The Urantia Book
PAPER 75
THE DEFAULT OF ADAM AND EVE
Presented by Solonia, the seraphic "voice in the Garden."
75:0.1 AFTER more than one hundred years of
effort on Urantia, Adam was able to see very little progress
outside the Garden; the world at large did not seem to be
improving much. The realization of race betterment appeared to
be a long way off, and the situation seemed so desperate as to
demand something for relief not embraced in the original plans.
At least that is what often passed through Adam's mind, and he
so expressed himself many times to Eve. Adam and his mate were
loyal, but they were isolated from their kind, and they were
sorely distressed by the sorry plight of their world.
1. THE URANTIA PROBLEM
75:1.1 The Adamic mission on experimental,
rebellion-seared, and isolated Urantia was a formidable
undertaking. And the Material Son and Daughter early became
aware of the difficulty and complexity of their planetary
assignment. Nevertheless, they courageously set about the task
of solving their manifold problems. But when they addressed
themselves to the all-important work of eliminating the
defectives and degenerates from among the human strains, they
were quite dismayed. They could see no way out of the dilemma,
and they could not take counsel with their superiors on either
Jerusem or Edentia. Here they were, isolated and day by day
confronted with some new and complicated tangle, some problem
that seemed to be unsolvable.
75:1.2 Under normal conditions the first work
of a Planetary Adam and Eve would be the co-ordination and
blending of the races. But on Urantia such a project seemed just
about hopeless, for the races, while biologically fit, had never
been purged of their retarded and defective strains.
75:1.3 Adam 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.
75:1.4 They were isolated, and the tremendous
sense of loneliness which bore down upon them was all the more
heightened by the early departure of the Melchizedek receivers.
Only indirectly, by means of the angelic orders, could they
communicate with any being off the planet. Slowly their courage
weakened, their spirits drooped, and sometimes their faith
almost faltered.
75:1.5 And this is the true picture of the
consternation of these two noble souls as they pondered the
tasks which confronted them. They were both keenly aware of the
enormous undertaking involved in the execution of their
planetary assignment.
75:1.6 Probably no Material Sons of Nebadon
were ever faced with such a difficult and seemingly hopeless
task as confronted Adam and Eve in the sorry plight of Urantia.
But they would have sometime met with success had they been more
farseeing and patient. Both of them, especially Eve, were
altogether too impatient; they were not willing to settle down
to the long, long endurance test. They wanted to see some
immediate results, and they did, but the results thus secured
proved most disastrous both to themselves and to their world.
2. CALIGASTIA'S PLOT
75:2.1 Caligastia paid frequent visits to the
Garden and held many conferences with Adam and Eve, but they
were adamant to all his suggestions of compromise and short-cut
adventures. They had before them enough of the results of
rebellion to produce effective immunity against all such
insinuating proposals. Even the young offspring of Adam were
uninfluenced by the overtures of Daligastia. And of course
neither Caligastia nor his associate had power to influence any
individual against his will, much less to persuade the children
of Adam to do wrong.
75:2.2 It must be remembered that Caligastia
was still the titular Planetary Prince of Urantia, a misguided
but nevertheless high Son of the local universe. He was not
finally deposed until the times of Christ Michael on Urantia.
75:2.3 But the fallen Prince was persistent
and determined. He soon gave up working on Adam and decided to
try a wily flank attack on Eve. The evil one concluded that the
only hope for success lay in the adroit employment of suitable
persons belonging to the upper strata of the Nodite group, the
descendants of his onetime corporeal-staff associates. And the
plans were accordingly laid for entrapping the mother of the
violet race.
75:2.4 It was farthest from Eve's intention
ever to do anything which would militate against Adam's plans or
jeopardize their planetary trust. Knowing the tendency of woman
to look upon immediate results rather than to plan farsightedly
for more remote effects, the Melchizedeks, before departing, had
especially enjoined Eve as to the peculiar dangers besetting
their isolated position on the planet and had in particular
warned her never to stray from the side of her mate, that is, to
attempt no personal or secret methods of furthering their mutual
undertakings. Eve had most scrupulously carried out these
instructions for more than one hundred years, and it did not
occur to her that any danger would attach to the increasingly
private and confidential visits she was enjoying with a certain
Nodite leader named Serapatatia. The whole affair developed so
gradually and naturally that she was taken unawares.
