Paper 7 — Relation of the Eternal Son to the Universe

P.81 – §1 The Original Son is ever
concerned with the execution of the spiritual aspects of the Father’s
eternal purpose as it progressively unfolds in the phenomena of the evolving
universes with their manifold groups of living beings. We do not fully
comprehend this eternal plan, but the Paradise Son undoubtedly does.

1. THE SPIRIT-GRAVITY CIRCUIT – P.81

P.81 – §6 Everything taught concerning the immanence
of God, his omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, is equally true
of the Son in the spiritual domains. The pure and universal spirit gravity
of all creation, this exclusively spiritual circuit, leads directly back
to the person of the Second Source and Center on Paradise. He presides
over the control and operation of that ever-present and unerring spiritual
grasp of all true spirit values. Thus does the Eternal Son exercise absolute
spiritual sovereignty. He literally holds all spirit realities and all
spiritualized values, as it were, in the hollow of his hand. The control
of universal spiritual gravity is universal spiritual sovereignty.

P.82 – §1 This gravity control of spiritual things
operates independently of time and space; therefore is spirit energy undiminished
in transmission. Spirit gravity never suffers time delays, nor does it
undergo space diminution. It does not decrease in accordance with the
square of the distance of its transmission; the circuits of pure spirit
power are not retarded by the mass of the material creation. And this
transcendence of time and space by pure spirit energies is inherent in
the absoluteness of the Son; it is not due to the interposition of the
antigravity forces of the Third Source and Center.

P.82 – §2 Spirit realities respond to the drawing
power of the center of spiritual gravity in accordance with their qualitative
value, their actual degree of spirit nature. Spirit substance (quality)
is just as responsive to spirit gravity as the organized energy of physical
matter (quantity) is responsive to physical gravity. Spiritual values
and spirit forces are real. From the viewpoint of personality, spirit
is the soul of creation; matter is the shadowy physical body.

P.82 – §3 The reactions and fluctuations of spirit
gravity are ever true to the content of spiritual values, the qualitative
spiritual status of an individual or a world. This drawing power is instantly
responsive to the inter- and intraspirit values of any universe situation
or planetary condition. Every time a spiritual reality actualizes in the
universes, this change necessitates the immediate and instantaneous readjustment
of spirit gravity. Such a new spirit is actually a part of the Second
Source and Center; and just as certainly as mortal man becomes a spiritized
being, he will attain the spiritual Son, the center and source of spirit
gravity.

P.82 – §4 The Son’s spiritual drawing power is inherent
to a lesser degree in many Paradise orders of sonship. For there do exist
within the absolute spirit-gravity circuit those local systems of spiritual
attraction that function in the lesser units of creation. Such subabsolute
focalizations of spirit gravity are a part of the divinity of the Creator
personalities of time and space and are correlated with the emerging experiential
overcontrol of the Supreme Being.

P.82 – §5 Spirit-gravity pull and response thereto
operate not only on the universe as a whole but also even between individuals
and groups of individuals. There is a spiritual cohesiveness among the
spiritual and spiritized personalities of any world, race, nation, or
believing group of individuals. There is a direct attractiveness of a
spirit nature between spiritually minded persons of like tastes and longings.
The term kindred spirits is not wholly a figure of speech.

P.82 – §6 Like the material gravity of Paradise,
the spiritual gravity of the Eternal Son is absolute. Sin and rebellion
may interfere with the operation of local universe circuits, but nothing
can suspend the spirit gravity of the Eternal Son. The Lucifer rebellion
produced many changes in your system of inhabited worlds and on Urantia,
but we do not observe that the resultant spiritual quarantine of your
planet in the least affected the presence and function of either the omnipresent
spirit of the Eternal Son or the associated spirit-gravity circuit.

P.82 – §7 All reactions of the spirit-gravity circuit
of the grand universe are predictable. We recognize all actions and reactions
of the omnipresent spirit of the Eternal Son and find them to be dependable.
In accordance with well-known laws, we can and do measure spiritual gravity
just as man attempts to compute the workings of finite physical gravity.
There is an unvarying response of the Son’s spirit to all spirit things,
beings, and persons, and this response is always in accordance

P.83 – §0 with the degree of actuality (the qualitative
degree of reality) of all such spiritual values.

