God Will Serve

The Most Great Instrument

By John Taylor; 2009 July 16, Kalimat 03, 166 BE

It all started with my latest book acquisition, from the annual remaindered book sale in the Garfield Disher Room of our Dunnville branch of the Haldimand Public Library. There were few books of much interest this year, but one caught my eye, a new paperback that is still on sale in the Ancaster Chapters store called "What is Good?, The Search for the Best Way to Live," by A.C. Grayling. The book itself is of little account, being an atheist's lame attempt to depict the entire history of ethics as a big battle between moderate humanists set upon by God and His blathering fundamentalist minions. In order to make this dichotomy, Grayling has to cast fairness to the winds and indulge in the straw man fallacy. He takes some admittedly strange remarks by the Apostle Paul, who was by his own admission a former fundamentalist persecutor, and blows them up to represent theism in general. When an author of a book called "What is Good?" draws such a blatant, false distinction the only answer you can give to the question in the title is, "Certainly not this book."

Nonetheless, I was intrigued by one quote on page 155 of "What is Good?" from Immanuel Kant. Grayling makes much of it, though not so much that he feels the need to attribute its source. Here is what Kant says,

"Religion through its sanctity, and law-giving through its majesty, may seek to exempt themselves from criticism. But they then awaken just suspicion, and cannot claim the sincere respect which reason accords only to that which has been able to sustain the test of free and open examination."

After quite a bit of Googling around, I found that this comes from the author's preface to The Critique of Pure Reason. Grayling, as an anti-theist, takes the very definition of the word "sanctity" to mean "something beyond criticism," therefore Kant is saying that religion is "not just irrelevant but harmful to morality" because it cannot be tested or even viewed with a critical eye. If that is so, Kant is also against law because its majesty keeps it from open examination. To say that Kant is against law, or religion, is simply ridiculous. He was the consummate advocate of duty. Grayling shows himself guilty of the same shallowness of thought that Kant talks about in the passage leading up to the one cited above:

"We often hear complaints of shallowness of thought in our age and of the consequent decline of sound science. But I do not see that the sciences which rest upon a secure foundation, such as mathematics, physics, etc., in the least deserve this reproach. On the contrary, they merit their old reputation for solidity, and, in the case of physics, even, surpass it. The same spirit would have become active in other kinds of knowledge, if only attention had first been directed to the determination of their principles. Till this is done, indifference, doubt, and, in the final issue, severe criticism, are themselves proofs of a profound (lack?) of thought. Our age is, in especial degree, the age of criticism, and to criticism everything must submit." (http://www.archive.org/stream/immanuelkantcrit007469mbp/immanuelkantcrit007469mbp_djvu.txt)

Kant is saying, I think, that ours is an age of free and open inquiry into "the determination of their (each of the science's) principles." This grasp of their essential principles puts us on solid ground and allows us to pay critical attention to each science. He disapproves of the tendency of those overawed by religion and law to exempt them from critical inquiry. He is by no means saying that they cannot be criticized by definition. No, in fact he asserts that "to criticism everything must submit." If they did submit, if we did seek to understand the principles of law and religion, he goes on to say, they indeed might merit the earned respect that the sciences get.

After reading this, I got a heads up from Baha'u'llah. I noticed in one of His most famous passages (I will come to it later) that He calls God and His Manifestations the "Most Great Instrument." I had read it a thousand times but never noticed it before. By calling the most sanctified Beings in the universe "instruments" in effect He is taking sides on this issue that Kant is talking about. Religious dogmatists are adamant that the divine is not what they call an "appliance," a tool or instrument. In other words, God is exalted above service and His sanctity and majesty are above criticism. This stance is common to both Christian and Muslim dogmatists. In fact, it is common to the persecutors of all the prophets. Jesus was crucified and Muhammad exiled from Mecca on charges of blasphemy.

By many accounts, such dogmatists won an important victory at the United Nations recently. According to a Reuters report,

"A United Nations forum ... passed a resolution condemning `defamation of religion' as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries... Western governments and a broad alliance of activist groups have voiced dismay about the religious defamation text, which adds to recent efforts to broaden the concept of human rights to protect communities of believers rather than individuals." (Laura MacInnis Mar 26, 2009, (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE52P60220090326)

Until now, the rights of people were placed above ideas and institutions, at least in theory, in documents like the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although we are taught to think of human rights in secular terms, they have a strong spiritual pedigree. The principle that people matter more than laws or religious dogma traces right back to Christ's dictum, "The Sabbath is for man, not man for the Sabbath." What this non-binding UN resolution declares, in effect, is the reverse, that man is for the Sabbath, that if anyone defames another religion they should be prosecuted for blasphemy. So were all the prophets, all of what Baha'u'llah calls the "Instruments" of God.

