Perfect Religious Knowledge

     

 The patterns set in motion by biblical religion make the question of religious knowledge of the utmost importance. In essence, mortals have been brought into a state of potential. Everything has been primed in advance: human beings can collaborate with God, to match human actions with God's intention. It is possible to feel the momentum of this idea building; in the biblical outlook individuals can make the decision to let their wills act in unison with that of God, they can stand ready to live in accordance with the whole purpose of history. But how do they do so? How do they know if their actions are correct? How do they know what God's intentions are?

       In trying to answer these questions, the biblical approach begins with a word of caution: no one is ever able to know God completely. No mortal can "become God" in the same sense as can the mystic. No one can claim, "I am God." At best, a human being can only gather information about God, collect insights into the workings of God in history, and on this basis construct what is believed to be a close approximation to God's will. But there is always room for error. Humankind is fallible; anyone can make honest mistakes, they can misjudge. There are, however, two things working in one’s favor: God's steadfast nature and desire to have that fellowship brought about. There is no method that guarantees perfect religious knowledge; individuals must act on trust. Consequently, the first step to such knowledge is the sincere desire and decision to understand God, no matter how imperfect that understanding may be.

Sojourn in Baghdád

A twenty-year-old Faith had just begun to recover from a series of successive blows when a crisis of the first magnitude overtook it and shook it to its roots. Neither the tragic martyrdom of the Báb nor the ignominious attempt on the life of the sovereign, nor its bloody aftermath, nor Bahá'u'lláh's humiliating banishment from His native land, nor even His two-year withdrawal to Kurdistán, devastating though they were in their consequences, could compare in gravity with this first major internal convulsion which seized a newly rearisen community, and which threatened to cause an irreparable breach in the ranks of its members. 
More odious than the unrelenting hostility which Abú-Jahl, the uncle of Muhammad, had exhibited, more shameful than the betrayal of Jesus Christ by His disciple, Judas Iscariot, more perfidious than the conduct of the sons of Jacob towards Joseph their brother, more abhorrent than the deed committed by one of the sons of Noah, more infamous than even the criminal act perpetrated by Cain against Abel, the monstrous behavior of Mírzá Yahyá, one of the half-brothers of Bahá'u'lláh, the nominee of the Báb, and recognized chief of the Bábí community, brought in its wake a period of travail which left its mark on the fortunes of the Faith for no less than half a century. 
This supreme crisis Bahá'u'lláh Himself designated as the AyyÁM-i-Shidád (Days of Stress), during which "the most grievous veil" was torn asunder, and the "most great separation" was irrevocably effected. It immensely gratified and emboldened its external enemies, both civil and ecclesiastical, played into their hands, and evoked their unconcealed derision. It perplexed and confused the friends and supporters of Bahá'u'lláh, and seriously damaged the prestige of the Faith in the eyes of its western admirers. 
It had been brewing ever since the early days of Bahá'u'lláh's sojourn in Baghdád, was temporarily suppressed by the creative forces which, under His as yet unproclaimed leadership, reanimated a disintegrating community, and finally broke out, in all its violence, in the years immediately preceding the proclamation of His Message. It brought incalculable sorrow to Bahá'u'lláh, (Source)