The British Study Edition of the Urantia Papers

knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith.

^196:3.35 And God-consciousness is equivalent to the integration of the self with the universe, and on its highest levels of spiritual reality. Only the spirit content of any value is imperishable. Even that which is true, beautiful, and good may not perish in human experience. If man does not choose to survive, then does the surviving Adjuster conserve those realities born of love and nurtured in service. And all these things are a part of the Universal Father. The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Father is in his Sons’ sons[1] — mortal men. When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God.

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Critical Apparatus and Study Notes

Notes to Foreword

[1]

Urantia, pronounced oorantia, is a coined word from the Greek ??????? “heavens” and the Latin suffix -tia, probably signifying “[y] our place in the heavens”.

[2]

Orvonton, is a coined word from the Old English prefix or- “out”, the Middle English wone (> von) “dwelling place” and the Old English tun “town”, resulting in the total meaning of “the out-dwelling town”.

[3]

Orvonton ... authorized, Only the papers 1-31 (i.e. Part I) were authorized at the superuniverse level. The papers 32-196 (Parts II, III and IV) were revealed under the local universe and system level authorization.

[4]

papers dealing with Deity and the universe of universes, As already noted at 0:0.1, these are limited to papers 1-31 only. Therefore, this Foreword is properly “the Foreword to Part I of the Urantia Papers” and that is where it should be printed. Curiously, this is where the Foreword is found in “The Titles of the Papers” and “Contents of the Book” as printed in the original 1955 edition, although the text of the Foreword is printed just before the Part I title page preceding Paper 1 of that edition. Moving the Foreword outside Part I (as is done in all editions except the present one) shows an attempt to fossilize into a single monolithic “Urantia Book” what should remain a living and constantly growing set of “Urantia Papers”.

[5]

Nebadon, is a coined word from the Old English adune (> dune > dun > don) “off the hill”, resulting in the probable total meaning of “the nebular hill”. Indeed, the Nebadon (local universe) level of our ascension is a relative hill, compared to the system- level mansion world experience.

[6]

Uversa, is a coined word from the Latin versatilis “capable of turning or being turned around”, signifying the centre of the superuniverse expressing the 7^th expression of the Father-Son-Spirit pattern: U being the 21^st letter of English alphabet: 21 = 3?7. The “name” of the first evolutionary superuniverse, under this scheme, would be “Cversa”, of the second — “Fversa”, and so on.

[7]

existential, Defined at 0:7.3 as “beings of eternal existence, past, present, and future”.

[8]

experiential, Defined at 0:7.4 as “beings actualizing in the post-Havona present but of unending existence throughout all future eternity”.

[9]

seven conceivable types, The following list of seven elements contains all non-empty subsets (2³ - 1 = 7) of the set {Absolute, Relative, Imperfection}, listed in this particular order to reflect the inherent ordering of the three basic elements as follows: Absolute > Relative > Imperfection.