# Science and the Baha'i Faith

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: William S. Hatcher, Science and the Baha'i Faith, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Science and the Bahá’í Faith
> William S. Hatcher
> 
> Abstract
> Religion and science are often perceived as being, to some degree, in opposition to each other. The reasons for such
> a view are considered, and are seen to derive from a certain particular conception of science and of religion: On the
> one hand, scientific method is seen as too rigorous and restrictive to apply to religion, while on the other hand,
> religious experience is viewed as peculiarly subjective. Each of these conceptions is discussed, examined, and
> rejected. It is seen that scientific method, rightly viewed, is universal in its scope, for this method is essentially the
> systematic, organized, directed and conscious application of our mental faculties. The view of religious experience
> as uniquely subjective is seen to be tenable only when the social dimension of religion is neglected and when the
> datum of religion is taken to be primarily the internal experience of the individual. But mystic experience can be
> objectified through participation in an appropriate community of understanding, just as other kinds of experience are
> objectified through participation in a scientific community of understanding. The Bahá’í Faith is seen as providing
> this religious community of understanding, as well being founded on a basic datum which is external to the
> individual: The Revelation and Person of the Manifestation (i.e. religious Prophet-Founder). It is the objectivity and
> accessibility of this phenomenal point of reference which guarantees the individual’s accessibility to religious
> experience.
> Finally, some particular aspects of the most recent occurrence of the phenomenon of Revelation, that of
> Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892), are examined. It is seen that the specific social goal of the Bahá’í Faith is the
> establishment of unity on the planetary level, that the Bahá’í Faith affirms the complete harmony of religion and
> science, and that it is scientific in its method. At the same time, the legitimate emotional and aesthetic aspects of
> religious experience are neither excluded nor over-emphasized but rather assume their natural place within the total
> range of religious experience and practice.
> 
> Introduction
> Part of the difficulty involved in attempts to understand and clarify the relationship between religion and science is
> that the nature of religion seems much less clearly defined than that of science. Is religion primarily a cognitive
> activity like science, or is it more akin to an aesthetic or emotional experience? If religion is seen as primarily
> cognitive, then the main problem seems to be that of reconciling the application of scientific method to religion. In
> particular, it is often felt that this is difficult to do without falsifying either the nature of scientific method or else the
> global, subjective, mystic character of religion. On the other hand, viewing religion as primarily non-cognitive
> appears ultimately to relegate religion to an unacceptably secondary and inferior status in the range of human
> activities.
> The Bahá’í Faith, founded in 1844 in Persia under extraordinary circumstances, is significant among the
> religions of the contemporary world in its clear statement both of the nature of religion itself and of the applicability
> of scientific method to religion. In a summary description of basic Bahá’í beliefs, Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957)
> affirms:
> 
> The Revelation proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh, His followers believe is divine in origin, all-embracing in
> scope, broad in its outlook, scientific in its method, humanitarian in its principles and dynamic in the
> influence it exerts on the hearts and minds of men. The mission of the founder of their Faith, they conceive
> it to be to proclaim that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is continuous and
> progressive, that the Founders of all past religions, though different in the nonessential aspects of their
> teachings, “abide in the same Tabernacle, soar in the same heaven, are seated upon the same throne, utter
> the same speech and proclaim the same Faith.” His Cause, they have already demonstrated, stands
> identified with and revolves around, the principle of the organic unity of mankind as representing the
> consummation of the whole process of human evolution. This final stage in this stupendous evolution, they
> assert, is not only necessary but inevitable, that it is gradually approaching, and that nothing short of the
> celestial potency with which a divinely ordained Message can claim to be endowed can succeed in
> establishing it.
> The Bahá’í Faith recognizes the unity of God and of His Prophets, upholds the principle of an
> unfettered search after truth, condemns all forms of superstition and prejudice, teaches that the fundamental
> purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony, that it must go hand-in-hand with science, that it
> constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful, an ordered and progressive society… 1
> 
> Further, the essentially cognitive nature of religion is affirmed by the founder, Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892) in language
> such as that of the following passage:
> 
> First and foremost among those favors, which the Almighty hath conferred upon man, is the gift of
> understanding. His purpose in conferring such a gift is none other except to enable His creature to know
> and recognize the one true God—exalted be His glory. This gift giveth man the power to discern the truth
> in all things, leadeth him to that which is right, and helpeth him to discover the secrets of creation. Next in
> rank, is the power of vision, the chief instrument whereby his understanding can function. The senses of
> hearing, of the heart, and the like, are similarly to be reckoned among the gifts with which the human body
> is endowed... These gifts are inherent in man himself. That which is preeminent above all other gifts, is
> incorruptible in nature and pertaineth to God Himself, is the gift of Divine Revelation. Every bounty
> conferred by the Creator upon man, be it material or spiritual, is subservient unto this… 2
> 
> In other words from the Bahá’í viewpoint religion is importantly and basically a form of knowing, the
> object of knowledge (or basic datum) of which is the phenomenon of revelation. The other mystic and emotional
> aspects of religion are also affirmed in the Bahá’í Faith, but still the Faith is proclaimed to be “scientific in its
> method.” Another essential aspect of religion is that of action or “good works.” Still, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844–1921),
> son of Bahá’u’lláh and designated interpreter of his father’s revelation, affirms the primacy of knowledge with
> respect to action in the following terms: “Although a person of good deeds is acceptable at the Threshold of the
> Almighty, yet it is first ‘to know,’ and then ‘to do.’ Although a blind man produceth a most wonderful and exquisite
> art, yet he is deprived of seeing it... By faith is meant, first conscious knowledge, and second the practice of good
> deeds.”3
> The problem with all of this is that to affirm something as true does not necessarily give us an
> understanding as to how or why it is true. My purpose in this paper, then, is to discuss the religion–science conflict
> from a Bahá’í viewpoint with the specific goal of explicating the above affirmations. It is my hope that such an
> effort may prove of interest and profit to those of any religious background or viewpoint.
> 
> The nature of the religion–science conflict
> At the heart of the conflict between science and religion is the fact that two essentially different views of man are
> associated respectively with each, at least in the popular view. In the one instance, man is seen as a superevolved
> animal, a chance product of a material thermodynamic system. In the other case, he is seen as a spiritual being,
> created by God with a spiritual purpose given by God. Of course, conflicting views of the nature of man are as old
> as thought itself and certainly predate the period of modern science. However, it is only in the modern period that
> these materialistic views have become linked to a prestigious and highly efficient natural science. This prestige of
> science forces people to take seriously any pronouncement that is put forth in its name. All of this contrasts sharply
> with the pre-modern period in which the materialistic view was just one among many competing views and had no
> particular natural or obvious superiority over other views. People could simply discredit or disregard the
> materialistic viewpoint without feeling any pangs of conscience or without feeling threatened.
