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Urantia Book Paper 56 Universal Unity
SPIRITWEB ORG, PROMOTING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE INTERNET.
Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART II: The Local Universe :
The Evolution Of Local Universes Administration Of The Local Universe The Local
Universe Mother Spirit The Local Universe Sons Of God The Life Carriers
Personalities Of The Local Universe Ministering Spirits Of The Local Universe
The Seraphic Hosts The Ascending Sons Of God Physical Aspects Of The Local
Universe Energy--mind And Matter The Constellations The Celestial Artisans The
Local System Administration The Local System Headquarters The Seven Mansion
Worlds The Morontia Life The Inhabited Worlds The Planetary Princes The
Planetary Adams Planetary Mortal Epochs The Lucifer Rebellion Problems Of The
Lucifer Rebellion The Spheres Of Light And Life Universal Unity
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Paper 56 Universal Unity
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Introduction
GOD is unity. Deity is universally co-ordinated. The universe of universes is
one vast integrated mechanism which is absolutely controlled by one infinite
mind. The physical, intellectual, and spiritual domains of universal creation
are divinely correlated. The perfect and imperfect are truly interrelated, and
therefore may the finite evolutionary creature ascend to Paradise in obedience
to the Universal Father's mandate: "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect."
The diverse levels of creation are all unified in the plans and administration
of the Architects of the Master Universe. To the circumscribed minds of
time-space mortals the universe may present many problems and situations which
apparently portray disharmony and indicate absence of effective co-ordination;
but those of us who are able to observe wider stretches of universal phenomena,
and who are more experienced in this art of detecting the basic unity which
underlies creative diversity and of discovering the divine oneness which
overspreads all this functioning of plurality, better perceive the divine and
single purpose exhibited in all these manifold manifestations of universal
creative energy.
1. PHYSICAL CO-ORDINATION
The physical or material creation is not infinite, but it is perfectly
co-ordinated. There are force, energy, and power, but they are all one in
origin. The seven superuniverses are seemingly dual; the central universe,
triune; but Paradise is of single constitution. And Paradise is the actual
source of all material universes--past, present, and future. But this cosmic
derivation is an eternity event; at no time--past, present, or future--does
either space or the material cosmos come forth from the nuclear Isle of Light.
As the cosmic source, Paradise functions prior to space and before time; hence
would its derivations seem to be orphaned in time and space did they not emerge
through the Unqualified Absolute, their ultimate repository in space and their
revealer and regulator in time.
The Unqualified Absolute upholds the physical universe, while the Deity
Absolute motivates the exquisite overcontrol of all material reality; and both
Absolutes are functionally unified by the Universal Absolute. This cohesive
correlation of the material universe is best understood by all
personalities--material, morontia, absonite, or spiritual--by the observation
of the gravity
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response of all bona fide material reality to the gravity centering on nether
Paradise.
Gravity unification is universal and unvarying; pure-energy response is
likewise universal and inescapable. Pure energy (primordial force) and pure
spirit are wholly preresponsive to gravity. These primal forces, inhering in
the Absolutes, are personally controlled by the Universal Father; hence does
all gravity center in the personal presence of the Paradise Father of pure
energy and pure spirit and in his supermaterial abode.
Pure energy is the ancestor of all relative, nonspirit functional realities,
while pure spirit is the potential of the divine and directive overcontrol of
all basic energy systems. And these realities, so diverse as manifested
throughout space and as observed in the motions of time, are both centered in
the person of the Paradise Father. In him they are one--must be
unified--because God is one. The Father's personality is absolutely unified.
In the infinite nature of God the Father there could not possibly exist duality
of reality, such as physical and spiritual; but the instant we look aside from
the infinite levels and absolute reality of the personal values of the Paradise
Father, we observe the existence of these two realities and recognize that they
are fully responsive to his personal presence; in him all things consist.
