language

• limitations of human language

0:0.1In the minds of the mor­tals of Uran­tia—that be­ing the name of your world—there ex­ists great con­fu­sion re­spect­ing the mean­ing of such terms as God, di­vin­ity, and de­ity. Hu­man be­ings are still more con­fused and un­cer­tain about the re­la­tion­ships of the di­vine per­son­al­i­ties des­ig­nated by these nu­mer­ous ap­pel­la­tions. Be­cause of this con­cep­tual pov­erty as­so­ci­ated with so much ide­a­tional con­fu­sion, I have been di­rected to for­mu­late this in­tro­duc­tory state­ment in ex­pla­na­tion of the mean­ings which should be at­tached to cer­tain word sym­bols as they may be here­inafter used in those pa­pers which the Or­von­ton corps of truth re­veal­ers have been au­tho­rized to trans­late into the En­glish lan­guage of Uran­tia.

0:0.2It is ex­ceed­ingly dif­fi­cult to pre­sent en­larged con­cepts and ad­vanced truth, in our en­deavor to ex­pand cos­mic con­scious­ness and en­hance spir­i­tual per­cep­tion, when we are re­stricted to the use of a cir­cum­scribed lan­guage of the realm. But our man­date ad­mon­ishes us to make ev­ery ef­fort to con­vey our mean­ings by us­ing the word sym­bols of the En­glish tongue. We have been in­structed to in­tro­duce new terms only when the con­cept to be por­trayed finds no ter­mi­nol­ogy in En­glish which can be em­ployed to con­vey such a new con­cept par­tially or even with more or less dis­tor­tion of mean­ing.

0:0.3In the hope of fa­cil­i­tat­ing com­pre­hen­sion and of pre­vent­ing con­fu­sion on the part of ev­ery mor­tal who may pe­ruse these pa­pers, we deem it wise to pre­sent in this ini­tial state­ment an out­line of the mean­ings to be at­tached to nu­mer­ous En­glish words which are to be em­ployed in des­ig­na­tion of De­ity and cer­tain as­so­ci­ated con­cepts of the things, mean­ings, and val­ues of uni­ver­sal re­al­ity.

0:0.4But in or­der to for­mu­late this Fore­word of def­i­ni­tions and lim­i­ta­tions of ter­mi­nol­ogy, it is nec­es­sary to an­tic­i­pate the us­age of these terms in the sub­se­quent pre­sen­ta­tions. This Fore­word is not, there­fore, a fin­ished state­ment within it­self; it is only a defini­tive guide de­signed to as­sist those who shall read the ac­com­pa­ny­ing pa­pers deal­ing with De­ity and the uni­verse of uni­verses which have been for­mu­lated by an Or­von­ton com­mis­sion sent to Uran­tia for this pur­pose.

• limitations of human language

0:3.20RE­AL­ITY, as com­pre­hended by fi­nite be­ings, is par­tial, rel­a­tive, and shad­owy. The max­i­mum De­ity re­al­ity fully com­pre­hen­si­ble by evo­lu­tion­ary fi­nite crea­tures is em­braced within the Su­preme Be­ing. Nev­er­the­less there are an­te­ced­ent and eter­nal re­al­i­ties, super­fi­nite re­al­i­ties, which are an­ces­tral to this Su­preme De­ity of evo­lu­tion­ary time-space crea­tures. In at­tempt­ing to por­tray the ori­gin and na­ture of uni­ver­sal re­al­ity, we are forced to em­ploy the tech­nique of time-space rea­son­ing in or­der to reach the level of the fi­nite mind. There­fore must many of the si­mul­ta­ne­ous events of eter­nity be pre­sented as se­quen­tial trans­ac­tions.

• limitations of human language

0:6.2EN­ERGY we use as an all-in­clu­sive term ap­plied to spir­i­tual, mindal, and ma­te­rial realms. Force is also thus broadly used. Power is or­di­nar­ily lim­ited to the des­ig­na­tion of the elec­tronic level of ma­te­rial or lin­ear-grav­ity-re­spon­sive mat­ter in the grand uni­verse. Power is also em­ployed to des­ig­nate sov­er­eignty. We can­not fol­low your gen­er­ally ac­cepted def­i­ni­tions of force, en­ergy, and power. There is such paucity of lan­guage that we must as­sign mul­ti­ple mean­ings to these terms.

• revelators of Urantia Papers › used human concepts as more acceptable to human minds

0:12.12Suc­ces­sive plan­e­tary rev­e­la­tions of di­vine truth in­vari­ably em­brace the high­est ex­ist­ing con­cepts of spir­i­tual val­ues as a part of the new and en­hanced co-or­di­na­tion of plan­e­tary knowl­edge. Ac­cord­ingly, in mak­ing these pre­sen­ta­tions about God and his uni­verse as­so­ciates, we have se­lected as the ba­sis of these pa­pers more than one thou­sand hu­man con­cepts rep­re­sent­ing the high­est and most ad­vanced plan­e­tary knowl­edge of spir­i­tual val­ues and uni­verse mean­ings. Wherein these hu­man con­cepts, as­sem­bled from the God-know­ing mor­tals of the past and the pres­ent, are in­ad­e­quate to por­tray the truth as we are di­rected to re­veal it, we will un­hesi­tat­ingly sup­ple­ment them, for this pur­pose draw­ing upon our own su­pe­rior knowl­edge of the re­al­ity and di­vin­ity of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties and their tran­scen­dent res­i­den­tial uni­verse.

• limitations of human language

0:12.13We are fully cog­nizant of the dif­fi­cul­ties of our as­sign­ment; we rec­og­nize the im­pos­si­bil­ity of fully trans­lat­ing the lan­guage of the con­cepts of di­vin­ity and eter­nity into the sym­bols of the lan­guage of the fi­nite con­cepts of the mor­tal mind. But we know that there dwells within the hu­man mind a frag­ment of God, and that there so­journs with the hu­man soul the Spirit of Truth; and we fur­ther know that these spirit forces con­spire to en­able ma­te­rial man to grasp the re­al­ity of spir­i­tual val­ues and to com­pre­hend the phi­los­o­phy of uni­verse mean­ings. But even more cer­tainly we know that these spir­its of the Di­vine Pres­ence are able to as­sist man in the spir­i­tual ap­pro­pri­a­tion of all truth con­trib­u­tory to the en­hance­ment of the ever-pro­gress­ing re­al­ity of per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence—God-con­scious­ness.

• limitations of human language

2:0.3In all our ef­forts to en­large and spir­i­tu­al­ize the hu­man con­cept of God, we are tremen­dously hand­i­capped by the lim­ited ca­pac­ity of the mor­tal mind. We are also se­ri­ously hand­i­capped in the ex­e­cu­tion of our as­sign­ment by the lim­i­ta­tions of lan­guage and by the pov­erty of ma­te­rial which can be uti­lized for pur­poses of il­lus­tra­tion or com­par­i­son in our ef­forts to por­tray di­vine val­ues and to pre­sent spir­i­tual mean­ings to the fi­nite, mor­tal mind of man. All our ef­forts to en­large the hu­man con­cept of God would be well-nigh fu­tile ex­cept for the fact that the mor­tal mind is in­dwelt by the be­stowed Ad­juster of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and is per­vaded by the Truth Spirit of the Cre­ator Son. De­pend­ing, there­fore, on the pres­ence of these di­vine spir­its within the heart of man for as­sis­tance in the en­large­ment of the con­cept of God, I cheer­fully un­der­take the ex­e­cu­tion of my man­date to at­tempt the fur­ther por­trayal of the na­ture of God to the mind of man.

