Philosophic living is living in the light of philosophic reflection on cosmic meanings, the meanings of facts and the meanings of values. (How helpful is it to define a term with a phrase that uses the very term one was trying to define?) Such reflection greatly enhances the meaningfulness of action.
To do a better job of philosophic reflection one wants to know more of what philosophy is. So let us ask directly. What is philosophy? It is so much easier to summarize a field when it is not one’s own! As a philosopher, I am ready to present a summary concept of what science is, but I find it hard to say succinctly what philosophy is, since I have spent decades involved in the thicket of the field. When I collected all the references in The Urantia Book that a philosopher would find directly relevant to one of philosophy’s sub-disciplines (e.g., philosophy of science, logic, epistemology [philosophy of knowledge] philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, ethics), I found nearly one thousand relevant passages, on average nearly one every two pages.
To avoid overburdening the mind with too much complexity too quickly, it is necessary to choose an angle of approach. The focus I have chosen is to lead up to a proposed framework for thinking based on a pattern that I think I discern. Please criticize the framework as I conceive it and its place within the wider context of other important themes in philosophy. Philosophic reflection, then, as I propose to characterize it here, involves activities that we spontaneously do continually every day, but philosophy takes these activities to a more conscious level.
1. Philosophy in context
First, I will introduce the focus by placing it in context. We get an idea of philosophy by seeing it in the context of other basic human activities. Two passages, one short, one long, will do the job.
There are just three elements in universal reality: fact, idea, and relation. The religious consciousness identifies these realities as science, philosophy, and truth. Philosophy would be inclined to view these activities as reason, wisdom, and faith—physical reality, intellectual reality, and spiritual reality. We are in the habit of designating these realities as thing, meaning, and value. (196:3, 2094.1)
Thus philosophy interprets meanings, intellectual reality (the ideas of the mind of God, as they are available through evolving human culture and revelation) to gain wisdom.
Science, knowledge, leads to fact consciousness; religion, experience, leads to value consciousness; philosophy, wisdom, leads to co-ordinate consciousness; revelation (the substitute for morontia mota) leads to the consciousness of true reality; while the co-ordination of the consciousness of fact, value, and true reality constitutes awareness of personality reality, maximum of being, together with the belief in the possibility of the survival of that very personality.
Knowledge leads to placing men, to originating social strata and castes. Religion leads to serving men, thus creating ethics and altruism. Wisdom leads to the higher and better fellowship of both ideas and one's fellows. Revelation liberates men and starts them out on the eternal adventure.
Science sorts men; religion loves men, even as yourself; wisdom does justice to differing men; but revelation glorifies man and discloses his capacity for partnership with God.
Science vainly strives to create the brotherhood of culture; religion brings into being the brotherhood of the spirit. Philosophy strives for the brotherhood of wisdom; revelation portrays the eternal brotherhood, the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
Knowledge yields pride in the fact of personality; wisdom is the consciousness of the meaning of personality; religion is the experience of cognizance of the value of personality; revelation is the assurance of personality survival.
Science seeks to identify, analyze, and classify the segmented parts of the limitless cosmos. Religion grasps the idea-of-the-whole, the entire cosmos. Philosophy attempts the identification of the material segments of science with the spiritual-insight concept of the whole. Wherein philosophy fails in this attempt, revelation succeeds, affirming that the cosmic circle is universal, eternal, absolute, and infinite. This cosmos of the Infinite I AM is therefore endless, limitless, and all-inclusive—timeless, spaceless, and unqualified. And we bear testimony that the Infinite I AM is also the Father of Michael of Nebadon and the God of human salvation.
Science indicates Deity as a fact; philosophy presents the idea of an Absolute; religion envisions God as a loving spiritual personality. Revelation affirms the unity of the fact of Deity, the idea of the Absolute, and the spiritual personality of God and, further, presents this concept as our Father—the universal fact of existence, the eternal idea of mind, and the infinite spirit of life.
