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to what a superuniverse or outer space level is. It may be, as Dr. Ken Glasziou speculated in a recent issue of Innerface International1, that the authors had to tell the Forum something to answer their questions back in the 1930's, so they gave them a simplified story. They weren't permitted to give us unearned knowledge, so they did what we do when a child asks a question that we can't answer in detail.
We might tell our child that the sun is a giant burning ball of gas. While it isn't literally true, it is figuratively true, and it satisfies the child without trying to explain the fusion of hydrogen into helium. This way, the authors would remain true to their mandate to not reveal any advanced information that we haven't discovered for ourselves, but yet be able to answer our questions. But I don't think that would prevent them from salting the science of the Urantia Papers with a few concepts that we would understand only after we had discovered them for ourselves.
Surely the authors knew that the Universe is a three-dimensional tangle of filaments, even if the limitations of revelation prevented them from saying so. But consider this one statement in Paper 11, Sec. 8, Par 1: "Gravity is the all-powerful grasp of the physical presence of Paradise. Gravity is the omnipotent strand on which are strung the gleaming stars, blazing suns, and whirling spheres which constitute the universal physical adornment of the eternal God…"
Now compare that to this from Sky and Telescope magazine2: "Apparently galaxies themselves formed when the universe was only about a billion years old. Like pearls on a string, they gathered along filaments of dark matter…" Were the authors of The Urantia Book saying something like the astronomer was saying, that the galaxies gather in filaments? Can it be that Paradise gravity acts to hold the galaxies into filaments strung throughout the universe?
The whole concept of Paradise gravity may sound very exotic, but is it any more exotic than a mysterious dark matter that can't be proved or disproved and which somehow conveniently appears before ordinary matter and forms itself into filaments? If we accept that God is in charge of the universe, is it not logical that God exerts some form of control over time and space? Many of the scientists who do believe in a deity seem to subscribe to the "wound up clock" theory, i.e., God started the universe going and then went off on a permanent vacation.
If God is the "ground of all being" as Paul Tillich said, isn't it logical that this Source of all being in some way shapes and directs the growth of our universe? Given this, isn't it logical that the universe has purpose and meaning and is unfolding in accordance to some master plan? If so, then it shouldn't be difficult to accept that God directly or indirectly exerts some degree of over-control. Yes, from our perspective, the universe seems to be quite random, but yet we recognize that even the randomness operates within the constraints of natural law. The Urantia Book pictures a God who not only has endowed the universe with natural laws, but who also exerts some degree of control through various agencies to maintain the universe as a going concern. The Urantia Book picture is that of a participatory God.
From what our astronomers can see now, it appears that the simple picture of a tubular first outer space level and seven superuniverses given in The Urantia Book may be only a metaphor for the actual structure of the universe. Astronomers have only mapped a small percent of the universe in detail at this point. We can see structure emerging, but we do not yet have enough information to know what the entire visible universe looks like. So apparently we will have to wait patiently till the whole thing is mapped to see what "God hath wrought."
References
Glasziou, Dr. Ken, Error In The Urantia Papers, Innerface International, September/October 2001.
Wanjek, Christopher, Hubble's New Eyes, Sky and Telescope, March 2002.
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