The terrestrial globe from the beginning was created with all its elements, substances, minerals, atoms and organisms; but these only appeared by degrees …
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’
Sept 23, 2012. The Bahá’i teachings say that we are not descended from the animals.
These days, many disagree. Animals came before humans, they say. Our bodies are only slightly different than that of other animals, they point out. And science shows we share a biological lineage with animals.
`Abdu’l-Bahá, in Some Answered Questions more than one hundred years ago, addressed these and similar viewpoints. The idea that man descended from the animals, he said, was a theory in evident error:
This theory has found credence in the minds of some European philosophers, and it is now very difficult to make its falseness understood, but in the future it will become evident and clear, and the European philosophers will themselves realize its untruth. For, verily, it is an evident error. (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, p. 174)
Why should we view the idea that humans are descended from animals as in evident error?
Are the Humans Descended from the Animals?
When `Abdu’l-Bahá discussed whether or not humans were descended from the animals, he would first carefully lay out the positions of the European thinkers of his day. And then he would reply with one or more of several arguments. Below, I summarize several of these arguments – some of which can be difficult to understand – and then consider them from the standpoint of our ongoing discussions about evolution and the laws of nature.
My understanding is the following: `Abdu’l-Bahá is saying that humans are built into the “excellence” of the laws of creation – we are built into the laws of nature.
We exist from the beginning. But that existence in the beginning was potential, not actual. When our world came into existence, the laws of combination and growth came into play, and animals, humans, and everything else slowly came into visible existence.
Humans – who are different than animals because of their tremendous capacities derived from their intellect, their creativity, and their ability to grow spiritually – are therefore not descended from the animals. Humans are an existence whose perfections are derived from creation and the laws of nature, not their growth trajectory, not their biological heritage, and not by descent.
`Abdu’l-Bahá’s Arguments
The argument from composition
The argument from composition is the closest – in my estimation – to the perspective of modern physics. `Abdu’l-Baha says that humans are composed of elements and that whenever those elements are arranged in a certain way in a certain setting, humans come into existence:
… all these endless beings which inhabit the world, whether man, animal, vegetable, mineral — whatever they may be — are surely, each one of them, composed of elements. … the perfection of each individual being — that is to say, the perfection which you now see in man or apart from him, with regard to their atoms, members or powers — is due to the composition of the elements, to their measure, to their balance, to the mode of their combination, and to mutual influence. When all these are gathered together, then man exists.
As the perfection of man is entirely due to the composition of the atoms of the elements, to their measure, to the method of their combination, and to the mutual influence and action of the different beings — then, since man was produced ten or a hundred thousand years ago from these earthly elements with the same measure and balance, the same method of combination and mingling, and the same influence of the other beings, exactly the same man existed then as now.
A thousand million years hence, if these elements of man are gathered together and arranged in this special proportion, and if the elements are combined according to the same method, and if they are affected by the same influence of other beings, exactly the same man will exist. For example, if after a hundred thousand years there is oil, fire, a wick, a lamp and the lighter of the lamp — briefly, if there are all the necessaries which now exist, exactly the same lamp will be obtained.
What this means – very simply and directly – is that humans are created by the laws of nature and the perfections of creation – not by descent from animals. It is an error to attribute a final result to only the preceding step – it is an error to say that man comes from the animal – when the evident truth is that it is the whole of creation and all of the laws of nature are what humans come from.
The argument from combination and growth
The argument from combination and growth looks at human existence from the perspective of growth processes. Like the growth of an embryo in the womb of a mother, growth processes create the configuration of elements that is necessary for a human being to exist. Our existence results from the laws of nature (or creation) and the dynamics inherent in nature (or creation) that bring existence from potentiality to reality.
[It] is evident that in the beginning matter was one, and that one matter appeared in different aspects in each element. Thus various forms were produced, and these various aspects as they were produced became permanent, and each element was specialized. But this permanence was not definite, and did not attain realization and perfect existence until after a very long time.
Then these elements became composed, and organized and combined in infinite forms; or rather from the composition and combination of these elements innumerable beings appeared. But it is clear that this terrestrial globe in its present form did not come into existence all at once … . [O]riginal matter, which is in the embryonic state, and the mingled and composed elements which were its earliest forms, gradually grew and developed during many ages and cycles, passing from one shape and form to another, until they appeared in this perfection, this system, this organization and this establishment, through the supreme wisdom of God.
