Past Weekly Inspirational Quotes, Page 10

# 41 published Nov 29, 2003

Theology is the study of the actions and reactions of the human spirit; it can never become a science since it must always be combined more or less with psychology in its personal expression and with philosophy in its systematic portrayal. Theology is always the study of your religion; the study of another's religion is psychology.
[ ! Ha ha. This Melchizedek Author and Revelator has an excellent (meaning: from above, from heaven) sense of humor/wisdom.]

When man approaches the study and examination of his universe from the outside, he brings into being the various physical sciences; when he approaches the research of himself and the universe from the inside, he gives origin to theology and metaphysics. The later art of philosophy develops in an effort to harmonize the many discrepancies which are destined at first to appear between the findings and teachings of these two diametrically opposite avenues of approaching the universe of things and beings.

Religion has to do with the spiritual viewpoint, the awareness of the insideness of human experience. Man's spiritual nature affords him the opportunity of turning the universe outside in. It is therefore true that, viewed exclusively from the insideness of personality experience, all creation appears to be spiritual in nature.

When man analytically inspects the universe through the material endowments of his physical senses and associated mind perception, the cosmos appears to be mechanical and energy-material. Such a technique of studying reality consists in turning the universe inside out.

A logical and consistent philosophic concept of the universe cannot be built up on the postulations of either materialism or spiritism, for both of these systems of thinking, when universally applied, are compelled to view the cosmos in distortion, the former contacting with a universe turned inside out, the latter realizing the nature of a universe turned outside in. Never, then, can either science or religion, in and of themselves, standing alone, hope to gain an adequate understanding of universal truths and relationships without the guidance of human philosophy and the illumination of divine revelation.

Always must man's inner spirit depend for its expression and self-realization upon the mechanism and technique of the mind. Likewise must man's outer experience of material reality be predicated on the mind consciousness of the experiencing personality. Therefore are the spiritual and the material, the inner and the outer, human experiences always correlated with the mind function and conditioned, as to their conscious realization, by the mind activity. Man experiences matter in his mind; he experiences spiritual reality in the soul but becomes conscious of this experience in his mind. The intellect is the harmonizer and the ever-present conditioner and qualifier of the sum total of mortal experience. Both energy-things and spirit values are colored by their interpretation through the mind media of consciousness. [To review past material here: spirit values are love, mercy, ministry, (service) truth, beauty and goodness.]

Your difficulty in arriving at a more harmonious co-ordination between science and religion is due to your utter ignorance of the intervening domain of the morontia world of things and beings. [This is a vast range of reality bridging-blending the lower material and the higher spiritual levels of elliptic reality; more on this later in this comprehensive and supernal Revelation of Truth to us.] The local universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the insight technique of religion; mota is the technique of the morontia level. Mota is a supermaterial reality sensitivity which is beginning to compensate incomplete growth, having for its substance knowledge-reason and for its essence faith-insight. Mota is a superphilosophical reconciliation of divergent reality perception which is nonattainable by material personalities; it is predicated, in part, on the experience of having survived the material life of the flesh. [mota -morontia is roughly equivalent to you/your spirit-led mind with soul integration by Personality] But many mortals have recognized the desirability of having some method of reconciling the interplay between the widely separated domains of science and religion; and metaphysics is the result of man's unavailing attempt to span this well-recognized chasm. But human metaphysics has proved more confusing than illuminating. Metaphysics stands for man's well-meant but futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia.

Metaphysics has proved a failure; mota, man cannot perceive. Revelation is the only technique which can compensate for the absence of the truth sensitivity of mota in a material world. Revelation authoritatively clarifies the muddle of reason-developed metaphysics on an evolutionary sphere. [All of our apparently slow evolution here is certainly under God's Control *and* His Overcontrol-Upholding on both transcendental and transcendent levels, as well as our evolving Supreme levels. Yes, if GOD were now small enough for our ready comprehension, He would NOT be big enough for our needs, and our eventual perfection in and with Him ! Amen !]

Science is man's attempted study of his physical environment, the world of energy-matter; religion is man's experience with the cosmos of spirit values; philosophy has been developed by man's mind effort to organize and correlate the findings of these widely separated concepts into something like a reasonable and unified attitude toward the cosmos. Philosophy, clarified by revelation, functions acceptably in the absence of mota and in the presence of the breakdown and failure of man's reason substitute for mota -- metaphysics.

