유란시아 책
III 부. 유란시아의 역사
Paper 103
The Reality of Religious Experience
The Reality of Religious Experience
사람의 참된 종교적 반응은 모두, 경배 보조체가 초기에 베푸는 섬김으로 후원받고, 지혜 보조체의 검열을 받는다. 사람의 첫 초월정신 자질은, 우주 창조적 영의 거룩한 영 안에서 인격이 회로화{回路化}되는 자질이며;신의 아들들이 증여되거나 섭리사가 보편적으로 증여되기 훨씬 전에, 이 영향력은 윤리와 종교와 영성{靈性}에 대한 사람의 관점을 확장시키는 작용을 한다. 낙원 아들이 증여된 후에는, 종교적 진리를 감지할 수 있는 인간 수용력을 확장하기 위하여, 해방된 진리의 영이 강력하게 기여한다. 인간거주 세계에서 진화가 진척됨에 따라, 사고 섭리사는 인간이 지닌 더 높은 유형의 종교적 통찰력을 개발시키는 데 점점 더 참여하게 된다. 사고 섭리사는 시공우주의 창문인데, 무한한 신격 곧 우주 아버지의 확실성과 신성{神性}을, 그 창문을 통해서 유한 피조물이 신앙으로 어렴풋이 볼지도 모른다.
103:0.1 (1129.1)
ALL of man’s truly religious reactions are sponsored by the early ministry of the adjutant of worship and are censored by the adjutant of wisdom. Man’s first supermind endowment is that of personality encircuitment in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; and long before either the bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Adjusters, this influence functions to enlarge man’s viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality. Subsequent to the bestowals of the Paradise Sons the liberated Spirit of Truth makes mighty contributions to the enlargement of the human capacity to perceive religious truths. As evolution advances on an inhabited world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of the higher types of human religious insight. The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father.
103:0.2 (1129.2)
The religious tendencies of the human races are innate; they are universally manifested and have an apparently natural origin; primitive religions are always evolutionary in their genesis. As natural religious experience continues to progress, periodic revelations of truth punctuate the otherwise slow-moving course of planetary evolution.
종교 체험은 사회 집단 또는 인종 집단 가운데서 일치하는데, 이는 각 개인에게 내주하는 하나님 단편{斷片}이 동일한 본성을 지닌 데서 연유한다. 다른 사람들의 복지에 사심 없이 관심을 갖게 하는 것은, 사람 속에 있는 이 신성{神性}한 존재다. 그러나 인격의 독특성--곧 어떤 두 필사 존재도 똑같지 않은 것-- 때문에, 어떤 두 인간도, 자기 정신 속에 거주하는 신성한 영의 안내와 충동을 비슷하게 해석할 수 없음이 불가피하다. 한 필사자 집단이 영적 통일성을 체험할 수 있으나, 결코 사상의 획일성을 달성할 수는 없다. 그리고 종교적 사고{思考}와 체험에 대한 해석의 이런 다양성은, 20세기 신학자와 철학자가 종교에 대하여 500여 가지 서로 다른 정의를 내렸다는 사실에서 잘 나타난다. 실제로, 인간은 누구든지, 자신에게 내주하는 하나님의 영{靈}으로부터 흘러나오는 신의 자극{刺戟}에 대하여, 자신의 체험적 해석에 따른 말로 종교를 정의하며, 따라서 그런 해석은 독특하고, 다른 모든 인간의 종교 철학과 전적으로 다를 수밖에 없다.
103:1.1 (1129.8)
The unity of religious experience among a social or racial group derives from the identical nature of the God fragment indwelling the individual. It is this divine in man that gives origin to his unselfish interest in the welfare of other men. But since personality is unique—no two mortals being alike—it inevitably follows that no two human beings can similarly interpret the leadings and urges of the spirit of divinity which lives within their minds. A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity, but they can never attain philosophic uniformity. And this diversity of the interpretation of religious thought and experience is shown by the fact that twentieth-century theologians and philosophers have formulated upward of five hundred different definitions of religion. In reality, every human being defines religion in the terms of his own experiential interpretation of the divine impulses emanating from the God spirit that indwells him, and therefore must such an interpretation be unique and wholly different from the religious philosophy of all other human beings.
103:1.3 (1130.2)
While your religion is a matter of personal experience, it is most important that you should be exposed to the knowledge of a vast number of other religious experiences (the diverse interpretations of other and diverse mortals) to the end that you may prevent your religious life from becoming egocentric—circumscribed, selfish, and unsocial.
