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Bonita relied to Bradley:
“The Holy Spirit is not engaged until the soul is born. The Holy Spirit is the matrix of the soul and she requires that the mind be fully prepared for her presence by being encircuited by all seven of the adjutants. So no, prior to the birth of the soul, the Holy Spirit is NOT engaged. The Holy Spirit does not encircuit the mind until after the first moral decision and entry into the 7th psychic circle.”
[ . . . ]
“First of all, the religious life is not the same as the dual nature. The religious impulse comes from the 6th adjutant (36:5.11; 103:01). Primitives, like Andon and Fonta, evolved to the point where they engaged all seven adjutants and subsequently entered the 7th psychic circle, thereby engaging the Holy Spirit. Although they both got Adjusters, not all primitives did. However, primitives who made it to the 7th psychic circle had souls and the Holy Spirit’s influence to advance them spiritually. The Holy Spirit cannot encircuit the mind until it has been prepared by all seven of the adjutants. (36:5.16; 108:2.2; 110:6.13)”
Bradley wrote:
“The quotes below would seem, to me, to state that the Holy Spirit’s ministry to mind does not await and is not dependent upon the birth of soul. I stand corrected about the adjutants being the gateway to the faith experience delivering the (initial) urge to believe in “the other” within, but doesn’t the Holy Spirit create a presence within mind of “otherness” prior to the TA’s arrival and the co-creation/birth of soul?
[ . . . ]”
(92:0.4, 1003.4) “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.”
Bonita replied:
“OK. Let’s go one step at a time. Do you accept this:
The Holy Spirit does not appear until the mind has entered the seventh psychic circle. The soul is born the moment the mind enters the seventh psychic circle.
In the following quote it is explained that all seven of the adjutants must make contact with the mind before entering the seventh circle and when they do that mind is immediately encircuited by the Holy Spirit. It also states that in our post-bestowal age we get the additional benefit of the Spirit of Truth and the Adjuster. They all live in or with the soul. The last sentence informs us that the seventh circle turns a personality into a potential universe citizen. What makes that personality a potential citizen? The soul. This seventh circle is where the soul is born and the first appearance of the Holy Spirit.
Before I go to the next step, let me know if you agree or disagree with any of the above.
[ . . . further discussion and quotes . . . ]
What it’s telling us is that Adjusters need a soul before they can indwell. All seven adjutants are necessary to prepare the mind for the soul then the Holy Spirit provides it.”
Bonita – could you clarify your idea that “the Holy Spirit provides” our soul? I can see how that (Holy Spirit) level of consciousness of the Divine Minister makes accessible the sequence of morontia mind systems our evolving souls require, but as I understand the details, creating the actual fibers of morontia stuff — out of which our morontia soul is made — requires the action of an Adjuster.
As you can see, I’m trying to distinguish between (a) the various levels of “morontia mind” (made accessible by appropriate levels of consciousness of the Divine Minister), and (b) the actual “morontia soul” (woven by our Adjuster) that serves as an extraordinary pre-spirit transition vehicle for our personality.
Nigel
but as I understand the details, creating the actual fibers of morontia stuff — out of which our morontia soul is made — requires the action of an Adjuster.
The Adjuster is not necessary to create morontia substance. Morontia substance is created by a combination of both the material and spiritual levels of reality (0:5.12). The spiritual substance can be provided by any spiritual source, and during pre-bestowal times, that spiritual source is the Holy Spirit – the initial morontia mind – provided by a personal level of the Creative Spirit who is part of the spiritual level of reality. The Holy Spirit alone can spiritualize (34:5.5). Even in post-bestowal ages the Holy Spirit provides the morontia fabric of the soul on which the Adjuster embroiders. In fact, without the Holy Spirit it’s not possible for a personality to even recognize the presence of the Adjuster since the Holy Spirit provides the mind level capable of actually “seeing” or feeling the Adjuster’s presence. (103:7.14)
One way to think of the birth of the soul is like this: The Holy Spirit is spiritual, the human mind is material. The material mind provides a spiritually pregnant moral decision with the help of the two higher adjutants at which point the spiritual Holy Spirit arrives as an overlapping ministry. She then reaches down and grabs the lower material mind’s spiritually directed activity and incorporates that living material event with her living spiritual substance to make a new living morontia entity to which her consciousness provides mind function. Life springs from life and mind can only come from pre-existing mind. We know the soul is alive because it is able to grow in and of itself. (117:3.6; 156:5.2) and we know the soul is minded because it has its own consciousness. (111:3.4)
The Adjuster indwells the mind, but he indwells the spiritual borderland of the supermind (117:3.6; 196:3.34), the superconscious level. So, the Adjuster cannot indwell without the Holy Spirit providing the morontia abode since he indwells a zone just above and overlapping it. The Adjuster reaches down from this zone into the soul, or supermind, where humans are able to consciously lodge their potentially spiritized thoughts. (110:5.3) Super-mind and super-consciousness is above material-mind and material-consciousness. But self-consciousness is something that belongs to personality (16:8.5) which has the potential to be conscious of all those levels. The personality is a necessary component to all of these activities.
