33. Religious Experience
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I. God-consciousness
II. Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
III. Religion and Social Institutions
IV. Religious Growth - True Religion
V. Religion and Revelation - Mysticism
VI. Marks of Religious Living
VII. Faith and Belief - Assurance
VIII. Religious Liberation - Insight
IX. Fact of Religious Experience
X. Religion and the Individual
XI. Science and Religion
XII. Philosophy end Religion
XIII. Supremacy of Religion
1. Proposition. God-consciousness progresses from the idea of God to the ideal and ends with the spirit reality of God.
2. Proposition. God-consciousness leads to increased social service.
3. Proposition. Finding God is consciousness of identity with reality.
1. Proposition. The goodness of God is found only in personal religious experience.
2. Proposition. Jesus revealed a God of love - all-embracing of truth, beauty, and goodness.
3. Proposition. Truth relates to science, beauty to art, goodness embraces ethics, morality, and religion.
4. Proposition. Truth, beauty, and goodness represent man's approach to mind, matter, and spirit.
5. Proposition. Love, the sum of truth, beauty, and goodness, is man's perception of God.
6. Proposition. Spirituality enhances ability to discover beauty in things, truth in meanings, and goodness in values.
7. Proposition. The idealization of truth, beauty, and goodness is not a substitute for religion.
1. Proposition. Religion is not directly concerned with creating new social orders or with preserving old ones.
2. Proposition. Religion is a forceful influence for moral stability and spiritual progression.
3. Proposition. The paramount mission of religion is the stabilization of ideals.
4. Proposition. Religion is the cosmic salt which prevents the destruction of the cultural savor of civilization.
5. Proposition. Institutional religion is now caught in the stalemate of a vicious circle.
6. Proposition. Religionists function in human affairs as individuals - not as religious groups.
7. Proposition. The kingdom of heaven is neither social nor economic - it is a brotherhood.
8. Proposition. Sectarianism is a disease of institutional religion.
9. Proposition. There is a real purpose in the socialization of religion.
10. Proposition. Religion is always dynamic.
11. Proposition. Religion leads to service, and revelation to the eternal adventure.
1. Proposition. The chief inhibitors of spiritual growth are prejudice and ignorance.
2. Proposition. Growth is indicated not by products, but by progress.
3. Proposition. The growing person is motivated by love, activated by ministry, and dominated by ideals.
4. Proposition. Progress is meaningful, but growth is not mere progress.
5. Proposition. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress.
6. Proposition. Religion takes nothing away from life - but it does add new meanings to all of it.
1. Proposition. Evolutionary religion drives men, revelation allures them.
2. Proposition. Too often subconscious material is mistaken for revelation.
3. Proposition. Revelation compensates for the absence of the morontia viewpoint.
4. Proposition. It requires faith and revelation to transform the first cause of science into a God of salvation.
5. Proposition. Revelation is validated only by human experience.
6. Proposition. Revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of the Urantia Revelation is not inspired.
7. Proposition. The first promptings of the child's moral nature have to do with justice, fairness, and kindness.
8. Proposition. Faith - spiritual insight - can be instructed only by revelation.
1. Proposition. The religionist is conscious of universe citizenship and aware of contact with the supernatural.
2. Proposition. The most amazing earmarks of religion are dynamic peace and cosmic poise.
3. Proposition. In the last analysis, religion is judged by its fruits.
4. Proposition. Genuine religious faith is evidenced by twelve characteristics.
5. Proposition. Religion is ever and always rooted and grounded in personal experience.
1. Proposition. Our senses tell us of things, mind discovers meanings, but spiritual experience reveals true values.
2. Proposition. You must have faith as well as feeling.
3. Proposition. Our religious leadings convince us that we ought to believe in God.
4. Proposition. In the morontia, the assurance of truth replaces the assurance of faith.
5. Proposition. Belief has become faith when it motivates life. Belief fixates, faith liberates.
6. Proposition. Faith vitalizes religion and lives the golden rule.
7. Proposition. Faith is the bridge between moral consciousness and spiritual reality.
8. Proposition. Genuine religious assurance never leads to self-assertion or egoistic exaltation.
9. Proposition. There is a great difference between the will-to-believe and the will that believes.
10. Proposition. Faith transforms a God of probability into a God of certainty.
11. Proposition. The individual becomes God-knowing only by faith.
12. Proposition. Religionists should face dogmatic scientists with the super-dogmatism of personal spiritual experience.
13. Proposition. Of all universe experiences, we have the right to be most certain of the spiritual.
14. Proposition. Man is educated by fact, ennobled by wisdom, and saved by faith.
l. Proposition. Religion persists in the absence of learning.
2. Proposition. Religion may be the feeling of experience, but it is not the experience of feeling.
3. Proposition. The liberated religious soul begins to feel at home in the universe.
4. Proposition. Contrast spiritual liberation with the despair of materialism.
1. Proposition. Religious experience can never be fully understood by the material mind.
2. Proposition. There are three great satisfactions in religious experience.
3. Proposition. Religious experience ranges from the primitive to the superb consciousness of sonship with God.
4. Proposition. Avoid allowing your religious experience to become egocentric.
5. Proposition. Spiritual birth may be either complacent or ”stormy."
6. Proposition. The experiencing of God may be valid, even when its theology is fallacious.
7. Proposition. A man's love for his wife cannot be judged by a psychological examination on marital affection.
8. Proposition. Faith is uninfluenced by the cavilings and doubtings of science and philosophy.
9. Proposition. The reality of religious experience transcends reason, science, philosophy, and wisdom.
10. Proposition. Personal religious experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties.
11. Proposition. Human survival is a matter of choosing divine values.
1. Proposition. Religious experience knows God as a Father, and man as a brother.
2. Proposition. Dynamic religion transforms the mediocre individual into a person of idealistic power.
3. Proposition. Religion is a personal experience - it cannot be learned, loaned, or lost.
4. Proposition. Religion is the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience.
5. Proposition. By religious experience, man's concepts of ideality are endowed with reality.
6. Proposition. Reason and logic can never validate the values of religious experience.
7. Proposition. In the triumphant struggle of the faith son, "Even time itself becomes but the shadow of eternity cast by Paradise realities upon the moving panoply of space."
8. Proposition. Religionists live as if already in the presence of the Eternal.
9. Proposition. The highest evidence of the reality of religion consists in the fact of transformed human experience.
10. Proposition. There are three ways of knowing that the Adjuster lives within us.
11. Proposition. The great challenge to man is to achieve better communion with the indwelling Monitor.
1. Proposition. Neither science nor philosophy can validate the personality of God, only the personal experience of faith sons.
