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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 2
THE NATURE OF GOD
2:0.1
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.
2:0.2
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.
2:0.3
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
2:1.1
"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 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!"
2:1.2
"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."
2:1.3
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.
2:1.4
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.
2:1.5
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.
2:1.6
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.
2:1.7
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 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.
2:1.8
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.
2:1.9
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.
2:1.10
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.
2:1.11
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
2:2.1
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 interplanetary
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.
2:2.2
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 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.
2:2.3
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.
2:2.4
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.
2:2.5
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.
2:2.6
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.
2:2.7
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
2:3.1
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."
2:3.2
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 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.
2:3.3
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.
2:3.4
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.
2:3.5
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.
2:3.6
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 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
2:4.1
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."
2:4.2
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.
2:4.3
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.
2:4.4
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.
2:4.5
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
2:5.1
"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 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."
2:5.2
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."
2:5.3
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."
2:5.4
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."
2:5.5
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.
2:5.6
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.
2:5.7
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.
2:5.8
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 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.
2:5.9
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.
2:5.10
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.
2:5.11
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.
2:5.12
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
2:6.1
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.
2:6.2
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.
2:6.3
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."
2:6.4
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.
2:6.5
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.
2:6.6
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.
2:6.7
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.
2:6.8
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.
2:6.9
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
2:7.1
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.
2:7.2
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.
2:7.3
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.
2:7.4
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.
2:7.5
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.
2:7.6
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.
2:7.7
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 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.
2:7.8
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.
2:7.9
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.
2:7.10
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.
2:7.11
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.
2:7.12
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.
2:7.13
Presented by a Divine Counselor acting by authority of
the Ancients of Days on Uversa.
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