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For Jesus this moment arrived upon his baptism by John in the Jordan.
As an interesting side note: today also happens to be the anniversary of the aforementioned event, noted by Mara, above.
This is all very philosophical.
it happens when you talk about religion.
UB readers tend to be productive about it.
isnt that great?
This is all very philosophical. it happens when you talk about religion. UB readers tend to be productive about it. isnt that great?
Great indeed, Gene! Good to find so much interest and deeply intelligent discussion of this little understood and often neglected subject, philosophy. There are so many fascinating aspects to it, as you all reflect with your insights, observations and opinions.
I was particularly struck by Jeff’s recommendation to avoid the buzz words that philosophers use (like truth, beauty, goodness, even the word philosophy), in order to bring philosophy down to an understandable level, understandable to the average human who hasn’t studied Plato or Merton, hasn’t read or embraced UB philosophy. So it’s good advice, in a measure. Most people just go blank, or off on a tangent, when Truth, Beauty and Goodness are mentioned, they sound professorial and untouchable to the average Urantian mind. And they sound formulaic somehow, even if they are the very pillars of universal philosophy. So, when we dare to teach and discuss philosophy, or any weighty topic, these two simple suggestions from the master of philosophy, are probably still the best:
“…Give the milk of truth to those who are babes in spiritual perception. In your living and loving ministry serve spiritual food in attractive form and suited to the capacity of receptivity of each of your inquirers….” (1474:2) 133:4.2
“…My beloved, you must always make a difference in teaching so as to suit your presentation of truth to the minds and hearts before you….” (1692:0) 151:3.1
Richard E Warren
I’ll add that the thing behind philosophizing is the reality of mind energy at work with a destiny.
that destiny being the Supreme.
. . . in order to bring philosophy down to an understandable level, understandable to the average human who hasn’t studied Plato or Merton, hasn’t read or embraced UB philosophy. So it’s good advice, in a measure. Most people just go blank, or off on a tangent, when Truth, Beauty and Goodness are mentioned, they sound professorial and untouchable to the average Urantian mind. And they sound formulaic somehow, even if they are the very pillars of universal philosophy.
I myself have studied several classical philosophers but have found “Philo” to be one who had a unique insight into religion based on various teachings, and also who has been mentioned in the Urantia Book. So much so, that I have collected all known English translations of his work and although I have not finished reading and studying these works, I have found that in his philosophic approach to understanding the Old Testament, Torah or Pentateuch Books, that took on a specific formula in which his mind seemed to function. In his perspective, as he presented in his narratives, where which he presented multiple insights from just a few lines of the text, it becomes evident how he formulated information from, what might be considered a specific format imbedded in the original text. I have taken this same format in reading and interpreting the Urantia Book where I have found much more information located therein, as did Philo in his insightful study of his work.
In an attempt to project such understand of my impression of reading the UB, I have made subtle attempts to share these philosophies with others and found that, probably because of their lack of understanding this philosophy, was met with a somewhat negative response, which could be considered as a closed mind but, most likely because they feel that the UB has it own dogma and should not be segregated? Nevertheless, I have taken it upon myself to document my philosophies, for personal interest, and now am working on a project which just may result in finding or reestablishing an ancient form of energy which can be used for the healing of the Earths woes, both medically and in the physics of generating energy, where the UB indicates this as the “ultimatonic stage” which is not fully understood but only partially described in the UB as a mystery, yet formulated within its text, if understood philosophically.
Therefore, the misunderstanding of Philosophy, in general, can be a hindrance to the progress of civilization.
(169.1) 15:4.1 While creation and universe organization remain forever under the control of the infinite Creators and their associates, the whole phenomenon proceeds in accordance with an ordained technique and in conformity to the gravity laws of force, energy, and matter. But there is something of mystery associated with the universal force-charge of space; we quite understand the organization of the material creations from the ultimatonic stage forward, but we do not fully comprehend the cosmic ancestry of the ultimatons. We are confident that these ancestral forces have a Paradise origin because they forever swing through pervaded space in the exact gigantic outlines of Paradise. Though nonresponsive to Paradise gravity, this force-charge of space, the ancestor of all materialization, does always respond to the presence of nether Paradise, being apparently circuited in and out of the nether Paradise center.
Truth, Beauty and Goodness are the foundation stones of revealed philosophy, and have been given their own name–The Transcendentals. Because they transcend all other values, ideals and principles. The threesome has a fascinating history too. The Greeks formulated them, no doubt drawing from previous revelations. But a little known Renaissance scholar is credited with resurrecting them from their Greek tome, and bridging them to the modern age. Without him the line of TB&G might have been irreparably broken on Urantia.