2. Proposition. However men view God, the religionist believes in a God who fosters survival.
3. Proposition. Nature does not afford ground for believing in human survival.
4. Proposition. To science and philosophy God may be possible and probable, but to religion he is a certainty.
5. Proposition. There is no religion without God - and in personal experience he must be a personal God.
1. Proposition. Religion becomes the unification of all that is good, true, and beautiful in human experience.
2. Proposition. Religion is an independent realm of human response to life situations.
3. Proposition. Religion becomes real as it emerges from the slavery of fear and the bondage of superstition.
4. Proposition. Courage is required to invade new levels and unknown realms of experience.
5. Proposition. Philosophy transforms primitive religion into ascending values of reality.
6. Proposition. Mortals can experience spiritual unity, but not philosophical uniformity.
7. Proposition. Both science and religion are predicated on the assumption of certain validities.
8. Proposition. Reason, logic, and faith all have their place in human experience.
9. Proposition. When theology masters religion, religion dies. Reason, wisdom, and faith introduce man to facts, truth, and religion.
10. Proposition. Faith goes along with reason and wisdom to their full limit, and then proceeds in the sole company of truth.
1. Proposition. The religious soul of spiritual illumination knows, and knows now.
2. Proposition. It is the mission of religion to prepare man for bravely and heroically facing the vicissitudes of life.
3. Proposition. Religion stands above science, art, morals, and philosophy, but not independent of them.
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33. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
I. God-consciousness
II. Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
III. Religion and Social Institutions
IV. Religious Growth - True Religion
V. Religion and Revelation - Mysticism
VI. Marks of Religious Living
VII. Faith and Belief - Assurance
VIII. Religious Liberation - Insight
IX. Fact of Religious Experience
X. Religion and the Individual
XI. Science and Religion
XII. Philosophy end Religion
XIII. Supremacy of Religion
33.
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
1. Proposition. God-consciousness progresses from the idea of God to the ideal and ends with the spirit reality of God.
"God-consciousness,
as it is
experienced by an evolving mortal of the realms, must consist of three
varying factors, three differential levels of reality realization.
There is first the mind consciousness — the comprehension of
the
idea of God. Then follows the soul consciousness — the
realization of the ideal of God. Last, dawns the spirit consciousness
— the realization of the spirit reality of God."
(69.6)
5:5.11
2. Proposition. God-consciousness leads to increased social service.
”Religious
desire is the hunger
quest for divine reality. Religious experience is the realization of
the consciousness of having found God. And when a human being does find
God, there is experienced within the soul of that being such an
indescribable restlessness of triumph in discovery that he is impelled
to seek loving service-contact with his less illuminated fellows, not
to disclose that he has found God, but rather to allow the overflow of
the welling-up of eternal goodness within his own soul to refresh and
ennoble his fellows. Real religion leads to increased social service."
(1121.6) 102:3.4
(1121.6) 102:3.4
3. Proposition. Finding God is consciousness of identity with reality.
“The
progressive comprehension of
reality is the equivalent of approaching God. The finding of God, the
consciousness of identity with reality, is the equivalent of the
experiencing of self-completion — self-entirety,
self-totality.
The experiencing of total reality is the full realization of God, the
finality of the God-knowing experience.”
(2094.2) 196:3.3
(2094.2) 196:3.3
1. Proposition. The goodness of God is found only in personal religious experience.
"In
the physical universe we may see
the divine beauty, in the intellectual world we may discern eternal
truth, but the goodness of God is found only in the spiritual world of
personal religious experience." (40.5)
2:6.1
2. Proposition. Jesus revealed a God of love - all-embracing of truth, beauty, and goodness.
"The
Hebrews based their religion on
goodness; the Greeks on beauty; both religions sought truth. Jesus
revealed a God of love, and love is all-embracing of truth, beauty, and
goodness."
(67.4) 5:4.6
(67.4) 5:4.6
3. Proposition. Truth relates to science, beauty to art, goodness embraces ethics, morality, and religion.
"Truth
is the basis of science and
philosophy, presenting the intellectual foundation of religion. Beauty
sponsors art, music, and the meaningful rhythms of all human
experience. Goodness embraces the sense of ethics, morality, and
religion — experiential perfection-hunger." (647.1)
56:10.10
4. Proposition. Truth, beauty, and goodness represent man's approach to mind, matter, and spirit.
”Even
truth, beauty, and goodness
— man's intellectual approach to the universe of mind,
matter,
and spirit — must be combined into one unified concept of a
divine and supreme ideal. As mortal personality unifies the human
experience with matter, mind, and spirit, so does this divine and
supreme ideal become power-unified in Supremacy and then personalized
as a God of fatherly love."
(647.6) 56:10.15
(647.6) 56:10.15
5. Proposition. Love, the sum of truth, beauty, and goodness, is man's perception of God.
"Universal
beauty is the recognition of
the reflection of the Isle of Paradise in the material creation, while
eternal truth is the special ministry of the Paradise Sons who not only
bestow themselves upon the mortal races but even pour out their Spirit
of Truth upon all peoples. Divine goodness is more fully shown forth in
the loving ministry of the manifold personalities of the Infinite
Spirit. But love, the sum total of these three qualities, is man's
perception of God as his spirit Father." (647.8)
56:10.17
6. Proposition. Spirituality enhances ability to discover beauty in things, truth in meanings, and goodness in values.
"Spirituality
becomes at once the
indicator of one's nearness to God and the measure of one's usefulness
to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty
in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in
values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity therefor and is
directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish qualities of
love."
(1096.1) 100:2.4
(1096.1) 100:2.4
7. Proposition. The idealization of truth, beauty, and goodness is not a substitute for religion.
"The
idealization and attempted service
of truth, beauty, and goodness is not a substitute for genuine
religious experience — spiritual reality. Psychology and
idealism
are not the equivalent of religious reality. The projections of the
human intellect may indeed originate false gods — gods in
man's
image — but the true God-consciousness does not have such an
origin. The God-consciousness is resident in the indwelling spirit.
Many of the religious systems of man come from the formulations of the
human intellect, but the God-consciousness is not necessarily a part of
these grotesque systems of religious slavery." (2095.7)
196:3.23
1. Proposition. Religion is not directly concerned with creating new social orders or with preserving old ones.
“But
religion should not be
directly concerned either with the creation of new social orders or
with the preservation of old ones. True religion does oppose violence
as a technique of social evolution, but it does not oppose the
intelligent efforts of society to adapt its usages and adjust its
institutions to new economic conditions and cultural requirements."
