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The Essentiality of Morality.
Essentially the Urantia Papers are a recruiting drive for volunteers who will respond to Jesus' call:
"Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-revealing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall consist in the life which you will live among men--the actual and living experience of loving men and serving them, even as I have loved and served you". (2043)
If we are to undertake this mission, we have a problem to face.
"Morality is the essential pre-existent soil of God-consciousness, the personal realization of the Adjuster's presence." (2096)
There appears to be little likelihood of success in our "mission to the world" if we are without God-consciousness, hence without effective communication with our Adjuster. Loving and serving our fellows as Jesus loved and served them would be beyond the realms of possibility unless our moral standards are such as to enable God-consciousness. So what is necessary.
"The moral nature is superanimal but subspiritual. Morality is equivalent to the recognition of duty, the realization of the existence of right and wrong. The moral zone intervenes between the animal and the human types of mind as morontia functions between the material and the spiritual spheres of personality attainment." (2096)
Although human moral nature may be superanimal nevertheless our instinctual behavior is derived from our animal heritage. Basic features are dominance behavior, territorialism, sex drive, and self preservation, often subtly disguised to produce a cloak of respectability.
The self-preservation instinct may be expressed as selfishness in all its forms.
Dominance behavior is strongly evident among herd animals in which in each member has a well defined ranking that permits it to dominate all those below it in status but to be subservient to those above. Position on the ladder has to be vigorously defended. Its counterpart is observable in every aspect of human social interaction.
Territorialism is readily observable among animals that are either "loners" or members of a small group. Territories are often marked out quite precisely and defended vigorously, even to the death.
Territorialism is strongly expressed among human tribes and nations but it too reaches into every avenue of social life. Even such trivia as family arguments about whether the toilet seat should be left up or down derives from animal territorial instinct.
The expression of sexuality and the morality thereof is too complex and too extensive to deal with here. Suffice it to say that self-centeredness and selfishness are dominant contributors to our animal-like behavior while selflessness, real love, service, and altruism figure strongly in the expression of super-animal morality.
Our knowledge of super-animal but sub-spiritual morality derives from the mind endowment coming from the Infinite Spirit, from the God-given gift of our personality, and from the guidance of our indwelling Father Spirit.
There can be no pretense, or partial intention, or compromise, when it comes to our morality and the undertaking of our "mission to the world." As with our religion, it is an all or none commitment. You cannot be a partially religious or a partially moral person.
"To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none." (1124)
Much of the final few pages of the revelation are devoted to explaining what constitutes super-animal but sub-spiritual morality, the qualifier for the undertaking to live as Jesus lived.
The Papers reveal quite definitely that this is a level of morality attainable by mortal beings such as ourselves. In his address to Jesus regarding his coming bestowal, Immanuel states: "Exhibit in your one short life in the flesh, as it has never before been seen in all Nebadon, the transcendent possibilities attainable by a God-knowing human during the short career of mortal existence…(1328)
What are these super-animal moral values and how do we attain them?
"The moral values of the universe become intellectual possessions by the exercise of the three basic judgments, or choices, of the mortal mind:
Self-judgment--moral choice.
Social-judgment--ethical choice.
God-judgment--religious choice.
We appear to be facing a "which comes first" situation, the "chicken or the egg?" To make
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