Episode:The Fifth Epochal Revelation to Urantia (Part 3)
Combining the best of human thought with their superior knowledge, a corps of superuniverse personalities formulated the presentations of the character of the Universal Father and the nature of his Paradise associates, together with an attempted description of the cosmology of the universe of universes. These personalities, and many others, were assigned to present an epochal revelation of truth to Urantia, enhancing the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.
Keywords: Urantia, Revelation, Paradise Deities, Celestial Beings, Planetary Citizens
Summary by Kermit
92:4.9 The Urantia Papers
More commentary on the passage—“But no revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father can ever be complete. All other celestial ministrations are no more than partial, transient, and practically adapted to local conditions in time and space.”
We discussed some of the problems associated with the passage above. Inasmuch as the discussion touches on some rather deep philosophical considerations of the truths of eternity (existential as well as experiential) and the facts of time, and involving the concepts of PERFECTNESS, and PERFECTINGNESS, I will refer the serious student to the archives of the broadcast rather than attempting to summarize or distill the salient points of the discussion and risk omission or oversimplification.
We’ve talked previously of the midwayer authorship of part IV. In their task of linking truth to the facts of Jesus’ life and teachings, they encounter the situation that in the intervening two thousand years facts have changed, the Supreme has evolved. Thus, we see and read how they made modifications in their narrative to accommodate the times in which we live. In so doing they allowed 20th-21st century mankind to access the same truth that was Jesus’ life differently (through the 5th ER) from the life he lived in the 1st century.
The problem of “new wine in old wineskins” lies in the validity of the truths of existential eternity, tied to beauty and perfectness, coupled with the assumption that this represents the totality of truth. This leads to problems like trying to apply IDEALS directly to daily life, rather than translating ideals to IDEAS that match-up with the facts of now. Thus, the zealous efforts of our current day spiritual idealists have led the world to the philosophic emergency triggering the gift of the 5th ER.
As was mentioned, the revelation needs to be grasped holistically. To simply read and re-visit those portions of the papers that affirm our preconceived opinions, settled ideas, and long standing prejudices, to the neglect of those portions that are either too difficult to grasp immediately, or that conflict with our rigid mind set is to miss the transforming nature of the revelation.
The revelation is masterly constructed to provide an entré into the truths of existential eternity from the perspective of a child. Once this grounding as a child of the cosmos has been grasped, usually as a result of the previous epochal revelations it’s time to take the next step. So in engaging part IV of the 5th, its 5th epochal components remain unrecognized. Parts I, II, and III require an adult perspective. From the adult vantage point, Part IV now takes on a different and more complex character.
0:12.11, Acknowledgement #1
The major point in this and following acknowledgements, is the authors’ disclosure of their relationship to human concepts and human thought and pure revelation. They tell us that they are serving under a mandate from their superiors. In their words this mandate requires “in all our efforts to reveal truth and co-ordinate essential knowledge, give preference to the highest existing human concepts pertaining to the subjects to be presented.” And this is true even in cases where the subject matter may be entirely different, yet the use of language is particularly favorable to enabling human understanding of unfamiliar material.
This work is to be experienced from a factual perspective, NOT because it is a sacred text.
We discussed how when human sources were first beginning to be identified, many readers experienced a crisis of confidence in the work as a bona fide revelation. In light of the persistence and clarity of the revelators’ disclosures concerning these things, one might well question the attention to detail of such readers. Thus the call to cultivate courageous and independent cosmic thinking!
The immature religionist substitutes INTELLECTUAL ASSENT, CREDULITY, and ESTABLISHED AUTHORITY for the FAITH, TRUST, and ASSURANCE of the mature religionist. The immature religionist is therefore constrained to look for sacred texts to satisfy his innate thirst for righteousness and hunger for truth. And these texts need to be either simple enough to believe without effort, or so complicated as to require qualified ecclesiastical interpretation to be understood. In neither case is courageous and independent cosmic thinking required.
The revelators also tell us their job is to reveal truth AND coordinate essential knowledge, and as previously mentioned, are restricted by a mandate to resort to pure revelation only when the concept to be presented has had no adequate previous expression by the human mind.
So it should be no surprise to find the language in many passages of The Urantia Book, resonating deeply in our minds and hearts, have taken origin in other human minds. The scholarly work of careful examination of the text for evidence of human source authors should aid all readers in the quest for those portions of the text representing pure revelation.
This acknowledgement makes clear that the limitations of the English language represent a formidable challenge to the revelators. We are given a clue to our purpose in engaging the revelation, when we are told, that there is a conspiracy of spirit forces enabling us to grasp the reality of spiritual values and comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings, and further that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist us in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-Consciousness.
We discussed briefly the distinction between God-Knowing and God-Consciousness, where the fullness of truth is to be found in God-Consciousness.
121:8.12. Acknowledgement #2
We completed only the first paragraph of this acknowledgement.
Some of our discussion was in reference to the statement: When ideas and concepts of Jesus’ life and teachings have been acceptably expressed by a human mind, I invariably gave preference to such apparently human thought patterns. The use of the word “apparently” caught our attention. This could indicate that in ways not completely understood by the authors, the spirit ministries, in particular the Thought Adjuster, in the minds of these human sources, could have exerted divine influence in the formation of these “thoughts” or “concepts”.
