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Vouthon
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Amen. An excellent description
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SteveVH
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Then they don’t understand “eternity” in the same manner as the Christian view.
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Vouthon
Guest
If you have looked into the via negativa (apophatic) tradition in Catholicism then you will know that there are very few religious traditions which have so greatly emphasised the un-know-ability (in essence), transcendence, ineffability, incomprehensibility and incomparability of God.
There is a difference between God as He is in Himself (in his Divine Essence) and God as He is in relation to His creatures, in his actions (or to use the Orthodox terminology “energies”):
We can say nothing about God as He is in Himself. That doesn’t mean that in a different aspect, cataphatic theology, He is without “attributes”.
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agnosticscience
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Then the Baha’is and Catholics are in agreement here.
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agnosticscience
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I cannot explain the idea of Catholic afterlife. People always focus on the resurrection of Jesus, but never ask where exactly did the glorified body of Jesus “go” to? Is the Catholic view of heaven a place within Space and Time or outside of Space and Time?
The Baha’i idea of heaven is easy to digest because Baha’is disagree that bodies (glorified or otherwise) go to heaven and maintain that only spirits (that animate physical bodies) are resurrected and go to heaven, and therefore heaven is outside of Space and Time.
The Baha’i idea is that the spirit/soul of the human is outside of space and time, so when Baha’i assert that God created the spirit of man, this took place, as we already discussed, outside of time and space. When the spirit/soul is associated to the human body - at conception, only then does the spirit of the human acquire qualities of Time and Space.
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Vouthon
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Quite simply a “glorified body” is not bound by any of the constraints placed upon a purely physical, earthly body.
Think of Jesus’ glorified flesh and blood in the Eucharist. He is there, his entire glorified body but not bound to our form like we are, not restricted by space or time. The human soul, which formed with the body, is the pattern for the body. The soul will form the body around “its” self. So this “body” would not need form . All it signifies is that the person is fully human, with glorified matter and soul.
In Catholic theology, therefore, to be a glorified “body”, to have fullness of glorified matter and spirit, does not need form, space or time to exist as such.
If you consider Jesus’ resurrection appearances to his disciples - his body appeared in a locked room with no doors and in various forms. This suggests a whole new level of reality that we as yet cannot fully understand.
What the resurrection of the dead means is that we arise as fully human persons. We are not fully human if we lack a body. The resurrection body is more a part of you than your human body is now; because the body (pneumatikon soma) will never again be separable from your psyche or mind. The glorified person is fully spiritual, and fully embodied.
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agnosticscience
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Are you suggesting that all the people that died since “Adam” or the first human being are not fully human in the afterlife right now because their bodies are not glorified along with their spirits?
Are we not fully human until our bodies are glorified? But if the body is material, why is this important?
This question makes sense from a Baha’i perspective because Baha’is regard the material world as not really real compared to the spiritual world, they perceive it as a shadow of the spiritual world only. It seems Catholics believe in the reality of the material world — but how is this consistent with what you stated earlier about apophatic theology? The Material world is not really real according to it.
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SteveVH
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Heaven is not a “place”, but rather a state of being; a sate in which we behold the face of God and share in the life of the Holy Trinity. It exists in eternity, not in time or space.
As for Christ’s resurrected and glorified body, it is with Christ in heaven. And we, like Christ, will also be reunited in heaven with our resurrected bodies which have also been glorified to be just as Christ’s body.
Why cannot a glorified body exist outside of space and time? That is the reason it is glorified, specifically so that it can exist in the presence of God in heaven.
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Vouthon
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We do not believe that heaven is a “place”. It is a state of beatitude, or rather, of communion with God for “eternity” (beyond space/time). Hell is the same. If you check the Catechism entry on heaven you will find it explained in greater depth. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes it as “the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Holy Trinity”.
The resurrection of the dead is not seen as contradicting this because, as I explained, one of the qualities of the “resurrection” body is that it is free from the constraints of ordinary matter and so can exist in a state of being without form as we know it, just like Jesus does in the Eucharistic Host.
Pope John Paul II explained the concept of “heaven” most succinctly:
Hell likewise is not a place:
From earlier theologians:
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agnosticscience
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Then how did the Glorified Body of Christ “go” anywhere?
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Vouthon
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It didn’t go anywhere, it is simply with the Father who is everywhere and nowhere at the same time (in the sense that he is both omnipresent, keeping his created essences in existence and transcendently beyond them).
Jesus returned to his “Father”. The reason why the disciples perceived this as him being “lifted” up into the clouds was to emphasise to them, in a way that they could understand, that he had “left” them in the sense of his ordinary mode of existence before resurrection to be with them now spiritually (as well as both bodily & spiritually in the Eucharist) and that he was no longer bound by normal material constraints (such as gravity). The reason he appeared in different forms and in rooms with locked doors in his resurrection visitations was to let them understand the utterly changed nature of the glorified body that would become theirs as well.
