Episode:Jesus the Tutor—Sojourn at Rome (Part 2)
Goodness is living, relative, always progressing, invariably a personal experience, and everlastingly correlated with the discernment of truth and beauty. But until you attain Paradise levels, goodness will always be more of a quest than a possession, more of a goal than an experience of attainment.
Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, True Values, Goodness, Evil
Summary by Kermit
Commentary on Review
The revelators referred to a material science and spiritual religion in the final sentence of section 1 in our paper. It should be a given that science consists of knowledge gained from observations of the material realm. Using the term material science emphasizes this, because many of today’s scientific pronouncements are based on such observations plus rationalizations with belief systems beyond the purview of genuine science. Likewise, much of current day religion is occupied with social and political concerns and can hardly be called genuinely spiritual. Only scientists and religionists in possession of a common standard of high moral values and spiritual test levels will find mutuality in their cosmic viewpoints. Today witnesses a failure of man to properly separate the spiritual insights from the observations of matter, thus falsifying both science and religion and in turn crippling the philosophic quest for truth.
In pursuing questions of the differential between things moral and things spiritual our discussion advanced to include details of the interplay of the fourth, fifth and sixth levels of meaning and their association with the three cosmic intuitions and the harmonizing function of personality. Listen to the archive for the logic links wherein the pathway from purely materialistic science through loss of moral values and repudiation of spiritual goal attainment leads to the collapse of civilization.
132:2 Good and Evil
We noted that the revelators’ are presenting the substance of Jesus’ teachings not merely the spirit or essence of his teachings, in the more modern phraseology of the twentieth century.
In answer to the leader of the Cynics of Rome about good and evil Jesus begins by establishing a context of the relativity of experiential levels of reality in contrast to existential reality. Further he makes clear that goodness is not simply conformity to the mores of the day (social usages) or to the religious practices of your contemporaries. But he proceeds to direct attention to the divine standards of good and evil established by the indwelling spirit of the Father, which must be personally chosen to ensure eternal survival. We noted the current day difficulties with considering the rigorous standard for attaining eternal life if one is under the misconception that such a personal choice must be effected prior to mortal death. Likewise, the presumption of well-nigh universal resurrection from mortal death can encourage the spiritually indolent individual to establish self-disruptive habits leading away from identification with eternity even to the self-destructive behaviors of actual sin. We recalled a hallmark of religious living from our arc on Religion in Depth, the unnatural act of making a positive response to a negative situation.
Jesus juxtaposes goodness and truth and their relative contrast with evil in human perception as central to leading men to make the personal decisions of choice essential to eternal survival. Listen to the archive of the short discussion concerning the significance and implication of the phrase “personal decisions of choice” for insights illuminating dynamics of the inner life and the importance of cultivating a well formed mind as well as a consecrated will.
We devoted considerable time to the fourth paragraph of this section. Using the hourglass analogy of the human mind we explored a process whereby following encircuitment in the Holy Spirit the upper domain of spiritualized mind, initially a superconscious phenomenon if not intentionally cultivated to cosmic purposes, can become a repository for unintended and unexamined inferior mindal forms which become dominant in directionizing an individual’s progress and growth. This upper domain is established by grace and subject to your sovereignty. It becomes the objective framework for conscious thought, the quality of which depends on the discrimination exercised in its cultivation. Truly, as children of God we are born blind, but the adult of God is required to reflectively examine this upper domain, discriminate true from false and allow a genuine religious consciousness to be grown that transcends dependency on intellectual assent, credulity, and established authority.
As the revelators warn us of the dangers and pitfalls of persisting in the immaturity of our cosmic infancy, so do they lure forward us with glimpses of growth and attainment in our universe ascension, ever reminding us of the evolutionary nature of our perfectingness. Goodness we are told will always be more of a quest than a possession, at least until reaching Paradise levels.
The section concludes with a thrilling description of an ascender who has attained Paradise perfection and the divinely complete and spiritually replete goodness that is no longer partial. Yet we are reminded that the contrastive evil prompting our choices of goodness in our universe career is only necessary as a potential, a possibility, not an actuality. We need not always leap to learn.
Notes by Brad
- "Why is there something instead of nothing," he asked the professed atheist.
- "Oh, I don't know, it isn't like I've thought about that," they said, "it's more like I just don't think about things like that at all in my life."
- This is not an atheist, but a secularist.
- These sections are the "substance" of what Jesus said, not the "essence" of what he said. So there is definitely something there of... substance... for us to study.
- What is the meaning behind the words good and evil for you?
- A binary conformity with the current mores? Even mere sex taboos?
- Adhering to the letter of the law of religious dogmas.
- Can you go beyond these, to genuine goodness? Not many of us know much about this.
- "decisions of choice" hinges on what the "of" means. In this case, it means "derived from."
- Knowingly or not, since age 6 you have been "lifting" things up into your inner life, to form your objective framework.
- And the inner life is innately, and weightily, dominant over the outer life.
- But you're sovereign in your inner life, so take care what you put in there willfully and wittingly.
- Even the children of God on Earth, mostly ignorant, unwittingly lift things into their inner life. There could be a lot of garbage in the inner life.
- "What's in your attic?" Your inner life? And whatever is there is innately dominant over what's below.
- You can tell ideas to rule your mind. That's what will can do.
- There is a fine definition of a good experience here. It's holistic.
- But remember goodness is always perfecting. It is relative, not perfect.
- Being good in time is being synchronized with perfecting-ness.