The moment you depart from the unqualified concept of the infinite personality
of the Paradise Father, you must postulate MIND as the inevitable technique of
unifying the ever-widening divergence of these dual universe manifestations of
the original monothetic Creator personality, the First Source and Center--the
2. INTELLECTUAL UNITY
The Thought-Father realizes spirit expression in the Word-Son and attains
reality expansion through Paradise in the far-flung material universes. The
spiritual expressions of the Eternal Son are correlated with the material
levels of creation by the functions of the Infinite Spirit, by whose
spirit-responsive ministry of mind, and in whose physical-directive acts of
mind, the spiritual realities of Deity and the material repercussions of Deity
are correlated the one with the other.
Mind is the functional endowment of the Infinite Spirit, therefore infinite in
potential and universal in bestowal. The primal thought of the Universal Father
eternalizes in dual expression: the Isle of Paradise and his Deity equal, the
spiritual and Eternal Son. Such duality of eternal reality renders the mind
God, the Infinite Spirit, inevitable. Mind is the indispensable channel of
communication between spiritual and material realities. The material
evolutionary creature can conceive and comprehend the indwelling spirit only by
the ministry of mind.
This infinite and universal mind is ministered in the universes of time and
space as the cosmic mind; and though extending from the primitive ministry of
the adjutant spirits up to the magnificent mind of the chief executive of a
universe, even this cosmic mind is adequately unified in the supervision of the
Seven Master Spirits, who are in turn co-ordinated with the Supreme Mind of
time and space and perfectly correlated with the all-embracing mind of the
Infinite Spirit.
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3. SPIRITUAL UNIFICATION
As the universal mind gravity is centered in the Paradise personal presence of
the Infinite Spirit, so does the universal spirit gravity center in the
Paradise personal presence of the Eternal Son. The Universal Father is one, but
to time-space he is revealed in the dual phenomena of pure energy and pure
spirit.
Paradise spirit realities are likewise one, but in all time-space situations
and relations this single spirit is revealed in the dual phenomena of the
spirit personalities and emanations of the Eternal Son and the spirit
personalities and influences of the Infinite Spirit and associated creations;
and there is yet a third--pure-spirit fragmentations--the Father's bestowal of
the Thought Adjusters and other spirit entities which are prepersonal.
No matter on what level of universe activities you may encounter spiritual
phenomena or contact with spirit beings, you may know that they are all derived
from the God who is spirit by the ministry of the Spirit Son and the Infinite
Mind Spirit. And this far-flung spirit functions as a phenomenon on the
evolutionary worlds of time as it is directed from the headquarters of the
local universes. From these capitals of the Creator Sons come the Holy Spirit
and the Spirit of Truth, together with the ministry of the adjutant
mind-spirits, to the lower and evolving levels of material minds.
While mind is more unified on the level of the Master Spirits in association
with the Supreme Being and as the cosmic mind in subordination to the Absolute
Mind, the spirit ministry to the evolving worlds is more directly unified in
the personalities resident on the headquarters of the local universes and in
the persons of the presiding Divine Ministers, who are in turn well-nigh
perfectly correlated with the Paradise gravity circuit of the Eternal Son,
wherein occurs final unification of all time-space spirit manifestations.
Perfected creature existence can be attained, sustained, and eternalized by the
fusion of self-conscious mind with a fragment of the pre-Trinity spirit
endowment of some one of the persons of the Paradise Trinity. The mortal mind
is the creation of the Sons and Daughters of the Eternal Son and the Infinite
Spirit and, when fused with the Thought Adjuster from the Father, partakes of
the threefold spirit endowment of the evolutionary realms. But these three
spirit expressions become perfectly unified in the finaliters, even as they
were in eternity so unified in the Universal I AM ere he ever became the
Universal Father of the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit.
Spirit must always and ultimately become threefold in expression and
Trinity-unified in final realization. Spirit originates from one source through
a threefold expression; and in finality it must and does attain its full
realization in that divine unification which is experienced in finding
God--oneness with divinity--in eternity, and by means of the ministry of the
cosmic mind of the infinite expression of the eternal word of the Father's
universal thought.