합리주의는, 종교가 처음에는 무언가에 대한 원시적 믿음이고 가치 추구가 그다음에 뒤따라온다고 가정할 때 오류를 범한다. 종교는 1차적으로 가치기준을 추구함이고, 해석하는 믿음 체계가 그다음에 형성된다. 사람들은 믿음--곧 해석--보다 종교적 가치기준--곧 목표--에 대하여 동의하기가 훨씬 쉽다. 이것은 종교가 어떻게 하여 수백 가지 모순되는 신념--곧 신조--에 대한 믿음을 유지하는 혼란된 현상을 보여주면서, 동시에 가치와 목표에 대하여 동의할 수 있는지 설명한다. 또한 이것은, 특정한 개인이 자신의 종교 신념을 많이 포기하거나 바꾸면서도, 자신의 종교 체험을 지속할 수 있는 이유를 설명한다. 종교는, 종교적 믿음에 혁신적 변화가 있음에도 존속한다. 신학은 종교를 산출하지 못하며;종교가 신학 사상을 산출한다.
103:1.4 (1130.3)
Rationalism is wrong when it assumes that religion is at first a primitive belief in something which is then followed by the pursuit of values. Religion is primarily a pursuit of values, and then there formulates a system of interpretative beliefs. It is much easier for men to agree on religious values—goals—than on beliefs—interpretations. And this explains how religion can agree on values and goals while exhibiting the confusing phenomenon of maintaining a belief in hundreds of conflicting beliefs—creeds. This also explains why a given person can maintain his religious experience in the face of giving up or changing many of his religious beliefs. Religion persists in spite of revolutionary changes in religious beliefs. Theology does not produce religion; it is religion that produces theologic philosophy.
103:1.5 (1130.4)
That religionists have believed so much that was false does not invalidate religion because religion is founded on the recognition of values and is validated by the faith of personal religious experience. Religion, then, is based on experience and religious thought; theology, the philosophy of religion, is an honest attempt to interpret that experience. Such interpretative beliefs may be right or wrong, or a mixture of truth and error.
영적 가치기준을 인식한다는 것을 깨달음은, 관념작용을-초월하는 체험이다. 하나님을-의식{意識}하는 것이라고 명명하기로 우리가 결정했던 이 “감각”이나 “느낌”이나 “직관” 또는 “체험”을 가리키기 위하여 채택될 수 있는 인간 언어가 전혀 없다. 사람 속에 거하는 하나님의 영은 인격있는 존재가 아니지만--곧 섭리사는 인격이전{人格以前}이지만--, 이 관찰자는 어떤 가치를 제시하는데, 가장 고상하고 무한한 의미에서 인격적인, 신성{神性}의 향기를 발산한다. 하나님이 적어도 인격있는 존재가 아니라면, 그분은 의식하실 수 없으며, 의식이 없다면 인간보다 열등한 존재일 것이다.
103:1.6 (1130.5)
The realization of the recognition of spiritual values is an experience which is superideational. There is no word in any human language which can be employed to designate this “sense,” “feeling,” “intuition,” or “experience” which we have elected to call God-consciousness. The spirit of God that dwells in man is not personal—the Adjuster is prepersonal—but this Monitor presents a value, exudes a flavor of divinity, which is personal in the highest and infinite sense. If God were not at least personal, he could not be conscious, and if not conscious, then would he be infrahuman.
종교는 인간 정신 속에서 작용하며, 인간 의식에 나타나기 전에 체험을 통해 실현돼왔다. 어린아이는 출생을 체험하기 전에 약 아홉 달 동안 실존했다. 그러나 종교의 “출생”은 갑작스럽지 않으며;오히려 점진적인 출현이다. 그럼에도, 곧 “출생일”이 있게 된다. 너희는 “다시 태어나지 않으면”--즉 영으로 태어나지 않으면-- 하늘 나라에 들어가지 못한다. 대부분의 육체적 출생의 특징이 “격렬한 산고{産苦}”와 기타 비정상 “분만”인 것과 마찬가지로, 허다한 영적 출생은 영의 깊은 고뇌를 동반하고 현저한 심리적 교란을 흔적으로 남긴다. 그 밖의 영적 출생은, 영적 체험이 증진됨과 함께 최고 가치를 인식하는 자연스럽고 정상적인 성장이지만, 의식해서 기울이는 노력과 분명한 개인적 결단 없이는 종교적 발전이 일어나지 않는다. 종교는 결코 소극적 체험 곧 부정적 태도가 아니다. “종교의 탄생”이라고 불리는 것은, 정신의 갈등과 감정의 억압과 신경과민적 동요가 일어난 결과로, 대개 후기 생애에 발생하는 종교적 사건을 특징짓는 소위 회심{回心} 체험이라는 것과 직접 관련되지 않는다.
103:2.1 (1130.6)
Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness. A child has been in existence about nine months before it experiences birth. But the “birth” of religion is not sudden; it is rather a gradual emergence. Nevertheless, sooner or later there is a “birth day.” You do not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you have been “born again”—born of the Spirit. Many spiritual births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked psychological perturbations, as many physical births are characterized by a “stormy labor” and other abnormalities of “delivery.” Other spiritual births are a natural and normal growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and individual determinations. Religion is never a passive experience, a negative attitude. What is termed the “birth of religion” is not directly associated with so-called conversion experiences which usually characterize religious episodes occurring later in life as a result of mental conflict, emotional repression, and temperamental upheavals.
