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could act to prevent those at a higher level of rationality and scientific knowledge from according an infallibility status to the Papers. It is also possible that the inclusion of prophetic material had the deliberate purpose of seeking to attract the attention of those receptive individuals whose major interests would find common ground with the Papers because of their intrinsic spiritual and religious value--despite the erroneous cosmology.
The revelators covered themselves by stating what they were doing in a number of places with comments such as "the cosmology of these Papers is not inspired." Up to and even beyond the 1930's, for most people that word "cosmology" had a far broader meaning than astronomy alone. Cosmology was a traditional branch of metaphysics and was even inclusive of the famous cosmological argument of Thomas Aquinas about the existence of God. And their words "not inspired" later received a meaning that is less than infallible in the authors' statement, "The creature may crave infallibility, but only the Creators possess it." (P. 1768) In actuality, none of the listed authors of the Papers were of "Creator" status.
There is a second and important reason why this revelation could not be both consistent and infallible. The Papers state, "As to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will and that decree is absolute." (P. 71) And, "the portal of eternity opens only to the freewill choice of the free sons of the God of free will." Furthermore, the Papers also state that faith alone will pass you through that portal. (P. 71)
An authoritative and infallible revelation provides a certainty and an authority that is incompatible with human beings having free will choice. For, as it has been stated, "If we had reason for faith, then it would not be faith at all, it would be logic. Faith can only be unreasonable." (Appleyard4)
Elsewhere we find: "Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure--uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite love of the Universal Father…" (P. 1223)
For example, the Urantia Papers state that our eternal universe career is dependent upon the goal of our freewill decisions eventually becoming coincidental with God's will. To reject that as our goal is to sentence ourselves to "become as if we had never been." (Paper 2, Section 3) So do we really have free will? Only if we are uncertain about the veracity of these conditional statements.
In reality it appears that God had no option but to ensure that "uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure." His alternative? To have created us as robots lacking in free will. Realization of this truth eliminates those puerile arguments about good and evil. We humans are totally responsible for all deliberate evil. And both intended and accidental evil is the unavoidable and inevitable result of giving free will to imperfect beings.
Thus the authors of these Urantia Papers also had no option but to find ways and means of preventing their revelation from becoming an infallible security blanket for those whose faith was not yet sufficiently advanced to accept the free will offered to them by the God of free will.
"They would not lie to us" is the cry we hear from those who, in their insecurity, cling to fundamentalism. But the revelators have explained very carefully and very explicitly what they were doing:
"No revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father can ever be complete. All other celestial ministrations are no more than partial, transient, and practically adapted to local conditions in time and space. While such admissions as this may possibly detract from the immediate force and authority of all revelations, the time has arrived on Urantia when it is advisable to make such frank statements, even at the risk of weakening the future influence and authority of this, the most recent of the revelations of truth to the mortal races of Urantia." (P. 1008)
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