One Common Faith | Page 9

Baha’i International Community
aspects of one unified system of truth does violence to the facts. Given the confusion surrounding the nature of religion, the reaction is understandable. Chiefly, however, such an objection offers Bahá'ís an invitation to set the principles reviewed here more explicitly in the evolutionary context provided in Bahá'u'lláh's writings.
The differences referred to fall into the categories of either practice or doctrine, both of them presented as the intent of the relevant scriptures. In the case of religious customs governing personal life, it is helpful to view the subject against the background of comparable features of material life. It is most unlikely that diversity in hygiene, dress, medicine, diet, transportation, warfare, construction or economic activity, however striking, would any longer be seriously advanced in support of a theory that humanity does not in fact constitute one people, single and unique. Until the opening of the twentieth century, such simplistic arguments were commonplace, but historical and anthropological research now provides a seamless panorama of the process of cultural evolution by which these and countless other expressions of human creativity came into existence, were transmitted through successive generations, underwent gradual metamorphoses and often spread to enrich the lives of peoples in far distant lands. That present-day societies represent a wide spectrum of such phenomena, therefore, does not in any way define a fixed and immutable identity of the peoples concerned, but merely distinguishes the stage through which given groups are--or at least until recently have been--passing. Even so, all such cultural expressions are now in a state of fluidity in consequence of the pressures of planetary integration.
A similar evolutionary process, Bahá'u'lláh indicates, has characterized the religious life of humankind. The defining difference lies in the fact that, rather than representing simply the accidents of history's ongoing method of trial and error, such norms were explicitly prescribed in each case, as integral features of one or another revelation of the Divine, embodied in scripture, their integrity scrupulously maintained over a period of centuries. While certain features of each code of conduct would eventually fulfil their purpose and in time be overshadowed by concerns of a different nature brought on by the process of social evolution, the code itself would lose none of its authority during the long stage of human progress in which it played a vital role in training behaviour and attitudes. "These principles and laws, these firmly-established and mighty systems", Bahá'u'lláh asserts, "have proceeded from one Source, and are the rays of one Light. That they differ one from another is to be attributed to the varying requirements of the ages in which they were promulgated."(19)
To argue, therefore, that differences of regulations, observances and other practices constitute any significant objection to the idea of revealed religion's essential oneness is to miss the purpose that these prescriptions served. More seriously, it misses the fundamental distinction between the eternal and the transitory features of religion's function. The essential message of religion is immutable. It is, in Bahá'u'lláh's words, "the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future".(20) Its role in opening the way for the soul to enter into an evermore mature relationship with its Creator--and in endowing it with an ever-greater measure of moral autonomy in disciplining the animal impulses of human nature--is not at all irreconcilable with its providing auxiliary guidance that enhances the process of civilization building.
The concept of progressive revelation places the ultimate emphasis on recognition of the revelation of God at its appearance. The failure of the generality of humankind in this respect has, time and again, condemned entire populations to a ritualistic repetition of ordinances and practices long after these latter have fulfilled their purpose and now merely stultify moral advance. Sadly, in the present day, a related consequence of such failure has been to trivialize religion. At precisely the point in its collective development where humanity began to struggle with the challenges of modernity, the spiritual resource on which it had principally depended for moral courage and enlightenment was fast becoming a subject of mockery, first at those levels where decisions were being made about the direction society should take, and eventually in ever-widening circles of the general population. There is little cause for surprise, then, that this most devastating of the many betrayals of trust from which human confidence has suffered should, in the course of time, undermine the foundations of belief itself. So it is that Bahá'u'lláh repeatedly urges His readers to think deeply about the lesson taught by such repeated failures: "Ponder for a moment, and reflect upon that which has been the cause of such denial...."(21) "What could have been the reason for such denial and avoidance...?"(22) "What could have caused such contention...?"(23) "Reflect, what could have been the motive...?"(24)
More detrimental still to religious understanding has been theological presumption.
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