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P.21 §1 The Universal Father is the
God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings.
First think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and lastly as an
infinite upholder. The truth about the Universal Father had begun to dawn
upon mankind when the prophet said: "You, God, are alone; there is
none beside you. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens,
with all their hosts; you preserve and control them. By the Sons of God
were the universes made. The Creator covers himself with light as with
a garment and stretches out the heavens as a curtain." Only the concept
of the Universal Father–one God in the place of many gods–enabled mortal
man to comprehend the Father as divine creator and infinite controller.
P.21 §2 The myriads of planetary systems were all
made to be eventually inhabited by many different types of intelligent
creatures, beings who could know God, receive the divine affection, and
love him in return. The universe of universes is the work of God and the
dwelling place of his diverse creatures. "God created the heavens
and formed the earth; he established the universe and created this world
not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited."
P.21 §3 The enlightened worlds all recognize and
worship the Universal Father, the eternal maker and infinite upholder
of all creation. The will creatures of universe upon universe have embarked
upon the long, long Paradise journey, the fascinating struggle of the
eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The transcendent goal of
the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine
nature, to recognize the Universal Father. Godknowing creatures have only
one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is to become,
as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection
of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy. From
the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme
mandate, "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect." In love and
mercy the messengers of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation
down through the ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly
animalorigin creatures as the human races of Urantia.
P.22 §1 This magnificent and universal injunction
to strive for the attainment of the perfection of divinity is the first
duty, and should be the highest ambition, of all the struggling creature
creation of the God of perfection. This possibility of the attainment
of divine perfection is the final and certain destiny of all man’s eternal
spiritual progress.
P.22 §2 Urantia mortals can hardly hope to be perfect
in the infinite sense, but it is entirely possible for human beings, starting
out as they do on this planet, to attain the supernal and divine goal
which the infinite God has set for mortal man; and when they do achieve
this destiny, they will, in all that pertains to selfrealization and mind
attainment, be just as replete in their sphere of divine perfection as
God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity. Such perfection
may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual
grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete
in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation,
and Godconsciousness.
P.22 §3 This is the true meaning of that divine command,
"Be you perfect, even as I am perfect," which ever urges mortal
man onward and beckons him inward in that long and fascinating struggle
for the attainment of higher and higher levels of spiritual values and
true universe meanings. This sublime search for the God of universes is
the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the worlds of time and
space.
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1. THE FATHER’S NAME P.22
P.22 §4 Of all the names by which God the Father
is known throughout the universes, those which designate him as the First
Source and the Universe Center are most often encountered. The First Father
is known by various names in different universes and in different sectors
of the same universe. The names which the creature assigns to the Creator
are much dependent on the creature’s concept of the Creator. The First
Source and Universe Center has never revealed himself by name, only by
nature. If we believe that we are the children of this Creator, it is
only natural that we should eventually call him Father. But this is the
name of our own choosing, and it grows out of the recognition of our personal
relationship with the First Source and Center.
P.22 §5 The Universal Father never imposes any form
of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the
intelligent will creatures of the universes. The evolutionary inhabitants
of the worlds of time and space must of themselvesin their own heartsrecognize,
love, and voluntarily worship him. The Creator refuses to coerce or compel
the submission of the spiritual free wills of his material creatures.
The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s
will is man’s choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature
will constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise
Father. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being; there is nothing
which man can give to God except this choosing to abide by the Father’s
will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures of
the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship which is so
satisfying to the lovedominated nature of the Creator Father.
P.22 §6 When you have once become truly Godconscious,
after you really discover the majestic Creator and begin to experience
the realization of the indwelling presence of the divine controller, then,
in accordance with your enlightenment and in accordance with the manner
and method by which the divine Sons reveal
P.23 §0 God, you will find a name for the Universal
Father which will be adequately expressive of your concept of the First
Great Source and Center. And so, on different worlds and in various universes,
the Creator becomes known by numerous appellations, in spirit of relationship
all meaning the same but, in words and symbols, each name standing for
the degree, the depth, of his enthronement in the hearts of his creatures
of any given realm.
