progress

• watchword of universe

4:1.2Can you not ad­vance in your con­cept of God’s deal­ing with man to that level where you rec­og­nize that the watch­word of the uni­verse is prog­ress? Through long ages the hu­man race has strug­gled to reach its pres­ent po­si­tion. Through­out all these mil­len­ni­ums Prov­i­dence has been work­ing out the plan of pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion. The two thoughts are not op­posed in prac­tice, only in man’s mis­taken con­cepts. Di­vine prov­i­dence is never ar­rayed in op­po­si­tion to true hu­man prog­ress, ei­ther tem­po­ral or spir­i­tual. Prov­i­dence is al­ways con­sis­tent with the un­chang­ing and per­fect na­ture of the su­preme Law­maker.

• watchword of universe

9:1.3While you en­vis­age the Fa­ther as an orig­i­nal cre­ator and the Son as a spir­i­tual ad­min­is­tra­tor, you should think of the Third Source and Cen­ter as a uni­ver­sal co-or­di­na­tor, a min­is­ter of un­lim­ited co-op­er­a­tion. The Con­joint Ac­tor is the cor­re­la­tor of all ac­tual re­al­ity; he is the De­ity re­pos­i­tory of the Fa­ther’s thought and the Son’s word and in ac­tion is eter­nally re­gard­ful of the ma­te­rial ab­so­lute­ness of the cen­tral Isle. The Par­a­dise Trin­ity has or­dained the uni­ver­sal or­der of prog­ress, and the prov­i­dence of God is the do­main of the Con­joint Cre­ator and the evolv­ing Su­preme Be­ing. No ac­tual or ac­tu­al­iz­ing re­al­ity can es­cape even­tual re­la­tion­ship with the Third Source and Cen­ter.

• of part and whole

12:7.11Broth­er­hood con­sti­tutes a fact of re­la­tion­ship be­tween ev­ery per­son­al­ity in uni­ver­sal ex­is­tence. No per­son can es­cape the ben­e­fits or the penal­ties that may come as a re­sult of re­la­tion­ship to other per­sons. The part prof­its or suf­fers in mea­sure with the whole. The good ef­fort of each man ben­e­fits all men; the er­ror or evil of each man aug­ments the tribu­la­tion of all men. As moves the part, so moves the whole. As the prog­ress of the whole, so the prog­ress of the part. The rel­a­tive ve­loc­i­ties of part and whole de­ter­mine whether the part is re­tarded by the in­er­tia of the whole or is car­ried for­ward by the mo­men­tum of the cos­mic broth­er­hood.

• factors favoring progress › proper conduct essential to

27:4.2Har­mony is the keynote of the cen­tral uni­verse, and de­tectable or­der pre­vails on Par­a­dise. Proper con­duct is es­sen­tial to prog­ress by way of knowl­edge, through phi­los­o­phy, to the spir­i­tual heights of spon­ta­neous wor­ship. There is a di­vine tech­nique in the ap­proach to Di­vin­ity; and the ac­quire­ment of this tech­nique must await the pil­grims’ ar­rival on Par­a­dise. The spirit of it has been im­parted on the cir­cles of Ha­vona, but the fi­nal touches of the train­ing of the pil­grims of time can be ap­plied only af­ter they ac­tu­ally at­tain the Isle of Light.

• made possible by inherent motion

28:6.18The uni­ver­sal econ­omy is based on in­take and out­put; through­out the eter­nal ca­reer you will never en­counter mo­not­ony of in­ac­tion or stag­na­tion of per­son­al­ity. Prog­ress is made pos­si­ble by in­her­ent mo­tion, ad­vance­ment grows out of the di­vine ca­pac­ity for ac­tion, and achieve­ment is the child of imag­i­na­tive ad­ven­ture. But in­her­ent in this ca­pac­ity for achieve­ment is the re­spon­si­bil­ity of ethics, the ne­ces­sity for rec­og­niz­ing that the world and the uni­verse are filled with a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ing types of be­ings. All of this mag­nif­i­cent cre­ation, in­clud­ing your­self, was not made just for you. This is not an ego­cen­tric uni­verse. The Gods have de­creed, “It is more blessed to give than to re­ceive,” and said your Mas­ter Son, “He who would be great­est among you let him be server of all.”

