paper 101 - the real nature of religion source study · principles (new york: charles scribner’s...

WORK-IN-PROGRESS (JANUARY 22, 2020) PARALLEL CHART FOR

Paper 101 — The Real Nature of Religion

© 2011, 2014, 2015, 2020 Matthew Block

This chart is a revision of the July 27, 2011, July 26, 2014 and May 16, 2015 versions.Most endnotes and Urantia Book cross-references have been deleted to enhance readability.

Sources for Paper 101, in the order in which they first appear

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

(2) Henry Nelson Wieman and Regina Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology of Religion(New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1935)

(3) “Empiricism,” by Arthur Kenyon Rogers, in Contemporary American Philosophy:Personal Statements, Vol. II, edited by George P. Adams and Wm. Pepperell Montague(New York: Russell & Russell, 1930)

(4) “Brief History of My Opinions,” by George Santayana, in Contemporary AmericanPhilosophy: Personal Statements, Vol. II, edited by George P. Adams and Wm. PepperellMontague (New York: Russell & Russell, 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 not occurring on the same row, or parallelisms separated byyellowed parallelisms.

(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.)

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

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SOURCE OR PARALLEL URANTIA PAPER 101

Work-in-progress Version 27 juli 2011© 2011, 2014, 2015, 2020 Matthew BlockRevised 26 July 2014, 15 May 2015, 22 Jan.2020

PAPER 101 — THEREAL NATURE OFRELIGION

101:0.1 Religion, as a human exper-ience, ranges from the primitive fearslavery of the evolving savage up to thesublime and magnificent faith liberty ofthose civilized mortals who are superblyconscious of sonship with the eternalGod.

101:0.2 Religion is the ancestor of theadvanced ethics and morals of progress-ive social evolution. But religion, as such,is not merely a moral movement, albeitthe outward and social manifestations ofreligion are mightily influenced by theethical and moral momentum of humansociety. Always is religion the inspirationof man’s evolving nature, but it is not thesecret of that evolution.

II, I: THE PHENOMENON OF FAITH(Baillie 151)

I. THE PHENOMENON BROUGHT INTOCLEAR FOCUS (Baillie 151)

[Quoting 19th century preacher FrederickW. Robertson:] “There are few more gloriousmoments of our Humanity than those in whichFaith does battle against intellectual proof:when, for example, after reading a scepticalbook, or hearing a cold-blooded materialist’sdemonstration, in which God, the soul, andlife to come, are proved impossible—up risesthe heart in all the giant might of itsimmortality to do battle with the under-standing, and with the simple argument, ‘I feelthem in my best and highest moments to betrue,’ annihilates the sophistries of logic” (B156).

101:0.3 Religion, the conviction-faithof the personality, can always triumphover the superficially contradictory logic

of despair born in the unbelievingmaterial mind.

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[Quoting William James:] “My personalposition is simple. I have no living sense ofcommerce with a God.... Now, although I amso devoid of Gottesbewusstsein in the directerand stronger sense, yet there is something inme which makes response when I hearutterances made from that lead by others. Irecognise the deeper voice. Something tellsme, ‘thither lies truth’—and I am sure it is notold theistic habits and prejudices of infancy...”(B 157-58).

There really is a true and genuine innervoice,

[“That was the true Light, which lightethevery man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9).]

that “true light which lights every manwho comes into the world.”

And this spirit leading is distinct from theethical prompting of human conscience.

Into what mental factors, we must ask,can faith be resolved or—if it turn out notto be a complex phenomenon—with whatsingle mental factor is it to be assim-ilated? Is it really ‘sense’ in the narrowerand exact meaning of the word? Or is it‘feeling’?

The feeling of religious assurance is morethan an emotional feeling.

Or is it after all our ‘reason’ that is hereasserting itself? (B 159)

The assurance of religion transcends thereason of the mind,

even the logic of philosophy.

II, III: THE ROMANTICIST THEORYOF RELIGION (Baillie 202)

VI. THE VIEW THAT RELIGIOUS FAITH ISPOSTERIOR TO ‘RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE’(Baillie 230)

We can have no religious experienceprior to and independently of religiousfaith, nor yet can we have any faith priorto and independently of the practicalexperience of religion—because religionis faith, and there is no religiousexperience of which faith is not aconstitutive part (B 231).

Religion is faith, trust, and assurance.

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1. TRUE RELIGION

[Compare B 256.] 101:1.1 True religion is not a system ofphilosophic belief which can be reasonedout and substantiated by natural proofs,neither is it a fantastic and mysticexperience of indescribable feelings ofecstasy which can be enjoyed only by theromantic devotees of mysticism. Religionis not the product of reason, but viewedfrom within, it is altogether reasonable.Religion is not derived from the logic ofhuman philosophy, but as a mortal exper-ience it is altogether logical. Religion isthe experiencing of divinity in the con-sciousness of a moral being of evolu-tionary origin; it represents true exper-ience with eternal realities in time, therealization of spiritual satisfactions whileyet in the flesh.

V. PERCEPTUALIST VIEWS OF THE NATUREOF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE (Baillie 219)

101:1.2 The Thought Adjuster has nospecial mechanism through which to gainself-expression;

[The best mystics] have indeed made itabundantly clear that there is here noquestion of a special sense or a specialfaculty of perception, or of any otheractivity of the soul

there is no mystic religious faculty for thereception or expression of religiousemotions.

These experiences are made availablethrough

than its own intelligence. the naturally ordained mechanism ofmortal mind.

And therein lies one explanation of theAdjuster’s difficulty in engaging in directcommunication with the material mind ofits constant indwelling.

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The central contention for whichmysticism stands is certainly that of thedirect and intimate nature of God’spresence to our souls, but it has also beenof the very essence of its case that it isnot to our senses that He is thus present

101:1.3 The divine spirit makes contactwith mortal man, not by feelings oremotions,

but to our thoughts. but in the realm of the highest and mostspiritualized thinking.

That in our thoughts we can get closer toGod than we can get to the things of senseby seeing and touching and tastingthem—on that assurance all Platonismand neo-Platonism rests.

It is your thoughts, not your feelings, thatlead you Godward.

It is all summed up in Plato’s own sayingthat God is indeed visible, but visible tothe mind alone; and in the equivalentteaching of the later Platonism that Godcan be seen indeed, but only “with theeyes of the mind” (B 226-27).

The divine nature may be perceived onlywith the eyes of the mind.

[The more genuine varieties of mys-ticism] have taken pains to make it clearthat God is not always visible even to theeyes of the mind, but only to the eyes ofthe pure mind—to the eyes, as we mightput it, of the good conscience.

But the mind that really discerns God,hears the indwelling Adjuster, is the puremind.

Dean Inge indeed includes it as one of thefour fundamental articles of all truemystical creeds that “Without holiness noman may see the Lord” (B 228).

“Without holiness no man may see theLord.”

This state of the case has been veryfrankly recognised by a number of recentwriters who have nevertheless continuedto use the language of sense-perceptionfor the delineation of religious insight (B229).

All such inner and spiritual communion istermed spiritual insight.

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VI. THE VIEW THAT RELIGIOUS FAITH ISPOSTERIOR TO ‘RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE’(Baillie 230)

Such religious experiences result from theimpress made upon the mind of man bythe combined operations of the Adjusterand the Spirit of Truth as they functionamid and upon

No being, it is granted, could be religiouswho could not think; and so far as weknow or can guess, no being who canthink is wholly without the germs of areligious consciousness. Therefore, see-ing that thought consists in nothing elsethan the manipulation of ideas, it cannotbe true as Schleiermacher imagined andas this school of romantics seems tofollow him in believing, that “ideas are allforeign to religion.”

the ideas,

ideals, insights, and spirit strivings of theevolving sons of God.

Perhaps, indeed, the main principle to begrasped in this whole matter is thatreligion lives 101:1.4 Religion lives and prospers,

then,

not by sight but by insight. not by sight and feeling, but rather byfaith and insight.

A man is religious not in so far as hestumbles on certain new facts

It consists not in the discovery of newfacts

or in the finding of a unique experience,

but in so far as he discovers a newmeaning in facts already known to us all(B 231-32).

but rather in the discovery of new andspiritual meanings in facts already wellknown to mankind.

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Hence neither is it true to say with the“Theology of Experience” that religiousbelief is consequent upon religiousexperience, nor is it true to say withrationalism that religious experience isconsequent on a prior act of belief;

The highest religious experience is notdependent on prior acts of belief,

tradition, and authority; neither is religionthe offspring of sublime feelings andpurely mystical emotions.

the truth being rather that the deepest ofall religious experiences

It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actualexperience

of spiritual communion with the spiritinfluences resident within the humanmind,

and as far as such an experience isdefinable in terms of psychology, it is

is just the experience of believing (B232).

simply the experience of experiencing thereality of believing

in God as the reality of such a purelypersonal experience.

II, IV: THEOLOGICAL INTUITIONISMAND THE “RELIGIOUS A PRIORI”(Baillie 235)

I. INTUITIONISM IN THEOLOGY (Baillie 235)

[contd] Our consideration of theopposing tendencies and claims ofrationalism and romanticism now seemsto point to at least one positiveconclusion, namely, that religious faith,though in no sense to be identified withthe speculations of scientific cosmology,

101:1.5 While religion is not theproduct of the rationalistic speculationsof a material cosmology,

is none the less to be regarded as aproduct of rational insight of another kind(B 235).

it is, nonetheless, the creation of a whollyrational insight

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which originates in man’s mind-experience.

IV. THE VIEWS OF PROFESSOR OTTO (Baillie246)

Religion is born neither of mysticmeditations nor of isolated contem-plations,

It is held that by means of our religiousconsciousness we are aware of an aspectof reality which is at once “mysterious,”“terrible,” and “fascinating”—a myster-ium which is at the same time tremendumand fascinans.... The correspondingemotion which it calls forth in the humanbreast is ... awe.

albeit it is ever more or less mysterious

And Professor Otto accordingly claimsthat the emotion of awe is a thing quite byitself, indefinable, irreducible psych-ologically to any simpler elements, andhistorically quite underivable and“unevolvable” (B 247-48).

and always indefinable

and inexplicable in terms of purelyintellectual reason and philosophic logic.

The germs of true religion originate in thedomain of man’s moral consciousness,and they are revealed in the growth ofman’s spiritual insight, that faculty ofhuman personality which accrues as aconsequence of the presence of theGod-revealing Thought Adjuster in theGod-hungry mortal mind.

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II, V: RELIGION AS GROUNDED INOUR CONSCIOUSNESS OF VALUE;AN HISTORICAL SURVEY (Baillie256)

I. FAITH AS ROOTED IN MORAL INSIGHT(Baillie 256)

We thus seem to be left with the solealternative of believing that the kind ofintelligent or rational insight in whichreligion takes its rise is none other thanmoral insight, and that faith in God isthus in some sort an outgrowth of ourconsciousness of value (B 257).

101:1.6 Faith unites moral insight withconscientious discriminations of values,

[See 101:5.7, below.] and the pre-existent evolutionary sense ofduty completes the ancestry of truereligion.

II. KANT’S THEORY OF RELIGION (Baillie259)

What is the nature of the transition frommoral principle to religious faith? Kant’sfavourite way of stating the matter is tosay that our moral nature demands thereality of the objects of religion. Theexistence of God

The experience of religion eventuallyresults in the certain consciousness ofGod

and of a future life (the two leadingarticles of Kant’s eighteenth-centurycreed) thus appear as ethical postulates.To deny them, says Kant, would lead toan “absurdum morale”; and that, to anyman who realises the sound basis thatmorals have in reason, is no whit lessserious than an “absurdum logicum”would be (B 264).

and in the undoubted assurance of thesurvival of the believing personality.

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The fact is indeed that it is not we, asindividuals, who want God and a futurelife; it is our reason, our moral reason,that wants these things.... It is thereforenot so much that we want to believe inGod

101:1.7 Thus it may be seen thatreligious longings and spiritual urges arenot of such a nature as would merely leadmen to want to believe in God,

as that we feel that we ought to believe inHim

but rather are they of such nature andpower that men are profoundly impressedwith the conviction that they ought tobelieve in God.

The sense of evolutionary duty and theobligations consequent upon the illum-ination of revelation make such aprofound impression upon man’s moralnature that he finally reaches that positionof mind and that attitude of soul where heconcludes that he

and have no right not to believe in Him— has no right not to believe in God.

The higher and superphilosophic wisdomof such enlightened and disciplinedindividuals ultimately instructs them that

because in doing so we should be provingfalse to the deepest thing within us (B264).

to doubt God or distrust his goodnesswould be to prove untrue to the realestand deepest thing within the human mindand soul—

the divine Adjuster.

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2. THE FACT OF RELIGION

I, IV: A CRITIQUE OF THESPECULATIVE M ET HOD INTHEOLOGY (Baillie 68)

I. HISTORY OF RATIONALISM (Baillie 68)

101:2.1 The fact of religion consistswholly in the religious experience ofrational and average human beings. Andthis is the only sense in which religioncan ever be regarded as scientific or evenpsychological.

The proof that revelation is revelation isthis same fact of human experience: thefact that revelation does

Thus arose the mediæval doctrine ofthe two ways of knowledge—reason andrevelation, science and faith. Accordingto this doctrine, as finally formulated bySt. Thomas Aquinas, it is possible toreach the simpler articles of the Christiancreed by either one of two entirelydifferent methods—by the pursuit ofscientific and philosophic inquiry on theone hand, and by consulting the sacredtradition on the other.... This position iswhat has been called the MediævalSynthesis, and it is without question themost widely influential synthesis of therespective claims of science and religionwhich the history of thought has so farwitnessed.

synthesize the apparently divergentsciences of nature and the theology ofreligion

into a consistent and logical universephilosophy, a co-ordinated and unbrokenexplanation of both science and religion,thus creating

We might describe it as the perfectlyharmonious marriage of Greekrationalism with Hebrew-Christiantraditionalism (B 71-72).

a harmony of mind and satisfaction ofspirit

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which answers in human experience thosequestionings of the mortal mind whichcraves to know how the Infinite works outhis will and plans in matter, with minds,and on spirit.

101:2.2 Reason is the method ofscience; faith is the method of religion;logic is the attempted technique ofphilosophy. Revelation compensates forthe absence of the morontia viewpoint byproviding a technique for achieving unityin the comprehension of the reality andrelationships of matter and spirit by themediation of mind. And true revelationnever renders science unnatural, religionunreasonable, or philosophy illogical.

101:2.3 Reason, through the study ofscience, may lead back through nature toa First Cause, but it requires religiousfaith to transform the First Cause ofscience into a God of salvation; andrevelation is further required for thevalidation of such a faith, such spiritualinsight.

101:2.4 There are two basic reasons forbelieving in a God who fosters humansurvival:

101:2.5 1. Human experience, personalassurance, the somehow registered hopeand trust initiated by the indwellingThought Adjuster.

101:2.6 2. The revelation of truth,whether by direct personal ministry of theSpirit of Truth, the world bestowal ofdivine Sons, or through the revelations ofthe written word.

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II. HISTORY AND CHARACTERISATION OFTHE SPECULATIVE APOLOGETIC FORRELIGION (Baillie 76)

101:2.7 Science ends its reason-searchin

(b) The other, or first, half of Plato’sproof was finally degraded into whatcame to be called the CosmologicalArgument—the argument from theessential contiguity of nature to a FirstCause thereof.... What Plato was at sogreat pains to establish was no such baldabstraction but the quite definitelyspiritualistic—or, as it has more com-monly, but less accurately, been called,idealistic—hypothesis that the first causeof all things must be of the nature, not ofmatter, but of mind (B 78).

the hypothesis of a First Cause.

Religion does not stop in its flight of faithuntil it is sure of a God of salvation. Thediscriminating study of science logicallysuggests the reality and existence of anAbsolute. Religion believes unreservedlyin the existence and reality of a God whofosters personality survival.

What metaphysics fails utterly in doing,and what even philosophy fails partiallyin doing, revelation does; that is, affirmsthat this First Cause of science andreligion’s God of salvation are one andthe same Deity.

101:2.8 Reason is the proof of science,faith the proof of religion, logic the proofof philosophy, but revelation is validatedonly by human experience. Science yieldsknowledge; religion yields happiness;philosophy yields unity; revelation con-firms the experiential harmony of thistriune approach to universal reality.

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III. THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGNCONSIDERED (Baillie 80)

[Compare B 80-81.] 101:2.9 The contemplation of naturecan only reveal a God of nature, a God ofmotion. Nature exhibits only matter,motion, and animation—life. Matter plusenergy, under certain conditions, ismanifested in living forms, but whilenatural life is thus relatively continuousas a phenomenon, it is wholly transient asto individualities. Nature does not affordground for logical belief in human-personality survival.

Certainly every religious man finds Godpresent in nature; but that is only becausehe has already found Him present in hisown soul.

The religious man who finds God innature has already and first found thissame personal God in his own soul.

This is a point which we find again andagain being made by that earliest of allcritics of ‘natural theology’—BlaisePascal (B 86).

101:2.10 Faith reveals God in the soul.Revelation, the substitute for morontiainsight on an evolutionary world, enablesman to see the same God in nature thatfaith exhibits in his soul. Thus doesrevelation successfully bridge the gulfbetween the material and the spiritual,even between the creature and theCreator, between man and God.

To sum up, then, we are bound toconclude that the impartial scientificcontemplation of the world of nature as itstands, while indeed seeming to point inthe direction of living and even intelligentguidance of some sort,

101:2.11 The contemplation of naturedoes logically point in the direction ofintelligent guidance, even living super-vision,

does not seem able of itself to suggestanything that could properly (as being ofuse to religion) be called belief in God;

but it does not in any satisfactory mannerreveal a personal God.

