© 2000 Jeffrey Wattles
© 2000 Urantia Association International (IUA)
Jeffrey Wattles, USA
Toward the end of the Foreword and also at the beginning of Part IV, authors of The Urantia Book acknowledge their debt to human sources. They used more than one thousand human concepts representing the bighest and most advanced planetary knowledge of spiritual values and universe meanings UB 0:12.12. In their efforts to reveal truth and co-ordinate essential knowledge, whenever they judged that a human expression was “adequate,” their mandate required them to use it (UB 0:12.10-13). The principal author of Part IV acknowledges indebtedness to over two thousand human beings. As far as possible I have derived my information from purely human sources UB 121:8.12. When teachings have been acceptably expressed, the author has favored the apparently human thought patterns UB 121:8.12. [T]he majority of the ideas and even some of the effective expressions which I have thus utilized had their origin in the minds of the men of many races . . . . In many ways I have served more as a collector and editor than as an original narrator UB 121:8.14. Human thought patterns include sequences of ideas in an exposition and the structure of books.
In the past, students could read these acknowledgements and then practically forget them as they read on. Now, however, as some of the sources are coming to light, readers who follow this emerging research have new uncertainties and a new potential for adventure in study.
Are we ready for this new knowledge? Its impact can be revolutionary. In the wake of Isaac Newton’s discoveries in physics, the leading European minds of the eighteenth century tended to embrace a mechanistic cosmology, although thoroughgoing mechanism was not implied by Newton’s results. Only careful thought, drawing on a variety of sources, would restore a suitably balanced philosophy of nature.
New findings and speculation about human sources for The Urantia Book may initially have a revolutionary impact, leading some minds to doubt that the book or portions of it were indited by superhuman authors. It is natural to hold a passage from The Urantia Book in lower esteem if that passage appears to have been drawn from some human source. After all, there are many remarks about the limitations of the human mind and moral language: The contemplation of the inmmature and inactive human intellect should lead only to reactions of humility UB 9:5.7.
Nevertheless, the human mind has remarkable potentials. Amadon’s performance was enthralling to observers all over Nebadon. Superhuman observers were usually unable to tell when Jesus was operating solely on the basis of human resources. All of man’s universe romancing may not be fact, but much, very much, is truth UB 196:3.31. Truth is always a revelation: autorevelation when it emerges as a result of the work of the indwelling Adjuster; epochal revelation when it is presented by the function of some other celestial agency, group, or personality UB 101:4.3.
In questions about the relation of revelation to human sources, both-and thinking is often wiser than either-or thinking. Of course there will be hard cases when the dissimilarities between the passage in the book and in an alleged source are great. When the similarities are great, however, it is important to remember that human authorship of certain concepts, phrases, and patterns of ideas is consistent with superhuman revelation. What is essential is that the superhuman author actually chose to include the human concept or expression, thereby authorizing it as acceptable for the purposes of the particular paper in which it occurs.
Suppose someone finds a source for one of Jesus’ discourses. How should such a discovery be interpreted? One alternative is to consider the episode reported in Part IV as a fiction, wholly projected on the basis of a recent source. Another alternative is to consider that the more recent human author expressed ideas “in modern phraseology” that were close enough to what Jesus originally said to be used. We have no guideline to estimate what “close enough” would have meant to the authors. As a historian of philosophy, however, I am continually struck by the contemporary flavor of the writings of ancient Greek philosophers. They debated many questions that persist today; conversely, many current issues were debated back then. Furthermore, just as the Adamic mission arrives only when human biological evolution has peaked, perhaps The Urantia Papers could begin only when the highest understanding of Jesus’ life and teachings emerging in the New Testament had been attained. Accordingly, it becomes plausible that the authors of the Papers used contemporary “sources” to restate Jesus’ discourses.
While acknowledging the contribution of painstaking research and new knowledge, let us also strive for balance and remember the primary projects that the revelators point out, projects that merit the lion’s share of most readers’ available time: doing whatever it takes to become like God, revealing gospel truth to those we meet, promoting a new vision of Jesus’ life and teachings so as to unify the present-day professed followers of Jesus, carrying the new revelation wisely to the religions of our world, and engaging in projects having to do with the home, education, industry, health, and politics. Sooner or later, this information was to surface. Let us be inspired by the interweaving of human and superhuman efforts thus displayed and organize our study efforts to join the great projects being led from above.