> In sum, then, I am suggesting that the conflict between religion and science is due essentially to the two
> qualitatively different views of man which are associated respectively with them, that the force of the materialistic
> view associated with modern science is due not to any inherent philosophical superiority of that view but rather to
> the immense prestige of the science in the name of which the materialistic view is put forth, and that this prestige of
> science is due essentially to its evident technological productivity and efficiency.
> One may, in turn, ask to what the efficiency and productiveness of modern science is due, and I believe that
> here there is one basic answer: scientific method. It is the method of science which has led to such remarkable
> results and thus to the present situation. Although some thinkers have tried to attribute the success of scientific
> method to one aspect or another of Western culture or religion, it is now abundantly clear that modern scientific
> method can be practised with success independently of any particular and religious or cultural orientation. Indeed,
> we can say that science as an activity is characterized by its method, for the immense diversity of domains which are
> now the object of scientific study defies any intrinsic characterization in terms of unity of content. The unity of
> science is its method.
> The importance of religion, on the other hand, derives precisely from its goal and its contents rather than its
> method. Religion treats of questions which are so fundamental for us that every human being is obligated to realize
> the importance of answering them. Some of these questions are: the purpose of man’s existence, the possibility of
> life after death, the possibility of self-transcendence, the possibility of contacting and living in harmony with a
> higher spiritual consciousness, the meaning of suffering, the existence of good and evil.
> Once we realize that the basis of science is its method and that the basis of religion is its object of study, the
> essential move towards resolving the religion–science controversy seems obvious and logical: apply scientific
> method within religion. But, as we have already noted in the preceding, there is widespread feeling that this is not
> truly possible. Thus, each side remains with its view of the nature of man and feeling basically that a reconciliation
> is not possible.
> It seems to me, however, that the conviction of the impossibility of applying scientific method to religion
> rests on several misconceptions both of the nature of scientific method and of the nature of religion. The ensuing
> discussion, though clearly incomplete, attempts to identify the sorts of misunderstandings involved.
> 
> The nature of scientific method
> Science is, first of all, knowledge. Moreover, it is human knowledge because it is humans who do the knowing, and
> the nature of human knowledge will be determined by the nature of human mental faculties. Of course, every human
> being on earth knows things and uses his mental faculties in order to attain this knowledge. What distinguishes the
> scientific method of knowing, it seems to me, is the systematic, organized, directed, and conscious nature of the
> process. However much we may refine and elaborate our description of the application of scientific method in some
> particular domain such as mathematics, logic or physics, this description remains essentially an attempt on our part
> to bring to ourselves a fuller consciousness of exactly how we apply our mental faculties in the course of the
> epistemological act within the given domain. I offer, therefore, the following heuristic definition of scientific
> method:
> 
> scientific method is the systematic, organized, directed and conscious use of our various mental faculties in
> an effort to arrive at a coherent model of whatever phenomenon is being investigated.
> 
> In a word, science is self-conscious common sense.4 Instead of relying on chance happenings or occasional
> experiences, one systematically invokes certain types of experiences. This is experimentation (the conscious use of
> experience). Instead of relying on naive reasoning, one formalizes hypotheses explicitly and formalizes the
> reasoning leading from hypothesis to conclusion. This is mathematics and logic (the conscious use of reason).
> Instead of relying on occasional flashes of insight, one systematically meditates on problems. This is reflection (the
> conscious use of intuition).5
> The practice of this method is not linked to the study of any particular phenomenon. It can be applied to the
> study of unseen forces and mysterious phenomena as well as to everyday, common occurrences. Failure to
> appreciate the universality of scientific method has led some to feel that science is really only the study of matter
> and purely material phenomena. This narrow philosophical outlook, plus the historical fact that physics was the first
> science to develop a high degree of mathematical objectivity, has led to a common misconception that scientific
> knowledge is inherently limited only to physical reality and material phenomena.
> It should also be stressed that the scientific study even of material and concretely accessible phenomena
> involves a heavily theoretical and subjective component. Far from just “reading the facts from the book of nature,”
> the scientist must bring an essential aspect of creative hypothesis and imagination to his work. Science as a whole is
> underdetermined by experience, and there are often many different possible models to explain a given phenomenon.
> The scientist must, therefore, not only seek to find out how things are but he must also imagine how things might be.
> Developments in all branches of science during the twentieth century have led to an increasing awareness among
> scientists and philosophers of the vastness of this subjective input into science.
> Another feature of scientific knowledge is its relativity. Because science is the self-conscious use of our
> faculties, we become aware that man has no absolute measure of the truth. The conclusions of scientific
> investigations are always more or less probable. They are never absolute proof.6 Of course, if a conclusion is highly
> probable and its negation highly improbable we may feel very confident in the results, especially if we have been
> very thorough in our investigation. But realization and acceptance of this essential incertitude and relativity of our
> knowledge is important, for the exigencies of the human situation are often such that we are forced to act in some
> instances before we have had time to make such a thorough investigation. It therefore behooves us to remain
> constantly alert to the possibility that we may, in fact, be wrong.7
> Let us note, in passing, that a similar view of scientific method is expressed in several places in the Bahá’í
> Writings. In a talk delivered at the Green Acre Institute in Eliot, Maine in 1912 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá discusses the methods
> of knowledge or criteria of judgment available to man:
> Proofs are of four kinds; first through sense-perception; second through the reasoning faculty; third, from
> traditional or scriptural authority; fourth, through the medium of inspiration. That is to say, there are four
> criteria or standards of judgment by which the human mind reaches its conclusions.8
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá then discusses each of these criteria and shows why it is fallible and relative.9 He then continues:
> 
> Consequently it has become evident that the four criteria or standards of judgment by which the human
> mind reaches its conclusions are faulty and inaccurate. All of them are liable to mistake and error in
> conclusions. But a statement presented to the mind accompanied by proofs which the senses can perceive to
> be correct, which the faculty of reason can accept, which is in accord with traditional authority and
> sanctioned by the promptings of the heart, can be adjudged and relied upon as perfectly correct, for it has
> been proved and tested by all the standards of judgment and found to be complete. When we apply but one
> test there are possibilities of mistake...10
> 
> In still another passage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains the relativity of man’s knowledge in the following terms:
> 
> Knowledge is of two kinds: one is subjective, and the other objective knowledge; that is to say, an intuitive
> knowledge and a knowledge derived from perception.
> The knowledge of things which men universally have, is gained by reflection or by evidence; that
> is to say, either by the power of the mind the conception of an object is formed, or from beholding an object
> the form is produced in the mirror of the heart. The circle of this knowledge is very limited, because it
> depends upon effort and attainment.
> But the second sort of knowledge, which is the knowledge of being, is intuitive, it is like the
> cognizance and consciousness that man has of himself.
