PAPER 195
AFTER PENTECOST
195:0.1 THE results of Peter's preaching on the day
of Pentecost were such as to decide the future policies, and to determine the
plans, of the majority of the apostles in their efforts to proclaim the gospel
of the kingdom. Peter was the real founder of the Christian church; Paul
carried the Christian message to the gentiles, and the Greek believers carried
it to the whole Roman Empire.
195:0.2 Although the tradition-bound and
priest-ridden Hebrews, as a people, refused to accept either Jesus' gospel of
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man or Peter's and Paul's
proclamation of the resurrection and ascension of Christ (subsequent
Christianity), the rest of the Roman Empire was found to be receptive to the
evolving Christian teachings. Western civilization was at this time
intellectual, war weary, and thoroughly skeptical of all existing religions
and universe philosophies. The peoples of the Western world, the beneficiaries
of Greek culture, had a revered tradition of a great past. They could
contemplate the inheritance of great accomplishments in philosophy, art,
literature, and political progress. But with all these achievements they had
no soul-satisfying religion. Their spiritual longings remained
unsatisfied.
195:0.3
Upon such a stage of human society the teachings of Jesus, embraced in the
Christian message, were suddenly thrust. A new order of living was thus
presented to the hungry hearts of these Western peoples. This situation meant
immediate conflict between the older religious practices and the new
Christianized version of Jesus' message to the world. Such a conflict must
result in either decided victory for the new or for the old or in some degree
of compromise. History shows that the struggle ended in compromise.
Christianity presumed to embrace too much for any one people to assimilate in
one or two generations. It was not a simple spiritual appeal, such as Jesus
had presented to the souls of men; it early struck a decided attitude on
religious rituals, education, magic, medicine, art, literature, law,
government, morals, sex regulation, polygamy, and, in limited degree, even
slavery. Christianity came not merely as a new religion -- something all the
Roman Empire and all the Orient were waiting for -- but as a new order of
human society. And as such a pretension it quickly precipitated the
social-moral clash of the ages. The ideals of Jesus, as they were
reinterpreted by Greek philosophy and socialized in Christianity, now boldly
challenged the traditions of the human race embodied in the ethics, morality,
and religions of Western civilization.
195:0.4 At first, Christianity won as converts only
the lower social and economic strata. But by the beginning of the second
century the very best of Greco-Roman culture was increasingly turning to this
new order of Christian belief, this new concept of the purpose of living and
the goal of existence.
195:0.5 How did this new message of Jewish origin,
which had almost failed in the land of its birth, so quickly and effectively
capture the very best minds of the Roman Empire? The triumph of Christianity
over the philosophic religions and the mystery cults was due to:
195:0.6 1. Organization. Paul was a great organizer
and his successors kept up the pace he set.
195:0.7 2. Christianity was thoroughly Hellenized.
It embraced the best in Greek philosophy as well as the cream of Hebrew
theology.
195:0.8 3. But best of all, it contained a new and
great ideal, the echo of the life bestowal of Jesus and the reflection
of his message of salvation for all mankind.
195:0.9 4. The Christian leaders were willing to
make such compromises with Mithraism that the better half of its adherents
were won over to the Antioch cult.
195:0.10 5. Likewise did the next and later
generations of Christian leaders make such further compromises with paganism
that even the Roman emperor Constantine was won to the new
religion.
195:0.11 But the Christians made a shrewd bargain
with the pagans in that they adopted the ritualistic pageantry of the pagan
while compelling the pagan to accept the Hellenized version of Pauline
Christianity. They made a better bargain with the pagans than they did with
the Mithraic cult, but even in that earlier compromise they came off more than
conquerors in that they succeeded in eliminating the gross immoralities and
also numerous other reprehensible practices of the Persian mystery.
195:0.12 Wisely or unwisely, these early leaders of
Christianity deliberately compromised the ideals of Jesus in an effort
to save and further many of his ideas. And they were eminently
successful. But mistake not! these compromised ideals of the Master are still
latent in his gospel, and they will eventually assert their full power upon
the world.
195:0.13 By this paganization of Christianity the
old order won many minor victories of a ritualistic nature, but the Christians
gained the ascendancy in that:
195:0.14 1. A new and enormously higher note in
human morals was struck.
195:0.15 2. A new and greatly enlarged concept of
God was given to the world.
195:0.16 3. The hope of immortality became a part of
the assurance of a recognized religion.
195:0.17 4. Jesus of Nazareth was given to man's
hungry soul.
195:0.18 Many of the great truths taught by Jesus
were almost lost in these early compromises, but they yet slumber in this
religion of paganized Christianity, which was in turn the Pauline version of
the life and teachings of the Son of Man. And Christianity, even before it was
paganized, was first thoroughly Hellenized. Christianity owes much, very much,
to the Greeks. It was a Greek, from Egypt, who so bravely stood up at Nicaea
and so fearlessly challenged this assembly that it dared not so obscure the
concept of the nature of Jesus that the real truth of his bestowal might have
been in danger of being lost to the world. This Greek's name was Athanasius,
and but for the eloquence and the logic of this believer, the persuasions of
Arius would have triumphed.
1. INFLUENCE OF THE GREEKS
195:1.1 The Hellenization of Christianity started in
earnest on that eventful day when the Apostle Paul stood before the council of
the Areopagus in Athens and told the Athenians about "the Unknown God." There,
under the shadow of the Acropolis, this Roman citizen proclaimed to these
Greeks his version of the new religion which had taken origin in the Jewish
land of Galilee. And there was something strangely alike in Greek philosophy
and many of the teachings of Jesus. They had a common goal -- both aimed at
the emergence of the individual. The Greek, at social and political
emergence; Jesus, at moral and spiritual emergence. The Greek taught
intellectual liberalism leading to political freedom; Jesus taught spiritual
liberalism leading to religious liberty. These two ideas put together
constituted a new and mighty charter for human freedom; they presaged man's
social, political, and spiritual liberty.
195:1.2 Christianity came into existence and
triumphed over all contending religions primarily because of two
things:
195:1.3 1. The Greek mind was willing to borrow new
and good ideas even from the Jews.
195:1.4 2. Paul and his successors were willing but
shrewd and sagacious compromisers; they were keen theologic
traders.
