© 2001 Ken Glasziou
© 2001 The Brotherhood of Man Library
| Geophysics—further prophecies: Continental Drift and Age of the Solar System | Volume 8 - No. 5 — Index | Error in the Urantia Papers |
Although the Urantia Papers contain a considerable amount of science related material, most of it is really a background setting for the important aspects of these Papers—those concerned with the religious and spiritual values of mankind. Whether or not this background setting ranks as infallible truth is not as important as that it provides a framework in which we can think about that which is ultimately of extreme importance to mankind—why are we here and what is our destiny?
Nevertheless any rational thinker must admit that the Papers do present some truly prophetic scientific material having aspects that were unknown to human scientists at the time of receipt in 1935—as well as some that remained unknown until long afterwards. Contrasting with this, the Papers also contain much material that was either outdated, soon to be outdated, or simply erroneous. Obviously the authors of these Papers were amazingly knowledgeable, highly intelligent, and display extraordinary wisdom. Their strange way of presentation must have been considered and deliberate. Our question is why?
Historically, few of the early readers of the Papers were qualified to judge the quality of science in the book. Hence most, swayed by the exalted status claimed for the authors but despite denials in the Papers themselves, assumed revelation must automatically imply infallibility.
Descended from the apes? My dear, we will hope it is not true. But if it is, let us pray that it may not become generally known.
Vicar’s tvife (anon)
Since those early days, many readers have discovered that the science content of the Papers includes both remarkable prophesy and serious error. At times skeptics have leveled the criticism that if enough random guesses are made, some will be correct by sheer chance. However there are instances in these Papers where the probability of being right or wrong through random guesswork can be rationally assessed—and in enough instances to cause us to conclude that the “through guesswork” alternative is not really a valid option. That leaves an unanswered question—what is the explanation for this strange mix of prophetic science and sometimes ridiculously wrong material?
The history of the Urantia Papers as provided by the convener of the so-called Contact Commission, Dr W. S. Sadler[1], and by others[2],[3], tells of distinct phases during the receipt of the Papers. The first, a preparatory stage, commenced perhaps as early as 1905 and continued through until 1924; a second, in which questions were asked and new Papers received, was from 1925 until 1935 when the final version of the Papers was pronounced to be complete; a third period lasted until 1942 during which some minor modifications were made, the contract to print was signed and the galley proofs checked; there then followed a lengthy and unexplained period terminating in 1955 when the book was finally published. During this final period the completed printing plates remained in the strong room of the publishers, R. R. Donnelly and Sons, awaiting instructions to print.
If we accept Dr Sadler as our sole authority, all of the Papers of Parts 1, 2, and 3 were received through a single unidentified person, a patient of Dr’s William and Lena Sadler, who either spoke or wrote during a disturbed period of sleep of which he was quite unconscious. Part 4 of the book, the Life of Jesus of Nazareth, may have had a different origin though the evidence for this is conflicting.[2:1] Parts 1, 2, and 3 were completed in 1934, and Part 4 in 1935.
For our present purpose, the period during which the Papers were received is our main interest. Lasting about ten years, according to Dr Sadler it commenced in a contact experience when a “visitor,” speaking through the sleeping subject, answered a question with these words, “If only you knew what you are in contact with you would not ask such trivial questions. You would rather ask such questions as might elicit answers of supreme value to the human race.”
Later that night one of Dr. Sadler’s group exclaimed: “Now they have asked for it—let us give them questions that no human being can answer[1:1].”
A group called the Forum was then organized, the arrangement being that Papers would be received only as answers to specific questions from the Forum. Questions were posed, collected by Dr Sadler, placed in an arranged location, and an answer later received through the medium of the “sleeping subject.”
A prophesy. I see wars, horrible wars, and the Tiber foaming with much blood.
Virgil
One of these Papers contained material important to our quest for understanding the error content of the Papers. It needs to be read in the light of the aim of the Forum members that they should ask questions that no human being could answer.
Because your world is generally ignorant of origins, even of physical origins, it has appeared to be wise from time to time to provide instruction in cosmology. And always has this made trouble for the future. The laws of revelation hamper us greatly by their proscription of the impartation of unearned or premature knowledge. Any cosmology presented as a part of revealed religion is destined to be outgrown in a very short time. Accordingly, future students of such a revelation are tempted to discard any element of genuine religious truth it may contain because they discover errors on the face of the associated cosmologies therein presented.
Mankind should understand that we who participate in the revelation of truth are very rigorously limited by the instructions of our superiors. . . within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. These new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records. Let it be made clear that revelations are not necessarily inspired.” (from (UB 101:4.1-2))
From the first paragraph we note that the laws of revelation “proscribe the impartation of unearned or premature knowledge.” In this Paper it is also stated that in some cases information could be supplied to fill vital missing gaps in otherwise earned knowledge. Perhaps this was what sanctioned the inclusion of prophetic material—despite the proscription against the provision of unearned knowledge.
The goal of Forum members to pose questions that human beings could not answer is in conflict with what are described as the laws of revelation—those proscribing provision of unearned knowledge. We might ponder what would have occurred if the answer to each such question had been, “Sorry, we are not permitted to answer.” The revelators, whoever they might be, were in the hot seat. Failure to answer probably would have resulted in collapse of the project and loss of twenty years of preparatory work.
