Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 75
THE DEFAULT OF ADAM AND EVE
1. After more than one hundred years of effort on Urantia, Adam was able to see very little progress outside the Garden ...the situation seemed so desperate as to demand something for relief not embraced in the original plans. At least that is what often passed through Adam's mind, and he so expressed himself many times to Eve.
2. The Adamic mission on experimental, rebellion‑seared, and isolated Urantia was a formidable undertaking. . when they addressed themselves to the all‑important work of eliminating the defectives and degenerates from among the human strains, they were quite dismayed ...No Adam of the planetary service was ever set down on a more difficult world; the obstacles seemed insuperable and the problems beyond creature solution.
3. Probably no Material Sons of Nebadon were ever faced with such a difficult and seemingly hopeless task as confronted Adam and Eve in the sorry plight of Urantia. But they would have sometime met with success had they been more farseeing and patient. Both of them, especially Eve, were altogether too impatient; they were not willing to settle down to the long, long endurance test.
4. Caligastia paid frequent visits to the Garden and held many conferences with Adam and Eve, but they were adamant to all his suggestions of compromising and short‑cut adventures ...The evil one concluded that the only hope for success lay in the adroit employment of suitable persons belonging to the upper strata of the Nodite group... And the plans were accordingly laid for entrapping the mother of the violet race.
5. Knowing the tendency of woman to look upon immediate results rather than to plan farsightedly for more remote effects, the Melchizedeks...in particular warned her never to stray from the side of her mate; that is, to attempt no personal or secret methods of furthering their mutual undertakings ...it did not occur to her that any danger would attach to the increasingly private and confidential visits she was enjoying with a certain Nodite leader named Serapatatia. The whole affair developed so gradually and naturally that she was taken unawares.
6. Serapatatia had made several visits to the Garden and had become deeply impressed with the righteousness of Adam's cause. And shortly after assuming the leadership of the Syrian Nodites, he announced his intention of establishing an affiliation with the work of Adam and Eve in the Garden...Serapatatia became one of the most able and efficient of all of Adam's lieutenants. He was entirely honest and thoroughly sincere in all of his activities; he was never conscious, even later on, that he was being used as a circumstantial tool of the wily Caligastia.
7. One day, during a talk with Eve, it occurred to Serapatatia that it would be very helpful if, while awaiting the recruiting of large numbers of the violet race ...the Nodites... could have a leader born to them of part origin in the violet stock ...It should again be emphasized that Serapatatia was altogether honest and wholly sincere in all that he proposed.
8. For more than five years these plans were secretly matured. At last they had developed to the point where Eve consented to have a secret conference with Cano, the most brilliant mind and active leader of the near‑by colony of friendly Nodites...Influenced by flattery, enthusiasm, and great personal persuasion, Eve then and there consented to embark upon the much‑discussed enterprise, to add to her own little scheme of world saving to the larger and more far‑reaching divine plan. Before she quite realized what was transpiring, the fatal step had been taken. It was done.
9. The celestial life of the planet was astir. Adam recognized that something was wrong, and he asked Eve to come aside with him in the Garden. And now, for the first time, Adam heard the entire story ...And as the Material Son and Daughter thus communed in the moonlit Garden, "the voice in the Garden" reproved them for disobedience.
10. Every time the Garden pair had partaken of the fruit of the tree of life, they had been warned by the archangel custodian to refrain from yielding to the suggestions of Caligastia to combine good and evil. They had been thus admonished: "In the day that you commingle good and evil, you shall surely become a the mortals of the realm; you shall surely die."
11. Even though this project of modifying the divine plan had been conceived and executed with entire sincerity and with only the highest motives concerning the welfare of the world, it constituted evil because it represented the wrong way to achieve righteous ends, because it departed from the right way, the divine plan.
