'Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammad, said: "That which is in conformity with
science is also in conformity with religion." Whatever the intelligence of
man cannot understand, religion ought not to accept. Religion and science
walk hand in hand, and any religion contrary to science is not the
truth.--'ABDU'L-BAHA, Wisdom of 'Abdu'l-Baha.
Conflict Due to Error
One of the fundamental teachings of Baha'u'llah is that true science and
true religion must always be in harmony. Truth is one, and whenever
conflict appears it is due, not to truth, but to error. Between so-called
science and so-called religion there have been fierce conflicts all down
the ages, but looking back on these conflicts in the light of fuller truth
we can trace them every time to ignorance, prejudice, vanity, greed,
narrow-mindedness, intolerance, obstinacy or something of the
kind--something foreign to the true spirit of both science and religion,
for the spirit of both is one. As Huxley tells us, "The great deeds of
philosophers have been less the fruit of their intellect than the
direction of that intellect by an eminently religious tone of mind. Truth
has yielded herself rather to their patience, their love, their
single-heartedness and self-denial than to their logical acumen." Boole,
the mathematician, assures us that "geometric induction is essentially a
process of prayer--an appeal from the finite mind to the Infinite for light
on finite concerns." The great prophets of religion and science have never
denounced each other. It is the unworthy followers of these great world
teachers--worshipers of the letter but not of the spirit of their
teaching--who have always been the persecutors of the later prophets and
the bitterest opponents of progress. They have studied the light of the
particular revelation which they hold sacred, and have defined its
properties and peculiarities as seen by their limited vision, with the
utmost care and precision. That is for them the one true light. If God in
His infinite bounty sends fuller light from another quarter, and the torch
of inspiration burns brighter than before from a new torchholder, instead
of welcoming the new lights they are angry and alarmed. This new light
does not correspond with their definitions. It has not the orthodox color,
and does not shine from the orthodox place, therefore it must at all costs
be extinguished lest it lead men astray into the paths of heresy! Many
enemies of the Prophets are of this type--blind leaders of the blind, who
oppose new and fuller truth in the supposed interests of what they believe
to be the truth. Others are of baser sort and are moved by selfish
interests to fight against truth, or else block the path of progress by
reason of spiritual deadness and inertia.
Persecution of Prophets
The great Prophets of religion have always been, at Their coming, despised
and rejected of men. Both They and Their early followers have given their
backs to the smiters and sacrificed their possessions and their lives in
the path of God. Even in our own times this has been so. Since 1844 A.D.,
many thousands of Babis and Baha'is in Persia have suffered cruel deaths
for their faith, and many more have borne imprisonment, exile, poverty and
degradation. The latest of the great religions has been "baptized in
blood" more than its predecessors, and martyrdoms have continued down to
the present day. With the prophets of science the same thing has happened.
Giordano Bruno was burned as a heretic in 1600 A.D. for teaching, amongst
other things, that the earth moved around the sun. A few years later the
veteran philosopher Galileo had to abjure the same doctrine on his knees
in order to escape a similar fate. In later times, Darwin and the pioneers
of modern geology were vehemently denounced for daring to dispute the
teaching of Holy Write that the world was made in six days, and less than
six thousand years ago! The opposition to new scientific truth has not all
come from the Church, however. The orthodox in science have been just as
hostile to progress as the orthodox in religion. Columbus was laughed to
scorn by the so-called scientists of his day, who proved to their own
satisfaction that if ships did succeed in getting down to the Antipodes
over the side of the globe, it would be absolutely impossible for them to
get up again! Galvani, the pioneer of electrical science, was scoffed at
by his learned colleagues, and called the "frogs' dancing master." Harvey,
who discovered the circulation of the blood, was ridiculed and persecuted
by his professional brethren on account of his heresy and driven from his
lecture chair. When Stephenson invented his locomotive engine, European
mathematicians of the time, instead of opening their eyes and studying the
facts, continued for years to prove to their own satisfaction that an
engine on smooth rails could never pull a load, as the wheels would simply
slip round and round and the train make no progress. To examples like
these one might add indefinitely, both from ancient and modern history,
and even from our own times. Dr. Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, had
to battle for his wonderful international language against the same sort
of ridicule, contempt, and stupid opposition which greeted Columbus,
Galvani, and Stephenson. Even Esperanto, which was given to the world so
recently as 1887, has had its martyrs.
