P.1 - §1 In the minds of the mortals of Urantia--that being the name of your world--there exists great confusion respecting the meaning of such terms as God, divinity, and deity. Human beings are still more confused and uncertain about the relationships of the divine personalities designated by these numerous appellations. Because of this conceptual poverty associated with so much ideational confusion, I have been directed to formulate this introductory statement in explanation of the meanings which should be attached to certain word symbols as they may be hereinafter used in those papers which the Orvonton corps of truth revealers have been authorized to translate into the English language of Urantia. P.1 - §2 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.
We have been instructed to introduce new terms only when the concept to
be portrayed finds no terminology in English which can be employed to
convey such a new concept partially or even with more or less distortion
of meaning. P.1 - §5 Your world, Urantia, is one of many similar inhabited planets
which comprise the local universe of Nebadon. This universe, together
with similar creations, makes up the superuniverse of Orvonton, from whose
capital, Uversa, our commission hails. Orvonton is one of the seven evolutionary
superuniverses of time and space which circle the never-beginning, never-ending
creation of divine perfection--the central universe of Havona. At the
heart of this eternal and central universe is the stationary Isle of Paradise,
the geographic center of infinity and the dwelling place of the eternal
God. |
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P.1 - §6 The seven evolving superuniverses in association
with the central and divine universe, we commonly refer to as the grand
universe; these are the now organized |
The Grand Universe (p.1, §6) |
I. DEITY AND DIVINITY - P.2 P.2 - §2 DEITY is personalizable as God, is prepersonal and superpersonal in ways not altogether comprehensible by man. Deity is characterized by the quality of unity--actual or potential--on all supermaterial levels of reality; and this unifying quality is best comprehended by creatures as divinity. P.2 - §3 Deity functions on personal, prepersonal, and superpersonal
levels. Total Deity is functional on the following seven levels: |
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P.2 - §11 The finite level of reality is characterized by creature life and time-space limitations. Finite realities may not have endings, but they always have beginnings--they are created. The Deity level of Supremacy may be conceived as a function in relation to finite existences. P.2 - §12 The absonite level of reality is characterized by things and beings without beginnings or endings and by the transcendence of time and space. Absoniters are not created; they are eventuated--they simply are. The Deity level of Ultimacy connotes a function in relation to absonite realities. No matter in what part of the master universe, whenever time and space are transcended, such an absonite phenomenon is an act of the Ultimacy of Deity. P.2 - §13 The absolute level is beginningless, endless, timeless,
and spaceless. For example: On Paradise, time and space are nonexistent;
the time-space status of Paradise is absolute. This level is Trinity attained,
existentially, by the Paradise Deities, but this third level of unifying
Deity expression is not fully unified experientially. Whenever, wherever,
and however the absolute level of Deity functions, Paradise-absolute values
and meanings are manifest. P.3 - §3 DIVINITY is the characteristic, unifying, and co-ordinating
quality of Deity. |
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P.3 - §6 When we attempt to conceive of perfection in all phases
and forms of relativity, we encounter seven conceivable types: |
Seven types of perfection (p.7)
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II. GOD - P.3 P.3 - §19 GOD is a word symbol designating all personalizations
of Deity. The term requires a different definition on each personal level
