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But this criticism shows something else: that.. (he) does not know the Baha'i Faith well enough and has not grasped its essential features. Human reason is certainly given a different value than it is in the Protestant Church (Martin Luther spoke of "that whore, Reason"). This, however, is not because the Baha'i Faith is " a deliberately modern religion" in the sense that in order to enhance its attractiveness, everything is geared to plausibility and effect; but quite simply because the divine truths do not run counter to human reason. Paradox is by no manner of means an indispensable element in original religion. Judaism and Islam-- to mention only these two religions-- get along without it, and, after all, even Protestant theologians will agree that the God who spoke in Judaism was the same God who revealed himself to man in Jesus. (62:1) But the Baha'i Faith with all its rationality is more than a dry rationalism, more than a late product of Western "enlightenment." The irrational, what Rudolf Otto called "the numinous," is also its innermost being. The Baha'i Faith is a religion of law, and its revealed laws are "irrational" in that they acquire validity primarily through the Founder's statement, not through their special wisdom and rationality. The recognition that ethics has its ultimate source in revelation and can only be discovered 'from' it, the refusal to admit the possibility of objective value judgments and therefore the rejection of "natural law"-- these are further evidence against.. (his) theme. Nor is it true that the Baha'i Faith is without mystery. The status of 'Abdul-Baha and the short duration the Bab's mission are regarded by the Baha'is as hidden mysteries.
(62:2)
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