Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 103
THE REALITY OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
1. The unity of religious experience among a social or racial group derives from the identical nature of the God fragment indwelling the individual. It is this divine in man that gives origin to his unselfish interest in the welfare of other men. But since personality is unique—no two mortals being alike—it inevitably follows that no two human beings can similarly interpret the leadings and urges of the spirit of divinity which lives within their minds. A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity, but they can never attain philosophic uniformity.
2. It is much easier for men to agree on religious values—goals—than on beliefs— interpretations. And this explains how religion can agree on values and. goals while exhibiting the confusing phenomena of maintaining a belief in hundreds of conflicting beliefs—creeds. This also explains why a given person can maintain his religious experience in the face of giving up or changing many of his religious beliefs.
3. That religionists have believed so much that was false does not invalidate religion because religion is founded on the recognition of values and is validated by the faith of personal religious experience. Religion, then, is based on experience and religious thought; theology, the philosophy of religion, is an honest attempt to interpret that experience. Such interpretative beliefs may be right or wrong, or a mixture of truth end error.
4. You do not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you have been "born again"—born of the Spirit. Many spiritual births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked psychological perturbations ...Other spiritual births are a natural and normal growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and individual determinations.
5. The first promptings of a child's moral nature have not to do with sex, guilt, or personal pride, but rather with impulses of justice, fairness, and urges to kindness—helpful ministry to one's fellows. And when such early moral awakenings are nurtured, there occurs a gradual development of the religious life which is comparatively free from conflicts, upheavals, and. crises.
6. The psychology of a child is naturally positive, not negative ...But before a child has developed sufficiently to acquire moral capacity and therefore to be able to choose altruistic service, he has already developed a strong and well‑unified egoistic nature. And it is this factual situation that gives rise to the theory of the struggle between the "higher" and the "lower" natures.
7. When the growing child fails of personality unification, the altruistic drive may become so overdeveloped as to work serious injury to the welfare of the self. A misguided conscience can become responsible for much conflict, worry, sorrow, and no end of human unhappiness.
8. Religion is designed to change man's environment, but much of the religion found among mortals today has become helpless to do this. Environment has all too often mastered religion.
9. Remember that in the religion of all ages the experience which is paramount is the feeling regarding moral values and social meanings, not the thinking regarding theologic dogmas or philosophic theories. Religion evolves favorably as the element of magic is replaced by the concept of morals.
10. The characteristic difference between a social occasion and a religious gathering is that in contrast with the secular the religious is pervaded by the atmosphere of communion.
11. The hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the discovery of truth, and truth augments ideals, and this creates new problems for the individual religionists, for our ideals tend to grow by geometrical progression, while our ability to live up to them is enhanced only by arithmetical progression.
12. God the Father deals with man his child on the basis not of actual virtue or worthiness, but in recognition of the child's motivation—the creature purpose and intent. The relationship is one of parent‑child association and is actuated by divine love.
13. The early evolutionary mind, gives origin to a feeling of social duty and moral obligation derived chiefly from emotional fear. The more positive urge of social service and the idealism of altruism are derived from the direct impulse of the divine spirit indwelling the human mind.
14. Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co‑ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and. supervising personality.
15. The pursuit of the ideal—the striving to be Godlike—is a continuous effort before death and. after. The life after death is no different in the essentials than the mortal existence. Everything we do in this life which is good contributes directly to the enhancement of the future life.
16. Man, in his spiritual domain, does have a free will. Mortal man is neither a helpless slave of the inflexible sovereignty of an all‑powerful God nor the victim of the hopeless fatality of a mechanistic cosmic determination. Man is most truly the architect of his own eternal destiny.
17. But man is not saved or ennobled by pressure. Spirit growth springs from within the evolving soul. Pressure may deform the personality, but it never stimulates growth... Spiritual growth is greatest where all external pressures are at a minimum...Man develops best when the pressures of home, community, church, and. state are least. But this must not be construed as meaning that there is no place in a progressive society for home, social institutions, church, and state.
18. The security of a religious group depends on spiritual unity, not on theological uniformity. A religious group should be able to enjoy the liberty of free thinking without having to become "freethinkers." There is great hope for any church that worships the living God., validates the brotherhood of men, and. dares to remove all creedal pressure from its members.
19. Theology is always the study of your religion; the study of another's religion is psychology.
When man approaches the study and examination of his universe from the outside, he brings into being the various physical sciences; when be approaches the research of himself and the universe from the inside, he gives origin to theology and metaphysics.
