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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PART I
The Central and Superuniverses
PAPER 1
THE UNIVERSAL FATHER
1:0.1
THE Universal Father is the God of all creation, the
First Source and Center of all things and beings. First
think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and
lastly as an infinite upholder. The truth about the
Universal Father had begun to dawn upon mankind when the
prophet said: "You, God, are alone; there is none beside
you. You have created the heaven and the heaven of
heavens, with all their hosts; you preserve and control
them. By the Sons of God were the universes made. The
Creator covers himself with light as with a garment and
stretches out the heavens as a curtain." Only the
concept of the Universal Father -- one God in the place
of many gods -- enabled mortal man to comprehend the
Father as divine creator and infinite controller.
1:0.2
The myriads of planetary systems were all made to be
eventually inhabited by many different types of
intelligent creatures, beings who could know God,
receive the divine affection, and love him in return.
The universe of universes is the work of God and the
dwelling place of his diverse creatures. "God created
the heavens and formed the earth; he established the
universe and created this world not in vain; he formed
it to be inhabited."
1:0.3
The enlightened worlds all recognize and worship the
Universal Father, the eternal maker and infinite
upholder of all creation. The will creatures of universe
upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise
journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal
adventure of attaining God the Father. The transcendent
goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God,
to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the
Universal Father. God-knowing creatures have only one
supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is
to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he
is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his
universal sphere of righteous supremacy. From the
Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone
forth the supreme mandate, "Be you perfect, even as I am
perfect." In love and mercy the messengers of Paradise
have carried this divine exhortation down through the
ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly
animal-origin creatures as the human races of Urantia.
1:0.4
This magnificent and universal injunction to strive for
the attainment of the perfection of divinity is the
first duty, and should be the highest ambition, of all
the struggling creature creation of the God of
perfection. This possibility of the attainment of divine
perfection is the final and certain destiny of all man's
eternal spiritual progress.
1:0.5
Urantia mortals can hardly hope to be perfect in the
infinite sense, but it is entirely possible for human
beings, starting out as they do on this planet, to
attain the supernal and divine goal which the infinite
God has set for mortal man; and when they do achieve
this destiny, they will, in all that pertains to
self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete
in their sphere of divine perfection as God himself is
in his sphere of infinity and eternity. Such perfection
may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in
intellectual grasp, or final in spiritual experience,
but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of
divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation,
and God-consciousness.
1:0.6
This is the true meaning of that divine command, "Be you
perfect, even as I am perfect," which ever urges mortal
man onward and beckons him inward in that long and
fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and
higher levels of spiritual values and true universe
meanings. This sublime search for the God of universes
is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the
worlds of time and space.
1. THE FATHER'S NAME
1:1.1
Of all the names by which God the Father is known
throughout the universes, those which designate him as
the First Source and the Universe Center are most often
encountered. The First Father is known by various names
in different universes and in different sectors of the
same universe. The names which the creature assigns to
the Creator are much dependent on the creature's concept
of the Creator. The First Source and Universe Center has
never revealed himself by name, only by nature. If we
believe that we are the children of this Creator, it is
only natural that we should eventually call him Father.
But this is the name of our own choosing, and it grows
out of the recognition of our personal relationship with
the First Source and Center.
1:1.2
The Universal Father never imposes any form of arbitrary
recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the
intelligent will creatures of the universes. The
evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space
must of themselves -- in their own hearts -- recognize,
love, and voluntarily worship him. The Creator refuses
to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free
wills of his material creatures. The affectionate
dedication of the human will to the doing of the
Father's will is man's choicest gift to God; in fact,
such a consecration of creature will constitutes man's
only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father.
In God, man lives, moves, and has his being; there is
nothing which man can give to God except this choosing
to abide by the Father's will, and such decisions,
effected by the intelligent will creatures of the
universes, constitute the reality of that true worship
which is so satisfying to the love-dominated nature of
the Creator Father.
