⁶ Ultimately, the appropriateness of technology is determined by the values of those creating, using, or implementing it. The appropriate technology movement perhaps lost momentum to some degree because the role of values in guiding technological choice was not systematically explored.⁷

Technological development often proceeds in a manner decoupled from community values and broader questions of individual and collective purpose. In using technology, means and ends can be easily confused, and consequently community goals and requirements can be wrongly defined.⁸ When the link between material needs and values is ignored, the role of technology as a vehicle for upraising the human condition becomes supplanted by a process that often turns people into passive subjects rather than active users and shapers of technological instruments.

Any tool can be used productively or destructively. But the most serious consequences of technology use are often quite subtle. The rapid adoption of new technology without reflection about possible impacts has sometimes upended longstanding social and cultural patterns, where entire domains of meaning and purpose in traditional cultures are displaced.⁹ In such circumstances, technology itself becomes a bearer and even disrupter of values; it can cause individuals and communities to adapt to technology rather than use technology to extend human capability in harmony with social goals and mores. This pattern of reverse adaptation, where technology structures and even defines the ends of human activity, is a widespread phenomenon.¹⁰ The choices we make about technology, then, particularly when not fully evaluating their implications, may be at variance with our essential purposes, ideals, and norms. For this reason, as individuals, families, communities, and societies, we must reflect about how we design and deploy technological tools.

Technology can embed values in several other ways. It encourages that primacy be placed on efficiency, which can result in a failure to recognize negative externalities;¹¹ it emphasizes a reductionist approach to problem solving, which can lead to an atomistic versus a systems approach in addressing complexity;¹² and it fosters an instrumental rationality rather than a rationality concerned with overall quality of life and meaning.¹³ In the end, such an orientation can result in an exaggerated reliance on technology where it is easier to diffuse technology rather than effect change in human attitudes and behavior.¹⁴ A facile optimism that technology alone can ameliorate or resolve pressing social challenges often only serves to exacerbate the real problems at stake in a given context.

The Role of Technology in Advancing Civilization

The concept of human betterment, of an ever-advancing civilization in which both material and spiritual well-being are continually fostered, implies a central role for science and technology and, in particular, an evolving capacity for making appropriate technological choices. Such a capacity represents an expression of human maturation. A key concept articulated in the Bahá’í teachings is that the creation, application, and diffusion of knowledge lies at the heart of social progress and development. In the latter part of the 19th century, Bahá’u’lláh urged: In this day, all must cling to whatever is the cause of the betterment of the world and the promotion of knowledge amongst its peoples.¹⁵ And in a related passage, He affirmed: The progress of the world, the development of nations, the tranquility of peoples, and the peace of all who dwell on earth are among the principles and ordinances of God.¹⁶ These and other statements in the Bahá’í writings underscore that the set of human capacities necessary for building up the material and moral fabric of collective life is derived from an expanded notion of rationality that references both mind and spirit.

While extolling the power of intellectual investigation and scientific acquisition as a higher virtue unique to human beings, the Bahá’í writings recognize that scientific methodologies alone cannot tell us which ideas or norms best advance a specific social objective or competence.¹⁷ The knowledge required to advance social well-being must be multidimensional, encompassing not only techniques, methodologies, theories, and models but also values, ideals, qualities, attributes, intuition, and spiritual discernment. Drawing on both science and religion allows us to satisfy these diverse knowledge requirements and to identify new moral standards and avenues of learning in addressing emerging contexts of social dilemma.¹⁸ This sheds light on the full range of capabilities that must be employed in understanding, developing, evaluating, and using technology. In essence, technology is a magnifier of human intent and capacity, and consequently, it cannot become a substitute for human judgment or action.

The term technology derives from the Greek techne, which is translated as craft or art. In this sense, technology is the branch of human inquiry and activity relating to craftsmanship, techniques, and practices; to innovation and provision of objects; and to systems based on such objects. While the term technology is not explicitly used by Bahá’u’lláh or the Báb, we do find references to the arts and sciences, craftsmanship, and invention. Bahá’u’lláh wrote: Arts, crafts and sciences uplift the world of being, and are conducive to its exaltation. Knowledge is as wings to man’s life, and a ladder for his ascent.¹⁹ And in a prayer, the Báb wrote: I yield praise unto Thee, O Lord our God, for the bounty of having called into being the realm of creation and invention.²⁰ The deep connection between the rational and creative dimensions of human endeavor is strongly emphasized by Bahá’u’lláh: Erelong shall We bring into being … exponents of new and wondrous sciences, of potent and effective crafts, and shall make manifest through them that which the heart of none of Our servants hath yet conceived.²¹ It is fascinating that Bahá’u’lláh indicates that one principal sign of the coming of age of the human race will be the mastery of a particular scientific and technological art: the discovery of a radical approach to the transmutation of elements.²² The notion that something can be changed into something else reinforces the idea that it is not the material thing that is of value but rather the conceptual insight and knowledge that makes such a transformation possible. This is an affirmation of our primary spiritual identity and agency as manifested by the gifts of creative intellect.²³ The noble and fertile powers of the human spirit can be seen in how the roles of the technologist and artist are in some sense equated and seen as central to the process of social advancement: The purpose of learning should be the promotion of the welfare of the people, and this can be achieved through crafts. It hath been revealed and is now repeated that the true worth of artists and craftsmen should be appreciated, for they advance the affairs of mankind.²⁴

In attempting to elaborate the essential characteristics of technology, one prominent analyst offers this description: Technology is a programming of nature. It is a capturing of phenomena and a harnessing of these to human purposes.²⁵ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’u’lláh’s son and appointed successor, observes that all the present arts and sciences, inventions and discoveries man has brought forth were once mysteries which nature had decreed should remain hidden and latent, but man has taken them out of the plane of the invisible and brought them into the plane of the visible.²⁶ These words suggest that technology is more than a mere programming of natureand that it serves as an evident expression of humanity’s innate intellectual and inventive power. But He also warns about how this power can be distorted or misapplied. Speaking of the malignant fruits of material civilization, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stresses that human energy must be wholly devoted to useful inventions and concentrated on praiseworthy discoveries.²⁷ Moving towards more conscious and purposeful patterns of technological innovation that are in consonance with the values and aspirations of individuals and communities depends on both practical and spiritual awareness. There is no question, though, as to the pivotal function that science and technology play in effecting constructive social change and unleashing human potential. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says: Would the extension of education, the development of useful arts and sciences, the promotion of industry and technology, be harmful things? For such endeavor lifts the individual within the mass and raises him out of the depths of ignorance to the highest reaches of knowledge and human excellence.²⁸

Mechanisms of Technological Choice

How then can individuals and communities be empowered to make meaningful choices about technology? How do we move from being passive technological users or subjects to active agents in constructively shaping patterns of technological development? Clearly, developing the capacity for technological assessment, innovation, and adaptation is vital to social progress. This requires the creation of grassroots, participatory mechanisms that foster a dynamic process of learning about technology. It entails the creation of consultative social spaces where communities can evaluate technological needs, options, and impacts. Langdon Winner observes that both evaluations of technology and the cultivation of lasting virtues that concern technological choice must emerge from dialogue within real communities in particular situations.²⁹ The main challenge in this regard is how to expand the social and political spaces where ordinary citizens can play a role in making choices early on about technologies that will affect them.³⁰ The philosopher Albert Borgmann echoes this point by emphasizing that our use of technology has deep implications for our essential relationships—as family members, parents, citizens, and stewards of nature—and consequently it is necessary for us to reassess notions of the good life so that technology can fulfill the promise of a new kind of freedom and richness based on deeper human engagement.³¹ In short, we need to create opportunities for reflection at all levels of society that allow us to consciously build ways of life that integrate technology into a desirable conception of what it is to be human. And such a conception of human purpose cannot be dictated by prevailing materialistic structures and forces. Making proper technological choices is therefore bound up with processes of social, political, and moral development.

Practices of collective reflection and public consultation would appear to provide precisely the creative mechanisms needed to appraise new technologies in relation to overall personal and community goals. Such practices move us away from simply being for or against technology and instead represent a way for generating and applying knowledge in harmony with basic community aspirations. True community empowerment and learning, the bases of real sustainability, require local communities to define their own pathways of material development and progress. Such active and genuine participation, where practical knowledge is gained by the people most affected, lies at the heart of the Bahá’í approach to transforming social conditions and behavior. In the Bahá’í view, the primary task of material and social development activity is the raising of capacity among individuals, communities, and institutions across all regions and cultures, with the goal of a creating a civilization in which there exists a dynamic coherence between the spiritual and practical requirements of life on earth.³² This vision rejects approaches to development which define it as the transfer to all societies of the ideological convictions, the social structures, the economic practices, the models of governance—in the final analysis, the very patterns of life—prevalent in certain highly industrialized regions of the world. When the material and spiritual dimensions of the life of a community are kept in mind and due attention is given to both scientific and spiritual knowledge, the tendency to reduce development to the mere consumption of goods and services and the naive use of technological packages is avoided.³³

Changing the locus of power in relation to technological decision making—or what one theorist calls the democratization of technology that takes fuller account of human agency, needs, and values—has many dimensions.³⁴ Over the long term, communities need to establish institutional processes for systematizing learning about technology. This includes identifying, understanding, and internalizing relevant community values as they apply to the development and use of technologies. After many years of painful experience, it has become evident that the abrupt transfer of technology from outside a community or culture often doesn’t have the desired effect. Such transfers are plainly not sustainable. The process of harnessing and deploying technical innovation takes time. This is why organizational capacity building at the local level, including collective proficiency in pursuing structured research, training, and deliberation, must be a central component of social development practice.

Stated another way, how does a community learn? Apart from individuals acquiring skills, there has to be a learning process where local groups or local centers of technology are not only absorbing but also generating knowledge. Once a process of this kind begins, everything is possible, including the development of informed technological decision making, constructive patterns of technology usage, and invention appropriate to the needs of communities. As one development practitioner underscores, Disseminating technology is easy, nurturing human capacity and institutions that put it to good use is the crux.³⁵

Examples of such community capacity building and social capital formation abound.³⁶ In Kenya, the Kalimani Women’s Group, an initiative influenced by Bahá’í principles, employed consultative methods among community members in developing access to safe drinking water for 6,000 people. Public deliberations focused on underlying health needs, invariably leading to issues of clean water access. Through this public goal-setting process, technological options were considered, including the use of subsurface dams—an innovative, appropriate technology. With assistance from technical non-governmental organizations, community members themselves built and maintained dams, and pumping and storage systems. Processes of evaluation and further project planning all flowed from participatory decision-making mechanisms.³⁷ This project, like other effective community-driven development initiatives, has demonstrated that technical learning optimally occurs through substantive and sustained social engagement and consultative interaction among key stakeholders. More broadly, mechanisms of accessible, ongoing community dialog can lead to new social understandings and transform arrangements of power affecting community members.³⁸

Beyond specific social development initiatives, the global Bahá’í community itself, through its administrative institutions at the local, national, and international levels, has endeavored to utilize emerging technologies in a manner that aligns with goals of collective learning, organic growth, social empowerment and unity. In this respect, individuals and Bahá’í institutions are becoming increasingly aware that the development and use of technological tools must be determined by actual needs, patterns of activity, available resources, and overarching community objectives rather than any potentially novel methods that such tools can offer. A particular concern is that technologically driven approaches, without proper consideration of the reality of the pertinent administrative or community context, can result in solutions that are ineffective or even inconsistent with basic Bahá’í aims and norms. This has been especially true in relation to the introduction and use of information and communication technologies. As the Universal House of Justice, the governing body of the Bahá’í Faith, has stressed: The capacity of the institutions and agencies of the Faith to build unity of thought in their communities, to maintain focus among the friends, to channel their energies in service to the Cause, and to promote systematic action depends, to an extent, on the degree to which the systems and instruments they employ are responsive to reality, that is, to the needs and demands of the local communities they serve and the society in which they operate…In this connection, we are instructed to provide a word of warning: The use of technology will, of course, be imperative to the development of effective systems and instruments…yet it cannot be allowed to define needs and dictate action.³⁹ Accordingly, circumstances in which technological devices and systems might distort individual and collective behavior through unanticipated cultural effects, promote efficiency at the expense of relationship building, lead to social fragmentation and disunity by serving only certain segments of a community, or undermine existing processes of capacity building and community building by diminishing the agency of community actors, would be closely scrutinized by Bahá’ís.⁴⁰ The development and use of technology, then, is grounded in essential Bahá’í values and the means by which those values are expressed in actual community practice. In this way, those directly affected by technological instruments become active protagonists in determining how such instruments are applied to local circumstances and needs.

Consultative Processes about Technology at all Levels of Society

Experience indicates that taking account of relevant social context and values in conjunction with scientific parameters can move public discourse concerning technology forward. The key is to create settings that conduce to open-minded and engaged assessment of technical issues. An illustration of such an approach is found in the community deliberation processes promoted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in relation to hazardous waste sites. In the case of widespread contamination of groundwater at Cape Cod’s Massachusetts Military Reservation, stakeholder engagement and consultative processes, particularly the involvement of Cape Cod residents with technical experts, overcame initial community objections about the impacts of groundwater remediation strategies. Ongoing refinement and evaluation of remediation approaches led to community consensus and support for the project, as well as the use of renewable energy sources to reduce carbon emissions associated with the cleanup.⁴¹ Although this example highlights a deliberative process addressing harmful impacts of previous technical actions and solutions, the value of the deliberative exercise is clear. Public consultative mechanisms can identify paths of inquiry and knowledge generation that can creatively reframe understanding of issues and thereby expand or alter existing viewpoints and inform public opinion, thus overcoming the tendency to resort to ideological predispositions when dealing with complex socio-technical matters.

Technological Determinism?

Even with robust deliberation and learning mechanisms, it can be difficult for communities to exercise control over technological trends and forces, especially when new techniques, devices, or systems originate externally, or if market mechanisms dictate particular technological pathways. For instance, specific agricultural methods, types of energy sources, or modes of communication technology can quickly become prevalent before social, ecological, ethical, and economic impacts within a particular local context are understood. Evaluating technologies can be extremely difficult, as is resisting particular technological trajectories. In a global economy of production, cycles of technological development are increasingly rapid, making it challenging even for the appropriate questions about our choices to be formulated by relevant social institutions.

A strategy of participation and awareness is the necessary starting point in preventing seemingly irrepressible technological and market forces from overwhelming individuals and communities. Even though complex socio-technical systems (transport, telecommunications, energy) seem to have monolithic or intractable attributes, suggesting that technology penetrates society in an irreversible or deterministic way, new directions are possible if societies assess options and adopt different technology policies.⁴²This, though, requires immense moral and political will.

Agency or autonomy should not be attributed to technology, for it diverts attention from the human judgments and relations responsible for social change. As Leo Marx observes: As compared with other means of reaching our social goals, the technological has come to seem the most feasible, practical and economically viable—resulting in neglect of moral and political standards in making determinations about social directions.⁴³ Because individuals and societies construct, select and shape technologies, determinism cannot be an accurate description of how technologies are conceived, developed, and adopted. We should not reify technology but grapple with it in light of essential principles such as moderation, justice, social harmony, and cultural integrity.

Technological Prognostication

The issue of technological prognostication, of predicting how technologies emerge and evolve and what their social uses and effects might be, bears directly on the crucial issue of technological choice. It should be conceded that the manner in which technologies evolve and are used is not readily predictable. The history of technology is replete with examples of how particular devices and systems were ultimately used in unanticipated ways. The telephone was initially envisioned as an instrument to facilitate business transactions, but its adaptation by users at home, the so-called sources of idle chatter, fundamentally transformed the telephone’s role.⁴⁴The Internet of today is something entirely different from what its military and scientific creators envisioned. Yet, specific applications can be analyzed from a functional as well as a values perspective and modified in accordance with our vision of a preferred implementation. The proper expression of technological choice, then, can affect the evolution and social adaptation of devices or technical systems.

Still, even with methodical processes of technological assessment in place, it is unlikely that we can discern the long-term implications of technological decisions made now. We can only do our best, using both reflective inquiry and ethical understanding to continually examine how technologies contribute to personal and collective advancement.

The Case of the Internet

The emergence of the Internet with its increasing penetration into all facets of human activity—social, economic, cultural, educational, political, and personal—offers a compelling illustration of the complex factors that determine whether technical innovation is deployed in a constructive or deleterious way. The Internet is dramatically reshaping patterns of communication and in so doing is effecting profound changes in human relationships encompassing individuals, families, the workplace, public institutions, and international affairs. Clearly, the Internet, as a socio-technical system, represents a far-reaching advance in the ability of the world’s peoples to engage in new forms of interaction and collaboration, simultaneously contracting the planet and deepening bonds of interdependence. It offers tangible evidence that the human race is now endowed with the means needed to realize the visionary goals summoned up by a steadily maturing consciousness. Viewed more deeply, this empowerment is potentially available to all of the earth’s inhabitants, without regard to race, culture, or nation.⁴⁵ The Universal House of Justice observes that the Internet is a manifestation of a development anticipated by the Guardian⁴⁶ when, in describing the characteristics of a unified humanity, he foresaw that a ‘mechanism of world inter-communication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvellous swiftness and perfect regularity.’ Yet, learning to utilize the Internet in a manner conducive to material and spiritual progress is an immense challenge.⁴⁷ The Internet, in essence, mirrors social reality, expressing and amplifying contradictory instances of human achievement and moral breakdown: It is useful to bear in mind that the Internet is a reflection of the world around us, and we find in its infinitude of pages the same competing forces of integration and disintegration that characterize the tumult in which humanity is caught up.⁴⁸ Its striking and disruptive emergence cannot be viewed as being detached from the aims and norms of its users and creators.

An analysis of the impacts of the Internet is obviously beyond the scope of this commentary, but a brief look at the current discourse concerning online social media is instructive. Statistics tell part of the story: as the number of global Internet users approaches four billion people, the vast majority participate on one or more major social media platforms or sites revolving around voluntary social creation and sharing—Facebook, WeChat, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Weibo, Pinterest, Snapchat, Telegram, Reddit, YouTube, etc.⁴⁹ But it could be said that the various forms of social media are now at a crossroads. The enormous social, cultural, and political impact of major online social platforms is now being closely scrutinized by governments, public interest groups, academics, and individuals. Issues of privacy and security, abusive behavior, and false or hateful content are some of the prevailing concerns. The role of these tools in affecting youth identity and behavior is another.⁵⁰ These issues, coupled with the fact that these powerful services can be manipulated and misused by any individual or group in any part of the world, have served as a wakeup call to everyone concerned about the unintended impacts of technology. As Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, remarked in response to the discovery that Facebook had allowed advertisers to target users using the term Jew hater and other offensive phrases, We never intended or anticipated this functionality being used this way — and that is on us. One technology commentator referred to this as Facebook’s Frankenstein moment.⁵¹Further disclosures that the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users had been improperly obtained and repurposed by a third party in an effort to politically influence those users has greatly amplified public demands for greater accountability in how such data is collected and safeguarded.⁵² A challenging aspect of this circumstance is that any remedial actions are likely to be in tension with the prevailing online business model of collecting personal data for use in advertising.⁵³

The developments of the past few years have resulted in a palpable shift in attitude of major technology companies from one of we just provide the platforms for free expression and the content is not our concern to one of active engagement to detect and remove offensive, incendiary, or defamatory material. That their own policies on such objectionable content are still frequently violated and not understood by their own staff who make content decisions and that a reliance on technical algorithms to detect problematic accounts or content still requires much refinement reveal the challenges that exist in just this one area concerning corporate responsibility. Particularly deplorable examples include the harassment of individuals, especially women, and the incitement of violence against specific ethnic or religious groups.⁵⁴

Questions of authenticity and integrity also abound. An investigative piece exposed how various public figures and organizations systematically buy audiences and followers that are not real.⁵⁵ In early 2018, nearly fifty million users on Twitter and sixty million on Facebook were found to be automated accounts designed to simulate real people; in short, we not only have fake news and fake facts, but fake people followed by fake audiences. This reality has been aptly described by some observers as an emerging battlefield between falsehood and veracitythat will only deteriorate as new forms of sophisticated but counterfeit audio and video technology are increasingly deployed for purposes of manipulating public opinion. All of this diminishes social trust between individuals and between citizens and their social institutions, amplifying forces of cynicism, division, and disorder. Bahá’u’lláh’s affirmation that Trustworthiness is the greatest portal leading unto the tranquility and security of the people. In truth the stability of every affair hath depended and doth depend upon it, as well as His call to the news media to investigate the truth and vindicate it, resonate deeply at this moment.⁵⁶ A related issue is that calls for greater media literacy in society are likely to fail to address problems of propaganda, false news, and hate speech precisely because social and cultural identity are primary determinants of how people interpret reality.⁵⁷ It is apparent that, as Bahá’u’lláh avers, everything needs to be made anew: human purpose and identity, values, and all social relationships must be reconceived in light of the essential spiritual nature of human beings and a more expansive conception of solidarity encompassing the boundaries of the planet itself.⁵⁸

The corrosive influences of materialism, moral relativism, incivility, and ingrained prejudice now battering society are not only magnified by online tools, but in some instances are assuming new, baleful forms. Even algorithms and data depicting apparently straightforward social facts are affected by these influences.⁵⁹ Online social networks increasingly express a prevailing ethos of connected isolation and polarization, where ideological or group identity seemingly filters and categorizes every idea almost immediately. The scaling effect of technology, where large online networks allow content to reach heterogeneous and unknown audiences around the globe, can result in context collapse where the intent of posters is misinterpreted or misrepresented.⁶⁰ Further, the subtle and distinctive cultural characteristics of different online spaces can distort interactions among participants and undermine individual and collective goals.⁶¹ Dedicated, more meaningful networks, focused on shared interests or based on local connections, and less driven by commercial imperatives, might serve as productive alternatives.⁶² Greater public awareness and some forms of policy intervention by governments may mitigate the impact of the more egregious misuses of online social networks. Any effective policy intervention must ensure national and local community involvement in determining standards for online platforms. Relying on international human rights norms rather than the arbitrary judgments of the platforms themselves has been advanced as a better basis for the development of such standards.⁶³ Still, that a few major profit-making platforms have taken hold in virtually every country in the world (Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter), basically serving as information gatekeepers of social reality, reveals technological and economic lock-in effects that are hard to overcome. Approaches to decentralization, such as blockchain applications, some with a communitarian, anti-market flavor, are a response to such hegemonic online services.⁶⁴ That our attention is captured by these online services and then repackaged and sold is a particularly seductive characteristic of these tools.⁶⁵ Indeed, the ultimate expression of technological passivity perhaps is the idea that individual users become the product when they provide personal information in exchange for free use of these commercial platforms.⁶⁶

Moving to an Internet that is less dominated by Western institutions, worldviews, and forms of expression is also of vital importance. Reconceiving how devices and online services can serve the diverse populations of the planet speaks to the centrality of knowledge generation and application as the principal social process of every community and society. Relevant local values and objectives must guide the design of tools and the types of content generated and shared. For instance, online social spaces might be configured to reinforce processes of trust-building and cooperative action characteristic of many cultures. Such a shift could work to supplant the excessive focus on the self which is fostered by popular social media spaces in the West with the more communal and oral forms of expression found throughout the world.⁶⁷ The increased presence of such diverse contributions and perspectives would surely enrich patterns of collective learning and endeavor.

While it is undoubtedly true that new online media have been dominated and co-opted by commercial influences and very much reflect the disintegrative and adversarial modes of society, all is not negative. These same tools and services simultaneously offer countervailing examples of how digital media can inform, uplift, and be a source of social mobilization. First, at the level of technological infrastructure, the various open source systems, designed and implemented largely through voluntary collaboration of large numbers of people across the globe, have enabled the Internet to emerge as the world’s most accessible form of universal communication and exchange. More important, the platforms of interaction that this infrastructure provides have led to new forms of social outreach, relationship building and sharing, cooperation, and creative expression. Examples such as the instance of thousands of teenage girls in South Korea networking and forcing their national government to change public policy, the remarkable case of Wikipedia as a form of massive voluntary social production, the new tools of online higher education opening the doors of knowledge to students around the world, the different vehicles for marginalized voices to express themselves and find solidarity with others, and the ability for hitherto isolated peoples to interact and learn from each other illustrate how the Internet and its social manifestations are an unparalleled phenomenon and an expression of a global age.

