Teacher-Brother Dave's initial comments: I am presenting some of my Topical Studies from the fully public domain, 2097 page, Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth and with my added comments. The Revealed text is free of copyright, so you may freely share individually these supernal quotes with your friends and relatives. But my order of selections, font types for emphasis and my added comments are Copyright 2022 by Dave@PureChristians.org All Rights Reserved. Contact me first about using the whole Study or group of Studies.
[My added comments of explanation below are in these square brackets]
Topical Study number 145
"My Important HighLights of The Urantia (Earth) Book"
Part 35
Compiled June 19, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
...most useful & sublime institution, the HOME. & home building should be the center and essence of all educational effort. 84:0.1
Paper 84 Marriage and Family Life
0.Introduction
[Paper:Section.Paragraph (numbers)]
84:0.1 Material necessity founded marriage, sex hunger embellished it, religion sanctioned and exalted it, the state demanded and regulated it, while in later times evolving love is beginning to justify and glorify marriage as the ancestor and creator of civilization’s most useful and sublime institution, the home. And home building should be the center and essence of all educational effort.
84:0.2 Mating is purely an act of self-perpetuation associated with varying degrees of self-gratification; marriage, home building, is largely a matter of self-maintenance, and it implies the evolution of society. Society itself is the aggregated structure of family units. Individuals are very temporary as planetary factors—only families are continuing agencies in social evolution. The family is the channel through which the river of culture and knowledge flows from one generation to another.
84:0.3 The home is basically a sociologic institution. Marriage grew out of co-operation in self-maintenance and partnership in self-perpetuation, the element of self-gratification being largely incidental. Nevertheless, the home does embrace all three of the essential functions of human existence, while life propagation makes it the fundamental human institution, and sex sets it off from all other social activities.
87:7.8 No cult can endure and contribute to the progress of social civilization and individual spiritual attainment unless it is based on the biologic, sociologic, and religious significance of the HOME. A surviving cult must symbolize that which is permanent in the presence of unceasing change; it must glorify that which unifies the stream of ever-changing social metamorphosis. It must recognize true meanings, exalt beautiful relations, and glorify the good values of real nobility.
A man and a woman, co-operating, ... are vastly superior in most ways to either two men or two women. 84:1.9
Paper 84 Marriage and Family Life
1. Primitive Pair Associations
84:1.9 Regardless of the antagonisms of these early pairs, notwithstanding the looseness of the association, the chances for survival were greatly improved by these male-female partnerships. A man and a woman, co-operating, even aside from family and offspring, are vastly superior in most ways to either two men or two women. This pairing of the sexes enhanced survival and was the very beginning of human society. The sex division of labor also made for comfort and increased happiness.
Paper 43 The Constellations
8. The Edentia Training Worlds
43:8.11 #7. ... Intellectually, socially, and spiritually two moral creatures do not merely double their personal potentials of universe achievement by partnership technique; they more nearly quadruple their attainment and accomplishment possibilities.
Paper 133 The Return from Rome
5. At Athens—Discourse on Science
[Jesus, in terms of modern thought, said: ...
133:5.6 Mathematics asserts that, if one person stands for a certain unit of intellectual and moral value, ten persons would stand for ten times this value. But in dealing with human personality it would be nearer the truth to say that such a personality association is a sum equal to the square of the number of personalities concerned in the equation rather than the simple arithmetical sum. A social group of human beings in co-ordinated working harmony stands for a force far greater than the simple sum of its parts.
Men and women need each other in their morontial and spiritual as well as in their mortal careers. 84:6.6
Paper 84 Marriage and Family Life
6. The Partnership of Man and Woman
84:6.6 Men and women need each other in their [570 soul Heavens] morontial and [over one billion high Heavens] spiritual as well as in their [one brief physical] mortal careers. The differences in viewpoint between male and female persist even beyond the first life and throughout the local and superuniverse ascensions. And even in Havona, the pilgrims who were once men and women will still be aiding each other in the Paradise ascent. Never, even in the [Eternal Paradise] Corps of the Finality, will the creature metamorphose so far as to obliterate the personality trends that humans call male and female; always will these two basic variations of humankind continue to intrigue, stimulate, encourage, and assist each other; always will they be mutually dependent on co-operation in the solution of perplexing universe problems and in the overcoming of manifold cosmic difficulties.
[A Warning:] ...the home—man’s supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization’s only hope of survival. 84:8.6
Paper 84 Marriage and Family Life
8. Dangers of Self-Gratification
84:8.6 Let man enjoy himself; let the human race find pleasure in a thousand and one ways; let evolutionary mankind explore all forms of legitimate self-gratification, the fruits of the long upward biologic struggle. Man has well earned some of his present-day joys and pleasures. But look you well to the goal of destiny! Pleasures are indeed suicidal if they succeed in destroying property, which has become the institution of self-maintenance; and self-gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the collapse of marriage, the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home—man’s supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization’s only hope of survival.
84:8.7 [Presented by the Chief of Seraphim (a high Primary Supernaphim from Paradise ! stationed on Urantia. (Earth.)]
...revelatory religion seeks to evolve and transform mortal man into the image and likeness of God. 85:6.3
Paper 85 The Origins of Worship
6. Worship of Man
85:6.1 Having worshiped everything else on the face of the earth and in the heavens above, man has not hesitated to honor himself with such adoration. The simple-minded savage makes no clear distinction between beasts, men, and gods.
85:6.3 Tribal chiefs died and were deified. Later, distinguished souls passed on and were sainted. Unaided evolution never originated gods higher than the glorified, exalted, and evolved spirits of deceased humans. In early evolution religion creates its own gods. In the course of revelation the Gods formulate religion. Evolutionary religion creates 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.
... And the divine Adjusters have ever since labored to transmute God-fear into God-love. ... 86:7.6
Paper 86 Early Evolution of Religion
7. The Function of Primitive Religion
86:7.6 Primitive religion prepared the soil of the human mind, by the powerful and awesome force of false fear, for the bestowal of a bona fide spiritual force of supernatural origin, the Thought Adjuster. And the divine Adjusters have ever since labored to transmute God-fear into God-love. Evolution may be slow, but it is unerringly effective.
86:7.7 [Presented by an Evening Star of Nebadon.]
48:7.4 #2. Few persons live up to the faith which they really have. Unreasoned fear is a master intellectual fraud practiced upon the evolving mortal soul.
...the sacred books of many religions have become fetishistic prisons incarcerating the spiritual imagination of man. 88:2.6
Paper 88 Fetishes, Charms, and Magic
2. Evolution of the Fetish
88:2.6 Words eventually became fetishes, more especially those which were regarded as God’s words; in this way the sacred books of many religions have become fetishistic prisons incarcerating the spiritual imagination of man. Moses’ very effort against fetishes became a supreme fetish; his commandment was later used to stultify art and to retard the enjoyment and adoration of the beautiful.
88:2.7 In olden times the fetish word of authority was a fear-inspiring doctrine, the most terrible of all tyrants which enslave men. A doctrinal fetish will lead mortal man to betray himself into the clutches of bigotry, fanaticism, superstition, intolerance, and the most atrocious of barbarous cruelties. Modern respect for wisdom and truth is but the recent escape from the fetish-making tendency up to the higher levels of thinking and reasoning. Concerning the accumulated fetish writings which various religionists hold as sacred books, it is not only believed that what is in the book is true, but also that every truth is contained in the book. If one of these sacred books happens to speak of the earth as being flat, then, for long generations, otherwise sane men and women will refuse to accept positive evidence that the planet is round.
[I comment: If a Christian Brother tells you: "The WORD of God is the inerrant Bible", suggest to him that he reads carefully again John 1:1-18 which clearly states Who or what the Word of God is.]
[God's Infinite Love in the human soul !!] ...the limitless affection of the Universal Father for the sons of the universe. 90:0.3
Paper 90 Shamanism—Medicine Men and Priests
0. Introduction
90:0.3 Evolutionary religion is born of a simple and all-powerful fear, the fear which surges through the human mind when confronted wth the unknown, the inexplicable, and the incomprehensible. Religion eventually achieves the profoundly simple realization of an all-powerful love, the love which sweeps irresistibly through the human soul when awakened to the conception of the limitless affection of the Universal Father for the sons of the universe. But in between the beginning and the consummation of religious evolution, there intervene the long ages of the shamans, [and now"church Athorities"] who presume to stand between man and God as intermediaries, interpreters, and intercessors.
