© 1999 Jean-Claude Romeuf
© 1999 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
“God is to science a cause, to philosophy an idea, to religion a person, even the loving heavenly Father. God is to the scientist a primal force, to the philosopher a hypothesis of unity, to the religionist a living spiritual experience. Man’s inadequate concept of the personality of the Universal Father can be improved only by man’s spiritual progress in the universe and will become truly adequate only when the pilgrims of time and space finally attain the divine embrace of the living God on Paradise.” (UB 1:6.2)
A — human level of cosmic realities or domain of facts. We can consider as “fact” everything that exists, everything that happens, everything that is put into action: things, beings, events are facts. Their subjective analysis by the mind is the stuff of meanings.
This is why facts are the building blocks that make the construction of wisdom possible (UB 111:6.6). They are the basic material from which the mind builds its maturity, because, devoid of meaning, they are only a static state of existence in which the notion of evolutionary growth is lacking: the mineral, the plant, man, Jupiter and Mercury are facts. As such, they are part of the domain of science and can be analyzed methodically. Facts are linked according to laws that scientific curiosity forces itself to discover and use through technology: the wind that blows gives birth to mills.
Facts, whether or not they are subject to the appreciation of the mind, can, by their intrinsic reality, express perfection on the level conferred on them: the diamond, like the nascent drop of water, satisfy the theoretical and ideal mineral purity of the terrestrial world; in the same way, God is the absolute perfect being of the paradisiacal world. Each level of cosmic reality has a degree of perfection which is specific to it, impossible to surpass but which the citizens of the universe, engaged in the ascending career, seek to attain.
Acts subject to natural law are facts that are constantly renewed: plants, animals, men, suns are born and die. Everything is crushed, digested by clay in order to reappear in another form and thus perpetuate the cycle of biochemical reactions necessary for life: the dust born from the ashes returns to the dust so that the life cycle continues. The resurrection of inert bodies lying under the earth does not exist. Seen solely from the angle of facts, human life takes on the color of despair.
B — human level of mental realities or domain of meanings. We can call “meaning” any fact made subjective by the analysis of the mind. This is the zone of conflict in which knowledge and understanding give way to pure thought. While the imperatives of life forced man to use the wind to make mills, now, in the mills, the Don Quixotes will be born, protagonists of a new world.
This level, dominated by the thirst for truth, beauty, goodness, is that of the development of wisdom allowing the contemplative being of the intelligible world of facts to become a philosopher, artist or philanthropist and to attempt to understand the meanings of the universe.
Philosophical truth supposes that the philosopher is capable of distancing himself from himself in order to reflect on himself and the environment in which he lives.
The artist always remains dissatisfied with his human condition. Art is not the mirror in which the real or distorted image of the world is projected. The appreciation of beauty is changeable and grows like that of truth. While music and poetry can bring the senses to the borders of infinity, the painter wants to give a soul to a landscape or transform a face into a landscape.
Any being who harbors philanthropic ideas also has the ambition to improve the world.
Sooner or later, the pursuit of an ideal undoubtedly leads to a feeling of solitude and isolation. One becomes aware of the inadequacy of one’s thinking. Is not God then the original Cause of facts? Is there not a possibility of escaping from the earthly prison?
These are the meanings on which the progress made depends. Thus little by little, from concept to concept, from discovery to discovery, from social benefit to humanitarian work, the whole world makes its own way, it evolves, it grows, it progresses: it traces a straight line in the current age of the Supreme.
C — human level of spiritual realities or domain of values. The essential condition for the meanings acquired throughout life to become eternal and thus mutate into “values” consists in the whole being making the choice to survive eternally.
For many, God does not exist because he would not allow the desolations that man must suffer on earth; it is true, seen in this way, one must be crazy to believe in God. But, the knowledge of God is not necessarily only intellectual. God cannot be proven by science and for philosophical reason he remains in the realm of probable idea.
God can be loved. For this to happen, He must be a person. It is only in a personal relationship that man finds in Him a benevolent friend. We can then say that man becomes truly religious because true religion finds its fullness in an intimate relationship between man and the personality of his Creator.
We can call “value” anything that survives natural death and is of spiritual interest in the progressive and eternal experience of a human ascender.
There are innate values which are a gift from the Eternal Father:
There are also acquired values which are none other than the meanings spiritualized during life (the treasures amassed on earth) and which will be entrusted to seraphic custody until the resurrection. These values of Supremacy, stemming from good, truth and beauty, participate in the growth of the soul and tend to merge and unify throughout the ages into a quality of love called “divinity”.
Jean-Claude Romeuf