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On Divine Truth
All finite knowledge and creature understanding are relative. Information and intelligence, gleaned from even high sources, is only relatively complete, locally accurate, and personally true.
Physical facts are fairly uniform, but truth is a living and flexible factor in the philosophy of the universe. Evolving personalities are only partially wise and relatively true in their communications. They can be certain only as far as their personal experience extends. That which apparently may be wholly true in one place may be only relatively true in another segment of creation.
Divine truth, final truth, is uniform and universal, but the story of things spiritual, as it is told by numerous individuals hailing from various spheres, may sometimes vary in details owing to this relativity in the completeness of knowledge and in the repleteness of personal experience as well as in the length and extent of that experience.
While the laws and decrees, the thoughts and attitudes, of the First Great Source and Center are eternally, infinitely, and universally true; at the same time, their application to, and adjustment for, every universe, system, world, and created intelligence, are in accordance with the plans and technique of the Creator Sons as they function in their respective universes, as well as in harmony with the local plans and procedures of the Infinite Spirit and of all other associated celestial personalities. (42)
Science in The Urantia Book
A mystery of inexplicable prophesy being compounded by inexplicable error.
Introduction
This article aspires to demonstrate that there is truly prophetic material of a scientific nature in the Urantia Papers (received 1935) that cannot be fobbed off as lucky guess. Supposedly the authors of these Papers were extra-terrestrials. If they have demonstrated they had knowledge unavailable to us earthlings, perhaps they were!! Herein, you are introduced to samples of the prophetic science. However the real significance of these Papers is in their "contemplation of the spiritual realities and universe values of eternal meanings"--which is quite independent of their science content and the status of their authors.
These Papers also contain error, most of which is in accord with having being provided purely as a framework in which to think about the cosmology of creation. (Paper 115, Section 1 ) But some of the errors are difficult to place in that category. For example the Papers give the surface temperature of the sun as a little less than 6000 degrees F. But current measurements show the photosphere as having the lowest temperature at about 10,800 F. The chromosphere, at 18,000 F, is what many consider to be the surface. From there, the corona temperature rapidly increases up into the millions of degrees. And the Papers give the core as at 35,000 F whereas modern science puts it at 27,000 F.
Remarkably, the Papers provided correct information for events such as the beginnings of the solar system at 4.5 billion years ago, continental drift beginning 750 million years ago, radii of the electron and proton, etc., long before science could confirm them--but made a less than remarkable job of explaining the origin of our earth-moon system and the oceans of the earth.
The purpose of this and the following article is to gain some understanding of why it is so.
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