From Wikipedia:
Marsilio Ficino (Italian: 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was also an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day and the first translator of Plato‘s complete extant works into Latin. His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato’s Academy, had enormous influence on the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsilio_Ficino
In the fifteenth century in Florence, Italy, Marsilio Ficino was instrumental in reviving an interest in Plato and translating some of Plato’s rediscovered texts. It is to Ficino that we can safely attribute the first definitive formulation of beauty, goodness, and truth, and this is found in his Commentaries on Plato’s Dialogues. The idea was not without influence and in Palladio’s I Quattro Libri, to take an example from architecture, is a reference to the “true, good and beautiful method of building”.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentals
Richard E Warren
I like the idea of transcendentals. It means that the spirit value of truth, beauty and goodness cuts across and rises above all ideologies. That’s something to latch onto.
But, what is revealed philosophy? I put that phrase into the search engine and couldn’t find anything. Can philosophy be revealed? Or does it need to be earned, like wisdom?
I know that there is a sect of UB’ers who think TUB is a philosophy book, but I don’t. I think it’s a book that contains philosophy, but being a revelation, it’s really about religion. I know religion can be revealed because there are five epochal revelations of religion.
92:4.4 There have been many events of religious revelation but only five of epochal significance.
I also know that truth is revealed, in fact, it is always a revelation according to TUB. But I don’t think philosophy itself is a revelation even though it involves truth. Maybe I’m mixed up about that? What is the relationship between philosophy and TBG, and what is the relationship between revelation and TBG? Could you explain?
I faintly recall reading (perhaps in the TUB) a definition of philosophy: a process of reconciling material and spiritual truths. Philosophy apparently isn’t revealed, but rather a mind activity of one who thinks and wonders, apparently trying to sort observations. Jesus sorted as a child and advancing young man. He continued to sort and attempt to find conclusions and became a great teacher. Becoming aware of more possibilities, either material or spiritual could cause a person to do more sorting—philosophize!
We need this process because we are not omniscient!
Possible?
Bonita,
Some good thinking, as usual. Thanks for the questions…The authors did give a revelation of philosophy based on the three-fold foundation of TB&G, I think. It far ‘transcends’ the evolved models, no?
More than once the authors refer to evolved religion and science, as opposed to revealed. So, I didn’t think it a stretch to do the same with philosophy, which they also point out is an indispensable and unifying member of the religion/science/philosophy triad.
Richard E Warren
So what’s happening when a human being deduces facts about the universe we live in without experience?
example: Einstein doing his thought experiments and coming up with his relativity theories? Theories that have been later proven to be mostly correct/factual.
philosophy involved I believe?
Recall the authors say mortals benefit from autorevelation and epochal revelation. From this I’ve assumed many great ideas result from autorevelation, i.e. new insights resulting in ideas on which we sometimes act. Einstein surely was known on High and his thoughts were from a large intellectual learning and, possibly, autorevelation. This may be a stretch, but it seems possible.
There is a comment in the UB about pressure from above, but the author does not specifically say what is or what form is the pressure. We need philosophy to help us think and to help us form truthful conclusions. We are NONOMPS, non-omniscient persons. Besides, we all have a Thought Adjuster; they know it all!!!!! And they know our genetic history and our potential, both personal and planetary.
Rick Warren wrote: The authors did give a revelation of philosophy based on the three-fold foundation of TB&G, I think. It far ‘transcends’ the evolved models, no? More than once the authors refer to evolved religion and science, as opposed to revealed. So, I didn’t think it a stretch to do the same with philosophy, which they also point out is an indispensable and unifying member of the religion/science/philosophy triad.No wait – maybe I’m missing something here. Yes, the authors refer to evolved religion and science, so evolved philosophy makes sense to me. And yes they refer to revealed religion, but I don’t recall them ever mentioning anything about revealed science or revealed philosophy. I think both of them have to be earned, right? Or am I just splitting hairs here? Probably so.
103:8.6 Revelation is a compensation for the frailties of evolving philosophy.
It sounds from this quote that philosophy evolves and revelation is something else added to it in order to make up for its shortcomings, like revealed religion adds something to evolved religion to help scoot it along.
Is truth, beauty and goodness always a revelation? I know truth is, and I know that in order to appreciated beauty and know goodness, you have to start with truth. They’re not really separable. But that doesn’t make TBG either a philosophy or a religion, as far as I understand the meaning of the word philosophy.