• factors favoring progress › ethics is seed and secret of

39:3.74. Eth­i­cal Sen­si­tiz­ers. It is the mis­sion of these ser­a­phim to fos­ter and to pro­mote the growth of crea­ture ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the moral­ity of in­ter­per­sonal re­la­tion­ships, for such is the seed and se­cret of the con­tin­ued and pur­pose­ful growth of so­ci­ety and gov­ern­ment, hu­man or super­hu­man. These en­hancers of eth­i­cal ap­pre­ci­a­tion func­tion any­where and ev­ery­where they may be of ser­vice, as vol­un­teer coun­selors to the plan­e­tary rulers and as ex­change teach­ers on the sys­tem train­ing worlds. You will not, how­ever, come un­der their full guid­ance un­til you reach the broth­er­hood schools on Eden­tia, where they will quicken your ap­pre­ci­a­tion of those very truths of fra­ter­nity which you will even then be so earnestly ex­plor­ing by the ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing with the uni­v­i­ta­tia in the so­cial lab­o­ra­to­ries of Eden­tia, the sev­enty satel­lites of the Nor­la­ti­adek cap­i­tal.

• occurs slowly by gradual stages

39:4.12These ser­a­phim teach the fruit­ful­ness of pa­tience: That stag­na­tion is cer­tain death, but that over­rapid growth is equally sui­ci­dal; that as a drop of wa­ter from a higher level falls to a lower and, flow­ing on­ward, passes ever down­ward through a suc­ces­sion of short falls, so ever up­ward is prog­ress in the mor­ontia and spirit worlds—and just as slowly and by just such grad­ual stages.

• evolutionary capacity of universe is inexhaustible

42:11.7Since mind co-or­di­nates the uni­verse, fix­ity of mech­a­nisms is nonex­is­tent. The phe­nom­e­non of pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion as­so­ci­ated with cos­mic self-main­te­nance is uni­ver­sal. The evo­lu­tion­ary ca­pac­ity of the uni­verse is in­ex­haustible in the in­fin­ity of spon­tane­ity. Prog­ress to­wards har­mo­nious unity, a grow­ing ex­pe­ri­en­tial syn­the­sis super­im­posed on an ever-in­creas­ing com­plex­ity of re­la­tion­ships, could be ef­fected only by a pur­po­sive and dom­i­nant mind.

• demands development of individuality

48:7.2927. Prog­ress de­mands de­vel­op­ment of in­di­vid­u­al­ity; medi­ocrity seeks per­pet­u­a­tion in stan­dard­iza­tion.

• of planet depends on age, biologic uplifters, and missions of divine Sons

49:4.7Hu­man be­ings are all gre­gar­i­ous, both tribal and racial. These group seg­re­ga­tions are in­her­ent in their ori­gin and con­sti­tu­tion. Such ten­den­cies can be mod­i­fied only by ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion and by grad­ual spir­i­tu­al­iza­tion. The so­cial, eco­nomic, and gov­ern­men­tal prob­lems of the in­hab­ited worlds vary in ac­cor­dance with the age of the plan­ets and the de­gree to which they have been in­flu­enced by the suc­ces­sive so­journs of the di­vine Sons.

• of planet depends on age, biologic uplifters, and missions of divine Sons

49:5.16All such com­par­a­tive es­ti­mates con­cern­ing the in­tel­lec­tual prog­ress or the spir­i­tual at­tain­ments of any world or group of worlds should in fair­ness rec­og­nize plan­e­tary age; much, very much, de­pends on age, the help of the bi­o­logic up­lifters, and the sub­se­quent mis­sions of the var­i­ous or­ders of the di­vine Sons.

