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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 4
GOD'S RELATION TO THE UNIVERSE
4:0.1
THE Universal Father has an eternal purpose pertaining
to the material, intellectual, and spiritual phenomena
of the universe of universes, which he is executing
throughout all time. God created the universes of his
own free and sovereign will, and he created them in
accordance with his all-wise and eternal purpose. It is
doubtful whether anyone except the Paradise Deities and
their highest associates really knows very much about
the eternal purpose of God. Even the exalted citizens of
Paradise hold very diverse opinions about the nature of
the eternal purpose of the Deities.
4:0.2
It is easy to deduce that the purpose in creating the
perfect central universe of Havona was purely the
satisfaction of the divine nature. Havona may serve as
the pattern creation for all other universes and as the
finishing school for the pilgrims of time on their way
to Paradise; however, such a supernal creation must
exist primarily for the pleasure and satisfaction of the
perfect and infinite Creators.
4:0.3
The amazing plan for perfecting evolutionary mortals
and, after their attainment of Paradise and the Corps of
the Finality, providing further training for some
undisclosed future work, does seem to be, at present,
one of the chief concerns of the seven superuniverses
and their many subdivisions; but this ascension scheme
for spiritualizing and training the mortals of time and
space is by no means the exclusive occupation of the
universe intelligences. There are, indeed, many other
fascinating pursuits which occupy the time and enlist
the energies of the celestial hosts.
1. THE UNIVERSE ATTITUDE OF THE FATHER
4:1.1
For ages the inhabitants of Urantia have misunderstood
the providence of God. There is a providence of divine
outworking on your world, but it is not the childish,
arbitrary, and material ministry many mortals have
conceived it to be. The providence of God consists in
the interlocking activities of the celestial beings and
the divine spirits who, in accordance with cosmic law,
unceasingly labor for the honor of God and for the
spiritual advancement of his universe children.
4:1.2
Can you not advance in your concept of God's dealing
with man to that level where you recognize that the
watchword of the universe is
progress?
Through long ages the human race has struggled to reach
its present position. Throughout all these millenniums
Providence has been working out the plan of progressive
evolution. The two thoughts are not opposed in practice,
only in man's mistaken concepts. Divine providence is
never arrayed in opposition to true human progress,
either temporal or spiritual. Providence is always
consistent with the unchanging and perfect nature of the
supreme Lawmaker.
4:1.3
"God is faithful" and "all his commandments are just."
"His faithfulness is established in the very skies."
"Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Your
faithfulness is to all generations; you have established
the earth and it abides." "He is a faithful Creator."
4:1.4
There is no limitation of the forces and personalities
which the Father may use to uphold his purpose and
sustain his creatures. "The eternal God is our refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms." "He who dwells
in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under
the shadow of the Almighty." "Behold, he who keeps us
shall neither slumber nor sleep." "We know that all
things work together for good to those who love God,"
"for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and
his ears are open to their prayers."
4:1.5
God upholds "all things by the word of his power." And
when new worlds are born, he "sends forth his Sons and
they are created." God not only creates, but he
"preserves them all." God constantly upholds all things
material and all beings spiritual. The universes are
eternally stable. There is stability in the midst of
apparent instability. There is an underlying order and
security in the midst of the energy upheavals and the
physical cataclysms of the starry realms.
4:1.6
The Universal Father has not withdrawn from the
management of the universes; he is not an inactive
Deity. If God should retire as the present upholder of
all creation, there would immediately occur a universal
collapse. Except for God, there would be no such thing
as reality.
At this very moment, as during the remote ages of the
past and in the eternal future, God continues to uphold.
The divine reach extends around the circle of eternity.
The universe is not wound up like a clock to run just so
long and then cease to function; all things are
constantly being renewed. The Father unceasingly pours
forth energy, light, and life. The work of God is
literal as well as spiritual. "He stretches out the
north over the empty space and hangs the earth upon
nothing."
4:1.7
A being of my order is able to discover ultimate harmony
and to detect far-reaching and profound co-ordination in
the routine affairs of universe administration. Much
that seems disjointed and haphazard to the mortal mind
appears orderly and constructive to my understanding.
