paper 103 — the reality of religious experience · 2020. 8. 15. · major work, the christian...

WORK-IN-PROGRESS (AUGUST 14, 2020) PARALLEL CHART FOR

Paper 103 — The Reality of Religious Experience

© 2010, 2013, 2015, 2019, 2020 Matthew Block

This chart is a revision of the 2010, 2013, 2015 and 2019 versions. Most endnotes and Urantia Book cross-references have been deleted to enhance readability.

Sources for Paper 103, in the order in which they first appear

(1) A. Campbell Garnett, A Realistic Philosophy of Religion (Chicago: Willett, Clark &Company, 1942)

(2) John Baillie, The Interpretation of Religion: An Introductory Study of TheologicalPrinciples (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928)

(3) Edwin Lewis, God and Ourselves: A Plea for the Reality, Adequacy and Availability ofGod (New York: The Abingdon Press, 1931)

(4) Albert C. Knudson, The Doctrine of God (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1930)

Key

(a) Green indicates where a source author first appears, or where he/she reappears.

(b) Yellow highlights most parallelisms.

(c) Tan highlights parallelisms occurring further apart, usually not in the same row.

(d) An underlined word or words indicates where the source and the UB writer pointedlydiffer from each other.

(e) Blue indicates original (or “revealed”) information, or UB-specific terminology andconcepts. (What to highlight in this regard is debatable; the highlights are tentative.)

(f) Light green indicates Bible passages or fragments thereof, which are not paralleled in thesource texts.

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SOURCE OR PARALLEL URANTIA PAPER 103

Work-in-progress Version 6 okt. 2010© 2010, 2013, 2015, 2019, 2020 MatthewBlock Revised 4 Sept. 2013, 1 Apr. 2015, 29Nov. 2019, 14 Aug. 2020

PAPER 103 — THEREALITY OF RELI-GIOUS EXPERIENCE

103:0.1 All of man’s truly religiousreactions are sponsored by the earlyministry of the adjutant of worship andare censored by the adjutant of wisdom.Man’s first supermind endowment is thatof personality encircuitment in the HolySpirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; andlong before either the bestowals of thedivine Sons or the universal bestowal ofthe Adjusters, this influence functions toenlarge man’s viewpoint of ethics,religion, and spirituality. Subsequent tothe bestowals of the Paradise Sons theliberated Spirit of Truth makes mightycontributions to the enlargement of thehuman capacity to perceive religioustruths. As evolution advances on aninhabited world, the Thought Adjustersincreasingly participate in the develop-ment of the higher types of humanreligious insight. The Thought Adjuster isthe cosmic window through which thefinite creature may faith-glimpse thecertainties and divinities of limitlessDeity, the Universal Father.

103:0.2 The religious tendencies of thehuman races are innate; they areuniversally manifested and have anapparently natural origin; primitivereligions are always evolutionary in theirgenesis. As natural religious experiencecontinues to progress, periodicrevelations of truth punctuate theotherwise slow-moving course of planetary evolution.

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103:0.3 On Urantia, today, there arefour kinds of religion:

103:0.4 1. Natural or evolutionaryreligion.

103:0.5 2. Supernatural or revelatoryreligion.

103:0.6 3. Practical or current religion,varying degrees of the admixture ofnatural and supernatural religions.

103:0.7 4. Philosophic religions,man-made or philosophically thought-outtheologic doctrines and reason-createdreligions.

1 . P H I L O S O P H Y O FRELIGION

PREFACE (Garnett vii)

103:1.1 The unity of religiousexperience among a social or racial groupderives from the identical nature of theGod fragment indwelling the individual.

From the analysis of religious experiencethere issues the finding that what menhave called God is a factor within them-selves that they naturally distinguish fromthe familiar self of private desire. It is thatwithin each of us that demands of us thatwe concern ourselves with the good ofothers besides ourselves. The history ofreligion is the story of man’s effort tounderstand and adjust himself to thiselement of the divine within him. It is this divine in man that gives origin to

his unselfish interest in the welfare ofother men.

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But since personality is unique—no twomortals being alike—it inevitably followsthat no two human beings can similarlyinterpret the leadings and urges of thespirit of divinity which lives within theirminds.

Traditionally he has believed that thedivine within comes from a divine beingwithout, and religious communities havedivided over their interpretation of thatdivinity. But it is the thesis of ourinterpretation of religious practice that,providing we rightly understand thenature of the divine within, as a will touniversal good, we can and should co-operate as a religious community

A group of mortals can experiencespiritual unity,

without insisting on further agreement inmatters of religious theory (G vii-viii).

but they can never attain philosophicuniformity.

I: METHODS AND VIEWS (Garnett 1)

PROBLEMS OF METHOD IN THEPHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION (Garnett 4)

And this diversity of the interpretation ofreligious thought and experience is shownby the fact that

Professor Leuba, writing in 1912, listedforty-eight definitions of religion, andscholars have been so busy with thesubject since then that they must haveadded at least as many more (G 5).

twentieth-century theologians and philo-sophers have formulated upward of fivehundred different definitions of religion.

In this investigation we have to beginwith the rough-and-ready concept ofreligion that we have picked up from oursocial environment and filled withmeaning from our own experience.

In reality, every human being definesreligion in the terms of his ownexperiential interpretation

of the divine impulses emanating from theGod spirit that indwells him,

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We soon discover that we all havedifferent concepts and differences ofexperience.

and therefore must such an interpretationbe unique and wholly different from thereligious philosophy of all other humanbeings.

But if my concept and experience wereentirely different from the reader’s, thenwhat is here written would be entirelyunintelligible to him. So if we canunderstand each other at all when we talkabout religion

103:1.2 When one mortal is in fullagreement with the religious philosophyof a fellow mortal,

we have some experience of it in common(G 5-6).

that phenomenon indicates that these twobeings have had a similar religiousexperience

touching the matters concerned in theirsimilarity of philosophic religious inter-pretation.

But though our whole understandingof such concepts as religion and moralityhas, in the last resort, to be wrought outof our own experience,

103:1.3 While your religion is a matterof personal experience,

it would remain very poor without theillumination we receive from others. It isnecessary to bring to bear upon our ownexperience, therefore, a description of agreat variety of the experiences of others,and to seek to enter into sympatheticunderstanding of them (G 7).

it is most important that you should beexposed to the knowledge of a vastnumber of other religious experiences

(the diverse interpretations of other anddiverse mortals) to the end that you mayprevent your religious life from becomingegocentric—circumscribed, selfish, andunsocial.

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R A T I O N A L I S M A N D S Y N O P T I CPHILOSOPHY (Garnett 8)

[F]or rationalism religion is first a beliefand secondarily a pursuit of values;

103:1.4 Rationalism is wrong when itassumes that religion is at first a primitivebelief in something which is thenfollowed by the pursuit of values.

for empiricism it is first a pursuit ofvalues and secondarily a system of beliefs(G 8-9).

Religion is primarily a pursuit of values,and then there formulates a system ofinterpretative beliefs.

It is much easier for men to agree onreligious values—goals—than onbeliefs—interpretations.

And this explains how

Religion shows its independence of anyspecific belief in the fact of the enormousvariety of beliefs that may be incorpor-ated in a religion, and in the fact that thepractical manifestations characteristic ofreligion may be present even where allthe generally recognized characteristicbeliefs are absent (G 10).

religion can agree on values and goalswhile exhibiting the confusing pheno-menon of maintaining a belief inhundreds of conflicting beliefs—creeds.

This also explains why

A person may be very deeply distressed atlosing his religious beliefs, but he oftendevelops just as fine and satisfying areligion with a mere fraction of hisoriginal and traditional system, or withnone of it (G 9).

a given person can maintain his religiousexperience in the face of giving up orchanging many of his religious beliefs.

Thus the familiar phenomenon ofcontinuity of religion in spite of forcedabandonment of religious beliefs, stronglyindicates that belief is not the mostfundamental element in religion (G 10).

Religion persists in spite of revolutionarychanges in religious beliefs.

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Religion, of course, always involves somethought, some belief. But it is religionthat produces the characteristic forms ofthought, not the characteristic forms ofthought that produce all the rest of thereligion (G 11).

Theology does not produce religion; it isreligion that produces theologic philo-sophy.

THE RESULTS OF RATIONALISM (Garnett 11)

Yet another reason why rationalismleads to skepticism is found in the historyof religion. Most religious beliefs areobviously false. So if belief is thefoundation of religion its foundations aremostly false (G 13).

103:1.5 That religionists have believedso much that was false

does not invalidate religion becausereligion is founded on the recognition ofvalues and is validated by the faith ofpersonal religious experience.

But the situation is very different ifreligion is based on experience. Religion, then, is based on experience and

religious thought;

Religious thought or belief is then aninterpretation of that experience,

theology, the philosophy of religion, is anhonest attempt to interpret thatexperience.

and religious activity a response to it.

The response may be more or lessappropriate; the interpretation may bemore or less correct (G 13-14).

Such interpretative beliefs may be right orwrong, or a mixture of truth and error.

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ROMANTIC EMPIRICISM: SCHLEIER-MACHER (Garnett 14)

[contd] The father of modern religiousempiricism is Friedrich Schleiermacher....“True religion,” he asserts in the secondof his famous Speeches on Religion, “is asense and taste for the infinite.” In hismajor work, The Christian Faith, hemaintains that “the essence of piety is afeeling of absolute dependence or, whichis to say the same thing, a consciousnessof our relation with God.” This is said tobe the highest grade of feeling, but it isindescribable. It is an “intuition,” an“immediate self-consciousness” whichone may contemplate but cannot express.It is something psychologically morefundamental than ideas.

103:1.6 The realization of the recog-nition of spiritual values is an experiencewhich is superideational.

Ideas and words are inadequate todescribe it (G 14).

There is no word in any human languagewhich can be employed to designate this “sense,” “feeling,” “intuition,” or“experience” which we have elected tocall God-consciousness.

SYMBOLISTIC EMPIRICISM: AMES ANDWIEMAN (Garnett 19)

The spirit of God that dwells in man isnot personal—the Adjuster isprepersonal—but this Monitor presents avalue, exudes a flavor of divinity, whichis personal in the highest and infinitesense.

Personality is the highest thing weknow.... What gives its unique value topersonality is the fact of consciousness....A deity that is unconscious is thereforeinfrapersonal in value, howeversuprapersonal it, or “he,” may be in otherrespects (G 26).

