Harmony between Science & Religion
The Urantia Book introduces many new concepts and even “creates” new words to define non-physical Universe reality, which are necessary to understand the fuller context of the UB’s message to humanity.
One of those concepts is “morontia”, the term used to designate the level of reality between the material and purely spiritual. After death, we inherit a morontial body while we work towards full spiritual existence, which occurs upon fusion with our God Spark (aka Thought Adjuster). “Mota” is a related term used to describe the advanced philosophy and grasp of eternal meanings and values that morontial beings are capable of enjoying. Â
Jesus appeared after his death to his apostles via a morontial “vehicle”. Certain celestial personalities are created as morontial beings, like our Midwayer brothers and sisters. They can visually appear to humans in times of great need but are most often invisible to us in the physical realm.
“Your difficulty in arriving at a more harmonious co-ordination between science and religion is due to your utter ignorance of the intervening domain of the morontia world of things and beings. The local universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the insight technique of religion; mota is the technique of the morontia level. Mota is a supermaterial reality sensitivity which is beginning to compensate incomplete growth, having for its substance knowledge-reason and for its essence faith-insight. Mota is a superphilosophical reconciliation of divergent reality perception which is nonattainable by material personalities; it is predicated, in part, on the experience of having survived the material life of the flesh. But many mortals have recognized the desirability of having some method of reconciling the interplay between the widely separated domains of science and religion; and metaphysics is the result of man’s unavailing attempt to span this well-recognized chasm. But human metaphysics has proved more confusing than illuminating. Metaphysics stands for man’s well-meant but futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia.
Metaphysics has proved a failure; mota, man cannot perceive. Revelation is the only technique which can compensate for the absence of the truth sensitivity of mota in a material world. Revelation authoritatively clarifies the muddle of reason-developed metaphysics on an evolutionary sphere.”
- The Urantia Book, 103:6.7-8