Early man did not differentiate between the energy level and the spirit level. It was the violet race [About 37,000 years ago, Adam and Eve (violet race Superhumans about eight feet tall, disease free, to live here 500-1000 years and leave many progeny-uplifters to mate with early primitive humans who were developing here for about 960,000 years prior) came down here from a higher heaven, (NOT in space-ships !) to function as biologic uplifters of the whole Human race. They partly failed because of the Lucifer rebellion of 200,000 years ago; but they gave us enough genetic improvements (still unfolding) that our scientists now recogize this date of about 37,000 years ago as the SUDDEN (mysterious) appearance of "Modern Man". More later on this fuller revelation of actual history and progressive unification of science, philosophy and religion.] and their Andite successors who first attempted to divorce the mathematical from the volitional. Increasingly has civilized man followed in the footsteps of the earliest Greeks and the Sumerians who distinguished between the inanimate and the animate. And as civilization progresses, philosophy will have to bridge ever-widening gulfs between the spirit concept and the energy concept. But in the time of space these divergencies are at one in the Supreme.

Science must always be grounded in reason, although imagination and conjecture are helpful in the extension of its borders. Religion is forever dependent on faith, albeit reason is a stabilizing influence and a helpful handmaid. And always there have been, and ever will be, misleading interpretations of the phenomena of both the natural and the spiritual worlds, sciences and religions falsely so called.

Out of his incomplete grasp of science, his faint hold upon religion, and his abortive attempts at metaphysics, man has attempted to construct his formulations of philosophy. And modern man would indeed build a worthy and engaging philosophy of himself and his universe were it not for the breakdown of his all-important and indispensable metaphysical connection between the worlds of matter and spirit, the failure of metaphysics to bridge the morontia gulf between the physical and the spiritual. Mortal man lacks the concept of morontia mind and material; and revelation is the only technique for atoning for this deficiency in the conceptual data which man so urgently needs in order to construct a logical philosophy of the universe and to arrive at a satisfying understanding of his sure and settled place in that universe.

Revelation is evolutionary man's only hope of bridging the morontia gulf. Faith and reason, unaided by mota, cannot conceive and construct a logical universe. Without the insight of mota, mortal man cannot discern goodness, love, and truth [spiritual values] in the phenomena of the material world.

When the philosophy of man leans heavily toward the world of matter, it becomes rationalistic or naturalistic. When philosophy inclines particularly toward the spiritual level, it becomes idealistic or even mystical. When philosophy is so unfortunate as to lean upon metaphysics, it unfailingly becomes skeptical, confused. In past ages, most of man's knowledge and intellectual evaluations have fallen into one of these three distortions of perception. Philosophy dare not project its interpretations of reality in the linear fashion of logic; it must never fail to reckon with the elliptic symmetry of reality and with the essential curvature of all relation concepts. [Do you grasp the significance of how this applies to the Paradise Father-Son Union, the local universe Father-Son Union, and You as also a progressing-perfecting Father-Son Union in Jesus ? Three concentric, coordinated ellipses is one way of conceiving this. GOD is Real; therefore ---; You are Real; therefore ---. More attempted hints later. Seek some, and you shall find much!]

The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight afforded by revelation. By this union man can compensate somewhat for his failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to comprehend the mota of the morontia.

[These added comments in brackets are by Teacher-Brother Dave. I do personally answer all your sincere questions and comments by email, or in our public Forums, or in our private chat room.]

# 42 published Dec 06, 2003

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. [Your Thought Adjuster is God's Spirit Gift within you; and to BE You in Personality when perfected.]

True salvation is the [very long ascension] technique of the divine evolution of the mortal mind from matter identification through the realms of morontia [soul] liaison to the high universe status of spiritual correlation. And as material intuitive instinct precedes the appearance of reasoned knowledge in terrestrial evolution, so does the manifestation of spiritual intuitive insight presage the later appearance of morontia and spirit reason and experience in the supernal [divine] program of celestial evolution, the business of transmuting the potentials of man the temporal into the actuality and divinity of man the eternal, a Paradise finaliter. [forever God-seeking, God-finding and God-revealing, and well beyond our present comprehensions.]

