💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › occult › URANTIA › p118.txt captured on 2022-06-12 at 16:45:53.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Urantia Book Paper 118 Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space
SPIRITWEB ORG, PROMOTING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE INTERNET.
Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
... Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paper 118 Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
CONCERNING the several natures of Deity, it may be said:
1. The Father is self-existent self.
2. The Son is coexistent self.
3. The Spirit is conjoint-existent self.
4. The Supreme is evolutionary-experiential self.
5. The Sevenfold is self-distributive divinity.
6. The Ultimate is transcendental-experiential self.
7. The Absolute is existential-experiential self.
While God the Sevenfold is indispensable to the evolutionary attainment of the
Supreme, the Supreme is also indispensable to the eventual emergence of the
Ultimate. And the dual presence of the Supreme and the Ultimate constitutes the
basic association of subabsolute and derived Deity, for they are
interdependently complemental in the attainment of destiny. Together they
constitute the experiential bridge linking the beginnings and the completions
of all creative growth in the master universe.
Creative growth is unending but ever satisfying, endless in extent but always
punctuated by those personality-satisfying moments of transient goal attainment
which serve so effectively as the mobilization preludes to new adventures in
cosmic growth, universe exploration, and Deity attainment.
While the domain of mathematics is beset with qualitative limitations, it does
provide the finite mind with a conceptual basis of contemplating infinity.
There is no quantitative limitation to numbers, even in the comprehension of
the finite mind. No matter how large the number conceived, you can always
envisage one more being added. And also, you can comprehend that that is short
of infinity, for no matter how many times you repeat this addition to number,
still always one more can be added.
At the same time, the infinite series can be totaled at any given point, and
this total (more properly, a subtotal) provides the fullness of the sweetness
of goal attainment for a given person at a given time and status. But sooner or
later, this same person begins to hunger and yearn for new and greater goals,
and such adventures in growth will be forever forthcoming in the fullness of
time and the cycles of eternity.
Each successive universe age is the antechamber of the following era of cosmic
growth, and each universe epoch provides immediate destiny for all preceding
stages. Havona, in and of itself, is a perfect, but perfection-limited,
creation; Havona perfection, expanding out into the evolutionary
superuniverses, finds not only cosmic destiny but also liberation from the
limitations of pre-evolutionary existence.
top of page - 1295
1. TIME AND ETERNITY
It is helpful to man's cosmic orientation to attain all possible comprehension
of Deity's relation to the cosmos. While absolute Deity is eternal in nature,
the Gods are related to time as an experience in eternity. In the evolutionary
universes eternity is temporal everlastingness--the everlasting now.
The personality of the mortal creature may eternalize by self-identification
with the indwelling spirit through the technique of choosing to do the will of
the Father. Such a consecration of will is tantamount to the realization of
eternity-reality of purpose. This means that the purpose of the creature has
become fixed with regard to the succession of moments; stated otherwise, that
the succession of moments will witness no change in creature purpose. A million
or a billion moments makes no difference. Number has ceased to have meaning
with regard to the creature's purpose. Thus does creature choice plus God's
choice eventuate in the eternal realities of the never-ending union of the
spirit of God and the nature of man in the everlasting service of the children
of God and of their Paradise Father.
There is a direct relationship between maturity and the unit of time
consciousness in any given intellect. The time unit may be a day, a year, or a
longer period, but inevitably it is the criterion by which the conscious self
evaluates the circumstances of life, and by which the conceiving intellect
measures and evaluates the facts of temporal existence.
Experience, wisdom, and judgment are the concomitants of the lengthening of the
time unit in mortal experience. As the human mind reckons backward into the
past, it is evaluating past experience for the purpose of bringing it to bear
on a present situation. As mind reaches out into the future, it is attempting
to evaluate the future significance of possible action. And having thus
reckoned with both experience and wisdom, the human will exercises
judgment-decision in the present, and the plan of action thus born of the past
and the future becomes existent.
In the maturity of the developing self, the past and future are brought
together to illuminate the true meaning of the present. As the self matures, it
reaches further and further back into the past for experience, while its wisdom
forecasts seek to penetrate deeper and deeper into the unknown future. And as
the conceiving self extends this reach ever further into both past and future,
so does judgment become less and less dependent on the momentary present. In
this way does decision-action begin to escape from the fetters of the moving
present, while it begins to take on the aspects of past-future significance.
Patience is exercised by those mortals whose time units are short; true
maturity transcends patience by a forbearance born of real understanding.
To become mature is to live more intensely in the present, at the same time
escaping from the limitations of the present. The plans of maturity, founded on
past experience, are coming into being in the present in such manner as to
enhance the values of the future.
