By John Taylor; 2008 Jan 21, 3 Sultan, 164 BE
Dear Friends,
I feel energized by my new focus -- not to say obsession -- with the proofs of deity. I was grabbed by it and it has not let go since around Christmas of last month. At times, though, I feel overawed, overwhelmed, discouraged and disheartened. Everything I learn changes even as I grasp it. What am I getting into? This is a terribly vast subject, terribly important, and I feel terribly inadequate to come to grips with it. On Friday night at the Youth Outreach Centre Stu asked me what the proofs of God are, and I just froze, mumbling something about the fact that I am working on a new one, what I call the principle proof of deity, but all I could do was list the principles. How they are proofs I am not clear on yet. I will have to go through each one in detail before I will be able to articulate clearly and concisely in what sense they are proofs of God.
But, concentrating on the positive, I have learned a few things lately. I learned that there is a gradation of proof. It is not enough just to speak of a "proof of God," you need to specify what level of proof you are talking about.
On the high end of the spectrum the needle tilts over towards the miracle (the Baha'i definition of a miracle, of course, is anything, great or trivial, that turns the soul towards God). A miracle is a sensory or empirical indicator, it is the "vision" of God standing right before you, if such a thing could ever be with an Infinite, All-Powerful Being.
A miracle is all about "turning," or being "reborn," for if there is a God even an atheist has to admit that being privy to that knowledge, if true, would have huge existential consequences. It is a miracle that a plant finds the wherewithal to turn directly to the sun rather than bask in weaker, indirect reflections of its light. A miracle is easily the most intimate proof of deity possible, but being subjective it tends not to be repeatable or contagious. If I turn from disbelief to belief, for whatever reason, it will have only a diminished effect on those around me. In the same way, a thousand lovely daffodils may dance in the sunlight but that does not help the one, lonely daffodil that sits shaded, indoors.
The next lower tick on the scale is the rational proof of God. Like the miracle of seeing God standing before you in the flesh, this kind of proof cannot be, by definition. A concept or proof that we can understand would, by that very fact, not have any direct tie to the existence of an Inconceivable Source of all being. That is why in yesterday's essay I joked about William Hatcher, who was going around claiming to have a logical proof of deity, as a threat to my children.
Lower on our gradation are what are termed signs or Ayat of God. Of these more should be said.
A sign is a signpost just like what you see when driving on the road, "London 20 km, God 50 km, Windsor 69 km." A road sign points in a certain direction. A pointer does not prove, it points. It indicates the way but does not even try to prove anything existential to anybody. If I see a sign saying "God this way" and I do not turn that direction I will never know. But that does not mean that I doubt its veracity. If I see a sign saying "London 20 km," I have to assume that it is reliable, that if London were 500 miles away or in another direction completely there would have been complaints and the sign would have been taken down or obscured.
Lowest on the scale -- lowest in the sense of burden of proof -- are confirmations. A confirmation is a proof for somebody who already believes. It does not turn us around completely, but it is a form of miracle since it makes an already pre-existing belief a little more alive, a little firmer. It is like the plant not only turning sunward but also growing a little closer towards the sun. Nobody expects a plant to traverse the millions of miles it takes to reach the sun; even if it did, it would burn up. No, its growth spurt can refer only to its own viability as an organism. This kind of proof even the most ardent believer in God needs to renew every day, every moment of their life. Confirmations are faith in action.
Confirmations confirm the exact point at which the rubber hits the road. In that sense, we all wake up as atheists and confirm our faith as the day progresses, until we hit the sack at night as confirmed believers. And of course -- I surely do not need to add -- the thing that confirmations prove to believers is not God but themselves, both individually and as groups. The testing of confirmation is self-testing.