195:1.5 At the time Paul stood up in Athens
preaching "Christ and Him Crucified," the Greeks were spiritually hungry; they
were inquiring, interested, and actually looking for spiritual truth. Never
forget that at first the Romans fought Christianity, while the Greeks embraced
it, and that it was the Greeks who literally forced the Romans subsequently to
accept this new religion, as then modified, as a part of Greek
culture.
195:1.6 The Greek revered beauty, the Jew holiness,
but both peoples loved truth. For centuries the Greek had seriously thought
and earnestly debated about all human problems -- social, economic, political,
and philosophic -- except religion. Few Greeks had paid much attention to
religion; they did not take even their own religion very seriously. For
centuries the Jews had neglected these other fields of thought while they
devoted their minds to religion. They took their religion very seriously, too
seriously. As illuminated by the content of Jesus' message, the united product
of the centuries of the thought of these two peoples now became the driving
power of a new order of human society and, to a certain extent, of a new order
of human religious belief and practice.
195:1.7 The influence of Greek culture had already
penetrated the lands of the western Mediterranean when Alexander spread
Hellenistic civilization over the near-Eastern world. The Greeks did very well
with their religion and their politics as long as they lived in small
city-states, but when the Macedonian king dared to expand Greece into an
empire, stretching from the Adriatic to the Indus, trouble began. The art and
philosophy of Greece were fully equal to the task of imperial expansion, but
not so with Greek political administration or religion. After the city-states
of Greece had expanded into empire, their rather parochial gods seemed a
little queer. The Greeks were really searching for one God, a greater
and better God, when the Christianized version of the older Jewish religion
came to them.
195:1.8 The Hellenistic Empire, as such, could not
endure. Its cultural sway continued on, but it endured only after securing
from the West the Roman political genius for empire administration and after
obtaining from the East a religion whose one God possessed empire
dignity.
195:1.9 In the first century after Christ,
Hellenistic culture had already attained its highest levels; its retrogression
had begun; learning was advancing but genius was declining. It was at this
very time that the ideas and ideals of Jesus, which were partially embodied in
Christianity, became a part of the salvage of Greek culture and
learning.
195:1.10 Alexander had charged on the East with the
cultural gift of the civilization of Greece; Paul assaulted the West with the
Christian version of the gospel of Jesus. And wherever the Greek culture
prevailed throughout the West, there Hellenized Christianity took root.
195:1.11 The Eastern version of the message of
Jesus, notwithstanding that it remained more true to his teachings, continued
to follow the uncompromising attitude of Abner. It never progressed as did the
Hellenized version and was eventually lost in the Islamic movement.
2. THE ROMAN INFLUENCE
195:2.1 The Romans bodily took over Greek culture,
putting representative government in the place of government by lot. And
presently this change favored Christianity in that Rome brought into the whole
Western world a new tolerance for strange languages, peoples, and even
religions.
195:2.2 Much of the early persecution of Christians
in Rome was due solely to their unfortunate use of the term "kingdom" in their
preaching. The Romans were tolerant of any and all religions but very
resentful of anything that savored of political rivalry. And so, when these
early persecutions, due so largely to misunderstanding, died out, the field
for religious propaganda was wide open. The Roman was interested in political
administration; he cared little for either art or religion, but he was
unusually tolerant of both.
195:2.3 Oriental law was stern and arbitrary; Greek
law was fluid and artistic; Roman law was dignified and respect-breeding.
Roman education bred an unheard-of and stolid loyalty. The early Romans were
politically devoted and sublimely consecrated individuals. They were honest,
zealous, and dedicated to their ideals, but without a religion worthy of the
name. Small wonder that their Greek teachers were able to persuade them to
accept Paul's Christianity.
195:2.4 And these Romans were a great people. They
could govern the Occident because they did govern themselves. Such
unparalleled honesty, devotion, and stalwart self-control was ideal soil for
the reception and growth of Christianity.
195:2.5 It was easy for these Greco-Romans to become
just as spiritually devoted to an institutional church as they were
politically devoted to the state. The Romans fought the church only when they
feared it as a competitor of the state. Rome, having little national
philosophy or native culture, took over Greek culture for its own and boldly
adopted Christ as its moral philosophy. Christianity became the moral culture
of Rome but hardly its religion in the sense of being the individual
experience in spiritual growth of those who embraced the new religion in such
a wholesale manner. True, indeed, many individuals did penetrate beneath the
surface of all this state religion and found for the nourishment of their
souls the real values of the hidden meanings held within the latent truths of
Hellenized and paganized Christianity.
195:2.6 The Stoic and his sturdy appeal to "nature
and conscience" had only the better prepared all Rome to receive Christ, at
least in an intellectual sense. The Roman was by nature and training a lawyer;
he revered even the laws of nature. And now, in Christianity, he discerned in
the laws of nature the laws of God. A people that could produce Cicero and
Vergil were ripe for Paul's Hellenized Christianity.
195:2.7 And so did these Romanized Greeks force both
Jews and Christians to philosophize their religion, to co-ordinate its ideas
and systematize its ideals, to adapt religious practices to the existing
current of life. And all this was enormously helped by translation of the
Hebrew scriptures into Greek and by the later recording of the New Testament
in the Greek tongue.
195:2.8 The Greeks, in contrast with the Jews and
many other peoples, had long provisionally believed in immortality, some sort
of survival after death, and since this was the very heart of Jesus' teaching,
it was certain that Christianity would make a strong appeal to them.
195:2.9 A succession of Greek-cultural and
Roman-political victories had consolidated the Mediterranean lands into one
empire, with one language and one culture, and had made the Western world
ready for one God. Judaism provided this God, but Judaism was not acceptable
as a religion to these Romanized Greeks. Philo helped some to mitigate their
objections, but Christianity revealed to them an even better concept of one
God, and they embraced it readily.
3. UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE
195:3.1 After the consolidation of Roman political
rule and after the dissemination of Christianity, the Christians found
themselves with one God, a great religious concept, but without empire. The
Greco-Romans found themselves with a great empire but without a God to serve
as the suitable religious concept for empire worship and spiritual
unification. The Christians accepted the empire; the empire adopted
Christianity. The Roman provided a unity of political rule; the Greek, a unity
of culture and learning; Christianity, a unity of religious thought and
practice.