Let us return to our subject that man, in the beginning of his existence and in the womb of the earth, like the embryo in the womb of the mother, gradually grew and developed, and passed from one form to another, from one shape to another, until he appeared with this beauty and perfection, this force and this power. But from the beginning of man’s existence he is a distinct species.
So even if described as evolving by an evolutionary process, humanity is always a distinct species, much as a deep canyon is always potentially a river even before it rains.
The argument from the power of the human intellect
Many people – especially biologists – have been tempted to think only in terms of what is common to both humans and animals. `Abdu’l-Bahá urges us to also consider how we are different:
Though man has powers and outer senses in common with the animal, yet an extraordinary power exists in him of which the animal is bereft. The sciences, arts, inventions, trades and discoveries of realities are the results of this spiritual power. This is a power which encompasses all things, comprehends their realities, discovers all the hidden mysteries of beings, and through this knowledge controls them.
Therefore, it is evident that man has a gift which the animal does not possess. … The animal is the captive of the senses and bound by them; all that is beyond the senses, the things that they do not control, the animal can never understand, although in the outer senses it is greater than man. Hence it is proved and verified that in man there is a power of discovery by which he is distinguished from the animals, and this is the spirit of man.
`Abdu’-Bahá points out is that humans are different than animals – we have unique capabilities that the animals don’t have, capabilities variously described as intellect, mind, creativity, or spirit. One way to understand what this means – if we take the central lessons of evolution and emergence to heart – is that humans are an existence which has emerged from the animals and that the unique powers and capabilities of humans cannot be explained by or attributed to an inheritance from the animals. Humans have something new. So we cannot say that we are descended from the animals – only that our biological side is.
The argument from the perfection of existence
The argument from the perfection of existence is that there is no fault or imperfection in the universe, and that if man had at one time been an animal, existence would have been imperfect.
For all existing beings, terrestrial and celestial, as well as this limitless space and all that is in it, have been created and organized, composed, arranged and perfected as they ought to be; the universe has no imperfection, so that if all beings became pure intelligence and reflected for ever and ever, it is impossible that they could imagine anything better than that which exists.
… if there had been a time when man was in the animal kingdom, the perfection of existence would have been destroyed; for man is the greatest member of this world, and if the body was without this chief member, surely it would be imperfect.
This is difficult for me to fully grasp. My understanding of it derives from my scientist’s grasp of the laws of nature. Everything is in the laws of nature- including those perfections that are us. If we weren’t there, we could never exist as humans, and the universe, as far as we are concerned, wouldn’t exist either.
Conclusions
We are not descend from the animals, the Bahá’í writings say. Rather, we are a separate species inherent in the nature of creation – what scientists describe as the laws of the universe.
Some will welcome this idea – physicists and others who view the laws of the universe as the template for all things that exist, living or otherwise. Others – accustomed to viewing evolution as independent and sacrosanct – will reject this view.
But, the light-shedding truths that these ideas express – I suggest – will win the day. I predict that – as research into the nature of minds and into what humans are gathers pace – the evidence for these views will grown exponentially.
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This is the 27th in a series of blogs on evolution and religion. The author, Stephen Friberg, is a Bahá’í living in Mountain View, California. A research physicist by training, he wrote Religion and Evolution Reconciled: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Comments on Evolution with Courosh Mehanian. He worked at NTT in Japan before joining the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley.
6 comments
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Mark H.
September 24, 2012 at 2:59 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’m having trouble following a couple of the central points here.
Firstly, isn’t everything in existence “built into the laws of nature?” How are humans unique in that regard?
Also, the idea of existence being “perfect” seems to fly in the face of readily observable facts and happenings. One small example, some people are born with such dysfunctional brains, they can hardly display any more comprehension or awareness than even the lower animals — much less creatures such as the great apes.
In other words, there are readily observable flaws and imperfections all around us. If every person were a Plato born into perfect health, that argument might make sense. As I see it, it does not.
Stephen Friberg
September 24, 2012 at 5:13 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi Mark:
About everything in existence being built into the laws of nature: I didn’t mean to imply that humans were unique in this regard – they’re not.
About the idea of existence being perfect, this is an idea that I can’t wrap my head around very easily and it is the only one of the explanations I don’t really understand.
What I do know is that there is a long history of discussion of ideas along these lines, but they went out of favor in the west with Kant’s deconstruction of them. But, a lot of his deconstruction of things were very much in the context of his times and the particular understandings that people had of the terms used in the arguments.
So, I get glimpses now and then of what the argument might refer to – after all, the failure of the current major religions and indeed the whole current world order is a constant and main theme of the Baha’i Faith and `Abdu’l-Baha – so the existence of suffering and imperfection is not at all ignored.
