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"Because your world is generally ignorant of origins, even of physical origins, it has appeared to be wise from time to time to provide instruction in cosmology. And always has this made trouble for the future. The laws of revelation hamper us greatly by their proscription of the impartation of unearned or premature knowledge. Any cosmology presented as a part of revealed religion is destined to be outgrown in a very short time. Accordingly, future students of such a revelation are tempted to discard any element of genuine religious truth it may contain because they discover errors on the face of the associated cosmologies therein presented.
"Mankind should understand that we who participate in the revelation of truth are very rigorously limited by the instructions of our superiors…within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. These new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records. Let it be made clear that revelations are not necessarily inspired." (from Paper 101, Section 4.)
From the first paragraph we note that the laws of revelation "proscribe the impartation of unearned or premature knowledge." In this Paper it is also stated that in some cases information could be supplied to fill vital missing gaps in otherwise earned knowledge. Perhaps this was what sanctioned the inclusion of prophetic material--despite the proscription against the provision of unearned knowledge.
The goal of Forum members to pose questions that human beings could not answer is in conflict with what are described as the laws of revelation--those proscribing provision of unearned knowledge. We might ponder what would have occurred if the answer to each such question had been, "Sorry, we are not permitted to answer." The revelators, whoever they might be, were in the hot seat. Failure to answer probably would have resulted in collapse of the project and loss of twenty years of preparatory work.
If we believe what we find in the Papers themselves, a betrayal of trust on the part of the revelators is unthinkable. Celestial beings of their status simply do not break the rules. In most cases what they appear to have done is to provide the most up-to-date knowledge available in the early 1930's that came reasonably close to being an answer to the question--even though it might later prove to be erroneous. In some cases, there was no suitable response available and rather than responding, "Sorry we cannot answer," fill material was used that would pass muster for many years into the future but could eventually become seriously wrong.
In the long run this served to solve two problems. Granting the high status of the authors, they would probably anticipate the inevitability of many Forum members and later readers acquiring a fundamentalist attitude to the revelation comparable with that of biblical fundamentalists. But the inclusion of what would later become blatantly erroneous answers could act to prevent those at a higher level of rationality and scientific knowledge from according an infallibility status to the Papers. It is also possible that the inclusion of the prophetic material had the deliberate purpose of seeking to attract the attention of those receptive individuals whose major interests would find common ground with the Papers because of their intrinsic spiritual and religious value--despite the erroneous cosmology.
The revelators covered themselves by stating what they were doing in a number of places with comments such as "the cosmology of these Papers is not inspired." Up to and even beyond the 1930's, for most people that word "cosmology" had a far broader meaning than astronomy alone. Cosmology was a traditional branch of metaphysics and was even inclusive of the famous cosmological argument of Thomas Aquinas about the existence of God. And their words "not inspired" later received a meaning that is less than infallible in the authors' statement, "The creature may crave infallibility, but only the Creators possess it." (Paper 159, Section 4) In actuality none of the listed authors of the Papers were of "Creator" status.
There is a second and important reason why this revelation could not be both consistent and infallible. The Papers state, "As to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will and that decree is absolute." (Paper 5, Section 6) And, " the portal of eternity opens only to the freewill choice of the free sons of the God of free will." Furthermore, the Papers also state that faith alone will pass you through that portal. (Paper 140, Section 2)
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