© 2005 Jean Royer
© 2005 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| Understanding your neighbor | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 35 — Autumn/Winter 2005 | From matter to spirit via the mind |
For any understanding and mutual understanding it is good to define what we mean by the basic terms, this is what we will do before examining:
and we will end with a comparison of the way in which each can approach the problem of God.
1.
Science deals with facts; religion is concerned only with values. Through enlightened philosophy the mind endeavors to unite the meanings of both facts and values, thereby arriving at a concept of complete reality. Remember that science is the domain of knowledge, philosophy the realm of wisdom, and religion the sphere of the faith experience. But religion, nonetheless, presents two phases of manifestation: (UB 101:5.2)
[By fact we must understand: a thing that exists, a given of experience. Thus, I experience the fact of your presence. The fact can be subjective as in the case of hallucination, or objective as in the case of mirage.]
Science deals with facts; religion is concerned only with values. Through enlightened philosophy the mind endeavors to unite the meanings of both facts and values, thereby arriving at a concept of complete reality. Remember that science is the domain of knowledge, philosophy the realm of wisdom, and religion the sphere of the faith experience. But religion, nonetheless, presents two phases of manifestation: (UB 101:5.2)
[By value we mean: that which is desirable or worthy of esteem in itself, for example truth, beauty or goodness.]
Science deals with facts; religion is concerned only with values. Through enlightened philosophy the mind endeavors to unite the meanings of both facts and values, thereby arriving at a concept of complete reality. Remember that science is the domain of knowledge, philosophy the realm of wisdom, and religion the sphere of the faith experience. But religion, nonetheless, presents two phases of manifestation: (UB 101:5.2)
[The mind is that which, in man, produces thought, by means of the brain. We distinguish the mind from the spirit. The spirit is in some way exterior to man. For Christians, a special case of the spirit is what John called “the little light which enlightens every man who comes into this world”; for the ancient Egyptians it was the ka, for the Hindus it is the atman, although the latter is devoid of individuality. In fact, the spirit can be perceived by experience, but it can only be expressed by means of the mind, it is a bit like describing a painting and its colors to a person born blind. However, the spirit is not the voice of conscience, which is purely of evolutionary origin. There are various levels of conscience.]
God-consciousness, as it is experienced by an evolving mortal of the realms, must consist of three varying factors, three differential levels of reality realization. There is first the mind consciousness—the comprehension of the idea of God. Then follows the soul consciousness—the realization of the ideal of God. Last, dawns the spirit consciousness—the realization of the spirit reality of God. By the unification of these factors of the divine realization, no matter how incomplete, the mortal personality at all times overspreads all conscious levels with a realization of the personality of God. In those mortals who have attained the Corps of the Finality all this will in time lead to the realization of the supremacy of God and may subsequently eventuate in the realization of the ultimacy of God, some phase of the absonite superconsciousness of the Paradise Father. (UB 5:5.11)
Human self-consciousness implies the recognition of the reality of selves other than the conscious self and further implies that such awareness is mutual; that the self is known as it knows. This is shown in a purely human manner in man’s social life. But you cannot become so absolutely certain of a fellow being’s reality as you can of the reality of the presence of God that lives within you. The social consciousness is not inalienable like the God-consciousness; it is a cultural development and is dependent on knowledge, symbols, and the contributions of the constitutive endowments of man—science, morality, and religion. And these cosmic gifts, socialized, constitute civilization. (UB 16:9.4)
The higher you ascend in the scale of life, the more attention must be paid to universe ethics. Ethical awareness is simply the recognition by any individual of the rights inherent in the existence of any and all other individuals. But spiritual ethics far transcends the mortal and even the morontia concept of personal and group relations. (UB 27:3.1)
Religion has at one time or another sanctioned all sorts of contrary and inconsistent behavior, has at some time approved of practically all that is now regarded as immoral or sinful. Conscience, untaught by experience and unaided by reason, never has been, and never can be, a safe and unerring guide to human conduct. Conscience is not a divine voice speaking to the human soul. It is merely the sum total of the moral and ethical content of the mores of any current stage of existence; it simply represents the humanly conceived ideal of reaction in any given set of circumstances. (UB 92:2.6)
Revelation unifies human existence. (UB 102:4.6)Man being a finite being, very limited in time and space, can only have a partial vision of his place in the cosmos and his future beyond the present time. Revelation comes, in a way, to partially compensate for this limitation.
2.
Science deals with facts; religion is concerned only with values. Through enlightened philosophy the mind endeavors to unite the meanings of both facts and values, thereby arriving at a concept of complete reality. Remember that science is the domain of knowledge, philosophy the realm of wisdom, and religion the sphere of the faith experience. But religion, nonetheless, presents two phases of manifestation: (UB 101:5.2)
Science deals with facts; religion is concerned only with values. Through enlightened philosophy the mind endeavors to unite the meanings of both facts and values, thereby arriving at a concept of complete reality. Remember that science is the domain of knowledge, philosophy the realm of wisdom, and religion the sphere of the faith experience. But religion, nonetheless, presents two phases of manifestation: (UB 101:5.2)
[Wisdom is the faculty of making the best use of knowledge, experience and understanding.]
Religion is the sphere of experience of faith. (UB 101:5.2) Love for God is religion. (UB 102:3.12)
[Here we will give a traditional definition of faith, found in Hebrews 11:1, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Care should be taken to distinguish faith from belief. Belief has reached the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the way of living. Accepting a teaching as true is not faith, it is mere belief. Certainty and conviction are not faith either.]
Revelation is a technique whereby ages upon ages of time are saved in the necessary work of sorting and sifting the errors of evolution from the truths of spirit acquirement. (UB 101:5.1)
[The mota: this term designates the wisdom of a superphilosophy which is not limited by finite vision and limited in time and space. Mortal man has no access to mota. By comparison, we could say that the human eye has no access to vision below or beyond what we call visible light.]
[The adjective morontial, here in the feminine, refers to morontia, a term used to designate an intermediate state between the material and the spiritual. For Christians, an allusion to this state is found in the epistle to the Hebrews in 10.34 where there is talk of a better and more permanent substance.]