Enlightened prayer [is] an external and personal God but also an internal and impersonal Divinity, [God's perfect Guiding Will:] the indwelling Adjuster. 91:3.7
Paper 91 The Evolution of Prayer
3. Prayer and the Alter Ego
91:3.7 Enlightened prayer must recognize not only an external and personal God but also an internal and impersonal Divinity, the indwelling Adjuster. It is altogether fitting that man, when he prays, should strive to grasp the concept of the Universal Father on Paradise; but the more effective technique for most practical purposes will be to revert to the concept of a near-by alter ego, just as the primitive mind was wont to do, and then to recognize that the idea of this alter ego has evolved from a mere fiction to the truth of God’s indwelling mortal man in the factual presence of the Adjuster so that man can talk face to face, as it were, with a real and genuine and divine alter ego that indwells him and is the very presence and essence of the living God, the Universal Father.
Prayer is ... a meaningful reach by the human for superhuman values. It is the most potent spiritual-growth stimulus. 91:8.11
Paper 91 The Evolution of Prayer
8. Praying as a Personal Experience
91:8.10 Genuine prayer adds to spiritual growth, modifies attitudes, and yields that satisfaction which comes from communion with divinity. It is a spontaneous outburst of God-consciousness.
91:8.11 God answers man’s prayer by giving him an increased revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness. Prayer is a subjective gesture, but it contacts with mighty objective realities on the spiritual levels of human experience; it is a meaningful reach by the human for superhuman values. It is the most potent spiritual-growth stimulus.
91:8.12 Words are irrelevant to prayer; they are merely the intellectual channel in which the river of spiritual supplication may chance to flow. The word value of a prayer is purely autosuggestive in private devotions and sociosuggestive in group devotions. God answers the soul’s attitude, not the words.
91:8.13 Prayer is not a technique of escape from conflict but rather a stimulus to growth in the very face of conflict. Pray only for values, not things; for growth, not for gratification.
Religion has always been largely a matter of rites, rituals, observances, ceremonies, and dogmas. 92:3.2
Paper 92 The Later Evolution of Religion
3. The Nature of Evolutionary Religion
92:3.2 Religion has always been largely a matter of rites, rituals, observances, ceremonies, and dogmas. It has usually become tainted with that persistently mischief-making error, the chosen-people delusion. The cardinal religious ideas of incantation, inspiration, revelation, propitiation, repentance, atonement, intercession, sacrifice, prayer, confession, worship, survival after death, sacrament, ritual, ransom, salvation, redemption, covenant, uncleanness, purification, prophecy, original sin—they all go back to the early times of primordial ghost fear.
True religion must ever be...the eternal foundation and the guiding star of all enduring civilizations. 92:7.15
Paper 92 The Later Evolution of Religion
7. The Further Evolution of Religion
92:7.15 True religion must ever be, at one and the same time, the eternal foundation and the guiding star of all enduring civilizations.
92:7.16 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
This incarnated Melchizedek received a Thought Adjuster, who indwelt his superhuman personality... [and later, indwelt Jesus Christ! ] 93:2.7
Paper 93 Machiventa Melchizedek
2. The Sage of Salem
93:2.7 This incarnated Melchizedek received a Thought Adjuster, who indwelt his superhuman personality as the monitor of time and the mentor of the flesh, thus gaining that experience and practical introduction to Urantian problems and to the technique of indwelling an incarnated Son which enabled this spirit of the Father to function so valiantly in the human mind of the later Son of God, [our Christ] Michael, when he appeared on earth in the likeness of mortal flesh. And this is the only Thought Adjuster who ever functioned in two minds on Urantia, but both minds were divine as well as human.
Topical Study number 145
"My Important HighLights of The Urantia (Earth) Book"
Part 36
Compiled June 21, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Now, I am continuing the presentation of only my most important spiritual Highlights of The Urantia Book, Papers 32 through 196. A short selection highlight, then the complete paragraph.]
And Michael, when he appeared on earth, confirmed all that Melchizedek had taught concerning the Paradise Father. 93:3.8
Paper 93 Machiventa Melchizedek
3. Melchizedek’s Teachings
[Paper:Section.Paragraph (numbers)]
93:3.6 Melchizedek taught his followers all they had capacity to receive and assimilate. Even many modern religious ideas about heaven and earth, of man, God, and angels, are not far removed from these teachings of Melchizedek. But this great teacher subordinated everything to the doctrine of one God, a universe Deity, a heavenly Creator, a divine Father. Emphasis was placed upon this teaching for the purpose of appealing to man’s adoration and of preparing the way for the subsequent appearance of Michael as the Son of this same Universal Father.
93:3.7 Melchizedek taught that at some future time another Son of God would come in the flesh as he had come, but that he would be born of a woman; and that is why numerous later teachers held that Jesus was a priest, or minister, “forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
93:3.8 And thus did Melchizedek prepare the way and set the monotheistic stage of world tendency for the bestowal of an actual Paradise Son of the one God, whom he so vividly portrayed as the Father of all, and whom he represented to Abraham as a God who would accept man on the simple terms of personal faith. And Michael, when he appeared on earth, confirmed all that Melchizedek had taught concerning the Paradise Father.
...Urantia [Earth] ... [is] one of the most interesting and intriguing spheres in all the universe of Nebadon. 93:10.8
Paper 93 Machiventa Melchizedek
10. Present Status of Machiventa Melchizedek
93:10.5 (1025.1 Machiventa continued as a planetary receiver up to the times of the triumph of Michael on Urantia. Subsequently, he was attached to the Urantia service on Jerusem as one of the four and twenty directors, only just recently having been elevated to the position of personal ambassador on Jerusem of the Creator Son, bearing the title Vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia. It is our belief that, as long as Urantia remains an inhabited planet, Machiventa Melchizedek will not be fully returned to the duties of his order of sonship but will remain, speaking in the terms of time, forever a planetary minister representing Christ Michael.
93:10.6 As his was an emergency bestowal on Uantia, it does not appear from the records what Machiventa’s future may be. It may develop that the Melchizedek corps of Nebadon have sustained the permanent loss of one of their number. Recent rulings handed down from the Most Highs of Edentia, and later confirmed by the Ancients of Days of Uversa, strongly suggest that this bestowal Melchizedek is destined to take the place of the fallen Planetary Prince, Caligastia. If our conjectures in this respect are correct, it is altogether possible that Machiventa Melchizedek may again appear in person on Urantia and in some modified manner resume the role of the dethroned Planetary Prince, or else appear on earth to function as vicegerent Planetary Prince representing Christ Michael, who now actually holds the title of Planetary Prince of Urantia. While it is far from clear to us as to what Machiventa’s destiny may be, nevertheless, events which have so recently taken place strongly suggest that the foregoing conjectures are probably not far from the truth.
93:10.7 We well understand how, by his triumph on Urantia, Michael became the successor of both Caligastia and Adam; how he became the planetary Prince of Peace and the second Adam. And now we behold the conferring upon this Melchizedek of the title Vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia. Will he also be constituted Vicegerent Material Son of Urantia? Or is there a possibility that an unexpected and unprecedented event is to take place, the sometime return to the planet of Adam and Eve or certain of their progeny as representatives of Michael with the titles vicegerents of the second Adam of Urantia?
93:10.8 And all these speculations associated with the certainty of future appearances of both Magisterial and Trinity Teacher Sons, in conjunction with the explicit promise of the Creator Son to return sometime, make Urantia a planet of future uncertainty and render it one of the most interesting and intriguing spheres in all the universe of Nebadon. It is altogether possible that, in some future age when Urantia is approaching the era of light and life, after the affairs of the Lucifer rebellion and the Caligastia secession have been finally adjudicated, we may witness the presence on Urantia, simultaneously, of Machiventa, Adam, Eve, and Christ Michael, as well as either a Magisterial Son or even Trinity Teacher Sons.
93:10.9 It has long been the opinion of our order that Machiventa’s presence on the Jerusem corps of Urantia directors, the four and twenty counselors, is sufficient evidence to warrant the belief that he is destined to follow the mortals of Urantia on through the universe scheme of progression and ascension even to the Paradise Corps of the Finality. We know that Adam and Eve are thus destined to accompany their earth fellows on the Paradise adventure when Urantia has become settled in light and life.
93:10.10 Less than a thousand years ago this same Machiventa Melchizedek, the onetime sage of Salem, was invisibly present on Urantia for a period of one hundred years, acting as resident governor general of the planet; and if the present system of directing planetary affairs should continue, he will be due to return in the same capacity in a little over one thousand years.