(1086.2)
99:0.2
2. Proposition. Religion is a forceful influence for moral stability and spiritual progression.
"Religion
must become a forceful
influence for moral stability and spiritual progression functioning
dynamically in the midst of these ever-changing conditions and
never-ending economic adjustments."(1086.5)
99:1.2
3. Proposition. The paramount mission of religion is the stabilization of ideals.
“The
paramount mission of
religion as a social influence is to stabilize the ideals of mankind
during these dangerous times of transition from one phase of
civilization to another, from one level of culture to another." (1086.6)
99:1.3
4. Proposition. Religion is the cosmic salt which prevents the destruction of the cultural savor of civilization.
"Religion
must act as the cosmic salt
which prevents the ferments of progression from destroying the cultural
savor of civilization. These new social relations and economic
upheavals can result in lasting brotherhood only by the ministry of
religion.
"A godless humanitarianism is, humanly speaking, a noble gesture, but true religion is the only power which can lastingly increase the responsiveness of one social group to the needs and sufferings of other groups."(1087.1) 99:1.4
"A godless humanitarianism is, humanly speaking, a noble gesture, but true religion is the only power which can lastingly increase the responsiveness of one social group to the needs and sufferings of other groups."(1087.1) 99:1.4
5. Proposition. Institutional religion is now caught in the stalemate of a vicious circle.
"Institutional
religion is now caught
in the stalemate of a vicious circle. It cannot reconstruct society
without first reconstructing itself; and being so much an integral part
of the established order, it cannot reconstruct itself until society
has been radically reconstructed." (1087.5)
99:2.2
6. Proposition. Religionists function in human affairs as individuals - not as religious groups.
“Religionists
must function in
society, in industry, and in politics as individuals, not as groups,
parties, or institutions. A religious group which presumes to function
as such, apart from religious activities, immediately becomes a
political party, an economic organization, or a social institution.
Religious collectivism must confine its efforts to the furtherance of
religious causes."
(1087.6) 99:2.3
(1087.6) 99:2.3
7. Proposition. The kingdom of heaven is neither social nor economic - it is a brotherhood.
"The
kingdom of heaven is neither a
social nor economic order; it is an exclusively spiritual brotherhood
of God-knowing individuals. True, such a brotherhood is in itself a new
and amazing social phenomenon attended by astounding political and
economic repercussions."(1088.3)
99:3.2
8. Proposition. Sectarianism is a disease of institutional religion.
“Sectarianism
is a disease of
institutional religion, and dogmatism is an enslavement of the
spiritual nature. It is far better to have a religion without a church
than a church without religion. The religious turmoil of the twentieth
century does not, in and of itself, betoken spiritual decadence.
Confusion goes before growth as well as before destruction.“ (1092.1)
99:6.1
9. Proposition. There is a real purpose in the socialization of religion.
"There
is a real purpose in the
socialization of religion. It is the purpose of group religious
activities to dramatize the loyalties of religion; to magnify the lures
of truth, beauty, and goodness; to foster the attractions of supreme
values; to enhance the service of unselfish fellowship; to glorify the
potentials of family life; to promote religious education; to provide
wise counsel and spiritual guidance; and to encourage group worship.
And all live religions encourage human friendship, conserve morality,
promote neighborhood welfare, and facilitate the spread of the
essential gospel of their respective messages of eternal salvation." (1092.2)
99:6.2
10. Proposition. Religion is always dynamic.
"We
are not blind to the fact that
religion often acts unwisely, even irreligiously, but it acts.
Aberrations of religious conviction have led to bloody persecutions,
but always and ever religion does something; it is dynamic!(1121.2)
102:2.9
11. Proposition. Religion leads to service, and revelation to the eternal adventure.
"Knowledge
leads to placing men, to
originating social strata and castes. Religion leads to serving men,
thus creating ethics and altruism. Wisdom leads to the higher and
better fellowship of both ideas and one's fellows. Revelation liberates
men and starts them out on the eternal adventure." (1122.2)
102:3.6
1. Proposition. The chief inhibitors of spiritual growth are prejudice and ignorance.
"Some
persons are too busy to grow and
are therefore in grave danger of spiritual fixation. Provision must be
made for growth of meanings at differing ages, in successive cultures,
and in the passing stages of advancing civilization. The chief
inhibitors of growth are prejudice and ignorance..“ (1094.4)
100:1.2
2. Proposition. Growth is indicated not by products, but by progress.
"Give
every developing child a chance
to grow his own religious experience; do not force a ready-made adult
experience upon him. Remember, year-by-year progress through an
established educational regime does not necessarily mean intellectual
progress, much less spiritual growth. Enlargement of vocabulary does
not signify development of character. Growth is not truly indicated by
mere products but rather by progress." (1094.5)
100:1.3
3. Proposition. The growing person is motivated by love, activated by ministry, and dominated by ideals.
"Spiritual
growth is first an awakening
to needs, next a discernment of meanings, and then a discovery of
values. The evidence of true spiritual development consists in the
exhibition of a human personality motivated by love, activated by
unselfish ministry, and dominated by the wholehearted worship of the
perfection ideals of divinity. And this entire experience constitutes
the reality of religion as contrasted with mere theological
beliefs.“ (1095.6)
100:2.2
4. Proposition. Progress is meaningful, but growth is not mere progress.
"The
association of actuals and
potentials equals growth, the experiential realization of values. But
growth is not mere progress. Progress is always meaningful, but it is
relatively valueless without growth. The supreme value of human life
consists in growth of values, progress in meanings, and realization of
the cosmic interrelatedness of both of these experiences. And such an
experience is the equivalent of God-consciousness. Such a mortal, while
not supernatural, is truly becoming superhuman; an immortal soul is
evolving."(1097.3)
100:3.6
5. Proposition. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress.
”But
the great problem of
religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of
the personality by the dominance of LOVE. Health, mental efficiency,
and happiness arise from the unification of physical systems, mind
systems, and spirit systems. Of health and sanity man understands much,
but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The highest
happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual
growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding." (1097.7)
100:4.3
6. Proposition. Religion takes nothing away from life - but it does add new meanings to all of it.
"But
true religion is a living love, a
life of service. The religionist's detachment from much that is purely
temporal and trivial never leads to social isolation, and it should not
destroy the sense of humor. Genuine religion takes nothing away from
human existence, but it does add new meanings to all of life; it
generates new types of enthusiasm, zeal, and courage. It may even
engender the spirit of the crusader, which is more than dangerous if
not controlled by spiritual insight and loyal devotion to the
commonplace social obligations of human loyalties.“ (1100.7)
100:6.5
1. Proposition. Evolutionary religion drives men, revelation allures them.
"The
morality of the religions of
evolution drives men forward in the God quest by the motive power of
fear. The religions of revelation allure men to seek for a God of love
because they crave to become like him. But religion is not merely a
passive feeling of 'absolute dependence' and 'surety of survival'; it
is a living and dynamic experience of divinity attainment predicated on
humanity service."(66.5)
5:4.1
2. Proposition. Too often subconscious material is mistaken for revelation.
”In
contrast with
conversion-seeking, the better approach to the morontia zones of
possible contact with the Thought Adjuster would be through living
faith and sincere worship, wholehearted and unselfish prayer.
