The Adjuster and the Soul

111:6.1Many of the tem­po­ral trou­bles of mor­tal man grow out of his two­fold re­la­tion to the cos­mos. Man is a part of na­ture—he ex­ists in na­ture—and yet he is able to tran­scend na­ture. Man is fi­nite, but he is in­dwelt by a spark of in­fin­ity. Such a dual sit­u­a­tion not only pro­vides the po­ten­tial for evil but also en­gen­ders many so­cial and moral sit­u­a­tions fraught with much un­cer­tainty and not a lit­tle anx­i­ety.

111:6.2The cour­age re­quired to ef­fect the con­quest of na­ture and to tran­scend one’s self is a cour­age that might suc­cumb to the temp­ta­tions of self-pride. The mor­tal who can tran­scend self might yield to the temp­ta­tion to de­ify his own self-con­scious­ness. The mor­tal dilemma con­sists in the dou­ble fact that man is in bond­age to na­ture while at the same time he pos­sesses a unique lib­erty—free­dom of spir­i­tual choice and ac­tion. On ma­te­rial lev­els man finds him­self sub­servient to na­ture, while on spir­i­tual lev­els he is tri­umphant over na­ture and over all things tem­po­ral and fi­nite. Such a para­dox is in­sep­a­ra­ble from temp­ta­tion, po­ten­tial evil, de­ci­sional er­rors, and when self be­comes proud and ar­ro­gant, sin may evolve.

111:6.3The prob­lem of sin is not self-ex­is­tent in the fi­nite world. The fact of finite­ness is not evil or sin­ful. The fi­nite world was made by an in­fi­nite Cre­ator—it is the hand­i­work of his di­vine Sons—and there­fore it must be good. It is the mis­use, dis­tor­tion, and per­ver­sion of the fi­nite that gives ori­gin to evil and sin.

111:6.4The spirit can dom­i­nate mind; so mind can con­trol en­ergy. But mind can con­trol en­ergy only through its own in­tel­li­gent ma­nip­u­la­tion of the meta­mor­phic po­ten­tials in­her­ent in the math­e­mat­i­cal level of the causes and ef­fects of the phys­i­cal do­mains. Crea­ture mind does not in­her­ently con­trol en­ergy; that is a De­ity pre­rog­a­tive. But crea­ture mind can and does ma­nip­u­late en­ergy just in so far as it has be­come mas­ter of the en­ergy se­crets of the phys­i­cal uni­verse.

111:6.5When man wishes to mod­ify phys­i­cal re­al­ity, be it him­self or his en­vi­ron­ment, he suc­ceeds to the ex­tent that he has dis­cov­ered the ways and means of con­trol­ling mat­ter and di­rect­ing en­ergy. Un­aided mind is im­po­tent to in­flu­ence any­thing ma­te­rial save its own phys­i­cal mech­a­nism, with which it is in­escapably linked. But through the in­tel­li­gent use of the body mech­a­nism, mind can cre­ate other mech­a­nisms, even en­ergy re­la­tion­ships and liv­ing re­la­tion­ships, by the uti­liza­tion of which this mind can in­creas­ingly con­trol and even dom­i­nate its phys­i­cal level in the uni­verse.

111:6.6Sci­ence is the source of facts, and mind can­not op­er­ate with­out facts. They are the build­ing blocks in the con­struc­tion of wis­dom which are ce­mented to­gether by life ex­pe­ri­ence. Man can find the love of God with­out facts, and man can dis­cover the laws of God with­out love, but man can never be­gin to ap­pre­ci­ate the in­fi­nite sym­me­try, the su­per­nal har­mony, the ex­qui­site re­plete­ness of the all-in­clu­sive na­ture of the First Source and Cen­ter un­til he has found di­vine law and di­vine love and has ex­pe­ri­en­tially uni­fied these in his own evolv­ing cos­mic phi­los­o­phy.

111:6.7The ex­pan­sion of ma­te­rial knowl­edge per­mits a greater in­tel­lec­tual ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the mean­ings of ideas and the val­ues of ide­als. A hu­man be­ing can find truth in his in­ner ex­pe­ri­ence, but he needs a clear knowl­edge of facts to ap­ply his per­sonal dis­cov­ery of truth to the ruth­lessly prac­ti­cal de­mands of ev­ery­day life.

111:6.8It is only nat­u­ral that mor­tal man should be ha­rassed by feel­ings of in­se­cu­rity as he views him­self in­ex­tri­ca­bly bound to na­ture while he pos­sesses spir­i­tual pow­ers wholly tran­scen­dent to all things tem­po­ral and fi­nite. Only re­li­gious con­fi­dence—liv­ing faith—can sus­tain man amid such dif­fi­cult and per­plex­ing prob­lems.

111:6.9Of all the dan­gers which be­set man’s mor­tal na­ture and jeop­ar­dize his spir­i­tual in­tegrity, pride is the great­est. Cour­age is val­or­ous, but ego­tism is vain­glo­ri­ous and sui­ci­dal. Rea­son­able self-con­fi­dence is not to be de­plored. Man’s abil­ity to tran­scend him­self is the one thing which dis­tin­guishes him from the an­i­mal king­dom.

111:6.10Pride is de­ceit­ful, in­tox­i­cat­ing, and sin-breed­ing whether found in an in­di­vid­ual, a group, a race, or a na­tion. It is lit­er­ally true, “Pride goes be­fore a fall.”