Paper 196 The Faith of Jesus - UrantiaBookSources.com...every mortal creature is a child of this Father of love, a son of God. Jesus did not resort to faith in God as a man at bay

WORK-IN-PROGRESS (AUGUST 31, 2020) PARALLEL CHART FOR

Paper 196 — The Faith of Jesus

© 2010, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2020 Matthew Block

This chart is a revision of the 2010, 2014, 2017 and 2019 versions. Most Urantia Book cross-references have been deleted to enhance readability.

Sources for Paper 196, in the order in which they first appear

(1) Walter E. Bundy, The Religion of Jesus (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,1928)

Note: This source is coded Bundy1.

(2) Walter E. Bundy, Our Recovery of Jesus (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,1929)

Note: This source is coded Bundy2.

(3) W. R. Matthews, K.C.V.O., D.D., D.Lit., God in Christian Thought and Experience(London: Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1930)

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

(5) Rees Griffiths, M.A., B.D., Ph.D., God in Idea and Experience, or, The A PrioriElements of the Religious Consciousness (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1931)

(6) H. A. Overstreet, The Enduring Quest: A Search for a Philosophy of Life (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1931)

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.

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(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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SOURCE OR PARALLEL URANTIA PAPER 196

Work-in-progress Version 9 dec. 2010© 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2020Matthew Block Revised 31 Aug. 2020

PAPER 196 — THEFAITH OF JESUS

II: THE RELIGIOUS FAITH OF JESUS(Bundy1 62)

JESUS’ FAITH IN GOD (Bundy1 67)

196:0.1 Jesus enjoyed a sublime andwholehearted faith in God.

He experienced the ordinary ups anddowns of mortal existence,

A doubt concerning the existence ofGod seems never to have crossed Jesus’mind (B1 69).

but he never religiously doubted thecertainty of God’s watchcare andguidance.

His faith was the outgrowth of the insightborn of the activity of the divinepresence, his indwelling Adjuster.

There is nothing of abstract intellectual-ism in his thought of God (B1 70). His faith was neither traditional nor

merely intellectual;

Thus God in the experience of Jesusbecomes purely personal, and it is just forthis reason that he made his greatreligious contribution (B1 71).

it was wholly personal and purelyspiritual.

196:0.2 The human Jesus saw God asbeing holy, just, and great, as well asbeing true, beautiful, and good. All theseattributes of divinity he focused in hismind as the “will of the Father inheaven.”

In Jesus’ experience of God we meet twoparadoxical elements: on the one hand,his experience of God as Holy;

Jesus’ God was at one and the same time“The Holy One of Israel”

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on the other hand, his experience of Godas Father (B1 72). and “The living and loving Father in

heaven.”

[God, the living and loving Father, is the heart ofthe religious experience of Jesus....

... The faith in God that came to Jesus bysocial inheritance he makes his very own in that theHoly One of Israel lays hold on the deepest sourcesof his personal life and in the crucible of hisreligious experience becomes the Heavenly Father(B1 84-85).]

Jesus’ Experience of God as Father (Bundy1 78)

God the Father was not whollyoriginal with Jesus, but any casual readerof the Old Testament and the Gospels cansee that God the Father in the experienceof Jesus is something quite different fromanything that we find in the OldTestament (B1 79).

The concept of God as a Father was notoriginal with Jesus,

but he exalted and elevated the idea intoa sublime experience by achieving a newrevelation of God and by proclaiming thatevery mortal creature is a child of thisFather of love, a son of God.

Jesus did not resort to faith in God as aman at bay in the world;

196:0.3 Jesus did not cling to faith inGod as would a struggling soul at warwith the universe and at death grips witha hostile and sinful world;

he did not trudge along under the strain ofexistence as a man who makes the best ofthings.

he did not resort to faith merely as aconsolation in the midst of difficulties oras a comfort in threatened despair;

faith was not just an illusorycompensation for the unpleasant realitiesand the sorrows of living.

In spite of all the facts to the contrary, In the very face of all the natural diffi-culties and the temporal contradictions ofmortal existence,

he experienced the tranquillity ofsupreme and unquestioned trust in God

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Jesus felt the thrill of living life and felt the tremendous thrill of living, byfaith,

in the uninterrupted presence of theHeavenly Father, and he lived his life asan experiment in faith, not as acompromise with fact (B1 84).

in the very presence of the heavenlyFather.

Jesus’ faith is triumphant, an unfailingsource of personal power that carried himto the conquest of the cross (B1 84).

And this triumphant faith was a livingexperience of actual spirit attainment.

Jesus’ contribution is not in new thoughtsand new teachings about God;

Jesus’ great contribution to the values ofhuman experience was not that herevealed so many new ideas about theFather in heaven,

it comes rather in the form of his ownfresh experience of God.

but rather that he so magnificently andhumanly demonstrated a new and highertype of living faith in God.

As Bousset writes, “Never in the life ofany one man

Never on all the worlds of this universe,in the life of any one mortal,

was God such a living reality as in the lifeof Jesus” (B1 84-85).

did God ever become such a living realityas in the human experience of Jesus ofNazareth.

196:0.4 In the Master’s life on Urantia,this and all other worlds of the localcreation discover a new and higher typeof religion, religion based on personalspiritual relations with the UniversalFather

The meaning of God in personalexperience is for him the supreme sourceof religious authority. A faith in Godmust validate itself in individualexperience (B1 90-91).

and wholly validated by the supremeauthority of genuine personal experience.

Religious faith for Jesus was more thanrational reflection, more than mysticalmeditation (B1 91).

This living faith of Jesus was more thanan intellectual reflection, and it was not amystic meditation.

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In its historical forms the Christian faithbecomes fixed and formulated,systematically stated and logicallydefined. Calm confidence and implicittrust, both purely personal, are supple-mented, even supplanted, by doctrine anddogma, creed and confession. In short,faith becomes belief, and the outstandingfeature of the faith that followed Jesus isits intellectualism (B1 91).

196:0.5 Theology may fix, formulate,define, and dogmatize faith,

[Jesus’] faith in God is as unsystematicand spontaneous, as unformulated andorganic as the unquestioning attitude ofthe child toward its father (B1 92).

but in the human life of Jesus faith waspersonal, living, original, spontaneous,and purely spiritual.

Jesus’ faith in God was not somethingthat he held,

This faith was not reverence for traditionnor a mere intellectual belief which heheld as a sacred creed,

but something that held him (B1 98). but rather a sublime experience and aprofound conviction which securely heldhim.

It is the grip that his experience of Godhas on the whole of his life that gives hisfaith a flash and a flare that sweepseverything before it (B1 98).

His faith was so real and all-encompassing that it absolutely sweptaway any spiritual doubts and effectivelydestroyed every conflicting desire.

Disappointment, despair, distress,unanswered prayer could not tear himfrom his faith.

Nothing was able to tear him away fromthe spiritual anchorage of this fervent,sublime, and undaunted faith.

Even in the face of apparent defeat or inthe throes of disappointment andthreatening despair, he calmly stood inthe divine presence free from fear andfully conscious of spiritual invincibility.

He confronts his God with a faith that isabsolutely unflinching,

Jesus enjoyed the invigorating assuranceof the possession of unflinching faith,

and in each of life’s trying situations heunfailingly exhibited

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unreservedly loyal. an unquestioning loyalty to the Father’swill.

It is a faith that knows no defeat; it hasabout it a deliberate and dazzling daringthat even death can not daunt (B1 99).

And this superb faith was undaunted evenby the cruel and crushing threat of anignominious death.

The fervent faith of the religiousgenius has often led to a fanaticism thathas hindered the accomplishment of thevery thing that it points out to beaccomplished (B1 99).

196:0.6 In a religious genius, strongspiritual faith so many times leadsdirectly to disastrous fanaticism,

to exaggeration of the religious ego,

but it was not so with Jesus. He was notunfavorably affected in his practical lifeby his extraordinary faith and spiritattainment because

His faith is to be understood only as thespontaneous expression of his ownpersonal experience of God (B1 103).

this spiritual exaltation was a whollyunconscious and spontaneous soulexpression of his personal experiencewith God.

The faith of Jesus is a fire that consumes, but it is absolutely free from fanaticism(B1 99).

196:0.7 The all-consuming andindomitable spiritual faith of Jesus neverbecame fanatical,

for it never attempted to run away withhis well-balanced intellectual judgmentsconcerning the proportional values ofpractical and commonplace social,economic, and moral life situations.

