103:6.1 (1135.3) Theology is the study of the actions and reactions of the human spirit; it can never become a science, since it must always be combined more or less with psychology in its personal expression and with philosophy in its systematic framework. Theology is always the study of your religion; the study of the religion of others is psychology. 103:6.5 (1135.7) A logical and coherent philosophic concept of the universe cannot be built upon the postulates of either materialism or spiritualism, for both systems of thought, when applied universally, force a view of the cosmos in a distortion, the former viewing the universe from the inside out, the latter understanding the nature of the universe from the outside in. Therefore neither science nor religion can ever, by themselves, in isolation, hope to gain an adequate understanding of universal truths and their relationships without the guidance of human philosophy and the enlightenment of divine revelation. Reason is the technique of understanding the sciences; faith is the technique of discerning religion. Mota is the technique of the morontia level. But many mortals have recognized that it is desirable to have some method of reconciling the interrelationship between the widely separated domains of science and religion; and metaphysics is the result of man's vain attempt to bridge this well-recognized gulf. But human metaphysics has proven more baffling than enlightening. Metaphysics represents a well-meaning but futile effort on the part of man to compensate for the absence of the mote of morontia. 103:6.8 (1136.3) Metaphysics has proved a failure; man cannot perceive the mote. Revelation is the only technique that can compensate for the absence of the truth-sensitivity of mota on a material world. Revelation does clarify in a determined manner the mixture of metaphysics developed by reason on an evolutionary sphere. Philosophy, clarified by revelation, functions acceptably in the absence of mote, and when metaphysics, which man's reason has created in substitute for mote, collapses and fails. As civilization progresses, philosophy will have to throw bridges over the ever-widening chasms between spirit concept and energy concept. But in space-time these divergences are one in the Supreme. 103:6.11 (1137.1) Science must ever be based on reason, although imagination and conjecture are useful to the extent of their limits. Religion is forever dependent upon faith, although reason is a stabilizing influence and a helpful assistant. 103:6. Modern man would indeed construct a valuable and attractive philosophy of himself and his universe were it not for the severance of his all-important and indispensable metaphysical connection between the worlds of matter and spirit, the failure of metaphysics to bridge the morontia gulf between the physical and the spiritual. Mortal man has no concept of morontia mind and matter, and revelation is the only technique for restoring this deficiency in the conceptual data which man so urgently needs in order to construct a logical universe philosophy and to arrive at a satisfactory understanding of his secure and settled place in that universe. 103:6.13 (1137.3) Revelation is evolutionary man's only hope for bridging the morontia gulf. Faith and reason, unaided by mote, cannot conceive and construct a logical universe. Without mote vision mortal man cannot discern goodness, love, and truth in the phenomena of the material world. 103:6.14 (1137.4) When man's philosophy leans heavily toward the world of matter, it becomes rationalistic or naturalistic. When philosophy leans particularly toward the spiritual level, it becomes idealistic or even mystical. When philosophy is so unfortunate as to incline toward metaphysics, it infallibly becomes skeptical, confused. In past ages the greater part of man's knowledge and intellectual evaluations have fallen into one of these three distortions of perception. Philosophy dare not project its interpretations of reality into the linear form of logic; it must never fail to take into account the elliptical symmetry of reality and the essential curvature of all concepts of relationship. 103:6.15 (1137.5) The highest philosophy attainable by mortal man must be logically based upon the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the insight into truth offered by revelation. By this union man can somewhat compensate for his failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to comprehend the mote of morontia.