Para. 39

Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh
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39,P112	To whoever may read these pages a word of warning seems, however, advisable before I proceed further with the development of my argument. Let no one meditating, in the light of the afore-quoted passages, on the nature of the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, mistake its character or misconstrue the intent of its Author. The divinity attributed to so great a Being and the complete incarnation of the names and attributes of God in so exalted a Person should, under no circumstances, be misconceived or misinterpreted. The human temple that has been made the vehicle of so overpowering a Revelation must, if we be faithful to the tenets of our Faith, ever remain entirely distinguished from that "innermost Spirit of Spirits" and "eternal Essence of Essences"--that invisible yet rational God Who, however much we extol the divinity of His Manifestations on earth, can in no wise incarnate His infinite, His unknowable, His incorruptible and all-embracing Reality in the concrete and limited frame of a mortal being. Indeed, the God Who could so incarnate His own reality would, in the light of the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh, cease immediately to be God. So crude and fantastic a theory of Divine incarnation is as removed from, and incompatible with, the essentials of Bahá'í belief as are the no less inadmissible pantheistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of God-- both of which the utterances of Bahá'u'lláh emphatically repudiate and the fallacy of which they expose.
Soroush Shakib	(© NSA of the Baha'is of USA)

Title and Main Idea:

True essence of God shall not be misunderstood with His Manifestation.

Question (© Morten Bergsmo):

How and why does Shoghi Effendi caution the reader about the concept of the incarnation of God in the human temple?

How is quite obvious and is marked in Blue in the text. Why - perhaps because He says that it would be incompatible with the teachings of the Bahá'í faith.

What are the pantheistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of God?
- Pantheistic concept of God, reduces the God to the physical universe; while the Anthropomorphic concept of God reduces God to the limited structure of Human beings. Both are rejected based on the teaching of the Bahá'í faith.

Metaphors, Images, Symbols, and Allusions:

{N/A}

Dictionary:

Pantheistic = A doctrine identifying the deity (i..e. Divinity) with the universe.
Anthropomorphic = Anrhropo: human-being, morphic: Structure
emphatically = Forcefully express
repudiate = Reject validity of

Cause and Effect Relationship:

{N/A}

Directives:

True essence of God shall not be misunderstood with His Manifestation.

Fundamental Verities:

Oneness of God