103:2.2 (1131.1)
But those persons who were so reared by their parents that they grew up in the consciousness of being children of a loving heavenly Father, should not look askance at their fellow mortals who could only attain such consciousness of fellowship with God through a psychological crisis, an emotional upheaval.
103:2.3 (1131.2)
The evolutionary soil in the mind of man in which the seed of revealed religion germinates is the moral nature that so early gives origin to a social consciousness. The first promptings of a child’s moral nature have not to do with sex, guilt, or personal pride, but rather with impulses of justice, fairness, and urges to kindness—helpful ministry to one’s fellows. And when such early moral awakenings are nurtured, there occurs a gradual development of the religious life which is comparatively free from conflicts, upheavals, and crises.
103:2.4 (1131.3)
Every human being very early experiences something of a conflict between his self-seeking and his altruistic impulses, and many times the first experience of God-consciousness may be attained as the result of seeking for superhuman help in the task of resolving such moral conflicts.
103:2.5 (1131.4)
The psychology of a child is naturally positive, not negative. So many mortals are negative because they were so trained. When it is said that the child is positive, reference is made to his moral impulses, those powers of mind whose emergence signals the arrival of the Thought Adjuster.
103:2.6 (1131.5)
In the absence of wrong teaching, the mind of the normal child moves positively, in the emergence of religious consciousness, toward moral righteousness and social ministry, rather than negatively, away from sin and guilt. There may or may not be conflict in the development of religious experience, but there are always present the inevitable decisions, effort, and function of the human will.
103:2.7 (1131.6)
Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict. And this very first conflict in the child mind is between the urges of egoism and the impulses of altruism. The Thought Adjuster does not disregard the personality values of the egoistic motive but does operate to place a slight preference upon the altruistic impulse as leading to the goal of human happiness and to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.
103:2.8 (1131.7)
When a moral being chooses to be unselfish when confronted by the urge to be selfish, that is primitive religious experience. No animal can make such a choice; such a decision is both human and religious. It embraces the fact of God-consciousness and exhibits the impulse of social service, the basis of the brotherhood of man. When mind chooses a right moral judgment by an act of the free will, such a decision constitutes a religious experience.
103:2.9 (1131.8)
But before a child has developed sufficiently to acquire moral capacity and therefore to be able to choose altruistic service, he has already developed a strong and well-unified egoistic nature. And it is this factual situation that gives rise to the theory of the struggle between the “higher” and the “lower” natures, between the “old man of sin” and the “new nature” of grace. Very early in life the normal child begins to learn that it is “more blessed to give than to receive.”
사람은, 자기를-섬기려는 충동을 자아와--곧 그 자신과-- 동일시하는 경향이 있다. 이와 반대로, 이타적이 되려는 의지를 자기 바깥에 있는 어떤 영향력--곧 하나님--과 동일시하고 싶어 한다. 정말로 그런 판단은 옳은데, 이는 이타적인 그런 모든 욕구가, 내주하는 사고 섭리사의 인도함에서 실제로 기원되기 때문이고, 이 섭리사는 하나님의 단편이기 때문이다. 영 관찰자의 자극은 인간 의식 속에서 이타적 충동 곧 동료-피조물에게 신경 쓰려는 충동으로 인식된다. 적어도 이것은 어린이의 정신이 일찍부터 겪는 근본적인 체험이다. 성장하는 아이가 인격 통합에 실패하면 이타적 본능욕구가 지나치게 발달하여 자신의 복지에 심각한 상처를 입힐 수도 있다. 잘못 인도된 양심은, 많은 갈등이나 염려나 슬픔 또는 끝없는 인간적 불행의 원인이 될 수 있다.
103:2.10 (1131.9)
Man tends to identify the urge to be self-serving with his ego—himself. In contrast he is inclined to identify the will to be altruistic with some influence outside himself—God. And indeed is such a judgment right, for all such nonself desires do actually have their origin in the leadings of the indwelling Thought Adjuster, and this Adjuster is a fragment of God. The impulse of the spirit Monitor is realized in human consciousness as the urge to be altruistic, fellow-creature minded. At least this is the early and fundamental experience of the child mind. When the growing child fails of personality unification, the altruistic drive may become so overdeveloped as to work serious injury to the welfare of the self. A misguided conscience can become responsible for much conflict, worry, sorrow, and no end of human unhappiness.