Also, whole religions – Buddhism comes to mind – structure themselves around what is essentially the existence of imperfection, so I’m sure that there is a way to understand these things. And `Abdu’l-Baha’s explanations are always wonderfully horizon-expanding.
That said, I still don’t get it.
Mark H.
September 25, 2012 at 10:02 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Stephen,
Perhaps the idea is that humans — in the sense of the human mind, or rational soul — is a culmination of the laws of nature, the goal the direction of things was always pointing toward? Am I also to understand, you see a distinction between our biological bodies, and that aforementioned, mind/soul? Those who favor the view that “we’re animals” seem to argue from the point of view that all a human being is, is limited to/contained in our bio-physical being.
As to the “perfection” thing, I’m also having trouble wrapping my head around it.
Once possible solution I see is this: A “perfect” existence as we imagine it, would be anything but. Or, in other words, what we see as “bad” or “flaws “– test, trials, pain, suffering, pain, the effects of age, some people being born with diminished capacity — and so on, actually play into the larger picture of perfection. Or, to put it another way, all things have good ends, even though from our perspective, they might seem bad, horrible, or flawed.
To illustrate, I sometimes use the hypothetical image of a man standing by a dead, rotting tree and wailing, “what a tragedy! What an injustice, the tree is destroyed There is no perfection. There is no purpose All ends in death and meaningless!”
..And all the while, he fails to see the forest all around him.
Maya Bohnhoff
September 25, 2012 at 3:18 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Okay, I’m gonna weigh in wearing my writer hat.
Lawrence Block—writer of detective fiction—said that he sometimes felt that his story existed in some perfect form somewhere and that his job was to bring it down to earth and realize it in whatever degree of perfection he was capable of. I’ve heard other writers express the same sentiment. It always reminded me of Abdu’l Baha laying the cornerstone of the temple in Wilmette and saying, “The temple is already built.”
That seems to say something about the perfection of the ideal from which we cobble together our human reality. I also think that the idea that our perspective and its subjective nature makes us incapable of grokking the concept of perfection. Another writer example: I think it’s easy for human beings to equate “perfection” with what makes us feel good. A happy ending to a story may seem perfect from that perspective, but sometimes a happy ending to a story is not the right ending. Ergo, it is not the perfect ending. The perfect ending may not be the one that a particular individual or group wants. In fact, I’m pretty sure that what one group would say was a perfect situation, another group would say was horrific.
In other words, we’re in no position to judge the perfection of anything—least of all ourselves.
Mark H.
September 27, 2012 at 1:48 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Maya,
As a writer myself — print journalism, hoping to get a novel out there sooner or later — I can certainly relate. As a side note, human creativity is a facsimile, albeit a crude and imperfect one, of God’s creation. Therefore, the spiritual value of engaging in creative pursuits.
I think your observation toward the end, of “perfection” being relative — and sometimes even a zero-sum game — from a human perspective, is right on.
After all, for example, Adolf Hitler certainly had a vision of what he thought would be, if not “perfect,” then at least the best of all possible worlds.
Maya Bohnhoff
October 2, 2012 at 3:38 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I look at many aspects of our spiritual reality through the writer’s lens. The impulse to create foremost among them. When Baha’u'lllah says, “I loved thy creation, hence I created thee.” I get it. That’s the relationship I have with my own imperfect, two dimensional creations and the worlds they live in. I love them. So I create them. (Indeed, I entitled a collection of my short stories “I Loved Thy Creation” for that very reason.
Likewise when Krishna says that He (Brahman) pervades and supports the entire creation, but rests not in it, I get that too—in obviously limited form—because that is the relationship I have with my literary creations. I am in my books in a very real sense they are informed and pervaded with me, but I rest not in them, nor am I subject to the laws of the books—which I also created—by which my characters must live.
And Christ, of course, invites this sort of introspection on the attributes of God when He reveals His version of the Golden Rule: Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them.. He uses the example of how a flawed human parent would treat his children as a spring board for us to understand how God would “give good gifts to those who ask Him”.
Baha’u'llah, of course, puts this even more directly when He says, God has engraved on the human spirit His image and revealed to us His beauty. And if that’s not clear enough: “He hath known God who hath known himself.”
In ourselves we see the imperfect reflection of the qualities of God. We can work at reflecting those qualities (strive for human perfection) or be content to reflect the qualities of the animal … Ironically, we’re not very good at that, either, at some point—different points for different people—our human conscience gets in the way.