The time unit of immaturity concentrates meaning-value into the present moment
in such a way as to divorce the present of its true relationship to the
top of page - 1296
not-present--the past-future. The time unit of maturity is proportioned so to
reveal the co-ordinate relationship of past-present-future that the self begins
to gain insight into the wholeness of events, begins to view the landscape of
time from the panoramic perspective of broadened horizons, begins perhaps to
suspect the nonbeginning, nonending eternal continuum, the fragments of which
are called time.
On the levels of the infinite and the absolute the moment of the present
contains all of the past as well as all of the future. I AM signifies also I
WAS and I WILL BE. And this represents our best concept of eternity and the
eternal.
On the absolute and eternal level, potential reality is just as meaningful as
actual reality. Only on the finite level and to time-bound creatures does there
appear to be such a vast difference. To God, as absolute, an ascending mortal
who has made the eternal decision is already a Paradise finaliter. But the
Universal Father, through the indwelling Thought Adjuster, is not thus limited
in awareness but can also know of, and participate in, every temporal struggle
with the problems of the creature ascent from animallike to Godlike levels of
existence.
2. OMNIPRESENCE AND UBIQUITY
The ubiquity of Deity must not be confused with the ultimacy of the divine
omnipresence. It is volitional with the Universal Father that the Supreme, the
Ultimate, and the Absolute should compensate, co-ordinate, and unify his
time-space ubiquity and his time-space-transcended omnipresence with his
timeless and spaceless universal and absolute presence. And you should remember
that, while Deity ubiquity may be so often space associated, it is not
necessarily time conditioned.
As mortal and morontia ascenders you progressively discern God through the
ministry of God the Sevenfold. Through Havona you discover God the Supreme. On
Paradise you find him as a person, and then as finaliters you will presently
attempt to know him as Ultimate. Being finaliters, there would seem to be but
one course to pursue after having attained the Ultimate, and that would be to
begin the quest of the Absolute. No finaliter will be disturbed by the
uncertainties of the attainment of the Deity Absolute since at the end of the
supreme and ultimate ascensions he encountered God the Father. Such finaliters
will no doubt believe that, even if they should be successful in finding God
the Absolute, they would only be discovering the same God, the Paradise Father
manifesting himself on more nearly infinite and universal levels. Undoubtedly
the attainment of God in absolute would reveal the Primal Ancestor of universes
as well as the Final Father of personalities.
God the Supreme may not be a demonstration of the time-space omnipresence of
Deity, but he is literally a manifestation of divine ubiquity. Between the
spiritual presence of the Creator and the material manifestations of creation
there exists a vast domain of the ubiquitous becoming--the universe emergence
of evolutionary Deity.
If God the Supreme ever assumes direct control of the universes of time and
space, we are confident such a Deity administration will function under the
overcontrol of the Ultimate. In such an event God the Ultimate would begin to
become manifest to the universes of time as the transcendental Al-
top of page - 1297
mighty (the Omnipotent) exercising the overcontrol of supertime and transcended
space concerning the administrative functions of the Almighty Supreme.
The mortal mind may ask, even as we do: If the evolution of God the Supreme to
administrative authority in the grand universe is attended by augmented
manifestations of God the Ultimate, will a corresponding emergence of God the
Ultimate in the postulated universes of outer space be attended by similar and
enhanced revelations of God the Absolute? But we really do not know.
3. TIME-SPACE RELATIONSHIPS
Only by ubiquity could Deity unify time-space manifestations to the finite
conception, for time is a succession of instants while space is a system of
associated points. You do, after all, perceive time by analysis and space by
synthesis. You co-ordinate and associate these two dissimilar conceptions by
the integrating insight of personality. Of all the animal world only man
possesses this time-space perceptibility. To an animal, motion has a meaning,
but motion exhibits value only to a creature of personality status.
Things are time conditioned, but truth is timeless. The more truth you know,
the more truth you are, the more of the past you can understand and of the
future you can comprehend.
Truth is inconcussible--forever exempt from all transient vicissitudes, albeit
never dead and formal, always vibrant and adaptable--radiantly alive. But when
truth becomes linked with fact, then both time and space condition its meanings
and correlate its values. Such realities of truth wedded to fact become
concepts and are accordingly relegated to the domain of relative cosmic
realities.
The linking of the absolute and eternal truth of the Creator with the factual
experience of the finite and temporal creature eventuates a new and emerging
value of the Supreme. The concept of the Supreme is essential to the
co-ordination of the divine and unchanging overworld with the finite and
ever-changing underworld.