195:3.2 Rome overcame the tradition of nationalism
by imperial universalism and for the first time in history made it possible
for different races and nations at least nominally to accept one
religion.
195:3.3 Christianity came into favor in Rome at a
time when there was great contention between the vigorous teachings of the
Stoics and the salvation promises of the mystery cults. Christianity came with
refreshing comfort and liberating power to a spiritually hungry people whose
language had no word for "unselfishness."
195:3.4 That which gave greatest power to
Christianity was the way its believers lived lives of service and even the way
they died for their faith during the earlier times of drastic
persecution.
195:3.5 The teaching regarding Christ's love for
children soon put an end to the widespread practice of exposing children to
death when they were not wanted, particularly girl babies.
195:3.6 The early plan of Christian worship was
largely taken over from the Jewish synagogue, modified by the Mithraic ritual;
later on, much pagan pageantry was added. The backbone of the early Christian
church consisted of Christianized Greek proselytes to Judaism.
195:3.7 The second century after Christ was the best
time in all the world's history for a good religion to make progress in the
Western world. During the first century Christianity had prepared itself, by
struggle and compromise, to take root and rapidly spread. Christianity adopted
the emperor; later, he adopted Christianity. This was a great age for the
spread of a new religion. There was religious liberty; travel was universal
and thought was untrammeled.
195:3.8 The spiritual impetus of nominally accepting
Hellenized Christianity came to Rome too late to prevent the well-started
moral decline or to compensate for the already well-established and increasing
racial deterioration. This new religion was a cultural necessity for imperial
Rome, and it is exceedingly unfortunate that it did not become a means of
spiritual salvation in a larger sense.
195:3.9 Even a good religion could not save a great
empire from the sure results of lack of individual participation in the
affairs of government, from overmuch paternalism, overtaxation and gross
collection abuses, unbalanced trade with the Levant which drained away the
gold, amusement madness, Roman standardization, the degradation of woman,
slavery and race decadence, physical plagues, and a state church which became
institutionalized nearly to the point of spiritual barrenness.
195:3.10 Conditions, however, were not so bad at
Alexandria. The early schools continued to hold much of Jesus' teachings free
from compromise. Poutaenus taught Clement and then went on to follow Nathaniel
in proclaiming Christ in India. While some of the ideals of Jesus were
sacrificed in the building of Christianity, it should in all fairness be
recorded that, by the end of the second century, practically all the great
minds of the Greco-Roman world had become Christian. The triumph was
approaching completion.
195:3.11 And this Roman Empire lasted sufficiently
long to insure the survival of Christianity even after the empire collapsed.
But we have often conjectured what would have happened in Rome and in the
world if it had been the gospel of the kingdom which had been accepted in the
place of Greek Christianity.
4. THE EUROPEAN DARK AGES
195:4.1 The church, being an adjunct to society and
the ally of politics, was doomed to share in the intellectual and spiritual
decline of the so-called European "dark ages." During this time, religion
became more and more monasticized, asceticized, and legalized. In a spiritual
sense, Christianity was hibernating. Throughout this period there existed,
alongside this slumbering and secularized religion, a continuous stream of
mysticism, a fantastic spiritual experience bordering on unreality and
philosophically akin to pantheism.
195:4.2 During these dark and despairing centuries,
religion became virtually secondhanded again. The individual was almost lost
before the overshadowing authority, tradition, and dictation of the church. A
new spiritual menace arose in the creation of a galaxy of "saints" who were
assumed to have special influence at the divine courts, and who, therefore, if
effectively appealed to, would be able to intercede in man's behalf before the
Gods.
195:4.3 But Christianity was sufficiently socialized
and paganized that, while it was impotent to stay the oncoming dark ages, it
was the better prepared to survive this long period of moral darkness and
spiritual stagnation. And it did persist on through the long night of Western
civilization and was still functioning as a moral influence in the world when
the renaissance dawned. The rehabilitation of Christianity, following the
passing of the dark ages, resulted in bringing into existence numerous sects
of the Christian teachings, beliefs suited to special intellectual, emotional,
and spiritual types of human personality. And many of these special Christian
groups, or religious families, still persist at the time of the making of this
presentation.
195:4.4 Christianity exhibits a history of having
originated out of the unintended transformation of the religion of Jesus into
a religion about Jesus. It further presents the history of having experienced
Hellenization, paganization, secularization, institutionalization,
intellectual deterioration, spiritual decadence, moral hibernation, threatened
extinction, later rejuvenation, fragmentation, and more recent relative
rehabilitation. Such a pedigree is indicative of inherent vitality and the
possession of vast recuperative resources. And this same Christianity is now
present in the civilized world of Occidental peoples and stands face to face
with a struggle for existence which is even more ominous than those eventful
crises which have characterized its past battles for dominance.
195:4.5 Religion is now confronted by the challenge
of a new age of scientific minds and materialistic tendencies. In this
gigantic struggle between the secular and the spiritual, the religion of Jesus
will eventually triumph.
5. THE MODERN PROBLEM
195:5.1 The twentieth century has brought new
problems for Christianity and all other religions to solve. The higher a
civilization climbs, the more necessitous becomes the duty to "seek first the
realities of heaven" in all of man's efforts to stabilize society and
facilitate the solution of its material problems.
195:5.2 Truth often becomes confusing and even
misleading when it is dismembered, segregated, isolated, and too much
analyzed. Living truth teaches the truth seeker aright only when it is
embraced in wholeness and as a living spiritual reality, not as a fact of
material science or an inspiration of intervening art.
195:5.3 Religion is the revelation to man of his
divine and eternal destiny. Religion is a purely personal and spiritual
experience and must forever be distinguished from man's other high forms of
thought, such as:
195:5.4 1. Man's logical attitude toward the things
of material reality.
195:5.5 2. Man's aesthetic appreciation of beauty
contrasted with ugliness.
195:5.6 3. Man's ethical recognition of social
obligations and political duty.
195:5.7 4. Even man's sense of human morality is
not, in and of itself, religious.