영이나 꿈 또는 다양한 기타 미신에 대한 믿음은 모두, 원시 종교들이 진화적으로 기원되는 데 어떤 역할을 했지만, 너희는 씨족 또는 부족의 단결하는 기풍의 영향을 간과해서는 안 된다. 초기 인간 정신의 도덕적 본성에서 생기는 자기본위적-이타적 갈등에 도전한 엄밀한 사회 상황이, 집단 관계에서 제시됐다. 원시 오스트랄리아인은 영들을 믿음에도, 여전히 자기 종교의 초점을 씨족에 둔다. 시간이 지나면, 그런 종교 개념은 처음에는 동물로, 나중에는 초인간이나 하나님으로서 인격화되는 경향이 있다. 토템 믿음조차 없는, 아프리카의 부시먼 같은 열등한 인종도, 자기-이익과 집단-이익의 차이를 인식하고, 세속의 것과 신성시되는 것의 가치를 원시적으로 구분한다. 그러나 사회 집단은 종교 체험의 근원이 아니다. 인간의 초기 종교에 이 모든 원시적 공헌이 어떤 영향을 미치든지 상관없이, 참된 종교적 자극은, 이타적이 되려는 의지를 촉진시키는 진짜 영 현존에서 기원되는 것이 여전히 사실이다.
103:3.1 (1132.1)
While the belief in spirits, dreams, and diverse other superstitions all played a part in the evolutionary origin of primitive religions, you should not overlook the influence of the clan or tribal spirit of solidarity. In the group relationship there was presented the exact social situation which provided the challenge to the egoistic-altruistic conflict in the moral nature of the early human mind. In spite of their belief in spirits, primitive Australians still focus their religion upon the clan. In time, such religious concepts tend to personalize, first, as animals, and later, as a superman or as a God. Even such inferior races as the African Bushmen, who are not even totemic in their beliefs, do have a recognition of the difference between the self-interest and the group-interest, a primitive distinction between the values of the secular and the sacred. But the social group is not the source of religious experience. Regardless of the influence of all these primitive contributions to man’s early religion, the fact remains that the true religious impulse has its origin in genuine spirit presences activating the will to be unselfish.
103:3.2 (1132.2)
Later religion is foreshadowed in the primitive belief in natural wonders and mysteries, the impersonal mana. But sooner or later the evolving religion requires that the individual should make some personal sacrifice for the good of his social group, should do something to make other people happier and better. Ultimately, religion is destined to become the service of God and of man.
103:3.4 (1132.4)
Remember that in the religion of all ages the experience which is paramount is the feeling regarding moral values and social meanings, not the thinking regarding theologic dogmas or philosophic theories. Religion evolves favorably as the element of magic is replaced by the concept of morals.
사람은, 마나, 마술, 자연 숭배, 영에 대한 두려움, 및 동물숭배 등의 미신을 거쳐서, 다양한 예식절차로 진화했는데, 그런 예식으로 인해, 개인의 종교적 태도는 씨족의 집단 반응이 됐다. 그다음에 이 예식은 부족 믿음으로 집중되고 형태화됐으며, 결국 이 두려움과 신앙이 신{神}들로 인격화됐다. 그러나 이 모든 종교적 진화에서 도덕 요소가 통째로 빠진 적은 없었다. 사람 안에서 일어나는 하나님의 자극은 항상 효력이 있었다. 그리고 --하나는 인간적이고 다른 하나는 신성한-- 이런 강력한 영향력은, 1,000가지 파괴적 성향과 냉담한 적개심으로 인해 사멸될 위기에 자주 처했음에도, 세월의 변천에서 종교가 살아남도록 보장했다.
103:3.5 (1132.5)
Man evolved through the superstitions of mana, magic, nature worship, spirit fear, and animal worship to the various ceremonials whereby the religious attitude of the individual became the group reactions of the clan. And then these ceremonies became focalized and crystallized into tribal beliefs, and eventually these fears and faiths became personalized into gods. But in all of this religious evolution the moral element was never wholly absent. The impulse of the God within man was always potent. And these powerful influences—one human and the other divine—insured the survival of religion throughout the vicissitudes of the ages and that notwithstanding it was so often threatened with extinction by a thousand subversive tendencies and hostile antagonisms.
사회 행사와 종교 모임의 특징적 차이점은, 세속 모임과는 대조적으로 종교 모임이 교류 분위기로 충만된다는 것이다. 인간 연합체는 이런 방법으로 신성한 존재들과 친교하는 느낌을 창출하며, 이것이 집단 숭배의 시발점이다. 공동 식사에 참여하는 것이 가장 초기 유형의 사회 교류였으며, 그래서 초기 종교들은, 예식절차로 바친 희생제물 일부분을 숭배자들이 반드시 먹도록 규정했다. 그리스도교에서도 주{主}의 만찬이 이런 교류 방식을 유지한다. 교류하는 분위기는, 사리를-꾀하는 자아와, 내주하는 영{靈} 관찰자의 이타적 충동의 싸움에서, 신선한 느낌을 주고 위로하는 휴전 기간을 마련해준다. 이것이 참된 경배에 이르는 전주곡이다--즉 하나님의 임재{臨在}를 실습하는 것이요, 결국 사람의 형제관계가 출현되게 만든다.
