The gospel is eternal, saving truth expressed to meet the spiritual difficulties of generation after generation. The emerging philosophy of truth, beauty, and goodness is something different. How do they fit together? In two ways.
The gospel begins at the beginning, with the Father, whose sons and daughters we are. Everything flows from that source. Once a person receives sonship as a gift, seeks entrance into the universal family as a little child, everything becomes new.
At that point, some people are eager to know more, and that’s when a larger comprehension of truth, beauty, and goodness becomes relevant. This does not mean that we dump a 200-page book upon everyone who comes to rejoice in the Lord.
Paradoxically, there is another relation between the emerging philosophy of living and the gospel. Many people are looking for meaning or for a higher quality of thinking. And some people are downright hungry: if there is truth to be found, why should we settle for anything less?
These people can be introduced to an understanding of how we can use science to live a more effective, responsible, and joyous life.
They can learn some truths of philosophy about how to sharpen their intuition—on material, intellectual, and spiritual levels—by means of reason, which draws conclusions carefully from a wide range of premises, and then goes on to combine these threads of reasoning into wisdom.
They can learn about faith and about spiritual experience, beginning, if they prefer, with the pre-spiritual practice of conscious breathing, which facilitates that mind-body harmony with which the work of the spirit can be more effective. They can learn to center in soul and spirit, to develop friendship with God, to pray and worship in new ways.
They can learn to walk in beauty and participate in divine goodness—all within an intellectual environment without pressure, in which the individual is encouraged to develop his or her own higher ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness. In the freedom to explore alternatives to the teachings proposed, those who get active experientially with truth, beauty, and goodness discover meaning and value experientially. At the heart of this emerging philosophy, they find the many-sided gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, the core teachings of Jesus as best understood today.
For a well-developed philosophy of living in truth, beauty, and goodness, see the new book by Jeffrey Wattles, Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness—now available in hardcover and in a Kindle version at amazon; and as a paperback at Cascade Books, where the book can be ordered by calling (541) 344-1528, by email to orders@wipfandstock.com, by fax to (541) 344-1506.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tissot
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/The_School_of_Athens.jpg by Rafael, painted between 1509 and 1511.
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Sooner or later during the mortal journey through life, most of us begin to wonder what life is really about. After enjoying the legitimate fruit of mortal living and sometimes questionable fruit, there remains a residue of spiritual hunger and thirst that seemingly increases. This residue of spiritual hunger and thirst has been variously attempted satisfaction in various and sundry ways, but the spiritual hunger and thirst remains despite these efforts to satisfy them.
These urges of spiritual hunger and thirst are the Father’s invitation to us to claim our spiritual birth right. We are after all children of a loving spiritual Father, and are at some point destined to grow up as spiritual adults, to be perfect even as the heavenly Father is perfect. Though this spiritual perfection will duly find its completion in the after lift, the process begins here and now.
Even now the heavenly Father presents to us the values of truth, beauty, and goodness which we can begin to experience now by a sincere desire for them. These values will satisfy the spiritual hunger and thirst that call to us. These values as have been indicated are more than just words, they are pregnant with deep spiritual meanings and will satisfy the residue that remains in our souls and transform our lives.
But I must admit it does require a certain amount of moral courage to invade these new areas of spiritual living, but the struggle is worth the effort, for the Father himself awaits to guide us. He walks beside us through it all, but we must walk; he does not walk for us. “Ask and you shall receive.”
Dr. Perry