• limitations of human language

2:5.11At times I am al­most pained to be com­pelled to por­tray the di­vine af­fec­tion of the heav­enly Fa­ther for his uni­verse chil­dren by the em­ploy­ment of the hu­man word sym­bol love. This term, even though it does con­note man’s high­est con­cept of the mor­tal re­la­tions of re­spect and de­vo­tion, is so fre­quently des­ig­na­tive of so much of hu­man re­la­tion­ship that is wholly ig­no­ble and ut­terly un­fit to be known by any word which is also used to in­di­cate the match­less af­fec­tion of the liv­ing God for his uni­verse crea­tures! How un­for­tu­nate that I can­not make use of some su­per­nal and ex­clu­sive term which would con­vey to the mind of man the true na­ture and ex­qui­sitely beau­ti­ful sig­nif­i­cance of the di­vine af­fec­tion of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

• limitations of human language

6:0.2We speak of God’s “first” thought and al­lude to an im­pos­si­ble time ori­gin of the Eter­nal Son for the pur­pose of gain­ing ac­cess to the thought chan­nels of the hu­man in­tel­lect. Such dis­tor­tions of lan­guage rep­re­sent our best ef­forts at con­tact-com­pro­mise with the time-bound minds of mor­tal crea­tures. In the se­quen­tial sense the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never could have had a first thought, nor could the Eter­nal Son ever have had a be­gin­ning. But I was in­structed to por­tray the re­al­i­ties of eter­nity to the time-lim­ited minds of mor­tals by such sym­bols of thought and to des­ig­nate the re­la­tion­ships of eter­nity by such time con­cepts of se­quen­tial­ity.

• limitations of human language

6:0.4In an ef­fort to en­able the fi­nite mind of time to form some se­quen­tial con­cept of the re­la­tion­ships of the eter­nal and in­fi­nite be­ings of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, we uti­lize such li­cense of con­cep­tion as to re­fer to the “Fa­ther’s first per­sonal, uni­ver­sal, and in­fi­nite con­cept.” It is im­pos­si­ble for me to con­vey to the hu­man mind any ad­e­quate idea of the eter­nal re­la­tions of the De­i­ties; there­fore do I em­ploy such terms as will af­ford the fi­nite mind some­thing of an idea of the re­la­tion­ship of these eter­nal be­ings in the sub­se­quent eras of time. We be­lieve the Son sprang from the Fa­ther; we are taught that both are un­qual­i­fiedly eter­nal. It is ap­par­ent, there­fore, that no time crea­ture can ever fully com­pre­hend this mys­tery of a Son who is de­rived from the Fa­ther, and yet who is co-or­di­nately eter­nal with the Fa­ther him­self.

• words are valueless in prayer; rather motivating thought

7:3.7It is the mo­ti­vat­ing thought, the spir­i­tual con­tent, that val­i­dates the mor­tal sup­pli­ca­tion. Words are val­ue­less.

• limitations of human language

10:5.8But I do not com­mand lan­guage which would en­able me to con­vey to the lim­ited hu­man mind the full truth and the eter­nal sig­nif­i­cance of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity and the na­ture of the never-end­ing in­teras­so­ci­a­tion of the three be­ings of in­fi­nite per­fec­tion.

• limitations of human language
• revelators of Urantia Papers › avoided arbitrary, meaningless designations

18:4.3These tri­une rulers of the ma­jor sec­tors are pe­cu­liarly per­fect in the mas­tery of ad­min­is­tra­tive de­tails, hence their name—Per­fec­tions of Days. In record­ing the names of these be­ings of the spir­i­tual world, we are con­fronted with the prob­lem of trans­lat­ing into your tongue, and very of­ten it is ex­ceed­ingly dif­fi­cult to ren­der a sat­is­fac­tory trans­la­tion. We dis­like to use ar­bi­trary des­ig­na­tions which would be mean­ing­less to you; hence we of­ten find it dif­fi­cult to choose a suit­able name, one which will be clear to you and at the same time be some­what rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the orig­i­nal.

• limitations of human language

24:6.2I am not for­bid­den to un­der­take to tell you of the work of these Grad­u­ate Guides, but it is so ul­tra­spir­i­tual that I de­spair of be­ing able to ad­e­quately por­tray to the ma­te­rial mind a con­cept of their man­i­fold ac­tiv­i­ties. On the man­sion worlds, af­ter your vi­sion range is ex­tended and you are freed from the fet­ters of ma­te­rial com­par­isons, you can be­gin to com­pre­hend the mean­ing of those re­al­i­ties which “eye can­not see nor ear hear, and which have never en­tered the con­cept of hu­man minds,” even those things which “God has pre­pared for those who love such eter­nal ver­i­ties.” You are not al­ways to be so lim­ited in the range of your vi­sion and spir­i­tual com­pre­hen­sion.

• revelators of Urantia Papers › avoided arbitrary, meaningless designations

31:8.3You, be­ing a crea­ture, can con­ceive of a Cre­ator, but you can hardly com­pre­hend that there ex­ists an enor­mous and di­ver­si­fied ag­gre­ga­tion of in­tel­li­gent be­ings who are nei­ther Cre­ators nor crea­tures. These Tran­scen­den­talers cre­ate no be­ings, nei­ther were they ever cre­ated. In speak­ing of their ori­gin, in or­der to avoid us­ing a new term—an ar­bi­trary and mean­ing­less des­ig­na­tion—we deem it best to say that Tran­scen­den­talers sim­ply even­tu­ate. The De­ity Ab­so­lute may well have been con­cerned in their ori­gin and may be im­pli­cated in their des­tiny, but these unique be­ings are not now dom­i­nated by the De­ity Ab­so­lute. They are sub­ject to God the Ul­ti­mate, and their pres­ent Par­a­dise so­journ is in ev­ery way Trin­ity super­vised and di­rected.

• limitations of human language

33:8.6While we speak of uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion in terms of “courts” and “as­sem­blies,” it should be un­der­stood that these spir­i­tual trans­ac­tions are very dif­fer­ent from the more prim­i­tive and ma­te­rial ac­tiv­i­ties of Uran­tia which bear cor­re­spond­ing names.

• limitations of human language

35:7.3The as­cend­ing pil­grims will be in­tro­duced to nu­mer­ous new ac­tiv­i­ties on these worlds of study and prac­ti­cal work. We are not for­bid­den to un­der­take the rev­e­la­tion of these new and un­dreamed-of pur­suits, but we de­spair of be­ing able to por­tray these un­der­tak­ings to the ma­te­rial mind of mor­tal be­ings. We are with­out words to con­vey the mean­ings of these su­per­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, and there are no anal­o­gous hu­man en­gage­ments which might be uti­lized as il­lus­tra­tions of these new oc­cu­pa­tions of the as­cend­ing mor­tals as they pur­sue their stud­ies on these forty-nine worlds. And many other ac­tiv­i­ties, not a part of the as­cen­dant regime, are cen­tered on these Vo­ron­da­dek worlds of the Sal­ving­ton cir­cuit.

• celestial languages › all angels speak language of their local universe and superuniverse

38:7.5When as­signed to a planet, cheru­bim en­ter the lo­cal courses of train­ing, in­clud­ing a study of plan­e­tary us­ages and lan­guages. The min­is­ter­ing spir­its of time are all bilin­gual, speak­ing the lan­guage of the lo­cal uni­verse of their ori­gin and that of their na­tive super­uni­verse. By study in the schools of the realms they ac­quire ad­di­tional tongues. Cheru­bim and sa­no­bim, like ser­a­phim and all other or­ders of spirit be­ings, are con­tin­u­ously en­gaged in ef­forts at self-im­prove­ment. Only such as the sub­or­di­nate be­ings of power con­trol and en­ergy di­rec­tion are in­ca­pable of pro­gres­sion; all crea­tures hav­ing ac­tual or po­ten­tial per­son­al­ity vo­li­tion seek new achieve­ments.

• nonbreathers speak by modified technique

40:5.15When you en­counter these mod­i­fied mor­tal types on the man­sion worlds, you will find no dif­fi­culty in com­mu­ni­cat­ing with them. There they speak the same sys­tem lan­guage but by a mod­i­fied tech­nique. These be­ings are iden­ti­cal with your or­der of crea­ture life in spirit and per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tions, dif­fer­ing only in cer­tain phys­i­cal fea­tures and in the fact that they are non­fusible with Thought Ad­justers.

• limitations of human language

42:2.1It is in­deed dif­fi­cult to find suit­able words in the En­glish lan­guage whereby to des­ig­nate and where­with to de­scribe the var­i­ous lev­els of force and en­ergy—phys­i­cal, mindal, or spir­i­tual. These nar­ra­tives can­not al­to­gether fol­low your ac­cepted def­i­ni­tions of force, en­ergy, and power. There is such paucity of lan­guage that we must use these terms in mul­ti­ple mean­ings. In this pa­per, for ex­am­ple, the word en­ergy is used to de­note all phases and forms of phe­nom­e­nal mo­tion, ac­tion, and po­ten­tial, while force is ap­plied to the pre­grav­ity, and power to the post­grav­ity, stages of en­ergy.