The Son of Man was a splendidly unifiedhuman personality; he was a perfectlyendowed divine being; he was alsomagnificently co-ordinated as a combinedhuman and divine being functioning onearth as a single personality.

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Always did the Master co-ordinate thefaith of the soul with the wisdom-appraisals of seasoned experience.Personal faith, spiritual hope, and moraldevotion were always correlated in amatchless religious unity of harmoniousassociation with the keen realization ofthe reality and sacredness of all humanloyalties—personal honor, family love,religious obligation, social duty, andeconomic necessity.

JESUS’ FAITH IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD (Bundy1 104)

196:0.8 The faith of Jesus visualized allspirit values as being found in thekingdom of God;

The Kingdom of God as the Religious Message ofJesus (Bundy1 105)

[contd] The historical message of Jesusmay be stated in a single sentence,

therefore he said,

“The kingdom of God is at hand;repent ye.” (Mark 1,15.) (B1 105)

“Seek first the kingdom of heaven.”

The kingdom of God in the messageof Jesus is not just a social scheme orsystem; it is an actual society of God andmen, the perfect performance andpresence of the divine will on earth as inheaven (B1 110).

Jesus saw in the advanced and idealfellowship of the kingdom theachievement and fulfillment of the “willof God.”

The Kingdom of God as the Religious Outlook ofJesus (Bundy1 116)

“Thy kingdom come,” is the very heart ofthe Lord’s Prayer; all the other petitionsare simply elaborations and implicationsof this one thought (B1 121).

The very heart of the prayer which hetaught his disciples was, “Your kingdomcome; your will be done.”

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The Kingdom of God as the Religious Cause ofJesus (Bundy1 129)

Having thus conceived of the kingdom ascomprising the will of God,

Jesus devoted himself with anexclusiveness and exhaustiveness to thecause of God in human life and history, toall that religion at its highest and beststands for, that is without parallel in ourhuman history.

he devoted himself to the cause of itsrealization with amazing self-forgetfulness and unbounded enthusiasm.

Yet he did this without the fury of thefanatic,

But in all his intense mission andthroughout his extraordinary life therenever appeared the fury of the fanatic

without the effervescent enthusiasm ofthe extremist (B1 135).

nor the superficial frothiness of thereligious egotist.

In keeping with the psychology ofreligious genius, Jesus trusted his ownexperience of God as true; upon the basisof this experience he lived his life andperformed his work.

196:0.9 The Master’s entire life wasconsistently conditioned by this livingfaith, this sublime religious experience.

In the light of it he believed and felt,thought and taught, preached and prayed.

This spiritual attitude wholly dominatedhis thinking and feeling, his believing andpraying, his teaching and preaching.

His personal faith in God and Hiskingdom gave the whole of his life aunique quality (B1 139).

This personal faith of a son in thecertainty and security of the guidance andprotection of the heavenly Fatherimparted to his unique life a profoundendowment of spiritual reality.

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III: THE RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUS-NESS OF JESUS (Bundy1 141)

THE RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES OF JESUS(Bundy1 146)

Jesus was conscious of close personalrelationship with the Father; he was onthe most intimate terms with the Infinite,but this relationship is always religious.In his experience God remains a religiousobject because he himself is an experientof God, a religious subject (B1 147).

And yet, despite this very deepconsciousness of close relationship withdivinity,

[Jesus was God’s Galilean (B1 ix).] this Galilean, God’s Galilean,

[PREAMBLE] (Bundy1 141)

When the rich young ruler came to himwith the question,

“Good teacher, what shall I dothat I may inherit eternal life?” (Mark10,17)

when addressed as Good Teacher,

his reply is as quick as a flash, aninstinctive revolt:

“Why callest thou me good? noneis good save one, even God.” (Mark10,18.)

instantly replied, “Why do you call megood?”

This is one of the most splendid of all ofJesus’ words (B1 145).

When we stand confronted by suchsplendid self-forgetfulness, we begin tounderstand how the Universal Fatherfound it possible so fully to manifesthimself to him and reveal himself throughhim to the mortals of the realms.

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THE RELIGIOUS ASPIRATIONS OF JESUS(Bundy1 155)

As Professor Heiler writes,“The greatestof all offerings that the religious manbrings to his God

196:0.10 Jesus brought to God, as aman of the realm, the greatest of allofferings:

is the surrender of his own will incomplete obedience” (B1 157).

the consecration and dedication of hisown will to the majestic service of doingthe divine will.

[contd] In turning to Jesus we find thathe interpreted religious living wholly interms of the divine will (B1 157).

Jesus always and consistently interpretedreligion wholly in terms of the Father’swill.

THE RELIGIOUS ACTS OF JESUS (Bundy1 163)

Extracts from Jesus’ Prayer-Experience (Bundy1183)

When you study the career of the Master,as concerns prayer or any other feature ofthe religious life,

It is only as we press back beyondteaching to practise and beyond hispractise of prayer to his actual prayersthat we realize fully what prayer meantfor Jesus (B1 189).

look not so much for what he taught asfor what he did.

The Prayers of Jesus (Bundy1 195)

We have no instances of prosaic prayersfrom Jesus, prayers that were prayed inresponse to the general conviction thatprayer is a religious duty, a practise thatshould be observed faithfully (B1 201).

Jesus never prayed as a religious duty.

On the whole, we may say that prayerfor Jesus meant an expression of need, To him prayer was a sincere expression

of spiritual attitude,

a release of soul, a declaration of soul loyalty,

a recital of personal devotion, anexpression of thanksgiving,

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a relief of inner pressure, conquest oversevere subjective struggle,

an avoidance of emotional tension, aprevention of conflict,

an exaltation of intellection, anennoblement of desire, a vindication ofmoral decision,

an elevation and enrichment of mind, an enrichment of thought,

a reinforcement and refreshment of spirit, an invigoration of higher inclinations,

a consecration of impulse,

a clarifying of vision, a freshenedfunctioning of faith, a whetting of will,

a clarification of viewpoint, a declarationof faith, a transcendental surrender ofwill,

discovery and illumination,

restoration of confidence and courage, a sublime assertion of confidence, arevelation of courage,

increased consecration and devotion, a confession of supreme devotion, thevalidation of consecration,

adjustment and orientation, a technique for the adjustment ofdifficulties,

a mobilization of personal powers toperform, in short, the energy and powerby which to live and work.

and the mighty mobilization of thecombined soul powers

to withstand all human tendencies towardselfishness, evil, and sin.

He lived just such a life of prayerfulconsecration to the doing of his Father’swill

His life ends with an almost awfulclimax—the cry to God de profundis (B1208).

and ended his life triumphantly with justsuch a prayer.

The secret of his unparalleled religiouslife was this consciousness of thepresence of God;

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Not in visions and voices, but in prayerand communion with God—purelyreligious sources of light and strength—Jesus learned the divine will and foundthe personal power to perform it (B1208).

and he attained it by intelligent prayerand sincere worship—unbrokencommunion with God—and not byleadings, voices, visions, or extraordinaryreligious practices.

IV: THE RELIGIOUS DEMANDS OFJESUS (Bundy1 210)


196:0.11 In the earthly life of Jesus,religion was a living experience,

Man’s religion includes two inseparableelements: reverence and righteousness.These are the two great poles of Jesus’own personal piety; they are the thingsthat matter most in the sight of God andin the lives of men.... This is clearest inthat greatest of all words of Jesus, theLord’s Prayer, which moves fromreverence to righteousness (Matt. 6,9-13.)(B1 217).

a direct and personal movement fromspiritual reverence to practical righteous-ness.

The faith of Jesus bore the transcendentfruits of the divine spirit.

THE CHILD MIND (Bundy1 218)

Religion as Elemental Experience (Bundy1 218)

Just what elements in the childconstitution appealed to Jesus we are notin a position to say, but to the child mindhe promises the highest religiousvalue—the kingdom of God. It is clearthat he is not setting up immaturity as adesirable state or virtue (B1 219).

His faith was not immature and credulouslike that of a child,

In the child there is an unreservedtrust and confidence (B1 223).

but in many ways it did resemble theunsuspecting trust of the child mind.

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Jesus trusted God much as the child trustsa parent. He had a profound confidence inthe universe—just such a trust as thechild has in its parental environment.

[The child’s] fervent faith in thefundamental goodness of the world bearshim over any momentary disturbancesand disappointments.... In Jesus we seethis same trust and confidence (B1 223).

