31Modern
Baháʼí Faith
One God, revealed through a series of Manifestations. Baháʼu’lláh is claimed as the latest.
Architecture
Successive revelation, one God
One God speaks through successive Manifestations. Baháʼu’lláh is claimed as the one for this age. The soul progresses after death and does not return. Knowing runs through authorized writings.
- 01
One God
Unknowable in essence. Not a pantheon.
- 02
Manifestations
A historical line. Their older books are not rewritten by being included in the line.
- 03
One humanity
No Meru, no world-tree, no chosen geography as the axis.
- 04
Rational soul
Created to know and worship. Not an incarnation of God.
- 05
Progress, not return
Death continues the soul. Reincarnation is denied.
- Time
- Dispensations in sequence. Older cycles are said to be fulfilled, not copied as kalpas.
- Agents
- God and the Manifestations. Interpreters after Baháʼu’lláh are a defined office, not extra Manifestations.
- Human slot
- A soul among one humanity. The aim is worship and unity, not exaltation as a new revealer.
- Break
- No equal anti-god. The break that matters in the teaching is rejection of the latest revelation.
Recorded claims
An evidence label is shown only where the kind of source is already established. No label means unclassified. A label is not a judgment. Source Needed means no source is attached yet. It does not mean the claim is false, weak, or disproven.
Origin / Reality
One God, revealed through a series of Manifestations. Baháʼu’lláh is claimed as the latest.
Source NeededHuman Nature
A rational soul, created to know and to worship God.
Source NeededDeath / Afterlife
The soul progresses after death. Nearness to God and remoteness from God are the teaching’s heaven and hell.
Source NeededRebirth
No return to another earthly body in the ordinary teaching.
Source NeededOther Beings
God and the Manifestations. A pantheon of peer gods is not the framework.
Source NeededOther Realms
Worlds of God beyond this life. A detailed map is not the center.
Source NeededWorld Structure / Axis
One humanity in one created world. No Meru and no world-tree.
Source NeededDestruction / Reset
Earlier religious cycles are said to be fulfilled, not repeated as equal kalpas.
Source NeededHow Truth Is Known
The writings of Baháʼu’lláh. Authorized interpretation is limited to named successors. That limit is their claim.
Source Needed
Sources & EvidenceShowHideNo source is attached yet. Source Needed is a research gap, not a judgment.
The tradition or source
What that source says. Not a scholar’s retelling, and not a SCARCE inference.
None attached.
A modern researcher
What a scholar or other modern writer says about the source. Not the source’s own words.
None attached.
SCARCE
What this project infers or sets beside the records. Not what the source said.
None attached.
How we know
Where the evidence comes from, and how far it is from the people it describes. The labels are not a score. They do not rank traditions. A manuscript year, a tradition’s own claim, and a date from the ground are kept apart on the timeline.
The writings of Baháʼu’lláh are 19th-century texts in Persian and Arabic, contemporary with his life (1817–1892). The Báb’s writings are slightly earlier in the same century. Originals and early copies are kept by the community.
There is no ancient manuscript gap of the kind that affects the Avesta or the Edda. There is a different gap: when these writings interpret Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha, or Krishna, that interpretation is Baháʼí teaching about those traditions. It is not those traditions’ own documents. Authorized interpretation by ʻAbdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi is a defined layer after the source, not the source itself.
Original evidence → transmission / copy → translation / documentation → modern interpretation
01
Original evidence
Contemporary primary text
Tablets and books of Baháʼu’lláh and the Báb are primary texts of the movement that produced them.
02
Transmission / copy
Later copy of earlier text
Authorized transcriptions, translations issued by the community, and later printings transmit those texts. They are not a medieval stemma.
03
Translation / documentation
Later religious or traditional text
English and other translations are documentation. An authorized translation is still a translation. It is not the Persian or Arabic page, and it is not a scholar’s private rendering unless it is identified as one.
04
Modern interpretation
Modern scholarly reconstruction
Academic history of the Bábí and Baháʼí movements is a modern interpretation. It is not a tablet. Progressive revelation is a claim in the tablets about other religions, not a finding those religions printed.