• factors favoring progress › cold, hunger stimulate invention, resourcefulness

64:1.3These An­don­ites avoided the forests in con­trast with the habits of their non­hu­man rel­a­tives. In the forests man has al­ways de­te­ri­o­rated; hu­man evo­lu­tion has made prog­ress only in the open and in the higher lat­i­tudes. The cold and hunger of the open lands stim­u­late ac­tion, in­ven­tion, and re­source­ful­ness. While these An­donic tribes were de­vel­op­ing the pi­o­neers of the pres­ent hu­man race amidst the hard­ships and pri­va­tions of these rugged north­ern climes, their back­ward cousins were lux­u­ri­at­ing in the south­ern trop­i­cal forests of the land of their early com­mon ori­gin.

• factors favoring progress › knowledge and wisdom

65:8.4As mind evo­lu­tion is de­pen­dent on, and de­layed by, the slow de­vel­op­ment of phys­i­cal con­di­tions, so is spir­i­tual prog­ress de­pen­dent on men­tal ex­pan­sion and un­fail­ingly de­layed by in­tel­lec­tual re­tar­da­tion. But this does not mean that spir­i­tual evo­lu­tion is de­pen­dent on ed­u­ca­tion, cul­ture, or wis­dom. The soul may evolve re­gard­less of men­tal cul­ture but not in the ab­sence of men­tal ca­pac­ity and de­sire—the choice of sur­vival and the de­ci­sion to achieve ever-in­creas­ing per­fec­tion—to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. Al­though sur­vival may not de­pend on the pos­ses­sion of knowl­edge and wis­dom, pro­gres­sion most cer­tainly does.

• p. by evolution, not revolution

66:6.6The Dala­ma­tia teach­ers sought to add con­scious so­cial se­lec­tion to the purely nat­u­ral se­lec­tion of bi­o­logic evo­lu­tion. They did not de­range hu­man so­ci­ety, but they did markedly ac­cel­er­ate its nor­mal and nat­u­ral evo­lu­tion. Their mo­tive was pro­gres­sion by evo­lu­tion and not rev­o­lu­tion by rev­e­la­tion. The hu­man race had spent ages in ac­quir­ing the lit­tle re­li­gion and morals it had, and these super­men knew bet­ter than to rob man­kind of these few ad­vances by the con­fu­sion and dis­may which al­ways re­sult when en­light­ened and su­pe­rior be­ings un­der­take to up­lift the back­ward races by overteach­ing and over­en­light­en­ment.

• p. by evolution, not revolution

67:5.1Great con­fu­sion reigned in Dala­ma­tia and there­about for al­most fifty years af­ter the in­sti­ga­tion of re­bel­lion. The com­plete and rad­i­cal re­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the whole world was at­tempted; rev­o­lu­tion dis­placed evo­lu­tion as the pol­icy of cul­tural ad­vance­ment and racial im­prove­ment. Among the su­pe­rior and par­tially trained so­journ­ers in and near Dala­ma­tia there ap­peared a sud­den ad­vance­ment in cul­tural sta­tus, but when these new and rad­i­cal meth­ods were at­tempted on the out­ly­ing peo­ples, in­de­scrib­able con­fu­sion and racial pan­de­mo­nium was the im­me­di­ate re­sult. Lib­erty was quickly trans­lated into li­cense by the half-evolved prim­i­tive men of those days.

• religion lifts civilization from chaos

70:8.18But these mea­sures can bear their true fruits only in the dis­tant mil­len­ni­ums of the fu­ture, al­though much so­cial im­prove­ment will im­me­di­ately re­sult from the in­tel­li­gent, wise, and pa­tient ma­nip­u­la­tion of these ac­cel­er­a­tion fac­tors of cul­tural prog­ress. Re­li­gion is the mighty lever that lifts civ­i­liza­tion from chaos, but it is pow­er­less apart from the ful­crum of sound and nor­mal mind rest­ing se­curely on sound and nor­mal hered­ity.

