© 2005 Santiago Rodríguez
© 2005 Urantia Association of Spain
Origin of the reflection: You are sons of spiritual promise, faith sons; you have accepted the status of sonship. You believe in the reality of your sonship, and thus does your sonship with God become eternally real. UB 40:6.4
All of us who “peek” into the possibility of the existence of God, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we were all human beings, do so with great uncertainty, caution and fear at first, and we search in religions, and in our own lives, in everything we can observe and understand, for elements of judgment that lead us to be able to say categorically that God exists, and what we all long for during a stage or perhaps throughout our lives is for someone or something to prove his existence to us, so that we have no room for doubt.
It’s clear that, for the human species, what comes from the tool of “reason” provides a certain comfort and tranquility. On the contrary, what comes from the tool of “faith” produces discomfort, suspicion, and constant doubt…
Perhaps the above fact should be accepted as something inherent to our “cosmic situation,” that is, the inevitable fact that we come from an evolutionary ancestor who was an irrational “animal.” When we think about evolution, it seems that we only take into account physical aspects. We consider evolution as biological progress. We may be surprised by the possibility that, physically or biologically, the evolutionary path proceeds at a certain pace. We have to take into account that there is another factor that evolves: spirituality; and it turns out that the spiritual evolutionary pace is different.
The biological evolution of each individual is heavily conditioned by their genetic makeup, and the pace of change is rather slow. However, spiritual evolution, although it may be partially conditioned by our body, can be very rapid, so that the entire evolutionary cycle can occur in the short life of an individual. Let us recall Jesus’s experience in the flesh.
It’s obvious: biological evolution depends on genetic transmission, and this, at least for now, is automatic and somewhat independent of our will. However, spiritual evolution does fundamentally depend on our will.
In our spiritual evolution we can highlight some milestones to achieve:
We go through these stages, both individually and collectively as a species. And it’s also clear that progress through these stages varies greatly from individual to individual; as a species, we’re certainly far from reaching the fourth milestone.
| Species | Individual | Personal Spiritual Achievement (Milestone) | Available Tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Human ancestors | About 3 years | Self-awareness that prevails over everyone and everything | Natural instinct |
| Primitive Man to the Present Day | From Childhood to Adulthood | Self-Consciousness, Adjustment of One’s Situation through Values | Natural Instinct + Capacity to Reason + Capacity to Love |
| The above + Deity consciousness |
The above + Faith | ||
| The above + Awareness of God as Father |
The above + Faith |
Reason is much older than faith, so it is not surprising that we trust it more (even though we are aware that it is often wrong) than faith, which, curiously, we have no experience of failing, because what sometimes needs revision is our belief, not faith.
So, with respect to God, we spend a lifetime, and at most I think we will come to the conviction of his existence, but it is a personal conviction, which we can show to others but never demonstrate to anyone.
Aside from beliefs and spirituality, if we ask ourselves what we value most as people, I believe that what places us above other beings is precisely the possession of free will, which I understand as the sovereign capacity of the individual to decide about their present or future status. Thus, our greatest satisfaction and sense of personal fulfillment comes from feeling that we make the most important decisions in our lives freely and consciously.
What is most important to us?
Each individual must answer this question for themselves. Our free will is unconditional; it even allows us to decide on this matter.
During the early stages of our lives, we become increasingly aware that we are beings with the capacity for choice. Regardless of whether the options are more or less varied, sometimes we can only choose between two possibilities. Other times, the options are more numerous, but although at first glance it seems that more options give us more free will, that we have more to choose from, it is true that these situations often only serve to make us doubt even more, to have more uncertainties. But I think it’s clear that having two options is more than enough to exercise the right to free will.
The events in our lives are recurrent and what they teach us is that normally, rather than thinking that the choice we made was not the most opportune, we must notice the fact that the choice brings consequences, so that much of what will happen to us in the future is due to our own choices in the past, and life takes care of making us aware of this in a very repetitive way.
Our intelligence provides us with tools (reason) to be able to “calculate” the consequences of our actions.
Looking around us, we complain, or at least we are surprised, that there are often people who achieve enviable lives due to their economic, social, cultural achievements, or in any other facet of life we look at, yet they seem to completely ignore any spiritual considerations.
That is to say, the conclusion that does seem proven is that we can live (there are people who do) a full and happy life, at least to the limits of their own demands, regardless of whether, for them, God exists or not.
Their conclusion is clear: since they don’t need it, and since no one can prove its existence to me, it must not exist…or at least “I” don’t need it.
Precisely the fact that this is possible is the ultimate, the demonstration that the Universal Father has truly endowed us with free will, in the face of the most important and relevant issue for our future, which is none other than the decision to survive.
We are not born Children of God. It is we who, particularly through Faith, decide to accept sonship with God, and from that moment on, that sonship becomes real. It will be this sonship, which depends solely on each of us, that will allow the survival of our evolving mortal soul in the future.
And in his divine justice and respect for the free will of each creature, the Father does not link the achievements in material life in the flesh to the survival of the creature, but allows them to be absolutely independent things, so I reaffirm that the existence of circumstances that sometimes seem surprisingly uncomfortable for us to accept or understand, is but one more proof that the Universal Father does not restrict the most important choice of the human being, and that is to accept filiation with God.
We can choose between two possibilities: either it is an unequivocal conclusion of reason, or it must come from revelation and be completely demonstrated.
Problems that arise if it were demonstrable: to avoid comparative grievances, the evidence should be such that for early human beings it should be as evident as for us.
If the existence of God is proven, the free will of the mortal material creature only has the option of accepting or not his plan, since we cannot doubt his existence, we have to establish relations with the Deity in some way or receive from the Deity the norms that will regulate those relations and it would not take long to let it be known that perhaps not so many would admit it if we had been free to do so.
We are a product of evolution. The perfection of the plan of imperfection lies in the fact that, although we could have started from God’s foreknowledge, we do so from ignorance, and only a faint hint of it is present in us. It is so faint that we can freely choose to ignore it and live a full life of social, cultural, and other success.
The perfection of the idea of the evolution of the Universal Father makes his existence inherently unprovable, in order to guarantee the maximum free will of mortal creatures. On the other hand, this very unprovability is further evidence of his existence.
The decision to “count on Him” is not imposed by the unequivocal demonstration of His existence. For practical purposes, He exists only for the creature who wants Him to exist, and with the intensity that that creature decides.