The Baha'i Studies Listserv Bad typo: In yesterday's post, paragraphs #2 and #149 referred to the Kitab-i-Aqdas.
Gary -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Baha'i Studies <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 2:43 pm Subject: Re: Covenant Question(s) The Baha'i Studies Listserv Perhaps the key issues are whether the Lesser Covenant in each dispensation is *analogous* to a covenant or simply *is* covenant, and whether a legalistic interpretation of covenant is inappropriate. Certainly, in paragraphs #2 and #149, Baha'u'llah identifies neglect of the law with to infidelity to the Covenant. In a very practical sense, a dispensation is defined by the succession, laws, conditions and administrative structures which constitute the particulars of its lesser covenant. Is this not what Baha'u'llah refers to when discussing the "cleaving of the heavens" in Kitab-i-Iqan pp. 44-45? It seems very much that this interpretation includes the meaning of Isaiah 24, which brings the whole discussing back into relation with the Eternal Covenant. With vivid and violent imagery, Isaiah 24 depicts a world in which "the Eternal Covenant" is "rent asunder" at the end of each dispensation, while all created things are being rec reated; rent asunder, but not ended. It seems perhaps that we see the distinction between eternal covenant and a temporal lesser covenant in Isaiah 51:6: "the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they shall dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished." The lesser covenant proceeds from the Eternal Covent as the heavens and earth proceed from Eternal Deity, yet it is still covenant, while the heavens and the earth are not God; when the lesser covenant is broken the Eternal Covenant is broken. (Isaiah 24:5) It might make sense to say that while world of being "emanates" from God, the lesser covenant "manifests" the Eternal Covenant in the sense that 'Abdu'l-Baha uses it in Baha'i World Faith pp. 314-315, making possible the rending of the eternal covenant in the ending of the conditional, temporal covenant. With respect to "God gets another people, the Israelites get another god, end of story", this may be precisely what Jesus is saying to the Mosaic covenant and dispensation in Matthew 21:43: "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." In the light of Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 161 "the Hebrew prophets were sent to announce Christ, but unfortunately the Talmud and its superstitions veiled Him so completely that they crucified their promised Messiah" and other similar passages, one might say that each time a covenant community rejects a new Manifestation, they do, in effect, choose the God of their own imaginations and superstitions. (cf. BWF p.381-382 "All the people have formed a god in the world of thought, and that form of their own imagination they worship; when the fact is that the imagined form is finite and the human mind is infinite. Surely the infinite is greater than the finite, for imagination is accidental while the mind is essential; surely the essential is greater than the accidental. Therefore consider: All the sects and peoples worship their own thought; they create a god in their own minds and acknowledge him to be the creator of all things, when that form is a superstition -- thus people adore and worship imagination.) Am I completely out in left field with these connection? Gary -----Original Message----- From: Sen & Sonja <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Baha'i Studies <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 3:27 am Subject: Covenant Question(s) The Baha'i Studies Listserv I've been hoping to find time to research the thinking behind the idea of conditional covenants, but it's not going to happen this week at least, so I'll just have to go with what I already know - or think I do. My problem with the idea that a religious covenant can be conditional is that I do not know of any good example, and it looks to me like a confusion between a covenant being two-sided, and it being conditional on performance. Those are two different things. You can see the confusion in the fact that the same things are called variously a conditional covenant or a covenant of works (two-sided), while an unconditional covenant is called a covenant of grace (unilateral act). You say there was a Covenant with Adam to protect and and guide him in the garden: but is this truly beriith, covenant? The idea of a conditional covenant seems to enter Christian theology in the 16th century, with Bullinger: but he says the first conditional covenant was the one with Adam and Eve *after* the expulsion -- and that is not a covenant but a curse (gen 3:15-19) and an explanation of the way of the world (not only of the toil and pain of life, but also of how easy it is to fall into pass-the-buck behaviour. This is myth, and we have to ask what the storytellers were telling their audiences with this story. I can't see any concept of covenant in it. Nor do I see anything conditional about the Mosaic Covenant. When the human side broke it, they did not cease to be bound to it, and they did not cease to be, to God, a chosen people. This is surely a good example of the unconditionality that is part of the concept of Covenant. If it was a conditional contract, then once broken it is over: God gets another people, the Israelites get another god, end of story. I think that the confusion begins with putting Covenant in the category of legal agreement and thinking about it, and about grace and forgeiveness themselves, in a legalistic way, as something dependent on "satisfaction" - which looks to me like a translation of quid pro quo or the "consideration" that must be exchanged in contract law. Covenant is about committment in fellowship, it's the walk with God, the musketeers saying all for one and one for all and then living it. Having misunderstood covenant as contract, other things are called covenants when they are not, and the Covenant is used as a sort of legal framework to explain what makes commandments binding, punishments just, "satisfaction" necessary, and so on. The importance of this in Bahai theology is that the lesser covenant is literally called a covenant - making an analogy between it and a covenant proper. The lesser covenant is legal in form: it has written documents, it designates succession, it stipulates powers and limits, it is the fundamental constitutional law of the Bahai community, it is the framework for the legitimacy of laws and punishments, and so on. How is the lesser covenant analogous to a covenant proper? I think it is in two ways: it is unconditional, and like the ancient (Noah) covenant, it promises a continuing walk with God: it is fundamentally about fellowship. Being unconditional, we do not get to decide that it's not working so we can walk away. The end of the Guardianship, or a decision we do not like, or being disenrolled from the community, does not entitle us to say that God has stopped walking with us, that the covenant is over or that we are not part of it any more. It is unconditional. Sen On 25 Sep 2008 at 5:22, Gary Selchert wrote: > The Baha'i Studies Listserv > Some Christians (perhaps most) divide Biblical covenants into > "conditional" covenants which blow up in your face (and pretty much > end)when you violate their provisions, and "unconditional" covenants > which are essentially Divine Decisions and do not change based on > human actions. God's Covenant with Adam to protect and provide for him > in the garden of Paradise is the "original" example of a conditional > covenant. It ended in effect when the human partyr violated and broke > it. The covenant of Moses also contains many warnings that God's > blessings could end with Israel's disobedience. In sharp contrast are > the covenants of Noah and Abraham which are divine promises and do not > include warnings that their blessings are contingent on human > response. > > How (if at all) does this approach to covenants relate to the > not-a-Deal, not-a-Contract view of the meaning of a Divine Covenant. > > Thanks, > Gary > __________________________________________________ > You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe: send a blank email to > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe: send subscribe > bahai-st in the message body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or subscribe: > http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st > Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - > mailto:[email protected] Web - > http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - > news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - > http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] New Public - > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] McCain or Obama? Stay updated on coverage of the Presidential race while you browse - Download Now! __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