Space comes the nearest of all nonabsolute things to being absolute. Space is
apparently absolutely ultimate. The real difficulty we have in understanding
space on the material level is due to the fact that, while material bodies
exist in space, space also exists in these same material bodies. While there is
much about space that is absolute, that does not mean that space is absolute.
It may help to an understanding of space relationships if you would conjecture
that, relatively speaking, space is after all a property of all material
bodies. Hence, when a body moves through space, it also takes all its
properties with it, even the space which is in and of such a moving body.
All patterns of reality occupy space on the material levels, but spirit
patterns only exist in relation to space; they do not occupy or displace space,
neither do they contain it. But to us the master riddle of space pertains to
the pattern of an idea. When we enter the mind domain, we encounter many a
puzzle. Does the pattern--the reality--of an idea occupy space? We really do
not know, albeit we are sure that an idea pattern does not contain space. But
it would hardly be safe to postulate that the immaterial is always nonspatial.
top of page - 1298
4. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CAUSATION
Many of the theologic difficulties and the metaphysical dilemmas of mortal man
are due to man's mislocation of Deity personality and consequent assignment of
infinite and absolute attributes to subordinate Divinity and to evolutionary
Deity. You must not forget that, while there is indeed a true First Cause,
there are also a host of co-ordinate and subordinate causes, both associate and
secondary causes.
The vital distinction between first causes and second causes is that first
causes produce original effects which are free from inheritance of any factor
derived from any antecedent causation. Secondary causes yield effects which
invariably exhibit inheritance from other and preceding causation.
The purely static potentials inherent in the Unqualified Absolute are reactive
to those causations of the Deity Absolute which are produced by the actions of
the Paradise Trinity. In the presence of the Universal Absolute these
causative-impregnated static potentials forthwith become active and responsive
to the influence of certain transcendental agencies whose actions result in the
transmutation of these activated potentials to the status of true universe
possibilities for development, actualized capacities for growth. It is upon
such matured potentials that the creators and controllers of the grand universe
enact the never-ending drama of cosmic evolution.
Causation, disregarding existentials, is threefold in its basic constitution.
As it operates in this universe age and concerning the finite level of the
seven superuniverses, it may be conceived as follows:
1. Activation of static potentials. The establishment of destiny in the
Universal Absolute by the actions of the Deity Absolute, operating in and upon
the Unqualified Absolute and in consequence of the volitional mandates of the
Paradise Trinity.
2. Eventuation of universe capacities. This involves the transformation of
undifferentiated potentials into segregated and defined plans. This is the act
of the Ultimacy of Deity and of the manifold agencies of the transcendental
level. Such acts are in perfect anticipation of the future needs of the entire
master universe. It is in connection with the segregation of potentials that
the Architects of the Master Universe exist as the veritable embodiments of the
Deity concept of the universes. Their plans appear to be ultimately space
limited in extent by the concept periphery of the master universe, but as plans
they are not otherwise conditioned by time or space.
3. Creation and evolution of universe actuals. It is upon a cosmos impregnated
by the capacity-producing presence of the Ultimacy of Deity that the Supreme
Creators operate to effect the time transmutations of matured potentials into
experiential actuals. Within the master universe all actualization of potential
reality is limited by ultimate capacity for development and is time-space
conditioned in the final stages of emergence. The Creator Sons going out from
Paradise are, in actuality, transformative creators in the cosmic sense. But
this in no manner invalidates man's concept of them as creators; from the
finite viewpoint they certainly can and do create.
top of page - 1299
5. OMNIPOTENCE AND COMPOSSIBILITY
The omnipotence of Deity does not imply the power to do the nondoable. Within
the time-space frame and from the intellectual reference point of mortal
comprehension, even the infinite God cannot create square circles or produce
evil that is inherently good. God cannot do the ungodlike thing. Such a
contradiction of philosophic terms is the equivalent of nonentity and implies
that nothing is thus created. A personality trait cannot at the same time be
Godlike and ungodlike. Compossibility is innate in divine power. And all of
this is derived from the fact that omnipotence not only creates things with a
nature but also gives origin to the nature of all things and beings.
In the beginning the Father does all, but as the panorama of eternity unfolds
in response to the will and mandates of the Infinite, it becomes increasingly
apparent that creatures, even men, are to become God's partners in the
realization of finality of destiny. And this is true even in the life in the
flesh; when man and God enter into partnership, no limitation can be placed
upon the future possibilities of such a partnership. When man realizes that the
Universal Father is his partner in eternal progression, when he fuses with the
indwelling Father presence, he has, in spirit, broken the fetters of time and
has already entered upon the progressions of eternity in the quest for the
Universal Father.
