Friday, May 16, 2008

Baha'u'llah and non-Euclidean geometry

This morning I've been thinking about something in the behavior of some of my Baha'i friends that has always puzzled me, and sometimes confused and frustrated me. I've never been able to bring it into focus, let alone find words for it. This morning I was thinking that it looks to me like they're convinced that Baha'u'llah is not everything He says He is, and that they're hiding that conviction, either from me or from themselves.

I thought about asking them directly, "Are you sure that Baha'u'llah is not everything He says He is?" but I kept getting stuck on the question "Why do I need to know?"

Then I thought, they might be imagining the same thing about me, and they might need to know that I'm supposing that Baha'u'llah is everything He says He is, and everything I do presupposes that He is always right.

Then the thought came to me, what if we suppose that Baha'u'llah is not always right?

Somehow that reminded me of non-Euclidean geometry. "What if we suppose that there are no parallels to a given line, through a given point? What if we suppose there can be more than one?

Even supposing that Baha'u'llah is always right, it might be useful for some of His purposes to suppose otherwise.

I want to be part of a community administered on the premise that He's always right, but what if some other Baha'is want to be part of a community administered on the premise that He is not always right? How can we explore both possibilities without schism?

Later, I was wondering if it's possible to suppose that Baha'u'llah is everything He says He is, without supposing that He's always right. Maybe that's what those friends of mine are doing. I never thought of separating those ideas before.

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