© 1996 Mark Hall
© 1996 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Of health and sanity man understands much, but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual prog- ress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding. (UB 100:4.3)
We are at the end of one of the most extraordinary centuries in history. In just a hundred years modern Western culture has transformed our once largely agrarian world into a sophisticated, interdependent global network, linked by commerce, mass communication, and transportation, and characterized by unprecedented technological innovation. In material culture the human race has advanced in ways that only a few generations ago would have seemed miraculous. Yet for all our technological marvels — from the automobile to the moon landing and computers — as persons we hardly know ourselves, and happiness persistently eludes us. Never before have so many people been so comfortable yet inwardly so insecure. Despite the amazing achievements of this century, it is a truism that the modern individual is perpetually plagued by loneliness, anxiety, and the gnawing feeling that life is meaningless.
Why this imbalance, this paradox of brilliant material success, coupled with an underlying sense of despair that erodes the basis of well-being? Why is a century of hitherto undreamed-of comforts and conveniences also known as the Age of Anxiety? And why has a time so enlightened in some ways also unleashed the barbarism of Auschwitz, Hiroshima, the killing fields of Cambodia, and now Bosnia and Rwanda?
According to The Urantia Book, we have lost touch with our spiritual roots, that most vital dimension of reality which religion attempts to preserve, and expresses in its symbols and ceremonies. Today our modern secular culture seems to have outgrown any notion of spirituality, and religion appears to be no longer capable of supplying the answers to contemporary problems. In a culture that interprets reality mainly in scientific terms, the term “spirit” has become obsolescent and is fraught with musty, medieval connotations.
In a culture that interprets reality mainly in scientific terms, the term “spirit” has become obsolescent and is fraught with musty, medieval connotations.
Nonetheless, we witness, almost daily, the elusive nature of happiness among even “well-off” people (the so-called “worried well”); the proliferation of “isms,” innumerable psychological quick-fix fads, and New Age religions; and the appeal of born-again, fundamentalist, and Charismatic sects. These unmistakable manifestations of personal and societal unrest cannot be adequately explained by psychological, sociological, or economic factors, the usual secular categories to which our culture automatically reduces all problems. In the final analysis, the lack of meaning in the twentieth century is a direct expression of a pervasive spiritual hunger — the deep longing for ultimate orientation in the universe that only religion can satisfy. “Man does not live by bread alone” (Matt. 4:4) still has a striking relevance that goes to the heart of the modern dilemma. Lacking the spiritual insight that is the fruit of true religion, humanity feels lost in a soulless universe. Sadly, this modern secular consciousness — despite its corrosive effects on our sense of well-being — is largely accepted today as the true picture of reality.
Contemporary men and women need to reawaken their dormant sense of spirituality before they can ever find lasting happiness, the “peace which passes all understanding.”
Contemporary men and women need to reawaken their dormant sense of spirituality before they can ever find lasting happiness, the “peace which passes all understanding.” In a materialistic age that is completely clueless regarding the spiritual component of life, it is necessary to begin with the most elementary question: What is Spirit?
Mortal man cannot possibly know the infinitude of the heavenly Father. Finite mind cannot think through such an absolute truth or fact. But this same finite human being can actually feel — literally experience — the full and undiminished impact of such an infinite Father’s LOVE. (UB 3:4.6)
We must first understand that spirit is not so much a matter of the head as of the heart. We will not encounter God through any exercise of reason, nor will we discover him through our senses, even in an age when telescopes scan vast stretches of the universe, electron microscopes penetrate the deepest structures of matter, and mathematical reasoning has achieved unprecedented analytical ability. Despite these amazing feats, we have not found God in outer space, inner space, or any Grand Unified Theory. We will never unravel the complexity of the infinite God.
Nonetheless, as any believing person can attest, we can feel God’s spirit, and we describe this feeling, imperfectly in human terms, as the noblest and most joyful of our experiences: love. It is another kind of knowledge, different from intellectual understanding.