Jesus’ wholehearted faith in thefundamental goodness of the universevery much resembled the child’s trust inthe security of its earthly surroundings.

He depended on the heavenly Father as achild leans upon its earthly parent, andhis fervent faith never for one momentdoubted the certainty of the heavenlyFather’s overcare.

In the child there is a sense ofabsolute security. There is no skepticismthat invades his mind and that inhibits thefree flow of his life. There are nodisturbing doubts; there are no dogmaticdenials that hinder him in theunrestrained living of his life. There areno morbid fears that possess him (B1224).

He was not disturbed seriously by fears,doubts, and skepticism.

Unbelief did not inhibit the free andoriginal expression of his life.

He combined the stalwart and intelligentcourage of a full-grown man

In the child there is a wholesome andsunny optimism (B1 224).

with the sincere and trusting optimism ofa believing child.

His faith grew to such heights of trust thatit was devoid of fear.

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196:0.12 The faith of Jesus attained thepurity of a child’s trust. His faith was soabsolute and undoubting that it respondedto the charm of the contact of fellowbeings

Such are the elemental foundationstones of religious experience: a nativeand natural simplicity that discovers thewonder in the world, and to the wonders of the universe.

an intense sensitivity and susceptibility toall that experience offers for apprehen-sion and assimilation,

a clear sense of dependence on the divine,an unreserved trust and confidence, asense of absolute security, a wholesomeoptimism,

His sense of dependence on the divinewas so complete and so confident that ityielded the joy and the assurance ofabsolute personal security.

a lack of pretense and self-consciousness(B1 237).

There was no hesitating pretense in hisreligious experience.

In this giant intellect of the full-grownman the faith of the child reignedsupreme in all matters relating to thereligious consciousness.

It is not strange that he once said,

“Except ye turn, and become aslittle children, ye shall in no wiseenter into the kingdom of heaven.”(Matt. 18, 3.) (B1 218)

“Except you become as a little child, youshall not enter the kingdom.”

[Childlikeness not Childishness.— (HarrisFranklin Rall, The Teachings of Jesus [1918], p.71)]

Notwithstanding that Jesus’ faith waschildlike, it was in no sense childish.

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DISCIPLESHIP (Bundy1 253)

Religion as Participative Experience (Bundy1 253)

Jesus did not demand that hisfollowers believe in him or on him, butthat they believe with him (B1 264).

196:0.13 Jesus does not require hisdisciples to believe in him but rather tobelieve with him,

believe in the reality of the love of Godand in full confidence accept the securityof the assurance of sonship with theheavenly Father.

The great prophet of religion has but onething in mind in delivering his greatmessage: That his hearers may share thefaith that possesses him (B1 264).

The Master desires that all his followersshould fully share his transcendent faith.

Jesus not only challenged hisfollowers to believe what he believed butto believe as he believed (B1 265).

Jesus most touchingly challenged hisfollowers, not only to believe what hebelieved, but also to believe as hebelieved.

There is just one great demand ofJesus: “Follow me” (B1 266).

This is the full significance of his onesupreme requirement, “Follow me.”

V: THE RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY OFJESUS (Bundy1 271)

JESUS—THE AUTHOR AND PERFECTER OFOUR FAITH (Bundy1 314)

196:0.14 Jesus’ earthly life was devotedto one great purpose—doing the Father’swill,

Jesus’ contribution to the religion ofthe race is purely personal. To our humanhistory he gives a human life religiouslylived, a human experience religiouslyexalted, enriched and enhanced (B1 316).

living the human life religiously and byfaith.

The faith of Jesus was trusting, like thatof a child, but it was wholly free frompresumption.

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Jesus faced decisions and he made themin the most resolute manner.

He made robust and manly decisions,

His work demanded deepest determin-ation in the face of disappointment, andhe was capable of it.

courageously faced manifold disappoint-ments,

resolutely surmounted extraordinarydifficulties,

His choice of the divine cause requiredconstancy, unfailing confidence,unflinching fidelity. and unflinchingly confronted the stern

requirements of duty.

It required a will, a wealth of will, tobelieve what Jesus believed (B1 322).

It required a strong will and an unfailingconfidence to believe what Jesus believed

[The Apostles’ Creed is easily repeated, but tobelieve what he believed and as he believed is adifferent matter (B1 266).]

and as he believed.

1. JESUS—THE MAN

The thing that characterizes Jesusfrom the volitional point of view is thedepth of his personal devotion. Devotionis more than decision and determination(B1 322-23).

196:1.1 Jesus’ devotion to the Father’swill and the service of man was evenmore than mortal decision and humandetermination;

Devotion as it appears in the religiousexperience of Jesus means the enlistmentof the whole self—will, emotion, thought,faith—in the service of something beyondand above self (B1 323).

it was a wholehearted consecration ofhimself to such an unreserved bestowal oflove.

No matter how great the fact of thesovereignty of Michael, you must not takethe human Jesus away from men. TheMaster has ascended on high as a man, aswell as God; he belongs to men; menbelong to him.

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How unfortunate that religion itselfshould be so misinterpreted as to

Absolute deification withdraws Jesus andhis religious experience from the ranks ofmen who most need religion.... We maytake Jesus from the ranks of men of trueand deep religiousness and ascribe to himall possible predicates, but the sense ofbeing led and the courage to follow hasdeparted from men and leaves religiouslystranded those who are most in need ofreligious leadership and command (B1324).

take the human Jesus away fromstruggling mortals!

Let not the discussions of the humanity orthe divinity of the Christ obscure thesaving truth that

Who was Jesus? This study hassought to show on the basis of the NewTestament, the history and psychology ofreligion, that Jesus was a religioussubject, an experient of religion,

Jesus of Nazareth was a religious man

who, by faith, achieved the knowing andthe doing of the will of God;

the most religious personality, thepossessor of the richest and mostresourceful religious experience of ourhuman history (B1 330).

he was the most truly religious man whohas ever lived on Urantia.

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INTRODUCTION—THE WILL TORECOVER JESUS (Bundy2 1)


196:1.2 The time is ripe to witness thefigurative resurrection of the human Jesusfrom his burial tomb amidst thetheological traditions and the religiousdogmas of nineteen centuries. Jesus ofNazareth must not be longer sacrificed toeven the splendid concept of the glorifiedChrist. What a transcendent service if,through this revelation, the Son of Manshould be recovered from the tomb oftraditional theology

It is now a certainty that we mustcome to a more intimate, a trueracquaintance with Jesus simply as ahuman historical figure because of thedirect relation he bears to our organizedreligion and to our personal and practicalpiety. Jesus must really live for thechurch and the churchman, if he is tomake a real contribution to the life ofeither (B2 6).

and be presented as the living Jesus to thechurch that bears his name, and to allother religions!

Surely the Christian fellowship ofbelievers will not hesitate to make suchadjustments of faith and of practices ofliving as will enable it to “follow after”the Master in the demonstration of hisreal life of religious devotion to the doingof his Father’s will and of consecration tothe unselfish service of man.

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JESUS AND CHRISTIANITY (Bundy2 6)

If we come to know Jesus intimately, itmay mean that our conventional andconfessional Christianity—a religion ofrespectability—will be unmasked for theempty form that it has become,

Do professed Christians fear the exposureof a self-sufficient and unconsecratedfellowship of social respectability andselfish economic maladjustment?

and we shall see what it must become—areligion with power to recover, redeemand reconstruct the whole of our humanlife on the scale and scope of the kingdomof God (B2 11).

Does institutional Christianity fear thepossible jeopardy, or even the overthrow,of traditional ecclesiastical authority ifthe Jesus of Galilee is reinstated in theminds and souls of mortal men as theideal of personal religious living?

A careful and conscientious study of thelife of Jesus may demand readjustmentsin our conception of Christianity and itstask in the world; it may require revisionsin our religious thinking, shifts in ourcenters of emphasis; it may necessitate acomplete reorientation of the church’sthought of and for itself; it may makefresh and more difficult demands uponthe whole of human life (B2 11).

Indeed, the social readjustments, theeconomic transformations, the moralrejuvenations, and the religious revisionsof Christian civilization

would be drastic and revolutionary if theliving religion of Jesus should suddenlysupplant the theologic religion aboutJesus.

JESUS AND THE CHRISTIAN (Bundy2 13)

The following of Jesus means the sharingof his faith (B2 14).