But there is very much going on in the universes that I
do not fully comprehend. I have long been a student of,
and am more or less conversant with, the recognized
forces, energies, minds, morontias, spirits, and
personalities of the local universes and the
superuniverses. I have a general understanding of how
these agencies and personalities operate, and I am
intimately familiar with the workings of the accredited
spirit intelligences of the grand universe.
Notwithstanding my knowledge of the phenomena of the
universes, I am constantly confronted with cosmic
reactions which I cannot fully fathom. I am continually
encountering apparently fortuitous conspiracies of the
interassociation of forces, energies, intellects, and
spirits, which I cannot satisfactorily explain.
4:1.8
I am entirely competent to trace out and to analyze the
working of all phenomena directly resulting from the
functioning of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son,
the Infinite Spirit, and, to a large extent, the Isle of
Paradise. My perplexity is occasioned by encountering
what appears to be the performance of their mysterious
co-ordinates, the three Absolutes of potentiality. These
Absolutes seem to supersede matter, to transcend mind,
and to supervene spirit. I am constantly confused and
often perplexed by my inability to comprehend these
complex transactions which I attribute to the presences
and performances of the Unqualified Absolute, the Deity
Absolute, and the Universal Absolute.
4:1.9
These Absolutes must be the not-fully-revealed presences
abroad in the universe which, in the phenomena of space
potency and in the function of other superultimates,
render it impossible for physicists, philosophers, or
even religionists to predict with certainty as to just
how the primordials of force, concept, or spirit will
respond to demands made in a complex reality situation
involving supreme adjustments and ultimate values.
4:1.10
There is also an organic unity in the universes of time
and space which seems to underlie the whole fabric of
cosmic events. This living presence of the evolving
Supreme Being, this Immanence of the Projected
Incomplete, is inexplicably manifested ever and anon by
what appears to be an amazingly fortuitous co-ordination
of apparently unrelated universe happenings. This must
be the function of Providence -- the realm of the
Supreme Being and the Conjoint Actor.
4:1.11
I am inclined to believe that it is this far-flung and
generally unrecognizable control of the co-ordination
and interassociation of all phases and forms of universe
activity that causes such a variegated and apparently
hopelessly confused medley of physical, mental, moral,
and spiritual phenomena so unerringly to work out to the
glory of God and for the good of men and angels.
4:1.12
But in the larger sense the apparent "accidents" of the
cosmos are undoubtedly a part of the finite drama of the
time-space adventure of the Infinite in his eternal
manipulation of the Absolutes.
2. GOD AND NATURE
4:2.1
Nature is in a limited sense the physical habit of God.
The conduct, or action, of God is qualified and
provisionally modified by the experimental plans and the
evolutionary patterns of a local universe, a
constellation, a system, or a planet. God acts in
accordance with a well-defined, unchanging, immutable
law throughout the wide-spreading master universe; but
he modifies the patterns of his action so as to
contribute to the co-ordinate and balanced conduct of
each universe, constellation, system, planet, and
personality in accordance with the local objects, aims,
and plans of the finite projects of evolutionary
unfolding.
4:2.2
Therefore, nature, as mortal man understands it,
presents the underlying foundation and fundamental
background of a changeless Deity and his immutable laws,
modified by, fluctuating because of, and experiencing
upheavals through, the working of the local plans,
purposes, patterns, and conditions which have been
inaugurated and are being carried out by the local
universe, constellation, system, and planetary forces
and personalities. For example: As God's laws have been
ordained in Nebadon, they are modified by the plans
established by the Creator Son and Creative Spirit of
this local universe; and in addition to all this the
operation of these laws has been further influenced by
the errors, defaults, and insurrections of certain
beings resident upon your planet and belonging to your
immediate planetary system of Satania.