103:4.1 (1133.1)
The characteristic difference between a social occasion and a religious gathering is that in contrast with the secular the religious is pervaded by the atmosphere of communion. In this way human association generates a feeling of fellowship with the divine, and this is the beginning of group worship. Partaking of a common meal was the earliest type of social communion, and so did early religions provide that some portion of the ceremonial sacrifice should be eaten by the worshipers. Even in Christianity the Lord’s Supper retains this mode of communion. The atmosphere of the communion provides a refreshing and comforting period of truce in the conflict of the self-seeking ego with the altruistic urge of the indwelling spirit Monitor. And this is the prelude to true worship—the practice of the presence of God which eventuates in the emergence of the brotherhood of man.
103:4.2 (1133.2)
When primitive man felt that his communion with God had been interrupted, he resorted to sacrifice of some kind in an effort to make atonement, to restore friendly relationship. The hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the discovery of truth, and truth augments ideals, and this creates new problems for the individual religionists, for our ideals tend to grow by geometrical progression, while our ability to live up to them is enhanced only by arithmetical progression.
103:4.3 (1133.3)
The sense of guilt (not the consciousness of sin) comes either from interrupted spiritual communion or from the lowering of one’s moral ideals. Deliverance from such a predicament can only come through the realization that one’s highest moral ideals are not necessarily synonymous with the will of God. Man cannot hope to live up to his highest ideals, but he can be true to his purpose of finding God and becoming more and more like him.
103:4.4 (1133.4)
Jesus swept away all of the ceremonials of sacrifice and atonement. He destroyed the basis of all this fictitious guilt and sense of isolation in the universe by declaring that man is a child of God; the creature-Creator relationship was placed on a child-parent basis. God becomes a loving Father to his mortal sons and daughters. All ceremonials not a legitimate part of such an intimate family relationship are forever abrogated.
다른 사람에게 선을 행한다는 관념-이상{理想}--곧 이웃의 유익을 위하여 무언가 자아를 희생하도록 자극함--은 처음에는 매우 제한적이다. 원시인은, 자신에게 아주 가까운 자들 곧 자신에게 친절한 자들만 이웃으로 간주하며;종교 문명이 발전함에 따라서, 사람의 이웃 개념은 씨족, 부족, 국가를 포함하는 개념으로 확장된다. 그리고 마침내 예수께서는 온 인류, 심지어 우리가 원수도 사랑해야하는 정도까지, 이웃에 대한 관점을 확대시켰다. 그리고 이 가르침이 도덕적이라고--즉 옳다고-- 말해주는 어떤 존재가 모든 정상 인간에게 들어있다. 이런 이상을 거의 실천하지 않는 사람조차, 이것이 이론적으로는 옳다고 시인한다.
103:5.2 (1133.7)
This idea-ideal of doing good to others—the impulse to deny the ego something for the benefit of one’s neighbor—is very circumscribed at first. Primitive man regards as neighbor only those very close to him, those who treat him neighborly; as religious civilization advances, one’s neighbor expands in concept to embrace the clan, the tribe, the nation. And then Jesus enlarged the neighbor scope to embrace the whole of humanity, even that we should love our enemies. And there is something inside of every normal human being that tells him this teaching is moral—right. Even those who practice this ideal least, admit that it is right in theory.
103:5.3 (1134.1)
All men recognize the morality of this universal human urge to be unselfish and altruistic. The humanist ascribes the origin of this urge to the natural working of the material mind; the religionist more correctly recognizes that the truly unselfish drive of mortal mind is in response to the inner spirit leadings of the Thought Adjuster.
103:5.4 (1134.2)
But man’s interpretation of these early conflicts between the ego-will and the other-than-self-will is not always dependable. Only a fairly well unified personality can arbitrate the multiform contentions of the ego cravings and the budding social consciousness. The self has rights as well as one’s neighbors. Neither has exclusive claims upon the attention and service of the individual. Failure to resolve this problem gives origin to the earliest type of human guilt feelings.
103:5.5 (1134.3)
Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising personality. The mind of evolutionary man is ever confronted with the intricate problem of refereeing the contest between the natural expansion of emotional impulses and the moral growth of unselfish urges predicated on spiritual insight—genuine religious reflection.
103:5.6 (1134.4)
The attempt to secure equal good for the self and for the greatest number of other selves presents a problem which cannot always be satisfactorily resolved in a time-space frame. Given an eternal life, such antagonisms can be worked out, but in one short human life they are incapable of solution. Jesus referred to such a paradox when he said: “Whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for the sake of the kingdom, shall find it.”
이상{理想}을 추구하는 것--곧 하나님처럼 되고자 애쓰는 것--은 죽기 전과 후에 계속되는 노력이다. 죽은 후의 삶은 본질적인 면에서 필사자 실존 상태와 전혀 차이가 없다. 이 세상 삶에서 행하는 선한 모든 것은, 미래의 삶을 증진시키는 데 직접 기여한다. 사람에게 부여된 고귀한 성품의 모든 덕행을, 자연사의 관문을 통과한 결과로 소유할 것이라는 헛된 희망을 불어넣음으로써, 도덕적 게으름과 영적 나태함을 조장하는 것은 진정한 종교가 아니다. 참된 종교는, 필사자가 수명이 다하기까지 앞으로 나아가려는 사람의 수고를 경시하지 않는다. 필사자가 획득한 것은 모두, 첫 단계에서 생존하는 불멸 체험을 강화하는 데 직접 기여한다.
