A:  Thanks for writing to us with this interesting question. We love to hear from our visitors.

Before we are able to make our first moral choice, which signals the birth of the soul and the arrival of the Thought Adjuster, we are indeed something like human animals, but as you observe—and unlike any other kind of animal—we are human animals with a great spiritual potential.

Here is a Urantia Book quote which explains this phenomenon:

“Though the Adjusters volunteer for service as soon as the personality forecasts have been relayed to Divinington, they are not actually assigned until the human subjects make their first moral personality decision. The first moral choice of the human child is automatically indicated in the seventh mind-adjutant and registers instantly, by way of the local universe Creative Spirit, over the universal mind-gravity circuit of the Conjoint Actor in the presence of the Master Spirit of superuniverse jurisdiction, who forthwith dispatches this intelligence to Divinington. Adjusters reach their human subjects on Urantia, on the average, just prior to the sixth birthday. In the present generation it is running five years, ten months, and four days; that is, on the 2,134th day of terrestrial life.

“The Adjusters cannot invade the mortal mind until it has been duly prepared by the indwelling ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits and encircuited in the Holy Spirit. And it requires the co-ordinate function of all seven adjutants to thus qualify the human mind for the reception of an Adjuster. Creature mind must exhibit the worship outreach and indicate wisdom function by exhibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of good and evil—moral choice.” (108:2.1)

Prior to this first moral choice, the other five adjutant mind spirits—intuition, understanding, courage, knowledge and counsel—are gradually being activated. And this process takes approximately 5-6 years in the human being. If the human cannot exhibit the ability to activate the last two mind spirits—worship and wisdom—then the Adjuster cannot come to indwell that mind. That being then remains a sort of intelligent animal, but evidently without the potential of eternal survival. And the evidence of the presence of the mind spirits of worship and wisdom is the ability to make moral choice.

It is my understanding that the vast majority of human beings, however, do make this transition, and do receive a Thought Adjuster.

Those of us who are parents can see this transition—mostly in hindsight—when we realize that our child has become more “civilized” and more conscious of the sense of right and wrong.

Thanks again for writing, and I hope that this answer has been helpful to you today. You may want to visit The Urantia Book section on Adjutant Mind Spirits and also our topical study on God Indwelling Man for even more information on these interesting topics.