The Holy Spirit provides the morontia fabric on which the co-creative activities of the personality and Adjuster embroider divine character traits. (111:2.2) The soul is referred to as the mind-matrix which holds personality potentials (47:3.3), and all of this requires mind, a supermind, which is the function of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit provides the conscious substance of the soul, which is mind, not unlike the adjutants provide the conscious substance of the material mind.
The Holy Spirit is another mind circuit, but one with personality presence, unlike the adjutants who do not have personality presence. (36:5.13) The Holy Spirit also exists and functions within a higher level of reality, the spirit level, whereas the adjutants only function on the material level of realty. The two higher adjutants are overlapped by the Holy Spirit and are therefore considered to cross the threshold of her spirit circuit. (34:5.3) As they reach up to the spirit level, the Holy Spirit reaches down. This is how we are able to lodge certain conscious, spiritually-pregnant ideas in the supermind, which is the Holy Spirit, the personal arena – a place of melding the personal material with the personal spiritual, ” . . . the liaison domain of human and divine interrelationship.” (110:5.3)
The soul is an entity with a mind but without a permanent personality until we either transfer our identity by fully identifying our personality with the Adjuster, or physically die. Regardless, the soul is personal because of the personality presence provided by the Holy Spirit. The mind of the soul, which is its working mechanism, is provided by the Holy Spirit, the supermind, or morontia mind. Remember character traits are housed in the mind and can evolve. The personality is not character and it does not evolve. (140:4.7) Human character traits are part of human material mind. Divine character traits, those gained for the personality by doing God’s will, are housed in the morontia mind/supermind of the soul which is provided by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the Holy Spirit stays with us throughout our universe career, just as the Spirit of Truth stays with us, as an integral part of our morontia minds (117:5.9). The Spirit of Truth requires the Holy Spirit because he can’t be in two places at the same time.
The birth of the soul is the beginning, or first stage, of the morontia career (48:6.2) and is described as an evolving morontia mind. It can be thought of as our initial ongoing life vehicle which will grow and evolve, and will be provided with a series of bodies on the mansion worlds. We take the soul with us after death because it holds our life force along with our new mind (activated by the Adjuster), life and mind go hand in hand, and it’s up to us if we want our personalities to accompany it.
Sorry for jumping around in this post. I should probably edit it and make it more readable but I have limited time this morning. Just wanted to get an initial response out. I can always clarify things a little later if anyone is interested. There’s also more quotes, but this is all I have time for right now. Sorry.
Related quotes:
(9.2) 0:5.12 Morontia is a term designating a vast level intervening between the material and the spiritual. It may designate personal or impersonal realities, living or nonliving energies. The warp of morontia is spiritual; its woof is physical.
(95.6) 8:5.3 . . . The Holy Spirit is the spiritual circuit of this Creative Daughter of the Paradise Infinite Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a circuit indigenous to each local universe and is confined to the spiritual realm of that creation; but the Infinite Spirit is omnipresent.
16.8.5 Creature personality is distinguished by two self-manifesting and characteristic phenomena of mortal reactive behavior: self-consciousness and associated relative free will.
(378.1) 34:4.7 The Universe Mother Spirit acts as the universe focus and center of the Spirit of Truth as well as of her own personal influence, the Holy Spirit.
(379.3) 34:5.3 Mortal man first experiences the ministry of the Spirit in conjunction with mind when the purely animal mind of evolutionary creatures develops reception capacity for the adjutants of worship and of wisdom. This ministry of the sixth and seventh adjutants indicates mind evolution crossing the threshold of spiritual ministry. And immediately are such minds of worship- and wisdom-function included in the spiritual circuits of the Divine Minister.
(379.5) 34:5.5 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.
