Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
According to answers.com, Bahais regard the Universal House of Justice as infallible.
Quote:
“The Baha'i Faith is the first religion to have its administrative outlined and defined by the Prophet-Founder in the revealed scripture. Baha'is regard the Universal House of Justice as infallible because Baha'u'llah stated that it would be. ”
http://www.answers.com/Q/Who_are_the_Baha'i_religious_leaders
Well, we understand that we need Jesus to save us from our sins and from God's wrath. Jesus died on the cross for this, for us. This is my general answer. Also, Jesus sent Paul to turn people "from the power of Satan to God" (in Acts 26:18); so, I would say we need to be saved so we are safe from how Satan's evil spirit can effect people.The question then is saved from what?
what, for one example, do you find is an essential Bahá-í idea which is not already in the Bible? I mean something about how to become spiritually in real love, and how to relate with God, and how to love any and all people the way Jesus wants. I don't mean outward reform things like how views on slavery might have changed, for an example of what I don't mean. What have you discovered in Bahá-í writings which you find is spiritually and personally essential, but which is not already in the Bible?
Thats a little bit disingenuous. The Bahai view of Christ is not incompatible with the Bahai Faith and likewise the Islamic view of Christ is not incompatible with Islam, but the Christian view of Christ is incompatible with both and they are incompatible one to the other. It depends how you see Christ.That is okay, just so long as Baha'u'llah and Christ aren't incompatible.
This is Baha'i terminology. What we refer to as major prophets are generally called Patriarchs in Judaism. It is what Deut. refers to as "a prophet like unto Moses" and goes on to say that none of the prophets which followed Moses were like him as they did not see God face-to-face. Of course Acts places Jesus in that same station and we would agree.
Thank you for making yourself . . . yourselves . . . clear on thisYou may not "mean reform things like how views of slavery might have changed..." but the "reform things" are very important to us.
Oh my . . . may be I should be glad I did not visit. I have lived in ignorance that this was going on, even in Washington D.C. I knew a man who was Afro and he cooked for my uncle's high-end boys mountain climbing camp. He told me he never encountered race problems against himself. It seemed like he was actually clueless about what, ever, people were talking about. I guess we managed to live in another world. My grandmother had a sit-down with me, about how God loves all His children.If you visited Washington D.C. in the early fifties as I did you would recall the segregation there... separate drinking fountains and bathrooms for "coloured" and "white"...Separate lunch counters.. Separation on buses... We had separate times of day when "coloured" and "white" people could swim...
Bahais do not believe in running for office or holding public office. Arthra implied that in his reply to my comment about their headquarters being at Mt. Carmel in Israel. I've heard it from other members of the Bahai Faith as well.
If the Bahai Faith has anything positive to say to us, I see their policy on not running for office as a dead end.
The Crux of Christianity is the Atoning Sacrifice and Resurrection of Jesus, this is integral to the view of Jesus and all tenets of the religion, but this is absent in amongst the Bahai and all other Jesus-revering but non-Christian religions.
Yes, but this is not the same as Christianity (as Smaneck made clear in a post preceding the one you quoted), which teaches an atonement for all sins forever more and resurrection based thereon. You and Smaneck have explained your positions well in these threads and unfortunately the concept of Manifestations is incompatible with Christian Atonement. These instances quoted therefore clearly has different implications than the Christian view.You may be unfamiliar as yet with our Writings consider the following:
"Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence 86 exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit.
"We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him, the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the soul of the sinner sanctified."
~ Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 85
If His Holiness Jesus Christ had not possessed love for the world of humanity, surely he would not have welcomed the cross. He was crucified for the love of mankind. Consider the infinite degree of that love.
~ Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 89
"There is no doubt that there is vicarious atonement for others, and our sufferings sometimes can be in the nature of a sacrifice accepted for others..."
From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, October 25, 1949
You and Smaneck have explained your positions well in these threads and unfortunately the concept of Manifestations is incompatible with Christian Atonement.
You yourself admitted that there is no single view of atonement in Christianity. I don't think anything I've said is incompatible with Peter of Abelard's theory.
It seems what you really object to is that we aren't exclusive like most Christian conceptions.
The question then is saved from what? It seems to me that Christians are out to save individuals from a world which is otherwise going to hell whereas Baha'is are endeavoring to transform the world through action in the world.
Uh, Paul didn't write Timothy or any of the pastoral letters. That is why I didn't include them when I complained about some of the things Paul said about women.
We have very different ideas if what salvation is all about.
Obviously I experienced just the opposite, or I would not have left Christianity to become a Baha'i.
Let me explain what I believe about atonement and why I don't think regarding what Jesus did on the cross as a once-and-for all event works. Here is how I understand the Christian concept of atonement. The most common Christian concept of atonement and salvation is based on the arguments of Anselm of Canterbury who lived in the 11th
century. He had a neo-platonic notion of God wherein He was seen as possessing both perfect Justice and Mercy both of which must be satisfied. Because of His perfect Justice He cannot forgive sins without satisfaction. And because He is merciful the means had to provided for making that satisfaction. Does this sound familiar? Living in the
hierarchical world of early medieval Europe, Anselm felt the gravity of a sin or crime was measured by the station of the one against whom the crime or sin had been forgiven.