75:2.5 The Garden dwellers had been in contact
with the Nodites since the early days of Eden. From these mixed
descendants of the defaulting members of Caligastia's staff they
had received much valuable help and co-operation, and through
them the Edenic regime was now to meet its complete undoing and
final overthrow.
3. THE TEMPTATION OF EVE
75:3.1 Adam had just finished his first one
hundred years on earth when Serapatatia, upon the death of his
father, came to the leadership of the western or Syrian
confederation of the Nodite tribes. Serapatatia was a
brown-tinted man, a brilliant descendant of the onetime chief of
the Dalamatia commission on health mated with one of the master
female minds of the blue race of those distant days. All down
through the ages this line had held authority and wielded a
great influence among the western Nodite tribes.
75:3.2 Serapatatia had made several visits to
the Garden and had become deeply impressed with the
righteousness of Adam's cause. And shortly after assuming the
leadership of the Syrian Nodites, he announced his intention of
establishing an affiliation with the work of Adam and Eve in the
Garden. The majority of his people joined him in this program,
and Adam was cheered by the news that the most powerful and the
most intelligent of all the neighboring tribes had swung over
almost bodily to the support of the program for world
improvement; it was decidedly heartening. And shortly after this
great event, Serapatatia and his new staff were entertained by
Adam and Eve in their own home.
75:3.3 Serapatatia became one of the most able
and efficient of all of Adam's lieutenants. He was entirely
honest and thoroughly sincere in all of his activities; he was
never conscious, even later on, that he was being used as a
circumstantial tool of the wily Caligastia.
75:3.4 Presently, Serapatatia became the
associate chairman of the Edenic commission on tribal relations,
and many plans were laid for the more vigorous prosecution of
the work of winning the remote tribes to the cause of the
Garden.
75:3.5 He held many conferences with Adam and
Eve -- especially with Eve -- and they talked over many plans
for improving their methods. One day, during a talk with Eve, it
occurred to Serapatatia that it would be very helpful if, while
awaiting the recruiting of large numbers of the violet race,
something could be done in the meantime immediately to advance
the needy waiting tribes. Serapatatia contended that, if the
Nodites, as the most progressive and co-operative race, could
have a leader born to them of part origin in the violet stock,
it would constitute a powerful tie binding these peoples more
closely to the Garden. And all of this was soberly and honestly
considered to be for the good of the world since this child, to
be reared and educated in the Garden, would exert a great
influence for good over his father's people.
75:3.6 It should again be emphasized that
Serapatatia was altogether honest and wholly sincere in all that
he proposed. He never once suspected that he was playing into
the hands of Caligastia and Daligastia. Serapatatia was entirely
loyal to the plan of building up a strong reserve of the violet
race before attempting the world-wide upstepping of the confused
peoples of Urantia. But this would require hundreds of years to
consummate, and he was impatient; he wanted to see some
immediate results -- something in his own lifetime. He made it
clear to Eve that Adam was oftentimes discouraged by the little
that had been accomplished toward uplifting the world.
75:3.7 For more than five years these plans
were secretly matured. At last they had developed to the point
where Eve consented to have a secret conference with Cano, the
most brilliant mind and active leader of the near-by colony of
friendly Nodites. Cano was very sympathetic with the Adamic
regime; in fact, he was the sincere spiritual leader of those
neighboring Nodites who favored friendly relations with the
Garden.
75:3.8 The fateful meeting occurred during the
twilight hours of the autumn evening, not far from the home of
Adam. Eve had never before met the beautiful and enthusiastic
Cano -- and he was a magnificent specimen of the survival of the
superior physique and outstanding intellect of his remote
progenitors of the Prince's staff. And Cano also thoroughly
believed in the righteousness of the Serapatatia project.
(Outside of the Garden, multiple mating was a common practice.)
75:3.9 Influenced by flattery, enthusiasm, and
great personal persuasion, Eve then and there consented to
embark upon the much-discussed enterprise, to add her own little
scheme of world saving to the larger and more far-reaching
divine plan. Before she quite realized what was transpiring, the
fatal step had been taken. It was done.
4. THE REALIZATION OF DEFAULT
75:4.1 The celestial life of the planet was
astir. Adam recognized that something was wrong, and he asked
Eve to come aside with him in the Garden. And now, for the first
time, Adam heard the entire story of the long-nourished plan for
accelerating world improvement by operating simultaneously in
two directions: the prosecution of the divine plan concomitantly
with the execution of the Serapatatia enterprise.
