The third major benefit of philosophy for Bahá’ís is that a philosophical understanding of the Writings facilitates dialogue with other religions and influential schools of thought. Shoghi Effendi recognizes the importance of “correlating philosophy with the Bahá’í teachings” (Unfolding Destiny, p. 445) and also states in a letter written on his behalf,
It is hoped that all the Bahá’í students will follow the noble example you have set before them and will, henceforth, be led to investigate and analyse the principles of the Faith and to correlate them with the modern aspects of philosophy and science. (Compilations, Scholarship, p. 17)
In other words, the Guardian recognizes the importance of comparing the Writings to the intellectual activities of our time. Not doing so risks isolating Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation from the deliberations of the day and that inevitably hinders teaching activities; it would also make the Faith appear less credible in the public mind since many people might conclude that the Writings have little or nothing to contribute. Since we believe that Bahá’u’lláh is the Manifestation for this age, and that His Revelation provides the healing solutions to humankind’s most serious difficulties, then relating the Writings to contemporary intellectual and religious currents seems imperative. This brings us to the question of what philosophy can do to help.
Let us begin by asking what is meant by a ‘philosophic understanding’ of the Writings; there are, after all, other ways of understanding them. A philosophic understanding seeks to discover what the Writings say explicitly or implicitly about certain subjects, but especially about topics related to metaphysics and ontology, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of man and philosophy of history and political and social philosophy. It seeks to elucidate the foundational principles which underlie and inform or shape the teachings on these (and other) subjects. Second, a philosophical understanding seeks to identify and study the explicit and hidden connections among the teachings, so that we can discern more of the underlying unity of the Writings, i.e. their organic, interdependent structure. Knowing these implicit connections enhances not only enhances our understanding but also improves our application of the teachings.
A philosophical understanding of the Writings is especially useful in dialogue with religious traditions and intellectual schools that have well developed philosophical foundations.
Christianity, whose philosophical heritage goes back almost 2000 years, has a well developed philosophical tradition in its three main branches. Jewish philosophy goes back at least as many years (to the time of Philo) and has been actively developed ever since in a variety of schools. Islam also has a very rich philosophical tradition, one that has sparked renewed interest in recent years. Christian, Jewish and Islamic thought is heavily influenced by Greco-Roman thought and especially by Plotinus whose work is currently undergoing a tremendous revival; this, of course can be another area of study for Bahá’í scholars. In the Far East, there are the incredibly rich philosophical heritages associated with the numerous forms of Buddhism and Hinduism in both their historical and contemporary forms. The growing world-wide influence of Buddhism lends comparative studies of Buddhism and the Bahá’í Writings a special interest. Furthermore, in the contemporary world, there are exciting possibilities of establishing dialogue with a breath-taking variety of influential schools and movements: existentialism, in both its theistic and atheistic forms, process philosophy, general systems theory, postmodernism, Neoplatonism, the philosophy of science and Neo-Thomism in its diverse forms.
Facilitating such dialogue requires a philosophical understanding of the Writings because without such understanding, discussions are likely to remain at the surface level without really penetrating down to the deeper principles, assumptions and reasoning processes that shape the more overtly evident beliefs and world-views. Inevitably, this limits how far dialogue and mutual understanding can go, not only in the exploration of differences but more important from a Bahá’í point of view, the exploration of similarities and convergences. The latter, after all, give explicit evidence for the teaching of the essential unity of all religions. It almost goes without saying that if we do not comprehend the deeper aspects of beliefs and teachings, we cannot really understand which adherents to these faiths or philosophical schools act as they do. Facilitating world unity will be all the more difficult for this lack.