Is Creation Linked to The Experience of Being?
In a previous article we argued that the order generating processes of nature can be said to define the act of ‘creation’ thus there is no difference between the concept of natural selection and creation. Yet what remains perhaps an unsolvable mystery, is if there exists a quality of ‘being’ or consciousness behind the creative actions of nature? If we are to ascribe ‘being’ or consciousness to anything, then one must first ask, what are the minimal requirements of consciousness?
In the 19th Century Baháʼu’lláh, the prophet founder of the Baháʼí Faith, reflected on this question and the human experience of ‘being’, in a commentary on the traditional saying of Muhammad: “He who knoweth his self hath known his Lord.”
“Consider the rational faculty with which God hath endowed the essence of man. Examine thine own self, and behold how thy motion and stillness, thy will and purpose, thy sight and hearing, thy sense of smell and power of speech, and whatever else is related to, or transcendeth, thy physical senses or spiritual perceptions, all proceed from, and owe their existence to, this same faculty…It would be wholly untrue to maintain that this faculty is the same as the power of vision, inasmuch as the power of vision is derived from it and acteth in dependence upon it. It would, likewise, be idle to contend that this faculty can be…
