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Posts
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Thank you Mara!! Wonderful.
Trust. How important!!
Indeed, who’s in charge around here? What’s going on? How is rebellion even possible? Why is it allowed? Why is there suffering anyway? Can’t God prevent evil and error?
All critical questions answered in great detail in the Papers. Freewill is the Way and Plan of God’s will. Experiential freewill beings must truly enjoy freewill and its repercussions to benefit from the “anvil of justice and hammer of suffering” to acquire experiential wisdom.
Experiential wisdom is determined by God to actually benefit and improve wisdom and creation – even perfect wisdom and beings still are strengthened by and are improved by experiential wisdom gained by the evolutionary process and beings perfected in time.
The already perfect need those who are perfecting evidently. There is a grand purpose behind imperfection that only experiential perfecting can achieve.
As to those “who we are to trust”, consider reading Papers 114 and 119:
2. The Board of Planetary Supervisors
114:2.1 (1251.4) Since the times of Michael’s bestowal on your world the general management of Urantia has been intrusted to a special group on Jerusem of twenty-four onetime Urantians. Qualification for membership on this commission is unknown to us, but we have observed that those who have been thus commissioned have all been contributors to the enlarging sovereignty of the Supreme in the system of Satania. By nature they were all real leaders when they functioned on Urantia, and (excepting Machiventa Melchizedek) these qualities of leadership have been further augmented by mansion world experience and supplemented by the training of Jerusem citizenship. Members are nominated to the twenty-four by the cabinet of Lanaforge, seconded by the Most Highs of Edentia, approved by the Assigned Sentinel of Jerusem, and appointed by Gabriel of Salvington in accordance with the mandate of Michael. The temporary appointees function just as fully as do the permanent members of this commission of special supervisors.
114:2.2 (1251.5) This board of planetary directors is especially concerned with the supervision of those activities on this world which result from the fact that Michael here experienced his terminal bestowal. They are kept in close and immediate touch with Michael by the liaison activities of a certain Brilliant Evening Star, the identical being who attended upon Jesus throughout the mortal bestowal.
114:2.3 (1252.1) At the present time one John, known to you as “the Baptist,” is chairman of this council when it is in session on Jerusem. But the ex officio head of this council is the Assigned Sentinel of Satania, the direct and personal representative of the Associate Inspector on Salvington and of the Supreme Executive of Orvonton.
114:2.4 (1252.2) The members of this same commission of former Urantians also act as advisory supervisors of the thirty-six other rebellion-isolated worlds of the system; they perform a very valuable service in keeping Lanaforge, the System Sovereign, in close and sympathetic touch with the affairs of these planets, which still remain more or less under the overcontrol of the Constellation Fathers of Norlatiadek. These twenty-four counselors make frequent trips as individuals to each of the quarantined planets, especially to Urantia.
4. The Most High Observer
114:4.1 (1253.4) The sovereignty of Urantia is further complicated by the onetime arbitrary seizure of planetary authority by the government of Norlatiadek shortly after the planetary rebellion. There is still resident on Urantia a Vorondadek Son, an observer for the Most Highs of Edentia and, in the absence of direct action by Michael, trustee of planetary sovereignty. The present Most High observer (and sometime regent) is the twenty-third thus to serve on Urantia.
114:4.2 (1253.5) There are certain groups of planetary problems which are still under the control of the Most Highs of Edentia, jurisdiction over them having been seized at the time of the Lucifer rebellion. Authority in these matters is exercised by a Vorondadek Son, the Norlatiadek observer, who maintains very close advisory relations with the planetary supervisors. The race commissioners are very active on Urantia, and their various group chiefs are informally attached to the resident Vorondadek observer, who acts as their advisory director.
114:4.3 (1253.6) In a crisis the actual and sovereign head of the government, excepting in certain purely spiritual matters, would be this Vorondadek Son of Edentia now on observation duty. (In these exclusively spiritual problems and in certain purely personal matters, the supreme authority seems to be vested in the commanding archangel attached to the divisional headquarters of that order which was recently established on Urantia.)
114:4.4 (1253.7) A Most High observer is empowered, at his discretion, to seize the planetary government in times of grave planetary crises, and it is of record that this has happened thirty-three times in the history of Urantia. At such times the Most High observer functions as the Most High regent, exercising unquestioned authority over all ministers and administrators resident on the planet excepting only the divisional organization of the archangels.
114:4.5 (1253.8) Vorondadek regencies are not peculiar to rebellion-isolated planets, for the Most Highs may intervene at any time in the affairs of the inhabited worlds, interposing the superior wisdom of the constellation rulers in the affairs of the kingdoms of men.
114:7.14 (1258.6) Urantia mortals should not allow the comparative spiritual isolation of their world from certain of the local universe circuits to produce a feeling of cosmic desertion or planetary orphanage. There is operative on the planet a very definite and effective superhuman supervision of world affairs and human destinies.
114:7.17 (1259.2) Your isolated world is not forgotten in the counsels of the universe. Urantia is not a cosmic orphan stigmatized by sin and shut away from divine watchcare by rebellion. From Uversa to Salvington and on down to Jerusem, even in Havona and on Paradise, they all know we are here; and you mortals now dwelling on Urantia are just as lovingly cherished and just as faithfully watched over as if the sphere had never been betrayed by a faithless Planetary Prince, even more so. It is eternally true, “the Father himself loves you.”
