| The Baha'i Faith was born in the middle of 19th Century and gets more and more popular in today's world. Why could such an old religion attract more and more people today? This dissertation tries to figure it out by searching the answer from the thoughts of Baha'u'llah.Baha'u'llah's thoughts have three main points:the Unique God, all peoples belong to the same family and all religions have the same origin. These points are connected with each others and based on them, Baha'u'llah made his whole system of religion and philosophy.In his cosmology, Baha'u'llah kept his faith of the Creation of God. God created the world, and in doing this, He needed only the concept of "existence", and step by step, so be the existence of the world. Human beings are the highest level of the world, God's purpose is to make human beings go beyond their bodies'limitation and keep going to perfect, to God. In this way, the existence of human is only the first stage of the perfection of the soul. From this stage, Baha'u'llah connected this world and the world to come, teaching peoples to be perfect in moral, and the model of them is the so called "Manifestation".Through the relationship of God, the Manifestation and human beings, Baha'u'llah made his epistemology. He believed that as a finite living creature, human being's knowledge is very unstable. The true knowledge could only come from God. To get this, people must not only break down the barrier of traditional religions, but also clear up the confuses made by secular desires, only then could he quest for truth independently. In his metaphor of the Seven Valleys, Baha'u'llah described the course of searching for truth.In his epistemology, Baha'u'llah also considered the relationship between science and religion. Science is also from God, so if something was proved by science, then religion has to correct its own method to accept this. Based on this point, Baha'u'llah made difference between religion and religious doctrines. There is only one religion yet religious could be corrected step by step, and by this development, human society could develop from chaos to peace and finally to the ultimate peace. Baha'u'llah's philosophy of religion makes a firmly foundation for its uprising in the new eras, and at the same time, it also keeps an open mind to accept the change, the development of the society, perhaps this is the reason why it could survive and live a better life in the future. Of course, Baha'u'llah's thoughts also face lots of problems. For example, other religions take the Baha'i Faith's toleration as a danger act; how to solve the problem between science and religion when it happens in the fundamental dimension; how to make human beings close to God while He is absolutely beyond our reach; Baha'u'llah expresses himself in a poetic way, yet a system of religion needs a more acute logic; the Baha'i Faith is not a political one, yet its community could not avoid political life and so on. With the change of the society, the Baha'i Faith has to face all these problems. |
PDF Full Text Request