Episode:The Fifth Epochal Revelation to Urantia (Part 1)
On October 12, 1955, The Urantia Papers were published by Urantia Foundation as The Urantia Book. A unique presentation of several dozen superhuman authors, the 2097-page text asserts itself as the fifth epochal revelation of truth to our planet. From the Foreword: “In the minds of the mortals of Urantia—that being the name of your world—there exists great confusion respecting the meaning of such terms as God, divinity, and deity.”
Keywords: Urantia, Revelation, Deity, Divinity, God
Summary by Kermit
Foreword, Preface
It appears we set a record in devoting the entire two hour program to six paragraphs of text in the revelation—the preface to the Foreword.
In this series arc of study of the Fifth Epochal Revelation to Urantia, we will confine ourselves to the text of the revelation itself and our commentaries thereon. There are many version of how The Urantia Book came into its printed form, some more factual than others. We leave the perusal of the stories of the “How” of the revelation to those who are so interested. Even if we were able to discriminate among the various accounts of the origins of The Urantia Book to identify the correct version, we would still only have understanding of how the words of revelation came to be printed on paper and bound in book form. That is the FACTS of the origin of the revelation. We are here attempting to discern the TRUTH of the “WHY” of the revelation.
In the first paragraph, we are presented with a most astounding challenge, the challenge of coming to grips with REVELATION.
We discussed a contrast between the 4th ER and the 5th ER. Jesus explained that "It matters little what idea of the Father you may entertain (of the Father) as long as you are spiritually acquainted with the ideal of his infinite and eternal nature." Spoken like a true spiritual uplifter. But here we are two thousand years later. Having grasped the IDEAL of God, we are now presented with the philosophic challenge of understanding the true ideas of God and universal reality. This is exemplified in the title of section five of Paper 4, ERRONEOUS IDEAS ABOUT GOD.
The Divine Counselor author of this Foreword points out immediately how confused we are about the meaning of terms as God, divinity and deity, and still more confused concerning the relationships of the divine personalities so designated. It is this ideational confusion that constitutes the philosophic emergency we currently face. And it is this emergency to which the 5th ER speaks.
The first sentence gives us an elementary lesson in how the authors deal with FACT and TRUTH. They disclose the fact that our world is named Urantia. The TRUTH of the name Urantia is seen, when we carefully examine the linguistic structure of the word. When this is done, we find the word to mean “our heavenly place”, or our place in the heavens. This truth can only be perceived through the insight of our personal self.
In the second paragraph, they give their overarching purpose: to present enlarged concepts and advanced truth, in order to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception. The author confesses to the difficulty of their task in using English, (a circumscribed language of the realm). They explain that they will coin new terms only when there exists no English word that is able to convey even partially or with more or less distortion of meaning whatever new concept they wish to portray. So we begin to see very quickly that this journey we are embarking upon is not going to be easy and we must be aware to the possibility of partial and distorted understanding of the concepts we encounter.
In the third paragraph we are introduced to the foundation of recognition in the revelation; the threefold actuality of things, meanings, and values. This is the philosophical three-dimensional structure of universal reality, which we are invited to engage. Historically, evolutionary human philosophy has recognized a dual nature of reality expressed as matter and either mind, or soul or spirit. Here we are asked to see the threefold nature of reality in its various expressions as matter, mind, and spirit, or thing, meaning, and value.
We are told that this introductory statement (Foreword) is not a finished statement, but only a definitive guide to assist us in reading further concerning Deity and the universe of universe. So when we undertake to understand the term for example PERSONALITY, a term whose meaning is utterly beyond the understanding of this word in our ordinary usage, we are engaged in a journey that has eternity as an end point. So it is we begin to understand our relationship with the FACTS of time and the TRUTHS of ETERNITY.
The final two paragraphs give us a thumbnail bottom up view of the entirety of the physical creation, beginning with our world, up through the local, super, and central universes to the stationary Isle of Paradise, the geographic center of infinity. Then, looking out to the edge of creation we are oriented to the organized and inhabited grand universe and beyond to the mobilizing and uninhabited universes of outer space, all of which in its totality is designated the Master Universe.
In this schematic of total physical reality the evolutionary nature of the inhabited worlds is cited as well as the never-beginning, never-ending, creations of divine perfection. So here is something to challenge everyone from the creationist who refuses to recognize the validity of evolution and the secular astronomer who refuses to recognize the existence of the creator.
So we are off and running in our examination of the “WHY” of the 5th ER to our confused world.