• limitations of human language

44:0.20But I al­most de­spair of be­ing able to con­vey to the ma­te­rial mind the na­ture of the work of the ce­les­tial ar­ti­sans. I am un­der the ne­ces­sity of con­stantly per­vert­ing thought and dis­tort­ing lan­guage in an ef­fort to un­fold to the mor­tal mind the re­al­ity of these mor­ontia trans­ac­tions and near-spirit phe­nom­ena. Your com­pre­hen­sion is in­ca­pable of grasp­ing, and your lan­guage is in­ad­e­quate for con­vey­ing, the mean­ing, value, and re­la­tion­ship of these semispirit ac­tiv­i­ties. And I pro­ceed with this ef­fort to en­lighten the hu­man mind con­cern­ing these re­al­i­ties with the full un­der­stand­ing of the ut­ter im­pos­si­bil­ity of my be­ing very suc­cess­ful in such an un­der­tak­ing.

44:0.21I can do no more than at­tempt to sketch a crude par­al­lelism be­tween mor­tal ma­te­rial ac­tiv­i­ties and the man­i­fold func­tions of the ce­les­tial ar­ti­sans. If the Uran­tia races were more ad­vanced in art and other cul­tural ac­com­plish­ments, then could I go that much far­ther in an ef­fort to project the hu­man mind from the things of mat­ter to those of mor­ontia. About all I can hope to ac­com­plish is to make em­phatic the fact of the re­al­ity of these trans­ac­tions of the mor­ontia and the spirit worlds.

• celestial languages › harmony is code of spirit communication

44:1.11Har­mony, the mu­sic of the seven lev­els of melo­di­ous as­so­ci­a­tion, is the one uni­ver­sal code of spirit com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Mu­sic, such as Uran­tia mor­tals un­der­stand, at­tains its high­est ex­pres­sion in the schools of Je­ru­sem, the sys­tem head­quar­ters, where semi­ma­te­rial be­ings are taught the har­monies of sound. Mor­tals do not re­act to the other forms of mor­ontia mel­ody and ce­les­tial har­mony.

• celestial languages › harmony is code of spirit communication

44:1.15While you have as­sem­bled some beau­ti­ful mel­o­dies on Uran­tia, you have not pro­gressed mu­si­cally nearly so far as many of your neigh­bor­ing plan­ets in Sa­ta­nia. If Adam and Eve had only sur­vived, then would you have had mu­sic in re­al­ity; but the gift of har­mony, so large in their na­tures, has been so di­luted by strains of un­mu­si­cal ten­den­cies that only once in a thou­sand mor­tal lives is there any great ap­pre­ci­a­tion of har­mon­ics. But be not dis­cour­aged; some day a real mu­si­cian may ap­pear on Uran­tia, and whole peo­ples will be en­thralled by the mag­nif­i­cent strains of his mel­o­dies. One such hu­man be­ing could for­ever change the course of a whole na­tion, even the en­tire civ­i­lized world. It is lit­er­ally true, “mel­ody has power a whole world to trans­form.” For­ever, mu­sic will re­main the uni­ver­sal lan­guage of men, an­gels, and spir­its. Har­mony is the speech of Ha­vona.

• limitations of human language

44:2.1Mor­tal man can hardly hope for more than a mea­ger and dis­torted con­cept of the func­tions of the heav­enly re­pro­duc­ers, which I must at­tempt to il­lus­trate through the gross and lim­ited sym­bol­ism of your ma­te­rial lan­guage. The spirit-mor­ontia world has a thou­sand and one things of su­preme value, things wor­thy of re­pro­duc­tion but un­known on Uran­tia, ex­pe­ri­ences that be­long in the cat­e­gory of the ac­tiv­i­ties which have hardly “en­tered into the mind of man,” those re­al­i­ties which God has in wait­ing for those who sur­vive the life in the flesh.

• 1000 years of mortal communication conveyed in chance meeting on Paradise
• celestial languages › each local universe and superuniverse has its own
• celestial languages › little need of l. in Havona

44:4.3Each super­uni­verse has its own lan­guage, a tongue spo­ken by its per­son­al­i­ties and pre­vail­ing through­out its sec­tors. This is known as the tongue of Uversa in our super­uni­verse. Each lo­cal uni­verse also has its own lan­guage. All of the higher or­ders of Neb­a­don are bilin­gual, speak­ing both the lan­guage of Neb­a­don and the tongue of Uversa. When two in­di­vid­u­als from dif­fer­ent lo­cal uni­verses meet, they com­mu­ni­cate in the tongue of Uversa; if, how­ever, one of them hails from an­other super­uni­verse, they must have re­course to a trans­la­tor. In the cen­tral uni­verse there is lit­tle need of a lan­guage; there ex­ists per­fect and well-nigh com­plete un­der­stand­ing; there, only the Gods are not fully com­pre­hended. We are taught that a chance meet­ing on Par­a­dise re­veals more of mu­tual un­der­stand­ing than could be com­mu­ni­cated by a mor­tal lan­guage in a thou­sand years. Even on Sal­ving­ton we “know as we are known.”

• celestial languages › half hour address would cover subject of lifetime

44:4.74. Pro­mot­ers of or­a­tory. This group of re­cord­ers are oc­cu­pied with the task of pre­serv­ing thought for re­pro­duc­tion by or­a­tory. But in the lan­guage of Neb­a­don we could, in a half hour’s ad­dress, cover the sub­ject mat­ter of the en­tire life­time of a Uran­tia mor­tal. Your only hope of com­pre­hend­ing these trans­ac­tions is to pause and con­sider the tech­nique of your dis­or­dered and gar­bled dream life—how you can in a few sec­onds tra­verse years of ex­pe­ri­ence in these fan­tasies of the night sea­son.

• limitations of human language

44:4.8The or­a­tory of the spirit world is one of the rare treats which await you who have heard only the crude and stum­bling ora­tions of Uran­tia. There is har­mony of mu­sic and eu­phony of ex­pres­sion in the ora­tions of Sal­ving­ton and Eden­tia which are in­spir­ing be­yond de­scrip­tion. These burn­ing con­cepts are like gems of beauty in di­adems of glory. But I can­not do it! I can­not con­vey to the hu­man mind the breadth and depth of these re­al­i­ties of an­other world!

• limitations of human language

44:5.87. The teach­ers of rest. Di­vine rest is as­so­ci­ated with the tech­nique of spir­i­tual-en­ergy in­take. Mor­ontia and spirit en­ergy must be re­plen­ished just as cer­tainly as phys­i­cal en­ergy, but not for the same rea­sons. I am, per­force, com­pelled to em­ploy crude il­lus­tra­tions in my at­tempts to en­lighten you; nev­er­the­less, we of the spirit world must stop our reg­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties pe­ri­od­i­cally and be­take our­selves to suit­able places of ren­dezvous where we en­ter the di­vine rest and thus re­cu­per­ate our de­plet­ing en­er­gies.

44:6.1How I wish I knew how to por­tray the ex­qui­site work of these unique ar­ti­sans! Ev­ery at­tempt on my part to ex­plain the work of spirit em­bel­lish­ment would only re­call to ma­te­rial minds your own piti­ful but wor­thy ef­forts to do these things on your world of mind and mat­ter.

44:6.2This corps, while em­brac­ing over one thou­sand sub­di­vi­sions of ac­tiv­ity, is grouped un­der the fol­low­ing seven ma­jor heads:

44:6.31. The craft­work­ers of color. These are they who make the ten thou­sand color tones of spirit re­flec­tion peal forth their ex­qui­site mes­sages of har­mo­nious beauty. Aside from color per­cep­tion there is noth­ing in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence to which these ac­tiv­i­ties may be com­pared.

