Growth part 3

[Bradly]

Thanks Gene and Bonita!!  The issue of trust you have raised caused a cascade, even avalanche, of feelings and thoughts.  How is trust related to faith I wonder?  I think many primitivisms fall away as science explains how things work….things become understood in ways that allow us to trust physics rather than “luck” or “favor and punishment”.  Day follows night without need of fear or sacrifice, etc.  The farmer learns to trust the seed to sprout…if not the weather and the bugs – hahaha!

Prejudice is a false trust in our own perspective and knowledge I think.  In what and in whom do we trust?  Disappointment most often results from poorly chosen or mismanaged expectations…we trust one thing will come but something else comes instead.  Do we trust that the angels and the Spirit lead us to that which is needed next?  Can  they do so if we do not trust them?  Do we trust the TA within?  Do we trust the friendly universe and the rule of love?  Do we go forth with confidence by such trust to experience life and shed frustration?  Can uncertainty be truly embraced and become adventure for free will and personal experience and expression without trust?

The importance/value and the meanings within trust have my head and heart spinning….in a good way!

[Bonita]

Thanks Bradly.  Fear and trust seem to be part of a continuum of learning.  Remember ghost fear?  It was given to us on purpose to stir religious feelings. Fear of the supernatural translated into a fear of God. And as is so poignantly portrayed in the Old Testament, fear of God eventually evolved into awe, wonder, admiration and finally reverence, which is when Jesus arrived to teach trust in God.

Trust is huge.  I think the authors use the term “faith-trust” because the human mind on its own is not trustful.  It needs faith to propel it soulward (gateway thing), which incidentally is where the actual trustful relationship occurs.  Do you recall Immanuel’s words to Michael before his incarnation?  He said that in completing his bestowal experience, Michael would know the full meaning of “faith-trust”, which is required of all creatures in their relationship with him as a Creator.  It’s huge!!!  It’s the circle thing too and Jesus showed us the way.

120:1.3 And when you shall have finished this bestowal experience, you will know in very truth the full meaning and the rich significance of that faith-trust which you so unvaryingly require all your creatures to master as a part of their intimate relationship with you as their local universe Creator and Father.

 

[Gene]

Still looking for mindless functions?

how about this one:

when revelation happens, epochal, personal or however it happens, is it a function of mind or personality? More like a relationship sort of thing??

part of what made me think of this is somewhere in the book we are told that Mind does not necessarily have to be bestowed on spirit.

isnt spirit the source of revelation?

i know I’m missing something.

another thought on this: we humans at times attempt to reveal truth and or God as we know him to our brothers and sisters. Is this a mind function??

[Bonita]

Gene wrote:  Still looking for mindless functions?

Not sure how revelation could ever be mindless.  Doesn’t revelation involve making something “known”?  How can you “know” something without being mindful?

Gene wrote: somewhere in the book we are told that Mind does not necessarily have to be bestowed on spirit.

They’re talking about spirit beings, Deity, who do not require the mind ministry of the Third Source and Center because mind is innately a part of spirit. They’re talking about the absolute mind which is ancestor to the Third Source and Center who bestows mind on subabsolute beings.  It’s similar to the pre-mind of the Adjuster which is entirely separate from the mind ministry of the Infinite Spirit.

6:6.2-3 Spirit is ever conscious, minded, and possessed of varied phases of identity. Without mind in some phase there would be no spiritual consciousness in the fraternity of spirit beings. The equivalent of mind, the ability to know and be known, is indigenous to Deity. Deity may be personal, prepersonal, superpersonal, or impersonal, but Deity is never mindless, that is, never without the ability at least to communicate with similar entities, beings, or personalities.  The mind of the Eternal Son is like that of the Father but unlike any other mind in the universe, and with the mind of the Father it is ancestor to the diverse and far-flung minds of the Conjoint Creator. The mind of the Father and the Son, that intellect which is ancestral to the absolute mind of the Third Source and Center, is perhaps best illustrated in the premind of a Thought Adjuster, for, though these Father fragments are entirely outside of the mind circuits of the Conjoint Actor, they have some form of premind; they know as they are known; they enjoy the equivalent of human thinking.

9:4.2 Mind does not have to be added to pure spirit, for spirit is innately conscious and identifying. Spirit is always intelligent, minded in some way. It may be this mind or that mind, it may be premind or supermind, even spirit mind, but it does the equivalent of thinking and knowing. The insight of spirit transcends, supervenes, and theoretically antedates the consciousness of mind.

