I sent this message yesterday, but it apparently got lost in cyberspace, so I'm sending it again.
Hi Marleen,
I apologize for the delay in responding.
>but how do we know Abdul-Baha possessed superhuman knowledge when he couldn't discern factual errors? <
First, there is this quote:
"...in the person of 'Abdu'l-Bahá the incompatible characteristics of a human nature and superhuman knowledge and perfection have been blended and are completely harmonized."
(Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 134)
Second, we don't actually know that He was unable to discern factual errors.
The only thing we know is He didn't choose to correct some errors.
I think it is likely that Abdu'l Baha, as the perfect exemplar, wanted to teach
us to be rational and to find out the facts, not to be superstitious about how knowledge is acquired. From that motive, He may have chosen to leave some errors uncorrected, so that we would learn to check facts, and not to rely fanatically, blindly on what He said. He may have been trying to show us how to combine faith with reason.
If I thought of Abdu'l Baha as just a nice man who might fail to discern an error, I would be gravely underestimating Who He was.
>Abdul-Baha wrote in Secret of Divine Civilization that Voltaire and other philosophers of the Enlightenment were atheists, when Voltaire's own words dispute this<
This is from Promulgation of Universal Peace, which is not authenticated scripture,
and which may suffer from poor translation, as Susan has noted.
But let's assume Abdu'l Baha did say this. Surely He
is the best judge of whether
Voltaire was an atheist. Voltaire may have believed in some type of God, but it may be that whatever he believed in did not qualify him as a real believer in the true God.
By that standard he may have been an atheist.
Here is an example to illustrate the point that Abdu'l Baha is the best judge of what someone really believes. He named Thornton Chase as the first Baha'i in America. However there were a few other Americans who accepted the Faith before Thornton Chase. Nevertheless, Abdu'l Baha, seeing the inward truth, said Mr. Chase was the first in America to merit being called a Baha'i. I think one of Robert Stockman's books is my reference for this.
>It would seem that the use of inaccurate information contradicts infallibility in all
statements.<
Only if one believes that one must be omniscient in order to be infallible.
I don't believe infallibility is conditioned on omniscience.
>I am more than a little puzzled about explaining Abdul-Baha's errors, especially related to science, to nonBahais<
What scientific errors did Abdu'l Baha make? I am not aware of any.
His statements about ether are not errors because He said ether is not a physical reality. His statements about evolution are not errors because, in my view, He was talking about the human soul, not the body. Nothing from Promulgation of Universal Peace or Paris Talks can be used as examples of errors, because those are not authenticated scripture. So what errors are you talking about?
These are merely my personal views; I have no comment about what
others should believe.
Tim Nolan
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