But as ascending man reaches inward and Paradiseward for the God experience, he will likewise be reaching outward and spaceward for an energy understanding of the material cosmos. The progression of science is not limited to the terrestrial life of man; his universe and superuniverse ascension experience will to no small degree be the study of energy transmutation and material metamorphosis. God is spirit, but Deity is unity, and the unity of Deity not only embraces the spiritual values of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son but is also cognizant of the energy facts of the Universal Controller [The Infinite Spirit as Divine Activator and more] and the Isle of Paradise, while these two phases of universal reality are perfectly correlated in the mind relationships of the Conjoint Actor [The Infinite Spirit as Mind and Father-Son will union to the Universes] and unified on the finite level in the emerging Deity of the Supreme Being. [our newer dabblings with "process theology" have some validity, when restricted to a space-time frame out here. More later]

The union of the scientific attitude and the religious insight by the mediation of experiential philosophy is part of man's long Paradise-ascension experience. The approximations of mathematics and the certainties of insight will always require the harmonizing function of mind logic on all levels of experience short of the maximum attainment of the Supreme.

But logic can never succeed in harmonizing the findings of science and the insights of religion unless both the scientific and the religious aspects of a personality are truth dominated, sincerely desirous of following the truth wherever it may lead regardless of the conclusions which it may reach.

Logic is the technique of philosophy, its method of expression. Within the domain of true science, reason is always amenable to genuine logic; within the domain of true religion, faith is always logical from the basis of an inner viewpoint, even though such faith may appear to be quite unfounded from the inlooking viewpoint of the scientific approach. From outward, looking within, the universe may appear to be material; from within, looking out, the same universe appears to be wholly spiritual. Reason grows out of material awareness, faith out of spiritual awareness, but through the mediation of a philosophy strengthened by revelation, logic may confirm both the inward and the outward view, thereby effecting the stabilization of both science and religion. Thus, through common contact with the logic of philosophy, may both science and religion become increasingly tolerant of each other, less and less skeptical.

What both developing science and religion need is more searching and fearless self-criticism, a greater awareness of incompleteness in evolutionary status. The teachers of both science and religion are often altogether too self-confident and dogmatic. Science and religion can only be self-critical of their facts. The moment departure is made from the stage of facts, reason abdicates or else rapidly degenerates into a consort of false logic.

The truth--an understanding of cosmic relationships, universe facts, and spiritual values--can best be had through the ministry of the Spirit of Truth and can best be criticized by revelation. But revelation originates neither a science nor a religion; its function is to co-ordinate both science and religion with the truth of reality. Always, in the absence of revelation or in the failure to accept or grasp it, has mortal man resorted to his futile gesture of metaphysics, that being the only human substitute for the revelation of truth or for the mota of morontia personality.

The science of the material world enables man to control, and to some extent dominate, his physical environment. [Gen 1:26 GOD (the Trinity- Elohim - "Us") command us to (eventually) have DOMINION (control) over everything on this earth.] The religion of the spiritual experience is the source of the fraternity impulse which enables men to live together in the complexities of the civilization of a scientific age. Metaphysics, but more certainly revelation, affords a common meeting ground for the discoveries of both science and religion and makes possible the human attempt logically to correlate these separate but interdependent domains of thought into a well-balanced philosophy of scientific stability and religious certainty. [Knowing and believing in God, relationships and matter is a good quest of every progressing Person attempting greater Personality Unification - as JESUS NOW IS] - our One Perfect Divine-Human GodMan !]

In the mortal state, nothing can be absolutely proved; both science and religion are predicated on assumptions. [A Human, taken up in Spirit, (reBorn) can Really Know God as our infinitely loving and merciful Father as Spirit and himself/herself as an eternal Son of God in finality ! This is also known as the peace of Jesus that passes all mortal mental understandings. But this is well above the mortal state mentioned here.] On the morontia level, the postulates of both science and religion are capable of partial proof by mota logic. On the spiritual level of maximum status, the need for finite proof gradually vanishes before the actual experience of and with reality; but even then there is much beyond the finite that remains unproved.