44:6.42. The sound de­sign­ers. Spirit waves of di­verse iden­tity and mor­ontia ap­pre­ci­a­tion are de­picted by these de­sign­ers of what you would call sound. These im­pulses are in re­al­ity the su­perb re­flec­tions of the naked and glo­ri­ous spirit-souls of the ce­les­tial hosts.

44:6.53. The emo­tion de­sign­ers. These en­hancers and con­ser­va­tors of feel­ing are those who pre­serve the sen­ti­ments of mor­ontia and the emo­tions of di­vin­ity for the study and ed­i­fi­ca­tion of the chil­dren of time and for the in­spi­ra­tion and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion of mor­ontia pro­gres­sors and ad­vanc­ing spir­its.

44:6.64. The artists of odor. This com­par­i­son of su­per­nal spirit ac­tiv­i­ties to the phys­i­cal rec­og­ni­tion of chem­i­cal odors is, in­deed, un­for­tu­nate, but Uran­tia mor­tals could hardly rec­og­nize this min­istry by any other name. These ar­ti­sans cre­ate their var­ied sym­phonies for the ed­i­fi­ca­tion and de­light of the ad­vanc­ing chil­dren of light. You have noth­ing on earth to which this type of spir­i­tual grandeur can be even re­motely com­pared.

44:6.75. The pres­ence em­bel­lish­ers. These ar­ti­sans are not oc­cu­pied with the arts of self-adorn­ment or the tech­nique of crea­ture beau­ti­fi­ca­tion. They are de­voted to the pro­duc­tion of mul­ti­tudi­nous and joy­ous re­ac­tions in in­di­vid­ual mor­ontia and spirit crea­tures by dra­ma­tiz­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of re­la­tion­ship through the po­si­tional val­ues as­signed to dif­fer­ent mor­ontia and spirit or­ders in the com­pos­ite en­sem­bles of these di­ver­si­fied be­ings. These artists ar­range super­ma­te­rial be­ings as you would liv­ing mu­si­cal notes, odors, sights, and then blend them into the an­thems of glory.

44:6.86. The taste de­sign­ers. And how can you be told of these artists! Faintly I might sug­gest that they are im­provers of mor­ontia taste, and they also en­deavor to in­crease the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of beauty through the sharp­en­ing of the evolv­ing spirit senses.

44:6.97. The mor­ontia syn­the­siz­ers. These are the mas­ter crafts­men who, when all oth­ers have made their re­spec­tive con­tri­bu­tions, then add the cul­mi­nat­ing and fin­ish­ing touches to the mor­ontia en­sem­ble, thus achiev­ing an in­spir­ing por­trayal of the di­vinely beau­ti­ful, an en­dur­ing in­spi­ra­tion to spirit be­ings and their mor­ontia as­so­ciates. But you must await your de­liv­er­ance from the an­i­mal body be­fore you can be­gin to con­ceive of the artis­tic glo­ries and aes­thetic beau­ties of the mor­ontia and spirit worlds.

• limitations of human language

44:7.1These artists are not con­cerned with mu­sic, paint­ing, or any­thing sim­i­lar, as you might be led to sur­mise. They are oc­cu­pied with the ma­nip­u­la­tion and or­ga­ni­za­tion of spe­cial­ized forces and en­er­gies which are pres­ent in the spirit world, but which are not rec­og­nized by mor­tals. If I had the least pos­si­ble ba­sis for com­par­i­son, I would at­tempt to por­tray this unique field of spirit achieve­ment, but I de­spair—there is no hope of con­vey­ing to mor­tal minds this sphere of ce­les­tial artistry. Nev­er­the­less, that which can­not be de­scribed may still be im­plied:

• limitations of human language

46:2.6Je­ru­sem is in­deed a fore­taste of par­a­di­si­a­cal glory and grandeur. But you can never hope to gain an ad­e­quate idea of these glo­ri­ous ar­chi­tec­tural worlds by any at­tempted de­scrip­tion. There is so lit­tle that can be com­pared with aught on your world, and even then the things of Je­ru­sem so tran­scend the things of Uran­tia that the com­par­i­son is al­most grotesque. Un­til you ac­tu­ally ar­rive on Je­ru­sem, you can hardly en­ter­tain any­thing like a true con­cept of the heav­enly worlds, but that is not so long a time in the fu­ture when your com­ing ex­pe­ri­ence on the sys­tem cap­i­tal is com­pared with your some­time ar­rival on the more re­mote train­ing spheres of the uni­verse, the super­uni­verse, and Ha­vona.

• limitations of human language

46:4.9Je­ru­sem has great build­ings of both ma­te­rial and mor­ontia types, while the em­bel­lish­ment of the purely spir­i­tual zones is no less ex­qui­site and re­plete. If I only had words to tell you of the mor­ontia coun­ter­parts of the mar­velous phys­i­cal equip­ment of Je­ru­sem! If I could only go on to por­tray the sub­lime grandeur and ex­qui­site per­fec­tion of the spir­i­tual ap­point­ments of this head­quar­ters world! Your most imag­i­na­tive con­cept of per­fec­tion of beauty and re­plete­ness of ap­point­ment would hardly ap­proach these grandeurs. And Je­ru­sem is but the first step on the way to the su­per­nal per­fec­tion of Par­a­dise beauty.

• celestial languages › of Nebadon mastered by 4th mansonia
• celestial languages › of Uversa learned before residency on Jerusem

47:7.2Hav­ing mas­tered the lo­cal uni­verse lan­guage be­fore leav­ing the fourth man­sion world, you now de­vote more time to the per­fec­tion of the tongue of Uversa to the end that you may be pro­fi­cient in both lan­guages be­fore ar­riv­ing on Je­ru­sem with res­i­den­tial sta­tus. All as­cend­ing mor­tals are bilin­gual from the sys­tem head­quar­ters up to Ha­vona. And then it is only nec­es­sary to en­large the super­uni­verse vo­cab­u­lary, still ad­di­tional en­large­ment be­ing re­quired for res­i­dence on Par­a­dise.

• celestial languages › morontia progressors must learn l. much as on Urantia
• celestial languages › translators always available on morontia worlds

48:3.13You will not ac­quire new lan­guages au­to­mat­i­cally; you will learn a lan­guage over there much as you do down here, and these bril­liant be­ings will be your lan­guage teach­ers. The first study on the man­sion worlds will be the tongue of Sa­ta­nia and then the lan­guage of Neb­a­don. And while you are mas­ter­ing these new tongues, the Mor­ontia Com­pan­ions will be your ef­fi­cient in­ter­preters and pa­tient trans­la­tors. You will never en­counter a vis­i­tor on any of these worlds but that some one of the Mor­ontia Com­pan­ions will be able to of­fi­ci­ate as in­ter­preter.

• development of language › development of speech coincident with acquiring will, receiving Adjusters

52:1.6Man’s ac­quire­ment of eth­i­cal judg­ment, moral will, is usu­ally co­in­ci­dent with the ap­pear­ance of early lan­guage. Upon at­tain­ing the hu­man level, af­ter this emer­gence of mor­tal will, these be­ings be­come re­cep­tive to the tem­po­rary in­dwelling of the di­vine Ad­justers, and upon death many are duly elected as sur­vivors and sealed by the arch­an­gels for sub­se­quent res­ur­rec­tion and Spirit fu­sion. The arch­an­gels al­ways ac­com­pany the Plan­e­tary Princes, and a dis­pen­sa­tional ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the realm is si­mul­ta­ne­ous with the prince’s ar­rival.

• racial segregation favored by multiplicity of

52:2.5But the Plan­e­tary Prince is not “the Prince of Peace.” Racial strug­gles and tribal wars con­tinue over into this dis­pen­sa­tion but with di­min­ish­ing fre­quency and sever­ity. This is the great age of racial dis­per­sion, and it cul­mi­nates in a pe­riod of in­tense na­tion­al­ism. Color is the ba­sis of tribal and na­tional group­ings, and the dif­fer­ent races of­ten de­velop sep­a­rate lan­guages. Each ex­pand­ing group of mor­tals tends to seek iso­la­tion. This seg­re­ga­tion is fa­vored by the ex­is­tence of many lan­guages. Be­fore the uni­fi­ca­tion of the sev­eral races their re­lent­less war­fare some­times re­sults in the oblit­er­a­tion of whole peo­ples; the or­ange and green men are par­tic­u­larly sub­ject to such ex­tinc­tion.

