© 2003 Jeanmarie Chaise
© 2003 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| Le Lien Urantien — Issue 26 — Summer 2003 — Contents | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 26 — Summer 2003 | A Little Personal Theory on the Proof of God's Existence |
SHORTEN TIME?
The Urantia Book teaches us that in Paradise neither time nor space exist. (UB 0:1.13) On the other hand, we experience that in inhabited universes such as ours, time and space are unthinkable without each other. This is what can undoubtedly be called the transcendence of time and space. This double transcendence of time and space in Paradise therefore has as its corollary the double immanence of time and space in the universes outside Paradise. God needs neither time nor space, while man cannot do without either. It seems to be the same in all the universes of space and time and from earth to Havona and to the seven spheres of the Father. Everywhere, time is time, space is space, both embellished with spatial and temporal measurements, which keeps the Chronoldeks, the Frandalanks and other Importances of time busy.
This being said, we may note that The Urantia Book nowhere speaks of any shortening of either time or space, except cosmic breathing, which frustrates all our approaches to an adequate temporal estimate of our environment over long distances. We are taught that “While revealing much relative and absolute motion in space, the present relationships of your sun and its associated planets tend to produce upon your observing astronomers the impression that you are comparatively stationary in space, and that the clusters and streams of stars about you are being hurled outward at ever-increasing velocities as your calculations reach more distant spaces. But such is not the case. You fail to recognize that the physical creations of all pervaded space are at present expanding uniformly outward. Your own local creation (Nebadon) is participating in this movement of universal expansion. All seven superuniverses participate in the two billion year cycles of space breathing, as do the outer regions of the master universe.” (UB 12:4.12) And we are further told: “The fact that space breathing is total destroys its local value as a source of time.” (UB 12:5.1)
Thus time, like space, does not seem to be able to be shortened. Yet we are told elsewhere: “As the personality proceeds on its path to higher and more inward consciousness to the transcendental levels of Deity-likeness, the concept of space-time will come ever closer to the timeless and spaceless concepts of the Absolutes. Relatively, and according to their transcendental attainments, the children of ultimate destiny will have to perceive these concepts of the absolute level.” (UB 146:2.11) There is a thick mystery here which we will have to solve during our enduring ascension to the Father. We will not solve it here. However, since all these things are so scrupulously disclosed to us, and since we ask ourselves this recurring question of the shortening of time, it is doubtless that it is proposed that we reflect on it from now on. In this case, let us reflect, because it seems that time is important even in our present life: “Time is the ‘talent’ entrusted to all intelligent beings.” (UB 28:6.9) The question is asked: What about time?
When man asks himself a question, and whatever the question may be, he tends first to resolve it by what he has been taught, by what he already knows or by what he thinks he will find in the course of his research based on hypotheses, that is to say by the science of his time. Thus, with regard to time and space, his first tendency is to compare the cycles that he knows for having measured them. Now it is necessary to compare like with like; and if The Urantia Book indulges in such comparisons, it is because its authors consider the sequences of time of which they speak to us as being of the same nature. Within time, only the durations differ, as within space, only the volumes differ. Thus, The Urantia Book teaches us that the temporal cycles in the universes and up to Paradise are organized everywhere in the same way. In our system the year of Satania is 100 days of Jerusem, its headquarters planet; in our universe the year of Nebadon is 100 days of Salvington, its capital planet; in our superuniverse the year of Orvonton is 100 days of Uversa, its headquarters world. We are also taught that 365,000 days of Urantia equal 1 day of Paradise. “A thousand years are as one day,” our Holy Scriptures tell us! What does this mean?
