Brent,
Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful post. I find it very interesting and helpful in clarifying my own thinking. I want to think about it and respond more fully when I have more time, hopefully by tomorrow. But for now I will make just one short comment.
Brent wrote:
"""...I may be missing your point, but it appears that your reading of that Book is that Baha’u’llah does not say in it that Scripture is infallible. Yet He twice (pp. 169 and 190) refers to the Qur’an as “His unerring Book” and on page 201 He states of the Qur’an “its decrees are indisputable, and its promise unfailing,” and finally, “its guidance can never err”...."""
I know that the Writings of Baha'u'llah talk about "infallibility", including the Book of Certitude and perhaps most significantly in the Aqdas, the Most Holy Book. I have studied and meditated a lot about every reference to infallibility that I can find in the Writings. I therefore believe in infallibility. My understanding of the meaning of infallibility may differ from most Baha'is, but trust me on this, I have thought about it a lot and it would take far too long to explain my thoughts on that subject here.
As to the quotes above to Baha'u'llah's reference to the Quran as "His unerring book" and of the Quran that “its decrees are indisputable, and its promise unfailing,” and finally, “its guidance can never err” I want to just comment that I accept that judgment. So, I believe that the the Quran and the Writings of Baha'u'llah are "unerring" and "infallible". However, I do not think that the understanding of any individual (of passages in those Books) is unerring in any way whatsoever. So therefore any comment by anyone about a passage in those books is only human comment prone to all kinds of errors.
Perhaps most crucially, however, I want to comment about the references by Baha'u'llah (found in the Iqan) to the dangers of a too strict literal interpretation of scripture.
I believe that these dangers (of a too strict literal interpretation) apply equally strongly to our own Baha'i Writings. Perhaps many Baha'is will differ with me on this. It is really easy to see and accept the dangers of literal interpretations of previous scriptures, but it is also easy, I observe, to be arrogant about the literal truth, as we humans understand it, of our own dispensations' scriptures.
Please keep in mind I do fully realize that some of our Writings are strictly literal; the most famous example is the 1000 year rule from the Kitab i Aqdas, teh only instance that I am aware of where Baha'u'llah explicitly stated that no understanding other than a literal one was acceptable.
Again, thank you for your comments, Brent.
Ron
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