P.83 – §1 But alongside this very dependable and
predictable function of the spiritual presence of the Eternal Son, there
are encountered phenomena which are not so predictable in their reactions.
Such phenomena probably indicate the co-ordinate action of the Deity Absolute
in the realms of emerging spiritual potentials. We know that the spirit
presence of the Eternal Son is the influence of a majestic and infinite
personality, but we hardly regard the reactions associated with the conjectured
performances of the Deity Absolute as personal.

P.83 – §2 Viewed from the personality standpoint
and by persons, the Eternal Son and the Deity Absolute appear to be related
in the following way: The Eternal Son dominates the realm of actual spiritual
values, whereas the Deity Absolute seems to pervade the vast domain of
potential spirit values. All actual value of spirit nature finds lodgment
in the gravity grasp of the Eternal Son but, if potential, then apparently
in the presence of the Deity Absolute.

P.83 – §3 Spirit seems to emerge from the potentials
of the Deity Absolute; evolving spirit finds correlation in the experiential
and incomplete grasps of the Supreme and the Ultimate; spirit eventually
finds final destiny in the absolute grasp of the spiritual gravity of
the Eternal Son. This appears to be the cycle of experiential spirit,
but existential spirit is inherent in the infinity of the Second Source
and Center.

2. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ETERNAL SON – P.83

P.83 – §4 On Paradise the presence and personal activity
of the Original Son is profound, absolute in the spiritual sense. As we
pass outward from Paradise through Havona and into the realms of the seven
superuniverses, we detect less and less of the personal activity of the
Eternal Son. In the post-Havona universes the presence of the Eternal
Son is personalized in the Paradise Sons, conditioned by the experiential
realities of the Supreme and the Ultimate, and co-ordinated with the unlimited
spirit potential of the Deity Absolute.

P.83 – §5 In the central universe the personal activity
of the Original Son is discernible in the exquisite spiritual harmony
of the eternal creation. Havona is so marvelously perfect that the spiritual
status and the energy states of this pattern universe are in perfect and
perpetual balance.

P.83 – §6 In the superuniverses the Son is not personally
present or resident; in these creations he maintains only a superpersonal
representation. These spirit manifestations of the Son are not personal;
they are not in the personality circuit of the Universal Father. We know
of no better term to use than to designate them superpersonalities; and
they are finite beings; they are neither absonite nor absolute.

P.83 – §7 The administration of the Eternal Son in
the superuniverses, being exclusively spiritual and superpersonal, is
not discernible by creature personalities. Nonetheless, the all-pervading
spiritual urge of the Son’s personal influence is encountered in every
phase of the activities of all sectors of the domains of the Ancients
of Days. In the local universes, however, we observe the Eternal Son personally
present in the persons of the Paradise Sons. Here the infinite Son spiritually
and creatively functions in the persons of the majestic corps of the co-ordinate
Creator Sons.

3. RELATION OF THE ETERNAL SON TO THE INDIVIDUAL – P.84

P.84 – §1 In the local universe ascent the mortals
of time look to the Creator Son as the personal representative of the
Eternal Son. But when they begin the ascent of the superuniverse training
regime, the pilgrims of time increasingly detect the supernal presence
of the inspiring spirit of the Eternal Son, and they are able to profit
by the intake of this ministry of spiritual energization. In Havona the
ascenders become still more conscious of the loving embrace of the all-pervading
spirit of the Original Son. At no stage of the entire mortal ascension
does the spirit of the Eternal Son indwell the mind or soul of the pilgrim
of time, but his beneficence is ever near and always concerned with the
welfare and spiritual security of the advancing children of time.