196:1.3 To “follow Jesus” means topersonally share his religious faith and toenter into the spirit of the Master’s life ofunselfish service for man.

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What were the great religious values towhich Jesus committed himself? Whatwere the great religious truths that helived by? What were the religious beliefsof Jesus? ... May we live the religion ofJesus after him? Are we able, if we may?The answers to these questions are ofparamount importance to every Christian... (B2 14-15).

One of the most important things inhuman living is to find out what Jesusbelieved, to discover his ideals, and tostrive for the achievement of his exaltedlife purpose.

Of all human knowledge, that which is ofgreatest value is to know the religious lifeof Jesus and how he lived it.

“The common people heard him gladly.”(Mark 12, 37b.)

196:1.4 The common people heardJesus gladly,

And to-day they will not hesitate to trustthemselves to the religious truths thatJesus lived by (B2 16).

and they will again respond to thepresentation of his sincere human life ofconsecrated religious motivation if suchtruths shall again be proclaimed to theworld.

He was one of them, a layman called ofGod from their own ranks (B2 16).

The people heard him gladly because hewas one of them, an unpretentiouslayman;

the world’s greatest religious teacher wasindeed a layman.

[Jesus lived a life which is a revelation of man

submitted to the Father’s will, not an example

for any man literally to attempt to follow(194:2.8).]

196:1.5 It should not be the aim ofkingdom believers literally to imitate theoutward life of Jesus in the flesh

but rather to share his faith; to trust Godas he trusted God and to believe in men ashe believed in men.

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IV: THE CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE OFGOD (continued) (Matthews 67)

For Jesus the divine Fatherhood restedupon an immediate intuition; in speakingof it He seems to refer to a truth of whichHe was conscious in His inner life andone which needed no proof. He does notargue in favour of it—

Jesus never argued about either thefatherhood of God

or the brotherhood of men;

He illustrates it (M 80). he was a living illustration of the one

and a profound demonstration of theother.

196:1.6 Just as men must progress fromthe consciousness of the human to therealization of the divine, so did Jesusascend from the nature of man to theconsciousness of the nature of God. Andthe Master made this great ascent fromthe human to the divine by the conjointachievement of the faith of his mortalintellect and the acts of his indwellingAdjuster. The fact-realization of theattainment of totality of divinity (all thewhile fully conscious of the reality ofhumanity) was attended by seven stagesof faith consciousness of progressivedivinization. These stages of progressiveself-realization were marked off by thefollowing extraordinary events in theMaster’s bestowal experience:

196:1.7 1. The arrival of the ThoughtAdjuster.

196:1.8 2. The messenger of Immanuelwho appeared to him at Jerusalem whenhe was about twelve years old.

196:1.9 3. The manifestations attendantupon his baptism.

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196:1.10 4. The experiences on theMount of Transfiguration.

196:1.11 5. The morontia resurrection.

196:1.12 6. The spirit ascension.

196:1.13 7. The final embrace of theParadise Father, conferring unlimitedsovereignty of his universe.

2. THE RELIGION OF JESUS

INTRODUCTION—THE WILL TORECOVER JESUS (Bundy2 1)

JESUS AND THE CHRISTIAN (Bundy2 13)

196:2.1 Some day a reformation in theChristian church may strike deep enoughto

Nearly all reformations attempt areturn to first things, to beginnings andoriginal sources....

In the modern search for religiouscertainty the growing inclination, in fact,the determination, is to get back beyondJohn, Paul and Mark to Jesus himself, totest the whole of the Christian faith andexperience, not by what has always beenbelieved and held as true, but by Jesus’own personal faith and experience (B217-18).

get back to the unadulterated religiousteachings of Jesus,

the author and finisher of our faith.

The religion of Jesus must be preachedand lived after him, given a chance toprove its authority and sufficiency inmodern life (B2 19).

You may preach a religion about Jesus,but, perforce, you must live the religion ofJesus.

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[Peter unwittingly led off in this mistake, and

others followed after him on down to Paul,

who created a new religion out of the new

version of the good news (194:0.3).]

In the enthusiasm of Pentecost, Peterunintentionally inaugurated a newreligion, the religion of the risen andglorified Christ.

I: THE RECOVERY OF JESUS IN THENEW TESTAMENT (Bundy2 20)

PAUL (Bundy2 21)

[Compare B2 21-32.] The Apostle Paul later on transformedthis new gospel into Christianity, areligion embodying his own theologicviews and portraying his own personalexperience with the Jesus of theDamascus road. The gospel of thekingdom is founded on the personalreligious experience of the Jesus ofGalilee; Christianity is founded almostexclusively on the personal religiousexperience of the Apostle Paul. Almostthe whole of the New Testament isdevoted, not to the portrayal of thesignificant and inspiring religious life ofJesus, but to a discussion of Paul’sreligious experience and to a portrayal ofhis personal religious convictions.

OTHER NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS(Bundy2 32)

The only notable exceptions to thisstatement,

There is not an epistle in the NewTestament that comes nearer a reliablereproduction of the personal piety ofJesus than the epistle of James. Thereligious faith of its author is moreclosely akin to that of Jesus than the faithof any other New Testament writeroutside of the first three Gospel writers,whose picture of Jesus is more stronglyChristianized than is the thought of James(B2 36).

aside from certain parts of Matthew,Mark, and Luke,

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There is another epistolary writer ofthe New Testament who turns to thepersonal piety of Jesus for religiousvalues, both for himself and his readers,the unknown author of Hebrews (B2 37). are the Book of Hebrews and the Epistle

of James.

In but one outstanding passage is [Jesus]presented as a religious example that is tobe copied after, the classic statement in IPeter 2,21-24: Even Peter, in his writing, only once

reverted to the personal religious life ofhis Master.

“For hereunto were ye called:because Christ also suffered for you,leaving you an example, that ye shouldfollow his steps; who did no sin, neitherwas guile found in his mouth; who, whenhe was reviled, reviled not again; when hesuffered, threatened not, but committedhimself to him that judgeth righteously...” (B2 40).

[Paul’s use of the words of Jesus is verymeager in proportion to the use that he might havemade of them (B2 23).]

The New Testament is a superb Christiandocument, but it is only meagerlyJesusonian.

THE FOURTH GOSPEL (Bundy2 40)

196:2.2 Jesus’ life in the flesh portraysa transcendent religious growth from theearly ideas of

The great gap which the genuinelyreligious subject feels between himselfand his Maker never appears in theexperience of the Jesus of the FourthGospel. Not a single expression thatcomes from his lips betrays the religiousfear and awe that we found in certainwords of his in the first three Gospels (B244).

primitive awe and human reverence

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up through years of personal spiritualcommunion until he finally arrived at thatadvanced and exalted status of theconsciousness of

The Fatherhood of God is no longerreligious for Jesus personally, for he setshimself on a plane and par with Him,

“I and the Father are one” (10,30.)(B2 45).

his oneness with the Father.

And thus, in one short life, did Jesustraverse that experience of religiousspiritual progression which man beginson earth and ordinarily achieves only atthe conclusion of his long sojourn in thespirit training schools of the successivelevels of the pre-Paradise career. Jesusprogressed from a purely humanconsciousness of the faith certainties ofpersonal religious experience to thesublime spiritual heights of the positiverealization of his divine nature and to theconsciousness of his close associationwith the Universal Father in themanagement of a universe.

He progressed from the humble status ofmortal dependence which prompted himspontaneously to say to the one whocalled him Good Teacher,

In the Synoptic Gospels we foundthat a sense of limitation of personalworth was one of the finest features inJesus’ personality,

“Why callest thou me good? noneis good save one, even God.” (Mark10,18.)

“Why do you call me good? None is goodbut God,”

to that sublime consciousness of achieveddivinity which led him to exclaim,

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Over against this natural religious recoilstands the Johannine contrast,

“Which of you convicteth me ofsin?” (8,46a.) (B2 50-51)

“Which one of you convicts me of sin?”

And this progressing ascent from thehuman to the divine was an exclusivelymortal achievement. And when he hadthus attained divinity, he was still thesame human Jesus, the Son of Man aswell as the Son of God.

In the Synoptic Gospels we foundthat the supreme religious aspiration ofJesus was the discovery and performanceof the divine will. This he achieves by aterrific struggle and stress of soul that isupon him from the first day to the last (B251).

196:2.3 Mark, Matthew, and Lukeretain something of the picture of thehuman Jesus as he engaged in the superbstruggle to ascertain the divine will and todo that will.