• great social or economic change should not be attempted suddenly

71:1.22The great weak­ness in Ro­man civ­i­liza­tion, and a fac­tor in the ul­ti­mate col­lapse of the em­pire, was the sup­posed lib­eral and ad­vanced pro­vi­sion for the eman­ci­pa­tion of the boy at twenty-one and the un­con­di­tional re­lease of the girl so that she was at lib­erty to marry a man of her own choos­ing or to go abroad in the land to be­come im­moral. The harm to so­ci­ety con­sisted not in these re­forms them­selves but rather in the sud­den and ex­ten­sive man­ner of their adop­tion. The col­lapse of Rome in­di­cates what may be ex­pected when a state un­der­goes too rapid ex­ten­sion as­so­ci­ated with in­ter­nal de­gen­er­a­tion.

• intolerance everlastingly inimical to

71:3.2Much as it is to be re­gret­ted, na­tional ego­tism has been es­sen­tial to so­cial sur­vival. The cho­sen peo­ple doc­trine has been a prime fac­tor in tribal weld­ing and na­tion build­ing right on down to mod­ern times. But no state can at­tain ideal lev­els of func­tion­ing un­til ev­ery form of in­tol­er­ance is mas­tered; it is ev­er­last­ingly in­im­i­cal to hu­man prog­ress. And in­tol­er­ance is best com­bated by the co-or­di­na­tion of sci­ence, com­merce, play, and re­li­gion.

• static conditions indicate decay

71:4.1Eco­nomics, so­ci­ety, and gov­ern­ment must evolve if they are to re­main. Static con­di­tions on an evo­lu­tion­ary world are in­dica­tive of de­cay; only those in­sti­tu­tions which move for­ward with the evo­lu­tion­ary stream per­sist.

• great social or economic change should not be attempted suddenly

81:6.40Man should be un­afraid to ex­per­i­ment with the mech­a­nisms of so­ci­ety. But al­ways should these ad­ven­tures in cul­tural ad­just­ment be con­trolled by those who are fully con­ver­sant with the his­tory of so­cial evo­lu­tion; and al­ways should these in­no­va­tors be coun­seled by the wis­dom of those who have had prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in the do­mains of con­tem­plated so­cial or eco­nomic ex­per­i­ment. No great so­cial or eco­nomic change should be at­tempted sud­denly. Time is es­sen­tial to all types of hu­man ad­just­ment—phys­i­cal, so­cial, or eco­nomic. Only moral and spir­i­tual ad­just­ments can be made on the spur of the mo­ment, and even these re­quire the pass­ing of time for the full out­work­ing of their ma­te­rial and so­cial reper­cus­sions. The ide­als of the race are the chief sup­port and as­sur­ance dur­ing the crit­i­cal times when civ­i­liza­tion is in tran­sit from one level to an­other.

• slow before discovery of printing

81:6.44This is the gist of the long, long strug­gle of the peo­ples of earth to es­tab­lish civ­i­liza­tion since the age of Adam. Pres­ent-day cul­ture is the net re­sult of this stren­u­ous evo­lu­tion. Be­fore the dis­cov­ery of print­ing, prog­ress was rel­a­tively slow since one gen­er­a­tion could not so rapidly ben­e­fit from the achieve­ments of its pre­de­ces­sors. But now hu­man so­ci­ety is plung­ing for­ward un­der the force of the ac­cu­mu­lated mo­men­tum of all the ages through which civ­i­liza­tion has strug­gled.

