Comment by aibiT4tu on 26/11/2017 at 22:31 UTC

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View submission: Religion teacher trying to understand the Baha'i Faith.

One perspective from the Baha'i writings is that every conceptualization of God that we have is just that, a conceptualization. As God is an unknowable essence, it's possible that God is conceptualized as a single entity (as in the Abrahamic traditions), as multiple entities (e.g. some indigenous beliefs), or not conceptualized as an entity/being at all. Here's a primary source[1] on this, which also relates to how Baha'is understand the concept of the trinity from Christianity.

1: http://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/abdul-baha/some-answered-questions/#r=saq_en-27

In application to Buddhism, another principle also applies, that is the independent investigation of truth. Nothing in the writings of Baha'u'llah (as far as I know) specifies which Buddhist writings are authentic. Therefore, it is a scholarly question that any individual may research. For myself, I really don't know what writings of the Buddha are authentic. I see a few possibilities; one is that Buddha explicitly did share a conceptualization of God as a singular being but it was lost over time, and another is that he didn't. Either is fine with me, and wouldn't pose a problem for my faith.

These are good questions and they're deep. There are a number of principles from the Baha'i writings that inform answers to them, and different people have different perspectives. None of these questions are taken negatively. Please don't hesitate to ask!

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