© 2022 Juan José López Vallejos
© 2022 Urantia Association of Spain
I could not affirm that the text included below is my favorite, as there are many others that resonate particularly according to my mood in various circumstances. But a strong tendency to rationalize, which leads me to pass through the filter of my mind everything that concerns me in a special way, reveals my limitations as far as faith is concerned.
In general, our lives go through a first period in which what we call faith is limited to our submission to a set of stale beliefs and meaningless rituals that we finally end up rejecting.
Searching for alternatives to these obsolete formulas, some of us have come across THE URANTIA BOOK, which satisfies our avidity towards the deep mysteries of existence. Its content, of great intellectual coherence and special beauty, causes a strong feeling of security (which could be classified as naive) among many followers, causing a blind adherence to its statements.
But I don’t think this is enough. Pretending to explain the eternal questions of philosophy through reason prevents us from assimilating them through a “friendly” way, that is, through the heart. We are dealing with nothing less than who God is or could be, the purpose of the cosmos, our place within it. And such questions cannot have a satisfactory answer by reducing them to the realm of ideas, leaving no room for feelings.
Man is a complex being, in which his most valuable components are those with a vocation for transcendence: his spirit and his mind. The first has a special connection with Divinity, and even forms a substantial part of it; He is in charge of insinuating to the mind (reason) the best path to follow at all times. For its part, it receives your recommendations; He meditates on them and finally decides. The problem lies in which of these two phases has the greatest weight in our habitual decisions. And it often happens that in “reasoning” people it is the last one who comes out the winner.
How to overcome this inconvenience? The solution was pointed out by Jesus himself to Nicodemus, the influential Pharisee member of the Sanhedrin, an honest intellectual drawn to the doctrines of Jesus but unable to abandon his comfortable social situation and his attachment to secular beliefs. Jesus asks him to be born again; he had to turn his life upside down. (UB 142:6.1 and following)
Nicodemus left perplexed: what does “born again” mean?
The explanation would be that we must abandon the predominance of reason as the only argument to establish our beliefs. We must consolidate it with the insinuations of feeling, with an attitude of serene confidence and total abandonment of the will towards its suggestions. Allowing the heart to take an active part in our decisions, until we can “feel our thoughts and think our feelings.”
This surrender of the will is the attitude of the small child who is safe and happy in the father’s arms and trusts him completely.
It is in this way when the life-giving and liberating value of faith is fully felt and assimilated what the following quote indicates. In a precise and poetic way, the text highlights the enormous difference between the common beliefs, arising from study (in the best of cases), or from habit (routine) in the majority of believers, and the faith that arises from that turning of the heart that comes to motivate life.
Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.
Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist. (UB 101:8.1-2)
¶ References
- Article of the Magazine Light and Life Online: https://aue.urantia-association.org/2022/05/31/mi-parrafo-favorito-9/