4. PERSONALITY UNIFICATION
The Universal Father is a divinely unified personality; hence will all his
ascendant children who are carried to Paradise by the rebound momentum of the
Thought Adjusters, who went forth from Paradise to indwell material mortals
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in obedience to the Father's mandate, likewise be fully unified personalities
ere they reach Havona.
Personality inherently reaches out to unify all constituent realities. The
infinite personality of the First Source and Center, the Universal Father,
unifies all seven constituent Absolutes of Infinity; and the personality of
mortal man, being an exclusive and direct bestowal of the Universal Father,
likewise possesses the potential of unifying the constituent factors of the
mortal creature. Such unifying creativity of all creature personality is a
birthmark of its high and exclusive source and is further evidential of its
unbroken contact with this same source through the personality circuit, by
means of which the personality of the creature maintains direct and sustaining
contact with the Father of all personality on Paradise.
Notwithstanding that God is manifest from the domains of the Sevenfold up
through supremacy and ultimacy to God the Absolute, the personality circuit,
centering on Paradise and in the person of God the Father, provides for the
complete and perfect unification of all these diverse expressions of divine
personality so far as concerns all creature personalities on all levels of
intelligent existence and in all the realms of the perfect, perfected, and
perfecting universes.
While God is to and in the universes all that we have portrayed, nevertheless,
to you and to all other God-knowing creatures he is one, your Father and their
Father. To personality God cannot be plural. God is Father to each of his
creatures, and it is literally impossible for any child to have more than one
father.
Philosophically, cosmically, and with reference to differential levels and
locations of manifestation, you may and perforce must conceive of the
functioning of plural Deities and postulate the existence of plural Trinities;
but in the worshipful experience of the personal contact of every worshiping
personality throughout the master universe, God is one; and that unified and
personal Deity is our Paradise parent, God the Father, the bestower,
conservator, and Father of all personalities from mortal man on the inhabited
worlds to the Eternal Son on the central Isle of Light.
5. DEITY UNITY
The oneness, the indivisibility, of Paradise Deity is existential and absolute.
There are three eternal personalizations of Deity--the Universal Father, the
Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit--but in the Paradise Trinity they are
actually one Deity, undivided and indivisible.
From the original Paradise-Havona level of existential reality, two subabsolute
levels have differentiated, and thereon have the Father, Son, and Spirit
engaged in the creation of numerous personal associates and subordinates. And
while it is inappropriate in this connection to undertake the consideration of
absonite deity unification on transcendental levels of ultimacy, it is feasible
to look at some features of the unifying function of the various Deity
personalizations in whom divinity is functionally manifest to the diverse
sectors of creation and to the different orders of intelligent beings.
The present functioning of divinity in the superuniverses is actively manifest
in the operations of the Supreme Creators--the local universe Creator Sons and
Spirits, the superuniverse Ancients of Days, and the Seven Master Spirits of
Paradise. These beings constitute the first three levels of God the Sevenfold
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leading inward to the Universal Father, and this entire domain of God the
Sevenfold is co-ordinating on the first level of experiential deity in the
evolving Supreme Being.
On Paradise and in the central universe, Deity unity is a fact of existence.
Throughout the evolving universes of time and space, Deity unity is an
achievement.
6. UNIFICATION OF EVOLUTIONARY DEITY
When the three eternal persons of Deity function as undivided Deity in the
Paradise Trinity, they achieve perfect unity; likewise, when they create,
either associatively or severally, their Paradise progeny exhibit the
characteristic unity of divinity. And this divinity of purpose manifested by
the Supreme Creators and Rulers of the time-space domains eventuates in the
unifying power potential of the sovereignty of experiential supremacy which, in
the presence of the impersonal energy unity of the universe, constitutes a
reality tension that can be resolved only through adequate unification with the
experiential personality realities of experiential Deity.
The personality realities of the Supreme Being come forth from the Paradise
Deities and on the pilot world of the outer Havona circuit unify with the power
prerogatives of the Almighty Supreme coming up from the Creator divinities of
the grand universe. God the Supreme as a person existed in Havona before the
creation of the seven superuniverses, but he functioned only on spiritual
levels. The evolution of the Almighty power of Supremacy by diverse divinity
synthesis in the evolving universes eventuated in a new power presence of Deity
which co-ordinated with the spiritual person of the Supreme in Havona by means
of the Supreme Mind, which concomitantly translated from the potential resident
in the infinite mind of the Infinite Spirit to the active functional mind of
the Supreme Being.
The material-minded creatures of the evolutionary worlds of the seven
superuniverses can comprehend Deity unity only as it is evolving in this
power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being. On any level of existence God
cannot exceed the conceptual capacity of the beings who live on such a level.
Mortal man must, through the recognition of truth, the appreciation of beauty,
and the worship of goodness, evolve the recognition of a God of love and then
progress through ascending deity levels to the comprehension of the Supreme.
Deity, having been thus grasped as unified in power, can then be personalized
in spirit to creature understanding and attainment.
While ascending mortals achieve power comprehension of the Almighty on the
capitals of the superuniverses and personality comprehension of the Supreme on
the outer circuits of Havona, they do not actually find the Supreme Being as
they are destined to find the Paradise Deities. Even the finaliters,
sixth-stage spirits, have not found the Supreme Being, nor are they likely to
until they have achieved seventh-stage-spirit status, and until the Supreme has
become actually functional in the activities of the future outer universes.
But when ascenders find the Universal Father as the seventh level of God the
Sevenfold, they have attained the personality of the First Person of all deity
levels of personal relationships with universe creatures.
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7. UNIVERSAL EVOLUTIONARY REPERCUSSIONS
The steady progress of evolution in the time-space universes is accompanied by
ever-enlarging revelations of Deity to all intelligent creatures. The
attainment of the height of evolutionary progress on a world, in a system,
constellation, universe, superuniverse, or in the grand universe signalizes
corresponding enlargements of deity function to and in these progressive units
of creation. And every such local enhancement of divinity realization is
accompanied by certain well-defined repercussions of enlarged deity
manifestation to all other sectors of creation. Extending outward from
Paradise, each new domain of realized and attained evolution constitutes a new
and enlarged revelation of experiential Deity to the universe of universes.
As the components of a local universe are progressively settled in light and
life, God the Sevenfold is increasingly made manifest. Time-space evolution
begins on a planet with the first expression of God the Sevenfold--the Creator
Son-Creative Spirit association--in control. With the settling of a system in
light, this Son-Spirit liaison attains the fullness of function; and when an
entire constellation is thus settled, the second phase of God the Sevenfold
becomes more active throughout such a realm. The completed administrative
evolution of a local universe is attended by new and more direct ministrations
of the superuniverse Master Spirits; and at this point there also begins that
ever-expanding revelation and realization of God the Supreme which culminates
in the ascender's comprehension of the Supreme Being while passing through the
worlds of the sixth Havona circuit.
The Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit are existential
deity manifestations to intelligent creatures and are not, therefore, similarly
expanded in personality relations with the mind and spirit creatures of all
creation.
It should be noted that ascending mortals may experience the impersonal
presence of successive levels of Deity long before they become sufficiently
spiritual and adequately educated to attain experiential personal recognition
of, and contact with, these Deities as personal beings.
Each new evolutionary attainment within a sector of creation, as well as every
new invasion of space by divinity manifestations, is attended by simultaneous
expansions of Deity functional-revelation within the then existing and
previously organized units of all creation. This new invasion of the
administrative work of the universes and their component units may not always
appear to be executed exactly in accordance with the technique herewith
outlined because it is the practice to send forth advance groups of
administrators to prepare the way for the subsequent and successive eras of new
administrative overcontrol. Even God the Ultimate foreshadows his
transcendental overcontrol of the universes during the later stages of a local
universe settled in light and life.
It is a fact that, as the creations of time and space are progressively settled
in evolutionary status, there is observed a new and fuller functioning of God
the Supreme concomitant with a corresponding withdrawing of the first three
manifestations of God the Sevenfold. If and when the grand universe becomes
settled in light and life, what then will be the future function of the
Creator-Creative
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manifestations of God the Sevenfold if God the Supreme assumes direct control
of these creations of time and space? Are these organizers and pioneers of the
time-space universes to be liberated for similar activities in outer space? We
do not know, but we speculate much concerning these and related matters.
As the frontiers of experiential Deity are extended out into the domains of the
Unqualified Absolute, we envision the activity of God the Sevenfold during the
earlier evolutionary epochs of these creations of the future. We are not all in
agreement respecting the future status of the Ancients of Days and the
superuniverse Master Spirits. Neither do we know whether or not the Supreme
Being will therein function as in the seven superuniverses. But we all
conjecture that the Michaels, the Creator Sons, are destined to function in
these outer universes. Some hold that the future ages will witness some closer
form of union between the associated Creator Sons and Divine Ministers; it is
even possible that such a creator union might eventuate in some new expression
of associate-creator identity of an ultimate nature. But we really know nothing
about these possibilities of the unrevealed future.
We do know, however, that in the universes of time and space, God the Sevenfold
provides a progressive approach to the Universal Father, and that this
evolutionary approach is experientially unified in God the Supreme. We might
conjecture that such a plan must prevail in the outer universes; on the other
hand the new orders of beings that may sometime inhabit these universes may be
able to approach Deity on ultimate levels and by absonite techniques. In short,
we have not the slightest concept of what technique of deity approach may
become operative in the future universes of outer space.
Nevertheless, we deem that the perfected superuniverses will in some way become
a part of the Paradise-ascension careers of those beings who may inhabit these
outer creations. It is quite possible that in that future age we may witness
outer-spacers approaching Havona through the seven superuniverses, administered
by God the Supreme with or without the collaboration of the Seven Master
Spirits.
8. THE SUPREME UNIFIER
The Supreme Being has a threefold function in the experience of mortal man:
First, he is the unifier of time-space divinity, God the Sevenfold; second, he
is the maximum of Deity which finite creatures can actually comprehend; third,
he is mortal man's only avenue of approach to the transcendental experience of
consorting with absonite mind, eternal spirit, and Paradise personality.
Ascendant finaliters, having been born in the local universes, nurtured in the
superuniverses, and trained in the central universe, embrace in their personal
experiences the full potential of the comprehension of the time-space divinity
of God the Sevenfold unifying in the Supreme. Finaliters serve successively in
superuniverses other than those of nativity, thereby superimposing experience
upon experience until the fullness of the sevenfold diversity of possible
creature experience has been encompassed. Through the ministry of the
indwelling Adjusters the finaliters are enabled to find the Universal Father,
but it is by these techniques of experience that such finaliters come really to
know the Supreme Being, and they are destined to the service and the revelation
of this Supreme Deity in and to the future universes of outer space.
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Bear in mind, all that God the Father and his Paradise Sons do for us, we in
turn and in spirit have the opportunity to do for and in the emerging Supreme
Being. The experience of love, joy, and service in the universe is mutual. God
the Father does not need that his sons should return to him all that he bestows
upon them, but they do (or may) in turn bestow all of this upon their fellows
and upon the evolving Supreme Being.
All creational phenomena are reflective of antecedent creator-spirit
activities. Said Jesus, and it is literally true, "The Son does only those
things which he sees the Father do." In time you mortals may begin the
revelation of the Supreme to your fellows, and increasingly may you augment
this revelation as you ascend Paradiseward. In eternity you may be permitted to
make increasing revelations of this God of evolutionary creatures on supreme
levels--even ultimate--as seventh-stage finaliters.