> For example, the mind and the spirit of man are cognizant of the conditions and states of the
> members and component parts of the body, and are aware of all the physical sensations... This is the
> knowledge of being which man realises and perceives for the spirit surrounds the body, and is aware of its
> sensations and powers. This knowledge is not the outcome of effort and study; it is an existing thing, it is
> an absolute gift.11
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá then explains that the Manifestations, or Revelators, are distinguished from ordinary men in that they
> have the subjective (intuitive) knowledge of all things:
> 
> Since the Sanctified Realities, the universal Manifestations of God, surround the essence and qualities of
> the creatures, transcend and contain existing realities and understand all things, therefore their knowledge is
> divine knowledge, and not acquired: that is to say, it is a holy bounty, it is a divine revelation.12
> 
> In yet another passage, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá puts the matter in the following way:
> 
> Know that there are two kinds of knowledge; the knowledge of the essence of a thing, and the knowledge
> of its qualities. The essence of a thing is known through its qualities, otherwise it is unknown and hidden.
> As our knowledge of things, even of created and limited things, is knowledge of their qualities and
> not of their essence, how is it possible to comprehend in its essence the divine Reality, which is
> unlimited?13
> 
> We might try to sum up, however inadequately, the epistemological implications of these passages in somewhat the
> following way: human knowledge is the truth which is accessible to man, and this truth is relative because man, the
> knower, is relative, finite, and limited. There is an absolute reality underlying the multifaceted qualities and
> experiences accessible to man, but direct access to this reality, direct contact with it, or direct perception of it are
> forever beyond man’s capabilities. His knowledge is therefore relative and limited only to the knowledge of the
> various effects produced by this absolute reality. However, if man uses systematically all of the various modes of
> knowledge available to him, he is assured that his knowledge and understanding, such as it is on its level, will
> increase.14
> Positivism and Existentialism
> The main purpose of this brief discussion of scientific method is to suggest that a misconception of the nature of
> scientific method—namely that it is applicable only to more or less concretely accessible material phenomena15 and
> only in a relatively narrow way—has led to the general conclusion on the part of many religionists and scientists that
> scientific method is not applicable to religion. Depending on what further assumptions are made, one is led to two
> basic positions which I have labeled positivism and existentialism. There are many variants to each one of these two
> positions, and so these labels must be understood in a very general, heuristic way.
> On the other hand, we may add to the narrow view of scientific method the assumption that scientific
> method (so construed) is the only valid method of knowledge. One then concludes that religion is not a form of
> knowledge at all but rather an institutionalized form of superstition, emotionalism, fanaticism, togetherness, or what
> have you. On the other hand, we may conclude rather that there are methods of knowledge other than the scientific
> one and appropriate to religion. Religion, in this view, is seen as so deeply private, mystical, and subjective as to be
> “beyond” scientific method. It is, of course, the first of these views that I have labelled “positivism” and the second
> “existentialism”. I would like now to discuss briefly each of these positions in an attempt to show exactly why I hold
> them to be mistaken.
> Basically, the positivistic position regards religion as too hopelessly lacking in objectivity to be accessible
> to scientific treatment. It is true, of course, that the subject matter of religion is more complex than that of, say,
> physics because it includes more parameters. In the same way, biology is more complex than physics, psychology
> more complex than either and religion the most complex of all. In this sense, religion is indeed more “subjective” for
> the presence of many more parameters makes objectivity harder to obtain since the effort to make all parameters
> explicit is correspondingly much greater. Indeed, this is quite clearly reflected in the historical development of
> science in which first physics was developed to a fairly high level of objectivity, followed by chemistry, then
> biology, and now increasingly psychology and sociology.
> But it is important to realize, as we have already mentioned in the foregoing, that there is an essential part
> of subjectivity involved in the application of scientific method in any context. Suppose, for example, that we try to
> eliminate the subjective element of the notion “red” by agreeing that the term shall be applied only to those objects
> which give a reading of thus-and-so on a spectroscope. Once this agreement is made, we may still argue sometimes
> about whether or not the needle really is quite on thus-and-so, and the unbeliever will go away saying that the
> definition was all wrong in the first place. Though parts of the total context of science may involve highly
> articulated objectifications, the ultimate roots of understanding lie always in collective human subjectivity and so
> there is always “room for argument”.
> Besides appealing to explicit conventions, formal logic, and the like, positivists have tried to discredit the
> application of scientific method in religion by insisting on public verifiability as an essential aspect of scientific
> method. However, a little reflection will easily show that this restriction is arbitrary and in no wise a criterion of
> scientific method. I offer the following paradigm as an illustration of this point.
> A biologist looks through a microscope in his laboratory, sees a certain configuration, and exclaims: “Aha,
> at last I have the evidence that my theory is correct!” Question: How many people in the world are capable of
> looking at the configuration and verifying the findings of the biologist? Answer: Very few, almost none, probably
> only a few specialists in his field. The fact is that the biologist will publish his findings, and a few other qualified
> individuals will test his results, and if they seem confirmed, the scientific world at large will accept the theory as
> verified. The positivist might concede this but say: “But if an individual did go through the years of training
> necessary to understand everything the biologist knows, then the individual could verify the statement. Thus, I admit
> the statement is not practically verifiable by the public, but it is theoretically verifiable.” But even this is not enough.
> That fact is that the positivist will be constrained to admit that a great many people may be unable, through lack of
> intelligence or mental proclivity, ever, in theory, to validate the result. The fact is that the findings are not verifiable
> by the public at all. The findings can be verified only by individuals capable of assuming and willing to assume the
> point of view of the researcher. In most instances, this group is a very select one indeed, drawn from those who are
> members of a community of understanding and who participate in a certain framework of interpretation which is
> applied to all those subjective experiences which fall within a certain category. More will be said of this further
> on.
> At bottom, the criterion for truth in science is pragmatic. “Does it work the way it says it will?” is the
> question to be answered. If the theory says that such and such a thing must happen, then does it happen? It is by
> repeated application of this pragmatic criterion, interlaced with intervening theory, that we gradually build up a
> model of reality, a collection of true statements. We might try to formulate a general criterion of scientific truth
> somewhat as follows: We have a right to accept a statement as true when we have tendered it considerably more
> acceptable than its negation. Proof, in scientific terms, means nothing more than the total process by which we
> render a statement acceptable by this criterion. Such a proof remains always relative, for it depends on the total
> context of the statements involved, the implicit and explicit conventions concerning the meaning and operational use
> of symbols, the experiential component of these statements, and so on. All of these things have their ultimate roots
> in human subjectivity and are therefore liable to possible revision in the future.
> In practice, of course, it often happens that revision comes either from strikingly new and different
> experiences which demand that we revise our conceptual framework in order to account for them, or else from some
> unexpected conclusions deduced within the framework itself and which contradict known experiences (the most
> radical case being that of logical contradictions). But nothing excludes the possibility that revision might come from
> some subtle interaction of all of these factors in a way which is totally inconceivable to us at present.