P.84 – §2 The spiritual-gravity pull of the Eternal
Son constitutes the inherent secret of the Paradise ascension of surviving
human souls. All genuine spirit values and all bona fide spiritualized
individuals are held within the unfailing grasp of the spiritual gravity
of the Eternal Son. The mortal mind, for example, initiates its career
as a material mechanism and is eventually mustered into the Corps of the
Finality as a well-nigh perfected spirit existence, becoming progressively
less subject to material gravity and correspondingly more responsive to
the inward pulling urge of spirit gravity during this entire experience.
The spirit-gravity circuit literally pulls the soul of man Paradiseward.

P.84 – §3 The spirit-gravity circuit is the basic
channel for transmitting the genuine prayers of the believing human heart
from the level of human consciousness to the actual consciousness of Deity.
That which represents true spiritual value in your petitions will be seized
by the universal circuit of spirit gravity and will pass immediately and
simultaneously to all divine personalities concerned. Each will occupy
himself with that which belongs to his personal province. Therefore, in
your practical religious experience, it is immaterial whether, in addressing
your supplications, you visualize the Creator Son of your local universe
or the Eternal Son at the center of all things.

P.84 – §4 The discriminative operation of the spirit-gravity
circuit might possibly be compared to the functions of the neural circuits
in the material human body: Sensations travel inward over the neural paths;
some are detained and responded to by the lower automatic spinal centers;
others pass on to the less automatic but habit-trained centers of the
lower brain, while the most important and vital incoming messages flash
by these subordinate centers and are immediately registered in the highest
levels of human consciousness.

P.84 – §5 But how much more perfect is the superb
technique of the spiritual world! If anything originates in your consciousness
that is fraught with supreme spiritual value, when once you give it expression,
no power in the universe can prevent its flashing directly to the Absolute
Spirit Personality of all creation.

P.84 – §6 Conversely, if your supplications are purely
material and wholly self-centered, there exists no plan whereby such unworthy
prayers can find lodgment in the spirit circuit of the Eternal Son. The
content of any petition which is not "spirit indited" can find
no place in the universal spiritual circuit; such purely selfish and material
requests fall dead; they do not ascend in the circuits of true spirit
values. Such words are as "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."

P.85 – §1 It is the motivating thought, the spiritual
content, that validates the mortal supplication. Words are valueless.

4. THE DIVINE PERFECTION PLANS – P.85

P.85 – §2 The Eternal Son is in everlasting liaison
with the Father in the successful prosecution of the divine plan of progress:
the universal plan for the creation, evolution, ascension, and perfection
of will creatures. And, in divine faithfulness, the Son is the eternal
equal of the Father.

P.85 – §3 The Father and his Son are as one in the
formulation and prosecution of this gigantic attainment plan for advancing
the material beings of time to the perfection of eternity. This project
for the spiritual elevation of the ascendant souls of space is a joint
creation of the Father and the Son, and they are, with the co-operation
of the Infinite Spirit, engaged in associative execution of their divine
purpose.

P.85 – §4 This divine plan of perfection attainment
embraces three unique, though marvelously correlated, enterprises of universal
adventure:

P.85 – §5 1. The Plan of Progressive Attainment.
This is the Universal Father’s plan of evolutionary ascension, a program
unreservedly accepted by the Eternal Son when he concurred in the Father’s
proposal, "Let us make mortal creatures in our own image." This
provision for upstepping the creatures of time involves the Father’s bestowal
of the Thought Adjusters and the endowing of material creatures with the
prerogatives of personality.

P.85 – §6 2. The Bestowal Plan. The next universal
plan is the great Father-revelation enterprise of the Eternal Son and
his co-ordinate Sons. This is the proposal of the Eternal Son and consists
of his bestowal of the Sons of God upon the evolutionary creations, there
to personalize and factualize, to incarnate and make real, the love of
the Father and the mercy of the Son to the creatures of all universes.
Inherent in the bestowal plan, and as a provisional feature of this ministration
of love, the Paradise Sons act as rehabilitators of that which misguided
creature will has placed in spiritual jeopardy. Whenever and wherever
there occurs a delay in the functioning of the attainment plan, if rebellion,
perchance, should mar or complicate this enterprise, then do the emergency
provisions of the bestowal plan become active forthwith. The Paradise
Sons stand pledged and ready to function as retrievers, to go into the
very realms of rebellion and there restore the spiritual status of the
spheres. And such a heroic service a co-ordinate Creator Son did perform
on Urantia in connection with his experiential bestowal career of sovereignty
acquirement.

P.85 – §7 3. The Plan of Mercy Ministry. When the
attainment plan and the bestowal plan had been formulated and proclaimed,
alone and of himself, the Infinite Spirit projected and put in operation
the tremendous and universal enterprise of mercy ministry. This is the
service so essential to the practical and effective operation of both
the attainment and the bestowal undertakings, and the spiritual personalities
of the Third Source and Center all partake of the spirit of mercy ministry
which is so much a part of the nature of the Third Person of Deity. Not
only in creation but also in administration, the Infinite Spirit functions
truly and literally as the conjoint executive of the Father and the Son.

P.86 – §1 The Eternal Son is the personal trustee,
the divine custodian, of the Father’s universal plan of creature ascension.
Having promulgated the universal mandate, "Be you perfect, even as
I am perfect," the Father intrusted the execution of this tremendous
undertaking to the Eternal Son; and the Eternal Son shares the fostering
of this supernal enterprise with his divine co-ordinate, the Infinite
Spirit. Thus do the Deities effectively co-operate in the work of creation,
control, evolution, revelation, and ministration–and if required, in
restoration and rehabilitation.

5. THE SPIRIT OF BESTOWAL – P.86

P.86 – §2 The Eternal Son without reservation joined
with the Universal Father in broadcasting that tremendous injunction to
all creation: "Be you perfect, even as your Father in Havona is perfect."
And ever since, that invitation-command has motivated all the survival
plans and the bestowal projects of the Eternal Son and his vast family
of co-ordinate and associated Sons. And in these very bestowals the Sons
of God have become to all evolutionary creatures "the way, the truth,
and the life."

P.86 – §3 The Eternal Son cannot contact directly
with human beings as does the Father through the gift of the prepersonal
Thought Adjusters, but the Eternal Son does draw near to created personalities
by a series of downstepping gradations of divine sonship until he is enabled
to stand in man’s presence and, at times, as man himself.

P.86 – §4 The purely personal nature of the Eternal
Son is incapable of fragmentation. The Eternal Son ministers as a spiritual
influence or as a person, never otherwise. The Son finds it impossible
to become a part of creature experience in the sense that the Father-Adjuster
participates therein, but the Eternal Son compensates this limitation
by the technique of bestowal. What the experience of fragmented entities
means to the Universal Father, the incarnation experiences of the Paradise
Sons mean to the Eternal Son.

P.86 – §5 The Eternal Son comes not to mortal man
as the divine will, the Thought Adjuster indwelling the human mind, but
the Eternal Son did come to mortal man on Urantia when the divine personality
of his Son, Michael of Nebadon, incarnated in the human nature of Jesus
of Nazareth. To share the experience of created personalities, the Paradise
Sons of God must assume the very natures of such creatures and incarnate
their divine personalities as the actual creatures themselves. Incarnation,
the secret of Sonarington, is the technique of the Son’s escape from the
otherwise all-encompassing fetters of personality absolutism.

P.86 – §6 Long, long ago the Eternal Son bestowed
himself upon each of the circuits of the central creation for the enlightenment
and advancement of all the inhabitants and pilgrims of Havona, including
the ascending pilgrims of time. On none of these seven bestowals did he
function as either an ascender or a Havoner. He existed as himself. His
experience was unique; it was not with or as a human or other pilgrim
but in some way associative in the superpersonal sense.

P.86 – §7 Neither did he pass through the rest that
intervenes between the inner Havona circuit and the shores of Paradise.
It is not possible for him, an absolute being, to suspend consciousness
of personality, for in him center all lines of spiritual gravity. And
during the times of these bestowals the central Paradise lodgment of spiritual
luminosity was undimmed, and the Son’s grasp of universal spirit gravity
was undiminished.

P.87 – §1 The bestowals of the Eternal Son in Havona
are not within the scope of human imagination; they were transcendental.
He added to the experience of all Havona then and subsequently, but we
do not know whether he added to the supposed experiential capacity of
his existential nature. That would fall within the bestowal mystery of
the Paradise Sons. We do, however, believe that whatever the Eternal Son
acquired on these bestowal missions, he has ever since retained; but we
do not know what it is.

P.87 – §2 Whatever our difficulty in comprehending
the bestowals of the Second Person of Deity, we do comprehend the Havona
bestowal of a Son of the Eternal Son, who literally passed through the
circuits of the central universe and actually shared those experiences
which constitute an ascender’s preparation for Deity attainment. This
was the original Michael, the first-born Creator Son, and he passed through
the life experiences of the ascending pilgrims from circuit to circuit,
personally journeying a stage of each circle with them in the days of
Grandfanda, the first of all mortals to attain Havona.

P.87 – §3 Whatever else this original Michael revealed,
he made the transcendent bestowal of the Original Mother Son real to the
creatures of Havona. So real, that forevermore each pilgrim of time who
labors in the adventure of making the Havona circuits is cheered and strengthened
by the certain knowledge that the Eternal Son of God seven times abdicated
the power and glory of Paradise to participate in the experiences of the
time-space pilgrims on the seven circuits of progressive Havona attainment.

P.87 – §4 The Eternal Son is the exemplary inspiration
for all the Sons of God in their ministrations of bestowal throughout
the universes of time and space. The co-ordinate Creator Sons and the
associate Magisterial Sons, together with other unrevealed orders of sonship,
all partake of this wonderful willingness to bestow themselves upon the
varied orders of creature life and as the creatures themselves. Therefore,
in spirit and because of kinship of nature as well as fact of origin,
it becomes true that in the bestowal of each Son of God upon the worlds
of space, in and through and by these bestowals, the Eternal Son has bestowed
himself upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes.

P.87 – §5 In spirit and nature, if not in all attributes,
each Paradise Son is a divinely perfect portraiture of the Original Son.
It is literally true, whosoever has seen a Paradise Son has seen the Eternal
Son of God.

6. THE PARADISE SONS OF GOD – P.87

P.87 – §6 The lack of a knowledge of the multiple
Sons of God is a source of great confusion on Urantia. And this ignorance
persists in the face of such statements as the record of a conclave of
these divine personalities: "When the Sons of God proclaimed joy,
and all of the Morning Stars sang together." Every millennium of
sector standard time the various orders of the divine Sons forgather for
their periodic conclaves.

P.87 – §7 The Eternal Son is the personal source
of the adorable attributes of mercy and service which so abundantly characterize
all orders of the descending Sons of God as they function throughout creation.
All the divine nature, if not all the infinity of attributes, the Eternal
Son unfailingly transmits to the Paradise Sons who go out from the eternal
Isle to reveal his divine character to the universe of universes.

P.88 – §1 The Original and Eternal Son is the offspring-person
of the "first" completed and infinite thought of the Universal
Father. Every time the Universal Father and the Eternal Son jointly project
a new, original, identical, unique, and absolute personal thought, that
very instant this creative idea is perfectly and finally personalized
in the being and personality of a new and original Creator Son. In spirit
nature, divine wisdom, and co-ordinate creative power, these Creator Sons
are potentially equal with God the Father and God the Son.

P.88 – §2 The Creator Sons go out from Paradise into
the universes of time and, with the co-operation of the controlling and
creative agencies of the Third Source and Center, complete the organization
of the local universes of progressive evolution. These Sons are not attached
to, nor are they concerned with, the central and universal controls of
matter, mind, and spirit. Hence are they limited in their creative acts
by the pre-existence, priority, and primacy of the First Source and Center
and his co-ordinate Absolutes. These Sons are able to administer only
that which they bring into existence. Absolute administration is inherent
in priority of existence and is inseparable from eternity of presence.
The Father remains primal in the universes.