Gene wrote: isnt spirit the source of revelation?

Revelation is a spiritual phenomenon. Revelation is discovered, recognized and interpreted within the mind (of the soul) then becomes validated by personal experience as truth, beauty and goodness.  Don’t forget that the soul is minded, superminded, which is another name for the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit within the soul is what makes thoughts become “born of the spirit”. The Adjuster is pre-mind, the Holy Spirit IS mind.  So, the soul is where the magic happens, where it’s possible to receive reinforcement from the Adjuster’s mind.

110:2.5 You as a personal creature have mind and will. The Adjuster as a prepersonal creature has premind and prewill. If you so fully conform to the Adjuster’s mind that you see eye to eye, then your minds become one, and you receive the reinforcement of the Adjuster’s mind.

101:4.5 Truth may be but relatively inspired, even though revelation is invariably a spiritual phenomenon.

101:2.8 Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality.

103:6.13 Revelation is evolutionary man’s only hope of bridging the morontia gulf. Faith and reason, unaided by mota, cannot conceive and construct a logical universe. Without the insight of mota, mortal man cannot discern goodness, love, and truth in the phenomena of the material world.

196:3.17 Personal religious experience consists in two phases: discovery in the human mind and revelation by the indwelling divine spirit.

92:0.4 3. The Holy Spirit – this is the initial supermind bestowal, and it unfailingly appears in all bona fide human personalities. This ministry to a worship-craving and wisdom-desiring mind creates the capacity to self-realize the postulate of human survival, both in theologic concept and as an actual and factual personality experience.

34:5.4 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.

Gene wrote: another thought on this: we humans at times attempt to reveal truth and or God as we know him to our brothers and sisters. Is this a mind function??

ME HERE: If you’re attempting to reveal truth to someone, then you’re going about life all the wrong way. That’s the Spirit of Truth’s job.  You should probably let him do his own work.

178:1.16 Let the Spirit of Truth do his own work.

Our job is to live the righteous life, also known as the “truth-coordinated life”.  That means life coordinated with Deity presence within your soul.  Everything springs from there.  The fruits of the Spirit are not ours, their the Spirit’s.

P.1726 – §2 “Let me emphatically state this eternal truth: If you, by truth co-ordination, learn to exemplify in your lives this beautiful wholeness of righteousness, your fellow men will then seek after you that they may gain what you have so acquired. The measure wherewith truth seekers are drawn to you represents the measure of your truth endowment, your righteousness. The extent to which you have to go with your message to the people is, in a way, the measure of your failure to live the whole or righteous life, the truth-co-ordinated life .”

Are the fruits of the spirit a mind function?  Yes, they begin within the mind as that mustard seed and then grow only when connected to the living vine (Spirit of Truth).  Our work is to create an internal environment which allows fruit production through fostering a spiritual attitude toward life, a habitual spiritual reflex, then choosing to align our attitudes and conduct accordingly.

100.1.8 Religious habits of thinking and acting are contributory to the economy of spiritual growth. One can develop religious predispositions toward favorable reaction to spiritual stimuli, a sort of conditioned spiritual reflex. Habits which favor religious growth embrace cultivated sensitivity to divine values, recognition of religious living in others, reflective meditation on cosmic meanings, worshipful problem solving, sharing one’s spiritual life with one’s fellows, avoidance of selfishness, refusal to presume on divine mercy, living as in the presence of God. The factors of religious growth may be intentional, but the growth itself is unvaryingly unconscious.

[Bonita]

I would add that the process of making the spiritual reflex habitual is what keeps the gateway to the soul open, the gateway being the two upper adjutants, worship and wisdom.  These adjutants are of the lower mind; however, the spirit of wisdom not only coordinates all the other adjutants, it also overlaps with the Holy Spirit in the soul.  There’s always overlap in mind ministry.  If you notice, all the things listed in 100:1.8 have to do with the adjutant of worship, the religious impulse, which is then directed by wisdom toward higher levels of thinking (the soul).  And once ideas are lodged in the supermind of the soul, the Spirit of Truth and the Adjuster can start working on them.

85:7.3 When the worship urge is admonished and directed by wisdom – meditative and experiential thinking – it then begins to develop into the phenomenon of real religion.

