The Archeology of the Kingdom of God: Diving a Bit Deeper into a Baha'i Approach to Metaphysics

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

I think the idea of bodily resurrection is scriptural, is adhered to by a few religions (I think possibly even outside the Abrahamic religions but I would have to double check) and what that bodily resurrection actually looks like is not spelled out in a fully self evident or heavily detailed manner thus is subject to all sorts of interpretive strategies.

If resurrection included a flesh body, why do you think Jesus goes to great lengths to teach us the flesh amounts to nothing and that it is the Spirit that is light and life? That is a genuine observation statement from me.

Why are we given science by God, if we can so easily reject the most basic of scientific findings? Are you amazed that no snow flakes are identical, such as humans born into this world, the Atoms disperse and do not come back to make an identical body. If a dead person can be raised (as many have come to accept will happen), imagine how many atom that have gone into making new life, will have to be taken from the new life to produce the body.

There is so much wrong about it, (I do not want another physical body, this one is failing fast) and that is why I see the explanations we now have in the Baha'i Wrirings, are compatible with scientific advancement and are a logical way to interpret all scriptures talking about the progress of our soul into the next life.

All the best, Regards Tony

 

[TheLightWithin]

If a dead person can be raised (as many have come to accept will happen), imagine how many atom that have gone into making new life, will have to be taken from the new life to produce the body.

There is so much wrong about it, (I do not want another physical body, this one is failing fast)

What is your interpretation of what resurrection means? Or is resurrection not a key Bahai teaching about the afterlife/end of days?

 

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

What is your interpretation of what resurrection means? Or is resurrection not a key Bahai teaching about the afterlife/end of days?

I see the scriptures tell us the resurrection is all about our Spirit.

My current understanding is If we are born again from the flesh into the Spirit, then the transition is a birth that is alive in the awareness of the Spirit that is Christ. (There is many writings of guidance on this topic now available)

If we are not born again, then the transition is like one of darkness, not aware of that light of the Spirit of Christ.

All this under the mercy, forgiveness, bounty and jusice that is for God to give.

This is but one overall general view of the soul and its possibilities, its under a spoiler as it is a longer quote.

Spoiler: Progress of Soul

And now concerning thy question regarding the soul of man and its survival after death. Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter. It will endure as long as the Kingdom of God, His sovereignty, His dominion and power will endure. It will manifest the signs of God and His attributes, and will reveal His loving kindness and bounty. The movement of My Pen is stilled when it attempteth to befittingly describe the loftiness and glory of so exalted a station. The honor with which the Hand of Mercy will invest the soul is such as no tongue can adequately reveal, nor any other earthly agency describe. Blessed is the soul which, at the hour of its separation from the body, is sanctified from the vain imaginings of the peoples of the world. Such a soul liveth and moveth in accordance with the Will of its Creator, and entereth the all-highest Paradise. The Maids of Heaven, inmates of the loftiest mansions, will circle around it, and the Prophets of God and His chosen ones will seek its companionship. With them that soul will freely converse, and will recount unto them that which it hath been made to endure in the path of God, the Lord of all worlds. If any man be told that which hath been ordained for such a soul in the worlds of God, the Lord of the throne on high and of earth below, his whole being will instantly blaze out in his great longing to attain that most exalted, that sanctified and resplendent station....The nature of the soul after death can never be described, nor is it meet and permissible to reveal its whole character to the eyes of men. The Prophets and Messengers of God have been sent down for the sole purpose of guiding mankind to the straight Path of Truth. The purpose underlying their revelation hath been to educate all men, that they may, at the hour of death, ascend, in the utmost purity and sanctity and with absolute detachment, to the throne of the Most High. The light which these souls radiate is responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of its peoples. They are like unto leaven which leaveneth the world of being, and constitute the animating force through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest. Through them the clouds rain their bounty upon men, and the earth bringeth forth its fruits. All things must needs have a cause, a motive power, an animating principle. These souls and symbols of detachment have provided, and will continue to provide, the supreme moving impulse in the world of being. The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother. When the soul attaineth the Presence of God, it will assume the form that best befitteth its immortality and is worthy of its celestial habitation. Such an existence is a contingent and not an absolute existence, inasmuch as the former is preceded by a cause, whilst the latter is independent thereof. Absolute existence is strictly confined to God, exalted be His glory. Well is it with them that apprehend this truth. Wert thou to ponder in thine heart the behavior of the Prophets of God thou wouldst assuredly and readily testify that there must needs be other worlds besides this world. The majority of the truly wise and learned have, throughout the ages, as it hath been recorded by the Pen of Glory in the Tablet of Wisdom, borne witness to the truth of that which the holy Writ of God hath revealed. Even the materialists have testified in their writings to the wisdom of these divinely-appointed Messengers, and have regarded the references made by the Prophets to Paradise, to hell fire, to future reward and punishment, to have been actuated by a desire to educate and uplift the souls of men. Consider, therefore, how the generality of mankind, whatever their beliefs or theories, have recognized the excellence, and admitted the superiority, of these Prophets of God. These Gems of Detachment are acclaimed by some as the embodiments of wisdom, while others believe them to be the mouthpiece of God Himself. How could such Souls have consented to surrender themselves unto their enemies if they believed all the worlds of God to have been reduced to this earthly life? Would they have willingly suffered such afflictions and torments as no man hath ever experienced or witnessed? -Baha'u'llah

