Spirit and One God, Part II

Spirit and One God, Part II

By John Taylor; 23 March, 2006

Last time we discussed a puzzling reference in Baha'u'llah's Tablet of
Hikmat to an unnamed Prophet who, in a moment of inspiration, said
that "all things are filled with spirit," a dark saying that in
subsequent philosophy was blown out of proportion. Upon further
investigation I realized that this may well be a reference to Thales
of Miletus, a thinker whose extensive writings were lost but who is
traditionally mentioned as the first of the Ionian or pre-Socratic
thinkers. He is reported as saying that "all things are full of gods,"
thus founding monism, a strain of thought about the identity of God
and creation that Baha'i thinking is at great pains to resist.
Aristotle in de Anima says that Thales,

"seems to have regarded the soul as something endowed with the power
of motion, if indeed he said that the lodestone has a soul because it
moves iron." (quoted in, Intellectual Tradition of the West, Vol. 1,
p. 63)

I had not realized that magnets had such influence so early on and
that they were a "technological" paradigm for soul and spirit as
pervasive attractive forces. Thales, then, was the first known
hylozoist, the belief that all matter is alive (hyle, meaning matter,
and zoe, life); this belief, with qualifications, is one that
`Abdu'l-Baha did advocate. He believed that water was the basis of all
things, and we now know that living organisms are based upon water.
Whether Thales is the actual person referred to by Baha'u'llah in the
following, the one who overheard a Prophet of God say that all things
are full of spirit, is very hard to say.

"From among the people there was he who held fast unto this statement
and, actuated by his own fancies, conceived the idea that the spirit
literally penetrateth or entereth into the body, and through lengthy
expositions he advanced proofs to vindicate this concept; and groups
of people followed in his footsteps." (Baha'u'llah, Tablets, 145-146)

The idea that spirit is a mere force of nature is a reductionist
scientific speculation that goes against the grain of the Jewish
prophetic tradition. Thales began a break-up between faith and
philosophy and this, broadly speaking, may be what Baha'u'llah is
referring to. Karen Armstrong, referring to the God of Jacob in the
Bible, emphasizes how practical and non-speculative the human covenant
with God was understood to be in these times. God,

"...struck a bargain: in return for El's special protection, Jacob
would make him his elohim, the only god who counted. Israelite belief
in God was deeply pragmatic. Abraham and Jacob both put their faith in
El because he worked for them: they did not sit down and prove that he
existed; El was not a philosophical abstraction. In the ancient world,
mana was a self-evident fact of life, and a god proved his worth if he
could transmit this effectively. This pragmatism would always be a
factor in the history of God. People would continue to adopt a
particular conception of the divine because it worked for them, not
because it was scientifically or philosophically sound." (Armstrong,
History of God, 17)

The overall emphasis of Baha'u'llah in both His Writings and personal
opinions is on practical wisdom over speculative philosophizing. In
the Tablet of Hikmat itself He is at great pains to emphasize that
Socrates, whose criticism of physical speculations was notorious, was
a holy man, that he advocated One God and represented a return to the
spirit of the divine prophets of Israel.

Nonetheless, let us briefly continue glancing over the currents of
early speculative thought that splash around the concept of one God.
Xenophanes of Colophon (570-480 BCE) traveled extensively as a poet
and observed that in Thrace God was seen as blue-eyed and red haired,
in Africa He was pictured as black skinned and flat nosed.

"But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and
produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give
them bodies in form like their own -- horses like horses, cattle like
cattle." (Intellectual Tradition, p. 69)

Very early on, Xenophanes, recognized that any conception of God has
to be inherently flawed by the very fact of its being a conception. He
objected to portraying the gods as morally corrupt, and said that if
God "saw" or "thought" it was with His whole Being. No part of Him
could be separated out or moved around. He also started off what we
now call evolutionary theory, observing that some undersea fossils are
found on mountainsides and venturing to explain how they got there.
The following could even be taken as anticipating the Baha'i concepts
of search for truth and progressive revelation.

"In the beginning the gods did not at all reveal all things clearly to
mortals, but by searching men in the course of time find them out
better." (Id.)

Heraclitus, whom we summed up last time, wrote one book, which he
donated to the temple of Delphi and it was later lost when that
building and religion were destroyed. He is reported to have objected
to earlier attempts to reduce everything to a single substance. Change
is the main characteristic of the universe, and everything resolves
into fire as it changes. The law of change is not total, for behind it
is Logos, a rational principle that orders all things. The power of
Logos is inherently subtle,

"An unapparent connection is stronger (or: better) than one which is
obvious." (Heraclitus, Fragment 54, from Hippolytus, Refutation of all
heresies, 9,9,5)

His nickname was "the rudder" because this Logos he saw as being
behind the ephemeral. Outer things are labile because they are subject
to the unity of opposites; they come together and dissolve by
oppositions. Such illusion corrupts our thinking at a very deep level.
"Though reason is common, most people live as though they had an
understanding peculiar to themselves." (Intellectual Tradition, 66) Of
God he is reported as saying,

"The wisest of men will appear as an ape before God, both in wisdom
and in beauty and in all other respects..." (Intellectual Tradition,
66)

We know God not by our merit but by means of wisdom. The oneness of
God is wisdom.

"Wisdom is one thing: to understand the intelligence by which all
things are steered through all things: it is willing and it is
unwilling to be called by the name of Zeus."

To emphasize how close this is in many important respects to the
teaching of the Master, I will close with this selection from
`Abdu'l-Baha's reported words and deeds in England.

Knowledge must result in Action (from Abdu'l-Baha in London, 107-109)

A representative from a well known society made reference to its
meetings for the purpose of a search into the reality of truth, and
'Abdu'l-Baha said "I know of your work. I think a great deal of it. I
know your desire is to serve mankind, and to draw together Humanity
under the banner of Oneness; but its members must beware less it
become only a discussion. Look about you. How many committees have
been formed, and living for a little while, have died! Committees and
Societies can not create or give life.

"People get together and talk, but it is God's Word alone that is
powerful in its results. Consider for a moment: you would not trade
together if you had no income from it and derived no benefit! Look at
the followers of Christ. Their power was due to their ardour and their
deeds. Every effort must have its result, else it is not a true
effort. You must become the means of lighting the world of humanity.
This is the infallible proof and sign. Every progress depends on two
things, knowledge and practice. First acquire knowledge, and, when
conviction is reached, put it into practice.

"Once a learned man journeyed to see me to receive my blessing, saying
he knew and comprehended the Baha'i teachings. When I told him that he
could receive the blessings of the Holy Spirit at any time when he put
himself in a receptive attitude to accept them, he said he was always
in a receptive attitude.

"'What would you do,' I asked 'if I were to suddenly turn and strike
you?' He instantly flared with indignation and strode angrily about
the room.

"After a little I went over and took his arm, saying, 'But you must
return good for evil. Whether I honoured you or despised you, you
should follow the teachings; now you merely read them. Remember the
words of Jesus who said, 'The first shall be last, and the last
first.' The man turned, shook my hand and departed, and I have since
heard of many kind acts he has done."

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com