110:5.3 During the slumber season the Adjuster attempts to achieve only that which the will of the indwelt personality has previously fully approved by the decisions and choosings which were made during times of fully wakeful consciousness, and which have thereby become lodged in the realms of the supermind, the liaison domain of human and divine interrelationship.

 

[Van Amadon]

Bonita wrote:

The Holy Spirit within the soul is what makes thoughts become “born of the spirit”.

First, men and women are born of the spirit.

Then, the thoughts of their minds will become adjusted more and more by cooperating with the Father who dwells within.

And by following Jesus.

(166:3.7) Slowly the apostles and many of the disciples were learning the meaning of Jesus’ early declaration: “Unless you are born again, born of the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Nevertheless, to all who are honest of heart and sincere in faith, it remains eternally true: “Behold, I stand at the doors of men’s hearts and knock, and if any man will open to me, I will come in and sup with him and will feed him with the bread of life; we shall be one in spirit and purpose, and so shall we ever be brethren in the long and fruitful service of the search for the Paradise Father.” And so, whether few or many are to be saved altogether depends on whether few or many will heed the invitation: “I am the door, I am the new and living way, and whosoever wills may enter to embark upon the endless truth-search for eternal life.”

[Bradly]

VanAmadon wrote:

Bonita wrote:

The Holy Spirit within the soul is what makes thoughts become “born of the spirit”.

First, men and women are born of the spirit.

Then, the thoughts of their minds will become adjusted more and more by cooperating with the Father who dwells within.

And by following Jesus.

(166:3.7) Slowly the apostles and many of the disciples were learning the meaning of Jesus’ early declaration: “Unless you are born again, born of the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Nevertheless, to all who are honest of heart and sincere in faith, it remains eternally true: “Behold, I stand at the doors of men’s hearts and knock, and if any man will open to me, I will come in and sup with him and will feed him with the bread of life; we shall be one in spirit and purpose, and so shall we ever be brethren in the long and fruitful service of the search for the Paradise Father.” And so, whether few or many are to be saved altogether depends on whether few or many will heed the invitation: “I am the door, I am the new and living way, and whosoever wills may enter to embark upon the endless truth-search for eternal life.”

 I think it is more complicated than that.  Children have soul and TA and so become “born of the spirit” at an early age and without any conscious and specific choice….the soul is born, I think, as a simple “response mechanism” to the Holy Spirit – the first Spirit to minister to mind through the Adjutants as a child enters the outer or seventh circle.  The TA comes later by a conscious moral decision and on a world where the Son’s Spirit is released this usually comes in childhood.  To be “born again”, I think, is a personal, conscious commitment of faith-trust.  I believe, without text support of any specificity, that this conscious decision/choice is a “circle-marker” of some progress in the circle progressions between the seventh and third circles.

The first is to be born in the spirit and the second is to be born again.  The personal commitment to the Divine Presence is distinct from those earlier responses to the Divine Presence….they are related, yet not the same thing I do not think.  The first brings “capacity” according to the text Bonita posted, the second adds leverage to the fulcrum of choosing faith-trust by conscious choice…and why the second is distinguished as being born again?  It should be remembered that until after Jesus’ resurrection, there was no Spirit of Truth or the flood of TA’s at a young age….the Holy Spirit was the principal connection and uplifter.  Complicated……

110:6.13 (1210.8) The seventh circle. This level is entered when human beings develop the powers of personal choice, individual decision, moral responsibility, and the capacity for the attainment of spiritual individuality. This signifies the united function of the seven adjutant mind-spirits under the direction of the spirit of wisdom, the encircuitment of the mortal creature in the influence of the Holy Spirit, and, on Urantia, the first functioning of the Spirit of Truth, together with the reception of a Thought Adjuster in the mortal mind. Entrance upon the seventh circle constitutes a mortal creature a truly potential citizen of the local universe.

110:6.18 (1211.3) The mastery of the cosmic circles is related to the quantitative growth of the morontia soul, the comprehension of supreme meanings. But the qualitative status of this immortal soul is wholly dependent on the grasp of living faith upon the Paradise-potential fact-value that mortal man is a son of the eternal God. Therefore does a seventh circler go on to the mansion worlds to attain further quantitative realization of cosmic growth just as does a second or even a first circler.

