Healing was one of the essentials in Jesus’ ordination charge to his apostles. “I send you forth to proclaim liberty to the spiritual captives, joy to those in the bondage of fear, and to heal the sick in accordance with the will of my Father in heaven” (Jesus in the Ordination Sermon, 140:3, 1570.3).
Jesus made it clear that we humans could indeed perform some healings like those he did. To the apostles who had failed to cast out the “evil spirit” in a possessed boy, he explained the essentials of success:
“How long will it take you to learn that you cannot time-shorten the course of established natural phenomena except when such things are in accordance with the Father’s will? nor can you do spiritual work in the absence of spiritual power. And you can do neither of these, even when their potential is present, without the existence of that third and essential human factor, the personal experience of the possession of living faith.” (158:5, 1758.5)
Let’s list the essentials for dramatic healing:
1. It must be the Father’s will.
2. We need spiritual power.
3. We need living faith.
For the most part, Jesus ministered to the sick in normal ways.
In connection with the seaside encampment, Elman, the Syrian physician, with the assistance of a corps of twenty-five young women and twelve men, organized and conducted for four months what should be regarded as the kingdom’s first hospital. At this infirmary, located a short distance to the south of the main tented city, they treated the sick in accordance with all known material methods as well as by the spiritual practices of prayer and faith encouragement. Jesus visited the sick of this encampment not less than three times a week and made personal contact with each sufferer. As far as we know, no so-called miracles of supernatural healing occurred among the one thousand afflicted and ailing persons who went away from this infirmary improved or cured. However, the vast majority of these benefited individuals ceased not to proclaim that Jesus had healed them.
Many of the cures effected by Jesus in connection with his ministry in behalf of Elman’s patients did, indeed, appear to resemble the working of miracles, but we were instructed that they were only just such transformations of mind and spirit as may occur in the experience of expectant and faith-dominated persons who are under the immediate and inspirational influence of a strong, positive, and beneficent personality whose ministry banishes fear and destroys anxiety. (148:2, 1658.4-5)
Again, note the essentials.
1. Use prayer and spiritual encouragement (but not as a substitute for material methods).
2. Be a strong, positive, and beneficent personality whose ministry banishes fear and destroys anxiety.
3. The other person is expectant and faith-dominated.
For your ministry, you may wish to adapt the following guided meditation based on Jesus’ practice in the Bethsaida hospital. In general guided meditation may not be a good idea, since the human guide may start to play the role of the indwelling spirit. In this case, however, the guide simply introduces the person to the spiritual interaction and then lets that interaction proceed in silence.
Let the person lie down or recline and close the eyes. Then you say, without haste, something akin to the following. Let the scene be vivid for you, so your speaking will have the proper life.
Imagine that you are living in the time of Jesus and have come to hear him with the multitudes that have gathered in his presence by the Sea of Galilee. You have fallen ill, however, and are being taken care of in a large open tent with other sufferers. You are on a cot, smelling the fresh, warm air, hearing voices off in the distance, when you become aware that Jesus has entered the tent. He has come to make the rounds, to spend some time with each person. His purpose is not to produce dramatic cures, but to be with people, to pray with them and for them and to encourage their faith. He goes from one person to another, up one row and down the next, spending a few minutes with each one. You cannot hear what he says to the person he’s with, but you feel that it is a blessing to have him there. Then he starts on your row, coming up behind you, gradually approaching your cot. Then he comes to you, looks you deep in the eyes . . . and I leave you now in silence for a few minutes to imagine your time together.
After a few minutes, you say something like this.
After a few minutes, the Master moves on, and you are thankful for his visit. Now gently come back from the imagination of being with him in Galilee, and take a minute or so to return fully to the consciousness of being here and now and then gently open the eyes.
You will observe that this is described in a way that does not presuppose any familiarity with The Urantia Book.
A prayer for faith in the realms of mind
to which the adjutants minister
and a possible ministry to those who are open
There is one more approach that you may find beneficial, as a personal path of prayer and, in some cases, as a teaching shared in the spirit of ministry.
