© 2003 Steven Hecht
© 2003 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| Prayer from another world | Volume 5, Number 1, 2003 (Summer) — Index | Safeguarding the Symbols of Urantian Faith |
(Presented at the New York/New England Readers’ Conference, November, 2002)
Since the bulk of Matthew Block’s material has yet to be published, it is far too early to try and form conclusions regarding the pedagogy of the revelators. But I believe we can begin to react to the generic fact of the human sources, even if we don’t know or necessarily agree about all the particulars. Of course we “knew” that human sources existed because the book says so, but the scope and profundity of the reality has only recently come to light. I hope to take advantage of the surprise and disconcertment Matthew’s and Steve Dreier’s research has caused among the readership in order to explore some crucial and interesting issues regarding our relationship to revelation. The new information about human sources has caused many to reassess certain of their ideas about the sources and the contents of the book. What I am about to say might prove useful to a more accurate and inspiring understanding of revelation in general and epochal revelation in particular.
Autorevelation is defined on [UB 101:4.3] as “a result of the work of the indwelling Adjuster; epochal revelation when it is presented by the function of some other celestial agency, group, or personality.” I will be focusing on epochal revelation, although it is not always clear as to whether the authors are distinguishing between auto and epochal revelation in their statements. It seems to me that many of their characterizations about revelation are equally applicable to both types. There is a continual interaction between auto and epochal revelation, and this happens in only one place the mindal arena of human beings.
Towards the end of Paper 85, “The Origins of Worship,” a Brilliant Evening Star tells us: “In the course of revelation the Gods formulate religion. Evolutionary religion creaks its gods in the image and likeness of mortal man; revelatory religion seeks to evolve and transform mortal man into the image and likeness of God.” [UB 85:6.3]
This idea regarding revelation seems to conform to the Western tradition: revelation forms human religion; human religion depends on revelation for its form and content. This might be called the “top-down” model for contemplating the meaning and function of revelation. Humanity is the clay and revelation the potter; humanity is passive, revelation active. Moses receiving the tablets containing the Ten Commandments is an archetype for this understanding.
But, as with most things in the book, at least one other perspective on the matter is presented. In speaking about how Paul formed Christianity out of Hellenistic philosophy and religion and the teachings of the fourth epochal revelation, the Brilliant Evening Star states: “His theologic compromises indicate that even revelation must submit to the graduated control of evolution.” [UB 89:9.3] And we are told elsewhere: “Always must the religion of revelation be limited by man’s capacity of receptivity ” So “must such divine visitations portray teachings which are not too far removed from the thought and reactions of the age in which they are presented.” [UB 92:4.1]
Once the revelators state that revelation “must submit to the graduated control of evolution,” it becomes easier to understand why they were mandated at all times to give priority to the evolutionary expression of human concepts rather than “pure revelation” from transcendent sources. So, at this point, we can understand how revelation is both a “top-down” operation and a “bottom-up” one as well. The traditional “top-down-only” notion of revelation can be likened to a one-way street. The model offered and demonstrated by the fifth epochal revelation is that of a two- way street. This second and more progressive model allows the fact of revelation to bring us out of a feudal paradigm (where our celestial ministrators are our lords and we are their servants) to where we can see ourselves as witting and/or unwitting collaborators. In fact, the very word “collaborate” is used to describe how “Melchizedek continued to collaborate throughout the nineteen succeeding centuries with the many prophets and seers, thus endeavoring to keep alive the truths of Salem until the fullness of the time for Michael’s appearance on earth.” [UB 93:10.4] The results of some of this collaboration can be found in the most inspiring books of the Old Testament, works that did an inspired job of restating the truths brought by the third epochal revelation.