God being exalted above all stations, it stood to reason that a sin against Him was of infinite gravity with eternal repercussion's. It therefore incurred a debt which man could not hope to satisfy. The only way in which the satisfaction could be made, and men could be set free from sin, was for God Himself to make the satisfaction as a man.
My objection is that this formula seems to have more to do with 'fire insurance' than a relationship, except if one is seeing 'relationship' in cold, legalistic terms. It seems to me this is necessarily so, because when God's attributes are seen these kinds of static categories of Justice and Mercy we are trying to look at God in Greek
terms of essence rather than Hebrew sense of conception of God as a Living God, a Person. And we can only have a relationship with the
latter, not the former. Yes, the Baha'i Writings speak of ransoms and one doesn't necessarily have to die to make that sacrifice. Baha'u'llah Himself says:
"Fix your gaze upon Him Who is the Temple of God amongst men. He, in truth, hath offered up His life as a ransom for the redemption of the world. He, verily, is the All-Bountiful, the Gracious, the Most High.If any differences arise amongst you, behold Me standing before your face, and overlook the faults of one another for My name's sake and as a token of your love for My manifest and resplendent Cause." Gleanings, 314.
But while the Writings do speak of ransom but they also speak of repentance as being the sole prerequisite of forgiveness. We even have references to the kind of 'death-bed' conversions that some people make fun of Christianity for:
"He should forgive the sinful, and never despise his low estate, for none knoweth what his own end shall be. How often hath a sinner, at the hour of death, attained to the essence of faith, and, quaffing the immortal draught, hath taken his flight unto the celestial Concourse. And how often hath a devout believer, at the hour of his soul's ascension, been so changed as to fall into the nethermost fire." KI 194-95
He likewise says; "Should anyone be afflicted by a sin, it behoveth him to repent thereof and return unto his Lord. He, verily, granteth forgiveness unto whomsoever He willeth, and none may question that which it pleaseth Him to ordain."
Repentance doesn't mean simply feeling sorry for one sins, it means turning towards God. One story that is told about Muslim mystic Rabi'a is that one day she came upon Hasan al-Basra (an earlier Muslim mystic) who was weeping and wailing over his sins, saying what a wretched man he was. Rabi'a said, "Yes, you are. Because had you truly turned towards God you would be looking at Him and not noticing your own sins."
If repentance is the only prerequisite for forgiveness why then does Baha'u'llah speak of 'ransoms'? Perhaps it is because only these kinds of sacrifices which make true repentance, true focusing on God out of love possible. This is what another medieval Christian theologian, Peter of Abelard argued. He held that the Crucifixion was necessary to forgive men's sin not because it was required on God's part but because only such a dramatic expression of God's love would enable people to repent and cause them to turn towards Him.
It strikes me that this form of atonement, unlike Anselm's formulation is relational. But it is also something which could not be done once and never again as in Christianity. If it is indeed grounded in God's determination to reach us, instead of satisfying some abstract requirements of the Divine Essence, then it would happen again and again as Baha'u'llah seems to affirm.
I think there is a great danger in seeing God as static, understandable by human categories like justice and mercy as Anselm liked to do. The God of Abraham was a Living God, a Person and like all persons (and unlike pure essences) He had a Will, one like all wills was subject to change on occasion. It seems to me this attempt to make God fit our mental conceptions, to put Him into a predictable box is in the end, a form of idolatry. The Living God is not so predictable. He fulfills prophecies in ways we don't expect, and at times appears to fulfill them not at all.
I quoted your previous post again. This says multiple atonements are necessary. This is not Christian which has a single atonement of Man to God via God as Man. Manifestations are not fully God as well, so this is incompatible with Christian concepts of Atonement including Peter of Abelard's views.
Sorry, I added a bit to my previous post earlier. Please read that, I explained my position.You're ignoring why I said multiple atonements were necessary. If it is, as I suggested a matter of reaching us rather than God needing to satisfy some abstract notion of divine justice, then He will use all means at His disposal. This does not mean that Christ's sacrifice is not sufficient for the Christian who believes in it! It is, just as the sacrifice of the Imam Husayn is sufficient for the Shi'ite Muslim who believes in it. My point is that God has more than one way of opening us up to grace.
I quoted your previous post again. This says multiple atonements are necessary. This is not Christian which has a single atonement of Man to God via God as Man. Manifestations are not fully God as well, so this is incompatible with Christian concepts of Atonement including Peter of Abelard's views.
EDIT: Its not the fact of exclusivity that is the problem. If Jesus is not fully God, then His Passion is not the full act of Love on the account of God to reconcile creation to Him, but a sacrifice of a subsidiary creature.
Yet they aren't God in essence and therefore Peter of Abelard's conceptions do not fully apply as he stated only something fully God can reconcile Man to God. Therefore this form of Christian Atonement cannot be applied in a Bahai Faith framework as well without making significant alterations to what is meant by atonement and God.Since I see the Manifestations as everything we can understand about God humanly speaking, that isn't a problem for me.
No, you miss my point. This is not about God needing something from man, you read too much into that 'to' of Man to God. This was just ambiguous grammar. I was referring to Peter of Abelard's Moral Influence theory throughout.That was Anselm's argument, not Abelard's.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?