The Urantia Book
PAPER 161
FURTHER DISCUSSIONS WITH RODAN
161:0.1 ON SUNDAY, September 25, A.D. 29, the
apostles and the evangelists assembled at Magadan. After a long
conference that evening with his associates, Jesus surprised all
by announcing that early the next day he and the twelve apostles
would start for Jerusalem to attend the feast of tabernacles. He
directed that the evangelists visit the believers in Galilee, and
that the women's corps return for a while to Bethsaida.
161:0.2 When the hour came to leave for
Jerusalem, Nathaniel and Thomas were still in the midst of their
discussions with Rodan of Alexandria, and they secured the
Master's permission to remain at Magadan for a few days. And so,
while Jesus and the ten were on their way to Jerusalem, Nathaniel
and Thomas were engaged in earnest debate with Rodan. The week
prior, in which Rodan had expounded his philosophy, Thomas and
Nathaniel had alternated in presenting the gospel of the kingdom
to the Greek philosopher. Rodan discovered that he had been well
instructed in Jesus' teachings by one of the former apostles of
John the Baptist who had been his teacher at Alexandria.
1. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD
161:1.1 There was one matter on which Rodan and
the two apostles did not see alike, and that was the personality
of God. Rodan readily accepted all that was presented to him
regarding the attributes of God, but he contended that the Father
in heaven is not, cannot be, a person as man conceives
personality. While the apostles found themselves in difficulty
trying to prove that God is a person, Rodan found it still more
difficult to prove he is not a person.
161:1.2 Rodan contended that the fact of
personality consists in the coexistent fact of full and mutual
communication between beings of equality, beings who are capable
of sympathetic understanding. Said Rodan: "In order to be a
person, God must have symbols of spirit communication which would
enable him to become fully understood by those who make contact
with him. But since God is infinite and eternal, the Creator of
all other beings, it follows that, as regards beings of equality,
God is alone in the universe. There are none equal to him; there
are none with whom he can communicate as an equal. God indeed may
be the source of all personality, but as such he is transcendent
to personality, even as the Creator is above and beyond the
creature."
161:1.3 This contention greatly troubled Thomas
and Nathaniel, and they had asked Jesus to come to their rescue,
but the Master refused to enter into their discussions. He did say
to Thomas: "It matters little what idea of the Father you
may entertain as long as you are spiritually acquainted with the
ideal of his infinite and eternal nature."
161:1.4 Thomas contended that God does
communicate with man, and therefore that the Father is a person,
even within the definition of Rodan. This the Greek rejected on
the ground that God does not reveal himself personally; that he is
still a mystery. Then Nathaniel appealed to his own personal
experience with God, and that Rodan allowed, affirming that he had
recently had similar experiences, but these experiences, he
contended, proved only the reality of God, not his
personality.
161:1.5 By Monday night Thomas gave up. But by
Tuesday night Nathaniel had won Rodan to believe in the
personality of the Father, and he effected this change in the
Greek's views by the following steps of reasoning:
161:1.6 1. The Father in Paradise does enjoy
equality of communication with at least two other beings who are
fully equal to himself and wholly like himself -- the Eternal Son
and the Infinite Spirit. In view of the doctrine of the Trinity,
the Greek was compelled to concede the personality possibility of
the Universal Father. (It was the later consideration of these
discussions which led to the enlarged conception of the Trinity in
the minds of the twelve apostles. Of course, it was the general
belief that Jesus was the Eternal Son.)
161:1.7 2. Since Jesus was equal with the
Father, and since this Son had achieved the manifestation of
personality to his earth children, such a phenomenon constituted
proof of the fact, and demonstration of the possibility, of the
possession of personality by all three of the Godheads and forever
settled the question regarding the ability of God to communicate
with man and the possibility of man's communicating with God.
161:1.8 3. That Jesus was on terms of mutual
association and perfect communication with man; that Jesus was the
Son of God. That the relation of Son and Father presupposes
equality of communication and mutuality of sympathetic
understanding; that Jesus and the Father were one. That Jesus
maintained at one and the same time understanding communication
with both God and man, and that, since both God and man
comprehended the meaning of the symbols of Jesus' communication,
both God and man possessed the attributes of personality in so far
as the requirements of the ability of intercommunication were
concerned. That the personality of Jesus demonstrated the
personality of God, while it proved conclusively the presence of
God in man. That two things which are related to the same thing
are related to each other.