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.

Science becomes the thought domain of mathematics, of the energy and material of time in space. Religion assumes to deal not only with finite and temporal spirit but also with the spirit of eternity and supremacy. Only through a long experience in mota can these two extremes of universe perception be made to yield analogous interpretations of origins, functions, relations, realities, and destinies. The maximum harmonization of the energy-spirit divergence is in the encircuitment of the Seven Master Spirits; the first unification thereof, in the Deity of the Supreme; the finality unity thereof, in the infinity of the First Source and Center, the I AM. [Some of this is briefly covered in the Book of Revelation of Jesus Christ; much more will be disclosed here as we slowly publish these inspired writings.]

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.

There is a real proof of spiritual reality in the presence of the Thought Adjuster, but the validity of this presence is not demonstrable to the external world, only to the one who thus experiences the indwelling of God. The consciousness of the Adjuster is based on the intellectual reception of truth, the supermind perception of goodness, and the personality motivation to love. [and all of that is very beautiful.]

Science discovers the material world, religion evaluates it, and philosophy endeavors to interpret its meanings while co-ordinating the scientific material viewpoint with the religious spiritual concept. But history is a realm in which science and religion may never fully agree. [Man's linear view of past-present-future is even now bending into, syncronizing with, a more elliptic eternal Reality.]

[These added comments in brackets are by Teacher-Brother Dave. I do personally answer all your sincere questions and comments by email, or in our public Forums, or in our private chat room.]

# 43 published Dec 13, 2003

8. PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

Although both science and philosophy may assume the probability of God by their reason and logic, only the personal religious experience of a spirit-led man can affirm the certainty of such a supreme and personal Deity. By the technique of such an incarnation of living truth the philosophic hypothesis of the probability of God becomes a religious reality.

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.

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. [Our Creator Father God loves you infinitely and also knows everything; you may actually love God in return and try to serve all mankind while presently knowing very little or nothing about mind, soul, cosmology, spirit, matter-energy, personality, origins, natures, destiny, and billions of higher meanings and values well beyond our comprehension. "If God were small enough for our finite UNDERSTANDING, He would not be big enough for our real NEEDS." In Jesus, you, Dear Reader, are now are much more than you know ! Rejoice ! (and continue to train your mind as well as you as soul to be a better unified, well balanced personality.)]

[a caution:] 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 [making trivial and annoying arguments] of logic, the postulates of philosophy, or the clever suggestions of well-meaning souls who would create a religion without God. [Warning: A lasting world social system without God, and His spiritual and moral values, can no more be maintained than could our solar system without gravity ! Spirit gravity is more real than physical gravity to progressing personalities.]

The certainty of the God-knowing religionist should not be disturbed by the uncertainty of the doubting materialist; rather should the uncertainty of the unbeliever be mightily challenged by the profound faith and unshakable certainty of the experiential believer. [Since 1977, I directly and personally Know in the Spirit of Truth that I am a beloved son of God -- the Infinite I AM -- and fully in Jesus Christ; I am eternally Certain in Him. HE IS I AM ... Be now the beloved son of God in Jesus that You Are ! True peace and progress ! Amen !]

Philosophy, to be of the greatest service to both science and religion, should avoid the extremes of both materialism and pantheism. Only a philosophy which recognizes the reality of personality -- permanence in the presence of change -- can be of moral value to man, can serve as a liaison between the theories of material science and spiritual religion. Revelation is a compensation for the frailties of evolving philosophy.

Theology deals with the intellectual content of religion, metaphysics (revelation) with the philosophic aspects. Religious experience is the spiritual content of religion. Notwithstanding the mythologic vagaries and the psychologic illusions of the intellectual content of religion, the metaphysical assumptions of error and the techniques of self-deception, the political distortions and the socioeconomic perversions of the philosophic content of religion, the spiritual experience of personal religion remains genuine and valid. [Thank You our Father God !]

Religion has to do with feeling, acting, and living, not merely with thinking. Thinking is more closely related to the material life and should be in the main, but not altogether, dominated by reason and the facts of science and, in its nonmaterial reaches toward the spirit realms, by truth. No matter how illusory and erroneous one's theology, one's religion may be wholly genuine and everlastingly true. [Many Christians, and other religionists, still argue over the complex Trinity Truths, are confused by human concepts of predestination, salvation, etc. ; but in Spirit they are SECURE in JESUS and in the True One Paradise Father GOD of All Reality.]