Anti-theists have had a field day with this resolution. They correctly point out that if you dig deep enough, every religious scripture is guilty of defaming other religions and other beliefs. Of course, since the more dogmatic non-believers themselves deny and defame each and every religion, they would be the first to be dragged to the dock if ever such a law were enforced.

Even the Writings of Baha'u'llah, Whose main declared goal was the removal of all bones of religious contention, are at times highly critical of certain leaders, especially those who, like the cleric known as the Wolf, and the Son of the Wolf, stole from, pillaged and murdered certain Baha'is. As soon as you hold an idea or instrument above the first principle of all, love of life, respect for God's creatures, the result is only violence and bloodshed. Nonetheless, Baha'u'llah addressed the apathetic people of Constantinople, saying that while they should be critical of those leaders who prove themselves to be hypocrites, nonetheless they owe to those who pass the test the greatest respect, reverence and consideration.

"Respect ye the divines and learned amongst you, they whose conduct accords with their professions, who transgress not the bounds which God hath fixed, whose judgements are in conformity with His behests as revealed in His Book. Know ye that they are the lamps of guidance unto them that are in the heavens and on the earth. They who disregard and neglect the divines and learned that live amongst them -- these have truly changed the favour with which God hath favoured them." (Summons, Suriy-i-Muluk, 5.45, p. 203)

To wash out a religion's baby along with the bathwater is to "change the favour of God." This is exactly what Kant was talking about in his preface to the Critique of Pure Reason. If we understand the principles of a science, we can be critical of those who go against the basics and still stand on solid ground. If we grasp the principles of law and religion, what Baha'u'llah calls the "bounds which God has fixed," the same will be true for these basic areas of human endeavour.

That, at least, is what I think sometimes. At other times, I wonder whether the heart of the makers of this resolution might not be in the right place after all. According to the Reuters report mentioned earlier, it says,

"Defamation of religious is a serious affront to human dignity leading to a restriction on the freedom of their adherents and incitement to religious violence ... Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism."

This is certainly true, as far as it goes. It is in accord with this statement of Abdu'l-Baha, which offers the principle that if it is bad to backbite against one person, how much worse to put down a whole group of persons.

"Should ye attribute a mistake to a person, it will be a cause of offense and grief to him - how much greater would this be if it is attributed to a number of people! How often it hath occurred that a slight difference hath caused a great dissension and hath been made a reason for division. ... In all matters, endeavor not to cause grief to any one. Strive firmly to establish unity and harmony. The least difference today may cause great difference in the future." (Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets, Vol. 1, p. 20)

He was talking here about an argument that had sprung up over how to spell "Baha'u'llah" and "Abdu'l-Baha," a far more trivial issue than unjustly defaming a whole group of people based on their religion. Nobody can doubt that discriminating against somebody because they are a member of a certain Faith is wrong and unjust, and that if we defame that religion we cannot help but hurt them too.

What is objectionable about this resolution, it seems, is that it tries to have its cake and eat it too. It says it is wrong to put down any religion, and it says that we should therefore prosecute those who do defame a religion. We should be critical, that is, without a clear principle or criterion. One of the most important chapters of the Qur'an is called "The Criterion," so it is surprising that this proposal should come from Muslim quarters. This is where Baha'u'llah's "instrument" statement, which comes just after the famous OCF statement, One Common Faith, in His letter to Queen Victoria sets the ultimate criterion of sanctity: instrumentality or service. Even God does not disdain to offer Himself up as a servant, as He demonstrates when He places His Representatives in the path of suffering and humiliation. Baha'u'llah says,

"Each time that Most Mighty Instrument hath come, and that Light shone forth from the Ancient Dayspring, He was withheld by ignorant physicians who, even as clouds, interposed themselves between Him and the world. It failed, therefore, to recover, and its sickness hath persisted until this day. They indeed were powerless to protect it, or to effect a cure, whilst He Who hath been the Manifestation of Power amongst men was withheld from achieving His purpose, by reason of what the hands of the ignorant physicians have wrought." (Baha'u'llah, Summons, pp. 91-92)

John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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