|
The Urantia Papers: The Revelators' Unenviable Task
Ken Glasziou, Qld., Australia
"But no revelation short 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." (1008)
"Religion is the revelation to man of his divine and eternal destiny." (2075) So say the revelators. Certainly one of the major tasks for the revelators of The Urantia Papers was to inform Urantians about their "divine and eternal destiny" within the context of a cosmology that includes Paradise, Havona, the seven superuniverses, and the hierarchical structure for the "heavenly hosts."
Prior to receipt of the Fifth Epochal Revelation, its predecessor revelations had left us with only the scant information that "in my Father's house, there are many mansions" plus some subsidiary information that, in our celestial life, we would be "as the angels" hence "neither taken nor given in marriage." Beyond this, we had no knowledge of the true meaning of concepts such as "eternal life," "heaven," "hell," "Paradise," nor of the hierarchy of heavenly beings who co-inhabit the central and superuniverses with us.
The Urantia Book takes pain to inform us that revelation to the universes is subject to strict control and restrictions. A seemingly reasonable question that we earthlings might ask is, "Why?" For without some reasonable concept of the reasons for such restrictions, how can we have a true grasp of the "what, why, and wherefore" of the Fifth Epochal Revelation? Furthermore, without such knowledge, how can we hope to understand why the book has been written in such a peculiar manner?
In my mind's eye (wherever that may be), I can already "see" our Urantia Book fundamentalists spontaneously responding, "What peculiar manner?" However, I would question whether it is possible for anyone not to notice the "strangeness" of this book except that they have failed to ponder long, hard, and diligently upon things not understood. So, please, please, double please, give it serious time and thought!
Why is it important? Well it is coming up to fifty years since the book was first printed and less than about one in every ten thousand persons on the planet could ever have even seen or heard of the book--and probably less than one in a million is likely to have any comprehension of what it is about. Furthermore the older generations of Christians have their feet of clay buried in concrete, refusing to give an inch to new knowledge and concepts, with the result that each succeeding generation is increasingly religionless. That automatically means no realistic purpose to life, no reason for ethics or morals, and nothing to which to dedicate self but self itself--a sure recipe for social chaos and ultimate anarchy.
A point to be considered is that we may be answerable at some future time in our universe careers for having presented The Urantia Book to the world essentially as a divinely-dictated revelation, despite the contrary written exhortations of the revelators themselves. This action effectively gives The Urantia Book a "banned reading" status for most of the rank and file of the Christian world. One reason this is so may be found in Revelations 22:18,19. Look it up!
It is a sad truth that the Urantia Papers never ever had need for the protection of copyright, nor did they ever have any need for the status of "divinely-dictated revelation" to be plastered upon them. The truths in these Papers are magnificently self-authenticating for those with "eyes to see and ears to hear." They can stand on their own feet and by their own merit. How long will it take for that truth to be understood?
The restrictions imposed upon the revelators by the rules for revelation included that they must not provide us with unearned knowledge, nor are they permitted to anticipate the scientific discoveries that they expect us to make over the next 1000 years. (1109) At first glance these impositions do not appear all that intimidating. But some realistic thinking on the problem will soon reveal the depth of the difficulties so created.
Imagine that you have been placed in a time machine and the date wound back to the end of the 19th century. You find yourself scheduled to give a talk to a group of erudite citizens, your topic is the "clockwork nature of the universe" and you are familiar with the recent 20th century advances in quantum physics that demonstrate conclusively that the universe is not a clockwork-like machine after all, and that the fundamentals of cause and effect thinking have gone down the drain forever.
You have the same prohibitions as the revelators of the Urantia Papers, you cannot provide people with unearned knowledge. So how could you even hint that the materialistic thinking of this 19th century audience could be wrong--except that you unintentionally provide them with unearned knowledge? Remember you are from the future; your audience will assume your every word has authority.
If we really did have to perform a task similar to that given to the revelators of The Urantia
|
|
