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P.33 – §1 Inasmuch as man’s highest
possible concept of God is embraced within the human idea and ideal of
a primal and infinite personality, it is permissible, and may prove helpful,
to study certain characteristics of the divine nature which constitute
the character of Deity. The nature of God can best be understood by the
revelation of the Father which Michael of Nebadon unfolded in his manifold
teachings and in his superb mortal life in the flesh. The divine nature
can also be better understood by man if he regards himself as a child
of God and looks up to the Paradise Creator as a true spiritual Father.
P.33 – §2 The nature of God can be studied in a revelation
of supreme ideas, the divine character can be envisaged as a portrayal
of supernal ideals, but the most enlightening and spiritually edifying
of all revelations of the divine nature is to be found in the comprehension
of the religious life of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and after his
attainment of full consciousness of divinity. If the incarnated life of
Michael is taken as the background of the revelation of God to man, we
may attempt to put in human word symbols certain ideas and ideals concerning
the divine nature which may possibly contribute to a further illumination
and unification of the human concept of the nature and the character of
the personality of the Universal Father.
P.33 – §3 In all our efforts to enlarge and spiritualize
the human concept of God, we are tremendously handicapped by the limited
capacity of the mortal mind. We are also seriously handicapped in the
execution of our assignment by the limitations of language and by the
poverty of material which can be utilized for purposes of illustration
or comparison in our efforts to portray divine values and to present spiritual
meanings to the finite, mortal mind of man. All our efforts to enlarge
the human concept of God would be well-nigh futile except for the fact
that the mortal mind is indwelt by the bestowed Adjuster of the Universal
Father and is pervaded by the Truth Spirit of the Creator Son. Depending,
therefore, on the presence of these divine spirits within the heart of
man for assistance in the enlargement of the concept of God, I cheerfully
undertake the execution of my mandate to attempt the further portrayal
of the nature of God to the mind of man.
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1. THE INFINITY OF GOD – P.33
P.33 – §4 "Touching the Infinite, we cannot
find him out. The divine footsteps are not known." "His understanding
is infinite and his greatness is unsearchable." The blinding light
of the Father’s presence is such that to his lowly creatures he apparently
"dwells in the thick darkness." Not only are his thoughts and
plans unsearchable, but "he does great and marvelous things without
number." "God is
P.34 – §0 great; we comprehend him not, neither can
the number of his years be searched out." "Will God indeed dwell
on the earth? Behold, the heaven (universe) and the heaven of heavens
(universe of universes) cannot contain him." "How unsearchable
are his judgments and his ways past finding out!"
P.34 – §1 "There is but one God, the infinite
Father, who is also a faithful Creator." "The divine Creator
is also the Universal Disposer, the source and destiny of souls. He is
the Supreme Soul, the Primal Mind, and the Unlimited Spirit of all creation."
"The great Controller makes no mistakes. He is resplendent in majesty
and glory." "The Creator God is wholly devoid of fear and enmity.
He is immortal, eternal, self-existent, divine, and bountiful." "How
pure and beautiful, how deep and unfathomable is the supernal Ancestor
of all things!" "The Infinite is most excellent in that he imparts
himself to men. He is the beginning and the end, the Father of every good
and perfect purpose." "With God all things are possible; the
eternal Creator is the cause of causes."
P.34 – §2 Notwithstanding the infinity of the stupendous
manifestations of the Father’s eternal and universal personality, he is
unqualifiedly self-conscious of both his infinity and eternity; likewise
he knows fully his perfection and power. He is the only being in the universe,
aside from his divine co-ordinates, who experiences a perfect, proper,
and complete appraisal of himself.
P.34 – §3 The Father constantly and unfailingly meets
the need of the differential of demand for himself as it changes from
time to time in various sections of his master universe. The great God
knows and understands himself; he is infinitely self-conscious of all
his primal attributes of perfection. God is not a cosmic accident; neither
is he a universe experimenter. The Universe Sovereigns may engage in adventure;
the Constellation Fathers may experiment; the system heads may practice;
but the Universal Father sees the end from the beginning, and his divine
plan and eternal purpose actually embrace and comprehend all the experiments
and all the adventures of all his subordinates in every world, system,
and constellation in every universe of his vast domains.
P.34 – §4 No thing is new to God, and no cosmic event
ever comes as a surprise; he inhabits the circle of eternity. He is without
beginning or end of days. To God there is no past, present, or future;
all time is present at any given moment. He is the great and only I AM.