• factors favoring progress › God-consciousness indispensable to

94:6.12Like many other spir­i­tual and moral teach­ers, both Con­fu­cius and Lao-tse were even­tu­ally de­i­fied by their fol­low­ers in those spir­i­tu­ally dark ages of China which in­ter­vened be­tween the de­cline and per­ver­sion of the Taoist faith and the com­ing of the Bud­dhist mis­sion­ar­ies from In­dia. Dur­ing these spir­i­tu­ally deca­dent cen­turies the re­li­gion of the yel­low race de­gen­er­ated into a piti­ful the­ol­ogy wherein swarmed dev­ils, drag­ons, and evil spir­its, all be­to­ken­ing the re­turn­ing fears of the un­en­light­ened mor­tal mind. And China, once at the head of hu­man so­ci­ety be­cause of an ad­vanced re­li­gion, then fell be­hind be­cause of tem­po­rary fail­ure to pro­gress in the true path of the de­vel­op­ment of that God-con­scious­ness which is in­dis­pens­able to the true prog­ress, not only of the in­di­vid­ual mor­tal, but also of the in­tri­cate and com­plex civ­i­liza­tions which char­ac­ter­ize the ad­vance of cul­ture and so­ci­ety on an evo­lu­tion­ary planet of time and space.

• valueless without growth

100:3.6The as­so­ci­a­tion of ac­tu­als and po­ten­tials equals growth, the ex­pe­ri­en­tial re­al­iza­tion of val­ues. But growth is not mere prog­ress. Prog­ress is al­ways mean­ing­ful, but it is rel­a­tively val­ue­less with­out growth. The su­preme value of hu­man life con­sists in growth of val­ues, prog­ress in mean­ings, and re­al­iza­tion of the cos­mic in­ter­re­lat­ed­ness of both of these ex­pe­ri­ences. And such an ex­pe­ri­ence is the equiv­a­lent of God-con­scious­ness. Such a mor­tal, while not super­nat­u­ral, is truly be­com­ing super­hu­man; an im­mor­tal soul is evolv­ing.

• factors favoring progress › incessant activity; effort

102:2.7Evo­lu­tion­ary man does not nat­u­rally rel­ish hard work. To keep pace in his life ex­pe­ri­ence with the im­pelling de­mands and the com­pelling urges of a grow­ing re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence means in­ces­sant ac­tiv­ity in spir­i­tual growth, in­tel­lec­tual ex­pan­sion, fac­tual en­large­ment, and so­cial ser­vice. There is no real re­li­gion apart from a highly ac­tive per­son­al­ity. There­fore do the more in­do­lent of men of­ten seek to es­cape the rig­ors of truly re­li­gious ac­tiv­i­ties by a species of in­ge­nious self-de­cep­tion through re­sort­ing to a re­treat to the false shel­ter of stereo­typed re­li­gious doc­trines and dog­mas. But true re­li­gion is alive. In­tel­lec­tual crys­tal­liza­tion of re­li­gious con­cepts is the equiv­a­lent of spir­i­tual death. You can­not con­ceive of re­li­gion with­out ideas, but when re­li­gion once be­comes re­duced only to an idea, it is no longer re­li­gion; it has be­come merely a species of hu­man phi­los­o­phy.

102:2.8Again, there are other types of un­sta­ble and poorly dis­ci­plined souls who would use the sen­ti­men­tal ideas of re­li­gion as an av­enue of es­cape from the ir­ri­tat­ing de­mands of liv­ing. When cer­tain vac­il­lat­ing and timid mor­tals at­tempt to es­cape from the in­ces­sant pres­sure of evo­lu­tion­ary life, re­li­gion, as they con­ceive it, seems to pre­sent the near­est refuge, the best av­enue of es­cape. But it is the mis­sion of re­li­gion to pre­pare man for bravely, even hero­ically, fac­ing the vi­cis­si­tudes of life. Re­li­gion is evo­lu­tion­ary man’s su­preme en­dow­ment, the one thing which en­ables him to carry on and “en­dure as see­ing Him who is in­vis­i­ble.” Mys­ti­cism, how­ever, is of­ten some­thing of a re­treat from life which is em­braced by those hu­mans who do not rel­ish the more ro­bust ac­tiv­i­ties of liv­ing a re­li­gious life in the open are­nas of hu­man so­ci­ety and com­merce. True re­li­gion must act. Con­duct will be the re­sult of re­li­gion when man ac­tu­ally has it, or rather when re­li­gion is per­mit­ted truly to pos­sess the man. Never will re­li­gion be con­tent with mere think­ing or un­act­ing feel­ing.