The Dawn of Reconciliation
In the last half century or so, however, a change has come over the spirit
of the times, a New Light of Truth has arisen which has already made the
controversies of last century seem strangely out of date. Where are now
the boastful materialists and dogmatic atheists who, only a few short
years ago, were threatening to drive religion out of the world? And where
are the preachers who so confidently consigned those who did not accept
their dogmas to the fires of hell and the tortures of the damned? Echoes
of their clamor we may still hear, but their day is fast declining and
their doctrines are being discredited. We can see now that the doctrines
around which their controversies waxed most bitter were neither true
science nor true religion. What scientist in the light of modern psychical
research could still maintain that "brain secretes thought as the liver
secretes bile"? Or that decay of the body is necessarily accompanied by
decay of the soul? We now see that thought to be really free must soar to
the realms of psychical and spiritual phenomena and not be confined to the
material only. We realize that what we now know about nature is but as a
drop in the ocean compared with what remains to be discovered. We
therefore freely admit the possibility of miracles, not indeed in the
sense of the breaking of nature's laws, but as manifestations of the
operation of subtle forces which are still unknown to us, as electricity
and X rays were to our ancestors. On the other hand, who amongst our
leading religious teachers would still declare it is necessary to
salvation to believe that the world was made in six days, or that the
description of the plagues in Egypt as given in the Book of Exodus is
literally true, or that the sun stood still in the heavens (that is, that
the earth stopped its rotation) to let Joshua pursue his enemies, or that
if a man accept not the creed of St. Athanasius, "without doubt he shall
perish everlastingly"? Such beliefs may still be repeated in form, but who
accepts them in their literal sense and without reservation? Their hold on
people's hearts and minds has gone or is fast going. The religious world
owes a debt of gratitude to the men of science who helped to tear such
worn-out creeds and dogmas to tatters and allowed the truth to step forth
free. But the scientific world owes an even heavier debt to the real
saints and mystics who, through good report and ill, held to the vital
truths of spiritual existence and demonstrated to an incredulous world
that the life is more than meat and the unseen greater than the seen.
these scientists and saints were like the mountain peaks which caught the
first rays of the rising sun and reflected them to the lower world, but
now the sun has risen and its rays are illuminating the world. In the
teachings of Baha'u'llah we have a glorious revelation of truth which
satisfies both heart and mind, in which religion and science are at one.
Search after Truth
Complete harmony with science is evident in the Baha'i teachings regarding
the way in which we must seek the truth. Man must cut himself free from
all prejudice so that he may search after truth unhindered.
'Abdu'l-Baha says:--
In order to find truth we must give up our prejudices, our own
small trivial notions; an open receptive mind is essential. If our
chalice is full of self, there is no room in it for the water of
life. The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right and everybody
else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards
unity, and unity is essential if we would reach Truth, for Truth
is one....
No one truth can contradict another truth. Light is good in
whatsoever lamp it is burning! A rose is beautiful in whatsoever
garden it may bloom! A star has the same radiance if it shines
from the East or from the West! Be free from prejudice; so will
you love the Sun of Truth from whatever point in the horizon it
may arise. You will realize that if the Divine Light of Truth
shone in Jesus Christ, it also shone in Moses and Buddha. This is
what is meant by the search after truth.
It also means that we must be willing to clear away all that we
have previously learned, all that would clog our steps on the way
to Truth; we must not shrink, if necessary, from beginning our
education all over again. We must not allow our love for any one
religion or any one personality so to blind our eyes that we
become fettered by superstition. When we are freed from all these
bonds, seeking with liberal minds, then shall we be able to arrive
at our goal.
The Agnosticism
The Baha'i teaching is at one with science and philosophy in declaring the
essential nature of God to be entirely beyond human comprehension. As
emphatically as Thomas Huxley and Herbert Spencer teach that the nature of
the Great First Cause is unknowable, does Baha'u'llah teach that "God
comprehends all; He cannot be comprehended." To knowledge of the Divine
essence "the way is barred and road is impassable," for how can the finite
comprehend the Infinite; how can a drop contain the ocean or a mote
dancing in the sunbeam embrace the universe? Yet the whole universe is
eloquent of God. In each drop of water are hidden oceans of meaning, and
in each mote is concealed a whole universe of significances, reaching far
beyond the ken of the most learned scientist. The chemist and physicist
pursuing their researches into the nature of matter have passed from
masses to molecules, from molecules to atoms, from atoms to electrons and
ether, but at every step the difficulties of the research increase till
the most profound intellect can penetrate no farther, and can but bow in
silent awe before the unknown Infinite which remains ever shrouded in
inscrutable mystery.
Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies.
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower--but if I
could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God
and man is.--TENNYSON.
If the flower in the crannied wall, if even a single atom of matter,
present mysteries which the most profound intellect cannot solve, how is
it possible for man to comprehend the universe? How dare he pretend to
define or describe the Infinite cause of all things? All theological
speculations about the nature of God's essence are thus swept aside as
foolish and futile.
Knowledge of God
But if the essence is unknowable, the manifestations of its bounty are
everywhere apparent. If the first cause cannot be conceived, its effects
appeal to our every faculty. Just as knowledge of a painter's pictures
gives to the connoisseur a true knowledge of the artist, so knowledge of
the universe in any of its aspects--knowledge of nature or of human nature,
of things visible or of things invisible--is knowledge of God's handiwork,
and gives to the seeker for Divine truth a real knowledge of His Glory.
"The Heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his
handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth
knowledge.--Ps. xix, 1-2.
The Divine Manifestations
All things manifest the bounty of God with greater or less clearness, as
all material objects exposed to the sun reflect its light in greater or
less degree. A heap of soot reflects a little, a stone reflects more, a
piece of chalk more still, but in none of these reflections can we trace
the form and color of the glorious orb. A perfect mirror, however,
reflects the sun's very form and color, so that looking into it is like
looking at the sun itself. So it is with the way in which things speak to
us of God. The stone can tell us something of the Divine attributes, the
flower can tell us more, the animal with its marvelous senses, instincts
and power of movement, more still. In the lowest of our fellowmen we can
trace wonderful faculties which tell of a wonderful Creator. In the poet,
the saint, the genius, we find a higher revelation still, but the great
Prophets and Founders of religions are the perfect mirrors by which the
love and wisdom of God are reflected to the rest of mankind. Other men's
mirrors are dulled by the stains and the dust of selfishness and
prejudice, but these are pure and without blemish--wholly devoted to the
Will of God. Thus They become the greatest educators of mankind. The
Divine teachings and the Power of the Holy Spirit proceeding through Them
have been and are the cause of the progress of humanity, for God helps men
through other men. Each man who is higher in the ascent of life is the
means of helping those who are lower, and those who are the highest of all
are the helpers of all mankind. It is as if all men were connected
together by elastic cords. If a man rises a little above the general level
of his fellows, the cords tighten. His former companions tend to draw him
back, but with an equal force he draws them upwards. The higher he gets,
the more he feels the weight of the whole world pulling him back, and the
more dependent he is on the divine support, which reaches him through the
few who are still above him. Highest of all are the great Prophets and
Saviors, the Divine "Manifestations"--those perfect men Who were each, in
Their day, without peer or companion, and bore the burden of the whole
world, supported by God alone. "The burden of our sins was upon Him: was
true of each of Them. Each was the "Way, the Truth and the Life" to His
followers. Each was the channel of God's bounty to every heart that would
receive it. Each had His part to play in the great divine plan for the
upliftment of humanity.
Creation
Baha'u'llah teaches that the universe is without beginning in time. It is
a perpetual emanation from the Great First Cause. The Creator always had
His creation and always will have. Worlds and systems may come and go, but
the universe remains. All things that undergo composition, in time undergo
decomposition, but the component elements remain. The creation of a world,
a daisy or a human body is not "making something out of nothing"; it is
rather a bringing together of elements which before were scattered, a
making visible of something which before was hidden. By and by the
elements will again be scattered, the form will disappear, but nothing is
really lost or annihilated; ever new combinations and forms arise from the
ruins of the old. Baha'u'llah confirms the scientists who claim, not six
thousand, but millions and billions of years for the history of the
earth's creation. The evolution theory does not deny creative power. It
only tries to describe the method of its manifestation; and the wonderful
story of the material universe which the astronomer, the geologist, the
physicist and the biologist are gradually unfolding to our gaze is,
rightly appreciated, far more capable of evoking the deepest reverence and
worship than the crude and bald account of creation given in the Hebrew
Scriptures. The old account in the Book of Genesis had, however, the
advantage of indicating by a few bold strokes of symbolism the essential
spiritual meanings of the story, as a master painter may, by a few strokes
of the brush, convey expressions which the mere plodder with the most
laborious attention to details may utterly fail to portray. If the
material details blind us to the spiritual meaning, then we should be
better without them; but if we have once firmly grasped the essential
meaning of the whole scheme, then knowledge of the details will give our
conception a wonderful added richness and splendor and make it a
magnificent picture instead of a mere sketch plan.