Indeed, we are told on the one hand that Paradise is timeless, and on the other hand that a single day of this same Paradise lasts three hundred and sixty-five thousand of our days. With such affirmations, are we not attacking our mental balance? And if I continue, will I not soon be on the verge of schizophrenia? Is there not material here for mature and possibly salutary reflections? So what about time when we arrive on the worlds of Havona? If we are to believe the words of The Urantia Book (and we do, don’t we?) Time is, here too, of the same nature, and consequently comparable to that of Urantia. Indeed, we are told: “Each world of Havona has its own local time determined by its circuit. All the worlds of a given circuit have a year of the same length, since they revolve uniformly around Paradise, and the length of this year decreases from the outermost circuit to the innermost.” (UB 14:1.11) These two sentences teach us two particular and even interesting things, without however changing our point of view on the time of the physical elements. They reveal that the circuits of Havona do not rotate at the same speed as each other, while the planets within each circuit follow the same cruising speed. The closer a circuit is to the seven immense spheres of the Infinite Spirit, the more rapidly it rotates. Thus their respective speeds are proportionally increased both in function of their proximity to the center, as well as according to another data which is not revealed to us. All this is quite astonishing; indeed, let us examine this question with a wooden wheel. Let us recall these first wheels of our ancestors which equipped their ancient chariots. On this wheel we will have traced seven concentric circles and a radius crossing them all. At each intersection of this radius and the seven circles we will thus have the location of seven planetary points belonging respectively to each of the circuits of Havona. Let us turn the wheel. The seven points being on the same radius, we note that the seven planets turn in the same time around the hub. On our fictitious universal wheel, the year (one turn of the wheel) of any world of any circle would therefore have the same duration. But we see clearly that the innermost planet turns much more slowly. Now, we are told that the point that is the most internal on the wheel should complete a turn more quickly than the point on the second, so the wheel should be like a ball bearing, what am I saying one, rather seven concentric bearings, so that the most internal can turn faster than the second, the second faster than the third etc. As the Urantia Book tells us, “The length of this year decreases from the most external circuit to the most internal.” So the speeds are greater the closer we get to the center. And when we consider the gigantic whole that constitutes Havona, we can all the better approach the idea of the speed impelled to the interior circuit. Indeed, if the speeds are decreasing from the center to the periphery, we must see that the interior circuit of Havona is made up of planets rotating excessively faster than the seventh, since five other decreasing speeds are intercalated between them. It is the ratio of these respective speeds that is not disclosed to us. And perhaps there is an element there that can explain the notion of shortened space and time caused by an artifice beyond our understanding. Reduced space plus accelerated speeds are perhaps at the origin of this hypothetical effect?
All this is very interesting to know, and perhaps the more we advance towards the center, the more it will appear to us that this accelerated rotation is significant of a change in the temporal data, but for the moment we are still on Urantia and we are still led to establish that time is comparable from one end of the universe of universes to the other with the exception of “Paradise which is the only immobile thing in the universe of universes.” (UB 0:4.12) Durations are therefore established everywhere according to the speeds of the elements considered in their respective locations. These speeds are also always a function of a center; the center of an atomic nucleus, the center of a solar system, the center of a local system, the center of a constellation, etc. It is only in relation to the temporal constant established by the Deity that all the more or less locally standardized times can be established. Our problem is therefore not resolved. We will have to find something other than the analysis of the various rotations of physical elements to explain the timelessness and aspatiality of Paradise, why here time cannot in any way be shortened, while at the center of all things time can eternally not exist. In fact, everything can be summed up by this assertion of Jesus, provided that we do not attribute to the word “thing” any other designation than what it clearly alludes to. Jesus said: “The movement of time is revealed only in relation to a thing that does not move in space as a phenomenon dependent on time.” (UB 130:7.4) We naturally have an idea of what this is about, because the Urantia Book also teaches us that the only thing that does not move in the universe of universes, the only immobile thing is none other than the eternal and stationary Island of Paradise which is without time and without space.
If the established standard times are only a function of the center around which the elements that depend on them evolve, this does not justify our search for a hypothetical shortening of time or a no less hypothetical shrinking of space. Indeed, “From a practical point of view (physical - I am the one who specifies) movement is essential for time, but there is no universal unit of time based on movement, except to the extent that the standard day of Paradise-Havona is arbitrarily recognized as such.” (UB 12:5.1) It is interesting to note here that in the standard day of Paradise also seems to include Havona, which would mean that whatever the rotation speeds of the billion worlds of Havona, a day of a planet in the innermost circuit is excessively shorter than a day of the planets in the more eccentric circuits. Does this mean that there would be room to dig further into the theme of the shortening of time?