> In short, I maintain that any sort of formulaic, pseudo-objective characterization of scientific method such
> as that attempted by various positivistic-minded philosophers cannot truly capture scientific method.16 Our
> description of scientific method must remain scientific, i.e. pragmatic, relative, open, etc.
> Lacking any such closed, exclusive formula characterization of scientific method, there is no basis on
> which to limit scientific method in such a way as to exclude its application to religion, Of course, this does not mean
> that everything that passes for religion is scientific nor does it allow us to say what we will find if we do apply
> scientific method to religion. My essential contention is simply the following: no known positivistic formulations of
> or restrictions on the nature of scientific method and which exclude a priori the applicability of scientific method to
> religion, seem to be justified by the nature of scientific method itself. Furthermore, the nature of scientific method
> does not appear to lend itself to such formulations or restrictions.
> The existentialist position derives its character more from its view of religion than from its view of
> scientific method. The existentialist might well accept, even readily, that scientific method cannot be applied to
> religion. But such a contention would not bother him (as it does me) because it only serves to heighten the difference
> and cleavage between science and religion. For him the very importance of religion derives from its being
> unsystematic, even chaotic, subjective, private, incommunicable, emotional, etc. For him, the knowledge that
> religion brings is a mystic or occult knowledge, communicable only to a limited extent and primary through myth,
> symbol, art and other forms of non-verbal activity.
> One extreme form of this position would be to accept completely the positivistic contention that religion is
> not a form of knowledge, and to view religion primarily as an aesthetic experience of some sort. Otherwise, if
> religion is viewed as a form of knowledge, it is a form totally different from science, with its own methodology (or
> lack of methodology), symbols, experiences, etc.
> Perhaps, in the last analysis, the difference between the existentialist and the positivist lies not so much in
> their respective views as to the nature of religion and of science but rather in their difference in attitude towards
> these perceptions. The positivist values science above religion and sees his narrow interpretation of scientific
> method, with the consequent exclusion of religion, as purifying science from the unwanted trash of emotionalism
> and irrationality. The existentialist values religion above science and is just as glad to see religion separated from
> what he feels to be the soul-stultifying dryness, uniformity, formalism, and mechanization of science. While the
> positivist is impressed primarily by the efficiency and achievements of science, the existentialist is impressed by the
> potentialities of the richness of subjective experience. This richness he sees as constituting that which is most truly
> human and which deserves to be most thoroughly and strenuously developed in man. Since, as he supposed,
> scientific methods cannot be used to develop this richness, religion must develop methods of its own different from
> those of science. It is to the development of such methods that the existentialist bends his efforts, and it would never
> occur to him to try to reconcile religion and science, something which he would regard as impossible in any case.
> My sketch here of what I have labeled as the existentialist position is consciously exaggerated at some
> points, but the logical thrust is clear: the existentialist grants that science cannot be applied to religion, that religion
> is peculiarly subjective and mystical in a way that makes it necessarily unsystematic and thus inaccessible to
> science, and he values this subjective aspect of religion above science and its method. He is, therefore, not upset by
> the cleavage between religion and science (except that he may have existential difficulties living in a world which is
> currently so dominated by science and its fruits!).
> Now, I am as impressed as anyone by the richness of subjective experience, and I certainly feel that if the
> practice of science, or anything else, is going to lead ultimately to a progressive impoverishment of it, then such
> practice is dehumanizing and should be abandoned. But I feel that the existentialist position and its variants fall into
> their particular view of internal experience only by neglecting seriously the collective and social dimension of
> religion, in short, by considering religion as something which is purely internal to the individual. It is only within
> such a framework that the subjective aspect of religion can be so isolated from the rest and made to seem as
> inherently separate from other types of subjective experience, and in particular from that involved in the practice of
> science itself.
> We have already had occasion in the foregoing to appreciate the fact that subjective experience is
> intimately and irrevocably involved in the practice of science at all levels. Clearly it is more reasonable, then, to
> view subjective experiences as being ranged on some sort of continuum from less intense to more intense, or from
> less profound to more profound, or yet some other characterization. As different as may be the experience of seeing
> a red object on the one hand, and that of mystical ecstasy on the other, they are generically instances of subjective
> experience before they are specifically anything else. Moreover, the practicing scientist and the mystic, when
> confronted with the problem of building and communicating conceptual models of their experience, both face
> essentially the same logical difficulty on their level of experience. For everyone, including the scientist, knows that
> no amount of explication, verbal or otherwise, can ever exhaust all of the subjective richness of the experience of
> “red”. Our previous example of the spectroscope shows the nature of the problem involved, and we must further
> remember that during the long years of science’s evolution, such sophisticated conventional devices were not at
> hand.
> Science has overcome this barrier by creating a community of understanding. Each individual scientist
> must undergo training of a sort which enables him to participate in the validation of the subjective experience of
> other members of the scientific community, when this experience falls within a certain range determined by the
> nature of the particular scientific discipline in question. As we have already seen in the example of the biologist and
> his microscope, subjective experience is never publicly verifiable. It is verifiable only by those capable of assuming
> and willing to assume the point of view of the one who has the experience. By maintaining a growing discipline of
> education and training in science, a community of qualified individuals capable of assuming and willing to assume a
> certain point of view is gradually evolved. This community gives a framework of interpretation to the individual
> practicing scientist, and it is the framework of interpretation which alone enables his own work, however brilliant or
> insightful, to become truly illuminating. No matter how far above the common lot of scientists an Einstein or a
> Newton may be, he can function significantly only in the context of such a community of understanding. If these
> same individuals had been born in a desert or in a tropical rainforest, their subjective experience would have fallen
> within another framework of interpretation and would certainly not have had the same result (though it may have
> been just as illuminating in its own context).
> This model of the objectification of internal experience through creating a community of understanding and
> a consequent framework of interpretation is borne out by observation and experience, not only of the history and
> development of science but also of individuals. For example, case histories of individuals blind from birth who were
> given sight after reaching maturity indicate, as one would expect, that perception is not immediate but has to be
> painfully and slowly learned. Their first experience is a chaos of sensations with no discernible objects, forms, etc.