195:5.8 Religion is designed to find those values in
the universe which call forth faith, trust, and assurance; religion culminates
in worship. Religion discovers for the soul those supreme values which are in
contrast with the relative values discovered by the mind. Such superhuman
insight can be had only through genuine religious experience.
195:5.9 A lasting social system without a morality
predicated on spiritual realities can no more be maintained than could the
solar system without gravity.
195:5.10 Do not try to satisfy the curiosity or
gratify all the latent adventure surging within the soul in one short life in
the flesh. Be patient! be not tempted to indulge in a lawless plunge into
cheap and sordid adventure. Harness your energies and bridle your passions; be
calm while you await the majestic unfolding of an endless career of
progressive adventure and thrilling discovery.
195:5.11 In confusion over man's origin, do not lose
sight of his eternal destiny. Forget not that Jesus loved even little
children, and that he forever made clear the great worth of human personality.
195:5.12 As you view the world, remember that the
black patches of evil which you see are shown against a white background of
ultimate good. You do not view merely white patches of good which show up
miserably against a black background of evil.
195:5.13 When there is so much good truth to publish
and proclaim, why should men dwell so much upon the evil in the world just
because it appears to be a fact? The beauties of the spiritual values of truth
are more pleasurable and uplifting than is the phenomenon of evil.
195:5.14 In religion, Jesus advocated and followed
the method of experience, even as modern science pursues the technique of
experiment. We find God through the leadings of spiritual insight, but we
approach this insight of the soul through the love of the beautiful, the
pursuit of truth, loyalty to duty, and the worship of divine goodness. But of
all these values, love is the true guide to real insight.
6. MATERIALISM
195:6.1 Scientists have unintentionally precipitated
mankind into a materialistic panic; they have started an unthinking run on the
moral bank of the ages, but this bank of human experience has vast spiritual
resources; it can stand the demands being made upon it. Only unthinking men
become panicky about the spiritual assets of the human race. When the
materialistic-secular panic is over, the religion of Jesus will not be found
bankrupt. The spiritual bank of the kingdom of heaven will be paying out
faith, hope, and moral security to all who draw upon it "in His
name."
195:6.2 No matter what the apparent conflict between
materialism and the teachings of Jesus may be, you can rest assured that, in
the ages to come, the teachings of the Master will fully triumph. In reality,
true religion cannot become involved in any controversy with science; it is in
no way concerned with material things. Religion is simply indifferent to, but
sympathetic with, science, while it supremely concerns itself with the
scientist.
195:6.3 The pursuit of mere knowledge, without the
attendant interpretation of wisdom and the spiritual insight of religious
experience, eventually leads to pessimism and human despair. A little
knowledge is truly disconcerting.
195:6.4 At the time of this writing the worst of the
materialistic age is over; the day of a better understanding is already
beginning to dawn. The higher minds of the scientific world are no longer
wholly materialistic in their philosophy, but the rank and file of the people
still lean in that direction as a result of former teachings. But this age of
physical realism is only a passing episode in man's life on earth. Modern
science has left true religion -- the teachings of Jesus as translated in the
lives of his believers -- untouched. All science has done is to destroy the
childlike illusions of the misinterpretations of life.
195:6.5 Science is a quantitative experience,
religion a qualitative experience, as regards man's life on earth. Science
deals with phenomena; religion, with origins, values, and goals. To assign
causes as an explanation of physical phenomena is to confess ignorance
of ultimates and in the end only leads the scientist straight back to the
first great cause -- the Universal Father of Paradise.
195:6.6 The violent swing from an age of miracles to
an age of machines has proved altogether upsetting to man. The cleverness and
dexterity of the false philosophies of mechanism belie their very mechanistic
contentions. The fatalistic agility of the mind of a materialist forever
disproves his assertions that the universe is a blind and purposeless energy
phenomenon.
195:6.7 The mechanistic naturalism of some
supposedly educated men and the thoughtless secularism of the man in the
street are both exclusively concerned with things; they are barren of
all real values, sanctions, and satisfactions of a spiritual nature, as well
as being devoid of faith, hope, and eternal assurances. One of the great
troubles with modern life is that man thinks he is too busy to find time for
spiritual meditation and religious devotion.
195:6.8 Materialism reduces man to a soulless
automaton and constitutes him merely an arithmetical symbol finding a helpless
place in the mathematical formula of an unromantic and mechanistic universe.
But whence comes all this vast universe of mathematics without a Master
Mathematician? Science may expatiate on the conservation of matter, but
religion validates the conservation of men's souls -- it concerns their
experience with spiritual realities and eternal values.
195:6.9 The materialistic sociologist of today
surveys a community, makes a report thereon, and leaves the people as he found
them. Nineteen hundred years ago, unlearned Galileans surveyed Jesus giving
his life as a spiritual contribution to man's inner experience and then went
out and turned the whole Roman Empire upside down.
195:6.10 But religious leaders are making a great
mistake when they try to call modern man to spiritual battle with the trumpet
blasts of the Middle Ages. Religion must provide itself with new and
up-to-date slogans. Neither democracy nor any other political panacea will
take the place of spiritual progress. False religions may represent an evasion
of reality, but Jesus in his gospel introduced mortal man to the very entrance
upon an eternal reality of spiritual progression.
195:6.11 To say that mind "emerged" from matter
explains nothing. If the universe were merely a mechanism and mind were
unapart from matter, we would never have two differing interpretations of any
observed phenomenon. The concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness are not
inherent in either physics or chemistry. A machine cannot know, much
less know truth, hunger for righteousness, and cherish goodness.
195:6.12 Science may be physical, but the mind of
the truth-discerning scientist is at once supermaterial. Matter knows not
truth, neither can it love mercy nor delight in spiritual realities. Moral
convictions based on spiritual enlightenment and rooted in human experience
are just as real and certain as mathematical deductions based on physical
observations, but on another and higher level.
195:6.13 If men were only machines, they would react
more or less uniformly to a material universe. Individuality, much less
personality, would be nonexistent.
195:6.14 The fact of the absolute mechanism of
Paradise at the center of the universe of universes, in the presence of the
unqualified volition of the Second Source and Center, makes forever certain
that determiners are not the exclusive law of the cosmos. Materialism is
there, but it is not exclusive; mechanism is there, but it is not unqualified;
determinism is there, but it is not alone.