103:5.7 (1134.5)
The pursuit of the ideal—the striving to be Godlike—is a continuous effort before death and after. The life after death is no different in the essentials than the mortal existence. Everything we do in this life which is good contributes directly to the enhancement of the future life. Real religion does not foster moral indolence and spiritual laziness by encouraging the vain hope of having all the virtues of a noble character bestowed upon one as a result of passing through the portals of natural death. True religion does not belittle man’s efforts to progress during the mortal lease on life. Every mortal gain is a direct contribution to the enrichment of the first stages of the immortal survival experience.
103:5.8 (1134.6)
It is fatal to man’s idealism when he is taught that all of his altruistic impulses are merely the development of his natural herd instincts. But he is ennobled and mightily energized when he learns that these higher urges of his soul emanate from the spiritual forces that indwell his mortal mind.
103:5.9 (1134.7)
It lifts man out of himself and beyond himself when he once fully realizes that there lives and strives within him something which is eternal and divine. And so it is that a living faith in the superhuman origin of our ideals validates our belief that we are the sons of God and makes real our altruistic convictions, the feelings of the brotherhood of man.
그러나 사람은 강압으로 구원되지도 고귀하게 되지도 않는다. 영의 성장은 진화하는 혼 속에서 솟아난다. 강압은 인간성을 비뚤어지게 만들 수는 있어도, 결코 성장을 도모하지 않는다. 심지어 교육적 강압도 겨우 부정적 유익을 줄 수 있을 뿐인데, 그렇게 함으로써 비참한 체험을 예방하는 데 도움을 줄 수는 있을 것이다. 영적 성장은 모든 외부 강압이 최소화될 때 극대화된다. “주{主}의 영이 있는 곳에 해방이 있다.” 사람은, 가정과 공동체와 교회 및 국가의 강압이 최소화될 때 최고로 발달한다. 그러나 이것은, 진취적 사회집단에서, 가정이나 사회 기관이나 교회 또는 국가가 나설 자리가 없음을 뜻하지는 않는다.
103:5.11 (1135.1)
But man is not saved or ennobled by pressure. Spirit growth springs from within the evolving soul. Pressure may deform the personality, but it never stimulates growth. Even educational pressure is only negatively helpful in that it may aid in the prevention of disastrous experiences. Spiritual growth is greatest where all external pressures are at a minimum. “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Man develops best when the pressures of home, community, church, and state are least. But this must not be construed as meaning that there is no place in a progressive society for home, social institutions, church, and state.
사회적 종교 집단에서 한 구성원이 그런 집단의 요구에 순응해왔을 때, 종교적 신념이 진실인가에 관하여, 그리고 종교 체험이 사실인가에 관하여, 그는 자신의 개인적 해석을 충분히 표현하는 종교적 자유를 누리도록 장려돼야한다. 한 종교 집단의 안전은, 신학적으로 동일한가가 아니라, 영적으로 통일됐는가에 달려있다. 종교 집단은, “자유 사상가”가 되지 않고도 자유롭게 생각하는 자유를 누릴 수 있어야한다. 어떤 교회든지, 살아계신 하나님께 경배 드리고, 사람이 형제관계인 것이 옳다고 인정하고, 신조{信條}로 인한 어떤 압력도 구성원에게 가하지 않을 때 큰 희망이 있다.
103:5.12 (1135.2)
When a member of a social religious group has complied with the requirements of such a group, he should be encouraged to enjoy religious liberty in the full expression of his own personal interpretation of the truths of religious belief and the facts of religious experience. The security of a religious group depends on spiritual unity, not on theological uniformity. A religious group should be able to enjoy the liberty of freethinking without having to become “freethinkers.” There is great hope for any church that worships the living God, validates the brotherhood of man, and dares to remove all creedal pressure from its members.
103:6.1 (1135.3)
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.
103:6.2 (1135.4)
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.
103:6.3 (1135.5)
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.
103:6.5 (1135.7)
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.
사람의 내면적 영은, 항상 정신의 심리과정과 기법에 따라 그 표현과 자아-실현이 달라져야한다. 마찬가지로, 물질 실체에 대한 사람의 외부 체험은, 체험하는 그 인격체의 정신 의식{意識}에 입각한다. 따라서 영적인 것과 물질적인 것, 즉 인간의 내적 체험과 외적 체험은, 반드시 정신의 기능과 상호 관련되며, 그들이 의식으로 깨달음에 따라서 정신 활동에 제약을 받는다. 사람은 정신 속에서 물질을 체험하며;혼{魂} 속에서 영적 실체를 체험하지만, 이 체험을 정신 속에서 의식하게 된다. 지능은 필사자가 겪는 체험 전체를 조화시키고, 항상 조절하고 제한하는 도구다. 에너지-물체와 영 가치기준은 모두, 의식이라는 정신 매개체를 통한 해석에 따라서 채색{彩色}된다.
