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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 75
THE DEFAULT OF ADAM AND EVE
75:0.1
AFTER more than one hundred years of effort on Urantia,
Adam was able to see very little progress outside the
Garden; the world at large did not seem to be improving
much. The realization of race betterment appeared to be
a long way off, and the situation seemed so desperate as
to demand something for relief not embraced in the
original plans. At least that is what often passed
through Adam's mind, and he so expressed himself many
times to Eve. Adam and his mate were loyal, but they
were isolated from their kind, and they were sorely
distressed by the sorry plight of their world.
1. THE URANTIA PROBLEM
75:1.1
The Adamic mission on experimental, rebellion-seared,
and isolated Urantia was a formidable undertaking. And
the Material Son and Daughter early became aware of the
difficulty and complexity of their planetary assignment.
Nevertheless, they courageously set about the task of
solving their manifold problems. But when they addressed
themselves to the all-important work of eliminating the
defectives and degenerates from among the human strains,
they were quite dismayed. They could see no way out of
the dilemma, and they could not take counsel with their
superiors on either Jerusem or Edentia. Here they were,
isolated and day by day confronted with some new and
complicated tangle, some problem that seemed to be
unsolvable.
75:1.2
Under normal conditions the first work of a Planetary
Adam and Eve would be the co-ordination and blending of
the races. But on Urantia such a project seemed just
about hopeless, for the races, while biologically fit,
had never been purged of their retarded and defective
strains.
75:1.3
Adam and Eve found themselves on a sphere wholly
unprepared for the proclamation of the brotherhood of
man, a world groping about in abject spiritual darkness
and cursed with confusion worse confounded by the
miscarriage of the mission of the preceding
administration. Mind and morals were at a low level, and
instead of beginning the task of effecting religious
unity, they must begin all anew the work of converting
the inhabitants to the most simple forms of religious
belief. Instead of finding one language ready for
adoption, they were confronted by the world-wide
confusion of hundreds upon hundreds of local dialects.
No Adam of the planetary service was ever set down on a
more difficult world; the obstacles seemed insuperable
and the problems beyond creature solution.
75:1.4
They were isolated, and the tremendous sense of
loneliness which bore down upon them was all the more
heightened by the early departure of the Melchizedek
receivers. Only indirectly, by means of the angelic
orders, could they communicate with any being off the
planet. Slowly their courage weakened, their spirits
drooped, and sometimes their faith almost faltered.
75:1.5
And this is the true picture of the consternation of
these two noble souls as they pondered the tasks which
confronted them. They were both keenly aware of the
enormous undertaking involved in the execution of their
planetary assignment.
75:1.6
Probably no Material Sons of Nebadon were ever faced
with such a difficult and seemingly hopeless task as
confronted Adam and Eve in the sorry plight of Urantia.
But they would have sometime met with success had they
been more farseeing and
patient. Both
of them, especially Eve, were altogether too impatient;
they were not willing to settle down to the long, long
endurance test. They wanted to see some immediate
results, and they did, but the results thus secured
proved most disastrous both to themselves and to their
world.
2. CALIGASTIA'S PLOT
75:2.1
Caligastia paid frequent visits to the Garden and held
many conferences with Adam and Eve, but they were
adamant to all his suggestions of compromise and
short-cut adventures. They had before them enough of the
results of rebellion to produce effective immunity
against all such insinuating proposals. Even the young
offspring of Adam were uninfluenced by the overtures of
Daligastia. And of course neither Caligastia nor his
associate had power to influence any individual against
his will, much less to persuade the children of Adam to
do wrong.
75:2.2
It must be remembered that Caligastia was still the
titular Planetary Prince of Urantia, a misguided but
nevertheless high Son of the local universe. He was not
finally deposed until the times of Christ Michael on
Urantia.
75:2.3
But the fallen Prince was persistent and determined. He
soon gave up working on Adam and decided to try a wily
flank attack on Eve. The evil one concluded that the
only hope for success lay in the adroit employment of
suitable persons belonging to the upper strata of the
Nodite group, the descendants of his onetime
corporeal-staff associates. And the plans were
accordingly laid for entrapping the mother of the violet
race.