195:6.15 The finite universe of matter would
eventually become uniform and deterministic but for the combined presence of
mind and spirit. The influence of the cosmic mind constantly injects
spontaneity into even the material worlds.
195:6.16 Freedom or initiative in any realm of
existence is directly proportional to the degree of spiritual influence and
cosmic-mind control; that is, in human experience, the degree of the actuality
of doing "the Father's will." And so, when you once start out to find God,
that is the conclusive proof that God has already found you.
195:6.17 The sincere pursuit of goodness, beauty,
and truth leads to God. And every scientific discovery demonstrates the
existence of both freedom and uniformity in the universe. The discoverer was
free to make the discovery. The thing discovered is real and apparently
uniform, or else it could not have become known as a thing.
7. THE VULNERABILITY OF MATERIALISM
195:7.1 How foolish it is for material-minded man to
allow such vulnerable theories as those of a mechanistic universe to deprive
him of the vast spiritual resources of the personal experience of true
religion. Facts never quarrel with real spiritual faith; theories may. Better
that science should be devoted to the destruction of superstition rather than
attempting the overthrow of religious faith -- human belief in spiritual
realities and divine values.
195:7.2 Science should do for man materially what
religion does for him spiritually: extend the horizon of life and enlarge his
personality. True science can have no lasting quarrel with true religion. The
"scientific method" is merely an intellectual yardstick wherewith to measure
material adventures and physical achievements. But being material and wholly
intellectual, it is utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities
and religious experiences.
195:7.3 The inconsistency of the modern mechanist
is: If this were merely a material universe and man only a machine, such a man
would be wholly unable to recognize himself as such a machine, and likewise
would such a machine-man be wholly unconscious of the fact of the existence of
such a material universe. The materialistic dismay and despair of a
mechanistic science has failed to recognize the fact of the spirit-indwelt
mind of the scientist whose very supermaterial insight formulates these
mistaken and self-contradictory concepts of a materialistic
universe.
195:7.4 Paradise values of eternity and infinity, of
truth, beauty, and goodness, are concealed within the facts of the phenomena
of the universes of time and space. But it requires the eye of faith in a
spirit-born mortal to detect and discern these spiritual values.
195:7.5 The realities and values of spiritual
progress are not a "psychologic projection" -- a mere glorified daydream of
the material mind. Such things are the spiritual forecasts of the indwelling
Adjuster, the spirit of God living in the mind of man. And let not your
dabblings with the faintly glimpsed findings of "relativity" disturb your
concepts of the eternity and infinity of God. And in all your solicitation
concerning the necessity for self-expression do not make the mistake of
failing to provide for Adjuster-expression, the manifestation of your
real and better self.
195:7.6 If this were only a material universe,
material man would never be able to arrive at the concept of the mechanistic
character of such an exclusively material existence. This very mechanistic
concept of the universe is in itself a nonmaterial phenomenon of mind, and
all mind is of nonmaterial origin, no matter how thoroughly it may appear to
be materially conditioned and mechanistically controlled.
195:7.7 The partially evolved mental mechanism of
mortal man is not overendowed with consistency and wisdom. Man's conceit often
outruns his reason and eludes his logic.
195:7.8 The very pessimism of the most pessimistic
materialist is, in and of itself, sufficient proof that the universe of the
pessimist is not wholly material. Both optimism and pessimism are concept
reactions in a mind conscious of values as well as of facts. If
the universe were truly what the materialist regards it to be, man as a human
machine would then be devoid of all conscious recognition of that very
fact. Without the consciousness of the concept of values within
the spirit-born mind, the fact of universe materialism and the mechanistic
phenomena of universe operation would be wholly unrecognized by man. One
machine cannot be conscious of the nature or value of another
machine.
195:7.9 A mechanistic philosophy of life and the
universe cannot be scientific because science recognizes and deals only with
materials and facts. Philosophy is inevitably superscientific. Man is a
material fact of nature, but his life is a phenomenon which transcends
the material levels of nature in that it exhibits the control attributes of
mind and the creative qualities of spirit.
195:7.10 The sincere effort of man to become a
mechanist represents the tragic phenomenon of that man's futile effort to
commit intellectual and moral suicide. But he cannot do it.
195:7.11 If the universe were only material and man
only a machine, there would be no science to embolden the scientist to
postulate this mechanization of the universe. Machines cannot measure,
classify, nor evaluate themselves. Such a scientific piece of work could be
executed only by some entity of supermachine status.
195:7.12 If universe reality is only one vast
machine, then man must be outside of the universe and apart from it in order
to recognize such a fact and become conscious of the insight of
such an evaluation.
195:7.13 If man is only a machine, by what technique
does this man come to believe or claim to know that he is only a
machine? The experience of self-conscious evaluation of one's self is never an
attribute of a mere machine. A self-conscious and avowed mechanist is the best
possible answer to mechanism. If materialism were a fact, there could be no
self-conscious mechanist. It is also true that one must first be a moral
person before one can perform immoral acts.
195:7.14 The very claim of materialism implies a
supermaterial consciousness of the mindwhich presumes to assert such dogmas. A
mechanism might deteriorate, but it could never progress. Machines do not
think, create, dream, aspire, idealize, hunger for truth, or thirst for
righteousness. They do not motivate their lives with the passion to serve
other machines and to choose as their goal of eternal progression the sublime
task of finding God and striving to be like him. Machines are never
intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, moral, or spiritual.
195:7.15 Art proves that man is not mechanistic, but
it does not prove that he is spiritually immortal. Art is mortal morontia, the
intervening field between man, the material, and man, the spiritual. Poetry is
an effort to escape from material realities to spiritual values.
195:7.16 In a high civilization, art humanizes
science, while in turn it is spiritualized by true religion -- insight into
spiritual and eternal values. Art represents the human and time-space
evaluation of reality. Religion is the divine embrace of cosmic values
and connotes eternal progression in spiritual ascension and expansion. The art
of time is dangerous only when it becomes blind to the spirit standards of the
divine patterns which eternity reflects as the reality shadows of time. True
art is the effective manipulation of the material things of life; religion is
the ennobling transformation of the material facts of life, and it never
ceases in its spiritual evaluation of art.