3.
Science is a quantitative experience, religion a qualitative experience, as regards man’s life on earth. Science deals with phenomena; religion, with origins, values, and goals. To assign causes as an explanation of physical phenomena is to confess ignorance of ultimates and in the end only leads the scientist straight back to the first great cause—the Universal Father of Paradise. (UB 195:6.5)
[This is why its laws are presented in mathematical form.]
Science is a quantitative experience, religion a qualitative experience, as regards man’s life on earth. Science deals with phenomena; religion, with origins, values, and goals. To assign causes as an explanation of physical phenomena is to confess ignorance of ultimates and in the end only leads the scientist straight back to the first great cause—the Universal Father of Paradise. (UB 195:6.5)
[One cannot put spiritual joy under a microscope, nor weigh love in a balance, nor measure moral values; nor can one quantify the quality of spiritual worship.]
Art results from man’s attempt to escape from the lack of beauty in his material environment; it is a gesture toward the morontia level. Science is man’s effort to solve the apparent riddles of the material universe. Philosophy is man’s attempt at the unification of human experience. Religion is man’s supreme gesture, his magnificent reach for final reality, his determination to find God and to be like him. (UB 196:3.30)
Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality. (UB 101:2.8)
4.
Science discovers the material world. (UB 103:7.15) It is man’s effort to solve the apparent enigmas of the universe. (UB 196:3.30) Science is man’s attempt to study his physical surroundings, the world of energy-matter. (UB 103:6.9) Science deals with physicoenergetic activities. (UB 133:5.4)
[And this discovery allows action on this world of energy.]
Religion evaluates the material world. (UB 103:7.15) It is the supreme gesture of man reaching magnificently towards the final reality, his determination to find God and be like him. (UB 196:3.30) Religion is man’s experience with the cosmos of spiritual values. (UB 103:6.9) Religion deals with eternal values. (UB 133:5.4)
[This is, of course, about authentic personal religion, not institutional religion.]
Philosophy tries to interpret the meanings of the material world by coordinating the scientific material viewpoint with the religious spiritual concept.(UB 103:7.15) It tries to identify the material segments of science with the spiritual insight concept of the whole.(UB 102:3.10) It does its best to correlate these quantitative and qualitative observations.(UB 133:5.4)
Science indicates Deity as a fact; philosophy presents the idea of an Absolute; religion envisions God as a loving spiritual personality. Revelation affirms the unity of the fact of Deity, the idea of the Absolute, and the spiritual personality of God and, further, presents this concept as our Father—the universal fact of existence, the eternal idea of mind, and the infinite spirit of life. (UB 102:3.11)
5.
All divisions of human thought are predicated on certain assumptions which are accepted, though unproved, by the constitutive reality sensitivity of the mind endowment of man. Science starts out on its vaunted career of reasoning by assuming the reality of three things: matter, motion, and life. Religion starts out with the assumption of the validity of three things: mind, spirit, and the universe—the Supreme Being. (UB 103:7.11)
[the existence of matter has never really been questioned by science, but its existence outside of a being capable of perceiving it, yes.]
La philosophie commence sa carrière en admettant la réalité de trois choses : le corps matériel ; la phase supramatérielle de l’être humain, l’âme ou même l’esprit intérieur et le mental humain, mécanisme d’interassociation et d’intercommunication entre l’esprit et la matière, entre le matériel et le spirituel. (LU 101:5.5-8)
[Confusions over terms like soul, mind, and spirit are the source of countless philosophical disputes, which is why it is essential to define them before any discussion. Without going into detail, tradition distinguishes for the soul the ancient meanings of that which animates (from Aristotle to Voltaire) and the principle of psychic life. Our conception of the soul differs significantly from this; for us the soul of man is an experiential acquisition. As a mortal creature chooses to “do the will of the Father in heaven,” the spirit that inhabits him becomes the father of a new reality in human experience. The mortal, material mind is the mother of this same emerging reality. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor spiritual—it is morontia. It is the emerging, immortal soul destined to survive physical death and begin the ascent to Paradise.]
All divisions of human thought are predicated on certain assumptions which are accepted, though unproved, by the constitutive reality sensitivity of the mind endowment of man. Science starts out on its vaunted career of reasoning by assuming the reality of three things: matter, motion, and life. Religion starts out with the assumption of the validity of three things: mind, spirit, and the universe—the Supreme Being. (UB 103:7.11)
[That the universe can be assimilated to the Supreme Being will surprise more than one, Swedenborg had suspected something similar, but this idea cannot be developed in this framework.]
Science (knowledge) is based on the inherent assumption (the adjutant spirit) that reason is valid, that the universe is capable of being understood. (UB 103:9.8) Although: In the mortal stage, nothing can be proven absolutely; both science and religion are based on assumptions. (UB 103:7.10)
6.
Science is supported by reason. (UB 103:7.1)Science must always rely on reason, although imagination and hypotheses help to extend its boundaries. (UB 103:6.11) [Can there be an evolutionary science without hypotheses?]
A mechanistic philosophy of life and the universe cannot be scientific because science recognizes and deals only with materials and facts. Philosophy is inevitably superscientific. Man is a material fact of nature, but his life is a phenomenon which transcends the material levels of nature in that it exhibits the control attributes of mind and the creative qualities of spirit. (UB 195:7.9)
[If philosophy is based on a scientific foundation, it must necessarily evolve at the same time as science.]
Religion is sustained by faith. (UB 103:7.1) Religion will forever depend on faith, although reason provides a stabilizing influence and is a useful servant. (UB 103:6.11)
[Faith always goes beyond knowledge, but Tertullian’s formula “I believe because it is absurd” is only an oxymoron, a sleight of hand from the rhetorician.]
7.