Altogether too much of the uprush of the memories of the unconscious
levels of the human mind has been mistaken for divine revelations and
spirit leadings."(1099.5)
100:5.7
3. Proposition. Revelation compensates for the absence of the morontia viewpoint.
“Reason
is the method of science;
faith is the method of religion; logic is the attempted technique of
philosophy. Revelation compensates for the absence of the morontia
viewpoint by providing a technique for achieving unity in the
comprehension of the reality and relationships of matter and spirit by
the mediation of mind. And true revelation never renders science
unnatural, religion unreasonable, or philosophy illogical." (1106.1)
101:2.2
4. Proposition. It requires faith and revelation to transform the first cause of science into a God of salvation.
"Reason,
through the study of science,
may lead back through nature to a First Cause, but it requires
religious faith to transform the First Cause of science into a God of
salvation; and revelation is further required for the validation of
such a faith, such spiritual insight." (1106.2)
101:2.3
5. Proposition. Revelation is validated only by human experience.
"Reason
is the proof of science, faith
the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is
validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion
yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the
experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality." (1106.7)
101:2.8
6. Proposition. Revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of the Urantia Revelation is not inspired.
“Let
it be made clear that
revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of these
revelations is not inspired. It is limited by our permission for the
co-ordination and sorting of present-day knowledge. While divine or
spiritual insight is a gift, human wisdom must evolve.“ (1109.3)
101:4.2
7. Proposition. The first promptings of the child's moral nature have to do with justice, fairness, and kindness.
"The
evolutionary soil in the mind of
man in which the seed of revealed religion germinates is the moral
nature that so early gives origin to a social consciousness. The first
promptings of a child's moral nature have not to do with sex, guilt, or
personal pride, but rather with impulses of justice, fairness, and
urges to kindness — helpful ministry to one's
fellows.“ (1131.2)
103:2.3
8. Proposition. Faith - spiritual insight - can be instructed only by revelation.
“Science
is sustained by reason,
religion by faith. Faith, though not predicated on reason, is
reasonable; though independent of logic, it is nonetheless encouraged
by sound logic. Faith cannot be nourished even by an ideal philosophy;
indeed, it is, with science, the very source of such a philosophy.
Faith, human religious insight, can be surely instructed only by
revelation, can be surely elevated only by personal mortal experience
with the spiritual Adjuster presence of the God who is
spirit.“ (1137.6)
103:7.1
1. Proposition. The religionist is conscious of universe citizenship and aware of contact with the supernatural.
"The
marks of human response to the
religious impulse embrace the qualities of nobility and grandeur. The
sincere religionist is conscious of universe citizenship and is aware
of making contact with sources of superhuman power. He is thrilled and
energized with the assurance of belonging to a superior and ennobled
fellowship of the sons of God. The consciousness of self-worth has
become augmented by the stimulus of the quest for the highest universe
objectives — supreme goals." (1100.5)
100:6.3
2. Proposition. The most amazing earmarks of religion are dynamic peace and cosmic poise.
"One
of the most amazing earmarks of
religious living is that dynamic and sublime peace, that peace which
passes all human understanding, that cosmic poise which betokens the
absence of all doubt and turmoil. Such levels of spiritual stability
are immune to disappointment. Such religionists are like the Apostle
Paul, who said: 'I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else shall be able to
separate us from the love of God.' "(1101.1)
100:6.6
3. Proposition. In the last analysis, religion is judged by its fruits.
"In
the last analysis, religion is to
be judged by its fruits, according to the manner and the extent to
which it exhibits its own inherent and divine excellence." (1109.5)
101:4.4
4. Proposition. Genuine religious faith is evidenced by twelve characteristics.
"Through
religious faith the soul of
man reveals itself and demonstrates the potential divinity of its
emerging nature by the characteristic manner in which it induces the
mortal personality to react to certain trying intellectual and testing
social situations. Genuine spiritual faith (true moral consciousness)
is revealed in that it:
"1. Causes ethics and morals to progress despite inherent and adverse animalistic tendencies.
"2. Produces a sublime trust in the goodness of God even in the face of bitter disappointment and crushing defeat.
"3. Generates profound courage and confidence despite natural adversity and physical calamity.
"4. Exhibits inexplicable poise and sustaining tranquillity notwithstanding baffling diseases and even acute physical suffering.
"5. Maintains a mysterious poise and composure of personality in the face of maltreatment and the rankest injustice.
"6. Maintains a divine trust in ultimate victory in spite of the cruelties of seemingly blind fate and the apparent utter indifference of natural forces to human welfare.
"7. Persists in the unswerving belief in God despite all contrary demonstrations of logic and successfully withstands all other intellectual sophistries.
"8. Continues to exhibit undaunted faith in the soul's survival regardless of the deceptive teachings of false science and the persuasive delusions of unsound philosophy.
"9. Lives and triumphs irrespective of the crushing overload of the complex and partial civilizations of modern times.
"10. Contributes to the continued survival of altruism in spite of human selfishness, social antagonisms, industrial greeds, and political maladjustments.
"11. Steadfastly adheres to a sublime belief in universe unity and divine guidance regardless of the perplexing presence of evil and sin.
"12. Goes right on worshiping God in spite of anything and everything. Dares to declare, 'Even though he slay me, yet will I serve him.' "(1108.3) 101:3.4
"1. Causes ethics and morals to progress despite inherent and adverse animalistic tendencies.
"2. Produces a sublime trust in the goodness of God even in the face of bitter disappointment and crushing defeat.
"3. Generates profound courage and confidence despite natural adversity and physical calamity.
"4. Exhibits inexplicable poise and sustaining tranquillity notwithstanding baffling diseases and even acute physical suffering.
"5. Maintains a mysterious poise and composure of personality in the face of maltreatment and the rankest injustice.
"6. Maintains a divine trust in ultimate victory in spite of the cruelties of seemingly blind fate and the apparent utter indifference of natural forces to human welfare.
"7. Persists in the unswerving belief in God despite all contrary demonstrations of logic and successfully withstands all other intellectual sophistries.
"8. Continues to exhibit undaunted faith in the soul's survival regardless of the deceptive teachings of false science and the persuasive delusions of unsound philosophy.
"9. Lives and triumphs irrespective of the crushing overload of the complex and partial civilizations of modern times.
"10. Contributes to the continued survival of altruism in spite of human selfishness, social antagonisms, industrial greeds, and political maladjustments.
"11. Steadfastly adheres to a sublime belief in universe unity and divine guidance regardless of the perplexing presence of evil and sin.