(403.1) 36:5.13 The adjutant mind-spirits experientially grow, but they never become personal. They evolve in function, and the function of the first five in the animal orders is to a certain extent essential to the function of all seven as human intellect. This animal relationship makes the adjutants more practically effective as human mind; hence animals are to a certain extent indispensable to man’s intellectual as well as to his physical evolution.
(403.4) 36:5.16 The adjutant mind-spirits are in no manner directly related to the diverse and highly spiritual function of the spirit of the personal presence of the Divine Minister, the Holy Spirit of the inhabited worlds; but they are functionally antecedent to, and preparatory for, the appearance of this very spirit in evolutionary man.
(403.7) 36:6.2 Things material may enjoy an independent existence, but life springs only from life. Mind can be derived only from pre-existent mind. Spirit takes origin only from spirit ancestors. The creature may produce the forms of life, but only a creator personality or a creative force can supply the activating living spark.
47:3.3 The mortal-mind transcripts and the active creature-memory patterns as transformed from the material levels to the spiritual are the individual possession of the detached Thought Adjusters; these spiritized factors of mind, memory, and creature personality are forever a part of such Adjusters. The creature mind-matrix and the passive potentials of identity are present in the morontia soul intrusted to the keeping of the seraphic destiny guardians. And it is the reuniting of the morontia-soul trust of the seraphim and the spirit-mind trust of the Adjuster that reassembles creature personality and constitutes resurrection of a sleeping survivor.
48:6.2 You should understand that the morontia life of an ascending mortal is really initiated on the inhabited worlds at the conception of the soul, at that moment when the creature mind of moral status is indwelt by the spirit Adjuster. And from that moment on, the mortal soul has potential capacity for supermortal function, even for recognition on the higher levels of the morontia spheres of the local universe.
(1003.4) 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.
(1129.1) 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.
103:7.14 There is a real proof of spiritual reality in the presence of the Thought Adjuster, but the validity of this presence is not demonstrable to the external world, only to the one who thus experiences the indwelling of God. The consciousness of the Adjuster is based on the intellectual reception of truth, the supermind perception of goodness, and the personality motivation to love.
(1187.1) 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. Creature mind must exhibit the worship outreach and indicate wisdom function by exhibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of good and evil — moral choice.
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.
(1217.6) 111:2.2 The material mind of mortal man is the cosmic loom that carries the morontia fabrics on which the indwelling Thought Adjuster threads the spirit patterns of a universe character of enduring values and divine meanings — a surviving soul of ultimate destiny and unending career, a potential finaliter.
(1219:3) 111:3.4 The soul becomes increasingly conscious of both the mind and the Adjuster as associated identities, proportional to its own evolutionary growth.
(1282:1) 117:3.6 Mortal man, being a creature, is not exactly like the Supreme Being, who is deity, but man’s evolution does in some ways resemble the growth of the Supreme. Man consciously grows from the material toward the spiritual by the strength, power, and persistency of his own decisions; he also grows as his Thought Adjuster develops new techniques for reaching down from the spiritual to the morontial soul levels; and once the soul comes into being, it begins to grow in and of itself.
(1286.7) 117:5.9 While such spiritual influences as the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth are local universe ministrations, their guidance is not wholly confined to the geographic limitations of a given local creation. As the ascending mortal passes beyond the boundaries of his local universe of origin, he is not entirely deprived of the ministry of the Spirit of Truth which has so constantly taught and guided him through the philosophic mazes of the material and morontial worlds, in every crisis of ascension unfailingly directing the Paradise pilgrim, ever saying: “This is the way.” When you leave the domains of the local universe, through the ministry of the spirit of the emerging Supreme Being and through the provisions of superuniverse reflectivity, you will still be guided in your Paradise ascent by the comforting directive spirit of the Paradise bestowal Sons of God.
140:4.7 By their fruits you shall know them.” Personality is basically changeless; that which changes — grows — is the moral character. 156:5.12 Let every man make sure that the intellectual and moral foundations of character are such as will adequately support the superstructure of the enlarging and ennobling spiritual nature, which is thus to transform the mortal mind and then, in association with that re-created mind, is to achieve the evolvement of the soul of immortal destiny. Your spirit nature — the jointly created soul — is a living growth, but the mind and morals of the individual are the soil from which these higher manifestations of human development and divine destiny must spring. The soil of the evolving soul is human and material, but the destiny of this combined creature of mind and spirit is spiritual and divine
196:3.34 The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness — contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith.
