© 2022 Gard Jameson
© 2022 The Urantia Book Fellowship
by Gard Jameson
The articles in this magazine are an examination of how the Revelatory Commission utilized various human authors whose texts were part of the production of The Urantia Book. Their insights reveal the power of personal revelation in the life of a truth seeking mortal.
“Truth is always a revelation: auto- revelation when it emerges as a result of the work of the indwelling Adjuster; epochal revelation when it is presented by the function of some other celestial agency, group, or personality.” [UB 101:4.3]
The discoveries and insights of these human authors are proof positive of the capacity of the human mind to discern the actual filaments of reality. When Sir Isaac Newton found his way to an understanding of the law of gravity in the 18th Century, the world marveled that a human being actually discovered a doorway into the very thought of God, unlocking the mathematics of the law by which God constructed the universe. Such discovery is taken too much for granted in our modern era. With hindsight, we can observe from our moment in time the multitude of ways in which the human mind has been able to unlock the material, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of universe reality. From the mathematical discoveries of Pythagoras, the Pythagorean theorem, to the calculus of Newton and Leibniz, to the scientific discoveries of Copernicus, Lavoisier, and Darwin, to the value realizations of the Sages of China, the Rishis of India, and the Prophets of Israel, there has been a steady growth of appreciation of how human beings are able to actually access the very thought of God. Jesus, the Creator Son, and his student, Ganid, appreciated those realizations as they poured over the texts of the world’s religious traditions while in the library in Alexandria (Paper 131, The World Religions).
For purposes of this series of essays, we have looked closely at how the revelators utilized the human thought of Ralph Tyler Flewelling in the Roman Lectures delivered by Jesus to a variety of individuals on the nature of reality, specifically with an eye to the appreciation of values, such as truth, beauty, and goodness. These lectures of Jesus are extraordinary! They reveal a mind universal in scope, a heart as big as the universe, and a personality as loving as the Creator of the vast galaxies of time and space. These essays demonstrate the power of the human mind to penetrate to the core of the four primary dimensions of actual reality: matter, mind, spirit, and personality. Such understanding aids immeasurably in answering the question that Einstein stated is the primary question that should occupy our awareness: “Do we live in a friendly universe?”
Some of the most extraordinary scientists, philosophers, and theologians, explorers of fact, meaning, and value, were incorporated in the creation of the text of The Urantia Book. Scientists of the caliber of A.S. Eddington, Sir James Jeans, and W.F.G. Swann were utilized in the emergence of The Urantia Book. Philosophers of the stature of Ralph Tyler Flewelling, Chair of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, (The Mediterranean Lectures) William Ernest Hocking at Harvard, and Henry Nelson Weiman at the University of Chicago (The Rodan Papers) were instrumental in the development of the text as were psychologists like Ernest Ligon of Union College (Fatherly Love, Paper 140). Theologians like John Baille, Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, Albert C. Knudsen, Dean of Theology at Boston University, and Charles Edward Jefferson were monumental human sources of religious inspiration. None of these authors, as best as we can tell, were aware of how their thoughts were being used by the Revelatory Commission. Most of the authors that we know about were actually living during the period in which the revelation was being developed. All of them were giants in their field of endeavor. During the first half of the twentieth century there was an explosion of scientific discovery, philosophic discernment, and spiritual realization. One might suggest that it is related to those times in which the traumatic effects of World War, Economic Crisis, and Social Upheaval were deeply imprinted in the culture, inspiring a yearning for a deeper understanding of the facts, meanings, and values by which we are guided.
A new cosmology was emerging with the discoveries of Einstein, Eddington, Jeans, and so many others. With the advent of that new cosmology, there were corresponding developments in our philosophical and spiritual conceptual frames of reference. While the tragedies of the time caused many to entrench into more traditional, fundamentalist, and orthodox perspectives; others, like the authors mentioned, were able to expand their world views to accommodate the new cosmology in a meaningfully elegant manner. Conceptual frameworks incorporating a grand new thought, evolution and the evolutionary process, were introduced with a novel appreciation of Deity, with theological giants like Charles Hartshorne at Harvard leading the way. Probably, the most notable development in philosophy and theology during this period was and is the idea of “personality.” Ralph Tyler Flewelling, Albert C. Knudsen, and Edgar Brightman were instrumental in unpacking the seminal inspirations of their teacher, Borden Parker Bowne. Some of the more current proponents of these new insights into the nature of “personality” have included Pope John Paul II and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Since the first half of the 20th Century, there has been general reluctance by philosophers to delve into topics such as “personality” and “God,” given a predominantly materialist, reductionistic, secular culture. The debate on the very existence of God has been hotly contested, especially on the heels of the devastation of World War II, the Holocaust, and a series of genocidal and tragic events. In spite of such devastation, the inspiration of the scientists noted above, and others like Francis Collins, Director of the National Institute of Health,_ The Language of God_, have caused a crack in the wall with some of the most notable atheist thought leaders, such as philosopher Antony Flew, who wrote in 2007 of his own illuminating journey, acknowledging the existence of God, There is A God. Though Flew does not affirm any particular tradition or institutional belief, he does affirm based upon the scientific evidence of various fields, in particular genetic understanding, the existence of a Higher Power of creative intelligence.
We are living in an axial moment as noted by many seminal thinkers, wherein there is a growing appreciation of the complementary nature of Science and Religion. The Paleontologist, Zoologist, and Geologist, Stephen Jay Gould has written in his book, Rocks of Ages, of the twin magisterium of science and religion, recognizing science as the domain of facts, “covering the empirical realm” and religion as the domain of values, “extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value.” (6) and that there exists a “loving concordat between… science and religion.” The bridge between science and religion is revelation, both personal and epochal. The Urantia Book enables the reader to see the great span of that bridge.
These are some of the contemporary conceptual expressions that are opening the door to an appreciation of the insights of the revelation of The Urantia Book. We are at the beginning of this “concordat;” what we can observe is how evolutionary thought and revelatory insight are brought together in harmonious fashion. We may also observe the amazing way in which the human mind is open to the infinite vistas of awareness contained in existence, from the joyful realizations of the indwelling presence of God to the meaningful significance of a trilobite found in an ancient ocean bed, covered by millions of years of sediment.
May your eyes and ears be blessed by the radical amazement of creation! May your soul be blessed by the sublime joy of knowing God and the Unconditional Love of the Indwelling Presence, even now!
We are living in an axial moment as noted by many seminal thinkers, wherein there is a growing appreciation of the complementary nature of Science and Religion.