If God were not at least personal, hecould not be conscious,

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Either God must be a conscious being orhe cannot be the object of supremedevotion. We only fool ourselves withrhetoric when we try to pay devotion tosomething allegedly superhuman that,being unconscious, is in realityinfrahuman in value (G 26).

and if not conscious, then would he beinfrahuman.

2. RELIGION AND THEINDIVIDUAL

II: THE BIRTH OF RELIGION IN THEINDIVIDUAL (Garnett 35)

THE INITIAL PHASES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE(Garnett 35)

[contd] Birth is not the beginning oflife. It is simply the occasion when wecome forth into the light of day.Similarly, by the birth of religion in theindividual mind we do not mean thebeginning of the religious life, 103:2.1 Religion is functional in the

human mind and has been realized inexperience prior to

but simply the occasion of its comingforth into the full light of consciousness(G 35).

its appearance in human consciousness.

A child has been in existence about ninemonths before it experiences birth.

The psychological birth of religion, is,normally, not sudden.

But the “birth” of religion is not sudden;it is rather a gradual emergence.

Nevertheless, sooner or later there is a“birth day.”

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You do not enter the kingdom of heavenunless you have been

In his physical birth the individual ispassive. In his religious “new birth” he isactive; he is “born again” by his ownlabors.... The individual actively under-goes certain inner mental adjustments (G36).

“born again”—born of the Spirit.

The fact that this change may takeplace suddenly, and may be accompaniedby abnormal psychological phenomenasuch as spiritual anguish and ecstasy andeven by visions and voices and strangephysical impulsions, has been given agreat deal too much attention (G 36).

Many spiritual births are accompanied bymuch anguish of spirit and markedpsychological perturbations,

as many physical births are characterizedby a “stormy labor” and other abnor-malities of “delivery.”

On the other hand, the fact that manypeople grow to spiritual maturity withoutpassing through any marked period ofstorm and stress, responding very easilyand naturally to appropriate new spiritualstimuli from the environment,

Other spiritual births are a natural andnormal growth of the recognition ofsupreme values with an enhancement ofspiritual experience,

has led some religious educators tobelieve that under proper processes of“conditioning” moral and religiousdevelopment may take place withouteffort from within, being purely a matterof passive responses from stimuli without(G 36-37).

Yet full religious and moral developmentis a prize that can no more be wonwithout effort, struggle and occasionalfailure than can excellence in any otherform of human achievement (G 37).

albeit no religious development occurswithout conscious effort and positive andindividual determinations.

Religion is never a passive experience, anegative attitude.

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THE TYPICAL CONVERSION CRISIS: SOMEHISTORICAL EXAMPLES (Garnett 37)

The cases of conversion accompanied byexceptional psychological experiences,whether gradual or sudden, do not usuallybelong to the earliest phases of religiousdevelopment (G 37).

What is termed the “birth of religion” isnot directly associated with so-calledconversion experiences which usuallycharacterize religious episodes occurringlater in life

MENTAL CONFLICT AND THE CONVERSIONCRISIS (Garnett 39)

[contd] Modern abnormal psychologyenables us to understand these extra-ordinary experiences. In every case thereis mental conflict; and mental conflict,when prolonged and severe, generatesrepressions (G 39).

as a result of mental conflict, emotionalrepression, and temperamental upheavals.

NORMAL CONVERSION AND MORALAWAKENING (Garnett 43)

[contd] But over against these morestriking cases and the emphasis onconflict arising from them, there must beplaced a great multitude of cases ofreligious development apparently devoidof crisis.... As an outstanding example ofthis type James (and many others afterhim) quotes the reply of Dr. E. E. Hale,an eminent Unitarian minister, to one ofStarbuck’s circulars:

“I observe, with profound regret, thereligious struggles which come into manybiographies, as if almost essential to theformation of the hero. I ought to speak tothese, to say that any man has an advantage,not be estimated, who is born, as I was, into afamily where the religion is simple andrational; who is trained in the theory of such areligion, so that he never knows, for an hour,what these religious or irreligious strugglesare. I always knew that God loved me, and Iwas always grateful to him for the world heplaced me in...” (G 43-44).

103:2.2 But those persons who were soreared by their parents that they grew upin the consciousness of being children ofa loving heavenly Father,

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should not look askance at their fellowmortals who could only attain suchconsciousness of fellowship with Godthrough a psychological crisis, anemotional upheaval.

RELIGION AS AN OUTGROWTH OFMORALITY (Garnett 47)

[contd] From all this evidence one factstands out clearly—that the roots ofreligion are in the moral life (G 47).

103:2.3 The evolutionary soil in themind of man in which the seed ofrevealed religion germinates is the moralnature

that so early gives

[... Professor E. S. Ames goes so far as to say ...that “the origin of religion . . . is to be sought in theorigin of the social consciousness” ... (G 51).] origin to a social consciousness.

The first moral problems of which we areaware are not those of sex or doubt orpride,

The first promptings of a child’s moralnature have not to do with sex, guilt, orpersonal pride,

but those of justice and kindness. but rather with impulses of justice,fairness, and urges to kindness—

The moral ideals that first inspire us arenot those of chastity or humility but thoseof service to the common good (G 50). helpful ministry to one’s fellows.

Where such ideals, rather than repentanceand submission, are exalted in connectionwith religious belief,

And when such early moral awakeningsare nurtured,

there is a natural and ready response onthe part of young people at an early age,and religion develops naturally—notwithout effort, but happily and withoutundue distress (G 50).

there occurs a gradual development of thereligious life which is comparatively freefrom conflicts, upheavals, and crises.

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MORAL CONFLICT AND THE DIVIDED SELF(Garnett 51)

[contd] This brings us to the mainthesis of this book: that man’s conscious-ness of God rests upon the element ofconflict that is first felt as between theegoistic and the altruistic tendencies ofour nature (G 51-52).

103:2.4 Every human being very earlyexperiences something of a conflictbetween his self-seeking and his altruisticimpulses,

and many times the first experience ofGod-consciousness may be attained as theresult of seeking for superhuman help inthe task of resolving such moral conflicts.

103:2.5 The psychology of a child isnaturally positive, not negative. So manymortals are negative because they were sotrained. When it is said that the child ispositive, reference is made to his moralimpulses, those powers of mind whoseemergence signals the arrival of theThought Adjuster.

[contd] In the past those writers, suchas James and Starbuck, who have drawnattention to the element of mental conflictin the birth of the religious consciousness,have been too much influenced by thosefeatures of the conflict in the majority ofthe cases studied which were due to thespecial influence of evangelical theologyand to pathological repressions.

103:2.6 In the absence of wrongteaching,

the mind of the normal child movespositively, in the emergence of religiousconsciousness,

These suggested that the struggle wasaway from sin rather than towardrighteousness, and that it ended insurrender rather than in victory (G 52).

toward moral righteousness and socialministry, rather than negatively, awayfrom sin and guilt.

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Conflict is undesirable, but it is neces-sary, for the simple reason that there areopposing psychological factors that haveto be overcome if there is to be anygrowth of the moral personality.

There may or may not be conflict in thedevelopment of religious experience,

If we could grow into full perfection ofcharacter without effort on our own partwe would be either automatons ordivinities (G 52).

but there are always present the inevitabledecisions, effort, and function of thehuman will.

103:2.7 Moral choosing is usuallyaccompanied by more or less moralconflict.

Now it is important to recognize thatethical principles cannot be stated simplyas an issue between altruism and egoism.There are altruistic actions that are wrongand egoistic actions that are right.Nevertheless, it is this issue thatconstitutes the moral conflict as it firstemerges in the consciousness of theindividual; and it remains thefundamental moral problem throughoutlife (G 52-53).

And this very first conflict in the childmind is between the urges of egoism andthe impulses of altruism.

[Compare: Personal satisfaction, of course, will befound in successfully attaining both [egoistic andaltruistic] results ... (G 53).]

The Thought Adjuster does not disregardthe personality values of the egoisticmotive but does operate to place a slightpreference upon the altruistic impulse asleading to the goal of human happinessand to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.

103:2.8 When a moral being chooses tobe unselfish when confronted by the urgeto be selfish, that is primitive religiousexperience. No animal can make such achoice; such a decision is both human andreligious. It embraces the fact of God-consciousness and exhibits the impulse ofsocial service, the basis of thebrotherhood of man. When mind choosesa right moral judgment by an act of thefree will, such a decision constitutes areligious experience.

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The child’s own satisfactions anddissatisfactions are prominent in hisconsciousness, and (in so far as hedistinguishes self and not-self) heresponds to them as his own. He thusforms a strong body of purely egoistichabits, a tightly knit egoistic self, beforehe develops sufficient imagination tothink of the satisfactions and dis-satisfactions of other people and look atmatters from their point of view (G 54).

But before a child has developed suffic-iently to acquire moral capacity andtherefore to be able to choose altruisticservice,

he has already developed a strong andwell-unified egoistic nature.

This conflict presents itself asbetween a lower self and a higher,between an old self and a new (G 54).

And it is this factual situation that givesrise to the theory of the struggle betweenthe “higher” and the “lower” natures,

[contd from three rows up] This natural,childish system of egoistic habits, whichI shall call the original ego, is the “oldAdam” that the altruistic desires have tocontend with when they arise (G 54-55).

between the “old man of sin”

and the “new nature” of grace.

Generous impulses arise spontaneouslywhen the young person thinks of theneeds of others; and gradually a system ofhabits, both of thinking of the good ofothers and of responding to the thought,develops (G 55).

Very early in life the normal child beginsto learn that it is “more blessed to givethan to receive.”

[I have shewed you all things, how that solabouring ye ought to support the weak, and toremember the words of the Lord Jesus, how hesaid, It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts20:35).]

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THE ALTRUISTIC WILL AND THE IDEA OFGOD (Garnett 55)

[M]an, in this moral conflict, tends to feelthat the will to the good of others, when itconflicts with the original ego, is not hisown. He identifies himself with theoriginal ego (G 56).

103:2.9 Man tends to identify the urgeto be self-serving with his ego—himself.

[W]hat men immediately feel as thedivine agency, as God within them, is thiselement of their own personality, thealtruistic will.... He is that within uswhich goes beyond the seeking of ourown good to seek the good of others (G57).

In contrast he is inclined to identify thewill to be altruistic with some influenceoutside himself—God.

And indeed is such a judgment right, forall such nonself desires do actually havetheir origin in the leadings of theindwelling Thought Adjuster, and thisAdjuster is a fragment of God. Theimpulse of the spirit Monitor is realizedin human consciousness as the urge to bealtruistic, fellow-creature minded.

