The Urantia Brotherhood School

Syllabus for Dr. David Schlundt's Course on
Philosophy and Religion
Presented in Robert Burton's class, December 10, 1958

[Webmaster's note: "F.S." in this document is assumed to mean "Film Strip."]

Part I: Initial verbal attitudinal structuring

1. F.S. "One God" -- Jewish, Catholic, Protestant ways of worship and principal beliefs. Diverse beliefs, united purpose under one God. The function of symbols -- their relativity.

2. Lecture: Tolerance and Love-finite limitations (1 Cor. 13)

Part 2: Evolution, Cosmology, and God the Impersonal

3. F.S. "The Earth is Born" (Life)

4. Lecture: Evolution

5. F.S. "The Starry Universe" (Life) Part I: Widening perspectives.

6. F.S. "The Starry Universe" (Life) Part II: Evolution in outer space, stressing it as basic law of God (way of God).

7. Lecture: Evolution -- maturation, growth; development: physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual -- a common life experience supported by life and teachings of Jesus.

8. Lecture: Integration and projection of above leading to limited Cosmology (start from related New Testament passages).*[ See bottom of page]

9. Lecture bridge: The impersonal face of God -- God as law revealed by science and reason. The need for Father-face (God as Love).

Part 3: The personal character of God (Fatherhood) -- Jesus

10. F.S. "The Life of Christ"

11. Lecture: The religion about Jesus (positive approach: John 1).

12. Lecture: The religion of Jesus (Fatherhood, Sonship, Brotherhood).

Part 4: The History of the Christian Church.

13. Lecture: From the Kingdom-fellowship to the institutional church.

14. F.S. "The Story of the Christian Church."

15. F.S. "The Eastern and the Roman churches."

Part 5: Evolution -- a review in a new setting.

16. F.S. "The Bible Through the Centurues"

17. Lecture: Revelation and Response (Revelation in progressive evolution.)

18. F.S. "The Growth of the Idea of God"

19. Lecture: From the Tribal God to the Universal Father of the individual.

Part 6: Comparative Religion

20. F.S. "Christianity" (Life)

21. Lecture: The purpose and method of comparative religion -- a critical yet constructive approach.

22. F.S. "Judaism" (Life)

24. Lecture: Why did Judiasm reject Jesus?

25. Lecture: The great philosophy of ultimates -- the loss of the person of God.

26. F.S. "Buddhism" (Life)

27. Lecture: The greatest humanism -- the fatal fault of ultimate nihilism.

28. F.S. "Taoism and Confucianism" (Life)

29. F.S. "Islam" (Life)

---

*Projected and purposeful evolution.

Principle 1: Physical and evolution:

a. simple and potential to complex and actual

b. unstable to stable.

Principle 2: Mental evolution: (personal and collective)

a. maturation

b. growth

c. development

Principle 3: Moral and spiritual evolution: "Be ye therefore perfect..."

Principle 4: There is a proportionally changing and progressive relationship between the physical, mental, and spiritual.

Principle 5. This relationship may be philosophically, scientifically, and religiously projected upon the universe as a rational and meaningful cosmology (physical and spiritual).

Principle 6: God per se is related to yet ultimately transcendent of time-space universes.