Our minds are not equipped to comprehend God, but they are designed to respond to his spirit through experience. In The Urantia Book this is called “God-consciousness,” an awareness of God’s spiritual presence, which produces a variety of feelings, including awe, wonder, love, and a sense of belonging to a larger whole. Spirit is subtle; it operates just beyond the rational grasp of mind. Hence, the mind resorts to analogy, metaphor, and various artistic forms to express it. Thus Jesus compared the spirit to the wind:
When the wind blows, you hear the rustle of the leaves, but you do not see the wind — whence it comes or whither it goes — and so it is with everyone born of the spirit. With the eyes of the flesh you can behold the manifestations of the spirit, but you cannot actually discern the spirit. (UB 142:6.5)
Despite this subtlety, spirit does influence the mind in many constructive ways. According to The Urantia Book, it effects sudden flashes of philosophical and scientific insight in the intellect-the truth response whereby the mind intuitively knows that an idea is right. With respect to ethics, it promotes greater insight into persons, enabling us to respond to our fellow human beings on higher levels of understanding, so that we can sympathize based on our common humanity; respect and eventually love one another despite differences; and move away from the lower tribal reactions of suspicion, fear, and hostility. Spirit also initiates the impulse to worship through feelings of awe and reverence which certain natural circumstances and settings inspire. And it inclines us toward reflective wisdom, putting all events in a larger perspective and enabling us to take stock of our whole lives (where we have been and where we would like to go).
Spirit is thus the force that directs our thoughts into fruitful channels (science and philosophy), inspires us with reverence for values — truth, goodness, beauty, justice, and love, among others (ethics), and leads us to personalize the universe, conjecturing that the ultimate source of all life, values, and reality is an absolute creator personality, whom we in some small way reflect (religion).
Clearly no culture can long afford to neglect this force, the very basis of its intellectual progress, ethical growth, and ability to provide personal happiness through spiritual growth. Yet this is just what our increasingly materialistic culture has been doing for more than one hundred years.
Clearly no culture can long afford to neglect this force, the very basis of its intellectual progress, ethical growth, and ability to provide personal happiness through spiritual growth. Yet this is just what our increasingly materialistic culture has been doing for more than one hundred years. With the rise of science and the decline of traditional religions, we have been moving away from the very source of inspiration for both science and religion, the source of life itself; we have been gradually distancing ourselves from God. Hence, a dangerous imbalance has been created between our technological ability to change our world and our spiritual maturity to exercise our new prerogatives wisely. Without the spiritual insight to appreciate the value of life as a whole and of every individual person, as well as the place of Earth in the universe, our society will remain at an adolescent development level. Like teenagers, we play with expensive and dangerous adult toys, little realizing how close we come sometimes to destroying ourselves.
The cultural blind spots that have led to this situation are: (1) the West’s distorted overemphasis on rationality, which has practically ruled out all other avenues to truth; and (2) the objectification of modern life, whereby the legitimate method of finding objective truth in science becomes an all-encompassing ideology and is falsely applied to every facet of life, thus turning everything, including persons, into mere quantifiable objects. By this essentially materialistic ideology, life is reduced to a sterile interplay of objects — both animate and inanimate-governed by impersonal forces. Within such an artificial framework, notions like free-will, ultimate meaning, and purpose disappear.
In the following I would like to examine how each of these blind spots developed and suggest how we might restore vision and a broader perspective, including spiritual reality, to our culture.
Perhaps the very subtlety of spirit influence has led the pragmatic, rationally inclined (biased?) West to doubt its very existence or to conflate it with other aspects of our mental processes. For in the psychological terms that we are used to, spiritual responses are generally lumped together with other feelings as mere gut reactions, in contrast to the dispassionate “light of reason.” Feelings are often undervalued as dumb animal responses that in evolutionary development preceded the later, more sophisticated ability to articulate and rationally analyze. The notion that some feelings could enlighten or be pursued as avenues to the truth is almost completely alien to the Western mind.
In this respect the West could take a lesson from the East, where the practice of cultivating certain feelings or states of mind that are receptive to higher inspiration has long been recognized as the main approach to enlightenment. For the East has wisely understood that religion at the personal level is based on certain feelings, on “Godconsciousness.” This is the basis of faith, and religion with all its trappings functions mainly to cultivate and instill this special state of mind.