• common language › promotes peace, culture, happiness
• development of language › tongue of Adamites eventually dominates

52:3.10The post-Adamic epoch is the dis­pen­sa­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al­ism. With the near com­ple­tion of the task of race blend­ing, na­tion­al­ism wanes, and the broth­er­hood of man re­ally be­gins to ma­te­ri­al­ize. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment be­gins to take the place of the monar­chial or pa­ter­nal form of ruler­ship. The ed­u­ca­tional sys­tem be­comes world-wide, and grad­u­ally the lan­guages of the races give way to the tongue of the vi­o­let peo­ple. Uni­ver­sal peace and co-op­er­a­tion are sel­dom at­tained un­til the races are fairly well blended, and un­til they speak a com­mon lan­guage.

• common language › promotes peace, culture, happiness
• multiplication of multilinguists furthers brotherhood

52:6.31. So­cial fra­ter­nity. Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of in­ter­na­tional and in­ter­ra­cial so­cial con­tacts and fra­ter­nal as­so­ci­a­tions through travel, com­merce, and com­pet­i­tive play. De­vel­op­ment of a com­mon lan­guage and the mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of mul­ti­lin­guists. The racial and na­tional in­ter­change of stu­dents, teach­ers, in­dus­tri­al­ists, and re­li­gious philoso­phers.

• common language › absence is great handicap

55:3.21The great hand­i­cap con­fronting Uran­tia in the mat­ter of at­tain­ing the high plan­e­tary des­tiny of light and life is em­braced in the prob­lems of dis­ease, de­gen­er­acy, war, mul­ti­col­ored races, and mul­ti­lin­gual­ism.

55:3.22No evo­lu­tion­ary world can hope to pro­gress be­yond the first stage of set­tled­ness in light un­til it has achieved one lan­guage, one re­li­gion, and one phi­los­o­phy. Be­ing of one race greatly fa­cil­i­tates such achieve­ment, but the many peo­ples of Uran­tia do not pre­clude the at­tain­ment of higher stages.

• celestial languages › languages of Salvington and Uversa learned by humans in light and life

55:6.6We ob­serve that on these highly evolved and long sev­enth-stage worlds hu­man be­ings fully learn the lo­cal uni­verse lan­guage be­fore they are trans­lated; and I have vis­ited a few very old plan­ets where aban­don­ters were teach­ing the older mor­tals the tongue of the super­uni­verse. And on these worlds I have ob­served the tech­nique whereby the ab­so­nite per­son­al­i­ties re­veal the pres­ence of the fi­nal­i­ters in the mor­ontia tem­ple.

• development of language › Primates developed

62:4.1Go­ing back to the birth of the su­pe­rior twins, one male and one fe­male, to the two lead­ing mem­bers of the mid-mam­mal tribe: These an­i­mal ba­bies were of an un­usual or­der; they had still less hair on their bod­ies than their par­ents and, when very young, in­sisted on walk­ing up­right. Their an­ces­tors had al­ways learned to walk on their hind legs, but these Pri­mates twins stood erect from the be­gin­ning. They at­tained a height of over five feet, and their heads grew larger in com­par­i­son with oth­ers among the tribe. While early learn­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with each other by means of signs and sounds, they were never able to make their peo­ple un­der­stand these new sym­bols.

• development of language › Andon and Fonta developed

62:5.7Very early they learned to en­gage in ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion; by the age of ten they had worked out an im­proved sign and word lan­guage of al­most half a hun­dred ideas and had greatly im­proved and ex­panded the crude com­mu­nica­tive tech­nique of their an­ces­tors. But try as hard as they might, they were able to teach only a few of their new signs and sym­bols to their par­ents.

• development of language › Andonic clans developed

63:4.6Be­fore the ex­ten­sive dis­per­sion of the An­donic clans a well-de­vel­oped lan­guage had evolved from their early ef­forts to in­ter­com­mu­ni­cate. This lan­guage con­tin­ued to grow, and al­most daily ad­di­tions were made to it be­cause of the new in­ven­tions and adap­ta­tions to en­vi­ron­ment which were de­vel­oped by these ac­tive, rest­less, and cu­ri­ous peo­ple. And this lan­guage be­came the word of Uran­tia, the tongue of the early hu­man fam­ily, un­til the later ap­pear­ance of the col­ored races.

• common language › Caligastia defection destroyed hope for

66:5.10The blue man was par­tial to al­pha­bet writ­ing and made the great­est prog­ress along such lines. The red man pre­ferred pic­to­rial writ­ing, while the yel­low races drifted into the use of sym­bols for words and ideas, much like those they now em­ploy. But the al­pha­bet and much more was sub­se­quently lost to the world dur­ing the con­fu­sion at­ten­dant upon re­bel­lion. The Cali­gas­tia de­fec­tion de­stroyed the hope of the world for a uni­ver­sal lan­guage, at least for un­told ages.

• development of language › backward races speak new dialect every 50 miles

68:1.6That con­tem­po­rary cul­tural so­ci­ety is a rather re­cent phe­nom­e­non is well shown by the pres­ent-day sur­vival of such prim­i­tive so­cial con­di­tions as char­ac­ter­ize the Aus­tralian na­tives and the Bush­men and Pyg­mies of Africa. Among these back­ward peo­ples may be ob­served some­thing of the early group hos­til­ity, per­sonal sus­pi­cion, and other highly an­ti­so­cial traits which were so char­ac­ter­is­tic of all prim­i­tive races. These mis­er­able rem­nants of the nonso­cial peo­ples of an­cient times bear elo­quent tes­ti­mony to the fact that the nat­u­ral in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic ten­dency of man can­not suc­cess­fully com­pete with the more po­tent and pow­er­ful or­ga­ni­za­tions and as­so­ci­a­tions of so­cial pro­gres­sion. These back­ward and sus­pi­cious an­ti­so­cial races that speak a dif­fer­ent di­alect ev­ery forty or fifty miles il­lus­trate what a world you might now be liv­ing in but for the com­bined teach­ing of the cor­po­real staff of the Plan­e­tary Prince and the later labors of the Adamic group of racial up­lifters.

• common language › money is universal language of trade
• common language › promotes peace, culture, happiness

70:3.5The ab­sence of a com­mon lan­guage has al­ways im­peded the growth of peace groups, but money has be­come the uni­ver­sal lan­guage of mod­ern trade. Mod­ern so­ci­ety is largely held to­gether by the in­dus­trial mar­ket. The gain mo­tive is a mighty civ­i­lizer when aug­mented by the de­sire to serve.

• development of language › ancient societies employed secret

70:7.15Se­cret so­ci­eties con­tributed to the build­ing up of so­cial castes chiefly by the mys­te­ri­ous char­ac­ter of their ini­ti­a­tions. The mem­bers of these so­ci­eties first wore masks to frighten the cu­ri­ous away from their mourn­ing rites—an­ces­tor wor­ship. Later this rit­ual de­vel­oped into a pseudo seance at which ghosts were re­puted to have ap­peared. The an­cient so­ci­eties of the “new birth” used signs and em­ployed a spe­cial se­cret lan­guage; they also for­swore cer­tain foods and drinks. They acted as night po­lice and oth­er­wise func­tioned in a wide range of so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties.

• common language › conquest of dialects

71:8.1210. The con­quest of di­alects—the tri­umph of a uni­ver­sal lan­guage.

• development of language › Amadon’s Andonic dialect was tongue of Eden

74:2.2The tongue of Eden was an An­donic di­alect as spo­ken by Amadon. Van and Amadon had markedly im­proved this lan­guage by cre­at­ing a new al­pha­bet of twenty-four let­ters, and they had hoped to see it be­come the tongue of Uran­tia as the Edenic cul­ture would spread through­out the world. Adam and Eve had fully mas­tered this hu­man di­alect be­fore they de­parted from Je­ru­sem so that this son of An­don heard the ex­alted ruler of his world ad­dress him in his own tongue.