103:6.6 (1136.1)
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.
과학과 종교가 더 조화되도록 조정하는 데 너희가 어려움을 겪는 것은, 중간에 개재하는 모론시아 세계의 사물 및 존재 영역에 대하여 너희가 철저히 무지하기 때문이다. 지방우주는, 실체가 형태화되는 세 가지 정도 또는 단계, 즉:물질과 모론시아와 영으로 이뤄져있다. 모론시아 견지에서 접근하면, 자연 과학에서 발견된 것과 종교 기질의 작용 사이에 있는 모든 차이가 없어진다. 이성은 과학이 이해하는 기법이며;신앙은 종교가 통찰하는 기법이며;모타는 모론시아 수준의 기법이다. 모타는 초물질 실체에 대한 감수성인데, 그 내용이 지식-이성이고 그 본질이 신앙-통찰력이기 때문에, 불충분한 성장을 모타가 보정하기 시작한다. 모타는, 물질 인격체가 달성할 수 없는, 서로 틀리게 실체를 인지함을 초월 철학으로 절충하는 것이며;어느 정도는, 육신을 입은 물질적 생애 이후에 살아남은 체험에 입각한다. 그러나 상당히 동떨어진 과학과 종교 분야의 상호작용을 절충하는 어떤 방법을 소유하는 것이 바람직하다는 것을, 많은 필사자가 인지해왔으며;형이상학은, 잘-알려진 이런 간격을 연결시키려고 사람이 무익하게 시도한 결과다. 그러나 인간의 형이상학은, 빛을 비춰주기보다 오히려 더 혼란스럽게 한다는 것이 입증돼왔다. 형이상학은, 모론시아 모타의 부재{不在}를 보상하려는 사람의, 의도는 좋았으나 헛된 수고였음을 나타낸다.
103:6.7 (1136.2)
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. 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. 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.
103:6.8 (1136.3)
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.
103:6.9 (1136.4)
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.
103:6.10 (1136.5)
Early man did not differentiate between the energy level and the spirit level. It was the violet race 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.
103:6.11 (1137.1)
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.
과학을 어설프게 파악함, 종교에 어렴풋이 매달림, 그리고 수포로 돌아간 형이상학의 시도로부터, 사람은 철학의 뼈대를 세우려고 애써왔다. 그리고 물질 세계와 영 세계 사이를 연결하는 가장-중요하고 필수적인 형이상학의 연결이 끊어지지 않았다면, 형이상학이 물리계와 영계 사이의 모론시아 간격에 다리를 놓는데 실패하지 않았다면, 현대인은 자신과 우주에 대하여 훌륭하고 매력 있는 철학을 정말로 세우려고 했을지도 모른다. 필사적 사람은 모론시아 정신과 물질에 대한 개념이 부족하며;계시만이, 우주에 대한 논리적 철학을 세우기 위하여, 그리고 그 우주에서 확실하고 안정된 자기 자리를 만족스럽게 이해하기 위하여, 사람에게 그토록 다급하게 필요한 이런 개념 자료의 결핍을 메울 수 있는 유일한 방법이다.
103:6.12 (1137.2)
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.
사람의 철학은, 물질 세계를 향해서 과도하게 기울어질 때 합리주의적이 되거나 자연주의적이 된다. 영적 수준으로 두드러지게 기울어질 때, 철학은 이상주의적이 되거나 신비적이 되기도 한다. 형이상학에 기댈 정도의 불행한 사태가 발생하면, 철학은 반드시 회의적인, 혼란된 상태가 된다. 지난 시절에, 사람의 지식과 지적 평가 대부분은, 이런 세 가지 감지의 왜곡 가운데 하나에 빠져들었다. 철학은 실체에 대한 해석을 감히 직선형 방식의 논리로 제시하지 않으며;철학은, 실체가 타원형으로 대칭을 이루고 있는 것, 그리고 모든 관계 개념이 본질적으로 구부러져있는 것을 간과해서는 결코 안 된다.
103:6.14 (1137.4)
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.
103:6.15 (1137.5)
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.
103:7.1 (1137.6)
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.
103:7.2 (1137.7)
True salvation is the technique of the divine evolution of the mortal mind from matter identification through the realms of morontia 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 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.
그러나 하나님을 체험하려고 안쪽으로 그리고 낙원 쪽으로 손을 뻗음에 따라서, 상승하는 사람은 마찬가지로 물질 시공우주 에너지를 이해하기 위하여 바깥쪽으로, 그리고 외계{外界} 쪽으로 손을 뻗고 있을 것이다. 과학의 진행과정은 사람이 땅에서 사는 인생에만 국한되지 않으며;사람이 지방우주와 연방우주에서 상승하는 체험은, 적지 않게 에너지 변형과 물질적 변질에 대해 연구함일 것이다. 하나님은 영이지만, 신격은 통일성이고, 신격의 통일성은, 우주 아버지와 영원 아들의 영적 가치를 포함할 뿐만 아니라, 우주 통제관과 낙원 섬의 에너지 실상을 인지하며, 한편 이 두 국면의 우주 실체는, 공동 행위자와 정신의 연관성에서 서로 완전하게 관련되고, 지존하신 분의 떠오르는 신격 속에서 유한 수준으로 통합된다.
