In this issue of Innerface, we attempt to bring to the notice of the reader, those special attributes assigned to a range of topics by the Papers.
Hard and fast definitions are rarely possible. Good examples are “morality” and “meanings and values”. Both may be described as situational. Their meaning is often unique to the particular situation being described. This will alter on every occasion, for no situation ever happens in precisely the same way again.
Terms like beauty and goodness are, to a large extent, “in the eye of the beholder.” And still others that cannot be nailed down are expressions such as “the will of God.” These are concepts the meaning for which needs to be “intuited” by the reader from an examination of many examples.
Thus exactness is often not a possibility. We may be forced to derive a subjective meaning purely from aur own experience. Many situations can be pinned down more satisfactorily from the basic ideals that cach individual builds up over a lifetime. Needless to say, this will be progressive, the moving sum of many separate occasions of experience.
Sometimes a guiding principle is available. If we are intimately familiar with the life, thought, and actions of Jesus of Nazareth, we may get a lead from the question, “What do I think Jesus would do in such an instance.” Our answers will change over time as the product of our experiences. That is the way of things.
Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.
Vital information for Urantians Is what is God like, and what does God ask from us. If we are informed that God is love, or God is good, what does that information really tell us?
Real knowledge of God can only come from divine revelation. The simple reason for that is because the lower cannot define the higher—the created cannot define its creator.
It follows that dependable knowledge of what God is like and what he requires of us can only be derived from a divine authority.
Many people believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the direct source of virtually all that we know about God. Unfortunately his message was distorted badly due to gentile misunderstanding of imagery in the traditional Jewish mode of story telling—which the Gentiles interpreted literally. The Urantia Papers correct those errors. We let them speak for themselves.
The Universal Father is First Cause and Controller of all that is.
He created the finite universes to be inhabited by intelligent creatures who could know and love him, and be loved by him.
The supreme goal of will-creatures is to attain God—to be like him.
To “Be perfect as I am perfect” is man’s first duty.
Perfection in the infinite sense is unattainable by mortals. Their divine goal is in finite aspects of divinity of motivation and will.
The true meaning of the divine command to be perfect ever urges man onwards in pursuit of spiritual values and universe meanings.
Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict retributive justice; God as a Father transcends God as a judge.
God loves not like a father but as a father. He is the Paradise Father of every universe personality.
When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father’s will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.
Life is making us abandon established stereotypes and outdated views, it is making us discard illusions. Mikhail Gorbachev
Teach us delight in simple things,
And mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And love to all men 'neath the sun! Rudyard Kipling
The Father is universal spirit, the source of truth, primal reality, and father personality.
God is not an anthropomorphic concept, the “noblest work of man.”
In human experience, knowledge of the actuality of the existence of God is dependent on the indwelling God-Spirit that gives rise to God-consciousness and the urge to seek God and to be like him.
The existence of God (who is spirit) cannot be demonstrated by materialistic means, but is reasonable to logic and philosophy, is essential to religion, and is the hope of personal survival.
The proof of God’s existence is in the experiencing of his presence.
As mind, God functions in the Deity of the Infinite Spirit. As spirit, he is manifest through the Eternal Son.
God maintains immediate contact with his universe children by means of his spirit presence.
Man may observe the works of God. He cannot see God.
God is not hiding from man. Mortal man could not see God and live.
God’s spirit nature is shared with the Eternal Son. Conjointly, both share their spirit with the Infinite Spirit.
The spirit ‘fragments’ of the Father that indwell man foster the evolution of their immortal soul. The mind of man originates in the local universe. It evolves spiritually by choosing to do God’s will.
The mind that is joined with matter cannot survive death. Mind yielded to God’s spirit transmutes the potentially spirit phases of mind into the realities of the soul thus ensuring their survival.
God who is absolute, eternal, and infinite is also good, true, gracious, and compassionate.
The infinity of the perfection of God eternally constitutes him as mystery. The mystery of mysteries is his divine presence in the mind of mortal man.
The physical bodies of mortals are hosts to God’s spirit.
If man chooses to survive mortal existence, the spirit of God accompanies him.
High spiritual beings are nonplussed by this mystery.
The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to the fullness of each mortal’s capacity.
God is no respecter of persons, spiritual or material.
The revelation of spirit realities involve mysteries so profound that only the faith-grasp of the God-knowing mortal can achieve recognition of the infinite by the finite.
Far from the maddening crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Thomas Gray
A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child. Chinese proverb