The pursuit of knowledge constitutes science; the search for wisdom is philosophy; the love for God is religion; the hunger for truth is a revelation. But it is the indwelling Thought Adjuster that attaches the feeling of reality to man's spiritual insight into the cosmos.
In science, the idea precedes the expression of its realization; in religion, the experience of realization precedes the expression of the idea. There is a vast difference between the evolutionary will-to-believe and the product of enlightened reason, religious insight, and revelation—the will that believes.
In evolution, religion often leads to man's creating his concepts of God; revelation exhibits the phenomenon of God's evolving man himself, while in the earth life of Christ Michael we behold the phenomenon of God's revealing himself to man. Evolution tends to make God manlike; revelation tends to make man Godlike.
Science is only satisfied with first causes, religion with supreme personality, and philosophy with unity. Revelation affirms that these three are one, and that all are good. The eternal real is the good of the universe and not the time illusions of space evil. In the spiritual experience of all personalities, always is it true that the real is the good and the good is the real. (102:3, 1122)
After reading a passage like that one, you may feel so full and satisfied that you have no more felt need to inquire about philosophy. Just in case you are willing to take a step further, here is a next step.
2. Mind—the arena of awareness
Mind is the arena in which we become conscious of mind and whatever else there may be—matter, spirit, other persons. Our decisions and our very survival depend on the the choices we make based on the mind’s understanding of the alternatives. Matter, mind, and spirit, each have a certain claim to primacy; here, consider for a moment mind’s (limited) claim to primacy—epistemological primacy. In other words, whatever else there is, we can only know it through mind.
To build a philosophy of the universe on an exclusive materialism is to ignore the fact that all things material are initially conceived as real in the experience of human consciousness. (112:2, 1228.7)
If the nonreligious approaches to cosmic reality presume to challenge the certainty of faith on the grounds of its unproved status, then the spirit experiencer can likewise resort to the dogmatic challenge of the facts of science and the beliefs of philosophy on the grounds that they are likewise unproved; they are likewise experiences in the consciousness of the scientist or the philosopher. (102:7, 1127.3)
Always must man's inner spirit depend for its expression and self-realization upon the mechanism and technique of the mind. Likewise must man's outer experience of material reality be predicated on the mind consciousness of the experiencing personality. Therefore are the spiritual and the material, the inner and the outer, human experiences always correlated with the mind function and conditioned, as to their conscious realization, by the mind activity. Man experiences matter in his mind; he experiences spiritual reality in the soul but becomes conscious of this experience in his mind. The intellect is the harmonizer and the ever-present conditioner and qualifier of the sum total of mortal experience. Both energy-things and spirit values are colored by their interpretation through the mind media of consciousness. (103:6, 1136.1)
Religion has to do with the spiritual viewpoint, the awareness of the insideness of human experience. Man's spiritual nature affords him the opportunity of turning the universe outside in. It is therefore true that, viewed exclusively from the insideness of personality experience, all creation appears to be spiritual in nature. (103:6, 1135.5)
3. The mind’s three capacities for intuition, insight, and thinking
The cosmic mind unfailingly responds (recognizes response) on three levels of universe reality. These responses are self-evident to clear-reasoning and deep-thinking minds. These levels of reality are:
1. Causation--the reality domain of the physical senses, the scientific realms of logical uniformity, the differentiation of the factual and the nonfactual, reflective conclusions based on cosmic response. This is the mathematical form of the cosmic discrimination.
2. Duty--the reality domain of morals in the philosophic realm, the arena of reason, the recognition of relative right and wrong. This is the judicial form of the cosmic discrimination.
3. Worship--the spiritual domain of the reality of religious experience, the personal realization of divine fellowship, the recognition of spirit values, the assurance of eternal survival, the ascent from the status of servants of God to the joy and liberty of the sons of God. This is the highest insight of the cosmic mind, the reverential and worshipful form of the cosmic discrimination.
