Bahai Faith / Baha'i Faith: Response to the Nine Manifestations

A great difficulty with Baha’ism's Manifestations of God is that the Manifestations contradict each other in doctrinal matters. These doctrines cannot be reconciled. This is not only true of minor issues, such as ritual, but these disagreements cut to the heart of every fundamental teaching.

Francis Beckwith has written,

"All roads lead to God,
I've heard so many people say
But when they get to Jonestown
They beg to look the other way."1

English journalist, Steve Turner has sarcastically written,

"We believe that all religions are basically the same-at least the one that we read was. They all believe in love and goodness. They only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation."2

The Baha’i respond to these sorts of arguments in two different ways.
First, they the claim that God is unknowable and so each world religion only has a piece of the puzzle which only makes it seem as if they are in contradiction. Yet, if this where so, how could the Baha’i claim some concepts of God's nature to be wrong?
For instance, some religions claim that God is unknowable, such as Baha’ism and Islam, but they seem to know a great deal about God. They claim to know that God is not triune and that He does not take on human form, but how can this be known if God is unknowable?
According to Baha’ism what is known of God is what has been revealed through His Manifestations but these are the very same Manifestations who contradict each other regarding the nature of God.

Second, they claim that Baha’ism is currently the latest revelation from God and therefore it nullifies all previous revelations. Most religions claim to have an infallible interpreter of their own teaching, but Baha’ism claims to be the infallible interpreter of ALL the teachings of ALL of the world's religions. Thus, Baha’ism views the world religions as being in error having either corrupted, mistranslated or misinterpreted scripture and corrupted teachers and teachings.

This is in part due to the fact that Baha’ism exaggerates the concept of sealed up prophecy.
They claim,

"_many of the prophecies are admittedly 'sealed' sayings, and the True Educator himself is the only One who can break the seals and show the real meanings contained in the casket of words."3

But we need to ask, "Who is this True Educator?"

"The Promised One of all the peoples of the world hath appeared. All peoples and communities have been expecting a Revelation, and He, Baha’u’llah, is the foremost teacher and educator of all mankind."4

So, what does the Bible state in this regard? There is only one Spirit of Truth (the Holy Spirit) and He testifies of Jesus,

"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me" (John 15:26).

The Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, inspired the Biblical prophets,

"For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2nd Peter 1:16-20).

Christians have the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, dwelling within,

"Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth" (1st John 2:18-21).

We can know who is of God and who is not,

"Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked" (1st John 2:3-6).

A warning against not heeding scripture,

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God:
Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error" (1st John 4:1-6).

There is a well-known concept held by the Mormons regarding the Bible, their 8th Article of Faith states in part, "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly." The question is how can they know what has or has not been translated correctly? Do they use hermeneutics to determine this? Do you examine the manuscript evidence to determine this? Are history and archaeology consulted in making such determinations?
No, the practical answer is that wherever the Bible contradicts Mormon doctrine the Bible must be in error. Likewise with Baha’ism-any Biblical texts, or in fact any of the texts from the world's holy books, that seem to support Baha’ism are considered true, while any text that contradicts Baha’ism is considered corrupt, mistranslated, misinterpreted, or symbolic.

What all of this means is that the Baha’i have no functional system of hermeneutic or exegesis.5 However, even with allegorical and liberal handling of the texts it is still not possible for the Baha’ism to logicall and viably merge all of the world's religions.
Hinduism believes in reincarnation-the Baha’i Faith does not.
Buddhism believes in the cycle of rebirth-the Baha’i Faith does not.
Islam believes that Muhammad was the last prophet and that the Qur'an is the final revelation of God-the Baha’i Faith denies both doctrines.
Zoroastrianism believes in two equal and opposite gods-the Baha’i Faith does not.
Christianity believes that Jesus is the only Person who can offer salvation-the Baha’i Faith does not.
The list could go on, every religion has essential doctrine that the Baha’i Faith denies either in whole or in part.

In conclusion, Baha’ism claims to unify the world's religious systems while in reality it is only the empty caricature of each world religion that can be unified. The claim that the Manifestations have come to give us an additional piece of the God's pie is not reasonable because it is not constructive to claim that what God has wanted us to know about Him is that He is one, and many, and triune, and apart from the universe, and part of the universe, all at the same time.

1. 1. Excerpt from Francis J. Beckwith, Illusion of Technique (unpublished poem, 1982)
   
2. 2. Steve Turner, Creed (a satirical poem on the modern mind) as quoted in Ravi Zacharias, Can Man live Without God?, pp. 42-44
   
3. 3. J. E. Esslemont, M.B., CH.B., F.B.E.A., Revised by `Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi, Baha’u’llah and the New Era (Wilmette, IL.: The Baha’i Publishing Committee, 1928, 12th ed. 1950), p. 10
   
4. 4. J. E. Esslemont, M.B., CH.B., F.B.E.A., Revised by `Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi, Baha’u’llah and the New Era (Wilmette, IL.: The Baha’i Publishing Committee, 1928, 12th ed. 1950), p. 1
   
5. 5. Simply stated, hermeneutics is the proper interpretation of texts which takes into consideration things such as historical and grammatical context. Exegesis is letting a text speak for itself instead of reading preconceived notions into the text (which would be isogesis).