Mortal consciousness proceeds from the fact, to the meaning, and then to the
value. Creator consciousness proceeds from the thought-value, through the
word-meaning, to the fact of action. Always must God act to break the deadlock
of the unqualified unity inherent in existential infinity. Always must Deity
provide the pattern universe, the perfect personalities, the original truth,
beauty, and goodness for which all subdeity creations strive. Always must God
first find man that man may later find God. Always must there be a Universal
Father before there can ever be universal sonship and consequent universal
brotherhood.
6. OMNIPOTENCE AND OMNIFICENCE
God is truly omnipotent, but he is not omnificent--he does not personally do
all that is done. Omnipotence embraces the power-potential of the Almighty
Supreme and the Supreme Being, but the volitional acts of God the Supreme are
not the personal doings of God the Infinite.
To advocate the omnificence of primal Deity would be equal to disenfranchising
well-nigh a million Creator Sons of Paradise, not to mention the innumerable
hosts of various other orders of concurring creative assistants. There is but
one uncaused Cause in the whole universe. All other causes are derivatives of
this one First Great Source and Center. And none of this philosophy does any
violence to the freewillness of the myriads of the children of Deity scattered
through a vast universe.
Within a local frame, volition may appear to function as an uncaused cause, but
it unfailingly exhibits inheritance factors which establish relationship with
the unique, original, and absolute First Causes.
All volition is relative. In the originating sense, only the Father-I AM
possesses finality of volition; in the absolute sense, only the Father, the
Son, and the Spirit exhibit the prerogatives of volition unconditioned by time
and un-
top of page - 1300
limited by space. Mortal man is endowed with free will, the power of choice,
and though such choosing is not absolute, nevertheless, it is relatively final
on the finite level and concerning the destiny of the choosing personality.
Volition on any level short of the absolute encounters limitations which are
constitutive in the very personality exercising the power of choice. Man cannot
choose beyond the range of that which is choosable. He cannot, for instance,
choose to be other than a human being except that he can elect to become more
than a man; he can choose to embark upon the voyage of universe ascension, but
this is because the human choice and the divine will happen to be coincident
upon this point. And what a son desires and the Father wills will certainly
come to pass.
In the mortal life, paths of differential conduct are continually opening and
closing, and during the times when choice is possible the human personality is
constantly deciding between these many courses of action. Temporal volition is
linked to time, and it must await the passing of time to find opportunity for
expression. Spiritual volition has begun to taste liberation from the fetters
of time, having achieved partial escape from time sequence, and that is because
spiritual volition is self-identifying with the will of God.
Volition, the act of choosing, must function within the universe frame which
has actualized in response to higher and prior choosing. The entire range of
human will is strictly finite-limited except in one particular: When man
chooses to find God and to be like him, such a choice is superfinite; only
eternity can disclose whether this choice is also superabsonite.
To recognize Deity omnipotence is to enjoy security in your experience of
cosmic citizenship, to possess assurance of safety in the long journey to
Paradise. But to accept the fallacy of omnificence is to embrace the colossal
error of Pantheism.
7. OMNISCIENCE AND PREDESTINATION
The function of Creator will and creature will, in the grand universe, operates
within the limits, and in accordance with the possibilities, established by the
Master Architects. This foreordination of these maximum limits does not,
however, in the least abridge the sovereignty of creature will within these
boundaries. Neither does ultimate foreknowledge--full allowance for all finite
choice--constitute an abrogation of finite volition. A mature and farseeing
human being might be able to forecast the decision of some younger associate
most accurately, but this foreknowledge takes nothing away from the freedom and
genuineness of the decision itself. The Gods have wisely limited the range of
the action of immature will, but it is true will, nonetheless, within these
defined limits.
Even the supreme correlation of all past, present, and future choice does not
invalidate the authenticity of such choosings. It rather indicates the
foreordained trend of the cosmos and suggests foreknowledge of those volitional
beings who may, or may not, elect to become contributory parts of the
experiential actualization of all reality.
Error in finite choosing is time bound and time limited. It can exist only in
time and within the evolving presence of the Supreme Being. Such mistaken
choosing is time possible and indicates (besides the incompleteness of the
Supreme) that certain range of choice with which immature creatures must be en-
top of page - 1301
dowed in order to enjoy universe progression by making freewill contact with
reality.
Sin in time-conditioned space clearly proves the temporal liberty--even
license--of the finite will. Sin depicts immaturity dazzled by the freedom of
the relatively sovereign will of personality while failing to perceive the
supreme obligations and duties of cosmic citizenship.