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agnosticscience
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So the Glorified Body of Christ didn’t really appear to them did He, since in reality He is beyond such conditions of going and coming. – But rather He appeared to them to let *them * understand that He was risen as a glorified body.
This seems incredibly consistent with the Baha’i belief.
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Vouthon
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Not quite. He truly was there but in a manner beyond anything they could possibly conceive. It was not a “mirage” or a disembodied “ghost” nor a “vision”. He appeared to them in a glorified body not bound by form, space, time or any other earthly constraints. But he really was present to them hence why Thomas could touch his wounds. He had a real body but a glorified one.
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agnosticscience
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How can it “appear” if it is not bound by form, space, and time?
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tonyfish58
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Well I must say that was unusual? I replied to your post that was on the theme of how close the Catholic and Bahai Faiths were. When I posted the subject matter had changed???
So I will leave my reply and just consider you may have edited it why I was posting??
It seems not! They are so close!
I have read the posts from my last night
It was a good discussion. The beliefs are so close! The sticking points are just a play of words on interpretation. One could say they point the glue of both points away from each other.
Interestingly if we use the keys given by Baha’u’llah then these sticking points become attracted and they become a bond to bind us together
I will go back and try to clarify some issues. From my understanding.
Regards Tony
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Vouthon
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Since I’m not an expert on comparative religion, I really couldn’t say
Catholicism shares much in common with Judaism (since it arose out of the Jewish Faith), Islam (monotheism, resurrection of the dead, prophets etc.), the Baha’i Faith (numerous examples, some we have went over) and other religions. While its cosmology is quite different to the Dharmic religions, ethically and mystically speaking there is much synergy.
I don’t think that there is a religion on earth which does not have elements of inspired truth and so to varying degrees different religions will be like Catholicism in some respects ie
Take Shi’ite Islam, the religion from which the Baha’i Faith emerged (via Babism). It has a clergy, a revered female figure, a form of intercessory prayer to Muhammad and his family, a strong social justice tradition and so on.
Interestingly enough, Shoghi Effendi - the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith - thought that Catholicism and the Baha’i Faith had much in common:
Since he went to a Catholic boarding school as a child, I think he would have been familiar enough with the essentials of Catholic dogma.
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agnosticscience
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Yes, I was aware that the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith Shoghi Effendi, the great grandson of Bahaullah, attended Catholic boarding school.
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SteveVH
Guest
The very fact, however, that the Baha’i view of Catholicism as perverting the truth with the doctrines of men and being out of date would seem to negate any commonality of belief other than the most basic (i.e. there is a God). As you say, all religions have some degree of truth and we embrace that truth as our own. But to conclude that the Baha’i faith is close to Catholicism because we share some truths is going to far, IMO. The differences far out way the similarities.Since I’m not an expert on comparative religion, I really couldn’t say
Catholicism shares much in common with Judaism (since it arose out of the Jewish Faith), Islam (monotheism, resurrection of the dead, prophets etc.), the Baha’i Faith (numerous examples, some we have went over) and other religions. While its cosmology is quite different to the Dharmic religions, ethically and mystically speaking there is much synergy.
I don’t think that there is a religion on earth which does not have elements of inspired truth and so to varying degrees different religions will be like Catholicism in some respects ie
Take Shi’ite Islam, the religion from which the Baha’i Faith emerged (via Babism). It has a clergy, a revered female figure, a form of intercessory prayer to Muhammad and his family, a strong social justice tradition and so on.
Interestingly enough, Shoghi Effendi - the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith - thought that Catholicism and the Baha’i Faith had much in common:
Since he went to a Catholic boarding school as a child, I think he would have been familiar enough with the essentials of Catholic dogma.
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Vouthon
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The way I would put it, personally, is that there are both compelling similarities and differences. Particularly within the Abrahamic tradition, there is a great amount of synergy (along with crucial incompatibilities). As you correctly say, we should embrace the truths as our own (since “all truth is Christian truth”) and *respectfully * put point and recognize our differences. The “degree” to which it is the same or different is not really all that important. Truth is truth and its presence, no matter to what degree, is always due to the action of the Holy Spirit and has a relation to Christ.
Shoghi Effendi’s statement is not really any different from how a Catholic would view the Baha’i Faith. He says that there are doctrinal elements of common agreement (in his view “many”), he shows deep respect for Catholic moral and spiritual values, as well as praising the usefulness of a Catholic background in general. Note that he also calls the Church of Rome the “inheritor” of Christ’s teachings and that Baha’is are to respect Catholicism because of this (despite our differences). His statement about “perversion” (and remember this document is intended for Baha’i readership) is to highlight that there are elements of Catholic belief that are not compatible.
We would surely say the same about the Baha’i Faith. In dialogue we can embrace our shared truths and look on with awe at the activity of the Holy Spirit outside the church, planting seeds of the Logos, as well as respectfully noting our differences.
From Vatican II:
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agnosticscience
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Shoghi Effendi identifies the Catholic faith as the true form of Christianity, and Shia Islam as the true form of Islam.
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