P.34 – §5 The Universal Father is absolutely and
without qualification infinite in all his attributes; and this fact, in
and of itself, automatically shuts him off from all direct personal communication
with finite material beings and other lowly created intelligences.
P.34 – §6 And all this necessitates such arrangements
for contact and communication with his manifold creatures as have been
ordained, first, in the personalities of the Paradise Sons of God, who,
although perfect in divinity, also often partake of the nature of the
very flesh and blood of the planetary races, becoming one of you and one
with you; thus, as it were, God becomes man, as occurred in the bestowal
of Michael, who was called interchangeably the Son of God and the Son
of Man. And second, there are the personalities of the Infinite Spirit,
the various orders of the seraphic hosts and other celestial intelligences
who draw near to the material beings of lowly origin and in so many ways
minister to them and serve them. And third, there are the impersonal Mystery
Monitors, Thought Adjusters, the actual gift of the great God himself
sent to indwell such as the humans of Urantia, sent without announcement
and without explanation. In
P.35 – §0 endless profusion they descend from the
heights of glory to grace and indwell the humble minds of those mortals
who possess the capacity for God-consciousness or the potential therefor.
P.35 – §1 In these ways and in many others, in ways
unknown to you and utterly beyond finite comprehension, does the Paradise
Father lovingly and willingly downstep and otherwise modify, dilute, and
attenuate his infinity in order that he may be able to draw nearer the
finite minds of his creature children. And so, through a series of personality
distributions which are diminishingly absolute, the infinite Father is
enabled to enjoy close contact with the diverse intelligences of the many
realms of his far-flung universe.
P.35 – §2 All this he has done and now does, and
evermore will continue to do, without in the least detracting from the
fact and reality of his infinity, eternity, and primacy. And these things
are absolutely true, notwithstanding the difficulty of their comprehension,
the mystery in which they are enshrouded, or the impossibility of their
being fully understood by creatures such as dwell on Urantia.
P.35 – §3 Because the First Father is infinite in
his plans and eternal in his purposes, it is inherently impossible for
any finite being ever to grasp or comprehend these divine plans and purposes
in their fullness. Mortal man can glimpse the Father’s purposes only now
and then, here and there, as they are revealed in relation to the outworking
of the plan of creature ascension on its successive levels of universe
progression. Though man cannot encompass the significance of infinity,
the infinite Father does most certainly fully comprehend and lovingly
embrace all the finity of all his children in all universes.
P.35 – §4 Divinity and eternity the Father shares
with large numbers of the higher Paradise beings, but we question whether
infinity and consequent universal primacy is fully shared with any save
his co-ordinate associates of the Paradise Trinity. Infinity of personality
must, perforce, embrace all finitude of personality; hence the truth–literal
truth–of the teaching which declares that "In Him we live and move
and have our being." That fragment of the pure Deity of the Universal
Father which indwells mortal man is a part of the infinity of the First
Great Source and Center, the Father of Fathers.
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2. THE FATHER’S ETERNAL PERFECTION – P.35
P.35 – §5 Even your olden prophets understood the
eternal, never-beginning, never-ending, circular nature of the Universal
Father. God is literally and eternally present in his universe of universes.
He inhabits the present moment with all his absolute majesty and eternal
greatness. "The Father has life in himself, and this life is eternal
life." Throughout the eternal ages it has been the Father who "gives
to all life." There is infinite perfection in the divine integrity.
"I am the Lord; I change not." Our knowledge of the universe
of universes discloses not only that he is the Father of lights, but also
that in his conduct of interplanetary affairs there "is no variableness
neither shadow of changing." He "declares the end from the beginning."
He says: "My counsel shall stand; I will do all my pleasures"
"according to the eternal purpose which I purposed in my Son."
Thus are the plans and purposes of the First Source and Center like himself:
eternal, perfect, and forever changeless.
P.35 – §6 There is finality of completeness and perfection
of repleteness in the mandates of the Father. "Whatsoever God does,
it shall be forever; nothing can be
P.36 – §0 added to it nor anything taken from it."
The Universal Father does not repent of his original purposes of wisdom
and perfection. His plans are steadfast, his counsel immutable, while
his acts are divine and infallible. "A thousand years in his sight
are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night."
The perfection of divinity and the magnitude of eternity are forever beyond
the full grasp of the circumscribed mind of mortal man.