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while on the other hand On the other hand,

it does nothing to make nature seemincapable of being looked upon as God’sworld, if there should be any independentground for believing that it is.

nature discloses nothing which wouldpreclude the universe from being lookedupon as the handiwork of the God ofreligion.

“We cannot,” concludes one of the best ofrecent scientific authorities, “reach anyreligious truth or conviction alongscientific lines,

God cannot be found through naturealone,

but . . . but man having otherwise found him,

a careful scientific description of Animatenature is not inconsistent with a spiritual. . . interpretation” (B 87).

the study of nature becomes whollyconsistent with a higher and morespiritual interpretation of the universe.

101:2.12 Revelation as an epochalphenomenon is periodic; as a personalhuman experience it is continuous.Divinity functions in mortal personalityas the Adjuster gift of the Father, as theSpirit of Truth of the Son, and as the HolySpirit of the Universe Spirit, while thesethree supermortal endowments are unifiedin human experiential evolution as theministry of the Supreme.

V. GENERAL OBJECTIONS TO THESPECULATIVE METHOD (Baillie 93)

(b) The second objection which wehave to raise against the speculativemethod is ... this: that it seems torepresent religion not as a kind of insightinto reality—a characteristic way ofgrasping it—

101:2.13 True religion is an insight intoreality,

the faith-child of the moral conscious-ness,

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but as a body of propositions or doc-trines.... Mere blind assent to truthslearned by rote, or accepted on authority,may be good enough in some of the morepurely factual branches of knowledge, butit is rather a hindrance than a help in therealm of the fundamental faith by whichthe soul of man lives (B 98-99).

and not a mere intellectual assent to anybody of dogmatic doctrines.

True religion exists only so far as “theSpirit itself beareth witness with our spiritthat we are the children of God” (B 99).

True religion consists in the experiencethat “the Spirit itself bears witness withour spirit that we are the children ofGod.”

It is not a special group of propositionsbut a special kind of insight and of trust(B 99).

Religion consists not in theologic propo-sitions but in spiritual insight and thesublimity of the soul’s trust.

101:2.14 Your deepest nature—thedivine Adjuster—creates within you ahunger and thirst for righteousness, acertain craving for divine perfection.Religion is the faith act of the recognitionof this inner urge to divine attainment;

The first step in faith, its truequintessence, is something much morelike a trust that the whole scheme ofthings will not play us false, that ourdeepest natures are not irretrievably outof tune with the deepest nature of Thatwhich holds us in its power,

and thus is brought about that soul trustand assurance

and that there is therefore an availableway of salvation from the apparent vanityand uncertainty of life (B 101).

of which you become conscious as theway of salvation,

the technique of the survival ofpersonality

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What religion is interested in is not merecontinuance as such, but rather theassurance that those values which wehave most learned to prize, and haveattained by so much labour and pain, willnot be lost but will really count forsomething in the end (B 103).

and all those values which you have cometo look upon as being true and good.

No view of religion can possibly becorrect which makes it depend on learnedand scientific inquiry;

101:2.15 The realization of religionnever has been, and never will be,dependent on great learning or cleverlogic.

It is spiritual insight,

for history shows that those members ofour race who are accounted as havingpossessed the surest insight into religioustruth

and that is just the reason why some ofthe world’s greatest religious teachers,even the prophets,

could boast of little learning and of noscience at all.

have sometimes possessed so little of thewisdom of the world.

“The basis of our faith,” says Herrmann,in words which might be taken as the firstaxiom of any true theology, “must begrasped in the same independent fashionby learned and unlearned, by each forhimself” (B 105).

Religious faith is available alike to thelearned and the unlearned.

I, V: “THE PSYCHOLOGY OFRELIGION” AND THE HISTORICAL“SCIENCE OF RELIGION” IN THEIRRELATION TO THE THEOLOGICALINQUIRY (Baillie 107)

IV. A CRITIQUE OF “THE PSYCHOLOGY OFRELIGION” (Baillie 132)

If we now ask why James has failedin his endeavour, there is only one answerthat can be given. He fails because he hasattempted the impossible. [contd next pg.]

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He has tried to understand religion fromthe outside. He has tried to find somestandard by which it can be judged otherthan that by which it judges itself. 101:2.16 Religion must ever be its own

critic and judge;

He has tried to make the truth of itdemonstrable to the mere observer, to thethird-person onlooker. And none of thesethings, we are convinced, can possibly bedone.

it can never be observed, much lessunderstood, from the outside.

Your only assurance of a personal Godconsists in your own insight as to yourbelief in, and experience with, thingsspiritual.

Moreover the attempt to argue from thefact of men’s assurance of God to the factof God’s existence must always appear asa logical absurdity; for to those who aresure of Him this argument is unnecessaryand indeed tautological,

To all of your fellows who have had asimilar experience, no argument about thepersonality or reality of God is necessary,

while to those who are not sure of Him itcan never be convincing (B 138).

while to all other men who are not thussure of God no possible argument couldever be truly convincing.

[Contrast B 139-45.] 101:2.17 Psychology may indeedattempt to study the phenomena of reli-gious reactions to the social environment,but never can it hope to penetrate to thereal and inner motives and workings ofreligion. Only theology, the province offaith and the technique of revelation, canafford any sort of intelligent account ofthe nature and content of religiousexperience.

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3. THE CHARACTERISTICSOF RELIGION

101:3.1 Religion is so vital that itpersists in the absence of learning. It livesin spite of its contamination witherroneous cosmologies and falsephilosophies; it survives even theconfusion of metaphysics. In and throughall the historic vicissitudes of religionthere ever persists that which isindispensable to human progress andsurvival: the ethical conscience and themoral consciousness.

[Compare B 73.] 101:3.2 Faith-insight, or spiritualintuition, is the endowment of the cosmicmind in association with the ThoughtAdjuster, which is the Father’s gift toman. Spiritual reason, soul intelligence, isthe endowment of the Holy Spirit, theCreative Spirit’s gift to man. Spiritualphilosophy, the wisdom of spirit realities,is the endowment of the Spirit of Truth,the combined gift of the bestowal Sons tothe children of men. And the co-ordination and interassociation of thesespirit endowments constitute man a spiritpersonality in potential destiny.

101:3.3 It is this same spirit personality,in primitive and embryonic form, theAdjuster possession of which survives thenatural death in the flesh. This compositeentity of spirit origin in association withhuman experience is enabled, by meansof the living way provided by the divineSons, to survive (in Adjuster custody) thedissolution of the material self of mindand matter when such a transientpartnership of the material and thespiritual is divorced by the cessation ofvital motion.

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II, I: THE PHENOMENON OF FAITH(Baillie 151)

I. THE PHENOMENON BROUGHT INTOCLEAR FOCUS (Baillie 151)

For there are some situations in humanexperience in which what we callreligious faith stands out in particularlybold relief,

101:3.4 Through religious faith the soulof man reveals itself and demonstrates thepotential divinity of its emerging natureby the characteristic manner in which itinduces the mortal personality to react tocertain trying intellectual and testingsocial situations.

because in them it stands in contrast andopposition to the other mental elementsthat go to make up the situation; and not,as at other and happier times, in harmonyand agreement with them (B 152).

Genuine spiritual faith (true moralconsciousness) is revealed in that it:

101:3.5 1. Causes ethics and morals toprogress despite inherent and adverseanimalistic tendencies.

[See endnote: Baillie presents the case of a man“haunted by crippling misfortune” who exhibits reactions similar to nos. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of this list.]

101:3.6 2. Produces a sublime trust inthe goodness of God even in the face ofbitter disappointment and crushingdefeat.1

101:3.7 3. Generates profound courageand confidence despite natural adversityand physical calamity.

101:3.8 4. Exhibits inexplicable poiseand sustaining tranquillity not-withstanding baffling diseases and evenacute physical suffering.

101:3.9 5. Maintains a mysterious poiseand composure of personality in the faceof maltreatment and the rankest injustice.

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101:3.10 6. Maintains a divine trust inultimate victory in spite of the cruelties ofseemingly blind fate and the apparentutter indifference of natural forces tohuman welfare.

[See endnote: Baillie presents the case of a youngman who “is carried away by” the arguments ofnatural scientists; he exhibits reactions similar tonos. 7 and 8 on this list.]

101:3.11 7. Persists in the unswervingbelief in God despite all contrarydemonstrations of logic and successfullywithstands all other intellectualsophistries.2

101:3.12 8. Continues to exhibitundaunted faith in the soul’s survivalregardless of the deceptive teachings offalse science and the persuasive delusionsof unsound philosophy.

101:3.13 9. Lives and triumphsirrespective of the crushing overload ofthe complex and partial civilizations ofmodern times.

101:3.14 10. Contributes to thecontinued survival of altruism in spite ofhuman selfishness, social antagonisms,industrial greeds, and politicalmaladjustments.

101:3.15 11. Steadfastly adheres to asublime belief in universe unity anddivine guidance regardless of theperplexing presence of evil and sin.

101:3.16 12. Goes right on worshipingGod in spite of anything and everything.Dares to declare,

[Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: butI will maintain mine own ways before him (Job13:15).]