75:2.4
It was farthest from Eve's intention ever to do anything
which would militate against Adam's plans or jeopardize
their planetary trust. Knowing the tendency of woman to
look upon immediate results rather than to plan
farsightedly for more remote effects, the Melchizedeks,
before departing, had especially enjoined Eve as to the
peculiar dangers besetting their isolated position on
the planet and had in particular warned her never to
stray from the side of her mate, that is, to attempt no
personal or secret methods of furthering their mutual
undertakings. Eve had most scrupulously carried out
these instructions for more than one hundred years, and
it did not occur to her that any danger would attach to
the increasingly private and confidential visits she was
enjoying with a certain Nodite leader named Serapatatia.
The whole affair developed so gradually and naturally
that she was taken unawares.
75:2.5
The Garden dwellers had been in contact with the Nodites
since the early days of Eden. From these mixed
descendants of the defaulting members of Caligastia's
staff they had received much valuable help and
co-operation, and through them the Edenic regime was now
to meet its complete undoing and final overthrow.
3. THE TEMPTATION OF EVE
75:3.1
Adam had just finished his first one hundred years on
earth when Serapatatia, upon the death of his father,
came to the leadership of the western or Syrian
confederation of the Nodite tribes. Serapatatia was a
brown-tinted man, a brilliant descendant of the onetime
chief of the Dalamatia commission on health mated with
one of the master female minds of the blue race of those
distant days. All down through the ages this line had
held authority and wielded a great influence among the
western Nodite tribes.
75:3.2
Serapatatia had made several visits to the Garden and
had become deeply impressed with the righteousness of
Adam's cause. And shortly after assuming the leadership
of the Syrian Nodites, he announced his intention of
establishing an affiliation with the work of Adam and
Eve in the Garden. The majority of his people joined him
in this program, and Adam was cheered by the news that
the most powerful and the most intelligent of all the
neighboring tribes had swung over almost bodily to the
support of the program for world improvement; it was
decidedly heartening. And shortly after this great
event, Serapatatia and his new staff were entertained by
Adam and Eve in their own home.
75:3.3
Serapatatia became one of the most able and efficient of
all of Adam's lieutenants. He was entirely honest and
thoroughly sincere in all of his activities; he was
never conscious, even later on, that he was being used
as a circumstantial tool of the wily Caligastia.
75:3.4
Presently, Serapatatia became the associate chairman of
the Edenic commission on tribal relations, and many
plans were laid for the more vigorous prosecution of the
work of winning the remote tribes to the cause of the
Garden.
75:3.5
He held many conferences with Adam and Eve -- especially
with Eve -- and they talked over many plans for
improving their methods. One day, during a talk with
Eve, it occurred to Serapatatia that it would be very
helpful if, while awaiting the recruiting of large
numbers of the violet race, something could be done in
the meantime immediately to advance the needy waiting
tribes. Serapatatia contended that, if the Nodites, as
the most progressive and co-operative race, could have a
leader born to them of part origin in the violet stock,
it would constitute a powerful tie binding these peoples
more closely to the Garden. And all of this was soberly
and honestly considered to be for the good of the world
since this child, to be reared and educated in the
Garden, would exert a great influence for good over his
father's people.
75:3.6
It should again be emphasized that Serapatatia was
altogether honest and wholly sincere in all that he
proposed. He never once suspected that he was playing
into the hands of Caligastia and Daligastia. Serapatatia
was entirely loyal to the plan of building up a strong
reserve of the violet race before attempting the
world-wide upstepping of the confused peoples of
Urantia. But this would require hundreds of years to
consummate, and he was impatient; he wanted to see some
immediate results -- something in his own lifetime. He
made it clear to Eve that Adam was oftentimes
discouraged by the little that had been accomplished
toward uplifting the world.
75:3.7
For more than five years these plans were secretly
matured. At last they had developed to the point where
Eve consented to have a secret conference with Cano, the
most brilliant mind and active leader of the near-by
colony of friendly Nodites. Cano was very sympathetic
with the Adamic regime; in fact, he was the sincere
spiritual leader of those neighboring Nodites who
favored friendly relations with the Garden.
75:3.8
The fateful meeting occurred during the twilight hours
of the autumn evening, not far from the home of Adam.
Eve had never before met the beautiful and enthusiastic
Cano -- and he was a magnificent specimen of the
survival of the superior physique and outstanding
intellect of his remote progenitors of the Prince's
staff. And Cano also thoroughly believed in the
righteousness of the Serapatatia project. (Outside of
the Garden, multiple mating was a common practice.)
75:3.9
Influenced by flattery, enthusiasm, and great personal
persuasion, Eve then and there consented to embark upon
the much-discussed enterprise, to add her own little
scheme of world saving to the larger and more
far-reaching divine plan. Before she quite realized what
was transpiring, the fatal step had been taken. It was
done.