But in the Fourth Gospel [Jesus] knowswho he is, all that he has ever been and isto be, from the very outset (B2 54).

John presents a picture of the triumphantJesus as he walked on earth in the fullconsciousness of divinity.

The great mistake that has been made bythose who have studied the Master’s lifeis that some have conceived of him asentirely human, while others have thoughtof him as only divine. Throughout hisentire experience he was truly bothhuman and divine, even as he yet is.

196:2.4 But the greatest mistake wasmade in that,

Jesus has a religion only in the first threeGospels.

while the human Jesus was recognized ashaving a religion,

The Johannine Jesus has no religion andneeds none; in fact, in the Fourth Gospelhe becomes a religion, a new and trueobject of religious faith (B2 60).

the divine Jesus (Christ) almost overnightbecame a religion.

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Paul’s Christianity made sure of theadoration of the divine Christ, but italmost wholly lost sight of the strugglingand valiant human Jesus of Galilee, who,by the valor of his personal religious faithand the heroism of his indwellingAdjuster, ascended from the lowly levelsof humanity to become one with divinity,

Every follower of Jesus is convinced thathe is the way and the truth and the life,and with the Fourth Evangelist heconfesses it with a ready and full heart.

thus becoming the new and living way

whereby all mortals may so ascend fromhumanity to divinity.

But this clear crystallization of Christianconviction is the possession of thosealone who have seen in Jesus more than acenter of confession, who have found inhim those rich religious resourcesnecessary for the living of life in theuninterrupted presence of God (B2 61).

Mortals in all stages of spirituality and onall worlds may find in the personal life ofJesus that which will strengthen andinspire them

as they progress from the lowest spiritlevels up to the highest divine values,from the beginning to the end of allpersonal religious experience.

THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS (Bundy2 62)

196:2.5 At the time of the writing of theNew Testament, the authors not onlymost profoundly believed in the divinityof the risen Christ,

The very nature of the great body ofNew Testament experience conspiredagainst a turning to the human life ofJesus for religious values. As we see in IThessalonians 4,15-18 and in many otherpassages, the earliest Christian experiencewas keyed to the high pitch of Jesus’imminent and triumphant return. Thegreat New Testament prayer is,

but they also devotedly and sincerelybelieved in his immediate return to earthto consummate the heavenly kingdom.

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Marana tha, “Our Lord, come!” (B263)

This strong faith in the Lord’s immediatereturn had much to do with the tendencyto omit from the record those referenceswhich portrayed the purely humanexperiences and attributes of the Master.

The very existence of such an unadornedstory as Mark narrates is positive proofthat the beginnings in Galilee were neverquite forgotten and that in certain circlesthere grew up a lively interest in whatJesus himself said and did. But the mainbody of Christian interest did not centerupon the human Jesus of the past (B2 64-65).

The whole Christian movement tendedaway from the human picture of Jesus ofNazareth

toward the exaltation of the risen Christ,the glorified and soon-returning LordJesus Christ.

196:2.6 Jesus founded the religion ofpersonal experience in doing the will ofGod and serving the human brotherhood;Paul founded a religion in which theglorified Jesus became the object ofworship and the brotherhood consisted offellow believers in the divine Christ. Inthe bestowal of Jesus these two conceptswere potential in his divine-human life,and it is indeed a pity that his followersfailed to create a unified religion whichmight have given proper recognition toboth the human and the divine natures ofthe Master as they were inseparablybound up in his earth life and sogloriously set forth in the original gospelof the kingdom.

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III: THE RECOVERY OF JESUS’SOCIAL MESSAGE (Bundy2 139)

THE MORE DRASTIC DEMANDS OF JESUS(Bundy2 139)

[contd] Some of Jesus’ demands strikethe modern mind as feelingless,unnecessarily unreasonable, a goodexample of which is his word to the threewould-be disciples (Luke 9,57-62.): [Etc.](B2 139)

196:2.7 You would be neither shockednor disturbed by some of Jesus’ strongpronouncements

if you would only remember that he wasthe world’s most wholehearted anddevoted religionist. He was a whollyconsecrated mortal, unreservedlydedicated to doing his Father’s will.

These words of Jesus [Luke 9:57-62,Mark 9:43-47] are primarily auto-biographical and in substance theyamount to personal religious confessions(B2 141).

Many of his apparently hard sayings weremore of a personal confession of faith

and a pledge of devotion than commandsto his followers.

And it was this very singleness of purposeand unselfish devotion that enabled himto effect such extraordinary progress inthe conquest of the human mind in oneshort life.

In particular they reflect more of thedemands which he placed upon himselfthan they do of his requirements of others(B2 141).

Many of his declarations should beconsidered as a confession of what hedemanded of himself rather than what herequired of all his followers.

Both passages cited above are clearpictures of Jesus’ own completeconsecration to the kingdom of God; theyreflect his own utter abandonment, thedepth of his own personal devotion, to thedivine cause which he champions (B2141).

In his devotion to the cause of thekingdom,

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Jesus often speaks and acts as one whohas burned all bridges behind him, as onefor whom there is no turning back (B2141).

Jesus burned all bridges behind him;

he sacrificed all hindrances to the doingof his Father’s will.

THE “SOCIAL TEACHINGS” OF JESUS(Bundy2 153)

On the basis of a word like Luke6,20b we may not conclude that Jesusregarded poverty as a virtue,

“Blessed are ye poor: for yours isthe kingdom of God.”

In general, the poor were the pious ofJesus’ day.

196:2.8 Jesus blessed the poor becausethey were usually sincere and pious;

he condemned the rich because they wereusually wanton and irreligious.

But in our day poverty has become aneven greater source of temptation thanwealth.... Jesus’ judgment against povertyto-day would be as quick and sharp anddecisive as it was against the wealth ofhis day (B2 155).

He would equally condemn the irreligiouspauper

The greater and nobler uses of wealth to-day were unknown to Jesus, and he wouldbe as prompt now in his commendation asthen in his condemnation (B2 155).

and commend the consecrated andworshipful man of wealth.

THE RELIGIOUS REFERENCE (Bundy2 163)

For the World (Bundy2 163)

Jesus lifts the burden of natural existencefrom men’s shoulders, which is the firststep in the solution of all social problems. The world is God’s world; nothing in it isnaturally or inherently evil.... In the worldmen may feel that they are at home; 196:2.9 Jesus led men to feel at home in

the world;

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in it they are not to lead a timid existenceunder the constant dread of taboo, butthey may face the world and its problemsin the clear consciousness that theheavenly Father notes even the fall of thesparrow (B2 167).

he delivered them from the slavery oftaboo

and taught them that the world was notfundamentally evil.

He did not long to escape from his earthlylife; he mastered a technique ofacceptably doing the Father’s will whilein the flesh.

This idealistic view of this realisticorder of things is the organic issue ofJesus’ experience of God (B2 168).

He attained an idealistic religious life inthe very midst of a realistic world.

For Humankind (Bundy2 168)

He shared nothing of that Christianpessimism concerning humankind thathas run like a strong stream from thethought of Paul down to the present. Sucha low estimate of the human condition asPaul holds of his own (Rom. 7,14-25) hasno parallel in the thought of Jesus (B2170).

Jesus did not share Paul’s pessimisticview of humankind.

The Master looked upon men as the sonsof God and foresaw a magnificent andeternal future for those who chosesurvival.

He shares nothing of the moral skepticismthat we find in the majority of the NewTestament epistles (B2 170).

He was not a moral skeptic;

Jesus’ estimate of humankind ispositive, not negative (B2 170).

he viewed man positively, not negatively.

Jesus worked on the assumption that menare weak rather than wicked (B2 171).

He saw most men as weak rather thanwicked,

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Jesus found men distracted and distraughtrather than depraved and doomed. Theyare strangers to God rather than deliberatesinners against Him.

more distraught than depraved.

But no matter what their status,

They are all His children, some obedient,some disobedient, but it is not the will ofthe Father than any of them should perish(B2 171).

they were all God’s children and hisbrethren.

He gives to men not a low but a highestimate of themselves. The sons of menmay become the sons of God (B2 172).

196:2.10 He taught men to place a highvalue upon themselves in time and ineternity.

[contd] It was this exalted estimate ofmen that led Jesus to consume himself inthe service of humankind (B2 172).

Because of this high estimate which Jesusplaced upon men, he was willing to spendhimself in the unremitting service ofhumankind.

