Except, it is not about if the Apostles taught the truth or they did not!. Baha'i Scriptures teaches that 'Absolute Truth' is strictly confined to God Himself, the unknowable Essence. Therefore none of the Prophets and Manifestations of God, both low and high, ever taught the absolute truth. They only taught in the measure of the intelligence of the people of their own Age. That is the 'relative truth' (relative to people's capacity). In another words never the absolute truth can be revealed into the earthly world. The Apostles taught according to the level of people of their time according to the divine's Will.
Except, Jesus said the Holy Spirit would lead us into ALL truth. Not a relative truth, but ALL truth.
Like different school grades. As the Child grows, and his intelligence grows, the Perfect Teacher teaches him more. Jesus taught using parables and figurative language so the mind of people of those days can accept. Now we live in a new Age, and humanity has higher capacity, therefore Baha'u'llah taught Truth according to our more advance intelligence (capacity).
So IOW, God doesn't care about telling us the truth about Who He is? He just gives us some trite, relativistic statements that can be completely overturned and changed by later revelations? How are we supposed to get to God if we don't even know Who He is? If what you say is true, then every single time God came, He totally changed His message about Who He is. I'm just going to give a quick summary of what each religion's Scriptures teach.
First in Hinduism, you have a pantheistic God, with many facets, many incarnations and many forms. This God is essentially reality itself, and we are all a part of God--like raindrops being part of the ocean, trying to get back to our source, but stuck in this world, like raindrops that first have to traverse the dry land over a river. We are reincarnated until we finally unite ourselves to Brahman. Hinduism is non-dualistic and usually pantheistic.
Then in Zoroastrianism, we're here to wage a cosmic battle, and we have to choose either between the evil god, or the good god. Zoroastrianism is dualistic, with a clear divide between the creation and the Creator.
Then in Buddhism, we're beings stuck in a state of suffering, and we're continually reincarnated until we can free ourselves from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The concept of God is unimportant, and in the Buddhist mind, even if there is a God, then he's just as unenlightened as we are. Buddhism is nontheistic.
Then in Judaism, there is only one God Who is completely simple, and no evil god. We're here to live out the laws that God set up for us and to obey Him. Completely monotheistic, and dualistic, but evil's is nowhere near being equal to God's side--the evil side is just a temptation. Evil will end once the World to Come... Well, comes.
Then in Christianity, there is only one God, Who is in three Persons--Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God the Son became incarnate as Jesus, Who was born to take on our human nature and unite it to His Divinity. He died to free us from our sins and death, and physically rose from the dead to give us the same chance to rise from the dead and be with Him in Paradise. At the end of the world, all people will be resurrected from the dead, and our souls will be reunited with our bodies. There is evil, but it will inevitably be completely and utterly destroyed at the end of the world. Christianity is monotheistic.
Then in Islam, like in Judaism, there is only one God, Who is completely and utterly simple. The message of Christianity is completely and utterly repudiated within the Qur'an--Jesus is not begotten of God, nor did He rise from the dead, nor did Jesus even die on the cross. This life is a test, and we only live once.
Now Baha'ism, on the other hand, denies reincarnation (disagrees with a core teaching of the Scriptures of Hinduism and Buddhism, but agrees with Islam and the other Abrahamic religions), denies that Jesus is God (a core teaching of the Christian Scriptures), denies that Jesus rose from the dead (disagrees with a core Christian teaching, but agrees with Islam), affirms that Jesus died (agrees with everyone but Islam), denies the physical resurrection of the dead (disagrees with Zoroastrianism, Christianity, ancient Judaism and Islam). God is completely and utterly simple, and Baha'ism introduces the new belief of "mirrors" of God, awkwardly called "manifestations". And the Baha'i Faith supposedly brings all these contradictory religions together.
I believe perhaps some of them who were truly inspired knew the truth about these. But perhaps the majority or the mainstream Christianity had understood these literally.
And the ones who were truly inspired couldn't proclaim the truth?