As you can see, I’m trying to distinguish between (a) the various levels of “morontia mind” (made accessible by appropriate levels of consciousness of the Divine Minister), and (b) the actual “morontia soul” (woven by our Adjuster) that serves as an extraordinary pre-spirit transition vehicle for our personality.
I should also point out that evolving morontia minds begin on earth with the soul, which is created by the combination of living spirit substance provided the Holy Spirit and the material substance provided by the adjutant mind, as a result of personality approval and action. In the next life, further evolution of the soul cannot rely on obtaining more material substance for morontia growth. On the mansion worlds the soul evolves due to direct contact with the cosmic mind. The combination of the morontia substance of the soul provided by the Holy Spirit and the substance of the cosmic mind results in a mind evolving toward the mind of the Supreme, which is God the Sevenfold, providing many more dimensions of consciousness, each getting closer to the higher spiritual levels of mind. In that way our new minds become less and less morontial while becoming more and more spiritual. It’s our thoughts which lead us Godward. But note, this evolution still involves the Holy Spirit, the superadjutant mind endowment of the Creative Spirit.
And it should be clear by now that the Adjuster does not weave our souls. The Adjuster embroiders, or weaves threads, upon and within the fabric or mind-matrix of the soul, which is the morontia level of life-mind provided by the work of the Holy Spirit in association with the two higher material adjutants. When they say that the Adjuster is the father of the soul, what they’re talking about is the character traits of divinity being embroidered into the living fabric of the soul – the identity potentials carried over into the next life. Those potentials are co-created in partnership with the personality, and are the true, beautiful and good designs and patterns worth keeping forever. The Adjuster holds onto the memory of embroidering them, but the actual patterns are part of the soul which are activated by the Adjuster in the next life.
(1211.6) 110:6.21 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.
(1236.4) 112:6.6 There are no influences in the local universe career comparable to the seven adjutant mind-spirits of human existence. The morontia mind must evolve by direct contact with cosmic mind, as this cosmic mind has been modified and translated by the creative source of local universe intellect — the Divine Minister.
(481.2) 42:10.5 3. Evolving morontia minds — the expanding consciousness of evolving personalities in the local universe ascending careers. This is the bestowal of the local universe Mother Spirit in liaison with the Creator Son. This mind level connotes the organization of the morontia type of life vehicle, a synthesis of the material and the spiritual which is effected by the Morontia Power Supervisors of a local universe. Morontia mind functions differentially in response to the 570 levels of morontia life, disclosing increasing associative capacity with the cosmic mind on the higher levels of attainment. This is the evolutionary course of mortal creatures, but mind of a nonmorontia order is also bestowed by a Universe Son and a Universe Spirit upon the nonmorontia children of the local creations.
(481.3) 42:10.6 The cosmic mind. This is the sevenfold diversified mind of time and space, one phase of which is ministered by each of the Seven Master Spirits to one of the seven superuniverses. The cosmic mind encompasses all finite-mind levels and co-ordinates experientially with the evolutionary-deity levels of the Supreme Mind and transcendentally with the existential levels of absolute mind — the direct circuits of the Conjoint Actor.
(533.1) 47:3.3 The mortal-mind transcripts and the active creature-memory patterns as transformed from the material levels to the spiritual are the individual possession of the detached Thought Adjusters; these spiritized factors of mind, memory, and creature personality are forever a part of such Adjusters. The creature mind-matrix and the passive potentials of identity are present in the morontia soul intrusted to the keeping of the seraphic destiny guardians. And it is the reuniting of the morontia-soul trust of the seraphim and the spirit-mind trust of the Adjuster that reassembles creature personality and constitutes resurrection of a sleeping survivor.
What do you mean when you say “willingness of the individual to do God’s will”? This willingness is distinct from actually knowing God’s will, right? I am searching for the source of and better understanding of faith itself.
I’m sorry I missed this question. In my personal experience there is very little distance between willingness to do God’s will and knowing God’s will. But that only applies if the definition of doing God’s will is simply the willingness to share the inner life with him. I willingly do that and I know that I’m doing it; and simultaneously, I’m vitally aware that there is a spiritual presence within me who is also participating in the sharing. So, in that sense my willing and knowing are one and the same thing. But I fear there are many who don’t or won’t accept this very simple reality and conflate spiritual knowing with intellectual knowledge. In reality, a well-balanced personality is deeply involved with both – knowing in the morontia soul and knowledge in the material mind. Overdevelopment of either the material intellect or the spiritual nature results in an unhealthy imbalance. Both are necessary for religious living.