We are not there yet, and until further information we must consider that material units, small or large, atoms or universes, revolve in space according to times dependent on a center, and their respective architects have organized their spaces of revolutions and thus, their times of revolutions, by establishing relationships between movements, that is to say speeds of rotational movements of matter energy. This is why we are told by this Perfector of Wisdom: “Relations with time need movement in space to exist”, which Jesus corroborates by declaring: “The universe of space is a phenomenon linked to time when observed from any interior position outside the abode of Paradise.” (UB 130:7.4)
The difficulty in proving the shortening of time or space is therefore not of a physical nature. The careful study of space and time by science reveals nothing of any shortening of either. It seems that our scientists are therefore struggling with chimeras to prove what is not revealed by The Urantia Book, namely, that time and space are susceptible of shortening. Once and for all, we should understand that time and space are the purely experiential data of materiality. They are the interdependent factors constituting the movement of energy-matter, they are the combined resultants of the work of the twenty-eight thousand and eleven Master Architects, which gives them their essentially experiential character applicable to the entire master universe. Time cannot therefore in any way be existential, in the sense in which our Revelators understand this concept. Even in Havona time and space are the experiential part of existential-experiential relationships. We do not know, but our revelators have their opinions on these matters; they tell us: “We incline to the opinion that the potentials of eternal Havona are truly unlimited, that the central universe has the eternal capacity to serve as an experiential educational universe for all types of created beings, past, present, and future.” (UB 14:6.41)
Havona is the masterful interface between the experiential exterior and the existential interior. It is Paradise in that it is subabsolute, and it is superuniverse in that it is superevolutionary, “being existential-experiential it is closer to the absonite than any other concept revealed to Urantians.” (UB 42:10.7) Havona is therefore neither ABSO-lu nor fi-NITE; it is ABSO-NITE. Now, what is it to be absonite? In the scrupulous terminology used by our Revelators, to be absonite is “simply to be” (without connotation of being manifested or not in the experiential realm), and absonite realities have a relative function involved in the Ultimacy. “(UB 0:1.12) And how does the Ultimate manifest, that is to say how does the involvement of the absonite beings in the Ultimate manifest? The answer is entirely included in the difficult meaning of the English verb ”to eventuate" which means something like: to manifest, or better, to appear finally, a bit as if the absonite beings were existential beings who end up appearing according to the will of the Deity in the experiential domains.
No doubt the analysis of the role of Havona is excessively complex. But we can nevertheless determine that it is for all ascending mortal creatures the place where we will have to perfect our concepts of time and space in order to succeed in transcending them and finally succeeding in our accession to Paradise.
If the difficulty in proving a shortening of time and space is not of a physical nature, we can doubtless examine in what way it could be morontial by the study of mota, this more than superphilosophical reflection. We are told that on our world as on all worlds but also on insufficiently evolved worlds like ours, mota is replaced by the Revelations brought by different missions during the evolutionary ages. Now, the Revelation by the Urantia Book is in some way our best current motic source, in any case the most recent and the most extensive, that is to say, in conformity with our present evolution. It is therefore still in the Urantia Book, this compensatory substitute for mota on our present world, that we will be able to draw the concepts useful for our research. We have in the Urantia Book no revealed concept of mota. Nevertheless, we know that the study of this true metaphysics is called upon to allow us to evolve from the moment we find ourselves on the first mansion world. (UB 48:7.1) It is on the third that we will truly begin our morontia culture. We will train there and we are told that “This training is intended to better understand the correlation between morontia mota and mortal logic. It is the true introduction to the intelligent understanding of cosmic meanings and universal interrelationships.” (UB 47:5.3)
It is therefore on the level of concepts, the mental domain, that we will be closest to the real questions concerning cosmic meanings and universal interrelationships and that we will be able to seek answers to them. But we must first penetrate this reality that is announced to us: “The divine mechanism of the universe is much too perfect for the scientific methods of the finite human mind to be able to discern even a trace of the domination of the infinite mind. For this creative, controlling and sustaining mind is neither a material mind nor a creature mind; it is the mind-spirit functioning on and from the creative levels of divine reality.” (UB 42:11.2) Also, we will not have the pretension of discerning even a trace of the domination of the infinite mind; we will just try to understand what our study of cosmic realities, space and time, will probably consist of, from now on and until the finality of our destiny in Paradise. And if this study must be done on the mental plane, we must define what the mind is indispensable for doing so. Now, in essence, we are told on page 8.8, that the mind is “the total of conscious and unconscious experience, intelligence associated with emotional life rising to the level of spirit through worship and wisdom.”