'Abdu'l-Baha says:--
Know that it is one of the most abstruse spiritual truths that the
world of existence, that is to say this endless universe, has no
beginning....
... Know that ... a creator without a creature is impossible, a
provider without those provided for cannot be conceived; for all
the divine names and attributes demand the existence of beings. If
we could imagine a time when no beings existed, this imagination
would be the denial of the Divinity of God. Moreover, absolute
non-existence cannot become existence. If the beings were
absolutely non-existent, existence would not have come into being.
Therefore, as the Essence of Unity, that is the existence of God,
is everlasting and eternal--that is to say, it has neither
beginning nor end--it is certain that this world of existence ...
has neither beginning nor end.... it may be that one of the parts
of the universe, one of the globes, for example, may come into
existence, or may be disintegrated, but the other endless globes
are still existing.... As each globe has a beginning, necessarily
it has an end, because every composition, collective or
particular, must of necessity be decomposed; the only difference
is that some are quickly decomposed, and others more slowly, but
it is impossible that a composed thing should not eventually be
decomposed.--Some Answered Questions, pp. 209-210.
The Evolution of Man
Baha'u'llah also confirms the biologist who finds for the body of man a
history reaching back in the development of the species through millions
of years. Starting from a very simple, apparently insignificant form, the
human body is pictured as developing stage by stage, in the course of
untold generations, becoming more and more complex, and better and better
organized until the man of the present day is reached. Each individual
human body develops through such a series of stages, from a tiny round
speck of jelly-like matter to the fully developed man. If this is true of
the individual, as nobody denies, why should we consider it derogatory to
human dignity to admit a similar development for the species? This is a
very different thing from claiming that man is descended from a monkey.
The human embryo may at one time resemble a fish with gill-slits and tail,
but it is not a fish. It is a human embryo. So the human species(38) may
at various stages of its long development have resembled to the outward
eye various species of lower animals, but it was still the human species,
possessing the mysterious latent power of developing into man as we know
him today, nay more, of developing in the future, we trust, into something
far higher still.
'Abdu'l-Baha says:--
... it is clear that this terrestrial globe in its present form
did not come into existence all at once; but ... gradually passed
through different phases until it became adorned with its present
perfection....
... man, in the beginning of his existence and in the womb of the
earth, like the embryo in the womb of the mother, gradually grew
and developed, and passed from one form to another ... until he
appeared with this beauty and perfection, this force and this
power. It is certain that in the beginning he had not this
loveliness and grace and elegance, and that he only by degrees
attained this shape, this form, this beauty, and this grace....
... man's existence on this earth, from the beginning until it
reaches this state, form, and condition, necessarily lasts a long
time.... But from the beginning of man's existence he is a
distinct species.... admitting that the traces of organs which
have disappeared actually exist [in the human body], this is not a
proof of the impermanence and the non-originality of the species.
At the most it proves that the form, and fashion, and the organs
of man have progressed. Man was always a distinct species, a man,
not an animal.--Some Answered Questions, pp. 211, 212, 213, 214.
Of the story of Adam and Eve He says:--
If we take this story in its apparent meaning, according to the
interpretation of the masses, it is indeed extraordinary. The
intelligence cannot accept it, affirm it, or imagine it; for such
arrangements, such details, such speeches and reproaches are far
from being those of an intelligent man, how must less of the
Divinity--that Divinity who has organised this infinite universe in
the most perfect form, and its innumerable inhabitants with
absolute system, strength, and perfection....
Therefore this story of Adam and Eve who ate from the tree, and
their expulsion from Paradise, must be thought of simply as a
symbol. It contains divine mysteries and universal meanings, and
it is capable of marvellous explanations.--Some Answered Questions,
p. 140
Body and Soul
The Baha'i teachings with regard to body and soul, and the life after
death, are quite in harmony with the results of psychical research. They
teach, as we have seen, that death is but a new birth--the escape from the
prison of the body into a larger life, and that progress in the afterlife
is limitless.