A meditation for healing that enhances the receptivity of mind to spirit
- There is life in the Spirit and life in the cells of the body.
- What might we do to bridge between the life of the Spirit and the cells of the body?
- Imagine the mind as situated between the Spirit just above and the neurons just below.
- Consider that a mind filled with faith might offer a particularly permeable medium through which the Spirit could reach the body.
- The meditation that follows is based on the idea that it is beneficial to pray, not only for the mind as a whole; it is also beneficial to direct prayer to particular areas of the mind to which the Spirit may be said to minister.
The Spirit ministries are, in at least a preliminary way, mentioned in Isaiah 11:2.
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and might,
The spirit of knowledge and of the [worship] of the Lord.
His delight is in the [worship] of the Lord.
Let the mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5).
For this meditation, I retranslate as worship a Hebrew word that could mean fear or reverence; since we’re speaking of delight, I believe “worship” makes more sense.
I also interpret the concept of might—strength—to mean strength of mind, namely courage. And I add its presupposition: intuition in the sense of quick perception. Finally, for the purpose of healing, I start from the top and work with the following sequence.
The spirit of wisdom
The spirit of worship
The spirit of counsel
The spirit of knowledge
The spirit of courage
The spirit of understanding
The spirit of intuition
I regard each of these as divine ministries to mind. As we mobilize faith in the mind—in particular, faith infusing the functions and clusters of functions of mind that are ministered to by these spirits, we facilitate the healing work of the Spirit.
If you find this hypothesis worth working with, consider praying for the progress of faith as it fills the mind.
This can be done systematically, if you choose, by praying for faith to fill the several realms to which the adjutants minister. Remember that any systematic procedure must remain flexible to being upstaged by the movement of the spirit. Words are not important here, but it may make more sense to start from the top, as it were. The adjutants of wisdom, worship, counsel, knowledge, courage, understanding, and intuition. The last adjutant ministers to the interface between the mind and the body wherein are “the basic energies, the master tissues, the fundamental chemical overcontrol” (112.2; 1229.1).
You are not probing the mind of your “patient.” You are praying to God for that person.
There is a way of gently, patiently, introducing a person to the adjutants in such a way that they are enabled to recognize the realms of mind in their present experience and open up to them, to become more permeable to the divine ministry that comes to them. You may find this best done with conversation, inviting the person to share as you go along. You will usually want to find a vocabulary for expressing these ideas that does not involve explicit reference to The Urantia Book. I suggest that you introduce the adjutants and then talk about the beneficial influence of faith in the mind. You are not tempting the person with an implicit promise of a miracle cure, just using a philosophical and experiential approach to faith encouragement. You can share something of the thought behind the prayer just mentioned.
Teaching some of these ideas in public
This is the text of a handout that I often use with student groups when the topic comes up of how to understand pain, suffering, and evil in the light of faith in God.
Inspiration for resilience in affliction from the apostle Paul.
The Bible is a beneficial source of information about the afflictions that our religious ancestors suffered. Just look at the Book of Lamentations (preceded by Jeremiah, if you have the time). The beatitudes affirm happiness in the face of challenges. Life is full of in-spite-of-whiches.” Paul went through the greatest afflictions motivated by the love of God in Christ. Here are quotes that display his resilience and cosmic perspective.
From Philippians 4. ” In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”
2 Corinthians 1.3-11. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation. We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we are so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again, as you also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”
2Cor 4.7-5.9: “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture–“I believed, and so I spoke”–we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lost heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling–if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord–for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.”
2Cor6.4-10. “As servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteous for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor; in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see–we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
2Cor8.2. “During a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.”
2Cor11.23-28. “[I have] imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death. Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches.”
Romans 5.3-5. “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Ro 8.23. “We know that all things work together for good . . . .”
Ro 8.35-39. “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him to loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Theodicy: Thoughts for your consideration
How can one affirm an eternally perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful Creator God in the face of the facts of pain, suffering, and evil? Usually the discussion occurs as a debate, rather than as an inquiry toward greater understanding.
1. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Once you have truly found God in personal, spiritual, religious experience, questions about suffering do not shake your faith. You rather seek the meaning of suffering and the mission of adversity.
2. Think of all the different reasons why things happen. Natural processes follow their course, and accidents happen in our evolutionary world. A flood or an earthquake should not be called an act of God.
3. Anxious craving causes suffering that can be alleviated by acquiring “the mind of perfect poise.”
4. If there is to be the creation of imperfect beings with free will, the potential for evil is inevitable.
5. Mortals need the contrast of potential evil to differentiate and recognize the good.
6. Some suffering results from our misuse of human freedom, violating—deliberately or not—principles of health, sanity, morality, or happiness.
7. Without suffering we cannot develop a noble character.
8. We must not imagine that this world is the best the Creator could do. There is a heaven of eternal perfection where the will of God is done, as well as this evolving realm where human beings are invited into the adventure of becoming perfect.
9. There is an evolving phase of Deity whose incompleteness partly explains the degree of disorder on our planet.
10. The work of creation has been shared with subordinate beings who are neither infinite nor eternally perfect.
11. A superhuman rebellion against God is responsible for some of the confusion, evil, sin, and suffering on our planet.
12. It is misleading to think that God gives permission to wrongdoers. A human lifetime is over surprisingly quickly, and judgment must be faced.
13. Some suffering occurs because God chastises those he loves in order to prod them to turn from evil into the way of life.
14. “God’s ways are higher than your ways as the stars are higher than the earth.” The eternal wisdom and universal kindness of the divine acts is beyond our discernment.
15. Not everything is good, but God—and those who cooperate with God—so labor that everything eventually does work together for good—and we have a responsible part to play in the process.
16. We cannot fathom why God permits such suffering.
17. God does not leave us alone. “In all our afflictions he is afflicted with us.”
18. A Son of God has come forth to reveal the love of God, to experience this life with its full measure of suffering, and to comfort those who suffer.
19. Should we think of the world mainly as filled with suffering? On balance, there is so much for which to be thankful.
20. Once an episode of suffering is over—really over—we look back and find that it was not truly substantial. Though evil appears to exist for a time, it can only exist by being parasitical on realities that are good. On the path from chaos to glory the sufferings of time are eclipsed by everlasting joy.
A truckload of Urantia Book quotations for study of affliction
We worship God because of our recognition of his “matchless personality, loveable nature, and adorable attributes” (65). From the beginning of Paper 1, we are introduced to the personality of God. Once we have met the Universal Father, we are ready to learn of the qualities of the nature of God though which this personality chooses to express himself: infinity, eternal perfection, righteousness and justice, mercy, love, goodness, and truth and beauty. Once we know God that well, we are ready for the revelation of the amazing extent of the one whose personality and nature we are coming to love. After we learn of God’s everywhereness, we are ready for the lesson on God’s Infinite Power.
Jesus spoke plainly. “When man recognizes only the works of God, he is led to fear the Supreme; but when man begins to understand and experience the personality and character of the living God, he is led increasingly to love such a good and perfect, universal and eternal Father. And it is just this changing of the relation of man to God that constitutes the mission of the Son of Man on earth” (1675.4). And so it is. The Divine Counselor says, “First think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and lastly as an infinite upholder” (21.1). When we think of God only as a controller, it can be scary. However, when God as controller is seen in the context of God as creator and infinite upholder, then the controller idea softens.
The narrative in the opening papers of Part III uses terms with remarkable frequency that describe physical things and processes in terms that carry personal connotations. We know that the First Source and Center brings forth from the Absolutes the diverse phenomena of the universes, from the emergence of primal force from the Unqualified Absolute to its transmutation by the Force Organizers into energy responsive to paradise gravity and power responsive to the linear gravity that we recognize.
Take the time now to re-read this section, God’s infinite power:
All the universes know that “the Lord God omnipotent reigns.” The affairs of this world and other worlds are divinely supervised. “He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.” It is eternally true, “there is no power but of God.”
