error

• causes sorrow because it cannot be realized

2:7.6In­tel­lec­tual self-con­scious­ness can dis­cover the beauty of truth, its spir­i­tual qual­ity, not only by the philo­sophic con­sis­tency of its con­cepts, but more cer­tainly and surely by the unerring re­sponse of the ever-pres­ent Spirit of Truth. Hap­pi­ness en­sues from the rec­og­ni­tion of truth be­cause it can be acted out; it can be lived. Dis­ap­point­ment and sor­row at­tend upon er­ror be­cause, not be­ing a re­al­ity, it can­not be re­al­ized in ex­pe­ri­ence. Di­vine truth is best known by its spir­i­tual fla­vor.

• defined as › possibility of unwise judgment

3:5.105. Is the love of truth and the will­ing­ness to go wher­ever it leads, de­sir­able? Then must man grow up in a world where er­ror is pres­ent and false­hood al­ways pos­si­ble.

• defined as › possibility of unwise judgment

3:5.15Through­out the uni­verse, ev­ery unit is re­garded as a part of the whole. Sur­vival of the part is de­pen­dent on co-op­er­a­tion with the plan and pur­pose of the whole, the whole­hearted de­sire and per­fect will­ing­ness to do the Fa­ther’s di­vine will. The only evo­lu­tion­ary world with­out er­ror (the pos­si­bil­ity of un­wise judg­ment) would be a world with­out free in­tel­li­gence. In the Ha­vona uni­verse there are a bil­lion per­fect worlds with their per­fect in­hab­i­tants, but evolv­ing man must be fal­li­ble if he is to be free. Free and in­ex­pe­ri­enced in­tel­li­gence can­not pos­si­bly at first be uni­formly wise. The pos­si­bil­ity of mis­taken judg­ment (evil) be­comes sin only when the hu­man will con­sciously en­dorses and know­ingly em­braces a de­lib­er­ate im­moral judg­ment.

• dealing with error › sometimes too great to rectify by revelation

48:6.32These an­gels are all in the chain of re­cord­ers ex­tend­ing from the low­est to the high­est cus­to­di­ans of the facts of time and the truths of eter­nity. Some day they will teach you to seek truth as well as fact, to ex­pand your soul as well as your mind. Even now you should learn to wa­ter the gar­den of your heart as well as to seek for the dry sands of knowl­edge. Forms are val­ue­less when lessons are learned. No chick may be had with­out the shell, and no shell is of any worth af­ter the chick is hatched. But some­times er­ror is so great that its rec­ti­fi­ca­tion by rev­e­la­tion would be fa­tal to those slowly emerg­ing truths which are es­sen­tial to its ex­pe­ri­en­tial over­throw. When chil­dren have their ide­als, do not dis­lodge them; let them grow. And while you are learn­ing to think as men, you should also be learn­ing to pray as chil­dren.

• conflicting truth and falsehood create

54:0.1Evo­lu­tion­ary man finds it dif­fi­cult fully to com­pre­hend the sig­nif­i­cance and to grasp the mean­ings of evil, er­ror, sin, and in­iq­uity. Man is slow to per­ceive that con­trastive per­fec­tion and im­per­fec­tion pro­duce po­ten­tial evil; that con­flict­ing truth and false­hood cre­ate con­fus­ing er­ror; that the di­vine en­dow­ment of free­will choice even­tu­ates in the di­ver­gent realms of sin and righ­teous­ness; that the per­sis­tent pur­suit of di­vin­ity leads to the king­dom of God as con­trasted with its con­tin­u­ous re­jec­tion, which leads to the do­mains of in­iq­uity.

• greatest e. is craving power to deprive others of liberty

54:1.6True lib­erty is the as­so­ciate of gen­uine self-re­spect; false lib­erty is the con­sort of self-ad­mi­ra­tion. True lib­erty is the fruit of self-con­trol; false lib­erty, the as­sump­tion of self-as­ser­tion. Self-con­trol leads to al­tru­is­tic ser­vice; self-ad­mi­ra­tion tends to­wards the ex­ploita­tion of oth­ers for the self­ish ag­gran­dize­ment of such a mis­taken in­di­vid­ual as is will­ing to sac­ri­fice righ­teous at­tain­ment for the sake of pos­sess­ing un­just power over his fel­low be­ings.

54:1.7Even wis­dom is di­vine and safe only when it is cos­mic in scope and spir­i­tual in mo­ti­va­tion.

54:1.8There is no er­ror greater than that species of self-de­cep­tion which leads in­tel­li­gent be­ings to crave the ex­er­cise of power over other be­ings for the pur­pose of de­priv­ing these per­sons of their nat­u­ral lib­er­ties. The golden rule of hu­man fair­ness cries out against all such fraud, un­fair­ness, self­ish­ness, and un­righ­teous­ness. Only true and gen­uine lib­erty is com­pat­i­ble with the reign of love and the min­istry of mercy.

54:1.9How dare the self-willed crea­ture en­croach upon the rights of his fel­lows in the name of per­sonal lib­erty when the Su­preme Rulers of the uni­verse stand back in mer­ci­ful re­spect for these pre­rog­a­tives of will and po­ten­tials of per­son­al­ity! No be­ing, in the ex­er­cise of his sup­posed per­sonal lib­erty, has a right to de­prive any other be­ing of those priv­i­leges of ex­is­tence con­ferred by the Cre­ators and duly re­spected by all their loyal as­so­ciates, sub­or­di­nates, and sub­jects.

• defined as › misconception or distortion of reality
• suggestive of lack of intellectual keenness

67:1.4There are many ways of look­ing at sin, but from the uni­verse philo­sophic view­point sin is the at­ti­tude of a per­son­al­ity who is know­ingly re­sist­ing cos­mic re­al­ity. Er­ror might be re­garded as a mis­con­cep­tion or dis­tor­tion of re­al­ity. Evil is a par­tial re­al­iza­tion of, or mal­ad­just­ment to, uni­verse re­al­i­ties. But sin is a pur­pose­ful re­sis­tance to di­vine re­al­ity—a con­scious choos­ing to op­pose spir­i­tual prog­ress—while in­iq­uity con­sists in an open and per­sis­tent de­fi­ance of rec­og­nized re­al­ity and sig­ni­fies such a de­gree of per­son­al­ity dis­in­te­gra­tion as to bor­der on cos­mic in­san­ity.

67:1.5Er­ror sug­gests lack of in­tel­lec­tual keen­ness; evil, de­fi­ciency of wis­dom; sin, ab­ject spir­i­tual pov­erty; but in­iq­uity is in­dica­tive of van­ish­ing per­son­al­ity con­trol.

• difficult for angels and midwayers to conceive of brilliant, trusted rulers like Caligastia going astray

67:4.6It was very dif­fi­cult for such be­ings as an­gels and mid­way­ers to con­ceive of bril­liant and trusted rulers like Cali­gas­tia and Dali­gas­tia go­ing astray—com­mit­ting traitorous sin. Those be­ings who fell into sin—they did not de­lib­er­ately or pre­med­i­tat­edly en­ter upon re­bel­lion—were mis­led by their su­pe­ri­ors, de­ceived by their trusted lead­ers. It was like­wise easy to win the sup­port of the prim­i­tive-minded evo­lu­tion­ary mor­tals.

• Adam and Eve’s default was error, not rebellion

76:5.1Not long af­ter the es­tab­lish­ment of the sec­ond Eden, Adam and Eve were duly in­formed that their re­pen­tance was ac­cept­able, and that, while they were doomed to suf­fer the fate of the mor­tals of their world, they should cer­tainly be­come el­i­gi­ble for ad­mis­sion to the ranks of the sleep­ing sur­vivors of Uran­tia. They fully be­lieved this gospel of res­ur­rec­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion which the Mel­chiz­e­deks so touch­ingly pro­claimed to them. Their trans­gres­sion had been an er­ror of judg­ment and not the sin of con­scious and de­lib­er­ate re­bel­lion.

• defined as › inherent in evolutionary growth

105:6.43. The crea­ture reper­cus­sion to fi­nite-re­al­ity pro­mul­ga­tion re­sulted in the ap­pear­ance of per­fect be­ings on the or­der of the eter­nal in­hab­i­tants of Ha­vona and of per­fected evo­lu­tion­ary as­cend­ers from the seven super­uni­verses. But to at­tain per­fec­tion as an evo­lu­tion­ary (time-cre­ative) ex­pe­ri­ence im­plies some­thing other-than-per­fec­tion as a point of de­par­ture. Thus arises im­per­fec­tion in the evo­lu­tion­ary cre­ations. And this is the ori­gin of po­ten­tial evil. Mis­adap­ta­tion, dishar­mony, and con­flict, all these things are in­her­ent in evo­lu­tion­ary growth, from phys­i­cal uni­verses to per­sonal crea­tures.

