© 2004 Jean Royer
© 2004 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| Hasty Judgment | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 32 — Winter 2004 | Testimony: Diamond Wedding or Smiling Philosophy of Serene Octogenarians |
Science ends its reason-search in the hypothesis of a First Cause. Religion does not stop in its flight of faith until it is sure of a God of salvation. The discriminating study of science logically suggests the reality and existence of an Absolute. Religion believes unreservedly in the existence and reality of a God who fosters personality survival. What metaphysics fails utterly in doing, and what even philosophy fails partially in doing, revelation does; that is, affirms that this First Cause of science and religion’s God of salvation are one and the same Deity. (UB 101:2.7)
We have all read that phrase, “where metaphysics totally fails,” but how many have stopped to ask what it means? In other words, what is meant by metaphysics? (The word occurs 22 times as a noun.)
Metaphysics is one of those polysemic terms that we must try to analyze from at least two angles, the human point of view and what The Urantia Book says about it.
- Human point of view
The word is formed from two Greek words, meta which means beyond and phusika physics, it is therefore what comes after the study of nature and it is the treatise which, in Aristotle, (although he himself ignores the term) follows that of physics. Aristotle calls it “first philosophy”. It is the search for principles and first causes as well as the study of being as being.
Of course, the meaning has varied over time. We will only take a few examples:
For Kant it is the set of knowledge obtained by the faculty of knowing a priori.
For Condillac and d’Alembert it is the theory of the origin of ideas.
For Bergson it is the intuitive knowledge of the absolute.
Among existentialists it is the research where the problem encroaches on the very person who poses it.
However, since the word is a translation from English it would be wise to see what Webster says about it. For this dictionary, in sense 1, it is the branch of philosophy that deals with first principles and seeks to explain the nature of being and reality (ontology) as well as that of the origin and structure of the world (cosmology); it is closely associated with a theory of knowledge (epistemology). In sense 2 it is speculative philosophy in general.
- Urantia Book point of view
There is no strict definition of the word metaphysics in The Urantia Book. However, there is an explanation of metaphysics as practiced on the third mansion world: It is then that surviving mortals acquire practical insight into true metaphysics. This is the true introduction to the intelligent understanding of cosmic meanings and universal interrelationships (UB 47:5.3)
As far as we are concerned on this planet it is said:
When man approaches the study and examination of his universe from the outside, he brings into being the various physical sciences; when he approaches the research of himself and the universe from the inside, he gives origin to theology and metaphysics. The later art of philosophy develops in an effort to harmonize the many discrepancies which are destined at first to appear between the findings and teachings of these two diametrically opposite avenues of approaching the universe of things and beings. (UB 103:6.2)
Or again: They [the Greeks] sought to console souls through deep thought, philosophy and metaphysics. (UB 98:2.2)
But it is clearly said that metaphysics is powerless.
Metaphysics has proved a failure; mota, man cannot perceive. Revelation is the only technique which can compensate for the absence of the truth sensitivity of mota in a material world. Revelation authoritatively clarifies the muddle of reason-developed metaphysics on an evolutionary sphere. (UB 103:6.8)
Out of his incomplete grasp of science, his faint hold upon religion, and his abortive attempts at metaphysics, man has attempted to construct his formulations of philosophy. And modern man would indeed build a worthy and engaging philosophy of himself and his universe were it not for the breakdown of his all-important and indispensable metaphysical connection between the worlds of matter and spirit, the failure of metaphysics to bridge the morontia gulf between the physical and the spiritual. Mortal man lacks the concept of morontia mind and material; and revelation is the only technique for atoning for this deficiency in the conceptual data which man so urgently needs in order to construct a logical philosophy of the universe and to arrive at a satisfying understanding of his sure and settled place in that universe. (UB 103:6.12)
Your difficulty in arriving at a more harmonious co-ordination between science and religion is due to your utter ignorance of the intervening domain of the morontia world of things and beings. The local universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the insight technique of religion; mota is the technique of the morontia level. Mota is a supermaterial reality sensitivity which is beginning to compensate incomplete growth, having for its substance knowledge-reason and for its essence faith-insight. Mota is a superphilosophical reconciliation of divergent reality perception which is nonattainable by material personalities; it is predicated, in part, on the experience of having survived the material life of the flesh. But many mortals have recognized the desirability of having some method of reconciling the interplay between the widely separated domains of science and religion; and metaphysics is the result of man’s unavailing attempt to span this well-recognized chasm. But human metaphysics has proved more confusing than illuminating. Metaphysics stands for man’s well-meant but futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia. (UB 103:6.7)
Your difficulty in arriving at a more harmonious co-ordination between science and religion is due to your utter ignorance of the intervening domain of the morontia world of things and beings. The local universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the insight technique of religion; mota is the technique of the morontia level. Mota is a supermaterial reality sensitivity which is beginning to compensate incomplete growth, having for its substance knowledge-reason and for its essence faith-insight. Mota is a superphilosophical reconciliation of divergent reality perception which is nonattainable by material personalities; it is predicated, in part, on the experience of having survived the material life of the flesh. But many mortals have recognized the desirability of having some method of reconciling the interplay between the widely separated domains of science and religion; and metaphysics is the result of man’s unavailing attempt to span this well-recognized chasm. But human metaphysics has proved more confusing than illuminating. Metaphysics stands for man’s well-meant but futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia. (UB 103:6.7)
*Morontia mota being: the supraphilosophical sensitivity allowing one to discern truth and perceive unity, or a sensitivity to supramaterial reality which begins to compensate for incomplete growth; it has knowledge-reason as its substance and faith-clairvoyance as its essence. Mota is a superphilosophical reconciliation of divergent perceptions of reality. (see UB 102:2.8 and UB 103:6.6 )
Worse still, metaphysics troubles philosophy:
When the philosophy of man leans heavily toward the world of matter, it becomes rationalistic or naturalistic. When philosophy inclines particularly toward the spiritual level, it becomes idealistic or even mystical. When philosophy is so unfortunate as to lean upon metaphysics, it unfailingly becomes skeptical, confused. In past ages, most of man’s knowledge and intellectual evaluations have fallen into one of these three distortions of perception. Philosophy dare not project its interpretations of reality in the linear fashion of logic; it must never fail to reckon with the elliptic symmetry of reality and with the essential curvature of all relation concepts. (UB 103:6.14)
Why does human metaphysics fail? The answer seems relatively simple, simply because its reasoning is based either on false or insufficient foundations, or even on a general ignorance of reality.
Which can only be corrected by revelation.:
Metaphysics has proved a failure; mota, man cannot perceive. Revelation is the only technique which can compensate for the absence of the truth sensitivity of mota in a material world. Revelation authoritatively clarifies the muddle of reason-developed metaphysics on an evolutionary sphere. (UB 103:6.8)
The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight afforded by revelation. By this union man can compensate somewhat for his failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to comprehend the mota of the morontia. (UB 103:6.15)
In conclusion, intelligent understanding of cosmic meanings and universal interrelations, search for oneself and the universe from within, deep thought, we find a good part of the Webster’s definition.
John Royer
| Hasty Judgment | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 32 — Winter 2004 | Testimony: Diamond Wedding or Smiling Philosophy of Serene Octogenarians |