“Today, there is a great need for further linguistic development to facilitate the expression of evolving thought.” (81:6.16; p. 908)

Many readers of The Urantia Book (The UB) are familiar with the low opinion its authors frequently express about our language, its lack of capacity to express cosmic concepts. This judgment begins in the Foreword, “It is exceedingly difficult to present enlarged concepts and advanced truth, in our endeavor to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception, when we are restricted to the use of a circumscribed language of the realm. But our mandate admonishes us to make every effort to convey our meanings by using the word symbols of the English tongue.” (0:0.2)

In speaking about the Celestial Artisans, they write “But I almost despair of being able to convey to the material mind the nature of the work of the celestial artisans. I am under the necessity of constantly perverting thought and distorting language in an effort to unfold to the mortal mind the reality of these morontia transactions and near-spirit phenomena. Your comprehension is incapable of grasping, and your language is inadequate for conveying, the meaning, value, and relationship of these semispirit activities.” (44:0.13; p. 499)

Over the years, I have discerned a secondary purpose of The UB: how it seeks to gently steer us into a more carefully nuanced and discriminated definition of words, such as Supreme, faith-trust, and concepts of time, life after death. The Heaven we learned about in Christianity becomes the morontia life, a word the authors had to invent to designate, “a vast level intervening between the material and the spiritual” (0:5.12), a realm our established ideas could not adequately describe.

In essence, the book itself sets out to further our linguistic development. After memorizing quotes to help me pass the hours at the gym, I’ve come to believe that The UB sentences are deliberately structured to make them easier to recall and commit to memory.

Notice how this sentence is written: “The great achievement of mortal life is the attainment of a true and understanding consecration to the eternal aims of the divine spirit who waits and works within your mind.” (110:3.4)

There are internal rhymes “achievement,” with “attainment”; partial or half rhymes which we poets call slant rhymes such as, “consecration” with “eternal aims,” “divine” and “mind.” Alliteration is a very common device in The UB, “waits and works within.” Also try to feel the cadence, the rhythmic movement and sound of the sentence. It’s powerful, the dominant movement being Shakespearian. Iambic pentameters, but other types of meter are also used.

The same features, alliteration and internal rhymes, occur again in this next example, “great value … cardinal virtue … courage … very heart.” The Master’s emphasis on courage is backed up with a direct quote from Jesus:

“He placed great value upon sincerity—a pure heart. Fidelity was a cardinal virtue in his estimate of character, while courage was the very heart of his teachings. "Fear not" was his watchword, and patient endurance his ideal of strength of character.” (140:8.20) 

How about this one: “Why do you not encourage the heavenly helper to cheer you with the clear vision of the eternal outlook of universal life as you gaze in perplexity at the problems of the passing hour?” (111:7.3)

Look at how “cheer” rhymes with “clear,” then slant rhymes with “eternal,” the alliteration again with “heavenly helper” and “perplexity … problems … passing hour.”

And then, of course, the poetry itself, a literary form that The UB shows no hesitation in admiring. “Poetry is an effort to escape from material realities to spiritual values.” (195:7.15, pg. 2079)

“These spirit beings constitute the living ladder whereby mortal man climbs from chaos to glory.” (9:8.25)

“Gravity is the omnipotent strand on which are strung the gleaming stars, blazing suns, and whirling spheres which constitute the universal physical adornment of the eternal God, who is all things, fills all things, and in whom all things consist.” (11:8.1)

“Men do not find the Supreme suddenly and spectacularly as an earthquake tears chasms into the rocks, but they find him slowly and patiently as a river quietly wears away the soil beneath.” (117.6; p. 1291)

“If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.” (100:4.6)

Interestingly, a human source for this last quote has not been found. Truly one of cosmic origin.