It is this sense of the infinite worth of thefinite that is behind Jesus’ great socialsentence, the Golden Rule (B2 172).

And it was this infinite worth of the finitethat made the golden rule a vital factor inhis religion.

Jesus demanded a cultivation ofhuman character that corresponds to thatof the Divine, for in his religious outlookmen are destined for God’s society. Hereagain Jesus simply staggers us with histremendous faith in our humankind (B2173).

What mortal can fail to be uplifted by theextraordinary faith Jesus has in him?

For History (Bundy2 175)

Jesus does not provide a definite programfor the improvement of the social order;he calls men to a higher order (B2 193).

196:2.11 Jesus offered no rules forsocial advancement;

his was a religious mission, and religionis an exclusively individual experience.

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The ultimate goal of society’s mostadvanced achievement can never hope totranscend Jesus’ brotherhood of menbased on the recognition of thefatherhood of God. The ideal of all socialattainment can be realized only in thecoming of this divine kingdom.

3. THE SUPREMACY OFRELIGION

[Jesus’ message, as he preached it and lived it

in his day, was an effective solvent for man’s

spiritual difficulties in that day of its statement(194:2.1).]

196:3.1 Personal, spiritual religiousexperience is an efficient solvent for mostmortal difficulties; it is an effectivesorter, evaluator, and adjuster of allhuman problems. Religion does notremove or destroy human troubles, but itdoes dissolve, absorb, illuminate, andtranscend them. True religion unifies thepersonality for effective adjustment to allmortal requirements.

IX: THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH(Lewis 265)

THE ARGUMENT (Lewis 266)

The step from the “It” of logic to the “He” ofreligion is admittedly a step of faith, but inview of its total concomitants it is every wayjustifiable (L 266).

Religious faith—the positive leading ofthe indwelling divine presence—unfail-ingly enables the God-knowing man tobridge that gulf existing between theintellectual logic which recognizes theUniversal First Cause as It and thosepositive affirmations of the soul whichaver this First Cause is He, the heavenlyFather of Jesus’ gospel, the personal Godof human salvation.

Reality is distinguishable as Fact, Idea, andRelation, and there is that in human naturewhich answers to all three. The world istruthful, and man is qualified to find its truth(L 266).

196:3.2 There are just three elements inuniversal reality: fact, idea, and relation.

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The religious consciousness identifiesthese realities as science, philosophy, andtruth.

[CHAPTER PROPER] (Lewis 267)

Philosophy would be inclined to viewthese activities as reason, wisdom, andfaith—

What for convenience sake we describeas the physical universe and the spiritualuniverse—

physical reality, intellectual reality, andspiritual reality.

We are in the habit of designating theserealities as

Fact and Idea, Thing and Meaning—willbe parts of one and the same whole ofreality. That oneness—and this is thepoint we were making—necessarilyinvolves Relation (L 284).

thing, meaning, and value.

196:3.3 The progressive comprehensionof reality is the equivalent of approachingGod. The finding of God, the conscious-ness of identity with reality, is theequivalent of the experiencing of self-completion—self-entirety, self-totality.The experiencing of total reality is thefull realization of God, the finality of theGod-knowing experience.

196:3.4 The full summation of humanlife is the knowledge that man is educatedby fact, ennobled by wisdom, andsaved—

“Man is what he eats,” was at once thebrightest and the most stupid saying of anow defunct materialism. Let us, rather,say that man is what he most deeplywants to be. He is justified by faith. Whathe would fain have true yields his ownmeasure (L 287).

justified—by religious faith.

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There is a certainty about the religiousexperience itself which can never betransferred to its alleged cause. Godalways stands “in the shadow.” ... It is amoral certainty in distinction from alogical certainty ... (L 290). 196:3.5 Physical certainty consists in

the logic of science; moral certainty, inthe wisdom of philosophy; spiritualcertainty, in the truth of genuine religiousexperience.

VII: EVALUATION AND RELIGION(Lewis 197)

[See 12:9.1.]

196:3.6 The mind of man can attainhigh levels of spiritual insight andcorresponding spheres of divinity ofvalues because it is not wholly material.There is a spirit nucleus in the mind ofman—the Adjuster of the divinepresence.


There are three separate evidences of thisspirit indwelling of the human mind:

[contd] We have been saying that mindconsists in a power of interpretation anda power of fellowship. 196:3.7 1. Humanitarian fellowship—

love.

The purely animal mind may begregarious for self-protection, but onlythe spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishlyaltruistic and unconditionally loving.

196:3.8 2. Interpretation of theuniverse—wisdom.

Only the spirit-indwelt mind cancomprehend that the universe is friendlyto the individual.

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To this is now to be added a power ofevaluation (L 199). 196:3.9 3. Spiritual evaluation of life—

worship.

Only the spirit-indwelt man can realizethe divine presence and seek to attain afuller experience in and with thisforetaste of divinity.

There are those who claim that values area purely human creation, in that theydepend wholly upon man and have nomeaning, even no existence, apart fromhim (L 201).

196:3.10 The human mind does notcreate real values;

human experience does not yield universeinsight.

Concerning insight, the recognition ofmoral values and the discernment ofspiritual meanings, all that the humanmind can do is to

On the other hand, Sorley and A. E.Taylor regard values not as humancreations but as human discoveries (L201).

discover, recognize, interpret,

We learn of their existence by the veryprocess and experience of life itself. This,of course, is the way in which allabsolutes are learned; but there is anelement of freedom and choice respectingsome of them which does not holdrespecting some others (L 202).

and choose.

196:3.11 The moral values of theuniverse become intellectual possessionsby the exercise of the three basicjudgments, or choices, of the mortalmind:

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The moral order ... may even be thefundamental order, and all other orderssimply its derivative. Be that as it may, aman knows that in escaping the judgmentof his fellows he does not escape self-judgment; and he knows that when heturns a deaf ear to that self-judgment—ashe may and does—the judgment stillstands (L 204-05).

196:3.12 1. Self-judgment—moralchoice.

[Values, whether we characterize them as social, oras moral, or as religious, ... (L 207).]

196:3.13 2. Social-judgment—ethicalchoice.

196:3.14 3. God-judgment—religiouschoice.

196:3.15 Thus it appears that

Morals have plainly enough undergone ahistorical evolution, but the evolution hasbeen only the more complete recognitionand operation of the moral principle. If itcomes to that, evolution of any sort is notcreation but revelation. Such popularphrases as “creative evolution” and“emergent evolution” are ... philosophic-ally misleading, whatever may have beenthe original intention of Bergson andLloyd Morgan.... The theist would betteruse the phrase “revelational evolution” (L210).

all human progress is effected by atechnique of conjoint revelationalevolution.

196:3.16 Unless a divine lover lived inman, he could not unselfishly andspiritually love. Unless an interpreterlived in the mind, man could not trulyrealize the unity of the universe. Unlessan evaluator dwelt with man, he could notpossibly appraise moral values andrecognize spiritual meanings. And thislover hails from the very source ofinfinite love; this interpreter is a part ofUniversal Unity; this evaluator is thechild of the Center and Source of allabsolute values of divine and eternalreality.

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196:3.17 Moral evaluation with areligious meaning—spiritual insight—connotes the individual’s choice betweengood and evil, truth and error, materialand spiritual, human and divine, time andeternity. Human survival is in greatmeasure dependent on consecrating thehuman will to the choosing of thosevalues selected by this spirit-valuesorter—the indwelling interpreter andunifier.

VIII: RELIGION AND REVELATION(Lewis 229)

THE ARGUMENT (Lewis 230)

Religion is therefore at once discovery andrevelation—discovery from the human side,revelation from the divine side (L 230).

Personal religious experience consists intwo phases: discovery in the human mindand revelation by the indwelling divinespirit.


[Religion] sometimes creates conditionsso intolerable that eventually men arise intheir might and sweep it away—or thinkthey do. When religion is attacked on theground of its being tyrannical andobscurant, the attack itself is made in thename of that very spirit which religion isproperly intended to produce and foster.Religion, therefore, can never for longstay submerged.... As between religionand irreligion, it is religion that is“natural” to man, and irreligion that is theresult of oversophistication (L 239-40). Through oversophistication or as a result

of the irreligious conduct of professedreligionists, a man, or even a generationof men, may elect to suspend their effortsto discover the God who indwells them;they may fail to progress in and attain thedivine revelation.

But such attitudes of spiritual non-progression cannot long persist

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because of the presence and influence ofthe indwelling Thought Adjusters.

In true Quaker fashion, Eddington thescientist insists on the reality of man’sexperience of “the divine indwelling” (L243).

196:3.18 This profound experience ofthe reality of the divine indwelling

forever transcends the crude materialistictechnique of the physical sciences.

You cannot put inward peace under amicroscope.

You cannot put spiritual joy under amicroscope;

You cannot weigh a prayer. you cannot weigh love in a balance;

You cannot measure moral certainty (L243).

you cannot measure moral values;

neither can you estimate the quality ofspiritual worship.

The Sublimity which Hegel said was thecharacteristic of the Hebrew religion, 196:3.19 The Hebrews had a religion of

moral sublimity;

the Beauty which he said was thecharacteristic of Greek religion, theConformity which he said was thecharacteristic of Roman religion—didthey not mean something for the men whopracticed them?

the Greeks evolved a religion of beauty;

Paul and his conferees founded a religionof faith, hope, and charity. Jesus revealedand exemplified a religion of love:security in the Father’s love,

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If we add that Sanctity is thecharacteristic of the Christian religion,will anyone dare to affirm that there havebeen no saints—saints in the NewTestament sense—to demonstrate thatsanctity is a possible attainment in thispresent world of flesh and blood, here

“In the very world which is the worldOf all of us—the place where in the endWe find our happiness, or not at all” (L247).

with joy and satisfaction consequent uponsharing this love in the service of thehuman brotherhood.

196:3.20 Every time man makes areflective moral choice, he immediatelyexperiences

Religion is an invasion from without a new divine invasion of his soul.

Moral choosing constitutes religion as

as well as a felt response to an approach(L 255).

the motive of inner response to outerconditions.

It is all very well for the skeptic to saythat religion is purely subjective—a self-contained circle of ideas. What he needsto consider is the fact that again and againmen have found themselves mastered bya conviction of which they could give noaccount, and from which they could notescape, try how they would (L 256).

But such a real religion is not a purelysubjective experience.

It signifies the whole of the subjectivityof the individual engaged in a meaningfuland intelligent response to totalobjectivity—the universe and its Maker.

196:3.21 The exquisite and trans-cendent experience of loving and beingloved is not just a psychic illusionbecause it is so purely subjective.

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The one truly divine and objective realitythat is associated with mortal beings, theThought Adjuster, functions to humanobservation apparently as an exclusivelysubjective phenomenon. Man’s contactwith the highest objective reality, God, isonly through the purely subjectiveexperience of knowing him, ofworshiping him, of realizing sonship withhim.

We conclude that religious exper-ience, like all other valid experience, isnot a monologue but a dialogue. It is notonly a revelation of something withinman: it is also a revelation of somethingwithout him (L 259).

196:3.22 True religious worship is nota futile monologue of self-deception.

Worship is a personal communion withthat which is divinely real, with thatwhich is the very source of reality.

Step by step [man] is led on, by the samelaw of “reach and grasp,” always desiringthat which is higher and better.

Man aspires by worship to be better

But the higher implies a Highest, thebetter implies a Best. At last he sees it. Inthe heart’s desire for the Highest andBest, and in the mind’s power toadumbrate it, and in the will’s power topursue it, and in the impulse of his wholenature to respond to it, he sees thatHighest and Best self-revealed accordingto the necessary law of humanexperience, and knows it for a personalpossession (L 260).

and thereby eventually attains the best.

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I: INTRODUCTORY (Griffiths 1)

Religion remains religion still, and nointerest in the “values” will ever providea substitute wherein man’s whole self canfind full and satisfying expression. Theservice of Truth, Goodness, and Beautydoes not and cannot bring the Soul to itsfinal rest, though these may help it uponits way (G 7).

196:3.23 The idealization and attemptedservice of truth, beauty, and goodness isnot a substitute for genuine religiousexperience—spiritual reality.

Psychology and idealism are not theequivalent of religious reality.

III: RELIGION AS PROJECTION(Griffiths 37)

The projections of the human intellectmay indeed originate false gods—

[(d) A fourth way of explaining religion is tosay that the gods were made by man in his ownimage. The ideas of religion are but man’s ideasabout himself and his own needs thrown out uponobjective reality (G 31).]

gods in man’s image—

but the true God-consciousness does nothave such an origin.

The God-consciousness is resident in theindwelling spirit.

Many of the religious systems of mancome from the formulations of the humanintellect, but the God-consciousness is notnecessarily a part of these grotesque1

systems of religious slavery.

I V : R E L I G I O N A S I D E A LCONSTRUCTION (Griffiths 56)

[According to the Idealistic theory,] Godwas invented to explain things, and tomake life a little more tolerable (G 57).

196:3.24 God is not the mere inventionof man’s idealism;

he is the very source of all such super-animal insights and values.

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We are thus driven to conclude that, ifGod is a mere hypothesis, fashioned toround off, along three separate strands soto speak, the broken arc of secularexperience, the God thus conceived istotally inadequate for religion (G 73).

God is not a hypothesis formulated tounify the human concepts of truth,beauty, and goodness;

he is the personality of love from whomall of these universe manifestations arederived.

The truth, beauty, and goodness of man’sworld are unified by the increasingspirituality of the experience of mortals

[We may be told that what is meant by attributingthe rise of religion to human reflection and theGod-hypothesis, is that what at first was no morethan a random idea, a mere notion, based on quiteirreligious grounds, later became a fact of directexperience.... On the ladder of his knowledge[man] ascended to the very gates of Paradise andwas precipitated into the divine presence (G 73).]

ascending toward Paradise realities.

The unity of truth, beauty, and goodnesscan only be realized in the spiritualexperience of the God-knowingpersonality.

V: FROM MORALITY TO RELIGION(Griffiths 96)

196:3.25 Morality is the essentialpre-existent soil of personal God-consciousness, the personal realization ofthe Adjuster’s inner presence,

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[contd] In order to make good thecontention that religion springs from itsown root within experience it is necessaryto review the attempts made to derive itfrom or base it upon other sources withinself-consciousness....

I propose, therefore, to deal in thischapter with the attempt to base religionand its valuations upon the moralconsciousness, upon our sense of duty,and the values which grow out of themoral life (G 96).

but such morality is not the source ofreligious experience and the resultantspiritual insight.

[Morality has its origin in the reason of

self-consciousness; it is superanimal but

wholly evolutionary (5:5.1).]

The moral nature is superanimal butsubspiritual.

Morality is equivalent to the recognitionof duty, the realization of the existence ofright and wrong. The moral zoneintervenes between the animal and thehuman types of mind as morontiafunctions between the material and thespiritual spheres of personalityattainment.

196:3.26 The evolutionary mind is ableto discover law, morals, and ethics;

The ethical nature of ultimate reality, thefact of a Lawgiver behind the Law, theexistence of a Being who takes sides inman’s moral struggle, are clearlyaffirmations of the specifically religiousmind (G 102).

but the bestowed spirit, the indwellingAdjuster, reveals to the evolving humanmind the lawgiver, the Father-source ofall that is true, beautiful, and good;

and such an illuminated man has areligion and is spiritually equipped tobegin the long and adventurous search forGod.

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196:3.27 Morality is not necessarilyspiritual; it may be wholly and purelyhuman,

Professor Baillie even admits that whatreligion does is to give a deeper meaningto duty, a deeper significance to ourvalues; but if so, religion must be a morefundamental feature of consciousnessthan morality and must spring from asupra-moral root in human nature (G105).

albeit real religion enhances all moralvalues, makes them more meaningful.

In the words of Professor Galloway, “Ontwo grounds the ethical consciousnessrequires to be supplemented andcompleted: it can neither guarantee thepersistence of its values, nor can it statethe ultimate Good in a finally satisfyingform” (G 106).

Morality without religion fails to revealultimate goodness, and it also fails toprovide for the survival of even its ownmoral values.

Religion provides for the enhancement,glorification, and assured survival ofeverything morality recognizes andapproves.

196:3.28 Religion stands above science,art, philosophy, ethics, and morals, butnot independent of them. They are allindissolubly interrelated in humanexperience, personal and social. Religionis man’s supreme experience in themortal nature, but finite language makesit forever impossible for theology everadequately to depict real religiousexperience.