111:5.1 The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God—with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible.
102:2.4 In knowledge alone there can never be absolute certainty, only increasing probability of approximation; but the religious soul of spiritual illumination knows, and knows now. And yet this profound and positive certitude does not lead such a sound-minded religionist to take any less interest in the ups and downs of the progress of human wisdom, which is bound up on its material end with the developments of slow-moving science.
(1209.4) 110:6.4 When the development of the intellectual nature proceeds faster than that of the spiritual, such a situation renders communication with the Thought Adjuster both difficult and dangerous. Likewise, overspiritual development tends to produce a fanatical and perverted interpretation of the spirit leadings of the divine indweller.
Hi Bonita,
Regarding mind and soul, I like very much your description of the Holy Spirit’s role in the creation of morontia substance. And with regard to 47:3.3, I completely agree that this “mind-matrix” can only exist thanks to such action and contributions by the Divine Minister. However, in 47:3.3, the author states that this “mind-matrix“, along with “the passive potentials of identity“, are actually “present in” the morontia soul. Which seems to imply that the soul is something more than just mind and identity?
(533.1, 47:3.3) “The mortal-mind transcripts and the active creature-memory patterns as transformed from the material levels to the spiritual are the individual possession of the detached Thought Adjusters; these spiritized factors of mind, memory, and creature personality are forever a part of such Adjusters. The creature mind-matrix and the passive potentials of identity are present in the morontia soul intrusted to the keeping of the seraphic destiny guardians. And it is the reuniting of the morontia-soul trust of the seraphim and the spirit-mind trust of the Adjuster that reassembles creature personality and constitutes resurrection of a sleeping survivor.”
And thanks for highlighting “the liaison domain of human and divine interrelationship“,
(1208.2, 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.”
Bonita wrote:
“The Adjuster holds onto the memory of embroidering them, but the actual patterns are part of the soul which are activated by the Adjuster in the next life.”
Love this image, of the Adjuster “embroidering” the soul”. There seems to be a hint of this threading and weaving in the next paragraph,
(1208.3, 110:5.4) “While their mortal hosts are asleep, the Adjusters try to register their creations in the higher levels of the material mind, ” [ . . . ] “the divine messages which the indwellers are endeavoring to put into the psychic records during unconscious sleep.”
Nigel
Thanks to all…wonderful presentations of the foundations of religious faith!! You shine Bonita!! Thanks for directly addressing my many questions and challenging my many confusions! It is such a help.
102:7.6 (1126.6) The God-knowing individual is not one who is blind to the difficulties or unmindful of the obstacles which stand in the way of finding God in the maze of superstition, tradition, and materialistic tendencies of modern times. He has encountered all these deterrents and triumphed over them, surmounted them by living faith, and attained the highlands of spiritual experience in spite of them. But it is true that many who are inwardly sure about God fear to assert such feelings of certainty because of the multiplicity and cleverness of those who assemble objections and magnify difficulties about believing in God. It requires no great depth of intellect to pick flaws, ask questions, or raise objections. But it does require brilliance of mind to answer these questions and solve these difficulties; faith certainty is the greatest technique for dealing with all such superficial contentions.
102:7.7 (1127.1) If science, philosophy, or sociology dares to become dogmatic in contending with the prophets of true religion, then should God-knowing men reply to such unwarranted dogmatism with that more farseeing dogmatism of the certainty of personal spiritual experience, “I know what I have experienced because I am a son of I AM.” If the personal experience of a faither is to be challenged by dogma, then this faith-born son of the experiencible Father may reply with that unchallengeable dogma, the statement of his actual sonship with the Universal Father.
102:7.8 (1127.2) Only an unqualified reality, an absolute, could dare consistently to be dogmatic. Those who assume to be dogmatic must, if consistent, sooner or later be driven into the arms of the Absolute of energy, the Universal of truth, and the Infinite of love.
102:7.9 (1127.3) If the nonreligious approaches to cosmic reality presume to challenge the certainty of faith on the grounds of its unproved status, then the spirit experiencer can likewise resort to the dogmatic challenge of the facts of science and the beliefs of philosophy on the grounds that they are likewise unproved; they are likewise experiences in the consciousness of the scientist or the philosopher.
102:7.10 (1127.4) Of God, the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all facts, the most living of all truths, the most loving of all friends, and the most divine of all values, we have the right to be the most certain of all universe experiences.
. . . along with “the passive potentials of identity“, are actually “present in” the morontia soul. Which seems to imply that the soul is something more than just mind and identity?
The passive potentials of identity are the co-created character traits of divinity which the Adjuster has sewn into the morontia fabric of the soul for us as part of that dualization process. Those passive potentials are the dazzling gems of our evolving divinity which will become part of the character of our surviving personality once the Adjuster returns and activates them. Also, those embroidered gems are three dimensionally discernible apart from the matrix fabric because they are the result of the active unification of the once potential values of all three levels of reality.
105:6.5 Even the material mind of the mortal creature thus becomes partner with the divine Adjuster in the dualization of the immortal soul.
16:9.2 The God-discerning mortal is able to sense the unification value of these three cosmic qualities in the evolution of the surviving soul, man’s supreme undertaking in the physical tabernacle where the moral mind collaborates with the indwelling divine spirit to dualize the immortal soul. From its earliest inception the soul is real; it has cosmic survival qualities.
In regards to memory, the soul is unconscious and without active memory after death even though it is a mind matrix. Both the self-consciousness of the personality and the consciousness of the Adjuster, with his full transcript and control over all our memories of co-creation, are required to revitalize the sleeping life of the soul. Incidentally, no one knows exactly where the personality awaits resurrection after death. It apparently does not stay with the soul even though the soul is in possession of all its survivable character, nor does it stay with the Adjuster or the archangels.
40:9.4 Mortal memory of human experience on the material worlds of origin survives death in the flesh because the indwelling Adjuster has acquired a spirit counterpart, or transcript, of those events of human life which were of spiritual significance. But with Spirit-fused mortals there exists no such mechanism whereby human memory may persist. The Adjuster transcripts of memory are full and intact, but these acquisitions are experiential possessions of the departed Adjusters and are not available to the creatures of their former indwelling, who therefore awaken in the resurrection halls of the morontia spheres of Nebadon as if they were newly created beings, creatures without consciousness of former existence.
112:5.15 During the transit of surviving mortals from the world of origin to the mansion worlds, whether they experience personality reassembly on the third period or ascend at the time of a group resurrection, the record of personality constitution is faithfully preserved by the archangels on their worlds of special activities. These beings are not the custodians of personality (as the guardian seraphim are of the soul), but it is nonetheless true that every identifiable factor of personality is effectually safeguarded in the custody of these dependable trustees of mortal survival. As to the exact whereabouts of mortal personality during the time intervening between death and survival, we do not know.
In regards to identity, it survives as part of the Adjuster. The soul contains only the specs, or blueprint, for identity expression which are all passive until activated by the returning Adjuster and expressed by the returning personality. The essence of identity exists within the mind, not the personality; but, it is the personality which cooperates in its expression by free-will choice, which is why it is so crucial to transfer identity to the Adjuster who embroiders a new co-created mind for eternal life. Recall that identity is merely an attribute of personality and conversely, personality is the pattern for identity. They are two separate but related things, which is why the personality can transfer its own identity from one energy system to another according to its divine pattern, which prefers spiritual dominance.
113:6.1 . . . Upon your death, your records, identity specifications, and the morontia entity of the human soul — conjointly evolved by the ministry of mortal mind and the divine Adjuster — are faithfully conserved by the destiny guardian together with all other values related to your future existence, everything that constitutes you, the real you, except the identity of continuing existence represented by the departing Adjuster and the actuality of personality.
112.3.7 Upon death the Thought Adjuster temporarily loses personality, but not identity; the human subject temporarily loses identity, but not personality; on the mansion worlds both reunite in eternal manifestation.
112:5.4 Human beings, from a cosmic perspective, are born, live, and die in a relative instant of time; they are not enduring. But mortal personality, through its own choosing, possesses the power of transferring its seat of identity from the passing material-intellect system to the higher morontia-soul system which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle for personality manifestation.
113.6.5 The guardian seraphim is the custodial trustee of the survival values of mortal man’s slumbering soul as the absent Adjuster is the identity of such an immortal universe being. When these two collaborate in the resurrection halls of mansonia in conjunction with the newly fabricated morontia form, there occurs the reassembly of the constituent factors of the personality of the mortal ascender.
112.0.7 5. Personality, while devoid of identity, can unify the identity of any living energy system.