of Deity function and must P.4 - §1 The term God, as we make use of it, may be understood: P.4 - §2 By designation--as God the Father. P.4 - §3 By context--as when used in the discussion of some one deity level or association. When in doubt as to the exact interpretation of the word God, it would be advisable to refer it to the person of the Universal Father. P.4 - §4 The term God always denotes personality. Deity may, or may not, refer to divinity personalities. P.4 - §5 The word GOD is used, in these papers, with the following meanings: P.4 - §6 1. God the Father--Creator, Controller, and Upholder. The Universal Father, the First Person of Deity. P.4 - §7 2. God the Son--Co-ordinate Creator, Spirit Controller, and Spiritual Administrator. The Eternal Son, the Second Person of Deity. P.4 - §8 3. God the Spirit--Conjoint Actor, Universal Integrator, and Mind Bestower. The Infinite Spirit, the Third Person of Deity. P.4 - §9 4. God the Supreme--the actualizing or evolving God of time and space. Personal Deity associatively realizing the time-space experiential achievement of creature-Creator identity. The Supreme Being is personally experiencing the achievement of Deity unity as the evolving and experiential God of the evolutionary creatures of time and space. P.4 - §10 5. God the Sevenfold--Deity personality anywhere actually functioning in time and space. The personal Paradise Deities and their creative associates functioning in and beyond the borders of the central universe and power-personalizing as the Supreme Being on the first creature level of unifying Deity revelation in time and space. This level, the grand universe, is the sphere of the time-space descension of Paradise personalities in reciprocal association with the time-space ascension of evolutionary creatures. P.4 - §11 6. God the Ultimate--the eventuating God of supertime and transcended space. The second experiential level of unifying Deity manifestation. God the Ultimate implies the attained realization of the synthesized absonite-superpersonal, time-space-transcended, and eventuated-experiential values, co-ordinated on final creative levels of Deity reality. P.4 - §12 7. God the Absolute--the experientializing God of transcended superpersonal values and divinity meanings, now existential as the Deity Absolute. This is the third level of unifying Deity expression and expansion. On this supercreative level, Deity experiences exhaustion of personalizable potential, encounters completion of divinity, and undergoes depletion of capacity for self-revelation to successive and progressive levels of other-personalization. Deity now encounters, impinges upon, and experiences identity with, the Unqualified Absolute. |
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III. THE FIRST SOURCE AND CENTER - P.4 P.5 - §1 1. The First Source and Center. P.5 - §8 God, as the First Source and Center, is primal in relation
to total reality--unqualifiedly. The First Source and Center is infinite
as well as eternal and is therefore limited or conditioned only by volition. P.5 - §11 The First Source and Center is related to the universe as: P.5 - §12 1. The gravity forces of the material universes are convergent
in the gravity center of nether Paradise. That is just why the geographic
location of his person is eternally fixed in absolute relation to the
force-energy center of the nether or material plane of Paradise. But the
absolute personality of Deity exists on the upper or spiritual plane of
Paradise. P.5 - §19 REALITY, as comprehended by finite beings, is partial,
relative, and shadowy. The maximum Deity reality fully comprehensible
by evolutionary finite creatures is embraced within the Supreme Being.
Nevertheless there are antecedent and eternal realities, superfinite realities,
which are ancestral to this Supreme Deity of evolutionary time-space creatures.
In attempting to portray the origin and nature of universal reality, we
are forced to employ the technique of time-space reasoning in order to
reach the level of the finite mind. Therefore P.6 - §3 The concept of the I AM is a philosophic concession which we make to the time-bound, space-fettered, finite mind of man, to the impossibility of creature comprehension of eternity existences--nonbeginning, nonending realities and relationships. To the time-space creature, all things must have a beginning save only the ONE UNCAUSED--the primeval cause of causes. Therefore do we conceptualize this philosophic value-level as the I AM, at the same time instructing all creatures that the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit are coeternal with the I AM; in other words, that there never was a time when the I AM was not the Father of the Son and, with him, of the Spirit. P.6 - §4 The Infinite is used to denote the fullness--the finality--implied
by the primacy of the First Source and Center. The theoretical I AM is
a creature-philosophic extension of the "infinity of will,"
but the Infinite is an actual value-level representing the eternity-intension
of the true infinity of the absolute and unfettered free will of the Universal
Father. This concept is sometimes designated the Father-Infinite. |