P.36 – §1 The reactions of a changeless God, in the
execution of his eternal purpose, may seem to vary in accordance with
the changing attitude and the shifting minds of his created intelligences;
that is, they may apparently and superficially vary; but underneath the
surface and beneath all outward manifestations, there is still present
the changeless purpose, the everlasting plan, of the eternal God.
P.36 – §2 Out in the universes, perfection must necessarily
be a relative term, but in the central universe and especially on Paradise,
perfection is undiluted; in certain phases it is even absolute. Trinity
manifestations vary the exhibition of the divine perfection but do not
attenuate it.
P.36 – §3 God’s primal perfection consists not in
an assumed righteousness but rather in the inherent perfection of the
goodness of his divine nature. He is final, complete, and perfect. There
is no thing lacking in the beauty and perfection of his righteous character.
And the whole scheme of living existences on the worlds of space is centered
in the divine purpose of elevating all will creatures to the high destiny
of the experience of sharing the Father’s Paradise perfection. God is
neither self-centered nor self-contained; he never ceases to bestow himself
upon all self-conscious creatures of the vast universe of universes.
P.36 – §4 God is eternally and infinitely perfect,
he cannot personally know imperfection as his own experience, but he does
share the consciousness of all the experience of imperfectness of all
the struggling creatures of the evolutionary universes of all the Paradise
Creator Sons. The personal and liberating touch of the God of perfection
overshadows the hearts and encircuits the natures of all those mortal
creatures who have ascended to the universe level of moral discernment.
In this manner, as well as through the contacts of the divine presence,
the Universal Father actually participates in the experience with immaturity
and imperfection in the evolving career of every moral being of the entire
universe.
P.36 – §5 Human limitations, potential evil, are
not a part of the divine nature, but mortal experience with evil and all
man’s relations thereto are most certainly a part of God’s ever-expanding
self-realization in the children of time–creatures of moral responsibility
who have been created or evolved by every Creator Son going out from Paradise.
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3. JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS – P.36
P.36 – §6 God is righteous; therefore is he just.
"The Lord is righteous in all his ways." "`I have not done
without cause all that I have done,’ says the Lord." "The judgments
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." The justice of the
Universal Father cannot be influenced by the acts and performances of
his creatures, "for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, no
respect of persons, no taking of gifts."
P.36 – §7 How futile to make puerile appeals to such
a God to modify his changeless decrees so that we can avoid the just consequences
of the operation of his wise
P.37 – §0 natural laws and righteous spiritual mandates!
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows that
shall he also reap." True, even in the justice of reaping the harvest
of wrongdoing, this divine justice is always tempered with mercy. Infinite
wisdom is the eternal arbiter which determines the proportions of justice
and mercy which shall be meted out in any given circumstance. The greatest
punishment (in reality an inevitable consequence) for wrongdoing and deliberate
rebellion against the government of God is loss of existence as an individual
subject of that government. The final result of wholehearted sin is annihilation.
In the last analysis, such sin-identified individuals have destroyed themselves
by becoming wholly unreal through their embrace of iniquity. The factual
disappearance of such a creature is, however, always delayed until the
ordained order of justice current in that universe has been fully complied
with.
P.37 – §1 Cessation of existence is usually decreed
at the dispensational or epochal adjudication of the realm or realms.
On a world such as Urantia it comes at the end of a planetary dispensation.
Cessation of existence can be decreed at such times by co-ordinate action
of all tribunals of jurisdiction, extending from the planetary council
up through the courts of the Creator Son to the judgment tribunals of
the Ancients of Days. The mandate of dissolution originates in the higher
courts of the superuniverse following an unbroken confirmation of the
indictment originating on the sphere of the wrongdoer’s residence; and
then, when sentence of extinction has been confirmed on high, the execution
is by the direct act of those judges residential on, and operating from,
the headquarters of the superuniverse.
P.37 – §2 When this sentence is finally confirmed,
the sin-identified being instantly becomes as though he had not been.
There is no resurrection from such a fate; it is everlasting and eternal.
The living energy factors of identity are resolved by the transformations
of time and the metamorphoses of space into the cosmic potentials whence
they once emerged. As for the personality of the iniquitous one, it is
deprived of a continuing life vehicle by the creature’s failure to make
those choices and final decisions which would have assured eternal life.