75:4.2 And as the Material Son and Daughter
thus communed in the moonlit Garden, "the voice in the Garden"
reproved them for disobedience. And that voice was none other
than my own announcement to the Edenic pair that they had
transgressed the Garden covenant; that they had disobeyed the
instructions of the Melchizedeks; that they had defaulted in the
execution of their oaths of trust to the sovereign of the
universe.
75:4.3 Eve had consented to participate in the
practice of good and evil. Good is the carrying out of the
divine plans; sin is a deliberate transgression of the divine
will; evil is the misadaptation of plans and the maladjustment
of techniques resulting in universe disharmony and planetary
confusion.
75:4.4 Every time the Garden pair had partaken
of the fruit of the tree of life, they had been warned by the
archangel custodian to refrain from yielding to the suggestions
of Caligastia to combine good and evil. They had been thus
admonished: "In the day that you commingle good and evil, you
shall surely become as the mortals of the realm; you shall
surely die."
75:4.5 Eve had told Cano of this oft-repeated
warning on the fateful occasion of their secret meeting, but
Cano, not knowing the import or significance of such
admonitions, had assured her that men and women with good
motives and true intentions could do no evil; that she should
surely not die but rather live anew in the person of their
offspring, who would grow up to bless and stabilize the world.
75:4.6 Even though this project of modifying
the divine plan had been conceived and executed with entire
sincerity and with only the highest motives concerning the
welfare of the world, it constituted evil because it represented
the wrong way to achieve righteous ends, because it departed
from the right way, the divine plan.
75:4.7 True, Eve had found Cano pleasant to
the eyes, and she realized all that her seducer promised by way
of "new and increased knowledge of human affairs and quickened
understanding of human nature as supplemental to the
comprehension of the Adamic nature."
75:4.8 I talked to the father and mother of
the violet race that night in the Garden as became my duty under
the sorrowful circumstances. I listened fully to the recital of
all that led up to the default of Mother Eve and gave both of
them advice and counsel concerning the immediate situation. Some
of this advice they followed; some they disregarded. This
conference appears in your records as "the Lord God calling to
Adam and Eve in the Garden and asking, `Where are you?'" It was
the practice of later generations to attribute everything
unusual and extraordinary, whether natural or spiritual,
directly to the personal intervention of the Gods.
5. REPERCUSSIONS OF DEFAULT
75:5.1 Eve's disillusionment was truly
pathetic. Adam discerned the whole predicament and, while
heartbroken and dejected, entertained only pity and sympathy for
his erring mate.
75:5.2 It was in the despair of the
realization of failure that Adam, the day after Eve's misstep,
sought out Laotta, the brilliant Nodite woman who was head of
the western schools of the Garden, and with premeditation
committed the folly of Eve. But do not misunderstand; Adam was
not beguiled; he knew exactly what he was about; he deliberately
chose to share the fate of Eve. He loved his mate with a
supermortal affection, and the thought of the possibility of a
lonely vigil on Urantia without her was more than he could
endure.
75:5.3 When they learned what had happened to
Eve, the infuriated inhabitants of the Garden became
unmanageable; they declared war on the near-by Nodite
settlement. They swept out through the gates of Eden and down
upon these unprepared people, utterly destroying them -- not a
man, woman, or child was spared. And Cano, the father of Cain
yet unborn, also perished.
75:5.4 Upon the realization of what had
happened, Serapatatia was overcome with consternation and beside
himself with fear and remorse. The next day he drowned himself
in the great river.
75:5.5 The children of Adam sought to comfort
their distracted mother while their father wandered in solitude
for thirty days. At the end of that time judgment asserted
itself, and Adam returned to his home and began to plan for
their future course of action.
75:5.6 The consequences of the follies of
misguided parents are so often shared by their innocent
children. The upright and noble sons and daughters of Adam and
Eve were overwhelmed by the inexplicable sorrow of the
unbelievable tragedy which had been so suddenly and so
ruthlessly thrust upon them. Not in fifty years did the older of
these children recover from the sorrow and sadness of those
tragic days, especially the terror of that period of thirty days
during which their father was absent from home while their
distracted mother was in complete ignorance of his whereabouts
or fate.