93:10.11 This is the story of Machiventa Melchizedek, one of the most unique of all characters ever to become connected with the history of Urantia and a personality who may be destined to play an important role in the future experience of your irregular and unusual world.
93:10.12 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
[Now present] ...to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus. 94:12.7
Paper 94 The Melchizedek Teachings in the Orient
12. The God Concept of Buddhism
94:12.7 All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.
94:12.8 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
The strength of Islam has been its clear-cut and well-defined presentation of Allah as the one and only Deity ...95:7.6
Paper 95 The Melchizedek Teachings in the Levant
7. The Salem Teachings in Arabia
95:7.6 The strength of Islam has been its clear-cut and well-defined presentation of Allah as the one and only Deity; its weakness, the association of military force with its promulgation, together with its degradation of woman. But it has steadfastly held to its presentation of the One Universal Deity of all, “who knows the invisible and the visible. He is the merciful and the compassionate.” “Truly God is plenteous in goodness to all men.” “And when I am sick, it is he who heals me.” “For whenever as many as three speak together, God is present as a fourth,” for is he not “the first and the last, also the seen and the hidden”?
95:7.7 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
[Isaiah the second speaks for God:] “Fear you not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.” 97:7.6
Paper 97 Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews
7. The Second Isaiah
97:7.5 No prophet or religious teacher from Machiventa to the time of Jesus attained the high concept of God that Isaiah the second proclaimed during these days of the captivity. It was no small, anthropomorphic, man-made God that this spiritual leader proclaimed. “Behold he takes up the isles as a very little thing.” “And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
97:7.6 At last Machiventa Melchizedek beheld human teachers proclaiming a real God to mortal man. Like Isaiah the first, this leader preached a God of universal creation and upholding. “I have made the earth and put man upon it. I have created it not in vain; I formed it to be inhabited.” “I am the first and the last; there is no God beside me.” Speaking for the Lord God of Israel, this new prophet said: “The heavens may vanish and the earth wax old, but my righteousness shall endure forever and my salvation from generation to generation.” “Fear you not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.” “There is no God beside me—a just God and a Savior.”
[Jesus Christ came here] to win all mankind to [know] the Father’s love [and] the realization of their sonship with God. 98:7.1
Paper 98 The Melchizedek Teachings in the Occident
7. The Christian Religion
98:7.1 (1083.6 A Creator Son did not incarnate in the likeness of mortal flesh and bestow himself upon the humanity of Urantia to reconcile an angry God but rather to win all mankind to the recognition of the Father’s love and to the realization of their sonship with God. After all, even the great advocate [the apostle Paul] of the [false] atonement doctrine realized something of this truth, for he declared that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”
[Change society or have cultural disaster !] Mankind is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny. 99:1.1
Paper 99 The Social Problems of Religion
1. Religion and Social Reconstruction
99:1.1 Mechanical inventions and the dissemination of knowledge are modifying civilization; certain economic adjustments and social changes are imperative if cultural disaster is to be avoided. This new and oncoming social order will not settle down complacently for a millennium. The human race must become reconciled to a procession of changes, adjustments, and readjustments. Mankind is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny.
Only the real religion of personal spiritual experience can function helpfully & creatively in the present crisis of civilization. 99:2.1
Paper 99 The Social Problems of Religion
2. Weakness of Institutional Religion
99:2.1 Institutional [ecclesiastical] religion cannot afford inspiration and provide leadership in this impending world-wide social reconstruction and economic reorganization because it has unfortunately become more or less of an organic part of the social order and the economic system which is destined to undergo reconstruction. Only the real religion of personal spiritual experience can function helpfully and creatively in the present crisis of civilization.
...the sincere desire to love God supremely and to love every man [all humans] as a brother in the heavenly kingdom. 99:2.4
Paper 99 The Social Problems of Religion
2. Weakness of Institutional Religion
99:2.3 Religionists must function in society, in industry, and in politics as individuals, not as groups, parties, or institutions. A religious group which presumes to function as such, apart from religious activities, immediately becomes a political party, an economic organization, or a social institution. Religious collectivism must confine its efforts to the furtherance of religious causes.
99:2.4 Religionists are of no more value in the tasks of social reconstruction than nonreligionists except in so far as their religion has conferred upon them enhanced cosmic foresight and endowed them with that superior social wisdom which is born of the sincere desire to love God supremely and to love every man as a brother in the heavenly kingdom. An ideal social order is that in which every man loves his neighbor as he loves himself.
99:2.5 The institutionalized church may have appeared to serve society in the past by glorifying the established political and economic orders, but it must speedily cease such action if it is to survive. [!] Its only proper attitude consists in the teaching of nonviolence, the doctrine of peaceful evolution in the place of violent revolution—peace on earth and good will among all men.
99:2.6 Modern religion finds it difficult to adjust its attitude toward the rapidly shifting social changes only because it has permitted itself to become so thoroughly traditionalized, dogmatized, and institutionalized. The religion of living experience finds no difficulty in keeping ahead of all these social developments and economic upheavals, amid which it ever functions as a moral stabilizer, social guide, and spiritual pilot. True religion carries over from one age to another the worth-while culture and that wisdom which is born of the experience of knowing God and striving to be like him.
Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists. ... true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience ... 99:5.7
5. Social Aspects of Religion
99:5.1 While religion is exclusively a personal spiritual experience—knowing God as a Father—the corollary of this experience—knowing man as a brother—entails the adjustment of the self to other selves, and that involves the social or group aspect of religious life. Religion is first an inner or personal adjustment, and then it becomes a matter of social service or group adjustment. The fact of man’s gregariousness perforce determines that religious groups will come into existence. What happens to these religious groups depends very much on intelligent leadership. In primitive society the religious group is not always very different from economic or political groups. Religion has always been a conservator of morals and a stabilizer of society. And this is still true, notwithstanding the contrary teaching of many modern socialists and humanists.
99:5.2 Always keep in mind: True religion is to know God as your Father and man as your brother. Religion is not a slavish belief in threats of punishment or magical promises of future mystical rewards.
99:5.3 The religion of Jesus is the most dynamic influence ever to activate the human race. Jesus shattered tradition, destroyed dogma, and called mankind to the achievement of its highest ideals in time and eternity—to be perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect.
99:5.4 Religion has little chance to function until the religious group becomes separated from all other groups—the social association of the spiritual membership of the kingdom of heaven.
99:5.5 The doctrine of the total depravity of man destroyed much of the potential of religion for effecting social repercussions of an uplifting nature and of inspirational value. Jesus sought to restore man’s dignity when he declared that all men are the children of God.
99:5.6 Any religious belief which is effective in spiritualizing the believer is certain to have powerful repercussions in the social life of such a religionist. Religious experience unfailingly yields the “fruits of the spirit” in the daily life of the spirit-led mortal.
99:5.7 Just as certainly as men share their religious beliefs, they create a religious group of some sort which eventually creates common goals. Someday religionists will get together and actually effect co-operation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis of psychological opinions and theological beliefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists. Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience. Let the term “faith” stand for the individual’s relation to God rather than for the creedal formulation of what some group of mortals have been able to agree upon as a common religious attitude. “Have you faith? Then have it to yourself.”
99:5.8 That faith is concerned only with the grasp of ideal values is shown by the New Testament definition which declares that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
99:5.9 Primitive man made little effort to put his religious convictions into words. His religion was danced out rather than thought out. Modern men have thought out many creeds and created many tests of religious faith. Future religionists must live out their religion, dedicate themselves to the wholehearted service of the brotherhood of man. It is high time that man had a religious experience so personal and so sublime that it could be realized and expressed only by “feelings that lie too deep for words.”
99:5.10 Jesus did not require of his followers that they should periodically assemble and recite a form of words indicative of their common beliefs. He only ordained that they should gather together to actually do something—partake of the communal supper of the remembrance of his bestowal life on Urantia.
Eternal life is the endless quest for infinite values. 100:2.5
Paper 100 Religion in Human Experience
2. Spiritual Growth
100:2.4 Spirituality becomes at once the indicator of one’s nearness to God and the measure of one’s usefulness to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity therefor and is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish qualities of love.
100:2.5 Actual spiritual status is the measure of Deity attainment, Adjuster attunement. The achievement of finality of spirituality is equivalent to the attainment of the maximum of reality, the maximum of Godlikeness. Eternal life is the endless quest for infinite values.