• development of language › hundreds of local dialects in times of Adam

75:1.3Adam and Eve found them­selves on a sphere wholly un­pre­pared for the procla­ma­tion of the broth­er­hood of man, a world grop­ing about in ab­ject spir­i­tual dark­ness and cursed with con­fu­sion worse con­founded by the mis­car­riage of the mis­sion of the pre­ced­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion. Mind and morals were at a low level, and in­stead of be­gin­ning the task of ef­fect­ing re­li­gious unity, they must be­gin all anew the work of con­vert­ing the in­hab­i­tants to the most sim­ple forms of re­li­gious be­lief. In­stead of find­ing one lan­guage ready for adop­tion, they were con­fronted by the world-wide con­fu­sion of hun­dreds upon hun­dreds of lo­cal di­alects. No Adam of the plan­e­tary ser­vice was ever set down on a more dif­fi­cult world; the ob­sta­cles seemed in­su­per­a­ble and the prob­lems be­yond crea­ture so­lu­tion.

• development of language › similarity of Occidental tongues called Aryan

78:5.3The civ­i­liza­tion of Tur­kes­tan was con­stantly be­ing re­vived and re­freshed by the new­com­ers from Mes­o­po­ta­mia, es­pe­cially by the later And­ite cav­al­ry­men. The so-called Aryan mother tongue was in pro­cess of for­ma­tion in the high­lands of Tur­kes­tan; it was a blend of the An­donic di­alect of that re­gion with the lan­guage of the Ad­am­son­ites and later And­ites. Many mod­ern lan­guages are de­rived from this early speech of these cen­tral Asian tribes who con­quered Eu­rope, In­dia, and the up­per stretches of the Mes­o­po­ta­mian plains. This an­cient lan­guage gave the Oc­ci­den­tal tongues all of that sim­i­lar­ity which is called Aryan.

• common language › absence prevented full reciprocation of Occidental nations

80:9.16This Eu­ro­pean cul­ture for five thou­sand years con­tin­ued to grow and to some ex­tent in­ter­min­gle. But the bar­rier of lan­guage pre­vented the full re­cip­ro­ca­tion of the var­i­ous Oc­ci­den­tal na­tions. Dur­ing the past cen­tury this cul­ture has been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing its best op­por­tu­nity for blend­ing in the cos­mopoli­tan pop­u­la­tion of North Amer­ica; and the fu­ture of that con­ti­nent will be de­ter­mined by the qual­ity of the racial fac­tors which are per­mit­ted to en­ter into its pres­ent and fu­ture pop­u­la­tions, as well as by the level of the so­cial cul­ture which is main­tained.

• development of language › great need for further development
• nature of language › man’s most serviceable thinking tool

81:6.166. Ef­fec­tive­ness of lan­guage. The spread of civ­i­liza­tion must wait upon lan­guage. Live and grow­ing lan­guages in­sure the ex­pan­sion of civ­i­lized think­ing and plan­ning. Dur­ing the early ages im­por­tant ad­vances were made in lan­guage. To­day, there is great need for fur­ther lin­guis­tic de­vel­op­ment to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­pres­sion of evolv­ing thought.

81:6.17Lan­guage evolved out of group as­so­ci­a­tions, each lo­cal group de­vel­op­ing its own sys­tem of word ex­change. Lan­guage grew up through ges­tures, signs, cries, im­i­ta­tive sounds, in­to­na­tion, and ac­cent to the vo­cal­iza­tion of sub­se­quent al­pha­bets. Lan­guage is man’s great­est and most ser­vice­able think­ing tool, but it never flour­ished un­til so­cial groups ac­quired some leisure. The ten­dency to play with lan­guage de­vel­ops new words—slang. If the ma­jor­ity adopt the slang, then us­age con­sti­tutes it lan­guage. The ori­gin of di­alects is il­lus­trated by the in­dul­gence in “baby talk” in a fam­ily group.

• common language › promotes peace, culture, happiness

81:6.18Lan­guage dif­fer­ences have ever been the great bar­rier to the ex­ten­sion of peace. The con­quest of di­alects must pre­cede the spread of a cul­ture through­out a race, over a con­ti­nent, or to a whole world. A uni­ver­sal lan­guage pro­motes peace, in­sures cul­ture, and aug­ments hap­pi­ness. Even when the tongues of a world are re­duced to a few, the mas­tery of these by the lead­ing cul­tural peo­ples might­ily in­flu­ences the achieve­ment of world-wide peace and pros­per­ity.

81:6.19While very lit­tle prog­ress has been made on Uran­tia to­ward de­vel­op­ing an in­ter­na­tional lan­guage, much has been ac­com­plished by the es­tab­lish­ment of in­ter­na­tional com­mer­cial ex­change. And all these in­ter­na­tional re­la­tions should be fos­tered, whether they in­volve lan­guage, trade, art, sci­ence, com­pet­i­tive play, or re­li­gion.

• nature of language › basis of civilization; makes knowledge and wisdom cumulative

81:6.238. Char­ac­ter of torch­bear­ers. So­cial in­her­i­tance en­ables man to stand on the shoul­ders of all who have pre­ceded him, and who have con­tributed aught to the sum of cul­ture and knowl­edge. In this work of pass­ing on the cul­tural torch to the next gen­er­a­tion, the home will ever be the ba­sic in­sti­tu­tion. The play and so­cial life comes next, with the school last but equally in­dis­pens­able in a com­plex and highly or­ga­nized so­ci­ety.

• development of language › fossils of superstition

88:6.7Grad­u­ally sci­ence is re­mov­ing the gam­bling el­e­ment from life. But if mod­ern meth­ods of ed­u­ca­tion should fail, there would be an al­most im­me­di­ate re­ver­sion to the prim­i­tive be­liefs in magic. These su­per­sti­tions still linger in the minds of many so-called civ­i­lized peo­ple. Lan­guage con­tains many fos­sils which tes­tify that the race has long been steeped in mag­i­cal su­per­sti­tion, such words as spell­bound, ill-starred, pos­ses­sions, in­spi­ra­tion, spirit away, in­ge­nu­ity, en­tranc­ing, thun­der­struck, and as­ton­ished. And in­tel­li­gent hu­man be­ings still be­lieve in good luck, the evil eye, and as­trol­ogy.

• priests conduct ritual in ancient tongue

90:5.6The priests have al­ways sought to im­press and awe the com­mon peo­ple by con­duct­ing the re­li­gious rit­ual in an an­cient tongue and by sundry mag­i­cal passes so to mys­tify the wor­shipers as to en­hance their own piety and au­thor­ity. The great dan­ger in all this is that the rit­ual tends to be­come a sub­sti­tute for re­li­gion.

• development of language › sentimental retention of olden nomenclature
• limitations of human language

94:12.1The great weak­ness in the cos­mol­ogy of Bud­dhism was two­fold: its con­tam­i­na­tion with many of the su­per­sti­tions of In­dia and China and its sub­li­ma­tion of Gau­tama, first as the en­light­ened one, and then as the Eter­nal Bud­dha. Just as Chris­tian­ity has suf­fered from the ab­sorp­tion of much er­ro­neous hu­man phi­los­o­phy, so does Bud­dhism bear its hu­man birth­mark. But the teach­ings of Gau­tama have con­tin­ued to evolve dur­ing the past two and one-half mil­len­ni­ums. The con­cept of Bud­dha, to an en­light­ened Bud­dhist, is no more the hu­man per­son­al­ity of Gau­tama than the con­cept of Je­ho­vah is iden­ti­cal with the spirit de­mon of Ho­reb to an en­light­ened Chris­tian. Paucity of ter­mi­nol­ogy, to­gether with the sen­ti­men­tal re­ten­tion of olden nomen­cla­ture, is of­ten provoca­tive of the fail­ure to un­der­stand the true sig­nif­i­cance of the evo­lu­tion of re­li­gious con­cepts.

• limitations of human language

105:0.3The hu­man mind can hardly form an ad­e­quate con­cept of eter­nity ex­is­tences, and with­out such com­pre­hen­sion it is im­pos­si­ble to por­tray even our con­cepts of re­al­ity to­tal­ity. Nev­er­the­less, we may at­tempt such a pre­sen­ta­tion, al­though we are fully aware that our con­cepts must be sub­jected to pro­found dis­tor­tion in the pro­cess of trans­la­tion-mod­i­fi­ca­tion to the com­pre­hen­sion level of mor­tal mind.