Within the bounds of that which is consistent with the divine nature, it is literally true that “with God all things are possible.” The long-drawn-out evolutionary processes of peoples, planets, and universes are under the perfect control of the universe creators and administrators and unfold in accordance with the eternal purpose of the Universal Father, proceeding in harmony and order and in keeping with the all-wise plan of God. There is only one lawgiver. He upholds the worlds in space and swings the universes around the endless circle of the eternal circuit.
Of all the divine attributes, his omnipotence, especially as it prevails in the material universe, is the best understood. Viewed as an unspiritual phenomenon, God is energy. This declaration of physical fact is predicated on the incomprehensible truth that the First Source and Center is the primal cause of the universal physical phenomena of all space. From this divine activity all physical energy and other material manifestations are derived. Light, that is, light without heat, is another of the nonspiritual manifestations of the Deities. And there is still another form of nonspiritual energy which is virtually unknown on Urantia; it is as yet unrecognized.
God controls all power; he has made “a way for the lightning”; he has ordained the circuits of all energy. He has decreed the time and manner of the manifestation of all forms of energy-matter. And all these things are held forever in his everlasting grasp–in the gravitational control centering on nether Paradise. The light and energy of the eternal God thus swing on forever around his majestic circuit, the endless but orderly procession of the starry hosts composing the universe of universes. All creation circles eternally around the Paradise-Personality center of all things and beings.
The omnipotence of the Father pertains to the everywhere dominance of the absolute level, whereon the three energies, material, mindal, and spiritual, are indistinguishable in close proximity to him–the Source of all things. Creature mind, being neither Paradise monota nor Paradise spirit, is not directly responsive to the Universal Father. God adjusts with the mind of imperfection–with Urantia mortals through the Thought Adjusters.
The Universal Father is not a transient force, a shifting power, or a fluctuating energy. The power and wisdom of the Father are wholly adequate to cope with any and all universe exigencies. As the emergencies of human experience arise, he has foreseen them all, and therefore he does not react to the affairs of the universe in a detached way but rather in accordance with the dictates of eternal wisdom and in consonance with the mandates of infinite judgment. Regardless of appearances, the power of God is not functioning in the universe as a blind force.
Situations do arise in which it appears that emergency rulings have been made, that natural laws have been suspended, that misadaptations have been recognized, and that an effort is being made to rectify the situation; but such is not the case. Such concepts of God have their origin in the limited range of your viewpoint, in the finiteness of your comprehension, and in the circumscribed scope of your survey; such misunderstanding of God is due to the profound ignorance you enjoy regarding the existence of the higher laws of the realm, the magnitude of the Father’s character, the infinity of his attributes, and the fact of his free-willness.
The planetary creatures of God’s spirit indwelling, scattered hither and yon throughout the universes of space, are so nearly infinite in number and order, their intellects are so diverse, their minds are so limited and sometimes so gross, their vision is so curtailed and localized, that it is almost impossible to formulate generalizations of law adequately expressive of the Father’s infinite attributes and at the same time to any degree comprehensible to these created intelligences. Therefore, to you the creature, many of the acts of the all-powerful Creator seem to be arbitrary, detached, and not infrequently heartless and cruel. But again I assure you that this is not true. God’s doings are all purposeful, intelligent, wise, kind, and eternally considerate of the best good, not always of an individual being, an individual race, an individual planet, or even an individual universe; but they are for the welfare and best good of all concerned, from the lowest to the highest. In the epochs of time the welfare of the part may sometimes appear to differ from the welfare of the whole; in the circle of eternity such apparent differences are nonexistent.
We are all a part of the family of God, and we must therefore sometimes share in the family discipline. Many of the acts of God which so disturb and confuse us are the result of the decisions and final rulings of all-wisdom, empowering the Conjoint Actor to execute the choosing of the infallible will of the infinite mind, to enforce the decisions of the personality of perfection, whose survey, vision, and solicitude embrace the highest and eternal welfare of all his vast and far-flung creation.