110:6.20 (1211.5) From the seventh to the third circle there occurs increased and unified action of the seven adjutant mind-spirits in the task of weaning the mortal mind from its dependence on the realities of the material life mechanisms preparatory to increased introduction to morontia levels of experience. From the third circle onward the adjutant influence progressively diminishes.

110:6.21 (1211.6) The seven circles embrace mortal experience extending from the highest purely animal level to the lowest actual contactual morontia level of self-consciousness as a personality experience. The mastery of the first cosmic circle signalizes the attainment of premorontia mortal maturity and marks the termination of the conjoint ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits as an exclusive influence of mind action in the human personality. Beyond the first circle, mind becomes increasingly akin to the intelligence of the morontia stage of evolution, the conjoined ministry of the cosmic mind and the superadjutant endowment of the Creative Spirit of a local universe.

[Bonita]

I think TUB is pretty clear about what being born of the Spirit means:

34:6.7  Those who have received and recognized the indwelling of God have been born of the Spirit. “You are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwells in you.” It is not enough that this spirit be poured out upon you; the divine Spirit must dominate and control every phase of human experience.

 

[Gene]

ME HERE: If you’re attempting to reveal truth to someone, then you’re going about life all the wrong way. That’s the Spirit of Truth’s job. You should probably let him do his own work.

Probably the reason it really don’t work.

[Van Amadon]

Gene wrote:

ME HERE: If you’re attempting to reveal truth to someone, then you’re going about life all the wrong way. That’s the Spirit of Truth’s job. You should probably let him do his own work.

Probably the reason it really don’t work.

It can work Gene.

 

(159:3.9) In preaching the gospel of the kingdom, you are simply teaching friendship with God. And this fellowship will appeal alike to men and women in that both will find that which most truly satisfies their characteristic longings and ideals. Tell my children that I am not only tender of their feelings and patient with their frailties, but that I am also ruthless with sin and intolerant of iniquity. I am indeed meek and humble in the presence of my Father, but I am equally and relentlessly inexorable where there is deliberate evil-doing and sinful rebellion against the will of my Father in heaven.

 

 

[Bonita]

Bradly wrote: Children have soul and TA and so become “born of the spirit” at an early age and without any conscious and specific choice….the soul is born, I think, as a simple “response mechanism” to the Holy Spirit –  the first Spirit to minister to mind through the Adjutants as a child enters the outer or seventh circle.  The TA comes later by a conscious moral decision

I’m sorry to disagree Bradly.  The soul is born the instant an individual enters the seventh psychic circle which cannot happen with an unconscious and unspecific choice.  The decision must be conscious and specific.  If you recall, entering the seventh circle is when both the spirit of worship and the spirit of wisdom make contact with an individual mind.  The revelators have given us a very explicit example of that event with Anton and Fonta.

62:6.5 Imagine our joy one day – the twins were about ten years old – when the spirit of worship made its first contact with the mind of the female twin and shortly thereafter with the male. We knew that something closely akin to human mind was approaching culmination; and when, about a year later, they finally resolved, as a result of meditative thought and purposeful decision, to flee from home and journey north, then did the spirit of wisdom begin to function on Urantia and in these two now recognized human minds. 62:6.6 There was an immediate and new order of mobilization of the seven adjutant mind-spirits. We were alive with expectation; we realized that the long-waited-for hour was approaching; we knew we were upon the threshold of the realization of our protracted effort to evolve will creatures on Urantia.

Reading the quote carefully, note that the spirit of wisdom made contact after a meditative (conscious) thought, and a purposeful (specific) decision.  The moment the spirit of wisdom makes contact with the child mind, it mobilizes all the other adjutants and this event is registered in the consciousness of the Creative Spirit who immediately registers it with the Seventh Master Spirit via mind gravity.  He then registers the event on Divinigton (108:2.1).  Instantaneous with this event, the Creative Spirit encircuits the mind with the Holy Spirit, the supermind of the soul.  The Holy Spirit cannot arrive until all seven adjutants make contact, and when the Holy Spirit arrives in the mind of a child on Urantia, that child also gets a TA and the SOT.  This event does not occur later, it happens instantaneously with the birth of the soul when entering the seventh psychic circle.