This definition of the mind is fraught with consequences for our study of time and space, because the consciousness and unconsciousness of the personality are subject to greater or lesser evaluations of times and spaces. And it is doubtless in these relative estimates that lies the phenomenon of our present incomprehension on these subjects. Let us concretize all this: The durations of our activities do not seem to us to be of equal value, according to whether we spend them on pleasant or unpleasant tasks, worrying or boring. Let us wager that for lives of equal effective duration, if we could abstract ourselves from them completely, the durations felt by one and the other would differ greatly. We can think that the unconscious part of our estimates improves as we advance on the path of our ascension towards Paradise, but on the other hand the estimation of the duration of a given action seems to be strongly influenced by the duration of our past existence as well as, and especially by our promised future eternity of existence. On arriving on the first world of mansions, only two things will change for us; we will have a new body and we will know for certain that an eternity is offered to us to progress towards the Father.
Now the first fracture, if one may so say, in our present estimates of temporal and spatial values, will necessarily occur when we awaken on the first mansion world. The common man consciously limits his existence to the few decades spent on earth. But what happens when it turns out that an eternity of time is offered to us? We suddenly no longer live according to the same criteria of appreciation. An idea of this great change is evoked for us in the Urantia Book on the occasion of the trial of Lucifer. Thus, on earth, we judge the procedure of judgment of this iniquitous personality, which began some two hundred thousand years after his crime, to be fabulously long. Now we are informed that “From the point of view of Uversa, where the litigation is pending, one can estimate the delay by saying that justice was seized of Lucifer’s crime two and a half seconds after it was committed. » (UB 54:5.13) In the same paragraph we are told: ”If a Urantian mortal of average lifespan committed a crime transforming the planet into pandemonium, and if he were apprehended, judged and executed within two or three days after his crime, would this delay seem long to you? And yet, compared to the duration of Lucifer’s life, the comparison would remain valid even if his judgment currently begun were not to end before one hundred thousand years of Urantia time." Such a wait would be logical according to the judges of the superuniverse, the Ancients of Days. We can clearly see from this how dissimilar the time estimates are between, for example, men and certain universal personalities. Time seems to contract as the times of existence of personalities increase. What seems to us an eternity here below becomes a graspable duration further away in the direction of the center of the universes.
Time is therefore relative to the durations of existence of personalities, to past durations as well as to future durations, and it seems that it must therefore appear to us as such progressively, as we climb the rungs that lead us towards the Father. Time is not what we believe, because it is perpetually adapted by consciences and this is the true shortening that brings us so much closer to our embrace by the Deity. This is why one day Jesus declared: “Time is the current of the flow of temporal events consciously perceived by creatures.” (UB 130:1.6) Conscious perception is, in fact, always different from the inexorable rhythm of our clocks, always different from the nycthemeral cycle, always more and more different from the event durations of active matter-energy; in fact, the conscious perception of time tends to come ever closer to the concept of eternity. For “The consciousness of time does not need movement in space to exist.” (UB 12:5.1) From there to predict that our progressive career on the ideal path will be punctuated by our progressive appreciation of the shortening of time, there is only a margin to fill constituting the temporal element of our career through the worlds of space. But as long as we succeed in reducing our temporal and spatial estimates, we will not arrive at timelessness before having crossed the interface between time and eternity which constitutes the billion worlds of Havona, between experientiality and existentiality.
Jeanmarie Chair
| Le Lien Urantien — Issue 26 — Summer 2003 — Contents | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 26 — Summer 2003 | A Little Personal Theory on the Proof of God's Existence |