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More about the Urantia Papers.
In some ways it seems unfortunate that an alternative name for The Urantia Book is "The Fifth Epochal Revelation." It is the effect of this acquired name that has caused so many readers to attribute a fundamentalist-style "absolute and infallible truth" status to its content.
The authors themselves make no such claim. And nowhere do they use the term "the Fifth Epochal Revelation." The closest comment is that among many events of religious revelation, "only five are of epochal significance." Of these, the life and teaching of Jesus could perhaps aspire to divine authority but, even for that, we have only records that, one way or another, have felt the touch of human hands.
The revelators have applied themselves with some diligence to the task of avoiding the problems that Christianity has faced through the imposition of a divine dictation theory to biblical writings. For example, they state, "The creature may crave infallibility but only the Creators possess it."
None of the authors of the Urantia Papers have a claim to "Creator" status. Therefore none can be infallible, something they themselves freely acknowledge. In fact they leave no room for doubt as to what they believe about their own work. "Let it be made clear that revelations are not necessarily inspired." (1109)
While it is obviously true that many parts of this book are not of "inspired" status, there are also many sections that have the ring of divine truth. But the proof of divine truth is entirely a personal experience.
"Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience." (1106)
Another important statement from the Papers is:
"The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence...that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father." (24)
A stated purpose for the Urantia Papers is to "synthesize the apparently divergent sciences of nature and the theology of religion into a consistent and logical universe philosophy." (1106) This would be an impossible task if the authors were constrained by having to provide infallible truth and, at the same time, comply with a mandate that proscribed the impartation of unearned knowledge. And they even state their cosmology is "not inspired." (1109)
When the Urantia Papers were received in the mid- 1930's, traditional cosmology dealt with features of creation as a whole. It could include speculative philosophy in its widest sense.1 In its current usage, the meaning of the term has narrowed to astrophysics and astronomy. But it is used in the Urantia Papers in its traditional sense, and covers every aspect of creation.
A little thought is all that is necessary to realize that a consistent philosophy, or cosmology, does not need to be infallible truth in order to be enormously beneficial. Philosophical and cosmological truth may often be more useful and more comprehensible if conveyed under the guise of myth, parable, or allegory.
Assessing truth
Some books that we read may stimulate an urge to read them again and again in order to gain their full benefit. I've always been amazed by how much my first assessment of any book declined on even the second reading. Only rarely have I undertaken a third full reading of any book.
There are a few exceptions. One came about through my acquisition of a Bible that had the spoken word of Jesus from the Gospels picked out in red print. I found I could read substantial amounts of both Matthew's and John's Gospels without ever tiring of them.
The other exception is certain Papers from The Urantia Book. I've been reading these on a daily basis for going on thirty years--and never expect to master what they contain, nor to tire of trying.
I feel that I am a highly critical kind of person. During my fifteen years as head of a research laboratory, I used to tell new graduates who came to work with us that their productivity would be hamstrung until they learned to question all they ever thought they knew.
I had tackled the Bible and The Urantia Book with this approach, and on the assumption that you don't discover truth--you feel it.
My science career was dominantly in the field of biochemistry. Theoretical physics and
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