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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 104
GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
104:0.1
THE Trinity concept of revealed religion must not be
confused with the triad beliefs of evolutionary
religions. The ideas of triads arose from many
suggestive relationships but chiefly because of the
three joints of the fingers, because three legs were the
fewest which could stabilize a stool, because three
support points could keep up a tent; furthermore,
primitive man, for a long time, could not count beyond
three.
104:0.2
Aside from certain natural couplets, such as past and
present, day and night, hot and cold, and male and
female, man generally tends to think in triads:
yesterday, today, and tomorrow; sunrise, noon, and
sunset; father, mother, and child. Three cheers are
given the victor. The dead are buried on the third day,
and the ghost is placated by three ablutions of water.
104:0.3
As a consequence of these natural associations in human
experience, the triad made its appearance in religion,
and this long before the Paradise Trinity of Deities, or
even any of their representatives, had been revealed to
mankind. Later on, the Persians, Hindus, Greeks,
Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans, and Scandinavians all
had triad gods, but these were still not true trinities.
Triad deities all had a natural origin and have appeared
at one time or another among most of the intelligent
peoples of Urantia. Sometimes the concept of an
evolutionary triad has become mixed with that of a
revealed Trinity; in these instances it is often
impossible to distinguish one from the other.
1. URANTIAN TRINITY CONCEPTS
104:1.1
The first Urantian revelation leading to the
comprehension of the Paradise Trinity was made by the
staff of Prince Caligastia about one-half million years
ago. This earliest Trinity concept was lost to the world
in the unsettled times following the planetary
rebellion.
104:1.2
The second presentation of the Trinity was made by Adam
and Eve in the first and second gardens. These teachings
had not been wholly obliterated even in the times of
Machiventa Melchizedek about thirty-five thousand years
later, for the Trinity concept of the Sethites persisted
in both Mesopotamia and Egypt but more especially in
India, where it was long perpetuated in Agni, the Vedic
three-headed fire god.
104:1.3
The third presentation of the Trinity was made by
Machiventa Melchizedek, and this doctrine was symbolized
by the three concentric circles which the sage of Salem
wore on his breast plate. But Machiventa found it very
difficult to teach the Palestinian Bedouins about the
Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite
Spirit. Most of his disciples thought that the Trinity
consisted of the three Most Highs of Norlatiadek; a few
conceived of the Trinity as the System Sovereign, the
Constellation Father, and the local universe Creator
Deity; still fewer even remotely grasped the idea of the
Paradise association of the Father, Son, and Spirit.
104:1.4
Through the activities of the Salem missionaries the
Melchizedek teachings of the Trinity gradually spread
throughout much of Eurasia and northern Africa. It is
often difficult to distinguish between the triads and
the trinities in the later Andite and the
post-Melchizedek ages, when both concepts to a certain
extent intermingled and coalesced.
104:1.5
Among the Hindus the trinitarian concept took root as
Being, Intelligence, and Joy. (A later Indian conception
was Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu.) While the earlier Trinity
portrayals were brought to India by the Sethite priests,
the later ideas of the Trinity were imported by the
Salem missionaries and were developed by the native
intellects of India through a compounding of these
doctrines with the evolutionary triad conceptions.
104:1.6
The Buddhist faith developed two doctrines of a
trinitarian nature: The earlier was Teacher, Law, and
Brotherhood; that was the presentation made by Gautama
Siddhartha. The later idea, developing among the
northern branch of the followers of Buddha, embraced
Supreme Lord, Holy Spirit, and Incarnate Savior.
104:1.7
And these ideas of the Hindus and Buddhists were real
trinitarian postulates, that is, the idea of a threefold
manifestation of a monotheistic God. A true trinity
conception is not just a grouping together of three
separate gods.
104:1.8
The Hebrews knew about the Trinity from the Kenite
traditions of the days of Melchizedek, but their
monotheistic zeal for the one God, Yahweh, so eclipsed
all such teachings that by the time of Jesus' appearance
the Elohim doctrine had been practically eradicated from
Jewish theology. The Hebrew mind could not reconcile the
trinitarian concept with the monotheistic belief in the
One Lord, the God of Israel.