Buddhism in its original form is one of the best religions without a God which has arisen throughout all the evolutionary history of Earth, although, as this faith developed, it did not remain godless. Religion without faith is a contradiction; without God, a philosophic inconsistency and an intellectual absurdity. [Some advanced Buddhists are now considering the Truths of a Triune Godhead - The Trinity ! Why? because He, Jesus, the Spirit of Truth IS still poured out upon all flesh ! The Light of God shines within each normal mortal soul and mind on this planet. Christian Evangelists should stress the common Truths of other religions without mainly cutting down all their errors ! Sugar attracts flies more than poisons. Jesus is always infinitely sweet to all; dare to love even your enemies ! Convert them carefully in the love and power of the Spirit of God, and it will be a True Conversion -reBirth-Awakening into Light and Life.]

The magical and mythological parentage of natural religion does not invalidate the reality and truth of the later revelational religions and the consummate saving gospel of the religion of Jesus. Jesus' life and teachings finally divested religion of the superstitions of magic, the illusions of mythology, and the bondage of traditional dogmatism. But this early magic and mythology very effectively prepared the way for later and superior religion by assuming the existence and reality of supermaterial values and beings.

Although religious experience is a purely spiritual subjective phenomenon, such an experience embraces a positive and living faith attitude toward the highest realms of universe objective reality. The ideal of religious philosophy is such a faith-trust as would lead man unqualifiedly to depend upon the absolute love of the infinite Father of the universe of universes. Such a genuine religious experience far transcends the philosophic objectification of idealistic desire; it actually takes salvation for granted [freely by God and Jesus in Their One Spirit!] and concerns itself only with learning and doing the will of the Father in Paradise. The earmarks of such a religion are: faith in a supreme Deity, hope of eternal survival, and love, especially of one's fellows.

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. [Living faith will (slowly or suddenly) allow you to perceive God in both your soul and mind, and later in the Finality of Your Spirit Destiny of God-knowing and God-revealing in eternal loving and wise service to all Beings in a vast Universe, in Paradise, and in other Transcendental Realms.]

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.

Science (knowledge) is founded on the inherent (adjutant spirit) assumption that reason is valid, that the universe can be comprehended. Philosophy (co-ordinate comprehension) is founded on the inherent (spirit of wisdom) assumption that wisdom is valid, that the material universe can be co-ordinated with the spiritual. Religion (the truth of personal spiritual experience) is founded on the inherent (Thought Adjuster) assumption that faith is valid, that God can be known and attained. [YES ! In Spirit and in Truth ! and increasingly repletely.]

The full realization of the reality of mortal life consists in a progressive willingness to believe these assumptions of reason, wisdom, and faith. Such a life is one motivated by truth and dominated by love; and these are the ideals of objective cosmic reality whose existence cannot be materially demonstrated. [Love, mercy, service, truth, beauty and goodness are all super Real (supernal) to all finite space-time material energy perceptions of mortals.]

When reason once recognizes right and wrong, it exhibits wisdom; when wisdom chooses between right and wrong, truth and error, it demonstrates spirit leading. And thus are the functions of mind, soul, and spirit ever closely united and functionally interassociated. Reason deals with factual knowledge; wisdom, with philosophy and revelation; faith, with living spiritual experience. Through truth man attains beauty and by spiritual love ascends to goodness.

Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. Faith must not be overmuch influenced by its emotional consequences. True religion is an experience of believing and knowing as well as a satisfaction of feeling.

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. [So uplifting and So True ! Amen ! Behold now our GODMAN JESUS CHRIST here in the Spirit of GOD and making you an ever more real Divine-Human GodMan in His Image ! What would Jesus do ? Let us all go and do likewise in the Spirit Power of our True God]

[Presented by a Melchizedek of our local universe, and acting under the authority of Gabriel, A.D. 1935]

[These added comments in brackets are by Teacher-Brother Dave. I do personally answer all your sincere questions and comments by email, or in our public Forums, or in our private chat room, as you prefer.]