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The Religions of Man

Religion Evolutionary and Epochal

Religion is both evolutionary and revelatory. The traditional evolutionary religions grow up over long periods of time while the personal revelations of God flash on earth through the lives of the human teachers of truth that appear in every generation of man.

Epochal Revelations are new divine enlightening revelations of truth made by Divine Sons of God who periodically appear on earth as Representatives of God in the Spiritual upliftment of the human family.

Because so few human beings comprehend the ways in which the Most Highs infuse new spiritual truth into the stream of the evolutionary religions of time these new revelations are most often rejected by the majority of the world’s citizens. Not until those early students who embrace the new teachings begin to manifest a higher and newer revelation of God in their personal lives do ever greater numbers become attracted to the new teachings and their living manifestations of brotherly love and ever greater demonstrations of divine service to the human family.

While the religions of the world have a double origin — natural and revelatory — at any one time and among any one people there are to be found three distinct forms of religious devotion. And these three manifestations of the religious urge are:

1. Primitive religion. The seminatural and instinctive urge to fear mysterious energies and worship superior forces, chiefly a religion of the physical nature, the religion of fear.

2. The religion of civilization. The advancing religious concepts and practices of the civilizing races — the religion of the mind — the intellectual theology of the authority of established religious tradition. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confusism, Judaism, etc. etc.. A Theist or Deist can also be included if the religion is held only as a theory and does not become a personal living spiritual experience.

3. True religion — the religion of revelation. The revelation of supernatural values, a partial insight into eternal realities, a glimpse of the goodness and beauty of the infinite character of the Father in heaven — the religion of the spirit as demonstrated in human experience.

True religion is the act of an individual soul in its self-conscious relations with the Creator; organized religion is man’s attempt to socialize the worship of individual religionists.

True religion is man’s heartfelt loyalty to his highest and truest convictions.

  ^196:3.4 The full summation of human life is the knowledge that man is educated by fact, ennobled by wisdom, and saved -- justified -- by religious faith.

  ^196:3.5 Physical certainty consists in the logic of science; moral certainty, in the wisdom of philosophy; spiritual certainty, in the truth of genuine religious experience.

  ^196:3.6 The mind of man can attain high levels of spiritual insight and corresponding spheres of divinity of values because it is not wholly material. There is a spirit nucleus in the mind of man -- the Adjuster of the divine presence. There are three separate evidences of this spirit indwelling of the human mind:

  ^196:3.7 1. Humanitarian fellowship -- love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.

  ^196:3.8 2. Interpretation of the universe -- wisdom. Only the spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual.

  ^196:3.9 3. Spiritual evaluation of life -- worship. Only the spirit-indwelt man can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience in and with this foretaste of divinity.

  ^196:3.10 The human mind does not create real values; human experience does not yield universe insight. Concerning insight, the recognition of moral values and the discernment of spiritual meanings, all that the human mind can do is to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.

  ^196:3.11 The moral values of the universe become intellectual possessions by the exercise of the three basic judgments, or choices, of the mortal mind:

1. Self-judgment -- moral choice.

2. Social-judgment -- ethical choice.

3. God-judgment -- religious choice.

  ^196:3.12 Thus it appears that all human progress is effected by a technique of conjoint revelational evolution.

  ^196:3.13 Unless a divine lover lived in man, he could not unselfishly and spiritually love. Unless an interpreter lived in the mind, man could not truly realize the unity of the universe. Unless an evaluator dwelt with man, he could not possibly appraise moral values and recognize spiritual meanings. And this lover hails from the very source of infinite love; this interpreter is a part of Universal Unity; this evaluator is the child of the Center and Source of all absolute values of divine and eternal reality.

  ^101:4.3 Truth is always a revelation: autorevelation when it emerges as a result of the work of the indwelling Adjuster; epochal revelation when it is presented by the function of some other celestial agency, group, or personality.

  ^101:4.4 In the last analysis, religion is to be judged by its fruits, according to the manner and the extent to which it exhibits its own inherent and divine excellence.

  99:5.11 What a mistake for Christians to make when, in presenting Christ as the supreme ideal of spiritual leadership, they dare to require God-conscious men and women to reject the historic leadership of the God-knowing men who have contributed to their particular national or racial illumination during past ages.