© 1998 Ken Glasziou
© 1998 The Brotherhood of Man Library
| Materialistic Determinism—Last Rites | Volume 5 - No. 5 — Index | The Dawn of Creative Imagination—the Alter Ego |
The Urantia Book was given to the world at a time when the concepts of materialism and a determinate universe were at the peak of their influence. The accompanying godlessness that goes with materialism may have peaked by the third quarter of the century and is perhaps now in decline. But in the first half of our century, many of the really great minds, such as that of Albert Einstein for example, firmly believed in a determinate universe, basing that belief upon the immutability of operation of the universal laws of physics.
“God does not play dice with us,” said Einstein—while realizing that such a philosophy also meant that even the worst among our criminals were not accountable for their actions on the grounds that they did what they did because they could not do otherwise. European philosophers in particular took this kind of thinking to the very limits, culminating in the conclusion that this godless, purposeless, universe is simply an absurd joke.
So did The Urantia Book go along with a determinate universe and a God who does not play dice, or did it plumb for free will, choice of action, and indeterminacy? Let’s see what it has to say:
“The bestowal of creature personality confers relative liberation from slavish response to antecedent causation, and the personalities of all such moral beings, evolutionary or otherwise, are centered in the personality of the Universal Father. They are ever drawn towards his Paradise presence by that kinship of being which constitutes the vast and universal family circle and fraternal circuit of the eternal God. There is a kinship of divine spontaneity in all personality.” (UB 5:6.9)
“Paradise is the pattern of infinity; the God of Action is the activator of that pattern. Paradise is the material fulcrum of infinity; the agencies of the Third Source and Center are the levers of intelligence which motivate the material level and inject spontaneity into the mechanism of the physical creation.” (UB 9:3.8)
“The mind-gravity circuit is dependable; it emanates from the Third Person of Deity on Paradise, but not all the observable function of mind is predictable. Throughout all known creation there parallels this circuit of mind some little-understood presence whose function is not predictable. We believe that this unpredictability is partly attributable to the function of the Universal Absolute. What this function is, we do not know; what actuates it, we can only conjecture; concerning its relation to creatures, we can only speculate.” (UB 9:6.8)
“Certain phases of the unpredictability of finite mind may be due to the incompleteness of the Supreme Being, and there is a vast zone of activities wherein the Conjoint Actor and the Universal Absolute may possibly be tangent. There is much about mind that is unknown, but of this we are sure: The Infinite Spirit is the perfect expression of the mind of the Creator to all creatures; the Supreme Being is the evolving expression of the minds of all creatures to their Creator.” (UB 9:6.9)
“We do not find the overcontrol of Supremacy to be wholly predictable. Furthermore, this unpredictability appears to be characterized by a certain developmental incompleteness, undoubtedly an earmark of the incompleteness of the Supreme and of the incompleteness of finite reaction to the Paradise Trinity.” (UB 10:7.4)
“In all your contemplation of universal phenomena, make certain that you take into consideration the interrelation of physical, intellectual, and spiritual energies, and that due allowance is made for the unexpected phenomena attendant upon their unification by personality and for the unpredictable phenomena resulting from the actions and reactions of experiential Deity and the Absolutes.” (UB 12:6.4)
“The universe is highly predictable only in the quantitative or gravity-measurement sense; even the primal physical forces are not responsive to linear gravity, nor are the higher mind meanings and true spirit values of ultimate universe realities. Qualitatively, the universe is not highly predictable as regards new associations of forces, either physical, mindal, or spiritual, although many such combinations of energies or forces become partially predictable when subjected to critical observation. When matter, mind, and spirit are unified by creature personality, we are unable fully to predict the decisions of such a freewill being.” (UB 12:6.5)
“All phases of primordial force, nascent spirit, and other nonpersonal ultimates appear to react in accordance with certain relatively stable but unknown laws and are characterized by a latitude of performance and an elasticity of response which are often disconcerting when encountered in the phenomena of a circumscribed and isolated situation. What is the explanation of this unpredictable freedom of reaction disclosed by these emerging universe actualities? These unknown, unfathomable unpredictables—whether pertaining to the behavior of a primordial unit of force, the reaction of an unidentified level of mind, or the phenomenon of a vast preuniverse in the making in the domains of outer space—probably disclose the activities of the Ultimate and the presence-performances of the Absolutes, which antedate the function of all universe Creators.” (UB 12:6.6)
“The farther out we go, the more certainly we encounter those variational and unpredictable phenomena which are so unerringly characteristic of the unfathomable presence-performances of the Absolutes and the experiential Deities. And these phenomena must be indicative of some universal overcontrol of all things.” (UB 15:8.9)
The power centers and controllers exert perfect control over only seven of the ten forms of energy contained in each basic universe current; those forms which are partly or wholly exempt from their control must represent the unpredictable realms of energy manifestation dominated by the Unqualified Absolute. If they exert an influence upon the primordial forces of this Absolute, we are not cognizant of such functions, though there is some slight evidence which would warrant the opinion that certain of the physical controllers are sometimes automatically reactive to certain impulses of the Universal Absolute. (UB 29:3.11)
“The interelectronic space of an atom is not empty. Throughout an atom this interelectronic space is activated by wavelike manifestations which are perfectly synchronized with electronic velocity and ultimatonic revolutions. This force is not wholly dominated by your recognized laws of positive and negative attraction; its behavior is therefore sometimes unpredictable. This unnamed influence seems to be a space-force reaction of the Unqualified Absolute.” (UB 42:8.2)
“Since mind co-ordinates the universe, fixity of mechanisms is nonexistent. The phenomenon of progressive evolution associated with cosmic self-maintenance is universal. The evolutionary capacity of the universe is inexhaustible in the infinity of spontaneity. Progress towards harmonious unity, a growing experiential synthesis superimposed on an ever-increasing complexity of relationships, could be effected only by a purposive and dominant mind.” (UB 42:11.7)
“The fact of the absolute mechanism of Paradise at the center of the universe of universes, in the presence of the unqualified volition of the Second Source and Center, makes forever certain that determiners are not the exclusive law of the cosmos. Materialism is there, but it is not exclusive; mechanism is there, but it is not unqualified; determinism is there, but it is not alone.” (UB 195:6.14)
“The finite universe of matter would eventually become uniform and deterministic but for the combined presence of mind and spirit. The influence of the cosmic mind constantly injects spontaneity into even the material worlds.” (UB 195:6.15)
Our quotes from The Urantia Book are quite conclusive about the pivotal roles of spontaneity and unpredictability in the finite universes. The sources may be Deity, Experiential Deity, the Absolutes, down to created beings including us humans—a necessity if we are to be endowed with the capacity to think and choose for ourselves.
Design precedes creation. (UB 2:7.5)
| Materialistic Determinism—Last Rites | Volume 5 - No. 5 — Index | The Dawn of Creative Imagination—the Alter Ego |