20. A logical and consistent philosophic concept of the universe cannot be built up on the postulations of either materialism or spiritism, for both of these systems of thinking, when universally applied, are compelled to view the cosmos in distortion, the former contacting with a universe turned inside out, the latter realizing the nature of a universe turned outside in.
21. The local universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the insight technique of religion; mota is the technique of the morontia level...Metaphysics stands for men's well‑meant but futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia .
22. Metaphysics has proved a failure; mota, man cannot perceive. Revelation is the only technique which can compensate for the absence of the truth sensitivity of mota in a material world. Revelation authoritatively clarifies the muddle of reason‑developed metaphysics on an evolutionary sphere.
23. The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight afforded by revelation. By this union man can compensate somewhat for his failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to comprehend the mota of the morontia.
24. But logic can never succeed in harmonizing the findings of science and the insights of religion unless both the scientific and the religious aspects of a personality are truth dominated, sincerely desirous of following the truth wherever it may lead regardless of the conclusions which it may reach.
25. What both developing science and religion need is more searching and fearless self‑
criticism, a greater awareness of incompleteness in evolutionary status. The teachers
of both science and religion are often altogether too self‑confident and dogmatic.
Science and religion can only be self‑critical of their facts. The moment departure is
made from the stage of facts, reason abdicates or else rapidly degenerates into a
consort of false logic.
26. All divisions of human thought are predicated on certain assumptions which are accepted, though unproved, by the constitutive reality sensitivity of the mind endowment of man. Science starts out on its vaunted career of reasoning by assuming the reality of three things: matter, motion, and life. Religion starts out with the assumption of the validity of three things: mind., spirit, and the universe—the Supreme Being.
27. Reason is the act of recognizing the conclusions of consciousness with regard to the experience in and with the physical world of energy and matter. Faith is the act of recognizing the validity of spiritual consciousness—something which is incapable of other mortal proof. Logic is the synthetic truth‑seeking progression of the unity of faith and reason and is founded on the constitutive mind endowments of mortal beings, the innate recognition of things, meanings, and values.
28. The experiencing of God may be wholly valid, but the discourse about God, being intellectual and philosophical, is divergent and oftentimes confusingly fallacious.
A good and noble man may be consummately in love with his wife but utterly unable to pass a satisfactory written examination on the psychology of marital love. Another man,
having little or no love for his spouse, might pass such an examination most acceptably. The imperfection of the lover's insight into the true nature of the beloved does not in the least invalidate either the reality or sincerity of his love.
29. Philosophy, to be of the greatest service to both science and religion, should avoid. the extremes of both materialism and pantheism.
30. Religion has to do with feelings, acting, and living, not merely with thinking ... No matter how illusory and erroneous one's theology, one's religion may be wholly genuine and everlastingly true.
31. The ideal of religious philosophy is such a faith‑trust as would lead man unqualifiedly to depend upon the absolute love of the infinite Father of the universe of universes... The earmarks of such a religion are: faith in a supreme Deity, hope of eternal survival, and love, especially of one's fellows.
32. Reason, wisdom, and faith are man's highest human attainments. Reason introduces man to the world of facts, to things; wisdom introduces him to a world of truth, to relationships; faith initiates him into a world. of divinity, spiritual experience.
33. Science (knowledge) is founded. on the inherent (adjutant spirit) assumption that reason is valid, that the universe can be comprehended. Philosophy (co‑ordinate comprehension) is founded on the inherent (spirit of wisdom) assumption that wisdom is valid, that the material universe can be co‑ordinated with the spiritual. Religion (the truth of personal spiritual experience) is founded on the inherent (Thought Adjuster) assumption that faith is valid., that God can be known and attained.
34. There is a reality in religious experience that is proportional to the spiritual content, and such a reality is transcendent to reason, science, philosophy, wisdom, and all other human achievements.
Discussion Questions
1. What is the basic problem preventing religionists to unite in goals and ideals and allow diversity of interpretations?
2. Pressure can change behavior, but spiritual growth must come from within; nevertheless, doesn’t suffering sometimes stimulate insights and decisions which contribute to spiritual growth?
3. How well have the Urantia Papers unified science, philosophy, and religion?
4. Since the soul is morontial in nature,can soul-thinking help integrate the material and spiritual aspects of experience?
5. How are reason, wisdom, faith, and truth related?
6. What does it mean to be spiritually “born again?”
7. Why does spiritual religious experience transcend all other human abilities and resources?
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship