“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There was not to be any argument given. Obedience was man’s largest responsibility to the Godhead of the Old Testament.

Now Ruburt’s paper was largely correct, in that Christianity in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, has not only frowned on revelation, but in the past tried with the utmost effort to strike it down. This was largely out of self-interest, and the many Protestant faiths are a proof of the fragmentation that results when man is given some freedom to interpret his relationship with God himself.

That freedom, however, of course has been highly limited in nature, for the dogma of Christianity still largely held. There were, however, other reasons also—to do the church some small justice (amused). If God could tell a man to slay a son, and if private revelation were granted validity, then “divinely inspired crimes” might not only be legion, but might also take man’s energies away from accepted Godly pursuits—like fighting the infidels or heretics at home (all louder).

For centuries, priests of one kind or another have been put in charge of “reading God’s messages,” and interpreting them to the rest of mankind, just as in later times the scientists have been put in the position of interpreting man’s own world to him—in terms quite as esoteric as those of any religion. So science and revelation seem far apart indeed, for the revelation usually insists upon obedience to a vision that is privately received, and offers as a rule but poor evidence. No questions are allowed. Science on the other hand, constantly questions, and is so objectively occupied that the subjective world is entirely beyond its realm.

You have had a schism, in which reason and emotion seemed to be opposites. Revelation and reason seemed to be enemies. Yet as the approach of the scientific age appeared, before its blossoming, so new tendencies are now showing that do indeed signal a new era, in which the emotions and intellect are no longer regarded as opposing tendencies in man.

Revelations will be encouraged, and yet they will not be put above the common-sense wisdom that insists upon tolerance and justice. Man has indeed forgotten how to interpret his revelations—but more importantly, he has forgotten how to receive them, and then how to perfect them in reason’s light.