PAPER 75
THE DEFAULT OF ADAM AND EVE
75:0.1 AFTER more than one hundred years of effort
on Urantia, Adam was able to see very little progress outside the Garden; the
world at large did not seem to be improving much. The realization of race
betterment appeared to be a long way off, and the situation seemed so
desperate as to demand something for relief not embraced in the original
plans. At least that is what often passed through Adam's mind, and he so
expressed himself many times to Eve. Adam and his mate were loyal, but they
were isolated from their kind, and they were sorely distressed by the sorry
plight of their world.
1. THE URANTIA PROBLEM
75:1.1 The Adamic mission on experimental,
rebellion-seared, and isolated Urantia was a formidable undertaking. And the
Material Son and Daughter early became aware of the difficulty and complexity
of their planetary assignment. Nevertheless, they courageously set about the
task of solving their manifold problems. But when they addressed themselves to
the all-important work of eliminating the defectives and degenerates from
among the human strains, they were quite dismayed. They could see no way out
of the dilemma, and they could not take counsel with their superiors on either
Jerusem or Edentia. Here they were, isolated and day by day confronted with
some new and complicated tangle, some problem that seemed to be
unsolvable.
75:1.2 Under normal conditions the first work of a
Planetary Adam and Eve would be the co-ordination and blending of the races.
But on Urantia such a project seemed just about hopeless, for the races, while
biologically fit, had never been purged of their retarded and defective
strains.
75:1.3 Adam and Eve found themselves on a sphere
wholly unprepared for the proclamation of the brotherhood of man, a world
groping about in abject spiritual darkness and cursed with confusion worse
confounded by the miscarriage of the mission of the preceding administration.
Mind and morals were at a low level, and instead of beginning the task of
effecting religious unity, they must begin all anew the work of converting the
inhabitants to the most simple forms of religious belief. Instead of finding
one language ready for adoption, they were confronted by the world-wide
confusion of hundreds upon hundreds of local dialects. No Adam of the
planetary service was ever set down on a more difficult world; the obstacles
seemed insuperable and the problems beyond creature solution.
75:1.4 They were isolated, and the tremendous sense
of loneliness which bore down upon them was all the more heightened by the
early departure of the Melchizedek receivers. Only indirectly, by means of the
angelic orders, could they communicate with any being off the planet. Slowly
their courage weakened, their spirits drooped, and sometimes their faith
almost faltered.
75:1.5 And this is the true picture of the
consternation of these two noble souls as they pondered the tasks which
confronted them. They were both keenly aware of the enormous undertaking
involved in the execution of their planetary assignment.
75:1.6 Probably no Material Sons of Nebadon were
ever faced with such a difficult and seemingly hopeless task as confronted
Adam and Eve in the sorry plight of Urantia. But they would have sometime met
with success had they been more farseeing and patient. Both of them,
especially Eve, were altogether too impatient; they were not willing to settle
down to the long, long endurance test. They wanted to see some immediate
results, and they did, but the results thus secured proved most disastrous
both to themselves and to their world.
2. CALIGASTIA'S PLOT
75:2.1 Caligastia paid frequent visits to the Garden
and held many conferences with Adam and Eve, but they were adamant to all his
suggestions of compromise and short-cut adventures. They had before them
enough of the results of rebellion to produce effective immunity against all
such insinuating proposals. Even the young offspring of Adam were uninfluenced
by the overtures of Daligastia. And of course neither Caligastia nor his
associate had power to influence any individual against his will, much less to
persuade the children of Adam to do wrong.
75:2.2 It must be remembered that Caligastia was
still the titular Planetary Prince of Urantia, a misguided but nevertheless
high Son of the local universe. He was not finally deposed until the times of
Christ Michael on Urantia.
75:2.3 But the fallen Prince was persistent and
determined. He soon gave up working on Adam and decided to try a wily flank
attack on Eve. The evil one concluded that the only hope for success lay in
the adroit employment of suitable persons belonging to the upper strata of the
Nodite group, the descendants of his onetime corporeal-staff associates. And
the plans were accordingly laid for entrapping the mother of the violet race.