> Gradually, through participation in the framework of interpretation given by the community, perception is born, and
> order is brought out of chaos.17
> The neglect of the social dimension of religion is only one aspect of the weakness of the existentialist
> position. Another aspect comes into focus when we further examine the comparison between the scientific view of
> subjective experience and the existentialist view. While our discussion of scientific method has led us to
> acknowledge a certain irreducibility of the subjective input into the epistemological act, it is nevertheless equally
> clear that our experience, however subjective, of anything, say a red object, is still an experience of something. Even
> the chaos of sensation that the previously sightless person experiences is a reaction of his subjectivity to something
> “out there”. It is not simply the mind’s experience of itself (which might be like the sensations of images one has
> during sleep or when one’s eyes are closed). But the existentialist glorification of the subjective amounts to treating
> the internal experience of the individual as the datum of religion. Religious experience is thus not viewed as an
> experience of anything, at least not anything other than the internal self of the individual. Insofar as religion is
> scientific, it would thus be indistinguishable from psychology, and this again explains the tendency to emphasize the
> unsystematic, unpredictable, irrational, mythic, and aesthetic aspects of religious experience, for these are the only
> aspects which, from such a standpoint, can be viewed as properly and specifically religious.
> If such a view of religion and religious experience is to be refuted, one must face and answer the basic
> question “of what is religious experience an experience?” What is religion about? If scientific method can be applied
> to religion, then what is the datum of religion?
> 
> The Bahá’í Faith
> The answer which the Bahá’í Faith offers to this central question is, or so it seems to me, particularly cogent, clear
> and direct. For Bahá’ís, religion is the study of the phenomenon of revelation and religious experience a response to
> the spirit and teachings of the Revelator or Manifestation. The Bahá’í Faith offers the scientific hypothesis that
> revelation is a periodic phenomenon of period roughly one thousand years. The large number of generations
> intervening between two occurrences of revelation poses obvious problems for the study of this phenomenon.
> However, we cannot refuse to study something simply because the study is hard or because the data
> associated with it are, in some instances, accessible only with difficulty. Other natural sciences, such as astrophysics,
> also study periodic phenomena whose periods are much greater than a thousand years and for which the accessibility
> of data is likewise a problem. Simply, allowances have to be made for the fact that, because of the periods involved,
> careful records must be kept since the observations which a given individual scientist can make in his lifetime are
> too limited to form in themselves a basis for the furtherance of the science.
> Let us take a brief look at the phenomenon of revelation as it presents itself to us in history, which is man’s
> collective experience.
> If we consider the great religious systems of which there still exists some extant manifestation or some
> historical record, we will see that each has been founded by an historical figure, a unique personage. Islam was
> founded by Muhammad, Buddhism by Buddha, Christianity by Jesus, Judaism (in its definitive form) by Moses,
> Zoroastrianism by Zoroaster, and so on. These religious systems have all followed quite similar patterns of
> development. There is a nucleus of followers gathered around the founder during his lifetime. The founder lays
> down certain teachings which constitute the principles of his religion. Moreover, each of these founders has made
> the same claim, namely that the inspiration for his teachings and his influence was due to God and not to human
> learning or human devices. Each of these founders claimed to be the exponent on earth of an invisible, superhuman,
> personal God of unlimited power, the creative force (creator) of the universe. After the death of the founder, an early
> community is formed and the teachings of the founder are incorporated into a book (if no book was written by the
> founder). And finally a great civilization grows up based on the religious system, a civilization which lasts for many
> centuries.
> All of the statements of the above paragraph are statements with high empirical content and low theoretical
> content. These are a few facts of religious history. Of course these facts are based on records and observations of
> past generations. One can try to dispute these records if one chooses, but we must be scientific in any approach we
> make. In particular, the records of the older religions are of validity equal to any other record of comparable date. If,
> for example, we refuse to believe that Jesus lived, we must also deny that Socrates lived for we have evidence of
> precisely the same validity for the existence of both men. The records of Muhammad’s life are much more valid
> than these and are probably beyond serious dispute. Moreover, if we choose to posit the unreality of the figures
> whose names are recorded and to whom various teachings and influence are attributed, we must, at the same time,
> give an alternative explanation for the tremendous influence which these religious systems, elaborated in the name
> of these founders, have had. This is more difficult than one may be inclined at first to believe.
> The major civilizations of history have been associated with the major prophetic religious systems.
> Zoroastrianism was the religion of the “glory of ancient Persia” the Persia that conquered Babylon, Palestine, Egypt,
> and the Greek city-states. Judaism was the basis of the great Hebrew culture which some philosophers such as
> Jaspers regard as the greatest in history. Moreover, Jewish law has formed the basis of common law and
> jurisprudence in countries all over the world. Western culture, until the rise of modern science, was dominated by
> Christianity. The great Muslim culture invented algebra and preserved and developed the Hellenistic heritage. It was
> probably the greatest civilization the world had seen until the rise of the industrial revolution began to transform
> Western culture.
> We are, however, very much in the same position with respect to past revelations as we are with regard to
> any phenomenon of long period. We were not there to observe Jesus or Muhammad in action. The contemporaries
> of these people were certainly impressed by them, but these observations were made years ago and are liable, we
> feel, to embellishments. Even though it may be unscientific to try to explain away the influence of these religious
> figures, there is still a certain desire to do so. We are put off by certain obvious interpolations, and we are not sure
> just what to accept and what to reject.
> Bahá’ís believe that man’s social evolution is due to the periodic intervention into human affairs of the
> creative force of the universe by means of the religious founders or “Manifestations”. What is most significant is
> that the Bahá’í Faith offers fresh empirical evidence, in the person of its own founder, that such a phenomenon has
> occurred. Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892) claimed to be one of these Manifestations and he reaffirmed the validity of the
> past revelations (though not necessarily the accuracy of all the details recorded in the ancient books). Here is a
> figure who walked the earth in recent times and whose history is documented by thousands of records and witnesses.
> Moreover, the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are preserved in his manuscripts and so we are faced with a record of recent
> date and one of which there can be no serious doubt.
> The only way we can judge Bahá’u’lláh’s fascinating hypothesis that social evolution is due to the
> influence of the Manifestations is the way we judge any proposition: scientific method. This is the only way we can
> judge Bahá’u’lláh’s claim to be one of these Manifestations. We must see if these assumptions are consistent with
> our knowledge of life as a whole. We must see if we can render these assertions considerably more acceptable than
> their negations. In the case of Bahá’u’lláh, we have many things which we can test empirically. Bahá’u’lláh made
> predictions. Did they come true? Bahá’u’lláh claimed Divine inspiration. Did he receive formal schooling, and did
> he exhibit power and knowledge not easily attributable to human sources? He insisted on moral purity. Did he lead a
> life of moral purity? In his teachings are found statements concerning the nature of the physical world. Has science
> validated these? He engaged in extensive analysis of the nature of man’s organized social life. Does his analysis
> accord with our own scientific observations of the same phenomena? He also makes assertions concerning human
> psychology and subjectivity and invites individuals to test these. Do they work? The possibilities are unlimited.
> Of course, the same criteria can be applied to other Manifestations, but the known facts are so much less
> authenticated and so restricted in number that much direct testing is not possible. This does not disturb Bahá’ís
> because they believe that , essentially, there is only one religion and that each of the successive revelations is a stage
> in the development of this one religion. The Bahá’í Faith is thus the contemporary form of religion and we should
> not be surprised that it is so accessible to the method of contemporary science. Christianity and Islam were probably
> just as accessible to the scientific methods of their day as is the Bahá’í Faith to modern scientific method.