These scientific, moral, and spiritual insights, these cosmic responses, are innate in the cosmic mind, which endows all will creatures. The experience of living never fails to develop these three cosmic intuitions; they are constitutive in the self-consciousness of reflective thinking. But it is sad to record that so few persons on Urantia take delight in cultivating these qualities of courageous and independent cosmic thinking.
In the local universe mind bestowals, these three insights of the cosmic mind constitute the a priori assumptions which make it possible for man to function as a rational and self-conscious personality in the realms of science, philosophy, and religion. Stated otherwise, the recognition of the reality of these three manifestations of the Infinite is by a cosmic technique of self-revelation. Matter-energy is recognized by the mathematical logic of the senses; mind-reason intuitively knows its moral duty; spirit-faith (worship) is the religion of the reality of spiritual experience. These three basic factors in reflective thinking may be unified and co-ordinated in personality development, or they may become disproportionate and virtually unrelated in their respective functions. But when they become unified, they produce a strong character consisting in the correlation of a factual science, a moral philosophy, and a genuine religious experience. And it is these three cosmic intuitions that give objective validity, reality, to man's experience in and with things, meanings, and values.
It is the purpose of education to develop and sharpen these innate endowments of the human mind; of civilization to express them; of life experience to realize them; of religion to ennoble them; and of personality to unify them. (16:7, 192.0-7)
Our basic intuitions are assumptions. Hear two passages that elaborating this thought in a somewhat more complex way.
In the mortal state, nothing can be absolutely proved; both science and religion are predicated on assumptions. On the morontia level, the postulates of both science and religion are capable of partial proof by mota logic. On the spiritual level of maximum status, the need for finite proof gradually vanishes before the actual experience of and with reality; but even then there is much beyond the finite that remains unproved.
All divisions of human thought are predicated on certain assumptions which are accepted, though unproved, by the constitutive reality sensitivity of the mind endowment of man. Science starts out on its vaunted career of reasoning by assuming the reality of three things: matter, motion, and life. Religion starts out with the assumption of the validity of three things: mind, spirit, and the universe--the Supreme Being.
Science becomes the thought domain of mathematics, of the energy and material of time in space. Religion assumes to deal not only with finite and temporal spirit but also with the spirit of eternity and supremacy. Only through a long experience in mota can these two extremes of universe perception be made to yield analogous interpretations of origins, functions, relations, realities, and destinies. The maximum harmonization of the energy-spirit divergence is in the encircuitment of the Seven Master Spirits; the first unification thereof, in the Deity of the Supreme; the finality unity thereof, in the infinity of the First Source and Center, the I AM.
Reason is the act of recognizing the conclusions of consciousness with regard to the experience in and with the physical world of energy and matter. Faith is the act of recognizing the validity of spiritual consciousness—something which is incapable of other mortal proof. Logic is the synthetic truth-seeking progression of the unity of faith and reason and is founded on the constitutive mind endowments of mortal beings, the innate recognition of things, meanings, and values.
There is a real proof of spiritual reality in the presence of the Thought Adjuster, but the validity of this presence is not demonstrable to the external world, only to the one who thus experiences the indwelling of God. The consciousness of the Adjuster is based on the intellectual reception of truth, the supermind perception of goodness, and the personality motivation to love.
Science discovers the material world, religion evaluates it, and philosophy endeavors to interpret its meanings while co-ordinating the scientific material viewpoint with the religious spiritual concept. But history is a realm in which science and religion may never fully agree. (103:7, 1139.2-7)
Science (knowledge) is founded on the inherent (adjutant spirit) assumption that reason is valid, that the universe can be comprehended. Philosophy (co-ordinate comprehension) is founded on the inherent (spirit of wisdom) assumption that wisdom is valid, that the material universe can be co-ordinated with the spiritual. Religion (the truth of personal spiritual experience) is founded on the inherent (Thought Adjuster) assumption that faith is valid, that God can be known and attained.