75:2.4 It was farthest from Eve's intention ever to
do anything which would militate against Adam's plans or jeopardize their
planetary trust. Knowing the tendency of woman to look upon immediate results
rather than to plan farsightedly for more remote effects, the Melchizedeks,
before departing, had especially enjoined Eve as to the peculiar dangers
besetting their isolated position on the planet and had in particular warned
her never to stray from the side of her mate, that is, to attempt no personal
or secret methods of furthering their mutual undertakings. Eve had most
scrupulously carried out these instructions for more than one hundred years,
and it did not occur to her that any danger would attach to the increasingly
private and confidential visits she was enjoying with a certain Nodite leader
named Serapatatia. The whole affair developed so gradually and naturally that
she was taken unawares.
75:2.5 The Garden dwellers had been in contact with
the Nodites since the early days of Eden. From these mixed descendants of the
defaulting members of Caligastia's staff they had received much valuable help
and co-operation, and through them the Edenic regime was now to meet its
complete undoing and final overthrow.
3. THE TEMPTATION OF EVE
75:3.1 Adam had just finished his first one hundred
years on earth when Serapatatia, upon the death of his father, came to the
leadership of the western or Syrian confederation of the Nodite tribes.
Serapatatia was a brown-tinted man, a brilliant descendant of the onetime
chief of the Dalamatia commission on health mated with one of the master
female minds of the blue race of those distant days. All down through the ages
this line had held authority and wielded a great influence among the western
Nodite tribes.
75:3.2 Serapatatia had made several visits to the
Garden and had become deeply impressed with the righteousness of Adam's cause.
And shortly after assuming the leadership of the Syrian Nodites, he announced
his intention of establishing an affiliation with the work of Adam and Eve in
the Garden. The majority of his people joined him in this program, and Adam
was cheered by the news that the most powerful and the most intelligent of all
the neighboring tribes had swung over almost bodily to the support of the
program for world improvement; it was decidedly heartening. And shortly after
this great event, Serapatatia and his new staff were entertained by Adam and
Eve in their own home.
75:3.3 Serapatatia became one of the most able and
efficient of all of Adam's lieutenants. He was entirely honest and thoroughly
sincere in all of his activities; he was never conscious, even later on, that
he was being used as a circumstantial tool of the wily Caligastia.
75:3.4 Presently, Serapatatia became the associate
chairman of the Edenic commission on tribal relations, and many plans were
laid for the more vigorous prosecution of the work of winning the remote
tribes to the cause of the Garden.
75:3.5 He held many conferences with Adam and Eve --
especially with Eve -- and they talked over many plans for improving their
methods. One day, during a talk with Eve, it occurred to Serapatatia that it
would be very helpful if, while awaiting the recruiting of large numbers of
the violet race, something could be done in the meantime immediately to
advance the needy waiting tribes. Serapatatia contended that, if the Nodites,
as the most progressive and co-operative race, could have a leader born to
them of part origin in the violet stock, it would constitute a powerful tie
binding these peoples more closely to the Garden. And all of this was soberly
and honestly considered to be for the good of the world since this child, to
be reared and educated in the Garden, would exert a great influence for good
over his father's people.
75:3.6 It should again be emphasized that
Serapatatia was altogether honest and wholly sincere in all that he proposed.
He never once suspected that he was playing into the hands of Caligastia and
Daligastia. Serapatatia was entirely loyal to the plan of building up a strong
reserve of the violet race before attempting the world-wide upstepping of the
confused peoples of Urantia. But this would require hundreds of years to
consummate, and he was impatient; he wanted to see some immediate results --
something in his own lifetime. He made it clear to Eve that Adam was
oftentimes discouraged by the little that had been accomplished toward
uplifting the world.
75:3.7 For more than five years these plans were
secretly matured. At last they had developed to the point where Eve consented
to have a secret conference with Cano, the most brilliant mind and active
leader of the near-by colony of friendly Nodites. Cano was very sympathetic
with the Adamic regime; in fact, he was the sincere spiritual leader of those
neighboring Nodites who favored friendly relations with the Garden.
75:3.8 The fateful meeting occurred during the
twilight hours of the autumn evening, not far from the home of Adam. Eve had
never before met the beautiful and enthusiastic Cano -- and he was a
magnificent specimen of the survival of the superior physique and outstanding
intellect of his remote progenitors of the Prince's staff. And Cano also
thoroughly believed in the righteousness of the Serapatatia project. (Outside
of the Garden, multiple mating was a common practice.)
75:3.9 Influenced by flattery, enthusiasm, and great
personal persuasion, Eve then and there consented to embark upon the
much-discussed enterprise, to add her own little scheme of world saving to the
larger and more far-reaching divine plan. Before she quite realized what was
transpiring, the fatal step had been taken. It was done.