Unfortunately, the Eastern approach arouses only suspicions in many Western skeptics, first because the East is often viewed as unprogressive and mired in superstition, and second because meditation can degenerate into a reclusive and useless passivism or into unhealthy, altered states of mind. Nonetheless, it should be possible in the West to offer sound rational critiques of the excesses of the contemplative approach to truth and to debunk superstition without writing off the whole tradition of the inward spiritual search as self-delusion. It is time to recognize religious feelings as meaningful to the development of personality and self-understanding. The impulse to worship, to seek God in the quiet of the human heart, and to cultivate the higher feelings that arise from such a practice should not be ignored or suppressed. This is the first step in revitalizing the term “spirit” for the modern age. At the very least, we should entertain the possibility that truth can be discovered in other than purely rational means. Furthermore, psychology should make qualitative distinctions among our various emotions, distinguishing those that enhance the healthy growth of personality from those that hinder it. Whereas the personality thrives on feelings of loving acceptance, and the experience of “at-oneness” that comes from worship or meditation, it is deformed by feelings of fear and hate. The former are rightly called spiritual experiences and should be viewed as essentially different from not only the rational processes of mind but also the lower emotions. [1]
A culture like ours that defines reality by objective methods has little appreciation for the subjective perspective. Since spirit is inherently a subjective phenomenon, the “evidence” for its existence is completely inferential and personal, which by objective, scientific standards cannot be accepted as proof.
The dominance of the rational approach and the whole history of science in the West militate against ready acceptance of such notions. The problem the West has always had with the intuitive approach is its subjectivity. A culture like ours that defines reality by objective methods has little appreciation for the subjective perspective. Since spirit is inherently a subjective phenomenon, the “evidence” for its existence is completely inferential and personal, which by objective, scientific standards cannot be accepted as proof. The only “evidence” of spirit is in the testimony of individual persons, who bear witness to their personal experience of God. There is no way to translate such personal experience into tangible evidence or a logical deduction. [2]
Even in the sphere of religion, where the influence of the spirit should predominate, the Western tradition has emphasized the path of reason over the contemplative approach to God. Long before science evolved, Christianity was profoundly impressed by such thinkers as Aristotle, Anselm of Canterbury, Averroes, Aquinas, and the Jesuits, who left a distinctly rational stamp on Western Christian theology. This overemphasis on reason eventually led to a lack of appreciation for, and the complete neglect of, the spiritual roots of Christianity. Rather than allowing the spirit of God’s presence to transform their lives, the best minds of Christendom, with few exceptions, spent all their energies trying to find rational proofs for the existence of God. Dogma became more important than living by spiritual ideals, and men argued about the paradoxical nature of Jesus’ human/ divine identity rather than letting his life inspire their own search for God. [3] This path has led to a dead end in our own century, and today Christianity, a hodgepodge of competing sects, flounders and wonders how it lost its way.
In sum, the rational approach, in doing us the service of debunking superstition and enlightening us about the mechanisms of the material universe, has also, in the guise of modern philosophy, done us the disservice of falsely exalting the methodology of science to create a materialistic dogma. By this ideology, all perspectives on life that do not fit the scientific method are dismissed, true science is subverted by scientism, and the ideal of objectivity is blown so far out of proportion that purely subjective, personal insights and feelings, which are not provable by objective methods, are marginalized — what the individual feels about the meaning of life may be interesting, but it has nothing to do with establishing the truth about reality.
By contrast, The Urantia Book tells us that the longings of the individual heart for ultimate meaning, the personal search for truth, and feelings of an intimate connection to a Universal Spirit have everything to do with the nature of reality. Such feelings do not arise out of a vacuum but are actually a response to indwelling spiritual reality. The subjective vision of faith is as important to comprehending the meaning of the universe as the objective method of reason. Spiritual insights have as much value in creating the foundation, context, and overall quality of life as reason has in uncovering the facts of life and their predictable interrelationships.
If science has shown that reason is a superb tool for discovering the laws and mechanisms of the universe, does it not stand to reason that other faculties of the mind-even deep religious longings and their imaginative symbolic expressions-may also be fit for discovering other kinds of truth about the universe?