Where will social media be in five years? Ten years? What new forms of social interaction might emerge? However innovative augmented reality, artificial intelligence, advanced security systems, and other technical developments might be in transforming the existing online experience, the human need for meaningful connection, integrity, beauty, dignity, and higher individual and collective purpose certainly will matter more. Here, Bahá’ís will endeavor to discover how elements of this technology can be used in a way that coheres with the goals of personal and social transformation. Essential concepts such as the oneness of the human family and the nobility and equality of all human beings will guide such efforts. Ensuring equity in how technological resources are cultivated, allocated, and utilized by diverse communities will be an important corollary goal. At the level of human interaction, given the prevailing characteristics of the online environment, perseverance and discipline will be required if Bahá’í standards of courtesy, fairness, amity, forbearance, probity, accuracy, empathy, wisdom, and an impartial search for truth are to be upheld and emulated.⁶⁸

In the end, despite the motives and values of their creators and the many unforeseen, adverse impacts on individual and collective life, online social tools can be used constructively. It is human beings who determine how technologies are developed and applied. For many, the physical and online worlds are increasingly merging. If utilized in a balanced fashion, in accordance with primary human norms and community objectives, social media and related technologies can serve to broaden vision concerning challenging social and moral questions, shape public discourse in a unifying way, promote mutual understanding and learning, and emphasize the potentialities and promise of the present moment in human affairs.

Conclusion

The overall vision guiding pathways of technological development and use cannot come from technology itself; it must be informed by essential ideals, spiritual insight, and actual participatory practice that promote the common good. A constructive pattern of technology development, as described here, emerges as a natural outgrowth of community-building processes, where specific technical solutions are conceived through collective identification of needs by affected populations and refined through an iterative process of learning. Rigorous processes of technological assessment at all levels of society provide the only basis for ensuring that technology is used in a manner that advances individual and collective well-being. Raising the capacity of individuals, communities, and institutions to make appropriate technological choices is therefore critical, for such choices are themselves an expression of values—social, cultural, economic, political, ethical, and spiritual. In this regard, Bahá’í-inspired models of consultation and knowledge generation offer precisely the mechanisms required to make suitable and proactive technological decisions in light of fundamental needs and mores. Ultimately, as technological innovation occurs within well-defined social, economic, and political contexts, broader societal transformation must occur so that technological trajectories can become aligned with our aspirations and purpose as noble agents advancing civilization.

By Arthur Lyon Dahl

In recent decades, scientific and technological discoveries have rapidly accelerated the dissolution of the traditional obstacles that long separated the nations and peoples of the world. At the same time, with the erosion of cultural barriers, society is undergoing a spiritual transition. The impact of improved educational standards and information technologies is increasing global awareness, and the fundamental unity of the human race is becoming increasingly apparent.

Bahá’u’lláh clearly anticipated these changes and provided an ethical framework in which to address them, but this has largely been ignored until now. However, as climate change accelerates and its implications for the future of humanity become clearer, it may become a driving force for unity since a massive world undertaking is now necessary to mitigate further global warming and to adapt to the climate change that is already underway.

What, then, are the ethical concepts and spiritual principles that are now necessary to transform society in order to make solutions to global warming possible?

The Science of Climate Change

For some time, science has predicted that the planet is vulnerable to global warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Those that live in cold regions might feel that a little global warming would be desirable, but any significant change in our climate will result in losers as well as winners. The regions which may benefit often have few inhabitants while many heavily-populated and highly-developed areas will suffer. Some may become completely uninhabitable. Change at this scale will be extremely stressful and expensive.¹

The problem has its origins in the way life evolved on Earth. The conditions necessary for life in the biosphere are the result of a complex set of delicately balanced systems which are still poorly understood. The atmospheric composition that permits life to exist was itself created in part by the action of the first living things. The earliest plants removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and added oxygen, making animal life possible. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, writing early in the 20th century, referred to this interdependence of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. “Each of these two maketh use of certain elements in the air on which its own life dependeth, while each increaseth the quantity of such elements as are essential for the life of the other.”² Dead plants, both the remains of marine plankton and terrestrial vegetation, were buried and their energy-containing carbon compounds fossilized to produce coal, oil, and gas, while their carbonate skeletons became layers of limestone, locking a significant part of the Earth’s carbon away in geological formations.

Carbon cycles through the biosphere, as plants take up carbon dioxide to make organic matter, while animals and decomposers oxidize organic compounds and return the carbon dioxide to the oceans and atmosphere. Today, the long-standing global balance between these processes has been upset by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas—over the last 150 years, returning carbon to the atmosphere and oceans that has long been out of circulation.

The significance of this for the climate is that carbon dioxide, along with another carbon compound—methane, is among the most important greenhouse gases, trapping heat in the atmosphere in the same way as the glass in a greenhouse lets in light but prevents heat from escaping.

The climate has changed in past geological epochs, with both ice ages and much warmer periods associated with rises and falls in plant cover and carbon dioxide levels. These changes over hundreds of millions of years were due in part to the Earth’s orientation with respect to the sun and to the changing positions of the continents which affect the way the linked ocean-atmosphere system redistributes heat around the world. With the present configuration of continents, a global “conveyor belt” of ocean currents sees cold salty water flow along the bottom from the North Atlantic down to the Antarctic, looping through the Indian and Pacific Oceans and returning as a warm shallow current to the North Atlantic, where the freezing of Arctic ice in winter turns it back to cold water. The sinking of this water draws up the warm current from the Caribbean known as the Gulf Stream which maintains the relatively mild climate of northern Europe. Recent research has shown that these currents can alter quite quickly in correlation with abrupt changes between warm and cold climatic periods.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution powered by fossil fuels, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen from 290 to 370 parts per million (ppm), and it could easily reach 550 ppm or more in mid-century. Every tonne of fuel oil burned produces 2.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide, while extracting the same energy from coal produces 3.8 tonnes of CO2. Deforestation and the loss of humus from degrading soils also release significant quantities of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, representing one third of the increase.

While the rising levels of greenhouse gases will trap more heat and change the air circulation patterns and climate, the effects will be highly variable around the world and are not easy to predict. Using various computer models of the global climate system, more than a thousand scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have confirmed a significant human effect on the climate through global warming, and more is expected. While powerful political and economic interests have questioned the reality of any link between fossil fuel consumption and climate change, none of their arguments has withstood closer scientific scrutiny.

The evidence for accelerating global warming is accumulating rapidly. The global average surface temperature has risen markedly since the late 1970s. Nine of the ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1995. The models project an even faster rise in global temperature over the next century as greenhouse gas emissions continue. The greatest temperature changes are expected in polar areas. A rise of more than 2°C in the mean global temperature could trigger positive feedbacks that would make major climate change irreversible, and we could reach that point by 2035 if we continue business as usual, with a rise of up to 5°C possible by the end of the century. This is change at a speed and scale for which there is no planetary precedent.

The effects are already apparent. Many species in temperate areas are shifting their distributions, with cold-adapted forms retreating toward the poles, to be replaced by species from warmer climates. Similar shifts in altitude are occurring among mountain species. Arctic species like polar bears that are dependent on the ice are in great difficulty. Coral reefs around the world have bleached and died from unusually high water temperatures. The number of the most intense cyclones (hurricanes) has increased in all oceans over the last 30 years, driven by greater heat energy in tropical ocean waters.

Climate change on the predicted scale will profoundly affect the environment and human activity in many fundamental ways. Food insecurity will increase and many regions will experience water shortages as rainfall patterns shift and mountain glaciers disappear. Rich countries can probably afford to adapt their agriculture with changed crop varieties and new technology, but all scenarios show a severe decline in food production in developing countries. The greatest human impact of climate change will be on the poor, who are especially vulnerable to the predicted increase in extreme weather events such as floods, cyclones, and droughts—the latter particularly pertaining to Africa. Ocean fisheries will also be affected. Already fish stocks in the North Sea are shifting to other areas. As populations are displaced there will be increasing flows of environmental refugees, possibly reaching tens or hundreds of millions, and the related social disintegration could lead to increasing anarchy and terrorism. Natural, economic and social disasters will become more common and more severe.

Ecological systems and species will be severely impacted, greatly accelerating the loss of biodiversity. American scientists have calculated that climate change would cause conditions appropriate for the beech forests of the south-eastern United States to move to north-eastern Canada. Thus, whole ecosystems will shift over long distances if they can move fast enough. In the past, such changes happened more gradually. Birds can fly, but trees cannot get up and move to find a better temperature, and human transformations have blocked migration paths. We may have to replant the forests ourselves.

One effect of global warming is a rise in sea level, due both to the thermal expansion of water and to the melting of glaciers and ice caps. Sea level rise will flood low-lying areas and islands, including many port cities, creating millions of refugees. The projections for Bangladesh show a 1.5 meter rise will displace 17 million people from 16% of the country’s area. If the Greenland ice sheet is destabilised—which now appears to be likely—it will raise the sea level by more than 6 meters. Already some low-lying islands and coastal areas are being abandoned.

The costs of mitigation and adaptation will be enormous, but the cost of doing nothing is already very high and could rise astronomically. The insurance industry estimated a few years ago that the economic impact of natural disasters linked to global warming would reach an annual cost of $130 billion within 10 years, but hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the USA in 2005 alone caused damage reaching $204 billion. A recent report commissioned by the UK government estimated the annual cost of climate change if no action is taken at over $600 billion, or the equivalent of both World Wars and the Great Depression, while mitigating action would only amount to 1% of global GDP.3 Immediate action will be very cost effective, and any delay will raise the cost significantly.

The latest scientific evidence suggests that the worst predictions about climate change may be realized. The Gulf Stream has recently slowed by 30%. If the Gulf Stream stops, the temperature could decrease by seven degrees in northern Europe, limiting agriculture and raising energy consumption. Half of the permafrost in the Arctic is expected to melt by 2050 and 90% before 2100, releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Major parts of the Arctic Ocean were ice-free in the summer of 2005 after 14% of the permanent sea ice was lost in one year, and oil companies are already planning for the drilling they can do in an ice free polar sea in the future. Greenland glaciers have doubled their rate of flow in the last three years. The rate of sea level rise had already doubled over the last 150 years to 2 mm per year, and melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet is now adding another 4 mm per year and Greenland 0.6 mm per year. We may be approaching a tipping point within a decade where runaway climate change would be catastrophic.

The Energy Challenge

Global warming is driven by our addiction to cheap fossil energy. Our industrial economy was built on cheap energy, mostly from fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas. Transportation, communications, trade, agriculture, heating and cooling, and our consumer lifestyle all depend on high inputs of energy. Energy demand is rising rapidly and the supply is shrinking. Global warming is just one more reason to address the energy challenge urgently. Given the enormous investment in present infrastructure, adaptation will be extremely expensive, with the required investment in energy alternatives estimated at $7 trillion.

Some governments have decided to control greenhouse gases. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, established the framework for international action. The Kyoto Protocol on reduction of greenhouse gases set a first target to return emissions to 1990 levels by 2012, a limited reduction of 5% when at least 60%–80% is necessary. However CO2 emissions rose 4.5% in 2004 to 27.5 billion tonnes, 26% higher than 1990. China and India have doubled CO2 production since 1990, while the USA has increased by 20% and Australia by 40%. The USA released 5.8, China 4.5, Europe 3.3, and India 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2004. Despite its good intentions, humanity is rapidly going in the wrong direction.

Fossil energy consumption is still growing. World oil use is rising at 1.1% per year, with Latin America increasing 2.8%, India 5.4%, and China 7.5%. From 2001—2020, world oil consumption is expected to rise 56%, with OPEC production doubling, but non-OPEC production has already peaked. Oil provides 40% of the world’s primary energy. Two thirds of future energy demand will come from developing countries where 1.6 billion people have no electricity. Energy demand and global warming are on a collision course.

The end of the fossil fuel era is coming anyway. At present consumption rates, reserves of oil are estimated to last about 40 years, gas 67 years and coal 164 years. Geologists estimate the recoverable oil reserve at 2000 Bb (billion barrels). Past production over the last 100 years has already consumed 980 Bb, while the known reserves total 827 Bb and another 153 Bb have yet to be found, so almost half the expected reserve has already been consumed. Production peaks and starts to decline at half of the recoverable resource, because we use the most accessible oil first, and it becomes harder and harder to get the remainder. We could reach peak production within the next decade, after which production will fall at about 2.7% per year, dropping 75% in 30 years. The heavy oil/tar reserves in Canada and Venezuela (600 Bb) equal only 22 years of current consumption. Even without global warming, energy sources and consumption patterns must soon be changed.

Coal also has a significant impact on global warming. The major coal producing and consuming countries (USA, Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, China) formed the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate in July 2005. Together they have 45% of the world’s population; they consume 45% of world energy and produce 52% of the CO2, with both expected to double by 2025. They have agreed to develop and share clean and more efficient technologies, especially for carbon sequestration, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to provide secure energy supplies. However these goals may appear contradictory when China is planning to build 560 new coal-fired power plants and India 213, although India’s coal reserves are expected to be exhausted in 40 years. Today, one quarter of global CO2 emissions come from coal-fired power stations.

Some hopes have been placed on nuclear power but, at least with present technologies, it is not a long-term option. Uranium reserves are expected to be exhausted in about 40 years. Economically and ethically, the technology is also doubtful. The research costs and development of nuclear technology have been highly subsidized, particularly for military uses. There is a high energy input in nuclear plant construction and fuel fabrication, so it is not entirely carbon free. The risks of accidents are so high as to be uninsurable. Decommissioning costs of old plants are not usually included in cost comparisons; decommissioning the Three Mile Island plant in the USA after a minor accident was estimated to cost $3–4 billion. The UK was unable to privatise its nuclear power industry, suggesting it is uneconomic without heavy government subsidies. No country has yet completed a safe long-term disposal site for high-level nuclear wastes which must be secure for at least 10,000 years, so the high continuing waste disposal costs are being imposed on future generations, which is unethical. While research continues, generating electricity from nuclear fusion is still “40 years” away, as it has been for many years.

Our globalized world has become overly dependent on fossil fuels for road transport, shipping, aviation, tourism and therefore global trade. The energy and raw materials for industrial production, including chemical feed-stocks, plastics and synthetics, come largely from oil, gas and coal. Most electricity generation for lighting, heating and cooling is similarly dependent, as are modern cities and the suburban lifestyle. Fossil energy is behind our mechanized agriculture, fertilizers and pesticides, and the whole system of food processing and distribution. What happens when these become much more expensive? The business community is so concerned that the Carbon Disclosure Project representing more than half the world’s invested assets has invited 2,100 companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.

More worryingly, the world’s population has increased six-fold, exactly in parallel with oil production. Can we maintain such a high world population without the subsidy represented by cheap fossil energy? What will happen if we cannot?

There is also the question that energy planners never ask: even if we could exploit every fossil fuel reserve, can we really afford to cause so much global warming? Burning all extractable fossil fuels would raise CO2 in the atmosphere to well over 750 ppm. The ethical challenges of this situation are profound. On the one hand, the selfish desire of a minority of the world population to maintain a materially excessive civilization despite the enormous damage it is causing and the threat this represents for future generations is contrary to basic principles of justice and equity. The poor have every right to demand the same standard of living as the rich, but the planet cannot support present consumption, not to mention any increase. On the other hand, if a reduction in fossil fuel availability and use causes food production and distribution to collapse or become unaffordable, pushing many to starvation, this is equally unthinkable.

Energy is so fundamental to human welfare and civilization that we clearly cannot do without it, but there could be much more moderation and efficiency in its utilization. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, wrote in 1936 that the world federal system anticipated in the Bahá’í teachings, will “consist of a world legislature, whose members will, as the trustees of the whole of mankind, ultimately control the entire resources of all the component nations. . . The economic resources of the world will be organized, its sources of raw materials will be tapped and fully utilized. . .” This system will exploit “all the available sources of energy on the surface of the planet.”³ It will clearly be an aim of such a civilization to develop forms of renewable energy, in environmentally appropriate ways. These energy sources are mostly low density and widely distributed, which would suggest that future communities will be smaller and more wide-spread, unlike the urban concentrations of today. Given the moral unacceptability of the alternatives, the only responsible approach to the energy challenge is to replace fossil fuels with alternative renewable energy sources as rapidly as is humanly possible. The United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office has said that “the biggest obstacles to the take up of technologies such as renewable sources of energy and “clean coal” lie in vested interests, cultural barriers to change and simple lack of awareness.”⁴

With the present size of the global population, the consequences of going back to the world as it was before fossil fuels are unacceptable. The urgent challenge is to rethink civilization in a new and more sustainable way, and to begin the transition as rapidly as possible. This is where the principles of the Bahá’í Faith can suggest some ways forward.

The Ethical Implications of Climate Change

The world’s present institutions have failed to address adequately the threat of climate change. No politician has been willing to sacrifice the short-term economic welfare of his or her country, even while agreeing that sustainability is essential in the long term. Furthermore, the deep social, economic, and political divisions within societies and between countries prevent united action in the common interest. Global warming is just one symptom of the fundamental imbalances in our world and of the failure of our systems of governance to resolve the most critical challenges of our age.

We must recognize the failure of our present economic system to address global long-term issues like global warming. Economic thinking is challenged by the environmental crisis—including global warming. The belief that there is no limit to nature’s capacity to fulfil any demand made on it is demonstrably false. A culture which attaches absolute value to expansion, to acquisition, and to the satisfaction of people’s wants must recognise that such goals are not, by themselves, realistic guides to policy. Economic decision-making tools cannot deal with the fact that most of the major challenges are global.⁵

Climate change is a consequence of the present self-centred materialism of our economic paradigm. The materialistic view became the dominant interpretation of reality in the early 20th century. Through rational experimentation and discourse, humanity thought it had solved all issues related to human governance and development. Dogmatic materialism captured all significant centres of power and information at the global level, ensuring that no competing voices could challenge projects of world wide economic exploitation. Yet not even the most idealistic motives can correct materialism’s fundamental flaws. Since World War II, development has been our largest collective undertaking, with a humanitarian motivation matched by enormous material and technological investment. While it has brought impressive benefits, it has nevertheless failed to narrow the gap between the small segment of modern society and the vast populations of the poor. The gap has widened into an abyss.

Consumerism drives much of the emission of greenhouse gases. Materialism’s gospel of human betterment has produced today’s consumer culture in pursuit of ephemeral goals. For the small minority of people who can afford them, the benefits it offers are immediate, and the rationale unapologetic. The breakdown of traditional morality has led to the triumph of animal impulse, as instinctive and blind as appetite. Selfishness has become a prized commercial resource; falsehood reinvents itself as public information; greed, lust, indolence, pride—even violence—acquire not merely broad acceptance but social and economic value. Yet material comforts and acquisitions have been drained of meaning. In the USA the indicators of human welfare and satisfaction have been diminishing since the 1960s. The economy may be richer, but people are not happier. This self-centred, hedonistic culture of the rich, now spreading around the world, refuses to acknowledge its primary responsibility for global warming. The challenge, then, is fundamentally a spiritual one, necessitating a change in the understanding of humanity’s nature and purpose.

What role can religion play in the challenges of today, including global warming? We used to be relatively content living within the limited perspective of our own communities, but now we can closely observe developments all around the world. We know about the extreme differences and injustices and we can no longer tolerate them. This progressive globalizing of human experience increases the stresses of modern life. There is a loss of faith in the certainties of materialism as its negative impacts become apparent. At the same time there is a lack of faith in traditional religion and a failure to find guidance within them for living with modernity. Yet, it would appear that it is an inherent characteristic of the human experience to understand the purpose of existence. This has led to an unexpected resurgence of religion, built upon a groundswell of anxiety and discontent with spiritual emptiness. People lacking in hope are readily attracted to radical, intolerant, fanatical movements. As a result, the world is in the grip of irreconcilable religious antipathies, a situation which paralyses our ability to address global challenges including climate change.

Humanity can choose to conduct “business as usual” in its materialistic way, ignoring the future. The consequences however will soon catch up with us. We can retreat into a fortress of old values, but the pressures of globalization will make this untenable. The alternative is to make the effort to transition towards a unified world civilization based on equity and sustainability, drawing on the complementary strengths of both science and religion. This is the approach that the Bahá’í Faith has championed for more than a hundred years.

Unity is the essential prerequisite for action to remove the barriers to collaboration on global warming. In its 1995 statement, The Prosperity of Humankind, the Bahá’í International Community observed:

“The bedrock of a strategy that can engage the world’s population in assuming responsibility for its collective destiny must be the consciousness of the oneness of humankind. Deceptively simple in popular discourse, the concept that humanity constitutes a single people presents fundamental challenges to the way that most of the institutions of contemporary society carry out their functions. Whether in the form of the adversarial structure of civil government, the advocacy principle informing most of civil law, a glorification of the struggle between classes and other social groups, or the competitive spirit dominating so much of modern life, conflict is accepted as the mainspring of human interaction. It represents yet another expression in social organisation of the materialistic interpretation of life that has progressively consolidated itself over the past two centuries. . .. Only so fundamental a reorientation can protect them, too, from the age-old demons of ethnic and religious strife. Only through the dawning consciousness that they constitute a single people will the inhabitants of the planet be enabled to turn away from the patterns of conflict that have dominated social organisation in the past and begin to learn the ways of collaboration and conciliation. “The well-being of mankind,” Bahá’u’lláh writes, “its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.”⁶

Only by agreeing that we are a single human race and live on one planet can we create the ethical and moral basis for addressing a challenge such as climate change.

Some governments have already agreed. They promote the concept of sustainable development as one that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.⁷ The nations of the world have repeatedly accepted this as a goal and priority. This is precisely the challenge of climate change. With high fossil energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, we are precipitating damage to our planetary system that will compromise future generations. Governments have agreed they have to act but, faced with a paralysis of will, they do not.

Expressed by the Bahá’í International Community, sustainability is fundamentally an ethical concept. We, the human race, are trustees, or stewards, of the planet’s vast resources and biological diversity. We must learn to make use of the earth’s natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable, in a manner that ensures sustainability and equity into the distant reaches of time. This requires full consideration of the potential environmental consequences of all development activities. We must temper our actions with moderation and humility, and recognize that the true value of nature cannot be expressed in economic terms. This requires a deep understanding of the natural world and its role in humanity’s collective development both material and spiritual. Sustainable environmental management is not a discretionary commitment we can weigh against other competing interests. It is a fundamental responsibility that must be shouldered, a pre-requisite for spiritual development as well as our physical survival.⁸

Sustainability requires the rethinking of economics. The present economic system is unsustainable and not meeting human needs or able to respond adequately to global warming. Fifty years of economic development, despite some progress, has failed to meet its objectives. The global economic system lacks the supra-national governance necessary to address such global issues. It is not the mechanisms of economics that are at fault, but its values. Economics has ignored the broader context of humanity’s social and spiritual existence, resulting in corrosive materialism in the world’s more economically advantaged regions (driving global warming), and persistent conditions of deprivation among the masses of the world’s peoples. Economics should serve people’s needs; societies should not be expected to reformulate themselves to fit economic models. The ultimate function of economic systems should be to equip the peoples and institutions of the world with the means to achieve the real purpose of development: that is, the cultivation of the limitless potentialities latent in human consciousness.

What values do we need for an economic system able to accept responsibility for and address global warming? The goal of wealth creation should be to make everyone wealthy. Society needs new value-based economic models that aim to create a dynamic, just and thriving social order which should be strongly altruistic and cooperative in nature. It should provide meaningful employment and help to eradicate poverty in the world.

