Bahá'í cosmology
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Bahá'í Faith
The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories....
, and for which reality is divided into three divisions. The first division is God
Bahá'í concept of God
The Bahá'í view of God is essentially monotheistic. God is the imperishable, uncreated being who is the source of all existence. He is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty". Though transcendent and...
, who is preexistent and on whom the rest of creation is contingent. The second division is God's logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...
, which is the realm of God's commands and grace. This realm pervades all created things. The Manifestations of God, messengers from God, are appearances of the logos in the physical world. The third division is creation, which includes the physical world. Creation is not seen as confined to the material universe, and individual material objects, such as the Earth, are seen to come into being at particular moment and then subsequently break down into their constituent parts. Thus, the current universe is seen as a result of a long-lasting process (cosmological time scales), evolving to its current state. In Bahá'í belief, the whole universe is a sign of God and is dependent
on him and humanity was created to know God and to serve his purpose.
Bahá'u'lláh
Bahá'u'lláh
Bahá'u'lláh , born ' , was the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. He claimed to be the prophetic fulfilment of Bábism, a 19th-century outgrowth of Shí‘ism, but in a broader sense claimed to be a messenger from God referring to the fulfilment of the eschatological expectations of Islam, Christianity, and...
, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith
Bahá'í Faith
The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories....
, also wrote of many worlds of God. In the Súriy-i-Vafa, he writes: "Know thou of a truth that the worlds of God are countless in their number, and infinite in their range. None can reckon or comprehend them except God, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise."
Bahá'u'lláh distinguished five realms of existence;
- Hahut — the realm of the unknowable essence of God
- Lahut — the realm of divine consciousness
- Jabarut — the realm of God acting within creation through revelationRevelationIn religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
; - Malakut — the angelic realm
- Nasut — the physical world, which is subdivided into the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms.
God is manifested in all five levels, the Manifestations of God in all but the first level, and humans exist between the angelic and physical realms and can choose which to live in.
Bahá'u'lláh also explained that while humans should seek knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
, no human can understand the nature of God's creation or God himself. He stated that while God had given humans a rational mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
, humans are unable to comprehend the inner reality, as they are limited by creation.
See also
- Bahá'í Faith and scienceBahá'í Faith and scienceA fundamental principle of the Bahá'í Faith is the harmony of religion and science. Bahá'í scripture asserts that true science and true religion can never be in conflict. `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, stated that religion without science leads to superstition and that...
- Sufi cosmologySufi cosmologySufi cosmology is a general term for cosmological doctrines associated with the mysticism of Sufism. These may differ from place to place, order to order and time to time, but overall show the influence of several different cosmographies:...
- CosmologyCosmologyCosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
- Religious cosmologyReligious cosmologyA Religious cosmology is a way of explaining the origin, the history and the evolution of the universe based on the religious mythology of a specific tradition...
External links
- Velasco, Ismael, "Bibliography of Works on Baha'i Metaphysics in the English Language."