P.88 – §3 Much as the Creator Sons are personalized
by the Father and the Son, so are the Magisterial Sons personalized by
the Son and the Spirit. These are the Sons who, in the experiences of
creature incarnation, earn the right to serve as the judges of survival
in the creations of time and space.

P.88 – §4 The Father, Son, and Spirit also unite
to personalize the versatile Trinity Teacher Sons, who range the grand
universe as the supernal teachers of all personalities, human and divine.
And there are numerous other orders of Paradise sonship that have not
been brought to the attention of Urantia mortals.

P.88 – §5 Between the Original Mother Son and these
hosts of Paradise Sons scattered throughout all creation, there is a direct
and exclusive channel of communication, a channel whose function is inherent
in the quality of spiritual kinship which unites them in bonds of near-absolute
spiritual association. This intersonship circuit is entirely different
from the universal circuit of spirit gravity, which also centers in the
person of the Second Source and Center. All Sons of God who take origin
in the persons of the Paradise Deities are in direct and constant communication
with the Eternal Mother Son. And such communication is instantaneous;
it is independent of time though sometimes conditioned by space.

P.88 – §6 The Eternal Son not only has at all times
perfect knowledge concerning the status, thoughts, and manifold activities
of all orders of Paradise sonship, but he also has perfection of knowledge
at all times regarding everything of spiritual value which exists in the
hearts of all creatures in the primary central creation of eternity and
in the secondary time creations of the co-ordinate Creator Sons.

7. THE SUPREME REVELATION OF THE FATHER – P.88

P.88 – §7 The Eternal Son is a complete, exclusive,
universal, and final revelation of the spirit and the personality of the
Universal Father. All knowledge of, and information concerning, the Father
must come from the Eternal Son and his Paradise Sons. The Eternal Son
is from eternity and is wholly and without spiritual qualification one
with the Father. In divine personality they are co-ordinate; in spiritual
nature they are equal; in divinity they are identical.

P.89 – §1 The character of God could not possibly
be intrinsically improved upon in the person of the Son, for the divine
Father is infinitely perfect, but that character and personality are amplified,
by divestment of the nonpersonal and nonspiritual, for revelation to creature
beings. The First Source and Center is much more than a personality, but
all of the spirit qualities of the father personality of the First Source
and Center are spiritually present in the absolute personality of the
Eternal Son.

P.89 – §2 The primal Son and his Sons are engaged
in making a universal revelation of the spiritual and personal nature
of the Father to all creation. In the central universe, the superuniverses,
the local universes, or on the inhabited planets, it is a Paradise Son
who reveals the Universal Father to men and angels. The Eternal Son and
his Sons reveal the avenue of creature approach to the Universal Father.
And even we of high origin understand the Father much more fully as we
study the revelation of his character and personality in the Eternal Son
and in the Sons of the Eternal Son.

P.89 – §3 The Father comes down to you as a personality
only through the divine Sons of the Eternal Son. And you attain the Father
by this same living way; you ascend to the Father by the guidance of this
group of divine Sons. And this remains true notwithstanding that your
very personality is a direct bestowal of the Universal Father.

P.89 – §4 In all these widespread activities of the
far-flung spiritual administration of the Eternal Son, do not forget that
the Son is a person just as truly and actually as the Father is a person.
Indeed, to beings of the onetime human order the Eternal Son will be more
easy to approach than the Universal Father. In the progress of the pilgrims
of time through the circuits of Havona, you will be competent to attain
the Son long before you are prepared to discern the Father.
P.89 – §5 More of the character and merciful nature of the Eternal
Son of mercy you should comprehend as you meditate on the revelation of
these divine attributes which was made in loving service by your own Creator
Son, onetime Son of Man on earth, now the exalted sovereign of your local
universe–the Son of Man and the Son of God.

P.89 – §6 [Indited by a Divine Counselor assigned
to formulate this statement depicting the Eternal Son of Paradise.]