1:1.3
When you have once become truly God-conscious, after you
really discover the majestic Creator and begin to
experience the realization of the indwelling presence of
the divine controller, then, in accordance with your
enlightenment and in accordance with the manner and
method by which the divine Sons reveal God, you will
find a name for the Universal Father which will be
adequately expressive of your concept of the First Great
Source and Center. And so, on different worlds and in
various universes, the Creator becomes known by numerous
appellations, in spirit of relationship all meaning the
same but, in words and symbols, each name standing for
the degree, the depth, of his enthronement in the hearts
of his creatures of any given realm.
1:1.4
Near the center of the universe of universes, the
Universal Father is generally known by names which may
be regarded as meaning the First Source. Farther out in
the universes of space, the terms employed to designate
the Universal Father more often mean the Universal
Center. Still farther out in the starry creation, he is
known, as on the headquarters world of your local
universe, as the First Creative Source and Divine
Center. In one near-by constellation God is called the
Father of Universes. In another, the Infinite Upholder,
and to the east, the Divine Controller. He has also been
designated the Father of Lights, the Gift of Life, and
the All-powerful One.
1:1.5
On those worlds where a Paradise Son has lived a
bestowal life, God is generally known by some name
indicative of personal relationship, tender affection,
and fatherly devotion. On your constellation
headquarters God is referred to as the Universal Father,
and on different planets in your local system of
inhabited worlds he is variously known as the Father of
Fathers, the Paradise Father, the Havona Father, and the
Spirit Father. Those who know God through the
revelations of the bestowals of the Paradise Sons,
eventually yield to the sentimental appeal of the
touching relationship of the creature-Creator
association and refer to God as "our Father."
1:1.6
On a planet of sex creatures, in a world where the
impulses of parental emotion are inherent in the hearts
of its intelligent beings, the term Father becomes a
very expressive and appropriate name for the eternal
God. He is best known, most universally acknowledged, on
your planet, Urantia, by the name
God. The name
he is given is of little importance; the significant
thing is that you should know him and aspire to be like
him. Your prophets of old truly called him "the
everlasting God" and referred to him as the one who
"inhabits eternity."
2. THE REALITY OF GOD
1:2.1
God is primal reality in the spirit world; God is the
source of truth in the mind spheres; God overshadows all
throughout the material realms. To all created
intelligences God is a personality, and to the universe
of universes he is the First Source and Center of
eternal reality. God is neither manlike nor machinelike.
The First Father is universal spirit, eternal truth,
infinite reality, and father personality.
1:2.2
The eternal God is infinitely more than reality
idealized or the universe personalized. God is not
simply the supreme desire of man, the mortal quest
objectified. Neither is God merely a concept, the
power-potential of righteousness. The Universal Father
is not a synonym for nature, neither is he natural law
personified. God is a transcendent reality, not merely
man's traditional concept of supreme values. God is not
a psychological focalization of spiritual meanings,
neither is he "the noblest work of man." God may be any
or all of these concepts in the minds of men, but he is
more. He is a saving person and a loving Father to all
who enjoy spiritual peace on earth, and who crave to
experience personality survival in death.
1:2.3
The actuality of the existence of God is demonstrated in
human experience by the indwelling of the divine
presence, the spirit Monitor sent from Paradise to live
in the mortal mind of man and there to assist in
evolving the immortal soul of eternal survival. The
presence of this divine Adjuster in the human mind is
disclosed by three experiential phenomena:
1. The intellectual capacity for knowing God --
God-consciousness.
2. The spiritual urge to find God -- God-seeking.
3. The personality craving to be like God -- the
wholehearted desire to do the Father's will.
1:2.4
The existence of God can never be proved by scientific
experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction.
God can be realized only in the realms of human
experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the
reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to
philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to
any hope of personality survival.
1:2.5
Those who know God have experienced the fact of his
presence; such God-knowing mortals hold in their
personal experience the only positive proof of the
existence of the living God which one human being can
offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond
all possibility of demonstration except for the contact
between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the
God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the
mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free
gift of the Universal Father.
1:2.6
In theory you may think of God as the Creator, and he is
the personal creator of Paradise and the central
universe of perfection, but the universes of time and
space are all created and organized by the Paradise
corps of the Creator Sons. The Universal Father is not
the personal creator of the local universe of Nebadon;
the universe in which you live is the creation of his
Son Michael. Though the Father does not personally
create the evolutionary universes, he does control them
in many of their universal relationships and in certain
of their manifestations of physical, mindal, and
spiritual energies. God the Father is the personal
creator of the Paradise universe and, in association
with the Eternal Son, the creator of all other personal
universe Creators.