Iniquity in the finite domains reveals the transient reality of all
God-unidentified selfhood. Only as a creature becomes God-identified, does he
become truly real in the universes. Finite personality is not self-created, but
in the superuniverse arena of choice it does self-determine destiny.
The bestowal of life renders material-energy systems capable of
self-perpetuation, self-propagation, and self-adaptation. The bestowal of
personality imparts to living organisms the further prerogatives of
self-determination, self-evolution, and self-identification with a fusion
spirit of Deity.
Subpersonal living things indicate mind activating energy-matter, first as
physical controllers, and then as adjutant mind-spirits. Personality endowment
comes from the Father and imparts unique prerogatives of choice to the living
system. But if personality has the prerogative of exercising volitional choice
of reality identification, and if this is a true and free choice, then must
evolving personality also have the possible choice of becoming self-confusing,
self-disrupting, and self-destroying. The possibility of cosmic
self-destruction cannot be avoided if the evolving personality is to be truly
free in the exercise of finite will.
Therefore is there increased safety in narrowing the limits of personality
choice throughout the lower levels of existence. Choice becomes increasingly
liberated as the universes are ascended; choice eventually approximates divine
freedom when the ascending personality achieves divinity of status, supremacy
of consecration to the purposes of the universe, completion of cosmic-wisdom
attainment, and finality of creature identification with the will and the way
of God.
8. CONTROL AND OVERCONTROL
In the time-space creations, free will is hedged about with restraints, with
limitations. Material-life evolution is first mechanical, then mind activated,
and (after the bestowal of personality) it may become spirit directed. Organic
evolution on the inhabited worlds is physically limited by the potentials of
the original physical-life implantations of the Life Carriers.
Mortal man is a machine, a living mechanism; his roots are truly in the
physical world of energy. Many human reactions are mechanical in nature; much
of life is machinelike. But man, a mechanism, is much more than a machine; he
is mind endowed and spirit indwelt; and though he can never throughout his
material life escape the chemical and electrical mechanics of his existence, he
can increasingly learn how to subordinate this physical-life machine to the
directive wisdom of experience by the process of consecrating the human mind to
the execution of the spiritual urges of the indwelling Thought Adjuster.
The spirit liberates, and the mechanism limits, the function of will. Imperfect
choice, uncontrolled by mechanism, unidentified with spirit, is dangerous and
unstable. Mechanical dominance insures stability at the expense of progress;
spirit alliance liberates choice from the physical level and at the same time
top of page - 1302
assures the divine stability produced by augmented universe insight and
increased cosmic comprehension.
The great danger that besets the creature is that, in achieving liberation from
the fetters of the life mechanism, he will fail to compensate this loss of
stability by effecting a harmonious working liaison with spirit. Creature
choice, when relatively liberated from mechanical stability, may attempt
further self-liberation independent of greater spirit identification.
The whole principle of biologic evolution makes it impossible for primitive man
to appear on the inhabited worlds with any large endowment of self-restraint.
Therefore does the same creative design which purposed evolution likewise
provide those external restraints of time and space, hunger and fear, which
effectively circumscribe the subspiritual choice range of such uncultured
creatures. As man's mind successfully overstrides increasingly difficult
barriers, this same creative design has also provided for the slow accumulation
of the racial heritage of painfully garnered experiential wisdom--in other
words, for the maintenance of a balance between the diminishing external
restraints and the augmenting internal restraints.
The slowness of evolution, of human cultural progress, testifies to the
effectiveness of that brake--material inertia--which so efficiently operates to
retard dangerous velocities of progress. Thus does time itself cushion and
distribute the otherwise lethal results of premature escape from the
next-encompassing barriers to human action. For when culture advances overfast,
when material achievement outruns the evolution of worship-wisdom, then does
civilization contain within itself the seeds of retrogression; and unless
buttressed by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such human
societies will recede from high but premature levels of attainment, and the
"dark ages" of the interregnum of wisdom will bear witness to the inexorable
restoration of the imbalance between self-liberty and self-control.
The iniquity of Caligastia was the by-passing of the time governor of
progressive human liberation--the gratuitous destruction of restraining
barriers, barriers which the mortal minds of those times had not experientially
overridden.
That mind which can effect a partial abridgment of time and space, by this very
act proves itself possessed of the seeds of wisdom which can effectively serve
in lieu of the transcended barrier of restraint.
Lucifer similarly sought to disrupt the time governor operating in restraint of
the premature attainment of certain liberties in the local system. A local
system settled in light and life has experientially achieved those viewpoints
and insights which make feasible the operation of many techniques that would be
disruptive and destructive in the presettled eras of that very realm.