Logic is the technique of philosophy, its method of expression. Within the domain of true science, reason is always amenable to genuine logic; within the domain of true religion, faith is always logical from the basis of an inner viewpoint, even though such faith may appear to be quite unfounded from the inlooking viewpoint of the scientific approach. From outward, looking within, the universe may appear to be material; from within, looking out, the same universe appears to be wholly spiritual. Reason grows out of material awareness, faith out of spiritual awareness, but through the mediation of a philosophy strengthened by revelation, logic may confirm both the inward and the outward view, thereby effecting the stabilization of both science and religion. Thus, through common contact with the logic of philosophy, may both science and religion become increasingly tolerant of each other, less and less skeptical. (UB 103:7.6)
[We must still be wary of what we mean by logic. The ancients only knew formal and Aristotelian logic, modern mathematics teaches us other types of logic, including perhaps fuzzy logic.]
Logic is the technique of philosophy, its method of expression. Within the domain of true science, reason is always amenable to genuine logic; within the domain of true religion, faith is always logical from the basis of an inner viewpoint, even though such faith may appear to be quite unfounded from the inlooking viewpoint of the scientific approach. From outward, looking within, the universe may appear to be material; from within, looking out, the same universe appears to be wholly spiritual. Reason grows out of material awareness, faith out of spiritual awareness, but through the mediation of a philosophy strengthened by revelation, logic may confirm both the inward and the outward view, thereby effecting the stabilization of both science and religion. Thus, through common contact with the logic of philosophy, may both science and religion become increasingly tolerant of each other, less and less skeptical. (UB 103:7.6)
[This is a difficult position, where it would be important to clearly distinguish between faith and beliefs, something rarely done at this level.]
Revelation is evolutionary man’s only hope of bridging the morontia gulf. Faith and reason, unaided by mota, cannot conceive and construct a logical universe. Without the insight of mota, mortal man cannot discern goodness, love, and truth in the phenomena of the material world. (UB 103:6.13)
[History should show us that neither goodness nor love nor truth belong to primitive myths.]
8.
God is so all real and absolute that no material sign of proof or no demonstration of so-called miracle may be offered in testimony of his reality. Always will we know him because we trust him, and our belief in him is wholly based on our personal participation in the divine manifestations of his infinite reality. (UB 102:1.5)
[The intellect is only a part of the mind]
God is so all real and absolute that no material sign of proof or no demonstration of so-called miracle may be offered in testimony of his reality. Always will we know him because we trust him, and our belief in him is wholly based on our personal participation in the divine manifestations of his infinite reality. (UB 102:1.5)
[The notion of personality is complex, it is one of the great mysteries of the universe, to simplify we will say that personality has a unifying function, that it is unique and invariant.]
9.
Truth is the basis of science and philosophy, presenting the intellectual foundation of religion. Beauty sponsors art, music, and the meaningful rhythms of all human experience. Goodness embraces the sense of ethics, morality, and religion—experiential perfection-hunger.
Truth is the basis of science and philosophy, presenting the intellectual foundation of religion. Beauty sponsors art, music, and the meaningful rhythms of all human experience. Goodness embraces the sense of ethics, morality, and religion—experiential perfection-hunger. (UB 56:10.10)
10.
In evolution, religion often leads to man’s creating his concepts of God; revelation exhibits the phenomenon of God’s evolving man himself, while in the earth life of Christ Michael we behold the phenomenon of God’s revealing himself to man. Evolution tends to make God manlike; revelation tends to make man Godlike.
In evolution, religion often leads to man’s creating his concepts of God; revelation exhibits the phenomenon of God’s evolving man himself, while in the earth life of Christ Michael we behold the phenomenon of God’s revealing himself to man. Evolution tends to make God manlike; revelation tends to make man Godlike.
In evolution, religion often leads to man’s creating his concepts of God; revelation exhibits the phenomenon of God’s evolving man himself, while in the earth life of Christ Michael we behold the phenomenon of God’s revealing himself to man. Evolution tends to make God manlike; revelation tends to make man Godlike.
In evolution, religion often leads to man’s creating his concepts of God; revelation exhibits the phenomenon of God’s evolving man himself, while in the earth life of Christ Michael we behold the phenomenon of God’s revealing himself to man. Evolution tends to make God manlike; revelation tends to make man Godlike. (UB 102:3.14)
11.
The problem of sin is not self-existent in the finite world. The fact of finiteness is not evil or sinful. The finite world was made by an infinite Creator—it is the handiwork of his divine Sons—and therefore it must be good. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives origin to evil and sin.
The problem of sin is not self-existent in the finite world. The fact of finiteness is not evil or sinful. The finite world was made by an infinite Creator—it is the handiwork of his divine Sons—and therefore it must be good. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives origin to evil and sin.
The problem of sin is not self-existent in the finite world. The fact of finiteness is not evil or sinful. The finite world was made by an infinite Creator—it is the handiwork of his divine Sons—and therefore it must be good. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives origin to evil and sin.
The problem of sin is not self-existent in the finite world. The fact of finiteness is not evil or sinful. The finite world was made by an infinite Creator—it is the handiwork of his divine Sons—and therefore it must be good. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives origin to evil and sin. (UB 111:6.3)
[We distinguish, in the manner of Hegel, morality as a relationship from individual to individual and ethics as a relationship to the group.]
12.
Science sorts men; religion loves men, even as yourself; wisdom does justice to differing men; but revelation glorifies man and discloses his capacity for partnership with God.
Science sorts men; religion loves men, even as yourself; wisdom does justice to differing men; but revelation glorifies man and discloses his capacity for partnership with God.
Science sorts men; religion loves men, even as yourself; wisdom does justice to differing men; but revelation glorifies man and discloses his capacity for partnership with God.
Science sorts men; religion loves men, even as yourself; wisdom does justice to differing men; but revelation glorifies man and discloses his capacity for partnership with God. (UB 102:3.7)
13.
Science vainly strives to create the brotherhood of culture; religion brings into being the brotherhood of the spirit. Philosophy strives for the brotherhood of wisdom; revelation portrays the eternal brotherhood, the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
Science vainly strives to create the brotherhood of culture; religion brings into being the brotherhood of the spirit. Philosophy strives for the brotherhood of wisdom; revelation portrays the eternal brotherhood, the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
Science vainly strives to create the brotherhood of culture; religion brings into being the brotherhood of the spirit. Philosophy strives for the brotherhood of wisdom; revelation portrays the eternal brotherhood, the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
Science vainly strives to create the brotherhood of culture; religion brings into being the brotherhood of the spirit. Philosophy strives for the brotherhood of wisdom; revelation portrays the eternal brotherhood, the Paradise Corps of the Finality. (UB 102:3.8)
[What this eternal brotherhood is is quite far from the Christian tradition, that of rest and contemplation of the Deity, from the Muslim tradition, of a Paradise where milk and honey flow, or from the Buddhist tradition of a Nirvana in which the personality dissolves, it is that of belonging to a Paradise Body of the Finality continually in search of a beyond finite time and finding it in service.]