I do not see anyone can read that passage and not be moved in emotions and wonderment, but that is me.

Regards Tony

 

[Ahanu]

But it's there – Mark 16:5-6:
"And entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting to the right, clothed in a white robe, and they were amazed. But he says to them, “Do not be amazed. You seek Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look: the place where they laid him."

See post #433.

 

[TheLightWithin]

I see the scriptures tell us the resurrection is all about our Spirit.

My current understanding is If we are born again from the flesh into the Spirit, then the transition is a birth that is alive in the awareness of the Spirit that is Christ. (There is many writings of guidance on this topic now available)

If we are not born again, then the transition is like one of darkness, not aware of that light of the Spirit of Christ.

All this under the mercy, forgiveness, bounty and jusice that is for God to give.

This is but one overall general view of the soul and its possibilities, its under a spoiler as it is a longer quote.

Spoiler: Progress of Soul

And now concerning thy question regarding the soul of man and its survival after death. Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter. It will endure as long as the Kingdom of God, His sovereignty, His dominion and power will endure. It will manifest the signs of God and His attributes, and will reveal His loving kindness and bounty. The movement of My Pen is stilled when it attempteth to befittingly describe the loftiness and glory of so exalted a station. The honor with which the Hand of Mercy will invest the soul is such as no tongue can adequately reveal, nor any other earthly agency describe. Blessed is the soul which, at the hour of its separation from the body, is sanctified from the vain imaginings of the peoples of the world. Such a soul liveth and moveth in accordance with the Will of its Creator, and entereth the all-highest Paradise. The Maids of Heaven, inmates of the loftiest mansions, will circle around it, and the Prophets of God and His chosen ones will seek its companionship. With them that soul will freely converse, and will recount unto them that which it hath been made to endure in the path of God, the Lord of all worlds. If any man be told that which hath been ordained for such a soul in the worlds of God, the Lord of the throne on high and of earth below, his whole being will instantly blaze out in his great longing to attain that most exalted, that sanctified and resplendent station....The nature of the soul after death can never be described, nor is it meet and permissible to reveal its whole character to the eyes of men. The Prophets and Messengers of God have been sent down for the sole purpose of guiding mankind to the straight Path of Truth. The purpose underlying their revelation hath been to educate all men, that they may, at the hour of death, ascend, in the utmost purity and sanctity and with absolute detachment, to the throne of the Most High. The light which these souls radiate is responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of its peoples. They are like unto leaven which leaveneth the world of being, and constitute the animating force through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest. Through them the clouds rain their bounty upon men, and the earth bringeth forth its fruits. All things must needs have a cause, a motive power, an animating principle. These souls and symbols of detachment have provided, and will continue to provide, the supreme moving impulse in the world of being. The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother. When the soul attaineth the Presence of God, it will assume the form that best befitteth its immortality and is worthy of its celestial habitation. Such an existence is a contingent and not an absolute existence, inasmuch as the former is preceded by a cause, whilst the latter is independent thereof. Absolute existence is strictly confined to God, exalted be His glory. Well is it with them that apprehend this truth. Wert thou to ponder in thine heart the behavior of the Prophets of God thou wouldst assuredly and readily testify that there must needs be other worlds besides this world. The majority of the truly wise and learned have, throughout the ages, as it hath been recorded by the Pen of Glory in the Tablet of Wisdom, borne witness to the truth of that which the holy Writ of God hath revealed. Even the materialists have testified in their writings to the wisdom of these divinely-appointed Messengers, and have regarded the references made by the Prophets to Paradise, to hell fire, to future reward and punishment, to have been actuated by a desire to educate and uplift the souls of men. Consider, therefore, how the generality of mankind, whatever their beliefs or theories, have recognized the excellence, and admitted the superiority, of these Prophets of God. These Gems of Detachment are acclaimed by some as the embodiments of wisdom, while others believe them to be the mouthpiece of God Himself. How could such Souls have consented to surrender themselves unto their enemies if they believed all the worlds of God to have been reduced to this earthly life? Would they have willingly suffered such afflictions and torments as no man hath ever experienced or witnessed? -Baha'u'llah

I do not see anyone can read that passage and not be moved in emotions and wonderment, but that is me.