P.23 §1 Near the center of the universe of universes,
the Universal Father is generally known by names which may be regarded
as meaning the First Source. Farther out in the universes of space, the
terms employed to designate the Universal Father more often mean the Universal
Center. Still farther out in the starry creation, he is known, as on the
headquarters world of your local universe, as the First Creative Source
and Divine Center. In one nearby constellation God is called the Father
of Universes. In another, the Infinite Upholder, and to the east, the
Divine Controller. He has also been designated the Father of Lights, the
Gift of Life, and the Allpowerful One.
P.23 §2 On those worlds where a Paradise Son has
lived a bestowal life, God is generally known by some name indicative
of personal relationship, tender affection, and fatherly devotion. On
your constellation headquarters God is referred to as the Universal Father,
and on different planets in your local system of inhabited worlds he is
variously known as the Father of Fathers, the Paradise Father, the Havona
Father, and the Spirit Father. Those who know God through the revelations
of the bestowals of the Paradise Sons, eventually yield to the sentimental
appeal of the touching relationship of the creatureCreator association
and refer to God as "our Father."
P.23 §3 On a planet of sex creatures, in a world
where the impulses of parental emotion are inherent in the hearts of its
intelligent beings, the term Father becomes a very expressive and appropriate
name for the eternal God. He is best known, most universally acknowledged,
on your planet, Urantia, by the name God. The name he is given is of little
importance; the significant thing is that you should know him and aspire
to be like him. Your prophets of old truly called him "the everlasting
God" and referred to him as the one who "inhabits eternity."
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2. THE REALITY OF GOD P.23
P.23 §4 God is primal reality in the spirit world;
God is the source of truth in the mind spheres; God overshadows all throughout
the material realms. To all created intelligences God is a personality,
and to the universe of universes he is the First Source and Center of
eternal reality. God is neither manlike nor machinelike. The First Father
is universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite reality, and father personality.
P.23 §5 The eternal God is infinitely more than reality
idealized or the universe personalized. God is not simply the supreme
desire of man, the mortal quest objectified. Neither is God merely a concept,
the powerpotential of righteousness. The Universal Father is not a synonym
for nature, neither is he natural law personified. God is a transcendent
reality, not merely man’s traditional concept of supreme values. God is
not a psychological focalization of spiritual meanings, neither is he
"the noblest work of man." God may be any or all of these concepts
P.24 §0 in the minds of men, but he is more. He is
a saving person and a loving Father to all who enjoy spiritual peace on
earth, and who crave to experience personality survival in death.
P.24 §1 The actuality of the existence of God is
demonstrated in human experience by the indwelling of the divine presence,
the spirit Monitor sent from Paradise to live in the mortal mind of man
and there to assist in evolving the immortal soul of eternal survival.
The presence of this divine Adjuster in the human mind is disclosed by
three experiential phenomena:
P.24 §2 1. The intellectual capacity for knowing
GodGodconsciousness.
P.24 §3 2. The spiritual urge to find GodGodseeking.
P.24 §4 3. The personality craving to be like Godthe
wholehearted desire to do the Father’s will.
P.24 §5 The existence of God can never be proved
by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God
can be realized only in the realms of human experience; nevertheless,
the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible
to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of
personality survival.
P.24 §6 Those who know God have experienced the fact
of his presence; such Godknowing mortals hold in their personal experience
the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human
being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all
possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the Godconsciousness
of the human mind and the Godpresence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells
the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the
Universal Father.
P.24 §7 In theory you may think of God as the Creator,
and he is the personal creator of Paradise and the central universe of
perfection, but the universes of time and space are all created and organized
by the Paradise corps of the Creator Sons. The Universal Father is not
the personal creator of the local universe of Nebadon; the universe in
which you live is the creation of his Son Michael. Though the Father does
not personally create the evolutionary universes, he does control them
in many of their universal relationships and in certain of their manifestations
of physical, mindal, and spiritual energies. God the Father is the personal
creator of the Paradise universe and, in association with the Eternal
Son, the creator of all other personal universe Creators.
