© 1998 Meredith Sprunger
© 1998 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Revelation has traditionally been associated with “the voice of God,” and this authority has been a powerful influence in establishing what is accepted as true in society. Most people tend to forget the long experiential process which is required in any large social group in establishing the acceptance of a revelatory source. Any claim to “new revelation” is certain to elicit widespread skepticism and strong opposition. The first thing which is usually examined and challenged is the origin and authorship of such claims and then the content of the new revelation.
Since The Urantia Book purports to be the Fifth Epochal Revelation, authored by supermortal personalities, it is important to have a clear understanding of the philosophic criteria of truth necessary in evaluating such claim. First of all, claim or authority is not a philosophical criterion of truth. Secondly, knowing the origin and/or authorship of the book may give some insights, but is not a reliable philosophical criterion of truth. Whether supermortals or human beings wrote the book, it must be evaluated by its content not by who may have written it.
Some additional facts need to be observed and evaluated. The authors of The Urantia Book say that whenever it was possible to find human authors to express their ideas and teaching, they have used these human sources. Research has confirmed these statements, and a great many of the human sources have been found. The creative way in which the authors have used these human sources is both interesting and insightful. Sometimes the use of these human sources are handled in such a way as to arrive at a position differing from that of the human author. Further, The Urantia Book instructs its readers that the science and the cosmology used in the book is not inspired, and will very soon be in need of revision. An analysis of the science of the book shows that it is more in harmony with the views of the 1940’s than the positions of the 1990’s. There is very little in The Urantia Book which would support Urantia
Book fundamentalism!
The central objective in evaluating The Urantia Book is to assess the quality of its spiritual truth and insight. This must be done by individuals using their total evaluation capacities developed through experience. Are the spiritual quality and insights of the book inferior to, equal with, or superior to our traditional sources of spiritual truth? During this period of testing, gradually a consensus will evolve regarding its quality. If the general opinion is negative, the book will fade into obscurity. If the consensus is positive, continued evaluation will determine the level of its spiritual contribution. Is it just another useful spiritual resource, or does it have the quality of revelation? My philosophical hypothesis is that if it has the spiritual quality of revelation, its influence will continue to grow in the church, the society, and the world.
My personal view, after forty years of study and evaluation, is that the book is of superior quality in at least four categories:
“The world needs more firsthand religion. Even Christianity—the best of the religions of the twentieth century—is not only a religion about Jesus, but it is so largely one which men experience secondhand. They take their religion wholly as handed down by their accepted religious teachers. What an awakening the world would experience if it could only see Jesus as he really lived on earth and know, firsthand, his life-giving teachings! Descriptive words of things beautiful cannot thrill like the sight thereof, neither can creedal words inspire men’s souls like the experience of knowing the presence of God” (UB 195:9.8)