110:6.13 The seventh circle. This level is entered when human beings develop the powers of personal choice, individual decision, moral responsibility, and the capacity for the attainment of spiritual individuality. This signifies the united function of the seven adjutant mind-spirits under the direction of the spirit of wisdom, the encircuitment of the mortal creature in the influence of the Holy Spirit, and, on Urantia, the first functioning of the Spirit of Truth, together with the reception of a Thought Adjuster in the mortal mind. Entrance upon the seventh circle constitutes a mortal creature a truly potential citizen of the local universe.

108:2.1 Though the Adjusters volunteer for service as soon as the personality forecasts have been relayed to Divinington, they are not actually assigned until the human subjects make their first moral personality decision. The first moral choice of the human child is automatically indicated in the seventh mind-adjutant and registers instantly, by way of the local universe Creative Spirit, over the universal mind-gravity circuit of the Conjoint Actor in the presence of the Master Spirit of superuniverse jurisdiction, who forthwith dispatches this intelligence to Divinington. Adjusters reach their human subjects on Urantia, on the average, just prior to the sixth birthday. In the present generation it is running five years, ten months, and four days; that is, on the 2,134th day of terrestrial life.

108:2.2 The Adjusters cannot invade the mortal mind until it has been duly prepared by the indwelling ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits and encircuited in the Holy Spirit. And it requires the co-ordinate function of all seven adjutants to thus qualify the human mind for the reception of an Adjuster.

36:5.15 Living mind, prior to the appearance of capacity to learn from experience, is the ministry domain of the Master Physical Controllers. Creature mind, before acquiring the ability to recognize divinity and worship Deity, is the exclusive domain of the adjutant spirits. With the appearance of the spiritual response of the creature intellect, such created minds at once become superminded, being instantly encircuited in the spirit cycles of the local universe Mother Spirit.

The decision must be conscious and purposeful in order to be identified as displaying the capacity for recognizing divinity and worshiping Deity.  This capacity is the ability to the differentiate between truth and evil and is marked by a decision which changes a potential into an actual, a conscious choice for truth as a personal reality.  The decision is deliberate and conscious,  but the arrival of the soul with it’s spiritual partners is unconscious.  Also recall when Jesus, “. . . arrived at the age of his first personal and wholehearted moral decision; and there came to abide with him a Thought Adjuster,” (123:2.1) This was the birth of Jesus’ soul.  He did not have a soul first, then make a decision in order to get a TA.  It all happens simultaneously with the first wholehearted moral decision.

You need a TA to give birth to a soul just as much as you need the conscious and specific moral decision by the material mind.  The moral decision is the mother and the spiritualization by the TA is the father.  Conception and birth of the soul requires two parents and it happens as one event.  The soul is a product of a potential becoming an actual in the reality of the universe, accomplished as an experiential acquirement by the mortal mind, acted upon by the mortal personality and spiritualized for eternity by the Adjuster – grasped as part of the Supreme.

0:5.10 4. Soul. The soul of man is an experiential acquirement. As a mortal creature chooses to “do the will of the Father in heaven,” so the indwelling spirit becomes the father of a new reality in human experience. The mortal and material mind is the mother of this same emerging reality. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor spiritual — it is morontial. This is the emerging and immortal soul which is destined to survive mortal death and begin the Paradise ascension.

The Holy Spirit arrives as the new mind arena.  She provides the mechanism by which ideas are transferred from the material adjutant mind, via the spirit of wisdom, to the higher mind functions, the morontia level of mind, a place where mota is possible.  In the past, times before the uniform coming of Adjusters (pre-Pentecost), the Holy Spirit alone worked in the seventh circle mind to elevate thinking until certain requirements for a TA were met and a soul could be born. (As far as I know, you can’t have a soul without an Adjuster as either a temporary or permanent provider of spirit parentage.)  But in our current era of evolution we don’t have to worry about this.  Once the seventh circle is entered, an individual gets all three spirit influences: Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth and Thought Adjuster.

103:0.1 All of man’s truly religious reactions are sponsored by the early ministry of the adjutant of worship and are censored by the adjutant of wisdom. Man’s first supermind endowment is that of personality encircuitment in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; and long before either the bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Adjusters, this influence functions to enlarge man’s viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality. Subsequent to the bestowals of the Paradise Sons the liberated Spirit of Truth makes mighty contributions to the enlargement of the human capacity to perceive religious truths. As evolution advances on an inhabited world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of the higher types of human religious insight. The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father.

