IB World Religions 1.10.2. the Human Condition: Born Pure, with a Dual Nature Notes

1.10.2. The Human Condition: Born Pure, with a Dual Nature

Born pure and noble

1. Bahá'ís hold that every child is born pure and holy. Nothing in a newborn is faulty, and no inherited defect stands between a person and God.
2. Bahá'u'lláh puts the point to the reader directly in the Hidden Words, a short book of aphorisms: noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself.
3. Nobility is therefore the starting condition, and wrongdoing is a falling away from it. Bahá'ís speak of people forgetting what they are rather than of a nature that was broken at the outset.
4. This marks a clear difference from original sin, the doctrine taught in the Catholic, Orthodox and most Protestant traditions, which Bahá'ís do not accept.
5. Bahá'ís read the story of Adam and Eve as a symbol of the soul's turning away from God rather than as an event that damaged human nature permanently.
6. Bahá'u'lláh states what that pure nature is for. He writes that God created human beings to know him and to worship him, so the purpose of a life is fixed before anyone chooses anything.
7. The teaching carries a social demand. If every child arrives with the same capacity, Bahá'ís argue, prejudice by race, class or sex has nothing to rest on.

The soul and the body

1. Bahá'ís hold that God gives each person an immortal soul, which comes into being at conception and never ceases to exist.
2. The soul is not held to have lived before. Bahá'ís reject reincarnation, teaching that every soul is new and moves forward rather than returning to this world.
3. The soul is not inside the body. 'Abdu'l-Bahá taught that it is associated with the body and acts through it, without ever being contained in it.
4. The body is not an enemy or a prison. It is described as the instrument the soul works through, which is why Bahá'u'lláh forbids monasticism and asceticism.
5. Bahá'ís therefore treat ordinary life as the proper setting for spiritual growth. Marriage, family and paid work are held to develop a soul more reliably than withdrawal from them.
6. The soul has no sex and no race, since those belong to the body. 'Abdu'l-Bahá drew the conclusion that men and women are equal in the sight of God, whatever a given society has assumed.
7. Death is described as the separation of the soul from the body, not as the end of the person. On this teaching what dies is the instrument, not the one using it.

The two natures

1. Bahá'ís teach that God created human beings with a dual nature. One side is described as animal and selfish, the other as spiritual.
2. The lower nature holds the appetites and instincts humans share with animals. Bahá'ís hold that these are not sinful in themselves, since God made them and a body needs them.
3. Trouble comes when the lower nature governs. Greed, cruelty and self-interest are described as the animal side directing a life that the spiritual side should be running.
4. The higher nature is the soul, with its capacity for reason, love, justice and worship. Bahá'ís hold that it reflects the attributes of God.
5. The moral life is therefore a contest inside one person rather than a battle with an outside tempter. Bahá'í teaching has no devil, and reads Satan as a name for the lower nature itself.
6. Evil has no independent existence on this account. 'Abdu'l-Bahá taught that evil is the absence of good, so God, who created only good things, did not create it.

Reason and free will

1. Reason is the faculty Bahá'ís hold to be distinctive of human beings. The writings call it the rational soul and treat it as the mark of God in a person.
2. Reason has a religious task and not only a practical one. It is what lets a person examine a claim, recognise a Manifestation of God and tell truth from inherited assumption.
3. Bahá'ís therefore make the independent investigation of truth an obligation. Each person is expected to examine religion personally rather than accept it on a family's word.
4. Bahá'ís also hold that reason and revelation cannot finally conflict. A religious belief that contradicts demonstrated science is treated as something to re-examine rather than to defend.
5. Bahá'ís do not treat an unaided mind as infallible. The writings hold that reason works best alongside revelation, and that opinion dressed as investigation is still opinion.
6. Free will follows from the same capacity. Because a person can weigh reasons, Bahá'ís hold they choose which nature governs and are accountable for the choice.
7. That choice is not made once. Bahá'u'lláh instructs believers to bring themselves to account each day, so self-examination is a daily practice rather than an occasional one.

Education and human potential

1. Bahá'u'lláh compares a human being to a mine, rich in gems of inestimable value, which education alone can cause to reveal its treasures.
2. The image fixes the Bahá'í account of what goes wrong. Capacity is present in everyone, so the obstacle is ignorance and neglect rather than a ruined nature.
3. Bahá'ís therefore treat universal education as a religious obligation laid on parents and communities, not as a social policy borrowed from outside the faith.
4. Where a family cannot educate every child, Bahá'í teaching gives priority to daughters, on the ground that mothers are the first educators of the next generation.
5. Local communities put this into practice through children's classes and junior youth groups, which are often the most visible activity a Bahá'í community runs.
6. The teaching also cuts against fatalism. If character is developed rather than issued at birth, Bahá'ís argue, nobody is fixed in place by their upbringing.