The Baha'i Studies Listserv Peace be upon you, I don't know how I would describe my views on the Godhead. I would say that I think "God" is unknowable in the sense that creation can not fully comprehend the creator, but that it can still have a relationship with it. In Sufic interpretations of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad is believed to be God's first creation, and that everything else (including us) was created through the "light" of Muhammad. Thus, all of creation is a manifestation and an expression of the Muhammadan Reality. If I misunderstood this, someone please correct me. I don't want to misrepresent what they say. This is just how I understand what I have researched.
I think Baha'is would say something similar about Baha'u'llah, that Baha'u'llah is the epitome of creation and that creation experiences God through him. Is this related to critical realism? On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 10:53 PM, Mark A. Foster <ow...@markfoster.net>wrote: > The Baha'i Studies Listserv > > I touched on Critical Realism in the last posting. However, I don't know > if the subject interests anyone but me. :) > > In any event, I was a critical realist (Roy Bhaskar's general approach) > until about 8 years ago. I returned to Critical Realism almost 3 months ago. > > According to Bhaskar, there are three basic levels: > > 1. The Real (unobservable, underlying structures) > 2. The Actual (the events or phenomena produced by the Real) > 3. The Empirical (observations of the Actual) > > I took Bhaskar's model and reformulated it: > > 1. *unknowable unifying essences*, including the Unity of God, the unity > of religions, and the unity of humanity > 2. *attributes of essences*, such as the individualized divine Attributes > (Prophets) of the Unity of God, the virtues of unity of religions, and the > rational faculty of the unity of humanity > 3.* names of anyone or anything*, such as Muhammad, Lebanon, and stamp > collecting > > In other words, unifying essences are unknowable. Our knowledge of them is > indirect - by their attributes. Once we name, or identify, a set of > attributes, we can relate to it and even combine those attributes into > different forms. > --- > Regards, Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. > 29 domains: http://markfoster.net > Two books: http://bahaifaith.info > Clinical: http://fosterservices.com > __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:arch...@mail-archive.com Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-621662-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to ly...@list.jccc.edu Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:bahai-st@list.jccc.edu 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/bahai-st@list.jccc.net New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.edu