 

[Bonita]

Gene wrote:Probably the reason it really don’t work.

Right.  If you’re trying to teach truth, then you’re trolling your own ego, failing to “live the truth-co-ordinated life .”   If you’re allowing the living truth (Spirit of Truth) to bear fruit in your life, then you are allowing the Creator Son to reveal himself to others as he did while physically walking this earth.  But only truth-seekers will notice.

194:3.1 The Creator Son, in the flesh, revealed God to men; the Spirit of Truth, in the heart, reveals the Creator Son to men. When man yields the “fruits of the spirit” in his life, he is simply showing forth the traits which the Master manifested in his own earthly life. When Jesus was on earth, he lived his life as one personality – Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling spirit of the “new teacher,” the Master has, since Pentecost, been able to live his life anew in the experience of every truth-taught believer.

[Gene]

A subtle but very important point. We find truth and naturally want to share it. To reflect on how we found truth in the first place should temper that enthusiasm with some wisdom.

 

[Bonita]

Gene wrote: A subtle but very important point. We find truth and naturally want to share it. To reflect on how we found truth in the first place should temper that enthusiasm with some wisdom.

There you go!

92:2.1  . . . wisdom – knowledge directed by experiential reason and illuminated by divine revelation.

85:7.3 When the worship urge is admonished and directed by wisdom – meditative and experiential thinking – it then begins to develop into the phenomenon of real religion.

19:2.4 Wisdom is twofold in origin, being derived from the perfection of divine insight inherent in perfect beings and from the personal experience acquired by evolutionary creatures.

I agree, it is a natural desire to share one’s personal experience with truth.  It really can’t be stopped because it is part of the divine circle of love.  But it’s the manner of sharing that really makes a difference, which is why the incarnation of Michael is such a powerful learning tool. How did he share, one might ask?

Another thing I forgot to mention about the Spirit of Truth doing his own work is the fact that he is the director of all true relationships with people and things.

56:10.13 The recognition of true relations implies a mind competent to discriminate between truth and error. The bestowal Spirit of Truth which invests the human minds of Urantia is unerringly responsive to truth – the living spirit relationship of all things and all beings as they are co-ordinated in the eternal ascent Godward.

If the Spirit of Truth is not doing the directing, then there is no living truth in it.  Truth is never fixed; it’s fluid with the situation.

180:5.10 Love, unselfishness, must undergo a constant and living readaptative interpretation of relationships in accordance with the leading of the Spirit of Truth.

180:5.11 And so must we clearly recognize that neither the golden rule nor the teaching of nonresistance can ever be properly understood as dogmas or precepts. They can only be comprehended by living them, by realizing their meanings in the living interpretation of the Spirit of Truth, who directs the loving contact of one human being with another.

 

 

 

[George Park]

There appears to be a profound difference in the meaning of the phrases “born of the spirit” and “born again.” The soul is definitely “born of the spirit” with the first moral decision, but the making of this decision is not necessarily made with any recognition of God; that is, a child is not self-conscious of the fact that this moral choice is in response to spirit reality. (There is an overlap in the functions of the adjutants of worship and wisdom with the circuits of the Holy Spirit.)

“Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness.” (103:2.1)

This seems somewhat consistent with Bradly’s idea that “the soul is born, I think, as a simple ‘response mechanism’ to the Holy Spirit.” A spiritual dimension appears in our experience with the birth of the soul long before we become self-consciously aware of this. This seems analogous to the fact that we are conscious of the world long before we become self-conscious of the fact that we are an intellectual identity who is conscious of the world. However, the soul does not enter the kingdom of heaven upon its birth in early childhood. The soul must be born again, born of the spirit for a second time. Nicodemus was thoroughly moral and a highly cultured and educated person, but he could not grasp, at first, what Jesus meant about being “born again.”

Then replied Nicodemus: “But how can a man be born again when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born.” (142:6.3)

Jesus answered Nicodemus: “Verily, verily, I say to you, Nicodemus, except a man be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (142:6.4)

“I have called upon you to be born again, to be born of the spirit.” (155:6.3)

“Unless you are born again, born of the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (166:3.7)

The material intellect is present long before we self-consciously realize that it is the temporal seat of our personal identity. By analogy we might suppose that the soul is present long before we are “born again” and self-consciously realize that it is the potentially eternal seat of our personal identity.

 

 

[Author]

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