75:5.7 And those same thirty days were as long
years of sorrow and suffering to Eve. Never did this noble soul
fully recover from the effects of that excruciating period of
mental suffering and spiritual sorrow. No feature of their
subsequent deprivations and material hardships ever began to
compare in Eve's memory with those terrible days and awful
nights of loneliness and unbearable uncertainty. She learned of
the rash act of Serapatatia and did not know whether her mate
had in sorrow destroyed himself or had been removed from the
world in retribution for her misstep. And when Adam returned,
Eve experienced a satisfaction of joy and gratitude that never
was effaced by their long and difficult life partnership of
toiling service.
75:5.8 Time passed, but Adam was not certain
of the nature of their offense until seventy days after the
default of Eve, when the Melchizedek receivers returned to
Urantia and assumed jurisdiction over world affairs. And then he
knew they had failed.
75:5.9 But still more trouble was brewing: The
news of the annihilation of the Nodite settlement near Eden was
not slow in reaching the home tribes of Serapatatia to the
north, and presently a great host was assembling to march on the
Garden. And this was the beginning of a long and bitter warfare
between the Adamites and the Nodites, for these hostilities kept
up long after Adam and his followers emigrated to the second
garden in the Euphrates valley. There was intense and lasting
"enmity between that man and the woman, between his seed and her
seed."
6. ADAM AND EVE LEAVE THE GARDEN
75:6.1 When Adam learned that the Nodites were
on the march, he sought the counsel of the Melchizedeks, but
they refused to advise him, only telling him to do as he thought
best and promising their friendly co-operation, as far as
possible, in any course he might decide upon. The Melchizedeks
had been forbidden to interfere with the personal plans of Adam
and Eve.
75:6.2 Adam knew that he and Eve had failed;
the presence of the Melchizedek receivers told him that, though
he still knew nothing of their personal status or future fate.
He held an all-night conference with some twelve hundred loyal
followers who pledged themselves to follow their leader, and the
next day at noon these pilgrims went forth from Eden in quest of
new homes. Adam had no liking for war and accordingly elected to
leave the first garden to the Nodites unopposed.
75:6.3 The Edenic caravan was halted on the
third day out from the Garden by the arrival of the seraphic
transports from Jerusem. And for the first time Adam and Eve
were informed of what was to become of their children. While the
transports stood by, those children who had arrived at the age
of choice (twenty years) were given the option of remaining on
Urantia with their parents or of becoming wards of the Most
Highs of Norlatiadek. Two thirds chose to go to Edentia; about
one third elected to remain with their parents. All children of
prechoice age were taken to Edentia. No one could have beheld
the sorrowful parting of this Material Son and Daughter and
their children without realizing that the way of the
transgressor is hard. These offspring of Adam and Eve are now on
Edentia; we do not know what disposition is to be made of them.
75:6.4 It was a sad, sad caravan that prepared
to journey on. Could anything have been more tragic! To have
come to a world in such high hopes, to have been so auspiciously
received, and then to go forth in disgrace from Eden, only to
lose more than three fourths of their children even before
finding a new abiding place!
7. DEGRADATION OF ADAM AND EVE
75:7.1 It was while the Edenic caravan was
halted that Adam and Eve were informed of the nature of their
transgressions and advised concerning their fate. Gabriel
appeared to pronounce judgment. And this was the verdict: The
Planetary Adam and Eve of Urantia are adjudged in default; they
have violated the covenant of their trusteeship as the rulers of
this inhabited world.
75:7.2 While downcast by the sense of guilt,
Adam and Eve were greatly cheered by the announcement that their
judges on Salvington had absolved them from all charges of
standing in "contempt of the universe government." They had not
been held guilty of rebellion.
75:7.3 The Edenic pair were informed that they
had degraded themselves to the status of the mortals of the
realm; that they must henceforth conduct themselves as man and
woman of Urantia, looking to the future of the world races for
their future.
75:7.4 Long before Adam and Eve left Jerusem,
their instructors had fully explained to them the consequences
of any vital departure from the divine plans. I had personally
and repeatedly warned them, both before and after they arrived
on Urantia, that reduction to the status of mortal flesh would
be the certain result, the sure penalty, which would unfailingly
attend default in the execution of their planetary mission. But
a comprehension of the immortality status of the material order
of sonship is essential to a clear understanding of the
consequences attendant upon the default of Adam and Eve.