195:7.17 How foolish to presume that an automaton
could conceive a philosophy of automatism, and how ridiculous that it should
presume to form such a concept of other and fellow automatons!
195:7.18 Any scientific interpretation of the
material universe is valueless unless it provides due recognition for the
scientist. No appreciation of art is genuine unless it accords
recognition to the artist. No evaluation of morals is worth while
unless it includes the moralist. No recognition of philosophy is
edifying if it ignores the philosopher, and religion cannot exist
without the real experience of the religionist who, in and through this
very experience, is seeking to find God and to know him. Likewise is the
universe of universes without significance apart from the I AM, the infinite
God who made it and unceasingly manages it.
195:7.19 Mechanists -- humanists -- tend to drift
with the material currents. Idealists and spiritists dare to use their
oars with intelligence and vigor in order to modify the apparently purely
material course of the energy streams.
195:7.20 Science lives by the mathematics of the
mind; music expresses the tempo of the emotions. Religion is the spiritual
rhythm of the soul in time-space harmony with the higher and eternal melody
measurements of Infinity. Religious experience is something in human life
which is truly supermathematical.
195:7.21 In language, an alphabet represents the
mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a
thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals -- of love and hate, of
cowardice and courage -- represent the performances of mind within the scope
defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the
will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational
endowment.
195:7.22 The universe is not like the laws,
mechanisms, and the uniformities which the scientist discovers, and which he
comes to regard as science, but rather like the curious, thinking, choosing,
creative, combining, and discriminating scientist who thus observes
universe phenomena and classifies the mathematical facts inherent in the
mechanistic phases of the material side of creation. Neither is the universe
like the art of the artist, but rather like the striving, dreaming, aspiring,
and advancing artist who seeks to transcend the world of material
things in an effort to achieve a spiritual goal.
195:7.23 The scientist, not science, perceives the
reality of an evolving and advancing universe of energy and matter. The
artist, not art, demonstrates the existence of the transient morontia world
intervening between material existence and spiritual liberty. The religionist,
not religion, proves the existence of the spirit realities and divine values
which are to be encountered in the progress of eternity.
8. SECULAR TOTALITARIANISM
195:8.1 But even after materialism and mechanism
have been more or less vanquished, the devastating influence of
twentieth-century secularism will still blight the spiritual experience of
millions of unsuspecting souls.
195:8.2 Modern secularism has been fostered by two
world-wide influences. The father of secularism was the narrow-minded and
godless attitude of nineteenth- and twentieth-century so-called science --
atheistic science. The mother of modern secularism was the totalitarian
medieval Christian church. Secularism had its inception as a rising protest
against the almost complete domination of Western civilization by the
institutionalized Christian church.
195:8.3 At the time of this revelation, the
prevailing intellectual and philosophical climate of both European and
American life is decidedly secular -- humanistic. For three hundred years
Western thinking has been progressively secularized. Religion has become more
and more a nominal influence, largely a ritualistic exercise. The majority of
professed Christians of Western civilization are unwittingly actual
secularists.
195:8.4 It required a great power, a mighty
influence, to free the thinking and living of the Western peoples from the
withering grasp of a totalitarian ecclesiastical domination. Secularism did
break the bonds of church control, and now in turn it threatens to establish a
new and godless type of mastery over the hearts and minds of modern man. The
tyrannical and dictatorial political state is the direct offspring of
scientific materialism and philosophic secularism. Secularism no sooner frees
man from the domination of the institutionalized church than it sells him into
slavish bondage to the totalitarian state. Secularism frees man from
ecclesiastical slavery only to betray him into the tyranny of political and
economic slavery.
195:8.5 Materialism denies God, secularism simply
ignores him; at least that was the earlier attitude. More recently, secularism
has assumed a more militant attitude, assuming to take the place of the
religion whose totalitarian bondage it onetime resisted. Twentieth-century
secularism tends to affirm that man does not need God. But beware! this
godless philosophy of human society will lead only to unrest, animosity,
unhappiness, war, and world-wide disaster.
195:8.6 Secularism can never bring peace to mankind.
Nothing can take the place of God in human society. But mark you well! do not
be quick to surrender the beneficent gains of the secular revolt from
ecclesiastical totalitarianism. Western civilization today enjoys many
liberties and satisfactions as a result of the secular revolt. The great
mistake of secularism was this: In revolting against the almost total control
of life by religious authority, and after attaining the liberation from such
ecclesiastical tyranny, the secularists went on to institute a revolt against
God himself, sometimes tacitly and sometimes openly.
195:8.7 To the secularistic revolt you owe the
amazing creativity of American industrialism and the unprecedented material
progress of Western civilization. And because the secularistic revolt went too
far and lost sight of God and true religion, there also followed the
unlooked-for harvest of world wars and international unsettledness.
195:8.8 It is not necessary to sacrifice faith in
God in order to enjoy the blessings of the modern secularistic revolt:
tolerance, social service, democratic government, and civil liberties. It was
not necessary for the secularists to antagonize true religion in order to
promote science and to advance education.
195:8.9 But secularism is not the sole parent of all
these recent gains in the enlargement of living. Behind the gains of the
twentieth century are not only science and secularism but also the
unrecognized and unacknowledged spiritual workings of the life and teaching of
Jesus of Nazareth.
195:8.10 Without God, without religion, scientific
secularism can never co-ordinate its forces, harmonize its divergent and
rivalrous interests, races, and nationalisms. This secularistic human society,
notwithstanding its unparalleled materialistic achievement, is slowly
disintegrating. The chief cohesive force resisting this disintegration of
antagonism is nationalism. And nationalism is the chief barrier to world
peace.
195:8.11 The inherent weakness of secularism is that
it discards ethics and religion for politics and power. You simply cannot
establish the brotherhood of men while ignoring or denying the fatherhood of
God.
195:8.12 Secular social and political optimism is an
illusion. Without God, neither freedom and liberty, nor property and wealth
will lead to peace.
195:8.13 The complete secularization of science,
education, industry, and society can lead only to disaster. During the first
third of the twentieth century Urantians killed more human beings than were
killed during the whole of the Christian dispensation up to that time. And
this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism;
still more terrible destruction is yet to come.
9. CHRISTIANITY'S PROBLEM
195:9.1 Do not overlook the value of your spiritual
heritage, the river of truth running down through the centuries, even to the
barren times of a materialistic and secular age. In all your worthy efforts to
rid yourselves of the superstitious creeds of past ages, make sure that you
hold fast the eternal truth. But be patient! when the present superstition
revolt is over, the truths of Jesus' gospel will persist gloriously to
illuminate a new and better way.
195:9.2 But paganized and socialized Christianity
stands in need of new contact with the uncompromised teachings of Jesus; it
languishes for lack of a new vision of the Master's life on earth. A new and
fuller revelation of the religion of Jesus is destined to conquer an empire of
materialistic secularism and to overthrow a world sway of mechanistic
naturalism. Urantia is now quivering on the very brink of one of its most
amazing and enthralling epochs of social readjustment, moral quickening, and
spiritual enlightenment.
195:9.3 The teachings of Jesus, even though greatly
modified, survived the mystery cults of their birthtime, the ignorance and
superstition of the dark ages, and are even now slowly triumphing over the
materialism, mechanism, and secularism of the twentieth century. And such
times of great testing and threatened defeat are always times of great
revelation.
195:9.4 Religion does need new leaders, spiritual
men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable
teachings. If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual mission while
it continues to busy itself with social and material problems, the spiritual
renaissance must await the coming of these new teachers of Jesus' religion who
will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men. And then
will these spirit-born souls quickly supply the leadership and inspiration
requisite for the social, moral, economic, and political reorganization of the
world.
195:9.5 The modern age will refuse to accept a
religion which is inconsistent with facts and out of harmony with its highest
conceptions of truth, beauty, and goodness. The hour is striking for a
rediscovery of the true and original foundations of present-day distorted and
compromised Christianity -- the real life and teachings of Jesus.
195:9.6 Primitive man lived a life of superstitious
bondage to religious fear. Modern, civilized men dread the thought of falling
under the dominance of strong religious convictions. Thinking man has always
feared to be held by a religion. When a strong and moving religion
threatens to dominate him, he invariably tries to rationalize, traditionalize,
and institutionalize it, thereby hoping to gain control of it. By such
procedure, even a revealed religion becomes man-made and man-dominated. Modern
men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their
fears of what it will do to them -- and with them. And all such
fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and
transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking
for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the
energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood
of man.
195:9.7 Selfish men and women simply will not pay
such a price for even the greatest spiritual treasure ever offered mortal man.
Only when man has become sufficiently disillusioned by the sorrowful
disappointments attendant upon the foolish and deceptive pursuits of
selfishness, and subsequent to the discovery of the barrenness of formalized
religion, will he be disposed to turn wholeheartedly to the gospel of the
kingdom, the religion of Jesus of Nazareth.
195:9.8 The world needs more firsthand religion.
Even Christianity -- the best of the religions of the twentieth century -- is
not only a religion about Jesus, but it is so largely one which men
experience secondhand. They take their religion wholly as handed down by their
accepted religious teachers. What an awakening the world would experience if
it could only see Jesus as he really lived on earth and know, firsthand, his
life-giving teachings! Descriptive words of things beautiful cannot thrill
like the sight thereof, neither can creedal words inspire men's souls like the
experience of knowing the presence of God. But expectant faith will ever keep
the hope-door of man's soul open for the entrance of the eternal spiritual
realities of the divine values of the worlds beyond.
195:9.9 Christianity has dared to lower its ideals
before the challenge of human greed, war-madness, and the lust for power; but
the religion of Jesus stands as the unsullied and transcendent spiritual
summons, calling to the best there is in man to rise above all these legacies
of animal evolution and, by grace, attain the moral heights of true human
destiny.
195:9.10 Christianity is threatened by slow death
from formalism, overorganization, intellectualism, and other nonspiritual
trends. The modern Christian church is not such a brotherhood of dynamic
believers as Jesus commissioned continuously to effect the spiritual
transformation of successive generations of mankind.
195:9.11 So-called Christianity has become a social
and cultural movement as well as a religious belief and practice. The stream
of modern Christianity drains many an ancient pagan swamp and many a barbarian
morass; many olden cultural watersheds drain into this present-day cultural
stream as well as the high Galilean tablelands which are supposed to be its
exclusive source.
10. THE FUTURE
195:10.1 Christianity has indeed done a great
service for this world, but what is now most needed is Jesus. The world needs
to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals
who effectively reveal the Master to all men. It is futile to talk about a
revival of primitive Christianity; you must go forward from where you find
yourselves. Modern culture must become spiritually baptized with a new
revelation of Jesus' life and illuminated with a new understanding of his
gospel of eternal salvation. And when Jesus becomes thus lifted up, he will
draw all men to himself. Jesus' disciples should be more than conquerors, even
overflowing sources of inspiration and enhanced living to all men. Religion is
only an exalted humanism until it is made divine by the discovery of the
reality of the presence of God in personal experience.
195:10.2 The beauty and sublimity, the humanity and
divinity, the simplicity and uniqueness, of Jesus' life on earth present such
a striking and appealing picture of man-saving and God-revealing that the
theologians and philosophers of all time should be effectively restrained from
daring to form creeds or create theological systems of spiritual bondage out
of such a transcendental bestowal of God in the form of man. In Jesus the
universe produced a mortal man in whom the spirit of love triumphed over the
material handicaps of time and overcame the fact of physical origin.
195:10.3 Ever bear in mind -- God and men need each
other. They are mutually necessary to the full and final attainment of eternal
personality experience in the divine destiny of universe finality.
195:10.4 "The kingdom of God is within you" was
probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made, next to the declaration
that his Father is a living and loving spirit.
195:10.5 In winning souls for the Master, it is not
the first mile of compulsion, duty, or convention that will transform man and
his world, but rather the second mile of free service and
liberty-loving devotion that betokens the Jesusonian reaching forth to grasp
his brother in love and sweep him on under spiritual guidance toward the
higher and divine goal of mortal existence. Christianity even now willingly
goes the first mile, but mankind languishes and stumbles along in moral
darkness because there are so few genuine second-milers -- so few professed
followers of Jesus who really live and love as he taught his disciples to live
and love and serve.