Thus it is that your detached, sectional, finite, gross, and highly materialistic viewpoint and the limitations inherent in the nature of your being constitute such a handicap that you are unable to see, comprehend, or know the wisdom and kindness of many of the divine acts which to you seem fraught with such crushing cruelty, and which seem to be characterized by such utter indifference to the comfort and welfare, to the planetary happiness and personal prosperity, of your fellow creatures. It is because of the limits of human vision, it is because of your circumscribed understanding and finite comprehension, that you misunderstand the motives, and pervert the purposes, of God. But many things occur on the evolutionary worlds which are not the personal doings of the Universal Father.
The divine omnipotence is perfectly co-ordinated with the other attributes of the personality of God. The power of God is, ordinarily, only limited in its universe spiritual manifestation by three conditions or situations:
1. By the nature of God, especially by his infinite love, by truth, beauty, and goodness.
2. By the will of God, by his mercy ministry and fatherly relationship with the personalities of the universe.
3. By the law of God, by the righteousness and justice of the eternal Paradise Trinity.
God is unlimited in power, divine in nature, final in will, infinite in attributes, eternal in wisdom, and absolute in reality. But all these characteristics of the Universal Father are unified in Deity and universally expressed in the Paradise Trinity and in the divine Sons of the Trinity. Otherwise, outside of Paradise and the central universe of Havona, everything pertaining to God is limited by the evolutionary presence of the Supreme, conditioned by the eventuating presence of the Ultimate, and co-ordinated by the three existential Absolutes–Deity, Universal, and Unqualified. And God’s presence is thus limited because such is the will of God.
Reading this section brings a profound peace. The perspective is all-embracing. Paper 4, God’s Relation to the Universe, explains more. Here are some excerpts.
God upholds “all things by the word of his power.” And when new worlds are born, he “sends forth his Sons and they are created.” God not only creates, but he “preserves them all.” God constantly upholds all things material and all beings spiritual. The universes are eternally stable. There is stability in the midst of apparent instability. There is an underlying order and security in the midst of the energy upheavals and the physical cataclysms of the starry realms.
A being of my order is able to discover ultimate harmony and to detect far-reaching and profound co-ordination in the routine affairs of universe administration. Much that seems disjointed and haphazard to the mortal mind appears orderly and constructive to my understanding. (55.3,5)
I am inclined to believe that it is this far-flung and generally unrecognizable control of the co-ordination and interassociation of all phases and forms of universe activity that causes such a variegated and apparently hopelessly confused medley of physical, mental, moral, and spiritual phenomena so unerringly to work out to the glory of God and for the good of men and angels.
But in the larger sense the apparent “accidents” of the cosmos are undoubtedly a part of the finite drama of the time-space adventure of the Infinite in his eternal manipulation of the Absolutes. (56.3-4)
Nature is a time-space resultant of two cosmic factors: first, the immutability, perfection, and rectitude of Paradise Deity, and second, the experimental plans, executive blunders, insurrectionary errors, incompleteness of development, and imperfection of wisdom of the extra-Paradise creatures, from the highest to the lowest. Nature therefore carries a uniform, unchanging, majestic, and marvelous thread of perfection from the circle of eternity; but in each universe, on each planet, and in each individual life, this nature is modified, qualified, and perchance marred by the acts, the mistakes, and the disloyalties of the creatures of the evolutionary systems and universes; and therefore must nature ever be of a changing mood, whimsical withal, though stable underneath, and varied in accordance with the operating procedures of a local universe. (56.7)
The apparent defects of the natural world are not indicative of any such corresponding defects in the character of God. Rather are such observed imperfections merely the inevitable stop-moments in the exhibition of the ever-moving reel of infinity picturization. It is these very defect-interruptions of perfection-continuity which make it possible for the finite mind of material man to catch a fleeting glimpse of divine reality in time and space. The material manifestations of divinity appear defective to the evolutionary mind of man only because mortal man persists in viewing the phenomena of nature through natural eyes, human vision unaided by morontia mota or by revelation, its compensatory substitute on the worlds of time. (57.4)
Later passages illuminate the same topic.