This notion of collaboration in producing revelation brings up a couple of interesting points. First, epochal and autorevelation are really two aspects of the same general phenomenon —revelation and that is why they can keep feeding one another. This is probably already obvious to most of us, for we are told that the autorevelation of the shepherd boy became part of the Hebrew scriptures carrying forward the truth, beauty, and goodness of the teachings of Melchizedek. The intimate relationship between epochal and autorevelation is again emphasized when a Mighty Messenger tells us that too much “conceptual expansion would hardly be desirable as it would deprive the thinking mortals of the next thousand years of that stimulus to creative speculation which these partially revealed concepts supply It is best that man not have an overrevelathm; it stifles imagination.” [UB 30:0.2]
The metaphor of revelation as a two-way street can be morphed into the image of a traffic circle, or rotary as we call them in Massachusetts. In order to keep that rotary moving—in order for revelation to stay both progressive and evolutionary (as stated on UB 92:4.1)—the flow of auto- and epochal revelation must continue to feed into the rotary in a regular and balanced manner. If epochal revelation is not complemented by an adequate degree of increased human receptivity for autorevelation, then we have the problem that was just discussed, called “overrevelation” and the attendant circumstance of stifled human imagination—indeed, a terrible curse for any generation. If autorevelation takes place without a suitable cosmic framework for understanding, the risk is greatly increased so “as to precipitate a convulsion of fanaticism or to initiate some other intellectual upheaval which results disastrously.” [UB 110:4.5]
I would not be surprised if our planetary administrators keep tabs on the symmetry of the global interface between epochal and autorevelation. Now that we have so recently received an epochal input into planetary culture and religion, perhaps our celestial caretakers are anticipating a compensatory improvement in Urantians’ capacity to maintain sure and steady comniunication with their Thought Adjusters. It is interesting to note that our celestial friends are willing to withhold epochal revelation in the interest of promoting the human imagination. The capacity for the human imagination to increase receptivity for autorevelation among individuals could be the topic of another essay. Perhaps the revelators are waiting to see how and when we apply our newly fortified imaginations so as to enhance the global effects of the very revelation that has stimulated them! Epochal revelation is capable of improving the ability of our superconscious to receive and express autorevelation. As our imaginations receive the fuel of inspiration from auto-revelation, we can become more effective in spreading the good news of epochal revelation in all its truth, goodness, and beauty. This is the kind of work Melchizedek did with the Hebrew prophets and poets, the kind of work he did to help instigate the global religious revival of the sixth century, B.C. Anyone game for that? Our imaginations can work socially, politically, economically, ecologically, technologically, artistically, philosophically, ethically, and religiously at least for starters!
The circle of revelation can express the insight that the human sources in the fifth epochal revelation were themselves the result of autorevelation. So, autorevelation (itself enhanced by exposure to previous epochal revelation) gives rise to written, inspired insights capable of being included in current epochal revelation. This current epochal revelation is intended to inspire us to use our imaginations in such a way as to accomplish the revelation’s own purposes into the future. And so, the circle of revelation continues to turn, and this is the engine that will take Urantia to the age of light and life.
Matthew’s investigations have revealed just how crucial the editing and compilation process was when it came to utilizing human sources. In other words, the revelators did not use any source uncritically; every human source was edited, interpreted, and contextualized into the broader presentation of the revelation. Matt often comments about how beautiful the authors’ editing, interpretation, and contextualizing are. The revelators take human concepts and expressions and use their own creative forces of imagination and intelligence to mold a revelatory platform that can support the continued evolution of human civilization and religion. And now the ball is in our court as we are asked to use this platform to engage our interpretive abilities in order to open the revelation to our planet’s evolutionary predicaments and contemporary conditions. These predicaments are in the social and artistic realms, the political and religious, the ethical arid the intellectual, to name just a few. Studying the book for the book’s sake will soon make the revelation an anachronism, in my opinion. Of course, opening the book to the world is best done in how we live our lives and how we treat others; however, I do want to focus on the issue of imagination and the creation of what we have typically called “secondary sources.”
As Jesus told Nathaniel, revelation is not a gift limited to any one generation. The rotary of revelation described above—the continuous interaction of epochal and autorevelation—means that new revelatory wine is always being pressed by humans to nurture and intoxicate other humans. Jesus tells us not to be satisfied with keeping new revelatory wine in the same old wineskins because revelation is evolutionary and progressive. Can we really be satisfied with placing new religious insights into the old wineskins of expression of our beloved written revelation, especially now that we know that many of those expressive forms are themselves human? I have little doubt that the revelators were mandated to use human expressions whenever possible so that people like us would be less tempted to treat them as if they were written on stone tablets. I also have little doubt that the human sources were oh-so-easy to find by the first person really interested in looking for them for the same reason. Matt’s work has taken the revelation off of its transcendent pedestal a notch or two, and in my opinion that is exactly what the Revelatory Commission intended.