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XIII: BEYOND THE NARROWLYHUMAN: THE CORRELATION OFPLANES OF REALITY (Overstreet 173)

Tantalus (Overstreet 179)

On his human plane man is inevitablyshut out from the realization ofsignificances that are beyond him. Butthere is on his plane the teasing reminderof these. They are, on his level, theprojection of reality that is beyond thatlevel. Man, then, is apparently at hishighest as he responds to this reminder, ashe seeks what he never can quitecompass. It is in this—everlastinglyfraught though it may be with defeat—that the essential drive of his life lies. Fordespite all the ultimate frustrations, hegoes on turning his defeats into newdesires and new determinations (O 179-80).

196:3.29 Religious insight possesses thepower of turning defeat into higherdesires and new determinations.

XIV: LOVE AND THE WORLDLYWISE: A MODERN EVALUATION(Overstreet 181)

Love is the highest motivation which manmay utilize in his universe ascent.

[Compare O 181-83.] But love, divested of truth, beauty, andgoodness, is only a sentiment, a philo-sophic distortion, a psychic illusion, aspiritual deception.

The Ladder of Love (Overstreet 191)

[Compare O 191.] Love must always be redefined onsuccessive levels of morontia and spiritprogression.

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XV: HEARTENING FALSEHOODS:THE REALITY OF POSSIBILITY(Overstreet 196)

Possibilities as Realities (Overstreet 206)

[contd] All art, is, indeed an escape. Itis an escape from immediate, factual,this-minute reality. It is an escape fromconfinement to a small, literal, presentperception of life. It is an escape from.

196:3.30 Art results from man’s attemptto escape from the lack of beauty in hismaterial environment;

But is it not also an escape into? (O 206) it is a gesture toward the morontia level.

Science is man’s effort to solve theapparent riddles of the material universe.Philosophy is man’s attempt at theunification of human experience.Religion is man’s supreme gesture, hismagnificent reach for final reality, hisdetermination to find God and to be likehim.

196:3.31 In the realm of religiousexperience,

Possibilities, in short, are realities.Perhaps, indeed, they are the mostimportant realities. If so, then the type ofmind which disregards possibilities andholds itself rigorously to the present factsis a profoundly untrue kind of mind (O206).

spiritual possibility is potential reality.

Commerce with the More Potent (Overstreet 206)

Doubtless it has been this drivetoward a kind of suspected greatness inhimself that has made man the advancingcreature he has been. Was it a lie thaturged him on? Or was it the half-conscious perception of the reality of hisown inherent possibilities? (O 207)

Man’s forward spiritual urge is not apsychic illusion.

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The Truth of Man’s Romancing (Overstreet 208)

[contd] And so with all the rest ofman’s romancing. It has indeed, beenfoolish and immature and sentimental andnaïve. But all of it, whatever themisconceptions, has revealed his stubbornholding to a basic fact.... Men may not bethe heroes we make them out to be, butwe know that, inadequate as they are, thatis what they would wish to be and someday may be....

Illusion, then, of the kind we havebeen describing, is man’s faith in hisunrealized self (O 208-09).

All of man’s universe romancing may notbe fact, but much, very much, is truth.

X V I I : T H E H E R O I S M O FUNCOMMON SENSE: A DOUBTABOUT PESSIMISM (Overstreet 223)

As the contemporary pessimists missthe reality of the type of heroism whichour poem [see p. 223] describes, so do thecontemporary success-philosophers. Theyseem not to have learned that life may betoo great to be successful, that their kindof success can be purchased only byshutting the eyes to the distant andgrasping what is near.... No doubt all theabove mentioned men were, in this sense,stupid men: Socrates was stupid, so wasChrist, and so was Giordano Bruno (O225).

196:3.32 Some men’s lives are too greatand noble to descend to the low level ofbeing merely successful.

Our highest admirations, then, wouldseem to indicate that the veritable way oflife is not the way of mere adaptation toenvironment. That is a biological descrip-tion which is quite inadequate for humanlife (O 230).

The animal must adapt itself to theenvironment,

but the religious man transcends hisenvironment and in this way escapes thelimitations of the present material worldthrough this insight of divine love.

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[Compare O 247.] This concept of love generates in the soulof man that superanimal effort to findtruth, beauty, and goodness; and when hedoes find them, he is glorified in theirembrace; he is consumed with the desireto live them, to do righteousness.

XVIII: OUR EMERGING LIFE: THEDIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOP-MENT (Overstreet 233)

[Preamble] (Overstreet 233)

196:3.33 Be not discouraged;

[contd] Evolution, we believe, is anongoing process. But if so, thendevelopment that is of evolutionarymoment must be proceeding withinourselves (O 233). human evolution is still in progress,

and the revelation of God to the world, inand through Jesus, shall not fail.

The Logic of It All (Overstreet 244)

196:3.34 The great challenge to modernman is to achieve better communicationwith the divine Monitor that dwellswithin the human mind.

Man’s greatest adventure in the fleshconsists in the well-balanced and saneeffort to

Man has already evolved to a plane of lifeabove the inorganic, the plant, and theanimal. He has achieved self-consciousness. It is wholly conceivablethat he is to advance beyond the limitedand inevitably distorting status of mereself-consciousness.

advance the borders of self-consciousness

out through the dim realms of embryonicsoul-consciousness in a wholeheartedeffort to reach the borderland of

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Such an advance, of course, will not meanthe supersession of the previous stages.For even at the self-conscious stage manstill retains his earlier powers ofperception and simple sensitivity. These,so to speak, have been “lifted up” to thehigher level of self-consciousness. So,likewise, we may suppose that eventually,in far greater fulness than is now trueamong us, man’s self-consciousness willbe lifted up to the higher level of whatBucke chooses to call “cosmic conscious-ness” (O 244).

spirit-consciousness—contact with thedivine presence.

Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightilyconfirmative of the pre-existent truth ofthe religious experience of knowing God.Such spirit-consciousness is theequivalent of the knowledge of theactuality of sonship with God. Otherwise,the assurance of sonship is the experienceof faith.

Thus we might say that man ismoving toward that kind of consciousnessin which there is a greater integration ofthe self with its world (O 246).

196:3.35 And God-consciousness isequivalent to the integration of the selfwith the universe,

and on its highest levels of spiritualreality.

XIX: THE FATE OF VALUES: THEPROBLEM OF REALITIES THATVANISH (Overstreet 248)

Is there in some sense anindestructibility of values, or are valuesparadoxical realities that pass into nullity,leaving no trace behind? (O 249) Only the spirit content of any value is

imperishable.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:Its loveliness increases; it will neverPass into nothingness” (O 249).

Even that which is true, beautiful, andgood may not perish in humanexperience.

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[If mortal man fails to survive natural

death, the real spiritual values of his human

experience survive as a part of the continuing

experience of the Thought Adjuster (16:9.3).]

If man does not choose to survive, thendoes the surviving Adjuster conservethose realities born of love and nurturedin service.

XX: GOD AND THE MODERN MAN:CONSIDERING THE PROBLEMAFRESH (Overstreet 254)

Clearing Away Misconceptions (Overstreet 260)

And all these things are a part of

None of [the old religious] beliefsabout the deity will any longer adequatelyserve us. Even the belief with which wehave grown familiar, of God as aHeavenly Father, who orders our welfareand expects us from us adoration andobedience, is, from the modern point ofview, inadequate (O 259-60).

the Universal Father.

Two Further Shortcomings (Overstreet 260)

The Father is living love,

We are convinced naturalists. We believethat we are in and of the world and thatthe world is in and of us. Whatever Godis—if indeed He is—He must beconceived as moving in our members. Hemust be thought of as the very essentiallife of ourselves and we as of the veryessential life of Him. and this life of the Father is in his Sons.

And the spirit of the Father is in his Sons’sons—mortal men.

When all is said and done,

The old externalistic expressions, then,will no longer serve. To call God King,Ruler, even Father, puts us in danger ofmissing the sheer interpenetrativeness ofthe world in which we live (O 260).

the Father idea is still the highest humanconcept of God.

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1. Even if libido had a conceptually creative function to perform, the conscious mind could not become aware of theunconsciously projected idea or image unless it already was familiar with it in experience. Were it otherwise, theworld would be fuller than it is of phantasies more grotesque and unnatural than all the mythologies of antiquity (G45).

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Paper 196 The Faith of Jesus - UrantiaBookSources.com...every mortal creature is a child of this Father of love, a son of God. Jesus did not resort to faith in God as a man at bay