The mortal mind can immediately think of a thousand and one things–catastrophic physical events, appalling accidents, horrific disasters, painful illnesses, and world-wide scourges–and ask whether such visitations are correlated in the unknown maneuvering of this probable functioning of the Supreme Being. Frankly, we do not know; we are not really sure. But we do observe that, as time passes, all these difficult and more or less mysterious situations always work out for the welfare and progress of the universes. It may be that the circumstances of existence and the inexplicable vicissitudes of living are all interwoven into a meaningful pattern of high value by the function of the Supreme and the overcontrol of the Trinity. (115.7)
The magnitude of the evolutionary creations indicate what it will take for us to cooperate in the actualization of the Supreme and how gratifying it will have been for us to go through everything together.
In the evolutionary cosmos energy-matter is dominant except in personality, where spirit, through the mediation of mind, is striving for the mastery. (140.10)
We may now be ready to take in this sentence as an assurance:
Nebulae may disperse, suns burn out, systems vanish, and planets perish, but the universes do not run down. (176.5)
An adequate concept of evolution includes an understanding of the meaning of affliction.
The confusion and turmoil of Urantia do not signify that the Paradise Rulers lack either interest or ability to manage affairs differently. The Creators are possessed of full power to make Urantia a veritable paradise, but such an Eden would not contribute to the development of those strong, noble, and experienced characters which the Gods are so surely forging out on your world between the anvils of necessity and the hammers of anguish. Your anxieties and sorrows, your trials and disappointments, are just as much a part of the divine plan on your sphere as are the exquisite perfection and infinite adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose on the worlds of the central and perfect universe. (258.11)
The universe of your origin is being forged out between the anvil of justice and the hammer of suffering; but those who wield the hammer are the children of mercy, the spirit offspring of the Infinite Spirit. (100.2)
Tempt not the angels of your supervision to lead you in troublous ways as a loving discipline designed to save your ease-drifting souls. (1931.1)
Reflecting on the Lucifer rebellion, a Melchizedek writes,
While we cannot fathom the wisdom that permits such catastrophes, we can always discern the beneficial outworking of these local disturbances as they are reflected out upon the universe at large. (761.7)
Most of Paper 54, Problems of the Lucifer Rebellion, speaks to these questions. Here are two excerpts.
The Gods neither create evil nor permit sin and rebellion. Potential evil is time-existent in a universe embracing differential levels of perfection meanings and values. Sin is potential in all realms where imperfect beings are endowed with the ability to choose between good and evil. The very conflicting presence of truth and untruth, fact and falsehood, constitutes the potentiality of error. The deliberate choice of evil constitutes sin; the willful rejection of truth is error; the persistent pursuit of sin and error is iniquity. (613.2)
The moral will creatures of the evolutionary worlds are always bothered with the unthinking question as to why the all-wise Creators permit evil and sin. They fail to comprehend that both are inevitable if the creature is to be truly free. The free will of evolving man or exquisite angel is not a mere philosophic concept, a symbolic ideal. Man’s ability to choose good or evil is a universe reality. This liberty to choose for oneself is an endowment of the Supreme Rulers, and they will not permit any being or group of beings to deprive a single personality in the wide universe of this divinely bestowed liberty–not even to satisfy such misguided and ignorant beings in the enjoyment of this misnamed personal liberty. (615.3)
Jesus gave this summary explanation to one group of hearers.
“There are three groups of events which may occur in your lives:
“1. You may share in those normal happenings which are a part of the life you and your fellows live on the face of the earth.
“2. You may chance to fall victim to one of the accidents of nature, one of the mischances of men, knowing full well that such occurrences are in no way prearranged or otherwise produced by the spiritual forces of the realm.
“3. You may reap the harvest of your direct efforts to comply with the natural laws governing the world. (1830.5-8)
Jesus spoke at length to Nathaniel about affliction.