"12. Goes right on worshiping God in spite of anything and everything. Dares to declare, 'Even though he slay me, yet will I serve him.' "(1108.3) 101:3.4
5. Proposition. Religion is ever and always rooted and grounded in personal experience.
"But
religion is never enhanced by an
appeal to the so-called miraculous. The quest for miracles is a harking
back to the primitive religions of magic. True religion has nothing to
do with alleged miracles, and never does revealed religion point to
miracles as proof of authority. Religion is ever and always rooted and
grounded in personal experience."(1128.3)
102:8.7
1. Proposition. Our senses tell us of things, mind discovers meanings, but spiritual experience reveals true values.
“In
physical life the senses tell
of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but
the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of
life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme
love of God and in the unselfish love of man." (1098.1)
100:4.4
2. Proposition. You must have faith as well as feeling.
“But
emotion alone is a false
conversion; one must have faith as well as feeling. To the extent that
such psychic mobilization is partial, and in so far as such
human-loyalty motivation is incomplete, to that extent will the
experience of conversion be a blended intellectual, emotional, and
spiritual reality." (1099.3)
100:5.5
3. Proposition. Our religious leadings convince us that we ought to believe in God.
"Thus
it may be seen that religious
longings and spiritual urges are not of such a nature as would merely
lead men to want to believe in God, but rather are they of such nature
and power that men are profoundly impressed with the conviction that
they ought to believe in God." (1105.4)
101:1.7
4. Proposition. In the morontia, the assurance of truth replaces the assurance of faith.
"Increasingly
throughout the morontia
progression the assurance of truth replaces the assurance of faith.
When you are finally mustered into the actual spirit world, then will
the assurances of pure spirit insight operate in the place of faith and
truth or, rather, in conjunction with, and superimposed upon, these
former techniques of personality assurance." (1111.4)
101:5.14
5. Proposition. Belief has become faith when it motivates life. Belief fixates, faith liberates.
“Belief
has attained the level of
faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The
acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief.
Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to
faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith
is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One
believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not
worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God
alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.
"Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates."(1114.5) 101:8.1
"Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates."(1114.5) 101:8.1
6. Proposition. Faith vitalizes religion and lives the golden rule.
"Faith
does not shackle the creative
imagination, neither does it maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward
the discoveries of scientific investigation. Faith vitalizes religion
and constrains the religionist heroically to live the golden rule. The
zeal of faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the
preludes to sublime peace."(1115.1)
101:8.4
7. Proposition. Faith is the bridge between moral consciousness and spiritual reality.
"Faith
becomes the connection between
moral consciousness and the spiritual concept of enduring reality.
Religion becomes the avenue of man's escape from the material
limitations of the temporal and natural world to the supernal realities
of the eternal and spiritual world by and through the technique of
salvation, the progressive morontia transformation." (1116.1)
101:9.9
8. Proposition. Genuine religious assurance never leads to self-assertion or egoistic exaltation.
"One
of the characteristic
peculiarities of genuine religious assurance is that, notwithstanding
the absoluteness of its affirmations and the stanchness of its
attitude, the spirit of its expression is so poised and tempered that
it never conveys the slightest impression of self-assertion or egoistic
exaltation." (1119.7)
102:2.2
9. Proposition. There is a great difference between the will-to-believe and the will that believes.
"In
science, the idea precedes the
expression of its realization; in religion, the experience of
realization precedes the expression of the idea. There is a vast
difference between the evolutionary will-to-believe and the product of
enlightened reason, religious insight, and revelation — the
will
that believes.” (1122.9)
102:3.13
10. Proposition. Faith transforms a God of probability into a God of certainty.
“Faith
transforms the philosophic
God of probability into the saving God of certainty in the personal
religious experience. Skepticism may challenge the theories of
theology, but confidence in the dependability of personal experience
affirms the truth of that belief which has grown into faith." (1124.6)
102:6.4
11. Proposition. The individual becomes God-knowing only by faith.
"Convictions
about God may be arrived
at through wise reasoning, but the individual becomes God-knowing only
by faith, through personal experience. In much that pertains to life,
probability must be reckoned with, but when contacting with cosmic
reality, certainty may be experienced when such meanings and values are
approached by living faith. The God-knowing soul dares to say, 'I
know,' even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the unbeliever
who denies such certitude because it is not wholly supported by
intellectual logic. To every such doubter the believer only replies,
'How do you know that I do not know?' "(1124.7)
102:6.5
12. Proposition. Religionists should face dogmatic scientists with the super-dogmatism of personal spiritual experience.
"If
science, philosophy, or sociology
dares to become dogmatic in contending with the prophets of true
religion, then should God-knowing men reply to such unwarranted
dogmatism with that more farseeing dogmatism of the certainty of
personal spiritual experience, 'I know what I have experienced because
I am a son of I AM.' If the personal experience of a faither is to be
challenged by dogma, then this faith-born son of the experiencible
Father may reply with that unchallengeable dogma, the statement of his
actual sonship with the Universal Father."(1127.1)
102:7.7
13. Proposition. Of all universe experiences, we have the right to be most certain of the spiritual.
"If
the nonreligious approaches to
cosmic reality presume to challenge the certainty of faith on the
grounds of its unproved status, then the spirit experiencer can
likewise resort to the dogmatic challenge of the facts of science and
the beliefs of philosophy on the grounds that they are likewise
unproved; they are likewise experiences in the consciousness of the
scientist or the philosopher.
"Of God, the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all facts, the most living of all truths, the most loving of all friends, and the most divine of all values, we have the right to be the most certain of all universe experiences."(1127.3) 102:7.9
"Of God, the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all facts, the most living of all truths, the most loving of all friends, and the most divine of all values, we have the right to be the most certain of all universe experiences."(1127.3) 102:7.9
14. Proposition. Man is educated by fact, ennobled by wisdom, and saved by faith.
"The
full summation of human life is
the knowledge that man is educated by fact, ennobled by wisdom, and
saved — justified — by religious faith."
(2094.3)
196:3.4
l. Proposition. Religion persists in the absence of learning.
"Religion
is so vital that it persists
in the absence of learning. It lives in spite of its contamination with
erroneous cosmologies and false philosophies; it survives even the
confusion of metaphysics. In and through all the historic vicissitudes
of religion there ever persists that which is indispensable to human
progress and survival: the ethical conscience and the moral
consciousness."
