Paper 103
THE REALITY OF RELIGIOUS
EXPERIENCE
1. The unity of religious experience among a social or
racial group derives from the identical nature of the God fragment indwelling
the individual. It is this divine in man that gives origin to his unselfish interest
in the welfare of other men. But since personality is unique—no two mortals
being alike—it inevitably follows that no two human beings can similarly
interpret the leadings and urges of the spirit of divinity which lives within
their minds. A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity, but they can
never attain philosophic uniformity.
2. It is much easier for men to agree on religious values—goals—than on beliefs— interpretations. And this explains how religion can agree on values and. goals while exhibiting the confusing phenomena of maintaining a belief in hundreds of conflicting beliefs—creeds. This also explains why a given person can maintain his religious experience in the face of giving up or changing many of his religious beliefs.
3. That religionists
have believed so much that was false does not invalidate religion because
religion is founded on the recognition of values and is validated by the faith
of personal religious experience. Religion, then, is based on experience and
religious thought; theology, the philosophy of religion, is an honest attempt
to interpret that experience. Such interpretative beliefs may be right or
wrong, or a mixture of truth end error.
4. You do not enter
the kingdom of heaven unless you have been "born again"—born of the
Spirit. Many spiritual births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and
marked psychological perturbations ...Other spiritual births are a natural and
normal growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual
experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort and
positive and individual determinations.
5. The first
promptings of a child's moral nature have not to do with sex, guilt, or
personal pride, but rather with impulses of justice, fairness, and urges to
kindness—helpful ministry to one's fellows. And when such early moral
awakenings are nurtured, there occurs a gradual development of the religious
life which is comparatively free from conflicts, upheavals, and. crises.
6. The psychology of a
child is naturally positive, not negative ...But before a child has developed
sufficiently to acquire moral capacity and therefore to be able to choose
altruistic service, he has already developed a strong and well‑unified
egoistic nature. And it is this factual situation that gives rise to the theory
of the struggle between the "higher" and the "lower"
natures.
7. When the growing
child fails of personality unification, the altruistic drive may become so
overdeveloped as to work serious injury to the welfare of the self. A misguided
conscience can become responsible for much conflict, worry, sorrow, and no end
of human unhappiness.
8. Religion is
designed to change man's environment, but much of the religion found among
mortals today has become helpless to do this. Environment has all too often
mastered religion.
9. Remember that in
the religion of all ages the experience which
is paramount is the feeling regarding moral values and social meanings, not
the thinking regarding theologic dogmas or philosophic theories. Religion
evolves favorably as the element of magic is replaced by the concept of morals.
10. The characteristic difference between a social occasion
and a religious gathering is that in contrast with the secular the religious is
pervaded by the atmosphere of communion.
11. The hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the
discovery of truth, and truth augments ideals, and this creates new problems
for the individual religionists, for our ideals tend to grow by geometrical progression,
while our ability to live up to them is enhanced only by arithmetical
progression.
12. God the Father deals with man his child on the basis not
of actual virtue or worthiness, but in recognition of the child's
motivation—the creature purpose and intent. The relationship is one of parent‑child
association and is actuated by divine love.
13. The early evolutionary mind, gives origin to a feeling
of social duty and moral obligation derived chiefly from emotional fear. The
more positive urge of social service and the idealism of altruism are derived
from the direct impulse of the divine spirit indwelling the human mind.
14. Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of
the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co‑ordinated
and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and. supervising
personality.
15. The pursuit of the ideal—the striving to be Godlike—is a
continuous effort before death and. after. The life after death is no different
in the essentials than the mortal existence. Everything we do in this life
which is good contributes directly to the enhancement of the future life.
16. Man, in his spiritual domain, does have a free will.
Mortal man is neither a helpless slave of the inflexible sovereignty of an all‑powerful
God nor the victim of the hopeless fatality of a mechanistic cosmic
determination. Man is most truly the architect of his own eternal destiny.
17. But man is not saved or ennobled by pressure. Spirit
growth springs from within the evolving soul. Pressure may deform the
personality, but it never stimulates growth... Spiritual growth is greatest
where all external pressures are at a minimum...Man develops best when the
pressures of home, community,
church, and. state are least. But this must not be construed as meaning that
there is no place in a progressive society for home, social institutions,
church, and state.
18. The security of a religious group depends on spiritual
unity, not on theological uniformity. A religious group should be able to
enjoy the liberty of free thinking without having to become
"freethinkers." There is great hope for any church that worships the
living God., validates the brotherhood of men, and. dares to remove all creedal
pressure from its members.
19. Theology is always the study of your religion; the study of another's religion is psychology.
When man
approaches the study and examination of his universe from the outside, he brings into being the
various physical sciences; when be approaches the research of himself and the
universe from the inside, he gives
origin to theology and metaphysics.
