Baha'i V

[eddie_too]

not sure about that. my understanding is that it is God’s will that ALL human souls progress eternally.

 

[agnosticscience]

I have studied the Baha’i Faith considerably and here’s what I understand.

The Baha’i belief is that God is beyond Time and Space and that God is the Creator. But for God to be a creator from the “station” before Time and Space, then God’s creation must also be created before Time and Space… otherwise God will not be a Creator before Time and Space. This is how the Baha’i writings state that Creation is Eternal.

Simultaneously Baha’i writings maintain that God is always Alone, such that even though He has a Creation even before Time and Space, God’s creation can never know Him and so He is Ever Alone.

 

[Vouthon]

I have studied the Baha’i Faith considerably and here’s what I understand.

The Baha’i belief is that God is beyond Time and Space and that God is the Creator. But for God to be a creator from the “station” before Time and Space, then God’s creation must also be created before Time and Space… otherwise God will not be a Creator before Time and Space. This is how the Baha’i writings state that Creation is Eternal.

Simultaneously Baha’i writings maintain that God is always Alone, such that even though He has a Creation even before Time and Space, God’s creation can never know Him and so He is Ever Alone.

I see, thank you for this.

If accurate then this would indeed be different from creation ex nihilo and the view espoused by Eckhart (as explained in my quotation from Suzuki).

 

[eddie_too]

time and space are creations.

they did not exist before they were created.

 

[agnosticscience]

time and space are creations.

they did not exist before they were created.

I think the implication may be that Time does not have a beginning as is implied by scientific findings. Science maintains that Time did not begin because the question itself (when did time begin) is invalid.

it is a misunderstanding of the Big Bang theory that Time began from nothing.

 

[eddie_too]

if time had no beginning than time is eternal just like God.

does that make sense?

 

[agnosticscience]

if time had no beginning than time is eternal just like God.

does that make sense?

Yes because God is always the Creator. A Creator must have a creation to be worthy of this Title.

 

[eddie_too]

to me, the sensible view is that anything that is not God is God’s creation.

to me, the meaning of the word creation is to bring something in to being.

i have no problem with the idea that God is eternally the Creator.

but, i have a problem with the idea that creatures have no beginning.

i have a problem with the idea that time is not a creation.

 

[SteveVH]

That is an interesting theological issue to raise and I wonder if one of the Baha’is could elucidate on it for us.

You make some good points. Specifically I would like to know whether or not they believe that all of creation came into existence subsequent to God “speaking” it into existence, rather than eternally co-existing with God. It really comes down to “ex-nihilo” or “not ex-nihilo”.

This very well could be a translation issue. If the Baha’i are saying that since God is eternal then he has eternally been creating, that is one thing. References to an “Uncaused Mover” give me hope that this is the case and if so, I would have no argument with this position.

 

[Vouthon]

I think the implication may be that Time does not have a beginning as is implied by scientific findings. Science maintains that Time did not begin because the question itself (when did time begin) is invalid.

it is a misunderstanding of the Big Bang theory that Time began from nothing.

I’m not so sure about that. Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s greatest physicists, stated in one of his lectures titled “The Beginning of time”: “…the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down…”

As I’m not an authority on physics, I will not pursue this much further, I’m simply putting it out there.

 

[agnosticscience]

Interesting. If God is eternally the Creator, then how can you maintain that Time has a beginning from nothing? Do you imply that God was not a creator before Time?

 

[agnosticscience]

I’m not so sure about that. Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s greatest physicists, stated in one of his lectures titled “The Beginning of time”: “…the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down…”

As I’m not an authority on physics, I will not pursue this much further, I’m simply putting it out there.

You’ve misunderstood:

The mainstream theory is that Time, as we know it, started with the Big Bang. So, in that sense, “before” the Big Bang has no meaning. (Stephen Hawking posed a similar question…‘what is north of the north pole?’)

Read more: physicsforums.com

 

[SteveVH]

I think the implication may be that Time does not have a beginning as is implied by scientific findings. Science maintains that Time did not begin because the question itself (when did time begin) is invalid.

it is a misunderstanding of the Big Bang theory that Time began from nothing.

You are assuming that the “Big Bang” theory is true. It may very well be, but that has not been established as a scientific truth, but still only a theory.

We believe that time is a creation and can only be measured in relation to the creation around us (i.e. the rotation of the earth, for instance). Without creation there is no such thing as time.

 

[Vouthon]

Interesting. If God is eternally the Creator, then how can you maintain that Time has a beginning from nothing? Do you imply that God was not a creator before Time?

Eternity is not perpetual time in Catholic understanding. They are complete opposites actually. Eternity is “timelessness”.