(1107.8) 101:3.1
(1107.8) 101:3.1
2. Proposition. Religion may be the feeling of experience, but it is not the experience of feeling.
"Scientists
assemble facts,
philosophers co-ordinate ideas, while prophets exalt ideals. Feeling
and emotion are invariable concomitants of religion, but they are not
religion. Religion may be the feeling of experience, but it is hardly
the experience of feeling. Neither logic (rationalization) nor emotion
(feeling) is essentially a part of religious experience, although both
may variously be associated with the exercise of faith in the
furtherance of spiritual insight into reality, all according to the
status and temperamental tendency of the individual mind." (1110.12)
101:5.9
3. Proposition. The liberated religious soul begins to feel at home in the universe.
“Religion
effectually cures man's
sense of idealistic isolation or spiritual loneliness; it enfranchises
the believer as a son of God, a citizen of a new and meaningful
universe. Religion assures man that, in following the gleam of
righteousness discernible in his soul, he is thereby identifying
himself with the plan of the Infinite and the purpose of the Eternal.
Such a liberated soul immediately begins to feel at home in this new
universe, his universe." (1117.1)
101:10.7
4. Proposition. Contrast spiritual liberation with the despair of materialism.
"To
the unbelieving materialist, man is
simply an evolutionary accident. His hopes of survival are strung on a
figment of mortal imagination; his fears, loves, longings, and beliefs
are but the reaction of the incidental juxtaposition of certain
lifeless atoms of matter. No display of energy nor expression of trust
can carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and inspirational
genius of the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by death, the
long and lonely night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction. Nameless
despair is man's only reward for living and toiling under the temporal
sun of mortal existence. Each day of life slowly and surely tightens
the grasp of a pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of
matter has decreed shall be the crowning insult to everything in human
desire which is beautiful, noble, lofty, and good.” (1118.1)
102:0.1
1. Proposition. Religious experience can never be fully understood by the material mind.
"Religious
experience, being
essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material
mind; hence the function of theology, the psychology of religion." (69.1)
5:5.6
2. Proposition. There are three great satisfactions in religious experience.
"Mortal
man secures three great
satisfactions from religious experience, even in the days of his
temporal sojourn on earth:
"1. Intellectually he acquires the satisfactions of a more unified human consciousness.
"2. Philosophically he enjoys the substantiation of his ideals of moral values.
"3. Spiritually he thrives in the experience of divine companionship, in the spiritual satisfactions of true worship." (69.2) 5:5.7
"1. Intellectually he acquires the satisfactions of a more unified human consciousness.
"2. Philosophically he enjoys the substantiation of his ideals of moral values.
"3. Spiritually he thrives in the experience of divine companionship, in the spiritual satisfactions of true worship." (69.2) 5:5.7
3. Proposition. Religious experience ranges from the primitive to the superb consciousness of sonship with God.
"Religion,
as a human experience,
ranges from the primitive fear slavery of the evolving savage up to the
sublime and magnificent faith liberty of those civilized mortals who
are superbly conscious of sonship with the eternal God."(1104.1)
101:0.1
4. Proposition. Avoid allowing your religious experience to become egocentric.
"While
your religion is a matter of
personal experience, it is most important that you should be exposed to
the knowledge of a vast number of other religious experiences (the
diverse interpretations of other and diverse mortals) to the end that
you may prevent your religious life from becoming egocentric
—
circumscribed, selfish, and unsocial."(1130.2)
103:1.3
5. Proposition. Spiritual birth may be either complacent or ”stormy."
"Religion
is functional in the human
mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in
human consciousness. A child has been in existence about nine months
before it experiences birth. But the "birth" of religion is not sudden;
it is rather a gradual emergence. Nevertheless, sooner or later there
is a 'birth day.' You do not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you
have been 'born again' — born of the Spirit. Many spiritual
births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked
psychological perturbations, as many physical births are characterized
by a 'stormy labor' and other abnormalities of 'delivery.' Other
spiritual births are a natural and normal growth of the recognition of
supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual experience, albeit no
religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and
individual determinations. Religion is never a passive experience, a
negative attitude. What is termed the 'birth of religion' is not
directly associated with so-called conversion experiences which usually
characterize religious episodes occurring later in life as a result of
mental conflict, emotional repression, and temperamental upheavals." (1130.6)
103:2.1
6. Proposition. The experiencing of God may be valid, even when its theology is fallacious.
"The
confusion about the experience of
the certainty of God arises out of the dissimilar interpretations and
relations of that experience by separate individuals and by different
races of men. The experiencing of God may be wholly valid, but the
discourse about God, being intellectual and philosophical, is divergent
and oftentimes confusingly fallacious." (1140.2)
103:8.2
7. Proposition. A man's love for his wife cannot be judged by a psychological examination on marital affection.
“A
good and noble man may be
consummately in love with his wife but utterly unable to pass a
satisfactory written examination on the psychology of marital love.
Another man, having little or no love for his spouse, might pass such
an examination most acceptably. The imperfection of the lover's insight
into the true nature of the beloved does not in the least invalidate
either the reality or sincerity of his love.“(1140.3)
103:8.3
8. Proposition. Faith is uninfluenced by the cavilings and doubtings of science and philosophy.
"If
you truly believe in God — by
faith know him and love him — do not permit the reality of
such
an experience to be in any way lessened or detracted from by the
doubting insinuations of science, the caviling of logic, the postulates
of philosophy, or the clever suggestions of well-meaning souls who
would create a religion without God.“(1140.4)
103:8.4
9. Proposition. The reality of religious experience transcends reason, science, philosophy, and wisdom.
"There
is a reality in religious
experience that is proportional to the spiritual content, and such a
reality is transcendent to reason, science, philosophy, wisdom, and all
other human achievements. The convictions of such an experience are
unassailable; the logic of religious living is incontrovertible; the
certainty of such knowledge is superhuman; the satisfactions are
superbly divine, the courage indomitable, the devotions unquestioning,
the loyalties supreme, and the destinies final — eternal,
ultimate, and universal." (1142.3)
103:9.12
10. Proposition. Personal religious experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties.
"Personal,
spiritual religious
experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties; it is
an effective sorter, evaluator, and adjuster of all human problems.
Religion does not remove or destroy human troubles, but it does
dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them. True religion unifies
the personality for effective adjustment to all mortal requirements.