14.
Knowledge yields pride in the fact of personality; wisdom is the consciousness of the meaning of personality; religion is the experience of cognizance of the value of personality; revelation is the assurance of personality survival.
Knowledge yields pride in the fact of personality; wisdom is the consciousness of the meaning of personality; religion is the experience of cognizance of the value of personality; revelation is the assurance of personality survival.
Knowledge yields pride in the fact of personality; wisdom is the consciousness of the meaning of personality; religion is the experience of cognizance of the value of personality; revelation is the assurance of personality survival.
Knowledge yields pride in the fact of personality; wisdom is the consciousness of the meaning of personality; religion is the experience of cognizance of the value of personality; revelation is the assurance of personality survival. (UB 102:3.9)
15.
In science, the idea precedes the expression of its realization; in religion, the experience of realization precedes the expression of the idea. There is a vast difference between the evolutionary will-to-believe and the product of enlightened reason, religious insight, and revelation—the will that believes.
In science, the idea precedes the expression of its realization; in religion, the experience of realization precedes the expression of the idea. There is a vast difference between the evolutionary will-to-believe and the product of enlightened reason, religious insight, and revelation—the will that believes. (UB 102:3.13)
Method of science:
Reason is the method of science; faith is the method of religion; logic is the attempted technique of philosophy. Revelation compensates for the absence of the morontia viewpoint by providing a technique for achieving unity in the comprehension of the reality and relationships of matter and spirit by the mediation of mind. And true revelation never renders science unnatural, religion unreasonable, or philosophy illogical. (UB 101:2.2)
In religion, Jesus advocated and followed the method of experience, even as modern science pursues the technique of experiment. We find God through the leadings of spiritual insight, but we approach this insight of the soul through the love of the beautiful, the pursuit of truth, loyalty to duty, and the worship of divine goodness. But of all these values, love is the true guide to real insight. (UB 195:5.14)
Science seeks to identify, analyze, and classify the segmented parts of the limitless cosmos. Religion grasps the idea-of-the-whole, the entire cosmos. Philosophy attempts the identification of the material segments of science with the spiritual-insight concept of the whole. Wherein philosophy fails in this attempt, revelation succeeds, affirming that the cosmic circle is universal, eternal, absolute, and infinite. This cosmos of the Infinite I AM is therefore endless, limitless, and all-inclusive—timeless, spaceless, and unqualified. And we bear testimony that the Infinite I AM is also the Father of Michael of Nebadon and the God of human salvation. (UB 102:3.10)
Evolutionary religion makes no provision for change or revision; unlike science, it does not provide for its own progressive correction. Evolved religion commands respect because its followers believe it is The Truth; “the faith once delivered to the saints” must, in theory, be both final and infallible. The cult resists development because real progress is certain to modify or destroy the cult itself; therefore must revision always be forced upon it. (UB 92:3.4)
Method of philosophy:
Evolutionary religion makes no provision for change or revision; unlike science, it does not provide for its own progressive correction. Evolved religion commands respect because its followers believe it is The Truth; “the faith once delivered to the saints” must, in theory, be both final and infallible. The cult resists development because real progress is certain to modify or destroy the cult itself; therefore must revision always be forced upon it. (UB 92:3.4)
Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality. (UB 101:2.8)
In science the human self observes the material world; philosophy is the observation of this observation of the material world; religion, true spiritual experience, is the experiential realization of the cosmic reality of the observation of the observation of all this relative synthesis of the energy materials of time and space. To build a philosophy of the universe on an exclusive materialism is to ignore the fact that all things material are initially conceived as real in the experience of human consciousness. The observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of the thing which is evaluated. (UB 112:2.12)
Method of religion:
Science seeks to identify, analyze, and classify the segmented parts of the limitless cosmos. Religion grasps the idea-of-the-whole, the entire cosmos. Philosophy attempts the identification of the material segments of science with the spiritual-insight concept of the whole. Wherein philosophy fails in this attempt, revelation succeeds, affirming that the cosmic circle is universal, eternal, absolute, and infinite. This cosmos of the Infinite I AM is therefore endless, limitless, and all-inclusive—timeless, spaceless, and unqualified. And we bear testimony that the Infinite I AM is also the Father of Michael of Nebadon and the God of human salvation. (UB 102:3.10)
Religion is not grounded in the facts of science, the obligations of society, the assumptions of philosophy, or the implied duties of morality. Religion is an independent realm of human response to life situations and is unfailingly exhibited at all stages of human development which are postmoral. Religion may permeate all four levels of the realization of values and the enjoyment of universe fellowship: the physical or material level of self-preservation; the social or emotional level of fellowship; the moral or duty level of reason; the spiritual level of the consciousness of universe fellowship through divine worship. (UB 5:5.2)
Reason is the method of science; faith is the method of religion; logic is the attempted technique of philosophy. Revelation compensates for the absence of the morontia viewpoint by providing a technique for achieving unity in the comprehension of the reality and relationships of matter and spirit by the mediation of mind. And true revelation never renders science unnatural, religion unreasonable, or philosophy illogical. (UB 101:2.2)
Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality. (UB 101:2.8)
Evolutionary religion makes no provision for change or revision; unlike science, it does not provide for its own progressive correction. Evolved religion commands respect because its followers believe it is The Truth; “the faith once delivered to the saints” must, in theory, be both final and infallible. The cult resists development because real progress is certain to modify or destroy the cult itself; therefore must revision always be forced upon it. (UB 92:3.4)
[This is why revision must always be imposed on it. This revision is imposed on it by the pressure of slowly progressing morals and the periodic illumination of the revelations of the time.]
