4 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)
View submission: Religion teacher trying to understand the Baha'i Faith.
Thank you for replying 99Kelly. I would like to know a little bit more. 1.) Can you point me to a teaching of the Buddha's that Bahai's believe is God's message?
2.) For Christians the very idea of Jesus' resurrection - that he rose after 3 days and ascended into Heaven to be with his father - means that they can have an ongoing personal relationship with both Jesus and God and his words in the Bible mean they can have a knowable relationship with him - and the Holy Spirit helps with this. Is this not contrary to Baha'i understanding?
Again, I don't mean to antagonise, just seeking understanding.
Comment by aibiT4tu at 26/11/2017 at 22:35 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
2.) For Christians the very idea of Jesus' resurrection - that he rose after 3 days and ascended into Heaven to be with his father - means that they can have an ongoing personal relationship with both Jesus and God and his words in the Bible mean they can have a knowable relationship with him - and the Holy Spirit helps with this. Is this not contrary to Baha'i understanding?
This totally makes sense to me in the context of Baha'u'llah's teachings. This indeed means that believer may have an ongoing personal relationship with Jesus and with God (and with any of the other Manifestations for that matter), and the Holy Spirit may well be conceptualized as the intermediary of love between God, the Manifestations of God and man.
We do think about the resurrection differently though. We believe it was a miracle, but not in the sense of bodily resurrection and rather spiritual resurrection. It wasn't that the physical body of Christ came alive and ascended to heaven, but rather than the spirit of Christ ascended into heaven -- and (at least from my perspective) this spirit has sustained the Christian Faith for millennia, and still does.
Comment by huggy19 at 26/11/2017 at 22:05 UTC*
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I wonder about this too. I think that probably all of the Buddhas Teachings were the Message of God, with the purpose of transforming the inner life and external conditions of mankind. These Teachings are how I know the Buddha, I mean, you know a tree by its fruit right? Same thing with Christ; I know Him through His own transformative Words as are recorded in the four Gospels above all else. Same with the Qur'an; it is the Word of God, even in a more well-preserved form; or the Bayan, which feels even more high-definition than the Qur'an!
I remember the first time I read the Hidden Words; wow. If thats not the Word of God then I don't know what is.
Comment by roguevalley at 27/11/2017 at 01:16 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think part of the confusion is the conflation of the idea of a personal relationship and the idea of knowability. We can and should have a personal relationship with the Manifestations of God. However, we cannot comprehend the infinite glory of God the Father (in Christian terms). In other words, "unknowable" doesn't mean "unrelatable", it means "beyond our comprehension".