P.24 §8 As a physical controller in the material
universe of universes, the First Source and Center functions in the patterns
of the eternal Isle of Paradise, and through this absolute gravity center
the eternal God exercises cosmic overcontrol of the physical level equally
in the central universe and throughout the universe of universes. As mind,
God functions in the Deity of the Infinite Spirit; as spirit, God is manifest
in the person of the Eternal Son and in the persons of the divine children
of the Eternal Son. This interrelation of the First Source and Center
with the coordinate Persons and Absolutes of Paradise does not in the
least preclude the direct personal action of the Universal Father throughout
all creation and on all levels thereof. Through the presence of his fragmentized
spirit the Creator Father maintains immediate contact with his creature
children and his created universes.
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3. GOD IS A UNIVERSAL SPIRIT P.25
P.25 §1 "God is spirit." He is a universal
spiritual presence. The Universal Father is an infinite spiritual reality;
he is "the sovereign, eternal, immortal, invisible, and only true
God." Even though you are "the offspring of God," you ought
not to think that the Father is like yourselves in form and physique because
you are said to be created "in his image"indwelt by Mystery
Monitors dispatched from the central abode of his eternal presence. Spirit
beings are real, notwithstanding they are invisible to human eyes; even
though they have not flesh and blood.
P.25 §2 Said the seer of old: "Lo, he goes by
me, and I see him not; he passes on also, but I perceive him not."
We may constantly observe the works of God, we may be highly conscious
of the material evidences of his majestic conduct, but rarely may we gaze
upon the visible manifestation of his divinity, not even to behold the
presence of his delegated spirit of human indwelling.
P.25 §3 The Universal Father is not invisible because
he is hiding himself away from the lowly creatures of materialistic handicaps
and limited spiritual endowments. The situation rather is: "You cannot
see my face, for no mortal can see me and live." No material man
could behold the spirit God and preserve his mortal existence. The glory
and the spiritual brilliance of the divine personality presence is impossible
of approach by the lower groups of spirit beings or by any order of material
personalities. The spiritual luminosity of the Father’s personal presence
is a "light which no mortal man can approach; which no material creature
has seen or can see." But it is not necessary to see God with the
eyes of the flesh in order to discern him by the faithvision of the spiritualized
mind.
P.25 §4 The spirit nature of the Universal Father
is shared fully with his coexistent self, the Eternal Son of Paradise.
Both the Father and the Son in like manner share the universal and eternal
spirit fully and unreservedly with their conjoint personality coordinate,
the Infinite Spirit. God’s spirit is, in and of himself, absolute; in
the Son it is unqualified, in the Spirit, universal, and in and by all
of them, infinite.
P.25 §5 God is a universal spirit; God is the universal
person. The supreme personal reality of the finite creation is spirit;
the ultimate reality of the personal cosmos is absonite spirit. Only the
levels of infinity are absolute, and only on such levels is there finality
of oneness between matter, mind, and spirit.
P.25 §6 In the universes God the Father is, in potential,
the overcontroller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his farflung
personality circuit does God deal directly with the personalities of his
vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise)
only in the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad
in the universes. This Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the
mortals of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of
the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal
Father. But the minds of such evolutionary creatures originate in the
local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving those experiential
transformations of spiritual attainment which are the inevitable result
of a creature’s choosing to do the will of the Father in heaven.
P.26 §1 In the inner experience of man, mind is joined
to matter. Such materiallinked minds cannot survive mortal death. The
technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will
and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a Godconscious
intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led. This
evolution of the human mind from matter association to spirit union results
in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind
into the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind subservient
to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently
to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit is destined
to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with
the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to attain survival
and eternity of personality existence.
P.26 §2 I come forth from the Eternal, and I have
repeatedly returned to the presence of the Universal Father. I know of
the actuality and personality of the First Source and Center, the Eternal
and Universal Father. I know that, while the great God is absolute, eternal,
and infinite, he is also good, divine, and gracious. I know the truth
of the great declarations: "God is spirit" and "God is
love," and these two attributes are most completely revealed to the
universe in the Eternal Son.