12. Eve's disillusionment was truly pathetic... It was in the despair of the realization of failure that Adam... sought out Laotta, the brilliant Nodite woman who was head of the western schools of the Garden, and with premeditation committed the folly of Eve. But do not misunderstand; Adam was not beguiled; he knew exactly what he was about; he deliberately chose to share the fate of Eve. He loved his mate with a supermortal affection, and the thought of the possibility of a lonely vigil on Urantia without her was more than he could endure,
13. When they learned what had happened to Eve, the infuriated inhabitants of the Garden became unmanageable; they declared war on the near‑by Nodite settlement. They swept out through the gates of Eden and down upon these unprepared people, utterly destroying them— not a man, woman, or child was spared. And Cano, the father of Cain yet unborn, also perished...Serapatatia was overcome with consternation and beside himself with fear and remorse. The next day he drowned himself in the great river.
14. The children of Adam sought to comfort their distracted mother while their father wandered in solitude for thirty days ...Never did this noble soul fully recover from the effects of that excruciating period of mental suffering and spiritual sorrow ...And when Adam returned, Eve experienced a satisfaction of joy and gratitude that never was effaced by their long and difficult life partnership of toiling service.
15. Time passed, but Adam was not certain of the nature of their offense until seventy days after the default of Eve, when the Melchizedek receivers returned to Urantia and assumed jurisdiction over world affairs. And then he knew they had failed.
16. Then Adam learned that the Nodites were on the march, he sought the counsel of the Melchizedeks, but they refused to advise him ...The Melchizedeks had been forbidden to interfere with the personal plans of Adam and Eve...Adam had no liking for war and accordingly elected to leave the first garden to the Nodites unopposed.
17. The Edenic caravan was halted on the third day out from the Garden by the arrival of the seraphic transports from Jerusem...While the transports stood by, those children who had arrived at the age of choice (twenty years) were given the option of remaining on Urantia with their parents or of becoming wards of the Most Highs of Norlatiadek. Two thirds chose to go to Edentia; about one third elected to remain with their parents. All children of prechoice age were taken to Edentia.
10. No one could have beheld the sorrowful parting of this Material Son and Daughter and their children without realizing that the way of the transgressor is hard. These offspring of Adam and Eve are now on Edentia; we do not know what disposition is to be made of them.
19. It was while the Edenic caravan was halted that Adam and Eve were informed of the nature of their transgressions and advised concerning their fate. Gabriel appeared to pronounce judgment. And this was the verdict: The Planetary Adam and Eve of Urantia are adjudged in default...While downcast by the sense of guilt, Adam and Eve were greatly cheered by the announcement that their judges on 3alvington had absolved them from all charges of standing in "contempt of the universe government." They had not been held guilty of rebellion.
20. The Edenic pair were informed that they had degraded themselves to the status of the mortals of the realm; that they must henceforth conduct themselves as man and woman of Urantia, looking to the future of the world races for their future.
21. Adam and Eve did fall from their high estate of material sonship down to the lowly status of mortal man. But that was not the fall of man...There has been no "fall of man." The history of the human race is one of progressive evolution, and the Adamic bestowal left the world peoples greatly improved over their previous biologic condition
22. Never, in all your ascent to Paradise, will you gain anything by impatiently attempting to circumvent the established and divine plan by short cuts, personal inventions, or other devices for improving on the way of perfection, to perfection, and for eternal perfection.
23. All in all, there probably never was a more disheartening miscarriage of wisdom on any planet in all Nebadon. But it is not surprising that these missteps occur in the affairs of the evolutionary universes... in our evolving universe of relative perfection and imperfection we rejoice that disagreement and misunderstanding are possible, for thereby is evidenced the fact and the act of personality in the universe.. What a glorious universe, in that it is personal and progressive, not merely mechanical or even passively perfect
Discussion Questions
1. How does one approach the seemingly unsolvable problems Adam and Eve faced?
2. How do we guard against being tricked into evil?
3. How does one face tragedy?
4. What can we learn from the default of Adam and Eve?
5. Why do Christians believe in the fall of man?
6. How does one judge whether an action is a short-cut or an evolutionary readiness for progressive change?
7. How will the Urantia Synopsis of Papers change our view of history?
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