161:1.9 4. That personality represents man's
highest concept of human reality and divine values; that God also
represents man's highest concept of divine reality and infinite
values; therefore, that God must be a divine and infinite
personality, a personality in reality although infinitely and
eternally transcending man's concept and definition of
personality, but nevertheless always and universally a
personality.
161:1.10 5. That God must be a personality since
he is the Creator of all personality and the destiny of all
personality. Rodan had been tremendously influenced by the
teaching of Jesus, "Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father
in heaven is perfect."
161:1.11 When Rodan heard these arguments, he
said: "I am convinced. I will confess God as a person if you will
permit me to qualify my confession of such a belief by attaching
to the meaning of personality a group of extended values, such as
superhuman, transcendent, supreme, infinite, eternal, final, and
universal. I am now convinced that, while God must be infinitely
more than a personality, he cannot be anything less. I am
satisfied to end the argument and to accept Jesus as the personal
revelation of the Father and the satisfaction of all unsatisfied
factors in logic, reason, and philosophy."
2. THE DIVINE NATURE OF JESUS
161:2.1 Since Nathaniel and Thomas had so fully
approved Rodan's views of the gospel of the kingdom, there
remained only one more point to consider, the teaching dealing
with the divine nature of Jesus, a doctrine only so recently
publicly announced. Nathaniel and Thomas jointly presented their
views of the divine nature of the Master, and the following
narrative is a condensed, rearranged, and restated presentation of
their teaching:
161:2.2 1. Jesus has admitted his divinity, and
we believe him. Many remarkable things have happened in connection
with his ministry which we can understand only by believing that
he is the Son of God as well as the Son of Man.
161:2.3 2. His life association with us
exemplifies the ideal of human friendship; only a divine being
could possibly be such a human friend. He is the most truly
unselfish person we have ever known. He is the friend even of
sinners; he dares to love his enemies. He is very loyal to us.
While he does not hesitate to reprove us, it is plain to all that
he truly loves us. The better you know him, the more you will love
him. You will be charmed by his unswerving devotion. Through all
these years of our failure to comprehend his mission, he has been
a faithful friend. While he makes no use of flattery, he does
treat us all with equal kindness; he is invariably tender and
compassionate. He has shared his life and everything else with us.
We are a happy community; we share all things in common. We do not
believe that a mere human could live such a blameless life under
such trying circumstances.
161:2.4 3. We think Jesus is divine because he
never does wrong; he makes no mistakes. His wisdom is
extraordinary; his piety superb. He lives day by day in perfect
accord with the Father's will. He never repents of misdeeds
because he transgresses none of the Father's laws. He prays for us
and with us, but he never asks us to pray for him. We believe that
he is consistently sinless. We do not think that one who is only
human ever professed to live such a life. He claims to live a
perfect life, and we acknowledge that he does. Our piety springs
from repentance, but his piety springs from righteousness. He even
professes to forgive sins and does heal diseases. No mere man
would sanely profess to forgive sin; that is a divine prerogative.
And he has seemed to be thus perfect in his righteousness from the
times of our first contact with him. We grow in grace and in the
knowledge of the truth, but our Master exhibits maturity of
righteousness to start with. All men, good and evil, recognize
these elements of goodness in Jesus. And yet never is his piety
obtrusive or ostentatious. He is both meek and fearless. He seems
to approve of our belief in his divinity. He is either what he
professes to be, or else he is the greatest hypocrite and fraud
the world has ever known. We are persuaded that he is just what he
claims to be.
161:2.5 4. The uniqueness of his character and
the perfection of his emotional control convince us that he is a
combination of humanity and divinity. He unfailingly responds to
the spectacle of human need; suffering never fails to appeal to
him. His compassion is moved alike by physical suffering, mental
anguish, or spiritual sorrow. He is quick to recognize and
generous to acknowledge the presence of faith or any other grace
in his fellow men. He is so just and fair and at the same time so
merciful and considerate. He grieves over the spiritual obstinacy
of the people and rejoices when they consent to see the light of
truth.
161:2.6 5. He seems to know the thoughts of
men's minds and to understand the longings of their hearts. And he
is always sympathetic with our troubled spirits. He seems to
possess all our human emotions, but they are magnificently
glorified. He strongly loves goodness and equally hates sin. He
possesses a superhuman consciousness of the presence of Deity. He
prays like a man but performs like a God. He seems to foreknow
things; he even now dares to speak about his death, some mystic
reference to his future glorification. While he is kind, he is
also brave and courageous. He never falters in doing his duty.