At least this is the early and fundamentalexperience of the child mind.

When the growing child fails ofpersonality unification,

Few theists will object to the viewthat the moral will in man is God withinus; but many are likely to object that thealtruistic will is not always moral, i.e., notalways right. Its intentions are good, butit may sometimes lead us to unduesacrifice of ourselves, sometimes to afalsity to higher values or to sociallyimportant principles in order to pleasesome narrow or unworthy group orindividual, sometimes to mistakes as towhat is the true good of those whose goodwe seek (G 58).

the altruistic drive may become sooverdeveloped as to work serious injuryto the welfare of the self.

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A misguided conscience can becomeresponsible for much conflict, worry,sorrow, and no end of humanunhappiness.

3. RELIGION AND THEHUMAN RACE

III: THE BIRTH OF RELIGION IN THERACE (Garnett 60)

E. B. TYLOR: THE ANIMISTIC THEORY(Garnett 62)

[E. B. Tylor] regarded the belief inspiritual beings as lying at the basis of allreligion, and so felt that the fundamentalproblem was to explain the origin of thatbelief (G 62).

103:3.1 While the belief in spirits,

Tylor recognized that the sheer inventionof [a spirit] to explain the differencebetween the dead and the living wouldinvolve a tremendous leap of theimagination. Therefore he looked for asecond factor to bridge this gap, and hethought that this could be found in theexperience of dreams (G 62). dreams,

and diverse other superstitions all playeda part in the evolutionary origin ofprimitive religions,

E. DURKHEIM: THE COLLECTIVIST THEORY(Garnett 65)

you should not overlook the influence ofthe clan or tribal spirit of solidarity.

[Compare G 66.] In the group relationship there waspresented the exact social situation whichprovided the challenge to the egoistic-altruistic conflict in the moral nature ofthe early human mind.

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[The Australian aboriginals] believe inspirits and have traditions concerningcertain beings who came from the sky,taught them their culture, and returnedthither.

In spite of their belief in spirits,

But there is neither worship nor prayeroffered to the spirits or other divinebeings. The aboriginal religious con-sciousness is absorbed in a mere totemicritual, each clan or social group having itsown totemic symbol.... The religiousfeeling attached to the symbol, [Durk-heim] claims, is derived from the actualfeeling toward the clan itself (G 65-66).

primitive Australians still focus theirreligion upon the clan.

Gradually [the mystical power of thetotemic symbol] is personalized,

In time, such religious concepts tend topersonalize,

becoming first an animal deity and lateran anthropomorphic god who appears inthe animal form of what was once thetotem—a course of development plainlyrecorded in Egyptian religion (G 66).

first, as animals, and later, as a supermanor as a God.

Even some of the most primitive food-gatherers, such as the Andaman Islanders,the Congo pygmies and the South AfricanBushmen, are not totemic,

Even such inferior races as the AfricanBushmen, who are not even totemic intheir beliefs,

do have a recognition of the differencebetween the self-interest and the group-interest,

yet they have a religion, they distinguishbetween the sacred and the secular, andthey possess the concept of mana (G 67).

a primitive distinction between the valuesof the secular and the sacred.

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Indeed, if we refer again to the birth ofreligion in the individual as we know ittoday, we see how inadequate thecollectivist theory is to explain it. Thisprocess is certainly rooted in moralexperience, but certainly not merely in afeeling derived from the influence ofsociety (G 68). But the social group is not the source of

religious experience.

Regardless of the influence of all theseprimitive contributions to man’s earlyreligion, the fact remains that the truereligious impulse has its origin in genuinespirit presences activating the will to beunselfish.

E. WESTERMARCK: THE NATURALISTICTHEORY (Garnett 69)

103:3.2 Later religion is foreshadowedin

[contd] We may take Westermarck asexemplifying what is commonly calledthe “naturalistic” theory of religion—thatit is primarily natural objects that stirprimitive man to superstitious awe,reverence and worship, so that religiousbelief and practice are to be regarded asthe outcome of a very natural butmistaken impression of nature (G 69).

the primitive belief in natural wondersand mysteries,

Since Westermarck wrote, this pheno-menon has come to be recognized as themost universal feature of primitivereligion. It is the belief in mana (G 70). the impersonal mana.

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But sooner or later

[Malinowski] speaks of “the ethicalelement intrinsically inherent in allreligious activities,” and continues:

They always require efforts, discipline,and submission on the part of the individualfor the good of the community. Taboos, vigils,religious exercises are essentially moral, notmerely because they express submission ofman to spiritual powers, but also because theyare a sacrifice of man’s personal comfort forthe common weal... (G 74).

the evolving religion requires that theindividual should make some personalsacrifice for the good of his social group,

The Australian aboriginal insists that hisceremonies “make everybody better” (G73).

should do something to make otherpeople happier and better.

Thus, even in the most primitiveforms of religion we must recognize amoral element, which Westermarck’sexplanation of its origin would makesecondary and unessential. In thedeveloped religious consciousness ofcivilized man, however, it is primary andfundamental. Religion is the service ofthe divine, not its utilization for ourhuman purposes (G 74).

Ultimately, religion is destined to becomethe service of God and of man.

RUDOLPH OTTO: THE THEORY OF THENUMINOUS (Garnett 75)

In primitive religion as we know it todaythe element of fear, awe and fascination isundoubtedly predominant. But primitivereligion as we know it today is not thebeginning, but the end, of a long processof evolution. It is religion stalemated,religion ... adapted to its environment, butno longer adaptable, no longer a power tochange the environment itself and thevehicle of its own expression (G 75-76).

103:3.3 Religion is designed to changeman’s environment,

but much of the religion found amongmortals today has become helpless to dothis.

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Environment has all too often masteredreligion.

R. R. MARETT: THE CONCEPT OF MANA(Garnett 77)

“Mana is, as Freud would say, amb-ivalent. Possessed by it a man is moved tolet himself go whether for better or forworse. . . . It looks, then, as if religionapart from morality was neither good norbad, but just a neutral force.”

This may, and must, all be granted—if one agrees that religious beliefs andpractices apart from morality are stillreally religion. But it may be the case thatthe feeling in which these beliefs andpractices arise is essentially a feeling formoral values, so that religion isfundamentally rooted in morality (G 80-81).

103:3.4 Remember that in the religionof all ages the experience which isparamount is the feeling regarding moralvalues and social meanings,

not the thinking regarding theologicdogmas or philosophic theories.

RELIGION AND ETHICS (Garnett 87)

The important thing is that it is theadventitious element—magic—that isevil, and the essential element—themoral—that is valuable. And again it isimportant to recognize that the magicalelement can be sloughed off from religionwithout leaving us with nothing but anethic (G 87).

Religion evolves favorably as the elementof magic is replaced by the concept ofmorals.

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THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION (Garnett 81)

[Loosely gleaned from G 81-85.] 103:3.5 Man evolved through thesuperstitions of mana, magic, natureworship, spirit fear, and animal worshipto the various ceremonials whereby thereligious attitude of the individualbecame the group reactions of the clan.And then these ceremonies becamefocalized and crystallized into tribalbeliefs, and eventually these fears andfaiths became personalized into gods.

But while magic and superstition,crude guesses at the mysteries of nature,poetic fancy and the scheming of priestshave influenced the development ofreligious ideas, the moral element hasnever been entirely absent.

But in all of this religious evolution themoral element was never wholly absent.

The impulse of the God within man wasalways potent.

It is because of its real moral value thatreligion survived

And these powerful influences—onehuman and the other divine—insured thesurvival of religion throughout thevicissitudes of the ages

despite the load of magic and trickery thatwas thrust upon it (G 86).

and that notwithstanding it was so oftenthreatened with extinction by a thousandsubversive tendencies and hostileantagonisms.

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4. SPIRITUAL COMMUNION

IV: TYPICAL BELIEFS ANDPROBLEMS (Garnett 90)

THE IDEA OF COMMUNION (Garnett 96)

In any public ceremony there is, ofcourse, a tendency to realize a sense ofcommunion with the other participants.But a religious occasion differentiatesitself from one that is merely social andsecular by

103:4.1 The characteristic differencebetween a social occasion and a religiousgathering is that in contrast with thesecular

the deeper sense of communion that itgenerates,

the religious is pervaded by the atmo-sphere of communion.

In this way human association generatesa feeling of

an experience that the believer naturallytends to interpret as fellowship with thedivine, and one that the unbeliever alsomay feel and cherish however he explainsit (G 97).

fellowship with the divine,

and this is the beginning of groupworship.

From time immemorial [the sharing offood] has been a recognized symbol offellowship, and man has found no moreeloquent way of expressing his faith incommunion with his god, and with hisfellow servants of the same god, than inthe symbolism of the common meal. Partaking of a common meal was the

earliest type of social communion,

and so did early religions provide thatsome portion of the ceremonial sacrificeshould be eaten by the worshipers.

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Even though the idea of God has been soexalted and spiritualized that he can nolonger be thought in any sense to partakeof food himself, the Christian religionretains such a ceremony as its mostsolemn act of worship (G 97).

Even in Christianity the Lord’s Supperretains this mode of communion.

[I]n the period of communion the egoloses its prominence.... The tensionbetween the ego and the disinterested willrelaxes, and the mind enjoys a sweetsense of harmony and peace withinthrough union of the familiar egoistic selfwith something infinitely more worthwhile (G 98).

The atmosphere of the communionprovides a refreshing and comfortingperiod of truce in the conflict of theself-seeking ego with the altruistic urge ofthe indwelling spirit Monitor.

(b) The Prayer of Communion.—Inpublic ceremonial, the cultivation of asense of communion is undoubtedly aidedby the presence of others co-operating inthe act of worship.... It arises also inprivate prayer and meditation (G 98).

And this is the prelude to true worship—

The right attitude [to have in prayer], saysFosdick, involves belief in a “Presencethat disturbs us with the joy of elevatedthoughts,” and the practice of “conver-sation” with that Presence as a friend (G100).

the practice of the presence of God

which eventuates in the emergence of thebrotherhood of man.

THE IDEA OF ATONEMENT (Garnett 102)

[contd] We have referred to the idea ofcommunion as one of the two mostimportant conceptions underlying thepractice of sacrifice. But usually the moreprominent of these two concepts is that ofatonement. The worshiper believes thathe has in some way offended the deityand so cut himself off from communionor favor.

103:4.2 When primitive man felt thathis communion with God had beeninterrupted,

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The sacrifice is an effort to rectify thissituation, to secure an “at-one-ment,” arestoration of the proper relationship, “toget right with God” (G 102).

he resorted to sacrifice of some kind in aneffort to make atonement, to restorefriendly relationship.

It is not by sinning that people comeunder conviction of sin, but by hungeringand thirsting after righteousness.

The hunger and thirst for righteousness

leads to the discovery of truth, and truth

It is the pure in heart who see God,because the finer and nobler a person’sconduct becomes in actual practice, themore sensitive does he tend to become tomoral distinctions and the higher growsthe reach of his ideal.

augments ideals,

and this creates new problems for theindividual religionists, for

We do not catch up to our ideals bypracticing them. They have a way ofgrowing by geometrical progression

our ideals tend to grow by geometricalprogression,

which practice advances by arithmeticalprogression.

while our ability to live up to them isenhanced only by arithmeticalprogression.

It is not that way that people becomemorally smug and self-satisfied, butrather through lowering their ideals to aso-called “practical” level, easilymaintained by their socially instilledhabits (G 103).

[contd] Thus there arises an inevitablecleavage within the religious conscious-ness. It begins with conviction of sin. 103:4.3 The sense of guilt (not the

consciousness of sin)

comes either from interrupted spiritualcommunion or from the lowering of one’smoral ideals.

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Deliverance from such a predicament canonly come through the realization that

This is deepened when the moral ideal isinterpreted as the expression of a divinewill (G 103).

one’s highest moral ideals are notnecessarily synonymous with the will ofGod.

The more one strives to live up to themoral ideal, the more clearly consciousone becomes of how far short of thehighest ideal one falls (G 104). Man cannot hope to live up to his highest

ideals,

but he can be true to his purpose offinding God and becoming more andmore like him.

So long as righteousness is conceived inlegalistic terms and God is regarded as alawgiver, there seems to be no way inwhich the sensitive religious conscious-ness can persuade itself that it has madeits peace with God save by penances andsacrifices of atonement. The only realescape is to sweep away the wholelegalistic conception of righteousness.This, as we shall see later, is what Jesusdid (G 105).

103:4.4 Jesus swept away all of theceremonials of sacrifice and atonement.

He destroyed the basis of all this fictitiousguilt and sense of isolation in the universeby declaring that man is a child of God;the creature-Creator relationship wasplaced on a child-parent basis. Godbecomes a loving Father to his mortalsons and daughters. All ceremonials not alegitimate part of such an intimate familyrelationship are forever abrogated.

The gist of the matter is this: God, asconceived by Jesus, receives and forgivesthe sinner, not for the purity of heart andlife he has actually attained,

103:4.5 God the Father deals with manhis child on the basis, not of actual virtueor worthiness,

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but for that which he penitently andfaithfully strives to attain (G 105).

but in recognition of the child’smotivation—the creature purpose andintent.

The relationship is one of parent-childassociation and is actuated by divine love.

5. THE ORIGIN OF IDEALS

V: THE ESSENTIAL IDEAL (Garnett123)

THE DISINTERESTED WILL (Garnett 123)

[contd] In our analysis of the processesconcerned in the birth of religion in theindividual we ... saw how the resultantconflict within the self led to theconviction that the demands of [the]altruistic will are demands of somesuperhuman agency, something divine.And we have seen how reflection on thisexperience has gradually expanded theconcept of duty. 103:5.1 The early evolutionary mind

gives origin to a feeling of social duty andmoral obligation

derived chiefly from emotional fear.

From a few negative precepts concerningthe avoidance of injury to others it hasdeveloped into ideals of positive serviceinvolving, if necessary, the ultimatesacrifice (G 123).

The more positive urge of social serviceand the idealism of altruism

are derived from the direct impulse of thedivine spirit indwelling the human mind.

103:5.2 This idea-ideal of doing good toothers—the impulse to deny the egosomething for the benefit of one’sneighbor—is very circumscribed at first.

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[contd] Equally remarkable has beenthe expansion of the notion of the extentof the circle of those whose good it isbelieved the divine being would have usseek. First, it is the narrow socialgroup—my neighbor, so long as he isneighborly (G 123).

Primitive man regards as neighbor onlythose very close to him, those who treathim neighborly;

In the course of time “my neighbors”comes to include the whole tribe, thenation, and neighbor nations; but stillwith the same proviso, “so long as theyare neighborly,” and usually also withdifferentiations concerning race, sex,caste and creed.

as religious civilization advances, one’sneighbor expands in concept to embracethe clan, the tribe, the nation.

Then finally, through the life and work ofthe Galilean teacher, there dawns on theworld the ideal that would eliminate thelast proviso and break down every barrier.

And then Jesus enlarged the neighborscope to embrace the whole of humanity,

It makes no difference whether myneighbor is neighborly or not. God wouldhave me love even mine enemy (G 123-24).

even that we should love our enemies.

And there is something inside of everynormal human being that tells him thisteaching is moral—right.

[contd] The extraordinary thing is that,though the modern man scarcely doesmore than lip service to this ideal in itscompleteness, it yet commends itself tohis moral judgment (G 124).

Even those who practice this ideal least,admit that it is right in theory.

Today it is the most universally acceptedprinciple of moral philosophy,

103:5.3 All men recognize the moralityof this universal human urge to beunselfish and altruistic.

even among those who refuse to followthe prophets in calling the will thatdemands it divine (G 124).

The humanist ascribes the origin of thisurge to the natural working of thematerial mind;

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the religionist more correctly recognizesthat the truly unselfish drive of mortalmind is in response to the inner spiritleadings of the Thought Adjuster.

But the sharp dichotomy that the religiousinterpretation thus developed between thewill of God and the will of man is anerror.

103:5.4 But man’s interpretation ofthese early conflicts between the ego-willand the other-than-self-will is not alwaysdependable.

The altruistic will is not always superiorto the egoistic. It is not necessarilyright.... The egoistic will is entirely right,and has an equal claim to be calleddivine, so long as it is pursuing thegreatest good that seems, to the individualconcerned, to be possible in thecircumstances, taking into equalconsideration his own good and that ofothers (G 125).

Only a fairly well unified personality canarbitrate the multiform contentions of theego cravings and the budding socialconsciousness. The self has rights as wellas one’s neighbors. Neither has exclusiveclaims upon the attention and service ofthe individual. Failure to resolve thisproblem gives origin to the earliest typeof human guilt feelings.

103:5.5 Human happiness is achievedonly when the ego desire of the self andthe altruistic urge of the higher self(divine spirit) are co-ordinated andreconciled by the unified will of theintegrating and supervising personality.

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REFUTATION OF EGOISM (Garnett 127)

The mind of evolutionary man is everconfronted with the intricate problem ofrefereeing the contest between

Altruistic idealism goes far beyond[instincts of the family and the herd]. Andits broad extension is due not so much toemotional expansion of natural impulsesunder the influence of suggestion

the natural expansion of emotionalimpulses

and the moral growth of unselfish urgespredicated on spiritual insight—

so much as it is to calm reflection onwhat is morally fitting and logicallyimplied in the best moral judgments (G128-29).

genuine religious reflection.

THE GOOD AS PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT(Garnett 133)

[Compare G 134.] 103:5.6 The attempt to secure equalgood for the self and for the greatestnumber of other selves presents aproblem which cannot always besatisfactorily resolved in a time-spaceframe.

In general, the natural good is, in the longrun, achieved most fully by adhering towhat is morally good also, for departuresfrom the fundamental principle ofpersonality must in the end lead to self-stultifying conflict which inhibits furtherdevelopment until rectified. So, if the“long run” of life were eternal, to be trueto the morally good would also entail thegreatest natural good, not only for othersbut for the performer of the moral actionalso.

Given an eternal life, such antagonismscan be worked out,

but in one short human life they areincapable of solution.

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It is this faith that lies behind the conceptinvolved in the paradoxical saying ofJesus: Jesus referred to such a paradox when he

said:

“For whosoever will save his life shalllose it: and whosoever will lose his lifefor my sake shall find it” (G 136).

“Whosoever shall save his life shall loseit, but whosoever shall lose his life for thesake of the kingdom, shall find it.”

M O R A L G O O D A N D F A I T H I NIMMORTALITY (Garnett 136)

103:5.7 The pursuit of the ideal—thestriving to be Godlike—is a continuouseffort before death and after. The lifeafter death is no different in the essentialsthan the mortal existence. Everything wedo in this life which is good contributesdirectly to the enhancement of the futurelife.

Real religion does not foster moralindolence and spiritual laziness by

The concept of an immortality ofstatic perfection is the product of aninadequate analysis of the nature ofpersonality and its moral good. It is,unfortunately, a very serious error, for itpresupposes the sudden and miraculoustransition of personality from a state ofimperfection to one of perfection (G 137).

encouraging the vain hope of having allthe virtues of a noble character bestowedupon one as a result of passing throughthe portals of natural death.

True religion does not belittle man’sefforts to progress during the mortal leaseon life.

The faith in immortality then becomes thefaith that this process of personaldevelopment begun in this life does notnecessarily cease with death, but goes onto the realization of further goals, makinggood its deficiencies so far as it is willingto learn from past experience. [contd nextpg.]

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And it means that both the natural and themoral good attained in this life—thewhole personal development—

Every mortal gain

contribute to the initial stages of the lifebeyond (G 138).

is a direct contribution to the enrichmentof the first stages of the immortal survivalexperience.

MORAL GOOD AND FAITH IN THE DIVINETRANSCENDENCE (Garnett 139)

If a man believes that his ideals are ...merely the effect of some sympathetictendencies and herd impulses of hisnature which are of no deeper signif-icance than many other natural tendencieswithin him, then the rational thing for himto do is to seek to control all these naturaltendencies in what seems to be his ownself-interest.

103:5.8 It is fatal to man’s idealismwhen he is taught that all of his altruisticimpulses are merely the development ofhis natural herd instincts.

But if he believes that the disinterestedwill to the good of all is the most funda-mental tendency of his nature, that it isthe expression of that which is eternalwithin him, ... then the ideals towardwhich that disinterested will aspiresbecome the most significant features ofhis whole world.... They help to give himcourage, assurance, and a zeal that willnot be denied (G 141-42).

But he is ennobled and mightily energizedwhen he learns that these higher urges ofhis soul emanate from the spiritual forcesthat indwell his mortal mind.

103:5.9 It lifts man out of himself andbeyond himself when he once fullyrealizes that there lives and strives withinhim something which is eternal anddivine. And so it is that

And the effort to justify faith in thesuperhuman origin of our ideals of dis-interested service, far from being a wasteof time and useless distraction, as urgedby Dewey, is a much needed contributionto the support of the human spirit in thepursuit of those ideals (G 142).

a living faith in the superhuman origin ofour ideals

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Mankind today, as in every age, deeplyneeds that sense of human brotherhoodwhich comes from a faith that we are all,in some very real sense, children of oneFather (G 144).

validates our belief that we are the sonsof God

and makes real our altruistic convictions,the feelings of the brotherhood of man.

103:5.10 Man, in his spiritual domain,does have a free will.

But Hartmann is certainly notjustified in assuming that there is nomiddle ground between such an assertionof the sovereignty of God as robs man ofall true freedom and responsibility,

Mortal man is neither a helpless slave ofthe inflexible sovereignty of an all-powerful God

and a complete abandonment of all super-human, or cosmic teleology (G 145-46).

nor the victim of the hopeless fatality ofa mechanistic cosmic determinism.

[There is a realm of human experience inwhich we have the power of decision. While thisdomain over which we have control varies indifferent individuals, it is nevertheless a fact thatman is, within certain limits, the architect of hisown destiny (William S. Sadler, M.D., How YouCan Keep Happy [1926], p. 2).]

Man is most truly the architect of his owneternal destiny.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FREEDOM (Garnett147)

103:5.11 But man is not saved orennobled by pressure.

There is no development of personalitythat does not spring spontaneously fromwithin in response to values felt oranticipated.

Spirit growth springs from within theevolving soul.

External pressures do not developpersonality, though they may deform it (G147).

Pressure may deform the personality, butit never stimulates growth.

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Educative pressure ... does not contributedirectly to personal development, butonly indirectly in that it saves fromdisaster.

Even educational pressure is onlynegatively helpful in that it may aid in theprevention of disastrous experiences.

Actual personal development comesthrough the positive response fromwithin. It flourishes most, therefore,where pressure is least (G 147).

Spiritual growth is greatest where allexternal pressures are at a minimum.

[Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where theSpirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor.3:17).]

“Where the spirit of the Lord is, there isfreedom.”

Man develops best when the pressures of

The family, the local community, thechurch and the state all set limits to thefreedom of the individual and makedemands upon him.

home, community, church, and state areleast.

But this must not be construed asmeaning that

This raises the question of the value ofthe religious group, the church. The localcommunity is inevitable, and few ques-tion the necessity of the family and thestate. But there are many who believe thatreligion might well become a purelyintellectual matter and so would removethe church as an unnecessary restrictionupon freedom. It becomes a matter ofgreat importance, therefore, to considerthe place of the church in the religiouslife of the individual and in the social lifeof the community (G 147).

there is no place in a progressive societyfor home, social institutions, church, andstate.

103:5.12 When a member of a socialreligious group has complied with therequirements of such a group, he shouldbe encouraged to enjoy religious libertyin the full expression of his own personalinterpretation of the truths of religiousbelief and the facts of religious exper-ience.

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[The churches] have blighted the freepersonal development (the truest good) oftheir own members and of many outside.They have done this in part because of abelief that correctness of doctrine isessential to personal salvation, and in partbecause unanimity on doctrine seemednecessary to the unity and efficiency ofthe church in all its work,

The security of a religious group dependson spiritual unity, not on theologicaluniformity.

so that the exclusion of the dissenter andunbeliever seemed the lesser of two evils(G 149).

This does not mean that [the churchof the future] must be a community of“free-thinkers” in the current negativesense of the term. But it does mean that itmust have room in full fellowship for allpeople, whatever their opinions ontheological questions (G 149).

A religious group should be able to enjoythe liberty of freethinking without havingto become “freethinkers.”

There is great hope for any church thatworships the living God, validates thebrotherhood of man, and dares to removeall creedal pressure from its members.

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6 . P H I L O S O P H I CCO-ORDINATION

I, I: WHAT THEOLOGY IS (Baillie 3)

I. THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE DEFINED (Baillie3)

Theology, then, is to be reckonedalong with psychology, logic, epistem-ology, ethics, sociology, political theory,musical theory, etc., as a science not ofnature but of spirit (B 4-5).

103:6.1 Theology is the study of theactions and reactions of the human spirit;

it can never become a science since itmust always be combined more or lesswith psychology in its personalexpression and with philosophy in itssystematic portrayal.

[[I]t is only from within that the religiousconsciousness can be properly studied ... There isthus a very real sense in which the object of thetheologian’s inquiry is always his own religiousconsciousness or, what is the same thing, thereligious consciousness of the community to whichhe belongs as reflected in his own privateexperience (B 113).]

Theology is always the study of yourreligion;

the study of another’s religion ispsychology.

Theology being thus classed as aGeisteswissenschaft, or science of spirit,it next becomes necessary to ask what isthe main respect in which such sciencesdiffer from natural science. The answerseems to be that in them we areapproaching the objects of our researchno longer from the outside

103:6.2 When man approaches thestudy and examination of his universefrom the outside,

he brings into being the various physicalsciences;

but from the inside. when he approaches the research ofhimself and the universe from the inside,

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he gives origin to theology andmetaphysics.

The later art of philosophy develops in aneffort to harmonize the many discrep-ancies which are destined at first toappear between the findings andteachings of these two diametricallyopposite avenues of approaching theuniverse of things and beings.

103:6.3 Religion has to do with thespiritual viewpoint, the awareness of

Indeed it is possible that spirit should beregarded as no more than another namefor the insideness of things the insideness of human experience.

and that, as has been well said, “The soulof man

Man’s spiritual nature

is the universe turned outside in”; affords him the opportunity of turning theuniverse outside in.

from which it would follow that, as somany celebrated philosophers havebelieved,

It is therefore true that,

there is nothing in the universe whichwould not, if only we could view it fromwithin, turn out to be spiritual in nature(B 5).

viewed exclusively from the insideness ofpersonality experience, all creationappears to be spiritual in nature.

103:6.4 When man analyticallyinspects the universe through the materialendowments of his physical senses andassociated mind perception, the cosmosappears to be mechanical and energy-material. Such a technique of studyingreality consists in turning the universeinside out.

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103:6.5 A logical and consistentphilosophic concept of the universecannot be built up on the postulations ofeither materialism or spiritism, for bothof these systems of thinking, whenuniversally applied, are compelled toview the cosmos in distortion, the formercontacting with a universe turned insideout, the latter realizing the nature of auniverse turned outside in. Never, then,can either science or religion, in and ofthemselves, standing alone, hope to gainan adequate understanding of universaltruths and relationships without theguidance of human philosophy and theillumination of divine revelation.

103:6.6 Always must man’s inner spiritdepend for its expression and self-realization upon the mechanism andtechnique of the mind. Likewise mustman’s outer experience of material realitybe predicated on the mind consciousnessof the experiencing personality.Therefore are the spiritual and thematerial, the inner and the outer, humanexperiences always correlated with themind function and conditioned, as to theirconscious realization, by the mindactivity. Man experiences matter in hismind; he experiences spiritual reality inthe soul but becomes conscious of thisexperience in his mind. The intellect isthe harmonizer and the ever-presentconditioner and qualifier of the sum totalof mortal experience. Both energy-thingsand spirit values are colored by theirinterpretation through the mind media ofconsciousness.

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103:6.7 Your difficulty in arriving at amore harmonious co-ordination betweenscience and religion is due to your utterignorance of the intervening domain ofthe morontia world of things and beings.The local universe consists of threedegrees, or stages, of reality manifesta-tion: matter, morontia, and spirit. Themorontia angle of approach erases alldivergence between the findings of thephysical sciences and the functioning ofthe spirit of religion.

II. THE PROBLEM OF THEOLOGICALSCIENCE (Baillie 11)

[contd] For one further step in thepoint of view as scientific theologians wecannot do better than follow the originalguidance of Socrates. What exactly ismeant by understanding, or givingaccount of, religion? ... To understand athing, he said, is just to know what it is. Itfollows that every scientific inquiry maybe expressed in the form, What is it?

Reason is the understanding technique ofthe sciences;

and that the purpose of the inquiry isaccomplished when we succeed inobtaining full and clear insight as to whatthe phenomenon in question really andessentially is (B 11).

faith is the insight technique of religion;

mota is the technique of the morontialevel. Mota is a supermaterial realitysensitivity which is beginning tocompensate incomplete growth, havingfor its substance knowledge-reason andfor its essence faith-insight. Mota is asuperphilosophical reconciliation ofdivergent reality perception which isnonattainable by material personalities; itis predicated, in part, on the experienceof having survived the material life of theflesh.

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I, II: THE RELATION OF THEOLOGYTO OTHER BRANCHES OFSCIENTIFIC STUDY (Baillie 26)

III: THE RELATION OF THEOLOGY TOGENERAL OR METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY(Baillie 35)

But many mortals have recognized thedesirability of having some method ofreconciling the interplay between thewidely separated domains of science andreligion;

(A) Kant, Schleiermacher, Ritschl,and all the Ritschlians—which is to saythe most influential leaders of moderntheology—all understood metaphysics tomean (which, indeed, the name seems tosuggest, if it suggests anything)

and metaphysics is

an attempt so to extend the methods andoperations of natural science as to makethem yield reliable knowledge about thenature of the universe as a whole (B 36).

the result of man’s unavailing attempt tospan this well-recognized chasm.

But human metaphysics has proved moreconfusing than illuminating. Metaphysicsstands for man’s well-meant but futileeffort to compensate for the absence ofthe mota of morontia.

It is well known how Kant himself deniedthat by the contemplation of the naturalworld any light at all could be had aboutthe ultimate meaning of things, and howhe consequently held that metaphysics (inhis sense of the word) was impossible (B36).

103:6.8 Metaphysics has proved afailure;

mota, man cannot perceive. Revelation isthe only technique which can compensatefor the absence of the truth sensitivity ofmota in a material world. Revelationauthoritatively clarifies the muddle ofreason-developed metaphysics on anevolutionary sphere.

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103:6.9 Science is man’s attemptedstudy of his physical environment, theworld of energy-matter; religion is man’sexperience with the cosmos of spiritvalues; philosophy has been developedby man’s mind effort to organize andcorrelate the findings of these widelyseparated concepts into something like areasonable and unified attitude towardthe cosmos. Philosophy, clarified byrevelation, functions acceptably in theabsence of mota and in the presence ofthe breakdown and failure of man’sreason substitute for mota—metaphysics.


II. THE PROBLEM OF THEOLOGICALSCIENCE (Baillie 11)

[See endnote.] 103:6.10 Early man did not differentiatebetween the energy level and the spiritlevel. It was the violet race and theirAndite successors who first attempted todivorce the mathematical from thevolitional.1

[Compare: [I]n thus preferring to speak of the lawsof change, rather than of the causes of events, we ofthe twentieth century are but reverting to the veryearliest formulations with which science started onits way. Indeed the earliest Greek scientists put thematter more simply and excellently still,

Increasingly has civilized man followedin the footsteps of the earliest Greeks andthe Sumerians

when they said that the task of science was todiscover physis, which, being translated intoEnglish, means precisely “the way things grow” or“the way things change” (B 12).]

who distinguished between the inanimateand the animate.

And as civilization progresses,philosophy will have to bridge ever-widening gulfs between the spirit conceptand the energy concept. But in the time ofspace these divergencies are at one in theSupreme.

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IV. THE NATURE OF THEOLOGICALCRITICISM (Baillie 18)

103:6.11 Science must always begrounded in reason, although imaginationand conjecture are helpful in theextension of its borders.

Religion is forever dependent on faith,

But while it is thus completely wrongin principle to expect from the study oftheology that it should either bring faithoriginally to birth in our souls or give it asecurer grounding in them than it has inthe souls of other men, yet on the otherhand there is undoubtedly a real servicewhich theology is able to render towardsthe establishment of faith in the world (B24).

albeit reason is a stabilizing influence anda helpful handmaid.

And always there have been, and everwill be,

There is no doubt at all that the major partof the unbelief that now afflicts the worldis due ... to the inhibitive influence ofwhat are really false theologies, falseexplanations of religion, overhastilyarrived at by workers whose mainconcern was in other fields ... (B 25).

misleading interpretations of thephenomena of both the natural and thespiritual worlds,

[O Timothy, keep that which is committed tothy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, andoppositions of science falsely so called: (1 Tim. 6)] sciences and religions falsely so called.

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(B) It seems preferable ... to use theword philosophy in a wider sense, takingit to mean an attempt to gather together ina single synoptic view all the evidence asto the ultimate nature of existence whichwe are able to gain from any and everyquarter.... The business of what he callsspeculative philosophy is thus describedby Dr. C. D. Broad, a leading philosopherof the Cambridge school, in his book onScientific Thought:

“Its object is to take over the results of thevarious sciences, to add to them the results ofthe religious and ethical experiences ofmankind, and then to reflect upon the whole.

103:6.12 Out of his incomplete grasp ofscience, his faint hold upon religion, andhis abortive attempts at metaphysics,

man has attempted to construct hisformulations of philosophy.

And modern man would indeed build aworthy and engaging philosophy ofhimself and his universe were it not forthe breakdown of his all-important andindispensable metaphysical connectionbetween the worlds of matter and spirit,the failure of metaphysics to bridge themorontia gulf between the physical andthe spiritual. Mortal man lacks theconcept of morontia mind and material;and revelation is the only technique foratoning for this deficiency in theconceptual data which man so urgentlyneeds

The hope is that, by this means, we may beable to reach some general conclusions as tothe nature of the Universe, and as to ourposition and prospects in it” (B 37).

in order to construct a logical philosophyof the universe and to arrive at asatisfying understanding of his sure andsettled place in that universe.

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103:6.13 Revelation is evolutionaryman’s only hope of bridging the morontiagulf. Faith and reason, unaided by mota,cannot conceive and construct a logicaluniverse. Without the insight of mota,mortal man cannot discern goodness,love, and truth in the phenomena of thematerial world.

[T]he determining factor in the formationof philosophical systems has again andagain been the initial presence or absenceof religious faith in the philosopher’sheart. The matter is important enough toexcuse our looking into it in some detail,and we may set out from a very clearstatement by the Professor of Logic andMetaphysics in Edinburgh University[Norman Kemp Smith]:

103:6.14 When the philosophy of manleans heavily toward the world of matter,

“Though philosophical systems varyindefinitely, they are reducible, broadlyconsidered, to three main types. They areeither idealistic, naturalistic, or sceptical. it becomes rationalistic or naturalistic.

When philosophy inclines particularlytoward the spiritual level, it becomesidealistic or even mystical. Whenphilosophy is so unfortunate as to leanupon metaphysics, it unfailingly becomesskeptical, confused.

Under one or other of these three rubrics everyphilosophy can be brought; and at everyperiod in which free discussion has beenpossible, we find the sum total of knowledgeand experience being interpreted from thesedivergent points of view. The three types are,it would seem, perennial in the fluctuations ofhuman thought” (B 39).

In past ages, most of man’s knowledgeand intellectual evaluations have falleninto one of these three distortions ofperception.

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Philosophy dare not project itsinterpretations of reality in the linearfashion of logic; it must never fail toreckon with the elliptic symmetry ofreality and with the essential curvature ofall relation concepts.

103:6.15 The highest attainablephilosophy of mortal man must belogically based on the reason of science,the faith of religion, and the truth insightafforded by revelation. By this union mancan compensate somewhat for his failureto develop an adequate metaphysics andfor his inability to comprehend the motaof the morontia.

7. SCIENCE AND RELIGION

103:7.1 Science is sustained by reason,religion by faith. Faith, though notpredicated on reason, is reasonable;though independent of logic, it isnonetheless encouraged by sound logic.

We are accordingly safe in concludingthat religious faith cannot be sub-stantiated by appeal to any idealisticphilosophy,

Faith cannot be nourished even by anideal philosophy;

because it is itself the ultimate source ofall such philosophies; just as it cannot bediscredited by appeal to any naturalisticphilosophy, because no philosophy couldbe naturalistic which had not begun bydiscrediting it (B 41).

indeed, it is, with science, the very sourceof such a philosophy.

Faith, human religious insight, can besurely instructed only by revelation, canbe surely elevated only by personalmortal experience with the spiritualAdjuster presence of the God who isspirit.

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103:7.2 True salvation is the techniqueof the divine evolution of the mortal mindfrom matter identification through therealms of morontia liaison to the highuniverse status of spiritual correlation.And as material intuitive instinctprecedes the appearance of reasonedknowledge in terrestrial evolution, sodoes the manifestation of spiritualintuitive insight presage the later appear-ance of morontia and spirit reason andexperience in the supernal program ofcelestial evolution, the business oftransmuting the potentials of man thetemporal into the actuality and divinity ofman the eternal, a Paradise finaliter.

103:7.3 But as ascending man reachesinward and Paradiseward for the Godexperience, he will likewise be reachingoutward and spaceward for an energyunderstanding of the material cosmos.The progression of science is not limitedto the terrestrial life of man; his universeand superuniverse ascension experiencewill to no small degree be the study ofenergy transmutation and material meta-morphosis. God is spirit, but Deity isunity, and the unity of Deity not onlyembraces the spiritual values of theUniversal Father and the Eternal Son butis also cognizant of the energy facts ofthe Universal Controller and the Isle ofParadise, while these two phases ofuniversal reality are perfectly correlatedin the mind relationships of the ConjointActor and unified on the finite level inthe emerging Deity of the SupremeBeing.

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103:7.4 The union of the scientificattitude and the religious insight by themediation of experiential philosophy ispart of man’s long Paradise-ascensionexperience. The approximations of math-ematics and the certainties of insight willalways require the harmonizing functionof mind logic on all levels of experienceshort of the maximum attainment of theSupreme.

II. THE RELATION OF THEOLOGY TO THEOTHER SPECIAL SCIENCES, ESPECIALLY TONATURAL SCIENCE (Baillie 31)

When an apparent conflict arises betweenthe findings of [theology and naturalscience], it is the duty of each to go backto its own set of facts and work over themafresh and, if necessary, again and again,in the hope that one or the other may inthe end discover some error in itsreasonings and the conflict be thusresolved.

103:7.5 But logic can never succeed inharmonizing the findings of science andthe insights of religion

It is quite wrong in principle for thenatural scientist who is also a religiousman to incorporate into his science resultswhich he has arrived at by religiousinsight or theological formulation alone...; and it is as wrong in principle for thetheologian who has also some interest innatural science to incorporate into histheology, without further ado, resultsobtained from natural-scientific sources,and to assume these to be theologicallysatisfactory even though religious insightseems to point in an opposite direction (B34-35).

unless both the scientific and thereligious aspects of a personality

are truth dominated, sincerely desirous offollowing the truth wherever it may leadregardless of the conclusions which itmay reach.

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III. THE RELATION OF THEOLOGY TOGENERAL OR METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY(Baillie 35)

(C) We now come to a third and verydifferent way in which the task of generalor metaphysical philosophy is sometimesconceived.... Dr. Broad gives it thedistinguishing name of ‘critical philo-sophy’... The task of critical philosophyhe takes to be “the analysis and definitionof our fundamental concepts, and theclear statement and resolute criticism ofour fundamental beliefs,” ...

Is then ‘critical philosophy’ butanother name for logic? Some wouldanswer this question in the affirmative;and Mr. Bertrand Russell has told us thatlogic, understood as the attempt toformulate the most general characteristicsof reality, is the essence of all philosophy(B 41-43).

103:7.6 Logic is the technique ofphilosophy, its method of expression.2

Within the domain of true science, reasonis always amenable to genuine logic;within the domain of true religion, faith isalways logical from the basis of an innerviewpoint, even though such faith mayappear to be quite unfounded from theinlooking viewpoint of the scientificapproach. From outward, looking within,the universe may appear to be material;from within, looking out, the sameuniverse appears to be wholly spiritual.Reason grows out of material awareness,faith out of spiritual awareness, butthrough the mediation of a philosophystrengthened by revelation, logic mayconfirm both the inward and the outwardview, thereby effecting the stabilizationof both science and religion. Thus,through common contact with the logic ofphilosophy, may both science andreligion become increasingly tolerant ofeach other, less and less skeptical.

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It is true that certain sciences have oftennot been critical enough of their ownpowers or sufficiently aware of their ownjust limits; for science, like other productsof human nature, may suffer from themalady that is vulgarly termed “swelledhead.” But all sciences ought to subjectthemselves to the most searching anddeep-going criticism; and if there be anypart of themselves of which they shouldbe more critical than of the rest, that partis surely their general standpoint, theirinitial assumptions, their fundamentalprinciples—for it is on these thateverything else turns (B 45).

103:7.7 What both developing scienceand religion need is more searching andfearless self-criticism,

a greater awareness of incompleteness inevolutionary status. The teachers of bothscience and religion are often altogethertoo self-confident and dogmatic.


IV. THE NATURE OF THEOLOGICALCRITICISM (Baillie 18)

The first point to note is that thetheologian’s criticism of the facts beforehim must never be conducted ab extra,but always from within.... His criticism of[the religious consciousness] consistssimply in allowing it to criticise itself (B18).

Science and religion can only beself-critical of their facts.

The moment departure is made from thestage of facts, reason abdicates or elserapidly degenerates into a consort of falselogic.

[Compare B 18-19.] 103:7.8 The truth—an understanding ofcosmic relationships, universe facts, andspiritual values—can best be had throughthe ministry of the Spirit of Truth and canbest be criticized by revelation.

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But revelation originates neither ascience nor a religion; its function is toco-ordinate both science and religionwith the truth of reality. Always, in theabsence of revelation or in the failure toaccept or grasp it, has mortal manresorted to his futile gesture ofmetaphysics, that being the only humansubstitute for the revelation of truth or forthe mota of morontia personality.

103:7.9 The science of the materialworld enables man to control, and tosome extent dominate, his physicalenvironment. The religion of the spiritualexperience is the source of the fraternityimpulse which enables men to livetogether in the complexities of thecivilization of a scientific age. Meta-physics, but more certainly revelation,affords a common meeting ground for thediscoveries of both science and religionand makes possible the human attemptlogically to correlate these separate butinterdependent domains of thought into awell-balanced philosophy of scientificstability and religious certainty.



It is indeed true, as was pointed out atlength in our first chapter, that the moralscientist’s business is simply to under-stand the moral point of view, and not toprovide himself with any assurance orproof of its validity; 103:7.10 In the mortal state, nothing

can be absolutely proved;

and it is also true that the moral scientist(if he be to any degree a fit member ofsociety) begins by assuming its validity.

both science and religion are predicatedon assumptions.

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But he assumes it not because he does notconceive it to be his particular business toprove it but rather because he does notfeel that it is the sort of thing that needsor is capable of, proof; and because, as anintelligent being, he finds himself unableto doubt it (B 47).

On the morontia level, the postulates ofboth science and religion are capable ofpartial proof by mota logic. On thespiritual level of maximum status, theneed for finite proof gradually vanishesbefore the actual experience of and withreality; but even then there is muchbeyond the finite that remains unproved.

Aristotle, as we have seen, teaches thatevery science sets out from certain beliefswhich it assumes to be true and does notattempt to prove (B 47).

103:7.11 All divisions of humanthought are predicated on certainassumptions which are accepted, thoughunproved,

That is to say, we need no science toassure us of the truth of first principles,for their truth is evident to every man oninspection, and (as he says) we becomeaware of them not by demonstrativescience but by Nous—as we might say, bythe direct intuition of our intelligentnatures (B 47).

by the constitutive reality sensitivity ofthe mind endowment of man.

[[Dr. C.D. Broad] holds also that the mostfundamental concepts which are peculiar to theregion of physical science, like motion, space,matter, are not properly to be discussed by physicalscience itself, but only by critical philosophy (B43).]

Science starts out on its vaunted career ofreasoning by assuming the reality of threethings: matter, motion, and life.

Religion starts out with the assumption ofthe validity of three things: mind, spirit,and the universe—the Supreme Being.

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103:7.12 Science becomes the thoughtdomain of mathematics, of the energy andmaterial of time in space. Religionassumes to deal not only with finite andtemporal spirit but also with the spirit ofeternity and supremacy. Only through along experience in mota can these twoextremes of universe perception be madeto yield analogous interpretations oforigins, functions, relations, realities, anddestinies. The maximum harmonizationof the energy-spirit divergence is in theencircuitment of the Seven MasterSpirits; the first unification thereof, in theDeity of the Supreme; the finality unitythereof, in the infinity of the First Sourceand Center, the I AM.

103:7.13 Reason is the act of recog-nizing the conclusions of consciousnesswith regard to the experience in and withthe physical world of energy and matter.

It is in a real sense true (as we saw at theend of Chapter 1) that theology, consid-ered as a science, has no special means ofits own whereby it can demonstrate thefundamental validity of the religiousconsciousness and the fundamental truthof religious belief. In the end all it can dois to take over into itself the assurancewhich already and natively belongs tofaith (B 48). Faith is the act of recognizing the validity

of spiritual consciousness—somethingwhich is incapable of other mortal proof.

Logic is the synthetic truth-seekingprogression of the unity of faith andreason and is founded on the constitutivemind endowments of mortal beings, theinnate recognition of things, meanings,and values.

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103:7.14 There is a real proof ofspiritual reality in the presence of theThought Adjuster, but the validity of thispresence is not demonstrable to theexternal world, only to the one who thusexperiences the indwelling of God. Theconsciousness of the Adjuster is based onthe intellectual reception of truth, thesupermind perception of goodness, andthe personality motivation to love.

103:7.15 Science discovers the materialworld, religion evaluates it, andphilosophy endeavors to interpret itsmeanings while co-ordinating thescientific material viewpoint with thereligious spiritual concept. But history isa realm in which science and religionmay never fully agree.

8 . P H I L O S O P H Y A N DRELIGION

I: THE RIGHT TO BE CERTAIN (Lewis17)

That there may be a God can be shown byreasons that would be called goodrespecting any other fact: we therefore getour “probability.”

103:8.1 Although both science andphilosophy may assume the probability ofGod by their reason and logic,

That there is a God is the testimony ofreligious experience, only the personal religious experience of

a spirit-led man can affirm the certaintyof such a supreme and personal Deity.

the experience being held to require acorrelative in reality just as much as anyother type of normal experience: wetherefore get our “certainty.”

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The philosophical hypothesis becomesthe religious reality when the conditionsfor the transformation are met (L 25).

By the technique of such an incarnationof living truth the philosophic hypothesisof the probability of God becomes areligious reality.

103:8.2 The confusion about theexperience of the certainty of God arisesout of the dissimilar interpretations andrelations of that experience by separateindividuals and by different races of men.

Statements made about God are not to beput on the same level as the indubitablecertainty of the fact of God as yielded bythe process of religious experience. The experiencing of God may be wholly

valid, but the discourse about God, beingintellectual and philosophical, is diver-gent and oftentimes confusingly falla-cious.

A man may be certain that he loves hiswife and just as certain that she loveshim,

103:8.3 A good and noble man may beconsummately in love with his wife

and yet be quite unable to pass anexamination in “the physiology of love,”

but utterly unable to pass a satisfactorywritten examination on the psychology ofmarital love.

while another man Another man,

may pass the examination and still knownothing whatever of what it means to loveor be loved (L 25-26).

having little or no love for his spouse,might pass such an examination mostacceptably.

The blindness of the lover to the im-perfections of his beloved

The imperfection of the lover’s insightinto the true nature of the beloved

does not invalidate his love (L 26). does not in the least invalidate either thereality or sincerity of his love.

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Men of religious faith, therefore, 103:8.4 If you truly believe in God—byfaith know him and love him—

need to be wary of taking too seriouslythe attacks on the reality of God made bythose who admittedly have not that faith.

do not permit the reality of such anexperience to be in any way lessened ordetracted from by the doubting insin-uations of science, the caviling of logic,the postulates of philosophy,

It is true that many earnest-mindedthinkers to-day are endeavoring to keepsome semblance of faith—“faith invalue”—and some semblance ofreligion—“the religion of humanity”—while yet utterly repudiating the fact ofGod in any adequate sense (L 26).

or the clever suggestions of well-meaningsouls who would create a religion withoutGod.

Instead of our being disturbed in ourcertainty by his uncertainty

103:8.5 The certainty of the God-knowing religionist should not bedisturbed by the uncertainty of thedoubting materialist;

we ought to see to it that he is disturbedin his uncertainty by our certainty (L 27).

rather should the uncertainty of theunbeliever be mightily challenged by theprofound faith and unshakable certaintyof the experiential believer.

IV: PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY(Knudson 146)

METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY INTEL-LECTUALLY GROUNDED (Knudson 161)

103:8.6 Philosophy, to be of thegreatest service to both science andreligion, should avoid the extremes ofboth

Materialism denies both the reality andworth of spirit and thus negates religion.Faith can form no alliance with it....Pantheism also in its more radical anddistinctive form is destructive of faith, forit denies freedom and reduces spirit to thelevel of things (K 161).

materialism and pantheism.

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[C]ausality implies change and it alsoimplies permanence. There must be someabiding being that produces the change;otherwise the change would not beaccounted for. And this union ofpermanence and change inherent incausality is found, as we have seen, onlyin personality. A personalistic philosophy Only a philosophy which recognizes the

reality of personality—permanence in thepresence of change—

thus solves the problem of metaphysicalcausality and at the same time furnishes afoundation for the Christian belief in thedivine creatorship and providence (K169-70).

can be of moral value to man, can serveas a liaison between the theories ofmaterial science and spiritual religion.

Revelation is a compensation for thefrailties of evolving philosophy.

9 . THE ESS EN C E OFRELIGION

I: RELIGION AND THEOLOGY(Knudson 19)

[PREAMBLE] (Knudson 19)

[contd] Theology may be defined asthe systematic exposition and rationaljustification of the intellectual content ofreligion (K 19).

103:9.1 Theology deals with theintellectual content of religion,

metaphysics (revelation)3 with thephilosophic aspects. Religious experienceis the spiritual content of religion.

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ILLUSIONISM (Knudson 20)

The first [type of illusionism] finds thesource of religion in some unworthy orpathological or misguided element inhuman nature. This may be called“psychological illusionism.” Notwithstanding the mythologic vagaries

and the psychologic illusions

of the intellectual content of religion,

the metaphysical assumptions of errorand the techniques of self-deception,

The second derives religion from theunjust structure of human society and theevils that result from it. To this type ofillusionism the term “sociological” maybe applied (K 21).

the political distortions and the socio-economic perversions

of the philosophic content of religion,

the spiritual experience of personalreligion remains genuine and valid.

Of [the] less extreme illusionistictheories perhaps the most interesting isthat represented by Emile Durkheim. It ishis contention that religion is an essentialand permanent aspect of humanity....

But this is true of religion only in itsessence, and its essence is wholly prac-tical in nature. It helps us to act, to live,but not to think.

103:9.2 Religion has to do with feeling,acting, and living, not merely withthinking.

Thinking is the business of science (K32).

Thinking is more closely related to thematerial life and should be in the main,but not altogether, dominated by reasonand the facts of science

and, in its nonmaterial reaches toward thespirit realms, by truth.

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All religions are true [according toDurkheim] in the sense that they serve anindispensable practical purpose. Theyhave, however, in their purity no intel-lectual content, no cognitive function.... Asharp distinction must thus be drawnbetween religion and theology. The latteris illusion and may be sloughed offwithout loss,

No matter how illusory and erroneousone’s theology,

but the former is a necessary and per-manent factor of human society (K 32-33).

one’s religion may be wholly genuine andeverlastingly true.

THE NATURE OF RELIGION (Knudson 45)

Buddhism is ... not infrequently cited asevidence that the feeling of trustfuldependence is no essential ingredient ofreligious experience. But this appeal toBuddhism is of doubtful validity. For onething, it is a question whether original orHinayana Buddhism was a religion in thestrict sense of the term....

103:9.3 Buddhism in its original formis one of the best religions without a Godwhich has arisen throughout all theevolutionary history of Urantia,

And the fact that in the process ofbecoming a popular faith it wastransformed into a polytheistic system isa strong indication that in its earlier formit was at least defective as a religion (K49).

although, as this faith developed, it didnot remain godless.

ILLUSIONISM (Knudson 20)

Religion without “faith” is a contradictionin terms (K 38).

Religion without faith is a contradiction;

without God, a philosophic inconsistencyand an intellectual absurdity.

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MAGIC AND MYTHOLOGY (Knudson 38)

103:9.4 The magical and mythologicalparentage of natural religion does notinvalidate the reality and truth of the laterrevelational religions and the consum-mate saving gospel of the religion ofJesus. Jesus’ life and teachings finallydivested religion of the superstitions ofmagic, the illusions of mythology, andthe bondage of traditional dogmatism.

Magic and mythology may preparethe ground for religion.

But this early magic and mythology veryeffectively prepared the way for later andsuperior religion

By assuming the reality of a superworld,personal or impersonal, they may makereligious faith easier. But they arethemselves not religion (K 42).

by assuming the existence and reality ofsupermaterial values and beings.

THE NATURE OF RELIGION (Knudson 45)

[contd] One significant point withreference to the nature of religion hasthus far been established. It is thatreligion is not purely subjective;

103:9.5 Although religious experienceis a purely spiritual subjective pheno-menon,

it involves a personal attitude toward anobjective realm of values.

such an experience embraces a positiveand living faith attitude toward thehighest realms of universe objectivereality.

The ideal of religious philosophy is such

But this personal attitude is complex.There are in it at least three essentialelements. One is that of trustfuldependence upon a Higher Power.

a faith-trust

as would lead man unqualifiedly to

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We might, with Schleiermacher, call itthe feeling of absolute dependence (K45).

depend upon the absolute love of theinfinite Father of the universe ofuniverses.

Another essential element in religionis the longing after life or redemption....Religion is something more than the validor invalid objectification of desire.

Such a genuine religious experience fartranscends the philosophic objectificationof idealistic desire;

But desire nevertheless plays an essentialpart in it. Without the longing forsalvation or for a larger and fuller life,there would hardly be such a thing asreligion (K 46-47).

it actually takes salvation for granted

and concerns itself only with learning anddoing the will of the Father in Paradise.

The foregoing analysis has broughtout what seem to me the fundamental andindispensable elements in the religiousattitude toward the superworld. They arethe feeling of trustful dependence, thelonging after salvation and the sense ofobligation to man as well as God. Theseelements correspond roughly to

The earmarks of such a religion are:

the faith, hope, and love which Paulsingled out as the things in religion thatabide (K 48-49).

faith in a supreme Deity, hope of eternalsurvival, and love, especially of one’sfellows.

MYSTICAL AND PROPHETIC TYPES OFPIETY (Knudson 54)

There has always been a danger thattheology might become the master ofreligion rather than its servant. Andwhenever this has occurred, religion haslost its pristine power,

103:9.6 When theology mastersreligion, religion dies;

it has become a doctrine instead of a life.This is the error or evil in scholasticism(K 63).

it becomes a doctrine instead of a life.

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Indeed, [religion] has in its simplest forman implicit intellectual content. And thefunction of theology is to clarify, system-atize, and logically justify this content.The content itself is ultimate and, in asense, self-justifying, but imperfectlyself-conscious and self-directive. Whattheology has to do is to bring it to self-consciousness, to guide it and to sup-plement it with rational grounds of belief(K 64).

The mission of theology is merely tofacilitate the self-consciousness ofpersonal spiritual experience.

Theology constitutes the religious effortto define, clarify, expound, and justifythe experiential claims of religion,

which, in the last analysis, can bevalidated only by living faith.

II: THE CHRISTIAN FAITH ANDTHEOLOGY (Knudson 65)

FAITH AND REASON (Knudson 67)

In the higher philosophy of the universe,

Some have held that faith and reason aremutually antithetical.... Others have main-tained that there is a kinship betweenthem, but have interpreted this kinship indifferent ways, either subordinating oneto the other or holding that they in somesense imply or supplement each other (K67).

wisdom, like reason, becomes allied tofaith.

The chief source [for the view that faithand reason are antithetical] is thereligious feeling or conviction that [faith]is divinely imparted to us, while [reasonor knowledge] is a human endowment orattainment (K 68).

Reason, wisdom, and faith are man’shighest human attainments.

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Reason introduces man to the world offacts, to things; wisdom introduces him toa world of truth, to relationships; faithinitiates him into a world of divinity,spiritual experience.

Human knowledge [in the Augustinianview] has its limits. But these limits arenot arbitrarily fixed by the nature eitherof faith or reason. Faith is not a barrier,but a challenge to reason. It invitesrational investigation, reflection, just-ification. It does not spurn reason, butseeks co-operation with it (K 73).

103:9.7 Faith most willingly carriesreason along as far as reason can go andthen goes on with wisdom to the fullphilosophic limit;

and then it dares to launch out upon thelimitless and never-ending universejourney in the sole company of TRUTH.

The older religious thought took littleaccount of the presuppositions ofknowledge.... But since the enunciation ofthe Kantian doctrine of the primacy of thepractical reason increasing stress has beenplaced upon the volitional and vitalfactors that condition our commonknowledge or supposed knowledge....Take, for instance, our natural sciences.They assume that the world is intelligibleand that we are able to understand it.Neither of these assumptions can bedemonstrated. They rest upon aninstinctive faith in reason and in thevalidity of our cognitive ideal (K 81).

103:9.8 Science (knowledge) isfounded on the inherent (adjutant spirit)assumption that reason is valid, that theuniverse can be comprehended.

Philosophy (co-ordinate comprehension)is founded on the inherent (spirit ofwisdom) assumption that wisdom isvalid, that the material universe can beco-ordinated with the spiritual.

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Religion (the truth of personal spiritualexperience) is founded on the inherent(Thought Adjuster) assumption that faithis valid, that God can be known andattained.

103:9.9 The full realization of thereality of mortal life consists in aprogressive willingness to believe theseassumptions of reason, wisdom, and faith.Such a life is one motivated by truth anddominated by love; and these are

The faith that underlies scientificknowledge is not, it is true, religiousfaith. But from the epistemological pointof view the two kinds of faith are inprinciple alike, since both consist inassuming the objective reality of idealswhose existence cannot be demonstrated(K 82).

the ideals of objective cosmic realitywhose existence cannot be materiallydemonstrated.

We are then left with the teleologicalconception of reason as the only oneconsistent with the Christian faith.... Foronly a free intelligence can distinguishbetween truth and error and thus makeknowledge possible (K 83-84).

103:9.10 When reason once recognizesright and wrong, it exhibits wisdom;

when wisdom chooses between right andwrong, truth and error, it demonstratesspirit leading.

Reason, so conceived, stands in itsown right, but it is nevertheless an ally offaith, and faith in its turn is an ally ofreason. The two belong together (K 84). And thus are the functions of mind, soul,

and spirit ever closely united andfunctionally interassociated.

Reason deals with factual knowledge;wisdom, with philosophy and revelation;faith, with living spiritual experience.

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FAITH AND MYSTICISM (Knudson 85)

We need a religion for the whole life; andthis means that Truth and Beauty as wellas Goodness must be regarded as avenuesof approach to the Eternal, and it alsomeans that the mystic sense will beassociated with every revelation of theideal (K 92).

Through truth man attains beauty and byspiritual love ascends to goodness.

103:9.11 Faith leads to knowing God,not merely to a mystical feeling of thedivine presence. Faith must not beovermuch influenced by its emotionalconsequences. True religion is anexperience of believing and knowing aswell as a satisfaction of feeling.

103:9.12 There is a reality in religiousexperience that is proportional to thespiritual content, and such a reality istranscendent to reason, science,philosophy, wisdom, and all other humanachievements. The convictions of such anexperience are unassailable; the logic ofreligious living is incontrovertible; thecertainty of such knowledge is super-human; the satisfactions are superblydivine, the courage indomitable, thedevotions unquestioning, the loyaltiessupreme, and the destinies final—eternal,ultimate, and universal.

103:9.13 [Presented by a Melchizedekof Nebadon.]

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1. Contrast Early man did not differentiate between the energy level and the spirit level. It was the violet raceand their Andite successors who first attempted to divorce the mathematical from the volitional. Increasingly hascivilized man followed in the footsteps of the earliest Greeks and Sumerians who distinguished between theinanimate and the animate (103:6.10).

with: The distinction between natural and supernatural phenomena, Westermarck says, is quite clearly made byprimitive people.... Further, the primitive distinguishes between mechanical causation and volitional activity. Evenamong supernatural phenomena he makes this distinction, those mechanically caused being treated as magical butnot made objects of worship. It is only those supernatural phenomena that impress him as being voluntary that thesavage treats with religious respect and makes his objects of worship. And in order that this should happen thesedistinctions need not be conceptualized in abstract terms. The emotional response of man to the unfamiliar is evencompared to the shying of a horse; and it is pointed out that even a child responds differently to the animate and tothe inanimate (G 69-70).

2. Contrast: Philosophy dare not project its interpretations of reality in the linear fashion of logic ... (103:6.14).

3. Compare Theology deals with the intellectual content of religion, metaphysics (revelation) with thephilosophic aspects (103:9.1).

with: The current prejudice against theology, insofar as it has a rational basis, is due to the modern revolt againstauthoritarianism and metaphysics.... But metaphysics has to do with ultimate reality; it has to do with what “God”stands for in religion. Theology, therefore, could not renounce it without ceasing to be theology. One might, it istrue, expound the biblical doctrine of God without relating it to one’s total world-view and without seeking to groundit philosophically. But this would be a superficial mode of procedure (K 15).

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