“Even though he slay me, yet will I servehim.”

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101:3.17 We know, then, by threephenomena, that man has a divine spiritor spirits dwelling within him: first, bypersonal experience—religious faith;second, by revelation—personal andracial; and third, by the amazingexhibition of such extraordinary andunnatural reactions to his materialenvironment as are illustrated by theforegoing recital of twelve spiritlikeperformances in the presence of the actualand trying situations of real humanexistence. And there are still others.

101:3.18 And it is just such a vital andvigorous performance of faith in thedomain of religion that entitles mortalman to affirm the personal possession andspiritual reality of that crowningendowment of human nature, religiousexperience.

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4. THE LIMITATIONS OFREVELATION

II, IX: THE CRITERION OFRELIGIOUS TRUTH AND THENATURE OF RELIGIOUS PROGRESS(Baillie 400)

I. THE CRITERION OF TRUTH AND FALSITYIN RELIGION (Baillie 400)

101:4.1 Because your world isgenerally ignorant of origins, even ofphysical origins, it has appeared to bewise from time to time to provideinstruction in cosmology. And always hasthis made trouble for the future. The lawsof revelation hamper us greatly by theirproscription of the impartation ofunearned or premature knowledge.Accordingly, future students of such arevelation are tempted to discard anyelement of genuine religious truth it maycontain

The trouble with those types of Christianthought which our present advisors wouldso severely condemn was precisely thatthey had been too diligent in welding intoa single system the abiding convictions ofChristian faith and the most up-to-datescientific cosmology of their own day.That which is ‘up-to-the-moment’ onlylasts a moment. The more assiduity weshow in forging links of steel between thefaith of Christ and even such scientificresults as for the time being look mostsecure, the more deeply disturbing will itbe for us when these latter come (as theysurely will one day come) to be called inquestion, and the more are we courting arepetition of the fate of those thinkerswhom we set out by condemning (B 404-05).

because they discover errors on the faceof the associated cosmologies thereinpresented.

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101:4.2 Mankind should understandthat we who participate in the revelationof truth are very rigorously limited by theinstructions of our superiors. We are notat liberty to anticipate the scientificdiscoveries of a thousand years.3

Revelators must act in accordance withthe instructions which form a part of therevelation mandate. We see no way ofovercoming this difficulty, either now orat any future time. We full well knowthat, while the historic facts and religioustruths of this series of revelatorypresentations will stand on the records ofthe ages to come, within a few short yearsmany of our statements regarding thephysical sciences will stand in need ofrevision in consequence of additionalscientific developments and new dis-coveries. These new developments weeven now foresee, but we are forbidden toinclude such humanly undiscovered factsin the revelatory records. Let it be madeclear that revelations are not necessarilyinspired. The cosmology of theserevelations is not inspired. It is limited byour permission for the co-ordination andsorting of present-day knowledge. Whiledivine or spiritual insight is a gift, humanwisdom must evolve.

101:4.3 Truth is always a revelation:autorevelation when it emerges as a resultof the work of the indwelling Adjuster;epochal revelation when it is presented bythe function of some other celestialagency, group, or personality.

Religion is to be judged according tothe extent to which it displays its ownproper excellence and, in the last resort,by nothing else (B 406).

101:4.4 In the last analysis, religion isto be judged by its fruits, according to themanner and the extent to which it exhibitsits own inherent and divine excellence.

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101:4.5 Truth may be but relativelyinspired, even though revelation isinvariably a spiritual phenomenon. Whilestatements with reference to cosmologyare never inspired, such revelations are ofimmense value in that they at leasttransiently clarify knowledge by:

101:4.6 1. The reduction of confusionby the authoritative elimination of error.

101:4.7 2. The co-ordination of knownor about-to-be-known facts and obser-vations.

101:4.8 3. The restoration of importantbits of lost knowledge concerning epochaltransactions in the distant past.

101:4.9 4. The supplying of informationwhich will fill in vital missing gaps inotherwise earned knowledge.

101:4.10 5. Presenting cosmic data insuch a manner as to illuminate thespiritual teachings contained in theaccompanying revelation.

5. RELIGION EXPANDED BYREVELATION

101:5.1 Revelation is a techniquewhereby ages upon ages of time are savedin the necessary work of sorting andsifting the errors of evolution from thetruths of spirit acquirement.

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[Religion, [Lotze] tells us, has to do with ourconsciousness of value, and is a faith in the realityof the objects to which that consciousnessintroduces us. All religious affirmations are thusessentially judgments of value (Werturteile) (B285).]

101:5.2 Science deals with facts;religion is concerned only with values.Through enlightened philosophy the mindendeavors to unite the meanings of bothfacts and values, thereby arriving at aconcept of complete reality. Rememberthat science is the domain of knowledge,philosophy the realm of wisdom, andreligion the sphere of the faith exper-ience. But religion, nonetheless, presentstwo phases of manifestation:

101:5.3 1. Evolutionary religion. Theexperience of primitive worship, thereligion which is a mind derivative.

101:5.4 2. Revealed religion. Theuniverse attitude which is a spiritderivative; the assurance of, and belief in,the conservation of eternal realities, thesurvival of personality, and the eventualattainment of the cosmic Deity, whosepurpose has made all this possible. It is apart of the plan of the universe that,sooner or later, evolutionary religion isdestined to receive the spiritual expansionof revelation.

[See 103:7.12.] 101:5.5 Both science and religion startout with the assumption of certaingenerally accepted bases for logicaldeductions. So, also, must philosophystart its career upon the assumption of thereality of three things:

101:5.6 1. The material body.

101:5.7 2. The supermaterial phase ofthe human being, the soul or even theindwelling spirit.

101:5.8 3. The human mind, themechanism for intercommunication andinterassociation between spirit andmatter, between the material and thespiritual.

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101:5.9 Scientists assemble facts,philosophers co-ordinate ideas, whileprophets exalt ideals. Feeling andemotion are invariable concomitants ofreligion, but they are not religion. Reli-gion may be the feeling of experience, butit is hardly the experience of feeling.Neither logic (rationalization) noremotion (feeling) is essentially a part ofreligious experience, although both mayvariously be associated with the exerciseof faith in the furtherance of spiritualinsight into reality, all according to thestatus and temperamental tendency of theindividual mind.

101:5.10 Evolutionary religion is theoutworking of the endowment of the localuniverse mind adjutant charged with thecreation and fostering of the worship traitin evolving man. Such primitive religionsare directly concerned with ethics andmorals, the sense of human duty. Suchreligions are predicated on the assuranceof conscience and result in thestabilization of relatively ethicalcivilizations.

101:5.11 Personally revealed religionsare sponsored by the bestowal spiritsrepresenting the three persons of theParadise Trinity and are especiallyconcerned with the expansion of truth.Evolutionary religion drives home to theindividual the idea of personal duty;revealed religion lays increasingemphasis on loving, the golden rule.

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101:5.12 Evolved religion rests whollyon faith. Revelation has the additionalassurance of its expanded presentation ofthe truths of divinity and reality and thestill more valuable testimony of the actualexperience which accumulates inconsequence of the practical workingunion of the faith of evolution and thetruth of revelation. Such a working unionof human faith and divine truthconstitutes the possession of a characterwell on the road to the actual acquirementof a morontial personality.

101:5.13 Evolutionary religion providesonly the assurance of faith and theconfirmation of conscience; revelatoryreligion provides the assurance of faithplus the truth of a living experience in therealities of revelation. The third step inreligion, or the third phase of theexperience of religion, has to do with themorontia state, the firmer grasp of mota.Increasingly in the morontia progressionthe truths of revealed religion areexpanded; more and more you will knowthe truth of supreme values, divinegoodnesses, universal relationships,eternal realities, and ultimate destinies.

101:5.14 Increasingly throughout themorontia progression the assurance oftruth replaces the assurance of faith.When you are finally mustered into theactual spirit world, then will theassurances of pure spirit insight operatein the place of faith and truth or, rather, inconjunction with, and superimposedupon, these former techniques ofpersonality assurance.

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6. PROGRESSIVE RELIGIOUSEXPERIENCE

101:6.1 The morontia phase of revealedreligion has to do with the experience ofsurvival, and its great urge is theattainment of spirit perfection. There alsois present the higher urge of worship,associated with an impelling call toincreased ethical service. Morontiainsight entails an ever-expandingconsciousness of the Sevenfold, theSupreme, and even the Ultimate.

101:6.2 Throughout all religiousexperience, from its earliest inception onthe material level up to the time of theattainment of full spirit status, theAdjuster is the secret of the personalrealization of the reality of the existenceof the Supreme; and this same Adjusteralso holds the secrets of your faith in thetranscendental attainment of the Ultimate.The experiential personality of evolvingman, united to the Adjuster essence of theexistential God, constitutes the potentialcompletion of supreme existence and isinherently the basis for the superfiniteeventuation of transcendental personality.