Man’s sole contribution to growth is the mobilization of the total powers of his personality—living faith. 100:3.7
Paper 100 Religion in Human Experience
3. Concepts of Supreme Value
100:3.7 Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions. Growth is always unconscious, be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Love thus grows; it cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased; it must grow. Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth. Social growth cannot be secured by legislation, and moral growth is not had by improved administration. Man may manufacture a machine, but its real value must be derived from human culture and personal appreciation. Man’s sole contribution to growth is the mobilization of the total powers of his personality—living faith. [See another revelation on the powers of the personality in the first sentence below.]
Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.
4. Problems of Growth
100:4.3 But the great problem of religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of love. Health, mental efficiency, and happiness arise from the unification of physical systems, mind systems, and spirit systems. Of health and sanity man understands much, but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.
Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments 100:4.6
Paper 100 Religion in Human Experience
4. Problems of Growth
100:4.6 [Important:] You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.
Topical Study number 145
"My Important HighLights of The Urantia (Earth) Book"
Part 37
Compiled June 23, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Now, I am continuing the presentation of only my most important spiritual Highlights of The Urantia Book, Papers 32 through 196. A short selection highlight, then the complete paragraph.]
Jesus had no subconscious delusions or superconscious illusions. 100:5.11
Paper 100 Religion in Human Experience
5. Conversion and Mysticism
[Paper:Section.Paragraph (numbers)]
100:5.7 In contrast with conversion-seeking, the better approach to the morontia zones of possible contact with the Thought Adjuster would be through living faith and sincere worship, wholehearted and unselfish prayer. Altogether too much of the uprush of the memories of the unconscious levels of the human mind has been mistaken for divine revelations and spirit leadings.
100:5.8 There is great danger associated with the habitual practice of religious daydreaming; mysticism may become a technique of reality avoidance, albeit it has sometimes been a means of genuine spiritual communion. Short seasons of retreat from the busy scenes of life may not be seriously dangerous, but prolonged isolation of personality is most undesirable. Under no circumstances should the trancelike state of visionary consciousness be cultivated as a religious experience.
100:5.9 The characteristics of the mystical state are diffusion of consciousness with vivid islands of focal attention operating on a comparatively passive intellect. All of this gravitates consciousness toward the subconscious rather than in the direction of the zone of spiritual contact, the superconscious. Many mystics have carried their mental dissociation to the level of abnormal mental manifestations.
100:5.10 The more healthful attitude of spiritual meditation is to be found in reflective worship and in the prayer of thanksgiving. The direct communion with one’s Thought Adjuster, such as occurred in the later years of Jesus’ life in the flesh, should not be confused with these so-called mystical experiences. The factors which contribute to the initiation of mystic communion are indicative of the danger of such psychic states. The mystic status is favored by such things as: physical fatigue, fasting, psychic dissociation, profound aesthetic experiences, vivid sex impulses, fear, anxiety, rage, and wild dancing. Much of the material arising as a result of such preliminary preparation has its origin in the subconscious mind.
100:5.11 However favorable may have been the conditions for mystic phenomena, it should be clearly understood that Jesus of Nazareth never resorted to such methods for communion with the Paradise Father. Jesus had no subconscious delusions or superconscious illusions.
He [Jesus Christ] enters the human mind to elevate, transform, and transfigure it. 100:7.18
Paper 100 Religion in Human Experience
7. The Acme of Religious Living [is Jesus here with us !]
100:7.18 Jesus was the perfectly unified human personality. And today, as in Galilee, he continues to unify mortal experience and to co-ordinate human endeavors. He unifies life, ennobles character, and simplifies experience. He enters the human mind to elevate, transform, and transfigure it. It is literally true: “If any man has Christ Jesus within him, he is a new creature; old things are passing away; behold, all things are becoming new.”
100:7.19 {Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.}
Paper 48 The Morontia Life
6. Morontia World Seraphim—Transition Ministers
48:6.26 Even on Urantia, these seraphim teach the everlasting truth: If your own mind does not serve you well, you can exchange it for the mind of Jesus of Nazareth, who always serves you well.
Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic; as a personal human experience [auto-revelation] it is continuous. 101:2.12
Paper 101 The Real Nature of Religion
2. The Fact of Religion
101:2.12 Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic; as a personal human experience it is continuous. Divinity functions in mortal personality as the Adjuster gift of the Father, as the Spirit of Truth of the Son, and as the Holy Spirit of the Universe Spirit, while these three supermortal endowments are unified in human experiential evolution as the ministry of the Supreme.
101:2.13 True religion is an insight into reality, the faith-child of the moral consciousness, and not a mere intellectual assent to any body of dogmatic doctrines. True religion consists in the experience that “the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” Religion consists not in theologic propositions but in spiritual insight and the sublimity of the soul’s trust.
101:2.14 Your deepest nature—the divine Adjuster—creates within you a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a certain craving for divine perfection. Religion is the faith act of the recognition of this inner urge to divine attainment; and thus is brought about that soul trust and assurance of which you become conscious as the way of salvation, the technique of the survival of personality and all those values which you have come to look upon as being true and good.
While divine or spiritual insight is a gift, human wisdom must evolve. [on science and cosmology in this Revelation] 101:4.2
Paper 101 The Real Nature of Religion
4. The Limitations of Revelation
101:4.2 Mankind should understand that we who participate in the revelation of truth are very rigorously limited by the instructions of our superiors. We are not at liberty to anticipate the scientific discoveries of a thousand years. Revelators must act in accordance with the instructions which form a part of the revelation mandate. We see no way of overcoming this difficulty, either now or at any future time. We full well know that, while the historic facts and religious truths of this series of revelatory presentations will stand on the records of the ages to come, within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. These new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records. Let it be made clear that revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of these revelations is not inspired. It is limited by our permission for the co-ordination and sorting of present-day knowledge. While divine or spiritual insight is a gift, human wisdom must evolve.
101:4.3 Truth is always a revelation: autorevelation when it emerges 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.
Through the appropriation of the faith of Jesus, mortal man can foretaste in time the realities of eternity. 101:6.17
Paper 101 The Real Nature of Religion
6. Progressive Religious Experience
Through the appropriation of the faith of Jesus, mortal man can foretaste in time the realities of eternity. Jesus made the discovery, in human experience, of the Final Father, and his brothers in the flesh of mortal life can follow him along this same experience of Father discovery. They can even attain, as they are, the same satisfaction in this experience with the Father as did Jesus as he was. New potentials were actualized in the universe of Nebadon consequent upon the terminal bestowal of Michael, and one of these was the new illumination of the path of eternity that leads to the Father of all, and which can be traversed even by the mortals of material flesh and blood in the initial life on the planets of space. Jesus was and is the new and living way whereby man can come into the divine inheritance which the Father has decreed shall be his for but the asking. In Jesus there is abundantly demonstrated both the beginnings and endings of the faith experience of humanity, even of divine humanity.
Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. 101:8.2
Paper 101 The Real Nature of Religion
8. Faith and Belief
101:8.1 Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.
101:8.2 Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist.
101:8.3 Faith has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees assumed knowledge. Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal living. Living faith does not foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance.
101:8.4 Faith does not shackle the creative imagination, neither does it maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward the discoveries of scientific investigation. Faith vitalizes religion and constrains the religionist heroically to live the golden rule. The zeal of faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime peace.
There is no real religion apart from a highly active personality. 102:2.7
True religion must act. 2.8
... it is dynamic! 2.9
Paper 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
2. Religion and Reality
102:2.7 Evolutionary man does not naturally relish hard work. To keep pace in his life experience with the impelling demands and the compelling urges of a growing religious experience means incessant activity in spiritual growth, intellectual expansion, factual enlargement, and social service. There is no real religion apart from a highly active personality. Therefore do the more indolent of men often seek to escape the rigors of truly religious activities by a species of ingenious self-deception through resorting to a retreat to the false shelter of stereotyped religious doctrines and dogmas. But true religion is alive. Intellectual crystallization of religious concepts is the equivalent of spiritual death. You cannot conceive of religion without ideas, but when religion once becomes reduced only to an idea, it is no longer religion; it has become merely a species of human philosophy.
102:2.8 Again, there are other types of unstable and poorly disciplined souls who would use the sentimental ideas of religion as an avenue of escape from the irritating demands of living. When certain vacillating and timid mortals attempt to escape from the incessant pressure of evolutionary life, religion, as they conceive it, seems to present the nearest refuge, the best avenue of escape. But it is the mission of religion to prepare man for bravely, even heroically, facing the vicissitudes of life. Religion is evolutionary man’s supreme endowment, the one thing which enables him to carry on and “endure as seeing Him who is invisible.” Mysticism, however, is often something of a retreat from life which is embraced by those humans who do not relish the more robust activities of living a religious life in the open arenas of human society and commerce. True religion must act. Conduct will be the result of religion when man actually has it, or rather when religion is permitted truly to possess the man. Never will religion be content with mere thinking or unacting feeling.
102:2.9 We are not blind to the fact that religion often acts unwisely, even irreligiously, but it acts. Aberrations of religious conviction have led to bloody persecutions, but always and ever religion does something; it is dynamic!
Religious desire is the [search for God] Religious experience is the realization of the consciousness of having found God. 102:3.4
Paper 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
3. Knowledge, Wisdom, and Insight
102:3.4 Religious desire is the hunger quest for divine reality. Religious experience is the realization of the consciousness of having found God. And when a human being does find God, there is experienced within the soul of that being such an indescribable restlessness of triumph in discovery that he is impelled to seek loving service-contact with his less illuminated fellows, not to disclose that he has found God, but rather to allow the overflow of the welling-up of eternal goodness within his own soul to refresh and ennoble his fellows. Real religion leads to increased social service.
This cosmos of the Infinite I AM is therefore endless, limitless, and all-inclusive—timeless, spaceless, and unqualified. 102:3.10
Paper 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
3. Knowledge, Wisdom, and Insight
102:3.10 Science seeks to identify, analyze, and classify the segmented parts of the limitless cosmos. Religion grasps the idea-of-the-whole, the entire cosmos. Philosophy attempts the identification of the material segments of science with the spiritual-insight concept of the whole. Wherein philosophy fails in this attempt, revelation succeeds, affirming that the cosmic circle is universal, eternal, absolute, and infinite. This cosmos of the Infinite I AM is therefore endless, limitless, and all-inclusive—timeless, spaceless, and unqualified. And we bear testimony that the Infinite I AM is also the Father of [Christ] Michael of Nebadon and the God of human salvation.
... in the earth life of Christ Michael we behold the phenomenon of God’s revealing himself to man. 102:3.14
Paper 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
3. Knowledge, Wisdom, and Insight
102:3.14 In evolution, religion often leads to man’s creating his concepts of God; revelation exhibits the phenomenon of God’s evolving man himself, while in the earth life of Christ Michael we behold the phenomenon of God’s revealing himself to man. Evolution tends to make God manlike; revelation tends to make man Godlike.
102:3.15 Science is only satisfied with first causes, religion with supreme personality, and philosophy with unity. Revelation affirms that these three are one, and that all are good. The eternal real is the good of the universe and not the time illusions of space evil. In the spiritual experience of all personalities, always is it true that the real is the good and the good is the real.
Prayer may enrich the life, but worship illuminates destiny. 102:4.5
Paper 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
4. The Fact of Experience
102:4.5 Prayer is indeed a part of religious experience, but it has been wrongly emphasized by modern religions, much to the neglect of the more essential communion of worship. The reflective powers of the mind are deepened and broadened by worship. Prayer may enrich the life, but worship illuminates destiny.
102:4.6 Revealed religion is the unifying element of human existence. Revelation unifies history, co-ordinates geology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, and psychology. Spiritual experience is the real soul of man’s cosmos.
... the living God is the divine light whose interruptions constitute the creation shadows of all space. 102:6.2 & 27:7.7
Paper 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
6. The Certainty of Religious Faith
102:6.2 The gods of primitive men may have been no more than shadows of themselves; the living God is the divine light whose interruptions constitute the creation shadows of all space.
[Note below: ...the threefold fluctuation of the light of the Deity abode, ...]
27:7.7 Sometimes all Paradise becomes engulfed in a dominating tide of spiritual and worshipful expression. Often the conductors of worship cannot control such phenomena until the appearance of the threefold fluctuation of the light of the Deity abode, signifying that the divine heart of the Gods has been fully and completely satisfied by the sincere worship of the residents of Paradise, the perfect citizens of glory and the ascendant creatures of time. What a triumph of technique! What a fruition of the eternal plan and purpose of the Gods that the intelligent love of the creature child should give full satisfaction to the infinite love of the Creator Father!
... the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through PERSONAL experience. “How do you know that I do not know?” 102:6.5
Paper 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
6. The Certainty of Religious Faith
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. In much that pertains to life, probability must be reckoned with, but when contacting with cosmic reality, certainty may be experienced when such meanings and values are approached by living faith. 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. To every such doubter the believer only replies, “How do you know that I do not know?”
Materialism cheapens human life; the gospel of Jesus tremendously enhances and supernally exalts every mortal. 102:6.10
Paper 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
6. The Certainty of Religious Faith
102:6.10 Organic evolution is a fact; purposive or progressive evolution is a truth which makes consistent the otherwise contradictory phenomena of the ever-ascending achievements of evolution. The higher any scientist progresses in his chosen science, the more will he abandon the theories of materialistic fact in favor of the cosmic truth of the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Materialism cheapens human life; the gospel of Jesus tremendously enhances and supernally exalts every mortal. Mortal existence must be visualized as consisting in the intriguing and fascinating experience of the realization of the reality of the meeting of the human upreach and the divine and saving downreach.
Topical Study number 145
"My Important HighLights of The Urantia (Earth) Book"
Part 38
Compiled July 03, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
Religion is ever and always rooted and grounded in personal experience. And your highest religion [is] the life of Jesus... 102:8.7
Paper 102 The Foundations of Religious Faith
8. The Evidences of Religion
102:8.7 But religion is never enhanced by an appeal to the so-called miraculous. The quest for miracles is a harking back to the primitive religions of magic. True religion has nothing to do with alleged miracles, and never does revealed religion point to miracles as proof of authority. Religion is ever and always rooted and grounded in personal experience. And your highest religion, the life of Jesus, was just such a personal experience: man, mortal man, seeking God and finding him to the fullness during one short life in the flesh, while in the same human experience there appeared God seeking man and finding him to the full satisfaction of the perfect soul of infinite supremacy. And that is religion, even the highest yet revealed in the universe of Nebadon—the earth life of Jesus of Nazareth.
102:8.8 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity, but they can never attain philosophic uniformity. 103:1.1-3
Paper 103 The Reality of Religious Experience
1. Philosophy of Religion
103:1.1 The unity of religious experience among a social or racial group derives from the identical nature of the God fragment indwelling the individual. It is this divine in man that gives origin to his unselfish interest in the welfare of other men. But since personality is unique—no two mortals being alike—it inevitably follows that no two human beings can similarly interpret the leadings and urges of the spirit of divinity which lives within their minds. A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity, but they can never attain philosophic uniformity. And this diversity of the interpretation of religious thought and experience is shown by the fact that twentieth-century theologians and philosophers have formulated upward of five hundred different definitions of religion. In reality, every human being defines religion in the terms of his own experiential interpretation of the divine impulses emanating from the God spirit that indwells him, and therefore must such an interpretation be unique and wholly different from the religious philosophy of all other human beings.
103:1.2 When one mortal is in full agreement with the religious philosophy of a fellow mortal, that phenomenon indicates that these two beings have had a similar religious experience touching the matters concerned in their similarity of philosophic religious interpretation.
103:1.3 While your religion is a matter of personal experience, it is most important that you should be exposed to the knowledge of a vast number of other religious experiences (the diverse interpretations of other and diverse mortals to the end that you may prevent your religious life from becoming egocentric—circumscribed, selfish, and unsocial.
A [human] CHILD has been in EXISTENCE about nine months before it experiences BIRTH. 103:2.1
Paper 103 The Reality of Religious Experience
2. Religion and the Individual
103:2.1 Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness. A child has been in existence about nine months before it experiences BIRTH. But the “birth” of religion is not sudden; it is rather a gradual emergence. Nevertheless, sooner or later there is a “birth day.” You do not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you have been “born again”—born of the Spirit. Many spiritual births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked psychological perturbations, as many physical births are characterized by a “stormy labor” and other abnormalities of “delivery.” Other spiritual births are a natural and normal growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and individual determinations. Religion is never a passive experience, a negative attitude. What is termed the “birth of religion” is not directly associated with so-called conversion experiences which usually characterize religious episodes occurring later in life as a result of mental conflict, emotional repression, and temperamental upheavals.