If we believe what we find in the Papers themselves, a betrayal of trust on the part of the revelators is unthinkable. Celestial beings of their status simply do not break the rules. In most cases what they appear to have done is to provide the most up-to-date knowledge available in the early 1930’s that came reasonably close to being an answer to the question—even though it might later prove to be erroneous. In some cases, there was no suitable response available and rather than responding, “Sorry we cannot answer,” fill material was used that would pass muster for many years into the future but could eventually become seriously wrong.
The people who live in the past must yield to the people who live in the future. Otherwise the world would begin to turn the other way round.
Arnold Bennett
In the long run this served to solve two problems. Granting the high status of the authors, they would probably anticipate the inevitability of many Forum members and later readers acquiring a fundamentalist attitude to the revelation comparable with that of biblical fundamentalists. But the inclusion of what would later become blatantly erroneous answers could act to prevent those at a higher level of rationality and scientific knowledge from according an infallibility status to the Papers. It is also possible that the inclusion of the prophetic material had the deliberate purpose of seeking to attract the attention of those receptive individuals whose major interests would find common ground with the Papers because of their intrinsic spiritual and religious value—despite the erroneous cosmology.
The revelators covered themselves by stating what they were doing in a number of places with comments such as “the cosmology of these Papers is not inspired.” Up to and even beyond the 1930’s, for most people that word “cosmology” had a far broader meaning than astronomy alone. Cosmology was a traditional branch of metaphysics and was even inclusive of the famous cosmological argument of Thomas Aquinas about the existence of God. And their words “not inspired” later received a meaning that is less than infallible in the authors’ statement, “The creature may crave infallibility, but only the Creators possess it.” (Paper 159, Section 4) In actuality none of the listed authors of the Papers were of “Creator” status.
There is a second and important reason why this revelation could not be both consistent and infallible. The Papers state, “As to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will and that decree is absolute.” (Paper 5, Section 6) And, “the portal of eternity opens only to the freewill choice of the free sons of the God of free will.” Furthermore, the Papers also state that faith alone will pass you through that portal. (Paper 140, Section 2)
An authoritative and infallible revelation provides a certainty and an authority that is incompatible with human beings having free will choice. For, as has been stated, “If we had reason for faith, then it would not be faith at all, it would be logic. Faith can only be unreasonable.” (Appleyard[4])
Elsewhere we find: “Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure—uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite love of the Universal Father. . . ” (Paper 111, Section 7)
For example, the Urantia Papers state that our eternal universe career is dependent upon the goal of our freewill decisions eventually becoming coincidental with God’s will. To reject that as our goal is to sentence ourselves to “become as if we had never been.” (Paper 2, Section 3) So do we really have free will? Only if we are uncertain about the veracity of these conditional statements.
In reality God had no option but to ensure that “uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure.” His alternative? To have created us as robots lacking in free will. Realization of this truth eliminates those puerile arguments about good and evil. We humans are totally responsible for all deliberate evil. And accidental evil is the unavoidable and inevitable result of giving free will to imperfect beings.
Thus the authors of these Urantia Papers also had no option but to find ways and means of preventing their revelation from becoming an infallible security blanket for those whose faith was not yet sufficiently advanced to accept the free will offered to them by the God of free will.
“They would not lie to us” is the cry we hear from those who, in their insecurity, cling to fundamentalism. But the revelators have explained very carefully and very explicitly what they were doing:
“No revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father can ever be complete. All other celestial ministrations are no more than partial, transient, and practically adapted to local conditions in time and space. While such admissions as this may possibly detract from the immediate force and authority of all revelations, the time has arrived on Urantia when it is advisable to make such frank statements, even at the risk of weakening the future influence and authority of this, the most recent of the revelations of truth to the mortal races of Urantia.” (Paper 92, Section 4)
A further consideration is the stated hope of the authors that their offering will help to catalyze the metamorphosis of Christianity from a religion of authority, one that is largely dependent on the infallibility or near infallibility ascribed to the Gospels and apostolic letters of the New Testament, to a religion of the spirit that discovers its authority and meaning in the personal relationships of individual Christians with their indwelling spirit of Deity. Religion of the spirit, as described in the Urantia Papers (Paper 155, Sections 5 & 6), could never be either authoritarian or infallible.
Ecclesiasticism is at once and forever incompatible with that living faith, growing spirit, and firsthand experience of the faith-comrades of Jesus in the brotherhood of man in the spiritual association of the kingdom of heaven. The praiseworthy desire to preserve traditions of past achievement often leads to the defense of outgrown systems of worship. The well-meant desire to foster ancient thought systems effectually prevents the sponsoring of new and adequate means and methods designed to satisfy the spiritual longings of the expanding and advancing minds of modern men. Likewise, the Christian churches of the twentieth century stand as great, but wholly unconscious, obstacles to the immediate advance of the real gospel—the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
“‘The kingdom of God is within you’ was probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made, next to the declaration that his Father is a living and loving spirit.” (Paper 195, Section 10)
| Geophysics—further prophecies: Continental Drift and Age of the Solar System | Volume 8 - No. 5 — Index | Error in the Urantia Papers |
Dr W.S. Sadler (editor) History of the Urantia Movement. ↩︎ ↩︎
Larry Mullins with Dr. M.J. Sprunger. (2000) A History of the Urantia Papers. (Penumbra Press, Boulder.) ↩︎ ↩︎
Ernest P. Moyer. (2000) The Birth of a Divine Revelation. (Moyer Publishing, Hanover Pa) ↩︎
Bryan Appleyard, Understanding the Present. ↩︎