There is a great article in the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine about Scientology. Well researched and well written it really helped me understand that group a little better. Right in the middle of the article there was a statement that grabbed my attention. The group has a creation story and in it there is a teaching about how wrong things are on the earth and how they need to be put right. A professor from UCLA is quoted as saying most religions believe that something is “either terribly wrong or is profoundly missing”. I know this is the case with the Judeo-Christian world view, and it sounds right for several other religious systems that I am familiar with. But is this statement true for the religious philosophy found in The Urantia Book? I don’t think it is. I think The Urantia Book teaches us that everything, including our wayward little world, is exactly the way it should be.
OK I know what you are thinking, if nothing is wrong, why is the world so screwed up? The potential for freewill individuals to make poor choices comes hand in hand with their unique individual personalities. The Urantia Book says this, “sin is potential in all realms where imperfect beings are endowed with the ability to choose between good and evil” (613.2). Another way of looking at it – there is a price to be paid for each of us being unique in the universe, and that price is the freedom to screw up. Making decisions is what makes us unique. God could have made us automatons or instinct driven creatures. But our heavenly Father wanted a relationship with full personality beings. And that selfless choice, giving us real independent freedom, demanded that God be obedient to our independent decision making (150.4). God doesn’t tell us what to do because God wants us to become mature beings who have learned righteous actions through the challenges of experience. God is with us to help us through our experiences, but only in accordance with our freewill choosing (333.7). God does see all and know all, but God does not take away our freedom of action (49.3). God wants fellowship with you and me, and wants that relationship to be between two fully independent beings.
Of course fully independent beings can turn from God and act in the most selfish, hurtful manner. Because of this our world is truly messed up. I am not denying that disastrous mistakes have been made in our world’s history. I am not arguing that everything is wonderful and evil people are just misunderstood. What I am arguing is that the common conception of the entire cosmos, and subsequently our planet, being in clutches of evil and in need of salvation is inaccurate (620.1). The Urantia Book says that God has taken the potential for sin into account and found that it is worth the price for unique personalities such as ours. “Righteousness is not automatic in freewill creatures” (238.8), this was known from the beginning of time and yet God still made us who we are, and given us the precious gift of independence. The world is screwed up? Sure it is. But if it was perfect you and I wouldn’t exist.
Could the world be a better place? Sure it could and it will be someday. All of the spiritual help that we need to advance within the Kingdom of Heaven is here with us and always has been. God intends for the world to be a wonderful place, the difficulties we face is the price of admission.
God bless you,
William Whitehead
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