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IV. UNIVERSE REALITY - P.6 P.6 - §7 1. Undeified reality ranges from the energy domains of the nonpersonal to the reality realms of the nonpersonalizable values of universal existence, even to the presence of the Unqualified Absolute. P.7 - §1 2. Deified reality embraces all of infinite Deity potentials ranging upward through all realms of personality from the lowest finite to the highest infinite, thus encompassing the domain of all that which is personalizable and more--even to the presence of the Deity Absolute. P.7 - §2 3. Interassociated reality. Universe reality is supposedly either deified or undeified, but to subdeified beings there exists a vast domain of interassociated reality, potential and actualizing, which is difficult of identification. Much of this co-ordinate reality is embraced within the realms of the Universal Absolute. P.7 - §3 This is the primal concept of original reality: The Father initiates and maintains Reality. The primal differentials of reality are the deified and the undeified--the Deity Absolute and the Unqualified Absolute. The primal relationship is the tension between them. This Father-initiated divinity-tension is perfectly resolved by, and eternalizes as, the Universal Absolute. P.7 - §4 From the viewpoint of time and space, reality is further divisible as: P.7 - §5 1. Actual and Potential. Realities existing in fullness of expression in contrast to those which carry undisclosed capacity for growth. The Eternal Son is an absolute spiritual actuality; mortal man is very largely an unrealized spiritual potentiality. P.7 - §6 2. Absolute and Subabsolute. Absolute realities are eternity existences. Subabsolute realities are projected on two levels: Absonites--realities which are relative with respect to both time and eternity. Finites--realities which are projected in space and are actualized in time. P.7 - §7 3. Existential and Experiential. Paradise Deity is existential, but the emerging Supreme and Ultimate are experiential. P.7 - §8 4. Personal and Impersonal. Deity expansion, personality
expression, and universe evolution are forever conditioned by the Father's
freewill act which forever separated the mind-spirit-personal meanings
and values of actuality and potentiality centering in the Eternal Son
from those things which center and inhere in the eternal Isle of Paradise. P.7 - §9 PARADISE is a term inclusive of the personal and the nonpersonal focal Absolutes of all phases of universe reality. Paradise, properly qualified, may connote any and all forms of reality, Deity, divinity, personality, and energy--spiritual, mindal, or material. All share Paradise as the place of origin, function, and destiny, as regards values, meanings, and factual existence. P.7 - §10 The Isle of Paradise--Paradise not otherwise qualified--is
the Absolute of the material-gravity control of the First Source and Center.
Paradise is motionless, being the only stationary thing in the universe
of universes. The Isle of Paradise has a universe location but no position
in space. This eternal Isle is the actual source of the physical universes--past,
present, and future. The nuclear Isle of Light is a Deity derivative,
but it is hardly Deity; neither are the material creations a part of Deity;
they are a consequence. |
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V. PERSONALITY REALITIES - P.8 P.8 - §5 The Universal Father is the secret of the reality of personality, the bestowal of personality, and the destiny of personality. The Eternal Son is the absolute personality, the secret of spiritual energy, morontia spirits, and perfected spirits. The Conjoint Actor is the spirit-mind personality, the source of intelligence, reason, and the universal mind. But the Isle of Paradise is nonpersonal and extraspiritual, being the essence of the universal body, the source and center of physical matter, and the absolute master pattern of universal material reality. P.8 - §6 These qualities of universal reality are manifest in Urantian human experience on the following levels: P.8 - §7 1. Body. The material or physical organism of man. The living electrochemical mechanism of animal nature and origin. P.8 - §8 2. Mind. The thinking, perceiving, and feeling mechanism of the human organism. The total conscious and unconscious experience. The intelligence associated with the emotional life reaching upward through worship and wisdom to the spirit level. P.8 - §9 3. Spirit. The divine spirit that indwells the mind of man--the Thought Adjuster. This immortal spirit is prepersonal--not a personality, though destined to become a part of the personality of the surviving mortal creature. P.8 - §10 4. Soul. The soul of man is an experiential acquirement.
As a mortal creature chooses to "do the will of the Father in heaven,"
so the indwelling spirit becomes the father of a new reality in human
experience. The mortal and material mind is the mother of this same emerging
reality. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor spiritual--it
is morontial. This is the emerging P.9 - §1 Personality. The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit; neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience; and it unifies all other associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique bestowal which the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the survival of the morontial soul. P.9 - §2 Morontia is a term designating a vast level intervening between the material and the spiritual. It may designate personal or impersonal realities, living or nonliving energies. The warp of morontia is spiritual; its woof is physical. |
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VI. ENERGY AND PATTERN - P.9 P.9 - §4 ENERGY we use as an all-inclusive term applied to spiritual, mindal, and material realms. Force is also thus broadly used. Power is ordinarily limited to the designation of the electronic level of material or linear-gravity-responsive matter in the grand universe. Power is also employed to designate sovereignty. We cannot follow your generally accepted definitions of force, energy, and power. There is such paucity of language that we must assign multiple meanings to these terms. P.9 - §5 Physical energy is a term denoting all phases and forms
of phenomenal motion, action, and potential. P.9 - §7 1. Cosmic force embraces all energies deriving from the Unqualified Absolute but which are as yet unresponsive to Paradise gravity. P.9 - §8 2. Emergent energy embraces those energies which are responsive to Paradise gravity but are as yet unresponsive to local or linear gravity. This is the pre-electronic level of energy-matter. P.9 - §9 3. Universe power includes all forms of energy which, while
still responding to Paradise gravity, are directly responsive to linear
gravity. This is the electronic level of energy-matter and all subsequent
evolutions thereof. P.9 - §10 Mind is a phenomenon connoting the presence-activity of living ministry in addition to varied energy systems; and this is true on all levels of intelligence. In personality, mind ever intervenes between spirit and matter; therefore is the universe illuminated by three kinds of light: material light, intellectual insight, and spirit luminosity. P.10 - §1 Light--spirit luminosity--is a word symbol, a figure of
speech, which connotes the personality manifestation characteristic of
spirit beings of diverse orders. This luminous emanation is in no respect
related either to intellectual insight or to physical-light manifestations. P.10 - §2 PATTERN can be projected as material, spiritual, or mindal,
or any combination of these energies. It can pervade personalities, identities,
entities, or nonliving matter. But pattern is pattern and remains pattern;
only copies are multiplied. |
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VII. THE SUPREME BEING - P.10 P.10 - §8 1. Existential--beings of eternal existence, past, present, and future. P.10 - §9 2. Experiential--beings actualizing in the post-Havona present but of unending existence throughout all future eternity. P.10 - §10 The Father, Son, and Spirit are existential--existential
in actuality (though all potentials are supposedly experiential). The
Supreme and the Ultimate are wholly experiential. The Deity Absolute is
experiential in actualization but existential in potentiality. The essence
of Deity is eternal, but only the three original persons of Deity are
unqualifiedly eternal. All other Deity personalities have an origin, but
they are eternal in destiny. |
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P.11 - §1 God the Supreme in Havona is the personal spirit reflection
of the triune Paradise Deity. This associative Deity relationship is now
creatively expanding outward in God the Sevenfold and is synthesizing
in the experiential power of the Almighty Supreme in the grand universe.
Paradise Deity, existential as three persons, is thus experientially evolving
in two phases of Supremacy, while these dual phases are power-personality
unifying as one Lord, the Supreme Being. P.11 - §3 The Supreme Being is not a direct creator, except that
he is the father of Majeston, but he is a synthetic co-ordinator of all
creature-Creator universe activities. The Supreme Being, now actualizing
in the evolutionary universes, is the Deity correlator and synthesizer
of time-space divinity, of triune Paradise Deity in experiential association
with the Supreme Creators of time and space. When finally actualized,
this evolutionary Deity will constitute the eternal fusion of the finite
and the infinite--the everlasting and indissoluble union of experiential
power and spirit personality. |
God the Sevenfold (p.11)![]() |
VIII. GOD THE SEVENFOLD - P.11 P.11 - §6 1. The Paradise Creator Sons. |
Almighty Supreme (p.11)![]() |
P.11 - §13 This sevenfold Deity personalization in time and space
and to the seven superuniverses enables mortal man to attain the presence
of God, who is spirit. This sevenfold Deity, to finite time-space creatures
sometime power-personalizing in the Supreme Being, is the functional Deity
of the mortal evolutionary creatures of the Paradise-ascension career.
