The unknowable God: How the Baha’i faith explains divine essence

By Sarah Haug | FaVS News Columnist

“O Children of the Divine and Invisible Essence! Ye shall be hindered from loving Me and souls shall be perturbed as they make mention of Me. For minds cannot grasp Me nor hearts contain Me.” — Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words Part I

The idea that God is a divine and invisible essence, fundamentally unknowable, is almost impossible for our human minds to comprehend. How can we possibly understand the essence that created the universe when that same essence also created us?

To help us, God has given to us a progression of Manifestations of himself to translate that unknowability into terms we can understand. Among these Manifestations are: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Zoroaster, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and Baha’u’llah. 

Progressive revelation lies at the core of the Baha’i Faith, as does the fact that all the religions of God are actually one religion, with different Manifestations sent to different times and places according to the needs and capacities of the people of that time.

But that doesn’t mean in our daily life we are any closer to understanding God or describing him. As my geographer husband has been known to say, “language is unstable.” What’s more, it’s arbitrary. Take the word “spoon,” for example, a word that connotes a bowl at the end of a stick that we eat with. But what we call it (and certainly how we spell it) is entirely untethered from the object itself.

In the same way, “God” is the English word for that unknowable essence, but the essence that is “God” is in no way connected to “G-O-D” any more than a spoon is connected to how it’s spelled. 

In Danish, which shares roots with English, the word is Gud. Among the romance languages, like Spanish, French and Italian, God is Dios, Dieu and Dio, respectively. In Arabic, God is Allah, and in Estonian, it’s Jumal. The name changes across languages, but the invisible essence we call “God” is the same in every instance.

Naming that essence doesn’t get us any closer to understanding what God is either, however. In the writings of the Baha’i Faith, God is characterized by his attributes: the forgiver, the generous, the all-sufficing, the all-loving. He is the beginning and the end, the benevolent, the knower-of-all-things, the almighty.

Also central to the Baha’i Faith is the idea that humans, puny as we may be, have the potential and power to manifest God’s attributes ourselves. We can be benevolent. We can be loving. We can forgive. And importantly, it is by manifesting these attributes that we become closer to God. 

“Out of the clay of love I molded thee … Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful, and self-subsisting.” — Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words Part I

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.

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