Religious faith — the positive leading of the indwelling
divine
presence — unfailingly enables the God-knowing man to bridge
that
gulf existing between the intellectual logic which recognizes the
Universal First Cause as It and those positive affirmations of the soul
which aver this First Cause is He, the heavenly Father of Jesus'
gospel, the personal God of human salvation.”(2093.6)
196:3.1
11. Proposition. Human survival is a matter of choosing divine values.
“Moral
evaluation with a
religious meaning — spiritual insight — connotes
the
individual's choice between good and evil, truth and error, material
and spiritual, human and divine, time and eternity. Human survival is
in great measure dependent on consecrating the human will to the
choosing of those values selected by this spirit-value sorter
—
the indwelling interpreter and unifier. Personal religious experience
consists in two phases: discovery in the human mind and revelation by
the indwelling divine spirit. Through oversophistication or as a result
of the irreligious conduct of professed religionists, a man, or even a
generation of men, may elect to suspend their efforts to discover the
God who indwells them; they may fail to progress in and attain the
divine revelation. But such attitudes of spiritual nonprogression
cannot long persist because of the presence and influence of the
indwelling Thought Adjusters.” (2095.1)
196:3.17
1. Proposition. Religious experience knows God as a Father, and man as a brother.
”While
religion is exclusively a
personal spiritual experience — knowing God as a Father
—
the corollary of this experience — knowing man as a brother
— entails the adjustment of the self to other selves, and
that
involves the social or group aspect of religious life. Religion is
first an inner or personal adjustment, and then it becomes a matter of
social service or group adjustment.“
(1090.10) 99:5.1
(1090.10) 99:5.1
2. Proposition. Dynamic religion transforms the mediocre individual into a person of idealistic power.
"The
experience of dynamic religious
living transforms the mediocre individual into a personality of
idealistic power. Religion ministers to the progress of all through
fostering the progress of each individual, and the progress of each is
augmented through the achievement of all."
(1095.2) 100:1.7
3. Proposition. Religion is a personal experience - it cannot be learned, loaned, or lost.
"Religion
cannot be bestowed, received,
loaned, learned, or lost. It is a personal experience which grows
proportionally to the growing quest for final values. Cosmic growth
thus attends on the accumulation of meanings and the ever-expanding
elevation of values. But nobility itself is always an unconscious
growth."(1094.1)
100:0.1
4. Proposition. Religion is the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience.
"Religion
lives and prospers, then, not
by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight. It consists not
in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience,
but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts
already well known to mankind. The highest religious experience is not
dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is
religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical
emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of
spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the
human mind, and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of
psychology, it is simply the experience of experiencing the reality of
believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience."
(1105.1) 101:1.4
(1105.1) 101:1.4
5. Proposition. By religious experience, man's concepts of ideality are endowed with reality.
"The
purpose of religion is not to
satisfy curiosity about God but rather to afford intellectual constancy
and philosophic security, to stabilize and enrich human living by
blending the mortal with the divine, the partial with the perfect, man
and God. It is through religious experience that man's concepts of
ideality are endowed with reality."(1116.6) 101:10.5
6. Proposition. Reason and logic can never validate the values of religious experience.
"Never
can there be either scientific
or logical proofs of divinity. Reason alone can never validate the
values and goodnesses of religious experience. But it will always
remain true: Whosoever wills to do the will of God shall comprehend the
validity of spiritual values. This is the nearest approach that can be
made on the mortal level to offering proofs of the reality of religious
experience."
(1116.7) 101:10.6
7. Proposition. In the triumphant struggle of the faith son, "Even time itself becomes but the shadow of eternity cast by Paradise realities upon the moving panoply of space."
“Now,
rather, are the sons of God
enlisted together in fighting the battle of reality's triumph over the
partial shadows of existence. At last all creatures become conscious of
the fact that God and all the divine hosts of a well-nigh limitless
universe are on their side in the supernal struggle to attain eternity
of life and divinity of status. Such faith-liberated sons have
certainly enlisted in the struggles of time on the side of the supreme
forces and divine personalities of eternity; even the stars in their
courses are now doing battle for them; at last they gaze upon the
universe from within, from God's viewpoint, and all is transformed from
the uncertainties of material isolation to the sureties of eternal
spiritual progression. Even time itself becomes but the shadow of
eternity cast by Paradise realities upon the moving panoply of space." (1117.3) 101:10.9
8. Proposition. Religionists live as if already in the presence of the Eternal.
”It
is difficult to identify and
analyze the factors of a religious experience, but it is not difficult
to observe that such religious practitioners live and carry on as if
already in the presence of the Eternal. Believers react to this
temporal life as if immortality already were within their grasp." (1119.8)
102:2.3
9. Proposition. The highest evidence of the reality of religion consists in the fact of transformed human experience.
"The
highest evidence of the reality
and efficacy of religion consists in the fact of human experience;
namely, that man, naturally fearful and suspicious, innately endowed
with a strong instinct of self-preservation and craving survival after
death, is willing fully to trust the deepest interests of his present
and future to the keeping and direction of that power and person
designated by his faith as God. That is the one central truth of all
religion. As to what that power or person requires of man in return for
this watchcare and final salvation, no two religions agree; in fact,
they all more or less disagree." (1127.5)
102:8.1
10. Proposition. There are three ways of knowing that the Adjuster lives within us.
"The
mind of man can attain high levels
of spiritual insight and corresponding spheres of divinity of values
because it is not wholly material. There is a spirit nucleus in the
mind of man — the Adjuster of the divine presence. There are
three separate evidences of this spirit indwelling of the human mind:
"1. Humanitarian fellowship — love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.
"2. Interpretation of the universe — wisdom. Only the spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual.
“3. Spiritual evaluation of life — worship. Only the spirit-indwelt man can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience in and with this foretaste of divinity." (2094.5) 196:3.6
"1. Humanitarian fellowship — love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.
"2. Interpretation of the universe — wisdom. Only the spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual.
“3. Spiritual evaluation of life — worship. Only the spirit-indwelt man can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience in and with this foretaste of divinity." (2094.5) 196:3.6
11. Proposition. The great challenge to man is to achieve better communion with the indwelling Monitor.
"The
great challenge to modern man is
to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells
within the human mind. Man's greatest adventure in the flesh consists
in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of
self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic
soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of
spirit-consciousness — contact with the divine presence. Such
an
experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily
confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of
knowing God. Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the
knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the
assurance of sonship is the experience of faith."
(2097.2) 196:3.34
(2097.2) 196:3.34
1. Proposition. Neither science nor philosophy can validate the personality of God, only the personal experience of faith sons.
"Ultimate
universe reality cannot be
grasped by mathematics, logic, or philosophy, only by personal
experience in progressive conformity to the divine will of a personal
God. Neither science, philosophy, nor theology can validate the
personality of God. Only the personal experience of the faith sons of
the heavenly Father can effect the actual spiritual realization of the
personality of God." (31.5)
1:7.5
2. Proposition. However men view God, the religionist believes in a God who fosters survival.
“The
fact-seeking scientist
conceives of God as the First Cause, a God of force. The emotional
artist sees God as the ideal of beauty, a God of aesthetics. The
reasoning philosopher is sometimes inclined to posit a God of universal
unity, even a pantheistic Deity. The religionist of faith believes in a
God who fosters survival, the Father in heaven, the God of love." (68.6)
5:5.3
3. Proposition. Nature does not afford ground for believing in human survival.
"Nature
does not afford ground for
logical belief in human-personality survival. The religious man who
finds God in nature has already and first found this same personal God
in his own soul."