104:1.9
The followers of the Islamic faith likewise failed to
grasp the idea of the Trinity. It is always difficult
for an emerging monotheism to tolerate trinitarianism
when confronted by polytheism. The trinity idea takes
best hold of those religions which have a firm
monotheistic tradition coupled with doctrinal
elasticity. The great monotheists, the Hebrews and
Mohammedans, found it difficult to distinguish between
worshiping three gods, polytheism, and trinitarianism,
the worship of one Deity existing in a triune
manifestation of divinity and personality.
104:1.10
Jesus taught his apostles the truth regarding the
persons of the Paradise Trinity, but they thought he
spoke figuratively and symbolically. Having been
nurtured in Hebraic monotheism, they found it difficult
to entertain any belief that seemed to conflict with
their dominating concept of Yahweh. And the early
Christians inherited the Hebraic prejudice against the
Trinity concept.
104:1.11
The first Trinity of Christianity was proclaimed at
Antioch and consisted of God, his Word, and his Wisdom.
Paul knew of the Paradise Trinity of Father, Son, and
Spirit, but he seldom preached about it and made mention
thereof in only a few of his letters to the newly
forming churches. Even then, as did his fellow apostles,
Paul confused Jesus, the Creator Son of the local
universe, with the Second Person of Deity, the Eternal
Son of Paradise.
104:1.12
The Christian concept of the Trinity, which began to
gain recognition near the close of the first century
after Christ, was comprised of the Universal Father, the
Creator Son of Nebadon, and the Divine Minister of
Salvington -- Mother Spirit of the local universe and
creative consort of the Creator Son.
104:1.13
Not since the times of Jesus has the factual identity of
the Paradise Trinity been known on Urantia (except by a
few individuals to whom it was especially revealed)
until its presentation in these revelatory disclosures.
But though the Christian concept of the Trinity erred in
fact, it was practically true with respect to spiritual
relationships. Only in its philosophic implications and
cosmological consequences did this concept suffer
embarrassment: It has been difficult for many who are
cosmic minded to believe that the Second Person of
Deity, the second member of an infinite Trinity, once
dwelt on Urantia; and while in spirit this is true, in
actuality it is not a fact. The Michael Creators fully
embody the divinity of the Eternal Son, but they are not
the absolute personality.
2. TRINITY UNITY AND DEITY PLURALITY
104:2.1
Monotheism arose as a philosophic protest against the
inconsistency of polytheism. It developed first through
pantheon organizations with the departmentalization of
supernatural activities, then through the henotheistic
exaltation of one god above the many, and finally
through the exclusion of all but the One God of final
value.
104:2.2
Trinitarianism grows out of the experiential protest
against the impossibility of conceiving the oneness of a
deanthropomorphized solitary Deity of unrelated universe
significance. Given a sufficient time, philosophy tends
to abstract the personal qualities from the Deity
concept of pure monotheism, thus reducing this idea of
an unrelated God to the status of a pantheistic
Absolute. It has always been difficult to understand the
personal nature of a God who has no personal
relationships in equality with other and co-ordinate
personal beings. Personality in Deity demands that such
Deity exist in relation to other and equal personal
Deity.
104:2.3
Through the recognition of the Trinity concept the mind
of man can hope to grasp something of the
interrelationship of love and law in the time-space
creations. Through spiritual faith man gains insight
into the love of God but soon discovers that this
spiritual faith has no influence on the ordained laws of
the material universe. Irrespective of the firmness of
man's belief in God as his Paradise Father, expanding
cosmic horizons demand that he also give recognition to
the reality of Paradise Deity as universal law, that he
recognize the Trinity sovereignty extending outward from
Paradise and overshadowing even the evolving local
universes of the Creator Sons and Creative Daughters of
the three eternal persons whose deity union is the fact
and reality and eternal indivisibility of the Paradise
Trinity.
104:2.4
And this selfsame Paradise Trinity is a real entity --
not a personality but nonetheless a true and absolute
reality; not a personality but nonetheless compatible
with coexistent personalities -- the personalities of
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Trinity is a
supersummative Deity reality eventuating out of the
conjoining of the three Paradise Deities. The qualities,
characteristics, and functions of the Trinity are not
the simple sum of the attributes of the three Paradise
Deities; Trinity functions are something unique,
original, and not wholly predictable from an analysis of
the attributes of Father, Son, and Spirit.
104:2.5
For example: The Master, when on earth, admonished his
followers that justice is never a
personal act;
it is always a
group function. Neither do the Gods, as persons,
administer justice. But they perform this very function
as a collective whole, as the Paradise Trinity.