• limitations of human language

105:3.10It is a truth that the Ab­so­lutes are man­i­fes­ta­tions of the I AM-First Source and Cen­ter; it is a fact that these Ab­so­lutes never had a be­gin­ning but are co-or­di­nate eter­nals with the First Source and Cen­ter. The re­la­tion­ships of ab­so­lutes in eter­nity can­not al­ways be pre­sented with­out in­volv­ing para­doxes in the lan­guage of time and in the con­cept pat­terns of space. But re­gard­less of any con­fu­sion con­cern­ing the ori­gin of the Seven Ab­so­lutes of In­fin­ity, it is both fact and truth that all re­al­ity is pred­i­cated upon their eter­nity ex­is­tence and in­fin­ity re­la­tion­ships.

• limitations of human language

106:0.111. The lim­i­ta­tions of mor­tal lan­guage.

• development of language › development of speech coincident with acquiring will, receiving Adjusters

109:4.1The higher forms of in­tel­li­gent in­ter­com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween hu­man be­ings are greatly helped by the in­dwelling Ad­justers. An­i­mals do have fel­low feel­ings, but they do not com­mu­ni­cate con­cepts to each other; they can ex­press emo­tions but not ideas and ide­als. Nei­ther do men of an­i­mal ori­gin ex­pe­ri­ence a high type of in­tel­lec­tual in­ter­course or spir­i­tual com­mu­nion with their fel­lows un­til the Thought Ad­justers have been be­stowed, al­beit, when such evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures de­velop speech, they are on the high­road to re­ceiv­ing Ad­justers.

• limitations of human language

112:5.11There are two dif­fi­cul­ties that ham­per my ef­forts to ex­plain just what hap­pens to you in death, the sur­viv­ing you which is dis­tinct from the de­part­ing Ad­juster. One of these con­sists in the im­pos­si­bil­ity of con­vey­ing to your level of com­pre­hen­sion an ad­e­quate de­scrip­tion of a trans­ac­tion on the bor­der­land of the phys­i­cal and mor­ontia realms. The other is brought about by the re­stric­tions placed upon my com­mis­sion as a rev­e­la­tor of truth by the ce­les­tial gov­ern­ing au­thor­i­ties of Uran­tia. There are many in­ter­est­ing de­tails which might be pre­sented, but I with­hold them upon the ad­vice of your im­me­di­ate plan­e­tary super­vi­sors. But within the lim­its of my per­mis­sion I can say this much:

• beyond Supreme, concepts are less true designations of reality

115:3.4It is only man’s dis­tance from in­fin­ity that causes this con­cept to be ex­pressed as one word. While in­fin­ity is on the one hand UNITY, on the other it is DI­VER­SITY with­out end or limit. In­fin­ity, as it is ob­served by fi­nite in­tel­li­gences, is the max­i­mum para­dox of crea­ture phi­los­o­phy and fi­nite meta­physics. Though man’s spir­i­tual na­ture reaches up in the wor­ship ex­pe­ri­ence to the Fa­ther who is in­fi­nite, man’s in­tel­lec­tual com­pre­hen­sion ca­pac­ity is ex­hausted by the max­i­mum con­cep­tion of the Su­preme Be­ing. Be­yond the Su­preme, con­cepts are in­creas­ingly names; less and less are they true des­ig­na­tions of re­al­ity; more and more do they be­come the crea­ture’s pro­jec­tion of fi­nite un­der­stand­ing to­ward the super­fi­nite.

• use of Greek caused early Christian church to turn west

121:6.2In the days of Je­sus three lan­guages pre­vailed in Pales­tine: The com­mon peo­ple spoke some di­alect of Ara­maic; the priests and rab­bis spoke He­brew; the ed­u­cated classes and the bet­ter strata of Jews in gen­eral spoke Greek. The early trans­la­tion of the He­brew scrip­tures into Greek at Alexan­dria was re­spon­si­ble in no small mea­sure for the sub­se­quent pre­dom­i­nance of the Greek wing of Jew­ish cul­ture and the­ol­ogy. And the writ­ings of the Chris­tian teach­ers were soon to ap­pear in the same lan­guage. The re­nais­sance of Ju­daism dates from the Greek trans­la­tion of the He­brew scrip­tures. This was a vi­tal in­flu­ence which later de­ter­mined the drift of Paul’s Chris­tian cult to­ward the West in­stead of to­ward the East.

• revelators of Urantia Papers › used human concepts as more acceptable to human minds

121:8.12[Ac­knowl­edg­ment: In car­ry­ing out my com­mis­sion to re­state the teach­ings and retell the do­ings of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, I have drawn freely upon all sources of rec­ord and plan­e­tary in­for­ma­tion. My rul­ing mo­tive has been to pre­pare a rec­ord which will not only be en­light­en­ing to the gen­er­a­tion of men now liv­ing, but which may also be help­ful to all fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. From the vast store of in­for­ma­tion made avail­able to me, I have cho­sen that which is best suited to the ac­com­plish­ment of this pur­pose. As far as pos­si­ble I have de­rived my in­for­ma­tion from purely hu­man sources. Only when such sources failed, have I re­sorted to those rec­ords which are super­hu­man. When ideas and con­cepts of Je­sus’ life and teach­ings have been ac­cept­ably ex­pressed by a hu­man mind, I in­vari­ably gave pref­er­ence to such ap­par­ently hu­man thought pat­terns. Al­though I have sought to ad­just the ver­bal ex­pres­sion the bet­ter to con­form to our con­cept of the real mean­ing and the true im­port of the Mas­ter’s life and teach­ings, as far as pos­si­ble, I have ad­hered to the ac­tual hu­man con­cept and thought pat­tern in all my nar­ra­tives. I well know that those con­cepts which have had ori­gin in the hu­man mind will prove more ac­cept­able and help­ful to all other hu­man minds. When un­able to find the nec­es­sary con­cepts in the hu­man rec­ords or in hu­man ex­pres­sions, I have next re­sorted to the mem­ory re­sources of my own or­der of earth crea­tures, the mid­way­ers. And when that sec­ondary source of in­for­ma­tion proved in­ad­e­quate, I have un­hesi­tat­ingly re­sorted to the super­plan­e­tary sources of in­for­ma­tion.

121:8.13The mem­o­randa which I have col­lected, and from which I have pre­pared this nar­ra­tive of the life and teach­ings of Je­sus—aside from the mem­ory of the rec­ord of the Apos­tle An­drew—em­brace thought gems and su­pe­rior con­cepts of Je­sus’ teach­ings as­sem­bled from more than two thou­sand hu­man be­ings who have lived on earth from the days of Je­sus down to the time of the in­dit­ing of these rev­e­la­tions, more cor­rectly re­state­ments. The rev­e­la­tory per­mis­sion has been uti­lized only when the hu­man rec­ord and hu­man con­cepts failed to sup­ply an ad­e­quate thought pat­tern. My rev­e­la­tory com­mis­sion for­bade me to re­sort to ex­trahu­man sources of ei­ther in­for­ma­tion or ex­pres­sion un­til such a time as I could tes­tify that I had failed in my ef­forts to find the re­quired con­cep­tual ex­pres­sion in purely hu­man sources.

121:8.14While I, with the col­lab­o­ra­tion of my eleven as­so­ciate fel­low mid­way­ers and un­der the super­vi­sion of the Mel­chiz­e­dek of rec­ord, have por­trayed this nar­ra­tive in ac­cor­dance with my con­cept of its ef­fec­tive ar­range­ment and in re­sponse to my choice of im­me­di­ate ex­pres­sion, nev­er­the­less, the ma­jor­ity of the ideas and even some of the ef­fec­tive ex­pres­sions which I have thus uti­lized had their ori­gin in the minds of the men of many races who have lived on earth dur­ing the in­ter­ven­ing gen­er­a­tions, right on down to those who are still alive at the time of this un­der­tak­ing. In many ways I have served more as a col­lec­tor and ed­i­tor than as an orig­i­nal nar­ra­tor. I have un­hesi­tat­ingly ap­pro­pri­ated those ideas and con­cepts, prefer­ably hu­man, which would en­able me to cre­ate the most ef­fec­tive por­trai­ture of Je­sus’ life, and which would qual­ify me to re­state his match­less teach­ings in the most strik­ingly help­ful and uni­ver­sally up­lift­ing phrase­ol­ogy. In be­half of the Broth­er­hood of the United Mid­way­ers of Uran­tia, I most grate­fully ac­knowl­edge our in­debt­ed­ness to all sources of rec­ord and con­cept which have been here­inafter uti­lized in the fur­ther elab­o­ra­tion of our re­state­ment of Je­sus’ life on earth.]