Aren’t TBG manifestations of God’s nature which is comprehensible by man who is striving for higher meanings and values? Aren’t TBG relative and alive, growing and expanding? I would think that philosophy is what helps us keep up with their constantly evolving meaning.
I think it really all boils down to meaning. Philosophy helps us give meaning to these three values within the context of our lives, which is why the Spirit of Truth is so vital to the process. He is our Spirit Philosopher. Anyway, there’s lot’s to think about on this topic. Thanks.
101:3.2 Spiritual philosophy, the wisdom of spirit realities, is the endowment of the Spirit of Truth, the combined gift of the bestowal Sons to the children of men.
Perhaps, the material facts and truthful relationships between those facts that are revealed provide the context for the personalized philosophy which results. I do not find instructions or specificity as to what my philosophy is to be but am given so much context regarding universe realities as to guide my own – away from fictions and fears and suppositions and superstitions, toward consideration, reflection, integration, unification, and harmonization of my philosophy of living with reality – as best I may understand it by combining the revelation’s contents and my ability to discern it and implement it. As Bonita suggests, this means the resulting philosophy is subject to growth, revision, supplement, and insight (not yet achieved) based on experience and spiritualization – like wisdom and enlightenment, personal philosophy is an earned view of the universe and my place within that universe which will continue to evolve over time and may never be total or absolute.
Evolved religion, science, and philosophy should all benefit by harmonization with universe reality as delivered by epochal revelation and require periodic, additional, and successive updating, modernizing, and reiterations of prior epochal revelation by the next one(s) to fully integrate earned knowledge/wisdom and personally revealed knowledge/wisdom with factual universe perspective. Philosophy is that bridge which links, transcends, and harmonizes science and religion into functional meaning I think…..it personalizes reality, connecting the subjective perspective with the objective reality….as currently and subjectively understood and employed by each personality and mind. And any philosophy which denies either science or religion or becomes myopic favoring one over the other will fail in its role to integrate, harmonize, and focus perspective.
I also agree that the Revelation is primarily a book about religion….the one true religion of the reality of the personal relationship of the each to God and all the universe of universes in the family of creation. It teaches the elements and the relationships of all elements so that reality and our perception of reality might become aligned, but which still remains limited by prior experience and also still requires our future choice and experience and spiritualization and character growth to more fully appreciate and articulate, by our free will choices, that personal religious experience which demonstrate such a growing understanding by the fruits of the spirit.
103:1.1 (1129.8) 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.
103:1.5 (1130.4) That religionists have believed so much that was false does not invalidate religion because religion is founded on the recognition of values and is validated by the faith of personal religious experience. Religion, then, is based on experience and religious thought; theology, the philosophy of religion, is an honest attempt to interpret that experience. Such interpretative beliefs may be right or wrong, or a mixture of truth and error.
103:6.2 (1135.4) When man approaches the study and examination of his universe from the outside, he brings into being the various physical sciences; when he approaches the research of himself and the universe from the inside, he gives origin to theology and metaphysics. The later art of philosophy develops in an effort to harmonize the many discrepancies which are destined at first to appear between the findings and teachings of these two diametrically opposite avenues of approaching the universe of things and beings.
103:6.5 (1135.7) A logical and consistent philosophic concept of the universe cannot be built up on the postulations of either materialism or spiritism, for both of these systems of thinking, when universally applied, are compelled to view the cosmos in distortion, the former contacting with a universe turned inside out, the latter realizing the nature of a universe turned outside in. Never, then, can either science or religion, in and of themselves, standing alone, hope to gain an adequate understanding of universal truths and relationships without the guidance of human philosophy and the illumination of divine revelation.
Thanks to all…..and to jwattles’ reference to the end of Paper 2!! An excellent read on the subject indeed. The following quotes hit so many high notes on so many topics….including the fact that religion and philosophy both are as real as the living results embodied by experience….truth must be lived to be true to the one living and is only relatively true based on the wisdom and experienced acquired living the truth.
Midi commented earlier on the differences (if any) between experience and education. We are taught the universe of universes are a university of continuing education whose progression depends upon the application of knowledge learned with experience “earned”, or the demonstration of perception and understanding in our personal lives. The facts learned by each may be identical but the education itself depends upon the individual’s application of knowledge in our unique life….and thusly, is the Supreme served best by trillions upon trillions of such personalized expressions of truth, beauty, and goodness.