4. THE REALIZATION OF DEFAULT
75:4.1
The celestial life of the planet was astir. Adam
recognized that something was wrong, and he asked Eve to
come aside with him in the Garden. And now, for the
first time, Adam heard the entire story of the
long-nourished plan for accelerating world improvement
by operating simultaneously in two directions: the
prosecution of the divine plan concomitantly with the
execution of the Serapatatia enterprise.
75:4.2
And as the Material Son and Daughter thus communed in
the moonlit Garden, "the voice in the Garden" reproved
them for disobedience. And that voice was none other
than my own announcement to the Edenic pair that they
had transgressed the Garden covenant; that they had
disobeyed the instructions of the Melchizedeks; that
they had defaulted in the execution of their oaths of
trust to the sovereign of the universe.
75:4.3
Eve had consented to participate in the practice of good
and evil. Good is the carrying out of the divine plans;
sin is a deliberate transgression of the divine will;
evil is the misadaptation of plans and the maladjustment
of techniques resulting in universe disharmony and
planetary confusion.
75:4.4
Every time the Garden pair had partaken of the fruit of
the tree of life, they had been warned by the archangel
custodian to refrain from yielding to the suggestions of
Caligastia to combine good and evil. They had been thus
admonished: "In the day that you commingle good and
evil, you shall surely become as the mortals of the
realm; you shall surely die."
75:4.5
Eve had told Cano of this oft-repeated warning on the
fateful occasion of their secret meeting, but Cano, not
knowing the import or significance of such admonitions,
had assured her that men and women with good motives and
true intentions could do no evil; that she should surely
not die but rather live anew in the person of their
offspring, who would grow up to bless and stabilize the
world.
75:4.6
Even though this project of modifying the divine plan
had been conceived and executed with entire sincerity
and with only the highest motives concerning the welfare
of the world, it constituted evil because it represented
the wrong way to achieve righteous ends, because it
departed from the right way, the divine plan.
75:4.7
True, Eve had found Cano pleasant to the eyes, and she
realized all that her seducer promised by way of "new
and increased knowledge of human affairs and quickened
understanding of human nature as supplemental to the
comprehension of the Adamic nature."
75:4.8
I talked to the father and mother of the violet race
that night in the Garden as became my duty under the
sorrowful circumstances. I listened fully to the recital
of all that led up to the default of Mother Eve and gave
both of them advice and counsel concerning the immediate
situation. Some of this advice they followed; some they
disregarded. This conference appears in your records as
"the Lord God calling to Adam and Eve in the Garden and
asking, `Where are you?'" It was the practice of later
generations to attribute everything unusual and
extraordinary, whether natural or spiritual, directly to
the personal intervention of the Gods.
5. REPERCUSSIONS OF DEFAULT
75:5.1
Eve's disillusionment was truly pathetic. Adam discerned
the whole predicament and, while heartbroken and
dejected, entertained only pity and sympathy for his
erring mate.
75:5.2
It was in the despair of the realization of failure that
Adam, the day after Eve's misstep, sought out Laotta,
the brilliant Nodite woman who was head of the western
schools of the Garden, and with premeditation committed
the folly of Eve. But do not misunderstand; Adam was not
beguiled; he knew exactly what he was about; he
deliberately chose to share the fate of Eve. He loved
his mate with a supermortal affection, and the thought
of the possibility of a lonely vigil on Urantia without
her was more than he could endure.
75:5.3
When they learned what had happened to Eve, the
infuriated inhabitants of the Garden became
unmanageable; they declared war on the near-by Nodite
settlement. They swept out through the gates of Eden and
down upon these unprepared people, utterly destroying
them -- not a man, woman, or child was spared. And Cano,
the father of Cain yet unborn, also perished.
75:5.4
Upon the realization of what had happened, Serapatatia
was overcome with consternation and beside himself with
fear and remorse. The next day he drowned himself in the
great river.
75:5.5
The children of Adam sought to comfort their distracted
mother while their father wandered in solitude for
thirty days. At the end of that time judgment asserted
itself, and Adam returned to his home and began to plan
for their future course of action.