75:7.5 1. Adam and Eve, like their fellows on
Jerusem, maintained immortal status through intellectual
association with the mind-gravity circuit of the Spirit. When
this vital sustenance is broken by mental disjunction, then,
regardless of the spiritual level of creature existence,
immortality status is lost. Mortal status followed by physical
dissolution was the inevitable consequence of the intellectual
default of Adam and Eve.
75:7.6 2. The Material Son and Daughter of
Urantia, being also personalized in the similitude of the mortal
flesh of this world, were further dependent on the maintenance
of a dual circulatory system, the one derived from their
physical natures, the other from the superenergy stored in the
fruit of the tree of life. Always had the archangel custodian
admonished Adam and Eve that default of trust would culminate in
degradation of status, and access to this source of energy was
denied them subsequent to their default.
75:7.7 Caligastia did succeed in trapping Adam
and Eve, but he did not accomplish his purpose of leading them
into open rebellion against the universe government. What they
had done was indeed evil, but they were never guilty of contempt
for truth, neither did they knowingly enlist in rebellion
against the righteous rule of the Universal Father and his
Creator Son.
8. THE SO-CALLED FALL OF MAN
75:8.1 Adam and Eve did fall from their high
estate of material sonship down to the lowly status of mortal
man. But that was not the fall of man. The human race has been
uplifted despite the immediate consequences of the Adamic
default. Although the divine plan of giving the violet race to
the Urantia peoples miscarried, the mortal races have profited
enormously from the limited contribution which Adam and his
descendants made to the Urantia races.
75:8.2 There has been no "fall of man." The
history of the human race is one of progressive evolution, and
the Adamic bestowal left the world peoples greatly improved over
their previous biologic condition. The more superior stocks of
Urantia now contain inheritance factors derived from as many as
four separate sources: Andonite, Sangik, Nodite, and Adamic.
75:8.3 Adam should not be regarded as the
cause of a curse on the human race. While he did fail in
carrying forward the divine plan, while he did transgress his
covenant with Deity, while he and his mate were most certainly
degraded in creature status, notwithstanding all this, their
contribution to the human race did much to advance civilization
on Urantia.
75:8.4 In estimating the results of the Adamic
mission on your world, justice demands the recognition of the
condition of the planet. Adam was confronted with a well-nigh
hopeless task when, with his beautiful mate, he was transported
from Jerusem to this dark and confused planet. But had they been
guided by the counsel of the Melchizedeks and their associates,
and had they been more patient, they would have
eventually met with success. But Eve listened to the insidious
propaganda of personal liberty and planetary freedom of action.
She was led to experiment with the life plasm of the material
order of sonship in that she allowed this life trust to become
prematurely commingled with that of the then mixed order of the
original design of the Life Carriers which had been previously
combined with that of the reproducing beings once attached to
the staff of the Planetary Prince.
75:8.5 Never, in all your ascent to Paradise,
will you gain anything by impatiently attempting to circumvent
the established and divine plan by short cuts, personal
inventions, or other devices for improving on the way of
perfection, to perfection, and for eternal perfection.
75:8.6 All in all, there probably never was a
more disheartening miscarriage of wisdom on any planet in all
Nebadon. But it is not surprising that these missteps occur in
the affairs of the evolutionary universes. We are a part of a
gigantic creation, and it is not strange that everything does
not work in perfection; our universe was not created in
perfection. Perfection is our eternal goal, not our origin.
75:8.7 If this were a mechanistic universe, if
the First Great Source and Center were only a force and not also
a personality, if all creation were a vast aggregation of
physical matter dominated by precise laws characterized by
unvarying energy actions, then might perfection obtain, even
despite the incompleteness of universe status. There would be no
disagreement; there would be no friction. But in our evolving
universe of relative perfection and imperfection we rejoice that
disagreement and misunderstanding are possible, for thereby is
evidenced the fact and the act of personality in the universe.
And if our creation is an existence dominated by personality,
then can you be assured of the possibilities of personality
survival, advancement, and achievement; we can be confident of
personality growth, experience, and adventure. What a glorious
universe, in that it is personal and progressive, not merely
mechanical or even passively perfect!
75:8.8
Presented by Solonia, the seraphic "voice in the Garden."