Modern philosophy may dismiss such ideas as wishful thinking and point to the complete lack of scientific evidence for the existence of God or the special place of human beings in the cosmos. But modern religion should respond with the following assertions: wishful thinking is not necessarily erroneous thinking; even partially erroneous ideas may contain the germ of truth, and the rational side of the mind can provide us with only a partial view of reality. If science has shown that reason is a superb tool for discovering the laws and mechanisms of the universe, does it not stand to reason that other faculties of the mind-even deep religious longings and their imaginative symbolic expressions — may also be fit for discovering other kinds of truth about the universe? Is it logical and objective to rule out of consideration the contributions that the human heart, with its feelings, intuitions, insights, and special awareness, make to the overall understanding of the world and the individual’s place in it? It should not be surprising that if our reason can provide one set of keys for unlocking specific mysteries of life, our highest spiritual feelings can offer another set of keys for opening new doors to understanding. If the mind’s objective techniques give us one perspective on life, its subjective insights should provide another, equally valid, perspective.
Scientists have sometimes wondered about the mysterious “fit” between our reasoning ability and the natural order — the fact that we are capable at all of discovering the mechanisms of nature and using them to our advantage. (The most amazing thing about science is that it works!) Because of this correspondence between rational mind and the physical universe, science can test its conjectures to ascertain their factual accuracy; nature responds to our hypotheses. We should consider whether other faculties of the mind have another kind of fit, perhaps to an unseen order which we are just beginning to glimpse, one that reveals our true relationship to one another and to the Universal Spirit that we call God. Testing the truth content, or the value, of such religious conjectures is a matter of ascertaining whether they ennoble and enrich life, contribute to the wisdom and maturity of the individual and society, satisfy the longings of the soul for meaning, and encourage peaceable, friendly, even loving relationships among human beings. “By their fruits you shall know them,” said Jesus. (UB 140:3.19, Matt. 7:20) Religious ideas, beliefs, and practices that meet these tests, that yield the fruits of the spirit, should be considered valuable contributions to civilization.
With all of its emphasis on objective evidence, Western culture has created an untenable environment for the spiritually hungry individual trying to make sense of life. Objectivity tends toward materialism and, when distorted into an ideology, eventually atomizes every facet of life, reducing even human beings to soulless automata — complex organized matter, nothing more. The current science-based view of modern philosophy reached such an extreme long ago. For according to this perspective, we are just the latest products of an ultimately meaningless evolution, our bright blue planet is merely an accident of random events, the universe is predominantly impersonal (an enormous, indifferent void), and the personal inner life of the human mind is simply an epiphenomenon of a sophisticated mechanistic substructure-a survival mechanism resulting from the impersonal forces of natural selection.
Faced with this assault on human dignity, religion should be asserting the contrary perspective — that despite material appearances, the universe is inherently personal in origin, design, and ultimate destiny. For spiritual insight, which religion should foster and promote, affirms that personality is the highest manifestation of reality in the universe and that our own personalities are distant reflections of the Creator’s absolute spiritual personality. [4] According to this perspective, spirit is interpreted to be an emanation from the original pattern personality, the “First Source and Center” (UB 1:2.1) — a kind of “background radiation,” to use a modern physics analogy, which pervades the universe, the far-reaching influence of God himself. It is the medium through which we find our way back to the Creator, through the longings of our souls and our responses to the supreme values of truth, goodness, beauty, justice, and love. It also helps us to realize the spiritual kinship that links all human beings together as part of the family of God. If we are receptive to spiritual influence, we eventually learn that the appropriate way for personalities to interact is love, the antidote to fear and death, and the activation of the will of God. For the spirit that we feel is the love of God, the love of the original Father personality for his children.
This is the view of reality that religion should offer society as a counterpoise to the materialistic philosophy resulting from scientific analysis. Unfortunately, as already pointed out, traditional religion has been infected by the same mistaken tendency to overemphasize rationality and objectivity, and has lost sight of its true role in society.
This is the view of reality that religion should offer society as a counterpoise to the materialistic philosophy resulting from scientific analysis. Unfortunately, as already pointed out, traditional religion has been infected by the same mistaken tendency to overemphasize rationality and objectivity, and has lost sight of its true role in society. Our religions have for too long put their emphasis on the letter at the expense of the spirit, despite Paul’s warning: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (II Cor. 3:6) As a result, traditional images of God have ceased to function as living, meaningful symbols, and fewer and fewer people today are inspired by old rituals and theologies, which seem not only out of step with the modern world, but irrelevant to the spiritual needs of humanity. Traditions about God are being radically deconstructed and reevaluated in light of the widespread discontent with the old forms. In this secular desert of scientism and philosophical positivism the basic religious impulse of humanity still seeks expression, and the souls of contemporary men and women continue to hunger for spiritual fulfillment.