9. UNIVERSAL ABSOLUTE UNITY
The Unqualified Absolute and the Deity Absolute are unified in the Universal
Absolute. The Absolutes are co-ordinated in the Ultimate, conditioned in the
Supreme, and time-space modified in God the Sevenfold. On subinfinite levels
there are three Absolutes, but in infinity they appear to be one. On Paradise
there are three personalizations of Deity, but in the Trinity they are one.
The major philosophic proposition of the master universe is this: Did the
Absolute (the three Absolutes as one in infinity) exist before the Trinity? and
is the Absolute ancestral to the Trinity? or is the Trinity antecedent to the
Absolute?
Is the Unqualified Absolute a force presence independent of the Trinity? Does
the presence of the Deity Absolute connote the unlimited function of the
Trinity? and is the Universal Absolute the final function of the Trinity, even
a Trinity of Trinities?
On first thought, a concept of the Absolute as ancestor to all things--even the
Trinity--seems to afford transitory satisfaction of consistency gratification
and philosophic unification, but any such conclusion is invalidated by the
actuality of the eternity of the Paradise Trinity. We are taught, and we
believe, that the Universal Father and his Trinity associates are eternal in
nature and existence. There is, then, but one consistent philosophic
conclusion, and that is: The Absolute is, to all universe intelligences, the
impersonal and co-ordinate reaction of the Trinity (of Trinities) to all basic
and primary space situations, intrauniversal and extrauniversal. To all
personality intelligences of the grand universe the Paradise Trinity forever
stands in finality, eternity, supremacy, and ultimacy and, for all practical
purposes of personal comprehension and creature realization, as absolute.
As creature minds may view this problem, they are led to the final postulate of
the Universal I AM as the primal cause and the unqualified source of both the
Trinity and the Absolute. When, therefore, we crave to entertain a personal
concept of the Absolute, we revert to our ideas and ideals of the Paradise
Father. When we desire to facilitate comprehension or to augment consciousness
of this otherwise impersonal Absolute, we revert to the fact that the Universal
Father is the existential Father of absolute personality; the Eternal Son is
the Absolute Person, though not, in the experiential sense, the personalization
of the Absolute.
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And then we go on to envisage the experiential Trinities as culminating in the
experiential personalization of the Deity Absolute, while conceiving the
Universal Absolute as constituting the universe and the extrauniverse phenomena
of the manifest presence of the impersonal activities of the unified and
co-ordinated Deity associations of supremacy, ultimacy, and infinity--the
Trinity of Trinities.
God the Father is discernible on all levels from the finite to the infinite,
and though his creatures from Paradise to the evolutionary worlds have
variously perceived him, only the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit know him
as an infinity.
Spiritual personality is absolute only on Paradise, and the concept of the
Absolute is unqualified only in infinity. Deity presence is absolute only on
Paradise, and the revelation of God must always be partial, relative, and
progressive until his power becomes experientially infinite in the space
potency of the Unqualified Absolute, while his personality manifestation
becomes experientially infinite in the manifest presence of the Deity Absolute,
and while these two potentials of infinity become reality-unified in the
Universal Absolute.
But beyond subinfinite levels the three Absolutes are one, and thereby is
infinity Deity-realized regardless of whether any other order of existence ever
self-realizes consciousness of infinity.
Existential status in eternity implies existential self-consciousness of
infinity, even though another eternity may be required to experience
self-realization of the experiential potentialities inherent in an infinity
eternity--an eternal infinity.
And God the Father is the personal source of all manifestations of Deity and
reality to all intelligent creatures and spirit beings throughout all the
universe of universes. As personalities, now or in the successive universe
experiences of the eternal future, no matter if you achieve the attainment of
God the Sevenfold, comprehend God the Supreme, find God the Ultimate, or
attempt to grasp the concept of God the Absolute, you will discover to your
eternal satisfaction that in the consummation of each adventure you have, on
new experiential levels, rediscovered the eternal God--the Paradise Father of
all universe personalities.