104:2.6
The conceptual grasp of the Trinity association of
Father, Son, and Spirit prepares the human mind for the
further presentation of certain other threefold
relationships. Theological reason may be fully satisfied
by the concept of the Paradise Trinity, but
philosophical and cosmological reason demand the
recognition of the other triune associations of the
First Source and Center, those triunities in which the
Infinite functions in various non-Father capacities of
universal manifestation -- the relationships of the God
of force, energy, power, causation, reaction,
potentiality, actuality, gravity, tension, pattern,
principle, and unity.
3. TRINITIES AND TRIUNITIES
104:3.1
While mankind has sometimes grasped at an understanding
of the Trinity of the three persons of Deity,
consistency demands that the human intellect perceive
that there are certain relationships between all seven
Absolutes. But all that which is true of the Paradise
Trinity is not necessarily true of a
triunity, for
a triunity is something other than a trinity. In certain
functional aspects a triunity may be analogous to a
trinity, but it is never homologous in nature with a
trinity.
104:3.2
Mortal man is passing through a great age of expanding
horizons and enlarging concepts on Urantia, and his
cosmic philosophy must accelerate in evolution to keep
pace with the expansion of the intellectual arena of
human thought. As the cosmic consciousness of mortal man
expands, he perceives the interrelatedness of all that
he finds in his material science, intellectual
philosophy, and spiritual insight. Still, with all this
belief in the unity of the cosmos, man perceives the
diversity of all existence. In spite of all concepts
concerning the immutability of Deity, man perceives that
he lives in a universe of constant change and
experiential growth. Regardless of the realization of
the survival of spiritual values, man has ever to reckon
with the mathematics and premathematics of force,
energy, and power.
104:3.3
In some manner the eternal repleteness of infinity must
be reconciled with the time-growth of the evolving
universes and with the incompleteness of the
experiential inhabitants thereof. In some way the
conception of total infinitude must be so segmented and
qualified that the mortal intellect and the morontia
soul can grasp this concept of final value and
spiritualizing significance.
104:3.4
While reason demands a monotheistic unity of cosmic
reality, finite experience requires the postulate of
plural Absolutes and of their co-ordination in cosmic
relationships. Without co-ordinate existences there is
no possibility for the appearance of diversity of
absolute relationships, no chance for the operation of
differentials, variables, modifiers, attenuators,
qualifiers, or diminishers.
104:3.5
In these papers total reality (infinity) has been
presented as it exists in the seven Absolutes:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Eternal Son.
3. The Infinite Spirit.
4. The Isle of Paradise.
5. The Deity Absolute.
6. The Universal Absolute.
7. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:3.6
The First Source and Center, who is Father to the
Eternal Son, is also Pattern to the Paradise Isle. He is
personality unqualified in the Son but personality
potentialized in the Deity Absolute. The Father is
energy revealed in Paradise-Havona and at the same time
energy concealed in the Unqualified Absolute. The
Infinite is ever disclosed in the ceaseless acts of the
Conjoint Actor while he is eternally functioning in the
compensating but enshrouded activities of the Universal
Absolute. Thus is the Father related to the six
co-ordinate Absolutes, and thus do all seven encompass
the circle of infinity throughout the endless cycles of
eternity.
104:3.7
It would seem that triunity of absolute relationships is
inevitable. Personality seeks other personality
association on absolute as well as on all other levels.
And the association of the three Paradise personalities
eternalizes the first triunity, the personality union of
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. For when these
three persons, as
persons, conjoin for united function, they thereby
constitute a triunity of functional unity, not a trinity
-- an organic entity -- but nonetheless a triunity, a
threefold functional aggregate unanimity.
104:3.8
The Paradise Trinity is not a triunity; it is not a
functional unanimity; rather is it undivided and
indivisible Deity. The Father, Son, and Spirit (as
persons) can sustain a relationship to the Paradise
Trinity, for the Trinity is their undivided Deity. The
Father, Son, and Spirit sustain no such personal
relationship to the first triunity, for that is their
functional union as three persons. Only as the Trinity
-- as undivided Deity -- do they collectively sustain an
external relationship to the triunity of their personal
aggregation.
104:3.9
Thus does the Paradise Trinity stand unique among
absolute relationships; there are several existential
triunities but only one existential Trinity. A triunity
is not an entity. It is functional rather than organic.
Its members are partners rather than corporative. The
components of the triunities may be entities, but a
triunity itself is an association.
