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Man's Spiritual Nature |
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Man's Spiritual Nature |
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Baha'i religion claims that all manifestations (founders of major world religions) share a common spiritual basis for their original teachings but that subsequent generations of their followers invariably corrupt their teachings. They are said to always end up by gradually moving farther and farther away from the purity of the original teachings. Thus, claims Baha'i religion, we see differences amongst the world religions that were never intended by the originators. Since this is observable, according to Baha'i religion's view of unity amongst world religions, across the wide spectrum of world religions and historically across the many eras in which various world religions were first begun, and within the many cultures around the world, it must then be viewed as a universal human phenomenon. People systematically (regressively/ degeneratively) corrupt the teachings of the "manifestation" according to this Baha'i doctrine.
I wanted to look at some specific quotes from the major Baha'i leaders to investigate this theory for it has been presented often in my discourse with Baha'is.
Abdul Baha, in Some Answered Questions, has much to say about mankind's universal corruption of legitimate religion.
pg 16,
"Moreover, in the days of Christ the morals of the whole world and the condition of the Israelites had become completely confused and corrupted, and Israel had fallen into a state of the utmost degradation, misery and bondage."
pg 27,
"Baha'u'llah appeared at a time when the Persian Empire was immersed in profound obscurantism and ignorance and lost in the blindest fanaticism.
In the European histories, no doubt, you have read detailed accounts of the morals, customs and ideas of the Persians during the last centuries. It is useless to repeat them. Briefly, we will say that Persia had fallen so low that to all foreign travelers it was a matter of regret that this country, which in former times had been so glorious and highly civilized, had now become so decayed, ruined and upset, and that its population had lost its dignity."
pg 165,
"The beliefs and rites of the Buddhists and Confucianists have not continued in accordance with their fundamental teachings. The founder of Buddhism was a wonderful soul. He established the Oneness of God, but later the original principles of His doctrines gradually disappeared, and ignorant customs and ceremonials arose and increased until they finally ended in the worship of statues and images." ...
... "It is, therefore, clear and evident that the Religion of God does not maintain its original principles among the people, but that it has gradually changed and altered until it has been entirely destroyed and annihilated.
pg166,
"So it is with religions; through the passing of time they change from their original foundation, the truth of the Religion of God entirely departs, and the spirit of it does not stay; heresies appear, and it becomes a body without a soul."
These quotes more than describe a general and universal principle. Mankind always degrades the message of the prophet over time. Additionally, this reminded me of another quote I had read. According to George Townshend, a Baha'i apologist who clearly represents the Baha'i outlook in his book Christ and Baha'u'llah,
"Christ's spiritual mission was, at an early date, materialized, specifically in regard to such things as miracles, curing the blind and deaf, raising the dead. Even His own resurrection was made physical, missing the point entirely."
Thus we can see that this corruption is not to be viewed as a drawn out degeneration over a long period of time, or one by only the false religious experts in open contention with the manifestation, but it includes those who are closest to that manifestation even during his lifetime. All people degrade the teachings of the manifestation away from his original intention according to Baha'i doctrine. Religion always becomes corrupt over time due to mankind's regressive behavior.
Baha'u'llah also says this. Baha'u'llah says from the Kitab al Iquan,
"Not one single Manifestation of Holiness hath appeared but He was afflicted by the denials, the repudiation, and the vehement opposition of the people around Him."
He then goes exhaustively through virtually every major religious founder from every time and culture showing that mankind universally and with consistency behaves the same, and it isn't good. Mankind, he says, universally rejects the prophet, always has, always will. In the Kitab l Iquan Baha'u'llah points out this degenerative principle by which all manifestations messages become invariably corrupted with time.
Pg 70,
" The heart must needs therefore be cleansed from the idle sayings of men, and sanctified from every earthly affection, so that it may discover the hidden meaning of divine inspiration... "He that treadeth the snow-white Path... shall never attain unto his abode unless his hands are empty of those worldly things cherished by men."
That which is "cherished by men", and on principle, must be struggled against for it threatens to corrupt the teachings of the manifestation according to these sayings.
Abdul Baha, Baha'u'llah, and George Townshend all observe that mankind universally degenerates the truth in every "dispensation" to the "utmost degradation", "lost in the blindest fanaticism", "decayed, ruined and upset", truth being "entirely destroyed and annihilated", all religions becoming "a body without a soul". Thus is explained the "apparent" differences amongst the world religions, and the hidden unity amongst their various founders. Spiritual regression.
It suddenly occurred to me at this point however, that the implications of this principle, which is used to justify the blatant differences amongst the world religions, boldly contradicts the other Baha'i doctrine of progressive revelation wherein we are supposed to be spiritually "evolving" to ever higher planes of "enlightenment". And so I felt I needed to investigate that principle as well. From Selections From the Writings of Abdul Baha, we read,
pg 31,
" In cycles gone by, though harmony was established, yet, owing to the absence of means, the unity of all mankind could not have been achieved. Continents remained widely divided, nay even among the peoples of one and the same continent association and interchange of thought were well nigh impossible. Consequently intercourse, understanding and unity amongst all the peoples and kindreds of the earth were unattainable. In this day, however, means of communication have multiplied, and the five continents of the earth have virtually merged into one. And for everyone it is now easy to travel to any land, to associate and exchange views with its peoples, and to become familiar, through publications, with the conditions, the religious beliefs and the thoughts of all men. In like manner all the members of the human family, whether peoples or governments, cities or villages, have become increasingly interdependent. For none isself-sufficiency any longer possible, inasmuch as political ties unite all peoples and nations, and the bonds of trade and industry, of agriculture and education, are being strengthened every day. Hence the unity of all mankind can in this day be achieved."
He points out the technological potential of our day as "advanced" and affording the unprecedented intellectual, technological potential for unity and peace, but he cites no evidence of spiritual advancement. On the contrary, his model of the spiritual side of man, as shown before, is one of universal corruption in every age. Technological/ intellectual advancement is not the same as spiritual advancement. Anyone can see that evil is quite often brilliant in its shrewdness and cunning.
pg 111,
"See how, in this day, the scope of sciences and arts hath widened out, and what wondrous technical advances have been made, and to what a high degree the mind's powers have increased, and what stupendous inventions have appeared. "
Once again, this only models man's technological progress, not his spiritual condition, which he has formerly told us always corrupts religious truth.
pg 285,
"Praise be to God, throughout succeeding centuries and ages the call of civilization hath been raised, the world of humanity hath been advancing and progressing day by day, various countries have been developing by leaps and bounds, and material improvements have increased, until the world of existence obtained universal capacity to receive the spiritual teachings and to hearken to the Divine Call. The suckling babe passeth through various physical stages, growing and developing at every stage, until its body reacheth the age of maturity. Having arrived at this stage it acquireth the capacity to manifest spiritual and intellectual perfections."
But the only examples ever relayed in the doctrine of spiritual progression are intellectual/technological, never spiritual. Any time the spiritual is mentioned in terms of specifics, it is according to the contradictory principle of spiritual degeneration of religious truth.
He goes on to say, "... in the contingent world, the human species hath undergone progressive physical changes and, by a slow process,hath scaled the ladder of civilization, realizing in itself the wonders, excellencies and gifts of humanity in their most glorious form, until it gained the capacity to express the splendours of spiritual perfections and divine ideals and became capable of hearkening to the call of God."
What happened to the idea that mankind always corrupts the teachings of truth? Where does this sudden vision of mankind "scaling the ladder of civilization" come from when we are simultaneously told that mankind has always corrupted the religious truth in every age to the point where it became, "entirely destroyed and annihilated"? If we are to accept one theory over the other we would have to observe that the only support given for the progressive doctrine is intellectual/ technological which is certainly not a definition of spiritual evolution.
Baha'u'llah describes a model of spiritual evolution in his Covenant
pg 405,
"In every Dispensation, the Manifestation of God has promulgated a number of teachings and ordinances which may be described as the framework of that religion. These teachings have been designed by God to bring about the advancement of people who have embraced them. They are always adapted to suit the condition of the people, and are given in accordance with their capacity. As a result of the application of these teachings in their lives, the members of a religious community grow and acquire higher levels of understanding and development. In the course of their progress they eventually reach a position where the teachings of their religion no longer adequately satisfy their spiritual and mental needs. When the teachings and laws of a religion become outdated, when they are no longer practicable in a new age, the followers have arrogated to themselves the right to amend or alter these teachings so as to make them conform with new conditions prevailing at the time."
But this seems oblivious and contrary to the general principle he has stated wherein, "Not one single Manifestation of Holiness hath appeared but He was afflicted by the denials, the repudiation, and the vehement opposition of the people around Him." Or Abdul Baha's comment that, "It is, therefore, clear and evident that the Religion of God does not maintain its original principles among the people, but that it has gradually changed and altered until it has been entirely destroyed and annihilated." Either mankind progresses spiritually, or he degenerates from truth. It cannot be both. Both sides of this Baha'i doctrinal contradiction simultaneously define the basic nature of the human spirit with doctrinal principles for basic human behavior that are opposite. Doctrine A says mankind always corrupts the truth and thus is allegedly seen the "seeming" differences amongst religions. Doctrine B contradictorily says that mankind evolves by nature to ever higher levels of spiritual enlightenment and thus is supposedly explained the higher and superseding revelation of Baha'u'llah. Notice, however, that the argument for progression never gives spiritual evidences, but only intellectual.
Abdul Baha, in his Some Answered Questions, gives an eloquent description of the spiritual principles by which mankind operates. This model is at variance both with an idea of spiritual degeneration or progression, setting up a vision of mankind caught up in an endless cycle. He says on pg 74,
"... the day of the appearance of the Holy Manifestations is the spiritual springtime .... Spirits are quickened; hearts are refreshed and invigorated; souls become good.... General progress is achieved and revival takes place... Afterward the life-giving spring ends in fruitful summer. The word of God is exalted, the Law of God is promulgated; all things reach perfection... The Sun of Reality rises from the horizon of the Kingdom with the greatest power and heat. When it reaches the meridian, it will begin to decline and descend, and the spiritual summer will be followed by autumn, when growth and development are arrested. Breezes change into blighting winds, and the unwholesome season dissipates the beauty and freshness of the gardens... ...virtues are replaced by vices, and holiness and purity disappear. Only the name of the Religion of God remains, and the esoteric forms of the divine teachings. The foundations of the Religion of God are destroyed and annihilated, and nothing but forms and customs exist. Divisions appear, firmness is changed into instability, and spirits become dead; hearts languish, souls become inert, and winter arrives--that is to say, the coldness of ignorance envelops the world, and the darkness of human error prevails. After this come indifference, disobedience, inconsiderateness, indolence,baseness, animal instincts and the coldness and insensibility of stones. It is like the season of winter when the terrestrial globe, deprived of the effect of the heat of the sun, becomes desolate and dreary. When the world of intelligence and thought has reached to this state, there remain only continual death and perpetual nonexistence.
When the season of winter has had its effect, again the spiritual springtime returns, and a new cycle appears. Spiritual breezes blow, the luminous dawn gleams, the divine clouds give rain, the rays of the Sun of Reality shine forth, the contingent world attains unto a new life and is clad in a wonderful garment. All the signs and the gifts of the past springtime reappear, with perhaps even greater splendor in this new season."
Now he says that the "new season" will bring "even greater splendor" but he gives us no reason to suppose this to be true. In fact, he has set up a model wherein it would be unreasonable to presume it. If, as he says, the spiritual "Winter" reduces mankind to the lowest ignorance and degradation of truth, then he has set up a model that shows a repeating cycle from light to utter darkness, not a model of gradual progressive evolution. Either we succumb to "indifference, disobedience, inconsiderateness, indolence, baseness, animal instincts and the coldness and insensibility of stones", and thus have to start all over at some point, or we progress by stages through time, gradually advancing. It cannot be both. He describes a cycle, but contradictorily slips in the concept of progression at the end.
So it seems that Baha'i religion chooses "Spiritual progression" as its doctrine when it is done eliminating the world religions differences through the principle of spiritual degeneration that has corrupted them. Now we are to believe that mankind, on the contrary (and by principle) naturally progresses spiritually. Why change horses midstream on a basic doctrine? Because now there is needed a principle by which Baha'u'llah may say that all former manifestations had a lesser revelation for a mankind less spiritually evolved. Then, mankind, by nature, corrupted truth over time. But now, mankind is a being of spiritual evolution who has spiritually "advanced" and is ready to accept the "perfected" revelation of Baha'u'llah. Baha'i religion, in this instance, uses doctrinal principles that presume to explain seperate doctrinal issues, disregarding the fact that when set beside one another, they utterly contradict one another on a fundamental principle, mankind's spiritual nature. We may choose between a general doctrine of spiritual degeneration (that explains the world's "apparent" religious differences through mankind's corruption), a model of spiritual progressive evolution (by which mankind "ascended the ladder of civilization" and is now ready by virtue of his "advancement" for Baha'u'llah's "supreme" revelation), or a model that tries to show both a closed cyclical loop, and the concept of progressive spiritual evolution both at the same time.
The Christian perspective would be to say that human nature is sinful, fundamentally. This Scriptural viewpoint would find truth in the idea that man tends to corrupt truth spiritually, though it would certainly disagree that this reveals any common equality amongst world religions. In consistency with man's sinfulness, we must then simply reject the contradictory notion of spiritual evolution used to promote Baha'u'llah as "supreme" manifestation for an "advanced" age. We must reject concepts of man's nature as being "neutral". We must reject relative spiritual truth. Truth, like man's nature, remains a constant. We are sinful in this world, needy of grace beyond our imagining and it is equally true for all men of all ages. According to Scripture the ultimate and final revelation of God's greatest quality, His personal and sacrificial compassion, is expressed "once for all" through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. One may believe or not believe. But the Christian message is consistent. It does not carry the doctrinal warning signals of internal contradiction, such as the fundamentally contradictory Baha'i doctrinal outlook(s) on man's spiritual nature.
The Baha'i concept of progressive revelation assumes that we are today "advanced" spiritually, thus able to receive Baha'u'llah's allegedly advanced revelation. According to this Baha'i concept of progressive mankind has supposedly advanced sufficiently to where the unity of mankind is "possible". Thus the Baha'i "lesson" for today is said to be the one prophesied in all of the world's religions but which could not have been accepted or applied before this time.
But if mankind has spiritually progressed to the point of being able to receive such a lofty revelation as Baha'u'llah's (said to be "perfected" and "final"), what then are we to think of the Serbian conflict? How about the Tutsis and Hutus? Are the Jews and Arabs "advanced" anywhere near the point where the unity of mankind is possible as this concept suggests of humanity? What would oppressed blacks in the rural Southern US think of this outlook concerning mankind's present state of spiritual "advancement"? Does it ring true when we consider todays street gangs and juvenile crime? How would the oppressed in China who suffer under an oppressive atheistic regime feel about this proposal asserting humanity's "advanced" state of spiritual readiness? The "untouchables" in India would loudly dissent. The survivors of the Murrow federal building bombing in Oklahoma City surely don't see things through the foggy fantasy proposed of an enlightened Baha'i humanity who was allegedly ready for Baha'u'llah's "perfected" revelation. In fact, the whole fundamental proposition is actually ludicrous in the post 9/11 world environment. Baha'u'llah proposed the idea even 150 years before the World Trade Center towers fell at the hands of religious extremists who are more widely supported in the Islamic world than we would like to imagine. Sadaam Hussein and Mohammar Khadafi? The drug lords in South America and the corrupt military regimes that have concerted with them to "disappear" millions there? Cambodia's killing fields under the infamous Kmer Rouge? Enlightened "advanced" humanity???
And where Baha'u'llah is concerned we can go back beyond our present moment in time. He, after all, already made this Baha'i claim in the 19th century. What advancement in humanity as Hitler and his Nazis burned 6,000,000 Jews? What of the the millions who disappeared in Russia beneath Uncle Joe Stalin's communist heel? What would the men who still wake up screaming in the night with Vietnam nightmares say of this idea of man's spiritual "advancement". Surely in just these few observations we can see that the Baha'i concept of mankind being spiritually "advanced" in its theory of spiritual evolution is not a concept in agreement with God's Truth or a pragmatic observation of history.
There is yet another aspect of the Baha'i doctrine for progressive revelation that is critically revealing of misguided thinking. Obviously, if one is to accept a concept of progressive revelation, it must coincide with a concept of mankind as a creature of spiritual evolutionary progress. Otherwise the rationale for progressively greater doses of spiritual truth given out only as mankind becomes ready and able to receive it loses its validity. In trying to demonstrate visible proofs of the progressive basis for mankind's spiritual nature however, it is vital to notice once again that the Baha'i writings mistakenly equate mankind's technological progress with spiritual growth and it is a false presumption. The only evidence given in the Baha'i writings to try to support the concept of mankind as a spiritually progressive creature along the continuum of human history is intellectual-technological, which is NOT the same as spiritual progress. Even the historic advancement of social and political systems does not demonstrate moral "spiritual" advancement of the species.The common man is as predisposed to the exact same vices today as he has ever been in the past. The never ending need for any society's perpetual attempts to constantly refine Civil Law and the inadequacy of its administration in really predictably meting out justice across overwhelming case loads is the testimony of a yet fundamentally sinful mankind.
Scripture, for example, never tries to equate mankind's technological ability or potential with mankind's spiritual capacity. In fact, in 1Corinthians Paul goes to great length to specifically separate the two, telling the Christian that the worldly wisdom of the Greeks will look upon the "message of the Cross" as if it were superstitious nonsense. This is just the criticism we find in what Baha'is tell us about the Resurrection of Jesus, and, as Paul observes, we can expect it.
It is also observable that in passages like this one in which Paul predicts the negative reaction of the unbeliever to the literal intention of the Gospel Message, that the message itself is unquestionable intended to be taken literally. For passages like the one just cited from 1Corinthians stand independent from the stories of the events themselves, reflecting upon them with the obvious assumption that they were to be considered real, literal events, not spiritualized symbolism as Baha'i teachings assert.
Doctrinally, Baha'i theology confuses the difference between intellectual knowledge and advancement, and Spirit led faith knowledge that is able to accept the "power of God" beyond "words of (human) wisdom".
We see this misunderstanding play out in the Baha'i concept of mankind's technological progress somehow being automatically equated with evidence of spiritual evolution. We observe that wars go on as violently as ever, the social fabric of our country (the cohesion of family) is in a process of degeneration, juvenile crime is on the rise, and the post 9/11 Islamic world is on a path of violent collision with that of the Semetic/Christian world, and yet Baha'i doctrine tells us we are just now seeing the dawn of a spiritual age that promises the advent of world peace through evolved spiritual advancement? I am reminded by this kind of thinking of the perspective Barbara Tuchman brings to bear as a scholarly historical expert of society and culture in the Middle Ages. She observes in her History of medieval Europe, A Distant Mirror.
"For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use."
She is in agreement with Scripture in that she recognizes that spiritual evolution across the eras of human history is non existent. Baha'i theology, in its desire to build a case for spiritual progress, observes the ever advancing "technical capacity" of mankind, but it ignores the glaring evidences of a profound, non trivial, lack of "spiritual capacity" of mankind.
Baha'u'llah tells us we are destined to "eliminate extremes of wealth and poverty" in the world. Christ tells us that in this world the "poor will be with us always". They are certainly both telling us what we will find, but it's not the same thing. Baha'i religion would like us to believe that Christ's words refer to the "spiritually poor". But that interpretation distorts the necessarily primary intention of the verse in its proper context. Given that context, the only way Christ could have had the SOLE meaning Baha'i interpretation wants to attach to it, is if He had purposefully deceived those He was speaking to.
At Matthew 26:7 we read,
"A woman came to him (Jesus) with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor." Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me."
Obviously we can rightly give a double meaning to Jesus' last proclamation here. Given the basic sinful nature of humanity he obviously could ALSO be taken to mean that spiritual poverty will always be in the world. The main point though is to observe that it is, at least, a DOUBLE MEANING, He is definitely and literally speaking specifically also of the materially poor of the world. In this world Jesus tells us, (in direct response to the Apostles indignant anger over money that could have been used to feed the materially poor), the "poor" (materially poverty stricken), will ALWAYS be with us. Yes, Jesus is telling us here what we will find if we seek. And it is 180° opposite what Baha'u'llah tells us about "eliminating" extremes of wealth and poverty. Now don't think that either I or our Lord Jesus are trying to defend poverty. It is merely a realistic, natural, and predictable observation given the basis of man's sinful nature, as opposed to the Baha'i perspective that is blind to that basically sinful nature and wrongly teaches that out of a neutral basic nature mankind spiritually progresses over time.
We can certainly say that the more man progresses technologically and affords himself more material abundance and creature comforts, the more content he may become within his material illusion of security. This is not spiritual progress. It is giving the wolf a bone to keep him at bay. And even this doesn't really keep the wolf at bay. For even technologically "advanced" mankind often displays wholesale social, economic and political greed as if he had nothing.
We have the opportunity here in the United States of America to see how a "primitive" society (the American Indians) were immorally abused and virtually obliterated mercilessly by a European based society who used its overwhelming "advancement" (along with age old greed for material gain in land and gold), in ways that negate the validity the Baha'i concept. These things happened even as Baha'u'llah was busy proclaiming a "supreme" revelation for an "advanced" age. Red Cloud and Captain Jack (the Modoch chief) would have angrily disagreed with his theory of man's "advancement". (Read Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee) They saw the exact opposite principle destroy their people ruthlessly with technological and intellectual superiority they could neither understand nor withstand. They did understand the spiritually immoral injustice though. They understood the double standards of the white man's "justice" and they often expressed themselves more as dumbfounded than angry at the corrupt, dishonest, and dishonorable wickedness of these "advanced" people who were destroying them. How odd that these "primitive" "savages" so often had honesty and integrity far beyond the whites who shrewdly used those very simple and trusting qualities unscrupulously against them. The "cave men" who have little power and sophistication abuse little for they are are tempted in little, though their spiritual potential for it is no more or less than "sophisticated" man. Sophisticated man is just more dangerous. Technological and intellectual advancement have only revealed man's shrewdly sinful nature in the abuses and advantage taking that have always sprung from it. Good has come as well, of course, from technological advancement. But the vital observation here is that such "advancement" is as employed by the dark side of humanity as the enlightened. And to just what degree may we attribute a corporate "enlightened self interest" even in the "good" offered by technological advancement? Even in the moral good for humanity that results from technological advances, "Agape" need not be seen as a necessary motivation. Evolutionary advancement of high moral, spiritual, relgious principles is not needed to explain why man wants to develop means of affording himself more creature comforts or to struggle to ward off the plagues of his most terrifying enemies, sickness and death.
Take an evening, get some popcorn, and rent the film Forbidden Planet starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis and Leslie Stewart. The moral to the story in this wonderful 1950's Sci-Fi classic sends the same message in the melodramatic medium of Science Fiction. The example of the "Krell" in this film is a beautiful case in point. With the naive and suicidal excitement of a child who has found its father's gun in the closet, this "advanced" race of aliens had ascended to such technological, psychological levels of advancement that at the point of their techno-intellectual critical mass, when they finally made the ultimate leap intellectually and technologically, they discovered all to late the "monsters from the ID", the "mindless primitive" that still yet dwelt somewhere within them. It too had become empowered. As the story goes, they became extinct within the first night of their benevolently intended ascendance. The lesson of this science fiction story has its basis in human fact. It is our sinful nature that both makes Baha'u'llah's vision of a man made Paradise in this world an illusion, and his concept of spiritual "advancement" by way of intellect and technology, spiritual suicide.
Again, that is not to say that good never comes from technological advancement. God's Spirit is at work within the world of humanity. But there is simply no basis in attributing to mankind any theory of spiritual evolution from technological or intellectual advancement. The patterns in history show at least as much destructive abuse spiritually from civilization's "advancement" as good. There is certainly no evidence of evolved progression when the tendency to abuse power moves right along with the development of it through time.
But, if Baha'is insist that we "evolve" spiritually, then how can they justify contradictory assertions such as that of Abdul Baha who in Some Answered Questions says that,
"It is, therefore, clear and evident that the Religion of God does not maintain its original principles among the people, but that it has gradually changed and altered until it has been ENTIRELY destroyed and annihilated.
...So it is with religions; through the passing of time they change from their original foundation, the truth of the Religion of God ENTIRELY departs, and the spirit of it does not stay; heresies appear, and it becomes a body without a soul."
Again, these quotes more than describe a general and universal principle. Mankind is said to always ENTIRELY degrade the message of the prophet over time. You can't support progressive spirituality and these sayings too. Either we "progress", or we always sink back to the bottom (truth being, as he says "entirely destroyed and annihilated"). Thus, obviously, we would have to start all over at some point from the beginning. One observes that I just said that the Baha'i who believes in progressive revelation boldly digresses from what Abdul Baha is teaching in these quotes where he is speaking of man's universally degenerate nature. The point is that he obviously ALSO teaches progressive revelation elsewhere in his teachings. And so, he too is in bold disagreement with himself when we compare what he says about the two mutually exclusive concepts. My point has been to observe that if one is going to assert a basic driving principle for human spiritual behavior, then one needs to show consistency with that idea throughout one's paradigm (belief system). Baha'i theology doesn't.
Baha'is have responded at times to this line of reason with an interesting rebuttal. They assert that the advent of Jesus, as a Christian counter example, also shows both progression and degeneration. They assert that Judaism even today continues in degeneration while the progression of Christianity that came out of it was evident and was just beginning and continued to progress for 600 years before becoming the state religion.
But it is immediately obvious to anyone who has read the Baha'i writings that, as a Baha'i, one cannot say that Christianity, as a religious movement, could ever have been viewed as being "progressive" according to established Baha'i doctrine, and certainly not for 600 years, much less 2,000. It is against what Abdul Baha says about the degeneration of religions. For Abdul Baha tells us that ALL religions IMMEDIATELY begin to degrade the message of the "manifestation", thereby presumably explaining the "seeming" differences amongst the world's religions. This is exactly what we find when we see Baha'i writer William Sears tell us on page 67 of his book The Wine of Astonishment that,
"The Apostles and later followers believed that the parable of the vineyard demonstrated the validity of the mission of Christ the Son in representing God. Christ's symbolized explanation of the relationship between Messenger and God was taken literally."
This seconds Abdul Baha's principle as it tries to specifically explain away those New Testament passages that can't be made to fit the hypersymbolism of Baha'i scriptural interpretation. We are told that even the New Testament authors were already corrupting the true intentions of Jesus. Thus we see that even from Christianity's outset (or ANY religion's outset according to this degenerative principle), there are firm Baha'i doctrines that disallow it, or any other religion, to EVER really be seen as progressive (except, of course, the Baha'i religion that contradicts the whole principle in its own self defining application of its concept of progressive revelation). Only the manifestations themselves are said to hold to truth by this doctrine. Mankind always and immediately corrupts their truth according to this side of the contradictory doctrinal coin. Otherwise, (without the immediacy of this degenerative principle), Baha'i theology would be faced with, and have to concede, the many real and fundamental differences across the world religions that are reflected in their earliest expressions, even by their earliest and most intimately involved expositors. Baha'i theology would lose its rationale for explaining away what it calls the "apparent" or "seeming" differences amongst the world religions. Of course, when we observe the implications of this (for example in how it catches Baha'is contradicting one Baha'i doctrine when attempting to shore up the other), we see the horrible problem of recognizing how this doctrine makes it impossible to justify that other side of the doctrinal coin that promotes a general principle of spiritual progression. Abdul Baha has told us that there isn't any progression but instead universal degeneration and that's why the world's religions "seem" to be different. Elsewhere he conveniently forgets this and speaks of spiritual progression. But the sensitive reader who is on an independent search for truth must recognize the inescapable and horrible clash of doctrines.
This Baha'i argument that says that anyone can see both bad and good influences within the world of humanity running concurrently is thus flawed. Observing that different groups of people behave or believe differently is not the same thing as these two differing Baha'i doctrines that attempt to teach us that the human creature, on principle, has both regressive and progressive basic spiritual natures, both at the same time. Showing that there are good and bad influences that run concurrently in the world does not justify the nature of this clash in Baha'i doctrine that gives mutually contradictory defining principles for the same concept at the same time. Christian doctrine obviously recognizes the simultaneous influence of good and evil in the world. It sees the nature of mankind as basically rebellious and sinful (regressive), but it sees the good in the world not as "progressive" but as the result (in human terms) of personal yieldedness to God's Spirit of truth that works good through us, despite our sinful natures. And even the possibility of our yieldedness to God against a sinful nature is only possible by God's supernatural Grace. And, this is according to the acceptance or rejection of God's longstanding eternal truths, not relative ones. God is the source of all good things, not man. It is human pride that would have it be otherwise. This lack of "progression" as a valid spiritual dynamic for mankind is confirmed in the observation that sin is sin because we have ALWAYS been responsible for knowing God's objective, eternal spiritual truths. This is clearly stated in Romans 1:20, a Scripture I cite frequently as it is so topical to the Christian/Baha'i dialogue,
"... what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities- His eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
Thus, it is the doctrine of spiritual evolutionary progression that is the cancer within the Baha'i clash. The Baha'i concept that man is only responsible for relative amounts of truth based upon his level of spiritual evolution is untrue. In this discussion one should notice that this concept of progressive revelation is the one I have spent the most time considering. The opposite, contradictory Baha'i notion of man's utter and universal spiritually degenerate corruption of religious truth is closer to the real truth about man's basically sinful nature. Though it does not prove the genuine commonality of world religions as Baha'i theology teaches, it is true that man is corrupt and tends, by nature, to pervert the truth. Thus, as seen in the denominationalism of Christianity, there is always a need for reform. One notices that the Baha'i concept of man's degenerate corruption of all religion is not only contrary to any idea of progressive revelation, but it is also contrary to the espoused Baha'i belief that mankind's spiritual nature is basically neutral. The Baha'i doctrine of man's universal corruption of all religion is the side of this contradictory Baha'i theological coin that tends to lean more in the direction of the Scriptural concept of man as a basically sinful creature by nature.
We read from 'Abdu'l-Baha's Promulgation of Universal Peace, pages 109-110) that evil can be seen to always keep pace with good through human history. This has devastating results for any theory of progressive spiritual evolution that supposedly would lead to an enlightened one world government and religion. If, as Abdul Baha has said, evil always keeps pace with good along the continuum of mankind's material progress, then the enlightened Baha'i paradise becomes a naive pipe dream necessarily corrupted by human evil at any point in time. Worse than this, this pipe dream looks only at the "good" potential that can admittedly come from world unity, but is totally blind to the reality of how the corrupt potential inherent within such unity WILL definitely play itself out as it "keeps pace" with the good. Think about it. By principle it is a suicidal error of self blinding. It is rushing headlong into the lion's den, refusing to concede that a hungry lion (a Hitler) awaits its lunch there. How powerful will the element of total surprise be that awakens many far too late? Baha'is say that Christians are on thin ice predicting global gloom and destruction out of the Baha'i message of peace. The pre-war Neville Chamberlain tried to say the same thing about Hitler.
Baha'is have observed how the followers of Christ have had 2000 years to "fix things" in the world. Why haven't they? Baha'is submit that the time was not yet. Christ, and therefore Christians, they say, were not to usher in the new era.
But let's look at that Christian message that Baha'is so accurately point out has not in 2,000 years negated the influence of human nature in the world. The Christian standard says to love your enemies, be "blessed" as a bringer of peace, be generous and consider other's welfare before your own. Now if ever there was an opportunity to observe a perfect "message of peace" that demonstrates the impossibility of a worldly Baha'i utopia this is it. For the Christian's message is no less one that teaches "peace" than the Baha'i. So why indeed haven't they "created" that peaceable Kingdom? For the same reason Baha'i religion won't. Because, as Jesus told us, the Kingdom is NOT of this world. Because, as Jesus told us, "in the world you will have great tribulation". Because, as Jesus told us of the present world, "The poor will be with us always." Because, as all of Scripture says (and opposing Baha'i doctrine of a neutral state for human nature) mankind is, by nature, sinful. There already exists a perfect message of peace, that has been in place for over 2,000 years, that has revealed consistently mankind's sinful inability to implement such a plan of peace. Baha'is have every opportunity to see a clear example of why Baha'i religion is dangerously naive in its proud and "holier than thou" assumptions concerning it's ability to do what Christianity has not. As Abdul Baha observes in his Promulgation of Universal Peace, "...in material civilization good and evil advance together and maintain the same pace." And by that very principle, even though he immediately contradicts it in his vision of a worldly Baha'i paradise, he observes the principle that negates the validity of that Baha'i vision of a man made paradise. The point here is that if the Christian message of peace did not work to build God's paradise on earth neither will the Baha'i. Anyone who is honest can look out into today's world and see the same corrupt human influence that one has been able to observe throughout the history of humanity, actively at work, with equal ferocity, today. I won't bother to recite the headlines that reflect it from virtually every corner of the globe. It is simply not God's plan that God's paradise be built in this world with sinful human hands. Christ's message was not so naive as to think it would be. I submit that Baha'i religion will not erase human nature in this worldly realm, and the history of Christianity in it (and very life of Jesus Christ in it), and today's contemporary expressions of man's evil bent toward sinful corruption are all proof positive of it. When he wants to, Abdul Baha agrees, evil "keeps pace" with good in the world. He just doesn't mind utterly contradicting himself. The time will never be right for the Kingdom until Christ returns in glory, and the worldly realm is utterly, and quite literally, replaced, by God, with a realm akin to the glorified resurrected body of Jesus Christ. This is Scriptural. It is not Baha'i.
But let us take a closer look at the quote just cited of Abdul Baha from the Promulgation of Universal Peace. From pg 109;
"...in material civilization good and evil advance together and maintain the same pace... ...although material advancement furthers good purposes in life, at the same time it serves evil ends.
...If the moral precepts and foundations of divine civilization become united with the material advancement of man, there is no doubt that the happiness of the human world will be attained and that from every direction the glad tidings of peace upon earth will be announced."
Once again, Abdul Baha has established another ongoing universal principle; evil and good always follow one another equally along the time continuum. In the full quote he gives examples. Then suddenly, with no explanation, he has ignored the principle, presuming a world where the evil he formerly said progresses right along with good, conveniently vanishes? The key word to watch for in Abdul Baha's quote is the "if" in his vision of unity (<IF> the moral precepts and foundations of divine civilization become united with the material advancement of man...). For "if" his former principle is true about the parallel advancement of evil and good, then there is no possibility of his latter statement.
In addressing the concept of progressive revelation, Baha'is must assume that mankind's spiritual state improves with time and that God must constantly "update" truth. In this they contend with God's singular plan according to Scripture. Read at Romans 5:17,
"For if, by the trespass of the one man (Adam, whom Baha'is oddly consider a "sinless" manifestation contrary to Scripture), death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through THE ONE MAN, Jesus Christ. Consequently, just as the RESULT of one trespass was CONDEMNATION FOR ALL MEN, so also the RESULT of ONE ACT of righteousness was justification that brings life for ALL MEN. ...just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD."
This solidly Scriptural foundation of Jesus Christ's mission cannot be accepted by Baha'i ideology. The exclusive station the Bible proclaims for Jesus through His Messiahship as a singular Salvation for ALL men who are lost without it, is a timeless and unchanging problem with a timeless and unchanging provision. It leaves no room for Baha'u'llah as a bringer of higher and more advanced revelation. All men are doomed in sin according to Scripture. All men are saved, if saved they be, through Jesus Christ of Nazareth according to Scripture. Period. It is admitted that one need not accept this. But for a religion whose fundamental tenet is to presume that all religions are really the same, it becomes a terminally fatal truth to allow Scripture to say what it intends to say. Scripture says that Baha'u'llah is wrong both because its intended message disagrees with his doctrines, and because in disagreeing it reveals the falsehood of his trying to homogenize the world religions into one common melting pot.
According to all of Scripture this human soul, empowered in its creation with the free ability to choose and shape its own spiritual reality and destiny, exists in a fallen state of basically sinful rebellion. The liberating creative power we have been given, being made in God's image, that enables us to know and choose, is somehow more than we can handle. And so we find ourselves fundamentally separated from God's pure holiness, and lost without the yielded embracing of a rescue from some holier realm outside ourselves. His intercession. Offered through Jesus Christ. For in Christ's sacrifice God revealed His holiest attributes in the depth of His love and compassion for us, a defining of highest love that is ultimate, singular and epitomizes the fullness of God's holiness and goodness, patience and compassion, "once for all", and especially extended to us "while we yet did not deserve it". The mission of the Messiah, however, is wasted by us, ruined and meaningless to us, if the desperate condition of our spiritual hopelessness apart from it is not acknowledged, and we view ourselves as uneedy of God's rescue. There is no sense of need or appreciation for such a compassionate sacrifice for those who feel independently capable of rescuing themselves. One who refuses to accept it allows for no rescue. And one who in pride misses God's spiritual sacrifice of rescue completely misses the greatest living attribute of His ultimate and highest expression of true spiritual love. All of what Christ commands of us is wrapped up in what He did as Messiah. God reveals Himself in that act more fully than at any other time. Not as a teacher, but as a living sacrifice.
All of humanity stands as God's enemy in sin. For if we say that we do not sin then the truth is not in us. Yet God loved His enemy, even as Jesus commands us to love our enemies, by rescuing those who will accept His interceding sacrifice on their behalf. For even upon the cross Christ said of those who were torturing Him to death, "Father forgive them". Accepting what all of this means indicates that we acknowledge the truth about ourselves. It indicates that we recognize and accept the ultimate model of God's expression of love. It is the fragrance of true and humble submission to God's way, apart from our way. And Jesus tells us, "This is life, to know Him. (the Father)" Without faith in and understanding of the Mission of Christ as the Messiah one cannot really know Him. And all of us need this spiritual rescue from our carnal selves. If we still stubbornly and pridefully refuse to relent our independence in faith in it and dependence upon it, there is revealed in us that willful and rebellious heart of the carnal nature of man who would turn away the Messiah, accepting Him only as a messenger or teacher, and thus maintaining personal control of their destiny at the cost of Salvation.
Yet from page 71 of Effendi's Gleanings we find that Baha'u'llah insists that the mission of Jesus (and all "Manifestations") is to build our righteousness by human effort alone;
"His (God's ) 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 (heaven)."
But In Matthew 11:11 Jesus says,
"I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."
In this, Christ clearly tells us that the holiest living that men can do "by virtue of their own innate powers" falls far short of their ever reaching the shores of the "Most Great Ocean". The true person of God cries out "Lord I am not worthy to receive you", and knows that he cannot count on his deeds as a badge of justification for himself before the purity of God. Let no man who stands before God be so foolish as to ask for "justice", for he will be condemned by it. But let him instead ask for mercy, and he will be saved! But if we will not accept God's mercy through Jesus offering now, then too late we will find ourselves before God's judgment seat in that day, having depended upon justice.
On one side of this observed contradiction between Baha'i doctrines of man's spiritual progression vs regression, the following quote lends an interesting reflection on the Baha'i concept of progressive revelation. It is from the forward of Barbara Tuchman's History of medieval Europe, A Distant Mirror. Though she is not a recognized Baha'i "manifestation", or even a theologian, she is a recognized expert scholar of life in the middle ages and her conclusion after years of in depth study of its people; their joys and struggles, their tragedies and triumphs, their holy labors and their wicked sinfulness, is worthy of the attention and the respect of we who are lesser scholars. She thereby represents an authority along the lines of Baha'i doctrine that would tell the Baha'i believer that "science and the intellect of man" (she being a major historical scholar) is worthy of attention. She observes;
"The interval of 600 years permits what is significant in human character to stand out. People in the Middle Ages existed under mental, moral, and physical circumstances so different from our own as to constitute almost a foreign civilization. As a result, qualities of conduct that we recognize as familiar amid these alien surroundings, are revealed as permanent in human nature. If one insists upon a lesson from history, it lies here..."
Thus, she is in agreement with Scripture to the extent that she recognizes that spiritual evolution along the way of man's path in history is non existent. Men behave now when confronted with moral dilemmas as they always have, and as they always will in this world. She observes that medieval man in his surroundings so "alien" to our own, was easily different enough from us in circumstance and outlook for us to be able to test the idea of spiritual evolution and see that it is false. To use a more spiritually authoritative quote from Scripture; 1Corinthians 10:13,
"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man."
Another observation concerning this Baha'i doctrine of progressive revelation is that it requires, by direct association, that several things be true of basic human nature. It must follow from such a doctrine that, 1) mankind evolves over time to ever higher levels of spiritual enlightenment, on principle, and, thus, 2) the basis of mankind's spiritual nature must be, at worst, neutral, not sinful. Only in this way could one argue, as the progressive line of Baha'i doctrine does, that through "education" man "progresses" over time to greater "enlightenment" leading to salvation through his own "innate powers" (to use Baha'u'llah's term). Thus we see a doctrine of justification before a perfect God by way of human achievement.
When we consider this Baha'i perspective that tells us that we may strive to "attain to the shores of the most great ocean" by way of our own "innate powers", we get a universally devastating result according to Scripture. For no one will arrive before the judgment seat of God in a "worthy" state due to their "good deeds" according to Christ. God's scale of worthiness vs unworthiness, "holiness" vs "unholiness", justice paid, vs justice owed, is completely different than That of Baha'i theology which is insufficient according to His standard of utter perfection. According to Scripture, if we stand before God according to the scale of justice, no one will make it to that most great shore, "heaven". Everyone will owe God such a horrendous debt because of our spiritual distance from His pure righteousness that we will not be able to be in His holy presence. Outside of the purifying grace provided by Christ's Redeeming intercession through His death and Resurrection all men owe unpayable spiritual debts to God. Let's look at some Scripture verses that give us some idea of Jesus' concepts of justice, responsibility, and righteous justification before God at our death.
In Matthew 5:21 Jesus says,
"You have heard it said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to the judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to the judgment."
The crime, we should concede, is one we are all obviously guilty of. Even one who might pridefully say, "I have never killed anyone." But Christ removes any such justification from every man. Why would He make such a seemingly severe point? After all, a person grows angry with his brothers almost without choice and before he realizes it. Jesus' point is to show that by the Law no one will be justified before God. Galatians 2:16 is one of many scriptures that assert this truth;
"Know that a man is not justified by observing the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the Law, because by observing the Law no one will be justified."
Jesus makes the same point in His proclamation of the Law's implications for us concerning adultery. One might assert not to have ever literally committed physical adultery. But Jesus said in Matthew 5:28,
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
This almost seems a severe indictment. Yet, just as in the case of murder, Jesus is trying to show us, no matter how painful it may be, that the way to Salvation is only by way of the cross and Resurrection, and that "good deeds" will never be good enough to redeem us from sin. We are basically sinful creatures.
No mere mortal person can keep the Law. That is Jesus' point and in that way does He primarily come to us as a teacher. He does not come as a teacher of the Law that we might be justified by the keeping of it. On the contrary, He tells us that according to the Law of God's moral righteousness we are lost and unable to hold up to it. Baha'u'llah, on the other hand, asserts on page 71 of Shoghi Effendi's Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah;
"His (God's ) 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 (heaven)."
In as much as Christ is a teacher, it is to point us in the direction of the absolute need for the cross of God's Grace in every person's life. His teaching is diametrically opposed to Baha'u'llah's concept that men can "attain" Heaven by way of their own "innate powers".
And so there is a genuine and fundamental difference here on a major spiritual concept; the spiritual principal by which one can get to heaven. However, for the Baha'i religion to remain valid , (according to its own doctrine of religious unity), there can only be trivial, inconsequential variations that represent cultural differences or mankind's level of "advancement", and cannot affect basic universal aspects of religion that must all be the common truth of the One unchanging and eternal God. It is indisputable by any standard of interpretation that in the Gospel Christ's entire focus is on His role as Messiah. It is equally indisputable that through His own words His clear intention was that we must be "saved" through faith in His sacrifice on our behalf without which our best righteous works are "as filthy rags" before God. Whether you believe this Christian concept or not, it still presents a legitimate major and irreconcilable difference in religious dogma that renders the Baha'i concept of universal commonality in religion invalid. Either we must be saved, apart from works, by faith in the mystery of Jesus' death and Resurrection, or we can "ascend to the Most Great Ocean" by virtue of "our own innate powers", and we don't necessarily need Jesus' sacrifice any more than the hardships of any other "Manifestation" It cannot be both.
Jesus point is to show us that no living person in this world, even the greatest man of God, or a mighty prophet, is holy, or even able to be justified as acceptable in a minimally worthy way, by heaven's standard. He tells us that no mere mortal in this world is a greater man than John the Baptist but that even he, in his nature as a carnal being, was less than the least of those in the Kingdom of heaven. Even John was not made holy enough by his "goodness" to enter there.
In John 7:19 Jesus directly tells the Jews, and all of humanity as well,
"Has not Moses given you the Law? Yet not one of you keeps the Law."
Christ is indeed a teacher. He reminds us of God's righteousness and tells us to take up a cross; to struggle faithfully for God against an ungodly nature so that a new nature might grow within us. But He also tells us that the old flesh nature cannot be transformed or destroyed by good deeds. It remains within us a corruption unto death. It is a terminal disease for which we have no cure. But God offers us a cure. This message of God's cure is Jesus' real message as a teacher. More importantly though, Christ not only comes to teach us God's plan for our healing, but comes as the balm of healing itself.
Paul reveals in the third chapter of Romans how all of Scripture is in agreement with this concept. Romans 3:10,
"As it is written: 'There is no one righteous, not even one; There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tonguespractice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes."
This quote draws from Psalms 5, 10, 14, and 53, Isaiah 59 and 78 and Ecclesiastes 7:20. Mortal man is unable to stand righteous before God. He stands condemned in sin. God Himself spoke this truth about Man when He said in Genesis 8:21;
"Never again will I curse the ground because of Man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood."
Romans 3:21 gives God's solution to Man's dilemma and states once and for all the prime mission of Jesus Christ;
"But now a righteousness apart from the Law has been made known, to which the Law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."
We are justified and able to be in harmony with God only through faith in Christ's atonement. But to arrive there one must travel the path along a whole progression of belief, from first realizing in humbleness the truth about one's basically sinful nature, to then accepting the humility of Christ that cuts away from that worldly ego and its prideful self centeredness. Then one is finally able to receive the gift of Faith in His true mission as Savior. For Christ saves us not as a teacher of the Law, but as a "sacrifice of atonement" to deliver us from it. Paul tells us in Romans 3:19 that the Law is intended to show us that first step toward the true Christ;
"Now we know that whatever the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the Law. Rather through the Law we become conscious of sin."
According to Scripture, no teacher of God's moral code can give us knowledge, wisdom or enlightenment by which we can learn to become righteous before God. This is biblically clear but contrary to Baha'i doctrine. Christ as a mere mortal "Messenger" in common with others who came to teach us how to behave is in no way sufficient for Man's Salvation. It wouldn't even have made sense for Jesus to have come as a teacher of the "Law" to the Jews. For they had the Law given to Moses, one that Jesus Himself said not one jot of would change until the end of the world. It would have been illogically redundant for that to have been Christ's mission.
Paul gives us more insight into God's Law of righteousness and Man's nature in Romans' 7:7;
"Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the Law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the Law had not said, 'Do not covet'... I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death... We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I do I do not want to do, but what I hate to do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the Law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out... What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
Now observe that Paul does not call upon Salvation from Jesus as a teacher who gave him moral principles to live by. For Paul clearly shows that he already knows and honors the Law as good. He is saved from his "body of death" in the face of his inability to obey those laws of righteousness by faith in God's great personal sacrifice on his behalf; God's perfect compassion through Jesus the Son. For Man's sinful nature is condemned by the revelation of God's moral purity, not justified by it. The giving of God's pure truth of righteousness should first reveal to us the basic corruption of human nature so that we can then realize the true value of Jesus as our Messiah who alone can rescue us from it. Only with this realization can we come to Peter's great and inevitable conclusion in John 6:68;
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe that you are the Holy One of God."
The words of eternal life were not the commandments of God's morality. Without Christ's sacrifice they are words of death for us. The words of life were the true message of the Messiah who would deliver us from the corruption in us that the Law reveals in us. This truth is concisely summed up in 2Corinthians 5:20;
"... We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be a sin offering for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."
If we see Jesus as a teacher and Messenger of moral do's and don'ts we have no more than Moses offered by way of the Law and there is no New Covenant. But in the Holy Scriptures there is a New Covenant and in Jesus much more is offered than the Law. Christ comes to teach us that we need His divine intervention. And divine it must be, for as the Scriptures show us that "all have fallen short of the glory of God", only God Himself could become the perfect sacrifice acceptable to forgive our sins once and for all.
This is not to say that we can give up doing good and depend on Christ's Salvation to save us from willful and lazy unrepentance. As we have seen, the Law is good, and sin is truly evil. Jesus tells us, 'If you love me you will follow my commands'. He told the woman at the well, 'Go and sin no more'. Romans 3:31 tells us,
"Do we nullify the Law by this faith. Not at all! Rather we uphold the Law."
For with the freedom Christ gives us, this rescue of immeasurable worth, we find that we have a greater, not lesser responsibility. Freedom always works that way. When we come to realize the incredible sacrifice and suffering Jesus took upon Himself for us, "even while we yet did not deserve it", we then have a far more joyful and urgently thankful motivation to do good than in pridefully struggling on our own, trying to ascend to God's perfect holiness apart from Jesus' Salvation. We realize that Christ gave Himself whole to be broken for us while even the most tortured martyr gives himself, broken in sin, to be made whole. Our faith will produce good fruit if it is genuine. But that fruit is the evidence of our faith. It is not our Salvation. To carry the analogy further we might say that everyone has bad fruit on their tree because of sin. Faith in Christ brings good fruit to the tree. But the greater joy that faith brings us is in the promise that He will rid our tree of every blight so that all its fruit will forever be pure and luscious in the righteousness He bought for us at the cross.
This is a radically and fundamentally different Jesus and different Bible than the one created by Baha'i doctrine. The Baha'i theory that, through symbolism, inner truths are "unsealed", is taken as license to strip Jesus of His prime objective and the exclusive deity by which He accomplishes it. But the Baha'i religion cannot accept Jesus as the biblical Messiah because as "Savior of all Mankind" He cannot be reduced to a level common with other "Messengers" and thus, the pan world religious theory would crumble. "Stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel", they say by way of contentious doctrines. But the Bible and Christ's own testimony about Himself show Him to be the one and only true Savior of Mankind. If we are to lay any claim to the biblical prophecy concerning the Messiah or its fulfillment in Jesus Christ our Lord, we cannot hold to these Baha'i beliefs that ignore or contradict Christ's true mission as universal Messiah/Redeemer.