75:5.6
The consequences of the follies of misguided parents are
so often shared by their innocent children. The upright
and noble sons and daughters of Adam and Eve were
overwhelmed by the inexplicable sorrow of the
unbelievable tragedy which had been so suddenly and so
ruthlessly thrust upon them. Not in fifty years did the
older of these children recover from the sorrow and
sadness of those tragic days, especially the terror of
that period of thirty days during which their father was
absent from home while their distracted mother was in
complete ignorance of his whereabouts or fate.
75:5.7
And those same thirty days were as long years of sorrow
and suffering to Eve. Never did this noble soul fully
recover from the effects of that excruciating period of
mental suffering and spiritual sorrow. No feature of
their subsequent deprivations and material hardships
ever began to compare in Eve's memory with those
terrible days and awful nights of loneliness and
unbearable uncertainty. She learned of the rash act of
Serapatatia and did not know whether her mate had in
sorrow destroyed himself or had been removed from the
world in retribution for her misstep. And when Adam
returned, Eve experienced a satisfaction of joy and
gratitude that never was effaced by their long and
difficult life partnership of toiling service.
75:5.8
Time passed, but Adam was not certain of the nature of
their offense until seventy days after the default of
Eve, when the Melchizedek receivers returned to Urantia
and assumed jurisdiction over world affairs. And then he
knew they had failed.
75:5.9
But still more trouble was brewing: The news of the
annihilation of the Nodite settlement near Eden was not
slow in reaching the home tribes of Serapatatia to the
north, and presently a great host was assembling to
march on the Garden. And this was the beginning of a
long and bitter warfare between the Adamites and the
Nodites, for these hostilities kept up long after Adam
and his followers emigrated to the second garden in the
Euphrates valley. There was intense and lasting "enmity
between that man and the woman, between his seed and her
seed."
6. ADAM AND EVE LEAVE THE GARDEN
75:6.1
When Adam learned that the Nodites were on the march, he
sought the counsel of the Melchizedeks, but they refused
to advise him, only telling him to do as he thought best
and promising their friendly co-operation, as far as
possible, in any course he might decide upon. The
Melchizedeks had been forbidden to interfere with the
personal plans of Adam and Eve.
75:6.2
Adam knew that he and Eve had failed; the presence of
the Melchizedek receivers told him that, though he still
knew nothing of their personal status or future fate. He
held an all-night conference with some twelve hundred
loyal followers who pledged themselves to follow their
leader, and the next day at noon these pilgrims went
forth from Eden in quest of new homes. Adam had no
liking for war and accordingly elected to leave the
first garden to the Nodites unopposed.
75:6.3
The Edenic caravan was halted on the third day out from
the Garden by the arrival of the seraphic transports
from Jerusem. And for the first time Adam and Eve were
informed of what was to become of their children. While
the transports stood by, those children who had arrived
at the age of choice (twenty years) were given the
option of remaining on Urantia with their parents or of
becoming wards of the Most Highs of Norlatiadek. Two
thirds chose to go to Edentia; about one third elected
to remain with their parents. All children of prechoice
age were taken to Edentia. No one could have beheld the
sorrowful parting of this Material Son and Daughter and
their children without realizing that the way of the
transgressor is hard. These offspring of Adam and Eve
are now on Edentia; we do not know what disposition is
to be made of them.
75:6.4
It was a sad, sad caravan that prepared to journey on.
Could anything have been more tragic! To have come to a
world in such high hopes, to have been so auspiciously
received, and then to go forth in disgrace from Eden,
only to lose more than three fourths of their children
even before finding a new abiding place!
7. DEGRADATION OF ADAM AND EVE
75:7.1
It was while the Edenic caravan was halted that Adam and
Eve were informed of the nature of their transgressions
and advised concerning their fate. Gabriel appeared to
pronounce judgment. And this was the verdict: The
Planetary Adam and Eve of Urantia are adjudged in
default; they have violated the covenant of their
trusteeship as the rulers of this inhabited world.
75:7.2
While downcast by the sense of guilt, Adam and Eve were
greatly cheered by the announcement that their judges on
Salvington had absolved them from all charges of
standing in "contempt of the universe government." They
had not been held guilty of rebellion.
75:7.3
The Edenic pair were informed that they had degraded
themselves to the status of the mortals of the realm;
that they must henceforth conduct themselves as man and
woman of Urantia, looking to the future of the world
races for their future.
75:7.4
Long before Adam and Eve left Jerusem, their instructors
had fully explained to them the consequences of any
vital departure from the divine plans. I had personally
and repeatedly warned them, both before and after they
arrived on Urantia, that reduction to the status of
mortal flesh would be the certain result, the sure
penalty, which would unfailingly attend default in the
execution of their planetary mission. But a
comprehension of the immortality status of the material
order of sonship is essential to a clear understanding
of the consequences attendant upon the default of Adam
and Eve.
