© 1985 David Glass
© 1985 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
I must admit that I have been stopped by this usual diction before. The use of the term, “stupid,” seemed to me a little out of character for our unseen friends who, ordinarily, are so tactful and loving when referring to our state of lowly existence, limited intellectual endowments, and finite spirit comprehension. Part of what is “stupid” about mechanizing the concept of the First Source and Center must be, I think, in reference to what our friends have written in other parts of The URANTIA Book. For example, they tell us that the very ability of a human to suggest or construct a universal mechanistic philosophy of reality is already, self-evidently, and demonstrably performing an intellectual exercise which itself transcends the abilities, if any, of inanimate nature of totally mechanized world-view. We have all noticed how this obvious statement has escaped many of the physical nature students and theorizers of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Even today, the book following another by the same author, Fred Alan Wolf, is entitled Star Wave and it is an attempt to explain mental functions and consciousness itself in terms of physical mechanics. Wolf’s earlier book, Taking the Quantum Leap, had won the Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction and was an explanation of the nature of quantum mechanics. Now this field of quantum theory is enshrouded in more mystery than ever relatively, but its central idea is that conscious examiners of nature distort and disorder physical reality in the very act of attempting to observe it. Thus, mechanistic philosophy is still with us.
Again the revelators write that while it would be a colossal blunder to humanize God, it would also be amiss to think of him as non-personal. To do so would be to demean the status of God to an “infrahuman” level. (That word is so much more accurate than “subhuman” which connotes primitive near-men mammals.) And this is true because even mart is personal and possessed of a personality. This is a very unfortunate if not also “stupid” theory. Anyone who has experienced God has experienced love and the emanation of love could not possibly originate in a mechanism, Jesus once said, “money cannot love,” and this dictum can be applied to the entire mechanistic universe. There is mechanism in the universe, but it is far from being all of the First Source and Center.
Perhaps the positivist philosophy originating in Locke and progressing through Berkeley, Hume and on into Comte and the 20th century positivists who teach that we can say nothing with certainty except to describe that which our senses can detect, is partly responsible for the advent of mechanistic naturalism and ultimately of dialectical materialism as in the philosophy of Marx. But what do the midwayers write about this: “A new and fuller revelation of the religion of Jesus is destined to conquer an empire of materialistic secularism and to overthrow a world sway of mechanistic naturalism.” (UB 195:9.2) While it is true that there is mechanism in the universe, it is also true that all physical configurations are to be found in patterns the absolute of which is Paradise which, itself, is but a non-personal absolute expression of the Father-1 AM. Given, however, a world and a universe of startling beauty, mind spheres of resilient truth, and personalities of astounding goodness, it does seem foolish, and perhaps “stupid,” to give all these manifestations of the divine the standing and status of a nonpersonal mechanism, void of even its own appreciation of itself-not to mention the octillions of personal beings who inhabit the universe. Some passing penchant towards a possible materialist interpretation of reality might be excused if the individual was, perhaps intentionally, self-protected from truth and revelation. But our superiors in the universe, and perhaps we should foin them, regard ignorance as no excuse for such a preposterous philosophy of the universe. May our friends deliver us from all such distortions!
— David Glass
Fort Worth. Texas