The sages aforetime acquired their knowledge from the Prophets, inasmuch as the latter were the Exponents of divine philosophy and the Revealers of heavenly mysteries. Men quaffed the crystal, living waters of Their utterance, while others satisfied themselves with the dregs. Everyone receiveth a portion according to his measure. Verily He is the Equitable, the Wise. Bahá'u'lláh, Lawh-i-Hikmat, in Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, page 144
The most important principle of divine philosophy is the oneness of the world of humanity, the unity of mankind, the bond conjoining East and West, the tie of love which blends human hearts. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, page 31, or
'Abdu'l-Bahá, Foundations of World Unity, page 51
The Revelation proclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh, His followers believe, is divine in origin, all-embracing in scope, broad in 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 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 differing in the non-essential 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 round, 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 principles of and 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, and that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful, an ordered and progressive society. It inculcates the principle of equal opportunity, rights and privileges for both sexes, advocates compulsory education, abolishes extremes of poverty and wealth, exalts work performed in the spirit of service to the rank of worship, recommends the adoption of an auxiliary international language, and provides the necessary agencies for the establishment and safeguarding of a permanent and universal peace.
From The World Religion of Bahá'u'lláh: A Summary of Its Aims, Teachings and History, a statement by Shoghi Effendi to the High Commissioner of Palestine, June, 1933
... the House of Justice understands that you desire to find ways of conveying spiritual truths in logical ways and demonstrating their validity through scientific proofs. There can be no objection to such an attitude. `Abdu'l-Bahá Himself used such a method. The danger Bahá'í scholars must avoid is the distortion of religious truth, almost forcibly at times, to make it conform to understandings and perceptions current in the scientific world. True Bahá'í scholars should guard against this.
From a letter, dated June 7, 1983, written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer and cited in A Statement on Bahá'í Scholarship, August 9, 1984, prepared by the International Teaching Centre in Haifa
In Shí'ih Islám, the divine philosophy/wisdom or theosophia (Arabic, hikmat-i iláhí) was the focus of an Iranian Súfic movement called the school of Isfahán, one of the main branches of the illuminationist/illuminatist (Arabic, 'ishráqí) school. Founded by Suhrawardí, this school taught that true wisdom (Arabic, hikmat) was derived from both reason and intuition.
The rationalist (peripatetic or Aristotelian) philosophers, the illuminationists believed, could take the aspirant just so far. Access to the higher planes of truth and theosophic illumination, in a Neoplatonic world of images, was only possible through the divine philosophy and by constructive engagement in spiritual practice. In this regard, Avicenna ('Ibn Síná), who interpreted Aristotle with something of a Neoplatonic hermeneutic, is regarded as an important exemplar of the approach.
Mullá Sadrá, a Shí'ih philosopher, was among the more intriguing exponents of illuminationism. He turned to the 'irfání (English, gnostic) teachings of Shaykh 'Ibn Arabí (i.e., Akbarianism) as a framework through which the higher states of consciousness could be achieved. Perhaps this is why, from time to time, Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá adopted the term divine philosophy.
Certainly, one or more of the meanings may, at times, be similar or, perhaps, identical. At others, only the terminology and phraseology may be parallel. In the latter, it might be said that Bahá'u'lláh was addressing his readers in their social and cultural context and not intending that His words be thoroughly construed as an affirmation of Súfic or Shí'ih thought.
Likewise, the prohibition of the kissing of hands, in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, may imply the inappropriateness of submission, in this Age of Maturity, to traditional pīrs and other ecclesiatical leaders.
On one level, however, one might say that atheism is, in a Bahá'í context, fulfilled in the recognition of divine unknowability; agnosticism in the awareness of man's relative (metaphorical) intellect; religious skepticism in the Valley of True Poverty and Absolute Nothingness (Arabic, faná); pantheism in the consciousness of the attributes of God in nature; polytheism in the embracing of the diversity of these same attributes; animism in the realization of the spiritual basis of all matter; panentheism in one's immersion (baptism) in the "ocean of" Bahá'u'lláh's "words" and in the spiritual Kingdom; and esoterica in its transformation into exoterica, in the abrogation of monasticism and religious clericalism, and in the universalization of the taríqá.
The Báb, in a Tablet, explained that the meaning of "resurrection" is perfection (completion, synthesis, resolution, maturity, etc.). The ministry of the each Prophet, He wrote, is the perfection of the preceding Dispensation. (The Báb also said, according to Hasan Balyuzi, that the first one to accept the new divine Revelator is the pinnacle of spiritual achievement of the previous Dispensation.)
All things (Arabic, kull-i-shay) - every attribute and name acquired - are fulfilled (or resurrected, raised up, and exalted) during the Ministry of the Prophet. In other words, whatever truths may lie within the previous cycle are, according to the divine Will, confirmed.
- To read the out-of-print book, Abdul Baha On Divine Philosophy, just click on the title.
- Click here to read the English transcription of a talk delivered by 'Abdu'l-Bahá on what may be either the divine philosophy of the Illuminationists or, perhaps, a reference to the Ikhwan al-Safa (Brethern of Purity), a Neoplatonic, neo-Pythagorean Islamic movement from around the tenth century C.E.
- Or click here for my listing of links to Súfí-related sites on the web (perhaps the most comprehensive page of its kind).
Brief Bio of Mark Foster
Mark A. Foster, Ph.D., (Full) Professor of Sociology (tenured) at Johnson County Community College (Overland Park, Kansas), is the owner of Mark Foster, Ph.D.™ and founder and director of the Bahá'íStudies.NETwork™.
Mark is the former academic director of the Foundation for the Investigation of Reality (1994-2003) and was previously a member of its board of trustees (1996-2001). He has a Ph.D. in sociology. His dissertation was titled, "American Pentecostal Convergence and Divergence: A Hermeneutic and Survey Analysis."
Beginning in 1967, at age eleven, Mark has been developing an perspective, now called the Structurization Paradigm™ This developing perspective, was originally designated Souology, then Mental Energetics, later the Reality Sciences Paradigm, and more recently the Structural Dialectics Paradigm™.
Mark is the former president (1995) of the Kansas Sociological Society, the former chair (1986-1989) of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia (Wise, Virginia), and the former acting chair (1985) of the Department of Sociology at Caldwell College (Caldwell, New Jersey).
Mark was, previously, the Bahá'í Section Leader on CompuServe's Religion Forum (in addition to being the Conversion Issues Section Leader on the Religious Issues Forum and the Recreation and Games Section Leader on the Christian Fellowship Forum) the Area Manager of the Bahá'í Faith Forum, a Host for a weekly Bahá'í chat on AOL's Front Porch, a moderator for a Bahá'ís-only Internet email list, and the system operator (sysop) for a Bahá'í-oriented dialup bulletin board service (BBS). He later became a section leader on three CompuServe sections, including the Bahá'í section.
Mark was born and raised in New York City. He spent his teen years on Long Island and most of the next seventeen years in the Southern United States. Since 1993, he has lived in Olathe, Kansas, a suburban community located in the two-state Kansas City metroplex (the geographical center of the 48 contiguous states of the United States). Click here for a map.
- You can link to all of Mark's sites through this page.
- You can also email Mark, page him, or contact him via snail mail or phone:
Mark Foster, Ph.D.
2111 E. Santa Fe Street
Suite 347
Olathe, KS 66062-6195
USA