Ch. 40, Further Discussions with Rodan
“Son of Man: Urantia,” 2nd edition
Further Discussions with Rodan
As agreed on, everyone came back together in Magadan on Sunday, September 25th. Jesus surprised the apostles and evangelists by telling them that he and the twelve were leaving early the next day for Jerusalem: they were going to the feast of the tabernacles. He told the evangelists to keep working in Galilee, and the women’s corps he told to go back to Bethsaida.
The next morning before leaving, Thomas and Nathanial asked Jesus if they could stay there for a few more days and continue their discussions with Rodan. The week before they had alternated teaching him the gospel, and the two apostles found that he had been well taught by one of John the Baptist’s former apostles in Alexandria.
The Personality of God
One area where Rodan and the apostles disagreed had to do with God’s personality. While Rodan accepted all of the attributes of God that he had been taught, he stood firm saying that God is not and could not be a person in the same way that people think of personality. But while the two apostles had a hard time trying to prove that God is a person, Rodan had an even harder time trying to prove that he was not.
Rodan’s position was that personality can only exist when two equal beings with sympathetic understanding and full mutual communication come together. He said “To be a person God has to have a way to communicate with, and be totally understood by, those beings who contact him. But since God is eternal and infinite and the Creator of all other beings, then there are no other beings of equal rank with whom he can talk. God is alone in the universe: no being is equal to God, and no being can communicate with him as an equal. God may be the source of personality, but he is transcendent personality just like the Creator is something more than the creature.”
Not knowing how to respond to Rodan, Thomas and Nathaniel asked Jesus to come to their aid. Jesus refused to involve himself, but he did tell Thomas “It does not matter what your idea of God is, as long as you are spiritually tuned into the ideal of his eternal and infinite nature.”
Thomas said God does communicate with people, and that means that he is a person in Rodan’s definition. But Rodan said no, that God does not personally show himself to us: that he is still a mystery. Then Nathaniel used his own personal experience with God to try and convince Rodan, and while Rodan agreed Nathaniel’s experiences were valid, he said they only proved the reality of God, not his personality.
By Monday night Thomas gave up. But by Tuesday night Nathaniel had persuaded Rodan to believe in the Father’s personality by using the following arguments.
First, that God does have full and equal communication with at least two other beings who are equal to him: the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit. Between them they make up the Trinity, each the same yet each a different flavor of God. Because of this Rodan had to admit there was the possibility that God was a personality.
Second, since Jesus was equal with the Father and since Jesus had come to Earth and had shown himself to humanity as a person, that demonstrates the possibility that all three of the Godheads have personality. Nathaniel’s points settled that argument, and they never again questioned God’s ability to communicate with people and the possibility of people communicating with God.
Third, that Jesus was the Son of God and perfectly able to communicate with humanity. The Father-Son relationship assumes that Jesus and the Father are one, with equal communication and understanding between the two. That Jesus maintained communication with both God and people at the same time, and since both God and people were able to communicate with Jesus that meant that both God and people had personalities according to that definition—that Jesus’ personality showed the personality of God, and proved the presence of God in people: if two things are related to the same thing, they themselves are related.
Fourth, that personality represents humanity’s highest ideas of human reality and divine values, while God represents humanity’s highest ideas of divine reality and infinite values. In reality, God must always be a divine, infinite, and universal personality even though forever above humanity’s idea of personality.
Finally, that God must be a personality since he is the Creator of all personality and the goal or destiny of all personality. Rodan had been hugely influenced by Jesus’ prayer, “So be you perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
After hearing Nathaniel’s arguments, Rodan said “I am convinced. I will say that God is a person if you will let me say that personality is also represented by a group of higher values, like being final, eternal, supreme, infinite, universal, and superhuman. I am now convinced that while God must be infinitely more than a personality, he cannot be anything less. I accept Jesus as the personal revelation of the Father to humanity and the answer to all unsatisfied questions of logic, reason, and philosophy.
Jesus’ Divine Nature
Since Rodan understood the gospel so well, Thomas and Nathaniel only had one other item to discuss: the teaching about Jesus’ divine nature that they had recently learned. The two apostles both presented their views to Rodan, and the following is a restatement of their teaching.
Jesus admitted that he was divine: that he was of God, and we believe him. So many remarkable things have occurred in his ministry that we can only believe that he is both the Son of God and the Son of Man.
Jesus’ life with us has been a model of ideal friendship: only a divine being could be such a good human friend. He is truly the most unselfish person we have ever known. He is the friend of even sinners; he dares to love his enemies. Jesus is loyal to us. While he does not hesitate to scold us, it is plain to us that he truly loves us. The better you know Jesus, the more you will love him: you will be charmed by his unwavering devotion. Through all of these years of us not understanding his mission, Jesus has been a faithful friend. While he does not flatter us he does treat us all with equal kindness; he is always tender and compassionate. Jesus has shared his life and everything else with us: we are a happy community; we share everything. We do not believe that a mere human could live such a blameless life under such trying circumstances.