4. THE REALIZATION OF DEFAULT
75:4.1 The celestial life of the planet was astir.
Adam recognized that something was wrong, and he asked Eve to come aside with
him in the Garden. And now, for the first time, Adam heard the entire story of
the long-nourished plan for accelerating world improvement by operating
simultaneously in two directions: the prosecution of the divine plan
concomitantly with the execution of the Serapatatia enterprise.
75:4.2 And as the Material Son and Daughter thus
communed in the moonlit Garden, "the voice in the Garden" reproved them for
disobedience. And that voice was none other than my own announcement to the
Edenic pair that they had transgressed the Garden covenant; that they had
disobeyed the instructions of the Melchizedeks; that they had defaulted in the
execution of their oaths of trust to the sovereign of the universe.
75:4.3 Eve had consented to participate in the
practice of good and evil. Good is the carrying out of the divine plans; sin
is a deliberate transgression of the divine will; evil is the misadaptation of
plans and the maladjustment of techniques resulting in universe disharmony and
planetary confusion.
75:4.4 Every time the Garden pair had partaken of
the fruit of the tree of life, they had been warned by the archangel custodian
to refrain from yielding to the suggestions of Caligastia to combine good and
evil. They had been thus admonished: "In the day that you commingle good and
evil, you shall surely become as the mortals of the realm; you shall surely
die."
75:4.5 Eve had told Cano of this oft-repeated
warning on the fateful occasion of their secret meeting, but Cano, not knowing
the import or significance of such admonitions, had assured her that men and
women with good motives and true intentions could do no evil; that she should
surely not die but rather live anew in the person of their offspring, who
would grow up to bless and stabilize the world.
75:4.6 Even though this project of modifying the
divine plan had been conceived and executed with entire sincerity and with
only the highest motives concerning the welfare of the world, it constituted
evil because it represented the wrong way to achieve righteous ends, because
it departed from the right way, the divine plan.
75:4.7 True, Eve had found Cano pleasant to the
eyes, and she realized all that her seducer promised by way of "new and
increased knowledge of human affairs and quickened understanding of human
nature as supplemental to the comprehension of the Adamic nature."
75:4.8 I talked to the father and mother of the
violet race that night in the Garden as became my duty under the sorrowful
circumstances. I listened fully to the recital of all that led up to the
default of Mother Eve and gave both of them advice and counsel concerning the
immediate situation. Some of this advice they followed; some they disregarded.
This conference appears in your records as "the Lord God calling to Adam and
Eve in the Garden and asking, `Where are you?'" It was the practice of later
generations to attribute everything unusual and extraordinary, whether natural
or spiritual, directly to the personal intervention of the Gods.
5. REPERCUSSIONS OF DEFAULT
75:5.1 Eve's disillusionment was truly pathetic.
Adam discerned the whole predicament and, while heartbroken and dejected,
entertained only pity and sympathy for his erring mate.
75:5.2 It was in the despair of the realization of
failure that Adam, the day after Eve's misstep, sought out Laotta, the
brilliant Nodite woman who was head of the western schools of the Garden, and
with premeditation committed the folly of Eve. But do not misunderstand; Adam
was not beguiled; he knew exactly what he was about; he deliberately chose to
share the fate of Eve. He loved his mate with a supermortal affection, and the
thought of the possibility of a lonely vigil on Urantia without her was more
than he could endure.
75:5.3 When they learned what had happened to Eve,
the infuriated inhabitants of the Garden became unmanageable; they declared
war on the near-by Nodite settlement. They swept out through the gates of Eden
and down upon these unprepared people, utterly destroying them -- not a man,
woman, or child was spared. And Cano, the father of Cain yet unborn, also
perished.
75:5.4 Upon the realization of what had happened,
Serapatatia was overcome with consternation and beside himself with fear and
remorse. The next day he drowned himself in the great river.
75:5.5 The children of Adam sought to comfort their
distracted mother while their father wandered in solitude for thirty days. At
the end of that time judgment asserted itself, and Adam returned to his home
and began to plan for their future course of action.
75:5.6 The consequences of the follies of misguided
parents are so often shared by their innocent children. The upright and noble
sons and daughters of Adam and Eve were overwhelmed by the inexplicable sorrow
of the unbelievable tragedy which had been so suddenly and so ruthlessly
thrust upon them. Not in fifty years did the older of these children recover
from the sorrow and sadness of those tragic days, especially the terror of
that period of thirty days during which their father was absent from home
while their distracted mother was in complete ignorance of his whereabouts or
fate.