119:8.8 (1319.1) Urantia is the sentimental shrine of all Nebadon, the chief of ten million inhabited worlds, the mortal home of Christ Michael, sovereign of all Nebadon, a Melchizedek minister to the realms, a system savior, an Adamic redeemer, a seraphic fellow, an associate of ascending spirits, a morontia progressor, a Son of Man in the likeness of mortal flesh, and the Planetary Prince of Urantia. And your record tells the truth when it says that this same Jesus has promised sometime to return to the world of his terminal bestowal, the World of the Cross.
So…Urantia certainly does not have the same leadership hierarchical structure as before the rebellion. We now have an emergency response and recovery team of specialists on duty on this one in ten million worlds, this Shrine of Nebadon and World of the Cross.
Rebellion is a very unusual event, only 3 times in isolated hamlets or districts in all of Nebadon history – the first being 850 million years ago, also led by a System Sovereign (see Paper 119, section 2). The second, also a System Sovereign rebellion, was approximately 600 million years ago (Paper 119, section 3).
We have already established that freewill and evolutionary perfecting of experiential wisdom does offer the potential for such errors of evil, sin, and iniquity. There cannot be freewill without such potential. There has never been disloyalty or the betrayal of rebellion by any universe beings higher than System Sovereign (and in Nebadon at least, none lower ever led but only joined rebellion).
The UB explains that these Lanonandek Sons (includes Lucifer, Satan, and Caligastia) are created peculiarly susceptible to such possibilities.
We are so told that the Grand Universe is blessed by the presence and service of Agondonters and those rebellion tested mortals and celestials of time who deliver a resilience and strength and wisdom that is unmatched and vital to the perfection and future actualization of reality potentials.
Rebellion tested children of time are personally inoculated from such failure and inoculate the universe of universes from all potential rebellion too, especially I think, on the world’s and universes to come.
It’s not what happens so much as how we respond to what happens that delivers experiential wisdom. Immunity to failure is only acquired by overcoming it and learning from the suffering it causes.
Or so I understand.
7. The Rewards of Isolation
50:7.1 (578.6) On first thought it might appear that Urantia and its associated isolated worlds are most unfortunate in being deprived of the beneficent presence and influence of such superhuman personalities as a Planetary Prince and a Material Son and Daughter. But isolation of these spheres affords their races a unique opportunity for the exercise of faith and for the development of a peculiar quality of confidence in cosmic reliability which is not dependent on sight or any other material consideration. It may turn out, eventually, that mortal creatures hailing from the worlds quarantined in consequence of rebellion are extremely fortunate. We have discovered that such ascenders are very early intrusted with numerous special assignments to cosmic undertakings where unquestioned faith and sublime confidence are essential to achievement.
50:7.2 (579.1) On Jerusem the ascenders from these isolated worlds occupy a residential sector by themselves and are known as the agondonters, meaning evolutionary will creatures who can believe without seeing, persevere when isolated, and triumph over insuperable difficulties even when alone. This functional grouping of the agondonters persists throughout the ascension of the local universe and the traversal of the superuniverse; it disappears during the sojourn in Havona but promptly reappears upon the attainment of Paradise and definitely persists in the Corps of the Mortal Finality. Tabamantia is an agondonter of finaliter status, having survived from one of the quarantined spheres involved in the first rebellion ever to take place in the universes of time and space.
50:7.3 (579.2) All through the Paradise career, reward follows effort as the result of causes. Such rewards set off the individual from the average, provide a differential of creature experience, and contribute to the versatility of ultimate performances in the collective body of the finaliters.
flower24 – I hope this contributes to the question you asked regarding Caligastia. Caligastia and Lucifer and Satan are all of the same order of Sonship – the Descending Sons – Lanonandeks. They are created especially to manage the world’s of mortals and serve the Ascending Sons in the Systems and on the worlds of the children of time.
A review of Papers 20 and 35 is recommended.
Also note the rehabilitation of a Planetary Prince in Section 3 of Paper 119 during Michael’s 3rd Bestowal mission.
119:3.4 (1312.5) Thus did this unique Material Son begin his difficult career on a quarantined world of secession and rebellion, located in a beleaguered system without any direct communication with the outside universe, working alone for one whole generation of planetary time. This emergency Material Son effected the repentance and reclamation of the defaulting Planetary Prince and his entire staff and witnessed the restoration of the planet to the loyal service of the Paradise rule as established in the local universes. In due time a Material Son and Daughter arrived on this rejuvenated and redeemed world, and when they had been duly installed as visible planetary rulers, the transitory or emergency Planetary Prince took formal leave, disappearing at noon one day. On the third day thereafter, Michael appeared in his accustomed place on Salvington, and very soon the superuniverse broadcasts carried the fourth proclamation of the Ancients of Days announcing the further advancement of the sovereignty of Michael in Nebadon.
35:9.5 (393.5) The System Sovereigns are true to their names; they are well-nigh sovereign in the local affairs of the inhabited worlds. They are almost paternal in their direction of the Planetary Princes, the Material Sons, and the ministering spirits. The personal grasp of the sovereign is all but complete. These rulers are not supervised by Trinity observers from the central universe. They are the executive division of the local universe, and as custodians of the enforcement of legislative mandates and as executives for the application of judicial verdicts, they present the one place in all universe administration where personal disloyalty to the will of the Michael Son could most easily and readily intrench itself and seek to assert itself.
35:9.6 (393.6) Our local universe has been unfortunate in that over seven hundred Sons of the Lanonandek order have rebelled against the universe government, thus precipitating confusion in several systems and on numerous planets. Of this entire number of failures only three were System Sovereigns; practically all of these Sons belonged to the second and third orders, Planetary Princes and tertiary Lanonandeks.