The “soul” — another concept now considered obsolescent — needs to be rediscovered in our time, and may be defined as that part of the mind that recognizes higher, spiritual yearnings and produces its own “hunger pangs” for ultimate meaning and purpose (for spiritual communion) when it is deprived. Our fast-paced society affords precious few opportunities to satisfy this need; consequently, many people never understanding the cause of the emptiness they feel inside, spend their lives in a manic drive for success or in pursuit of mind-numbing diversions. Yet only the spirit can fulfill this need: “It is the presence of the divine Spirit, the water of life, that prevents the consuming thirst of mortal discontent and that indescribable hunger of the unspiritualized human mind.” (UB 34:6.8)
The spiritual dimension is not apparent if we rely solely on our senses, the objective viewpoint, and rational methodology. It is the subjective, inner view that offers us a window into our spiritual potentials. The eye of faith discerns realities out of range of our physical vision and our intellectual reach. This is not delusion; it is the natural expression of a still unappreciated side of mind, which points us toward God and our spiritual destinies beyond this life.
Faith is the key attitude for the development of the spirit’s influence on mind. For faith or the lack thereof determines whether initial spiritual responses will be recognized as such and pursued as revelations of another reality, or dismissed as artifacts of natural human emotions. The faith intuition is the basis of a spiritual approach to life. The skeptical-positivistic attitude is the materialistic or naturalistic approach, the pervasive attitude of Western society today. Anyone, regardless of their philosophy of life or religious orientation, can experience feelings of awe, wonder, being part of a larger whole, or can experience inner peace, joy, and love. But it is another step altogether to make the qualitative distinction that puts such impulses and feelings into the category of the spiritual and views them as reflective of a higher reality. Faith steadfastly maintains this inner guiding vision despite the natural vicissitudes of life, which, viewed objectively, more often lead one to doubt than to believe. Faith means taking religious impulses seriously as important clues to a deeper understanding of life; it sees in these inchoate feelings great potential for future development and energizes the mind for the realization of this potential. This dynamic consent of the will to the intuitions of the spirit is the chief tool of religion. It is the wholehearted conviction that these intuitions are real and vital that keeps religion alive and growing. [5]
We need to invent coherent modern forms of religion which will inspire humanity and give us the means again to worship intelligently, forms that do not fly in the face of current knowledge about cosmology, history, and human nature. This new religion will respect the scientific viewpoint, while complementing it with spiritual insight, the true role of religion. It will teach men and women the art of contemplating existence from the inside through techniques of worship that bring us in touch with spiritual reality. It will be able to demonstrate the value of the subjective approach to life through peace of mind, a renewed sense of purpose, and the joy of dedicated service to humanity. Finally, it will extol faith as the indispensable attitude of mind for achieving a balanced personality and finding happiness in this life. This faith will be motivated, not by a particular creed or dogma, not by any idea, but by the universal and timeless ideal of God as the spirit of love, love personified as the First Person — I AM, who relates to all other persons as a loving father to his children. The truth, goodness, and beauty of this ideal will be manifest in the growth of character experienced by those who dedicate themselves to it and in their contributions to the betterment of society.
We need to invent coherent modern forms of religion which will inspire humanity and give us the means again to worship intelligently, forms that do not fly in the face of current knowledge about cosmology, history, and human nature.
Once we understand what true religion can offer humanity, the centuries-old conflict between science and religion will finally be resolved. Enlightened people will come to realize (1) that the quest of science is to attain a reliable body of knowledge, which enables humanity to manipulate and to interact with the natural world coherently; and (2) that the quest of religion is to provide meaningful symbols that express humanity’s highest aspirations, values, and ideals in personal terms. Science uses reason and the observations of the senses — the mind’s organizing and outwardly sensing capacities — to explain the workings of the natural world. Religion uses intuition and imagination — the mind’s inwardly sensing and visualizing capabilities — to create symbols expressive of spiritual values, ideals, and hopes. Through its most powerful symbol — God — religion represents the total sense of connectedness between the individual and the universe as a relationship between the person and the original Creator personality. [6]
Eventually we will learn to coordinate religion’s inwardturning vision with science’s rational analysis of the exterior universe through new philosophies, ever keeping in mind that all philosophies and theologies are provisional and subject to correction through the expansion of knowledge and spiritual insight, the ever-enlarging perspective of truth. God will be reborn in the world in the freshness of each person’s unique spiritual insight. Each will add a piece to the puzzle of God in the world, and all contributions will be valued, whatever the cultural perspective. People will be united by their pursuit of common spiritual goals and will finally cease fighting over creeds and ideologies. Enlightened men and women will realize that no one can pretend to have arrived at the final and complete truth, that all ideas are subject to change, and that the Spirit, which has given rise to the vast mosaic of religious expression over time and across boundaries, is universal.