The full realization of the reality of mortal life consists in a progressive willingness to believe these assumptions of reason, wisdom, and faith. Such a life is one motivated by truth and dominated by love; and these are the ideals of objective cosmic reality whose existence cannot be materially demonstrated. (103:9, 1141.6-7)
4. The mind’s movement from fact through meaning to value
There is a sequence which is normal for the human mind.
Science is the source of facts, and mind cannot operate without facts. They are the building blocks in the construction of wisdom which are cemented together by life experience. Man can find the love of God without facts, and man can discover the laws of God without love, but man can never begin to appreciate the infinite symmetry, the supernal harmony, the exquisite repleteness of the all-inclusive nature of the First Source and Center until he has found divine law and divine love and has experientially unified these in his own evolving cosmic philosophy. (111:6, 1222.5)
Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole company of TRUTH. (103:9, 1141.5)
As mind pursues reality to its ultimate analysis, matter vanishes to the material senses but may still remain real to mind. When spiritual insight pursues that reality which remains after the disappearance of matter and pursues it to an ultimate analysis, it vanishes to mind, but the insight of spirit can still perceive cosmic realities and supreme values of a spiritual nature. Accordingly does science give way to philosophy, while philosophy must surrender to the conclusions inherent in genuine spiritual experience. Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and reflective worship.
In science the human self observes the material world; philosophy is the observation of this observation of the material world; religion, true spiritual experience, is the experiential realization of the cosmic reality of the observation of the observation of all this relative synthesis of the energy materials of time and space. . . .
In time, thinking leads to wisdom and wisdom leads to worship; in eternity, worship leads to wisdom, and wisdom eventuates in the finality of thought. (112:2, 1228.6-8)
Note that we have already seen a different sequence: science, religion, philosophy—illuminated by revelation (1122). We mustn’t make too much of particular sequences, since, mercifully, we are saved from dogmatism by being given differing lists that cannot simply be mapped onto one another to produce the ultimate, absolute megalist.
4. Is there a common pattern for thinking on these diverse levels?
Intuition-reason-wisdom
Watch out! Here I am piecing some things together and perhaps making a leap and emphasizing something too much. I think I see a pattern.
The call to intuition means: don’t just accept what others say, don’t just float down the stream of popular opinion (called “conventional wisdom”!). Inquire! Investigate! Explore! Don’t just hire an expert. Find God for yourself! In each of the basic realms of reality, you have the capacity for discovery, thinking, reality-recognition.
Sometimes the term “intuition” refers to our initial sense of something before we have sharpened intuition through inquiry. But notice that we have already seen the term intuition used broadly. The capacity of cosmic mind regarding causation ranges from simple graspings (adjutant of intuition) to complex scientific reasoning (192).
In the simpler sense, thought begins with intuition.
Intellectual self-consciousness can discover the beauty of truth, its spiritual quality, not only by the philosophic consistency of its concepts, but more certainly and surely by the unerring response of the ever-present Spirit of Truth. Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor. (2:7, 42.7)
Advanced thinking goes beyond its initial, intuitive grasp, and that advancement in thinking is part of the process that sharpens that intuition to the level that is worthy of being called insight.
On the level of intellectual interpretation of meanings in what we read, Jesus challenged Thomas for failing to reason, to draw inferences, to “interpret”:
"You are confused, Thomas, by the doctrines of the Greeks and the errors of the Persians. You do not understand the relationships of evil and sin because you view mankind as beginning on earth with a perfect Adam and rapidly degenerating, through sin, to man's present deplorable estate. But why do you refuse to comprehend the meaning of the record which discloses how Cain, the son of Adam, went over into the land of Nod and there got himself a wife? And why do you refuse to interpret the meaning of the record which portrays the sons of God finding wives for themselves among the daughters of men? (148:4, 1660.6)
Where there are multiple relevant intuitions and lines of reasoning, it is important to give due recognition to each.
Philosophers commit their gravest error when they are misled into the fallacy of abstraction, the practice of focusing the attention upon one aspect of reality and then of pronouncing such an isolated aspect to be the whole truth. (2:7, 42.6)
Thus the point of the wisdom synthesis is to overcome one-sidedness.