All religions teach the “Golden Rule,” namely, to do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Should a minority of high energy consumers have the right to cause such damage to others and to future generations? Many faith-based organisations are drawing increasing attention to the ethical implications of excessive consumerism and one of its impacts, climate change.

Justice and equity will be essential to achieve unity of action at the global level. It is unjust to sacrifice the well-being of the generality of humankind—and even of the planet itself—to the advantages which technological breakthroughs can make available to privileged minorities. Only development programmes that are perceived as meeting their needs and as being just and equitable in objective can hope to engage the commitment of the masses of humanity, upon whom implementation depends. The same is true of action to reduce global warming.

Solidarity is another essential value in times of rapid change, when many will become victims of climate perturbations and natural disasters. The poor are the most vulnerable to climate change and the least able to protect themselves. We should consider every human being as a trust of the whole, and recognize that both governments and individuals share this responsibility. Voluntary giving is more meaningful and effective than forced redistribution.

Trustworthiness will also become increasingly important. Trust is the basis for all economic and social interaction. Public opinion surveys show little trust in politicians and business, key actors in this area. The repeated failure of governments to respect the commitments that they have made has not helped. Re-establishing trust will have to be part of the solution to global warming, a solution in which everyone will have to make sacrifices.

By Farzam Arbab

Originally published in The Bahá’í World 1997–98, this article, the revised text of a presentation given by Farzam Arbab, explores the relationship between science and religion as two great systems of knowledge that have a vital social role to play in the building of a world civilization.

Throughout history, humanity has depended upon science and religion as the two principal knowledge systems that have propelled the advancement of civilization, guided its development, and channeled its intellectual and moral powers. The methods of science have allowed humanity to construct a coherent understanding of the laws and processes governing physical reality, and, to a certain degree, the workings of society itself, while the insights of religion have provided understanding relating to the deepest questions of human purpose and action.

The social role of knowledge as it relates to the building of a world civilization is of immense importance. In this context, the relation between science and religion, the two great systems of knowledge, assumes vital significance, as do issues surrounding the acquisition of knowledge by the individual, since according to the Bahá’í viewpoint, the highest goal of the individual is to be a source of social good.

Material and Spiritual Civilization

According to the Bahá’í teachings, there are two facets to civilization: material and spiritual. Bahá’ís believe that for humanity to prosper these must be balanced. Adherence to a strictly materialistic viewpoint requires trying to understand civilization in terms of material complexity in the collective existence of the human species. In this paradigm, the complex structures of atoms and molecules and their interactions that constitute a human being and create in it the potentialities of the mind are seen as preludes to, or building blocks of, more complex entities such as the family, the group, the community, and society. When these higher collective structures come into being, they are viewed as having the potential of certain patterns of behavior associated with civilization.

The materialistic line of thinking, regardless of how many humanistic concepts are introduced into it, dictates acceptance of the idea that the force that pushes humanity towards these higher levels of organization—and, therefore, towards civilization—is the imperative to survive. Somehow the genetic code of every human being (itself the product of physical evolution) contains instructions that oblige the individual to work for the survival of humanity as a species. Thus, the various manifestations of civilization are explained in terms of their intrinsic value for survival, whether now or at some time in the distant past during some stage of evolution. The fact that human beings are attracted, for example, to beautiful works of art—indeed, the very fact that the concept of beauty exists in human thought—is the result of its utility somewhere in the process of physical evolution. In other words, being able to think the concept of beauty and react to it in certain ways must have given some members of the species advantages in the struggle for survival over others who were not able to do so.

Within a worldview of this kind, it would be hard to grant knowledge a transcendental value that would not finally be reducible to some kind of material utility. It is not surprising, then, that as society becomes more and more materialistic, knowledge is increasingly regarded essentially as a commodity. While receiving the highest praise in an age proudly associated with its expansion, knowledge is more and more identified with information, and its generation and application are increasingly ruled by the exigencies of economic growth. This process of production and consumption of goods and services is considered central to humanity’s collective existence and progress.

The Bahá’í view of civilization is very different. Just as the individual has both a spiritual and a material nature, civilization is seen as having two similar aspects. It is an expression of humanity’s collective existence, the spiritual dimension of which is greater than and gives purpose to its material dimension. The Bahá’í writings state that both the life of the individual and that of humanity as a species have a purpose beyond mere existence and survival. The purpose of the individual’s life is to know and worship God, and the purpose of humanity’s collective life is to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.

It is reasonable to believe that the generation and application of knowledge is the central process that propels the advancement of spiritual and material civilization. Furthermore, it can be affirmed that this knowledge is basically organized in two great systems: religion and science. Neither is static; one progresses through revelation and the other through scientific investigation. The writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá shed light on this subject, as seen in the following passage:

Religion is the light of the world, and the progress, achievement, and happiness of man result from obedience to the laws set down in the holy Books. Briefly, it is demonstrable that in this life, both outwardly and inwardly the mightiest of structures, the most solidly established, the most enduring, standing guard over the world, assuring both the spiritual and the material perfections of mankind, and protecting the happiness and the civilization of society is religion.¹

Further, He says:

Creation is the expression of motion. Motion is life. A moving object is a living object, whereas that which is motionless and inert is as dead. All created forms are progressive in their planes, or kingdoms of existence, under the stimulus of the power or spirit of life. The universal energy is dynamic. Nothing is stationary in the material world of outer phenomena or in the inner world of intellect and consciousness.

Religion is the outer expression of the divine reality. Therefore, it must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive. If it be without motion and nonprogressive, it is without the divine life; it is dead.²

About science, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states:

All the powers and attributes of man are human and hereditary in origin—outcomes of nature’s processes—except the intellect, which is supernatural. Through intellectual and intelligent inquiry science is the discoverer of all things. It unites present and past, reveals the history of bygone nations and events, and confers upon man today the essence of all human knowledge and attainment throughout the ages. By intellectual processes and logical deductions of reason, this superpower in man can penetrate the mysteries of the future and anticipate its happenings.

Science is the first emanation from God toward man. All created beings embody the potentiality of material perfection, but the power of intellectual investigation and scientific acquisition is a higher virtue specialized to man alone. Other beings and organisms are deprived of this potentiality and attainment. God has created or deposited this love of reality in man. The development and progress of a nation is according to the measure and degree of that nation’s scientific attainments. Through this means its greatness is continually increased, and day by day the welfare and prosperity of its people are assured.³

In sum, religion and science are the two knowledge systems that hold together the foundations of civilization. They are two forces that propel the advancement of civilization. They are two sets of practices that draw upon the higher powers of the human soul and must be in harmony. Understanding the nature of this harmony is essential if humanity is to generate and apply the kind of knowledge that will advance civilization in both its material and spiritual dimensions.

The Standard of Measurement

In a passage describing some of the gifts that God has vouchsafed unto humanity, such as understanding and vision, Bahá’u’lláh states:

These gifts are inherent in man himself. That which is preeminent above all other gifts, is incorruptible in nature, and pertaineth to God Himself, is the gift of Divine Revelation. Every bounty conferred by the Creator upon man, be it material or spiritual, is subservient unto this. It is, in its essence, and will ever so remain, the Bread which cometh down from Heaven. It is God’s supreme testimony, the clearest evidence of His truth, the sign of His consummate bounty, the token of His all-encompassing mercy, the proof of His most loving providence, the symbol of His most perfect grace. He hath, indeed, partaken of this highest gift of God who hath recognized His Manifestation in this Day.⁴

In the Bahá’í view, divine revelation is the standard by which all understanding and all knowledge will finally have to be measured. It encompasses the knowledge of all reality and stands above the judgement of human beings, whatever the degree of their attainments. As Bahá’u’lláh says in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, His Most Holy Book:

Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring Balance established amongst men. In this most perfect Balance whatsoever the peoples and kindreds of the earth possess must be weighed, while the measure of its weight should be tested according to its own standard, did ye but know it.⁵

When religion, as a system of knowledge and practices pertaining to human beings, is in conformity with divine revelation and is not contaminated by elements such as superstition, speculation or emotionalism, then it is true religion and illuminates human understanding. It guards the individual against arrogance and conceit, which can turn knowledge into a barrier between him and God. In that way, the spirit of religion illuminates science and protects it from becoming dogmatic materialism.

Human understanding of divine revelation, as distinct from revelation itself, is innately limited, however, and can be mistaken. Religious belief held by individuals and communities needs, therefore, to be carefully examined in the light of scientific truth and of reason. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states that religion must be reasonable and that every religion which is not in accordance with established science is superstition.⁶ Bahá’u’lláh warns that the study of religion should not result in ignorant fanaticism and bigotry and explains that the literal interpretation of divine texts when a spiritual meaning is intended leads to false imaginings and to straying from the infinite mercy of Providence. Thus, in the same way that religion protects science from turning into materialistic dogma, science protects religion from turning into superstition.

Not all conceptions of science and religion hold these two systems to be in harmony, however. The present widespread belief in the intrinsic conflict between science and religion arose at a time in the history of Christendom when conceptions of science and religion were highly inadequate. Bahá’ís believe that a new concept of religion was given to humanity by Bahá’u’lláh, necessitating a reformulation of previously held ideas; similarly, popular notions about science should be informed by the latest developments in the field and by advances in the philosophy and history of science.

Widely held perceptions of science are based on notions that have, in recent decades, been proven either wrong or extremely inadequate. These notions are held not only by the majority of the world’s peoples, who see the magical results of scientific progress, but also by those who are engaged in narrow scientific activity without feeling the necessity to reflect in any depth on the nature of science and its offspring, modern technology. Many of these notions fall within a category that has been called naïve inductivism.

According to these perceptions, science begins with observation of things and occurrences. With an unprejudiced mind and with absolute objectivity scientists faithfully record what they experience through their senses. The resulting observation statements form the basis from which the laws and theories of science can be derived.

The immediate results of observation are singular statements, which refer to particular events at particular times. When enough such statements are gathered on the basis of repeated observations, it is claimed, one can arrive at universal statements through a process of generalization that is entirely logical.

In order for such generalizations to be considered legitimate by the inductivist, a large number of observation statements must form the basis of each generalization, the observations must be repeated under a wide variety of conditions, and no observation statement should be found that contradicts the derived universal statement.

Induction—the process of going from a sufficiently large number of singular statements to universal statements—is not, however, ruled entirely by the laws of logic, contrary to what is often believed. Its shortcomings are encapsulated in the story about the turkey that was fed every day at 8 a.m. On 23 December, it decided that its observations were large enough in number to justify the conclusion reached by induction that it would always be fed at 8 a.m. Two days later it was being served to a happy group of people as part of their Christmas dinner.

Not even the popular view of science, of course, is so naïve as to depend on induction alone. With laws and theories at their disposal, scientists can derive from them various consequences that serve as explanations and predictions. These predictions and explanations are made through the process of deduction whose rationality, unlike that of induction, no one questions. For example, from the laws of planetary motion the existence of a new planet may be predicted, which, in turn, gives rise to new opportunities for experimentation that strengthen the existing theory or ask for its modification.

According to these views, then, scientific knowledge is built entirely upon observation. As the number of facts established by observation and experiment grows, and as the facts become refined through improvements in observational and experimental skills, more and more laws and theories of increasing generality and scope are constructed. The growth of science is thus continuous and cumulative.

Explanations of science such as this have led the world to the conviction that scientific knowledge is proven knowledge—objective and free of personal opinions, preferences and speculative imaginings. As objectively proven, it is therefore reliable. Language, however, can trick the thought processes. Objective, proven, and reliable are not value-free words. Gradually they become synonymous with indisputably true, and science says becomes the final arbiter of every argument. As a consequence, science is regarded as the only source of indisputable truth; every other source of knowledge becomes less valuable, less reliable—and then valueless and unreliable. Under such conditions, who would dare to raise religion to a level at which it could be compared with science, and, further, who would dare to speak of harmony between science and religion?

Such perceptions of science are rudimentary at best. They do not stand the test of historical evidence, nor can they stand up to the results of innumerable observations made of scientific practice itself. For these reasons they must be left behind as early attempts to understand the scientific enterprise—attempts that, because they led to valuable insights, became popularized too quickly and gave rise to a general misconception of the nature of science.

Beyond Induction and Deduction

There are, of course, more sophisticated views of science and more valid explanations of the process of scientific investigation. Science, as a vast system of knowledge and activity, is made up of numerous components, including elements that are articles of faith—faith in the existence of order in the universe and in the ability of the human mind to make sense of that order and express it in a precise language. In the words of Einstein, …those individuals to whom we owe the greatest achievements of science were all of them imbued with the truly religious conviction that this universe of ours is something perfect and susceptible to the rational striving for knowledge.

In addition to observation statements, inductive conclusions, and deductive conclusions, another component of the science system consists of assumptions, some of which defy any attempt to be logically proven. They are simply acceptable to human reason and derive their value from the success of the models and theories to which they give rise. For example, for centuries people assumed that the laws governing objects on earth were different from laws governing heavenly bodies. The theories that were based on this assumption proved inadequate, and today one basic assumption of science is that gravity governs the behavior of space, time and matter everywhere in the universe. For the time being, the theories that are based on this assumption seem to explain whatever has been observed, justifying its widespread acceptance.

The practice of science also calls for spiritual qualities such as love for beauty, commitment to veracity, and honesty, and is dependent on such faculties of the human soul as intuition, creativity, and imagination, which are discounted by naïve perceptions of science. This does not mean that science is not rational, for the results of the application of these faculties must finally pass the tests of rationality.

Among the other components of science are the following: a highly complex language that seeks to be rational, unambiguous, and objective; mental processes such as the previously mentioned induction and deduction, as well as the construction of concepts, models and theories; rules and methods of observation that depend on the senses but are highly influenced by theory; and methods suitable to each object of study. Furthermore, scientific activity is carried out within specific research programs by scientific communities that exhibit the many complex types of behavior characteristic of communities of human beings.

Given all of these elements, the complexity and intricacy of the scientific enterprise and the need to abandon simplistic and mechanical explanations of the processes of science should be clear. This does not mean that science is haphazard and devoid of truth, or that scientific practice is arbitrary and driven by thirst for power and control as some would claim in this postmodern era. Science is a mighty system, highly structured and intimately connected to reality—a reality that exists and is not the product of imagination.

With an expanded, more comprehensive view of science, it is possible to approach the question of harmony between science and religion with little difficulty. Religion and science are clearly not the same, or it would be absurd to talk about harmony between them. But while statements about the two systems differ, everything said about science has a parallel in a similar description of religion. The language of religion, for example, does not have to be the same as that of science. Indeed, the language in which religious truth is expressed, while at times as objective and unambiguous as scientific language, often has to transcend the limitations of such language in order to offer insights into reality through the use of poetic imagery. Moreover, religion has access to the words of the Manifestation Himself—words that speak directly to the human heart and mind in ways that no others can.

Harmony of Science and Religion

The harmony between science and religion should be understood as existing at more than one level. At the first level, it can be argued that the two are so distinct that there is no possibility of conflict between them. Science studies the material universe. The knowledge it generates becomes the basis for technological progress. But technology can be used for the good of humanity or to its detriment, for building civilization or for its destruction. Science in itself does not have the ability to determine to what use its products should be put.

Religion, on the other hand, is concerned with the spiritual dimension of human existence. It throws light on the inner life of the individual; it touches the roots of motivation and engenders the system of ethics and morality that directs human behavior. It can set the ethical framework within which technology can be developed and employed. In this sense, civilization needs both religion and science, and as long as each remains within the sphere of its own activities there is no reason to believe that they will come into conflict with each other.

This view of the harmony between science and religion is quite valid at the level of application of scientific results. Indeed, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has used this depiction in His remarks to certain audiences. But most of the time He goes beyond such strict separation and presents a view of science and religion as highly interconnected. Attempts to understand the role of knowledge in the building of civilization should pay a great deal of attention to these interconnections and try to understand their nature.

In this regard, three conceptions have to be ruled out. One is of two entirely disjoint systems with nothing in common. The second is of religion with science as a subsystem, a conception that finally leads to the denial of science’s own processes of knowledge generation and the assertion that if one becomes spiritual enough these processes can be set aside. (According to this line of thinking, all necessary scientific knowledge can be discovered through reading religious text.) The third conception is one in which religion is a subset of science, which deals with it as a very complex social and psychological phenomenon to be respected and, if need be, used for the benefit of society.

With these three models discarded, one alternative is left: that of science and religion as two distinct but partially overlapping systems. The area of overlap covers many elements. Some are articles of faith and assumptions, although we must recognize that there are matters of faith and assumptions in each system that are distinct, sometimes simply because they are not needed in the other. These commonalities also extend to matters of method, the object of study, qualities and attitudes, and mental and social processes. This overlap is intrinsic to the two systems and originates in the fact that making a sharp division between matter and spirit is in itself impossible and undesirable. Although for many practical purposes it is possible and necessary to separate the two systems and allow their processes to run parallel to each other, attempts to deny their intimate interactions in the minds of human beings and in society rob them both of the extraordinary powers inherent in them.

In Bahá’í belief, the source of all knowledge, whether scientific or religious, is God. Religion is the direct child of divine revelation. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes: Read, in the school of God, the lessons of the spirit, and learn from love’s Teacher the innermost truths. Seek out the secrets of Heaven, and tell of the overflowing grace and favor of God.⁷ Science also receives its impulse from the powers released by the Manifestation of God, as indicated in the following passage:

… the moment the word expressing My attribute The Omniscient issueth forth from My mouth, every created thing will, according to its capacity and limitations, be invested with the power to unfold the knowledge of the most marvelous sciences, and will be empowered to manifest them in the course of time at the bidding of Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Knowing.⁸

As the source of all knowledge is God, to reach and live in His presence is the object of all search. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written:

Although to acquire the sciences and arts is the greatest glory of mankind, this is so only on condition that man’s river flow into the mighty sea, and draw from God’s ancient source His inspiration. When this cometh to pass, then every teacher is a shoreless ocean, every pupil a prodigal fountain of knowledge.⁹

The Individual and the Acquisition of Knowledge

For the individual believer, the acquisition of knowledge is a duty prescribed by Bahá’u’lláh: Knowledge is as wings to man’s life, and a ladder for his ascent. Its acquisition is incumbent upon everyone.¹⁰ It is clear from numerous passages that both human learning and the knowledge of the teachings of God are intended: Let the loved ones of God, whether young or old, whether male or female, each according to his capabilities, bestir themselves and spare no efforts to acquire the various current branches of knowledge, both spiritual and secular, and of the arts.¹¹

With so many passages in the Bahá’í writings extolling the acquisition of knowledge, Bahá’ís are bound to pay a great deal of attention to learning, and, therefore, such questions as what to learn and how to learn are of paramount importance in the life of the individual. The first distinction that he or she must make is between knowledge and information. Facts and information are the raw materials of knowledge in the same way that sand and cement, earth, wood, metals and glass are some of the raw materials of a building. Just as these building materials do not in themselves constitute an edifice but must be shaped into a structure, so knowledge is a structured system that includes facts and information but must also contain other elements such as concepts, patterns, connections, and hierarchies.

Knowledge is only meaningful if accompanied by true understanding, as Bahá’u’lláh explains:

Know thou that, according to what thy Lord, the Lord of all men, hath decreed in His Book, the favors vouchsafed by Him unto mankind have been, and will ever remain, limitless in their range. First and foremost among these favors, which the Almighty hath conferred upon man, is the gift of understanding. His purpose in conferring such a gift is none other except to enable His creature to know and recognize the one true God—exalted be His glory. This gift giveth man the power to discern the truth in all things, leadeth him to that which is right, and helpeth him to discover the secrets of creation.¹²

‘Abdu’l-Bahá elaborates:

God’s greatest gift to man is that of intellect, or understanding. The understanding is the power by which man acquires his knowledge of the several kingdoms of creation, and of various stages of existence, as well as of much which is invisible.

Possessing this gift, he is, in himself, the sum of earlier creations—he is able to get into touch with those kingdoms; and by this gift he can frequently, through his scientific knowledge, reach out with prophetic vision.¹³

In exploring the connection between knowledge and understanding, it is possible to claim that the knowledge of things is somehow associated with the things themselves and that the knowledge of the universe is encoded in the universe. But understanding is a power of the human soul. Nature is bereft of it. Nature is ordered but it is not conscious of that order; it behaves according to prescribed laws but it cannot see meaning in them. Understanding, a power of the higher nature of the human being, unravels not only the knowledge of the laws and of the order, but also penetrates the meaning that underlies their existence.

This latter point merits further explanation. Seen from a strictly materialistic viewpoint, knowledge is acquired only through the senses. Stimuli are received by the senses and processed by the brain. The brain itself is, in the final analysis, material—a collection of highly specialized cells communicating with one another through complex physical and chemical interactions. Collective activities of these cells are given names, such as short- and long-term memory, cognition, and affective responses, but there is nothing transcendent about any of them. In this worldview, then, the question of understanding would have to be reducible, at least in principle, to which configuration of atoms and molecules and what set of interactions receive the generic name understanding.

In the Bahá’í view, the reality of man is his soul, which is beyond material existence. Through its power the mind understands, imagines, and exerts influence. While the mind comprehends the abstract by the aid of the concrete, the soul has additional means through which it can achieve understanding. Thus, the search for knowledge should not be concerned only with the sharpening of the mind, but also with the development of the soul’s other faculties. The individual must be aware of the potentialities inherent in these other powers of the soul and have an idea of what they can accomplish. The Bahá’í writings are replete with references to these faculties, such as the inner eye, the inner ear, and the heart, as found in the following passages:

[W]e must thank God that He has created for us both material blessings and spiritual bestowals. He has given us material gifts and spiritual graces, outer sight to view the lights of the sun and inner vision by which we may perceive the glory of God.¹⁴

He has designed the outer ear to enjoy the melodies of sound and the inner hearing wherewith we may hear the voice of our Creator.¹⁵

…O brother! kindle with the oil of wisdom the lamp of the spirit within the innermost chamber of thy heart, and guard it with the globe of understanding…¹⁶

Awareness of the role that the various powers of the soul are to play in the search for knowledge and true understanding protects the individual from certain absurd dichotomies introduced in the prevalent intellectual discourse. Of special importance is the false dichotomy between the mind and the heart. It is, of course, legitimate to call certain powers of the soul the mind and certain of its other powers the heart. These designations enrich the language needed to comprehend such complex concepts as knowing, understanding, feeling, and conjuring up the will to act. But the powers of the soul cannot simply be easily separated and rigidly categorized as, for example, a mind that only thinks rationally and a heart that only feels irrational or super-rational sentiments. Such categorizations finally lead to dead ends those branches of science and philosophy that are concerned with knowledge. In daily life, too, the introduction of such concepts as mind person and heart person limits the possibilities of human interaction and stunts the development of human potential.

If it is accepted that to achieve true understanding the individual must draw on the many powers of the soul, then one of the most challenging tasks in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding is to purify one’s inner being. The opening passages of Bahá’u’lláh’s central theological treatise, the Kitáb-i-Íqán, speak to this point:

No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding except he be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth. Sanctify your souls, O ye peoples of the world, that haply ye may attain that station which God hath destined for you and enter thus the tabernacle which, according to the dispensations of Providence, hath been raised in the firmament of the Bayán.

The essence of these words is this: they that tread the path of faith, they that thirst for the wine of certitude, must cleanse themselves of all that is earthly—their ears from idle talk, their minds from vain imaginings, their hearts from worldly affections, their eyes from that which perisheth. They should put their trust in God, and, holding fast unto Him, follow in His way. Then will they be made worthy of the effulgent glories of the sun of divine knowledge and understanding, and become the recipients of a grace that is infinite and unseen ….¹⁷

When knowledge is accompanied by true understanding, it leads to wisdom, to which Bahá’u’lláh refers as humanity’s unfailing protector and the foremost teacher in the school of existence. One of the characteristics of wisdom is that it connects knowledge and action in a particular way, fitting the application of knowledge to the exigencies of each situation. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá advises:

Follow thou the way of thy Lord, and say not that which the ears cannot bear to hear, for such speech is like luscious food given to small children. However palatable, rare and rich the food may be, it cannot be assimilated by the digestive organs of a suckling child. Therefore unto everyone who hath a right, let his settled measure be given ….

