What is the proper Name for the Supreme Being of the Orthodox Baha'i Faith? Most people know the improper rendition of the Hebrew Name of God, Jehovah, or Yahweh (though probably more correctly Yahoah.) The Arabic language uses the name Allah, but the definition matches pretty much that of Yahoah in Hebrew, and the Christian English word God, pretty much fits the same definition, if one leaves the Trinity concept out of it. These would seem pretty minor nomenclature differences if it were not that the West and East are presently in a conflict with terrorism and each other. The West looks at the word Allah and connotates something foreign from their concept of God, and the East fundamentalists demand that Allah is the only name for God. What does the Orthodox Baha'i Faith call its God, and is that Deity different or the same in definition as Christian Hebrew and Islamic definitions?
Shoghi Effendi, first Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, translated many of the Baha'i Holy Writ into English, and was authorized to be an infallible interpreter of the Writ. In almost every case, he translated from Arabic, Allah became God in English. So, as far as the use of a word goes we may assume with a proper and necessary inference that Allah and God were in his definition of things pretty much the same in meaning, and that a Baha'i would be completely justified in rendering Allah as God in English, and what ever the word for God is in any language rendering Allah into that language using their word for it.
However, here we must be careful to note that the word God used by Orthodox Baha'is infers a belief in a Unitarian God and not a Trinitarian Deity. With the Orthodox Baha'i Faith the idea of God is a single, unknowable being, whose essence can never be understood or known, but whose attributes such as love mercy and justice can be manifested in the world through a Messenger such as Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Bab, or Baha'u'llah. These Messengers must never be confused with God, that Being is of a different Essence and Nature, and only manifests certain of Its qualities or attributes into these men. Indeed, men tend to fall into worship of one or more of the attributes or even the men who manifested the attributes rather than the Deity Itself. This form of polytheism is harder to recognize because it uses a concept of "God", but uses it in a manner that multiplies the Deity. The concept of most major Christian denominations of the Trinity is one such example, and when looking at the worship of Krishna in Hinduism we find an equal parallel.
The Orthodox Baha'i Faith is monotheistic. But it is more than that. It not only proclaims that there is only one God, but that everything that is not God is a creature, a creation of God. That God has no rivals, no equals, and is only good. That evil is the lack of good, that the devil or Satan, is a personification of qualities associated with the absence of good. Looking at other religions idea of God a monotheistic, we find them lacking in understanding the great incomprehensible gulf between God and creation, between Supreme Being and Its creatures. The creature can never become the Creator. It can more and more perfectly manifest the attributes of God, like love and mercy, compassion and justice. But it can never become the unknowable essence of Godhood. God then is not merely the Supreme Being, but the only Being worthy of any worship whatsoever. All the Messengers of God are creatures, created by God, and can never themselves be or become God.
In the Orthodox Baha'i Faith, God becomes really the only true God. What then are the untrue gods, the false gods? Not just polytheistic gods, but anything that is worshipped or placed in equality with the one true God. This includes such things as our own desires for material things, and our own viewpoints when found to be in direct opposition to the Holy Writ, any of these things constitutes creature worship, placing something that is a creation, or belongs to a creation of God on equal footing with the creator.
The Orthodox Baha'i Faith teaches that all religions in our day and time have come to some forms of creature worship by distortion of the true teachings, and mixing in ideas that are man-made. In other words the purest form of monotheism that can be found on earth today is the Orthodox Baha'i Faith as it contains the most recent revelation of God's attributes and purposes for man through his latest Messenger, Baha'u'llah. The Orthodox Baha'i worships the God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and the Bab. That the religions whose Messengers I have just mentioned seemed to worship different conceptions is attributable to their followers distortions of the teachings, and the man-made interpretations and influences that have corrupted their understanding and led them to creature-worship.
Copyright 2008 By Ian RoeBuck Permission is granted to reprint this article in full provided that the entire article is reprinted with no changes and the Author's Information Box is included.
Ian RoeBuck
Author Bio
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Ian RoeBuck is a multiple streams of income Internet Marketer whose interest includes that of spirituality. His websites include:
http://www.iansbreakthroughbiz.com
and his personal homepage is:
http://home.comcast.net/~performancepoet/