We think Jesus is divine because he never does anything wrong; he never makes a mistake. His devotion is superb; his wisdom, extraordinary. He lives day by day perfectly following his Father’s will. Jesus never says he is sorry because he never sins. He prays for us and with us, but he never asks us to pray for him. We believe that he is consistently sinless. We do not think that anyone who is only human has ever lived such a life. Jesus claims to live a perfect life, and we agree that he does. Our devotion comes from admitting we were wrong, but Jesus’ devotion is based in decency: on righteousness. He even says he can forgive sins, and he does heal diseases. No mere human who is not crazy would say he can forgive sin: that is God’s right. It seems Jesus has been perfect like this since the first time we met him. We grow in grace and knowledge, but Jesus was perfect from the start. Everyone, both good and evil, sees this goodness in Jesus. And yet his devotion is never bothersome to others or done to receive praise from the people around him. He is both meek and fearless. He is okay with us believing that he is divine. Jesus is either what he says he is, or else he is the biggest fraud and hypocrite the world has ever known. We though, believe he is just what he claims to be.
Jesus’ unique character and perfect emotional control convince us that he is both human and divine. He always responds to suffering and human need. Jesus is compassionate to mental anguish, spiritual sadness, and physical suffering. He is quick to acknowledge a person’s faith or other high qualities. Jesus is just and fair, while at the same time merciful and considerate. He grieves that people are spiritually stubborn and rejoices when they see the light of truth.
Jesus seems to know people’s minds and what they want in their hearts. He is always sympathetic when our spirits are troubled. He seems to have all human emotions, but magnificently glorified. As much as he loves goodness, Jesus hates sin. He is conscious of the presence of deity. Jesus prays like a person but he acts like a God. He seems to know the future, and is even speaking about his death and some mystical reference to him being later glorified. While he is kind, he is also brave; Jesus always does his duty.
We are constantly impressed by Jesus’ superhuman knowledge. Hardly a day goes by without something happening elsewhere, and him somehow knowing about it. He also seems to be able to read our minds. We have no doubt Jesus talks with celestial beings, and that he lives on a higher spiritual plain than the rest of us. He seems to understand everything: Jesus does not ask us questions to get information, but to get us to think.
Lately, Jesus does not hesitate to say that he is super-human. Ever since the day we were ordained as apostles, right up to now, he has never denied that he came from God. He speaks as a divine teacher. Jesus does not hesitate to counter today’s religious teachings, and to declare the new gospel with authority. He is positive, assertive, and authoritative. Even John the Baptist said that he is the Son of God. Jesus does not seem to need anything. He does not crave the support of the people; he is indifferent to other’s opinions and free from pride.
Jesus always talks about God like he is part of everything that he does. He goes about doing good; God seems to be in him. If he were not divine, what he says about his mission would be absurd. Jesus once said “Before Abraham was, I am.” He definitely claims to be divine; in every way imaginable he tells us that he is in partnership with God. Jesus even dares to say that he and the Father are one; that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father. He says and does all of this naturally like a child would. Jesus speaks of his relationship with God in the same way he talks about his relationship with us. He seems to be certain of God and speaks about these relationships in a matter of fact way.
We have only heard a few of Jesus’ prayers, but these few indicate that Jesus talks with God, if you would, face to face. He seems to know the future as well as the past. Jesus could not be all of this, and do all of these extraordinary things, unless he were something more than human. We know Jesus is human—we are sure of that—but we are equally sure that he is also divine. We are convinced that Jesus is the Son of Man and the Son of God.
That ended Thomas and Nathaniel’s discussion with Rodan, and they hurried off for Jerusalem meeting up with the others on Friday. Their conversations with Rodan were an important experience for all three of the believers, and the other apostles also benefited when Thomas and Nathaniel later told them all they had discussed.
Rodan returned to Alexandria where for a long time he taught in the school of Meganta. He became a mighty man in the later affairs of the kingdom of heaven, and was faithful to the end of his life when he was killed in Greece with others at the height of the persecutions.
Jesus’ Human and Divine Minds
Jesus gradually became conscious of his divinity up until he was baptized by John. After becoming self-conscious of his divine nature, his pre-human existence, and his rights as the Creator of the universe he seems to have been able at times to limit his human realization that he was divine. It appears that from his baptism until the crucifixion it was entirely up to Jesus whether or not to depend on his human mind, or to also use his divine mind. At times he seems to have only used his human knowledge. Other times he appears to have acted with the wisdom that could only come from his divine mind.
We can understand all of this by accepting that Jesus could, at will, limit his divine knowledge. We know that he often withheld what he knew of the future, and that he knew what others were thinking. We understand that he did not want people to know how much he could read their minds. He did not want to do so much out of the normal that his followers no longer thought of him as human. With all of that said, we cannot say when Jesus was limiting his knowledge of the future and when he was hiding some of what he knew. He seemed to only be using human knowledge at times, but then we would see him talking to celestial beings. He appeared to be the perfect union of his human and divine minds. That is all that we know of these things: we do not know the full truth of this mystery.