Why did they intend this? Because the river is not the riverbed; truth is living and indestructible, even as it inspires and reflects the insights provided by the intoxicating mixture of human imagination and autorevelation. The revelators had no qualms about seamlessly mixing (contaminating?) the presentation of pure revelation with the most advanced evolutionary human thought and expression available at the time.
I am proposing that we continue to fearlessly mix (contaminate!) the conceptual truth, beauty, and goodness presented in the fifth epochal revelation with progressive contemporary work in science, philosophy, religion, art, etc. Since a written epochal revelation is unable to continually present truth in keeping with the most advanced “thought and reactions of the age,” it falls upon reader-believers like us to ensure that the truths presented by epochal revelation remain both evolutionary and progressive. That entails their interpretation and restatement in light of contemporary thinking, and the creation of “secondary” works in order to do so. The best of these secondary works will bear the fruits of the imagination as inspired by autorevelation even as they demonstrate the ability to renew the truths of epochal revelation.
Would this kind of attempt mean that we are trying to create new truths, truths not contained in The Urantia Book? The first question to ask is whether mortals can ever “create truth.” This is not the place to fully treat that question, but suffice it to say that God is the source of all truth and that truth is defined through our living it. The laws of life are in our living. Perhaps it is safe to say that truth-making is a collaborative effort for deity and humankind, symbolized and actualized by the Supreme. We know that we cannot create any truth not already sourced in God. So, can any truth be new? Sure it can, at least to us. Is it new to God? I think it can be, depending on how it is concretely actualized in our lives. Truth can come alive through us, be sourced in God, and still he new to God—thanks to the Supreme.
Well, I seem to have gotten off-track here—but not by much. The point in bringing up new tnith in light of Supreme deity is that we shouldn’t be frightened by new truth. We are explicitly told not to discount truth because of its apparent human source. (That word “apparent” contains a lovely ambiguity about the divine source and human sources of truth!) This admonition is quite relevant when we consider the many truths provided to the revelation by human sources. It is also relevant to the truths now entering the world from contemporary human sources, truths not fully conceptualized and not expressed in The Uranlia Book. The revelators tell us not to discount those truths, or their human sources. 'That is why it is crucial that Urantia Book readers open the revelation to the new truths of the world - scientific, philosophical, theological, religious, artistic, etc. for that is the only way the world will open to the revelation. In order to open the revelation to the new truths of the world, we must put time and energy into learning and appreciating those truths, and then go on to integrate and associate new truth with the truth-expression of the revelation. Such learning and appreciation will no doubt stretch and strain our connection to the expressions used in the fifth epochal revelation but that is where our imaginations do their invaluable work. In my opinion, we really have no choice if we want this revelation to stay relevant for each and every generation; the only alternative is to have a sacred book that is a jewel and an anachronism. The sterling example of how not to fear, avoid, or deny new truths from human sources— and how to fully integrate them with, and as, revelation is provided by the fifth epochal revelation itself.
The future of the truths expressed in The Urantia Book depends in part on the ability of each generation of readers to understand, interpret, restate, and recreate those truths, and in that process we will unavoidably find and create new ones. Just as the Revelatory Commission exploited the wide- ranging vanguard of contemporary progressive thinking in order to spiritually expand evolutionary religion and cosmology; we must courageously and continually engage with our contemporaries in order to better keep revelation alive for truth seekers everywhere.
In closing, I would like to remind everyone of how the Master expressed his balanced appreciation for the ever- steady value of “old” truth while maintaining a fearless openness for the advent of the new
Then the Master proceeded to warn his hearers against entertaining the notion that all olden teaching should be replaced entirely by new doctrines. Said Jesus: “That which is old and also true must abide. Likewise, that which is new but false must be rejected. But that which is new and also true, have the faith and courage to accept. Remember it is written: ‘Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him. As new wine, so is a new friend; if it becomes old, you shall drink it with gladness.’” [UB 147:7.3]
Steven Hecht lives in Acton, MA with his wife Dori Smith. Ever since he found The Urantia Book in 1970, it has been a determining influence in his life. He priers to think of the book’s teachings not as a road map but as a musical score, ripe for improvisation and interpretation—just as Jesus’ life is not a template to be imitated but a life that inspires one’s own.
| Prayer from another world | Volume 5, Number 1, 2003 (Summer) — Index | Safeguarding the Symbols of Urantian Faith |