Blessed Henry Suso, a Dominican mystic, explained this well:

“…Eternity is life that is beyond time but includes within itself all time but without a before or after. And whoever is taken into the Eternal Nothing possesses all in all and has no ‘before or after’. Indeed a person taken within today would not have been there for a shorter period from the point of view of eternity than someone who had been taken within a thousand years ago…Now these people who are taken within, because of their boundless immanent oneness with God, see themselves as always and eternally existing…”

***- Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1296-1366), German Catholic mystic & Dominican priest (The Little Book of Truth). p320 ***

Only God is truly eternal, because eternity is linked to immutability. Only God is unchanging and only God therefore has no beginning and no end. However, heaven is a participation in God. Those who are glorified in heaven participate in His Eternity. They are not eternal themselves, because they still have a beginning in time but the doctrine of theosis holds that man becomes by grace what God is by Nature and so through grace they share in it.

Which leads me to ask: **What is the Baha’i view of afterlife exactly? **

One poster mentioned it earlier but I would like to compare/contrast.

 

[agnosticscience]

Then Catholics and Bahais both maintain that God created Eternity (defined as beyond Time).

 

[Vouthon]

You’ve misunderstood:

The mainstream theory is that Time, as we know it, started with the Big Bang. So, in that sense, “before” the Big Bang has no meaning. (Stephen Hawking posed a similar question…‘what is north of the north pole?’)

Read more: physicsforums.com

I’m not sure that conflicts with my understanding, given that before the singularity there is “nothing” that we can speak of. God is not a “thing” but rather the origin of all “things”, so where is the conflict?

 

[agnosticscience]

I’m not sure that conflicts with my understanding, given that before the singularity there is “nothing” that we can speak of. God is not a “thing” but rather the origin of all “things”, so where is the conflict?

then there’s no conflict.

 

[eddie_too]

God is Pure Being without potential, fully actualized, all of time is present to God simultaneously. God cannot change. yet God also exists outside of time.

is time a creation? if it is a creation, then it was brought in to being.

if time is not a creation, then it is the Creator.

since time is not unchanging. time cannot be the Creator.

the crux of our dilemma is that human words are incapable of fully expressing Divine Nature. just as the human mind is incapable of fully understanding infinite and Perfect Being.

i suppose, in an attempt to understand, we could surmise that the beginning of time is eternally present to God. just as this current moment in time is eternally present to God.

so, yes God’s creation is eternal in the sense that an unchanging Perfect Being wills its existence.

however, from within that creation, the creature is subjected to the passage of time. time itself, being a creation, passes.

if we were Pefect Being, unchanging and fully actualized, we would know all of time as present. but that is not what we are, consequently, we know time only as passing from moment to moment.

 

[Vouthon]

Then Catholics and Bahais both maintain that God created Eternity (defined as beyond Time).

No, God’s self-existence is timeless (eternal). He didn’t create Himself, he simply “Is”. To be eternal means to be without limits, an end, a beginning, a duration or a past/future. God simply is eternal.

By saying that God is eternal we mean that in essence, life, and action He is altogether beyond temporal limits and relations. He has neither beginning, nor end, nor duration by way of sequence or succession of moments. There is no past or future for God — but only an eternal present. If we say that He was or that He acted, or that He will be or will act, we mean in strictness that He is or that He acts; and this truth is well expressed by Christ when He says (John 8:58 — A.V.): “Before Abraham was, I am.” Eternity, therefore, as predicated of God, does not mean indefinite duration in time — a meaning in which the term is sometimes used in other connections — but it means the total exclusion of the finiteness which time implies. We are obliged to use negative language in describing it, but in itself eternity is a positive perfection, and as such may be best defined in the words of Boethius as being “interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio,” i.e. possession in full entirety and perfection of life without beginning, end, or succession.

The eternity of God is a corollary from His self-existence and infinity. Time being a measure of finite existence, the infinite must transcend it. God, it is true, coexists with time, as He coexists with creatures, but He does not exist in time, so as to be subject to temporal relations: His self-existence is timeless. Yet the positive perfection expressed by duration as such, i.e. persistence and permanence of being, belongs to God and is truly predicated of Him, as when He is spoken of, for example, as “Him that is, and that was and that is to come” (Revelation 1:4); but the strictly temporal connotation of such predicates must always be corrected by recalling the true notion of eternity.

newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm

 

[agnosticscience]

No, God’s self-existence is timeless (eternal). He didn’t create Himself, he simply “Is”. To be eternal means to be without limits, an end, a beginning, a duration or a past/future. God simply is eternal.

newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm

This may be a difference. In the Bahai view the God created Eternity, as I understand it. Bahais maintain that God is beyond attributes such as even Eternity.