May 30, 2011 -- 10:49AM, Jupiter6208 wrote:

From what i have read  Baha'i's believe God is Unknowable is this correct?

In a word, yes.  We believe that God can be known only through those Manifestations of God Who have been sent to us so that we can know about God.  However, God, in His essence, cannot be known.  More specifically, this quote from Shoghi Effendi might help:

He Who in unnumbered passages claimed His utterance to be the "Voice of Divinity, the Call of God Himself" thus solemnly affirms in the Kitáb-i-Íqán: "To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the Divine Being, is immeasurably exalted beyond every human attribute such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress... He is, and hath ever been, veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men... He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness... 'God was alone; there was none else beside Him' is a sure testimony of this truth."

"From time immemorial," Bahá'u'lláh, speaking of God, explains, "He, the Divine Being, hath been veiled in the ineffable sanctity of His exalted Self, and will everlasting continue to be wrapt in the impenetrable mystery of His unknowable Essence... Ten thousand Prophets, each a Moses, are thunderstruck upon the Sinai of their search at God's forbidding voice, 'Thou shalt never behold Me!'; whilst a myriad Messengers, each as great as Jesus, stand dismayed upon their heavenly thrones by the interdiction 'Mine Essence thou shalt never apprehend!'" "How bewildering to me, insignificant as I am," Bahá'u'lláh in His communion with God affirms, "is the attempt to fathom the sacred depths of Thy knowledge! How futile my efforts to visualize the magnitude of the power inherent in Thine handiwork -- the revelation of Thy creative power!" "When I contemplate, O my God, the relationship that bindeth me to Thee," He, in yet another prayer revealed in His own handwriting, testifies, "I am moved to proclaim to all created things 'verily I am God!'; and when I consider my own self, lo, I find it coarser than clay!"

"The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days," Bahá'u'lláh further states in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, "being thus closed in the face of all beings, He, the Source of infinite grace ... hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness to appear out of the realm of the spirit, in the noble form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men, that they may impart unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being and tell of the subtleties of His imperishable Essence... All the Prophets of God, His well-favored, His holy and chosen Messengers are, without exception, the bearers of His names and the embodiments of His attributes... These Tabernacles of Holiness, these primal Mirrors which reflect the Light of unfading glory, are but expressions of Him Who is the Invisible of the Invisibles."

 (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 112)

Strictly speaking nothing is "known" in the sense that we want to say God is known.  We don't know physics or biology or philosophy, but we know about those things.

We do not know the essence of anything, but we know aspects and attributes of things.  Human knowledge is the knowledge of relationships, the way things work.  We make models and concepts of how things work, and we identify the things in the models with names.

So I disagree with what all my Baha'i brethren say when they explain the Unknowable Essence which is God.  I don't think any two people can agree on the deepest and highest inspiring and influential concept they can imagine.  What should we call the Most High?  Well, we can call Him God, but what is HE?  That is a different question.  --Kent

Unknown does not mean impersonal.  The personification of God by religion is a handy trick, good for the feelings, makes us all think about life, the universe and everything as a friend.  What Baha'is have is the realization, the Faith, that what we know is not God's Truth.  No one has God's Truth.

The personification of God is common in religions of old.  The Greeks personified all their gods, and that may be one reason Christ chose to personify the One True God.  He was the Teacher after all.

But no one knows God, although He has been personified in the Person of Jesus Christ in your religion, and in Others as well according to my religion.

If you are seriously saying you know God as well or better than you know, say, your mother then we have a communication issue.

Let me know if you want to continue this discussion.  --Kent

Feb 17, 2012 -- 11:05AM, lulu2 wrote:

The Kingdom of heaven is within you.” That text has been the stay and support of more Pharisees and prigs and self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with the peace that passes all understanding. ..

Than I can only suppose your statement would include the CHRIST? GOD lives in us, around us and in whome we have our being..to seek Him not as part of the self, is saying we are separate from God? Christ also said..those who see me, see my Father...He also said, my Father and I am ONE 

I assume you were replying to SeraphimR with this quote from Jesus, not me.  Thanks.  --Kent