4:2.3
Nature is a time-space resultant of two cosmic factors:
first, the immutability, perfection, and rectitude of
Paradise Deity, and second, the experimental plans,
executive blunders, insurrectionary errors,
incompleteness of development, and imperfection of
wisdom of the extra-Paradise creatures, from the highest
to the lowest. Nature therefore carries a uniform,
unchanging, majestic, and marvelous thread of perfection
from the circle of eternity; but in each universe, on
each planet, and in each individual life, this nature is
modified, qualified, and perchance marred by the acts,
the mistakes, and the disloyalties of the creatures of
the evolutionary systems and universes; and therefore
must nature ever be of a changing mood, whimsical
withal, though stable underneath, and varied in
accordance with the operating procedures of a local
universe.
4:2.4
Nature is the perfection of Paradise divided by the
incompletion, evil, and sin of the unfinished universes.
This quotient is thus expressive of both the perfect and
the partial, of both the eternal and the temporal.
Continuing evolution modifies nature by augmenting the
content of Paradise perfection and by diminishing the
content of the evil, error, and disharmony of relative
reality.
4:2.5
God is not personally present in nature or in any of the
forces of nature, for the phenomenon of nature is the
superimposition of the imperfections of progressive
evolution and, sometimes, the consequences of
insurrectionary rebellion, upon the Paradise foundations
of God's universal law. As it appears on such a world as
Urantia, nature can never be the adequate expression,
the true representation, the faithful portrayal, of an
all-wise and infinite God.
4:2.6
Nature, on your world, is a qualification of the laws of
perfection by the evolutionary plans of the local
universe. What a travesty to worship nature because it
is in a limited, qualified sense pervaded by God;
because it is a phase of the universal and, therefore,
divine power! Nature also is a manifestation of the
unfinished, the incomplete, the imperfect outworkings of
the development, growth, and progress of a universe
experiment in cosmic evolution.
4:2.7
The apparent defects of the natural world are not
indicative of any such corresponding defects in the
character of God. Rather are such observed imperfections
merely the inevitable stop-moments in the exhibition of
the ever-moving reel of infinity picturization. It is
these very defect-interruptions of perfection-continuity
which make it possible for the finite mind of material
man to catch a fleeting glimpse of divine reality in
time and space. The material manifestations of divinity
appear defective to the evolutionary mind of man only
because mortal man persists in viewing the phenomena of
nature through natural eyes, human vision unaided by
morontia mota or by revelation, its compensatory
substitute on the worlds of time.
4:2.8
And nature is marred, her beautiful face is scarred, her
features are seared, by the rebellion, the misconduct,
the misthinking of the myriads of creatures who are a
part of nature, but who have contributed to her
disfigurement in time. No, nature is not God. Nature is
not an object of worship.
3. GOD'S UNCHANGING CHARACTER
4:3.1
All too long has man thought of God as one like himself.
God is not, never was, and never will be jealous of man
or any other being in the universe of universes. Knowing
that the Creator Son intended man to be the masterpiece
of the planetary creation, to be the ruler of all the
earth, the sight of his being dominated by his own baser
passions, the spectacle of his bowing down before idols
of wood, stone, gold, and selfish ambition -- these
sordid scenes stir God and his Sons to be jealous for
man, but never of him.
4:3.2
The eternal God is incapable of wrath and anger in the
sense of these human emotions and as man understands
such reactions. These sentiments are mean and
despicable; they are hardly worthy of being called
human, much less divine; and such attitudes are utterly
foreign to the perfect nature and gracious character of
the Universal Father.
4:3.3
Much, very much, of the difficulty which Urantia mortals
have in understanding God is due to the far-reaching
consequences of the Lucifer rebellion and the Caligastia
betrayal. On worlds not segregated by sin, the
evolutionary races are able to formulate far better
ideas of the Universal Father; they suffer less from
confusion, distortion, and perversion of concept.
4:3.4
God repents of nothing he has ever done, now does, or
ever will do. He is all-wise as well as all-powerful.
Man's wisdom grows out of the trials and errors of human
experience; God's wisdom consists in the unqualified
perfection of his infinite universe insight, and this
divine foreknowledge effectively directs the creative
free will.
