© 1999 Meredith Sprunger
© 1999 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
The fundamentalists among the religions of the world are usually the centers of controversy, antagonism, or fanaticism. The foundation of the fundamentalist point of view is the belief in the inerrancy of their scripture. With the help of higher criticism of the Bible in the last century, mainline Christian theologians have come to realize that the purpose of revelation is spiritual enlightenment. Although there are many errors of fact in the Bible and its concepts are formulated in outdated science, this does not invalidate its spiritual insight and truth.
Many years ago as I became acquainted with people who were students of The Urantia Book, I observed that most were well educated and quite intelligent. I, therefore, assumed that they would be acquainted with mainline Christian theological views of the Bible and there would be little danger of viewing The Urantia Book as an inerrant document. Furthermore, the authors of the Urantia Papers repeatedly warn against such an attitude. They point out that the science and cosmology of the book are not inspired, and that all revelation is limited until we meet the Universal Father. None of the authors are of divine-creator status and the revelators clearly tell us that thousands of human sources were used. As Dr. Kenneth Glasziou has repeatedly pointed out, the revelators used the science of the 1930’s and 1940’s to give us a universe frame of reference for the purpose of enhancing spiritual insight.
There have been various discussions on the Internet under the general heading “Corruptions in the Revelation.” Errors of fact (science) and chronology along with contradictions are cited in The Urantia Book. Various motives appear to underlie these discussions. But what all students of the Urantia Papers should realize is that these factual imperfections of the Fifth Epochal Revelation do not diminish its spiritual purpose of presenting an enlarged view of spiritual reality and insight. Hopefully, Urantia Book fundamentalists will realize that all time-space revelations, of necessity, partake of time-space limitations. But they are the best approach to ultimate truth and reality available to finite beings.