Baha'is respond to by saying that while Scripture may seem to claim that human beings cannot, "by virtue of their own innate powers" be saved, that the freedom to choose Christ in and of itself demonstrates the exercising of an innate power in human beings? Do we not, after all, have the choice to accept or reject Christ? Do we not all have the ability to think, to choose and to act?
But this line of argument becomes a game of rhetoric. Naturally, one could falsely argue that a person who CHOOSES to be "born again" has made that decision of his own "innate powers". Indeed, without an independent freedom to choose we cannot be responsible for sin. But this simplistic viewpoint is incomplete and leads to false conclusions about what our "innate abilities" really are, if we don't look at what is entailed in coming to the point of making that decision. For the Christian who "decides" to accept Jesus Christ as Savior does so, actually in a moment of desperate revelation, through the very realization that the best of his "innate powers" falls far short of ever hoping to make it. Being born again is a SURRENDER to a higher, purer power. Not an actualizing of our own innate power, but an abandoning of it to allow the greater power of God's Spirit to work through us. Baha'i doctrine does not mean this. For if it did it would recognize the true and exclusive value of Jesus Christ as Savior Messiah. It would "count everything as loss (Baha'u'llah notwithstanding) compared to the all surpassing greatness of knowing Christ (The Scriptural Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth)". It would not presume that we can indeed go all the way to the shores of the most great ocean by virtue of our own innate power. For if indeed the Christian uses any of his "innate powers" in his deciding to follow Christ, it is right then and there that he abandons any further foolish hope of "attaining to the shores of that most great ocean" by way of them. At that very point when he accepts Christ as Messiah Redeemer he surrenders his eternal destiny to God's grace through Jesus death and Resurrection on his behalf. The greater part of coming to the point of decision to accept Christ is in the realization that our "innate powers" at best only hope to produce "filthy rags" (to quote Scripture).
Several other perspectives that come out of discussion with Baha'is are important to mention in closing. For example, Baha'is try to justify this clash between regressive and progressive Baha'i doctrines for man's nature in the following way. They will say that, despite what both Baha'u'llah and Abdul Baha have taught about the degenerative way mankind always treats religious truth, Baha'u'llah has promised in his "covenant" that his own "Day" will not be "followed by Night". That is, the Light that Baha'u'llah has brought will not be corrupted. The next Messenger will expand upon it and renew it but Baha'u'llah's revelation will not fall into the "Winter-type state", so universally taught concerning ALL other dispensations.
Though Baha'u'llah has certainly made this promise, it flies in the face of Abdul Baha's universal model of cyclical spiritual regression and progression (Answered Questions pg 74). It contradicts the established principle by which ALL of religion is supposed to operate. That is, that mankind ALWAYS and in EVERY dispensation corrupts the message of the messenger. Baha'is are quick to point Abdul Baha's model out as a currently operating principle when they defend the historic and current rejection of Baha'u'llah's "revelation" in the world of his own day and that of contemporary world religion. Baha'i leaders themselves SPECIFICALLY lament Baha'u'llah's sorrowful persecution at the hands of fundamentalist Islam as direct evidence of this degenerative nature of mankind where the rejection of "new" religious revelation is concerned.
Yet now Baha'u'llah "promises" that His revelation will not be corrupted? We see that his "promise" was neither kept during his day, or after (as far as his intended message being "corrupted" by human rejection like other "manifestations have been). And he himself laments the fact! Even if one believed that he was the "manifestation" of a higher "dispensation" that he claimed, one would also have to recognize the concrete reality of mankind's rejecting of it (Abdul Baha's "Winter State") in keeping with that other model's application as it is said to have pertained to all the former "dispensations". In the fact that both Abdul Baha and Baha'u'llah go to great lengths in their writings to draw as similarities, the historic rejection of past religious founders with the same fundamental patterns of human behavior with respect to rejection of Baha'i religion, we see yet another terrible double standard of internally contradictory teachings. Baha'u'llah has made a promise that Abdul Baha and even he himself proved was unkept according to other, mutually contradictory, Baha'i teaching!
There appears the sudden need for Baha'u'llah not to have to live within the principles he has established for all other dispensations, and in fact, the supposed basic behavioral principles he had established for all of humanity. He arbitrarily contradicts the modus operendi formerly established for all other dispensations. And he arbitrarily mutates and reshapes the basic operating principles of human nature with capricious abandon. Before, mankind always corrupted the message of the manifestation, on principle. Now, Baha'u'llah flatly promises that this is not to be so. The double standard is blatant.
And if Baha'u'llah promises that his revelation, his dispensation, will not be corrupted, will not fall into a Winter State, how then can we accept those words from pages 109-110 of Abdul Baha's Promulgation of Universal Peace?,
"...in material civilization good and evil advance together and maintain the same pace... ...although material advancement furthers good purposes in life, at the same time it serves evil ends.
...If the moral precepts and foundations of divine civilization become united with the material advancement of man, there is no doubt that the happiness of the human world will be attained and that from every direction the glad tidings of peace upon earth will be announced."
If the same dynamic of evil ALWAYS keeps pace with man's progress, then it was as much alive in Baha'u'llah's dispensation (and today....and tomorrow) as it ever was in any former "manifestation's" dispensation. Not only is there no good reason to suppose it to be any different for Baha'u'llah, it becomes impossible for his promise to be true according to established Baha'i doctrine. Evil always keeps pace with good and so the same alleged expression of it in corrupting the message of the messenger has no legitimate reason to suddenly disappear. That is, unless you can picture a world where evil does not corrupt???
Another Baha'i response has been common in discussion. Despite the definitive observations I have brought into the discussion, the accusation has often been evasively made that I simply don't "understand" the writings. Until Baha'is begin to recognize the objective nature of these doctrinal contradictions within their theology, it is going to be easy to accuse unbelivers of not understanding Baha'i doctrine. If I argue that Baha'u'llah cannot be rationally considered as the bringer of an advanced revelation by a belief system that teaches mankind as being regressive spiritually by nature (a Baha'i doctrine), I get the Baha'i progressive spiritual evolution argumentation in the rebuttal. But if I say that the world's religions have definitively objective differences, I'll find myself arguing with the Baha'i doctrine that says mankind is basically spiritually regressive as an argument to justify the world religion's "seeming" differences! Baha'is are right. I cannot understand a religious system of belief that is incoherently rife with internal contradictions on basic spiritual doctrines. I don't think Baha'is are poor teachers as they often humbly apologize to me. I think it would be impossible to make the confusing mass of contradiction comprehendible in its sum, without keeping the separate clashing doctrines that make it up hidden from one another in their own little separate doctrinal closets. That, however, is basic spiritual dishonesty.
From a Scriptural-Christian perspective it is admittedly hard is to disinvest oneself from this present world. That is the underlying fundamental for one who would walk in Christ's footsteps. This, Baha'i religion certainly does not do. As Baha'is know, their philosophy tells them (page 95 of Gleanings from the writings of Baha'u'llah) that, "It is not his to boast who loveth his country, but it is his who loveth the world."
For Baha'i religion, Christ's command to die to the worldly becomes distorted into a call to fully invest oneself in it, intending us to become like God, the builders of Paradise, the builders of self righteousness. Somewhere in the past is left an anachronistic Christ hung upon a cross for naught while the Baha'i, New Age world busies itself in its prideful religiousness, no longer needy in its own eyes for His merciful intercession. For Baha'i belief, mankind is his own messiah, his own savior. For the Baha'i, Christ's is an outdated "dispensation" and nothing of His Sacrifice is left as relevant for modern mankind.