© 2007 Chris Ragetly
© 2007 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
Why use… the technique of approaching man and his planetary problems, by undertaking the journey in space-time from the infinite, eternal and divine Paradise Source-Center of all personality reality and all cosmic existence.
Many readers or prospective readers of The Urantia Book prefer to begin their reading with the life of Jesus or with another part of the book, without starting at the beginning. The Urantia Book gives us some very good reasons to start at the beginning. Here are a few:
For example: The human mind would ordinarily crave to approach the cosmic philosophy portrayed in these revelations by proceeding from the simple and the finite to the complex and the infinite, from human origins to divine destinies. But that path does not lead to spiritual wisdom. Such a procedure is the easiest path to a certain form of genetic knowledge, but at best it can only reveal man’s origin; it reveals little or nothing about his divine destiny. (UB 19:1.5)
By following the advice of the author (a Divine Advisor), our human mind unconsciously becomes in tune with the cosmic mind, or at least it tries to do so, which is not so bad, it is the first step towards spiritual wisdom.
Secondly, this Divine Counselor informs us that we can only grasp the true perspective of any problem of reality - human or divine, terrestrial or cosmic - through the study and correlation (relation of cause and effect bringing together several facts in such a way that a modification of one of the facts has repercussions on the others), complete and without prejudice, of three phases of universal reality: origin, history and destiny.
Already, making a study and a complete correlation of the universal reality without prejudice of the origin, history and destiny, as presented to us by The Urantia Book represents a significant mental effort, and it is undoubtedly this effort which consciously or unconsciously stops the potential reader. But the challenge is there.
Then, this Divine Counselor warns us against 4 errors of reasoning of the human mind, which are:
To … totally fail to perceive the final and accomplished evolutionary goal of personal attainment or cosmic destiny.
There is therefore a risk in not perceiving the final evolutionary goal, the personal outcome. And it is there, on the personal level, that the risk lies. We perceive the cosmic destiny of man, but not our own, which is underway now.
2. To … commit the supreme philosophical error by oversimplifying evolutionary (experiential) cosmic reality, which leads to distorting facts, perverting truth and falsely conceiving destinies.
Indeed, we would tend to transpose the ways and means in which we accomplish our experiences on earth, in the same way in which we imagine them on the morontia and spiritual levels, which undoubtedly leads to perverting the truth and to falsely conceiving destinies.
The study of causes is the in-depth reading of history. But it is not enough to know how a being became what it is to intelligently understand its present status and its true character.
It is therefore not enough to know how a being became what he is, but also to know why his status is what it is, undoubtedly thanks to his true character.
4. History alone fails to adequately reveal future development - destiny. Finite origins are useful, but only divine causes reveal final effects. Eternal ends do not show themselves in temporal beginnings. The present can only be truly interpreted in the light of the correlation of past and future.
By presenting us with the divine causes which reveal the final effects to us, The Urantia Book puts us in the deep end of revelation from the start of the reading, forcing us to make this mental effort to correlate the past with the future, as it reveals it to us throughout its pages.
March 2007
Chris Ragetly
(Quotations from The Urantia Book are in italics. They are all on page 215. The boldface words are mine.)