At another of these private interviews in the garden Nathaniel asked Jesus: “Master, though I am beginning to understand why you refuse to practice healing indiscriminately, I am still at a loss to understand why the loving Father in heaven permits so many of his children on earth to suffer so many afflictions.” The Master answered Nathaniel, saying:
“Nathaniel, you and many others are thus perplexed because you do not comprehend how the natural order of this world has been so many times upset by the sinful adventures of certain rebellious traitors to the Father’s will. And I have come to make a beginning of setting these things in order. But many ages will be required to restore this part of the universe to former paths and thus release the children of men from the extra burdens of sin and rebellion. The presence of evil alone is sufficient test for the ascension of man–sin is not essential to survival.
“But, my son, you should know that the Father does not purposely afflict his children. Man brings down upon himself unnecessary affliction as a result of his persistent refusal to walk in the better ways of the divine will. Affliction is potential in evil, but much of it has been produced by sin and iniquity. Many unusual events have transpired on this world, and it is not strange that all thinking men should be perplexed by the scenes of suffering and affliction which they witness. But of one thing you may be sure: The Father does not send affliction as an arbitrary punishment for wrongdoing. The imperfections and handicaps of evil are inherent; the penalties of sin are inevitable; the destroying consequences of iniquity are inexorable. Man should not blame God for those afflictions which are the natural result of the life which he chooses to live; neither should man complain of those experiences which are a part of life as it is lived on this world. It is the Father’s will that mortal man should work persistently and consistently toward the betterment of his estate on earth. Intelligent application would enable man to overcome much of his earthly misery.
“Nathaniel, it is our mission to help men solve their spiritual problems and in this way to quicken their minds so that they may be the better prepared and inspired to go about solving their manifold material problems. I know of your confusion as you have read the Scriptures. All too often there has prevailed a tendency to ascribe to God the responsibility for everything which ignorant man fails to understand. The Father is not personally responsible for all you may fail to comprehend. Do not doubt the love of the Father just because some just and wise law of his ordaining chances to afflict you because you have innocently or deliberately transgressed such a divine ordinance.
“But, Nathaniel, there is much in the Scriptures which would have instructed you if you had only read with discernment. Do you not remember that it is written: `My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction, for whom the Lord loves he corrects, even as the father corrects the son in whom he takes delight.’ `The Lord does not afflict willingly.’ `Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now do I keep the law. Affliction was good for me that I might thereby learn the divine statutes.’ `I know your sorrows. The eternal God is your refuge, while underneath are the everlasting arms.’ `The Lord also is a refuge for the oppressed, a haven of rest in times of trouble.’ `The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of affliction; the Lord will not forget the sick.’ `As a father shows compassion for his children, so is the Lord compassionate to those who fear him. He knows your body; he remembers that you are dust.’ `He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.’ `He is the hope of the poor, the strength of the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, and a shadow from the devastating heat.’ `He gives power to the faint, and to them who have no might he increases strength.’ `A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax he will not quench.’ `When you pass through the waters of affliction, I will be with you, and when the rivers of adversity overflow you, I will not forsake you.’ `He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to comfort all who mourn.’ `There is correction in suffering; affliction does not spring forth from the dust.'” (1661-62).
We know that much of our suffering derives from the consequences of the rebellion and the default, not to mention some of the biologic experiments on our decimal world that did not work out well. It is our opportunity to participate wholeheartedly in the experiment and in the world’s rehabilitation of our world, going through whatever comes our way in a manner that strengthens, not weakens, our spiritual perspective.
A philosophic perspective helps, too.
The true perspective of any reality problem–human or divine, terrestrial or cosmic–can be had only by the full and unprejudiced study and correlation of three phases of universe reality: origin, history, and destiny. (215.3).
There is a direct relationship between maturity and the unit of time consciousness in any given intellect. The time unit may be a day, a year, or a longer period, but inevitably it is the criterion by which the conscious self evaluates the circumstances of life, and by which the conceiving intellect measures and evaluates the facts of temporal existence.
Experience, wisdom, and judgment are the concomitants of the lengthening of the time unit in mortal experience. As the human mind reckons backward into the past, it is evaluating past experience for the purpose of bringing it to bear on a present situation. As mind reaches out into the future, it is attempting to evaluate the future significance of possible action. And having thus reckoned with both experience and wisdom, the human will exercises judgment-decision in the present, and the plan of action thus born of the past and the future becomes existent.
