Episode:Civilization—Human Government (Part 7)

From Symmetry of Soul


In the earliest primitive society public opinion operated directly; officers of law were not needed. There was no privacy in primitive life. Society was regulated by the group having an interest in, and some control over, the behavior of each individual.

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Keywords: Urantia, Justice, Vengeance, Crime, Punishment

Note: Andrea filled in for Brad, who was away this week.

Summary by Kermit

Commentary on Review

After some comments pertaining to the remarkable resonance of revealed truth in The Urantia Book with the foundational principles of our nation we addressed some notions prevailing today about nationalism and internationalism. The major thing to remember here is that the nation state is a necessary stage of development in planetary civilization. It is a temporal station on mankind’s march toward light and life. This planet is nowhere near the stage where it will be safe to abandon nationhood in favor of a world government when all forms of government from the earliest primitive tribe to the territorial state are still in existence. After all, universal nationhood is a prerequisite to a global international government. We were reminded of the utility of transient scaffolding forms in the evolutionary process that pervades all domains of this life. We pointed out that the revelation shows us what we cannot see for ourselves. The serious student is strongly advised to beware of simply seeking confirmation and affirmation of a particular deeply held worldview. Revelation is intended to dismantle our preconceived opinions etc.

70:10. Evolution of Justice

We spent nearly half of our broadcast unpacking the first three paragraphs of this section. There exists great confusion concerning the meaning of the term “justice.” Justice is applied law. The three energies of the cosmos, material, mindal, and spiritual are governed by absolutely established and immutable laws. Nature (the three energies) reflects law automatically as causality, thus the only justice found in nature is the inevitable conformity of results to causes. Justice is conventionally viewed as something relative with options and not as a process of the application of immutable universal law. As such it is a man made theory, a fiction. The source of this fiction is the internal worldview, deeply held and falsely exalted as the real world by modern man.

So justice in common parlance is understood to be the gaining of one’s rights, subject to the evolving worldview which encompasses the evolving mores. Since Pentecost, this quest for so-called natural justice has been surcharged with the powerful spirit ministries of the Spirit of Truth and the universal bestowal of Thought Adjusters. The heightened energetics of these spirit gifts presents new challenges and problems for us as we move out of our more primitive estate while retaining false notions of concepts like justice, righteousness, and morality. The quickened spiritual consciousness with its tendency to disregard the time element of evolution by existentializing a relative good, subsequently leads to the oft’ cited problem of good things taken to extreme becoming bad.

Primitive man assigned all phenomena to a person. Thus the earliest administration of justice was envisioned to be executed by the spirit world. The revelators proceed to present examples of how these beliefs played forward leading to atrocious methods of crime detection and savage ordeals, some of which found their way into sacred writings in use today.

Early society adopted the payback idea of retaliation. Vengeance was legitimized, but evolving religion did attempt the transfer of its administration from the individual or family, to the Lord. Yet family honor killings are still a part of current cultures. Even suicide was a common mode of retaliation, the belief being that one could return and take revenge as a ghost. In more recent times the entrance into the material comfort era has made life sweeter and more desirable. The modern hunger strike is a residue of this old-time method of retaliation.

Justice was thus first meted out by the family, then by the clan, and later by the tribe. Revenge was taken out of private and kin groups and put into the hands of the social group, the state. Thus an element if impartiality was introduced into the administration of justice, reflecting the pattern on high of the impersonal (Paradise Trinity) origin of the Judges of the evolutionary universes (Ancients of Days).

Something learned earlier, but apparently not remembered so much by modern man is that the severity of a punishment was not as valuable a deterrent as was its certainty and swiftness.