When the continued embrace of sin by the associated mind culminates in
complete self-identification with iniquity, then upon the cessation of
life, upon cosmic dissolution, such an isolated personality is absorbed
into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the evolving experience
of the Supreme Being. Never again does it appear as a personality; its
identity becomes as though it had never been. In the case of an Adjuster-indwelt
personality, the experiential spirit values survive in the reality of
the continuing Adjuster.
P.37 – §3 In any universe contest between actual
levels of reality, the personality of the higher level will ultimately
triumph over the personality of the lower level. This inevitable outcome
of universe controversy is inherent in the fact that divinity of quality
equals the degree of reality or actuality of any will creature. Undiluted
evil, complete error, willful sin, and unmitigated iniquity are inherently
and automatically suicidal. Such attitudes of cosmic unreality can survive
in the universe only because of transient mercy-tolerance pending the
action of the justice-determining and fairness-finding mechanisms of the
universe tribunals of righteous adjudication.
P.37 – §4 The rule of the Creator Sons in the local
universes is one of creation and spiritualization. These Sons devote themselves
to the effective execution of the
P.38 – §0 Paradise plan of progressive mortal ascension,
to the rehabilitation of rebels and wrong thinkers, but when all such
loving efforts are finally and forever rejected, the final decree of dissolution
is executed by forces acting under the jurisdiction of the Ancients of
Days.
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4. THE DIVINE MERCY – P.38
P.38 – §1 Mercy is simply justice tempered by that
wisdom which grows out of perfection of knowledge and the full recognition
of the natural weaknesses and environmental handicaps of finite creatures.
"Our God is full of compassion, gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous
in mercy." Therefore "whosoever calls upon the Lord shall be
saved," "for he will abundantly pardon." "The mercy
of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting"; yes, "his mercy
endures forever." "I am the Lord who executes loving-kindness,
judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight."
"I do not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men,"
for I am "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort."
P.38 – §2 God is inherently kind, naturally compassionate,
and everlastingly merciful. And never is it necessary that any influence
be brought to bear upon the Father to call forth his loving-kindness.
The creature’s need is wholly sufficient to insure the full flow of the
Father’s tender mercies and his saving grace. Since God knows all about
his children, it is easy for him to forgive. The better man understands
his neighbor, the easier it will be to forgive him, even to love him.
P.38 – §3 Only the discernment of infinite wisdom
enables a righteous God to minister justice and mercy at the same time
and in any given universe situation. The heavenly Father is never torn
by conflicting attitudes towards his universe children; God is never a
victim of attitudinal antagonisms. God’s all-knowingness unfailingly directs
his free will in the choosing of that universe conduct which perfectly,
simultaneously, and equally satisfies the demands of all his divine attributes
and the infinite qualities of his eternal nature.
P.38 – §4 Mercy is the natural and inevitable offspring
of goodness and love. The good nature of a loving Father could not possibly
withhold the wise ministry of mercy to each member of every group of his
universe children. Eternal justice and divine mercy together constitute
what in human experience would be called fairness.
P.38 – §5 Divine mercy represents a fairness technique
of adjustment between the universe levels of perfection and imperfection.
Mercy is the justice of Supremacy adapted to the situations of the evolving
finite, the righteousness of eternity modified to meet the highest interests
and universe welfare of the children of time. Mercy is not a contravention
of justice but rather an understanding interpretation of the demands of
supreme justice as it is fairly applied to the subordinate spiritual beings
and to the material creatures of the evolving universes. Mercy is the
justice of the Paradise Trinity wisely and lovingly visited upon the manifold
intelligences of the creations of time and space as it is formulated by
divine wisdom and determined by the all-knowing mind and the sovereign
free will of the Universal Father and all his associated Creators.
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5. THE LOVE OF GOD – P.38
P.38 – §6 "God is love"; therefore his
only personal attitude towards the affairs of the universe is always a
reaction of divine affection. The Father loves us sufficiently
P.39 – §0 to bestow his life upon us. "He makes
his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just
and on the unjust."
P.39 – §1 It is wrong to think of God as being coaxed
into loving his children because of the sacrifices of his Sons or the
intercession of his subordinate creatures, "for the Father himself
loves you." It is in response to this paternal affection that God
sends the marvelous Adjusters to indwell the minds of men. God’s love
is universal; "whosoever will may come." He would "have
all men be saved by coming into the knowledge of the truth." He is
"not willing that any should perish."