Such an experiential discovery-career of the realization of God begins
with the recognition of the divinity of the Creator P.12 - §1 The grand universe is the threefold Deity domain of the
Trinity of Supremacy, God the Sevenfold, and the Supreme Being. God the
Supreme is potential in the Paradise Trinity, from whom he derives his
personality and spirit attributes; but he is now actualizing in the Creator
Sons, Ancients of Days, and the Master Spirits, from whom he derives his
power as Almighty to the superuniverses of time and space. This power
manifestation of the immediate God of evolutionary creatures actually
time-space evolves concomitantly with them. The Almighty Supreme, evolving
on the value-level of nonpersonal activities, and the spirit person of
God the Supreme are one reality--the Supreme Being. |
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IX. GOD THE ULTIMATE - P.12 P.12 - §5 God the Ultimate is designative of personal Deity functioning
on the divinity levels of the absonite and on the universe spheres of
supertime and transcended space. The Ultimate is a supersupreme eventuation
of Deity. The Supreme is the Trinity unification comprehended by finite
beings; the Ultimate is the unification of the Paradise Trinity comprehended
by absonite beings. P.13 - §3 God the Supreme and God the Ultimate, now evolving in
the experiential universes, are not existential--not past eternals, only
future eternals, time-space-conditioned and transcendental-conditioned
eternals. They are Deities of supreme, ultimate, and possibly supreme-ultimate
endowments, but they have experienced historic universe origins. They
will never have an end, but they do have personality beginnings. They
are indeed actualizations of eternal and infinite Deity potentials, but
they themselves are neither unqualifiedly eternal nor infinite. |
God the Ultimate (p.12)![]() |
| X. GOD THE ABSOLUTE - P.13 P.13 - §4 There are many features of the eternal reality of the Deity Absolute which cannot be fully explained to the time-space finite mind, but the actualization of God the Absolute would be in consequence of the unification of the second experiential Trinity, the Absolute Trinity. This would constitute the experiential realization of absolute divinity, the unification of absolute meanings on absolute levels; but we are not certain regarding the encompassment of all absolute values since we have at no time been informed that the Qualified Absolute is the equivalent of the Infinite. Superultimate destinies are involved in absolute meanings and infinite spirituality, and without both of these unachieved realities we cannot establish absolute values. P.13 - §5 God the Absolute is the realization-attainment goal of all superabsonite beings, but the power and personality potential of the Deity Absolute transcends our concept, and we hesitate to discuss those realities which are so far removed from experiential actualization. |
God the Absolute (p.13)![]() |
XI. THE THREE ABSOLUTES - P.13 P.14 - §1 When it is not possible fully to distinguish the Deity Absolute from the Unqualified Absolute, their supposedly combined function or co-ordinated presence is designated the action of the Universal Absolute. P.14 - §2 1. The Deity Absolute seems to be the all-powerful activator,
while the Unqualified Absolute appears to be the all-efficient mechanizer
of the supremely unified and ultimately co-ordinated universe of universes,
even universes upon universes, made, making, and yet to be made. |
Three Absolutes (p.13)![]() |
P.14 - §5 2. The Unqualified Absolute is nonpersonal, extradivine,
and undeified. The Unqualified Absolute is therefore devoid of personality,
divinity, and all creator prerogatives. Neither fact nor truth, experience
nor revelation, philosophy nor absonity are able to penetrate the nature
and character of this Absolute without universe qualification. P.14 - §8 3. The Universal Absolute, we logically deduce, was inevitable
in the Universal Father's absolute freewill act of differentiating universe
realities into deified and undeified--personalizable and nonpersonalizable--values.