Method of revelation:
The fact of religion consists wholly in the religious experience of rational and average human beings. And this is the only sense in which religion can ever be regarded as scientific or even psychological. The proof that revelation is revelation is this same fact of human experience: the fact that revelation does synthesize the apparently divergent sciences of nature and the theology of religion into a consistent and logical universe philosophy, a co-ordinated and unbroken explanation of both science and religion, thus creating a harmony of mind and satisfaction of spirit which answers in human experience those questionings of the mortal mind which craves to know how the Infinite works out his will and plans in matter, with minds, and on spirit. (UB 101:2.1)
The pursuit of knowledge constitutes science; the search for wisdom is philosophy; the love for God is religion; the hunger for truth is a revelation. But it is the indwelling Thought Adjuster that attaches the feeling of reality to man’s spiritual insight into the cosmos. (UB 102:3.12)
His method is sorting and affirmation.
Revelation is a technique whereby ages upon ages of time are saved in the necessary work of sorting and sifting the errors of evolution from the truths of spirit acquirement. (UB 101:5.1)
The Affirmation: Revelation affirms that there is unity between the fact of Deity, the idea of the Absolute, and the spiritual personality of God; furthermore it presents this concept as our Father—the universal fact of existence, the eternal idea of mind, and the infinite spirit of life. (UB 102:3.11) On the points where philosophy fails… revelation succeeds in affirming that the cosmic circle is universal, eternal, absolute, and infinite. (UB 102:3.10)
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)
Object of science:
The objects of science are identical with those of magic. Mankind is progressing from magic to science, not by meditation and reason, but rather through long experience, gradually and painfully. Man is gradually backing into the truth, beginning in error, progressing in error, and finally attaining the threshold of truth. Only with the arrival of the scientific method has he faced forward. But primitive man had to experiment or perish. (UB 88:4.5)
Object of philosophy:
Science is man’s attempted study of his physical environment, the world of energy-matter; religion is man’s experience with the cosmos of spirit values; philosophy has been developed by man’s mind effort to organize and correlate the findings of these widely separated concepts into something like a reasonable and unified attitude toward the cosmos. Philosophy, clarified by revelation, functions acceptably in the absence of mota and in the presence of the breakdown and failure of man’s reason substitute for mota—metaphysics. (UB 103:6.9)
Function and purpose of religion:
It is the purpose of education to develop and sharpen these innate endowments of the human mind; of civilization to express them; of life experience to realize them; of religion to ennoble them; and of personality to unify them. (UB 16:6.11)
The function of early evolutionary religion is to conserve and augment the essential social, moral, and spiritual values which are slowly taking form. This mission of religion is not consciously observed by mankind, but it is chiefly effected by the function of prayer. The practice of prayer represents the unintended, but nonetheless personal and collective, effort of any group to secure (to actualize) this conservation of higher values. But for the safeguarding of prayer, all holy days would speedily revert to the status of mere holidays. (UB 91:1.1)
True religion must ever be, at one and the same time, the eternal foundation and the guiding star of all enduring civilizations. (UB 92:7.15)
Urantia society can never hope to settle down as in past ages. The social ship has steamed out of the sheltered bays of established tradition and has begun its cruise upon the high seas of evolutionary destiny; and the soul of man, as never before in the world’s history, needs carefully to scrutinize its charts of morality and painstakingly to observe the compass of religious guidance. The paramount mission of religion as a social influence is to stabilize the ideals of mankind during these dangerous times of transition from one phase of civilization to another, from one level of culture to another. (UB 99:1.3)
It is the business of religion to create, sustain, and inspire such a cosmic loyalty in the individual citizen as will direct him to the achievement of success in the advancement of all these difficult but desirable social services. (UB 99:3.16)
The purpose of religion is not to satisfy curiosity about God but rather to afford intellectual constancy and philosophic security, to stabilize and enrich human living by blending the mortal with the divine, the partial with the perfect, man and God. It is through religious experience that man’s concepts of ideality are endowed with reality. (UB 101:10.5)
Again, there are other types of unstable and poorly disciplined souls who would use the sentimental ideas of religion as an avenue of escape from the irritating demands of living. When certain vacillating and timid mortals attempt to escape from the incessant pressure of evolutionary life, religion, as they conceive it, seems to present the nearest refuge, the best avenue of escape. But it is the mission of religion to prepare man for bravely, even heroically, facing the vicissitudes of life. Religion is evolutionary man’s supreme endowment, the one thing which enables him to carry on and “endure as seeing Him who is invisible.” Mysticism, however, is often something of a retreat from life which is embraced by those humans who do not relish the more robust activities of living a religious life in the open arenas of human society and commerce. True religion must act. Conduct will be the result of religion when man actually has it, or rather when religion is permitted truly to possess the man. Never will religion be content with mere thinking or unacting feeling. (UB 102:2.8)
Function and purpose of revelation:
Reason is the method of science; faith is the method of religion; logic is the attempted technique of philosophy. Revelation compensates for the absence of the morontia viewpoint by providing a technique for achieving unity in the comprehension of the reality and relationships of matter and spirit by the mediation of mind. And true revelation never renders science unnatural, religion unreasonable, or philosophy illogical. (UB 101:2.2)
Philosophy, to be of the greatest service to both science and religion, should avoid the extremes of both materialism and pantheism. Only a philosophy which recognizes the reality of personality—permanence in the presence of change—can be of moral value to man, can serve as a liaison between the theories of material science and spiritual religion. Revelation is a compensation for the frailties of evolving philosophy. (UB 103:8.6)
Revelation is evolutionary but always progressive. Down through the ages of a world’s history, the revelations of religion are ever-expanding and successively more enlightening. It is the mission of revelation to sort and censor the successive religions of evolution. But if revelation is to exalt and upstep the religions of evolution, then must such divine visitations portray teachings which are not too far removed from the thought and reactions of the age in which they are presented. Thus must and does revelation always keep in touch with evolution. Always must the religion of revelation be limited by man’s capacity of receptivity. (UB 92:4.1)
Action of science:
Smiths were the first nonreligious group to enjoy special privileges. They were regarded as neutrals during war, and this extra leisure led to their becoming, as a class, the politicians of primitive society. But through gross abuse of these privileges the smiths became universally hated, and the medicine men lost no time in fostering hatred for their competitors. In this first contest between science and religion, religion (superstition) won. After being driven out of the villages, the smiths maintained the first inns, public lodginghouses, on the outskirts of the settlements. (UB 69:3.6)
Science teaches man to speak the new language of mathematics and trains his thoughts along lines of exacting precision. And science also stabilizes philosophy through the elimination of error, while it purifies religion by the destruction of superstition. (UB 81:6.10)
