Some Answered Questions: The Creation of Man

Among the substantial table-talks recorded by Laura Clifford Barney during her pilgrimages to 'Akká in 1904 and 1906 is the chapter of *Some Answered Questions* devoted to the creation of man. The chapter takes the form of a question by Miss Barney and a long discursive answer by 'Abdu'l-Bahá in His characteristic manner.

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The question concerned the apparent tension between the biblical account of the creation of man at a specific moment in time and the geological and biological evidence, increasingly accumulating in the early twentieth century, of the great age of the earth and of the gradual development of biological forms.

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The Master's answer began by drawing a distinction fundamental to the entire treatment that would follow. *One must distinguish,* He said, *between the existence of the species and the existence of the individual.* The question of the creation of man, He explained, has often been confused by the failure to maintain this distinction.

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The *individual* human being clearly has a beginning and an end. Each human being is born at a specific moment, lives for a specific number of years, and dies at a specific moment. The individual is, in this sense, *a contingent thing.*

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The *species* of humanity, however, is a different question. The species — the rational soul, the form of the human being — is, in the Master's framing, *eternal in the knowledge of God.* It has existed *in the divine knowledge* from eternity. Its appearance in the physical world is, in His phrase, *the appointed time of its manifestation* — but its existence in the divine knowledge preceded that physical appearance.

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*Man,* the Master said, *has been in the universe potentially since the beginning, but he has appeared only at his appointed time.* The phrase is the key to the entire treatment. The species is eternal; the appearance is temporal. The two are not in contradiction.

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The chapter then develops the implications of this distinction. The biological development of the human form — the gradual emergence of the species through the long course of organic life on earth — is not, in the Master's framing, a problem for the spiritual account of the creation. The two are different stories told from different vantages. The biological story tells the appearance. The spiritual story tells the eternal existence in the divine knowledge that the appearance manifests.

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The Master proceeded to address the further question of whether the human being is *of the same species* as the animals or *of a different species.* His answer was unequivocal. The human being is *of a different species.* The reasoning was that the human being possesses a distinctive faculty — the rational soul — that is not possessed by any of the animal species. The faculty is not a quantitative augmentation of animal intelligence. It is a qualitatively different thing. The presence of the rational soul is what defines the human species.

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The chapter concludes with a brief reflection on the practical implication of the metaphysical doctrine. The human being who has been *eternally in the divine knowledge* bears, on that account, a particular responsibility for the use of its earthly existence. The ordinary span of years given to the individual is the opportunity in which the eternal soul develops the spiritual capacities that will accompany it into its further existence.

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