Human speech arrives one syllable after another and dies away as it is spoken. Bahá’u’lláh describes a Word of God that appeared without syllable or sound and is sanctified from every property and substance, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains that in the world of God there is no past, present or future: yesterday and tomorrow are reckonings made from the earth, unknown in the sun. To think this through is to learn a distinction between kinds of beginning, between what depends on God in time and what depends on God in essence, so that eternity ceases to mean merely an endless length of days. The reality of Christ, the Word, did not begin at his baptism in the Jordan. Augustine’s meditation on an eternal utterance, and his question why there could be no time before time, offer a kindred attempt to say the same thing [1]. The inquiry leads on to the Word of God as the cause of creation, to the preexistence of the Manifestation of God, to the mystery of emanation, and to how a timeless source can still speak to the needs of one particular hour.
Know thou, moreover, that the Word of God - exalted be His glory - is higher and far superior to that which the senses can perceive, for it is sanctified from any property or substance. It transcendeth the limitations of known elements and is exalted above all the essential and recognized substances. It became manifest without any syllable or sound and is none but the Command of God which pervadeth all created things. It hath never been withheld from the world of being. It is God's all-pervasive grace, from which all grace doth emanate. It is an entity far removed above all that hath been and shall be.
(Bahá’u’lláh, Lawh-i-Hikmat (Tablet of Wisdom), 1292? [1875-1876], to Mulla Muhammad Qa'ini (Nabil-i-Akbar) -- BH00223)
02
In the world of God there is no past, present, or future: All of these are one. So when Christ said, "In the beginning was the Word," He meant that it was, is, and shall be; for in the world of God there is no time.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Chapter 39, The Human and the Divine Station of the Manifestations, 1904-Jul ca. -- AB00477)
03
Now, the reality of prophethood, which is the Word of God and the state of perfect divine manifestation, has neither beginning nor end, but its radiance varies like that of the sun.
… In the Gospel it is said: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God." It follows then that Christ did not attain His Messianic station and His perfections at the moment of His baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove. Rather, the Word of God has always been, and will ever remain, in the loftiest heights of sanctity.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Chapter 38, The Three Stations of the Divine Manifestations, 1904 ca. -- AB00345)
04
The second kind of pre-existence is temporal pre-existence, which has no beginning. The transcendent Word of God is sanctified beyond time. The past, the present and the future are all equal in relation to God. Yesterday, today and tomorrow do not exist in the sun.
Thus the reality of Christ, Who is the Word of God, undoubtedly precedes all created things in essence, in attributes and in distinction. Before appearing in human form, the Word of God was in a state of utmost sanctity and glory, abiding in perfect beauty and splendour in the height of its majesty.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Chapter 28, The Pre-existence of Christ, 1904 ca. -- AB01528)
05
And likewise He says that in the spiritual world and divine Kingdom there is no time and place, since times and limits are relative matters, like east and west, south and north, night and day, month and year - these all are relative to the earth, not the celestial sun.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Horace Holley, spoken on 1913-May-11 -- ABU0886)
06
And that Word is an utterance that has appeared and risen from the dawning-place of the Kingdom of exposition and flows and courses from the mouth of the Divine Will. That which is revealed today from the direction of the Throne has been that Divine Word, and this is that same Word which the Interlocutor heard at Sinai and thereby gained victory.
(Bahá’u’lláh, 1291-03 [1874-Apr], to Mashhadi Husayn-Ali et al -- BH02258)
07
Every mention among mentions and every thing among things shall be seized by the hand of extinction according to the exigencies of divine wisdom, save the Sun of the Word of God, exalted be His glory, which hath shone forth from the horizon of the Supreme Pen. It shall endure through the eternality of the kingdom and the realm above.
(Bahá’u’lláh, 1303-11 [1886-Jul], to Mirza Mahram named as Manzar -- BH07981)
08
Question: When an action which someone will perform becomes the object of God's knowledge and is recorded in the "Guarded Tablet" of destiny, is it possible to resist it?
Answer: The knowledge of a thing is not the cause of its occurrence; for the essential knowledge of God encompasses the realities of all things both before and after they come to exist, but it is not the cause of their existence.
… Rather, that knowledge is freed from the distinctions of past, present and future, and is identical with the realization of all things without being the cause of that realization.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Chapter 35, Free Will and Foreknowledge, 1904-Jun ca. -- AB03274)
09
The first thing to emanate from God is that universal reality which the ancient philosophers termed the "First Intellect" and which the people of Baha call the "Primal Will." This emanation, with respect to its action in the world of God, is not limited by either time or place and has neither beginning nor end, for in relation to God the beginning and the end are one and the same. The pre-existence of God is both essential and temporal, while the origination of the contingent world is essential but not temporal, as we have already explained another day at table.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Chapter 53, The Connection between God and Creation, 1904 ca. -- AB00876)
10
Thus, as that Essence of Oneness, or divine Being, is eternal and everlasting--that is, as it has neither beginning nor end--it follows that the world of existence, this endless universe, likewise has no beginning.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Chapter 47, The Evolution of the Universe and the Origin of Man, 1904-Oct ca. -- AB00077)
11
In the presence of God, there is no past, present, or future. There is an eternal now.
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12
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
John 1:1-5 This statement [John 1:1] is brief but replete with the greatest meanings. Its applications are illimitable and beyond the power of books or words to contain and express. PUP.154
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13
By this [the 'word'] we mean the all-comprehending reality and the depository of the infinite divine characteristics. This 'word' has an honorary beginning and not a beginning of time.... In reality the 'word' has neither beginning nor ending.
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14
It (the Word) is the spirit of the Divine books and Scriptures. It has been from the beginning, and it shall continue to the end after which there is no end. It is the key to the most great treasury of the Lord and the concealed mystery of God, which hath been hidden behind the canopies of celestial infallibility. It is the alpha and omega prophesied by John. It is the first and the last, the manifest and the hidden.
(Pilgrim notes of Ethel Rosenberg, 1904, p. 75)
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15
You call us, then to understand the Word, the God that with you is God, who is spoken eternally and by whom all things are spoken eternally. Nor did you finish saying one thing and say another, so that all things might be spoken; you spoke them at once and eternally. Otherwise there would be time and change...
(St. Augustine, Confessions 11.7.9)
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16
It was you who made that very time; nor could any periods of time pass by before you made them. But if no time existed before heaven and earth, why do they ask what you were doing then? There was no 'then' when there was no time.
(St. Augustine, Confessions 11.13.15)
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