Progressive revelation is a core teaching in the Bahá'í Faith that suggests that religious truth is revealed by God progressively and cyclically over time through a series of divine Messengers, and that the teachings are tailored to suit the needs of the time and place of their appearance.[1][2] Thus, the Bahá'í teachings recognize the divine origin of several world religions as different stages in the history of one religion, while believing that the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is the most recent (though not the last—that there will never be a last), and therefore the most relevant to modern society.[1]
This teaching is an interaction of simpler teachings and their implications. The basic concept relates closely to Bahá'í views on God's essential unity, and the nature of prophets, termed Manifestations of God. It also ties into Bahá'í views of the purpose and nature of religion, laws, belief, culture and history. Hence revelation is seen as both progressive and continuous, and therefore never ceases.[3]
Bahá'ís believe God to be generally regular and periodic in revealing His will to mankind through messengers/prophets, which are named Manifestations of God. Each messenger in turn establishes a covenant and founds a religion. This process of revelation, according to the Bahá'í writings, is also never ceasing,[1] which is contrary to many other belief systems that believe in a finality of their prophet/messenger. The general theme of the successive and continuous religions founded by Manifestations of God is that there is an evolutionary tendency, and that each Manifestation of God brings a larger measure of revelation (or religion) to humankind than the previous one.[4] The differences in the revelation brought by the Manifestations of God is stated to be not inherent in the characteristics of the Manifestation of God, but instead attributed to the various worldly, societal and human factors;[4] these differences are in accordance with the "conditions" and "varying requirements of the age" and the "spiritual capacity" of humanity.[4] These differences are seen to be needed since human society has slowly and gradually evolved through higher stages of unification from the family to tribes and then nations.[4]
Thus religious truth is seen to be relative to its recipients and not absolute; while the messengers proclaimed eternal moral and spiritual truths that are renewed by each messenger, they also changed their message to reflect the particular spiritual and material evolution of humanity at the time of the appearance of the messenger.[1] In the Bahá'í view, since humanity's spiritual capacity and receptivity has increased over time, the extent to which these spiritual truths are expounded changes.[4]
Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, explained that the appearance of successive messengers was like the annual coming of Spring, which brings new life to the world which has come to neglect the teachings of the previous messenger.[1] He also used an analogy of the world as the human body, and revelation as a robe of "justice and wisdom".
Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.[5]
Bahá'u'lláh mentioned in the Kitáb-i-Íqán that God will renew the "City of God" about every thousand years,[6] and specifically mentioned that a new Manifestation of God would not appear within 1000 years of Bahá'u'lláh's message.[7][8]
Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Zoroaster, and Krishna were all named by Bahá'u'lláh as being among the establishers of religion, termed Manifestations of God, as well as himself, and his forerunner the Báb. Bahá'u'lláh also expressly or implicitly referred to Adam, Noah, Saleh, Húd, and an unnamed prophet of the Sabians as messengers of God.
Universal cycles[edit]
In addition to the idea of religion being progressively revealed from the same God through different prophets/messengers, there also exists in Bahá'í literature, the idea of a universal cycle,[9] which represents a series of dispensations, and is used to categorize human history and social evolution in a number of ways.[10][11] It is viewed as a superset of the sequence of progressive revelations, and currently comprises two cycles.
The Adamic cycle, also known as the Prophetic cycle is stated to have begun approximately 6,000 years ago with a Manifestation of God referred to in various sacred scriptures as Adam, and ended with the dispensation of Muhammad.[12][13] In this cycle, Bahá'í belief is that Manifestations of God continued to advance human civilization at regular intervals through progressive revelation. The Abrahamic religions and Dharmic religions are partial recognitions of this cycle, from a Bahá'í point of view.
In Bahá'í belief, the Bahá'í cycle, or Cycle of Fulfillment, began with the Báb and includes Bahá'u'lláh, and will last at least five hundred thousand years with numerous Manifestations of God appearing throughout that time.[13][14] It is stated in Bahá'í literature that the Manifestations of God in the Adamic cycle, in addition to bringing their own teachings, foretold of the Cycle of Fulfillment.[15]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_revelation_(Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD)