I just wrote a response Midi, but something happened and it disappeared. 
I’ll try later.
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True Liberty – False Liberty
23 posts · 6 participants · started Feb 27, 2015, 6:13 PM
I just wrote a response Midi, but something happened and it disappeared. [. . .] I’ll try later.
Not to worry since I really didn’t have a chance to fully reply to your statement, specifically regarding “The Theft of Liberty” where the Urantia Book lists a section on this subject but does not actually use the phrase “theft of liberty” in its text but does refer to “theft of personal liberty” in “(614.8) 54:2.3”. Therefore, the section on “The Theft of Liberty” should be replaced as “The Theft of Personal Liberty” where “personal liberty” is found 17 times and “personal-liberty” once. In searching these phrases it is not difficult to determine that there may be a slight variation as to what “liberty” might be in the viewpoint of the authors because I found some very interesting grammatical narrations which used interesting wordage which just might have been selected to have variations of meanings depending on how one actually looks at the phraseology being used. I also found some interesting inferences which might even be somewhat contradictory, as I will attempt to present some here.
(615.1) 54:2.4 In short, what God had given men and angels Lucifer would have taken away from them, that is, the divine privilege of participating in the creation of their own destinies and of the destiny of this local system of inhabited worlds.
(615.2) 54:2.5 No being in all the universe has the rightful liberty to deprive any other being of true liberty, the right to love and be loved, the privilege of worshiping God and of serving his fellows.
Now in the narration above, there is somewhat of a contradiction, in that “God had given men and angels” “the divine privilege of participating in the creation of their own destinies” where first, if we have free will, would we not be creating our own destinies and actually “participating” in doing so, unless when one reads, “had given men and angels”, as being put on equal terms or even possibly as combined persona in one personality, as dual manifested beings, then there might be an issue with free will and liberty. But, as can be read in the second narration, above the “no being” “has the rightful liberty to deprive any other being of true liberty” where “true” is arbitrary and should just read as “liberty” because it would imply that “false liberty” would not be inclusive in “the rightful liberty” and would be allowed as a rightful discretion. Then there is “the privilege of” “serving his fellows”, which would be a selfless ambition for altruism.
(615.3) 54:3.1 The moral will creatures of the evolutionary worlds are always bothered with the unthinking question as to why the all-wise Creators permit evil and sin. They fail to comprehend that both are inevitable if the creature is to be truly free. The free will of evolving man or exquisite angel is not a mere philosophic concept, a symbolic ideal. Man’s ability to choose good or evil is a universe reality. This liberty to choose for oneself is an endowment of the Supreme Rulers, and they will not permit any being or group of beings to deprive a single personality in the wide universe of this divinely bestowed liberty — not even to satisfy such misguided and ignorant beings in the enjoyment of this misnamed personal liberty.
Now to work backwards in where the last phrase in the narration above is “misnamed personal liberty” it is therefore evident that “personal liberty” is actually “free will” which has been endowed or bestowed unto “evolving man or exquisite angel” where again “man” and “angel” are held equally. But, it is interesting that in the last sentence above it refers to the experiencing of “free will” as “enjoyment” which would “satisfy” these “men” and “angels”, who are presented as “misguided and ignorant beings” and who would be permitted to partake of “evil and sin”, in order “to be truly free.” Where it is “Man’s ability to choose good or evil” but it would seem that “angels” either are not able or unwilling to choose, between “good and evil” either because they are “exquisite” or have no real control over free will? So, if angels have “personal liberty” or “free will” and they would not be included in choosing between “good and evil”, could this “personal liberty” taken away as in a “theft of liberty”?
(798.5) 70:12.6 If men would maintain their freedom, they must, after having chosen their charter of liberty, provide for its wise, intelligent, and fearless interpretation to the end that there may be prevented:
(798.6) 70:12.7 1. Usurpation of unwarranted power by either the executive or legislative branches.
(798.7) 70:12.8 2. Machinations of ignorant and superstitious agitators.
(798.8) 70:12.9 3. Retardation of scientific progress.
(798.9) 70:12.10 4. Stalemate of the dominance of mediocrity.
(798.10) 70:12.11 5. Domination by vicious minorities.
(798.11) 70:12.12 6. Control by ambitious and clever would-be dictators.
(798.12) 70:12.13 7. Disastrous disruption of panics.
(798.13) 70:12.14 8. Exploitation by the unscrupulous.
(798.14) 70:12.15 9. Taxation enslavement of the citizenry by the state.
(798.15) 70:12.16 10. Failure of social and economic fairness.
(798.16) 70:12.17 11. Union of church and state.
(798.17) 70:12.18 12. Loss of personal liberty.(798.18) 70:12.19 These are the purposes and aims of constitutional tribunals acting as governors upon the engines of representative government on an evolutionary world.
In the previous narrations the list of twelve thinks to avoid or prevent from occurring as established in a “charter of liberty” in order to pursue and maintain freedoms would include “12. Loss of personal liberty.” which would include “free will” to choose but does this mean that by avoiding these twelve group liberties or allowing them not to be guarded against, would be a “theft of liberty”? where unbridled “personal liberty” would also be considered as “anarchy”? So, is imposing and enforcing rules and laws which would defend and restrict “personal liberty” not also be “the theft of liberty”? It is one thing to allow individuals the ability to choose between good and evil but how far does one go before “true liberty” infringes on someone else’s idea of “true liberty”?
(906.2) 81:5.4 Social association is a form of survival insurance which human beings have learned is profitable; therefore are most individuals willing to pay those premiums of self-sacrifice and personal-liberty curtailment which society exacts from its members in return for this enhanced group protection. In short, the present-day social mechanism is a trial-and-error insurance plan designed to afford some degree of assurance and protection against a return to the terrible and antisocial conditions which characterized the early experiences of the human race.
How “early” was being referenced above when stating “the terrible and antisocial conditions” “of the human race”? Are they indicating recent history or more so about 200,000+ years ago?
- MidiChlorian wrote:.. . if angels have “personal liberty” or “free will” . . .Sorry I couldn’t get back to the topic earlier. Beings endowed with personality, angels included, have free will. Personality provides the potential to go wrong and some do go wrong in the scheme of the local universes. Decisions are made for or against true liberty, as elucidated for us in the narratives about the Lucifer rebellion where a “war in heaven” occurred at the headquarters of Satania, and it spread to every planet in the local system but where only thirty-seven Planetary Princes swung their world administrations largely to the side of the archrebel. The good news is no other worlds have been lost since that time.The volitional choice is to identify with reality or not.118:7:7 Subpersonal living things [animals for example] indicate mind activating energy-matter, first as physical controllers, and then as adjutant mind-spirits. Personality endowment comes from the Father and imparts unique prerogatives of choice to the living system. But if personality has the prerogative of exercising volitional choice of reality identification, and if this is a true and free choice, then must evolving personality also have the possible choice of becoming self-confusing, self-disrupting, and self-destroying. The possibility of cosmic self-destruction cannot be avoided if the evolving personality is to be truly free in the exercise of finite will.And personality volition ranges from the lowest to the highest beings. “Personality is bestowed by the Universal Father upon his creatures as a potentially eternal endowment. Such a divine gift is designed to function on numerous levels and in successive universe situations ranging from the lowly finite to the highest absonite, even to the borders of the absolute.” 112:1:1 Even Jesus was aware of his God-given decision-choices to be grappled with during the forty days of isolation he spent in the Perean hills after his baptism. He thought out what he would and would not do for the rest of his bestowal time on earth. He used his human mind to ask the questions as he worked through the divine solutions to the problems confronting his way forward. For example:136:9:5 Even his human mind is saying good-bye to the throne of David. Step by step this human mind follows in the path of the divine. The human mind still asks questions but unfailingly accepts the divine answers as final rulings in this combined life of living as a man in the world while all the time submitting unqualifiedly to the doing of the Father’s eternal and divine will.False liberty is when a person of authority tells you that worship can be accorded the universal forces — physical, intellectual, and spiritual — but that allegiance can be acknowledged only to the actual and present ruler, [name-your-ruler] or Lucifer – the “friend of men and angels” and the “God of liberty”— false liberty. 3:4:1 When worship of the universal forces or something else is mandated of people, taking away their free will choice as regards worship, real big problems ensue.MidiChlorian wrote: (798.5) 70:12.6 “If men would maintain their freedom, they must, after having chosen their charter of liberty, provide for its wise, intelligent, and fearless interpretation to the end that there may be prevented. . . .”Thanks for providing the references to civil authorities need to prevent so that people can maintain their freedom. The rub comes when the authority demands to be worshiped. Such a teaching is a usurpation of true liberty — the theft of true liberty.178:1:3 There is nothing incompatible between sonship in the spiritual kingdom and citizenship in the secular or civil government. It is the believer’s duty to render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and to God the things which are God’s. There cannot be any disagreement between these two requirements, the one being material and the other spiritual, unless it should develop that a Caesar presumes to usurp the prerogatives of God and demand that spiritual homage and supreme worship be rendered to him. In such a case you shall worship only God while you seek to enlighten such misguided earthly rulers and in this way lead them also to the recognition of the Father in heaven. You shall not render spiritual worship to earthly rulers; neither should you employ the physical forces of earthly governments, whose rulers may sometime become believers, in the work of furthering the mission of the spiritual kingdom.