First diagnose the disease and identify the malady, then prescribe the remedy, for such is the perfect method of the skillful physician.¹⁸

The Bahá’í writings clearly state that the essence of wisdom is the fear of God, and the beginning of wisdom is to acknowledge whatsoever God has clearly set forth.

Acquiring knowledge and seeking wisdom are goals that every Bahá’í pursues according to his or her talents and capacities. The pursuit of knowledge in a scholarly way by its members brings numerous benefits to the Bahá’í community and provides the means for those who excel in a field of human endeavor to influence that field and infuse it with the light of Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation. The Universal House of Justice has stated:

As the Bahá’í community grows, it will acquire experts in numerous fields—both by Bahá’ís becoming experts and by experts becoming Bahá’ís. As these experts bring their knowledge and skill to the service of the community and, even more, as they transform their various disciplines by bringing to bear upon them the light of the Divine Teachings, problem after problem now disrupting society will be answered.¹⁹

Bringing the light of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings to bear on a certain field is not a simple task. It cannot be achieved through mere criticism, nor through superficial appeals to spirituality, nor through embracing the propositions of pseudoscience. It calls for a rigorous study of the field in question, mastery of it, and then, from a position of knowledge, effort to influence its development.

In seeking to attain knowledge, understanding and wisdom, the individual should be cognizant of the characteristics that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá attributes to those who are to be considered as truly learned. Certain passages from His treatise The Secret of Divine Civilization are especially significant in this respect. In them, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá begins by asserting that for everything

God has created a sign and symbol, and established standards and tests by which it may be known. The spiritually learned must be characterized by both inward and outward perfections; they must possess a good character, an enlightened nature, a pure intent, as well as intellectual power, brilliance and discernment, intuition, discretion and foresight, temperance, reverence, and a heartfelt fear of God. For an unlit candle, however great in diameter and tall, is no better than a barren palm tree or a pile of dead wood.²⁰

‘Abdu’l-Bahá then goes on to cite an authoritative tradition of Islam, which says: As for him who is one of the learned: he must guard himself, defend his faith, oppose his passions and obey the commandments of his Lord.²¹

In His discourse on these various requirements that pertain to the truly learned, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá addresses the first, guarding oneself, in these words:

It is obvious that this does not refer to protecting oneself from calamities and material tests, for the Prophets and saints were, each and every one, subjected to the bitterest afflictions that the world has to offer, and were targets for all the cruelties and aggressions of mankind. They sacrificed their lives for the welfare of the people, and with all their hearts they hastened to the place of their martyrdom; and with their inward and outward perfections they arrayed humanity in new garments of excellent qualities, both acquired and inborn. The primary meaning of this guarding of oneself is to acquire the attributes of spiritual and material perfection.²²

His comment on the second spiritual standard, namely, that the truly learned individual should be the defender of his faith, is this:

It is obvious that these holy words do not refer exclusively to searching out the implications of the Law, observing the forms of worship, avoiding greater and lesser sins, practicing the religious ordinances, and by all these methods, protecting the Faith. They mean rather that the whole population should be protected in every way; that every effort should be exerted to adopt a combination of all possible measures to raise up the Word of God, increase the number of believers, promote the Faith of God and exalt it and make it victorious over other religions.²³

As to the third requirement, that of opposing one’s passions, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says:

How wonderful are the implications of this deceptively easy, all-inclusive phrase. This is the very foundation of every laudable human quality; indeed, these few words embody the light of the world, the impregnable basis of all the spiritual attributes of human beings. This is the balance wheel of all behavior, the means of keeping all man’s good qualities in equilibrium.

For desire is a flame that has reduced to ashes uncounted lifetime harvests of the learned, a devouring fire that even the vast sea of their accumulated knowledge could never quench. How often has it happened that an individual who was graced with every attribute of humanity and wore the jewel of true understanding, nevertheless followed after his passions until his excellent qualities passed beyond moderation and he was forced into excess. His pure intentions changed to evil ones, his attributes were no longer put to uses worthy of them, and the power of his desires turned him aside from righteousness and its rewards into ways that were dangerous and dark. A good character is in the sight of God and His chosen ones and the possessors of insight, the most excellent and praiseworthy of all things, but always on condition that its center of emanation should be reason and knowledge and its base should be true moderation. Were the implications of this subject to be developed as they deserve the work would grow too long and our main theme would be lost to view.²⁴

Finally ‘Abdu’l-Bahá refers to the fourth condition required of the learned, which is to be obedient to the commandments of their Lord, by saying:

It is certain that man’s highest distinction is to be lowly before and obedient to his God; that his greatest glory, his most exalted rank and honor, depend on his close observance of the Divine commands and prohibitions. Religion is the light of the world, and the progress, achievement, and happiness of man result from obedience to the laws set down in the holy Books.²⁵

Other passages in the Bahá’í writings provide further insights into the characteristics of the learned. They state, for example, that the pursuit of knowledge should not lead to self-righteousness, which arises from an exaggerated regard for one’s own self and should not be confused with the highly desirable quality of righteousness. In fact, righteousness requires the individual to measure him- or herself scrupulously against the standards of the divine teachings and to exert every effort to overcome his or her shortcomings. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote:

It is my hope that you may consider this matter, that you may search out your own imperfections and not think of the imperfections of anybody else. Strive with all your power to be free from imperfections. Heedless souls are always seeking faults in others. What can the hypocrite know of others’ faults when he is blind to his own?²⁶

This injunction to measure one’s own behavior in the balance of the very high standards contained in the Bahá’í teachings goes hand in hand with the exhortation to show tolerance towards others. Bahá’u’lláh describes righteousness and tolerance as two qualities that need to complement each other:

The heaven of true understanding shineth resplendent with the light of two luminaries, tolerance and righteousness.

O my friend! Vast oceans lie enshrined within this brief saying. Blessed are they who appreciate its value, drink deep therefrom and grasp its meaning, and woe betide the heedless.²⁷

Regarding tolerance, Bahá’u’lláh has stated that one should not be too critical of the sayings and writings of men but should approach them in a spirit of open-mindedness and loving sympathy. A letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, emphasizes the importance of tolerance in all aspects of community life:

The people of the world not only need the laws and principles of the Bahá’í Faith—they desperately need to see the love that is engendered by it in the hearts of its followers, and to partake of that atmosphere of tolerance, understanding, forbearance and active kindness which should be the hallmark of a Bahá’í community.²⁸

Another important issue that arises regarding knowledge and wisdom concerns the individual’s motivation to pursue knowledge and engage in scholarly activity. In one of His tablets ‘Abdu’l-Bahá observes:

Glory be to God! What an extraordinary situation now obtains, when no one, hearing a claim advanced, asks himself what the speaker’s real motive might be, and what selfish purpose he might not have hidden behind the mask of words. You find, for example, that an individual seeking to further his own petty and personal concerns, will block the advancement of an entire people. To turn his own water mill, he will let the farms and fields of all the others parch and wither. To maintain his own leadership, he will everlastingly direct the masses toward that prejudice and fanaticism which subvert the very base of civilization.²⁹

Motivation to pursue knowledge should not be the need to feel superior to others or the desire to advance oneself over others. Effort to distinguish oneself through deeds, words, and even through knowledge and wisdom is most praiseworthy, but there is another kind of distinction that should be avoided. Of it, Bahá’u’lláh wrote: Ever since the seeking of preference and distinction came into play, the world hath been laid waste. It has become desolate.³⁰

We live in a time when dominant social theories assign great value to aggression and unbridled competition. Such theories go as far as to assert that competition is the only means through which excellence can be achieved and that it is inherent in the human condition. In contrast, Bahá’u’lláh says: O Son of Dust! Verily I say unto thee: Of all men the most negligent is he that disputeth idly and seeketh to advance himself over his brother.³¹

In another passage He writes: It behoveth not, therefore, him who was created from dust, who will return unto it, and will again be brought forth out of it, to swell with pride before God, and before His loved ones, to proudly scorn them, and be filled with disdainful arrogance.³² An indispensable quality of the learned is true humility, beginning with humility before God and leading to humility before His creatures, who are brought into being to reflect His names and attributes.

Although thirst for knowledge in itself should impel the individual to pursue knowledge, Bahá’ís can never separate their goals and desires from the central theme of their lives, which is service. Seeking knowledge, true understanding and wisdom is not, for them, a mere matter of personal satisfaction; it has a definite social purpose. As the Bahá’í writings state:

And the honor and distinction of the individual consist in this, that he among all the world’s multitudes should become a source of social good. Is any larger bounty conceivable than this, that an individual, looking within himself, should find that by the confirming grace of God he has become the cause of peace and well being, of happiness and advantage to his fellow men? No, by the one true God, there is no greater bliss, no more complete delight.³³

An essential quality of the learned, then, is generosity of the soul, for without it, knowledge becomes a tool for control and even oppression.

Conclusion

The fundamental challenge before humanity at this stage in its development is the creation of a civilization in which all peoples and cultures can participate—a civilization that represents a fusion of the material and spiritual imperatives of life. In this endeavor, both individuals and communities have vital roles to play. The scale at which knowledge must be generated and applied if humanity is to be ushered into an age of true prosperity calls for society to develop the means for all its members to have access to knowledge. In this way, everyone can become meaningfully engaged in applying knowledge to create well-being. Recognizing that religion and science, as two interacting knowledge systems and two complementary sources evolving with human society itself, constitute the main forces that impel social progress, the Bahá’í worldview envisions a moderate approach, acceptable to both religion and science, in which the generation and application of knowledge form the central axis around which other processes of society are organized. Through such means all can contribute, according to their capacities, to the progress of knowledge and to an ever-advancing civilization.

By William Hatcher

II. THE PROCESS OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH

1. Prerequisites for Spiritual Growth

Spirituality is the process of the proper development of man’s innate spiritual capacities. But how does this process start and how is it carried on? What is the relationship between spiritual development and other kinds of development processes (e.g. format schooling)? Why do there seem to have been so few people who have thus conceived the purpose of their lives and dedicated themselves to the pursuit of spirituality? Answers to these and other similar questions are given in the Bahá’í Writings, but we need to proceed systematically to gain perspective.

Clearly the prime condition for embarking on the process of spiritual development is the awareness that the process is useful, necessary, and realistically possible: the individual must become fully alert to the objective existence of the spiritual dimension of reality. Since such spiritual realities as God, the soul, and the mind are not directly observable, man has no immediate access to them. He has only indirect access through the observable effects that these spiritual realities may produce. The Bahá’í Writings acknowledge this situation and affirm that the Manifestation (or Prophet) of God is the most important observable reality which gives man access to intangible 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 …hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness 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. These sanctified Mirrors, these Day-springs 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.¹

In another passage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said:

The knowledge of the Reality of the Divinity is impossible and unattainable, but the knowledge of the Manifestations of God is the knowledge of God, for the bounties, splendors and divine attributes are apparent in Them. Therefore, if man attains to the knowledge of the Manifestations of God, he will attain to the knowledge of God; and if he be neglectful of the knowledge of the Holy Manifestations, he will be bereft of the knowledge of God.²

Thus, the Manifestations constitute that part of observable reality which most readily leads man to the knowledge and awareness of the spiritual dimension of existence. Of course, only those living in the lifetime of a Manifestation can observe Him at first hand, but His revelation and His Writings constitute permanent observable realities which enable us to maintain objective content in our beliefs, concepts and practices:

Say: The first and foremost testimony establishing His truth is His own Self. Next to this testimony is His Revelation. For whoso faileth to recognize either the one or the other He hath established the words He hath revealed as proof of His reality and truth.³

Elsewhere in the Bahá’í Writings, it is explained that everything in observable reality, when properly perceived, reveals some aspect of God, its Creator. However, only a conscious, willing, intelligent being such as man can reflect (to whatever limited degree) the higher aspects of God. The Manifestations of God, being the “most accomplished, the most distinguished, and the most excellent”⁴ of men, endowed by God with transhuman spiritual capacities, represent the fullest possible expression of the divine in observable reality.

Thus, the first step in the path of spiritual growth is to become as intensely aware as possible of the reality of the spiritual realm of existence. The principle key to such an awareness is knowledge of the Manifestations of God.

Indeed, since the Manifestations constitute such a unique link between man and the unseen world of spiritual reality, knowledge of the Manifestations is the foundation of the whole process of spiritual development.⁵ This is not to say that real spiritual progress cannot take place before one recognizes and accepts the Manifestation.⁶ However, the Bahá’í Writings do affirm that in order to progress beyond a certain level on the path of spirituality, knowledge of the Manifestation is essential. Sooner or later (in this world or the next), knowledge and acceptance of the Manifestation must occur in the life of each individual.

The question naturally arises as to what step or steps follow the recognition of the Manifestation. Here again Bahá’u’lláh is quite clear and emphatic:

The first duty prescribed by God for His servants is the recognition of Him Who is the Day Spring of His Revelation and the Fountain of His laws, Who representeth the Godhead in both the Kingdom of His Cause and the world of creation. Whoso achieveth this duty hath attained unto all good; and whoso is deprived thereof, hath gone astray, though he be the author of every righteous deed. It behoveth every one who reacheth this most sublime station, this summit of transcendent glory, to observe every ordinance of Him Who is the Desire of the world. These twin duties are inseparable. Neither is acceptable without the other.⁷

Thus, even though the recognition of the Manifestation is described as equal to “all good,” recognition alone is not a sufficient basis for spiritual growth. The effort to conform oneself to the standards of behavior, thought, and attitude expressed by the various laws ordained by the Manifestation is also an intrinsic, inseparable part of the⁸ process. The idea that great effort is necessary to the prosecution of the spiritual growth process occurs throughout the Bahá’í Writings:

The incomparable Creator hath created all men from one same substance, and hath exalted their reality above the rest of His creatures. Success or failure, gain or loss, must, therefore, depend upon man’s own exertions. The more he striveth, the greater will be his progress.⁹

Know thou that all men have been created in the nature made by God, the Guardian, the Self-Subsisting. Unto each one hath been prescribed a pre-ordained measure, as decreed in God’s mighty and guarded Tablets. All that which ye potentially possess can, however, be manifested only as a result of your own volition.¹⁰

… He hath entrusted every created thing with a sign of His knowledge, so that none of His creatures may be deprived of its share in expressing, each according to its capacity and rank, this knowledge. This sign is the mirror of His beauty in the world of creation. The greater the effort exerted for the refinement of this sublime and noble mirror, the more faithfully will it be made to reflect the glory of the names and attributes of God, and reveal the wonders of His signs and knowledge. …

There can be no doubt whatever that, in consequence of the efforts which every man may consciously exert and as a result of the exertion of his own spiritual faculties, this mirror can be so cleansed …as to be able to draw nigh unto the meads of eternal holiness and attain the courts of everlasting fellowship.¹¹

Personal effort is indeed a vital prerequisite to the recognition and acceptance of the Cause of God. No matter how strong the measure of Divine grace, unless supplemented by personal, sustained and intelligent effort it cannot become fully effective and be of any real and abiding advantage.¹²

This last statement, from Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith from 1921 until his death in 1957, makes clear that recognition of and faith in the Manifestation of God are not simply unidirectional “gifts” from God to man. Rather, both involve a reciprocal relationship requiring an intelligent and energetic response on the part of the individual. Nor is true faith based on any irrational or psychopathological impulse.¹³

2. The Nature of the Process

We have seen how the spiritual growth process may begin by acceptance of the Manifestation and obedience to his laws and principles. We need now to gain a measure of understanding of the nature of the process itself.

We have characterized spiritual growth as an educational process of a particular sort for which the individual assumes responsibility and by which he learns to feel, think, and act in certain appropriate ways. It is a process through which the individual eventually becomes the truest expression of what he has always potentially been.

Let us consider several further quotations from the Bahá’í Writings which confirm this view of the spiritual growth process.

Whatever duty Thou hast prescribed unto Thy servants of extolling to the utmost Thy majesty and glory is but a token of Thy grace unto them, that they may be enabled to ascend unto the station conferred upon their own inmost being, the station of the knowledge of their own selves.¹⁴

Here the “duties” which God has prescribed for man are seen not as ends in themselves but rather as “tokens,” in other words, as symbols for and means towards another, ultimate end. This end is characterized as being a particular kind of knowledge, here called self-knowledge.

In the following, Bahá’u’lláh speaks similarly of self-knowledge:

O My servants! Could ye apprehend with what wonders of My munificence and bounty I have willed to entrust your souls, ye would, of a truth, rid yourselves of attachment to all created things, and would gain a true knowledge of your own selves—a knowledge which is the same as the comprehension of Mine own Being.¹⁵

One significant aspect of this passage is that true knowledge of self is identified with knowledge of God. That knowledge of God is identical with the fundamental purpose of life for the individual is clearly stated by Bahá’u’lláh in numerous passages. For example:

The purpose of God in creating man hath been, and will ever be, to enable him to know his Creator and to attain His Presence. To this most excellent aim, this supreme objective, all the heavenly Books and the divinely-revealed and weighty Scriptures unequivocally bear witness.¹⁶

Thus, while acceptance of the Manifestation of God and obedience to His ordinances is a necessary step which each individual must accomplish at some point in the spiritual growth process, these and other such duties are means to an ultimate end which is described as true self-knowledge. This quality of self-knowledge is equated with knowledge of God, and knowledge of God is considered by Bahá’u’lláh as constituting the essential reason for man’s existence.

All of this would seem to say that religion, in the final analysis, represents a cognitive discipline of some sort. But what kind of cognitive discipline could involve the full development of all of man’s spiritual capacities, and not just the mind? What kind of knowledge is meant by the true knowledge of self and how can such knowledge be tantamount to knowledge of God?

Bahá’u’lláh gives the key to answering these important questions in an explicit statement clearly describing the highest form of knowledge and development accessible to man:

Consider the rational faculty with which God hath endowed the essence of man. Examine thine own self, and behold how thy motion and stillness, thy will and purpose, thy sight and hearing, thy sense of smell and power of speech, and whatever else is related to, or transcendeth, thy physical senses or spiritual perceptions, all proceed from, and owe their existence to, this same faculty. …

Wert thou to ponder in thine heart, from now until the end that hath no end, and with all the concentrated intelligence and understanding which the greatest minds have attained in the past or will attain in the future, this divinely ordained and subtle Reality, this sign of the revelation of the All-Abiding, All-Glorious God, thou wilt fail to comprehend its mystery or to appraise its virtue. Having recognized thy powerlessness to attain to an adequate understanding of that Reality which abideth within thee, thou wilt readily admit the futility of such efforts as may be attempted by thee, or by any of the created things, to fathom the mystery of the Living God, the Day Star of unfading glory, the Ancient of everlasting days. This confession of helplessness which mature contemplation must eventually impel every mind to make is in itself the acme of human understanding, and marketh the culmination of man’s development.¹⁷

This passage seems to indicate that the ultimate form of knowledge available to man is represented by his total awareness of certain limitations which are inherent in his very nature or at least in the fundamental relationship between his nature and the phenomena of existence (including his own being and that of God). In particular, man must assimilate in some profound way the truth that the absolute knowledge of God and even of his own self lie forever beyond his reach. His realization of this truth is consequent to his having made a profound and accurate appraisal of his God-created capacities and potentialities. Thus, in the last analysis, true self-knowledge appears as a deep and mature knowledge of both the limitations and the capacities of the self. Let us recall that attaining to this knowledge is said to require strenuous effort on the part of man and to involve the development of “all the potential forces with which his inmost true self hath been endowed.”¹⁸

To gain a broader perspective on this question, let us compare the self-knowledge described here with human knowledge in general, hoping that such a comparison will help us to understand more clearly what is particular to true self-knowledge. In general terms, a “knowing situation” involves a subjectivity (in this case that of man), some phenomenon which is the object of knowledge, and finally those means and resources which the subject can mobilize in order to obtain the understanding he seeks. If we agree to lump these last aspects of the knowing process under the general term “method,” we arrive at the following schema:

Quite clearly, the knowledge which is ultimately obtained from this process will depend on all three fundamental aspects of the knowing situation. It will depend on the nature of the phenomenon being studied (e.g., whether it is easily observable and accessible, whether it is complex or simple), on both the capacities and limitations of the knowing subject, and on the method used. In particular, the knowledge which results from this process will necessarily be relative and limited unless the knowing subject possesses some infallible method of knowledge. In this regard, it is important to note that the Bahá’í Writings stress repeatedly that human beings (other than the Manifestations) have no such infallible method of knowledge and that human understanding of all things is therefore relative and limited.¹⁹

For example, in a talk given at Green Acre near Eliot, Maine in 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá discusses the different criteria “by which the human mind reaches its conclusions.”²⁰ After a discussion of each criterion, showing why it is fallible and relative, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states: “Consequently, it has become evident that the four criteria or standards of judgement by which the human mind reaches its conclusions are faulty and inaccurate.” He then proceeds to explain that the best man can do is to use systematically all of the criteria at his disposal.²¹

In another passage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá affirms:

Knowledge is of two kinds. One is subjective and the other objective knowledge—that is to say, an intuitive knowledge and a knowledge derived from perception.

The knowledge of things which men universally have is gained by reflection or by evidence—that is to say, either by the power of the mind the conception of an object is formed, or from beholding an object the form is produced in the mirror of the heart. The circle of this knowledge is very limited because it depends upon effort and attainment.²²

‘Abdu’l-Bahá then explains that the first kind of knowledge, that which is subjective and intuitive, is the special consciousness of the Manifestations: “Since the Sanctified Realities, the supreme Manifestations of God, surround the essence and qualities of the creatures, transcend and contain existing realities and understand all things, therefore, Their knowledge is divine knowledge, and not acquired—that is to say, it is a holy bounty; it is a divine revelation.”²³

Here again we see that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá expresses the limited character of all human knowledge (in contrast to the unlimited knowledge of the Manifestations deriving from their special superhuman nature). In yet another passage ‘Abdu’l-Bahá puts the matter thus:

Know that there are two kinds of knowledge: the knowledge of the essence of a thing and the knowledge of its qualities. The essence of a thing is known through its qualities; otherwise, it is unknown and hidden.

As our knowledge of things, even of created and limited things, is knowledge of their qualities and not of their essence, how is it possible to comprehend in its essence the Divine Reality, which is unlimited?

… Knowing God, therefore, means the comprehension and the knowledge of His attributes, and not of His Reality. This knowledge of the attributes is also proportioned to the capacity and power of man; it is not absolute.²⁴

It would seem clear from these and other similar passages from the Bahá’í Writings that whatever distinctive characteristics the true knowledge of self (or, equivalently, the knowledge of God) may have, it does not differ from other forms of knowledge with regard to degree of certainty. It is not less certain than other forms of knowledge since all human knowledge (including the knowledge of God and of “created and limited things”) is relative and limited. Nor does it differ from these other forms of knowledge by being more certain, as is clear from the passage above and from the passages of Bahá’u’lláh previously cited.²⁵

However, if we compare knowledge of God with other forms of knowledge, not from the point of view of degrees of certainty, but rather from the standpoint of the relationship between man as knowing subject on the one hand, and the phenomenon which is the object of study on the other, we can immediately see that there is a tremendous difference. In all sciences and branches of knowledge other than religion, the object of study is a phenomenon which is either inferior to man in complexity and subtlety (in the case of physics and chemistry) or on a level with man (in the case of biology, psychology, and sociology). In either case, for each of these sciences the human knower is in a position of relative dominance or superiority which enables him to manipulate to a significant degree the phenomenon being studied. We can successfully use these phenomena as instruments for our purposes. But when we come to knowledge of God, we suddenly find ourselves confronted with a phenomenon which is superior to us and which we cannot manipulate. Many of the reflexes and techniques learned in studying other phenomena no longer apply. Far from learning how to manipulate God, we must learn how to discern expressions of God’s will for us and respond adequately to them. It is we who must now become (consciously acquiescing) instruments for God’s²⁶ purposes.

Viewed in this perspective, the distinctive characteristic of knowing God, as compared with all other forms of human knowledge, is that the human knower is in a position of inferiority with respect to the object of knowledge. Rather than encompassing and dominating the phenomenon by aggressive and manipulative techniques, man is now encompassed by a phenomenon more powerful than himself.

Perhaps, then, one of the deep meanings of the true knowledge of self (which is equivalent to the knowledge of God) that we are here confronted with the task of learning novel, and initially unnatural, patterns of thought, feeling, and action. We must retrain ourselves in a wholly new way. We must not only understand our position of dependence on God, but also integrate that understanding into our lives until it becomes part of us, and indeed until it becomes us, an expression of what we are.

In other words, the full, harmonious, and proper development of our spiritual capacities means developing these capacities so that we may respond ever more adequately, and with increasing sensitivity and nuance, to the will of God: The process of spiritual growth is the process by which we learn how to conform ourselves to the divine will on ever deeper levels of our being.²⁷

From this viewpoint, conscious dependence upon God and obedience to His will is not a capitulation of individual responsibility, a sort of helpless “giving up,” but rather an assumption of an even greater degree of responsibility and self-control. We must learn through deep self-knowledge, how to be responsive to the spirit of God.

The ability to respond to God in such a whole-hearted, deeply intelligent and sensitive way is not part of the natural gift of any human being. What is naturally given to us is the capacity, the potential to attain to such a state. Its actual achievement, however, is consequent only to a persistent and strenuous effort on our part. The fact that such effort, and indeed suffering, are necessary to attain this state of spirituality makes life often difficult.²⁸ But the fact that it is truly possible makes of life a spiritual adventure a hundredfold more exciting than any other physical or romantic adventure could ever possibly be.

George Townshend, a Bahá’í renowned for the spiritual quality of his personal life, has given a description of this state of spiritual-mindedness. One senses that Townshend’s statement is based on deep personal experience as well as intelligent contemplation:

When the veils of illusion which hide a man’s own heart from himself are drawn aside, when after purgation he comes to himself and attains self-knowledge and sees himself as he truly is, then at the same moment and by the same act of knowledge he beholds there in his own heart His Father who has patiently awaited His son’s return.

Only through this act of self-completion, through this conclusion of the journey which begins in the kingdom of the senses and leads inward through the kingdom of the moral to end in that of the spiritual, does real happiness become possible. Now for the first time a man’s whole being can be integrated, and a harmony of all his faculties be established. Through his union with the Divine Spirit he has found the secret of the unifying of his own being. He who is the Breath of Joy becomes the animating principle of his existence. Man knows the Peace of God.²⁹

One of Bahá’u’lláh’s major works, The Book of Certitude, is largely devoted to a detailed explanation of the way in which God has provided for the education of mankind through the periodic appearance in human history of a God-sent Manifestation or Revelator. At one point in His discussion of these questions, Bahá’u’lláh gives a wonderfully explicit description of the steps and stages involved in the individual’s progress towards full spiritual development. This portion of The Book of Certitude has become popularly known among Bahá’ís as the “Tablet to the True Seeker,” although Bahá’u’lláh does not Himself designate the passage by this or any other appellation.

In general terms, a “true seeker” is anyone who has become aware of the objective existence of the spiritual dimension of reality, has realized that spiritual growth and development constitute the basic purpose of existence, and has sincerely and seriously embarked on the enterprise of fostering his spiritual progress. It is quite clear from the context of the passage that Bahá’u’lláh is primarily addressing those who have already reached the stage of accepting the Manifestation of God and obeying His commandments.

Bahá’u’lláh begins by describing in considerable detail the attitudes, thought patterns, and behavior patterns that characterize a true seeker. He mentions such things as humility, abstention from backbiting and vicious criticism of others, kindness and helpfulness to those who are poor or otherwise in need, and the regular practice of the discipline of prayer and of meditation. He concludes this description by saying “These are among the attributes of the exalted, and constitute the hall-mark of the spiritually-minded …When the detached wayfarer and sincere seeker hath fulfilled these essential conditions, then and only then can he be called a true seeker.”³⁰ He then continues by describing both the quality of effort necessary to the attainment of spirituality and the state of being which this attainment secures to the individual:

Only when the lamp of search, of earnest striving, of longing desire, of passionate devotion, of fervid love, of rapture, and ecstasy, is kindled within the seeker’s heart, and the breeze of His loving-kindness is wafted upon his soul, will the darkness of error be dispelled, the mists of doubts and misgivings be dissipated, and the lights of knowledge and certitude envelop his being. At that hour will the mystic Herald, bearing the joyful tidings of the Spirit, shine forth from the City of God resplendent as the morn, and, through the trumpet-blast of knowledge, will awaken the heart, the soul, and the spirit from the slumber of negligence. Then will the manifold favors and outpouring grace of the holy and everlasting Spirit confer such new life upon the seeker that he will find himself endowed with a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind. He will contemplate the manifest signs of the universe, and will penetrate the hidden mysteries of the soul. Gazing with the eye of God, he will perceive within every atom a door that leadeth him to the stations of absolute certitude. He will discover in all things the mysteries of divine Revelation and the evidences of an everlasting manifestation.³¹

Nor should the achievement of such a degree of spiritual development be considered an ideal, static configuration from which no further change or development is possible, as the following two passages from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá make clear:

As the divine bounties are endless, so human perfections are endless. If it were possible to reach a limit of perfection, then one of the realities of the beings might reach the condition of being independent of God, and the contingent might attain to the condition of the absolute. But for every being there is a point which it cannot overpass—that is to say, he who is in the condition of servitude, however far he may progress in gaining limitless perfections, will never reach the condition of Deity. …

For example, Peter cannot become Christ. All that he can do is, in the condition of servitude, to attain endless perfections …³²

Both before and after putting off this material form, there is progress in perfection but not in state…. There is no other being higher than a perfect man. But man when he has reached this state can still make progress in perfections but not in state because there is no state higher than that of a perfect man to which he can transfer himself. He only progresses in the state of humanity, for the human perfections are infinite. Thus, however learned a man may be, we can imagine one more learned.

Hence, as the perfections of humanity are endless, man can also make progress in perfections after leaving this world.³³

3. The Dynamics of the Spiritual Growth Process

After contemplating Bahá’u’lláh’s description of the state of being resulting from the attainment of true self- knowledge, it would be only natural to wish that this state could be achieved instantaneously, perhaps through some supreme gesture of self-renunciation, or whatever. However, the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith make it plain that this is not possible. By its very nature, true spirituality is something which can only be achieved as the result of a certain self-aware and self- responsible process of development.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá often responded to Bahá’ís who felt overwhelmed by the task of refining their character by stressing the necessity of patience and daily striving. “Be patient, be as I am,” He would say.³⁴ Spirituality was to be won “little by little; day by day.”³⁵ And again:

He is a true Bahá’í who strives by day and by night to progress and advance along the path of human endeavor, whose most cherished desire is to live and act as to enrich and illuminate the world, whose source of inspiration is the essence of Divine virtue, whose aim in life is so to conduct himself as to be the cause of infinite progress. Only when he attains unto such perfect gifts can it be said of him that he is a true Bahá’í.³⁶

This last passage in particular would seem to indicate that one of the signs of an individual’s maturity is his acceptance of the gradual nature of the process of spiritual growth and of the necessity for daily striving. Indeed, psychology has established that one important measure of maturity is the capacity to delay gratification, i.e., to work for goals whose attainment is not to be had in the short term. Since spirituality is the highest and most important goal anyone can possibly have, it is natural that its achievement should call forth the greatest possible maturity on the part of the individual.³⁷

In a similar vein, Shoghi Effendi has said that the Bahá’ís:

… should not look at the depraved condition of the society in which they live, nor at the evidences of moral degradation and frivolous conduct which the people around them display. They should not content themselves merely with relative distinction and excellence. Rather they should fix their gaze upon nobler heights by setting the counsels and exhortations of the Pen of Glory as their supreme goal. Then it will be readily realized how numerous are the stages that still remain to be traversed and how far off the desired goal lies—a goal which is none other than exemplifying heavenly morals and virtues.³⁸

In describing the experience of the individual as he progresses towards this goal, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said: “Know thou, verily, there are many veils in which the Truth is enveloped; gloomy veils; then delicate and transparent veils; then the envelopment of Light, the sight of which dazzles the eyes. …”³⁹ Indeed, one of Bahá’u’lláh’s major works, The Seven Valleys, describes in poetic and powerfully descriptive language the different stages of spiritual perception through which an individual may pass in his efforts to attain to the goal of spirituality.⁴⁰ In the Tablet of Wisdom, Bahá`u’lláh says simply: “Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday.”⁴¹ Elsewhere, Bahá’u’lláh has urged man to live in such a way that each day his faith increases over the previous day. All of these passages strongly reinforce the notion that spirituality is to be won only through a gradual process and is not to be attained by any once-and-for-all act of faith.

We want now to understand the dynamics of this process. How do we even take one step forward? Also, we need to understand how a gradual process can produce a change as radical as that described by Bahá’u’lláh in the passage quoted in the previous section (see note 41).

The answer to this last consideration is that the rate of change produced by the process is not constant. In technical language, the process is exponential and not linear. To say that a growth process is linear means that the rate of growth is unchanging. In an exponential process, on the other hand, the rate of growth is very small in the beginning but gradually increases until a sort of saturation point is reached. When this point is passed, the rate of growth becomes virtually infinite, and the mechanism of the process becomes virtually automatic. There is, so to speak, an “explosion” of progress.⁴² As we examine the dynamics of the process of spiritual development we will see precisely how the exponential nature of the process can be concretely understood. Let us turn, then, to an examination of these dynamics.

The main problem is to understand how the various capacities of the individual—mind, heart, and will—are to interact in order to produce a definite step forward in the path towards full development. Basic to our understanding of this obviously complex interaction are two important points that Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá both stress regarding the growth process. The first is that no one faculty acting alone is sufficient to produce results.⁴³ The second point is that there is a hierarchical relationship between these faculties in which knowledge is first, love is second, and will is third. Let us discuss each of these points in turn.

As we have seen in Section 1 on the nature of man, each individual has certain basic, innate spiritual capacities, but in a degree and in a proportion which are unique to him. Moreover, the initial development of these innate capacities takes place under conditions over which the individual has very little control (e.g., the conditions of the family into which he is born, the social and physical surroundings to which he is exposed). An important consequence of this universal, existential situation is that each one of us arrives at the threshold of adulthood having developed a more or less spontaneous and unexamined pattern of responses to life situations. This pattern, unique to each individual, is an expression of his basic personality at that stage of his development.⁴⁴

Given the limited and relative nature of our innate spiritual capacities as well as the conditions under which they will have developed up to this point in our lives, our personal response pattern will necessarily involve many imbalances, immaturities and imperfections. Moreover, because of the largely spontaneous and unselfconscious nature of our pattern, we will be unaware of many aspects of it. Thus, our attainment of true self-knowledge will involve our becoming acutely aware of the internal psychic mechanisms of our response pattern. We must take stock of both the strengths and the weaknesses of our pattern and make deliberate efforts to bring it into harmony, balance, and full development. We must also begin to correct false or improper development.

This is the beginning of a transformation or growth process for which we assume responsibility. Until this point in our lives, our growth and development has been primarily in the hands of others. Though we have collaborated in the process with some degree of consciousness, nevertheless the major part has been beyond our control and indeed beyond our awareness. We have been the relatively passive recipients of a process to which we have been subjected by others. Now we must become the agents and prime movers of our own growth process. This self-directed process is a continuation of the previously unconscious one, but it represents a new and significant stage in our lives.

This new, self-directed growth process is going to take time. Moreover, it is sometimes going to be painful, and in the beginning stages at least, very painful. The new, more balanced functioning for which we begin to strive will appear at first to be unnatural since the spontaneous pattern we will have previously developed is the natural expression of our (relatively undeveloped and immature) selves.

In fact, one of the major problems involved in starting the process of spiritual growth is that we initially feel so comfortable with our spontaneous and unexamined mode of functioning. This is why it often happens that an individual becomes strongly motivated to begin the spiritual growth process only after his spontaneous system of coping has failed in some clear and dramatic way.

The realization that failure has occurred may come in many different forms. Perhaps we are faced with a “test,” a life situation that puts new and unusual strain on our defective response system and thus reveals to us its weakness. We may even temporarily break down, i.e., become unable to function in situations which previously caused no difficulties. This is because we have become so disillusioned by our sudden realization of our weakness that we put the whole framework of our personalities into doubt. Perceiving that things are wrong, but not yet knowing just how or why, we suspend activity until we can gain perspective on what is happening.⁴⁵

Or, the perception of the inadequacy of our spontaneous system of functioning may result from our unanticipated failure at some endeavor. We are then led to wonder why we anticipated a success that we were unable to deliver.⁴⁶

The frequency with which the perception of inadequacy and the consequent motivation to change is born through fiery ordeal has led some to build a model of spiritual growth in which such dramatic failures and terrible sufferings are considered to be unavoidable and necessary aspects of the growth process. The Bahá’í Writings would appear to take a middle position on this question. On the one hand, they clearly affirm that tests, difficulties, and sufferings are inevitable, natural concomitants of the spiritual growth process. Such painful experiences, it is explained, serve to give us deeper understanding of certain spiritual laws upon which our continued growth depends.⁴⁷ On the other hand, many instances of human suffering are simply the result of careless living and are therefore potentially avoidable. Bahá’ís are taught to pray to God for preservation from violent or extreme tests. Moreover, the Bahá’í Writings strictly forbid asceticism and any other similar philosophies or disciplines which incite the individual actively to seek pain or suffering in the path of spiritual growth. The growth process itself involves enough pain without our seeking more through misguided or thoughtless living. But the deep sufferings and dramatic setbacks are potentially there for everyone who feels inclined to learn the hard way.⁴⁸

Of course, even dramatic failures and sufferings may sometimes not be enough to convince us of our weaknesses and immaturities. We may put up various “defenses,” i.e., we may resist seeing the truth of the matter even when it is plain to everyone but ourselves. We engage in such strategies of self-illusion primarily when, for whatever reason, we find some particular bit of self-revelation unusually hard to take. If we do not learn the lesson from the situation, we may blindly and adamantly persist in the same behavior or thought patterns which continue to produce new and perhaps even more painful situations. We are then in a “vicious circle” in which our resistance to accepting the truer picture of reality actually increases with each new bit of negative feedback. Regarding such vicious circle situations, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said:

Tests are a means by which a soul is measured as to its fitness, and proven out by its own acts. God knows its fitness beforehand, and also its unpreparedness, but man, with an ego, would not believe himself unfit unless some proof were given to him. Consequently his susceptibility to evil is proven to him when he falls into tests, and the tests are continued until the soul realizes its own unfitness, then remorse and regret tend to root out the weakness.⁴⁹

Let us sum up. We start the process of conscious spiritual development by becoming aware of how we function at our present level of maturity. We assess as realistically as possible the level of intellectual, emotional, and behavioral maturity we have attained at present. As we perceive imbalanced development, underdevelopment, or improper development, we begin the job of correcting the perceived inadequacies.

It is at this stage, in particular, that the Bahá’í view of the nature of man becomes so important in fostering our spiritual growth and progress.⁵⁰ Suppose we perceive, for example, that we have a tendency to be very willful, aggressive, and dominant in our relations with others. From the Bahá’í viewpoint, we would not consider the negative features of this pattern as inherently evil or sinful or as arising from some evil part of ourselves, a part which must be despised and suppressed. We are free to recognize the positive potential of this aspect of our character. After examination, we might find that we have not sufficiently developed our feeling capacity and are, therefore, sometimes insensitive to the needs and feelings of others. Or perhaps we often act impulsively and need to develop also our understanding capacity so as to act more reflectively and wisely. Or again, we might find that our mode of relating to others represents an attempt to satisfy in an illegitimate way some need within us (a need for security or self-worth perhaps) that we have not succeeded in meeting legitimately. We will then understand that we have been engaging in an improper (and unproductive) use of will and must, therefore, set about redeploying our psychic forces in a more productive manner. As we gradually succeed in doing this, we will satisfy our inner need legitimately and improve our relationships with others at the same time.⁵¹

In other words, the model of human spiritual and moral functioning offered by the Bahá’í Faith enables us to respond creatively and constructively once we become aware that change is necessary. We avoid wasting precious energy on guilt, self-hatred, or other such unproductive mechanisms. We are able to produce some degree of change almost immediately. This gives us positive feedback, makes us feel better about ourselves, and helps generate courage to continue the process of change we have just begun.

We now come to the important question of the mechanism by which we can take a step forward in the path of spiritual progress. What we need to consider is the hierarchical relationship between knowledge, love, and action.

4. Knowledge, Love, and Will

A close examination of the psychology of the spiritual growth process as presented in the Bahá’í Writings indicates that the proper and harmonious functioning of our basic spiritual capacities depends on recognizing a hierarchical relationship among them. At the apex of this hierarchy is the knowing capacity.

First and foremost among these favors, which the Almighty hath conferred upon man, is the gift of understanding. His purpose in conferring such a gift is none other except to enable His creature to know and recognize the one true God—exalted be His glory. This gift giveth man the power to discern the truth in all things, leadeth him to that which is right, and helpeth him to discover the secrets of creation. Next in rank, is the power of vision, the chief instrument whereby his understanding can function. The senses of hearing, of the heart, and the like, are similarly to be reckoned among the gifts with which the human body is endowed. … These gifts are inherent in man himself. That which is preeminent above all other gifts, is incorruptible in nature, and pertaineth to God Himself, is the gift of Divine Revelation. Every bounty conferred by the Creator upon man, be it material or spiritual, is subservient unto this.⁵²

In the last chapter of Some Answered Questions, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá elaborates even further on this theme. He explains that right actions and moral behavior are not in themselves sufficient for spirituality. Alone, such actions and behavior constitute “… a body of the greatest loveliness, but without spirit.”⁵³ He then explains: “. . . that which is the cause of everlasting life, eternal honor, universal enlightenment, real salvation and prosperity is, first of all, the knowledge of God.”⁵⁴ He continues, affirming: “Second, comes the love of God, the light of which shines in the lamp of the hearts of those who know God …”⁵⁵ and “The third virtue of humanity is the goodwill which is the basis of good actions . . . though a good action is praiseworthy, yet if it is not sustained by the knowledge of God, the love of God, and a sincere intention, it is imperfect.”⁵⁶

In another passage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá expresses the primacy of knowledge with respect to action as follows: “Although a person of good deeds is acceptable at the Threshold of the Almighty, yet it is first “to know” and then “to do”. Although a blind man produceth a most wonderful and exquisite art, yet he is deprived of seeing it…. By faith is meant, first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds.”⁵⁷ In yet another passage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá describes the steps towards the attainment of spirituality:

By what means can man acquire these things? How shall he obtain these merciful gifts and powers? First, through the knowledge of God. Second, through the love of God. Third, through faith. Fourth, through philanthropic deeds. Fifth, through self-sacrifice. Sixth, through severance from this world. Seventh, through sanctity and holiness. Unless he acquires these forces and attains to these requirements he will surely be deprived of the life that is eternal.⁵⁸

In the above passages, and in many others not quoted, the hierarchical ordering of spiritual faculties is the same: Knowledge leads to love which generates the courage to act (i.e., faith) which forms the basis of the intention to act (i.e., motive and good will) which in turn leads to action itself (i.e., good deeds).Of course, the knowledge which starts this psycho-spiritual chain reaction is not just any kind of knowledge, but the knowledge of God which is equivalent to true self-knowledge.

As we begin to take charge of our own spiritual growth process, one of the main problems we face is that our existing perception of ourselves—of what we are and of what we should be—is bound to be distorted and inadequate in various ways, for his self-perception (or self-image) is the very basis of the spontaneous response pattern we have inherited from our childhood and early youth. Indeed, our mode of functioning at any given stage of our development is largely just a dramatization of our basic self-image; it is the projection of this self-image onto the various life situations we encounter. Thus, our self-image is, in many ways, the key to our personalities.

In any case, to the degree that our self-concept is false we will experience unpleasant tensions and difficulties as we become involved in various life situations. The false or unrealistic parts of our self-image will be implicitly judged by our encounter with external reality. We will sense this and begin to perceive, at first vaguely and uncomfortably but then more sharply, that something is wrong. Even though this feedback information from external reality may be from neutral sources and devoid of any value-judgemental quality, we may nevertheless perceive it as a threat or even an attack. If the feedback is not neutral but comes, say, in the form of blatantly negative criticism from others, our sense of being threatened will certainly be much greater.

Moreover, we will perceive the source of these threats as being somewhere outside ourselves. It will not naturally occur to us that the source lies rather within ourselves in the form of an illusory and unrealistic self-concept. Therefore, our instinctive reaction to the negative feedback information will be to resist, to defend our self-image and to strive to maintain it. In defending our self-image, we believe we are defending our selves because we do not view ourselves as a mosaic of true and false, real and unreal. We see only the seamless, undifferentiated whole of “I” or “me.” The result is that we begin to bind up more and more of our psychic energies in the defence of our self- image. We confuse egotistic pride, which is our attachment to our limited and distorted self-concept, with self- respect and honour, which are expressions of the deep spiritual truth that we are created in the image of God with an intrinsic value given by Him and without any essentially evil or sinful part.

The “binding energy” involved in our defence of our self-concept is frequently experienced as various negative emotions like fear, rage, jealousy, or aggression. These emotions are all expressions of our attempt to locate the source of our irritation outside ourselves in objective, external reality. We are also liable to experience considerable anxiety as we cling more and more desperately to whatever false part of ourselves we cannot relinquish. Clearly, the greater the pathology of our self-image and the greater our attachment to it, the stronger will be our sense of being threatened and attacked, and the greater will be the amount of psychic energy necessary to maintain and defend the false part of our self-image.

At this point, an increase in self-knowledge will be represented by some insight into ourselves which enables us to discard a false part of our self-image. This act of self-knowledge is the first stage in the mechanism involved in taking a single step forward in the process of spiritual growth. Such an increment in self-knowledge has one immediate consequence: It instantly releases that part of our psychic energy which was previously bound up in defending and maintaining the false self-concept. The release of this binding energy is most usually experienced as an extremely positive emotion, a sense of exhilaration and of liberation. It is love. We have a truer picture of our real (and therefore God-created) selves, and we have a new reservoir of energy which is now freed for its God-intended use in the form of service to others.

Following this release of energy will be an increase in courage. We have more courage partly because we have more knowledge of reality and have therefore succeeded in reducing, however slightly, the vastness of what is unknown and hence potentially threatening to us. We also have more courage because we have more energy to deal with whatever unforeseen difficulties may lie ahead. This new increment of courage is an increase in faith.

Courage generates within us intentionality, i.e., the willingness and the desire to act. We want to act because we are anxious to experience the sense of increased mastery that will come from dealing with life situations which previously appeared difficult or impossible but which now seem challenging and interesting. And we are also eager to seek new challenges, to use our new knowledge and energy in circumstances we would have previously avoided. And, most importantly, we have an intense desire to share with others, to serve them and to be an instrument, to whatever possible extent, in the process of their spiritual growth and development.

Finally, this intentionality, this new motivation, expresses itself in concrete action. Until now everything has taken place internally, in the inner recesses of our psyche. No external observer could possibly know that anything significant has taken place. But when we begin to act, the reality of this inner process is dramatized. Action, then, is the dramatization of intentionality and therefore of knowledge, faith, and love. It is the visible, observable concomitant of the invisible process that has occurred within us.