The Universal Absolute is the Deity phenomenon indicative of the resolution
of the tension created by the freewill act of thus differentiating universe
reality, and functions as the associative co-ordinator of these sum totals
of existential potentialities. P.15 - §2 Always remember: Potential infinity is absolute and inseparable
from eternity. Actual infinity in time can never be anything but partial
and must therefore be nonabsolute; neither can infinity of actual personality
be absolute except in unqualified Deity. And it is the differential of
infinity potential in the Unqualified Absolute and the Deity Absolute
that eternalizes the Universal Absolute, thereby making it cosmically
possible to have material universes in space and spiritually possible
to have finite personalities in time. P.15 - §4 The Universal Absolute is the potential of the static-dynamic Deity functionally realizable on time-eternity levels as finite-absolute values and as possible of experiential-existential approach. This incomprehensible aspect of Deity may be static, potential, and associative but is not experientially creative or evolutional as concerns the intelligent personalities now functioning in the master universe. P.15 - §5 The Absolute. The two Absolutes--qualified and unqualified--while so apparently divergent in function as they may be observed by mind creatures, are perfectly and divinely unified in and by the Universal Absolute. In the last analysis and in the final comprehension all three are one Absolute. On subinfinite levels they are functionally differentiated, but in infinity they are ONE. P.15 - §6 We never use the term the Absolute as a negation of aught or as a denial of anything. Neither do we regard the Universal Absolute as self-determinative, a sort of pantheistic and impersonal Deity. The Absolute, in all that pertains to universe personality, is strictly Trinity limited and Deity dominated. |
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XII. THE TRINITIES - P.15 P.15 - §8 The Paradise Trinity--the eternal Deity union of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit--is existential in actuality, but all potentials are experiential. Therefore does this Trinity constitute the only Deity reality embracing infinity, and therefore do there occur the universe phenomena of the actualization of God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute. P.15 - §9 The first and second experiential Trinities, the post-Havona
Trinities, cannot be infinite because they embrace derived Deities, Deities
evolved by the experiential actualization of realities created or eventuated
by the existential |
Paradise Trinity (p.15)![]() |
P.16 - §1 Trinities are truths of relationship and facts of co-ordinate Deity manifestation. Trinity functions encompass Deity realities, and Deity realities always seek realization and manifestation in personalization. God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and even God the Absolute are therefore divine inevitabilities. These three experiential Deities were potential in the existential Trinity, the Paradise Trinity, but their universe emergence as personalities of power is dependent in part on their own experiential functioning in the universes of power and personality and in part on the experiential achievements of the post-Havona Creators and Trinities. P.16 - §2 The two post-Havona Trinities, the Ultimate and the Absolute experiential Trinities, are not now fully manifest; they are in process of universe realization. These Deity associations may be described as follows: P.16 - §3 1. The Ultimate Trinity, now evolving, will eventually consist of the Supreme Being, the Supreme Creator Personalities, and the absonite Architects of the Master Universe, those unique universe planners who are neither creators nor creatures. God the Ultimate will eventually and inevitably powerize and personalize as the Deity consequence of the unification of this experiential Ultimate Trinity in the expanding arena of the well-nigh limitless master universe. |
Ultimate Trinity (p.16)![]() |
P.16 - §4 2. The Absolute Trinity--the second experiential Trinity--now in process of actualization, will consist of God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and the unrevealed Consummator of Universe Destiny. This Trinity functions on both personal and superpersonal levels, even to the borders of the nonpersonal, and its unification in universality would experientialize Absolute Deity. P.16 - §5 The Ultimate Trinity is experientially unifying in completion, but we truly doubt the possibility of such full unification of the Absolute Trinity. Our concept, however, of the eternal Paradise Trinity is an ever-present reminder that Deity trinitization may accomplish what is otherwise nonattainable; hence do we postulate the sometime appearance of the Supreme-Ultimate and the possible trinitization-factualization of God the Absolute. P.16 - §6 The philosophers of the universes postulate a Trinity
of Trinities, an existential-experiential Trinity Infinite, but they are
not able to envisage its personalization; possibly it would equivalate
to the person of the Universal Father on the conceptual level of the I
AM. But irrespective of all this, the original Paradise Trinity is potentially
infinite since the Universal Father actually is infinite. P.17 - §3 [Indited by an Orvonton Divine Counselor, Chief of the
Corps of Superuniverse Personalities assigned to portray on Urantia the
truth concerning the Paradise Deities and the universe of universes.] |
Supreme Creators (p.16) Absolute Trinity (p.16) ![]() |