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4. THE MYSTERY OF GOD P.26
P.26 §3 The infinity of the perfection of God is
such that it eternally constitutes him mystery. And the greatest of all
the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling
of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with
the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries;
the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
P.26 §4 The physical bodies of mortals are "the
temples of God." Notwithstanding that the Sovereign Creator Sons
come near the creatures of their inhabited worlds and "draw all men
to themselves"; though they "stand at the door" of consciousness
"and knock" and delight to come in to all who will "open
the doors of their hearts"; although there does exist this intimate
personal communion between the Creator Sons and their mortal creatures,
nevertheless, mortal men have something from God himself which actually
dwells within them; their bodies are the temples thereof.
P.26 §5 When you are through down here, when your
course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in
the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle
"returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it is revealed,
the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There
sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part
and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but
it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal
existence.
P.26 §6 We are constantly confronted with this mystery
of God; we are nonplused by the increasing unfolding of the endless panorama
of the truth of his infinite goodness, endless mercy, matchless wisdom,
and superb character.
P.26 §7 The divine mystery consists in the inherent
difference which exists between the finite and the infinite, the temporal
and the eternal, the timespace creature
P.27 §0 and the Universal Creator, the material and
the spiritual, the imperfection of man and the perfection of Paradise
Deity. The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every
one of his creatures up to the fullness of that creature’s capacity to
spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness.
P.27 §1 To every spirit being and to every mortal
creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes,
the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that
can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal
creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material.
The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given
moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and
to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
P.27 §2 As a reality in human spiritual experience
God is not a mystery. But when an attempt is made to make plain the realities
of the spirit world to the physical minds of the material order, mystery
appears: mysteries so subtle and so profound that only the faithgrasp
of the Godknowing mortal can achieve the philosophic miracle of the recognition
of the Infinite by the finite, the discernment of the eternal God by the
evolving mortals of the material worlds of time and space.
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5. PERSONALITY OF THE UNIVERSAL FATHER P.27
P.27 §3 Do not permit the magnitude of God, his infinity,
either to obscure or eclipse his personality. "He who planned the
ear, shall he not hear? He who formed the eye, shall he not see?"
The Universal Father is the acme of divine personality; he is the origin
and destiny of personality throughout all creation. God is both infinite
and personal; he is an infinite personality. The Father is truly a personality,
notwithstanding that the infinity of his person places him forever beyond
the full comprehension of material and finite beings.
P.27 §4 God is much more than a personality as personality
is understood by the human mind; he is even far more than any possible
concept of a superpersonality. But it is utterly futile to discuss such
incomprehensible concepts of divine personality with the minds of material
creatures whose maximum concept of the reality of being consists in the
idea and ideal of personality. The material creature’s highest possible
concept of the Universal Creator is embraced within the spiritual ideals
of the exalted idea of divine personality. Therefore, although you may
know that God must be much more than the human conception of personality,
you equally well know that the Universal Father cannot possibly be anything
less than an eternal, infinite, true, good, and beautiful personality.
P.27 §5 God is not hiding from any of his creatures.
He is unapproachable to so many orders of beings only because he "dwells
in a light which no material creature can approach." The immensity
and grandeur of the divine personality is beyond the grasp of the unperfected
mind of evolutionary mortals. He "measures the waters in the hollow
of his hand, measures a universe with the span of his hand. It is he who
sits on the circle of the earth, who stretches out the heavens as a curtain
and spreads them out as a universe to dwell in." "Lift up your
eyes on high and behold who has created all these things, who brings out
their worlds by number and calls them all by their names"; and so
it is true that "the invisible things of God are partially understood
by the things which are made." Today, and as you are, you must discern
the invisible Maker through his manifold and
P.28 §0 diverse creation, as well as through the
revelation and ministration of his Sons and their numerous subordinates.
