the urantia bookubron.org/groupdocs/p3_family_affair.pdfthe urantia book introducing a bigger frame...

The Urantia Book

Introducing a bigger frame in which to think

Part 1: Universe Frames

Part 2: the Personal Universe

Part 3: a Family Affair

Part 4: Cosmology

Part 3: a Family Affair page 1

Part 3: a Family Affair

( continued from Part 2 )

When we teach our children

they are an evolutionary accident

in a universe that doesn’t care,

why are we surprised...

when some choose death ?

Which brings us to the big question, number 3: …


3: Why are we?

Who invented humans, and why?

As persons, what limits – and opportunities – do we face?

Why are we so moved by love?

And what’s love got to do with it?

One thing’s for sure, in a sceptical, scientific age,


Fairy tales and barbaric myths will no longer do.

Too many have stepped outside the box.

We want the truth about ourselves;

and about the fabric of nature.

Modern theories and beliefs must satisfy a modern mind.

But is this new frame – of modern myth – big enough?

[ Sagan movie ]


[ “Billions and billions of specks.” ]

“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it,

but the way those atoms are put together.”

“The cosmos is also within us, we’re made of star stuff.”

“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”


Nowadays, some of us imagine an evolutionary universe,

lit up by evolutionary mind.

Others still dream of going to some safe and happy place.

While for others, “logic dictates” that the universe will simply grow cold and die.


But what if some of our assumptions

• about cosmological red-shift,

• about the God concept,

• about ourselves,

are wrong?

What do we tell the children?


Evolution has shaped our children to be like containers for hope and trust.

From their trust in us comes a willingness, a wilful faith,

to believe what we believe.

And from this faith comes a personal thing: assurance.

Like the assurance we sceptical souls develop in the reliability of reason, and in the sincerity of friends.

In Paper 101, faith is actually described as “a technique of personality assurance”.

Later, in paper 103, the same author unfolds the concept of faith like this:


“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.”

Here, the concept of faith is untangled from reason and belief. The author links faith not with the mind, but with the Person.

It’s the person who chooses to carry reason along, to go on with wisdom, to launch out with truth.

Once again, personality is brought center stage; to reveal the roots of human motivation; to remind us that we can “dare to launch”.

So what does it take to launch a person?


Personality is launched by love.

Personality responds, without effort, to the “light and life” of love.

Energy and faith may move mountains, …


… but Personality is moved only by love.

History’s greatest lover once tried to explain this – the power and purpose of love – to twelve really confused apostles:


( But I declare to you that )

“ …my Father in Paradise does rule a universe of universes by the

compelling power of his love… ”


“Truth is a liberating revelation,

but love is the supreme relationship.”

It’s this relationship that these papers reveal.

It’s this relationship – between persons – that explains why we exist.

Science and philosophy may point us to a “first cause”.

But it takes insight from a higher frame…


… to discover that the “ancestor of galaxies” is also

Father of Personalities.

Every personality.

Even humans.

But humans are special.


In this frame, we humans become a place in space for planting personality.

Our mind becomes like a womb, designed to be impregnated by a fragment of the I Am.

This fragment, this “Adjuster”, becomes the Father’s actual love incarnate in our soul.

“What is man, that you are mindful of him?”

We appear to be a technique for personalizing an Adjuster.

Let’s pick up the story many billions of years ago. From Paper 32:


“And then, when such a universe has been

so completely organized and so repletely manned,

does the Creator Son …


… enter into the Father’s proposal

to create mortal man in their

divine image.”

(page 359.5, paper 32:2.8)


“Let us make mortal man … ”

This ancient command, echoing from the foundations of Judaism, Christianity, Islam …

At last we can make sense of what it really means.

A simple way to see what’s going on

is to imagine…


… an absolute, eternal and infinite I Am.

Who self-qualifies as “First Source and Center”, …


… who sets up material and spiritual domains,

creating a place for planting… Personality !


And this is where we come in. As humans, our personality is bestowed

directly by the Source and Center of personality.

We’re not only “made in his image”; we’re made of his very stuff, the stuff

that motivates and integrates all else: person-ality.

But wait, there’s more!

Remember those mysterious “fragments of divine presence”, the Adjusters?

They come from way back here, upstream of where reality was divided up.

And they seek us out!


So why do we humans exist? A short answer is:

to personalize our fragment of the I Am.

Assuming success, we emerge from this extraordinary womb of space and time, ready to engage a larger universe in a non-trivial way.

Now, discovering that your Dad designed and built the universe, and that you are center stage in his plans, is, in any language, “good news”.

In fact, this is the same “good news” that Jesus once tried to deliver:


“God is your Father, and religion

– my gospel – is nothing more nor less than

the believing recognition of the truth

that you are his son.”

“… that you are his daughter.”

“The believing recognition of the truth…”

A simple truth.

A simple fact: each of us, from the president of a nation, to an orphan,

dying in a refugee camp, is loved beyond measure by… the Author of Reality,

our personal “Father in heaven”.

So what does all this mean? It means the universe is a family affair,

and that each of us is very deeply involved.


– The Urantia Book –

Presenting a larger frame in which to think.

Freely available across the world,

downloadable as an iPhone app.

Next: Cosmology ( see Part 4 )


the urantia bookubron.org/groupdocs/p3_family_affair.pdfthe urantia book introducing a bigger frame...

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