The Way of Simplicity
Revised August 17, 2018
The new and appealing philosophy of living outlined at 2:7/43 comes in the context of a revelation of the nature of God. The qualities of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness are supreme values that we mortals are can live in a human way. As we the import of the new philosophy begins to dawn on us, we can see that preparation for this philosophy may be traced all the way back to some things that the Divine Counselor in his introduction to Paper 1.
· He introduces us to the Universal Father.
· He tells us how to think of God.
· He reveals what it means to be a human being—one who can know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return.
· He tells us that God-knowing mortals have just one all-consuming ambition, one supreme desire: to become, as we are on Urantia, like he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy.
Paper 2 reveals the nature of God, culminating in the goodness of God, with a final section on divine truth and beauty. The Divine Counselor proposes the new philosophy of living as the way to accomplish three things:
· rehabilitate the morality of modern religion
· heal secularism
· guide us in becoming like God.
After we realize something of the complexity and high ideals involved in the new philosophy, it is essential to balance that with a thought about simplicity. Cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness represent a path to love; in its thoroughness, that path is one of complexity. But truth, beauty, and goodness also represent the way of simplicity. They are blended in human life. When we act intuitively, living on the level of divine sonship, we know that simplicity.
But our intuitive life in simplicity is imperfect; and our understanding of meanings and values as we study the path of thoroughness is partial and usually mixed with error to a greater or lesser degree.
We progress best by integrating this path of thoroughness (studying the topics one by one) with the way of simplicity (living it divinely in the way possible for a humble and teachable son or daughter of God). If we lose touch with the way of simplicity, our path of thoroughness becomes dry, intellectual, prideful system-building. But if we fall into pride in our ability to live the way of simplicity, then we fail to benefit from the learning that is ours if we continue our progress in the path of thoroughness.
The way of simplicity can only truly be a way if it leads us into and through the paths of thoroughness that are ours to tread.
Here are two examples of the way of simplicity.
The simplest example: the way of simplicity means living centered in love.
100:4.3 (1097.7) The great problem of religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of LOVE.
Learning to live in truth, beauty, and goodness is the great path to love. But we can start now activating love as our central motivation in our study and our relationships. In this way, progress in truth, beauty, and goodness will make our love more mature and real.
The second example of the way of simplicity is truly thrilling for those in love with truth, beauty, and goodness.
Think of what it is like when you receive an answer to prayer.Do you not find that the answer is illuminating, that it feels wonderful, and that it motivates you in the right direction. Such guidance for thinking, feeling, and doing is implicit in what is really going on.
91:8.11 (1002.3) God answers man’s prayer by giving him an increased revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness.
In other words, there is a particular configuration of truth, beauty, and goodness which we can feel as a unitary illumination-joy-motivation. Whenever we feel the divine presence, that configuration is there, continuously shaped to guide us perfectly in the ever-changing circumstances of our lives.
Yes, our discernment of the divine lure is imperfect. We could improve it by trying to make explicit to ourselves what particular expanded revelation of truth we are being given, what enhanced appreciation of beauty, what augmented concept of goodness.
When we enter the mansion world educational system with a hundred schools each for thinking, feeling, and doing, our discernment of truth, beauty, and goodness will become much sharper.
Here, our experience of divine simplicity is cruder. But it is precisely by doing our best as mortal tadpoles that we may emerge as full-fledged morontia frogs in the life to come.
Our work with truth, beauty, and goodness as the supreme values for our living will enable us each to grow and to help each other on this path in the way.