Paper 101 Overview: The Real Nature of Religion

Religion evolves from primitive fear in savages to the sublime faith of civilized mortals who recognize their divine sonship with the eternal God. While religion influences ethics and morality in society, it transcends them as the inspiration behind humanity's evolving nature. Religion represents the conviction-faith of personality, capable of triumphing over material logic and despair through genuine spiritual insight that connects humans with divine reality and eternal truths.

The true nature of religion involves reasonable faith rather than philosophical proof or mystical emotion. As both a personal experience and a cosmic reality, religion provides spiritual assurance that surpasses intellectual reason. It operates through the highest level of thinking rather than feelings, offering not new facts but new spiritual meanings to existing knowledge. This experiential reality of communion with divine influences within the human mind creates profound trust in God and assurance of personality survival.

Religion, as a human experience, encompasses a vast spectrum from the primitive fear-based practices of evolving savages to the magnificent faith and liberty enjoyed by civilized mortals who are consciously aware of their sonship with the eternal God. While religion serves as the foundation for advanced ethics and morals in progressive social evolution, it extends beyond mere moral movements, though its outward manifestations are significantly influenced by society's ethical and moral momentum.

Religion always represents the inspiration behind man's evolving nature, not the secret of that evolution. The conviction-faith of personality can triumph over the contradictory logic of material minds that lead to despair. There exists a genuine inner voice, a "true light that lights every man who comes into the world," which guides beyond ethical conscience. The assurance that comes from religion transcends emotional feelings, surpassing both the mind's reason and philosophy's logic to provide faith, trust, and spiritual certainty.

True religion cannot be reduced to a philosophical belief system proven through natural evidence, nor is it a mystical experience of indescribable ecstasy enjoyed only by devoted mystics. Religion isn't produced by reason, yet when viewed from within, it is entirely reasonable. It doesn't derive from philosophical logic, but as a mortal experience, it is completely logical. Religion represents the experience of divinity in the consciousness of an evolving moral being; it constitutes genuine interaction with eternal realities within time and the realization of spiritual satisfactions while still living in physical form.

The Thought Adjuster has no special mechanism for self-expression, as there is no mystical religious faculty for receiving or expressing religious emotions. These experiences become available through the natural structures of the mortal mind. Divine spirit makes contact with humans not through feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. Your thoughts, not feelings, lead you toward God, and the mind that truly perceives God hears the indwelling Adjuster—a pure mind that achieves spiritual insight through the combined operations of the Adjuster and Spirit of Truth upon the ideas, ideals, and spiritual strivings of evolving divine sons.

The fact of religion consists entirely in the religious experience of rational, average human beings. The proof that revelation is genuine lies in this human experience—the fact that revelation synthesizes the apparently divergent sciences of nature with the theology of religion into a coherent universe philosophy. Revelation compensates for the absence of the morontia viewpoint by providing a technique for achieving unity in understanding the reality and relationships between matter and spirit through the mediation of mind.

Science, religion, philosophy, and revelation each have their distinctive methods and contributions. Reason leads through science back to a First Cause, but it requires religious faith to transform this scientific First Cause into a God of salvation, with revelation further validating such faith. There are two fundamental reasons for believing in a God who fosters human survival: personal experience initiated by the indwelling Thought Adjuster, and the revelation of truth through either personal ministry of the Spirit of Truth, divine Sons, or written revelations. Science, religion, philosophy, and revelation each offer unique insights—knowledge, happiness, unity, and experiential harmony, respectively.

Religion demonstrates remarkable persistence despite lacking education, surviving contamination by erroneous cosmologies and false philosophies. Throughout history's vicissitudes, religion preserves the essential elements for human progress and survival: ethical conscience and moral consciousness. Faith-insight, or spiritual intuition, represents the cosmic mind's endowment working with the Thought Adjuster, while spiritual reason reflects the Holy Spirit's gift, and spiritual philosophy comes from the Spirit of Truth.

Genuine spiritual faith reveals itself through the distinctive way it influences personality reactions to challenging situations. It can be recognized through twelve characteristic responses: promoting ethics despite animal tendencies; maintaining trust in God's goodness despite disappointments; generating courage despite natural adversity; exhibiting tranquility during sickness and suffering; maintaining composure when facing injustice; preserving trust in ultimate victory despite apparent indifference of natural forces; persisting in belief despite logical arguments against it; continuing faith in survival regardless of deceptive teachings; thriving despite complex civilizations; sustaining altruism despite human selfishness; adhering to belief in divine guidance despite evil and sin; and continuing to worship God through all circumstances, declaring "Even though he slay me, yet will I serve him."

Because your world remains largely ignorant of origins, even physical origins, it has sometimes been necessary to provide cosmological instruction. This inevitably creates difficulties for future generations. The laws governing revelation significantly restrict the communication of unearned or premature knowledge. Any cosmology presented as part of revealed religion is destined to become outdated very quickly, which later tempts students to reject the genuine religious truth it contains when they discover errors in the associated cosmologies.

Those participating in the revelation of truth operate under strict limitations from their superiors. They cannot anticipate scientific discoveries that will occur over the next thousand years. While the historical facts and religious truths in these revelatory presentations will endure through the ages, many statements regarding physical sciences will require revision due to scientific developments and new discoveries. Truth is always a revelation—either auto-revelation through the Thought Adjuster or epochal revelation presented by other celestial agencies or personalities. In the final analysis, religion must be judged by its fruits—the manner and extent to which it demonstrates its inherent divine excellence.

Revelation functions as a time-saving technique, eliminating ages of effort in separating evolutionary errors from spiritual truths. Science deals with facts, religion concerns values, while philosophy endeavors to unite the meanings of both facts and values to achieve a concept of complete reality. Religion appears in two distinct phases: evolutionary religion derived from the mind, and revealed religion stemming from spirit—the belief in conserving eternal realities, personality survival, and ultimately attaining the cosmic Deity who makes it all possible.

Both science and religion begin with assumptions as foundations for logical deductions, as must philosophy with its three basic assumptions: the material body, the supermaterial component (soul or indwelling spirit), and the human mind that enables communication between spirit and matter. Scientists gather facts, philosophers coordinate ideas, and prophets exalt ideals, while feeling and emotion invariably accompany religion without being religion itself. Evolutionary religion develops from the worship-creating mind adjutant, focusing on ethics, morals, and human duty, while revealed religion, sponsored by Paradise Trinity representatives, emphasizes loving and the golden rule, expanding truth beyond what evolved faith alone can provide.

The morontia phase of revealed religion focuses on survival experience and the pursuit of spirit perfection, with an increasing urge toward worship and ethical service. This experience includes an expanding consciousness of the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and eventually the Ultimate. Throughout all religious progression, from material beginnings to full spirit attainment, the Adjuster remains the secret of personally realizing the Supreme's reality and holds the secrets of faith in achieving the Ultimate.

Moral decisions must be based on reasoned knowledge, enhanced by wisdom, and sanctioned by religious faith—choices that demonstrate moral personality development. Jesus lived under evolutionary religion until his baptism, then operated through combined evolutionary and revealed religion until his crucifixion, and finally traversed the morontia phases after his resurrection. His teachings uniquely coordinated knowledge, wisdom, faith, truth, and love to simultaneously provide temporal tranquility, intellectual certainty, moral enlightenment, philosophical stability, ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness, and assurance of personal survival. His faith offered a sevenfold salvation: from material fetters through spiritual sonship; from intellectual bondage through truth; from spiritual blindness through fraternity recognition; from incompleteness through spiritual attainment; from self-limitation through cosmic consciousness; from time through eternal life; and from the finite through oneness with Deity.

A personal philosophy of religion develops from both inner experience and environmental factors. Social status, economic conditions, educational opportunities, moral trends, institutional influences, political developments, racial tendencies, and religious teachings all contribute to one's personal religious philosophy. Even temperament and intellectual orientation significantly shape religious philosophical patterns, as do vocation, marriage, and other factors that influence personal life standards.

The critical difference between religious and nonreligious philosophy lies in the nature and level of recognized values and objects of loyalty. Religious philosophy evolution passes through four phases: conformity to tradition and authority; satisfaction with minimal stability for daily living; intellectual achievement but stagnation due to cultural constraints; or attainment of freedom from conventional limitations to think, act, and live honestly, loyally, fearlessly, and truthfully. A sound religious philosophy distinguishes between material and spiritual realities while recognizing their unification in intellectual pursuit and social service. Philosophy transforms primitive religion—largely a fairy tale of conscience—into a living experience of ascending cosmic values.

Belief reaches the level of faith when it actively directs life and shapes behavior. The acceptance of a teaching as true represents belief, whereas faith embodies a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but only worships God, who encompasses all these qualities and infinitely more. Belief restricts and binds, while faith expands and liberates—faith represents more than association of noble beliefs; it constitutes a living experience engaging spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values.

Faith betrays its trust when it denies realities, claims special knowledge, fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity, or diminishes loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Authentic faith never evades the problem-solving duties of mortal living or promotes bigotry, persecution, or intolerance. Faith does not restrict creative imagination or maintain unreasonable prejudice against scientific discoveries. Instead, it vitalizes religion and inspires the religionist to heroically live by the golden rule, with a zeal proportionate to knowledge and leading toward sublime peace.

No professed revelation would be considered authentic if it failed to acknowledge the ethical obligations created and fostered by preceding evolutionary religion. Revelation invariably expands the ethical horizon of evolved religion while simultaneously extending the moral obligations from all prior revelations. When evaluating primitive religion, it is essential to judge early humans according to their level of enlightenment and conscience development, not by modern standards of knowledge and truth.

True religion represents the profound soul conviction that compels recognition that it would be wrong to reject the highest ethical and moral concepts—one's greatest interpretation of life's values and the universe's deepest realities. Aesthetic pursuits qualify as religious only when they maintain ethical dimensions and enrich moral concepts, while art becomes religious only when infused with spiritually motivated purpose. The enlightened spiritual consciousness of civilized humans focuses less on specific intellectual beliefs or living modes than on discovering the truth of living—the good and right techniques for responding to mortal existence's recurring situations. Moral consciousness simply designates human recognition of those ethical and emerging morontial values that govern daily conduct.

Intelligent humans recognize themselves as children of nature and part of the material universe, but cannot discern personality survival through examining physical causes and effects. While humans participate in the ideational cosmos, concepts alone do not ensure the conceiving personality's survival. Neither the material level of causality continuity nor the mind level of ideational continuity reveals an escape from the limitations of mortal status.

Only through the morontial pathway leading to spiritual insight can humans break free from the inherent limitations of mortality. Though energy and mind lead back to Paradise and Deity, neither energy nor mind endowment proceeds directly from Paradise Deity. Humans are spiritual children of God only in the spiritual sense, as only spiritually are they currently endowed with and indwelt by the Paradise Father. Humanity can never discover divinity except through religious experience and faith exercise. Faith acceptance of God's truth enables escape from material limitations, offering rational hope for safe transition from the material realm of death to the spiritual realm of eternal life. Religion's purpose isn't to satisfy curiosity about God but to provide intellectual stability and philosophical security, enhancing human life by connecting the mortal with the divine, the partial with the perfect, humanity with God.