35:9.7 (393.7) The large number of these Sons who have lapsed from integrity does not indicate any fault in creatorship. They could have been made divinely perfect, but they were so created that they might better understand, and draw near to, the evolutionary creatures dwelling on the worlds of time and space.
35:9.8 (393.8) Of all the local universes in Orvonton, our universe has, with the exception of Henselon, lost the largest number of this order of Sons. On Uversa it is the consensus that we have had so much administrative trouble in Nebadon because our Sons of the Lanonandek order have been created with such a large degree of personal liberty in choosing and planning. I do not make this observation by way of criticism. The Creator of our universe has full authority and power to do this. It is the contention of our high rulers that, while such free-choosing Sons make excessive trouble in the earlier ages of the universe, when things are fully sifted and finally settled, the gains of higher loyalty and fuller volitional service on the part of these thoroughly tested Sons will far more than compensate for the confusion and tribulations of earlier times.
35:9.9 (394.1) In the event of rebellion on a system headquarters, a new sovereign is usually installed within a comparatively short time, but not so on the individual planets. They are the component units of the material creation, and creature free will is a factor in the final adjudication of all such problems. Successor Planetary Princes are designated for isolated worlds, planets whose princes of authority may have gone astray, but they do not assume active rulership of such worlds until the results of insurrection are partially overcome and removed by the remedial measures adopted by the Melchizedeks and other ministering personalities. Rebellion by a Planetary Prince instantly isolates his planet; the local spiritual circuits are immediately severed. Only a bestowal Son can re-establish interplanetary lines of communication on such a spiritually isolated world.
35:9.10 (394.2) There exists a plan for saving these wayward and unwise Sons, and many have availed themselves of this merciful provision; but never again may they function in those positions wherein they defaulted. After rehabilitation they are assigned to custodial duties and to departments of physical administration.
Me here: This supports Rick’s opinion of hoped for rehabilitation of our Prince.
66:8.3 (752.4) From the arrival of Prince Caligastia, planetary civilization progressed in a fairly normal manner for almost three hundred thousand years. Aside from being a life-modification sphere and therefore subject to numerous irregularities and unusual episodes of evolutionary fluctuation, Urantia progressed very satisfactorily in its planetary career up to the times of the Lucifer rebellion and the concurrent Caligastia betrayal. All subsequent history has been definitely modified by this catastrophic blunder as well as by the later failure of Adam and Eve to fulfill their planetary mission.
66:8.4 (752.5) The Prince of Urantia went into darkness at the time of the Lucifer rebellion, thus precipitating the long confusion of the planet. He was subsequently deprived of sovereign authority by the co-ordinate action of the constellation rulers and other universe authorities. He shared the inevitable vicissitudes of isolated Urantia down to the time of Adam’s sojourn on the planet and contributed something to the miscarriage of the plan to uplift the mortal races through the infusion of the lifeblood of the new violet race—the descendants of Adam and Eve.
66:8.5 (753.1) The power of the fallen Prince to disturb human affairs was enormously curtailed by the mortal incarnation of Machiventa Melchizedek in the days of Abraham; and subsequently, during the life of Michael in the flesh, this traitorous Prince was finally shorn of all authority on Urantia.
66:8.6 (753.2) The doctrine of a personal devil on Urantia, though it had some foundation in the planetary presence of the traitorous and iniquitous Caligastia, was nevertheless wholly fictitious in its teachings that such a “devil” could influence the normal human mind against its free and natural choosing. Even before Michael’s bestowal on Urantia, neither Caligastia nor Daligastia was ever able to oppress mortals or to coerce any normal individual into doing anything against the human will. The free will of man is supreme in moral affairs; even the indwelling Thought Adjuster refuses to compel man to think a single thought or to perform a single act against the choosing of man’s own will.
66:8.7 (753.3) And now this rebel of the realm, shorn of all power to harm his former subjects, awaits the final adjudication, by the Uversa Ancients of Days, of all who participated in the Lucifer rebellion.
So why a rebellion is allowed to continue was answered understandably and also that a rebellious planetary prince is offered the possibility of repentance through mercy.
But my question was why Caligastia was left on Urantia for this purpose.It was quoted above that no rebellious being can negatively affect the mind or free will of man, however I wonder why then there are people on Urantia who enrich themselves by exploiting other people, by warmongering, by environmental destruction and their power keep expanding. There are some very intelligent people who cause this. So you can’t explain it in terms of primitive mind alone or free will to do good or evil. But I don’t want to start a political discussion, I’m just addressing it in general terms.
At the moment we not only have a great extinction of species, but entire areas (biotopes) are being destroyed, which is fatal for an experimental planet.
I think you also inadvertently “reported” your own post for “inappropriate content”…
I imagine/speculate that fallen Princes may be the only beings to receive such treatment. I doubt if this is considered leniency but may have some positive record of rehabilitation and ultimately result in a greater good for a greater number.
Pure speculation without any specific reasons or motives presented. A mystery whose answer is unrevealed in the Papers to my knowledge.
As to the corrupting power of self interest and the animal nature, not all mortals progress morally, ethically, or spiritually. Some digress even after the birth of soul. The more we respond to situations and circumstances and relationships with self importance and self interest the more entrenched and habitual becomes our animal nature.
We are taught we always progress or we regress, moving forward or backward, becoming more spiritual or less.. Culture and society benefit or suffers by each part of the whole.
There is the love of power and then there is the power of love. Each has very different personal and social outcomes.