103:7.3 (1138.1)
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 and the Isle of Paradise, while these two phases of universal reality are perfectly correlated in the mind relationships of the Conjoint Actor and unified on the finite level in the emerging Deity of the Supreme Being.
103:7.4 (1138.2)
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.
103:7.5 (1138.3)
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.
논리는 철학의 기법이요 그 표현 방법이다. 참된 과학 영역에서, 이성은 진실된 논리를 항상 쾌히 받아들이며;참된 종교 영역에서, 내부를 들여다보는 과학적 접근의 관점에서 볼 때 그런 신앙이 지극히 근거 없는 것처럼 보임에도, 신앙은 내부 관점의 기준으로 볼 때 반드시 논리가 있다. 외부에서 안을 들여다보면, 우주는 물질적인 것처럼 보일지 모르며;안에서 밖으로 보면, 바로 그 우주는 온통 영적인 것처럼 보인다. 이성은 물질을 자각함에서 자라나고, 신앙은 영적 자각에서 자라나지만, 논리는 계시로 강화된 철학의 중재를 통해서 안쪽 관점과 바깥쪽 관점 양쪽을 확인할 수 있고, 이렇게 하여 과학과 종교의 안정에 효력을 미친다. 따라서, 과학과 종교 양쪽은, 철학의 논리와 공동으로 접촉함을 통해서, 서로에 대해 점점 더 관대하게 되고 회의{懷疑}가 점점 줄어들지도 모른다.
103:7.6 (1138.4)
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.
103:7.7 (1138.5)
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.
103:7.8 (1138.6)
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.
103:7.9 (1139.1)
The science of the material world enables man to control, and to some extent dominate, his physical environment. 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.
103:7.10 (1139.2)
In the mortal state, nothing can be absolutely proved; both science and religion are predicated on assumptions. 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.
103:7.11 (1139.3)
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.
103:7.12 (1139.4)
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.
103:7.13 (1139.5)
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.
103:7.14 (1139.6)
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.
103:8.1 (1140.1)
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.
103:8.2 (1140.2)
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.
103:8.3 (1140.3)
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.
103:8.4 (1140.4)
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 of logic, the postulates of philosophy, or the clever suggestions of well-meaning souls who would create a religion without God.
103:8.6 (1140.6)
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.
103:9.1 (1140.7)
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.
103:9.2 (1140.8)
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.
103:9.3 (1141.1)
Buddhism in its original form is one of the best religions without a God which has arisen throughout all the evolutionary history of Urantia, 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.
103:9.4 (1141.2)
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.
종교 체험이 비록 순수한 영적 주관적 현상일지라도, 그런 체험은, 우주의 객관적 실체의 가장 높은 영역을 향한, 긍정적이고 살아있는 신앙의 태도를 받아들인다. 종교 철학의 이상{理想}은, 온갖 우주의 무한하신 아버지의 절대적 사랑에, 사람이 제한없이 의존하도록 이끌 수 있는 그런 신앙이요-신용이다. 그런 참다운 종교 체험은, 이상주의적 욕구를 철학적으로 객관화한 것을 훨씬 초월하며;그런 체험은, 실제로 구원을 당연한 것으로 여기고, 오직 낙원에 계시는 아버지의 뜻을 배우고 행하는 일에만 관여한다. 그런 종교의 특징은:최상의 신격을 믿는 신앙, 영원히 생존하리라는 희망, 그리고 사랑, 특히 동료에 대한 사랑이다.
103:9.5 (1141.3)
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 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.
신학이 종교를 지배할 때 종교는 사라지며;생명이 아니라 교리가 된다. 신학의 사명은, 단지 개인이 영적 체험을 자아-의식하도록 돕는 것이다. 신학은, 종교의 체험적 주장을 정의하고, 명료하게 하고, 해석하고, 정당화시키려는 종교적 노력인데, 이 주장은 결국 살아있는 신앙으로만 입증될 수 있다. 고등 우주 철학에서 지혜는, 이성과 마찬가지로 신앙과 밀접한 관련이 있다. 이성과 지혜와 신앙은 사람이 이룰 수 있는 최고 인간적 달성이다. 이성은, 사실의 세계 곧 사물을 사람에게 소개하며;지혜는, 진리의 세계 곧 관계를 그에게 소개하며;신앙은, 신성{神性}의 세계 곧 영적 체험으로 사람을 이끈다.
103:9.6 (1141.4)
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.
103:9.8 (1141.6)
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.
103:9.9 (1141.7)
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.
103:9.10 (1142.1)
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.
103:9.12 (1142.3)
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.