161:2.7 6. We are constantly impressed by the
phenomenon of his superhuman knowledge. Hardly does a day pass but
something transpires to disclose that the Master knows what is
going on away from his immediate presence. He also seems to know
about the thoughts of his associates. He undoubtedly has communion
with celestial personalities; he unquestionably lives on a
spiritual plane far above the rest of us. Everything seems to be
open to his unique understanding. He asks us questions to draw us
out, not to gain information.
161:2.8 7. Recently the Master does not hesitate
to assert his superhumanity. From the day of our ordination as
apostles right on down to recent times, he has never denied that
he came from the Father above. He speaks with the authority of a
divine teacher. The Master does not hesitate to refute the
religious teachings of today and to declare the new gospel with
positive authority. He is assertive, positive, and authoritative.
Even John the Baptist, when he heard Jesus speak, declared that he
was the Son of God. He seems to be so sufficient within himself.
He craves not the support of the multitude; he is indifferent to
the opinions of men. He is brave and yet so free from pride.
161:2.9 8. He constantly talks about God as an
ever-present associate in all that he does. He goes about doing
good, for God seems to be in him. He makes the most astounding
assertions about himself and his mission on earth, statements
which would be absurd if he were not divine. He once declared,
"Before Abraham was, I am." He has definitely claimed divinity; he
professes to be in partnership with God. He well-nigh exhausts the
possibilities of language in the reiteration of his claims of
intimate association with the heavenly Father. He even dares to
assert that he and the Father are one. He says that any one who
has seen him has seen the Father. And he says and does all these
tremendous things with such childlike naturalness. He alludes to
his association with the Father in the same manner that he refers
to his association with us. He seems to be so sure about God and
speaks of these relations in such a matter-of-fact way.
161:2.10 9. In his prayer life he appears to
communicate directly with his Father. We have heard few of his
prayers, but these few would indicate that he talks with God, as
it were, face to face. He seems to know the future as well as the
past. He simply could not be all of this and do all of these
extraordinary things unless he were something more than human. We
know he is human, we are sure of that, but we are almost equally
sure that he is also divine. We believe that he is divine. We are
convinced that he is the Son of Man and the Son of God.
161:2.11 When Nathaniel and Thomas had concluded
their conferences with Rodan, they hurried on toward Jerusalem to
join their fellow apostles, arriving on Friday of that week. This
had been a great experience in the lives of all three of these
believers, and the other apostles learned much from the recounting
of these experiences by Nathaniel and Thomas.
161:2.12 Rodan made his way back to Alexandria,
where he long taught his philosophy in the school of Meganta. He
became a mighty man in the later affairs of the kingdom of heaven;
he was a faithful believer to the end of his earth days, yielding
up his life in Greece with others when the persecutions were at
their height.
3. JESUS' HUMAN AND DIVINE MINDS
161:3.1 Consciousness of divinity was a gradual
growth in the mind of Jesus up to the occasion of his baptism.
After he became fully self-conscious of his divine nature,
prehuman existence, and universe prerogatives, he seems to have
possessed the power of variously limiting his human consciousness
of his divinity. It appears to us that from his baptism until the
crucifixion it was entirely optional with Jesus whether to depend
only on the human mind or to utilize the knowledge of both the
human and the divine minds. At times he appeared to avail himself
of only that information which was resident in the human
intellect. On other occasions he appeared to act with such
fullness of knowledge and wisdom as could be afforded only by the
utilization of the superhuman content of his divine consciousness.
161:3.2 We can understand his unique
performances only by accepting the theory that he could, at will,
self-limit his divinity consciousness. We are fully cognizant that
he frequently withheld from his associates his foreknowledge of
events, and that he was aware of the nature of their thinking and
planning. We understand that he did not wish his followers to know
too fully that he was able to discern their thoughts and to
penetrate their plans. He did not desire too far to transcend the
concept of the human as it was held in the minds of his apostles
and disciples.
161:3.3 We are utterly at a loss to
differentiate between his practice of self-limiting his divine
consciousness and his technique of concealing his preknowledge and
thought discernment from his human associates. We are convinced
that he used both of these techniques, but we are not always able,
in a given instance, to specify which method he may have employed.
We frequently observed him acting with only the human content of
consciousness; then would we behold him in conference with the
directors of the celestial hosts of the universe and discern the
undoubted functioning of the divine mind. And then on almost
numberless occasions did we witness the working of this combined
personality of man and God as it was activated by the apparent
perfect union of the human and the divine minds. This is the limit
of our knowledge of such phenomena; we really do not actually know
the full truth about this mystery.
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