The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress of science add greatly to the mortality of false gods; and even though these casualties of man-made deities may momentarily befog the spiritual vision, they eventually destroy that ignorance and superstition which so long obscured the living God of eternal love. The relation between the creature and the Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith, which is not subject to precise definition. To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none. (UB 102:6.1)
Science, not religion, really emancipated woman; it was the modern factory which largely set her free from the confines of the home. Man’s physical abilities became no longer a vital essential in the new maintenance mechanism; science so changed the conditions of living that man power was no longer so superior to woman power. (UB 84:5.7)
Science teaches man to speak the new language of mathematics and trains his thoughts along lines of exacting precision. And science also stabilizes philosophy through the elimination of error, while it purifies religion by the destruction of superstition. (UB 81:6.10)
Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality. (UB 101:2.8)
Action of philosophy:
Your religion is becoming real because it is emerging from the slavery of fear and the bondage of superstition. Your philosophy struggles for emancipation from dogma and tradition. Your science is engaged in the agelong contest between truth and error while it fights for deliverance from the bondage of abstraction, the slavery of mathematics, and the relative blindness of mechanistic materialism. (UB 12:9.5)
Religion is not alone dogmatic; natural philosophy equally tends to dogmatize. When a renowned religious teacher reasoned that the number seven was fundamental to nature because there are seven openings in the human head, if he had known more of chemistry, he might have advocated such a belief founded on a true phenomenon of the physical world. There is in all the physical universes of time and space, notwithstanding the universal manifestation of the decimal constitution of energy, the ever-present reminder of the reality of the sevenfold electronic organization of prematter. (UB 42:9.1)
Scientists may some day measure the energy, or force manifestations, of gravitation, light, and electricity, but these same scientists can never (scientifically) tell you what these universe phenomena are. Science deals with physical-energy activities; religion deals with eternal values. True philosophy grows out of the wisdom which does its best to correlate these quantitative and qualitative observations. There always exists the danger that the purely physical scientist may become afflicted with mathematical pride and statistical egotism, not to mention spiritual blindness. (UB 133:5.4)
Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality. (UB 101:2.8)
Action of religion:
But these measures can bear their true fruits only in the distant millenniums of the future, although much social improvement will immediately result from the intelligent, wise, and patient manipulation of these acceleration factors of cultural progress. Religion is the mighty lever that lifts civilization from chaos, but it is powerless apart from the fulcrum of sound and normal mind resting securely on sound and normal heredity. (UB 70:8.18)
- Spiritual. During the age of Andite migrations the Chinese were among the more spiritual peoples of earth. Long adherence to the worship of the One Truth proclaimed by Singlangton kept them ahead of most of the other races. The stimulus of a progressive and advanced religion is often a decisive factor in cultural development; as India languished, so China forged ahead under the invigorating stimulus of a religion in which truth was enshrined as the supreme Deity. (UB 79:6.10)
While religion produces growth of meanings and enhancement of values, evil always results when purely personal evaluations are elevated to the levels of absolutes. A child evaluates experience in accordance with the content of pleasure; maturity is proportional to the substitution of higher meanings for personal pleasure, even loyalties to the highest concepts of diversified life situations and cosmic relations. (UB 100:1.1)
Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality. (UB 101:2.8)
Action of revelation:
Faith reveals God in the soul. Revelation, the substitute for morontia insight on an evolutionary world, enables man to see the same God in nature that faith exhibits in his soul. Thus does revelation successfully bridge the gulf between the material and the spiritual, even between the creature and the Creator, between man and God. (UB 101:2.10)
No professed revelation of religion could be regarded as authentic if it failed to recognize the duty demands of ethical obligation which had been created and fostered by preceding evolutionary religion. Revelation unfailingly enlarges the ethical horizon of evolved religion while it simultaneously and unfailingly expands the moral obligations of all prior revelations. (UB 101:9.1)
Evolved religion rests wholly on faith. Revelation has the additional assurance of its expanded presentation of the truths of divinity and reality and the still more valuable testimony of the actual experience which accumulates in consequence of the practical working union of the faith of evolution and the truth of revelation. Such a working union of human faith and divine truth constitutes the possession of a character well on the road to the actual acquirement of a morontial personality. (UB 101:5.12)
Science, knowledge, leads to fact consciousness; religion, experience, leads to value consciousness; philosophy, wisdom, leads to co-ordinate consciousness; revelation (the substitute for morontia mota) leads to the consciousness of true reality; while the co-ordination of the consciousness of fact, value, and true reality constitutes awareness of personality reality, maximum of being, together with the belief in the possibility of the survival of that very personality. (UB 102:3.5)
Revelation tends to make man resemble God. (UB 102:3.14) Religions of revelation attract men to the search for a God of love because they feel the ardent desire to become like him. (UB 5:4.1)
Revealed religion is the unifying element of human existence. Revelation unifies history, co-ordinates geology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, and psychology. Spiritual experience is the real soul of man’s cosmos. (UB 102:4.6)
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)
What science cannot do:
The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival. (UB 1:2.7)
“The human soul, when matured, ennobled, and spiritualized, approaches the heavenly status in that it comes near to being an entity intervening between the material and the spiritual, the material self and the divine spirit. The evolving soul of a human being is difficult of description and more difficult of demonstration because it is not discoverable by the methods of either material investigation or spiritual proving. Material science cannot demonstrate the existence of a soul, neither can pure spirit-testing. Notwithstanding the failure of both material science and spiritual standards to discover the existence of the human soul, every morally conscious mortal knows of the existence of his soul as a real and actual personal experience.” (UB 133:6.7)
The scientist, not science, perceives the reality of an evolving and advancing universe of energy and matter. The artist, not art, demonstrates the existence of the transient morontia world intervening between material existence and spiritual liberty. The religionist, not religion, proves the existence of the spirit realities and divine values which are to be encountered in the progress of eternity. (UB 195:7.23)
What philosophy cannot do:
Proving the existence of God:
The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival. (UB 1:2.7)
Ultimate universe reality cannot be grasped by mathematics, logic, or philosophy, only by personal experience in progressive conformity to the divine will of a personal God. Neither science, philosophy, nor theology can validate the personality of God. Only the personal experience of the faith sons of the heavenly Father can effect the actual spiritual realization of the personality of God. (UB 1:7.5)
What religion cannot do:
But these measures can bear their true fruits only in the distant millenniums of the future, although much social improvement will immediately result from the intelligent, wise, and patient manipulation of these acceleration factors of cultural progress. Religion is the mighty lever that lifts civilization from chaos, but it is powerless apart from the fulcrum of sound and normal mind resting securely on sound and normal heredity. (UB 70:8.18)
Religion can never become a scientific fact. Philosophy may, indeed, rest on a scientific basis, but religion will ever remain either evolutionary or revelatory, or a possible combination of both, as it is in the world today. (UB 92:7.1)
Revelation is evolutionary but always progressive. Down through the ages of a world’s history, the revelations of religion are ever-expanding and successively more enlightening. It is the mission of revelation to sort and censor the successive religions of evolution. But if revelation is to exalt and upstep the religions of evolution, then must such divine visitations portray teachings which are not too far removed from the thought and reactions of the age in which they are presented. Thus must and does revelation always keep in touch with evolution. Always must the religion of revelation be limited by man’s capacity of receptivity. (UB 92:4.1)
Institutional religion cannot afford inspiration and provide leadership in this impending world-wide social reconstruction and economic reorganization because it has unfortunately become more or less of an organic part of the social order and the economic system which is destined to undergo reconstruction. Only the real religion of personal spiritual experience can function helpfully and creatively in the present crisis of civilization. (UB 99:2.1)
What revelation cannot do:
- The Urantia Papers. The papers, of which this is one, constitute the most recent presentation of truth to the mortals of Urantia. These papers differ from all previous revelations, for they are not the work of a single universe personality but a composite presentation by many beings. But no revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father can ever be complete. All other celestial ministrations are no more than partial, transient, and practically adapted to local conditions in time and space. While such admissions as this may possibly detract from the immediate force and authority of all revelations, the time has arrived on Urantia when it is advisable to make such frank statements, even at the risk of weakening the future influence and authority of this, the most recent of the revelations of truth to the mortal races of Urantia. (UB 92:4.9)
Exceeding certain limits: The religion of revelation is always limited by the capacity of men to receive it. (UB 92:4.1) The laws governing revelation greatly hinder us, because they prohibit the transmission of undeserved or premature knowledge. (UB 101:4.1)
What science should do:
Science should do for man materially what religion does for him spiritually: extend the horizon of life and enlarge his personality. True science can have no lasting quarrel with true religion. The “scientific method” is merely an intellectual yardstick wherewith to measure material adventures and physical achievements. But being material and wholly intellectual, it is utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities and religious experiences. (UB 195:7.2)
What Philosophy Should Do:
Early man did not differentiate between the energy level and the spirit level. It was the violet race and their Andite successors who first attempted to divorce the mathematical from the volitional. Increasingly has civilized man followed in the footsteps of the earliest Greeks and the Sumerians who distinguished between the inanimate and the animate. And as civilization progresses, philosophy will have to bridge ever-widening gulfs between the spirit concept and the energy concept. But in the time of space these divergencies are at one in the Supreme. (UB 103:6.10)
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)
What religion should do:
Religion must become a forceful influence for moral stability and spiritual progression functioning dynamically in the midst of these ever-changing conditions and never-ending economic adjustments. (UB 99:1.2)
Religion has no new duties to perform, but it is urgently called upon to function as a wise guide and experienced counselor in all of these new and rapidly changing human situations. Society is becoming more mechanical, more compact, more complex, and more critically interdependent. Religion must function to prevent these new and intimate interassociations from becoming mutually retrogressive or even destructive. Religion must act as the cosmic salt which prevents the ferments of progression from destroying the cultural savor of civilization. These new social relations and economic upheavals can result in lasting brotherhood only by the ministry of religion. (UB 99:1.4)
What Philosophy Should Not Do:
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)
Then he walked and talked with the Alpheus twins, James and Judas, and speaking to both of them, he asked, “James and Judas, do you believe in me?” And when they both answered, “Yes, Master, we do believe,” he said: “I will soon leave you. You see that I have already left you in the flesh. I tarry only a short time in this form before I go to my Father. You believe in me—you are my apostles, and you always will be. Go on believing and remembering your association with me, when I am gone, and after you have, perchance, returned to the work you used to do before you came to live with me. Never allow a change in your outward work to influence your allegiance. Have faith in God to the end of your days on earth. Never forget that, when you are a faith son of God, all upright work of the realm is sacred. Nothing which a son of God does can be common. Do your work, therefore, from this time on, as for God. And when you are through on this world, I have other and better worlds where you shall likewise work for me. And in all of this work, on this world and on other worlds, I will work with you, and my spirit shall dwell within you.” (UB 192:2.13)
What religion should not do:
But while calling attention to the fact that religion was essential to the development and preservation of civilization, it should be recorded that natural religion has also done much to cripple and handicap the very civilization which it otherwise fostered and maintained. Religion has hampered industrial activities and economic development; it has been wasteful of labor and has squandered capital; it has not always been helpful to the family; it has not adequately fostered peace and good will; it has sometimes neglected education and retarded science; it has unduly impoverished life for the pretended enrichment of death. Evolutionary religion, human religion, has indeed been guilty of all these and many more mistakes, errors, and blunders; nevertheless, it did maintain cultural ethics, civilized morality, and social coherence, and made it possible for later revealed religion to compensate for these many evolutionary shortcomings. (UB 92:3.7)
But religion should not be directly concerned either with the creation of new social orders or with the preservation of old ones. True religion does oppose violence as a technique of social evolution, but it does not oppose the intelligent efforts of society to adapt its usages and adjust its institutions to new economic conditions and cultural requirements. (UB 99:0.2)
Religion must not become organically involved in the secular work of social reconstruction and economic reorganization. But it must actively keep pace with all these advances in civilization by making clear-cut and vigorous restatements of its moral mandates and spiritual precepts, its progressive philosophy of human living and transcendent survival. The spirit of religion is eternal, but the form of its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language is revised. (UB 99:1.6)
Though churches and all other religious groups should stand aloof from all secular activities, at the same time religion must do nothing to hinder or retard the social co-ordination of human institutions. Life must continue to grow in meaningfulness; man must go on with his reformation of philosophy and his clarification of religion. (UB 99:7.1)
What is God for science?
