"Some people of faith, especially those on the conservative side, might
say that we are currently living in a time when many popularly held
values are deeply immoral. Especially when it comes to certain issues
like homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia. From a Bahai perspective are
popular notions of right and wrong a reliable guide?"
Dear Gilberto,
This is what the Universal House of Justice wrote me on the subject of
conscience:
"As you well understand, not only the right but also the responsibility of
each believer to explore truth for himself or herself are fundamental to the
Baha'i teachings. This principle is an integral feature of the coming of age
of humankind, inseparable from the social transformation to which
Baha'u'llah is calling the peoples of the world. It is as relevant to
specifically scholarly activity as it is to the rest of spiritual and
intellectual life. Every human being is ultimately responsible to God for
the use which he or she makes of these possibilities; conscience is never to
be coerced, whether by other individuals or institutions.
Conscience, however, is not an unchangeable absolute. One dictionary
definition, although not covering all the usages of the term, presents the
common understanding of the word "conscience" as "the sense of right and
wrong as regards things for which one is responsible; the faculty or
principle which pronounces upon the moral quality of one's actions or
motives, approving the right and condemning the wrong".
The functioning of one's conscience, then, depends upon one's
understanding of right and wrong; the conscience of one person may be
established upon a disinterested striving after truth and justice, while
that of another may rest on an unthinking predisposition to act in
accordance with that pattern of standards, principles and prohibitions which
is a product of his social environment. Conscience, therefore, can serve
either as a bulwark of an upright character or can represent an accumulation
of prejudices learned from one's forebears or absorbed from a limited social
code.
A Baha'i recognizes that one aspect of his spiritual and intellectual
growth is to foster the development of his conscience in the light of divine
Revelation -- a Revelation which, in addition to providing a wealth of
spiritual and ethical principles, exhorts man "to free himself from idle
fancy and imitation, discern with the eye of oneness His glorious handiwork,
and look into all things with a searching eye". This process of development,
therefore, involves a clear-sighted examination of the conditions of the
world with both heart and mind. A Baha'i will understand that an upright
life is based upon observance of certain principles which stem from Divine
Revelation and which he recognizes as essential for the well-being of both
the individual and society. In order to uphold such principles, he knows
that, in certain cases, the voluntary submission of the promptings of his
own personal conscience to the decision of the majority is a conscientious
requirement, as in wholeheartedly accepting the majority decision of an
Assembly at the outcome of consultation.
In the discussion of wisdom in your email of 21 September 1997, you observe
that maybe "Baha'i academics all too often have not recognized that to a
great extent failure to exercise wisdom represents a failure of love." The
House of Justice agrees that the exercise of wisdom calls for a measure of
love and the development of a sensitive conscience. These, in turn, involve
not only devotion to a high standard of uprightness, but also consideration
of the effects of one's words and actions."
http://methodologies.susanmaneck.com/
warmest, Susan
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