101:6.3 Moral will embraces decisionsbased on reasoned knowledge, augmentedby wisdom, and sanctioned by religiousfaith. Such choices are acts of moralnature and evidence the existence ofmoral personality, the forerunner ofmorontia personality and eventually oftrue spirit status.

101:6.4 The evolutionary type ofknowledge is but the accumulation of

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[Memory, then, would seem to be acharacteristic property of highly organizedprotoplasm, and represents the ability to store up,register, and classify the effects and reactions ofprevious stimuli (William S. Sadler, M.D., TheTruth About Heredity [1927], p. 109).]

protoplasmic memory4 material;

this is the most primitive form of creatureconsciousness.

Wisdom embraces the ideas formulatedfrom protoplasmic memory in process ofassociation and recombination, and suchphenomena differentiate human mindfrom mere animal mind. Animals haveknowledge, but only man possesseswisdom capacity. Truth is madeaccessible to the wisdom-endowedindividual by the bestowal on such a mindof the spirits of the Father and the Sons,the Thought Adjuster and the Spirit ofTruth.

101:6.5 Christ Michael, when bestowedon Urantia, lived under the reign ofevolutionary religion up to the time of hisbaptism. From that moment up to andincluding the event of his crucifixion hecarried forward his work by the combinedguidance of evolutionary and revealedreligion. From the morning of hisresurrection until his ascension hetraversed the manifold phases of themorontia life of mortal transition from theworld of matter to that of spirit. After hisascension Michael became master of theexperience of Supremacy, the realizationof the Supreme; and being the one personin Nebadon possessed of unlimitedcapacity to experience the reality of theSupreme, he forthwith attained to thestatus of the sovereignty of supremacy inand to his local universe.

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101:6.6 With man, the eventual fusionand resultant oneness with the indwellingAdjuster—the personality synthesis ofman and the essence of God—constitutehim, in potential, a living part of theSupreme and insure for such a onetimemortal being the eternal birthright of theendless pursuit of finality of universeservice for and with the Supreme.

101:6.7 Revelation teaches mortal manthat, to start such a magnificent andintriguing adventure through space bymeans of the progression of time, heshould begin by the organization ofknowledge into idea-decisions;

next, mandate wisdom to laborunremittingly at its noble task of

[The powers of imagination take our ideas andfashion them into our ideals. This is the higher orcreative imagination (William S. Sadler, M.D., ThePhysiology of Faith and Fear [1912], p. 42).]

transforming self-possessed ideas intoincreasingly practical but nonethelesssupernal ideals,

even those concepts which are soreasonable as ideas and so logical asideals that the Adjuster dares so tocombine and spiritize them as to renderthem available for such association in thefinite mind as will constitute them theactual human complement thus madeready for the action of the Truth Spirit ofthe Sons, the time-space manifestations ofParadise truth—universal truth.

The co-ordination of idea-decisions,logical ideals, and divine truth constitutesthe possession of a righteous character,the prerequisite for mortal admission tothe ever-expanding and increasinglyspiritual realities of the morontia worlds.

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101:6.8 The teachings of Jesusconstituted the first Urantian religionwhich so fully embraced a harmoniousco-ordination of knowledge, wisdom,faith, truth, and love as completely andsimultaneously to provide temporaltranquillity, intellectual certainty, moralenlightenment, philosophic stability,ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness,and the positive assurance of personalsurvival. The faith of Jesus pointed theway to finality of human salvation, to theultimate of mortal universe attainment,since it provided for:

101:6.9 1. Salvation from materialfetters in the personal realization ofsonship with God,

[God is a Spirit: and they that worship himmust worship him in spirit and in truth (John4:24).]

who is spirit.

101:6.10 2. Salvation from intellectualbondage:

[And ye shall know the truth, and the truthshall make you free (John 8:32).]

man shall know the truth, and the truthshall set him free.

101:6.11 3. Salvation from spiritualblindness, the human realization of thefraternity of mortal beings and themorontian awareness of the brotherhoodof all universe creatures; theservice-discovery of spiritual reality andthe ministry- revelation of the goodnessof spirit values.

101:6 .12 4. Salvation fromincompleteness of self through theattainment of the spirit levels of theuniverse and through the eventualrealization of the harmony of Havona andthe perfection of Paradise.

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[The religion of Jesus is salvation from self,

deliverance from the evils of creature isolation

in time and in eternity (5:4.5).]

101:6.13 5. Salvation from self,deliverance from the limitations ofself-consciousness through the attainmentof the cosmic levels of the Supreme mindand by co-ordination with the attainmentsof all other self-conscious beings.

101:6.14 6. Salvation from time, theachievement of an eternal life ofunending progression in God-recognitionand God-service.

101:6.15 7. Salvation from the finite,the perfected oneness with Deity in andthrough the Supreme by which thecreature attempts the transcendentaldiscovery of the Ultimate on thepostfinaliter levels of the absonite.

101:6.16 Such a sevenfold salvation isthe equivalent of the completeness andperfection of the realization of theultimate experience of the UniversalFather. And all this, in potential, iscontained within the reality of the faith ofthe human experience of religion. And itcan be so contained since the faith ofJesus was nourished by, and wasrevelatory of, even realities beyond theultimate; the faith of Jesus approachedthe status of a universe absolute in so faras such is possible of manifestation in theevolving cosmos of time and space.

101:6.17 Through the appropriation ofthe faith of Jesus, mortal man canforetaste in time the realities of eternity.Jesus made the discovery, in humanexperience, of the Final Father, and hisbrothers in the flesh of mortal life canfollow him along this same experience ofFather discovery. They can even attain, asthey are, the same satisfaction in thisexperience with the Father as did Jesus ashe was.

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New potentials were actualized in theuniverse of Nebadon consequent upon theterminal bestowal of Michael, and one ofthese was the new illumination of thepath of eternity that leads to the Father ofall, and which can be traversed even bythe mortals of material flesh and blood inthe initial life on the planets of space.

[By a new and living way, which he hathconsecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say,his flesh; (Heb. 10:20)]

Jesus was and is the new and living waywhereby man can come into the divineinheritance which the Father has decreedshall be his for but the asking.

In Jesus there is abundantly demonstratedboth the beginnings and endings of thefaith experience of humanity, even ofdivine humanity.

7. A PERSONAL PHILOSOPHYOF RELIGION

XVI: DEVELOPING A PERSONALPHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION(Westcott-Wieman 299)

THE RELATION OF A WORKINGPHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION TO RELIGIOUSLIVING (Westcott-Wieman 299)

[contd] Every idea has its own history.An idea is a plan for action which hasgrown out of previous action, either director vicarious. Each idea is a unique growthin the experience of some one individual(W-W 299).

101:7.1 An idea is only a theoreticalplan for action,

A fact is a plan of action which hasbeen validated. It can be accepted as anestablished statement of what was or is.So long as a fact is looked upon as a fact,it is an arbitrary factor in living. It isacted upon without question or criticism(W-W 299).

while a positive decision is a validatedplan of action.

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A stereotype is a plan of actionaccepted without validation, either director vicarious. Usually a stereotypedepends upon tradition for its power (W-W 299).

A stereotype is a plan of action acceptedwithout validation.

THE MATERIALS OUT OF WHICH AWORKING PHILOSOPHY IS DEVELOPED(Westcott-Wieman 302)

The materials out of which to build apersonal philosophy of religion arederived from both the inner and theenvironmental experience of theindividual.

A. Those Provided by Social Conditions(Westcott-Wieman 302)

[Compare W-W 302-03.] The social status, economic conditions,educational opportunities, moral trends,institutional influences, politicaldevelopments, racial tendencies, and thereligious teachings of one’s time andplace all become factors in theformulation of a personal philosophy ofreligion.

B. Those Provided by Human Nature(Westcott-Wieman 303)

Even the inherent temperament andintellectual bent markedly determine thepattern of religious philosophy.

[Compare W-W 303: “ ... a peculiarly happyrelationship in marriage; ... and vocational skill orplace ...”]

Vocation, marriage, and kindred allinfluence the evolution of one’s personalstandards of life.

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THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPING A WORKINGPHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION (Westcott-Wieman304)

101:7.2 A philosophy of religionevolves out of

A. The Growth of Ideas (Westcott-Wieman 304)

a basic growth of ideas

C. Experimental Living (Westcott-Wieman 308)

plus experimental living

as both are modified by the tendency toimitate associates.

The soundness of philosophic con-clusions depends on

Thus experimental living involves notonly courageous, sensitive and indus-trious exploring and devotion, but alsokeen, honest and accurate evaluation (W-W 309).

keen, honest, and discriminating thinkingin connection with sensitivity to meaningsand accuracy of evaluation.

Moral cowards never achieve high planesof philosophic thinking; it requirescourage to invade new levels of exper-ience and to attempt the exploration ofunknown realms of intellectual living.

D. The Building of a Hierarchy of Values(Westcott-Wieman 311)

101:7.3 Presently new systems ofvalues come into existence;

E. The Formulation of Principles andStandards (Westcott-Wieman 312)

new formulations of principles andstandards are achieved;

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[And, further, the findings which result mustbecome the materials for the next step in exper-imental living, the re-shaping of the habits andideals which made up the system of ideas uponwhich he planned his living (W-W 309).]

habits and ideals are reshaped;

F. Attaining the Idea of God (Westcott-Wieman 313)

some idea of a personal God is attained,

followed by enlarging concepts ofrelationship thereto.

But the greatest distinction of allbetween a general working philosophy oflife and the religious one

101:7.4 The great difference between areligious and a nonreligious philosophyof living

is in the type and quality of the crowningvalue in the hierarchy of values.

consists in the nature and level ofrecognized values

When the individual has grownsufficiently to discern that the highestconceivable objective of his dominantloyalty is a growth of meaning and valuein the universe which man can serve butcannot construct, and which is in thatsense superhuman, he has discerned God(W-W 314).

and in the object of loyalties.

PLATEAUS AND PROGRESSIONS (Westcott-Wieman 315)

[contd] There are four psychologicallevels upon which the formulation of aworking philosophy of religion may takeplace (W-W 315).

There are four phases in the evolution ofreligious philosophy:

[contd] First, the process may haltwhen the system of habits and ideals,over-strongly charged with socialinfluence, is fairly well established. Thereis no experimental living to speak of. Theoutcome is a conformative, or orthodox,working philosophy of religion. It iscomposed of stereotypes (W-W 315).

Such an experience may become merely conformative,

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In any case, [the individual’s] faith isstrong, but blind, it is formulated by someauthority (W-W 316).

resigned to submission to tradition andauthority.

Second, the process may halt as soonas experimental living has developed atotal plan of life that seems to work fairlywell in his particular situation.... Hewants to find a philosophy which makeshis world seem reasonably all right andorderly and meaningful.

Or it may be satisfied with slightattainments, just enough to stabilize thedaily living,

So his philosophy develops as theoutcome of such experiences as hehappens to have, and with only suchcriticism and evaluation as the exigenciesof his living demand. It is an adventitiousphilosophy (W-W 316).

and therefore becomes early arrested onsuch an adventitious level.

Such mortals believe in letting wellenough alone.

Third, the individual may continuewith the experimental living, keepingvery alert and appreciative, andconstantly evaluating. He may discovermany high values, perhaps some beyondthe ken of most of his fellow men. Hemay not be able to explain the workingsof all the values which he finds, but hefeels that this is only a temporary humanlimitation. For he believes that there isnothing beyond his cultural perspective.

A third group progress to the level oflogical intellectuality

His philosophy is culture-bound (W-W316-17).

but there stagnate in consequence ofcultural slavery.

It is indeed pitiful to behold giantintellects held so securely within the cruelgrasp of cultural bondage. It is equallypathetic to observe those who trade theircultural bondage for the materialisticfetters of

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[O Timothy, keep that which is committed tothy trust, avoid profane and vain babblings, andoppositions of science falsely so called: (1 Tim.6:20)]

a science, falsely so called.

The fourth area wherein a workingphilosophy of religion may be developedhas already been suggested. It is aReality-centered rather than culture-centered.... [The individual, here,] is nottradition-bound as is he with the con-formative philosophy. He is not ego-bound as is he with the adventitiousphilosophy. He is not culture-bound as ishe who builds on the third plateau. He hasa mystical quality in his living andoutreaching. He holds himself ready forthe greater which may emerge (W-W 317-18).

The fourth level of philosophy attainsfreedom from all conventional andtraditional handicaps

and dares to think, act, and live honestly,loyally, fearlessly, and truthfully.

101:7.5 The acid test for any religiousphilosophy consists in whether or not itdistinguishes between the realities of thematerial and the spiritual worlds while atthe same moment recognizing theirunification in intellectual striving and insocial serving.

A sound religious philosophy does notconfound

[And Jesus answering said unto them, Renderto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to Godthe things that are God’s (Mk. 12:17).]

the things of God with the things ofCaesar.

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“Empiricism,” by Arthur Kenyon Rogers(in Contemporary American Philosophy,Vol. II 221)

Personally I get no kick out of sheermystery and unintelligibility. Theaesthetic cult of pure wonder as asubstitute for religion is not for me;unless I could retain a modicum of faiththat something in the nature of humanmeaning lies behind the veil of theunknown, I should feel I was makingmyself ridiculous by bowing down beforemere weight and mass of being (R 231).

Neither does it recognize the aestheticcult of pure wonder as a substitute forreligion.

“Brief History of My Opinions,” byGeorge Santayana (in ContemporaryAmerican Philosophy, Vol. II 237)

Science expresses in human terms ourdynamic relation to surrounding reality.Philosophies and religions, where they donot misrepresent these same dynamicrelations and do not contradict science,express destiny in moral dimensions, inobviously mythical and poetical images:but how else should these moral truths beexpressed at all in a traditional or popularfashion? Religions are the great fairy-tales of the conscience (S 244).

101:7.6 Philosophy transforms thatprimitive religion which was largely afairy tale of conscience

into a living experience in the ascendingvalues of cosmic reality.

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8. FAITH AND BELIEF

VI: FAITH AND BELIEF (Wieman 108)

THE HIERARCHY OF NOBLE FAITH (Wieman110)

[contd] A belief becomes a faith 101:8.1 Belief has attained the level offaith

when it shapes the way of one’s living,when it determines what one shall livefor.

when it motivates life and shapes themode of living.

It is not a faith merely when it is acceptedas true.

The acceptance of a teaching as true isnot faith;

A proposition accepted as true is a merebelief.

that is mere belief.

The conviction or certainty is not whatmakes it faith.

Neither is certainty nor conviction faith.

It is the way it controls the living of thebeliever (W 110-11).

A state of mind attains to faith levels onlywhen it actually dominates the mode ofliving.

Faith is a living attribute of genuinepersonal religious experience.

I may have faith that there is truth. Thisfaith may assume the form of identifying truthwith certain particular propositions....

But faith in truth may assume a verydifferent form. Instead of leading me toidentify truth with a medley of [particular]propositions, the belief that exercises themastering control over me may be simply thattruth is, and that truth can be approximated ifone is inquiring and critical and does notassume that every proposition is true simplybecause it seems so (W 111).

One believes truth,

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One may have faith that there is beauty.This also may assume two different forms.One may hold the faith because he identifiesbeauty with whatever thrills him. On the otherhand, he may be very critical of his thrills andappreciations because of a greater beautywhich he knows can be reached throughcriticism and refinement of taste anddevelopment of appreciation (W 111-12).

admires beauty,

One may have faith that there is moralgoodness. This faith may assume two differentforms. It may assume the form of identifyingmoral goodness with one’s present characteror with that of his group or with the status quoof society. These are particular beliefs. On theother hand, however, one’s faith may lead oneto be very critical and sceptical of thegoodness of one’s own character and that ofthe group and the status quo because thecontrolling belief is that moral goodness canbe approximated more or less by being criticaland forever striving to search out and correctthe evils in particular persons and socialgroupings (W 111).

and reverences goodness,

but does not worship them; such anattitude of saving faith is centered on

One may have faith that God is. Hereagain the two forms appear. One may identifyGod with what he now believes, or he mayconsider his present beliefs as no more thanleads and clues to be treated with criticism,correction and reconstruction, as he followsintimations of truth, glimpses of moralgoodness, thrills that promise the fuller realityof beauty. This last way of believing in God isa general belief (W 112).

God alone,

who is all of these personified andinfinitely more.

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A noble faith does not bind because ithas a very general belief in supremecontrol over the living of the individual.

101:8.2 Belief is always limiting andbinding;

It releases. faith is expanding and releasing.

It frees one to be critical, resourceful,inquiring, experimental. It does not holdone to a fixed level or pattern (W 113). Belief fixates, faith liberates.

In contrast to such a noble faith, anignoble one may be a collection ofbeliefs, more or less on the same level ofcontrol (W 113).

But living religious faith is more than theassociation of noble beliefs;

it is more than an exalted system ofphilosophy; it is a living experienceconcerned with spiritual meanings, divineideals, and supreme values; it isGod-knowing and man-serving.

Beliefs may become group possessions,but faith must be personal. Theologicbeliefs can be suggested to a group, butfaith can rise up only in the heart of theindividual religionist.

VALUES OF TESTED AND UNTESTEDBELIEF (Wieman 125)

[contd] Beliefs untested by observationand reason shut us out from precious andsacred reality because they close us inwith assumed knowledge.

They prevent us from seeking furtherknowledge of reality.

101:8.3 Faith has falsified its trustwhen it presumes to deny realities and toconfer upon its devotees assumedknowledge.

[contd] They impair intellectualintegrity;

Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayalof intellectual integrity

they divide our loyalty so that we cannotgive ourselves wholeheartedly to whathas been found by true tests.

and belittles loyalty to supreme valuesand divine ideals.

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[contd] They prevent us fromgrappling and solving the most urgentpractical and genuine problems of life (W125).

Faith never shuns the problem-solvingduty of mortal living.

They promote bigotry, persecutionand superstition (W 125).