We have taken a step forward in our spiritual development. We have moved from one level to another. However small the step may be, however minimal the difference between the old level of functioning and the new, a definite transition has taken place.

Whenever we act, we affect not only ourselves but also our physical and social environment. Our action thereby evokes a reaction from others. This reaction is, of course, just a form of the feedback information mentioned above. But the difference is that our action has now been the result of a conscious and deliberate process. We know why we acted the way we did. Thus, we will perceive the reaction in a different way, even if it is negative (our good intentions certainly do not guarantee that the reaction will be positive). We will welcome the reaction because it will help us evaluate our actions. In short, the reaction to our actions will give us new knowledge, new self-insight. In this way, the cycle starts again and the process of taking another step along the path of spiritual growth is repeated. We represent this by the following diagram:

As is the case with any new discipline, so it is with learning spiritual growth. Our first steps forward are painfully self-conscious and hesitant. We are acutely aware of each detail, so much so that we wonder whether we will ever be able to make it work. We are elated at our first successes, but we tend to linger on the plateaus, becoming sufficiently motivated to take another step only when negative pressures begin to build up intolerably, forcing us to act.

Yet, as we pursue the process, we become more adept at it. Gradually, certain aspects become spontaneous and natural (not unconscious). They become part of us to the point of being reflex actions. The feedback loop resulting from our actions becomes more and more automatic. The rate of progress begins to pick up. The steps merge imperceptibly. Finally, the process becomes almost continuous. In other words, the rate of progress increases as we go along because we are not only making progress but also perfecting our skill at making progress.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said:

It is possible to so adjust one’s self to the practice of nobility that its atmosphere surrounds and colours every act. When actions are habitually and conscientiously adjusted to noble standards, with no thought of the words that might herald them, then nobility becomes the accent of life. At such a degree of evolution one scarcely needs try any longer to be good—all acts are become the distinctive expression of nobility.⁵⁹

A process in which the rate of progress is proportional to the amount of progress made is exponential (see note 52). Thus, an analysis of the mechanism of the spiritual growth process allows us to understand why this process, though remaining a gradual one, is exponential: It is because we perfect the process of growing spiritually as we grow, thereby increasing the rate at which growth occurs.

The above diagram, and the detailed analysis of each stage of the mechanism involved in the hierarchical relationship between knowledge, love, and will, should not lead us to forget the other fundamental point, namely that all of our spiritual faculties must function together at each stage of the mechanism. In order to gain self-insight, we must will to know the truth about ourselves, and we must be attracted towards the truth. When we act, we must temper our actions with the knowledge and wisdom we have already accumulated at that given point in our development.

Moreover, when we begin the process of conscious, self-directed spiritual growth we do not start from absolute emptiness but rather from the basis of whatever knowledge, love, faith, and will we have developed at that point in our lives. Thus, the spiritual growth process is lived and dramatized by each individual in a way which is unique to him even though the basic mechanism of progress and the rules which govern it are universal.

5. Tools for Spiritual Growth

Our understanding of the process of spiritual growth and its dynamics does not guarantee that we will be successful in our pursuit of spirituality. We stand in need of practical tools to help us at every turn. The Bahá’í Writings give a clear indication of a number of such tools. In particular, prayer, meditation and study of the Writings of the Manifestations, and active service to mankind are repeatedly mentioned. For example, in a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi it is stated:

When a person becomes a Bahá’í, actually what takes place is that the seed of the spirit starts to grow in the human soul. This seed must be watered by the outpourings of the Holy Spirit. These gifts of the spirit are received through prayer, meditation, study of the Holy Utterances and service to the Cause of God …service in the Cause is like the plough which ploughs the physical soil when seeds are sown.⁶⁰

Some of the points mentioned briefly in the above passage are amplified in the following statement from the same source:

How to attain spirituality is indeed a question to which every young man and woman must sooner or later try to find a satisfactory answer. …

Indeed the chief reason for the evils now rampant in society is the lack of spirituality. The materialistic civilization of our age has so much absorbed the energy and interest of mankind that people in general do no longer feel the necessity of raising themselves above the forces and conditions of their daily material existence. There is not sufficient demand for things that we call spiritual to differentiate them from the needs and requirements of our physical existence. …

The universal crisis affecting mankind is, therefore, essentially spiritual in its causes … the core of religious faith is that mystic feeling which unites Man with God. This state of spiritual communion can be brought about and maintained by means of meditation and prayer. And this is the reason why Bahá’u’lláh has so much stressed the importance of worship. … The Bahá’í Faith, like all other Divine Religions, is thus fundamentally mystic in character. Its chief goal is the development of the individual and society, through the acquisition of spiritual virtues and powers. It is the soul of man which has first to be fed. And this spiritual nourishment prayer can best provide.⁶¹

With regard to meditation, the Bahá’í Writings explain that it has no set form and each individual is free to meditate in the manner he finds most helpful. Statements by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá describe meditation as a silent contemplation, a sustained mental concentration or focusing of thought:

Bahá’u’lláh says there is a sign (from God) in every phenomenon: the sign of the intellect is contemplation and the sign of contemplation is silence, because it is impossible for a man to do two things at one time—he cannot both speak and meditate. …

Meditation is the key for opening the doors of mysteries. In that state man abstracts himself: in that state man withdraws himself from all outside objects; in that subjective mood he is immersed in the ocean of spiritual life and can unfold the secrets of things-in-themselves.⁶²

‘Abdu’l-Bahá leaves no doubt concerning the importance of meditation as a tool for spiritual growth:

You cannot apply the name “man” to any being void of this faculty of meditation; without it he would be a mere animal, lower than the beasts. Through the faculty of meditation man attains to eternal life; through it he receives the breath of the Holy Spirit—the bestowal of the Spirit is given in reflection and meditation.⁶³

And Bahá’u’lláh has said that “One hour’s reflection is preferable to seventy years of pious worship.”⁶⁴

The Bahá’í Writings suggest that the words and teachings of the Manifestations provide a helpful focus for meditation. Also, while giving considerable freedom to the individual concerning prayer, they likewise suggest that the prayers of the Manifestations are especially useful in establishing a spiritual connection between the soul of man and the Divine Spirit. Prayer is defined as conversation or communion with God:

The wisdom of prayer is this, that it causes a connection between the servant and the True One, because in that state of prayer man with all his heart and soul turns his face towards His Highness the Almighty, seeking His association and desiring His love and compassion. The greatest happiness for a lover is to converse with his beloved, and the greatest gift for a seeker is to become familiar with the object of his longing. That is why the greatest hope of every soul who is attracted to the kingdom of God is to find an opportunity to entreat and supplicate at the ocean of His utterance, goodness and generosity.⁶⁵

‘Abdu’l-Bahá has elsewhere explained that the spirit in which one prays is the most important dimension of prayer. A ritualistic mumbling of words or a mindless repetition of syllables is not prayer. Moreover, the Bahá’í Writings enjoin the spiritual seeker to make of his whole life, including his professional activities, an act of worship:

In the Bahá’í Cause arts, sciences and all crafts are counted as worship. The man who makes a piece of notepaper to the best of his ability, conscientiously, concentrating all his forces on perfecting it, is giving praise to God. Briefly, all effort put forth by man from the fullness of his heart is worship, if it is prompted by the highest motives and the will to do service to humanity. Thus is worship: to serve mankind and to minister to the needs of the people. Service is prayer. …⁶⁶

Thus, it is the spirit and motive of service to others which makes external activity a tool for spiritual progress. In order to pursue the goal of spirituality, one must therefore maintain a persistently high level of motivation. Prayer, meditation, and study of the Words of the Manifestations are essential in this regard:

The first thing to do is to acquire a thirst for spirituality, then Live the Life! Live the Life! Live the Life! The way to acquire this thirst is to meditate upon the future life. Study the Holy Words, read your Bible, read the Holy Books, especially study the Holy Utterances of Bahá’u’lláh. Prayer and Meditation, take much time for these two. Then will you know the Great Thirst, and then only can you begin to Live the Life!⁶⁷

Thus, while the quality and maturity of one’s relationship to others remain the best measure of spiritual progress and growth, acquiring the capacity for such mature relationships depends essentially on an intense inner life and self-development. Moreover, the individual’s actions are experienced both by himself and by others, whereas inner life is experienced only by the individual and is thereby more properly “his.” The sense of “that mystic feeling which unites Man with God” becomes to the spiritual seeker the most precious of experiences. It is that part of spirituality which lies at the center of his heart and soul.

In this inner dimension, spirituality becomes a sort of dialogue between the human soul and the Divine Spirit as channeled through the Manifestation. It is within this subjective but nevertheless real dimension of inner spirituality that one finds all the passion, the exaltation of spirit, as well as the terrible but somehow precious moments of despair, of utter helplessness and defeat, of shame and repentance. It is here that one learns with the deeply certain knowledge only personal experience can bestow, that the ultimate category of existence, the absolute and transcendent God who guides and oversees our destiny, is an infinitely loving and merciful Being.

By William Hatcher

Human history has witnessed the birth, proliferation, and death of countless religions, belief systems, and philosophies. Though the generating impulse for each of these systems is undoubtedly related to numerous particular cultural and psychological factors, there runs through virtually all of them the common idea that man is not, in his naturally given human state, whole or complete. The concomitant to this belief is the idea that man must undergo some process of completion, some discipline of self-definition. Such a process is usually regarded by its exponents as the basic purpose of man’s existence, for through it man is seen to acquire or develop what is essential and universal, and not merely accidental and local, within the range of human potentiality. By this process, he defines what he truly is by becoming what he most truly can be. The process is often described as one of “salvation”, of being lifted above the condition of unregeneration (or spiritual death) to the plane of a superior reality.

The revealed religions have been major sources of such salvation concepts, spiritual philosophies, and spiritual disciplines. Historically, the revealed religions would seem to be united in affirming, each in its own particular way, that there is an objectively real spiritual dimension to the universe, and that this spiritual dimension of existence is for man the most fundamental and the most important aspect of reality. However, the revealed religions also appear, at least at first glance, to exhibit a disturbing degree of difference in their respective views of the exact nature of this spiritual reality and of how man should relate properly to it. Moreover, most of the traditional systems of religious belief appear now to have crystallized into rigid social patterns and dogmatic attitudes of thought and belief with which the modern ethos of rapid social and intellectual change seems incompatible.

The changes in modern-day society are being wrought primarily by a highly efficient, powerful, and established science which owes little or nothing to established religion. Whereas the religions, for the most part, continue to press harder and harder their mutually contradictory claims each to possess an absolute and unchanging truth which admits no compromise, science is based squarely on the idea that truth is relative and progressive, that what is useful and productive in the realm of ideas and techniques today may be obsolete and unproductive tomorrow. Thus, traditional religion has come to abhor and fear change while science thrives upon it.

Yet, science and technology have not given man the sense of wholeness he has so long been seeking, even though they have given him a vastly increased power to control and manipulate his physical environment. The sense of incompleteness and the conscious need for transcendence, for contact with some deep spiritual reality, are widespread in our society. Indeed, hardly at any other time of history or in any other culture has the sense of spiritual inadequacy been so acute as is currently the case in industrialized, high-technology, Western culture. But if contemporary man turns to religion for enlightenment, he too often finds dogmatism, which his mind cannot accept, or mindless emotionalism, which is not worthy of acceptance.

From the modern perspective, each of the great religions appears as a system which was largely successful in satisfying the spiritual and social needs of a certain people or culture during a previous era of history, but which is no longer adequate to meet the needs of humanity in the present critical period of history. Thus, modern man is caught in a serious dilemma with regard to fundamental spiritual questions. On the one hand, the highly efficient science he has so successfully developed serves in part to deepen his moral and spiritual needs—needs that science alone cannot satisfy.¹ On the other hand, most of the traditional religious forms, attitudes and concepts now appear obsolete and irrelevant.

This modern dilemma is addressed by several of the fundamental principles of the historically recent Bahá’í Faith. The Bahá’í principle of the unity of science and religion holds that religious truth, like scientific truth (or truth in general), is relative and progressive. It accepts unreservedly that “If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science they are mere superstitions and imaginations….”² In particular, with regard to spiritual questions the Bahá’í Faith rejects a dogmatic approach: It affirms that there are spiritual realities governed by lawful relationships, and it invites each individual to assume a scientific attitude and to seek out and test for himself these spiritual truths.³

Concerning the great world religions, the Bahá’í Faith teaches that they all derive from one common source, namely, that one, ultimate, creative force responsible for the phenomena of the universe, that force we call God. Bahá’ís hold that the founding figures of those great religious systems (e.g., Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, Muhammad) were all chosen channels or true spokesmen for this unique God, and that differences in Their teachings are due primarily to the varying requirements of the cultures and ages in which these systems were originally promulgated. Other significant doctrinal differences among these systems, as they are currently elaborated, are attributed to inaccuracies and distortions gradually introduced by their followers in the course of their evolution as social systems after the death of their founders.⁴ However, the essential spiritual message of these systems is affirmed to be universal and common to all.

The Bahá’í Faith views itself as deriving from the most recent of these revelation events, as the latest chapter in the (unending) book of religion, so to speak. Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892), Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, put forth these and other teachings in a series of over 100 books and manuscripts written primarily between 1853 and His death in 1892. Thus, Bahá’ís feel that traditional religions are perceived by modern man as so unsatisfactory partly because some of their teachings are laden with culture-bound patterns and concepts (e.g., the dietary and penal laws of Judaism and Islám) and partly because of man-made distortions and corruptions which have crept in over the years. Religious dogmatism represents the arrogant attempt to transform a relative and partial conception of truth into an absolute and unchanging system, binding the whole of mankind for all human history. According to the Bahá’í understanding of the dynamics of God-created human nature, no such fixed system could ever be adequate for mankind. The Bahá’í system itself is viewed as responding to the needs of mankind in the present hour, but not for all future history.

Bahá’ís hold that the basic spiritual message common to the revealed religions is progressively elaborated and more fully articulated in each successive revelation. One would therefore expect that the Bahá’í Faith, if it is indeed the most recent divinely inspired articulation of spiritual truth to mankind, would contain a fuller elaboration and deeper expression of this truth.

I believe that such is the case, and in the following pages I have quoted liberally, and sometimes at length, from the Bahá’í Writings in an effort to convey to the reader some of the incredible spiritual riches they contain. Yet, all the ideas and opinions expressed herein should be strictly regarded as nothing beyond the attempt of one mind to grasp some of the deeper meanings latent in the profound Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi. In an effort to limit the scope of this monograph to reasonable proportions and to achieve an orderly exposition, I have consistently focused on the concept of spirituality, that is, on an intellectual and logical understanding of spirituality. This work does not attempt in any way to be a manual for attaining spirituality but seeks only to gain, insofar as is possible, a clearer conception of what is implied in attaining it.

Of course, attaining any goal is easier when we have a clear conception of what its attainment involves. I have offered the present text for publication only in the hope that it may contribute in some measure to the common task we all have of trying to express our spiritual understanding to each other, especially as I have already richly benefited from the insights and reflections of so many in this regard.

I. THE NATURE OF MAN

1. The Basic Components of Man’s Character

The Bahá’í writings articulate a model of human nature and functioning which sees man as the product of two basic conditions, the physical (material) and the spiritual (non-material). The physical dimension of man’s existence derives from his genetic endowment, determined at conception, plus the interaction of this configuration with the environment. This interaction produces an internal, physical milieu which is unique to each individual, though sharing common features with all members of the human species. The spiritual dimension of man’s nature derives from the existence of a non-material entity, the soul, which is individualized, it is explained, at the moment of conception. Just as the physical body of man has various physical capacities, so the soul has its capacities, called spiritual capacities of man. Among the most important spiritual capacities mentioned in the Bahá’í Writings as characteristic of man are those of the intellect or understanding, the heart or feeling capacity, and the will (the capacity to initiate and sustain action).

The interactions of the individual with his environment affect not only his body but his soul as well. They develop both the genetically given physical capacities and the initially given spiritual capacities. These interactions may be called learning or education, and they give rise to a third aspect of man’s total character, an aspect that is both physical and spiritual.

In sum, there are three essential aspects of the character of man: his genetic endowment, which is surely physical; his soul and its capacities, which are purely spiritual; and education, which is both physical and spiritual.⁵

In Some Answered Questions, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speaks of these three basic aspects of man’s character:

He [man] has the innate character, the inherited character, and the acquired character which is gained by education.

With regard to the innate character, although the divine creation is purely good, yet the variety of natural qualities in man come from the difference of degree; all are excellent, but they are more or less so, according to the degree. So all mankind possesses intelligence and capacities, but the intelligence, the capacity and the worthiness of men differ. …

The variety of inherited qualities comes from strength and weakness of constitution—that is to say, when the two parents are weak, the children will be weak; if they are strong, the children will be robust. …

But the difference of the qualities with regard to culture is very great, for education has great influence …Education must be considered as most important, for as diseases in the world of bodies are extremely contagious, so, in the same way, qualities of spirit and heart are extremely contagious. Education has a universal influence, and the differences caused by it are very great.⁶

From this, and other similar passages in the Bahá’í Writings, it is clear that the innate character derives from the capacities of the soul while the inherited character derives from the individual’s genetic endowment. Once fixed, these two elements of man’s character remain unchanged, but the process of education enables man to develop these capacities either to a relatively high degree or to a relatively low degree, thus producing significant differences in character not attributable solely either to heredity or to innate spiritual capacity.

2. Spirituality Defined

We have used the word “capacity” in referring both to the spiritual and to the physical endowments of the individual. The word connotes a potential, something to be fulfilled or accomplished (and something that is capable of fulfillment and accomplishment). Indeed, it is clear that the individual, at his birth into this world, is capable of manifesting very few of the qualities possessed by the mature adult human being. We know, moreover, that unless the infant is properly cared for and provided with a host of support systems and a growth-inducing milieu, he will never exhibit such qualities. Life, then, is a growth process. Man begins the process as a little bundle of potential and proceeds, for better or worse, to develop his potential through the process of education (considered broadly as the sum of all environmental influences on the individual plus the individual’s reaction to these influences).

According to Bahá’í teachings, the very purpose of man’s life is the proper, harmonious, and full development of spiritual capacities. This is the most worthwhile possible goal since spiritual capacities, being part of the immortal soul (see note 1), will eternally endure while the body and its capacities will not. However, the body is the instrument of the soul’s development in this earthly life, and so physical health and development cannot be safely neglected but rather must be made to serve the primary goal of fostering the soul’s progress.

Bahá’u’lláh expresses this truth succinctly and powerfully:

Through the Teachings of this Day Star of Truth [The Manifestation or Prophet of God] every man will advance and develop until he attaineth the station at which he can manifest all the potential forces with which his inmost true self hath been endowed. It is for this very purpose that in every age and dispensation the Prophets of God and His chosen Ones have appeared amongst men, and have evinced such power as is born of God and such might as only the Eternal can reveal.⁷

The process of developing one’s spiritual capacities is called spiritual growth or simply spirituality. We can thus formulate a working (operational) definition of the concept of spirituality as follows: Spirituality is the process of the full, adequate, proper, and harmonious development of one’s spiritual capacities. Unspirituality, by contrast, is either the lack of development of these capacities, their imbalanced or inharmonious development (e.g., the development of one to the exclusion of others), or else the false (improper) development and/or use of these capacities.

With this definition of spirituality in mind, we can also formulate a working definition of Bahá’í morality: That which fosters and advances the process of spiritual development is good, and that which tends to inhibit it is bad. Every law, counsel or behavioral norm contained in the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith can be understood in large measure from this perspective.

3. The Duality of Human Nature

The only component of man’s character capable of change is that which is acquired through education, where the latter term is understood broadly to mean the sum of all influences on the individual resulting from his encounters with and reactions to his environment. However, the human situation is such that not every influence, and most certainly not every one of our reactions to these influences, is conducive to spiritual progress. Thus, the process of spiritual growth involves learning how to make appropriate responses to various circumstances and how to initiate certain kinds of actions: spiritual growth is an educational process of a particular sort.

The experience of our life during the period when the body and the soul are linked is one of a tension between contradicting and opposing forces. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains that this tension results from the duality of the physical and the spiritual in man’s nature. On the one hand, man’s body has legitimate physical needs which cry for satisfaction: food, shelter, companionship, and protection from threatening forces. However, in seeking to satisfy these needs, man is easily led to be possessive, aggressive, and insensitive to the needs of others. On the other hand, man’s soul also has intrinsic needs that demand satisfaction. These needs are metaphysical and intangible. They incite the individual to seek meaning and purpose in life and to establish the proper relationship with God, with himself, and with his fellow humans. Though this proper relationship may, and indeed must, be expressed through physical means, it also is essentially intangible. It involves submission to the will of God, the acceptance of our dependence on a power higher than themselves. It implies self-knowledge, the discovery both of our limitations and of our particular talents and capacities. And it requires recognition of and respect for the rights of others. This means that we realize and understand that all other men have needs similar to our own and that we accept all the implications of this fact in our relations with and actions towards others.

Of course, the Bahá’í Faith is certainly not the first belief system to recognize this duality in man’s nature. But the Bahá’í view of this duality is significantly different from certain views frequently attributed to other belief systems, for the Bahá’í Faith does not superimpose an absolute (good-evil) value judgement upon the duality, viewing all things spiritual as good and all things material as bad. The Bahá’í Writings make clear that man can misuse his spiritual faculties just as easily as he can misuse his material ones. At the same time, the material faculties of man (indeed all of man’s natural capacities) are viewed as God-given and therefore intrinsically (metaphysically) good. As moral categories, good and evil are relative terms: A given action on the part of an individual is relatively less good than another action if that other action would have been more favorable to the process of spiritual growth. Moreover, the Bahá’í Writings lead us to understand that God judges human actions only with regard to those actions which are truly logically possible for the individual in the given circumstances. To judge otherwise would be tantamount to requiring of man that which is beyond his capabilities or, paraphrasing words of Bahá’u’lláh, to tasking a soul beyond its power.⁸

In other words, only the direction of the spiritual growth process is given absolutely: it is towards the (unattainable) ideal of God-like perfection. But the process itself is lived relatively by each individual according to his spiritual and material endowments plus the free will choices he makes in dealing with the particular circumstances of his life. Since only God knows truly what these endowments and circumstances are for any individual, only God can judge the degree of moral responsibility of the individual in any situation.⁹

Here is the way that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains the essential and intrinsic goodness of all of man’s capacities, material or spiritual:

In creation there is no evil; all is good. Certain qualities and natures innate in some men and apparently blameworthy are not so in reality. For example, from the beginning of his life you can see in a nursing child the signs of greed, of anger and of temper. Then, it may be said, good and evil are innate in the reality of man, and this is contrary to the pure goodness of nature and creation. The answer to this is that greed, which is to ask for something more, is a praiseworthy quality provided that it is used suitably. So if a man is greedy to acquire science and knowledge, or to become compassionate, generous and just, it is most praiseworthy. If he exercises his anger and wrath against the bloodthirsty tyrants who are like ferocious beasts, it is very praiseworthy; but if he does not use these qualities in a right way, they are blameworthy.

Then it is evident that in creation and nature evil does not exist at all; but when the natural qualities of man are used in an unlawful way, they are blameworthy. ¹⁰

Thus, the main function of the body is to serve as an instrument of the soul during the time the immortal soul is linked to the mortal body. This period constitutes the first stage of an eternal growth process. The body’s capacities, when properly used, contribute to the process of spiritual growth. These material capacities are no more intrinsically bad than the capacities of the soul itself. Both material and spiritual capacities become harmful if they are misused through false or improper development.

However, Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá do stress the fact that the material capacities must be rigorously disciplined (not suppressed) if they are to serve their intended purpose as vehicles for spiritual growth. Since satisfying our physical needs can easily incite us to become aggressive towards others and insensitive to their needs, the individual must engage in a daily struggle with himself to maintain the proper perspective on life and its spiritual meaning.¹¹

More will be said later about the nature of this daily spiritual discipline. The main point here is that the tension between the material and spiritual in man is a creative tension purposely given by God, a tension whose function it is constantly to remind the individual of the necessity of making an effort in the path of spiritual growth. Moreover, the existence of the physical body with its needs provides daily opportunities for the individual to dramatize through action the degree of spirituality he has attained and to assess realistically his progress.¹²

If man did not have the spiritual-material duality in his nature, he would be spared the unpleasant tension that often accompanies the struggle to take a step along the path of spiritual growth, but he would also be denied the opportunities for growth provided by this very duality.

4. Metaphysical Considerations

We have seen how the Bahá’í concept of spirituality flows naturally and logically from a coherent concept of the nature of man and of God’s purpose for man. It must be admitted, however, that a paradox seems to be at the heart of this process, or at least of our experience of the process during this earthly life. The paradox is that God has given man immediate and easy access to material reality while denying him such immediate access to spiritual realities. This seems a curious thing for God to have done if, in fact, the most important aspect of reality is the spiritual one and if our basic purpose in life is spiritual. If the spiritual dimension of man’s existence is ultimately the most real, then why are we given immediate perception only of the less substantial portion of total reality? Why, in short, are we called upon by God to pursue a spiritual purpose while being immersed in a sea of materiality?

To many people, this basic perception of our human condition is not just a paradox but an outright contradiction. It is impossible, they say, that there could be a world of unseen and unobservable spiritual realities so much less accessible than the world of material reality: the most obvious explanation for the inaccessibility of spiritual reality is that it does not exist. Whether or not the paradox is stated this strongly, it remains the basic stumbling block to atheists, agnostics, materialists, and positivists of whatever philosophical stripe in their approach to spiritual questions. For, even if one becomes convinced that there is a significant, nonmaterial dimension to objective reality, the rationale for its having been deliberately hidden from immediate access by a God who nevertheless holds us responsible for relating properly to it remains obscure.

Fortunately for our attempts to grasp the deeper significance of the Bahá’í concept of spirituality, Bahá’u’lláh has explained in clear terms the divine purpose underlying this fundamental feature of the human situation. The explanation lies in the principle of ‘separation and distinction’ by which God wishes individual moral and spiritual attainment to be the result of the individual’s self-responsible and self-directed efforts. Bahá’u’lláh affirms unequivocally that God could certainly have rendered spiritual truth and spiritual reality as irrefutably evident and as immediately accessible to our spiritual senses as is material reality to our physical senses. But, had He done so, all men would have been forever bereft of one important experience: the experience of the state of spiritual deprivation. As the universe is now ordered, everyone can have the experience of moving from a position of relative doubt, insecurity, uncertainty, and fear towards a position of relative certitude, security, knowledge and faith.

On this journey, we learn important lessons which would otherwise be denied us. We value true spirituality the more for having experienced, to whatever degree, its lack, and we are grateful for the privilege of having participated in and contributed to the process of its attainment. All of this would not be possible if spiritual knowledge and perfection were simply our natural state of being from the moment of our creation.

Here is one passage in which Bahá’u’lláh explains the principle of separation and distinction:

The purpose of God in creating man hath been, and will ever be, to enable him to know his Creator and to attain His Presence. … Whoso hath recognized the Day Spring of Divine guidance and entered His holy court hath drawn nigh unto God and attained His Presence. … Whoso hath failed to recognize Him will have condemned himself to the misery of remoteness, a remoteness which is naught but utter nothingness and the essence of the nethermost fire. Such will be his fate, though to outward seeming he may occupy the earth’s loftiest seats and be established upon its most exalted throne.

He Who is the Day Spring of Truth is, no doubt, fully capable of rescuing from such remoteness wayward souls and of causing them to draw nigh unto His court and attain His Presence. “If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people.” His purpose, however, is to enable the pure in spirit and the detached in heart to ascend, by virtue of their own innate powers, unto the shores of the Most Great Ocean, that thereby they who seek the Beauty of the All-Glorious may be distinguished and separated from the wayward and perverse. Thus hath it been ordained by the all-glorious and resplendent Pen. …

That the Manifestations of Divine justice, the Day Springs of heavenly grace, have when they appeared amongst men always been destitute of all earthly dominion and shorn of the means of worldly ascendancy, should be attributed to this same principle of separation and distinction which animateth the Divine Purpose. Were the Eternal Essence to manifest all that is latent within Him … none would be found to question His power or repudiate His truth. Nay, all created things would be so dazzled and thunderstruck by the evidences of His light as to be reduced to utter nothingness.¹³

From this passage, we can understand that the intangibility of spiritual realities is not an accident but rather a deliberate and fundamental aspect of God’s purpose for man. Of course, if God had created us with no spiritual inclinations or perceptions whatever, if He had denied us immediate access to any part of reality, material or spiritual, or if He had created us with spiritual and metaphysical longings impossible of genuine fulfillment, we would be unable to succeed in our basic task. By starting the eternal spiritual growth process as spiritual-material hybrids, having immediate access to material reality and being endowed with significant physical and intellectual powers, we are able to learn the subtleties of spiritual development gradually. By experiencing first-hand the order and the lawfulness of the physical creation, we come to understand that the unseen spiritual realm is similarly ordered and governed by lawful, cause-and-effect relationships. At first intuitively, then explicitly and intellectually, and finally through genuine spiritual experience and inner development, we learn to participate consciously in this spiritual order of things. It becomes a day-to-day reality having an immediacy equal to and even greater than the immediacy of physical experience. Indeed, as Bahá’u’lláh explains, if we fulfill our responsibilities and learn our lessons well, we will be ready at the time of our physical death to pass easily into the purely spiritual realm. We will already have become familiar with its basic laws and modes of functioning and will therefore be prepared to take up our lives in that new realm and proceed with our growth process in a harmonious and satisfying manner:

The Prophets and Messengers of God have been sent down for the sole purpose of guiding mankind to the straight Path of Truth. The purpose underlying Their revelation hath been to educate all men, that they may, at the hour of death, ascend, in the utmost purity and sanctity and with absolute detachment, to the throne of the Most High.¹⁴

Parts 2 and 3 of this article are re-published separately on this website and can be found in the Library.

By William Hatcher

Introduction

Part of the difficulty involved in attempts to understand and clarify the relationship between religion and science is that the nature of religion seems much less clearly defined than that of science. Is religion primarily a cognitive activity like science, or is it more akin to an aesthetic or emotional experience? If religion is seen as primarily cognitive, then the main problem seems to be that of reconciling the application of scientific method to religion. In particular, it is often felt that this is difficult to do without falsifying either the nature of scientific method or else the global, subjective, mystic character of religion. On the other hand, viewing religion as primarily non-cognitive appears ultimately to relegate religion to an unacceptably secondary and inferior status in the range of human activities.

The Bahá’í Faith, founded in 1844 in Persia under extraordinary circumstances, is significant among the religions of the contemporary world in its clear statement both of the nature of religion itself and of the applicability of scientific method to religion. In a summary description of basic Bahá’í beliefs, Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957) affirms:

The Revelation proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh, His followers believe is divine in origin, all-embracing in scope, broad in its outlook, scientific in its method, humanitarian in its principles and dynamic in the influence it exerts on the hearts and minds of men. The mission of the founder of their Faith, they conceive it to be to proclaim that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is continuous and progressive, that the Founders of all past religions, though different in the nonessential aspects of their teachings, “abide in the same Tabernacle, soar in the same heaven, are seated upon the same throne, utter the same speech and proclaim the same Faith.” His Cause, they have already demonstrated, stands identified with and revolves around, the principle of the organic unity of mankind as representing the consummation of the whole process of human evolution. This final stage in this stupendous evolution, they assert, is not only necessary but inevitable, that it is gradually approaching, and that nothing short of the celestial potency with which a divinely ordained Message can claim to be endowed can succeed in establishing it.

The Bahá’í Faith recognizes the unity of God and of His Prophets, upholds the principle of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all forms of superstition and prejudice, teaches that the fundamental purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony, that it must go hand-in-hand with science, that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful, an ordered and progressive society…¹

Further, the essentially cognitive nature of religion is affirmed by the founder, Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892) in language such as that of the following passage:

First and foremost among those favors, which the Almighty hath conferred upon man, is the gift of understanding. His purpose in conferring such a gift is none other except to enable His creature to know and recognize the one true God—exalted be His glory. This gift giveth man the power to discern the truth in all things, leadeth him to that which is right, and helpeth him to discover the secrets of creation. Next in rank, is the power of vision, the chief instrument whereby his understanding can function. The senses of hearing, of the heart, and the like, are similarly to be reckoned among the gifts with which the human body is endowed… These gifts are inherent in man himself. That which is preeminent above all other gifts, is incorruptible in nature and pertaineth to God Himself, is the gift of Divine Revelation. Every bounty conferred by the Creator upon man, be it material or spiritual, is subservient unto this…²

In other words from the Bahá’í viewpoint religion is importantly and basically a form of knowing, the object of knowledge (or basic datum) of which is the phenomenon of revelation. The other mystic and emotional aspects of religion are also affirmed in the Bahá’í Faith, but still the Faith is proclaimed to be “scientific in its method.” Another essential aspect of religion is that of action or “good works.” Still, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844–1921), son of Bahá’u’lláh and designated interpreter of his father’s revelation, affirms the primacy of knowledge with respect to action in the following terms: “Although a person of good deeds is acceptable at the Threshold of the Almighty, yet it is first ‘to know,’ and then ‘to do.’ Although a blind man produceth a most wonderful and exquisite art, yet he is deprived of seeing it… By faith is meant, first conscious knowledge, and second the practice of good deeds.”³

The problem with all of this is that to affirm something as true does not necessarily give us an understanding as to how or why it is true. My purpose in this paper, then, is to discuss the religion–science conflict from a Bahá’í viewpoint with the specific goal of explicating the above affirmations. It is my hope that such an effort may prove of interest and profit to those of any religious background or viewpoint.

The nature of the religion–science conflict

At the heart of the conflict between science and religion is the fact that two essentially different views of man are associated respectively with each, at least in the popular view. In the one instance, man is seen as a superevolved animal, a chance product of a material thermodynamic system. In the other case, he is seen as a spiritual being, created by God with a spiritual purpose given by God. Of course, conflicting views of the nature of man are as old as thought itself and certainly predate the period of modern science. However, it is only in the modern period that these materialistic views have become linked to a prestigious and highly efficient natural science. This prestige of science forces people to take seriously any pronouncement that is put forth in its name. All of this contrasts sharply with the pre-modern period in which the materialistic view was just one among many competing views and had no particular natural or obvious superiority over other views. People could simply discredit or disregard the materialistic viewpoint without feeling any pangs of conscience or without feeling threatened.

In sum, then, I am suggesting that the conflict between religion and science is due essentially to the two qualitatively different views of man which are associated respectively with them, that the force of the materialistic view associated with modern science is due not to any inherent philosophical superiority of that view but rather to the immense prestige of the science in the name of which the materialistic view is put forth, and that this prestige of science is due essentially to its evident technological productivity and efficiency.

One may, in turn, ask to what the efficiency and productiveness of modern science is due, and I believe that here there is one basic answer: scientific method. It is the method of science which has led to such remarkable results and thus to the present situation. Although some thinkers have tried to attribute the success of scientific method to one aspect or another of Western culture or religion, it is now abundantly clear that modern scientific method can be practised with success independently of any particular and religious or cultural orientation. Indeed, we can say that science as an activity is characterized by its method, for the immense diversity of domains which are now the object of scientific study defies any intrinsic characterization in terms of unity of content. The unity of science is its method.

The importance of religion, on the other hand, derives precisely from its goal and its contents rather than its method. Religion treats of questions which are so fundamental for us that every human being is obligated to realize the importance of answering them. Some of these questions are: the purpose of man’s existence, the possibility of life after death, the possibility of self-transcendence, the possibility of contacting and living in harmony with a higher spiritual consciousness, the meaning of suffering, the existence of good and evil. Once we realize that the basis of science is its method and that the basis of religion is its object of study, the essential move towards resolving the religion–science controversy seems obvious and logical: apply scientific method within religion. But, as we have already noted in the preceding, there is widespread feeling that this is not truly possible. Thus, each side remains with its view of the nature of man and feeling basically that a reconciliation is not possible.

It seems to me, however, that the conviction of the impossibility of applying scientific method to religion rests on several misconceptions both of the nature of scientific method and of the nature of religion. The ensuing discussion, though clearly incomplete, attempts to identify the sorts of misunderstandings involved.

The nature of scientific method

Science is, first of all, knowledge. Moreover, it is human knowledge because it is humans who do the knowing, and the nature of human knowledge will be determined by the nature of human mental faculties. Of course, every human being on earth knows things and uses his mental faculties in order to attain this knowledge. What distinguishes the scientific method of knowing, it seems to me, is the systematic, organized, directed, and conscious nature of the process. However much we may refine and elaborate our description of the application of scientific method in some particular domain such as mathematics, logic or physics, this description remains essentially an attempt on our part to bring to ourselves a fuller consciousness of exactly how we apply our mental faculties in the course of the epistemological act within the given domain. I offer, therefore, the following heuristic definition of scientific method:

Scientific method is the systematic, organized, directed and conscious use of our various mental faculties in an effort to arrive at a coherent model of whatever phenomenon is being investigated.

In a word, science is self-conscious common sense.⁴ Instead of relying on chance happenings or occasional experiences, one systematically invokes certain types of experiences. This is experimentation (the conscious use of experience). Instead of relying on naive reasoning, one formalizes hypotheses explicitly and formalizes the reasoning leading from hypothesis to conclusion. This is mathematics and logic (the conscious use of reason). Instead of relying on occasional flashes of insight, one systematically meditates on problems. This is reflection (the conscious use of intuition).⁵

The practice of this method is not linked to the study of any particular phenomenon. It can be applied to the study of unseen forces and mysterious phenomena as well as to everyday, common occurrences. Failure to appreciate the universality of scientific method has led some to feel that science is really only the study of matter and purely material phenomena. This narrow philosophical outlook, plus the historical fact that physics was the first science to develop a high degree of mathematical objectivity, has led to a common misconception that scientific knowledge is inherently limited only to physical reality and material phenomena.

It should also be stressed that the scientific study even of material and concretely accessible phenomena involves a heavily theoretical and subjective component. Far from just “reading the facts from the book of nature,” the scientist must bring an essential aspect of creative hypothesis and imagination to his work. Science as a whole is underdetermined by experience, and there are often many different possible models to explain a given phenomenon. The scientist must, therefore, not only seek to find out how things are but he must also imagine how things might be. Developments in all branches of science during the twentieth century have led to an increasing awareness among scientists and philosophers of the vastness of this subjective input into science.

Another feature of scientific knowledge is its relativity. Because science is the self-conscious use of our faculties, we become aware that man has no absolute measure of the truth. The conclusions of scientific investigations are always more or less probable. They are never absolute proof.⁶

Of course, if a conclusion is highly probable and its negation highly improbable we may feel very confident in the results, especially if we have been very thorough in our investigation. But realization and acceptance of this essential incertitude and relativity of our knowledge is important, for the exigencies of the human situation are often such that we are forced to act in some instances before we have had time to make such a thorough investigation. It therefore behooves us to remain constantly alert to the possibility that we may, in fact, be wrong.⁷

Let us note, in passing, that a similar view of scientific method is expressed in several places in the Bahá’í Writings. In a talk delivered at the Green Acre Institute in Eliot, Maine in 1912 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá discusses the methods of knowledge or criteria of judgment available to man:

Proofs are of four kinds; first through sense-perception; second through the reasoning faculty; third, from traditional or scriptural authority; fourth, through the medium of inspiration. That is to say, there are four criteria or standards of judgment by which the human mind reaches its conclusions.⁸

‘Abdu’l-Bahá then discusses each of these criteria and shows why it is fallible and relative.⁹ He then continues:

Consequently it has become evident that the four criteria or standards of judgment by which the human mind reaches its conclusions are faulty and inaccurate. All of them are liable to mistake and error in conclusions. But a statement presented to the mind accompanied by proofs which the senses can perceive to be correct, which the faculty of reason can accept, which is in accord with traditional authority and sanctioned by the promptings of the heart, can be adjudged and relied upon as perfectly correct, for it has been proved and tested by all the standards of judgment and found to be complete. When we apply but one test there are possibilities of mistake…¹⁰

In still another passage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains the relativity of man’s knowledge in the following terms:

Knowledge is of two kinds: one is subjective, and the other objective knowledge; that is to say, an intuitive knowledge and a knowledge derived from perception.

The knowledge of things which men universally have, is gained by reflection or by evidence; that is to say, either by the power of the mind the conception of an object is formed, or from beholding an object the form is produced in the mirror of the heart. The circle of this knowledge is very limited, because it depends upon effort and attainment.

But the second sort of knowledge, which is the knowledge of being, is intuitive, it is like the cognizance and consciousness that man has of himself.

For example, the mind and the spirit of man are cognizant of the conditions and states of the members and component parts of the body, and are aware of all the physical sensations… This is the knowledge of being which man realises and perceives for the spirit surrounds the body, and is aware of its sensations and powers. This knowledge is not the outcome of effort and study; it is an existing thing, it is an absolute gift.¹¹

‘Abdu’l-Bahá then explains that the Manifestations, or Revelators, are distinguished from ordinary men in that they have the subjective (intuitive) knowledge of all things:

Since the Sanctified Realities, the universal Manifestations of God, surround the essence and qualities of the creatures, transcend and contain existing realities and understand all things, therefore their knowledge is divine knowledge, and not acquired: that is to say, it is a holy bounty, it is a divine revelation.¹²

In yet another passage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá puts the matter in the following way:

Know that there are two kinds of knowledge; the knowledge of the essence of a thing, and the knowledge of its qualities. The essence of a thing is known through its qualities, otherwise it is unknown and hidden.

As our knowledge of things, even of created and limited things, is knowledge of their qualities and not of their essence, how is it possible to comprehend in its essence the divine Reality, which is unlimited?¹³

We might try to sum up, however inadequately, the epistemological implications of these passages in somewhat the following way: human knowledge is the truth which is accessible to man, and this truth is relative because man, the knower, is relative, finite, and limited. There is an absolute reality underlying the multifaceted qualities and experiences accessible to man, but direct access to this reality, direct contact with it, or direct perception of it are forever beyond man’s capabilities. His knowledge is therefore relative and limited only to the knowledge of the various effects produced by this absolute reality. However, if man uses systematically all of the various modes of knowledge available to him, he is assured that his knowledge and understanding, such as it is on its level, will increase.¹⁴

Positivism and Existentialism

The main purpose of this brief discussion of scientific method is to suggest that a misconception of the nature of scientific method—namely that it is applicable only to more or less concretely accessible material phenomena¹⁵ and only in a relatively narrow way—has led to the general conclusion on the part of many religionists and scientists that scientific method is not applicable to religion. Depending on what further assumptions are made, one is led to two basic positions which I have labeled positivism and existentialism. There are many variants to each one of these two positions, and so these labels must be understood in a very general, heuristic way.

On the other hand, we may add to the narrow view of scientific method the assumption that scientific method (so construed) is the only valid method of knowledge. One then concludes that religion is not a form of knowledge at all but rather an institutionalized form of superstition, emotionalism, fanaticism, togetherness, or what have you. On the other hand, we may conclude rather that there are methods of knowledge other than the scientific one and appropriate to religion. Religion, in this view, is seen as so deeply private, mystical, and subjective as to be “beyond” scientific method. It is, of course, the first of these views that I have labelled “positivism” and the second “existentialism”. I would like now to discuss briefly each of these positions in an attempt to show exactly why I hold them to be mistaken.

Basically, the positivistic position regards religion as too hopelessly lacking in objectivity to be accessible to scientific treatment. It is true, of course, that the subject matter of religion is more complex than that of, say, physics because it includes more parameters. In the same way, biology is more complex than physics, psychology more complex than either and religion the most complex of all. In this sense, religion is indeed more “subjective” for the presence of many more parameters makes objectivity harder to obtain since the effort to make all parameters explicit is correspondingly much greater. Indeed, this is quite clearly reflected in the historical development of science in which first physics was developed to a fairly high level of objectivity, followed by chemistry, then biology, and now increasingly psychology and sociology.

But it is important to realize, as we have already mentioned in the foregoing, that there is an essential part of subjectivity involved in the application of scientific method in any context. Suppose, for example, that we try to eliminate the subjective element of the notion “red” by agreeing that the term shall be applied only to those objects which give a reading of thus-and-so on a spectroscope. Once this agreement is made, we may still argue sometimes about whether or not the needle really is quite on thus-and-so, and the unbeliever will go away saying that the definition was all wrong in the first place. Though parts of the total context of science may involve highly articulated objectifications, the ultimate roots of understanding lie always in collective human subjectivity and so there is always “room for argument”.

Besides appealing to explicit conventions, formal logic, and the like, positivists have tried to discredit the application of scientific method in religion by insisting on public verifiability as an essential aspect of scientific method. However, a little reflection will easily show that this restriction is arbitrary and in no wise a criterion of scientific method. I offer the following paradigm as an illustration of this point.

A biologist looks through a microscope in his laboratory, sees a certain configuration, and exclaims: “Aha, at last I have the evidence that my theory is correct!” Question: How many people in the world are capable of looking at the configuration and verifying the findings of the biologist? Answer: Very few, almost none, probably only a few specialists in his field. The fact is that the biologist will publish his findings, and a few other qualified individuals will test his results, and if they seem confirmed, the scientific world at large will accept the theory as verified. The positivist might concede this but say: “But if an individual did go through the years of training necessary to understand everything the biologist knows, then the individual could verify the statement. Thus, I admit the statement is not practically verifiable by the public, but it is theoretically verifiable.” But even this is not enough. That fact is that the positivist will be constrained to admit that a great many people may be unable, through lack of intelligence or mental proclivity, ever, in theory, to validate the result. The fact is that the findings are not verifiable by the public at all. The findings can be verified only by individuals capable of assuming and willing to assume the point of view of the researcher. In most instances, this group is a very select one indeed, drawn from those who are members of a community of understanding and who participate in a certain framework of interpretation which is applied to all those subjective experiences which fall within a certain category. More will be said of this further on.

At bottom, the criterion for truth in science is pragmatic. “Does it work the way it says it will?” is the question to be answered. If the theory says that such and such a thing must happen, then does it happen? It is by repeated application of this pragmatic criterion, interlaced with intervening theory, that we gradually build up a model of reality, a collection of true statements. We might try to formulate a general criterion of scientific truth somewhat as follows: We have a right to accept a statement as true when we have tendered it considerably more acceptable than its negation. Proof, in scientific terms, means nothing more than the total process by which we render a statement acceptable by this criterion. Such a proof remains always relative, for it depends on the total context of the statements involved, the implicit and explicit conventions concerning the meaning and operational use of symbols, the experiential component of these statements, and so on. All of these things have their ultimate roots in human subjectivity and are therefore liable to possible revision in the future.

In practice, of course, it often happens that revision comes either from strikingly new and different experiences which demand that we revise our conceptual framework in order to account for them, or else from some unexpected conclusions deduced within the framework itself and which contradict known experiences (the most radical case being that of logical contradictions). But nothing excludes the possibility that revision might come from some subtle interaction of all of these factors in a way which is totally inconceivable to us at present.

In short, I maintain that any sort of formulaic, pseudo-objective characterization of scientific method such as that attempted by various positivistic-minded philosophers cannot truly capture scientific method.¹⁶ Our description of scientific method must remain scientific, i.e. pragmatic, relative, open, etc.