In the maturity of the developing self, the past and future are brought together to illuminate the true meaning of the present. As the self matures, it reaches further and further back into the past for experience, while its wisdom forecasts seek to penetrate deeper and deeper into the unknown future. And as the conceiving self extends this reach ever further into both past and future, so does judgment become less and less dependent on the momentary present. In this way does decision-action begin to escape from the fetters of the moving present, while it begins to take on the aspects of past-future significance.
Patience is exercised by those mortals whose time units are short; true maturity transcends patience by a forbearance born of real understanding. (1295.3-6)
Spirit-born individuals are so remotivated in life that they can calmly stand by while their fondest ambitions perish and their keenest hopes crash; they positively know that such catastrophes are but the redirecting cataclysms which wreck one’s temporal creations preliminary to the rearing of the more noble and enduring realities of a new and more sublime level of universe attainment. (1096.5)
Many of the twelve “spiritlike” performances listed on p. 1108 pertain to affliction.
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.”
A wisdom perspective prepares us for the ultimate experience of affliction—going through it with God.
It is literally true: “In all your afflictions he is afflicted.” (29.6)
The consciousness of a victorious human life on earth is born of that creature faith which dares to challenge each recurring episode of existence when confronted with the awful spectacle of human limitations, by the unfailing declaration: Even if I cannot do this, there lives in me one who can and will do it, a part of the Father-Absolute of the universe of universes. And that is “the victory which overcomes the world, even your faith.”
Indeed, the Master once told us that the purpose of his coming was to help us through our suffering.
Do you not see that Job longed for a human God, that he hungered to commune with a divine Being who knows man’s mortal estate and understands that the just must often suffer in innocence as a part of this first life of the long Paradise ascent? Wherefore has the Son of Man come forth from the Father to live such a life in the flesh that he will be able to comfort and succor all those who must henceforth be called upon to endure the afflictions of Job. (1663.5)
“I know my hour is approaching, and I am troubled. I perceive that my people are determined to spurn the kingdom, but I am rejoiced to receive these truth-seeking gentiles who come here today inquiring for the way of light. Nevertheless, my heart aches for my people, and my soul is distraught by that which lies just before me. What shall I say as I look ahead and discern what is about to befall me? Shall I say, Father save me from this awful hour? No! For this very purpose have I come into the world and even to this hour. Rather will I say, and pray that you will join me: Father, glorify your name; your will be done.” (1903.6)
“When I give you this new commandment, I do not place any new burden upon your souls; rather do I bring you new joy and make it possible for you to experience new pleasure in knowing the delights of the bestowal of your heart’s affection upon your fellow men. I am about to experience the supreme joy, even though enduring outward sorrow, in the bestowal of my affection upon you and your fellow mortals. (1944.5)
The joy of this outpoured spirit, when it is consciously experienced in human life, is a tonic for health, a stimulus for mind, and an unfailing energy for the soul. (2065.7)
Pentecost, with its spiritual endowment, was designed forever to loose the religion of the Master from all dependence upon physical force; the teachers of this new religion are now equipped with spiritual weapons. They are to go out to conquer the world with unfailing forgiveness, matchless good will, and abounding love. They are equipped to overcome evil with good, to vanquish hate by love, to destroy fear with a courageous and living faith in truth. Jesus had already taught his followers that his religion was never passive; always were his disciples to be active and positive in their ministry of mercy and in their manifestations of love. No longer did these believers look upon Yahweh as “the Lord of Hosts.” They now regarded the eternal Deity as the “God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.” They made that progress, at least, even if they did in some measure fail fully to grasp the truth that God is also the spiritual Father of every individual.
Pentecost endowed mortal man with the power to forgive personal injuries, to keep sweet in the midst of the gravest injustice, to remain unmoved in the face of appalling danger, and to challenge the evils of hate and anger by the fearless acts of love and forbearance. (2064)
