---
title: "Baháʼí views on science"
chunk: 3/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baháʼí_views_on_science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:30:45.616367+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

that ultimate reality is ineffable
that humility about what can be understood and applied is itself "the highest degree of human attainment"
that religious scripture is metaphorical, not literal.
Farzam Arbab, project developer and Bahá'í administrator, also states that religious literalism is a problem.
Ian Kluge, independent scholar, observed a relationship between the Bahá'í stance of science and reason and the Bahá'í teaching on independent investigation for the individual where without reason and faith together, quoting `Abdu'l-Bahá, "...the heart finds no rest in it, and real faith is impossible..." and beyond the individual to societal progress which would be "...trapped in traditional worldviews or paradigms, be they religious, cultural, intellectual, or scientific..." and appealed to Aristotle’s four-fold causality which to him "...suggests that science deals with material and efficient causality whereas religion deals with issues related to formal and final causality."
Scholars have also drawn parallels between Bahá'í views of science and the views of various philosophers. Karlberg and Smith underscore and summarize the work of Alan Chalmers and Peter Godfrey-Smith who had published university press texts, in relation to the Bahá'í Faith on a number of points. Arbab appealed to Thomas Nagel's thoughts on "sophisticated secularism." Roland Faber elaborated this approach in parallel with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (so-called Process philosophy) and William S. Hatcher drew on the ideas of Aristotle, Avicenna, Bertrand Russell, and Stephen Hawking in his defence of the Bahá'í view.
Sociologist Margit Warburg quotes a 1978 letter from the Universal House of Justice "The principle of the harmony of science and religion means not only that religious teachings should be studied with the light of reason and evidence as well as of faith and inspiration, but also that everything in this creation, all aspects of human life and knowledge, should be studied in light of revelation as well as in that of purely rational investigation." From it Warburg sees a "clear stance in the dilemma between academic freedom and acceptance of religious premises" and the issues of where "possible conflict with doctrines that can be tested empirically" can occur. She notes that at the inauguration of the chair for Bahá'í Studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Peter Khan spoke saying in part that the place of Bahá'í understanding between science and religion was not in the "narrow definitions of legitimate scholarly activity in some disciplines within the academic community" criticizing the materialistic scientific studies of religion, asking that Bahá'í scholars, in Warburg's words, "should not comply with their academic tradition" which ignore the spiritual inputs of religion which will conflict with the Bahá'í Faith's own teachings. Warburg criticizes Khan's statement as a spokesman of the Bahá'í Faith in this situation and what it could mean for Bahá'í administration. "That is precisely what is at stake in the case of the controversial sources to Babi and Baha’i history, as well as concerning the sources to the construction of Abraham."
Behrooz Sabet proposed a review of the progressive nature of religion and scholarly activity with history and present contexts in 2000. He stated that "An integrative approach to understanding the implications of the Bahá'í teachings, however, follows developmental processes that begin as primarily internal and evolve in a direction of externalization and fusion with other branches of knowledge. Historically, religions show a similarity of patterns in the development of learning and scholarship methods. For instance, in earlier configurations of integrative studies, a conflict between internal and external is unavoidable since the internal values of the emerging religion are based on a prescriptive (or declarative) style of thinking that presupposes the existence of an inherent circle of unity among its teachings, while the dominant mode of scholarship in the scientific and academic community may view the validity of those presuppositions untenable. Generally speaking, absolutist positions and authoritarian attitudes expressed by the gatekeepers of knowledge in both science and religion have obscured people's clarity of vision and hindered the union of these two essential entities of human life. In the Bahá'í view, universal teachings of religion should be interpreted within the context of the relativity of human comprehension and the historical nature of knowledge."