1:2.7
As a physical controller in the material universe of
universes, the First Source and Center functions in the
patterns of the eternal Isle of Paradise, and through
this absolute gravity center the eternal God exercises
cosmic overcontrol of the physical level equally in the
central universe and throughout the universe of
universes. As mind, God functions in the Deity of the
Infinite Spirit; as spirit, God is manifest in the
person of the Eternal Son and in the persons of the
divine children of the Eternal Son. This interrelation
of the First Source and Center with the co-ordinate
Persons and Absolutes of Paradise does not in the least
preclude the
direct personal action of the Universal Father
throughout all creation and on all levels thereof.
Through the presence of his fragmentized spirit the
Creator Father maintains immediate contact with his
creature children and his created universes.
3. GOD IS A UNIVERSAL SPIRIT
1:3.1
"God is spirit." He is a universal spiritual presence.
The Universal Father is an infinite spiritual reality;
he is "the sovereign, eternal, immortal, invisible, and
only true God." Even though you are "the offspring of
God," you ought not to think that the Father is like
yourselves in form and physique because you are said to
be created "in his image" -- indwelt by Mystery Monitors
dispatched from the central abode of his eternal
presence. Spirit beings are real, notwithstanding they
are invisible to human eyes; even though they have not
flesh and blood.
1:3.2
Said the seer of old: "Lo, he goes by me, and I see him
not; he passes on also, but I perceive him not." We may
constantly observe the works of God, we may be highly
conscious of the material evidences of his majestic
conduct, but rarely may we gaze upon the visible
manifestation of his divinity, not even to behold the
presence of his delegated spirit of human indwelling.
1:3.3
The Universal Father is not invisible because he is
hiding himself away from the lowly creatures of
materialistic handicaps and limited spiritual
endowments. The situation rather is: "You cannot see my
face, for no mortal can see me and live." No material
man could behold the spirit God and preserve his mortal
existence. The glory and the spiritual brilliance of the
divine personality presence is impossible of approach by
the lower groups of spirit beings or by any order of
material personalities. The spiritual luminosity of the
Father's personal presence is a "light which no mortal
man can approach; which no material creature has seen or
can see." But it is not necessary to see God with the
eyes of the flesh in order to discern him by the
faith-vision of the spiritualized mind.
1:3.4
The spirit nature of the Universal Father is shared
fully with his coexistent self, the Eternal Son of
Paradise. Both the Father and the Son in like manner
share the universal and eternal spirit fully and
unreservedly with their conjoint personality
co-ordinate, the Infinite Spirit. God's spirit is, in
and of himself, absolute; in the Son it is unqualified,
in the Spirit, universal, and in and by all of them,
infinite.
1:3.5
God is a universal spirit; God is the universal person.
The supreme personal reality of the finite creation is
spirit; the ultimate reality of the personal cosmos is
absonite spirit. Only the levels of infinity are
absolute, and only on such levels is there finality of
oneness between matter, mind, and spirit.
1:3.6
In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the
overcontroller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by
means of his far-flung personality circuit does God deal
directly with the personalities of his vast creation of
will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of
Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented
entities, the will of God abroad in the universes. This
Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals
of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal
soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and
divinity of the Universal Father. But the minds of such
evolutionary creatures originate in the local universes
and must gain divine perfection by achieving those
experiential transformations of spiritual attainment
which are the inevitable result of a creature's choosing
to do the will of the Father in heaven.
1:3.7
In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to
matter. Such material-linked minds cannot survive mortal
death. The technique of survival is embraced in those
adjustments of the human will and those transformations
in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious
intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually
spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter
association to spirit union results in the transmutation
of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into
the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind
subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly
material and consequently to suffer eventual personality
extinction; mind yielded to spirit is destined to become
increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness
with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this
way to attain survival and eternity of personality
existence.
1:3.8
I come forth from the Eternal, and I have repeatedly
returned to the presence of the Universal Father. I know
of the actuality and personality of the First Source and
Center, the Eternal and Universal Father. I know that,
while the great God is absolute, eternal, and infinite,
he is also good, divine, and gracious. I know the truth
of the great declarations: "God is spirit" and "God is
love," and these two attributes are most completely
revealed to the universe in the Eternal Son.
4. THE MYSTERY OF GOD
1:4.1
The infinity of the perfection of God is such that it
eternally constitutes him mystery. And the greatest of
all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon
of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in
which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures
of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries;
the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of
mysteries.
1:4.2
The physical bodies of mortals are "the temples of God."
Notwithstanding that the Sovereign Creator Sons come
near the creatures of their inhabited worlds and "draw
all men to themselves"; though they "stand at the door"
of consciousness "and knock" and delight to come in to
all who will "open the doors of their hearts"; although
there does exist this intimate personal communion
between the Creator Sons and their mortal creatures,
nevertheless, mortal men have something from God himself
which actually dwells within them; their bodies are the
temples thereof.
1:4.3
When you are through down here, when your course has
been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial
trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that
composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth
whence it came"; then, it is revealed, the indwelling
"Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There sojourns
within each moral being of this planet a fragment of
God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours
by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to
be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.
1:4.4
We are constantly confronted with this mystery of God;
we are nonplused by the increasing unfolding of the
endless panorama of the truth of his infinite goodness,
endless mercy, matchless wisdom, and superb character.
1:4.5
The divine mystery consists in the inherent difference
which exists between the finite and the infinite, the
temporal and the eternal, the time-space creature and
the Universal Creator, the material and the spiritual,
the imperfection of man and the perfection of Paradise
Deity. The God of universal love unfailingly manifests
himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness
of that creature's capacity to spiritually grasp the
qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness.
1:4.6
To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in
every sphere and on every world of the universe of
universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his
gracious and divine self that can be discerned or
comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal
creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either
spiritual or material. The divine presence which any
child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is
limited only by the capacity of such a creature to
receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the
supermaterial world.
1:4.7
As a reality in human spiritual experience God is not a
mystery. But when an attempt is made to make plain the
realities of the spirit world to the physical minds of
the material order, mystery appears: mysteries so subtle
and so profound that only the faith-grasp of the
God-knowing mortal can achieve the philosophic miracle
of the recognition of the Infinite by the finite, the
discernment of the eternal God by the evolving mortals
of the material worlds of time and space.
5. PERSONALITY OF THE UNIVERSAL FATHER
1:5.1
Do not permit the magnitude of God, his infinity, either
to obscure or eclipse his personality. "He who planned
the ear, shall he not hear? He who formed the eye, shall
he not see?" The Universal Father is the acme of divine
personality; he is the origin and destiny of personality
throughout all creation. God is both infinite and
personal; he is an infinite personality. The Father is
truly a personality, notwithstanding that the infinity
of his person places him forever beyond the full
comprehension of material and finite beings.
1:5.2
God is much more than a personality as personality is
understood by the human mind; he is even far more than
any possible concept of a superpersonality. But it is
utterly futile to discuss such incomprehensible concepts
of divine personality with the minds of material
creatures whose maximum concept of the reality of being
consists in the idea and ideal of personality. The
material creature's highest possible concept of the
Universal Creator is embraced within the spiritual
ideals of the exalted idea of divine personality.
Therefore, although you may know that God must be much
more than the human conception of personality, you
equally well know that the Universal Father cannot
possibly be anything less than an eternal, infinite,
true, good, and beautiful personality.
1:5.3
God is not hiding from any of his creatures. He is
unapproachable to so many orders of beings only because
he "dwells in a light which no material creature can
approach." The immensity and grandeur of the divine
personality is beyond the grasp of the unperfected mind
of evolutionary mortals. He "measures the waters in the
hollow of his hand, measures a universe with the span of
his hand. It is he who sits on the circle of the earth,
who stretches out the heavens as a curtain and spreads
them out as a universe to dwell in." "Lift up your eyes
on high and behold who has created all these things, who
brings out their worlds by number and calls them all by
their names"; and so it is true that "the invisible
things of God are partially understood by the things
which are made." Today, and as you are, you must discern
the invisible Maker through his manifold and diverse
creation, as well as through the revelation and
ministration of his Sons and their numerous
subordinates.
1:5.4
Even though material mortals cannot see the person of
God, they should rejoice in the assurance that he is a
person; by faith accept the truth which portrays that
the Universal Father so loved the world as to provide
for the eternal spiritual progression of its lowly
inhabitants; that he "delights in his children." God is
lacking in none of those superhuman and divine
attributes which constitute a perfect, eternal, loving,
and infinite Creator personality.
1:5.5
In the local creations (excepting the personnel of the
superuniverses) God has no personal or residential
manifestation aside from the Paradise Creator Sons who
are the fathers of the inhabited worlds and the
sovereigns of the local universes. If the faith of the
creature were perfect, he would assuredly know that when
he had seen a Creator Son he had seen the Universal
Father; in seeking for the Father, he would not ask nor
expect to see other than the Son. Mortal man simply
cannot see God until he achieves completed spirit
transformation and actually attains Paradise.
1:5.6
The natures of the Paradise Creator Sons do not
encompass all the unqualified potentials of the
universal absoluteness of the infinite nature of the
First Great Source and Center, but the Universal Father
is in every way
divinely present in the Creator Sons. The Father and
his Sons are one. These Paradise Sons of the order of
Michael are perfect personalities, even the pattern for
all local universe personality from that of the Bright
and Morning Star down to the lowest human creature of
progressing animal evolution.
1:5.7
Without God and except for his great and central person,
there would be no personality throughout all the vast
universe of universes.
God is
personality.
1:5.8
Notwithstanding that God is an eternal power, a majestic
presence, a transcendent ideal, and a glorious spirit,
though he is all these and infinitely more, nonetheless,
he is truly and everlastingly a perfect Creator
personality, a person who can "know and be known," who
can "love and be loved," and one who can befriend us;
while you can be known, as other humans have been known,
as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a
spiritual reality.
1:5.9
As we see the Universal Father revealed throughout his
universe; as we discern him indwelling his myriads of
creatures; as we behold him in the persons of his
Sovereign Sons; as we continue to sense his divine
presence here and there, near and afar, let us not doubt
nor question his personality primacy. Notwithstanding
all these far-flung distributions, he remains a true
person and everlastingly maintains personal connection
with the countless hosts of his creatures scattered
throughout the universe of universes.
1:5.10
The idea of the personality of the Universal Father is
an enlarged and truer concept of God which has come to
mankind chiefly through revelation. Reason, wisdom, and
religious experience all infer and imply the personality
of God, but they do not altogether validate it. Even the
indwelling Thought Adjuster is prepersonal. The truth
and maturity of any religion is directly proportional to
its concept of the infinite personality of God and to
its grasp of the absolute unity of Deity. The idea of a
personal Deity becomes, then, the measure of religious
maturity after religion has first formulated the concept
of the unity of God.
1:5.11
Primitive religion had many personal gods, and they were
fashioned in the image of man. Revelation affirms the
validity of the personality concept of God which is
merely possible in the scientific postulate of a First
Cause and is only provisionally suggested in the
philosophic idea of Universal Unity. Only by personality
approach can any person begin to comprehend the unity of
God. To deny the personality of the First Source and
Center leaves one only the choice of two philosophic
dilemmas: materialism or pantheism.
1:5.12
In the contemplation of Deity, the concept of
personality must be divested of the idea of
corporeality. A material body is not indispensable to
personality in either man or God. The corporeality error
is shown in both extremes of human philosophy. In
materialism, since man loses his body at death, he
ceases to exist as a personality; in pantheism, since
God has no body, he is not, therefore, a person. The
superhuman type of progressing personality functions in
a union of mind and spirit.
1:5.13
Personality is not simply an attribute of God; it rather
stands for the totality of the co-ordinated infinite
nature and the unified divine will which is exhibited in
eternity and universality of perfect expression.
Personality, in the supreme sense, is the revelation of
God to the universe of universes.
1:5.14
God, being eternal, universal, absolute, and infinite,
does not grow in knowledge nor increase in wisdom. God
does not acquire experience, as finite man might
conjecture or comprehend, but he does, within the realms
of his own eternal personality, enjoy those continuous
expansions of self-realization which are in certain ways
comparable to, and analogous with, the acquirement of
new experience by the finite creatures of the
evolutionary worlds.
1:5.15
The absolute perfection of the infinite God would cause
him to suffer the awful limitations of unqualified
finality of perfectness were it not a fact that the
Universal Father directly participates in the
personality struggle of every imperfect soul in the wide
universe who seeks, by divine aid, to ascend to the
spiritually perfect worlds on high. This progressive
experience of every spirit being and every mortal
creature throughout the universe of universes is a part
of the Father's ever-expanding Deity-consciousness of
the never-ending divine circle of ceaseless
self-realization.
1:5.16
It is literally true: "In all your afflictions he is
afflicted." "In all your triumphs he triumphs in and
with you." His prepersonal divine spirit is a real part
of you. The Isle of Paradise responds to all the
physical metamorphoses of the universe of universes; the
Eternal Son includes all the spirit impulses of all
creation; the Conjoint Actor encompasses all the mind
expression of the expanding cosmos. The Universal Father
realizes in the fullness of the divine consciousness all
the individual experience of the progressive struggles
of the expanding minds and the ascending spirits of
every entity, being, and personality of the whole
evolutionary creation of time and space. And all this is
literally true, for "in Him we all live and move and
have our being."
6. PERSONALITY IN THE UNIVERSE
1:6.1
Human personality is the time-space image-shadow cast by
the divine Creator personality. And no actuality can
ever be adequately comprehended by an examination of its
shadow. Shadows should be interpreted in terms of the
true substance.
1:6.2
God is to science a cause, to philosophy an idea, to
religion a person, even the loving heavenly Father. God
is to the scientist a primal force, to the philosopher a
hypothesis of unity, to the religionist a living
spiritual experience. Man's inadequate concept of the
personality of the Universal Father can be improved only
by man's spiritual progress in the universe and will
become truly adequate only when the pilgrims of time and
space finally attain the divine embrace of the living
God on Paradise.
1:6.3
Never lose sight of the antipodal viewpoints of
personality as it is conceived by God and man. Man views
and comprehends personality, looking from the finite to
the infinite; God looks from the infinite to the finite.
Man possesses the lowest type of personality; God, the
highest, even supreme, ultimate, and absolute. Therefore
did the better concepts of the divine personality have
patiently to await the appearance of improved ideas of
human personality, especially the enhanced revelation of
both human and divine personality in the Urantian
bestowal life of Michael, the Creator Son.
1:6.4
The prepersonal divine spirit which indwells the mortal
mind carries, in its very presence, the valid proof of
its actual existence, but the concept of the divine
personality can be grasped only by the spiritual insight
of genuine personal religious experience. Any person,
human or divine, may be known and comprehended quite
apart from the external reactions or the material
presence of that person.
1:6.5
Some degree of moral affinity and spiritual harmony is
essential to friendship between two persons; a loving
personality can hardly reveal himself to a loveless
person. Even to approach the knowing of a divine
personality, all of man's personality endowments must be
wholly consecrated to the effort; halfhearted, partial
devotion will be unavailing.
1:6.6
The more completely man understands himself and
appreciates the personality values of his fellows, the
more he will crave to know the Original Personality, and
the more earnestly such a God-knowing human will strive
to become like the Original Personality. You can argue
over opinions about God, but experience with him and in
him exists above and beyond all human controversy and
mere intellectual logic. The God-knowing man describes
his spiritual experiences, not to convince unbelievers,
but for the edification and mutual satisfaction of
believers.
1:6.7
To assume that the universe can be known, that it is
intelligible, is to assume that the universe is mind
made and personality managed. Man's mind can only
perceive the mind phenomena of other minds, be they
human or superhuman. If man's personality can experience
the universe, there is a divine mind and an actual
personality somewhere concealed in that universe.
1:6.8
God is spirit -- spirit personality; man is also a
spirit -- potential spirit personality. Jesus of
Nazareth attained the full realization of this potential
of spirit personality in human experience; therefore his
life of achieving the Father's will becomes man's most
real and ideal revelation of the personality of God.