As man shakes off the shackles of fear, as he bridges continents and oceans
with his machines, generations and centuries with his records, he must
substitute for each transcended restraint a new and voluntarily assumed
restraint in accordance with the moral dictates of expanding human wisdom.
These self-imposed restraints are at once the most powerful and the most
tenuous of all the factors of human civilization--concepts of justice and
ideals of brotherhood. Man even qualifies himself for the restraining garments
of mercy when he dares to love his fellow men, while he achieves the beginnings
of spiritual brotherhood when he elects to mete out to them that treatment
which he himself would be accorded, even that treatment which he conceives that
God would accord them.
top of page - 1303
An automatic universe reaction is stable and, in some form, continuing in the
cosmos. A personality who knows God and desires to do his will, who has spirit
insight, is divinely stable and eternally existent. Man's great universe
adventure consists in the transit of his mortal mind from the stability of
mechanical statics to the divinity of spiritual dynamics, and he achieves this
transformation by the force and constancy of his own personality decisions, in
each of life's situations declaring, "It is my will that your will be done."
9. UNIVERSE MECHANISMS
Time and space are a conjoined mechanism of the master universe. They are the
devices whereby finite creatures are enabled to coexist in the cosmos with the
Infinite. Finite creatures are effectively insulated from the absolute levels
by time and space. But these insulating media, without which no mortal could
exist, operate directly to limit the range of finite action. Without them no
creature could act, but by them the acts of every creature are definitely
limited.
Mechanisms produced by higher minds function to liberate their creative sources
but to some degree unvaryingly limit the action of all subordinate
intelligences. To the creatures of the universes this limitation becomes
apparent as the mechanism of the universes. Man does not have unfettered free
will; there are limits to his range of choice, but within the radius of this
choice his will is relatively sovereign.
The life mechanism of the mortal personality, the human body, is the product of
supermortal creative design; therefore it can never be perfectly controlled by
man himself. Only when ascending man, in liaison with the fused Adjuster,
self-creates the mechanism for personality expression, will he achieve
perfected control thereof.
The grand universe is mechanism as well as organism, mechanical and living--a
living mechanism activated by a Supreme Mind, co-ordinating with a Supreme
Spirit, and finding expression on maximum levels of power and personality
unification as the Supreme Being. But to deny the mechanism of the finite
creation is to deny fact and to disregard reality.
Mechanisms are the products of mind, creative mind acting on and in cosmic
potentials. Mechanisms are the fixed crystallizations of Creator thought, and
they ever function true to the volitional concept that gave them origin. But
the purposiveness of any mechanism is in its origin, not in its function.
These mechanisms should not be thought of as limiting the action of Deity;
rather is it true that in these very mechanics Deity has achieved one phase of
eternal expression. The basic universe mechanisms have come into existence in
response to the absolute will of the First Source and Center, and they will
therefore eternally function in perfect harmony with the plan of the Infinite;
they are, indeed, the nonvolitional patterns of that very plan.
We understand something of how the mechanism of Paradise is correlated with the
personality of the Eternal Son; this is the function of the Conjoint Actor. And
we have theories regarding the operations of the Universal Absolute with
respect to the theoretical mechanisms of the Unqualified and the potential
person of the Deity Absolute. But in the evolving Deities of Supreme and
Ultimate we observe that certain impersonal phases are being actually united
with their volitional counterparts, and thus there is evolving a new
relationship between pattern and person.
top of page - 1304
In the eternity of the past the Father and the Son found union in the unity of
the expression of the Infinite Spirit. If, in the eternity of the future, the
Creator Sons and the Creative Spirits of the local universes of time and space
should attain creative union in the realms of outer space, what would their
unity create as the combined expression of their divine natures? It may well be
that we are to witness a hitherto unrevealed manifestation of Ultimate Deity, a
new type of superadministrator. Such beings would embrace unique prerogatives
of personality, being the union of personal Creator, impersonal Creative
Spirit, mortal-creature experience, and progressive personalization of the
Divine Minister. Such beings could be ultimate in that they would embrace
personal and impersonal reality, while they would combine the experiences of
Creator and creature. Whatever the attributes of such third persons of these
postulated functioning trinities of the creations of outer space, they will
sustain something of the same relation to their Creator Fathers and their
Creative Mothers that the Infinite Spirit does to the Universal Father and the
Eternal Son.
God the Supreme is the personalization of all universe experience, the
focalization of all finite evolution, the maximation of all creature reality,
the consummation of cosmic wisdom, the embodiment of the harmonious beauties of
the galaxies of time, the truth of cosmic mind meanings, and the goodness of
supreme spirit values. And God the Supreme will, in the eternal future,
synthesize these manifold finite diversities into one experientially meaningful
whole, even as they are now existentially united on absolute levels in the
Paradise Trinity.