[True Reality:] ...the elliptic symmetry of reality and with the essential curvature of all relation concepts. 103:6:14
Paper 103 The Reality of Religious Experience
6. Philosophic Co-ordination
103:6.14 When the philosophy of man leans heavily toward the world of matter, it becomes rationalistic or naturalistic. When philosophy inclines particularly toward the spiritual level, it becomes idealistic or even mystical. When philosophy is so unfortunate as to lean upon metaphysics, it unfailingly becomes skeptical, confused. In past ages, most of man’s knowledge and intellectual evaluations have fallen into one of these three distortions of perception. Philosophy dare not project its interpretations of reality in the linear fashion of logic; it must never fail to reckon with the elliptic symmetry of reality and with the essential curvature of all relation concepts.
Paper 2 The Nature of God
2:2.1 Even your olden prophets understood the eternal, never-beginning, never-ending, circular [and thus elliptical as Paradise] nature of the Universal Father. God is literally and eternally present in his universe of universes. He inhabits the present moment with all his absolute majesty and eternal greatness. “The Father has life in himself, and this life is eternal life.” Throughout the eternal ages it has been the Father who “gives to all life.” There is infinite perfection in the divine integrity. “I am the Lord; I change not.” Our knowledge of the universe of universes discloses not only that he is the Father of lights, but also that in his conduct of interplanetary affairs there “is no variableness neither shadow of changing.” He “declares the end from the beginning.” He says: “My counsel shall stand; I will do all my pleasures” “according to the eternal purpose which I purposed in my Son.” Thus are the plans and purposes of the First Source and Center like himself: eternal, perfect, and forever changeless.
Paper 11 The Eternal Isle of Paradise
2. Nature of the Eternal Isle
11:2.2 In form Paradise differs from the inhabited space bodies: it is not spherical. It is definitely ellipsoid, being one-sixth longer in the north-south diameter than in the east-west diameter. [7 by 6 by 0.6 ellipsoid] The central Isle is essentially flat, and the distance from the upper surface to the nether surface is one tenth that of the east-west diameter.
8. Paradise Gravity
11:8.2 The center and focal point of absolute material gravity is the Isle of Paradise, complemented by the dark gravity bodies encircling Havona and equilibrated by the upper and nether space reservoirs. All known emanations of nether Paradise invariably and unerringly respond to the central gravity pull operating upon the endless circuits of the elliptical space levels of the master universe. Every known form of cosmic reality has the bend of the ages, the trend of the circle, the swing of the great ellipse.
Paper 105 Deity and Reality
0. Introduction
105:0.1 To even high orders of universe intelligences infinity is only partially comprehensible, and the finality of reality is only relatively understandable. The human mind, as it seeks to penetrate the eternity-mystery of the origin and destiny of all that is called real, may helpfully approach the problem by conceiving eternity-infinity as an almost limitless ellipse which is produced by one absolute cause, and which functions throughout this universal circle of endless diversification, ever seeking some absolute and infinite potential of destiny.
[There are several other paragraphs not shown here]
Some selections on Personal God-consciousness and new spiritual Goals
1:6.6 The more completely man understands himself and appreciates the personality values of his fellows, the more he will crave to know the Original Personality, and the more earnestly such a God-knowing human will strive to become like the Original Personality. You can argue over opinions about God, but experience with him and in him exists above and beyond all human controversy and mere intellectual logic. The God-knowing man describes his spiritual experiences, not to convince unbelievers, but for the edification and mutual satisfaction of believers.
99:5.7 Just as certainly as men share their religious beliefs, they create a religious group of some sort which eventually creates common goals. Someday religionists will get together and actually effect co-operation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis of psychological opinions and theological beliefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists. Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience. Let the term “faith” stand for the individual’s relation to God rather than for the creedal formulation of what some group of mortals have been able to agree upon as a common religious attitude. “Have you faith? Then have it to yourself.”
102:3.4 Religious desire is the hunger quest for divine reality. Religious experience is the realization of the consciousness of having found God. And when a human being does find God, there is experienced within the soul of that being such an indescribable restlessness of triumph in discovery that he is impelled to seek loving service-contact with his less illuminated fellows, not to disclose that he has found God, but rather to allow the overflow of the welling-up of eternal goodness within his own soul to refresh and ennoble his fellows. Real religion leads to increased social service.
193:0.3 [Jesus:] “And now you should give ear to my words lest you again make the mistake of hearing my teaching with the mind while in your hearts you fail to comprehend the meaning. From the beginning of my sojourn as one of you, I taught you that my one purpose was to reveal my Father in heaven to his children on earth. I have lived the God-revealing bestowal that you might experience the God-knowing career. I have revealed God as your Father in heaven; I have revealed you as the sons of God on earth. It is a fact that God loves you, his sons. By faith in my word this fact becomes an eternal and living truth in your hearts. When, by living faith, you become divinely God-conscious, you are then born of the spirit as children of light and life, even the eternal life wherewith you shall ascend the universe of universes and attain the experience of finding God the Father on Paradise."
196:3.34 The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness—contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith.
Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. 103:9.11 Faith is gift ! 137:8.17 143:2.7
Paper 103 The Reality of Religious Experience
9. The Essence of Religion [Read all again when you can. Powerful truths !]
103:9.11 Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. Faith must not be overmuch influenced by its emotional consequences. True religion is an experience of believing and knowing as well as a satisfaction of feeling.
103:9.12 There is a reality in religious experience that is proportional to the spiritual content, and such a reality is transcendent to reason, science, philosophy, wisdom, and all other human achievements. The convictions of such an experience are unassailable; the logic of religious living is incontrovertible; the certainty of such knowledge is superhuman; the satisfactions are superbly divine, the courage indomitable, the devotions unquestioning, the loyalties supreme, and the destinies final—eternal, ultimate, and universal.
103:9.13 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
Note below: Faith is the gift of God !
137:8.17 [Jesus:] “John came preaching repentance to prepare you for the kingdom; now have I come proclaiming faith, the gift of God, as the price of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. If you would but believe that my Father loves you with an infinite love, then you are in the kingdom of God.”
143:2.7 [Jesus:] “Your sonship is grounded in faith, and you are to remain unmoved by fear. Your joy is born of trust in the divine word, and you shall not therefore be led to doubt the reality of the Father’s love and mercy. It is the very goodness of God that leads men into true and genuine repentance. Your secret of the mastery of self is bound up with your faith in the indwelling spirit, which ever works by love. Even this saving faith you have not of yourselves; it also is the gift of God. And if you are the children of this living faith, you are no longer the bondslaves of self but rather the triumphant masters of yourselves, the liberated sons of God."
[Jesus Christ Michael is the Eternal Son here?:] ...while in spirit this is true, in actuality it is not a fact. 104:1.13
PAPER 104 GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
1. Urantian Trinity Concepts
104:1.11 The first Trinity of Christianity was proclaimed at Antioch and consisted of God, his Word, and his Wisdom. Paul knew of the Paradise Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit, but he seldom preached about it and made mention thereof in only a few of his letters to the newly forming churches. Even then, as did his fellow apostles, Paul confused Jesus, the Creator Son of the local universe, with the Second Person of Deity, the Eternal Son of Paradise.
104:1.12 The Christian concept of the Trinity, which began to gain recognition near the close of the first century after Christ, was comprised of the Universal Father, the Creator Son of Nebadon, and the Divine Minister of Salvington—Mother Spirit of the local universe and creative consort of the Creator Son.
104:1.13 Not since the times of Jesus has the factual identity of the Paradise Trinity been known on Urantia (except by a few individuals to whom it was especially revealed until its presentation in these revelatory disclosures. But though the Christian concept of the Trinity erred in fact, it was practically true with respect to spiritual relationships. Only in its philosophic implications and cosmological consequences did this concept suffer embarrassment: It has been difficult for many who are cosmic minded to believe that the Second Person of Deity, the second member of an infinite Trinity, once dwelt on Urantia; and while in spirit this is true, in actuality it is not a fact. The Michael Creators fully embody the divinity of the Eternal Son, but they are not the absolute personality.
[I state: In Papers 6 and 7 on God the Eternal Son in the Paradise Trinity, there is stated many times that the Eternal Son is fully spiritually present to us in our Creator Father-Son Jesus Christ Michael. See 6:2.2 6:8.3 6:8.4 7:2.1 7:2.4 7:3.1 7:5.3 7:5.4 7:5.10 7:5.11 7:6.2 7:6.3 7:7.3 7:7.4 7:7.6 I hope I counted the paragraphs right.]