• may markedly delay evolution of soul

111:3.1The mis­takes of mor­tal mind and the er­rors of hu­man con­duct may markedly de­lay the evo­lu­tion of the soul, al­though they can­not in­hibit such a mor­ontia phe­nom­e­non when once it has been ini­ti­ated by the in­dwelling Ad­juster with the con­sent of the crea­ture will. But at any time prior to mor­tal death this same ma­te­rial and hu­man will is em­pow­ered to re­scind such a choice and to re­ject sur­vival. Even af­ter sur­vival the as­cend­ing mor­tal still re­tains this pre­rog­a­tive of choos­ing to re­ject eter­nal life; at any time be­fore fu­sion with the Ad­juster the evolv­ing and as­cend­ing crea­ture can choose to for­sake the will of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Fu­sion with the Ad­juster sig­nal­izes the fact that the as­cend­ing mor­tal has eter­nally and un­re­servedly cho­sen to do the Fa­ther’s will.

• memories of past life without spiritual meaning will perish with material brain

112:5.22The Thought Ad­juster will re­call and re­hearse for you only those mem­o­ries and ex­pe­ri­ences which are a part of, and es­sen­tial to, your uni­verse ca­reer. If the Ad­juster has been a part­ner in the evo­lu­tion of aught in the hu­man mind, then will these worth-while ex­pe­ri­ences sur­vive in the eter­nal con­scious­ness of the Ad­juster. But much of your past life and its mem­o­ries, hav­ing nei­ther spir­i­tual mean­ing nor mor­ontia value, will per­ish with the ma­te­rial brain; much of ma­te­rial ex­pe­ri­ence will pass away as one­time scaf­fold­ing which, hav­ing bridged you over to the mor­ontia level, no longer serves a pur­pose in the uni­verse. But per­son­al­ity and the re­la­tion­ships be­tween per­son­al­i­ties are never scaf­fold­ing; mor­tal mem­ory of per­son­al­ity re­la­tion­ships has cos­mic value and will per­sist. On the man­sion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will re­mem­ber, and be re­mem­bered by, your one­time as­so­ciates in the short but in­trigu­ing life on Uran­tia.

• defined as › inevitable result of immature creatures’ freewill contact with reality

118:7.3Er­ror in fi­nite choos­ing is time bound and time lim­ited. It can ex­ist only in time and within the evolv­ing pres­ence of the Su­preme Be­ing. Such mis­taken choos­ing is time pos­si­ble and in­di­cates (be­sides the in­com­plete­ness of the Su­preme) that cer­tain range of choice with which im­ma­ture crea­tures must be en­dowed in or­der to en­joy uni­verse pro­gres­sion by mak­ing free­will con­tact with re­al­ity.

• defined as › shadow of relative incompleteness

130:4.11Er­ror (evil) is the penalty of im­per­fec­tion. The qual­i­ties of im­per­fec­tion or facts of mis­adap­ta­tion are dis­closed on the ma­te­rial level by crit­i­cal ob­ser­va­tion and by sci­en­tific anal­y­sis; on the moral level, by hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. The pres­ence of evil con­sti­tutes proof of the in­ac­cu­ra­cies of mind and the im­ma­tu­rity of the evolv­ing self. Evil is, there­fore, also a mea­sure of im­per­fec­tion in uni­verse in­ter­pre­ta­tion. The pos­si­bil­ity of mak­ing mis­takes is in­her­ent in the ac­qui­si­tion of wis­dom, the scheme of pro­gress­ing from the par­tial and tem­po­ral to the com­plete and eter­nal, from the rel­a­tive and im­per­fect to the fi­nal and per­fected. Er­ror is the shadow of rel­a­tive in­com­plete­ness which must of ne­ces­sity fall across man’s as­cend­ing uni­verse path to Par­a­dise per­fec­tion. Er­ror (evil) is not an ac­tual uni­verse qual­ity; it is sim­ply the ob­ser­va­tion of a rel­a­tiv­ity in the re­lat­ed­ness of the im­per­fec­tion of the in­com­plete fi­nite to the as­cend­ing lev­els of the Su­preme and Ul­ti­mate.

• dealing with error › overthrow by love of living truth

131:1.7“In your lives over­throw er­ror and over­come evil by the love of the liv­ing truth. In all your re­la­tions with men do good for evil. The Lord God is mer­ci­ful and lov­ing; he is for­giv­ing. Let us love God, for he first loved us. By God’s love and through his mercy we shall be saved. Poor men and rich men are broth­ers. God is their Fa­ther. The evil you would not have done you, do not to oth­ers.