52:6.2 (597.3) Even on normal evolutionary worlds the realization of the world-wide brotherhood of man is not an easy accomplishment. On a confused and disordered planet like Urantia such an achievement requires a much longer time and necessitates far greater effort. Unaided social evolution can hardly achieve such happy results on a spiritually isolated sphere. Religious revelation is essential to the realization of brotherhood on Urantia. While Jesus has shown the way to the immediate attainment of spiritual brotherhood, the realization of social brotherhood on your world depends much on the achievement of the following personal transformations and planetary adjustments:
52:6.3 (597.4) 1. Social fraternity. Multiplication of international and interracial social contacts and fraternal associations through travel, commerce, and competitive play. Development of a common language and the multiplication of multilinguists. The racial and national interchange of students, teachers, industrialists, and religious philosophers.
52:6.4 (597.5) 2. Intellectual cross-fertilization. Brotherhood is impossible on a world whose inhabitants are so primitive that they fail to recognize the folly of unmitigated selfishness. There must occur an exchange of national and racial literature. Each race must become familiar with the thought of all races; each nation must know the feelings of all nations. Ignorance breeds suspicion, and suspicion is incompatible with the essential attitude of sympathy and love.
52:6.5 (597.6) 3. Ethical awakening. Only ethical consciousness can unmask the immorality of human intolerance and the sinfulness of fratricidal strife. Only a moral conscience can condemn the evils of national envy and racial jealousy. Only moral beings will ever seek for that spiritual insight which is essential to living the golden rule.
52:6.6 (598.1) 4. Political wisdom. Emotional maturity is essential to self-control. Only emotional maturity will insure the substitution of international techniques of civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war. Wise statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity even while they strive to promote the interest of their national or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is ultimately suicidal—destructive of all those enduring qualities which insure planetary group survival.
52:6.7 (598.2) 5. Spiritual insight. The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God. The quickest way to realize the brotherhood of man on Urantia is to effect the spiritual transformation of present-day humanity. The only technique for accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is that of applying spiritual pressure from above, thus augmenting moral insight while enhancing the soul capacity of every mortal to understand and love every other mortal. Mutual understanding and fraternal love are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in the world-wide realization of the brotherhood of man.
Regarding “spiritual pressure from above”, consider the Spirit of Truth and the flood of God Fragments and their combined effects and acceleration of our planetary progress the past 2000 years.
Science slowly triumphs over superstition and the human mind connection to the Spirit, including the Father, Mother, and Son spirits and Spirit Gravity Circuits conspire and cooperate to transfer the seat of our identity from animal self importance to spirit identity, duty, sharing and caring, the Golden Rule, and brotherhood of humanity and the celestialfamily.
34:5.4 (379.4) When mind is thus endowed with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, it possesses the capacity for (consciously or unconsciously) choosing the spiritual presence of the Universal Father—the Thought Adjuster. But it is not until a bestowal Son has liberated the Spirit of Truth for planetary ministry to all mortals that all normal minds are automatically prepared for the reception of the Thought Adjusters. The Spirit of Truth works as one with the presence of the spirit of the Divine Minister. This dual spirit liaison hovers over the worlds, seeking to teach truth and to spiritually enlighten the minds of men, to inspire the souls of the creatures of the ascending races, and to lead the peoples dwelling on the evolutionary planets ever towards their Paradise goal of divine destiny.
34:5.5 (379.5) Though the Spirit of Truth is poured out upon all flesh, this spirit of the Son is almost wholly limited in function and power by man’s personal reception of that which constitutes the sum and substance of the mission of the bestowal Son. The Holy Spirit is partly independent of human attitude and partially conditioned by the decisions and co-operation of the will of man. Nevertheless, the ministry of the Holy Spirit becomes increasingly effective in the sanctification and spiritualization of the inner life of those mortals who the more fully obey the divine leadings.
34:5.6 (379.6) As individuals you do not personally possess a segregated portion or entity of the spirit of the Creator Father-Son or the Creative Mother Spirit; these ministries do not contact with, nor indwell, the thinking centers of the individual’s mind as do the Mystery Monitors. Thought Adjusters are definite individualizations of the prepersonal reality of the Universal Father, actually indwelling the mortal mind as a very part of that mind, and they ever work in perfect harmony with the combined spirits of the Creator Son and Creative Spirit.
34:5.7 (380.1) The presence of the Holy Spirit of the Universe Daughter of the Infinite Spirit, of the Spirit of Truth of the Universe Son of the Eternal Son, and of the Adjuster-spirit of the Paradise Father in or with an evolutionary mortal, denotes symmetry of spiritual endowment and ministry and qualifies such a mortal consciously to realize the faith-fact of sonship with God.
72:12.5 (820.3) The pouring out of the Spirit of Truth provides the spiritual foundation for the realization of great achievements in the interests of the human race of the bestowal world. Urantia is therefore far better prepared for the more immediate realization of a planetary government with its laws, mechanisms, symbols, conventions, and language—all of which could contribute so mightily to the establishment of world-wide peace under law and could lead to the sometime dawning of a real age of spiritual striving; and such an age is the planetary threshold to the utopian ages of light and life.
I wonder why then there are people on Urantia who enrich themselves by exploiting other people, by warmongering, by environmental destruction and their power keep expanding. There are some very intelligent people who cause this. So you can’t explain it in terms of primitive mind alone or free will to do good or evil.
It can be difficult to perceive the evidence of planetary progress. And we are still primitive people, under the burdens of ignorance, superstition, materialism, self importance, fear, and anxiety. Only our faith and spirituality and experiential wisdom can overcome the very real outcomes and repercussions of “primitive mind” and “free will to do good or evil.”