[In Papers 1 through 5 on God the Universal Father, you will find many references that He is also personally and spiritually present in our Creator Son Jesus Christ Michael. There are many similar statements throughout the whole Urantia Book.]
[The three Persons of the Paradise Trinity are fully present in Spirit in our local universe of Nebadon: The Father and the Son are in our Creator Jesus; and the Infinite Spirit is fully in our Creative Mother Spirit. Three Deities in Paradise are in Two Deities in our local universe; and all Five Deity Persons are as One in Spirit and will Union here with us, and also within Spirit-Born humans. Human comprehension of this is very small; as all of these Spirit Beings and many subordinate Beings appear as One in all human Spiritual Experiences.]
The [Paradise] Trinity is a supersummative Deity reality eventuating out of the conjoining of the three Paradise Deities. 104:2.4
PAPER 104 GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
2. Trinity Unity and Deity Plurality
104:2.4 And this selfsame Paradise Trinity is a real entity—not a personality but nonetheless a true and absolute reality; not a personality but nonetheless compatible with coexistent personalities—the personalities of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Trinity is a supersummative Deity reality eventuating out of the conjoining of the three Paradise Deities. The qualities, characteristics, and functions of the Trinity are not the simple sum of the attributes of the three Paradise Deities; Trinity functions are something unique, original, and not wholly predictable from an analysis of the attributes of Father, Son, and Spirit.
104:2.5 For example: The Master, when on earth, admonished his followers that justice is never a personal act; it is always a group function. Neither do the Gods, as persons, administer justice. But they perform this very function as a collective whole, as the Paradise Trinity.
104:2.6 The conceptual grasp of the Trinity association of Father, Son, and Spirit prepares the human mind for the further presentation of certain other threefold relationships. Theological reason may be fully satisfied by the concept of the Paradise Trinity, but philosophical and cosmological reason demand the recognition of the other triune associations of the First Source and Center, those triunities in which the Infinite functions in various non-Father capacities of universal manifestation—the relationships of the God of force, energy, power, causation, reaction, potentiality, actuality, gravity, tension, pattern, principle, and unity.
Topical Study number 145
"My Important HighLights of The Urantia (Earth) Book"
Part 39
Compiled July 05, 2023 by Dave@PureChristians.org
Thus is the Father related to the six co-ordinate Absolutes, and thus do all seven encompass the circle of infinity throughout the endless cycles of eternity.
PAPER 104 GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
3. Trinities and Triunities
104:3.5 In these papers total reality (infinity) has been presented as it exists in the seven Absolutes:
104:3.6 #1. The Universal Father.
104:3.7 #2. The Eternal Son.
104:3.8 #3. The Infinite Spirit.
104:3.9 #4. The Isle of Paradise.
104:3.10 #5. The Deity Absolute.
104:3.11 #6. The Universal Absolute.
104:3.12 #7. The Unqualified Absolute.
[NOTE: #1,#2,#3 are one Trinity; #5,#6,#7 are one Absolute on Paradise]
104:3.13 The First Source and Center, who is Father to the Eternal Son, is also Pattern to the Paradise Isle. He is personality unqualified in the Son but personality potentialized in the Deity Absolute. The Father is energy revealed in Paradise-Havona and at the same time energy concealed in the Unqualified Absolute. The Infinite is ever disclosed in the ceaseless acts of the Conjoint Actor while he is eternally functioning in the compensating but enshrouded activities of the Universal Absolute. Thus is the Father related to the six co-ordinate Absolutes, and thus do all seven encompass the circle of infinity throughout the endless cycles of eternity.
...the Universal Father is ...Primal Cosmic Pattern, and Essence of Infinity. ...the absolute of Absolutes. 104:4.1
PAPER 104 GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
4. The Seven Triunities
104:4.1 In attempting the description of seven triunities, attention is directed to the fact that the Universal Father is the primal member of each. He is, was, and ever will be: the First Universal Father-Source, Absolute Center, Primal Cause, Universal Controller, Limitless Energizer, Original Unity, Unqualified Upholder, First Person of Deity, Primal Cosmic Pattern, and Essence of Infinity. The Universal Father is the personal cause of the Absolutes; he is the absolute of Absolutes.
...the cosmos-infinite, of which the grand universe and the master universe are only partial manifestations. 104:4.26
PAPER 104 GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
4. The Seven Triunities
Review: *Monota. 3:2.5 The omnipotence of the Father pertains to the everywhere dominance of the absolute level, whereon the three energies, material, mindal, and spiritual, are indistinguishable in close proximity to him—the Source of all things. Creature mind, being neither Paradise monota nor Paradise spirit, is not directly responsive to the Universal Father. God adjusts with the mind of imperfection—with Urantia mortals through the Thought Adjusters. [God's pure Spirit will living within you and within all normal humans !]
104:4.22 The Fourth Triunity—the triunity of energy infinity. Within this triunity there eternalizes the beginnings and the endings of all energy reality, from space potency to *monota. This grouping embraces the following:
104:4.23 #1. The Father-Spirit.
104:4.24 #2. The Paradise Isle.
104:4.25 #3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:4.26 Paradise is the center of the force-energy activation of the cosmos—the universe position of the First Source and Center, the cosmic focal point of the Unqualified Absolute, and the source of all energy. Existentially present within this triunity is the energy potential of the cosmos-infinite, of which the grand universe and the master universe are only partial manifestations.
104:4.27 The fourth triunity absolutely controls the fundamental units of cosmic energy and releases them from the grasp of the Unqualified Absolute in direct proportion to the appearance in the experiential Deities of subabsolute capacity to control and stabilize the metamorphosing cosmos.
104:4.28 This triunity is force and energy. The endless possibilities of the Unqualified Absolute are centered around the *absolutum of the Isle of Paradise, whence emanate the unimaginable agitations of the otherwise static quiescence of the Unqualified. And the endless throbbing of the material Paradise heart of the infinite cosmos beats in harmony with the unfathomable pattern and the unsearchable plan of the Infinite Energizer, the First Source and Center.
*Absolutum: 11:2.9 The eternal Isle is composed of a single form of materialization—stationary systems of reality. This literal substance of Paradise is a homogeneous organization of space potency not to be found elsewhere in all the wide universe of universes. It has received many names in different universes, and the Melchizedeks of Nebadon long since named it *absolutum. This Paradise source material is neither dead nor alive; it is the original nonspiritual expression of the First Source and Center; it is Paradise, and Paradise is without duplicate.
105:3.2 #1. The First Source and Center. First Person of Deity and primal nondeity pattern, God, the Universal Father, creator, controller, and upholder; universal love, eternal spirit, and infinite energy; potential of all potentials and source of all actuals; stability of all statics and dynamism of all change; source of pattern and Father of persons. Collectively, all seven Absolutes equivalate to infinity, but the Universal Father himself actually is infinite.
144:5.29 And vitalize us with your infinite energy.
Limitless supplies of energy is now available for all local worlds and systems !
29:4.35 #6. Secondary Dissociators. Compared with the primary associators, these beings of enormous antigravity endowment are the reverse workers. There is never any danger that the special or modified forms of physical energy on the local worlds or in the local systems will be exhausted, for these living organizations are endowed with the unique power of evolving limitless supplies of energy. They are chiefly concerned with the evolution of a form of energy which is hardly known on Urantia from a form of matter which is recognized still less. They are truly the alchemists of space and the wonder-workers of time. But in all the wonders they work, they never transgress the mandates of Cosmic Supremacy.
...there are fifteen triune associations of the First Source and Center, eight of which are unrevealed in these papers. 104:4.45
PAPER 104 GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
4. The Seven Triunities
104:4.45 These approximations are sufficient to elucidate the concept of the triunities. Not knowing the ultimate level of the triunities, you cannot fully comprehend the first seven. While we do not deem it wise to attempt any further elaboration, we may state that there are fifteen triune associations of the First Source and Center, eight of which are unrevealed in these papers. These unrevealed associations are concerned with realities, actualities, and potentialities which are beyond the experiential level of supremacy. [probably seven Supreme, seven Ultimate, one Absolute in the fifteen triunities.]
104:4.46 The triunities are the functional balance wheel of infinity, the unification of the uniqueness of the Seven Infinity Absolutes. It is the existential presence of the triunities that enables the Father-I AM to experience functional infinity unity despite the diversification of infinity into seven Absolutes. The First Source and Center is the unifying member of all triunities; in him all things have their unqualified beginnings, eternal existences, and infinite destinies—“in him all things consist.”