• dealing with error › Jesus did not attack e., rather embellished truth

132:0.4Je­sus learned much about men while in Rome, but the most valu­able of all the man­i­fold ex­pe­ri­ences of his six months’ so­journ in that city was his con­tact with, and in­flu­ence upon, the re­li­gious lead­ers of the em­pire’s cap­i­tal. Be­fore the end of the first week in Rome Je­sus had sought out, and had made the ac­quain­tance of, the worth-while lead­ers of the Cyn­ics, the Sto­ics, and the mys­tery cults, in par­tic­u­lar the Mith­raic group. Whether or not it was ap­par­ent to Je­sus that the Jews were go­ing to re­ject his mis­sion, he most cer­tainly fore­saw that his mes­sen­gers were pres­ently com­ing to Rome to pro­claim the king­dom of heaven; and he there­fore set about, in the most amaz­ing man­ner, to pre­pare the way for the bet­ter and more cer­tain re­cep­tion of their mes­sage. He se­lected five of the lead­ing Sto­ics, eleven of the Cyn­ics, and six­teen of the mys­tery-cult lead­ers and spent much of his spare time for al­most six months in in­ti­mate as­so­ci­a­tion with these re­li­gious teach­ers. And this was his method of in­struc­tion: Never once did he at­tack their er­rors or even men­tion the flaws in their teach­ings. In each case he would se­lect the truth in what they taught and then pro­ceed so to em­bel­lish and il­lu­mi­nate this truth in their minds that in a very short time this en­hance­ment of the truth ef­fec­tively crowded out the as­so­ci­ated er­ror; and thus were these Je­sus-taught men and women pre­pared for the sub­se­quent rec­og­ni­tion of ad­di­tional and sim­i­lar truths in the teach­ings of the early Chris­tian mis­sion­ar­ies. It was this early ac­cep­tance of the teach­ings of the gospel preach­ers which gave that pow­er­ful im­pe­tus to the rapid spread of Chris­tian­ity in Rome and from there through­out the em­pire.

• ability to entertain e. lost on final spirit levels

132:2.6As you as­cend the uni­verse scale of crea­ture de­vel­op­ment, you will find in­creas­ing good­ness and di­min­ish­ing evil in per­fect ac­cor­dance with your ca­pac­ity for good­ness-ex­pe­ri­ence and truth-dis­cern­ment. The abil­ity to en­ter­tain er­ror or ex­pe­ri­ence evil will not be fully lost un­til the as­cend­ing hu­man soul achieves fi­nal spirit lev­els.

• dealing with error › living truths drive out serious e.

141:6.2When Si­mon Ze­lo­tes and Je­sus were alone, Si­mon asked the Mas­ter: “Why is it that I could not per­suade him? Why did he so re­sist me and so read­ily lend an ear to you?” Je­sus an­swered: “Si­mon, Si­mon, how many times have I in­structed you to re­frain from all ef­forts to take some­thing out of the hearts of those who seek sal­va­tion? How of­ten have I told you to la­bor only to put some­thing into these hun­gry souls? Lead men into the king­dom, and the great and liv­ing truths of the king­dom will pres­ently drive out all se­ri­ous er­ror. When you have pre­sented to mor­tal man the good news that God is his Fa­ther, you can the eas­ier per­suade him that he is in re­al­ity a son of God. And hav­ing done that, you have brought the light of sal­va­tion to the one who sits in dark­ness. Si­mon, when the Son of Man came first to you, did he come de­nounc­ing Moses and the proph­ets and pro­claim­ing a new and bet­ter way of life? No. I came not to take away that which you had from your fore­fa­thers but to show you the per­fected vi­sion of that which your fa­thers saw only in part. Go then, Si­mon, teach­ing and preach­ing the king­dom, and when you have a man safely and se­curely within the king­dom, then is the time, when such a one shall come to you with in­quiries, to im­part in­struc­tion hav­ing to do with the pro­gres­sive ad­vance­ment of the soul within the di­vine king­dom.”

• memories of past life without spiritual meaning will perish with material brain

156:5.8Do not be­come dis­cour­aged by the dis­cov­ery that you are hu­man. Hu­man na­ture may tend to­ward evil, but it is not in­her­ently sin­ful. Be not down­cast by your fail­ure wholly to for­get some of your re­gret­table ex­pe­ri­ences. The mis­takes which you fail to for­get in time will be for­got­ten in eter­nity. Lighten your bur­dens of soul by speed­ily ac­quir­ing a long-dis­tance view of your des­tiny, a uni­verse ex­pan­sion of your ca­reer.

• dealing with error › deal with gently

178:1.14You are not to be pas­sive mys­tics or col­or­less as­cetics; you should not be­come dream­ers and drifters, supinely trust­ing in a fic­ti­tious Prov­i­dence to pro­vide even the ne­ces­si­ties of life. You are in­deed to be gen­tle in your deal­ings with erring mor­tals, pa­tient in your in­ter­course with ig­no­rant men, and for­bear­ing un­der provo­ca­tion; but you are also to be valiant in de­fense of righ­teous­ness, mighty in the pro­mul­ga­tion of truth, and ag­gres­sive in the preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom, even to the ends of the earth.