75:7.5
1. Adam and Eve, like their fellows on Jerusem,
maintained immortal status through intellectual
association with the mind-gravity circuit of the Spirit.
When this vital sustenance is broken by mental
disjunction, then, regardless of the spiritual level of
creature existence, immortality status is lost. Mortal
status followed by physical dissolution was the
inevitable consequence of the intellectual default of
Adam and Eve.
75:7.6
2. The Material Son and Daughter of Urantia, being also
personalized in the similitude of the mortal flesh of
this world, were further dependent on the maintenance of
a dual circulatory system, the one derived from their
physical natures, the other from the superenergy stored
in the fruit of the tree of life. Always had the
archangel custodian admonished Adam and Eve that default
of trust would culminate in degradation of status, and
access to this source of energy was denied them
subsequent to their default.
75:7.7
Caligastia did succeed in trapping Adam and Eve, but he
did not accomplish his purpose of leading them into open
rebellion against the universe government. What they had
done was indeed evil, but they were never guilty of
contempt for truth, neither did they knowingly enlist in
rebellion against the righteous rule of the Universal
Father and his Creator Son.
8. THE SO-CALLED FALL OF MAN
75:8.1
Adam and Eve did fall from their high estate of material
sonship down to the lowly status of mortal man. But that
was not the fall of man. The human race has been
uplifted despite the immediate consequences of the
Adamic default. Although the divine plan of giving the
violet race to the Urantia peoples miscarried, the
mortal races have profited enormously from the limited
contribution which Adam and his descendants made to the
Urantia races.
75:8.2
There has been no "fall of man." The history of the
human race is one of progressive evolution, and the
Adamic bestowal left the world peoples greatly improved
over their previous biologic condition. The more
superior stocks of Urantia now contain inheritance
factors derived from as many as four separate sources:
Andonite, Sangik, Nodite, and Adamic.
75:8.3
Adam should not be regarded as the cause of a curse on
the human race. While he did fail in carrying forward
the divine plan, while he did transgress his covenant
with Deity, while he and his mate were most certainly
degraded in creature status, notwithstanding all this,
their contribution to the human race did much to advance
civilization on Urantia.
75:8.4
In estimating the results of the Adamic mission on your
world, justice demands the recognition of the condition
of the planet. Adam was confronted with a well-nigh
hopeless task when, with his beautiful mate, he was
transported from Jerusem to this dark and confused
planet. But had they been guided by the counsel of the
Melchizedeks and their associates, and
had they been
more patient, they would have eventually met with
success. But Eve listened to the insidious propaganda of
personal liberty and planetary freedom of action. She
was led to experiment with the life plasm of the
material order of sonship in that she allowed this life
trust to become prematurely commingled with that of the
then mixed order of the original design of the Life
Carriers which had been previously combined with that of
the reproducing beings once attached to the staff of the
Planetary Prince.
75:8.5
Never, in all your ascent to Paradise, will you gain
anything by impatiently attempting to circumvent the
established and divine plan by short cuts, personal
inventions, or other devices for improving on the way of
perfection, to perfection, and for eternal perfection.
75:8.6
All in all, there probably never was a more
disheartening miscarriage of wisdom on any planet in all
Nebadon. But it is not surprising that these missteps
occur in the affairs of the evolutionary universes. We
are a part of a gigantic creation, and it is not strange
that everything does not work in perfection; our
universe was not created in perfection. Perfection is
our eternal goal, not our origin.
75:8.7
If this were a mechanistic universe, if the First Great
Source and Center were only a force and not also a
personality, if all creation were a vast aggregation of
physical matter dominated by precise laws characterized
by unvarying energy actions, then might perfection
obtain, even despite the incompleteness of universe
status. There would be no disagreement; there would be
no friction. But in our evolving universe of relative
perfection and imperfection we rejoice that disagreement
and misunderstanding are possible, for thereby is
evidenced the fact and the act of personality in the
universe. And if our creation is an existence dominated
by personality, then can you be assured of the
possibilities of personality survival, advancement, and
achievement; we can be confident of personality growth,
experience, and adventure. What a glorious universe, in
that it is personal and progressive, not merely
mechanical or even passively perfect!
75:8.8
Presented by Solonia, the seraphic "voice in the
Garden."
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