104:4.47 Although these associations cannot augment the infinity of the Father-I AM, they do appear to make possible the subinfinite and subabsolute manifestations of his reality. The seven triunities multiply versatility, eternalize new depths, deitize new values, disclose new potentialities, reveal new meanings; and all these diversified manifestations in time and space and in the eternal cosmos are existent in the hypothetical stasis of the original infinity of the I AM.
And to the time creatures of space the Supreme Being is a revelation of the unity of the I AM. 104:5.12
PAPER 104 GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
5. TRIODITIES
104:5.1 There are certain other triune relationships which are non-Father in constitution, but they are not real triunities, and they are always distinguished from the Father triunities. They are called variously, associate triunities, co-ordinate triunities, and TRIODITIES. They are consequential to the existence of the triunities. Two of these associations are constituted as follows:
104:5.2 THE TRIODITY OF ACTUALITY. This triodity consists in the interrelationship of the three absolute actuals:
104:5.3 #1. The Eternal Son.
104:5.4 #2. The Paradise Isle.
104:5.5 #3. The Conjoint Actor.
104:5.6 The Eternal Son is the absolute of spirit reality, the absolute personality. The Paradise Isle is the absolute of cosmic reality, the absolute pattern. The Conjoint Actor is the absolute of mind reality, the co-ordinate of absolute spirit reality, and the existential Deity synthesis of personality and power. This triune association eventuates the co-ordination of the sum total of actualized reality—spirit, cosmic, or mindal. It is unqualified in actuality.
104:5.7 THE TRIODITY OF POTENTIALITY. This triodity consists in the association of the three Absolutes of potentiality:
104:5.8 #1. The Deity Absolute.
104:5.9 #2. The Universal Absolute.
104:5.10 #3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:5.11 Thus are interassociated the infinity reservoirs of all latent energy reality—spirit, mindal, or cosmic. This association yields the integration of all latent energy reality. It is infinite in potential.
104:5.12 As the triunities are primarily concerned with the functional unification of infinity, so are triodities involved in the cosmic appearance of experiential Deities. The triunities are indirectly concerned, but the triodities are directly concerned, in the experiential Deities—Supreme, Ultimate, and Absolute. They appear in the emerging power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being. And to the time creatures of space the Supreme Being is a revelation of the unity of the I AM.
104:5.13 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
...reality totality IS infinity and therefore can never be fully comprehended by any [subinfinite mind.] 105:0.2
PAPER 105 DEITY AND REALITY
0. Introduction
105:0.1 To even high orders of universe intelligences infinity is only partially comprehensible, and the finality of reality is only relatively understandable. The human mind, as it seeks to penetrate the eternity-mystery of the origin and destiny of all that is called REAL, may helpfully approach the problem by conceiving eternity-infinity as an almost limitless ellipse which is produced by one absolute cause, and which functions throughout this universal circle of endless diversification, ever seeking some absolute and infinite potential of destiny.
105:0.2 When the mortal intellect attempts to grasp the concept of reality totality, such a finite mind is face to face with infinity-reality; reality totality is infinity and therefore can never be fully comprehended by any mind that is subinfinite in concept capacity.
105:0.3 The human mind can hardly form an adequate concept of eternity existences, and without such comprehension it is impossible to portray even our concepts of reality totality. Nevertheless, we may attempt such a presentation, although we are fully aware that our concepts must be subjected to profound distortion in the process of translation-modification to the comprehension level of mortal mind.
4. The Father and His Kingdom
169:4.4 Jesus well knew that God can be known only by the realities of experience; never can he be understood by the mere teaching of the mind. Jesus taught his apostles that, while they never could fully understand God, they could most certainly KNOW him, even as they had known the Son of Man. You can know God, not by understanding what Jesus said, but by knowing what Jesus was. Jesus WAS a revelation of God. [Jesus Christ Michael IS always full here in Spirit as The Father-Son Spirit of All Truth ! He perfectly reveals God the Universal Father to all sincere Truth-seekers !]
[GOD The Infinite I AM to all humans is] ...the face of a Father, the Universal Father of love. 105:1.8
PAPER 105 DEITY AND REALITY
1. The Philosophic Concept of the I AM
105:1.6 Ever remember that man’s comprehension of the Universal Father is a personal experience. [I am a divinely beloved son of GOD our Universal Father; and I believe that He is also GOD THE INFINITE ETERNAL I AM] God, as your spiritual Father, is comprehensible to you and to all other mortals; but YOUR EXPERIENTIAL WORSHIPFUL CONCEPT OF THE UNIVERSAL FATHER MUST ALWAYS BE LESS THAN YOUR PHILOSOPHIC POSTULATE OF THE INFINITY OF THE FIRST SOURCE AND CENTER, THE I AM. When we speak of the Father, we mean God as he is understandable by his creatures both high and low, but there is much more of Deity which is not comprehensible to universe creatures. God, your Father and my Father, is that phase of the Infinite which we perceive in our personalities as an actual experiential reality, but the I AM ever remains as our hypothesis of all that we feel is unknowable of the First Source and Center. And even that hypothesis probably falls far short of the unfathomed infinity of original reality.
105:1.7 The universe of universes, with its innumerable host of inhabiting personalities, is a vast and complex organism, but the First Source and Center is infinitely more complex than the universes and personalities which have become real in response to his willful mandates. When you stand in awe of the magnitude of the master universe, pause to consider that even this inconceivable creation can be no more than a partial revelation of the Infinite.
105:1.8 Infinity is indeed remote from the experience level of mortal comprehension, but even in this age on Urantia your concepts of infinity are growing, and they will continue to grow throughout your endless careers stretching onward into future eternity. Unqualified infinity is meaningless to the finite creature, but infinity is capable of self-limitation and is susceptible of reality expression to all levels of universe existences. And the face which the Infinite turns toward all universe personalities is the face of a Father, the Universal Father of love.
[Creator Michael Sons, Magisterial Avonal Sons, and Trinity Teacher Sons are described]
PAPER 20 THE PARADISE SONS OF GOD
10. United Ministry of the Paradise Sons
20:10.3 In the Creator Sons the love of the Universal Father is blended with the mercy of the Eternal Son and is disclosed to the local universes in the creative power, loving ministry, and understanding sovereignty of the Michaels. In the Magisterial Sons the mercy of the Eternal Son, united with the ministry of the Infinite Spirit, is revealed to the evolutionary domains in the careers of these Avonals of judgment, service, and bestowal. In the Trinity Teacher Sons the love, mercy, and ministry of the three Paradise Deities are co-ordinated on the highest time-space value-levels and are presented to the universes as living truth, divine goodness, and true spiritual beauty.
Collectively, all seven Absolutes equivalate to infinity, but the Universal Father himself actually is infinite. 105:3.2
PAPER 105 DEITY AND REALITY
3. The Seven Absolutes of Infinity
105:3.2 #1. The First Source and Center. First Person of Deity and primal nondeity pattern, God, the Universal Father, creator, controller, and upholder; universal love, eternal spirit, and infinite energy; potential of all potentials and source of all actuals; stability of all statics and dynamism of all change; source of pattern and Father of persons. Collectively, all seven Absolutes equivalate to infinity, but the Universal Father himself actually is infinite.
[For much more, peruse again: FOREWORD III THE FIRST SOURCE AND CENTER.]
[Note that the seven coordinate Absolutes of Total Infinite Reality have One Center, One Paradise, and One Absolute. (more 1-3-7 pattern)]
... the eternity coexistence of [the Father,] the Son, the Spirit, the three Absolutes, and the Paradise Isle 105:3.9 & 10
PAPER 105 DEITY AND REALITY
3. The Seven Absolutes of Infinity
105:3.9 The Seven Absolutes of Infinity constitute the beginnings of reality. As mortal minds would regard it, the First Source and Center would appear to be antecedent to all absolutes. But such a postulate, however helpful, is invalidated by the eternity coexistence of the Son, the Spirit, the three Absolutes, and the Paradise Isle.
105:3.10 It is a TRUTH that the Absolutes are manifestations of the I AM-First Source and Center; it is a FACT that these Absolutes never had a beginning but are co-ordinate eternals with the First Source and Center. The relationships of absolutes in eternity cannot always be presented without involving paradoxes in the language of time and in the concept patterns of space. But regardless of any confusion concerning the origin of the Seven Absolutes of Infinity, it is both fact and truth that all reality is predicated upon their eternity existence and infinity relationships.