Many believers who live examined lives and do regular self-testing, and who work together in harmony, that kind of behavior results in a vital, active beneficial religion. A religious group working for the good of all proves, albeit indirectly, both the validity of their own convictions and the effectiveness of God as a teacher. We are told in the Writings that we can attract confirmations by what they term "arising," in other words, active obedience, not mere acceptance but going out doing exactly what the Word of God tells us to do. To arise is to move forward, leaving confirmations in our wake, and those confirmations in turn prove the effect of the Word to those outside its direct purview.
Having said all that, I want to feature a confrontation between an early Baha'i and a Mullah, as witnessed around 1886 by the Cambridge doctor and orientalist E.G. Browne. It is the first recorded instance in English of Baha'is teaching the Faith. Even in Persian there cannot be many recorded discussions from these years, if only because being caught with such evidence would have meant death for both teacher and student.
The Baha'i teacher was the poet, Aqa 'Ali-Ashraf of Lahijan in the province of Gilan, titled `Andalib, or Nightingale. Andalib does a very good job of explaining this. In my opinion what he said stands even today as a definitive illustration of this scale of gradations between miracle and confirmation. It is so incisive and important that I often remember it as, my nails digging into my knees, I watch helplessly the flailing, stumbling debate between Christians and atheists. So, EG Browne writes,
"'And so in every dispensation,' he (Andalib) resumed, as soon as I had received and returned the greetings of those present, 'the very men who professed to be awaiting the new Manifestation most eagerly were the first to deny it, abandoning the "Most Firm Handhold" of God's Truth to lay hold of the frail thread of their own imaginings. You talk of miracles, but of what evidential value are miracles to me, unless I have seen them?
"Has not every religion accounts of miracles, which had they ever taken place, must, one would have thought, have compelled all men to believe; for who would dare, however hard of heart he might be, to fight with a Power which he could not ignore or understand?
"No, it is the Divine Word which is the token and sign of a prophet, the convincing proof to all men and all ages, the everlasting miracle. Do not misunderstand the matter: When the Prophet of God called his verses 'signs' (ayat), and declared the Kur'an [Qur'an] to be his witness and proof, he did not intend to imply, as some vainly suppose, that the eloquence of the words was a proof. How, for instance, can you or I, who are Persians, judge whether the eloquence of a book written in Arabic be supernatural or not?
"No: the essential characteristic of the Divine Word is the penetrative power (nufudh): it is not spoken in vain, it compels, it constrains, it creates, it rules, it works in men's hearts, it lives and dies not. The Apostle of God said "in the month of Ramazan [Ramadan] men shall fast from sunrise to sunset". See how hard a thing this is; and yet here in Yezd there are thousands who, if you bade them break the fast or die, would prefer death to disobedience. Wherever one arises speaking this Word, know him to be a Manifestation of the Divine Will, believe in him, and take his yoke upon you.'
"'But this claim,' said the old Mulla, 'this claim! It is a hard word that He utters. What can we do or say?'
"'For the rest, He hath said it,' replied 'Andalib, 'and it is for us, who have seen that this Divine Word is His, to accept it.' There was silence for a little while, and then the old Mulla arose with a sigh, and repeating, 'It is difficult, very difficult,' departed from our midst." (Edward Granville Browne, A Year Amongst the Persians, pp. 401-2)
Andalib was probably thinking of this verse of the Qur'an:
"We have sent down to thee Manifest Signs (ayat); and none reject them but those who are perverse. Is it not (the case) that every time they make a covenant, some party among them throw it aside?- Nay, Most of them are faithless." (Q2:99-100, Yusuf Ali)
And there is this mention of "ayat" or signs in the Surih of Jonah,
"These are the ayats of the Book of Wisdom. Is it a matter of wonderment to men that We have sent Our inspiration to a man from among themselves?- that he should warn mankind (of their danger), and give the good news to the Believers that they have before their Lord the lofty rank of truth. (But) say the Unbelievers: `This is indeed an evident sorcerer!'" (Q10:1-2, Yusuf Ali)
I have made up from the Baha'i Writings a little compilation of mentions of Ayat and Nofuz (confirmations?) and will include that in a mailing that will take exactly whenever.
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