P.28 §1 Even though material mortals cannot see the
person of God, they should rejoice in the assurance that he is a person;
by faith accept the truth which portrays that the Universal Father so
loved the world as to provide for the eternal spiritual progression of
its lowly inhabitants; that he "delights in his children." God
is lacking in none of those superhuman and divine attributes which constitute
a perfect, eternal, loving, and infinite Creator personality.
P.28 §2 In the local creations (excepting the personnel
of the superuniverses) God has no personal or residential manifestation
aside from the Paradise Creator Sons who are the fathers of the inhabited
worlds and the sovereigns of the local universes. If the faith of the
creature were perfect, he would assuredly know that when he had seen a
Creator Son he had seen the Universal Father; in seeking for the Father,
he would not ask nor expect to see other than the Son. Mortal man simply
cannot see God until he achieves completed spirit transformation and actually
attains Paradise.
P.28 §3 The natures of the Paradise Creator Sons do not encompass
all the unqualified potentials of the universal absoluteness of the infinite
nature of the First Great Source and Center, but the Universal Father
is in every way divinely present in the Creator Sons. The Father and his
Sons are one. These Paradise Sons of the order of Michael are perfect
personalities, even the pattern for all local universe personality from
that of the Bright and Morning Star down to the lowest human creature
of progressing animal evolution.
P.28 §4 Without God and except for his great and
central person, there would be no personality throughout all the vast
universe of universes. God is personality.
P.28 §5 Notwithstanding that God is an eternal power,
a majestic presence, a transcendent ideal, and a glorious spirit, though
he is all these and infinitely more, nonetheless, he is truly and everlastingly
a perfect Creator personality, a person who can "know and be known,"
who can "love and be loved," and one who can befriend us; while
you can be known, as other humans have been known, as the friend of God.
He is a real spirit and a spiritual reality.
P.28 §6 As we see the Universal Father revealed throughout
his universe; as we discern him indwelling his myriads of creatures; as
we behold him in the persons of his Sovereign Sons; as we continue to
sense his divine presence here and there, near and afar, let us not doubt
nor question his personality primacy. Notwithstanding all these farflung
distributions, he remains a true person and everlastingly maintains personal
connection with the countless hosts of his creatures scattered throughout
the universe of universes.
P.28 §7 The idea of the personality of the Universal
Father is an enlarged and truer concept of God which has come to mankind
chiefly through revelation. Reason, wisdom, and religious experience all
infer and imply the personality of God, but they do not altogether validate
it. Even the indwelling Thought Adjuster is prepersonal. The truth and
maturity of any religion is directly proportional to its concept of the
infinite personality of God and to its grasp of the absolute unity of
Deity. The idea of a personal Deity becomes, then, the measure of religious
maturity after religion has first formulated the concept of the unity
of God.
P.29 §1 Primitive religion had many personal gods,
and they were fashioned in the image of man. Revelation affirms the validity
of the personality concept of God which is merely possible in the scientific
postulate of a First Cause and is only provisionally suggested in the
philosophic idea of Universal Unity. Only by personality approach can
any person begin to comprehend the unity of God. To deny the personality
of the First Source and Center leaves one only the choice of two philosophic
dilemmas: materialism or pantheism.
P.29 §2 In the contemplation of Deity, the concept
of personality must be divested of the idea of corporeality. A material
body is not indispensable to personality in either man or God. The corporeality
error is shown in both extremes of human philosophy. In materialism, since
man loses his body at death, he ceases to exist as a personality; in pantheism,
since God has no body, he is not, therefore, a person. The superhuman
type of progressing personality functions in a union of mind and spirit.
P.29 §3 Personality is not simply an attribute of
God; it rather stands for the totality of the coordinated infinite nature
and the unified divine will which is exhibited in eternity and universality
of perfect expression. Personality, in the supreme sense, is the revelation
of God to the universe of universes.
P.29 §4 God, being eternal, universal, absolute,
and infinite, does not grow in knowledge nor increase in wisdom. God does
not acquire experience, as finite man might conjecture or comprehend,
but he does, within the realms of his own eternal personality, enjoy those
continuous expansions of selfrealization which are in certain ways comparable
to, and analogous with, the acquirement of new experience by the finite
creatures of the evolutionary worlds.