a cause (UB 1:6.2), the First Cause (UB 4:4.7), a possibility (UB 102:6.8), a hypothesis (UB 101:2.7).
What is God for philosophy?
The concept is plausible (UB 1:2.7) it [God] is an idea (UB 1:6.2) it is the only being that exists by itself, not depending on any being for its existence, but salutarily conferring real existence on all things and all other beings (UB 4:4.7). it is a probability (UB 102:6.8)
What is God for religion?
he is a person (UB 1:6.2), he is the universal and loving Father (UB 4:4.7), he is a certainty, a reality of religious experience (UB 102:6.8).
True science can have no lasting quarrel with true religion. The “scientific method” is simply an intellectual standard for measuring material adventures and physical accomplishments. But being material and entirely intellectual, this method is of no use whatsoever in evaluating spiritual realities and religious experiences. (UB 195:7.2)
One of the characteristic peculiarities of genuine religious assurance is that, notwithstanding the absoluteness of its affirmations and the stanchness of its attitude, the spirit of its expression is so poised and tempered that it never conveys the slightest impression of self-assertion or egoistic exaltation. The wisdom of religious experience is something of a paradox in that it is both humanly original and Adjuster derivative. Religious force is not the product of the individual’s personal prerogatives but rather the outworking of that sublime partnership of man and the everlasting source of all wisdom. Thus do the words and acts of true and undefiled religion become compellingly authoritative for all enlightened mortals. (UB 102:2.2)
While religion is exclusively a personal spiritual experience—knowing God as a Father—the corollary of this experience—knowing man as a brother—entails the adjustment of the self to other selves, and that involves the social or group aspect of religious life. Religion is first an inner or personal adjustment, and then it becomes a matter of social service or group adjustment. The fact of man’s gregariousness perforce determines that religious groups will come into existence. What happens to these religious groups depends very much on intelligent leadership. In primitive society the religious group is not always very different from economic or political groups. Religion has always been a conservator of morals and a stabilizer of society. And this is still true, notwithstanding the contrary teaching of many modern socialists and humanists. (UB 99:5.1)
But true religion is a living love, a life of service. The religionist’s detachment from much that is purely temporal and trivial never leads to social isolation, and it should not destroy the sense of humor. Genuine religion takes nothing away from human existence, but it does add new meanings to all of life; it generates new types of enthusiasm, zeal, and courage. It may even engender the spirit of the crusader, which is more than dangerous if not controlled by spiritual insight and loyal devotion to the commonplace social obligations of human loyalties. (UB 100:6.5)
True religion is not a system of philosophic belief which can be reasoned out and substantiated by natural proofs, neither is it a fantastic and mystic experience of indescribable feelings of ecstasy which can be enjoyed only by the romantic devotees of mysticism. Religion is not the product of reason, but viewed from within, it is altogether reasonable. Religion is not derived from the logic of human philosophy, but as a mortal experience it is altogether logical. Religion is the experiencing of divinity in the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; it represents true experience with eternal realities in time, the realization of spiritual satisfactions while yet in the flesh. (UB 101:1.1)
Faith unites moral insight with conscientious discriminations of values, and the pre-existent evolutionary sense of duty completes the ancestry of true religion. The experience of religion eventually results in the certain consciousness of God and in the undoubted assurance of the survival of the believing personality. (UB 101:1.6)
The fact of religion consists wholly in the religious experience of rational and average human beings. And this is the only sense in which religion can ever be regarded as scientific or even psychological. The proof that revelation is revelation is this same fact of human experience: the fact that revelation does synthesize the apparently divergent sciences of nature and the theology of religion into a consistent and logical universe philosophy, a co-ordinated and unbroken explanation of both science and religion, thus creating a harmony of mind and satisfaction of spirit which answers in human experience those questionings of the mortal mind which craves to know how the Infinite works out his will and plans in matter, with minds, and on spirit. (UB 101:2.1)
- Revealed religion. The universe attitude which is a spirit derivative; the assurance of, and belief in, the conservation of eternal realities, the survival of personality, and the eventual attainment of the cosmic Deity, whose purpose has made all this possible. It is a part of the plan of the universe that, sooner or later, evolutionary religion is destined to receive the spiritual expansion of revelation. (UB 101:5.4)
Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic; as a personal human experience it is continuous. Divinity functions in mortal personality as the Adjuster gift of the Father, as the Spirit of Truth of the Son, and as the Holy Spirit of the Universe Spirit, while these three supermortal endowments are unified in human experiential evolution as the ministry of the Supreme. (UB 101:2.12)
The Triodity of Actuality. This triodity consists in the interrelationship of the three absolute actuals: (UB 104:5.2)
Revealed religion is the unifying element of human existence. Revelation unifies history, co-ordinates geology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, and psychology. Spiritual experience is the real soul of man’s cosmos. (UB 102:4.6)
Thus it appears that all human progress is effected by a technique of conjoint revelational evolution. (UB 196:3.15)
99% of this essay is a compilation from The Urantia Book, I have done little more than change the order of presentation.
Jean Royer
| Understanding your neighbor | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 35 — Autumn/Winter 2005 | From matter to spirit via the mind |