The Universal Father is the explanation of universal unity as it must be
supremely, even ultimately, realized in the postultimate unity of absolute
values and meanings--unqualified Reality.
The Master Force Organizers go out into space and mobilize its energies to
become gravity responsive to the Paradise pull of the Universal Father; and
subsequently there come the Creator Sons, who organize these gravity-responding
forces into inhabited universes and therein evolve intelligent creatures who
receive unto themselves the spirit of the Paradise Father and subsequently
ascend to the Father to become like him in all possible divinity attributes.
The ceaseless and expanding march of the Paradise creative forces through space
seems to presage the ever-extending domain of the gravity grasp of the
Universal Father and the never-ending multiplication of varied types of
intelligent creatures who are able to love God and be loved by him, and who, by
thus becoming God-knowing, may choose to be like him, may elect to attain
Paradise and find God.
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The universe of universes is altogether unified. God is one in power and
personality. There is co-ordination of all levels of energy and all phases of
personality. Philosophically and experientially, in concept and in reality, all
things and beings center in the Paradise Father. God is all and in all, and no
things or beings exist without him.
10. TRUTH, BEAUTY, AND GOODNESS
As the worlds settled in life and light progress from the initial stage to the
seventh epoch, they successively grasp for the realization of the reality of
God the Sevenfold, ranging from the adoration of the Creator Son to the worship
of his Paradise Father. Throughout the continuing seventh stage of such a
world's history the ever-progressing mortals grow in the knowledge of God the
Supreme, while they vaguely discern the reality of the overshadowing ministry
of God the Ultimate.
Throughout this glorious age the chief pursuit of the ever-advancing mortals is
the quest for a better understanding and a fuller realization of the
comprehensible elements of Deity--truth, beauty, and goodness. This represents
man's effort to discern God in mind, matter, and spirit. And as the mortal
pursues this quest, he finds himself increasingly absorbed in the experiential
study of philosophy, cosmology, and divinity.
Philosophy you somewhat grasp, and divinity you comprehend in worship, social
service, and personal spiritual experience, but the pursuit of
beauty--cosmology--you all too often limit to the study of man's crude artistic
endeavors. Beauty, art, is largely a matter of the unification of contrasts.
Variety is essential to the concept of beauty. The supreme beauty, the height
of finite art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness of the cosmic
extremes of Creator and creature. Man finding God and God finding man--the
creature becoming perfect as is the Creator--that is the supernal achievement
of the supremely beautiful, the attainment of the apex of cosmic art.
Hence materialism, atheism, is the maximation of ugliness, the climax of the
finite antithesis of the beautiful. Highest beauty consists in the panorama of
the unification of the variations which have been born of pre-existent
harmonious reality.
The attainment of cosmologic levels of thought includes:
1. Curiosity. Hunger for harmony and thirst for beauty. Persistent attempts to
discover new levels of harmonious cosmic relationships.
2. Aesthetic appreciation. Love of the beautiful and ever-advancing
appreciation of the artistic touch of all creative manifestations on all levels
of reality.
3. Ethic sensitivity. Through the realization of truth the appreciation of
beauty leads to the sense of the eternal fitness of those things which impinge
upon the recognition of divine goodness in Deity relations with all beings; and
thus even cosmology leads to the pursuit of divine reality values--to
God-consciousness.
The worlds settled in light and life are so fully concerned with the
comprehension of truth, beauty, and goodness because these quality values
embrace the revelation of Deity to the realms of time and space. The meanings
of eternal
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truth make a combined appeal to the intellectual and spiritual natures of
mortal man. Universal beauty embraces the harmonious relations and rhythms of
the cosmic creation; this is more distinctly the intellectual appeal and leads
towards unified and synchronous comprehension of the material universe. Divine
goodness represents the revelation of infinite values to the finite mind,
therein to be perceived and elevated to the very threshold of the spiritual
level of human comprehension.