P.29 §5 The absolute perfection of the infinite God
would cause him to suffer the awful limitations of unqualified finality
of perfectness were it not a fact that the Universal Father directly participates
in the personality struggle of every imperfect soul in the wide universe
who seeks, by divine aid, to ascend to the spiritually perfect worlds
on high. This progressive experience of every spirit being and every mortal
creature throughout the universe of universes is a part of the Father’s
everexpanding Deityconsciousness of the neverending divine circle of ceaseless
selfrealization.
P.29 §6 It is literally true: "In all your afflictions
he is afflicted." "In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with
you." His prepersonal divine spirit is a real part of you. The Isle
of Paradise responds to all the physical metamorphoses of the universe
of universes; the Eternal Son includes all the spirit impulses of all
creation; the Conjoint Actor encompasses all the mind expression of the
expanding cosmos. The Universal Father realizes in the fullness of the
divine consciousness all the individual experience of the progressive
struggles of the expanding minds and the ascending spirits of every entity,
being, and personality of the whole evolutionary creation of time and
space. And all this is literally true, for "in Him we all live and
move and have our being."
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6. PERSONALITY IN THE UNIVERSE P.29
P.29 §7 Human personality is the timespace imageshadow
cast by the divine Creator personality. And no actuality can ever be adequately
comprehended by an examination of its shadow. Shadows should be interpreted
in terms of the true substance.
P.30 §1 God is to science a cause, to philosophy
an idea, to religion a person, even the loving heavenly Father. God is
to the scientist a primal force, to the philosopher a hypothesis of unity,
to the religionist a living spiritual experience. Man’s inadequate concept
of the personality of the Universal Father can be improved only by man’s
spiritual progress in the universe and will become truly adequate only
when the pilgrims of time and space finally attain the divine embrace
of the living God on Paradise.
P.30 §2 Never lose sight of the antipodal viewpoints
of personality as it is conceived by God and man. Man views and comprehends
personality, looking from the finite to the infinite; God looks from the
infinite to the finite. Man possesses the lowest type of personality;
God, the highest, even supreme, ultimate, and absolute. Therefore did
the better concepts of the divine personality have patiently to await
the appearance of improved ideas of human personality, especially the
enhanced revelation of both human and divine personality in the Urantian
bestowal life of Michael, the Creator Son.
P.30 §3 The prepersonal divine spirit which indwells
the mortal mind carries, in its very presence, the valid proof of its
actual existence, but the concept of the divine personality can be grasped
only by the spiritual insight of genuine personal religious experience.
Any person, human or divine, may be known and comprehended quite apart
from the external reactions or the material presence of that person.
P.30 §4 Some degree of moral affinity and spiritual
harmony is essential to friendship between two persons; a loving personality
can hardly reveal himself to a loveless person. Even to approach the knowing
of a divine personality, all of man’s personality endowments must be wholly
consecrated to the effort; halfhearted, partial devotion will be unavailing.
P.30 §5 The more completely man understands himself
and appreciates the personality values of his fellows, the more he will
crave to know the Original Personality, and the more earnestly such a
God-knowing human will strive to become like the Original Personality.
You can argue over opinions about God, but experience with him and in
him exists above and beyond all human controversy and mere intellectual
logic. The God-knowing man describes his spiritual experiences, not to
convince unbelievers, but for the edification and mutual satisfaction
of believers.
P.30 §6 To assume that the universe can be known,
that it is intelligible, is to assume that the universe is mind made and
personality managed. Man’s mind can only perceive the mind phenomena of
other minds, be they human or superhuman. If man’s personality can experience
the universe, there is a divine mind and an actual personality somewhere
concealed in that universe.
P.30 §7 God is spiritspirit personality; man is also
a spirit–potential spirit personality. Jesus of Nazareth attained the
full realization of this potential of spirit personality in human experience;
therefore his life of achieving the Father’s will becomes man’s most real
and ideal revelation of the personality of God. Even though the personality
of the Universal Father can be grasped only in actual religious experience,
in Jesus’ earth life we are inspired by the perfect demonstration of such
a realization and revelation of the personality of God in a truly human
experience.