Mark Hall, Ph.D., is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Western New York.
The psychiatric establishment has begun to realize that it cannot simply ignore genuine spiritual needs and that they must be recognized as such. See David Lukoff, Ph. D., Francis Lu, M.D., and Robert Turner, M.D., who recommend rewriting parts of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) to reflect a greater appreciation of religion and spirituality: “Toward a More Culturally Sensitive DSM-IV: Psychoreligious and Psychospiritual Problems,” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 180, No. 11 (1992): 673-682. On p. 673 , they state; “The religious and spiritual dimensions of culture are among the most important factors that structure human experience, beliefs, values, behavior, and illness patterns… Yet psychiatry, in its diagnostic classification systems as well as its theory, research, and practice, has tended to either ignore or pathologize the religious and spiritual dimensions of life.” Further on p. 674: “These negative views of religion and spirituality are not warranted in light of recent studies showing no association between religiosity and psychopathology in the nonpatient population. In fact, a meta-analysis of religiosity and mental health found them to be positively related.” ↩︎
See UB 102:6.5: “Convictions about God may be arrived at through wise reasoning, but the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience…The God-knowing soul dares to say, ‘I know,’ even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the unbeliever who denies such certitude because it is not wholly supported by intellectual logic.” See also, S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript in A Kierkegaard Anthology, edited by R. Bretall (Princeton UP, 1946), p. 207: “Christianity proposes to endow the individual with an eternal happiness, a good which is not distributed wholesale, but only to one individual at a time…[Christianity] desires that the subject should be infinitely concerned about himself. It is subjectivity that Christianity is concerned with, and it is only in subjectivity that truth exists.” ↩︎
This is not to ignore the mystical/contemplative strain of Christian thought, epitomized by such noteworthy individuals as Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and in our own century Thomas Merton; it is only to suggest that such direct experience of the Divine was considered rare and not part of the mainstream of Western Christianity. By contrast, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the contemplative approach had a much more prominent role; see Byron Belitsos, “Eastern Orthodoxy and The Urantia Book,” Spiritual Fellowship Journal 5, No. 1 (Spring 1995): pp. 7-14. ↩︎
Cf. Etienne Gilson, God and Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941), p. 22: "By far the hardest problem for philosophy and for science is to account for the existence of human wills in the world without ascribing to the first principle either a will or something which, because it virtually contains will, is actually superior to it.
“To understand this is also to reach the deeply hidden source of Greek mythology, and therefore of Greek religion. The Greek gods are the crude but telling expression of this absolute conviction that since man is somebody, and not merely something, the ultimate explanation for what happens to him should rest with somebody, and not merely with something.” See also p. 34: “With Aristotle, the Greeks had gained an indisputably rational theology, but they had lost their religion.” ↩︎
See John Hick, Faith and Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966), p. 24: “Faith and revelation are correlative terms, faith being the cognitive aspect of man’s response to divine revelation.” ↩︎
Cf. John Dewey, “A Common Faith,” in American Philosophic Naturalism in the Twentiety Century, pp. 482-83: “The idea that ‘God’ represents a unification of ideal values that is essentially imaginative in origin…is attended with verbal difficulties owing to our frequent use of the word ‘imagination’ to denote fantasy and doubtful reality. But the reality of ideal ends as ideals is vouched for by their undeniable power in action. An ideal is not an illusion because imagination is the organ through which it is apprehended. For all possibilities reach us through imagination.” Cf. UB 100:3.2: “To the religionist the word God becomes a symbol signifying the approach to supreme reality and the recognition of divine value.” ↩︎