75:5.7 And those same thirty days were as long years
of sorrow and suffering to Eve. Never did this noble soul fully recover from
the effects of that excruciating period of mental suffering and spiritual
sorrow. No feature of their subsequent deprivations and material hardships
ever began to compare in Eve's memory with those terrible days and awful
nights of loneliness and unbearable uncertainty. She learned of the rash act
of Serapatatia and did not know whether her mate had in sorrow destroyed
himself or had been removed from the world in retribution for her misstep. And
when Adam returned, Eve experienced a satisfaction of joy and gratitude that
never was effaced by their long and difficult life partnership of toiling
service.
75:5.8 Time passed, but Adam was not certain of the
nature of their offense until seventy days after the default of Eve, when the
Melchizedek receivers returned to Urantia and assumed jurisdiction over world
affairs. And then he knew they had failed.
75:5.9 But still more trouble was brewing: The news
of the annihilation of the Nodite settlement near Eden was not slow in
reaching the home tribes of Serapatatia to the north, and presently a great
host was assembling to march on the Garden. And this was the beginning of a
long and bitter warfare between the Adamites and the Nodites, for these
hostilities kept up long after Adam and his followers emigrated to the second
garden in the Euphrates valley. There was intense and lasting "enmity between
that man and the woman, between his seed and her seed."
6. ADAM AND EVE LEAVE THE GARDEN
75:6.1 When Adam learned that the Nodites were on
the march, he sought the counsel of the Melchizedeks, but they refused to
advise him, only telling him to do as he thought best and promising their
friendly co-operation, as far as possible, in any course he might decide upon.
The Melchizedeks had been forbidden to interfere with the personal plans of
Adam and Eve.
75:6.2 Adam knew that he and Eve had failed; the
presence of the Melchizedek receivers told him that, though he still knew
nothing of their personal status or future fate. He held an all-night
conference with some twelve hundred loyal followers who pledged themselves to
follow their leader, and the next day at noon these pilgrims went forth from
Eden in quest of new homes. Adam had no liking for war and accordingly elected
to leave the first garden to the Nodites unopposed.
75:6.3 The Edenic caravan was halted on the third
day out from the Garden by the arrival of the seraphic transports from
Jerusem. And for the first time Adam and Eve were informed of what was to
become of their children. While the transports stood by, those children who
had arrived at the age of choice (twenty years) were given the option of
remaining on Urantia with their parents or of becoming wards of the Most Highs
of Norlatiadek. Two thirds chose to go to Edentia; about one third elected to
remain with their parents. All children of prechoice age were taken to
Edentia. No one could have beheld the sorrowful parting of this Material Son
and Daughter and their children without realizing that the way of the
transgressor is hard. These offspring of Adam and Eve are now on Edentia; we
do not know what disposition is to be made of them.
75:6.4 It was a sad, sad caravan that prepared to
journey on. Could anything have been more tragic! To have come to a world in
such high hopes, to have been so auspiciously received, and then to go forth
in disgrace from Eden, only to lose more than three fourths of their children
even before finding a new abiding place!
7. DEGRADATION OF ADAM AND EVE
75:7.1 It was while the Edenic caravan was halted
that Adam and Eve were informed of the nature of their transgressions and
advised concerning their fate. Gabriel appeared to pronounce judgment. And
this was the verdict: The Planetary Adam and Eve of Urantia are adjudged in
default; they have violated the covenant of their trusteeship as the rulers of
this inhabited world.
75:7.2 While downcast by the sense of guilt, Adam
and Eve were greatly cheered by the announcement that their judges on
Salvington had absolved them from all charges of standing in "contempt of the
universe government." They had not been held guilty of rebellion.
75:7.3 The Edenic pair were informed that they had
degraded themselves to the status of the mortals of the realm; that they must
henceforth conduct themselves as man and woman of Urantia, looking to the
future of the world races for their future.
75:7.4 Long before Adam and Eve left Jerusem, their
instructors had fully explained to them the consequences of any vital
departure from the divine plans. I had personally and repeatedly warned them,
both before and after they arrived on Urantia, that reduction to the status of
mortal flesh would be the certain result, the sure penalty, which would
unfailingly attend default in the execution of their planetary mission. But a
comprehension of the immortality status of the material order of sonship is
essential to a clear understanding of the consequences attendant upon the
default of Adam and Eve.