4:3.5
The Universal Father never does anything that causes
subsequent sorrow or regret, but the will creatures of
the planning and making of his Creator personalities in
the outlying universes, by their unfortunate choosing,
sometimes occasion emotions of divine sorrow in the
personalities of their Creator parents. But though the
Father neither makes mistakes, harbors regrets, nor
experiences sorrows, he is a being with a father's
affection, and his heart is undoubtedly grieved when his
children fail to attain the spiritual levels they are
capable of reaching with the assistance which has been
so freely provided by the spiritual-attainment plans and
the mortal-ascension policies of the universes.
4:3.6
The infinite goodness of the Father is beyond the
comprehension of the finite mind of time; hence must
there always be afforded a contrast with comparative
evil (not sin) for the effective exhibition of all
phases of relative goodness. Perfection of divine
goodness can be discerned by mortal imperfection of
insight only because it stands in contrastive
association with relative imperfection in the
relationships of time and matter in the motions of
space.
4:3.7
The character of God is infinitely superhuman; therefore
must such a nature of divinity be personalized, as in
the divine Sons, before it can even be faith-grasped by
the finite mind of man.
4. THE REALIZATION OF GOD
4:4.1
God is the only stationary, self-contained, and
changeless being in the whole universe of universes,
having no outside, no beyond, no past, and no future.
God is purposive energy (creative spirit) and absolute
will, and these are self-existent and universal.
4:4.2
Since God is self-existent, he is absolutely
independent. The very identity of God is inimical to
change. "I, the Lord, change not." God is immutable; but
not until you achieve Paradise status can you even begin
to understand how God can pass from simplicity to
complexity, from identity to variation, from quiescence
to motion, from infinity to finitude, from the divine to
the human, and from unity to duality and triunity. And
God can thus modify the manifestations of his
absoluteness because divine immutability does not imply
immobility; God has will -- he
is will.
4:4.3
God is the being of absolute self-determination; there
are no limits to his universe reactions save those which
are self-imposed, and his freewill acts are conditioned
only by those divine qualities and perfect attributes
which inherently characterize his eternal nature.
Therefore is God related to the universe as the being of
final goodness plus a free will of creative infinity.
4:4.4
The Father-Absolute is the creator of the central and
perfect universe and the Father of all other Creators.
Personality, goodness, and numerous other
characteristics, God shares with man and other beings,
but infinity of will is his alone. God is limited in his
creative acts only by the sentiments of his eternal
nature and by the dictates of his infinite wisdom. God
personally chooses only that which is infinitely
perfect, hence the supernal perfection of the central
universe; and while the Creator Sons fully share his
divinity, even phases of his absoluteness, they are not
altogether limited by that finality of wisdom which
directs the Father's infinity of will. Hence, in the
Michael order of sonship, creative free will becomes
even more active, wholly divine and well-nigh ultimate,
if not absolute. The Father is infinite and eternal, but
to deny the possibility of his volitional
self-limitation amounts to a denial of this very concept
of his volitional absoluteness.
4:4.5
God's absoluteness pervades all seven levels of universe
reality. And the whole of this absolute nature is
subject to the relationship of the Creator to his
universe creature family. Precision may characterize
trinitarian justice in the universe of universes, but in
all his vast family relationship with the creatures of
time the God of universes is governed by
divine sentiment.
First and last -- eternally -- the infinite God is a
Father. Of
all the possible titles by which he might appropriately
be known, I have been instructed to portray the God of
all creation as the Universal Father.
4:4.6
In God the Father freewill performances are not ruled by
power, nor are they guided by intellect alone; the
divine personality is defined as consisting in spirit
and manifesting himself to the universes as love.
Therefore, in all his personal relations with the
creature personalities of the universes, the First
Source and Center is always and consistently a loving
Father. God is a Father in the highest sense of the
term. He is eternally motivated by the perfect idealism
of divine love, and that tender nature finds its
strongest expression and greatest satisfaction in loving
and being loved.
4:4.7
In science, God is the First Cause; in religion, the
universal and loving Father; in philosophy, the one
being who exists by himself, not dependent on any other
being for existence but beneficently conferring reality
of existence on all things and upon all other beings.
But it requires revelation to show that the First Cause
of science and the self-existent Unity of philosophy are
the God of religion, full of mercy and goodness and
pledged to effect the eternal survival of his children
on earth.