Even though the personality of the Universal Father can
be grasped only in actual religious experience, in
Jesus' earth life we are inspired by the perfect
demonstration of such a realization and revelation of
the personality of God in a truly human experience.
7. SPIRITUAL VALUE OF THE PERSONALITY CONCEPT
1:7.1
When Jesus talked about "the living God," he referred to
a personal Deity -- the Father in heaven. The concept of
the personality of Deity facilitates fellowship; it
favors intelligent worship; it promotes refreshing
trustfulness. Interactions can be had between
nonpersonal things, but not fellowship. The fellowship
relation of father and son, as between God and man,
cannot be enjoyed unless both are persons. Only
personalities can commune with each other, albeit this
personal communion may be greatly facilitated by the
presence of just such an impersonal entity as the
Thought Adjuster.
1:7.2
Man does not achieve union with God as a drop of water
might find unity with the ocean. Man attains divine
union by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by
personality intercourse with the personal God, by
increasingly attaining the divine nature through
wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine
will. Such a sublime relationship can exist only between
personalities.
1:7.3
The concept of truth might possibly be entertained apart
from personality, the concept of beauty may exist
without personality, but the concept of divine goodness
is understandable only in relation to personality. Only
a person can
love and be loved. Even beauty and truth would be
divorced from survival hope if they were not attributes
of a personal God, a loving Father.
1:7.4
We cannot fully understand how God can be primal,
changeless, all-powerful, and perfect, and at the same
time be surrounded by an ever-changing and apparently
law-limited universe, an evolving universe of relative
imperfections. But we can
know such a
truth in our own personal experience since we all
maintain identity of personality and unity of will in
spite of the constant changing of both ourselves and our
environment.
1:7.5
Ultimate universe reality cannot be grasped by
mathematics, logic, or philosophy, only by personal
experience in progressive conformity to the divine will
of a personal God. Neither science, philosophy, nor
theology can validate the personality of God. Only the
personal experience of the faith sons of the heavenly
Father can effect the actual spiritual realization of
the personality of God.
1:7.6
The higher concepts of universe personality imply:
identity, self-consciousness, self-will, and possibility
for self-revelation. And these characteristics further
imply fellowship with other and equal personalities,
such as exists in the personality associations of the
Paradise Deities. And the absolute unity of these
associations is so perfect that divinity becomes known
by indivisibility, by oneness. "The Lord God is
one."
Indivisibility of personality does not interfere with
God's bestowing his spirit to live in the hearts of
mortal men. Indivisibility of a human father's
personality does not prevent the reproduction of mortal
sons and daughters.
1:7.7
This concept of indivisibility in association with the
concept of unity implies transcendence of both time and
space by the Ultimacy of Deity; therefore neither space
nor time can be absolute or infinite. The First Source
and Center is that infinity who unqualifiedly transcends
all mind, all matter, and all spirit.
1:7.8
The fact of the Paradise Trinity in no manner violates
the truth of the divine unity. The three personalities
of Paradise Deity are, in all universe reality reactions
and in all creature relations, as one. Neither does the
existence of these three eternal persons violate the
truth of the indivisibility of Deity. I am fully aware
that I have at my command no language adequate to make
clear to the mortal mind how these universe problems
appear to us. But you should not become discouraged; not
all of these things are wholly clear to even the high
personalities belonging to my group of Paradise beings.
Ever bear in mind that these profound truths pertaining
to Deity will increasingly clarify as your minds become
progressively spiritualized during the successive epochs
of the long mortal ascent to Paradise.
1:7.9
Presented by a Divine Counselor, a member of a group of
celestial personalities assigned by the Ancients of Days
on Uversa, the headquarters of the seventh
superuniverse, to supervise those portions of this
forthcoming revelation which have to do with affairs
beyond the borders of the local universe of Nebadon. I
am commissioned to sponsor those papers portraying the
nature and attributes of God because I represent the
highest source of information available for such a
purpose on any inhabited world. I have served as a
Divine Counselor in all seven of the superuniverses and
have long resided at the Paradise center of all things.
Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a
sojourn in the immediate personal presence of the
Universal Father. I portray the reality and truth of the
Father's nature and attributes with unchallengeable
authority; I know whereof I speak.
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