75:7.5 1. Adam and Eve, like their fellows on
Jerusem, maintained immortal status through intellectual association with the
mind-gravity circuit of the Spirit. When this vital sustenance is broken by
mental disjunction, then, regardless of the spiritual level of creature
existence, immortality status is lost. Mortal status followed by physical
dissolution was the inevitable consequence of the intellectual default of Adam
and Eve.
75:7.6 2. The Material Son and Daughter of Urantia,
being also personalized in the similitude of the mortal flesh of this world,
were further dependent on the maintenance of a dual circulatory system, the
one derived from their physical natures, the other from the superenergy stored
in the fruit of the tree of life. Always had the archangel custodian
admonished Adam and Eve that default of trust would culminate in degradation
of status, and access to this source of energy was denied them subsequent to
their default.
75:7.7 Caligastia did succeed in trapping Adam and
Eve, but he did not accomplish his purpose of leading them into open rebellion
against the universe government. What they had done was indeed evil, but they
were never guilty of contempt for truth, neither did they knowingly enlist in
rebellion against the righteous rule of the Universal Father and his Creator
Son.
8. THE SO-CALLED FALL OF MAN
75:8.1 Adam and Eve did fall from their high estate
of material sonship down to the lowly status of mortal man. But that was not
the fall of man. The human race has been uplifted despite the immediate
consequences of the Adamic default. Although the divine plan of giving the
violet race to the Urantia peoples miscarried, the mortal races have profited
enormously from the limited contribution which Adam and his descendants made
to the Urantia races.
75:8.2 There has been no "fall of man." The history
of the human race is one of progressive evolution, and the Adamic bestowal
left the world peoples greatly improved over their previous biologic
condition. The more superior stocks of Urantia now contain inheritance factors
derived from as many as four separate sources: Andonite, Sangik, Nodite, and
Adamic.
75:8.3 Adam should not be regarded as the cause of a
curse on the human race. While he did fail in carrying forward the divine
plan, while he did transgress his covenant with Deity, while he and his mate
were most certainly degraded in creature status, notwithstanding all this,
their contribution to the human race did much to advance civilization on
Urantia.
75:8.4 In estimating the results of the Adamic
mission on your world, justice demands the recognition of the condition of the
planet. Adam was confronted with a well-nigh hopeless task when, with his
beautiful mate, he was transported from Jerusem to this dark and confused
planet. But had they been guided by the counsel of the Melchizedeks and their
associates, and had they been more patient, they would have eventually
met with success. But Eve listened to the insidious propaganda of personal
liberty and planetary freedom of action. She was led to experiment with the
life plasm of the material order of sonship in that she allowed this life
trust to become prematurely commingled with that of the then mixed order of
the original design of the Life Carriers which had been previously combined
with that of the reproducing beings once attached to the staff of the
Planetary Prince.
75:8.5 Never, in all your ascent to Paradise, will
you gain anything by impatiently attempting to circumvent the established and
divine plan by short cuts, personal inventions, or other devices for improving
on the way of perfection, to perfection, and for eternal
perfection.
75:8.6 All in all, there probably never was a more
disheartening miscarriage of wisdom on any planet in all Nebadon. But it is
not surprising that these missteps occur in the affairs of the evolutionary
universes. We are a part of a gigantic creation, and it is not strange that
everything does not work in perfection; our universe was not created in
perfection. Perfection is our eternal goal, not our origin.
75:8.7 If this were a mechanistic universe, if the
First Great Source and Center were only a force and not also a personality, if
all creation were a vast aggregation of physical matter dominated by precise
laws characterized by unvarying energy actions, then might perfection obtain,
even despite the incompleteness of universe status. There would be no
disagreement; there would be no friction. But in our evolving universe of
relative perfection and imperfection we rejoice that disagreement and
misunderstanding are possible, for thereby is evidenced the fact and the act
of personality in the universe. And if our creation is an existence dominated
by personality, then can you be assured of the possibilities of personality
survival, advancement, and achievement; we can be confident of personality
growth, experience, and adventure. What a glorious universe, in that it is
personal and progressive, not merely mechanical or even passively
perfect!
75:8.8 Presented by
Solonia, the seraphic "voice in the Garden."