> This relative inaccessibility of data concerning the older religions should not be taken as in any way
> lessening their importance or value relative to the Bahá’í Faith. The Bahá’í view is that of the absolute unity of
> religion, not the superiority of one religion over another for whatever reason.18 Nevertheless, if one is talking about
> applying scientific method to religion, problems such as that of the authenticity of ancient records must be frankly
> faced and seen in their true light. They must be neither exaggerated out of proportion nor swept under the rug as if
> they did not matter. Indeed, the best of modern Biblical scholarship, both Christian and Jewish, has been undertaken
> in this scientific spirit. If it has resulted, in some instances, in the undermining of certain traditional beliefs, it has
> more fundamentally served to clarify and enlighten the faith of truly informed students of religion. If the
> doubtfulness of a few passages of the Bible has been exposed, the validity of the basic text has been vindicated (as
> for example by the corroborative version of Isaiah in the Dead Sea manuscripts).
> Each religious system has been founded on the faith in the reality of the phenomenon of revelation, and
> those people associated with the phenomenon felt fully justified in their faith. But as the influence of religion
> declined and the facts of revelation receded into history, the sense of conviction of the reality of the phenomenon
> subsided, and this was only natural as we have seen. It is therefore important to realize that the Bahá’í Faith offers
> much more than new arguments about the old evidence for the phenomenon of revelation. It offers empirical
> evidence for the phenomenon and it is frank to base itself on this evidence and to apply the scientific method in
> understanding the evidence. So much is this so, that I would unhesitatingly say that the residue of subjectivity in the
> faith of a Bahá’í is no greater than the residue of subjectivity in the faith one has in any well-validated scientific
> theory. Just as in the example of the biologist and the microscope, the findings of a Bahá’í can be verified by anyone
> willing to assume and capable of assuming the point of view of a Bahá’í.
> According to Bahá’u’lláh, the social purpose of religion is to create an adequate spiritual basis for the
> progressive unfolding of an ordered social life for mankind. Indeed, as one examines the history of mankind, one
> can perceive the gradual ordering and re-ordering of man’s collective life on ever higher levels of unity, each new
> level maintaining the integrity of the previous ones and, at the same time, calling forth from the individual a
> correspondingly greater degree of altruism and other-centeredness. The family, the tribe, the city-state, and the
> nation can be seen as significant steps in this social evolution. The first two of these successive stages can be
> identified in a large measure with the respective revelations of Abraham and Moses, while the latter is due
> essentially to Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam.19 Bahá’u’lláh explains that, besides the general
> mission of renewing the spiritual life of men and society, each religion has a specific mission which accomplishes a
> definite step forward in the total evolution of mankind. He views his own revelation as being the most recent in this
> succession and as having the unification of mankind as a whole for its specific mission.20
> As one thinks about this progressive unfoldment of human society, one comes to see certain aspects of its
> mechanism. To begin with, it is clear that unity on one level can eventually become disunity on
> another; the unity of the family can coexist with disunity between families, for example. When the new level of
> unity is first attained, it represents a positive step, but the very accretion of power and the increased mastery
> resulting from the reorganization of society on this higher level can ultimately lead to tensions among these higher-
> order units themselves. This may happen years or centuries, or millenia later, but when it does happen, the suffering
> caused by these tensions becomes increasingly unbearable and serves as one of the factors generating the motivation
> to accomplish the next stage of unity. That is, the individuals participating in the social system in question develop a
> strong sense of, and a need for, the higher unity.21
> This higher unity is effected not by the suppression of the existing units, but rather by their being
> harmoniously organized into a higher unit—the unity to the tribe is the unity of families, the unity of a race that of
> tribes, the unity of a nation that of races, etc. Indeed, the attainment of unity on the lower level has been a necessary
> prerequisite to its establishment on the higher one. In the same way, Bahá’u’lláh envisages world unity as being a
> unity among nations, with a world government, a world tribunal, a single auxiliary universal language, and a world
> economic system.
> Just as a tree must push its roots deeper as it grows higher, so must each external step forward have an
> internal concomitant. The individual must, at each stage, become less self-centered. He must give his loyalty to and
> identify with an ever-widening circle of his fellow humans. Whereas “brother” first meant physical brother, it
> gradually came to mean fellow Jew, fellow brother in Christ, fellow countryman, and must ultimately mean fellow
> world citizen, There is, in short, a gradual increase in the consciousness of the individual, and it is this new
> consciousness which alone allows the new unity, the new external step forward, to take place on a spiritual basis.
> This new depth of individual spiritual awareness also serves to increase the quality of unity at all levels. In this way,
> the creation of the new unity is not a superficial juxtaposition of parts or a purely formal restructuring, but rather a
> renewal of the whole of the society, and indeed the only way the society can be so renewed at that given stage in its
> development. Thus Bahá’u’lláh teaches that the establishment of world unity will lead to the perfecting and
> deepening of the quality of life at all levels of society.
> This model also explains why we cannot wait for the lower levels of society to become perfect before
> working on the establishment of world unity (such an objection of the Bahá’í goal of establishing world unity is
> frequently heard) . The interdependence of the part and the whole is too great for such a piecemeal approach to
> succeed. Bahá’u’lláh explains that mankind is like a body whose cells and organs are the individual human beings
> and the smaller social units. If the whole body is ill, every single cell will be affected in some way. At the same
> time, the whole body suffers to some extent from even a few unhealthy cells.
> Thus, in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, there are provisions for the organization and restructuring of society
> on a world level, and there also provisions for the perfecting of social organization on the local and intermediate
> levels, as well as manifold spiritual aids for the individual in his own effort to spiritualize his life and attain to a
> new, more universal, consciousness.
> Indeed, the individual aspect of religion is just as important and essential as the global, social aspect. This
> individual component was the point of departure for our whole discussion and so I would like to return to it in
> closing this essay.
> For Bahá’ís, the individual, internal aspect of religion is a direct response to the datum of the
> Manifestation, his spirit and teachings. It is not simply the mind’s experience of itself or some form of
> autosuggestion. This is why scientific method can be applied even in this aspect of religion. In the Bahá’í Faith, the
> individual component of religion takes the form of daily prayer, communion with God, meditation on the words of
> Bahá’u’lláh, and a constant effort to express one’s developing spirituality through service to mankind. Among the
> many individual attributes which Bahá’u’lláh mentions as characteristic of the spiritually-minded individual are
> humility, obedience to the will of God, justice, love, abstention from backbiting and criticism of others, regarding
> others with a sin-covering eye, and preferring others to oneself in all things.