Lacking any such closed, exclusive formula characterization of scientific method, there is no basis on which to limit scientific method in such a way as to exclude its application to religion. Of course, this does not mean that everything that passes for religion is scientific nor does it allow us to say what we will find if we do apply scientific method to religion. My essential contention is simply the following: no known positivistic formulations of or restrictions on the nature of scientific method and which exclude a priori the applicability of scientific method to religion, seem to be justified by the nature of scientific method itself. Furthermore, the nature of scientific method does not appear to lend itself to such formulations or restrictions.

The existentialist position derives its character more from its view of religion than from its view of scientific method. The existentialist might well accept, even readily, that scientific method cannot be applied to religion. But such a contention would not bother him (as it does me) because it only serves to heighten the difference and cleavage between science and religion. For him the very importance of religion derives from its being unsystematic, even chaotic, subjective, private, incommunicable, emotional, etc. For him, the knowledge that religion brings is a mystic or occult knowledge, communicable only to a limited extent and primary through myth, symbol, art and other forms of non-verbal activity.

One extreme form of this position would be to accept completely the positivistic contention that religion is not a form of knowledge, and to view religion primarily as an aesthetic experience of some sort. Otherwise, if religion is viewed as a form of knowledge, it is a form totally different from science, with its own methodology (or lack of methodology), symbols, experiences, etc.

Perhaps, in the last analysis, the difference between the existentialist and the positivist lies not so much in their respective views as to the nature of religion and of science but rather in their difference in attitude towards these perceptions. The positivist values science above religion and sees his narrow interpretation of scientific method, with the consequent exclusion of religion, as purifying science from the unwanted trash of emotionalism and irrationality. The existentialist values religion above science and is just as glad to see religion separated from what he feels to be the soul-stultifying dryness, uniformity, formalism, and mechanization of science. While the positivist is impressed primarily by the efficiency and achievements of science, the existentialist is impressed by the potentialities of the richness of subjective experience. This richness he sees as constituting that which is most truly human and which deserves to be most thoroughly and strenuously developed in man. Since, as he supposed, scientific methods cannot be used to develop this richness, religion must develop methods of its own different from those of science. It is to the development of such methods that the existentialist bends his efforts, and it would never occur to him to try to reconcile religion and science, something which he would regard as impossible in any case.

My sketch here of what I have labeled as the existentialist position is consciously exaggerated at some points, but the logical thrust is clear: the existentialist grants that science cannot be applied to religion, that religion is peculiarly subjective and mystical in a way that makes it necessarily unsystematic and thus inaccessible to science, and he values this subjective aspect of religion above science and its method. He is, therefore, not upset by the cleavage between religion and science (except that he may have existential difficulties living in a world which is currently so dominated by science and its fruits!).

Now, I am as impressed as anyone by the richness of subjective experience, and I certainly feel that if the practice of science, or anything else, is going to lead ultimately to a progressive impoverishment of it, then such practice is dehumanizing and should be abandoned. But I feel that the existentialist position and its variants fall into their particular view of internal experience only by neglecting seriously the collective and social dimension of religion, in short, by considering religion as something which is purely internal to the individual. It is only within such a framework that the subjective aspect of religion can be so isolated from the rest and made to seem as inherently separate from other types of subjective experience, and in particular from that involved in the practice of science itself.

We have already had occasion in the foregoing to appreciate the fact that subjective experience is intimately and irrevocably involved in the practice of science at all levels. Clearly it is more reasonable, then, to view subjective experiences as being ranged on some sort of continuum from less intense to more intense, or from less profound to more profound, or yet some other characterization. As different as may be the experience of seeing a red object on the one hand, and that of mystical ecstasy on the other, they are generically instances of subjective experience before they are specifically anything else. Moreover, the practicing scientist and the mystic, when confronted with the problem of building and communicating conceptual models of their experience, both face essentially the same logical difficulty on their level of experience. For everyone, including the scientist, knows that no amount of explication, verbal or otherwise, can ever exhaust all of the subjective richness of the experience of “red”. Our previous example of the spectroscope shows the nature of the problem involved, and we must further remember that during the long years of science’s evolution, such sophisticated conventional devices were not at hand.

Science has overcome this barrier by creating a community of understanding. Each individual scientist must undergo training of a sort which enables him to participate in the validation of the subjective experience of other members of the scientific community, when this experience falls within a certain range determined by the nature of the particular scientific discipline in question. As we have already seen in the example of the biologist and his microscope, subjective experience is never publicly verifiable. It is verifiable only by those capable of assuming and willing to assume the point of view of the one who has the experience. By maintaining a growing discipline of education and training in science, a community of qualified individuals capable of assuming and willing to assume a certain point of view is gradually evolved. This community gives a framework of interpretation to the individual practicing scientist, and it is the framework of interpretation which alone enables his own work, however brilliant or insightful, to become truly illuminating. No matter how far above the common lot of scientists an Einstein or a Newton may be, he can function significantly only in the context of such a community of understanding. If these same individuals had been born in a desert or in a tropical rainforest, their subjective experience would have fallen within another framework of interpretation and would certainly not have had the same result (though it may have been just as illuminating in its own context).

This model of the objectification of internal experience through creating a community of understanding and a consequent framework of interpretation is borne out by observation and experience, not only of the history and development of science but also of individuals. For example, case histories of individuals blind from birth who were given sight after reaching maturity indicate, as one would expect, that perception is not immediate but has to be painfully and slowly learned. Their first experience is a chaos of sensations with no discernible objects, forms, etc. Gradually, through participation in the framework of interpretation given by the community, perception is born, and order is brought out of chaos.¹⁷

The neglect of the social dimension of religion is only one aspect of the weakness of the existentialist position. Another aspect comes into focus when we further examine the comparison between the scientific view of subjective experience and the existentialist view. While our discussion of scientific method has led us to acknowledge a certain irreducibility of the subjective input into the epistemological act, it is nevertheless equally clear that our experience, however subjective, of anything, say a red object, is still an experience of something. Even the chaos of sensation that the previously sightless person experiences is a reaction of his subjectivity to something “out there”. It is not simply the mind’s experience of itself (which might be like the sensations of images one has during sleep or when one’s eyes are closed). But the existentialist glorification of the subjective amounts to treating the internal experience of the individual as the datum of religion. Religious experience is thus not viewed as an experience of anything, at least not anything other than the internal self of the individual. Insofar as religion is scientific, it would thus be indistinguishable from psychology, and this again explains the tendency to emphasize the unsystematic, unpredictable, irrational, mythic, and aesthetic aspects of religious experience, for these are the only aspects which, from such a standpoint, can be viewed as properly and specifically religious.

If such a view of religion and religious experience is to be refuted, one must face and answer the basic question “of what is religious experience an experience?” What is religion about? If scientific method can be applied to religion, then what is the datum of religion?

The Bahá’í Faith

The answer which the Bahá’í Faith offers to this central question is, or so it seems to me, particularly cogent, clear and direct. For Bahá’ís, religion is the study of the phenomenon of revelation and religious experience a response to the spirit and teachings of the Revelator or Manifestation. The Bahá’í Faith offers the scientific hypothesis that revelation is a periodic phenomenon of a period of roughly one thousand years. The large number of generations intervening between two occurrences of revelation poses obvious problems for the study of this phenomenon.

However, we cannot refuse to study something simply because the study is hard or because the data associated with it are, in some instances, accessible only with difficulty. Other natural sciences, such as astrophysics, also study periodic phenomena whose periods are much greater than a thousand years and for which the accessibility of data is likewise a problem. Simply, allowances have to be made for the fact that, because of the periods involved, careful records must be kept since the observations which a given individual scientist can make in his lifetime are too limited to form in themselves a basis for the furtherance of the science.

Let us take a brief look at the phenomenon of revelation as it presents itself to us in history, which is man’s collective experience. If we consider the great religious systems of which there still exists some extant manifestation or some historical record, we will see that each has been founded by an historical figure, a unique personage. Islam was founded by Muhammad, Buddhism by Buddha, Christianity by Jesus, Judaism (in its definitive form) by Moses, Zoroastrianism by Zoroaster, and so on. These religious systems have all followed quite similar patterns of development. There is a nucleus of followers gathered around the founder during his lifetime. The founder lays down certain teachings which constitute the principles of his religion. Moreover, each of these founders has made the same claim, namely that the inspiration for his teachings and his influence was due to God and not to human learning or human devices. Each of these founders claimed to be the exponent on earth of an invisible, superhuman, personal God of unlimited power, the creative force (creator) of the universe. After the death of the founder, an early community is formed and the teachings of the founder are incorporated into a book (if no book was written by the founder). And finally a great civilization grows up based on the religious system, a civilization which lasts for many centuries.

All of the statements of the above paragraph are statements with high empirical content and low theoretical content. These are a few facts of religious history. Of course these facts are based on records and observations of past generations. One can try to dispute these records if one chooses, but we must be scientific in any approach we make. In particular, the records of the older religions are of validity equal to any other record of comparable date. If, for example, we refuse to believe that Jesus lived, we must also deny that Socrates lived for we have evidence of precisely the same validity for the existence of both men. The records of Muhammad’s life are much more valid than these and are probably beyond serious dispute. Moreover, if we choose to posit the unreality of the figures whose names are recorded and to whom various teachings and influence are attributed, we must, at the same time, give an alternative explanation for the tremendous influence which these religious systems, elaborated in the name of these founders, have had. This is more difficult than one may be inclined at first to believe.

The major civilizations of history have been associated with the major prophetic religious systems. Zoroastrianism was the religion of the “glory of ancient Persia” the Persia that conquered Babylon, Palestine, Egypt, and the Greek city-states. Judaism was the basis of the great Hebrew culture which some philosophers such as Jaspers regard as the greatest in history. Moreover, Jewish law has formed the basis of common law and jurisprudence in countries all over the world. Western culture, until the rise of modern science, was dominated by Christianity. The great Muslim culture invented algebra and preserved and developed the Hellenistic heritage. It was probably the greatest civilization the world had seen until the rise of the industrial revolution began to transform Western culture.

We are, however, very much in the same position with respect to past revelations as we are with regard to any phenomenon of long period. We were not there to observe Jesus or Muhammad in action. The contemporaries of these people were certainly impressed by them, but these observations were made years ago and are liable, we feel, to embellishments. Even though it may be unscientific to try to explain away the influence of these religious figures, there is still a certain desire to do so. We are put off by certain obvious interpolations, and we are not sure just what to accept and what to reject.

Bahá’ís believe that man’s social evolution is due to the periodic intervention into human affairs of the creative force of the universe by means of the religious founders or “Manifestations”. What is most significant is that the Bahá’í Faith offers fresh empirical evidence, in the person of its own founder, that such a phenomenon has occurred. Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892) claimed to be one of these Manifestations and he reaffirmed the validity of the past revelations (though not necessarily the accuracy of all the details recorded in the ancient books). Here is a figure who walked the earth in recent times and whose history is documented by thousands of records and witnesses. Moreover, the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are preserved in his manuscripts and so we are faced with a record of recent date and one of which there can be no serious doubt.

The only way we can judge Bahá’u’lláh’s fascinating hypothesis that social evolution is due to the influence of the Manifestations is the way we judge any proposition: scientific method. This is the only way we can judge Bahá’u’lláh’s claim to be one of these Manifestations. We must see if these assumptions are consistent with our knowledge of life as a whole. We must see if we can render these assertions considerably more acceptable than their negations. In the case of Bahá’u’lláh, we have many things which we can test empirically. Bahá’u’lláh made predictions. Did they come true? Bahá’u’lláh claimed Divine inspiration. Did he receive formal schooling, and did he exhibit power and knowledge not easily attributable to human sources? He insisted on moral purity. Did he lead a life of moral purity? In his teachings are found statements concerning the nature of the physical world. Has science validated these? He engaged in extensive analysis of the nature of man’s organized social life. Does his analysis accord with our own scientific observations of the same phenomena? He also makes assertions concerning human psychology and subjectivity and invites individuals to test these. Do they work? The possibilities are unlimited.

Of course, the same criteria can be applied to other Manifestations, but the known facts are so much less authenticated and so restricted in number that much direct testing is not possible. This does not disturb Bahá’ís because they believe that, essentially, there is only one religion and that each of the successive revelations is a stage in the development of this one religion. The Bahá’í Faith is thus the contemporary form of religion and we should not be surprised that it is so accessible to the method of contemporary science. Christianity and Islam were probably just as accessible to the scientific methods of their day as is the Bahá’í Faith to modern scientific method.

This relative inaccessibility of data concerning the older religions should not be taken as in any way lessening their importance or value relative to the Bahá’í Faith. The Bahá’í view is that of the absolute unity of religion, not the superiority of one religion over another for whatever reason.¹⁸ Nevertheless, if one is talking about applying scientific method to religion, problems such as that of the authenticity of ancient records must be frankly faced and seen in their true light. They must be neither exaggerated out of proportion nor swept under the rug as if they did not matter. Indeed, the best of modern Biblical scholarship, both Christian and Jewish, has been undertaken in this scientific spirit. If it has resulted, in some instances, in the undermining of certain traditional beliefs, it has more fundamentally served to clarify and enlighten the faith of truly informed students of religion. If the doubtfulness of a few passages of the Bible has been exposed, the validity of the basic text has been vindicated (as for example by the corroborative version of Isaiah in the Dead Sea manuscripts).

Each religious system has been founded on the faith in the reality of the phenomenon of revelation, and those people associated with the phenomenon felt fully justified in their faith. But as the influence of religion declined and the facts of revelation receded into history, the sense of conviction of the reality of the phenomenon subsided, and this was only natural as we have seen. It is therefore important to realize that the Bahá’í Faith offers much more than new arguments about the old evidence for the phenomenon of revelation. It offers empirical evidence for the phenomenon and it is frank to base itself on this evidence and to apply the scientific method in understanding the evidence. So much is this so, that I would unhesitatingly say that the residue of subjectivity in the faith of a Bahá’í is no greater than the residue of subjectivity in the faith one has in any well-validated scientific theory. Just as in the example of the biologist and the microscope, the findings of a Bahá’í can be verified by anyone willing to assume and capable of assuming the point of view of a Bahá’í.

According to Bahá’u’lláh, the social purpose of religion is to create an adequate spiritual basis for the progressive unfolding of an ordered social life for mankind. Indeed, as one examines the history of mankind, one can perceive the gradual ordering and re-ordering of man’s collective life on ever higher levels of unity, each new level maintaining the integrity of the previous ones and, at the same time, calling forth from the individual a correspondingly greater degree of altruism and other-centeredness. The family, the tribe, the city-state, and the nation can be seen as significant steps in this social evolution. The first two of these successive stages can be identified in a large measure with the respective revelations of Abraham and Moses, while the latter is due essentially to Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam.¹⁹

Bahá’u’lláh explains that, besides the general mission of renewing the spiritual life of men and society, each religion has a specific mission which accomplishes a definite step forward in the total evolution of mankind. He views his own revelation as being the most recent in this succession and as having the unification of mankind as a whole for its specific mission.²⁰

As one thinks about this progressive unfoldment of human society, one comes to see certain aspects of its mechanism. To begin with, it is clear that unity on one level can eventually become disunity on another; the unity of the family can coexist with disunity between families, for example. When the new level of unity is first attained, it represents a positive step, but the very accretion of power and the increased mastery resulting from the reorganization of society on this higher level can ultimately lead to tensions among these higher order units themselves. This may happen years or centuries, or millenia later, but when it does happen, the suffering caused by these tensions becomes increasingly unbearable and serves as one of the factors generating the motivation to accomplish the next stage of unity. That is, the individuals participating in the social system in question develop a strong sense of, and a need for, the higher unity.²¹

This higher unity is effected not by the suppression of the existing units, but rather by their being harmoniously organized into a higher unit—the unity to the tribe is the unity of families, the unity of a race that of tribes, the unity of a nation that of races, etc. Indeed, the attainment of unity on the lower level has been a necessary prerequisite to its establishment on the higher one. In the same way, Bahá’u’lláh envisages world unity as being a unity among nations, with a world government, a world tribunal, a single auxiliary universal language, and a world economic system.

Just as a tree must push its roots deeper as it grows higher, so must each external step forward have an internal concomitant. The individual must, at each stage, become less self-centered. He must give his loyalty to and identify with an ever-widening circle of his fellow humans. Whereas “brother” first meant physical brother, it gradually came to mean fellow Jew, fellow brother in Christ, fellow countryman, and must ultimately mean fellow world citizen. There is, in short, a gradual increase in the consciousness of the individual, and it is this new consciousness which alone allows the new unity, the new external step forward, to take place on a spiritual basis. This new depth of individual spiritual awareness also serves to increase the quality of unity at all levels. In this way, the creation of the new unity is not a superficial juxtaposition of parts or a purely formal restructuring, but rather a renewal of the whole of the society, and indeed the only way the society can be so renewed at that given stage in its development. Thus Bahá’u’lláh teaches that the establishment of world unity will lead to the perfecting and deepening of the quality of life at all levels of society.

This model also explains why we cannot wait for the lower levels of society to become perfect before working on the establishment of world unity (such an objection of the Bahá’í goal of establishing world unity is frequently heard). The interdependence of the part and the whole is too great for such a piecemeal approach to succeed. Bahá’u’lláh explains that mankind is like a body whose cells and organs are the individual human beings and the smaller social units. If the whole body is ill, every single cell will be affected in some way. At the same time, the whole body suffers to some extent from even a few unhealthy cells. Thus, in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, there are provisions for the organization and restructuring of society on a world level, and there also provisions for the perfecting of social organization on the local and intermediate levels, as well as manifold spiritual aids for the individual in his own effort to spiritualize his life and attain to a new, more universal, consciousness.

Indeed, the individual aspect of religion is just as important and essential as the global, social aspect. This individual component was the point of departure for our whole discussion and so I would like to return to it in closing this essay.

For Bahá’ís, the individual, internal aspect of religion is a direct response to the datum of the Manifestation, his spirit and teachings. It is not simply the mind’s experience of itself or some form of autosuggestion. This is why scientific method can be applied even in this aspect of religion. In the Bahá’í Faith, the individual component of religion takes the form of daily prayer, communion with God, meditation on the words of Bahá’u’lláh, and a constant effort to express one’s developing spirituality through service to mankind. Among the many individual attributes which Bahá’u’lláh mentions as characteristic of the spiritually-minded individual are humility, obedience to the will of God, justice, love, abstention from backbiting and criticism of others, regarding others with a sin-covering eye, and preferring others to oneself in all things.

Bahá’u’lláh stresses that personal spiritual development, the experience of self-transcendence, and the mystic, sense of union with God—all of which have been described and discussed in the world’s mystic literature—these are the fruits only of conscious and deliberate search and struggle. They are not haphazard experiences which we can casually cajole from the universe. They must be consciously sought and practiced as diligently as any scientific or academic discipline. Scientific method, the conscious, systematic, organized, and directed use of our mental faculties, must be employed if we are to be successful in developing spirituality.

Of course, to say that spirituality must be consciously and systematically sought does not imply that it can be reduced to any formula practice, any more than science itself can be so reduced. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has expressed it simply:

Everything of importance in this world demands the close attention of its seeker. The one in pursuit of anything must undergo difficulties and hardships until the object in view is attained and the great success is obtained. This is the case of things pertaining to the world. How much higher is that which concerns the Supreme Concourse!²²

In contemplating the application of scientific method to individual spiritual practice, let us again recall that science never leads to total or absolute objectification of internal experience, for such a thing is simply unobtainable. Moreover, the quality of internal experience involved in the pursuit of spirituality will clearly be infinitely richer than that connected with most other types of activity. In this perspective, emphasis on the aesthetic and the mythic is legitimate, important, and useful, for the gap between any descriptive models of such experience and the experience itself will be correspondingly greater than in other areas, though the basic method remains unchanged.²³

Religion is primarily a form of knowing, but the relativity and limitations of our knowledge will be felt even more keenly here than elsewhere. Indeed, it is this self-knowledge, the acute consciousness of these very limitations, which constitutes an important part of our knowledge of God. One of the profoundest truths that the mystic discovers is that the ultimate goal is, not to comprehend, but to be comprehended. The deepest knowledge is attained by the profoundest awareness of our own relative ignorance. Bahá’u’lláh expresses this important truth in the following terms:

Consider the rational faculty with which God hath endowed the essence of man. Examine thine own self, and behold how thy motion and stillness, they will and purpose, thy sight and hearing, thy sense of smell and power of speech, and whatever else is related to, or transcendeth, thy physical sense or spiritual perceptions, all proceed from, and owe their existence to, this same faculty… Wert thou to ponder in thine heart, from now until the end that hath no end, and with all the concentrated intelligence and understanding which the greatest minds have attained in the past or will attain in the future, this divinely ordained and subtle Reality, this sign of the revelation of the All-Abiding, All-Glorious God, thou wilt fail to comprehend its mystery to appraise its virtue. Having recognized thy powerlessness to attain to an adequate understanding of that Reality which abideth within thee, thou wilt readily admit the futility of such efforts as may be attempted by thee, or by any of the created things, to fathom the mystery of the Living God, the day Star of unfading glory, the Ancient of everlasting days. This confession of helplessness which mature contemplation must eventually impel every mind to make is in itself the acme of human understanding, and marketh the culmination of man’s development.²⁴

Since, in the Bahá’í view, internal religious experience is not simply the self’s experience of itself, but is a direct response to the datum of the Manifestation, there is consequently a need for a constantly accessible focal point towards which the individual can turn in his pursuit of these individual spiritual goals. This indeed is one of the reasons for the periodic nature of the phenomenon of revelation. Although something of God’s nature can be said to be revealed in every aspect of creation, clearly the force and importance of such a revelation are conditioned by two things, namely, the inherent limitations of the instrument used as a vehicle of revelation, and the accessibility to us of the occurrence of revelation.

Man himself is the most highly-ordered and subtle phenomenon in all the universe known to man. It would thus seem logical that man would be the most perfect available (i.e. least limited) instrument as a vehicle for God’s self-revelation. Hence, the Person of the Manifestation.²⁵ The necessity for the repetition of revelation derives from the condition of accessibility. The length of the period between occurrences, on the other hand, derives from the social nature of religion as described in the foregoing. Simply, it takes a certain time for a Manifestation to become known, His system to become established, and for the specific purpose of His revelation to be accomplished.²⁶

The knowledge of the Reality of the Divinity is impossible and unattainable, but the knowledge of the Manifestations of God is the knowledge of God, for the bounties, splendours, and divine attributes are apparent in them. Therefore, if man attains to the knowledge of the Manifestations of God, he will attain to the knowledge of God; and if he be neglectful of the knowledge of the Holy Manifestation, he will be bereft of the knowledge of God. (Some Answered Questions, p. 257–58.)

Conclusions

I feel that the Bahá’í view of religion is exciting in its fundamental assertion of the universality and accessibility of religion and religious experience to the enquiring mind. The existentialist view of religion, as well as other subjective views, see religious experience rather as something which cannot (and perhaps should not) be cultivated, practised and sought systematically. Rather it must strike like lightning for reasons which are never wholly clear or else as the result of some magical or occult practice. Clearly no experience of such an erratic and unstable nature could ever serve as the basis for a progressive society.

Positivism and its variants limit unduly the application of scientific method and fail to see that the essence of the method can be applied to all phenomena and to all aspects of life, including the spiritual.

The ultimate resolution of the religion-science opposition is thus based on a balance and complementarity between the two, involving a better understanding of the nature and universality of scientific method on the one hand, and of the nature and content of that datum which is the phenomenon of revelation on the other. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has expressed admirably the nature of this balance in the following words:

Religion and science are the two wings upon which man’s intelligence can soar into the heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not possible to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try to fly with the wing of religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of superstition, whilst on the other hand, with the wing of science alone he would also make no progress, but fall into the despairing slough of materialism… When religion, shorn of its superstitions, traditions and unintelligent dogmas, shows its conformity with science, then will there be a great unifying, cleansing force in the world which will sweep before it all wars, disagreements, discords and struggles—and then will mankind be united in the power of the Love of God.²⁷