Still there is ample evidence of the ethics, morality, hope, idealism, caring and sharing, and religiosity of humanity. A look back in time, even just a few centuries but also the time of recorded history and especially that million years of evolutionary progress described in the Papers, certainly reveals and demonstrates an arc AND a trajectory AND a momentum of great social progress.
It can be hard to see the horizons of hope when neck deep in the alligator pit!!
We are learning to subordinate the material and mechanical aspects of living by the spirit led perspective of caring and sharing. Any one person may accomplish this transformation in any and every generation. But for all people to each be led by idealism and morality takes the evolutionary hammer and anvil of trial and error to still deliver experiential wisdom.
Even idealism and morality do not deliver the fullness and complete realization of social wisdom. First come proper motive and good intentions and appropriate priorities, and then, slowly and incrementally, do we develop strategies and tactics to achieve the actualization of human potentials.
But idealism and morality are not enough. True experiential wisdom cannot exist without the guidance of Spirit and the reality perspective which acknowledges the family of creation, including the brotherhood of humanity.
What’s going on is the acceleration of material progress at one level and speed that requires a responsive moral and spiritual reaction to overcome the suffering experienced by the lack of wisdom achieved so far. We will suffer until we get it right, personally and collectively.
Or so I understand…
118:8.2 (1301.7) Mortal man is a machine, a living mechanism; his roots are truly in the physical world of energy. Many human reactions are mechanical in nature; much of life is machinelike. But man, a mechanism, is much more than a machine; he is mind endowed and spirit indwelt; and though he can never throughout his material life escape the chemical and electrical mechanics of his existence, he can increasingly learn how to subordinate this physical-life machine to the directive wisdom of experience by the process of consecrating the human mind to the execution of the spiritual urges of the indwelling Thought Adjuster.
118:8.3 (1301. The spirit liberates, and the mechanism limits, the function of will. Imperfect choice, uncontrolled by mechanism, unidentified with spirit, is dangerous and unstable. Mechanical dominance insures stability at the expense of progress; spirit alliance liberates choice from the physical level and at the same time assures the divine stability produced by augmented universe insight and increased cosmic comprehension.
118:8.4 (1302.1) The great danger that besets the creature is that, in achieving liberation from the fetters of the life mechanism, he will fail to compensate this loss of stability by effecting a harmonious working liaison with spirit. Creature choice, when relatively liberated from mechanical stability, may attempt further self-liberation independent of greater spirit identification.
118:8.5 (1302.2) The whole principle of biologic evolution makes it impossible for primitive man to appear on the inhabited worlds with any large endowment of self-restraint. Therefore does the same creative design which purposed evolution likewise provide those external restraints of time and space, hunger and fear, which effectively circumscribe the subspiritual choice range of such uncultured creatures. As man’s mind successfully overstrides increasingly difficult barriers, this same creative design has also provided for the slow accumulation of the racial heritage of painfully garnered experiential wisdom—in other words, for the maintenance of a balance between the diminishing external restraints and the augmenting internal restraints.
118:8.6 (1302.3) The slowness of evolution, of human cultural progress, testifies to the effectiveness of that brake—material inertia—which so efficiently operates to retard dangerous velocities of progress. Thus does time itself cushion and distribute the otherwise lethal results of premature escape from the next-encompassing barriers to human action. For when culture advances overfast, when material achievement outruns the evolution of worship-wisdom, then does civilization contain within itself the seeds of retrogression; and unless buttressed by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such human societies will recede from high but premature levels of attainment, and the “dark ages” of the interregnum of wisdom will bear witness to the inexorable restoration of the imbalance between self-liberty and self-control.
From Wiki: “An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity or “gap” in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin inter-, “between” and rēgnum, “reign” [from rex, rēgis, “king”]), and the concepts of interregnum and regency therefore overlap. Historically, the longer and heavier interregna were typically accompanied by widespread unrest, civil and succession wars between warlords, and power vacuums filled by foreign invasions or the emergence of a new power.”
118:8.10 (1302.7) As man shakes off the shackles of fear, as he bridges continents and oceans with his machines, generations and centuries with his records, he must substitute for each transcended restraint a new and voluntarily assumed restraint in accordance with the moral dictates of expanding human wisdom. These self-imposed restraints are at once the most powerful and the most tenuous of all the factors of human civilization—concepts of justice and ideals of brotherhood. Man even qualifies himself for the restraining garments of mercy when he dares to love his fellow men, while he achieves the beginnings of spiritual brotherhood when he elects to mete out to them that treatment which he himself would be accorded, even that treatment which he conceives that God would accord them.
6. Materialism
195:6.1 (2076.6) Scientists have unintentionally precipitated mankind into a materialistic panic; they have started an unthinking run on the moral bank of the ages, but this bank of human experience has vast spiritual resources; it can stand the demands being made upon it. Only unthinking men become panicky about the spiritual assets of the human race. When the materialistic-secular panic is over, the religion of Jesus will not be found bankrupt. The spiritual bank of the kingdom of heaven will be paying out faith, hope, and moral security to all who draw upon it “in His name.”
195:6.2 (2076.7) No matter what the apparent conflict between materialism and the teachings of Jesus may be, you can rest assured that, in the ages to come, the teachings of the Master will fully triumph. In reality, true religion cannot become involved in any controversy with science; it is in no way concerned with material things. Religion is simply indifferent to, but sympathetic with, science, while it supremely concerns itself with the scientist.
