The Later Evolution of Religion

92:4.1Rev­e­la­tion is evo­lu­tion­ary but al­ways pro­gres­sive. Down through the ages of a world’s his­tory, the rev­e­la­tions of re­li­gion are ever-ex­pand­ing and suc­ces­sively more en­light­en­ing. It is the mis­sion of rev­e­la­tion to sort and cen­sor the suc­ces­sive re­li­gions of evo­lu­tion. But if rev­e­la­tion is to ex­alt and up­step the re­li­gions of evo­lu­tion, then must such di­vine vis­i­ta­tions por­tray teach­ings which are not too far re­moved from the thought and re­ac­tions of the age in which they are pre­sented. Thus must and does rev­e­la­tion al­ways keep in touch with evo­lu­tion. Al­ways must the re­li­gion of rev­e­la­tion be lim­ited by man’s ca­pac­ity of re­cep­tiv­ity.

92:4.2But re­gard­less of ap­par­ent con­nec­tion or deriva­tion, the re­li­gions of rev­e­la­tion are al­ways char­ac­ter­ized by a be­lief in some De­ity of fi­nal value and in some con­cept of the sur­vival of per­son­al­ity iden­tity af­ter death.

92:4.3Evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion is sen­ti­men­tal, not log­i­cal. It is man’s re­ac­tion to be­lief in a hy­po­thet­i­cal ghost-spirit world—the hu­man be­lief-re­flex, ex­cited by the re­al­iza­tion and fear of the un­known. Rev­e­la­tory re­li­gion is pro­pounded by the real spir­i­tual world; it is the re­sponse of the super­in­tel­lec­tual cos­mos to the mor­tal hunger to be­lieve in, and de­pend upon, the uni­ver­sal De­i­ties. Evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion pic­tures the cir­cuitous grop­ings of hu­man­ity in quest of truth; rev­e­la­tory re­li­gion is that very truth.

92:4.4There have been many events of re­li­gious rev­e­la­tion but only five of ep­ochal sig­nif­i­cance. These were as fol­lows:

92:4.51. The Dala­ma­tian teach­ings. The true con­cept of the First Source and Cen­ter was first pro­mul­gated on Uran­tia by the one hun­dred cor­po­real mem­bers of Prince Cali­gas­tia’s staff. This ex­pand­ing rev­e­la­tion of De­ity went on for more than three hun­dred thou­sand years un­til it was sud­denly ter­mi­nated by the plan­e­tary se­ces­sion and the dis­rup­tion of the teach­ing regime. Ex­cept for the work of Van, the in­flu­ence of the Dala­ma­tian rev­e­la­tion was prac­ti­cally lost to the whole world. Even the Nod­ites had for­got­ten this truth by the time of Adam’s ar­rival. Of all who re­ceived the teach­ings of the one hun­dred, the red men held them longest, but the idea of the Great Spirit was but a hazy con­cept in Amerindian re­li­gion when con­tact with Chris­tian­ity greatly clar­i­fied and strength­ened it.

92:4.62. The Edenic teach­ings. Adam and Eve again por­trayed the con­cept of the Fa­ther of all to the evo­lu­tion­ary peo­ples. The dis­rup­tion of the first Eden halted the course of the Adamic rev­e­la­tion be­fore it had ever fully started. But the aborted teach­ings of Adam were car­ried on by the Sethite priests, and some of these truths have never been en­tirely lost to the world. The en­tire trend of Lev­an­tine re­li­gious evo­lu­tion was mod­i­fied by the teach­ings of the Sethites. But by 2500 B.C. man­kind had largely lost sight of the rev­e­la­tion spon­sored in the days of Eden.

92:4.73. Mel­chiz­e­dek of Salem. This emer­gency Son of Neb­a­don in­au­gu­rated the third rev­e­la­tion of truth on Uran­tia. The car­di­nal pre­cepts of his teach­ings were trust and faith. He taught trust in the om­nipo­tent benef­i­cence of God and pro­claimed that faith was the act by which men earned God’s fa­vor. His teach­ings grad­u­ally com­min­gled with the be­liefs and prac­tices of var­i­ous evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gions and fi­nally de­vel­oped into those the­o­logic sys­tems pres­ent on Uran­tia at the open­ing of the first mil­len­nium af­ter Christ.

92:4.84. Je­sus of Naz­a­reth. Christ Mi­chael pre­sented for the fourth time to Uran­tia the con­cept of God as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and this teach­ing has gen­er­ally per­sisted ever since. The essence of his teach­ing was love and ser­vice, the lov­ing wor­ship which a crea­ture son vol­un­tar­ily gives in rec­og­ni­tion of, and re­sponse to, the lov­ing min­istry of God his Fa­ther; the free­will ser­vice which such crea­ture sons be­stow upon their breth­ren in the joy­ous re­al­iza­tion that in this ser­vice they are like­wise serv­ing God the Fa­ther.

92:4.95. The Uran­tia Pa­pers. The pa­pers, of which this is one, con­sti­tute the most re­cent pre­sen­ta­tion of truth to the mor­tals of Uran­tia. These pa­pers dif­fer from all pre­vi­ous rev­e­la­tions, for they are not the work of a sin­gle uni­verse per­son­al­ity but a com­pos­ite pre­sen­ta­tion by many be­ings. But no rev­e­la­tion short of the at­tain­ment of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can ever be com­plete. All other ce­les­tial min­is­tra­tions are no more than par­tial, tran­sient, and prac­ti­cally adapted to lo­cal con­di­tions in time and space. While such ad­mis­sions as this may pos­si­bly de­tract from the im­me­di­ate force and au­thor­ity of all rev­e­la­tions, the time has ar­rived on Uran­tia when it is ad­vis­able to make such frank state­ments, even at the risk of weak­en­ing the fu­ture in­flu­ence and au­thor­ity of this, the most re­cent of the rev­e­la­tions of truth to the mor­tal races of Uran­tia.