Vatican; Baha'u'llah

[Glenn Scheper]

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/cultr/documents/rc_pc_cultr_01121994_doc_iv-1994-pastor_en.html

A scientific culture is essentially a problem solving culture, one where every problem admits of a solution. In such a perspective the idea that a question might be inexhaustible, and that as Gabriel Marcel says, "the idea of God is a mystery to be lived rather than a problem to be solved" ... is one which is barely comprehensible.

Despite his background in Logical Positivism, Wittgenstein recognised the radical impoverishment of human experience as represented by Positivism - the refusal to accept the validity of ethics, aesthetics, and religious belief, and the denial of the meaningfulness of the question "Why" in favour of a world content to settle for the question "How". This was a remarkable insight.

According as Heidegger's philosophy developed he became more aware that the contemporary positivist world is one which gives priority to the "ego" driven faculties of knowing and using in contrast to the faculties of listening and responding.

One must nevertheless recognise that there is a difficulty with Heidegger's philosophy of Being, namely the lack of a clear teleology. ...
There either is or there is not a telos to human striving. One cannot remain aloof from this issue or accept a position of agnosticism because in the last analysis, the refusal to recognise that there is a human telos is a stance which inexorably leads to the acceptance of Nihilism.

To use an image borrowed from the language of Deconstructionism the truth which ultimately gives the lie to the naive optimism of Positivism is the fact that one cannot deconstruct death.

Hence a religious answer to modernity involves renewing a spirituality of discernment that does not run away from the complexities of history now. Towards this hope Taylor argues that "our freedom is not zero" in that we are more capable than we often realize to reshape the modernity around us: it is only when people do not reflect, or are kept separate from one another, that a damaging and superficial modernity takes over:

http://bahai-library.com/books/symbol.secret/1.html

The question of exactly when Baha'u'llah assumed his role as revelator affects considerably the interpretation of the Book of Certitude. In New Testament scholarship, the counterpart to this question is that of the "messianic secret." Jesus is often portrayed in the Gospels (primarily in Mark) as having an air of secrecy about his messiahship.

One passage for which a case can be made for implied claim to revelation is the following: By God! This Bird of Heaven, now dwelling upon the dust, can, besides these melodies, utter a myriad songs, and is able, apart from these utterances, to unfold innumerable mysteries. Every single note of its unpronounced utterances is immeasurably exalted above all that hath already been revealed, 8 and immensely glorified beyond that which hath streamed from this Pen. Let the future disclose the hour when the Brides of inner [page 6] meaning will, as decreed by the Will of God, hasten forth unveiled, out of their mystic mansions, and manifest themselves in the ancient realm of being. 9 Is this a mystical claim or a prophetic claim? The designation "Bird of Heaven" is more literally rendered "earthly Dove" (hamamiy-i turabi) by Ali-Kuli Khan. 10 The translation given by Shoghi Effendi reflects the sense that, since a bird normally flies in the sky or perches in a tree, the "earthly Dove" (or, inelegantly, "bird of dust") signifies a man of God obliged to live in mortality. At any rate, what the dove claims to do is incontestably a gift from "heaven."

2. Jesus maintains this secrecy in various ways: (1) Jesus commands demons to be silent over his true identity (Mark 1:25; 1:34; 3: l lf.; (2) Jesus orders silence as to his miracles (Mark 1:43f.; 5:43; 7:36); (3) Jesus instructs his disciples to keep their silence (Mark 8:30; 9:9); (4) Jesus wishes his whereabouts undisclosed (Mark 7:24; 9:30); (5) Jesus gives private teachings to a chosen few (Mark 7:17; 10:10); (6) Jesus conceals his meaning within parables (Mark 4: l lf ); (7) the disciples are often at a loss to fathom Jesus (Mark 6:52; 8:17-2 1).

3. Tuckett, "Messianic Secret," p. 445. 4. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 115. Phenomenologists of religion have established five criteria of revelation: (1) Origin or author: God, spirits, ancestors, power (mana), forces. In every case, the source of revelation is something supernatural or numinous. (2) Instrument or means: sacred signs in nature (the stars, animals, sacred places, or sacred times); dreams, visions, ecstasies; finally, words or sacred books. (3) Content or object: the didactic, helping, or punishing presence, will, being, activity, or commission of the divinity. (4) Recipients or addressees: medicine men, sorcerers, sacrificing priests, shamans, soothsayers, mediators, prophets with a commission or information intended for individuals or groups, for a people or the entire race. (5) Effect and consequence for the recipient: personal instruction or persuasion, divine mission, service as oracle, all this through inspiration or, in the supreme case, [page 38] through incarnation.

	-- I am impressed with Bubby's matches to my sacral-erotic insights,
	but I wonder about the reversal of gender (from both Shakespeare and
	Dickinson, on Beauty vs. Truth:

Afterwards the Blessed Beauty [Baha'u'llah] would direct him...
No sooner that eternal Beauty [the Bab] revealed Himself in Shiraz,...

	-- In fact, to resume from my last post, that the two witnesses are
	a spiritual 69, I did not mention that, continuing to listen to Rev.,
	I realized the host of other entities around them, but with different
	orientation. This is similar to long ago casting out Satan, in which
	I lay in death-pose, and perceived behind under me a huge red entity,
	as if I were his phallus. Hence I might dare to venture a politically
	incorrect opinion, that anal sodomizers and homosexuals are malplaced.
	Also, re. beauty vs. truth, a voice, like God, a Narrator, a Director,
	asked at least twice "Is she pretty?" Elsewhere I read that everything
	prophetic in the bible is presented (at least?) twice. That voice also
	told me "Go down on Mary" although Mary was not her given name.


Yours truly,
Glenn Scheper
http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
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