195:6.3 (2076.8) The pursuit of mere knowledge, without the attendant interpretation of wisdom and the spiritual insight of religious experience, eventually leads to pessimism and human despair. A little knowledge is truly disconcerting.
195:6.4 (2076.9) At the time of this writing the worst of the materialistic age is over; the day of a better understanding is already beginning to dawn. The higher minds of the scientific world are no longer wholly materialistic in their philosophy, but the rank and file of the people still lean in that direction as a result of former teachings. But this age of physical realism is only a passing episode in man’s life on earth. Modern science has left true religion—the teachings of Jesus as translated in the lives of his believers—untouched. All science has done is to destroy the childlike illusions of the misinterpretations of life.
195:6.5 (2077.1) Science is a quantitative experience, religion a qualitative experience, as regards man’s life on earth. Science deals with phenomena; religion, with origins, values, and goals. To assign causes as an explanation of physical phenomena is to confess ignorance of ultimates and in the end only leads the scientist straight back to the first great cause—the Universal Father of Paradise.
195:6.6 (2077.2) The violent swing from an age of miracles to an age of machines has proved altogether upsetting to man. The cleverness and dexterity of the false philosophies of mechanism belie their very mechanistic contentions. The fatalistic agility of the mind of a materialist forever disproves his assertions that the universe is a blind and purposeless energy phenomenon.
195:6.7 (2077.3) The mechanistic naturalism of some supposedly educated men and the thoughtless secularism of the man in the street are both exclusively concerned with things; they are barren of all real values, sanctions, and satisfactions of a spiritual nature, as well as being devoid of faith, hope, and eternal assurances. One of the great troubles with modern life is that man thinks he is too busy to find time for spiritual meditation and religious devotion.
195:6.8 (2077.4) Materialism reduces man to a soulless automaton and constitutes him merely an arithmetical symbol finding a helpless place in the mathematical formula of an unromantic and mechanistic universe. But whence comes all this vast universe of mathematics without a Master Mathematician? Science may expatiate on the conservation of matter, but religion validates the conservation of men’s souls—it concerns their experience with spiritual realities and eternal values.
I think a great purpose and value of the Papers is the enhanced and expanded lens of our personal and collective reality perspective given to us in this gift. One does not need to believe the claims of the book about its own source, or even the specifics of its contents, to appreciate and benefit from this far reaching presentation of time and evolutionary perfecting process and the evidence of our planetary social progress.
The conspiracy of power and the inherent ability of power to corrupt is made plain (revealed) to all who are love-dominated and will continue to “victimize” all others who are self-dominated. The Spirit of Truth ministers to the domination of love within the each. Overcoming mortal evils is an effect, the collective effect of more and more mortals becoming dominated by love for God and love of all others.
The cause AND the cure for human suffering is already well known and long before there ever was a Urantia Book. There is no mystery about the reaping of what is sown is there??? Who does not know this? Only the most superstitious and primitive of all people still blames devils and evil spirits and angry gods for the repercussions of freewill.
Which only proves we are, collectively speaking, still quite primitive and ignorant after all. For many people today, especially Christians, do still embrace a fear based perspective of reality and too readily dismiss the butterfly of the Jesusonian Gospel within this cocoon of primitive religion.
Some even dismiss globalization and social progress as the work of the devil (the Antichrist myth) and actively resist the end of nationalism and isolationism and resent cultural integration and racial amalgamation and planetary citizenship and everything that is truly inevitably progressive about the forces of evolution imparted and managed by the Most Highs on our world.
Or so I understand…
Perhaps it would be helpful to consider the source and sanctity of personality and mind? And soul? God is the source and giver of freewill but also the source and center of personality and also mind. These each and all have Deity origin AND direct connection by the Deity Gravity Circuits but also personally and individually according to the Papers.
Soul is birthed by human mind and the God Fragment by the very exercise of freewill and morality. Our soul is the expression of Divine partnership with human mind – the connection of humanity and Divinity. Consider that reality when contemplating the sanctity of freewill, mind, and personality.
BradlyIt was quoted above that no rebellious being can negatively affect the mind or free will of man, however I wonder why then there are people on Urantia who enrich themselves by exploiting other people, by warmongering, by environmental destruction and their power keep expanding. There are some very intelligent people who cause this. So you can’t explain it in terms of primitive mind alone or free will to do good or evil. But I don’t want to start a political discussion, I’m just addressing it in general terms.
You appear to dispute or dismiss both the sanctity (reality) of human freewill and the functional power of freewill as the cause of suffering, error-evil, and sin. There is wisdom and then there is the lack of wisdom.
Intelligence and education do not determine or deliver experiential wisdom or spirituality or even morality and ethics or the caring and sharing motivation and intentions of spiritized beings. But only ethics, morality, idealism, wisdom, and spirituality can end human suffering. All human suffering.
According to the Papers all suffering is caused, directly and indirectly, by the lack of ethics, morality, idealism, wisdom, and spirituality. The Eastern philosophy of karma teaches the same. Freewill is the cause of causes – the source of suffering and its cure.
It is only natural I think for someone who is motivated by idealism, morality, ethics, duty, loyalty, a caring and sharing spirit to not understand those who are not so motivated and wise. Why are some people so cruel and barbarous and short sighted and selfish????
Why indeed?
But the consequences and repercussions of such freewill choices simply cannot be denied. And truly neither can the fact of freewill be denied. Freewill and its functional cause of the karmic effects is indisputable really.
To blame any other cause or personage or agent or agency for human suffering is a cop-out and lacks intellectual or philosophic integrity (without and disregarding the UB’s verification of such fact and truth).
