The Love Relationship Between God and Humanity: A Commentary on Bahá’u’llah’s Hidden Words

Abstract

The poetical-spiritual atmosphere of The Hidden Words and their theological-philosophical content are briefly examined. Through those aphorisms the human adventure upon the earth is described. Man's material and spiritual creation is explained. The story of God's love for His creature, of the gifts He bestowed upon man, of the Covenant He entered with him, and of the ambiguous response of man to the precious Covenant his Creator offered to him is narrated. Man's travel through the paths of life is followed in its most important steps. Man is shown as a creature hovering between the allurement of a material life, which is viewed as empty and vain in itself, and the ecstasy of a spiritual world, which is recognized as man's real homeland. How man will be enabled to make his choice between his attachment to this world and his sometimes unconscious love for his spiritual homeland; how the blessings and challenges of material life may be fully enjoyed and met; how the precious potential divine qualities of the soul may be expressed during this life in the form of thoughts, feelings, words, deeds, and behaviors: how the purpose of human life may be realized: all this is explained in this most important among the ethical Works by the Pen of Bahá'u'lláh.