> Bahá’u’lláh stresses that personal spiritual development, the experience of self-transcendence, and the
> mystic, sense of union with God—all of which have been described and discussed in the world’s mystic literature—
> these are the fruits only of conscious and deliberate search and struggle. They are not haphazard experiences which
> we can casually cajole from the universe. They must be consciously sought and practiced as diligently as any
> scientific or academic discipline. Scientific method, the conscious, systematic, organized, and directed use of our
> mental faculties, must be employed if we are to be successful in developing spirituality.
> Of course, to say that spirituality must be consciously and systematically sought does not imply that it can
> be reduced to any formula practice, any more than science itself can be so reduced. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has expressed it
> simply:
> 
> Everything of importance in this world demands the close attention of its seeker. The one in pursuit of
> anything must undergo difficulties and hardships until the object in view is attained and the great success is
> obtained. This is the case of things pertaining to the world. How much higher is that which concerns the
> Supreme Concourse!22
> 
> In contemplating the application of scientific method to individual spiritual practice, let us again recall that
> science never leads to total or absolute objectification of internal experience, for such a thing is simply unobtainable.
> Moreover, the quality of internal experience involved in the pursuit of spirituality will clearly be infinitely richer
> than that connected with most other types of activity. In this perspective, emphasis on the aesthetic and the mythic is
> legitimate, important, and useful, for the gap between any descriptive models of such experience and the experience
> itself will be correspondingly greater than in other areas, though the basic method remains unchanged.23
> Religion is primarily a form of knowing, but the relativity and limitations of our knowledge will be felt
> even more keenly here than elsewhere. Indeed, it is this self-knowledge, the acute consciousness of these very
> limitations, which constitutes an important part of our knowledge of God. One of the profoundest truths that the
> mystic discovers is that the ultimate goal is, not to comprehend, but to be comprehended. The deepest knowledge is
> attained by the profoundest awareness of our own relative ignorance. Bahá’u’lláh expresses this important truth in
> the following terms:
> 
> Consider the rational faculty with which God hath endowed the essence of man. Examine thine own self,
> and behold how thy motion and stillness, they will and purpose, thy sight and hearing, thy sense of smell
> and power of speech, and whatever else is related to, or transcendeth, thy physical sense or spiritual
> perceptions, all proceed from, and owe their existence to, this same faculty… Wert thou to ponder in thine
> heart, from now until the end that hath no end, and with all the concentrated intelligence and understanding
> which the greatest minds have attained in the past or will attain in the future, this divinely ordained and
> subtle Reality, this sign of the revelation of the All-Abiding, All-Glorious God, thou wilt fail to
> comprehend its mystery to appraise its virtue. Having recognized thy powerlessness to attain to an adequate
> understanding of that Reality which abideth within thee, thou wilt readily admit the futility of such efforts
> as nay be attempted by thee, or by any of the created things, to fathom the mystery of the Living God, the
> day Star of unfading glory, the Ancient of everlasting days. This confession of helplessness which mature
> contemplation must eventually impel every mind to make is in itself the acme of human understanding, and
> marketh the culmination of man’s development.24
> 
> Since, in the Bahá’í view, internal religious experience is not simply the self’s experience of itself, but is a
> direct response to the datum of the Manifestation, there is consequently a need for a constantly accessible focal point
> towards which the individual can turn in his pursuit of these individual spiritual goals. This indeed is one of the
> reasons for the periodic nature of the phenomenon of revelation. Although something of God’s nature can be said to
> be revealed in every aspect of creation, clearly the force and importance of such a revelation are conditioned by two
> things, namely, the inherent limitations of the instrument used as a vehicle of revelation, and the accessibility to us
> of the occurrence of revelation.
> Man himself is the most highly-ordered and subtle phenomenon in all the universe known to man. It would
> thus seem logical that man would be the most perfect available (i.e. least limited) instrument as a vehicle for God’s
> self-revelation. Hence, the Person of the Manifestation.25 The necessity for the repetition of revelation derives from
> the condition of accessibility. The length of the period between occurrences, on the other hand, derives from the
> social nature of religion as described in the foregoing. Simply, it takes a certain time for a Manifestation to become
> known, His system to become established, and for the specific purpose of His revelation to be accomplished.26
> 
> Conclusions
> I feel that the Bahá’í view of religion is exciting in its fundamental assertion of the universality and accessibility of
> religion and religious experience to the enquiring mind. The existentialist view of religion, as well as other
> subjective views, see religious experience rather as something which cannot (and perhaps should not) be cultivated,
> practised and sought systematically. Rather it must strike like lightning for reasons which are never wholly clear or
> else as the result of some magical or occult practice. Clearly no experience of such an erratic and unstable nature
> could ever serve as the basis for a progressive society.
> Positivism and its variants limit unduly the application of scientific method and fail to see that the essence
> of the method can be applied to all phenomena and to all aspects of life, including the spiritual.
> The ultimate resolution of the religion-science opposition is thus based on a balance and complementarity
> between the two, involving a better understanding of the nature and universality of scientific method on the one
> hand, and of the nature and content of that datum which is the phenomenon of revelation on the other. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
> has expressed admirably the nature of this balance in the following words:
> 
> Religion and science are the two wings upon which man’s intelligence can soar into the heights, with which
> the human soul can progress. It is not possible to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try to fly with the
> wing of religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of superstition, whilst on the other hand,
> with the wing of science alone he would also make no progress, but fall into the despairing slough of
> materialism… When religion, shorn of its superstitions, traditions and unintelligent dogmas, shows its
> conformity with science, then will there 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.27
> 
> Notes
> 
> 1. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Ill., 1955, p. xi. Italics mine.
> 2. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Ill., 1971, p. 194–
> 195.
> 3. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Illinois, pages 382–383.
> 4. This is a conscious paraphrase of a description due to W. V. Quine, Word and Object, Technology Press of
> M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass., 1960, page 3.
> 5. For a much more detailed and exhaustive analysis of this conception of scientific method, see William S. Hatcher,
> “Science and Religion” World Order, 3, No. 3 (Spring 1969), p. 7–19.
> 6. Some might feel that deductive logical proofs are absolute, but such proofs proceed from premises which are
> ultimately based on empirical, and thus inductive or probable, inference. See the reference of note 5 above for a
> more detailed analysis and discussion of these points.
> 7. The appeal to probable inference here is in the sense of “approximate” and not in the technical sense of the strict
> construction of a probabilistic model for the phenomenon being investigated. Probability in our sense is thus a
> measure of the relative ignorance of the knowing subject rather than the hypothesis that the phenomenon under
> investigation is indeterminate in some way. This leaves unanswered the question as to whether every use of
> probability can be so regarded. However, if one espouses an essentially pragmatic epistemology, as I do, it may
> not even be necessary to determine, in any given instance, which part of our world view comes from the viewer
> and which part derives from the thing viewed. We have only to evaluate the explanatory and predictive value of
> our model according to pragmatic criteria. (See Hatcher, “Foundations as a Branch of Mathematics”, Journal of
> Philosophical Logic, Vol. 1 (1972), p. 349–358, for a further discussion of these points.)