P.39 – §2 The Creators are the very first to attempt
to save man from the disastrous results of his foolish transgression of
the divine laws. God’s love is by nature a fatherly affection; therefore
does he sometimes "chasten us for our own profit, that we may be
partakers of his holiness." Even during your fiery trials remember
that "in all our afflictions he is afflicted with us."
P.39 – §3 God is divinely kind to sinners. When rebels
return to righteousness, they are mercifully received, "for our God
will abundantly pardon." "I am he who blots out your transgressions
for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." "Behold
what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be
called the sons of God."
P.39 – §4 After all, the greatest evidence of the
goodness of God and the supreme reason for loving him is the indwelling
gift of the Father–the Adjuster who so patiently awaits the hour when
you both shall be eternally made one. Though you cannot find God by searching,
if you will submit to the leading of the indwelling spirit, you will be
unerringly guided, step by step, life by life, through universe upon universe,
and age by age, until you finally stand in the presence of the Paradise
personality of the Universal Father.
P.39 – §5 How unreasonable that you should not worship
God because the limitations of human nature and the handicaps of your
material creation make it impossible for you to see him. Between you and
God there is a tremendous distance (physical space) to be traversed. There
likewise exists a great gulf of spiritual differential which must be bridged;
but notwithstanding all that physically and spiritually separates you
from the Paradise personal presence of God, stop and ponder the solemn
fact that God lives within you; he has in his own way already bridged
the gulf. He has sent of himself, his spirit, to live in you and to toil
with you as you pursue your eternal universe career.
P.39 – §6 I find it easy and pleasant to worship
one who is so great and at the same time so affectionately devoted to
the uplifting ministry of his lowly creatures. I naturally love one who
is so powerful in creation and in the control thereof, and yet who is
so perfect in goodness and so faithful in the loving-kindness which constantly
overshadows us. I think I would love God just as much if he were not so
great and powerful, as long as he is so good and merciful. We all love
the Father more because of his nature than in recognition of his amazing
attributes.
P.39 – §7 When I observe the Creator Sons and their
subordinate administrators struggling so valiantly with the manifold difficulties
of time inherent in the evolution of the universes of space, I discover
that I bear these lesser rulers of the universes a great and profound
affection. After all, I think we all, including the mortals of the realms,
love the Universal Father and all other beings, divine or human, because
we discern that these personalities truly love us. The experience of loving
is very much a direct response to the experience of being loved. Knowing
P.40 – §0 that God loves me, I should continue to
love him supremely, even though he were divested of all his attributes
of supremacy, ultimacy, and absoluteness.
P.40 – §1 The Father’s love follows us now and throughout
the endless circle of the eternal ages. As you ponder the loving nature
of God, there is only one reasonable and natural personality reaction
thereto: You will increasingly love your Maker; you will yield to God
an affection analogous to that given by a child to an earthly parent;
for, as a father, a real father, a true father, loves his children, so
the Universal Father loves and forever seeks the welfare of his created
sons and daughters.
P.40 – §2 But the love of God is an intelligent and
farseeing parental affection. The divine love functions in unified association
with divine wisdom and all other infinite characteristics of the perfect
nature of the Universal Father. God is love, but love is not God. The
greatest manifestation of the divine love for mortal beings is observed
in the bestowal of the Thought Adjusters, but your greatest revelation
of the Father’s love is seen in the bestowal life of his Son Michael as
he lived on earth the ideal spiritual life. It is the indwelling Adjuster
who individualizes the love of God to each human soul.
P.40 – §3 At times I am almost pained to be compelled
to portray the divine affection of the heavenly Father for his universe
children by the employment of the human word symbol love. This term, even
though it does connote man’s highest concept of the mortal relations of
respect and devotion, is so frequently designative of so much of human
relationship that is wholly ignoble and utterly unfit to be known by any
word which is also used to indicate the matchless affection of the living
God for his universe creatures! How unfortunate that I cannot make use
of some supernal and exclusive term which would convey to the mind of
man the true nature and exquisitely beautiful significance of the divine
affection of the Paradise Father.
P.40 – §4 When man loses sight of the love of a personal
God, the kingdom of God becomes merely the kingdom of good. Notwithstanding
the infinite unity of the divine nature, love is the dominant characteristic
of all God’s personal dealings with his creatures.
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6. THE GOODNESS OF GOD – P.40
P.40 – §5 In the physical universe we may see the
divine beauty, in the intellectual world we may discern eternal truth,
but the goodness of God is found only in the spiritual world of personal
religious experience. In its true essence, religion is a faith-trust in
the goodness of God. God could be great and absolute, somehow even intelligent
and personal, in philosophy, but in religion God must also be moral; he
must be good. Man might fear a great God, but he trusts and loves only
a good God. This goodness of God is a part of the personality of God,
and its full revelation appears only in the personal religious experience
of the believing sons of God.
P.40 – §6 Religion implies that the superworld of
spirit nature is cognizant of, and responsive to, the fundamental needs
of the human world. Evolutionary religion may become ethical, but only
revealed religion becomes truly and spiritually moral. The olden concept
that God is a Deity dominated by kingly morality was upstepped by Jesus
to that affectionately touching level of intimate family morality of the
parent-child relationship, than which there is none more tender and beautiful
in mortal experience.
P.41 – §1 The "richness of the goodness of God
leads erring man to repentance." "Every good gift and every
perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights." "God is
good; he is the eternal refuge of the souls of men." "The Lord
God is merciful and gracious. He is long-suffering and abundant in goodness
and truth." "Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is
the man who trusts him." "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.
He is the God of salvation." "He heals the brokenhearted and
binds up the wounds of the soul. He is man’s all-powerful benefactor."
P.41 – §2 The concept of God as a king-judge, although
it fostered a high moral standard and created a law-respecting people
as a group, left the individual believer in a sad position of insecurity
respecting his status in time and in eternity. The later Hebrew prophets
proclaimed God to be a Father to Israel; Jesus revealed God as the Father
of each human being. The entire mortal concept of God is transcendently
illuminated by the life of Jesus. Selflessness is inherent in parental
love. God loves not like a father, but as a father. He is the Paradise
Father of every universe personality.
P.41 – §3 Righteousness implies that God is the source
of the moral law of the universe. Truth exhibits God as a revealer, as
a teacher. But love gives and craves affection, seeks understanding fellowship
such as exists between parent and child. Righteousness may be the divine
thought, but love is a father’s attitude. The erroneous supposition that
the righteousness of God was irreconcilable with the selfless love of
the heavenly Father, presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity
and led directly to the elaboration of the atonement doctrine, which is
a philosophic assault upon both the unity and the free-willness of God.
P.41 – §4 The affectionate heavenly Father, whose
spirit indwells his children on earth, is not a divided personality–one
of justice and one of mercy–neither does it require a mediator to secure
the Father’s favor or forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated
by strict retributive justice; God as a father transcends God as a judge.
P.41 – §5 God is never wrathful, vengeful, or angry.
It is true that wisdom does often restrain his love, while justice conditions
his rejected mercy. His love of righteousness cannot help being exhibited
as equal hatred for sin. The Father is not an inconsistent personality;
the divine unity is perfect. In the Paradise Trinity there is absolute
unity despite the eternal identities of the co-ordinates of God.
P.41 – §6 God loves the sinner and hates the sin:
such a statement is true philosophically, but God is a transcendent personality,
and persons can only love and hate other persons. Sin is not a person.
God loves the sinner because he is a personality reality (potentially
eternal), while towards sin God strikes no personal attitude, for sin
is not a spiritual reality; it is not personal; therefore does only the
justice of God take cognizance of its existence. The love of God saves
the sinner; the law of God destroys the sin. This attitude of the divine
nature would apparently change if the sinner finally identified himself
wholly with sin just as the same mortal mind may also fully identify itself
with the indwelling spirit Adjuster. Such a sin-identified mortal would
then become wholly unspiritual in nature (and therefore personally unreal)
and would experience eventual extinction of being. Unreality, even incompleteness
of creature nature, cannot exist forever in a progressingly real and increasingly
spiritual universe.
P.42 – §1 Facing the world of personality, God is
discovered to be a loving person; facing the spiritual world, he is a
personal love; in religious experience he is both. Love identifies the
volitional will of God. The goodness of God rests at the bottom of the
divine free-willness–the universal tendency to love, show mercy, manifest
patience, and minister forgiveness.
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7. DIVINE TRUTH AND BEAUTY – P.42
P.42 – §2 All finite knowledge and creature understanding
are relative. Information and intelligence, gleaned from even high sources,
is only relatively complete, locally accurate, and personally true.
P.42 – §3 Physical facts are fairly uniform, but
truth is a living and flexible factor in the philosophy of the universe.