102:2.9We are not blind to the fact that re­li­gion of­ten acts un­wisely, even ir­re­li­giously, but it acts. Aber­ra­tions of re­li­gious con­vic­tion have led to bloody per­se­cu­tions, but al­ways and ever re­li­gion does some­thing; it is dy­namic!

• factors favoring progress › incessant activity; effort

115:7.2All this must be ac­cord­ing to the Fa­ther’s plan, which has pred­i­cated fi­nite prog­ress upon ef­fort, crea­ture achieve­ment upon per­se­ver­ance, and per­son­al­ity de­vel­op­ment upon faith. By thus or­dain­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence-evo­lu­tion of the Su­preme, the Fa­ther has made it pos­si­ble for fi­nite crea­tures to ex­ist in the uni­verses and, by ex­pe­ri­en­tial pro­gres­sion, some­time to at­tain the di­vin­ity of Su­prem­acy.

• progressing person leaves trail of actualized reality

117:5.6The pro­gress­ing per­son­al­ity leaves a trail of ac­tu­al­ized re­al­ity as it passes through the as­cend­ing lev­els of the uni­verses. Be they mind, spirit, or en­ergy, the grow­ing cre­ations of time and space are mod­i­fied by the pro­gres­sion of per­son­al­ity through their do­mains. When man acts, the Su­preme re­acts, and this trans­ac­tion con­sti­tutes the fact of pro­gres­sion.

• mechanical dominance insures stability at expense of

118:8.3The spirit lib­er­ates, and the mech­a­nism lim­its, the func­tion of will. Im­per­fect choice, un­con­trolled by mech­a­nism, uniden­ti­fied with spirit, is dan­ger­ous and un­sta­ble. Me­chan­i­cal dom­i­nance in­sures sta­bil­ity at the ex­pense of prog­ress; spirit al­liance lib­er­ates choice from the phys­i­cal level and at the same time as­sures the di­vine sta­bil­ity pro­duced by aug­mented uni­verse in­sight and in­creased cos­mic com­pre­hen­sion.

• material inertia retards dangerous velocities of

118:8.6The slow­ness of evo­lu­tion, of hu­man cul­tural prog­ress, tes­ti­fies to the ef­fec­tive­ness of that brake—ma­te­rial in­er­tia—which so ef­fi­ciently op­er­ates to re­tard dan­ger­ous ve­loc­i­ties of prog­ress. Thus does time it­self cush­ion and dis­tribute the oth­er­wise lethal re­sults of pre­ma­ture es­cape from the next-en­com­pass­ing bar­ri­ers to hu­man ac­tion. For when cul­ture ad­vances over­fast, when ma­te­rial achieve­ment out­runs the evo­lu­tion of wor­ship-wis­dom, then does civ­i­liza­tion con­tain within it­self the seeds of ret­ro­gres­sion; and un­less but­tressed by the swift aug­men­ta­tion of ex­pe­ri­en­tial wis­dom, such hu­man so­ci­eties will re­cede from high but pre­ma­ture lev­els of at­tain­ment, and the “dark ages” of the in­ter­reg­num of wis­dom will bear wit­ness to the in­ex­orable restora­tion of the im­bal­ance be­tween self-lib­erty and self-con­trol.

• characterized by increasing freedom

132:3.10Uni­verse prog­ress is char­ac­ter­ized by in­creas­ing per­son­al­ity free­dom be­cause it is as­so­ci­ated with the pro­gres­sive at­tain­ment of higher and higher lev­els of self-un­der­stand­ing and con­se­quent vol­un­tary self-re­straint. The at­tain­ment of per­fec­tion of spir­i­tual self-re­straint equals com­plete­ness of uni­verse free­dom and per­sonal lib­erty. Faith fos­ters and main­tains man’s soul in the midst of the con­fu­sion of his early ori­en­ta­tion in such a vast uni­verse, whereas prayer be­comes the great uni­fier of the var­i­ous in­spi­ra­tions of the cre­ative imag­i­na­tion and the faith urges of a soul try­ing to iden­tify it­self with the spirit ide­als of the in­dwelling and as­so­ci­ated di­vine pres­ence.

