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Truth and the Spirit of Truth.
from Urantia Paper 180, Sect. 5.
Summary
"We must clearly recognize that the golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do to you) can never be understood properly if treated as dogma or precept. It can only be comprehended by living it."
The golden rule appears to have four levels of discernment that merge into one another. It may be seen as simply a rule for high ethical conduct or an affirmation of human fraternity--a yardstick for gauging social relationships.
In moral beings it becomes a central reference point for social conduct.
At a higher level again, the kingdom of believing and God-knowing truth lovers, it takes on a spiritual connotation by which its practitioners endeavor to so relate themselves to their fellows that they will receive the highest possible good as a result of the believers' contact with them. Referring to this group Jesus says,
"My Father and I are able to live in the hearts of all who love us and make that love real in their experiences by loving one another even as I have loved you."
At the highest level the true meaning of the golden rule is only attained through its interpretation in specific circumstances by the Spirit of Truth to the indwelling Father Spirit and then realized in action as the love of the spirit-led individual acting in a way that ensures the highest cosmic good of the recipient of that love.
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Section 5 entitled "The Spirit of Truth" is one of the most profound in the whole collection of Urantia Papers. It needs to be read many, many times to catch the different shades of meaning implied by the same words in different context. At some date in the far distant future, it should become one of the most common sections singled out for thesis writing by theology students. What follows is an attempt to draw attention to some of its salient features.
In at least some of the Urantia Papers, the word "truth" is used with meticulous and exacting discrimination. In contrast to its common use as being synonymous with "correct," "right," "factual," "accurate," etc., truth is given the connotation of "divine truth" with its immediate source being the indwelling spirit forces available to us.
"Divine truth is spirit-discerned and living reality. Truth exists only on high spiritual levels of the realization of divinity and the consciousness of communion with God."
"When you undertake the human formulation of divine truth, it speedily dies."
In rare moments of our dwelling upon supermaterial levels, it is possible for us to experience divine truth having its immediate origin in our Thought Adjuster. This "truth," having become activated as spiritual truth, then becomes a permanent part of our growing soul.
Provided at our personal request to aid us in the discernment of truth is the "Spirit of Truth," in function, the combined spirits of the Father and our Creator Son. (2062)
"This divine endowment is not the letter or law of truth, neither is it to function as the form or expression of truth."
Whereas the Thought Adjuster is the gift of the Father to all men and women of Urantia, regardless of race or religion, and is constitutive with each person from the moment of their first moral decision in childhood, the Spirit of Truth is available "on request."
"The new teacher is the conviction of truth, the consciousness and assurance of true meanings on real spirit levels. And this new teacher is the spirit of living and growing truth, expanding, unfolding, and adaptive truth"--provided to us for the specific purpose of truth identification.
"The true child of universe insight looks for the living Spirit of Truth in every wise saying. The God-knowing individual is constantly elevating wisdom to the living-truth levels of divine attainment;"
Wise sayings or other everyday experience, once recognized with the help of the Spirit of Truth as having truth value, may then, through the action of our Thought Adjuster, become constituent parts of our soul growth.
Living truth is special. It is "dynamic and can enjoy only an experiential existence in the human mind." Elevated to the levels of divine attainment, "truth is a spiritual reality value
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