Regards Tony

Intriguing.
Is there the belief that the soul pre-exists? Origen I think thought that souls pre-existed in heaven. I think some interpretations of Judaism hold that all Jewish souls were present at Mt Sinai.

Technical question: How do you insert the long quote into that spoiler button? Good technique for a long quote.

 

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

Technical question: How do you insert the long quote into that spoiler button? Good technique for a long quote.

Open with [ spoiler=Subject ] Paste Subject [/spoiler]

I spaced the first spoiler brackets so it would nor work

Regards Tony

 

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

Intriguing.
Is there the belief that the soul pre-exists? Origen I think thought that souls pre-existed in heaven. I think some interpretations of Judaism hold that all Jewish souls were present at Mt Sinai.

That the soul is given at conception is what is in the offficial writings.

"Man's identity or rather his individuality is never lost. His reality as a person remains intact throughout the various states of his development. He does not pre-exist in any form before coming into this world."
Shoghi Effendi, Lights of Guidance, p. 536

I do have a perplexity with this, many NDe experiences say they chose the life they were currently living, I am sure that is not reconcileable with the above quote.

Regards Tony

 

[TheLightWithin]

Open with [ spoiler=Subject ] Paste Subject [/spoiler]

I spaced the first spoiler brackets so it would nor work

Regards Tony

Thanks

 

[TheLightWithin]

That the soul is given at conception is what is in the offficial writings.

"Man's identity or rather his individuality is never lost. His reality as a person remains intact throughout the various states of his development. He does not pre-exist in any form before coming into this world."
Shoghi Effendi, Lights of Guidance, p. 536

I do have a perplexity with this, many NDe experiences say they chose the life they were currently living, I am sure that is not reconcileable with the above quote.

Regards Tony

Yes, I think this teaching would be very difficult to reconcile with any teaching that features choosing one's life ahead of time or any doctrine of reincarnation / transmigration of souls.

 

[Thomas]

Let's check Romans 8.23 again: The issue is the ambiguity in the Greek phrase "ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος." This phrase could be interpreted as including the possibility of a separation from the physical body, which aligns with certain interpretations of the resurrection, as suggested by Litwa.

A possibility yes ... but read in context of the chapter, the implication is more nuanced.

Romans 8:5-9 "For they that are after the sarx do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For to be sarx-minded is death; but to be pneuma-minded is life and peace. Because the sarx mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (being subject to the law of sin and death). So then they that are in the sarx (mind) cannot please God. But ye are not in the sarx, but in the pneuma... "

Here and throughout Paul is using a sarx/pneuma dichotomy in the figurative sense – the opposition of the Law of Sin and Death (under the 'Archon of this Kosmos') as opposed to the Law of Life and Peace under God.

This metaphoric language is what sets up the ambiguity you speak of ... and clearly Paul does not imply separation from the physical body while living in the spirit, indeed:

Romans 8:11 "But if the pneuma of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies (thnetos soma) by his pneuma that dwelleth in you."

Had he said that? Seriously? Doctrine evolves over time, and it's not always directly tied to the original words of a religious figure.

But it never contradicts Scripture, that's my point.

 

[Thomas]

Please explain "but beyond star stuff as a mode of pneuma incarnation" in Pauline thought.

You're the one that links pneuma to 'star-stuff', not Paul.

In Stoic thought, where you began with this, pneuma manifests in various states, stars being one such in the hierarchy.

 

[Thomas]

This is a fundamental law of nature.

But we're clearly talking about a super-natural event.

 

[Thomas]

The disciples would have done much to ensure the desecration of the remains of Jesus was not possible.

But the tomb was empty, there were no remains.

The story of the Bab is also the most logical comparison to what happened to the body of Jesus.

Clearly not.

 

[Thomas]

Why hold to the flesh? Well I may already know why, it changes the required frame of reference for the possibility of the return of Jesus Christ, a whole new world of thought would be required. Is that a fair and just statement?

We don't 'hold to the flesh', as you assume, so the statement's not really fair or just.

The discussion here is was there a corpse in the tomb after the Resurrection.

A more involved discussion is how Paul uses the language of 'flesh' and 'spirit' as a metaphor, so to read it as literal is, perhaps, not doing justice to the text.