10. FUNCTIONS OF PROVIDENCE
Providence does not mean that God has decided all things for us and in advance.
God loves us too much to do that, for that would be nothing short of cosmic
tyranny. Man does have relative powers of choice. Neither is the divine love
that shortsighted affection which would pamper and spoil the children of men.
The Father, Son, and Spirit--as the Trinity--are not the Almighty Supreme, but
the supremacy of the Almighty can never be manifest without them. The growth of
the Almighty is centered on the Absolutes of actuality and predicated on the
Absolutes of potentiality. But the functions of the Almighty Supreme are
related to the functions of the Paradise Trinity.
It would appear that, in the Supreme Being, all phases of universe activity are
being partially reunited by the personality of this experiential Deity. When,
therefore, we desire to view the Trinity as one God, and if we limit this
concept to the present known and organized grand universe, we discover that the
evolving Supreme Being is the partial portraiture of the Paradise Trinity. And
we further find that this Supreme Deity is evolving as the personality
synthesis of finite matter, mind, and spirit in the grand universe.
The Gods have attributes but the Trinity has functions, and like the Trinity,
providence is a function, the composite of the other-than-personal overcontrol
of the universe of universes, extending from the evolutionary levels of the
Sevenfold synthesizing in the power of the Almighty on up through the
transcendental realms of the Ultimacy of Deity.
God loves each creature as a child, and that love overshadows each creature
throughout all time and eternity. Providence functions with regard to the total
top of page - 1305
and deals with the function of any creature as such function is related to the
total. Providential intervention with regard to any being is indicative of the
importance of the function of that being as concerns the evolutionary growth of
some total; such total may be the total race, the total nation, the total
planet, or even a higher total. It is the importance of the function of the
creature that occasions providential intervention, not the importance of the
creature as a person.
Nevertheless, the Father as a person may at any time interpose a fatherly hand
in the stream of cosmic events all in accordance with the will of God and in
consonance with the wisdom of God and as motivated by the love of God.
But what man calls providence is all too often the product of his own
imagination, the fortuitous juxtaposition of the circumstances of chance. There
is, however, a real and emerging providence in the finite realm of universe
existence, a true and actualizing correlation of the energies of space, the
motions of time, the thoughts of intellect, the ideals of character, the
desires of spiritual natures, and the purposive volitional acts of evolving
personalities. The circumstances of the material realms find final finite
integration in the interlocking presences of the Supreme and the Ultimate.
As the mechanisms of the grand universe are perfected to a point of final
precision through the overcontrol of mind, and as creature mind ascends to the
perfection of divinity attainment through perfected integration with spirit,
and as the Supreme consequently emerges as an actual unifier of all these
universe phenomena, so does providence become increasingly discernible.
Some of the amazingly fortuitous conditions occasionally prevailing on the
evolutionary worlds may be due to the gradually emerging presence of the
Supreme, the foretasting of his future universe activities. Most of what a
mortal would call providential is not; his judgment of such matters is very
handicapped by lack of farsighted vision into the true meanings of the
circumstances of life. Much of what a mortal would call good luck might really
be bad luck; the smile of fortune that bestows unearned leisure and undeserved
wealth may be the greatest of human afflictions; the apparent cruelty of a
perverse fate that heaps tribulation upon some suffering mortal may in reality
be the tempering fire that is transmuting the soft iron of immature personality
into the tempered steel of real character.
There is a providence in the evolving universes, and it can be discovered by
creatures to just the extent that they have attained capacity to perceive the
purpose of the evolving universes. Complete capacity to discern universe
purposes equals the evolutionary completion of the creature and may otherwise
be expressed as the attainment of the Supreme within the limits of the present
state of the incomplete universes.
The love of the Father operates directly in the heart of the individual,
independent of the actions or reactions of all other individuals; the
relationship is personal--man and God. The impersonal presence of Deity
(Almighty Supreme and Paradise Trinity) manifests regard for the whole, not for
the part. The providence of the overcontrol of Supremacy becomes increasingly
apparent as the successive parts of the universe progress in the attainment of
finite destinies. As the systems, constellations, universes, and superuniverses
become settled in light and life, the Supreme increasingly emerges as the
meaningful correlator of all that is transpiring, while the Ultimate gradually
emerges as the transcendental unifier of all things.
top of page - 1306
In the beginnings on an evolutionary world the natural occurrences of the
material order and the personal desires of human beings often appear to be
antagonistic. Much that takes place on an evolving world is rather hard for
mortal man to understand--natural law is so often apparently cruel, heartless,
and indifferent to all that is true, beautiful, and good in human
comprehension. But as humanity progresses in planetary development, we observe
that this viewpoint is modified by the following factors:
1. Man's augmenting vision--his increased understanding of the world in which
he lives; his enlarging capacity for the comprehension of the material facts of
time, the meaningful ideas of thought, and the valuable ideals of spiritual
insight. As long as men measure only by the yardstick of the things of a
physical nature, they can never hope to find unity in time and space.