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7. SPIRITUAL VALUE OF THE PERSONALITY CONCEPT P.31
P.31 §1 When Jesus talked about "the living
God," he referred to a personal Deity–the Father in heaven. The
concept of the personality of Deity facilitates fellowship; it favors
intelligent worship; it promotes refreshing trustfulness. Interactions
can be had between nonpersonal things, but not fellowship. The fellowship
relation of father and son, as between God and man, cannot be enjoyed
unless both are persons. Only personalities can commune with each other,
albeit this personal communion may be greatly facilitated by the presence
of just such an impersonal entity as the Thought Adjuster.
P.31 §2 Man does not achieve union with God as a
drop of water might find unity with the ocean. Man attains divine union
by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse
with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through
wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will. Such a sublime
relationship can exist only between personalities.
P.31 §3 The concept of tt6ruth might possibly be
entertained apart from personality, the concept of beauty may exist without
personality, but the concept of divine goodness is understandable only
in relation to personality. Only a person can love and be loved. Even
beauty and truth would be divorced from survival hope if they were not
attributes of a personal God, a loving Father.
P.31 §4 We cannot fully understand how God can be
primal, changeless, all-powerful, and perfect, and at the same time be
surrounded by an everchanging and apparently law-limited universe, an
evolving universe of relative imperfections. But we can know such a truth
in our own personal experience since we all maintain identity of personality
and unity of will in spite of the constant changing of both ourselves
and our environment.
P.31 §5 Ultimate universe reality cannot be grasped
by mathematics, logic, or philosophy, only by personal experience in progressive
conformity to the divine will of a personal God. Neither science, philosophy,
nor theology can validate the personality of God. Only the personal experience
of the faith sons of the heavenly Father can effect the actual spiritual
realization of the personality of God.
P.31 §6 The higher concepts of universe personality
imply: identity, self-consciousness, self-will, and possibility for self-revelation.
And these characteristics further imply fellowship with other and equal
personalities, such as exists in the personality associations of the Paradise
Deities. And the absolute unity of these associations is so perfect that
divinity becomes known by indivisibility, by oneness. "The Lord God
is one." Indivisibility of personality does not interfere with God’s
bestowing his spirit to live in the hearts of mortal men. Indivisibility
of a human father’s personality does not prevent the reproduction of mortal
sons and daughters.
P.31 §7 This concept of indivisibility in association
with the concept of unity implies transcendence of both time and space
by the Ultimacy of Deity; therefore neither space nor time can be absolute
or infinite. The First Source and Center is that infinity who unqualifiedly
transcends all mind, all matter, and all spirit.
P.31 §8 The fact of the Paradise Trinity in no manner
violates the truth of the divine unity. The three personalities of Paradise
Deity are, in all universe reality reactions and in all creature relations,
as one. Neither does the existence of these three
P.32 §0 eternal persons violate the truth of the
indivisibility of Deity. I am fully aware that I have at my command no
language adequate to make clear to the mortal mind how these universe
problems appear to us. But you should not become discouraged; not all
of these things are wholly clear to even the high personalities belonging
to my group of Paradise beings. Ever bear in mind that these profound
truths pertaining to Deity will increasingly clarify as your minds become
progressively spiritualized during the successive epochs of the long mortal
ascent to Paradise.
P.32 §1 [Presented by a Divine Counselor, a member
of a group of celestial personalities assigned by the Ancients of Days
on Uversa, the headquarters of the seventh superuniverse, to supervise
those portions of this forthcoming revelation which have to do with affairs
beyond the borders of the local universe of Nebadon. I am commissioned
to sponsor those papers portraying the nature and attributes of God because
I represent the highest source of information available for such a purpose
on any inhabited world. I have served as a Divine Counselor in all seven
of the superuniverses and have long resided at the Paradise center of
all things. Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a sojourn
in the immediate personal presence of the Universal Father. I portray
the reality and truth of the Father’s nature and attributes with unchallengeable
authority; I know whereof I speak.]
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