 

[Thomas]

I think the idea of bodily resurrection is scriptural, is adhered to by a few religions (I think possibly even outside the Abrahamic religions but I would have to double check)

It is, and it was ...

and what that bodily resurrection actually looks like is not spelled out in a fully self evident or heavily detailed manner thus is subject to all sorts of interpretive strategies.

Quite.

It's always been a given in the Christian Tradition. It has become increasingly important for some to try and explain it away, the likes of Ehrman et al attempting to undermine the Tradition to validate their own thesis.

 

[Thomas]

Looks like I made a mistake here.

Mark does mention the empty tomb. It still doesn't prove the writer believed in a physical resurrection, however.

Well it's nigh-on impossible to conceive he thought otherwise, based on the text.

 

[Thomas]

If resurrection included a flesh body, why do you think Jesus goes to great lengths to teach us the flesh amounts to nothing and that it is the Spirit that is light and life? That is a genuine observation statement from me.

See my #450 and #454 above.

... imagine how many atom that have gone into making new life, will have to be taken from the new life to produce the body.

I'm not sure it works that way? Atoms form as a 'coagulation' or 'collapse' of wave energies? But I really don't know ...

There is so much wrong about it, (I do not want another physical body, this one is failing fast) ...

But clearly the Christian Scriptures do not talk about the body as this body is ... rather a body under the Law of Life, not the Rule of Death.

 

[Thomas]

This is a fundamental law of nature. Your body, like all matter, is composed of elements that have existed for billions of years and will continue to exist long after you're gone.

Yep ...

Within that time frame countless generations have come and gone, their remains absorbed back into the Earth. Let this sink into your "so it goes" philosophical outlook as well.

Oh, it's there! "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep" (Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1)

If you go to a reasonably-sized theatre to see this or any show,
"... look round and imagine you grandparents standing behind you, one on either side, a hand on your shoulder. Now imaging their parents standing behind them, and theirs behind them, and so on ... go back 5,000 years, and statistically you are related to everyone else in the auditorium ... "
(From memory, from the opening monologue of Theatre Complicité's 'Mnemonic'. If you ever get the chance to see Complicité, don't miss it)

And we are, of course, the stuff that stars are made of, so the Stoics were right, in that aspect.

The elements that once made up your body will be recycled, becoming part of plants, animals, and even future generations.

In the normal flow of things, yes ... but in the case of a spiritual metamorphosis, everything changes ... we can but speculate.

This is the natural cycle of life and death.

As said, we're talking of a supernatural event.

If there is a survival after death, it would have to be that consciousness, a non-physical aspect of being, is fundamentally different from matter as we know it today.

Why limit that to the non-physical? Why not so much 'different from matter' as 'different form of matter'? Spiritual matter?

While I personally believe in an afterlife, I don't believe ancient humans in 1st century Judaism fully captured its nature with their words. They all fail. The same is true for our own words today.

Well, we won't know until we know ...

 

[Thomas]

If resurrection included a flesh body, why do you think Jesus goes to great lengths to teach us the flesh amounts to nothing and that it is the Spirit that is light and life? That is a genuine observation statement from me.

Afterthoughts ...

Jesus does not rail against the flesh as the physical body, but as a signifier, as Paul did, of a body living under the authority of the Prince of this World.

"Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh (thelema sarx), nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:13)
So it's the 'will of the flesh', the tendency to sin, that drags us down. It is the spirit that saves, and the spirit that transforms –
"It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life." (John 6:64)

"You judge according to the flesh: I judge not any man." (John 8:15)
Here I would ask you consider whether your dismissal of the flesh is thinking according to the flesh, if you get my drift.

So I would suggest you dare to think in the light of a different frame of reference, not of mortal opposed to immortal, but of mortal put on immortality, of corruption made incorruptible ... not of a physical body (soma psychikos) left behind as we live on in the spirit, but of a spiritual body (soma pneumatikos) in which the psychikos is infused, changed and transformed by the indwelling of the pneuma.

Jesus was a Jew, and (as I understand it) the Jews tended to a more holistic and 'corporate' view, or so the Hebrew Scriptures seem to me:

"And the Lord God (JHWH elohim) formed man (adam) of the dust of the ground (adamah), and breathed into his nostrils the breath (neshamah) of life; and man (adam) became a living soul (hay nefesh)." (Genesis 2:7)

Man, then, appears as a composite, of earth and heaven, matter and spirit, whereas in other, notably Hellenic, schools of thought, matter and spirit are seen in opposition, as 'this v that', as two things bound together by accident and contingency.

