© 2016 Jeffrey Wattles
© 2016 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
The bestowal of Jesus, our Creator Son, and his gospel give hope for living an ideal personal religion now. For this, people must have a clear understanding of their relationship with God in order to fully live their faith and share it.
The universal spiritual authorities, noting that “there is great confusion as to the meaning of such terms as God, divinity and deity” and that “human beings are in even greater confusion and uncertainty when it comes to the relationships between the divine personalities designated by these many appellations…,” have commissioned a commission of truth revealers to present increased concepts and knowledge mostly drawn from human records in order to expand our cosmic consciousness and heighten our spiritual perception (UB 0:1.1-2).
In this regard, The Urantia Book gives us keys and marks a crucial step towards a better integration of truth, beauty and goodness in our daily and social life.
How to share these truths?
In this essay, “Actually Revealing the Truth,” Jeffrey Wattles, an ardent student of The Urantia Book, shares his experience as a professor of religious philosophy at Kent State University in the USA, and is the author of numerous other essays and books including The Golden Rule [Oxford University Press]. Jeff is also an excellent speaker and teacher, giving numerous lectures and leading well-attended study groups.
¶ Using the power of Revelation with the wisdom of evolution
This was our first conversation. After several exchanges of words on the telephone, I asked, “How can I help you?” I felt that my new friend’s answer came from the depths of his soul: “I want to become better at presenting The Urantia Book to others.” For days I pondered what he had said, waiting for some new insight to offer in return. This essay continues the conversation.
We know what The Urantia Book has done for us and we see a world that needs to change in light of its truths. It may seem like the obvious thing to do is to go forth as evangelists proclaiming the book. We meet people and introduce them to the book, but sometimes things don’t go well and we may feel strange and wonder what to do.
We will be able to reveal truth to our world in a way that is both divine and wise if we combine the courage to reveal with the wisdom of evolutionary methods, adapting what we teach and how we do it to the receptivity of the other person.
If we study The Urantia Book looking for wisdom that combines revelation and evolution we find many things. Each part of the book has important things to offer us, but here we will look primarily to Jesus to collect some principles of truth revelation with evolutionary wisdom.
¶ 1. Prepare BY STUDY
As a young man, Jesus studied the scriptures of his place and time. As a young adult, at the age of 27, he expanded his knowledge. “In the synagogue at Capernaum he found many new books in the library chests and spent at least five evenings a week in intensive study.” (UB 129:1.9)
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On the way to Rome, he studied the religions of the world. During the four months he trained the first six apostles, Jesus not only revealed the teachings of the kingdom of heaven, but he led them in the study of the Jewish scriptures.
We will learn to be wise in revealing truth from our study of The Urantia Book and from a better understanding of the people with whom we communicate and the sources of truth upon which they rely.
¶ 2. Embrace evolution
After Jesus’ baptism, he took forty days to formulate the great decisions that would guide his public career. He began by mentally reviewing the entire history of Urantia, including the successes and failures of previous revelations—when they had followed the wisdom of combining revelation and evolution and when they had rushed forward and betrayed the promise of their gift to the world.
Then Jesus made the big decisions that would guide Him in His teaching career.
L Jesus chooses to establish the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men by natural, ordinary, difficult and trying methods, simply by the procedures that his earthly children will have to follow later in their works to enlarge and extend this kingdom of heaven. » (UB 136:8.6)
Evolution is an acquired taste. Evolution may be slow, difficult, and disappointing; but if we allow the Adjuster to give us a spiritual perspective, we can delight in any single word or action that suits the occasion. Eventually, we develop an appetite for the way of the Supreme, the way ordained by the Father.
¶ 3. Make sure the other person has embraced the gospel Truth at their entry level before giving advanced teaching
After the apostles were trained, ordained, and consecrated, they could begin their public work. Jesus told them to reveal the truths of the gospel of the kingdom of God to its entry level, the family of God, and to make sure that the person had spiritually received the truth of sonship with the Father before undertaking advanced teachings.
“When Simon Zelotes and Jesus were alone, Simon asked the Master: “Why is it that I could not persuade him? Why did he so resist me and so readily lend an ear to you?” Jesus answered: “Simon, Simon, how many times have I instructed you to refrain from all efforts to take something out of the hearts of those who seek salvation? How often have I told you to labor only to put something into these hungry souls? Lead men into the kingdom, and the great and living truths of the kingdom will presently drive out all serious error. When you have presented to mortal man the good news that God is his Father, you can the easier persuade him that he is in reality a son of God. And having done that, you have brought the light of salvation to the one who sits in darkness. Simon, when the Son of Man came first to you, did he come denouncing Moses and the prophets and proclaiming a new and better way of life? No. I came not to take away that which you had from your forefathers but to show you the perfected vision of that which your fathers saw only in part. Go then, Simon, teaching and preaching the kingdom, and when you have a man safely and securely within the kingdom, then is the time, when such a one shall come to you with inquiries, to impart instruction having to do with the progressive advancement of the soul within the divine kingdom.”” (UB 141:6.2)
“That night Jesus discoursed to the apostles on the new life in the kingdom. He said in part: “When you enter the kingdom, you are reborn. You cannot teach the deep things of the spirit to those who have been born only of the flesh; first see that men are born of the spirit before you seek to instruct them in the advanced ways of the spirit. Do not undertake to show men the beauties of the temple until you have first taken them into the temple. Introduce men to God and as the sons of God before you discourse on the doctrines of the fatherhood of God and the sonship of men. Do not strive with men—always be patient. It is not your kingdom; you are only ambassadors. Simply go forth proclaiming: This is the kingdom of heaven—God is your Father and you are his sons, and this good news, if you wholeheartedly believe it, is your eternal salvation.”” (UB 141:6.4)
The advanced teaching here does not go as far as the historical fact of the divine Sonship of Jesus, but to an intellectual discussion of the meaning of our relationships in the family of God.