20. A logical and consistent philosophic concept of the
universe cannot be built up on the postulations of either materialism or
spiritism, for both of these systems of thinking, when universally applied, are
compelled to view the cosmos in distortion, the former contacting with a
universe turned inside out, the latter realizing the nature of a universe
turned outside in.
21. The local universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the insight technique of religion; mota is the technique of the morontia level...Metaphysics stands for men's well‑meant but futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia .
22. Metaphysics has proved a failure; mota, man cannot
perceive. Revelation is the only technique which can compensate for the absence
of the truth sensitivity of mota in a material world. Revelation
authoritatively clarifies the muddle of reason‑developed metaphysics on
an evolutionary sphere.
23. The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be
logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth
insight afforded by revelation. By this union man can compensate somewhat for
his failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to
comprehend the mota of the morontia.
24. But logic can never succeed in harmonizing the findings
of science and the insights of religion unless both the scientific and the
religious aspects of a personality are truth dominated, sincerely desirous of
following the truth wherever it may lead regardless of the conclusions which it
may reach.
25. What both developing science and religion need is more
searching and fearless self‑
criticism, a
greater awareness of incompleteness in evolutionary status. The teachers
of both science
and religion are often altogether too self‑confident and dogmatic.
Science and
religion can only be self‑critical of their facts. The moment departure is
made from the
stage of facts, reason abdicates or else rapidly degenerates into a
consort of false logic.
26. All divisions of human thought are predicated on certain
assumptions which are accepted, though unproved, by the constitutive reality
sensitivity of the mind endowment of man. Science starts out on its vaunted
career of reasoning by assuming the reality of three things: matter, motion,
and life. Religion starts out with the assumption of the validity of three
things: mind., spirit, and the universe—the Supreme Being.
27. Reason is the
act of recognizing the conclusions of consciousness with regard to the
experience in and with the physical world of energy and matter. Faith is the act of recognizing the
validity of spiritual consciousness—something which is incapable of other mortal
proof. Logic is the synthetic truth‑seeking
progression of the unity of faith and reason and is founded on the constitutive
mind endowments of mortal beings, the innate recognition of things, meanings,
and values.
28. The experiencing of God may be wholly valid, but the
discourse about God, being intellectual and philosophical, is divergent and
oftentimes confusingly fallacious.
A good and noble
man may be consummately in love with his wife but utterly unable to pass a
satisfactory written examination on the psychology of marital love. Another
man,
having little or no love for his spouse, might pass such an examination most acceptably.
The imperfection of the lover's insight into the true nature of the beloved
does not in the least invalidate either the reality or sincerity of his love.
29. Philosophy, to be of the greatest service to both
science and religion, should avoid. the extremes of both materialism and
pantheism.
30. Religion has to do with feelings, acting, and living,
not merely with thinking ... No matter how illusory and erroneous one's
theology, one's religion may be wholly genuine and everlastingly true.
31. The ideal of religious philosophy is such a faith‑trust
as would lead man unqualifiedly to depend upon the absolute love of the
infinite Father of the universe of universes... The earmarks of such a religion
are: faith in a supreme Deity, hope of eternal survival, and love, especially
of one's fellows.
32. Reason, wisdom, and faith are man's highest human
attainments. Reason introduces man to the world of facts, to things; wisdom
introduces him to a world of truth, to relationships; faith initiates him into
a world. of divinity, spiritual experience.
33. Science (knowledge) is founded. on the inherent
(adjutant spirit) assumption that reason is valid, that the universe can be
comprehended. Philosophy (co‑ordinate comprehension) is founded on the
inherent (spirit of wisdom) assumption that wisdom is valid, that the material
universe can be co‑ordinated with the spiritual. Religion (the truth of
personal spiritual experience) is founded on the inherent (Thought Adjuster)
assumption that faith is valid., that God can be known and attained.
34. There is a reality in religious experience that is proportional to the spiritual content, and such a reality is transcendent to reason, science, philosophy, wisdom, and all other human achievements.
U.B. 103:1129‑1142-
Melchizedek
1. What is the basic problem preventing religionists to unite in goals and ideals and allow diversity of interpretations?
2. Pressure can change behavior, but spiritual growth must
come from within; nevertheless, doesn’t suffering sometimes stimulate insights
and decisions which contribute to spiritual growth?
3. How well have the Urantia Papers unified science,
philosophy, and religion?
4. Since the soul is morontial in nature,can soul-thinking
help integrate the material and spiritual aspects of experience?
5. How are reason, wisdom, faith, and truth related?
6. What does it mean to be spiritually “born again?”
7. Why does spiritual religious experience transcend all
other human abilities and resources?