This does not mean they were necessarily blameworthy of taking them literal. No! It was the Will of God to express certain truth in figurative language so their mind can accept it. However now that in this Age, God revealed the hidden meaning of those figurative verses, we would be blameworthy if we do not accept. In another words, in previous ages, humanity was at the childhood stage, and the Perfect Teacher explained to him using figures. The Child was not ready to be told more.
So pretty much, God gave us the New Testament, but didn't tell us how to interpret it? What good was it then for God to give us the New Testament? If what you say is true, God did nothing but confuse us by giving us the NT, and refused to tell us for 1800 years what it meant, leaving us to misinterpret and misunderstand what God wanted to tell us! No responsible teacher would leave us hanging like that. If we receive a revelation about Who God is and what He wants to teach it, then we should be told how to understand it. Otherwise we're worse off than before.
The child would not be able to bear it, had Jesus and apostles revealed plainly. So, the child was not blameworthy. But now when God knows that our intelligence has grown and He taught us 'Plainly', we are supposed to accept.
So the child isn't to be blamed for being led astray. God is at fault for leading us astray with the New Testament, which was only a source of confusion for 1800 years. You're right, we can't be blamed if that's true. God is to blame for confusing us.
Even if we'll never be able to fully comprehend God or Who He is, if He is a God Who does not lie, then He should reveal to us, as much as our minds can comprehend, Who He is. He can reveal to us the Absolute Truth of Who He is. Even if we'll never be able to wrap our minds around it, we would at least know Who God is. Even if Who He is remains a mystery, at least the mystery is revealed, that we may truly know Who He is. We wouldn't be able to fully understand it, but we could experience it. This would be far better than God lying to us and constantly changing His story.
I believe there was some mystics who understood the scriptures spiritually, rather than all literal...you can find out if you do your own research.
There are Fathers of the Church who understand the Scriptures on a spiritual level, but they never, ever deny the literal level.
It is not like the apostles taught Truth or they did not. They taught relative truth. Even Baha'u'llah said that there are still many things He knows to tell us, but humanity is not ready, so the future Manifestation shall teach us more in future Ages, once our capacity grows.
"Relative" truth? What good is "relative" truth? "Relative truth" would be like this conversation:
"Hey, who are you?" "Me? Oh, nobody in particular, I'm just a medical doctor. My name's Jim."
2 days later:
"Hey, Jim the Doctor, how are you?" "Oh hey, thought I'd let you know, I'm not actually a medical doctor, I'm a lawyer. And my name's not Jim, it's Billy."
The mission of Jesus was to teach 'love'. specially to develop loving relationship between God and His children. His mission was to teach spirituality and righteousness through love and faith toward God, as opposed to only acting outwardly. For Him to do all these He had to sacrifice Himself. Like a seed that when it is sacrificed, it becomes a Tree. All of these were accomplished regardless if people knew Jesus physically rose or metaphorically.
He did teach love, and that is at the core of His teachings. But He also came to do away with sin, the power of death, and to re-open for us the doors of Paradise. He is the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world. He came to reconcile God and man upon the Cross, and to abolish him who had the power of death, and to give new life to us through His Resurrection. These are all paraphrases of various parts of the New Testament.
Do you still feel the message didn't reach to my ears?
I think it has. Unfortunately, however, I wonder how much the topic about Who God is even matters to you. If God is never going to reveal the mystery of Who He is to us, then what good is it for you, a Baha'i, trying to disprove to me, a Christian, the Trinity? Baha'u'llah's teachings about Who God is are just as much a "relative truth" as the Trinity. Perhaps this is why the Baha'i Faith completely accepts people of all religions as they are, without trying to change their religion--it doesn't matter what religion we all are according to you, or how we view God, or how we understand the Scriptures of each religion. God hasn't given any of us the Truth about Who He is, so none of us is necessarily "right" or "wrong". And I don't say anything in this post with anger at you or your faith or at anything or anyone. I say it with a touch of sadness, because I don't think anything profitable can come of this dialogue between us.
how stupid of them..(sarcasm)