> 8. This and the following passage are quoted in Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, George Ronald, London, 1971, p. 242.
> 9. It is interesting to note the discussion given of the use of scriptural authority. In Some Answered Questions
> (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Ill., 1930), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá points out that man’s understanding of scripture
> is limited by his own powers of reasoning and interpretation. Since these powers are relative, so is his
> understanding of scripture. Thus, regardless of the authority one attributes to the text itself, arguments based on
> such authority are in reality based on man’s understanding of the text and hence are not absolute. (see pages
> 342–343).
> 10. See reference of note 8 above.
> 11. Some Answered Questions, page 180.
> 12. Ibid, page 180.
> 13. Ibid, page 255.
> 14. We have, in effect, a Platonic metaphysics combined with a pragmatic epistemology, the essential connection
> between the two being the Manifestation. See also note 26.
> 15. Of course it is clear that such things as remote stars and subatomic particles are not immediately accessible, but
> the refined techniques used to study these are often appealed to as concrete extensions of the immediately
> accessible, even to the extent of identifying the object of study as being the techniques themselves
> (operationalism) On the other hand, such examples (and especially the sub-atomic case) can be seen already as a
> partial refutation to the narrow view of scientific method. Witness the difficulty encountered by positivistic
> philosophers of science in assimilating the study of these phenomena to the narrow view.
> 16. The most well-known attempts are those of the Vienna–Oxford school typified in Ayer’s Language, Truth, and
> Logic, Dover, New York, 1952.
> 17. Comparison might well be made here between such an experience and that of mystics. Perhaps the mystic is
> initially overwhelmed by the newness and intensity of his first experience and is thus led to feel that it is1
> essentially an irredeemably, chaotic and unsystematic. This would naturally lead to the glorification of the
> subjective which is characteristic of the existentialist view, as well as to the conviction that mystic experience is
> essentially non-objectifiable. But it is precisely my suggestion that the building of a religious community of
> understanding in a scientific way can lead to a relative objectification of mystic experience similar to that
> effected by the application of scientific method on other levels of experience. The resulting framework of
> interpretation would allow the individual to proceed from the initial mystic experience to a new stage of
> spiritual perception or knowledge, again bringing order out of chaos. This model also serves to illumine the
> relationship between the individual practicant and the community. The individual’s mystic experience is his
> own and no one else’s, but he has to relate properly to the community if his internal experience is to be of
> genuine profit to him. At the same time, there is the further benefit to the community itself which profits from
> harnessing the individual’s spirituality in the form of service.
> 18. In this regard, Bahá’u’lláh has given the following clear statement: “Beware, O believers in the Unity of God,
> lest ye be tempted to make any distinction between any of the Manifestations of His Cause, or to discriminate
> against the signs that have accompanied and proclaimed their Revelation. This indeed is the true meaning of
> Divine Unity, if ye be of them that apprehend and believe this truth. Be ye assured, moreover, that the works
> and acts of each and every one of these Manifestations of God, nay whatever pertaineth unto them, and
> whatsoever they may manifest in the future, are all ordained by God, and are a reflection of His Will and
> Purpose. Whoso maketh the slightest possible difference between their persons, their words, their messages,
> their acts and manners, hath indeed disbelieved in God, hath repudiated His signs1 and betrayed the Cause of
> His Messengers”. (Bahá’í World Faith, op. cit., pages 27–28).
> 19. The Revelation of Jesus was primarily focused on the individual, and can be viewed, at least in part, as a
> counterbalance to the overemphasis on the totalitarian state and to the miserable social conditions and status to
> which the majority of the recipients of his message were subject.
> 20. Bahá’u’lláh does not claim to be the last of these Messengers, for according to his teachings, the succession will
> never stop, nor will human and social evolution ever come to a dead end (though the ultimate physical death of
> the solar system itself seems inevitable according to the best current scientific knowledge) . However, he does
> state clearly that the next Manifestation will not come before the lapse of a thousand years time.
> 21. This reflects a fundamental principle of evolutionary phenomena: That which is functional and productive at one
> stage of the process can become dysfunctional and unproductive at another stage. The same principle can also
> be applied in attempting to understand the various changes in religious practice wrought by each successive
> Revelation.
> 22. Divine Art of Living, Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Ill., revised edition, their printing 1970, page, 92.
> 23. Nothing that I have said in the foregoing should be taken as implying that the aesthetic and emotional
> aspects of religion should be in any way de-emphasized, neglected, or excised from religion. My contention has
> been rather that, when religion is excluded from the application of scientific method, the aesthetic and
> emotional tend to become drastically over-emphasized, as they are then seen as constituting the only datum of
> religion. But it is my feeling that when one attains a more balanced picture of religion and recognizes its
> basically cognitive nature, then these other aspects naturally fall into place in a healthy way, neither being
> indulged or sought for their own sakes on the one hand, nor rejected on the other. I think it is fair to say that
> many of the excesses witnessed throughout religious history, such as fanaticism, asceticism, mystic thrill-
> seeking, and withdrawal from society, can be largely attributed to the lack of the sort of balanced viewpoint I
> am seeking to describe. It is interesting to note that Bahá’u’lláh pointedly condemns these specific excesses, as
> well as others.
> 24. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, op. cit., pages 164, 165 and 166.
> 25. In this connection, Bahá’u’lláh has said: “...all things, in their inmost reality, testify to the revelation of the
> names and attributes of God within them... Man, the noblest and most perfect of all created things, excelleth
> them all in the intensity of this revelation, and is a fuller expression of its glory. And of all men, the most
> accomplished, the most distinguished, and the most excellent are the Manifestations of the Sun of Truth. May,
> all else besides these Manifestations, leve by the operation of their Will, and move and have their being through
> the outpourings of their grace.” (Gleanings, op cit., p. 178–179).
> 26. The crucial role of the Manifestation as the link between the transcendent Absolute Reality and the world of man
> is expressed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in these words: “The knowledge of the Reality of the Divinity is impossible and
> unattainable, but the knowledge of the Manifestations of God is the knowledge of God, for the bounties,
> splendours, and divine attributes are apparent in them. Therefore, if man attains to the knowledge of the
> Manifestations of God, he will attain to the knowledge of God; and if he be neglectful of the knowledge of the
> Holy Manifestation, he will be bereft of the knowledge of God.” (Some Answered Questions, p. 257–58.)
> 27. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks: Addresses Given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Paris in 1911–1912, 11th ed., London, Bahá’í
> Publishing Trust, 1969, pages 143–146.
>
> — *Science and the Baha'i Faith (Used by permission of the curator)*