2. Man's increasing control--the gradual accumulation of the knowledge of the
laws of the material world, the purposes of spiritual existence, and the
possibilities of the philosophic co-ordination of these two realities. Man, the
savage, was helpless before the onslaughts of natural forces, was slavish
before the cruel mastery of his own inner fears. Semicivilized man is beginning
to unlock the storehouse of the secrets of the natural realms, and his science
is slowly but effectively destroying his superstitions while at the same time
providing a new and enlarged factual basis for the comprehension of the
meanings of philosophy and the values of true spiritual experience. Man, the
civilized, will someday achieve relative mastery of the physical forces of his
planet; the love of God in his heart will be effectively outpoured as love for
his fellow men, while the values of human existence will be nearing the limits
of mortal capacity.
3. Man's universe integration--the increase of human insight plus the increase
of human experiential achievement brings him into closer harmony with the
unifying presences of Supremacy--Paradise Trinity and Supreme Being. And this
is what establishes the sovereignty of the Supreme on the worlds long settled
in light and life. Such advanced planets are indeed poems of harmony, pictures
of the beauty of achieved goodness attained through the pursuit of cosmic
truth. And if such things can happen to a planet, then even greater things can
happen to a system and the larger units of the grand universe as they too
achieve a settledness indicating the exhaustion of the potentials for finite
growth.
On a planet of this advanced order, providence has become an actuality, the
circumstances of life are correlated, but this is not only because man has come
to dominate the material problems of his world; it is also because he has begun
to live according to the trend of the universes; he is following the pathway of
Supremacy to the attainment of the Universal Father.
The kingdom of God is in the hearts of men, and when this kingdom becomes
actual in the heart of every individual on a world, then God's rule has become
actual on that planet; and this is the attained sovereignty of the Supreme
Being.
To realize providence in time, man must accomplish the task of achieving
perfection. But man can even now foretaste this providence in its eternity
meanings as he ponders the universe fact that all things, be they good or evil,
work together for the advancement of God-knowing mortals in their quest for the
Father of all.
Providence becomes increasingly discernible as men reach upward from the
material to the spiritual. The attainment of completed spiritual insight
enables
top of page - 1307
the ascending personality to detect harmony in what was theretofore chaos. Even
morontia mota represents a real advance in this direction.
Providence is in part the overcontrol of the incomplete Supreme manifested in
the incomplete universes, and it must therefore ever be:
1. Partial--due to the incompleteness of the actualization of the Supreme
Being, and
2. Unpredictable--due to the fluctuations in creature attitude, which ever
varies from level to level, thus causing apparently variable reciprocal
response in the Supreme.
When men pray for providential intervention in the circumstances of life, many
times the answer to their prayer is their own changed attitudes toward life.
But providence is not whimsical, neither is it fantastic nor magical. It is the
slow and sure emergence of the mighty sovereign of the finite universes, whose
majestic presence the evolving creatures occasionally detect in their universe
progressions. Providence is the sure and certain march of the galaxies of space
and the personalities of time toward the goals of eternity, first in the
Supreme, then in the Ultimate, and perhaps in the Absolute. And in infinity we
believe there is the same providence, and this is the will, the actions, the
purpose of the Paradise Trinity thus motivating the cosmic panorama of
universes upon universes.
[Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on Urantia.]
top of page - 1308
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
The Adjuster And The Soul Personality Survival Seraphic Guardians Of Destiny
Seraphic Planetary Government The Supreme Being The Almighty Supreme God The
Supreme Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space The Bestowals Of Christ Michael
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? // ? ? ? ? ?
? God The Supreme ? The Bestowals ? Urantia Book ? Search ? SiteMap! ?
? ? O... ? PA... ? ? ?
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
//
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? ? ? ? ? ? ? SPIRITWEB ORG (info@spiritweb.org), ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://www.spiritweb.org ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? Webmaster <webmaster@spiritweb.org> ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ONLINE SINCE 1993. MAINTAINED IN SWITZERLAND. ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? DISTRIBUTED TO CALIFORNIA, SPAIN, ITALY, SOUTH AFRICA, ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? AUSTRALIA ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????