42:12.2 Mind is always creative. The mind endowment of an individual animal, mortal, morontian, spirit ascender, or finality attainer is always competent to produce a suitable and serviceable body for the living creature identity. But the presence phenomenon of a personality or the pattern of an identity, as such, is not a manifestation of energy, either physical, mindal, or spiritual. The personality form is the pattern aspect of a living being; it connotes the arrangement of energies, and this, plus life and motion, is the mechanism of creature existence.
What do you mean when you say “willingness of the individual to do God’s will”? This willingness is distinct from actually knowing God’s will, right? I am searching for the source of and better understanding of faith itself.
I’m sorry I missed this question. In my personal experience there is very little distance between willingness to do God’s will and knowing God’s will. But that only applies if the definition of doing God’s will is simply the willingness to share the inner life with him. I willingly do that and I know that I’m doing it; and simultaneously, I’m vitally aware that there is a spiritual presence within me who is also participating in the sharing. So, in that sense my willing and knowing are one and the same thing. But I fear there are many who don’t or won’t accept this very simple reality and conflate spiritual knowing with intellectual knowledge. In reality, a well-balanced personality is deeply involved with both – knowing in the morontia soul and knowledge in the material mind. Overdevelopment of either the material intellect or the spiritual nature results in an unhealthy imbalance. Both are necessary for religious living.
111:5.1 The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God—with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible.
102:2.4 In knowledge alone there can never be absolute certainty, only increasing probability of approximation; but the religious soul of spiritual illumination knows, and knows now. And yet this profound and positive certitude does not lead such a sound-minded religionist to take any less interest in the ups and downs of the progress of human wisdom, which is bound up on its material end with the developments of slow-moving science.
Thank you Bonita! I agree…some of us spend far too much time and anxiety seeking elusive specificity regarding God’s will, as if it were a certain thing at a certain time, as though the endless stream of intersections of circumstances and situations and relationships require a very specific choice or decision by the tadpole pilgrim. I think God’s will for us mortals is far easier to know and to do…it is to choose with the foundational motive of love of God and of others rather than choose from the perspective of self importance. And, I think, it is to choose to share our life with God intentionally so that we make our choices in God’s company and as his companion in this journey of life. I also think that life “feels” right the more we do this and “feels” wrong the less often or the less intently we do this. There is a certain coordination and integration and momentum to life when we walk with God within and when we do not.
But this still leads to a much more complicated reality….experiential wisdom. Just because we are so motivated in our lives and aligned with God’s will in this way does not mean we are suddenly wise or that we avoid errors and the repercussions of error!! Faith may be the greatest and most important form of wisdom….but only experience delivers what I would describe as functional-wisdom. While the difference between right and wrong may not be too complex to discern, we must also consider right and righter and good and better and better and best at all these intersections of choice. Enlightening and perfecting are not achieved simply or merely by motive and intention!!
But until we ARE sharing the inner life and embracing the pure motive for our daily choices and walk, we cannot truly be certain and filled with a growing faith of God’s reality. That faith certainty and reciprocal faith assurance and presence of God personally is only delivered and only grows over time by relationship experience. Our embrace of this reality becomes our reality and our experiential certainty that doubts and doubters cannot shake. (see 102:2.4 above) and:
102:7.6 (1126.6) The God-knowing individual is not one who is blind to the difficulties or unmindful of the obstacles which stand in the way of finding God in the maze of superstition, tradition, and materialistic tendencies of modern times. He has encountered all these deterrents and triumphed over them, surmounted them by living faith, and attained the highlands of spiritual experience in spite of them. But it is true that many who are inwardly sure about God fear to assert such feelings of certainty because of the multiplicity and cleverness of those who assemble objections and magnify difficulties about believing in God. It requires no great depth of intellect to pick flaws, ask questions, or raise objections. But it does require brilliance of mind to answer these questions and solve these difficulties; faith certainty is the greatest technique for dealing with all such superficial contentions.
Me here: faith assurance leads to a peace of mind and calm certainty and a poised personality that is not shaken or perturbed by personal anxieties, doubts, confusions, or uncertainty…or the anxieties, doubts, confusions, and uncertainties of others – any others or all others. There are many professed believers (and UB students too) who express unmistakable anxieties and doubts which simply cannot survive or endure when the mortal mind has once attained the certainty of faith and the assurance of that faith….survival hopes are provided survival assurance in every mind which abides with God as companion. The deeper and the longer this companionship and friendship of creature and creator, the more certainty and peace of mind attends the children of time. Hopefully and eventually, experiential wisdom will also progressively attend such an expression of this experience over time as we learn by error the better from the lesser and the best from the better!!