Regarding the value/benefit of epochal revelation, the UB also provides the very definitions by which such a claim should be measured – is it consistent, coherent, flavorful, integrating, harmonizing, does the Spirit of Truth and our TA confirm and verify its truthfulness, and is it actionable – does it affect our motives, intentions, choices, and results in our daily life….are happiness and peace and confidence enhanced and exhibited as expressed by love for others?
2:7.6 (42.7) Intellectual self-consciousness can discover the beauty of truth, its spiritual quality, not only by the philosophic consistency of its concepts, but more certainly and surely by the unerring response of the ever-present Spirit of Truth. Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor.
2:7.10 (43.3) The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best in the human soul. Truth, beauty, and goodness are divine realities, and as man ascends the scale of spiritual living, these supreme qualities of the Eternal become increasingly co-ordinated and unified in God, who is love.
2:7.11 (43.4) All truth — material, philosophic, or spiritual — is both beautiful and good. All real beauty — material art or spiritual symmetry — is both true and good. All genuine goodness — whether personal morality, social equity, or divine ministry — is equally true and beautiful. Health, sanity, and happiness are integrations of truth, beauty, and goodness as they are blended in human experience. Such levels of efficient living come about through the unification of energy systems, idea systems, and spirit systems.
2:7.12 (43.5) Truth is coherent, beauty attractive, goodness stabilizing. And when these values of that which is real are co-ordinated in personality experience, the result is a high order of love conditioned by wisdom and qualified by loyalty. The real purpose of all universe education is to effect the better co-ordination of the isolated child of the worlds with the larger realities of his expanding experience. Reality is finite on the human level, infinite and eternal on the higher and divine levels.
Me here: this topic naturally leads us to the 4th Epochal Revelation:
101:6.8 (1112.4) The teachings of Jesus constituted the first Urantian religion which so fully embraced a harmonious co-ordination of knowledge, wisdom, faith, truth, and love as completely and simultaneously to provide temporal tranquillity, intellectual certainty, moral enlightenment, philosophic stability, ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness, and the positive assurance of personal survival.
(1112.2) 101:6.6 With man, the eventual fusion and resultant oneness with the indwelling Adjuster — the personality synthesis of man and the essence of God — constitute him, in potential, a living part of the Supreme and insure for such a onetime mortal being the eternal birthright of the endless pursuit of finality of universe service for and with the Supreme.
(1112.3) 101:6.7 Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them available for such association in the finite mind as will constitute them the actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth — universal truth. The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the morontia worlds.
101:6.8 (1112.4) The teachings of Jesus constituted the first Urantian religion which so fully embraced a harmonious co-ordination of knowledge, wisdom, faith, truth, and love as completely and simultaneously to provide temporal tranquillity, intellectual certainty, moral enlightenment, philosophic stability, ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness, and the positive assurance of personal survival. [. . .]
[. . .] The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided for:
(1112.5) 101:6.9 1. Salvation from material fetters in the personal realization of sonship with God, who is spirit.
(1112.6) 101:6.10 2. Salvation from intellectual bondage: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free.
(1112.7) 101:6.11 3. Salvation from spiritual blindness, the human realization of the fraternity of mortal beings and the morontian awareness of the brotherhood of all universe creatures; the service-discovery of spiritual reality and the ministry-revelation of the goodness of spirit values.
(1113.1) 101:6.12 4. Salvation from incompleteness of self through the attainment of the spirit levels of the universe and through the eventual realization of the harmony of Havona and the perfection of Paradise.
(1113.2) 101:6.13 5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness through the attainment of the cosmic levels of the Supreme mind and by co-ordination with the attainments of all other self-conscious beings.
(1113.3) 101:6.14 6. Salvation from time, the achievement of an eternal life of unending progression in God-recognition and God-service.
(1113.4) 101:6.15 7. Salvation from the finite, the perfected oneness with Deity in and through the Supreme by which the creature attempts the transcendental discovery of the Ultimate on the postfinaliter levels of the absonite.
(1113.5) 101:6.16 Such a sevenfold salvation is the equivalent of the completeness and perfection of the realization of the ultimate experience of the Universal Father. And all this, in potential, is contained within the reality of the faith of the human experience of religion. And it can be so contained since the faith of Jesus was nourished by, and was revelatory of, even realities beyond the ultimate; the faith of Jesus approached the status of a universe absolute in so far as such is possible of manifestation in the evolving cosmos of time and space.
(1113.6) 101:6.17 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.
As is mentioned elsewhere but relates to the aforementioned verse: “There is No Religion Higher Than Truth“.
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