¶ 4. Gain skill in Truth Revealing at varying levels
Jesus’ teaching to Simon Zealots implies that we would do well to become more adept at revealing truth at various levels. When we think of revelation, the first thing that often comes to mind is The Urantia Book; some people refer to the book as “the revelation” in a way that makes it seem as if other revelations are not quite up to date.
But there are many types of revelation, and each has an essential function. “Truth is always a revelation. It is a self-revelation when it emerges as a result of the work of the indwelling Adjuster, and it is an epochal revelation when it is presented through other celestial agencies, groups, or personalities.” (UB 101:4.3)
When we present God as our Father to others in a living way, we reveal truth. When we relate to others as family in a living way, we reveal truth. If we interpret the meaning of the multifaceted gospel in a way that is helpful to those who want to better understand what they have begun to experience, we reveal truth. As we learn to share revelation on various levels, we can adjust our response to who these people are and where they are in their journey.
¶ 5. Adjust your teaching to the other person’s receptiveness
One of the most important principles in teaching is to adjust to the other person’s receptivity.
“The characteristic difference between evolved and revealed religion is a new quality of divine wisdom which is added to purely experiential human wisdom. But it is experience in and with the human religions that develops the capacity for subsequent reception of increased bestowals of divine wisdom and cosmic insight.” (UB 100:6.9)
“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)
Never, in all your ascent to Paradise, will you gain anything by impatiently attempting to circumvent the established and divine plan by short cuts, personal inventions, or other devices for improving on the way of perfection, to perfection, and for eternal perfection. (UB 75:8.5)
This statement is sobering, but a person who thirsts for God’s will and way will embrace this teaching as further motivation to follow the required evolutionary path toward spiritual rebirth on our world.
Our world is in such urgent need of truth that we might be tempted to throw revealed evolutionary wisdom to the winds; but that would be like throwing all the fundamentals of canoeing overboard when we hit whitewater rapids.
¶ 6. Attract demand through a coordinated life of truth
When the religious leaders moved to arrest Jesus in Galilee, Jesus explained why the apostles were not doing a good job of representing His gospel. They lacked determination in obedience to the truth. And then Jesus gave His great teaching on how to live so beautifully that others will bring you the questions of their soul.
““In all that you do, become not one-sided and overspecialized. The Pharisees who seek our destruction verily think they are doing God’s service. They have become so narrowed by tradition that they are blinded by prejudice and hardened by fear. Consider the Greeks, who have a science without religion, while the Jews have a religion without science. And when men become thus misled into accepting a narrow and confused disintegration of truth, their only hope of salvation is to become truth-co-ordinated—converted.” (UB 155:1.4)
““Let me emphatically state this eternal truth: If you, by truth co-ordination, learn to exemplify in your lives this beautiful wholeness of righteousness, your fellow men will then seek after you that they may gain what you have so acquired. The measure wherewith truth seekers are drawn to you represents the measure of your truth endowment, your righteousness. The extent to which you have to go with your message to the people is, in a way, the measure of your failure to live the whole or righteous life, the truth-co-ordinated life.”” (UB 155:1.5)
To be able to unite our spiritual life with the truths of science, we will adapt our teaching to the evolutionary environment of facts and causes.
¶ 7. Pray carefully for divine wisdom
If we are truly to seek divine wisdom on this matter, we must go through the whole process of prayer. 91:9.1-9 (1002.6-14) All seven points are crucial, but I will comment on only two of them.
- We must have honestly exhausted all human possibilities of adjustment.
- You must have been industrious.
To be industrious means not asking God to do our duties for us. The study of Paper 110 teaches us the ease with which mortal man confuses the surges of the unconscious with the contributions of the superconscious.
We will therefore study The Urantia Book to see what it can teach us on the subject. The other point of a deep prayer on which I would like to comment is this: You must surrender all the wishes of the mind and all the desires of the soul to the transforming grasp of spiritual growth. You must have experienced an enhancement of meanings and an elevation of values.UB 91:9.4
Entering surrender mode is a profound event. We acknowledge our mental desires—including our intellectual analysis of the issue—we accept the possibility that God might have something higher. We acknowledge our soul’s desires—our highest values and ideals—and we take the time to radically open ourselves to the possibility that God might lift us up.
“God answers man’s prayer by giving him an increased revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness. Prayer is a subjective gesture, but it contacts with mighty objective realities on the spiritual levels of human experience; it is a meaningful reach by the human for superhuman values. It is the most potent spiritual-growth stimulus.” (UB 91:8.11)
The joys of teamwork and pleasant surprises await us as we reveal the truth in cooperation with what The Urantia Book reveals about the wisdom of evolution.
Happy reveal!
Jeffrey Wattles
(Translated from English by Jean Royer-May 2016)