• revelators of Urantia Papers › used modern phraseology

130:1.4(In this nar­ra­tive of the per­sonal work of Je­sus with his fel­low mor­tals on this tour of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean, we shall, in ac­cor­dance with our per­mis­sion, freely trans­late his words into mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy cur­rent on Uran­tia at the time of this pre­sen­ta­tion.)

• development of language › animals cannot develop

130:2.8That af­ter­noon Je­sus and Ga­nid had both en­joyed play­ing with a very in­tel­li­gent shep­herd dog, and Ga­nid wanted to know whether the dog had a soul, whether it had a will, and in re­sponse to his ques­tions Je­sus said: “The dog has a mind which can know ma­te­rial man, his mas­ter, but can­not know God, who is spirit; there­fore the dog does not pos­sess a spir­i­tual na­ture and can­not en­joy a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. The dog may have a will de­rived from na­ture and aug­mented by train­ing, but such a power of mind is not a spir­i­tual force, nei­ther is it com­pa­ra­ble to the hu­man will, inas­much as it is not re­flec­tive—it is not the re­sult of dis­crim­i­nat­ing higher and moral mean­ings or choos­ing spir­i­tual and eter­nal val­ues. It is the pos­ses­sion of such pow­ers of spir­i­tual dis­crim­i­na­tion and truth choos­ing that makes mor­tal man a moral be­ing, a crea­ture en­dowed with the at­tri­butes of spir­i­tual re­spon­si­bil­ity and the po­ten­tial of eter­nal sur­vival.” Je­sus went on to ex­plain that it is the ab­sence of such men­tal pow­ers in the an­i­mal which makes it for­ever im­pos­si­ble for the an­i­mal world to de­velop lan­guage in time or to ex­pe­ri­ence any­thing equiv­a­lent to per­son­al­ity sur­vival in eter­nity. As a re­sult of this day’s in­struc­tion Ga­nid never again en­ter­tained be­lief in the trans­mi­gra­tion of the souls of men into the bod­ies of an­i­mals.

• common language › favors global religion

134:6.11Un­der global gov­ern­ment the na­tional groups will be af­forded a real op­por­tu­nity to re­al­ize and en­joy the per­sonal lib­er­ties of gen­uine democ­racy. The fal­lacy of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion will be ended. With global reg­u­la­tion of money and trade will come the new era of world-wide peace. Soon may a global lan­guage evolve, and there will be at least some hope of some­time hav­ing a global re­li­gion—or re­li­gions with a global view­point.

• limitations of human language

147:4.3When the Mas­ter had spo­ken, Na­than­iel stood up and said: “But, Mas­ter, you should not think that I ap­prove of such an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of your teach­ing. I asked the ques­tion be­cause I con­jec­tured that many such men might thus mis­judge your ad­mo­ni­tion, and I hoped you would give us fur­ther in­struc­tion re­gard­ing these mat­ters.” And then when Na­than­iel had sat down, Je­sus con­tin­ued speak­ing: “I well know, Na­than­iel, that no such idea of evil is ap­proved in your mind, but I am dis­ap­pointed in that you all so of­ten fail to put a gen­uinely spir­i­tual in­ter­pre­ta­tion upon my com­mon­place teach­ings, in­struc­tion which must be given you in hu­man lan­guage and as men must speak. Let me now teach you con­cern­ing the dif­fer­ing lev­els of mean­ing at­tached to the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of this rule of liv­ing, this ad­mo­ni­tion to ‘do to oth­ers that which you de­sire oth­ers to do to you’:

• Jesus reversed meaning of many words; shunned flowery language

159:5.17In all his teach­ing Je­sus un­fail­ingly avoided dis­tract­ing de­tails. He shunned flow­ery lan­guage and avoided the mere po­etic im­agery of a play upon words. He ha­bit­u­ally put large mean­ings into small ex­pres­sions. For pur­poses of il­lus­tra­tion Je­sus re­versed the cur­rent mean­ings of many terms, such as salt, leaven, fish­ing, and lit­tle chil­dren. He most ef­fec­tively em­ployed the an­tithe­sis, com­par­ing the minute to the in­fi­nite and so on. His pic­tures were strik­ing, such as, “The blind lead­ing the blind.” But the great­est strength to be found in his il­lus­tra­tive teach­ing was its nat­u­ral­ness. Je­sus brought the phi­los­o­phy of re­li­gion from heaven down to earth. He por­trayed the el­e­men­tal needs of the soul with a new in­sight and a new be­stowal of af­fec­tion.

• nature of language › communication with symbols

160:2.1There are just two ways in which mor­tals may live to­gether: the ma­te­rial or an­i­mal way and the spir­i­tual or hu­man way. By the use of sig­nals and sounds an­i­mals are able to com­mu­ni­cate with each other in a lim­ited way. But such forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion do not con­vey mean­ings, val­ues, or ideas. The one dis­tinc­tion be­tween man and the an­i­mal is that man can com­mu­ni­cate with his fel­lows by means of sym­bols which most cer­tainly des­ig­nate and iden­tify mean­ings, val­ues, ideas, and even ide­als.

• nature of language › basis of civilization; makes knowledge and wisdom cumulative

160:2.3It is this abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate and share mean­ings that con­sti­tutes hu­man cul­ture and en­ables man, through so­cial as­so­ci­a­tions, to build civ­i­liza­tions. Knowl­edge and wis­dom be­come cu­mu­la­tive be­cause of man’s abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate these pos­ses­sions to suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions. And thereby arise the cul­tural ac­tiv­i­ties of the race: art, sci­ence, re­li­gion, and phi­los­o­phy.

• weigh consequences of words

192:2.8Then Je­sus turned to James, ask­ing, “James, do you trust me?” And of course James replied, “Yes, Mas­ter, I trust you with all my heart.” Then said Je­sus: “James, if you trust me more, you will be less im­pa­tient with your breth­ren. If you will trust me, it will help you to be kind to the broth­er­hood of be­liev­ers. Learn to weigh the con­se­quences of your say­ings and your do­ings. Re­mem­ber that the reap­ing is in ac­cor­dance with the sow­ing. Pray for tran­quil­lity of spirit and cul­ti­vate pa­tience. These graces, with liv­ing faith, shall sus­tain you when the hour comes to drink the cup of sac­ri­fice. But never be dis­mayed; when you are through on earth, you shall also come to be with me.”

• words cannot thrill like seeing

195:9.8The world needs more first­hand re­li­gion. Even Chris­tian­ity—the best of the re­li­gions of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury—is not only a re­li­gion about Je­sus, but it is so largely one which men ex­pe­ri­ence sec­ond­hand. They take their re­li­gion wholly as handed down by their ac­cepted re­li­gious teach­ers. What an awak­en­ing the world would ex­pe­ri­ence if it could only see Je­sus as he re­ally lived on earth and know, first­hand, his life-giv­ing teach­ings! De­scrip­tive words of things beau­ti­ful can­not thrill like the sight thereof, nei­ther can creedal words in­spire men’s souls like the ex­pe­ri­ence of know­ing the pres­ence of God. But ex­pec­tant faith will ever keep the hope-door of man’s soul open for the en­trance of the eter­nal spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the di­vine val­ues of the worlds be­yond.

• limitations of human language

196:3.28Re­li­gion stands above sci­ence, art, phi­los­o­phy, ethics, and morals, but not in­de­pen­dent of them. They are all in­dis­sol­ubly in­ter­re­lated in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, per­sonal and so­cial. Re­li­gion is man’s su­preme ex­pe­ri­ence in the mor­tal na­ture, but fi­nite lan­guage makes it for­ever im­pos­si­ble for the­ol­ogy ever ad­e­quately to de­pict real re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.