Author: Sławomir Żydenko
In this post, we will continue the topic of death and the life that follows. The source is the Urantia Book from the website https://urantia.org. I warmly invite you to read this post.
Last time, I wrote about the phenomenon of death and mentioned that there are three types of death. Here’s a brief recap:
The first type of death is the death of the soul when a person chooses to be evil, consciously engaging in wrongdoing and committing sins. By doing so, they deprive themselves of the possibility of further evolution after death. The death of the soul ends their existence; they do not resurrect after physical death. This seems worse to me than the teachings of Christianity. According to Christian teachings, after death, we face either torment in hell or paradise. In paradise, there is luxury; in hell, we may suffer, but we continue to exist. However, according to the Urantia Book, a person who dies spiritually continues to function in the material world as a human being but does not resurrect after physical death. The soul of such a person ceases to evolve because it had already died earlier during their lifetime.
The second type of death is intellectual death, the death of the mind. For example, this could happen if a person suffers an accident causing severe brain trauma or contracts a debilitating illness. The body continues to live, but the brain no longer functions as it should. The person’s will ceases to operate, and they can no longer make decisions, which, according to the Urantia Book, means they stop being a person. The spiritual evolution of such a person on Earth ends, but as long as they did not make a final decision to embrace evil during their lifetime, they progress further after death. Such a person awakens to further life and evolution from the point where their spiritual development here on Earth stopped. After death, their evolution continues in the morontial world. The morontial world is a transitional realm between the material and spiritual worlds, where a person receives a semi-spiritual, semi-material body and functions as a morontial being.
Finally, the third type of death is physical death, the ordinary kind, understood in a common sense: life ends, and the person is buried in a grave.
How, then, can we know what to do to avoid spiritual death? In my opinion, the essential message of the Urantia Book is that we, all people on Earth, are brothers and sisters, and God, as the Father of us all, is one. Therefore, the most reliable way to avoid spiritual death is to practice the principle of brotherhood among people and acknowledge one God as our Father.
The most basic criterion for distinguishing good from evil is, therefore, how we treat others – harming another person is evil, and conversely, helping and uplifting them is good. In this matter, however, things are not always so clear and simple. For example, your friend might claim that drinking beer helps him, while you, his family, and friends clearly see that it harms him. Worse still, you also see that his drinking harms his wife and children. What will you do, give him beer or not? Each situation must be assessed individually.
The idea of one God as the Father of all people is also undoubtedly good. If applied, people, for instance, would not be so easily persuaded to kill each other in wars by the millions, thinking that God supports their side. But why would God actually support one side of a conflict when wars are about oil, gas, or other benefits for a few selected individuals in power? Our conflicts are human; according to the Urantia Book, God does not interfere in them.
That summarizes the last installment, and now let’s move on to what happens after physical death according to the Urantia Book.
Here’s a quote from Paper 112, Section 112:3.5:
“After death the material body returns to the elemental world from which it was derived, but two nonmaterial factors of surviving personality persist: The pre-existent Thought Adjuster, with the memory transcription of the mortal career, proceeds to Divinington; and there also remains, in the custody of the destiny guardian, the immortal morontia soul of the deceased human. These phases and forms of soul, these once kinetic but now static formulas of identity, are essential to repersonalization on the morontia worlds; and it is the reunion of the Adjuster and the soul that reassembles the surviving personality, that reconsciousizes you at the time of the morontia awakening.”
To better understand this, let’s clarify a few terms from this quote:
- Thought Adjuster: The divine fragment dwelling within a person.
- Divinington: A place in the universe reserved for Thought Adjusters.
- Destiny Guardian: Another term for our Guardian Angel.
- Morontial: Refers to the intermediate realm between the material and spiritual worlds.
Let’s reread the quote:
“After death the material body returns to the elemental world from which it was derived, but two nonmaterial factors of surviving personality persist: The pre-existent Thought Adjuster, with the memory transcription of the mortal career, proceeds to Divinington; and there also remains, in the custody of the destiny guardian, the immortal morontia soul of the deceased human. These phases and forms of soul, these once kinetic but now static formulas of identity, are essential to repersonalization on the morontia worlds; and it is the reunion of the Adjuster and the soul that reassembles the surviving personality, that reconsciousizes you at the time of the morontia awakening.”
According to what we’ve read, after death, two spiritual entities remain. The first is that divine fragment, the aforementioned Thought Adjuster. The second is the human soul. The union of these two entities is necessary to restore the consciousness of the person. But that’s not all.
We already know that a Thought Adjuster, holding the record of a person’s actions, and a soul, containing that person’s personality traits, are required. However, a body is also needed in which this conscious being can function. Thus, after death, when the mortal is called back to life, the Thought Adjuster returns from Divinington with the record of the person’s actions. The angels, who safeguard the human soul, create for them a morontial body—a semi-spiritual, semi-material body. The angels unite the soul, the Adjuster, and the morontial body, enabling the resurrection of the person.
This is how a resurrected person is composed—they must possess memories of their past experiences, the traits of their personality, and a body. Then, they are awakened to morontial life. Such a resurrected person remembers themselves, although they are now in a different body. Amazing, isn’t it?
To expand on this, let us read verse 112:3.6 from Paper 112:
“For those who do not have personal seraphic guardians, the group custodians faithfully and efficiently perform the same service of identity safekeeping and personality resurrection. The seraphim are indispensable to the reassembly of personality.”
This is precisely what I mentioned. Seraphim, or angels, reassemble a person and call them into morontial life. Additionally, we learn from this verse that not everyone has a personal Guardian Angel. Most people have a guardian angel who oversees a specific group of individuals.
But let’s return to the topic. To better imagine who we will be after resurrection, here’s another quote. This one is from Paper 190, Section 190:0.3:
“The mortals of the realms will arise in the morning of the resurrection with the same type of transition or morontia body that Jesus had when he arose from the tomb on this Sunday morning. These bodies do not have circulating blood, and such beings do not partake of ordinary material food; nevertheless, these morontia forms are real. When the various believers saw Jesus after his resurrection, they really saw him; they were not the self-deceived victims of visions or hallucinations.”
Of course, Jesus had a special mission on Earth, which is why, after his death, he was seen by many people. An ordinary mortal usually has no further tasks to complete in this world. Apart from grieving loved ones, there is little to keep them here.
Perhaps you’ve heard stories about deceased relatives appearing to family members or acquaintances? This phenomenon pertains to exactly that. Normally, we consider such events as products of one’s mind or dismiss them as strange, unexplained occurrences. Naturally, it’s always wise to remain realistic, but realism also assumes that our senses do not encompass the entire reality of the universe.
Morontial beings—who we will become after death—can manifest both in waking life and in dreams. It is easier for them to appear in dreams because manifesting in waking life requires much energy for a morontial being. These aspects are also described in the Urantia Book.
This is what the resurrection of man according to the Urantia Book looks like. That’s all for today regarding resurrection. We’ll continue exploring this topic further.
Read the Urantia Book for yourselves! Until next time. Goodbye!
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Link to the video:
Sources of the quotes:
https://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper-112-personality-survival
https://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper-190-morontia-appearances-jesus