104:3.10
There is, however, one point of comparison between
trinity and triunity: Both eventuate in functions that
are something other than the discernible sum of the
attributes of the component members. But while they are
thus comparable from a functional standpoint, they
otherwise exhibit no categorical relationship. They are
roughly related as the relation of function to
structure. But the function of the triunity association
is not the function of the trinity structure or entity.
104:3.11
The triunities are nonetheless real; they are very real.
In them is total reality functionalized, and through
them does the Universal Father exercise immediate and
personal control over the master functions of infinity.
4. THE SEVEN TRIUNITIES
104:4.1
In attempting the description of seven triunities,
attention is directed to the fact that the Universal
Father is the primal member of each. He is, was, and
ever will be: the First Universal Father-Source,
Absolute Center, Primal Cause, Universal Controller,
Limitless Energizer, Original Unity, Unqualified
Upholder, First Person of Deity, Primal Cosmic Pattern,
and Essence of Infinity. The Universal Father is the
personal cause of the Absolutes; he is the absolute of
Absolutes.
104:4.2
The nature and meaning of the seven triunities may be
suggested as:
104:4.3
The First
Triunity -- the personal-purposive triunity. This is
the grouping of the three Deity personalities:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Eternal Son.
3. The Infinite Spirit.
104:4.4
This is the threefold union of love, mercy, and ministry
-- the purposive and personal association of the three
eternal Paradise personalities. This is the divinely
fraternal, creature-loving, fatherly-acting, and
ascension-promoting association. The divine
personalities of this first triunity are
personality-bequeathing, spirit-bestowing, and
mind-endowing Gods.
104:4.5
This is the triunity of infinite volition; it acts
throughout the eternal present and in all of the
past-present-future flow of time. This association
yields volitional infinity and provides the mechanisms
whereby personal Deity becomes self-revelatory to the
creatures of the evolving cosmos.
104:4.6
The Second
Triunity -- the power-pattern triunity. Whether it
be a tiny ultimaton, a blazing star, or a whirling
nebula, even the central or superuniverses, from the
smallest to the largest material organizations, always
is the physical pattern -- the cosmic configuration --
derived from the function of this triunity. This
association consists of:
1. The Father-Son.
2. The Paradise Isle.
3. The Conjoint Actor.
104:4.7
Energy is organized by the cosmic agents of the Third
Source and Center; energy is fashioned after the pattern
of Paradise, the absolute materialization; but behind
all of this ceaseless manipulation is the presence of
the Father-Son, whose union first activated the Paradise
pattern in the appearance of Havona concomitant with the
birth of the Infinite Spirit, the Conjoint Actor.
104:4.8
In religious experience, creatures make contact with the
God who is love, but such spiritual insight must never
eclipse the intelligent recognition of the universe fact
of the pattern which is Paradise. The Paradise
personalities enlist the freewill adoration of all
creatures by the compelling power of divine love and
lead all such spirit-born personalities into the
supernal delights of the unending service of the
finaliter sons of God. The second triunity is the
architect of the space stage whereon these transactions
unfold; it determines the patterns of cosmic
configuration.
104:4.9
Love may characterize the divinity of the first
triunity, but pattern is the galactic manifestation of
the second triunity. What the first triunity is to
evolving personalities, the second triunity is to the
evolving universes. Pattern and personality are two of
the great manifestations of the acts of the First Source
and Center; and no matter how difficult it may be to
comprehend, it is nonetheless true that the
power-pattern and the loving person are one and the same
universal reality; the Paradise Isle and the Eternal Son
are co-ordinate but antipodal revelations of the
unfathomable nature of the Universal Father-Force.
104:4.10
The Third
Triunity -- the spirit-evolutional triunity. The
entirety of spiritual manifestation has its beginning
and end in this association, consisting of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Son-Spirit.
3. The Deity Absolute.
104:4.11
From spirit potency to Paradise spirit, all spirit finds
reality expression in this triune association of the
pure spirit essence of the Father, the active spirit
values of the Son-Spirit, and the unlimited spirit
potentials of the Deity Absolute. The existential values
of spirit have their primordial genesis, complete
manifestation, and final destiny in this triunity.
104:4.12
The Father exists before spirit; the Son-Spirit
functions as active creative spirit; the Deity Absolute
exists as all-encompassing spirit, even beyond spirit.
104:4.13
The Fourth
Triunity -- the triunity of energy infinity. