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