195:10.6 The call to the adventure of building a new
and transformed human society by means of the spiritual rebirth of Jesus'
brotherhood of the kingdom should thrill all who believe in him as men have
not been stirred since the days when they walked about on earth as his
companions in the flesh.
195:10.7 No social system or political regime which
denies the reality of God can contribute in any constructive and lasting
manner to the advancement of human civilization. But Christianity, as it is
subdivided and secularized today, presents the greatest single obstacle to its
further advancement; especially is this true concerning the Orient.
195:10.8 Ecclesiasticism is at once and forever
incompatible with that living faith, growing spirit, and firsthand experience
of the faith-comrades of Jesus in the brotherhood of man in the spiritual
association of the kingdom of heaven. The praiseworthy desire to preserve
traditions of past achievement often leads to the defense of outgrown systems
of worship. The well-meant desire to foster ancient thought systems
effectually prevents the sponsoring of new and adequate means and methods
designed to satisfy the spiritual longings of the expanding and advancing
minds of modern men. Likewise, the Christian churches of the twentieth century
stand as great, but wholly unconscious, obstacles to the immediate advance of
the real gospel -- the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
195:10.9 Many earnest persons who would gladly yield
loyalty to the Christ of the gospel find it very difficult enthusiastically to
support a church which exhibits so little of the spirit of his life and
teachings, and which they have been erroneously taught he founded. Jesus did
not found the so-called Christian church, but he has, in every manner
consistent with his nature, fostered it as the best existent exponent
of his lifework on earth.
195:10.10 If the Christian church would only dare to
espouse the Master's program, thousands of apparently indifferent youths would
rush forward to enlist in such a spiritual undertaking, and they would not
hesitate to go all the way through with this great adventure.
195:10.11 Christianity is seriously confronted with
the doom embodied in one of its own slogans: "A house divided against itself
cannot stand." The non-Christian world will hardly capitulate to a
sect-divided Christendom. The living Jesus is the only hope of a possible
unification of Christianity. The true church -- the Jesus brotherhood -- is
invisible, spiritual, and is characterized by unity, not necessarily by
uniformity. Uniformity is the earmark of the physical world of
mechanistic nature. Spiritual unity is the fruit of faith union with the
living Jesus. The visible church should refuse longer to handicap the progress
of the invisible and spiritual brotherhood of the kingdom of God. And this
brotherhood is destined to become a living organism in contrast to an
institutionalized social organization. It may well utilize such social
organizations, but it must not be supplanted by them.
195:10.12 But the Christianity of even the twentieth
century must not be despised. It is the product of the combined moral genius
of the God-knowing men of many races during many ages, and it has truly been
one of the greatest powers for good on earth, and therefore no man should
lightly regard it, notwithstanding its inherent and acquired defects.
Christianity still contrives to move the minds of reflective men with mighty
moral emotions.
195:10.13 But there is no excuse for the involvement
of the church in commerce and politics; such unholy alliances are a flagrant
betrayal of the Master. And the genuine lovers of truth will be slow to forget
that this powerful institutionalized church has often dared to smother newborn
faith and persecute truth bearers who chanced to appear in unorthodox
raiment.
195:10.14 It is all too true that such a church
would not have survived unless there had been men in the world who preferred
such a style of worship. Many spiritually indolent souls crave an ancient and
authoritative religion of ritual and sacred traditions. Human evolution and
spiritual progress are hardly sufficient to enable all men to dispense with
religious authority. And the invisible brotherhood of the kingdom may well
include these family groups of various social and temperamental classes if
they are only willing to become truly spirit-led sons of God. But in this
brotherhood of Jesus there is no place for sectarian rivalry, group
bitterness, nor assertions of moral superiority and spiritual
infallibility.
195:10.15 These various groupings of Christians may
serve to accommodate numerous different types of would-be believers among the
various peoples of Western civilization, but such division of Christendom
presents a grave weakness when it attempts to carry the gospel of Jesus to
Oriental peoples. These races do not yet understand that there is a
religion of Jesus separate, and somewhat apart, from Christianity,
which has more and more become a religion about Jesus.
195:10.16 The great hope of Urantia lies in the
possibility of a new revelation of Jesus with a new and enlarged presentation
of his saving message which would spiritually unite in loving service the
numerous families of his present-day professed followers.
195:10.17 Even secular education could help in this
great spiritual renaissance if it would pay more attention to the work of
teaching youth how to engage in life planning and character progression. The
purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose
of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality. There is
great need for the teaching of moral discipline in the place of so much
self-gratification. Upon such a foundation religion may contribute its
spiritual incentive to the enlargement and enrichment of mortal life, even to
the security and enhancement of life eternal.
195:10.18 Christianity is an extemporized religion,
and therefore must it operate in low gear. High-gear spiritual performances
must await the new revelation and the more general acceptance of the real
religion of Jesus. But Christianity is a mighty religion, seeing that the
commonplace disciples of a crucified carpenter set in motion those teachings
which conquered the Roman world in three hundred years and then went on to
triumph over the barbarians who overthrew Rome. This same Christianity
conquered -- absorbed and exalted -- the whole stream of Hebrew theology and
Greek philosophy. And then, when this Christian religion became comatose for
more than a thousand years as a result of an overdose of mysteries and
paganism, it resurrected itself and virtually reconquered the whole Western
world. Christianity contains enough of Jesus' teachings to immortalize
it.
195:10.19 If Christianity could only grasp more of
Jesus' teachings, it could do so much more in helping modern man to solve his
new and increasingly complex problems.
195:10.20 Christianity suffers under a great
handicap because it has become identified in the minds of all the world as a
part of the social system, the industrial life, and the moral standards of
Western civilization; and thus has Christianity unwittingly seemed to sponsor
a society which staggers under the guilt of tolerating science without
idealism, politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without
restraint, knowledge without character, power without conscience, and industry
without morality.
195:10.21 The hope of modern Christianity is that it
should cease to sponsor the social systems and industrial policies of Western
civilization while it humbly bows itself before the cross it so valiantly
extols, there to learn anew from Jesus of Nazareth the greatest truths mortal
man can ever hear -- the living gospel of the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man.
