Ronald,
Thanks for there questions. I have thought about many of these myself !
Ronald Stephens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ronald Stephens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dr. Maneck, I understand that you and many others on this List, and many Baha段 scholars and Administrators believe in Omniscience at Will, Omnipotence at Will, and other similar concepts that I have difficulty with. I would sincerely like to better understand how you maintain these beliefs and incorporate them into a consistent world view. I hope you, and Brent Poirier and others on this list, can find time to comment on a few questions that I run into when I try to think through the consequences of such beliefs.
1. What languages did the Central Figures speak and write and understand? For instance, I know that the Guardian translated some Writings of the earlier Central Figures into English; so I suppose He spoke English as well as Persian, Arabic, and possibly other languages that he learned at Cambridge?
What languages were spoken by Abdul Baha, and what lan! guage were his books written in? Did He speak any English? Did He use any interpreters in His travels?
Did Baha置値lah speak any English or any language bedsides Persian and Arabic? Did the Bab speak Persian and Arabic, or any others?
2. The Quran and Bible describe the lives, to same extent anyway, of several Manifestations. The descriptions therein, to my mind, are inconsistent with an understanding of Them as Omniscient at Will and Omnipotent at Will. For instance, Muhammad was very careful to make sure that He was seen as a human being, not God. He is even said to have been illiterate.
Abraham had doubts. How else could His faith have any meaning? Surely someone Omniscient at Will could not have had doubts. In fact, Omniscience at will and Omnipotence at will, seem to me to make a mockery of the lives and struggles of all of the Prophets and Manifestations. If Abraham were Omniscient, He knew he would find a scapegoat and would not have to sacrifice Hi! s son. Truly I find this to rule out the real meaning of all Their lives, if they were Omniscient.
Why did Baha置値lah need to have a Maiden appear in the Prison to announce His mission if He already knew about it at birth? Did He as an enfant only pretend to at first be unable to talk, and then to learn how? This seems beneath all dignity to me.
The plain language of the Bible and Quran seem to tell us that most Manifestations did not know of their status until a specific point in their adulthood.
3. Since it seems to me that the Baha段 Faith is very unlikely to be able to grow enough to have any major impact any time soon, it seems that 1000 years is a short time. I do not think the Great Peace can come about in 1000 years. Is it therefore possible that the 1000 year Baha段 period will be the beginning only, and that the full fulfillment will not occur until many Manifestations later; all in sort of the Cycle of Fulfillment as Brent Poirier mentioned recent! ly, but not within 1000 years; maybe 10,000 years or even 100,000?
If a future Manifestation points out that some things Baha'is take literally should really only be understood symbolically (in other words, precisely as Baha'u'llah did in the Kitab i Iqan with respect to Christianity), then why should we condemn such understangings by current day people? Was a Christian who understood the Resurection of Christ to be symbolic wrong and apostate until 1844 (and also the second coming)? Is a Baha'i who believes that Infallibillity is symbolic, wrong and an apostate? How can you be so sure a future Manifestation won't make that precise point?
4. Does Omniscience include the ability to know all about the future, as well as the present and the past? It seems to, since you believe in literal prophecies?
How do you reconcile belief in Omniscience and Omnipotence (at will or otherwise) with the real world in a logically consistent manner? This completely baffles me. Yo! u must compartmentalize your mind and have one rational side to deal with the real, everyday world, and one irrational side to believe in Omniscience and other ideas.
Pardon me for adding this paragraph, but this is the conclusion that I always come to when I try to accept Omniscience, Omnipotence and literal Infallibility. Since every Manifestation acted consistently with natural law, and acted as if They were not omniscient and omnipotent, to believe that they were Omniscient and Omnipotent means believing that They lived their lives acting in a false way, in some cruel and sordid Joke pretending to be human in the real world when in reality They were Magicians above it all.
Please don稚 just read this and respond only to my personal conclusions in the last paragraph, but rather I am really really interested in how you answer and think about the specific questions I ask in the paragraphs above.
Ron Stephens
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