A large body of scientific evidence has gradually been accumulating which
in the opinion of impartial but highly critical investigators is amply
sufficient to establish beyond all question the fact of a life after
death--of the continued life and activity of the conscious "soul" after the
dissolution of the material body. As F. W. H. Myers says in his Human
Personality, a work which summarizes many of the investigations of the
Psychical Research Society:--
Observation, experiment, inference, have led many inquirers, of
whom I am one, to a belief in direct or telepathic
intercommunication, not between the minds of men still on earth
only, but between minds or spirits still on earth and spirits
departed. Such a discovery opens the doors also to revelation....
We have shown that amid much deception and self-deception, fraud
and illusion, veritable manifestations do reach us from beyond the
grave. ...
By discovery and by revelation certain theses have been
provisionally established with regard to such departed souls as we
have been able to encounter. First and chiefly, I, at least, see
ground to believe that their state is one of endless evolution in
wisdom and in love. Their loves of earth persist, and most of all,
those highest loves which find their outlet in adoration and
worship. ... Evil to them seems less a terrible than a slavish
thing. It is embodied in no mighty Potentate; rather it forms as
isolating madness from which higher spirits strive to free the
distorted soul. There needs no chastisement of fire;
self-knowledge is man's punishment and his reward; self-knowledge
and the nearness or the aloofness of companion souls. For in that
world love is actually self-preservation; the Communion of Saints
not only adorns but constitutes the Life Everlasting. nay, from
the laws of telepathy it follows that that communion is valid to
us here and now. Even now the love of souls departed makes answer
to our invocations. Even now our loving memory--love is itself a
prayer--supports and strengthens those delivered spirits upon their
upward way.
The measure of agreement between this view, which is founded on careful
scientific research, and that of the Baha'i teachings, is truly
remarkable.
Unity of Mankind
"Ye are all fruits of one tree, the leaves of one branch, the flowers of
one garden." That is one of the most characteristic sayings of
Baha'u'llah, and another is like it: "Glory is not his who loves his own
country, but glory is his who loves his kind." Unity--unity of mankind, and
of all created beings in God--is the main theme of His teaching. Here again
the harmony between true religion and science is evident. With every
advance in science the oneness of the universe and the interdependence of
its parts has become more clearly evident. The astronomer's domain is
inseparably bound up with physicist's, and the physicist's with the
chemist's, the chemist's with the biologist's, the biologist's with the
psychologist's, and so on. Every new discovery in one field of research
throws new light on other fields. Just as physical science has shown that
every particle of matter in the universe attracts and influences every
other particle, no matter how minute or how distant, so psychical science
is finding that every soul in the universe affects and influences every
other soul. Prince Kropotkin, in his book on Mutual Aid, shows most
clearly that even among the lower animals, mutual aid is absolutely
necessary to continued life, while in the case of man, the progress of
civilization depends on the increasing substitution of mutual aid for
mutual enmity. "Each for all and all for each" is the only principle on
which a community can prosper.
The Era of Unity
All the signs of the times indicate that we are at the dawn of a new era
in the history of mankind. Hitherto the young eagle of humanity has clung
to the old aerie in the solid rock of selfishness and materialism. Its
attempts to use its wings have been timid and tentative. It has had
restless longings for something still unattained. More and more it has
been chafing in the confinement of the old dogmas and orthodoxies. But now
the era of confinement is at an end, and it can launch on the wings of
faith and reason into the higher realms of spiritual love and truth. It
will no longer be earthbound as it was before its wings had grown, but
will soar at will to the regions of wide outlook and glorious freedom. One
thing is necessary, however, if its flight is to be sure and steady. Its
wings must not only be strong, but they must act in perfect harmony and
coordination. As 'Abdu'l-Baha says:--"It cannot fly with one wing alone. If
it tries to fly with the wing of religion alone it will land in the slough
of superstition, and if it tries to fly with the wing of science alone it
will end in the dreary bog of materialism."
Perfect harmony between religion and science is the sine qua non of the
higher life for humanity. When that is achieved, and every child is
trained not only in the study of the sciences, and arts, but equally in
love to all mankind and in radiant acquiescence to the Will of God as
revealed in the progress of evolution and the teachings of the Prophets,
then and not till then, shall the Kingdom of God come and His Will be done
on earth as it is in Heaven; then and not till then shall the Most Great
Peace shed its blessings on the world.
"When religion," says 'Abdu'l-Baha, "shorn of its superstitions,
traditions and unintelligent dogmas, shows its conformity with
science, then there will be a great unifying, cleansing force in
the world, which will sweep before it all wars, disagreements,
discords and struggles, and then will mankind be united in the
power of the love of God."