(1106.8) 101:2.9
(1106.8) 101:2.9
4. Proposition. To science and philosophy God may be possible and probable, but to religion he is a certainty.
"To
science God is a possibility, to
psychology a desirability, to philosophy a probability, to religion a
certainty, an actuality of religious experience. Reason demands that a
philosophy which cannot find the God of probability should be very
respectful of that religious faith which can and does find the God of
certitude. Neither should science discount religious experience on
grounds of credulity, not so long as it persists in the assumption that
man's intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from increasingly
lesser intelligences the further back they go, finally taking origin in
primitive life which was utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling." (1125.3)
102:6.8
5. Proposition. There is no religion without God - and in personal experience he must be a personal God.
"Those
who would invent a religion
without God are like those who would gather fruit without trees, have
children without parents. You cannot have effects without causes; only
the I AM is causeless. The fact of religious experience implies God,
and such a God of personal experience must be a personal Deity. You
cannot pray to a chemical formula, supplicate a mathematical equation,
worship a hypothesis, confide in a postulate, commune with a process,
serve an abstraction, or hold loving fellowship with a law.“ (1126.3)
102:7.3
1. Proposition. Religion becomes the unification of all that is good, true, and beautiful in human experience.
”The
Zoroastrians had a religion
of morals; the Hindus a religion of metaphysics; the Confucianists a
religion of ethics. Jesus lived a religion of service. All these
religions are of value in that they are valid approaches to the
religion of Jesus. Religion is destined to become the reality of the
spiritual unification of all that is good, beautiful, and true in human
experience.“ (67.5)
5:4.7
2. Proposition. Religion is an independent realm of human response to life situations.
“Religion
is not grounded in the
facts of science, the obligations of society, the assumptions of
philosophy, or the implied duties of morality. Religion is an
independent realm of human response to life situations..." (68.5)
5:5.2
3. Proposition. Religion becomes real as it emerges from the slavery of fear and the bondage of superstition.
"Your
religion is becoming real because
it is emerging from the slavery of fear and the bondage of
superstition. Your philosophy struggles for emancipation from dogma and
tradition. Your science is engaged in the agelong contest between truth
and error while it fights for deliverance from the bondage of
abstraction, the slavery of mathematics, and the relative blindness of
mechanistic materialism.“ (141.6)
12:9.5
4. Proposition. Courage is required to invade new levels and unknown realms of experience.
"Moral
cowards never achieve high
planes of philosophic thinking; it requires courage to invade new
levels of experience and to attempt the exploration of unknown realms
of intellectual living." (1113.8)
101:7.2
5. Proposition. Philosophy transforms primitive religion into ascending values of reality.
"Philosophy
transforms that primitive
religion which was largely a fairy tale of conscience into a living
experience in the ascending values of cosmic reality." (1114.4)
101:7.6
6. Proposition. Mortals can experience spiritual unity, but not philosophical uniformity.
“A
group of mortals can
experience spiritual unity, but they can never attain philosophic
uniformity. And this diversity of the interpretation of religious
thought and experience is shown by the fact that twentieth-century
theologians and philosophers have formulated upward of five hundred
different definitions of religion. In reality, every human being
defines religion in the terms of his own experiential interpretation of
the divine impulses emanating from the God spirit that indwells him,
and therefore must such an interpretation be unique and wholly
different from the religious philosophy of all other human
beings.“(1129.8)
103:1.1
7. Proposition. Both science and religion are predicated on the assumption of certain validities.
“All
divisions of human thought
are predicated on certain assumptions which are accepted, though
unproved, by the constitutive reality sensitivity of the mind endowment
of man. Science starts out on its vaunted career of reasoning by
assuming the reality of three things: matter, motion, and life.
Religion starts out with the assumption of the validity of three
things: mind, spirit, and the universe — the Supreme
Being.” (1139.3)
103:7.11
8. Proposition. Reason, logic, and faith all have their place in human experience.
"Reason
is the act of recognizing the
conclusions of consciousness with regard to the experience in and with
the physical world of energy and matter. Faith is the act of
recognizing the validity of spiritual consciousness —
something
which is incapable of other mortal proof. Logic is the synthetic
truth-seeking progression of the unity of faith and reason and is
founded on the constitutive mind endowments of mortal beings, the
innate recognition of things, meanings, and values."(1139.5)
103:7.13
9. Proposition. When theology masters religion, religion dies. Reason, wisdom, and faith introduce man to facts, truth, and religion.
"When
theology masters religion,
religion dies; it becomes a doctrine instead of a life. The mission of
theology is merely to facilitate the self-consciousness of personal
spiritual experience. Theology constitutes the religious effort to
define, clarify, expound, and justify the experiential claims of
religion, which, in the last analysis, can be validated only by living
faith. In the higher philosophy of the universe, wisdom, like reason,
becomes allied to faith. Reason, wisdom, and faith are man's highest
human attainments. Reason introduces man to the world of facts, to
things; wisdom introduces him to a world of truth, to relationships;
faith initiates him into a world of divinity, spiritual experience." (1141.4)
103:9.6
10. Proposition. Faith goes along with reason and wisdom to their full limit, and then proceeds in the sole company of truth.
”Faith
most willingly carries
reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to
the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the
limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole company of
TRUTH.“ (1141.5)
103:9.7
1. Proposition. The religious soul of spiritual illumination knows, and knows now.
"Time
is an invariable element in the
attainment of knowledge; religion makes its endowments immediately
available, albeit there is the important factor of growth in grace,
definite advancement in all phases of religious experience. Knowledge
is an eternal quest; always are you learning, but never are you able to
arrive at the full knowledge of absolute truth. In knowledge alone
there can never be absolute certainty, only increasing probability of
approximation; but the religious soul of spiritual illumination knows,
and knows now. And yet this profound and positive certitude does not
lead such a sound-minded religionist to take any less interest in the
ups and downs of the progress of human wisdom, which is bound up on its
material end with the developments of slow-moving science.“ (1120.1)
102:2.4
2. Proposition. It is the mission of religion to prepare man for bravely and heroically facing the vicissitudes of life.
"When
certain vacillating and timid
mortals attempt to escape from the incessant pressure of evolutionary
life, religion, as they conceive it, seems to present the nearest
refuge, the best avenue of escape. But it is the mission of religion to
prepare man for bravely, even heroically, facing the vicissitudes of
life.” (1121.1)
102:2.8
3. Proposition. Religion stands above science, art, morals, and philosophy, but not independent of them.
"Religion
stands above science, art,
philosophy, ethics, and morals, but not independent of them. They are
all indissolubly interrelated in human experience, personal and social.
Religion is man's supreme experience in the mortal nature, but finite
language makes it forever impossible for theology ever adequately to
depict real religious experience." (2096.4)
196:3.28