Evolving personalities are only partially wise and relatively true in
their communications. They can be certain only as far as their personal
experience extends. That which apparently may be wholly true in one place
may be only relatively true in another segment of creation.
P.42 – §4 Divine truth, final truth, is uniform and
universal, but the story of things spiritual, as it is told by numerous
individuals hailing from various spheres, may sometimes vary in details
owing to this relativity in the completeness of knowledge and in the repleteness
of personal experience as well as in the length and extent of that experience.
While the laws and decrees, the thoughts and attitudes, of the First Great
Source and Center are eternally, infinitely, and universally true; at
the same time, their application to, and adjustment for, every universe,
system, world, and created intelligence, are in accordance with the plans
and technique of the Creator Sons as they function in their respective
universes, as well as in harmony with the local plans and procedures of
the Infinite Spirit and of all other associated celestial personalities.
P.42 – §5 The false science of materialism would
sentence mortal man to become an outcast in the universe. Such partial
knowledge is potentially evil; it is knowledge composed of both good and
evil. Truth is beautiful because it is both replete and symmetrical. When
man searches for truth, he pursues the divinely real.
P.42 – §6 Philosophers commit their gravest error
when they are misled into the fallacy of abstraction, the practice of
focusing the attention upon one aspect of reality and then of pronouncing
such an isolated aspect to be the whole truth. The wise philosopher will
always look for the creative design which is behind, and pre-existent
to, all universe phenomena. The creator thought invariably precedes creative
action.
P.42 – §7 Intellectual self-consciousness can discover
the beauty of truth, its spiritual quality, not only by the philosophic
consistency of its concepts, but more certainly and surely by the unerring
response of the ever-present Spirit of Truth. Happiness ensues from the
recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment
and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be
realized in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor.
P.42 – §8 The eternal quest is for unification, for
divine coherence. The far-flung physical universe coheres in the Isle
of Paradise; the intellectual universe coheres in the God of mind, the
Conjoint Actor; the spiritual universe is coherent in the personality
of the Eternal Son. But the isolated mortal of time and space
P.43 – §0 coheres in God the Father through the direct
relationship between the indwelling Thought Adjuster and the Universal
Father. Man’s Adjuster is a fragment of God and everlastingly seeks for
divine unification; it coheres with, and in, the Paradise Deity of the
First Source and Center.
P.43 – §1 The discernment of supreme beauty is the
discovery and integration of reality: The discernment of the divine goodness
in the eternal truth, that is ultimate beauty. Even the charm of human
art consists in the harmony of its unity.
P.43 – §2 The great mistake of the Hebrew religion
was its failure to associate the goodness of God with the factual truths
of science and the appealing beauty of art. As civilization progressed,
and since religion continued to pursue the same unwise course of overemphasizing
the goodness of God to the relative exclusion of truth and neglect of
beauty, there developed an increasing tendency for certain types of men
to turn away from the abstract and dissociated concept of isolated goodness.
The overstressed and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails
to hold the devotion and loyalty of many twentieth-century men, would
rehabilitate itself if, in addition to its moral mandates, it would give
equal consideration to the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual
experience, and to the beauties of the physical creation, the charm of
intellectual art, and the grandeur of genuine character achievement.
P.43 – §3 The religious challenge of this age is
to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight
who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out
of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth,
universe beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision
of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge
that which is best in the human soul. Truth, beauty, and goodness are
divine realities, and as man ascends the scale of spiritual living, these
supreme qualities of the Eternal become increasingly co-ordinated and
unified in God, who is love.
P.43 – §4 All truth–material, philosophic, or spiritual–is
both beautiful and good. All real beauty–material art or spiritual symmetry–is
both true and good. All genuine goodness–whether personal morality, social
equity, or divine ministry–is equally true and beautiful. Health, sanity,
and happiness are integrations of truth, beauty, and goodness as they
are blended in human experience. Such levels of efficient living come
about through the unification of energy systems, idea systems, and spirit
systems.
P.43 – §5 Truth is coherent, beauty attractive, goodness
stabilizing. And when these values of that which is real are co-ordinated
in personality experience, the result is a high order of love conditioned
by wisdom and qualified by loyalty. The real purpose of all universe education
is to effect the better co-ordination of the isolated child of the worlds
with the larger realities of his expanding experience. Reality is finite
on the human level, infinite and eternal on the higher and divine levels.
P.43 – §6 [Presented by a Divine Counselor acting
by authority of the Ancients of Days on Uversa.]
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