It cannot be doubted that these Urantia Papers sometimes meander between the sublime and the ridiculous. This becomes more comprehensible if we remind ourselves that much of the initial content constitutes the response to questions from "Forum" members who were deliberately attempting to set traps for the revelators to betray themselves. The reality of the book itself pays witness that the revelators survived this period of testing despite the limitations imposed upon them by universe rules on revelation that proscribed revealing unearned knowledge--which was in direct conflict with the determination of Forum members 'to ask questions that no human being could answer.'

   Furthermore, the task of the revelators also had to be carried out without abrogating a divine decree:

   "No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute.
  "No personal creature can be coerced into the eternal adventure; the portal of eternity opens only to the freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free will." (P. 71)

   Free will entails absence of coercion. Free choice also implies absence of coercion. Authoritarianism is always conditional.

  Thus, if the revelators provided the slightest hint that their word was supported by divine authority, they could do infinite harm to those who accepted that authority and relied upon it. To accept God's way as our way, to choose always to do God's will, and to do that of our own free will necessitates that we be uncertain about God. For if we are certain about God and choose his way because of the benefits that will bring, that is simply common sense, not free will. Free will is often illogical--such as for those who give their life to save a friend, and even more so if they give their life to save an enemy. Perhaps uncertainty is not so bad:

   In the more advanced planetary ages these seraphic hosts enhance man's appreciation of the truth that uncertainty is the secret of contented continuity. They help the mortal philosophers to realize that, when ignorance is essential to success, it would be a colossal blunder for the creature to know the future. They heighten man's taste for the sweetness of uncertainty, for the romance and charm of the indefinite and unknown future. (P.438)

   Always have the authors attempted to leave the door ajar just enough for uncertainty to wriggle its way into the mind of the reader. Which may be why we have, in these Papers, such a strange mixture of prophecy and error.

   If the revelation did not have the purpose of providing new knowledge in fields such as science and history, nor to give us a travel guide for the heavenly spheres and a census of the heavenly hierarchy, what then was its purpose?