Living faith does not foster bigotry,persecution, or intolerance.

[contd] They imprison the imagination(W 126).

101:8.4 Faith does not shackle thecreative imagination,

neither does it maintain an unreasoningprejudice toward the discoveries ofscientific investigation.

[contd] Beliefs that are constantlytested by observation and reason keep usin contact with sacred and preciousreality by these very testings....

They make religion more vitalbecause these beliefs must be applied tothe practical concerns of life if they aretested by observation and reason (W126).

Faith vitalizes religion

and constrains the religionist heroically tolive the golden rule.

They enable us to combine tolerancewith zeal (W 126). The zeal of faith

[“For I bear them record that they have a zealof God, but not according to knowledge” (Rom.10:2).]

is according to knowledge,

FAITH AND EVIDENCE (Wieman 126)

If I believe the ship in time of storm willcome safe to harbor, yet keep onworrying, that is not faith. But if, when Iso believe, peace comes into my heart andI am calm again, that is faith (W 126).

and its strivings are the preludes tosublime peace.

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9. RELIGION AND MORALITY

II, VI: RELIGION AS GROUNDED INOUR CONSCIOUSNESS OF VALUE: ARECONSTRUCTIVE STATEMENT(Baillie 299)

I. THE ORGANIC NATURE OF THE RELATIONBETWEEN RELIGION AND MORALITY(Baillie 299)

The point to be insisted on is rather that,while all knowledge is relevant to someend of desire and action, religiousknowledge has the distinguishing mark ofalways being relevant to our ultimateends of desire and action. And that is thesame as to say that it is relevant to ourethical ends, and that no knowledge orbelief can be regarded as authenticallyreligious in character

101:9.1 No professed revelation ofreligion could be regarded as authentic

unless it possesses this ethical relevance(B 299).

if it failed to recognize the duty demandsof ethical obligation

which had been created and fostered bypreceding evolutionary religion.

Revelation unfailingly enlarges theethical horizon of evolved religion whileit simultaneously and unfailingly expandsthe moral obligations of all priorrevelations.

III. OBJECTION FROM THE SUPPOSEDLYNON-ETHICAL CHARACTER OF PRIMITIVERELIGION (Baillie 307)

101:9.2 When you presume to sit incritical judgment on the primitive religionof man (or on the religion of primitiveman), you should remember to judge suchsavages and to evaluate their religiousexperience in accordance with theirenlightenment and status of conscience.

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Of recent years, however, it hasgradually come to be recognised that theearlier modern observers of the religiouslife of primitive societies were all more orless guilty of an elementary confusion ofthought. They all more or less made themistake of comparing the savage’s faithnot with the savage’s conscience but withtheir own conscience—the conscience,that is to say, of civilised and modernEurope (B 308).

Do not make the mistake of judginganother’s religion by your own standardsof knowledge and truth.

I. THE ORGANIC NATURE OF THE RELATIONBETWEEN RELIGION AND MORALITY(Baillie 299)

[R]eligion might almost be defined as 101:9.3 True religion is

that sublime and profound convictionwithin the soul which compellinglyadmonishes man that

consisting of those beliefs about whichmen feel that it would be wicked not tobelieve them—

it would be wrong for him not to believein those morontial realities whichconstitute his highest ethical and moralconcepts, his highest interpretation oflife’s greatest values and the universe’sdeepest realities.

or, in other words, that “he that believethnot is condemned already” (B 302).

And such a religion is simply theexperience of yielding intellectual loyaltyto the highest dictates of spiritualconsciousness.

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II. OBJECTION FROM THE SUPPOSEDNARROWNESS OF THE MORAL OUTLOOK(Baillie 303)

Our claim would accordingly be thatit is only in so far as our appreciation ofbeauty is brought into the most intimaterelationship with our general conscious-ness of Good that it is likely to awakenwithin us any kind of religious insight.

101:9.4 The search for beauty is a partof religion only in so far as it is ethicaland to the extent that it enriches theconcept of the moral.

Art can only become religious by firstbecoming ethical (B 306).

Art is only religious when it becomesdiffused with purpose which has beenderived from high spiritual motivation.

101:9.5 The enlightened spiritualconsciousness of civilized man is notconcerned so much with

Morality is after all but the art of living....It does not mean one particular way ofliving or one particular view of life some specific intellectual belief or with

any one particular mode of living

but whatever way of living is right andgood and whatever view of life is true. as with discovering the truth of living, the

good and right technique of reacting tothe ever-recurring situations of mortalexistence.

Our moral consciousness is but a conven-ient name for our awareness of thosevalues

Moral consciousness is just a nameapplied to the human recognition andawareness of those ethical and emergingmorontial values

which we feel bound to make ultimate inthe guidance of conduct,

which duty demands that man shall abideby in the day-by-day control and guidanceof conduct.

and if the longer phrase is less open tomisunderstanding, then by all means let itbe the one we use (B 304-05).

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IV. RELIGION DEFINED AS A MORAL TRUSTIN REALITY (Baillie 311)

101:9.6 Though recognizing thatreligion is imperfect, there are at leasttwo practical manifestations of its natureand function:

We might say that what lies at the heartof religion is

101:9.7 1. The spiritual urge andphilosophic pressure of religion tend tocause man to

a projection of our moral values into thereal order of things;

project his estimation of moral valuesdirectly outward into the affairs of hisfellows—

the ethical reaction of religion.

and by so doing we would be doingjustice to the deep elements of truthcontained in the accounts of religiongiven by Feuerbach and Freud on the onehand and by the Comtists on the other.

Or we might speak of religion as anapprehension of reality

101:9.8 2. Religion creates for thehuman mind a spiritualized consciousnessof divine reality

through, and in terms of, our moralvalues;

based on, and by faith derived from,antecedent concepts of moral values

and co-ordinated with superimposedconcepts of spiritual values.

and in phrasing it thus, we should bebringing into clear focus the real elementof truth which we saw to lie behind therationalists’ assimilation of religion tospeculative philosophy (B 318).

Here then is our definition: Religion is Religion thereby becomes

a censor of mortal affairs,

a moral trust in reality (B 318). a form of glorified moral trust andconfidence in reality,

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the enhanced realities of time and themore enduring realities of eternity.

VII. WHAT CHARACTERS DO WEATTRIBUTE TO REALITY, WHEN WE PUTMORAL TRUST IN IT? (Baillie 325)

The central affirmation of faith mayaccordingly be expressed by saying thatthe inner core of reality must becontinuous with the moral consciousness(B 325).

101:9.9 Faith becomes the connectionbetween moral consciousness and thespiritual concept of enduring reality.

Religion becomes the avenue of man’sescape from the material limitations ofthe temporal and natural world to thesupernal realities of the eternal andspiritual world by and through thetechnique of salvation, the progressivemorontia transformation.

10. RELIGION AS MAN’SLIBERATOR

II, V: RELIGION AS GROUNDED INOUR CONSCIOUSNESS OF VALUE;AN HISTORICAL SURVEY (Baillie256)

VI. RITSCHL’S THEORY OF RELIGION (Baillie282)

[Quoting Ritschl:] “In every religion whatis sought, with the help of the superhumanspiritual power reverenced by man, is asolution of the contradiction in which manfinds himself, as both a part of the world ofnature and a spiritual personality claiming todominate nature...” (B 284).

101:10.1 Intelligent man knows that heis a child of nature, a part of the materialuniverse;

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he likewise discerns no survival ofindividual personality in the motions andtensions of the mathematical level of theenergy universe. Nor can man everdiscern spiritual reality through theexamination of physical causes andeffects.

101:10.2 A human being is also awarethat he is a part of the ideational cosmos,but though concept may endure beyond amortal life span, there is nothing inherentin concept which indicates the personalsurvival of the conceiving personality.Nor will the exhaustion of thepossibilities of logic and reason everreveal to the logician or to the reasonerthe eternal truth of the survival ofpersonality.

101:10.3 The material level of lawprovides for causality continuity, theunending response of effect to antecedentaction; the mind level suggests theperpetuation of ideational continuity, theunceasing flow of conceptual potentialityfrom pre-existent conceptions. Butneither of these levels of the universediscloses to the inquiring mortal anavenue of escape from partiality of statusand from the intolerable suspense ofbeing a transient reality in the universe, atemporal personality doomed to beextinguished upon the exhaustion of thelimited life energies.

101:10.4 It is only through themorontial avenue leading to spiritualinsight that man can ever break the fettersinherent in his mortal status in theuniverse. Energy and mind do lead backto Paradise and Deity, but neither theenergy endowment nor the mindendowment of man proceeds directlyfrom such Paradise Deity.

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Only in the spiritual sense is man a childof God. And this is true because it is onlyin the spiritual sense that man is atpresent endowed and indwelt by theParadise Father.

Mankind can never discover divinityexcept through the avenue of religiousexperience and by the exercise of truefaith. The faith acceptance of the truth ofGod enables man to escape from thecircumscribed confines of materiallimitations and affords him a rationalhope of achieving safe conduct from thematerial realm, whereon is death, to thespiritual realm, wherein is life eternal.

[Religion] arises, we are told, out of anacute practical distress and need on man’spart, and the knowledge it offers us is notdesigned to satisfy our curiosity aboutcreation and the Creator

101:10.5 The purpose of religion is notto satisfy curiosity about God

but to consolidate, secure, and enrich ourown lives (B 284-85).

but rather to afford intellectual constancyand philosophic security, to stabilize andenrich human living

by blending the mortal with the divine,the partial with the perfect, man and God.

Ritschl’s usual form of statement isthat “religious knowledge consists inindependent value-judgments,” and thisway of speaking has sometimes given riseto serious misunderstanding; for it hasbeen taken to mean that religion intro-duces us only to an ideal realm which hasno existence apart from our own thoughts.This is, of course, a misunderstanding ofthe grossest kind; for it is precisely thereality of the ideal world (or world ofvalues) that Ritschl, like Fichte and Lotzebefore him, is most anxious to insist on(B 286).

It is through religious experience thatman’s concepts of ideality are endowedwith reality.

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101:10.6 Never can there be eitherscientific or logical proofs of divinity.Reason alone can never validate thevalues and goodnesses of religiousexperience.

But it will always remain true:

[Quoting Ritschl:] “The scientific prooffor the truth of Christianity ought only to besought in the line of the thought alreadysingled out. . . : ‘Whosoever willeth to do the

will of God, will know that the doctrine ofChrist is true’ (John 7: 17)...” (B 289).

Whosoever wills to do the will of Godshall comprehend the validity of spiritualvalues.

VII. HERRMANN’S THEORY OF RELIGION(Baillie 291)

That, then, represents the nearestapproach there can be to a proof ofChristianity.

This is the nearest approach that can bemade on the mortal level to offeringproofs of the reality of religiousexperience.

Such faith affords the only escape fromthe mechanical clutch of the materialworld and from the error distortion of theincompleteness of the intellectual world;

Incommunicable in itself, Christian faithhas two “meeting-points” with universalhuman experience—the fact that itprovides the only solution to the impasseto which our common moral conscious-ness leads us, and the fact that it isevoked by the contemplation of a chapterof human history [i.e., the historic Jesus]which is accessible to us all (B 296).

it is the only discovered solution to theimpasse

in mortal thinking regarding thecontinuing survival of the individualpersonality.

It is the only passport to completion ofreality and to eternity of life in auniversal creation of love, law, unity, andprogressive Deity attainment.

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II, VI: RELIGION AS GROUNDED INOUR CONSCIOUSNESS OF VALUE: ARECONSTRUCTIVE STATEMENT(Baillie 299)

VII. WHAT CHARACTERS DO WEATTRIBUTE TO REALITY, WHEN WE PUTMORAL TRUST IN IT? (Baillie 325)

[contd from 101:9.9] I may have my ideals,and be faithful enough to them, but, as aclever writer has put it, “ideals makelonely dwelling-places.” What religiondoes is deliver me from this loneliness

101:10.7 Religion effectually curesman’s sense of idealistic isolation orspiritual loneliness;

by giving my ideals a mooring, and as itwere an enfranchisement, in the ‘schemeof things entire.’

it enfranchises the believer as a son ofGod, a citizen of a new and meaningfuluniverse.

It gives me the assurance that infollowing the gleam of righteousness andlove and honour

Religion assures man that, in followingthe gleam of righteousness discernible inhis soul,

I am entering no unsubstantial region ofmy own fancying, but am rather identi-fying myself

he is thereby identifying himself

with the inmost nature of things, andbringing my finite will into line with theInfinite Will that made and moves thestars (B 326).

with the plan of the Infinite and thepurpose of the Eternal.

I am now at home in the universe. Such a liberated soul immediately beginsto feel at home in this new universe, hisuniverse.

101:10.8 When you experience such atransformation of faith,

I am no longer a slave but a son. you are no longer a slavish part of themathematical cosmos but rather aliberated volitional son of the UniversalFather.

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I am not fighting alone, No longer is such a liberated son fightingalone

against the inexorable doom of thetermination of temporal existence; nolonger does he combat all nature,

against impossible odds, for afantastically hopeless cause,

with the odds hopelessly against him;

and with the paralysing suspicion in myheart that it cannot really matter whetherI win or lose, because in the end it canmake no difference to anything.

no longer is he staggered by theparalyzing fear that,

perchance, he has put his trust in ahopeless phantasm or pinned his faith toa fanciful error.

Nay, rather it is Reality’s own battle thatI am fighting,

101:10.9 Now, rather, are the sons ofGod enlisted together in fighting thebattle of reality’s triumph over the partialshadows of existence.

At last all creatures become conscious ofthe fact that God and all the divine hostsof a well-nigh limitless universe are ontheir side in the supernal struggle to attaineternity of life and divinity of status. Suchfaith-liberated sons have certainlyenlisted in the struggles of time on theside of the supreme forces and divinepersonalities of eternity;

and the stars in their courses are fightingwith me and the very Force that movesthe stars is on my side; for that Force (aslong ago said il mæstro di color chesanno) is nothing else than Love, the veryLove whose feeblest earthly counterpartburns in my own heart and moves myhands to fight (B 326).

even the stars in their courses are nowdoing battle for them;

at last they gaze upon the universe fromwithin,

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1. Let us think, to begin with, of a man of high character and noble ideals who nevertheless seems to be haunted bycrippling misfortune.... Sickness comes and renders impossible the achievement of his plans. Grinding povertyfollows. His loved ones die ... And he knows that very soon death will come to him too ... In spite of all his goodintentions and honest efforts, his life seems utterly wasted....

What then is the natural inference which we should expect thinking man in all ages to have drawn fromthese facts?... It is that the universal order of things, in whose hands he is as potter’s clay, is purely indifferent to allthe issues of his life, and blind as a stone to all the values which he has tried to make supreme....

And yet the plain truth is that ... [t]he overwhelming majority of those members of our race who have foundthemselves confronted with such a situation as we have described have refrained from concluding straightaway thatthey are the playthings of an indifferent fate ... Something has kept them back from this conclusion. Something elsehas come into the reckoning ... They have believed that their misfortune spelled not Heaven’s indifference butHeaven’s discipline; and that what looked like heedlessness or even cruelty was in truth nothing less than a deeperWisdom and a more discriminating Love.

And at the very heart of the surroundingsystem, behind nature, behind fate,behind brute fact, there is great care andinterest whether I succeed or fail.... Or, asa poet translates it:

“Earth cannot show so brave a sightAs when a single soul does fenceThe batteries of alluring sense,And Heaven views it with delight” (B

326).from God’s viewpoint,

and all is transformed from theuncertainties of material isolation to thesureties of eternal spiritual progression.

Even time itself becomes

Indeed there is even a sense in which wemay be said to have positive insight intothe partial and limited character of ourhuman values, and to know not only thatthey may but also that they must be butthe imperfect shadows of a reality that fartranscends them (B 327-28).

but the shadow of eternity cast byParadise realities

upon the moving panoply of space.

101:10.10 [Presented by a Melchizedekof Nebadon.]

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In this new element, this ‘something else,’ we recognise, in however rudimentary and germinal a form, thephenomenon of faith.... Perhaps we may designate our unknown disturbing factor in a very provisional way as asense of trust; for that word seems the best suited to emphasise the significant fact that we have here to do with anattitude of mind which, far from being based on the evidence of the observed facts of the case itself, seems rather tomaintain itself in spite of them (B 152-54).

2. The second case we are to consider is one in which the phenomenon of faith, though appearing in asomewhat different light, yet stands out in perhaps even clearer isolation from the other factors present....

Let us think of a young man, of serious mind and high ideals of conduct, who sets himself to the study ofnatural science ... He is a nineteenth-century student, and he reads Darwin and Huxley and Tyndall and perhapsHaeckel, and is carried away by their arguments. Until now he has believed in God.... But ever as he reads, this beinggrows more shadowy.... It now seems to him that the universe is a purely material system, quite meaningless andfortuitous from the point of view of reason and rational significance. With what appears to him the relentless logic offact he is driven to agree [with Bertrand Russell’s conclusions in A Free Man’s Worship] ... In a word, he seesnothing for it but to accept a thoroughgoing naturalistic philosophy.

And now is that all? ... No, that is never all.There is always a part of us that revolts against any such conclusion, a part of us that protests—that seems

outraged and insulted....Now it is not difficult to recognise in this sense of recoil the most rudimentary and inarticulate form of

what, in its more developed forms, is well known to us as religious faith. [Etc.] (B 154-57)

3. Moreover when we read that “Christianity, as soon as it has become transfused with the spirit and transformed bythe method of modern science, will bring about the Millennium,” we cannot but be sensible of the shortsightednessof the advice that is here given us (B 405).

4. 3. Summation of Stimuli, Memory.—Another general characteristic of protoplasm is the capacity of storingup or registering the effects of previous stimuli (Edwin Grant Conklin, Heredity and Environment in theDevelopment of Men [1922], p. 45).

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