All finite
knowledge and creature understanding are relative.
Information and
intelligence, gleaned from even high sources, is only relatively complete,
locally accurate, and personally true.
Physical facts
are fairly uniform, but truth is a living and flexible factor in the philosophy
of the universe.
Evolving personalities
(such as human beings) are only partially wise and relatively true in
their communications.
They can be
certain only as far as their personal experience extends. That which apparently
may be wholly true in one place may be only relatively true in another segment
of creation (such as in another planet where human-like people exist)
Divine truth,
final truth, is uniform and universal, but the story of things spiritual, as it
is told by numerous individuals hailing from various spheres, may sometimes
vary in details owing to this relativity in the completeness of knowledge and
in the repleteness of personal experience as well as in the length and extent
of that experience.
While the laws
and decrees, the thoughts and attitudes, of the First Great Source and Center (the
Eternal God) are eternally, infinitely, and universally true; at the same
time, their application to, and adjustment for, every universe, system, world,
and created intelligence, are in accordance with the plans and technique of the
Creator Sons (Divine Personalities originating from the Eternal God) as
they function in their respective universes, as well as in harmony with the
local plans and procedures of the Infinite Spirit ( the third source of deity
originating from the Eternal God) and of all other associated celestial
personalities.
The false science
of materialism would sentence mortal man to become an outcast in the universe.
Such
partial knowledge is potentially evil; it is knowledge composed of both good
and evil.
Truth is beautiful
because it is both replete and symmetrical.
When man searches
for truth, he pursues the divinely real.
Philosophers
commit their gravest error when they are misled into the fallacy of
abstraction, the practice of focusing the attention upon one aspect of reality
and then of pronouncing such an isolated aspect to be the whole truth.
The wise
philosopher will always look for the creative design which is behind, and
pre-existent to, all universe phenomena. The creator thought invariably
precedes creative action.
Intellectual
self-consciousness can discover the beauty of truth, its spiritual quality, not
only by the philosophic consistency of its concepts, but more certainly and
surely by the unerring response of the ever-present Spirit of Truth (invisible
living power emanating from the deities)
Happiness ensues
from the recognition of truth because it can be acted
out; it can be lived.
Disappointment
and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be
realized in experience.
Divine truth is
best known by its spiritual flavor.
The eternal quest
is for unification, for divine coherence.
The far-flung
physical universe coheres in the Isle
of Paradise (the static
eternal center of all universes); the intellectual universe coheres in the
God of mind, the Conjoint Actor (the third source of deity originating from
the eternal God); the spiritual universe is coherent in the personality of
the Eternal Son (the second source of deity originating from the Eternal God).
But the isolated
mortal (human like living being) of time and space coheres in God the
Father through the direct relationship between the indwelling Thought Adjuster
(fragment of God residing in the mind of man) and the Universal Father (the
first source of deity).
Man’s Adjuster is
a fragment of God and everlastingly seeks for divine unification; it coheres
with, and in, the Paradise Deity of the First Source and Center.
The discernment
of supreme beauty is the discovery and integration of reality: The discernment
of the divine goodness in the eternal truth, that is ultimate beauty.
Even the charm of
human art consists in the harmony of its unity.
The great mistake
of the Hebrew religion was its failure to associate the goodness of God
with the factual truths of science and the appealing beauty of art.
As civilization
progressed, and since religion continued to pursue the same unwise course of
overemphasizing the goodness of God to the relative exclusion of truth and
neglect of beauty, there developed an increasing tendency for certain types of
men to turn away from the abstract and dissociated concept of isolated goodness.
The over-stressed
and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails to hold the devotion and
loyalty of many twentieth-century men, would rehabilitate itself if, in
addition to its moral mandates, it would give equal consideration to the truths
of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience, and to the beauties of the
physical creation, the charm of intellectual art, and the grandeur of genuine
character achievement.
The religious
challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women
of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy
of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of
cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness.
Such a new and
righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man
and challenge that which is best in the human soul.
Truth, beauty,
and goodness are divine realities, and as man ascends the scale of spiritual
living, these supreme qualities of the Eternal become increasingly co-ordinated
and unified in God, who is love.
All truth —
material, philosophic, or spiritual — is both beautiful and good.
All real beauty —
material art or spiritual symmetry — is both true and good.
All genuine
goodness — whether personal morality, social equity, or divine ministry — is
equally true and beautiful.
Health, sanity,
and happiness are integrations of truth, beauty, and goodness as they are
blended in human experience.
Such levels of
efficient living come about through the unification of energy systems, idea
systems, and spirit systems.
Truth is
coherent, beauty attractive, goodness stabilizing.
And when these
values of that which is real are co-ordinated in personality experience, the
result is a high order of love conditioned by wisdom and qualified by
loyalty.
The real purpose
of all universe education is to effect the better co-ordination of the isolated
child of the worlds with the larger realities of his expanding
experience.
Reality is finite
on the human level, infinite and eternal on the higher and divine levels.
[As told by the Urantia Book-Paper-2]
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