In one sense, the pattern I allege is trivial. Of course we begin with a simple intuitive grasp of something. Of course advanced thinking on any level goes further, engages in reasoning in some sense. Of course one comes to some conclusion or synthesis. Ho hum. If however, that process in one way or another is well-nigh universal in mature thinking, it is worth recognizing it.
In another sense, the pattern is not trivial. The call to intuition challenges our acceptance of second-hand opinion. The call to reason takes us beyond the quick reasoning that sometimes leads us to hasty conclusions. This engages the adjutant of knowledge (at least) along with the adjutant of understanding. The call to a wisdom synthesis reminds us of the maturity of the fruits of our quest, whether they be summarized in a “simple” proverb or in a discourse of some length and depth.
The pattern as a sequence is in a way misleading. It might seem as though we can make an absolute beginning with intuition. In fact, however, we are presupposing from the start our previous wisdom synthesis. Moreover, it often takes reasoning for us to sharpen our intuition. Moreover, it takes intuition, guided by the evolving wisdom synthesis, in order to reason well. In sum, all three activities of thinking are involved in each of them.
Now after all these caveats and qualifications, see whether you see a basis for the pattern I think I discern.
And as material intuitive instinct precedes the appearance of reasoned knowledge in terrestrial evolution, so does the manifestation of spiritual intuitive insight presage the later appearance of morontia and spirit reason and experience in the supernal program of celestial evolution . . .” (103:7, 1138.0)
Faith-insight, or spiritual intuition, is the endowment of the cosmic mind in association with the Thought Adjuster, which is the Father's gift to man. Spiritual reason, soul intelligence, is the endowment of the Holy Spirit, the Creative Spirit's gift to man. Spiritual philosophy, the wisdom of spirit realities, is the endowment of the Spirit of Truth, the combined gift of the bestowal Sons to the children of men. And the co-ordination and interassociation of these spirit endowments constitute man a spirit personality in potential destiny. (101:3, 1108.1)
Philosophic living, then, is part of our co-creative adventure in the realm of the Supreme, thinking with the capacities of cosmic mind mediated through the adjutants, bringing new capacities to bear to sharpen insight, make reasoning accurate, and synthesize a wisdom perspective that is ever more grand. To some extent, these activities can be played out on each level of mind’s awareness: matter, mind, and spirit. Nevertheless, the authors often associate “reasoning” with science and “wisdom” with philosophy; so we must avoid dogmatism, be flexible in our thinking, and keep trimming the sails of our inquiry to revealed guidance. The overarching purpose of mind is indicated in this passage, with which I close.
On Paradise the three energies, physical, mindal, and spiritual, are co-ordinate. In the evolutionary cosmos energy-matter is dominant except in personality, where spirit, through the mediation of mind, is striving for the mastery. (12:8, 140.10)
Where do we go next? Into the thick of things. Look at the statements of human wisdom associated with morontia mota on pp. 556-57.
Consider the depth involved in concepts, taking as the example the concept of group solidarity that Jesus forged: note the years of struggle that went into it and the virtues at its base. Then look at Jesus’ deliberate work in forging his concept of God and his concept of the kingdom (196:0, 2087.2 and 2088.3). All of a sudden the magnificent, sweeping generalizations we have been reading begin to recede into the background, and the straight-ahead work looms ahead as we sense where we need to concentrate. It becomes clear that a concept (which has a spiritual dimension as well as an intellectual dimension) is more than an idea, and cannot be acquired simply by reading a page with understanding.
If you are minded to go at it more thoroughly, go to my chapter (as indicated on the philosophy of living page) and pay particular attention to the inflection at the end that moves from intellectual reflection to prayer. Mind—philosophy—has the function of bridging between two realms. Our previous look at science incorporated a high proportion of philosophy of science. It is fitting that our look at philosophy culminate with a turn to the spiritual.
And please let me know where you could use some clarification.
Happy sharpening, inferring, and synthesizing!