Self importance prevents happiness and causes suffering. It is not complicated.
Spirituality delivers happiness and ends suffering. Also not complicated.
Social evolutionary progress is the story of the functional results of personal spiritization and its collective effects of experiential wisdom and the spiritualization of a world. It takes time. Because there is individual freewill.
Or so I understand…
Perhaps it would be helpful to consider the source and sanctity of personality and mind? And soul? God is the source and giver of freewill but also the source and center of personality and also mind. These each and all have Deity origin AND direct connection by the Deity Gravity Circuits but also personally and individually according to the Papers.
Soul is birthed by human mind and the God Fragment by the very exercise of freewill and morality. Our soul is the expression of Divine partnership with human mind – the connection of humanity and Divinity. Consider that reality when contemplating the sanctity of freewill, mind, and personality.
“Freewill”
(70.2) 5:6.1 The Universal Father is the God of personalities. The domain of universe personality, from the lowest mortal and material creature of personality status to the highest persons of creator dignity and divine status, has its center and circumference in the Universal Father. God the Father is the bestower and the conservator of every personality. And the Paradise Father is likewise the destiny of all those finite personalities who wholeheartedly choose to do the divine will, those who love God and long to be like him.
(70.3) 5:6.2 Personality is one of the unsolved mysteries of the universes. We are able to form adequate concepts of the factors entering into the make-up of various orders and levels of personality, but we do not fully comprehend the real nature of the personality itself. We clearly perceive the numerous factors which, when put together, constitute the vehicle for human personality, but we do not fully comprehend the nature and significance of such a finite personality.
(70.4) 5:6.3 Personality is potential in all creatures who possess a mind endowment ranging from the minimum of self-consciousness to the maximum of God-consciousness. But mind endowment alone is not personality, neither is spirit nor physical energy. Personality is that quality and value in cosmic reality which is exclusively bestowed by God the Father upon these living systems of the associated and co-ordinated energies of matter, mind, and spirit. Neither is personality a progressive achievement. Personality may be material or spiritual, but there either is personality or there is no personality. The other-than-personal never attains the level of the personal except by the direct act of the Paradise Father.
(70.5) 5:6.4 The bestowal of personality is the exclusive function of the Universal Father, the personalization of the living energy systems which he endows with the attributes of relative creative consciousness and the freewill control thereof. There is no personality apart from God the Father, and no personality exists except for God the Father. The fundamental attributes of human selfhood, as well as the absolute Adjuster nucleus of the human personality, are the bestowals of the Universal Father, acting in his exclusively personal domain of cosmic ministry.
(150.3) 13:4.4 Physical authority, presence, and function are unvarying in all the universes, small or great. The differing factor in spiritual presence, or reaction, is the fluctuating differential in its recognition and reception by will creatures. Whereas the spiritual presence of absolute and existential Deity is in no manner whatever influenced by attitudes of loyalty or disloyalty on the part of created beings, at the same time it is true that the functioning presence of subabsolute and experiential Deity is definitely and directly influenced by the decisions, choices, and will-attitudes of such finite creature beings — by the loyalty and devotion of the individual being, planet, system, constellation, or universe. But this spiritual presence of divinity is not whimsical nor arbitrary; its experiential variance is inherent in the freewill endowment of personal creatures.
(150.4) 13:4.5 The determiner of the differential of spiritual presence exists in your own hearts and minds and consists in the manner of your own choosing, in the decisions of your minds, and in the determination of your own wills. This differential is inherent in the freewill reactions of intelligent personal beings, beings whom the Universal Father has ordained shall exercise this liberty of choosing. And the Deities are ever true to the ebb and flow of their spirits in meeting and satisfying the conditions and demands of this differential of creature choice, now bestowing more of their presence in response to a sincere desire for the same and again withdrawing themselves from the scene as their creatures decide adversely in the exercise of their divinely bestowed freedom of choice. And thus does the spirit of divinity become humbly obedient to the choosing of the creatures of the realms.
. . .I wonder why then there are people on Urantia who. . . .
Even in light of my comprehension of the UB revelations, I think about this, your question/s, every day. Thank you for asking. Bradly’s answers are on the right track. In addition to his remarks and references, I’ll point you to these excerpts from Paper 111:
111:4.3 The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. It is only the inner life that is truly creative. Civilization can hardly progress when the majority of the youth of any generation devote their interests and energies to the materialistic pursuits of the sensory or outer world.
The inner and the outer worlds have a different set of values. Any civilization is in jeopardy when three quarters of its youth enter materialistic professions and devote themselves to the pursuit of the sensory activities of the outer world. Civilization is in danger when youth neglect to interest themselves in ethics, sociology, eugenics, philosophy, the fine arts, religion, and cosmology.
Only in the higher levels of the superconscious mind as it impinges upon the spirit realm of human experience can you find those higher concepts in association with effective master patterns which will contribute to the building of a better and more enduring civilization. Personality is inherently creative, but it thus functions only in the inner life of the individual.
[…]
You cannot completely control the external world — environment. It is the creativity of the inner world that is most subject to your direction because there your personality is so largely liberated from the fetters of the laws of antecedent causation. There is associated with personality a limited sovereignty of will.
Since this inner life of man is truly creative, there rests upon each person the responsibility of choosing as to whether this creativity shall be spontaneous and wholly haphazard or controlled, directed, and constructive. How can a creative imagination produce worthy children when the stage whereon it functions is already preoccupied by prejudice, hate, fears, resentments, revenge, and bigotries?