8. The Evidences of Religion
102:8.1 (1127.5) The highest evidence of the reality and efficacy of religion consists in the fact of human experience; namely, that man, naturally fearful and suspicious, innately endowed with a strong instinct of self-preservation and craving survival after death, is willing fully to trust the deepest interests of his present and future to the keeping and direction of that power and person designated by his faith as God. That is the one central truth of all religion. As to what that power or person requires of man in return for this watchcare and final salvation, no two religions agree; in fact, they all more or less disagree.
102:8.2 (1127.6) Regarding the status of any religion in the evolutionary scale, it may best be judged by its moral judgments and its ethical standards. The higher the type of any religion, the more it encourages and is encouraged by a constantly improving social morality and ethical culture. We cannot judge religion by the status of its accompanying civilization; we had better estimate the real nature of a civilization by the purity and nobility of its religion. Many of the world’s most notable religious teachers have been virtually unlettered. The wisdom of the world is not necessary to an exercise of saving faith in eternal realities.
102:8.3 (1127.7) The difference in the religions of various ages is wholly dependent on the difference in man’s comprehension of reality and on his differing recognition of moral values, ethical relationships, and spirit realities.
102:8.4 (1127.8) Ethics is the external social or racial mirror which faithfully reflects the otherwise unobservable progress of internal spiritual and religious developments. Man has always thought of God in the terms of the best he knew, his deepest ideas and highest ideals. Even historic religion has always created its God conceptions out of its highest recognized values. Every intelligent creature gives the name of God to the best and highest thing he knows. *
102:8.5 (1128.1) Religion, when reduced to terms of reason and intellectual expression, has always dared to criticize civilization and evolutionary progress as judged by its own standards of ethical culture and moral progress.
102:8.6 (1128.2) While personal religion precedes the evolution of human morals, it is regretfully recorded that institutional religion has invariably lagged behind the slowly changing mores of the human races. Organized religion has proved to be conservatively tardy. The prophets have usually led the people in religious development; the theologians have usually held them back. Religion, being a matter of inner or personal experience, can never develop very far in advance of the intellectual evolution of the races.
102:8.7 (1128.3) But religion is never enhanced by an appeal to the so-called miraculous. The quest for miracles is a harking back to the primitive religions of magic. True religion has nothing to do with alleged miracles, and never does revealed religion point to miracles as proof of authority. Religion is ever and always rooted and grounded in personal experience. And your highest religion, the life of Jesus, was just such a personal experience: man, mortal man, seeking God and finding him to the fullness during one short life in the flesh, while in the same human experience there appeared God seeking man and finding him to the full satisfaction of the perfect soul of infinite supremacy. And that is religion, even the highest yet revealed in the universe of Nebadon—the earth life of Jesus of Nazareth.
This brings us to the end of posting the text from Paper 102 – The Foundations of Religious Faith. I’ll begin Paper 103 The Reality of Religious Experience soon…but not for a season yet.
For there is still much to discover and discuss in Paper 102 I think! No hurry to move on for awhile! Thanks to those who read and especially to those who contribute to the discussion for it is only by such willingness to share opinions, experiences, perspective, and insights that we might hope to gain and expand more perspective and reduce our personal prejudice by such a method of discovery and learning. We are told we are not reckoned to have learned that which we do not also teach. Hmmmm……. The best students also teach simply by their own learning which includes sharing questions, opinions, perspective, insight, and experience. What’s yours???
Link to discussion of Paper 100 – Religion in Human Experience:
https://urantia-association.org/forums/topic/religion-in-human-experience-paper-100/
Link to discussion of Paper 101 – The Real Nature of Religion
https://urantia-association.org/forums/topic/the-real-nature-of-religion-paper-101/
There is a certain coordination and integration and momentum to life when we walk with God . . .
Yep. Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life.” We know what the way is, we know what truth is, but so few take heart that an actual person can also be the life of the soul. The soul is alive. A real, live person lives there. Deep inside every personality is a craving to be with that “other” person. And as we shift our identify to be with him, we also begin a new life, not only inside, but outside as well since the fruit of that relationship has no choice but to grow and ripen in this world. It’s all true, beautiful and good.
Jesus said so often, “I am the resurrection and the life”. Such a powerful phrase!
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