• important thing is not the rapidity, but certainty of p.

147:5.7That same evening Je­sus made the long-to-be-re­mem­bered ad­dress to the apos­tles re­gard­ing the rel­a­tive value of sta­tus with God and prog­ress in the eter­nal as­cent to Par­a­dise. Said Je­sus: “My chil­dren, if there ex­ists a true and liv­ing con­nec­tion be­tween the child and the Fa­ther, the child is cer­tain to pro­gress con­tin­u­ously to­ward the Fa­ther’s ide­als. True, the child may at first make slow prog­ress, but the prog­ress is none the less sure. The im­por­tant thing is not the ra­pid­ity of your prog­ress but rather its cer­tainty. Your ac­tual achieve­ment is not so im­por­tant as the fact that the di­rec­tion of your prog­ress is God­ward. What you are be­com­ing day by day is of in­finitely more im­por­tance than what you are to­day.

• man should work to better his earthly estate

148:5.3“But, my son, you should know that the Fa­ther does not pur­posely af­flict his chil­dren. Man brings down upon him­self un­nec­es­sary af­flic­tion as a re­sult of his per­sis­tent re­fusal to walk in the bet­ter ways of the di­vine will. Af­flic­tion is po­ten­tial in evil, but much of it has been pro­duced by sin and in­iq­uity. Many un­usual events have tran­spired on this world, and it is not strange that all think­ing men should be per­plexed by the scenes of suf­fer­ing and af­flic­tion which they wit­ness. But of one thing you may be sure: The Fa­ther does not send af­flic­tion as an ar­bi­trary pun­ish­ment for wrong­do­ing. The im­per­fec­tions and hand­i­caps of evil are in­her­ent; the penal­ties of sin are in­ev­i­ta­ble; the de­stroy­ing con­se­quences of in­iq­uity are in­ex­orable. Man should not blame God for those af­flic­tions which are the nat­u­ral re­sult of the life which he chooses to live; nei­ther should man com­plain of those ex­pe­ri­ences which are a part of life as it is lived on this world. It is the Fa­ther’s will that mor­tal man should work per­sis­tently and con­sis­tently to­ward the bet­ter­ment of his es­tate on earth. In­tel­li­gent ap­pli­ca­tion would en­able man to over­come much of his earthly mis­ery.

• must go forward from where you find yourself

195:10.1Chris­tian­ity has in­deed done a great ser­vice for this world, but what is now most needed is Je­sus. The world needs to see Je­sus liv­ing again on earth in the ex­pe­ri­ence of spirit-born mor­tals who ef­fec­tively re­veal the Mas­ter to all men. It is fu­tile to talk about a re­vival of prim­i­tive Chris­tian­ity; you must go for­ward from where you find your­selves. Mod­ern cul­ture must be­come spir­i­tu­ally bap­tized with a new rev­e­la­tion of Je­sus’ life and il­lu­mi­nated with a new un­der­stand­ing of his gospel of eter­nal sal­va­tion. And when Je­sus be­comes thus lifted up, he will draw all men to him­self. Je­sus’ dis­ci­ples should be more than con­querors, even over­flow­ing sources of in­spi­ra­tion and en­hanced liv­ing to all men. Re­li­gion is only an ex­alted hu­man­ism un­til it is made di­vine by the dis­cov­ery of the re­al­ity of the pres­ence of God in per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence.

• effected, it appears, by conjoint revelational evolution

196:3.15Thus it ap­pears that all hu­man prog­ress is ef­fected by a tech­nique of con­joint rev­e­la­tional evo­lu­tion.