The twenty-one questions
Asked of every system. Gaps are recorded as gaps. Nothing here is filled in to make a pattern prettier.
01
Where are we?
In a world created by one God, understood as one humanity rather than as several closed religious maps.
Read every system on this question02
What is reality made of?
God’s creation. The writings do not offer a physics, and they do not call the world an illusion to be discarded.
Read every system on this question03
What is a human being?
A rational soul in a body, created to know and worship God and to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization. That is the teaching’s formula, not a biological claim.
Read every system on this question04
What is consciousness?
Not analyzed as a brain faculty. The soul is the enduring identity, distinct from the body.
Read every system on this question05
Where did humanity come from?
Created by God. The story is not a commentary that replaces Genesis, the Qur’an, or anyone else’s origin text. It is this tradition’s claim about creation.
Read every system on this question06
What happens at death?
The soul continues and progresses. Heaven and hell are taught as conditions of nearness and distance, not only as locations on a map.
Read every system on this question07
Does consciousness return to embodiment?
No. The ordinary teaching denies reincarnation into another earthly life.
Read every system on this question08
Where is consciousness between lives?
Not a pause before another earthly birth. The soul’s further life is in the worlds of God, not a reincarnation interval.
Read every system on this question09
Are there nonhuman intelligent beings?
God is one. Manifestations of God are the revealers in history. They are not a class of peer deities.
Read every system on this question10
Can those beings become human or appear human?
Manifestations appear as human beings and are not regarded as God incarnate in the Christian sense, nor as avatars in a Hindu sense. The distinction is this tradition’s own.
Read every system on this question11
Are there multiple realms or worlds?
This world, and worlds of God after death. A many-tiered cosmos like Meru or Yggdrasil is not the picture.
Read every system on this question12
Is there a central mountain, tree, pillar, axis, heart, or sacred center?
No cosmic mountain, tree, or axis is the structure of the faith.
Read every system on this question13
Is the world itself alive?
Creation is real and valued. It is not taught as one organism of which humanity is an organ.
Read every system on this question14
Has civilization or the world been destroyed or reset before?
The claim is fulfillment of past religious dispensations, not a shared memory of one physical flood and not a kalpa wheel.
Read every system on this question15
Does history operate linearly or cyclically?
A line of successive Manifestations, each age with its own measure. Not an endless wheel of identical cycles.
Read every system on this question16
Is there an opposing positive/negative force?
There is no equal anti-god. The obstacle is rejection of the revelation and disunity, not a cosmic twin of God.
Read every system on this question17
What is humanity supposed to become?
To know and worship God and to contribute to the unity and advancement of humankind. Not to become a Manifestation.
Read every system on this question18
Is reincarnation a destination, punishment, school, growth process, or something else?
Not taught, so no role as school, punishment, or path is assigned.
Read every system on this question19
What lies beyond the visible world?
God, who is unknowable in essence, and the worlds the soul enters. Manifestations make the divine will known. They do not exhaust God.
Read every system on this question20
How does this tradition claim humans can know any of this?
From the writings of Baháʼu’lláh. ʻAbdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi are the authorized interpreters in the teaching itself. The Universal House of Justice legislates and does not add scripture. Academic history is a different route and is not that authority.
Read every system on this question21
Does the structure or motion of the heavens correspond to events, conditions, or consciousness within the human realm?
The sky is part of creation. Natal astrology is not how this tradition says truth is known.
Read every system on this question22
Why did humanity forget?
Not recorded in this chart.
Read every system on this question
Structures where this record appears
- Axis, mountain, tree, heartIs there a central mountain, tree, pillar, axis, heart, or sacred center?
- Flood, judgment, cycle, endingHas civilization or the world been destroyed or reset before?
- Return, resurrection, renewalDoes consciousness return to embodiment?
- Nonhuman intelligencesAre there nonhuman intelligent beings?
- Realms and worldsAre there multiple realms or worlds?
- Is the world itself alive?Is the world itself alive?
- Line or wheelDoes history operate linearly or cyclically?
- Do the heavens correspond?Does the structure or motion of the heavens correspond to events, conditions, or consciousness within the human realm?
- How truth is claimedHow does this tradition claim humans can know any of this?