The Real Nature of Religion

101:10.1In­tel­li­gent man knows that he is a child of na­ture, a part of the ma­te­rial uni­verse; he like­wise dis­cerns no sur­vival of in­di­vid­ual per­son­al­ity in the mo­tions and ten­sions of the math­e­mat­i­cal level of the en­ergy uni­verse. Nor can man ever dis­cern spir­i­tual re­al­ity through the ex­am­i­na­tion of phys­i­cal causes and ef­fects.

101:10.2A hu­man be­ing is also aware that he is a part of the ide­a­tional cos­mos, but though con­cept may en­dure be­yond a mor­tal life span, there is noth­ing in­her­ent in con­cept which in­di­cates the per­sonal sur­vival of the con­ceiv­ing per­son­al­ity. Nor will the ex­haus­tion of the pos­si­bil­i­ties of logic and rea­son ever re­veal to the lo­gi­cian or to the rea­soner the eter­nal truth of the sur­vival of per­son­al­ity.

101:10.3The ma­te­rial level of law pro­vides for causal­ity con­ti­nu­ity, the un­end­ing re­sponse of ef­fect to an­te­ced­ent ac­tion; the mind level sug­gests the per­pet­u­a­tion of ide­a­tional con­ti­nu­ity, the un­ceas­ing flow of con­cep­tual po­ten­tial­ity from pre-ex­is­tent con­cep­tions. But nei­ther of these lev­els of the uni­verse dis­closes to the in­quir­ing mor­tal an av­enue of es­cape from par­tial­ity of sta­tus and from the in­tol­er­a­ble sus­pense of be­ing a tran­sient re­al­ity in the uni­verse, a tem­po­ral per­son­al­ity doomed to be ex­tin­guished upon the ex­haus­tion of the lim­ited life en­er­gies.

101:10.4It is only through the mor­ontial av­enue lead­ing to spir­i­tual in­sight that man can ever break the fet­ters in­her­ent in his mor­tal sta­tus in the uni­verse. En­ergy and mind do lead back to Par­a­dise and De­ity, but nei­ther the en­ergy en­dow­ment nor the mind en­dow­ment of man pro­ceeds di­rectly from such Par­a­dise De­ity. Only in the spir­i­tual sense is man a child of God. And this is true be­cause it is only in the spir­i­tual sense that man is at pres­ent en­dowed and in­dwelt by the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Man­kind can never dis­cover di­vin­ity ex­cept through the av­enue of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence and by the ex­er­cise of true faith. The faith ac­cep­tance of the truth of God en­ables man to es­cape from the cir­cum­scribed con­fines of ma­te­rial lim­i­ta­tions and af­fords him a ra­tio­nal hope of achiev­ing safe con­duct from the ma­te­rial realm, whereon is death, to the spir­i­tual realm, wherein is life eter­nal.

101:10.5The pur­pose of re­li­gion is not to sat­isfy cu­rios­ity about God but rather to af­ford in­tel­lec­tual con­stancy and philo­sophic se­cu­rity, to sta­bi­lize and en­rich hu­man liv­ing by blend­ing the mor­tal with the di­vine, the par­tial with the per­fect, man and God. It is through re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence that man’s con­cepts of ide­al­ity are en­dowed with re­al­ity.

101:10.6Never can there be ei­ther sci­en­tific or log­i­cal proofs of di­vin­ity. Rea­son alone can never val­i­date the val­ues and good­nesses of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. But it will al­ways re­main true: Whoso­ever wills to do the will of God shall com­pre­hend the va­lid­ity of spir­i­tual val­ues. This is the near­est ap­proach that can be made on the mor­tal level to of­fer­ing proofs of the re­al­ity of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. Such faith af­fords the only es­cape from the me­chan­i­cal clutch of the ma­te­rial world and from the er­ror dis­tor­tion of the in­com­plete­ness of the in­tel­lec­tual world; it is the only dis­cov­ered so­lu­tion to the im­passe in mor­tal think­ing re­gard­ing the con­tin­u­ing sur­vival of the in­di­vid­ual per­son­al­ity. It is the only pass­port to com­ple­tion of re­al­ity and to eter­nity of life in a uni­ver­sal cre­ation of love, law, unity, and pro­gres­sive De­ity at­tain­ment.

101:10.7Re­li­gion ef­fec­tu­ally cures man’s sense of ide­al­is­tic iso­la­tion or spir­i­tual lone­li­ness; it en­fran­chises the be­liever as a son of God, a cit­i­zen of a new and mean­ing­ful uni­verse. Re­li­gion as­sures man that, in fol­low­ing the gleam of righ­teous­ness dis­cern­i­ble in his soul, he is thereby iden­ti­fy­ing him­self with the plan of the In­fi­nite and the pur­pose of the Eter­nal. Such a lib­er­ated soul im­me­di­ately be­gins to feel at home in this new uni­verse, his uni­verse.

101:10.8When you ex­pe­ri­ence such a trans­for­ma­tion of faith, you are no longer a slav­ish part of the math­e­mat­i­cal cos­mos but rather a lib­er­ated vo­li­tional son of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. No longer is such a lib­er­ated son fight­ing alone against the in­ex­orable doom of the ter­mi­na­tion of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence; no longer does he com­bat all na­ture, with the odds hope­lessly against him; no longer is he stag­gered by the par­a­lyz­ing fear that, per­chance, he has put his trust in a hope­less phan­tasm or pinned his faith to a fan­ci­ful er­ror.

101:10.9Now, rather, are the sons of God en­listed to­gether in fight­ing the bat­tle of re­al­ity’s tri­umph over the par­tial shad­ows of ex­is­tence. At last all crea­tures be­come con­scious of the fact that God and all the di­vine hosts of a well-nigh lim­it­less uni­verse are on their side in the su­per­nal strug­gle to at­tain eter­nity of life and di­vin­ity of sta­tus. Such faith-lib­er­ated sons have cer­tainly en­listed in the strug­gles of time on the side of the su­preme forces and di­vine per­son­al­i­ties of eter­nity; even the stars in their courses are now do­ing bat­tle for them; at last they gaze upon the uni­verse from within, from God’s view­point, and all is trans­formed from the un­cer­tain­ties of ma­te­rial iso­la­tion to the sureties of eter­nal spir­i­tual pro­gres­sion. Even time it­self be­comes but the shadow of eter­nity cast by Par­a­dise re­al­i­ties upon the mov­ing panoply of space.

101:10.10[Pre­sented by a Mel­chiz­e­dek of Neb­a­don.]