Progressive revelation (Baháʼí)
Progressive revelation is a core teaching in the Baháʼí Faith that suggests that religious truth is revealed by God progressively and cyclically over time through a series of divine Messengers, and that the teachings are tailored to suit the needs of the time and place of their appearance.[1][2] Thus, the Baháʼí teachings recognize the divine origin of several world religions as different stages in the history of one religion, while believing that the revelation of Baháʼu'lláh is the most recent (though not the last—that there will never be a last), and therefore the most relevant to modern society.[1]
For the Christian belief, see Progressive revelation (Christianity).This teaching is an interaction of simpler teachings and their implications. The basic concept relates closely to Baháʼí views on God's essential unity, and the nature of prophets, termed Manifestations of God. It also ties into Baháʼí views of the purpose and nature of religion, laws, belief, culture and history. Hence revelation is seen as both progressive and continuous, and therefore never ceases.[3]
Progressive cycles[edit]
Dispensations[edit]
Baháʼís believe God to be generally regular and periodic in revealing His will to mankind through messengers/prophets, which are named Manifestations of God. Each messenger in turn establishes a covenant and founds a religion. This process of revelation, according to the Baháʼí writings, is also never ceasing,[1] which is contrary to many other belief systems that believe in a finality of their prophet/messenger. The general theme of the successive and continuous religions founded by Manifestations of God is that there is an evolutionary tendency, and that each Manifestation of God brings a larger measure of revelation (or religion) to humankind than the previous one.[4] The differences in the revelation brought by the Manifestations of God is stated to be not inherent in the characteristics of the Manifestation of God, but instead attributed to the various worldly, societal and human factors;[4] these differences are in accordance with the "conditions" and "varying requirements of the age" and the "spiritual capacity" of humanity.[4] These differences are seen to be needed since human society has slowly and gradually evolved through higher stages of unification from the family to tribes and then nations.[4]
Thus religious truth is seen to be relative to its recipients and not absolute; while the messengers proclaimed eternal moral and spiritual truths that are renewed by each messenger, they also changed their message to reflect the particular spiritual and material evolution of humanity at the time of the appearance of the messenger.[1] In the Baháʼí view, since humanity's spiritual capacity and receptivity has increased over time, the extent to which these spiritual truths are expounded changes.[4]
Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, explained that the appearance of successive messengers was like the annual coming of Spring, which brings new life to the world which has come to neglect the teachings of the previous messenger.[1] He also used an analogy of the world as the human body, and revelation as a robe of "justice and wisdom".
Religious truth is of two kinds[edit]
Baháʼís believe that religious teachings are of two varieties: essential spiritual truth, and ephemeral social constructs.[18] The latter may include laws of conduct, diet, institutions, ceremonies, and treatment of criminals.[18] These may change dramatically from messenger to messenger. The former, however, are essential and do not change, except perhaps in their cultural presentation. So the Manifestation of God is seen as at once restoring the essential truth, returning the faithful to the correct practice. Simultaneously, the Manifestation eliminates redundant or corrupt social structures and creates such social organization as will support the improvement of mankind.
Establishing texts[edit]
In the Kitáb-i-Íqán (in English, The Book of Certitude), Baháʼu'lláh describes the relationships between several Abrahamic prophets and how each accepted the previous, but was rejected by the previous prophet's followers.[24] He uses these examples to highlight the legitimacy of the Báb to the reader, since the book was written in answer to some questions from the Báb's uncle.[24]