The Fall interrupts everything, of course, and the consequence of which governs our thinking, according to the flesh, but in that sense the flesh is used metaphorically rather than necessarily literally.

I stand to be corrected ... and I admit the sentimentality ... but I think that God went to all the effort to make this Cosmos, and saw that it was good throughout, and very good in his apex creature, put there to serve it and care for it; that "humanity was created as the methorios (the boundary or frontier) between the physical and the spiritual realms, or as the priesthood of creation that unites earth to heaven, and that thus, in the fall, all of material existence was made subject to the dominion of death." (DBH, "The Doors of the Sea", p63).

If we become immaterial spirits then, we never lived up to our vocation, the purpose of our creation ... do we see then the world as a dead husk, the print of gone bodies like the shapes left in the streets of Pompeii by the ash of Vesuvius? A cosmos left still groaning in its travail (cf Romans 8:22) ... or do we dare to hope that we finally achieve that nobility destined for us before the foundation of the world?

A romance, perhaps ... but I'd like to think at some point we will live up to and live in, and live out, our calling as boundary bodies, liminal creatures (methorios soma) ... something angels could only dream of!

And imagine 'what a wonderful world' if the whole cosmos was aflame in some transcendent manner, and we the instruments of a cosmic meta-theophany.

That, to me, is true 'thinking outside the box.'

But hey, this is not the thread for such speculations.

 

[Ahanu]

A possibility yes ... but read in context of the chapter, the implication is more nuanced.

Let's see.

This metaphoric language is what sets up the ambiguity you speak of ... and clearly Paul does not imply separation from the physical body while living in the spirit, indeed:

Romans 8:11 "But if the pneuma of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies (thnetos soma) by his pneuma that dwelleth in you."


But it never contradicts Scripture, that's my point.

The context of 8.11 is about the present life, not the resurrection. There's a contextual shift between Romans 8.11 and what we find in the eschatological context of Romans 8:18-25. Paul is primarily discussing the present spiritual reality of believers in the context of 8.11. He emphasizes that if the Spirit of Christ dwells in a person, they are already spiritually alive. The phrase "quickening of mortal bodies" should be understood in light of this spiritual reality.

Paul often uses resurrection imagery to describe the spiritual transformation that occurs in believers. In Romans 8:10, he states the following: "And if Christ is in you, though your body is dead because of sin, your spirit is alive because of righteousness." Paul is clearly not referring to a future physical resurrection but to a present spiritual reality.

As mentioned earlier, 8.23 is presented in an eschatological context:

18Λογίζομαι γὰρ ὅτι οὐκ ἄξια τὰ παθήματα τοῦ νῦν καιροῦ πρὸς τὴν μέλλουσαν δόξαν ἀποκαλυφθῆναι εἰς ἡμᾶς. 19ἡ γὰρ ἀποκαραδοκία τῆς κτίσεως τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν τῶν υἱῶν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἀπεκδέχεται. 20τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις ὑπετάγη, οὐχ ἑκοῦσα, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα, ἐφ ἑλπίδι 21ὅτι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις ἐλευθερωθήσεται ἀπὸ τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνων τοῦ Θεοῦ.

22Οἴδαμεν γὰρ ὅτι πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν· 23οὐ μόνον δέ, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτοὶ τὴν ἀπαρχὴν τοῦ Πνεύματος ἔχοντες ἡμεῖς καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐν ἑαυτοῖς στενάζομεν, υἱοθεσίαν ἀπεκδεχόμενοι, τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν. 24τῇ γὰρ ἐλπίδι ἐσώθημεν· ἐλπὶς δὲ βλεπομένη οὐκ ἔστιν ἐλπίς· ὃ γὰρ βλέπει τις, τί ἐλπίζει; 25εἰ δὲ ὃ οὐ βλέπομεν ἐλπίζομεν, δι ὑπομονῆς ἀπεκδεχόμεθα.

Paul begins by contrasting present suffering with future glory (Romans 8.18). He emphasizes that "our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

He notes the groaning of the creation (v. 22). The entire cosmos, longing for liberation from its bondage to decay, anticipates a future renewal. This cosmic groaning parallels the believers' own longing for their final redemption.

Passages that speak of the distinction between the "inner" and "outer" man (2 Cor. 4.16-18) illuminate "ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος" in Romans 8:23 that soon follows verse 22. When Paul speaks of the "ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος," he may be referring to the liberation of the inner man from the constraints of the physical body. The word "ἀπολύτρωσις" (redemption) often carries connotations of liberation from slavery or bondage. In this context, it suggests a liberation from mortality and subjection to decay.