4:4.8
We crave the concept of the Infinite, but we worship the
experience-idea of God, our anywhere and any-time
capacity to grasp the personality and divinity factors
of our highest concept of Deity.
4:4.9
The consciousness of a victorious human life on earth is
born of that creature faith which dares to challenge
each recurring episode of existence when confronted with
the awful spectacle of human limitations, by the
unfailing declaration: Even if I cannot do this, there
lives in me one who can and will do it, a part of the
Father-Absolute of the universe of universes. And that
is "the victory which overcomes the world, even your
faith."
5. ERRONEOUS IDEAS OF GOD
4:5.1
Religious tradition is the imperfectly preserved record
of the experiences of the God-knowing men of past ages,
but such records are untrustworthy as guides for
religious living or as the source of true information
about the Universal Father. Such ancient beliefs have
been invariably altered by the fact that primitive man
was a mythmaker.
4:5.2
One of the greatest sources of confusion on Urantia
concerning the nature of God grows out of the failure of
your sacred books clearly to distinguish between the
personalities of the Paradise Trinity and between
Paradise Deity and the local universe creators and
administrators. During the past dispensations of partial
understanding, your priests and prophets failed clearly
to differentiate between Planetary Princes, System
Sovereigns, Constellation Fathers, Creator Sons,
Superuniverse Rulers, the Supreme Being, and the
Universal Father. Many of the messages of subordinate
personalities, such as Life Carriers and various orders
of angels, have been, in your records, presented as
coming from God himself. Urantian religious thought
still confuses the associate personalities of Deity with
the Universal Father himself, so that all are included
under one appellation.
4:5.3
The people of Urantia continue to suffer from the
influence of primitive concepts of God. The gods who go
on a rampage in the storm; who shake the earth in their
wrath and strike down men in their anger; who inflict
their judgments of displeasure in times of famine and
flood -- these are the gods of primitive religion; they
are not the Gods who live and rule the universes. Such
concepts are a relic of the times when men supposed that
the universe was under the guidance and domination of
the whims of such imaginary gods. But mortal man is
beginning to realize that he lives in a realm of
comparative law and order as far as concerns the
administrative policies and conduct of the Supreme
Creators and the Supreme Controllers.
4:5.4
The barbarous idea of appeasing an angry God, of
propitiating an offended Lord, of winning the favor of
Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by the
shedding of blood, represents a religion wholly puerile
and primitive, a philosophy unworthy of an enlightened
age of science and truth. Such beliefs are utterly
repulsive to the celestial beings and the divine rulers
who serve and reign in the universes. It is an affront
to God to believe, hold, or teach that innocent blood
must be shed in order to win his favor or to divert the
fictitious divine wrath.
4:5.5
The Hebrews believed that "without the shedding of blood
there could be no remission of sin." They had not found
deliverance from the old and pagan idea that the Gods
could not be appeased except by the sight of blood,
though Moses did make a distinct advance when he forbade
human sacrifices and substituted therefor, in the
primitive minds of his childlike Bedouin followers, the
ceremonial sacrifice of animals.
4:5.6
The bestowal of a Paradise Son on your world was
inherent in the situation of closing a planetary age; it
was inescapable, and it was not made necessary for the
purpose of winning the favor of God. This bestowal also
happened to be the final personal act of a Creator Son
in the long adventure of earning the experiential
sovereignty of his universe. What a travesty upon the
infinite character of God! this teaching that his
fatherly heart in all its austere coldness and hardness
was so untouched by the misfortunes and sorrows of his
creatures that his tender mercies were not forthcoming
until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon
the cross of Calvary!
4:5.7
But the inhabitants of Urantia are to find deliverance
from these ancient errors and pagan superstitions
respecting the nature of the Universal Father. The
revelation of the truth about God is appearing, and the
human race is destined to know the Universal Father in
all that beauty of character and loveliness of
attributes so magnificently portrayed by the Creator Son
who sojourned on Urantia as the Son of Man and the Son
of God.
4:5.8
Presented by a Divine Counselor of Uversa.
*
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