Someone on soc.religion.bahai wrote: “It doesn’t make sense to me that he had an ‘urge’ like a biological clock, that would require need on ‘his’ part… and isn’t God beyond that? Which may leave us to be an idle past time… something along the lines of a childs toy truck – hmm… can’t really buy that either… bordom seems to be beyond God too… any thoughts, ideas, writings?”
I don’t have any writings to share, but just a thought:
If God is perfection
and God exists
then perfection would be discernible -- (weak point)
thus it would have attributes
these attributes would manifest themselves
hence we come into picture.There is a sense in which we are not individual beings, but merely reflections within the material world of spiritual perfections. How else would glory and honor become manifested in the world if not for human souls?
In this respect we were not “created”, as if there were nothing one day and then we appeared. I mean, in one sense. For example, humanity as a species probably did start at some definite point in the past, but that is not to say that the concept of “human” has not always existed in some form.
For example, there are many roses in the world, and each rose began growing at a definite point in time, but “roseness” is far more ancient and is being continually manifested through the centuries as each seed produces the potential for more roses.
Perhaps we are narrowing our focus too much: to human life on this go around; perhaps the role humans play has always been a part of existence. If God is love, we are the lovers. The existence of love presupposes the existence of a lover (otherwise the virtue would be naught), and hence the two co-exist. If He is light, we are the rays; if light had no rays, what would it be then?
Yet this relationship exists only on one level. Since God is All, there is another level in which the lover and beloved are not separate. But I suspect your question concerns this world, and why we perceive a difference between ourselves and God.
Of the “greater unity” Bahá’u’lláh wrote:
In this Valley, the wayfarer leaveth behind him the stages of the “oneness of Being and Manifestation” and reacheth a oneness that is sanctified above these two stations. Ecstasy alone can encompass this theme, not utterance nor argument; and whosoever hath dwelt at this stage of the journey, or caught a breath from this garden land, knoweth whereof We speak.
Here I would guess that “Being” is virtue, and “Manifestation” is that which causes virtue to become realized – such as love and the lover. Since these two are co-existent there is a certain oneness between them, like the two sides of one coin. And yet there exists another realm, in which perception leaves off and God is related to by other means.
Take light for example, in the physical world. We are able to perceive the sun’s rays because they take time to arrive, and there is space in which they travel. But we know that for objects traveling near the velocity of light, the value of space and time becomes less: that is, the faster we go, the less real time and space become. The limit of such a progression would result in the non-existence of space and time, and hence the elimination of perception because there would be no time and space in which to perceive things.
It is for this reason that objects can never meet or exceed the velocity of light, because doing so would put them beyond the pale of physical laws. The math equations seem to suggest to such an object would simply cease to be – defying the law of conservation of mass and energy. Hence it is “impossible” according to what we know about physical principles so far.
Perhaps there is a spiritual correlation here: that we are even as material beings trapped within the limitations of physical laws – in this case related to our perception – but that if we apply to God, and grow in the mysteries of faith, we can actually transcend by the grace of God what would seem to be a permanent limitation of our being.
Maybe it is our task to learn how to overcome these limits, and to see via “faith” with the eyes of Truth, rather than using our ordinary eyes. Maybe all of these perceptual distinctions exist in order to see whether we will make an effort to free ourselves from them.