Ideas may take origin in the stimuli of the outer world, but ideals are born only in the creative realms of the inner world. Today the nations of the world are directed by men who have a superabundance of ideas, but they are poverty-stricken in ideals. That is the explanation of poverty, divorce, war, and racial hatreds.
This is the problem: If freewill man is endowed with the powers of creativity in the inner man, then must we recognize that freewill creativity embraces the potential of freewill destructivity. And when creativity is turned to destructivity, you are face to face with the devastation of evil and sin — oppression, war, and destruction. Evil is a partiality of creativity which tends toward disintegration and eventual destruction. All conflict is evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life — it is a species of civil war in the personality.
Inner creativity contributes to ennoblement of character through personality integration and selfhood unification. It is forever true: The past is unchangeable; only the future can be changed by the ministry of the present creativity of the inner self.
Even if I continue to be baffled by what appears to me to be the world-going-to-pieces, I do cling to the hope embodied in this reference:
195:6.2 No matter what the apparent conflict between materialism and the teachings of Jesus may be, you can rest assured that, in the ages to come, the teachings of the Master will fully triumph. In reality, true religion cannot become involved in any controversy with science; it is in no way concerned with material things. Religion is simply indeferent to, but sympathetic with, science, while it supremely concerns itself with the scientist.Even in light of my comprehension of the UB revelations, I think about this, your question/s, every day. Thank you for asking.
Me too!! The mystery of suffering. It’s purpose, meaning, and value.
Great post Mara!
(51.2) 3:5.3 In the affairs of men’s hearts the Universal Father may not always have his way; but in the conduct and destiny of a planet the divine plan prevails; the eternal purpose of wisdom and love triumphs.
(51.3) 3:5.4 Said Jesus: “My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” As you glimpse the manifold workings and view the staggering immensity of God’s well-nigh limitless creation, you may falter in your concept of his primacy, but you should not fail to accept him as securely and everlastingly enthroned at the Paradise center of all things and as the beneficent Father of all intelligent beings. There is but “one God and Father of all, who is above all and in all,” “and he is before all things, and in him all things consist.”
(51.4) 3:5.5 The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence do not in any manner contradict the concept of the universal sovereignty of God. All evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities. Consider the following:
(51.5) 3:5.6 1. Is courage — strength of character — desirable? Then must man be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.
(51.6) 3:5.7 2. Is altruism — service of one’s fellows — desirable? Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality.
(51.7) 3:5.8 3. Is hope — the grandeur of trust — desirable? Then human existence must constantly be confronted with insecurities and recurrent uncertainties.
(51.8) 3:5.9 4. Is faith — the supreme assertion of human thought — desirable? Then must the mind of man find itself in that troublesome predicament where it ever knows less than it can believe.
(51.9) 3:5.10 5. Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? Then must man grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.
(51.10) 3:5.11 6. Is idealism — the approaching concept of the divine — desirable? Then must man struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.
(51.11) 3:5.12 7. Is loyalty — devotion to highest duty — desirable? Then must man carry on amid the possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The valor of devotion to duty consists in the implied danger of default.
(51.12) 3:5.13 8. Is unselfishness — the spirit of self-forgetfulness — desirable? Then must mortal man live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.
(51.13) 3:5.14 9. Is pleasure — the satisfaction of happiness — desirable? Then must man live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities.
(52.1) 3:5.15 Throughout the universe, every unit is regarded as a part of the whole. Survival of the part is dependent on co-operation with the plan and purpose of the whole, the wholehearted desire and perfect willingness to do the Father’s divine will. The only evolutionary world without error (the possibility of unwise judgment) would be a world without free intelligence. In the Havona universe there are a billion perfect worlds with their perfect inhabitants, but evolving man must be fallible if he is to be free. Free and inexperienced intelligence cannot possibly at first be uniformly wise. The possibility of mistaken judgment (evil) becomes sin only when the human will consciously endorses and knowingly embraces a deliberate immoral judgment.
(52.2) 3:5.16 The full appreciation of truth,of truth, beauty, and goodness is inherent in the perfection of the divine universe. The inhabitants of the Havona worlds do not require the potential of relative value levels as a choice stimulus; such perfect beings are able to identify and choose the good in the absence of all contrastive and thought-compelling moral situations. But all such perfect beings are, in moral nature and spiritual status, what they are by virtue of the fact of existence. They have experientially earned advancement only within their inherent status. Mortal man earns even his status as an ascension candidate by his own faith and hope. Everything divine which the human mind grasps and the human soul acquires is an experiential attainment; it is a reality of personal experience and is therefore a unique possession in contrast to the inherent goodness and righteousness of the inerrant personalities of Havona.
(52.3) 3:5.17 The creatures of Havona are naturally brave, but they are not courageous in the human sense. They are innately kind and considerate, but hardly altruistic in the human way. They are expectant of a pleasant future, but not hopeful in the exquisite manner of the trusting mortal of the uncertain evolutionary spheres. They have faith in the stability of the universe, but they are utter strangers to that saving faith whereby mortal man climbs from the status of an animal up to the portals of Paradise. They love the truth, but they know nothing of its soul-saving qualities. They are idealists, but they were born that way; they are wholly ignorant of the ecstasy of becoming such by exhilarating choice. They are loyal, but they have never experienced the thrill of wholehearted and intelligent devotion to duty in the face of temptation to default. They are unselfish, but they never gained such levels of experience by the magnificent conquest of a belligerent self. They enjoy pleasure, but they do not comprehend the sweetness of the pleasure escape from the pain potential.
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