Truth is the basis of science and philosophy, presenting the intellectual
foundation of religion. Beauty sponsors art, music, and the meaningful rhythms
of all human experience. Goodness embraces the sense of ethics, morality, and
religion--experiential perfection-hunger.
The existence of beauty implies the presence of appreciative creature mind just
as certainly as the fact of progressive evolution indicates the dominance of
the Supreme Mind. Beauty is the intellectual recognition of the harmonious
time-space synthesis of the far-flung diversification of phenomenal reality,
all of which stems from pre-existent and eternal oneness.
Goodness is the mental recognition of the relative values of the diverse levels
of divine perfection. The recognition of goodness implies a mind of moral
status, a personal mind with ability to discriminate between good and evil. But
the possession of goodness, greatness, is the measure of real divinity
attainment.
The recognition of true relations implies a mind competent to discriminate
between truth and error. The bestowal Spirit of Truth which invests the human
minds of Urantia is unerringly responsive to truth--the living spirit
relationship of all things and all beings as they are co-ordinated in the
eternal ascent Godward.
Every impulse of every electron, thought, or spirit is an acting unit in the
whole universe. Only sin is isolated and evil gravity resisting on the mental
and spiritual levels. The universe is a whole; no thing or being exists or
lives in isolation. Self-realization is potentially evil if it is antisocial.
It is literally true: "No man lives by himself." Cosmic socialization
constitutes the highest form of personality unification. Said Jesus: "He who
would be greatest among you, let him become server of all."
Even truth, beauty, and goodness--man's intellectual approach to the universe
of mind, matter, and spirit--must be combined into one unified concept of a
divine and supreme ideal. As mortal personality unifies the human experience
with matter, mind, and spirit, so does this divine and supreme ideal become
power-unified in Supremacy and then personalized as a God of fatherly love.
All insight into the relations of the parts to any given whole requires an
understanding grasp of the relation of all parts to that whole; and in the
universe this means the relation of created parts to the Creative Whole. Deity
thus becomes the transcendental, even the infinite, goal of universal and
eternal attainment.
Universal beauty is the recognition of the reflection of the Isle of Paradise
in the material creation, while eternal truth is the special ministry of the
Paradise Sons who not only bestow themselves upon the mortal races but even
pour out their Spirit of Truth upon all peoples. Divine goodness is more fully
shown forth in the loving ministry of the manifold personalities of the
Infinite Spirit.
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But love, the sum total of these three qualities, is man's perception of God as
his spirit Father.
Physical matter is the time-space shadow of the Paradise energy-shining of the
absolute Deities. Truth meanings are the mortal-intellect repercussions of the
eternal word of Deity--the time-space comprehension of supreme concepts. The
goodness values of divinity are the merciful ministries of the spirit
personalities of the Universal, the Eternal, and the Infinite to the time-space
finite creatures of the evolutionary spheres.
These meaningful reality values of divinity are blended in the Father's
relation with each personal creature as divine love. They are co-ordinated in
the Son and his Sons as divine mercy. They manifest their qualities through the
Spirit and his spirit children as divine ministry, the portrayal of loving
mercy to the children of time. These three divinities are primarily manifested
by the Supreme Being as power-personality synthesis. They are variously shown
forth by God the Sevenfold in seven differing associations of divine meanings
and values on seven ascending levels.
To finite man truth, beauty, and goodness embrace the full revelation of
divinity reality. As this love-comprehension of Deity finds spiritual
expression in the lives of God-knowing mortals, there are yielded the fruits of
divinity: intellectual peace, social progress, moral satisfaction, spiritual
joy, and cosmic wisdom. The advanced mortals on a world in the seventh stage of
light and life have learned that love is the greatest thing in the
universe--and they know that God is love.
Love is the desire to do good to others.
[Presented by a Mighty Messenger visiting on Urantia, by request of the Nebadon
Revelatory Corps and in collaboration with a certain Melchizedek, the
vicegerent Planetary Prince of Urantia.]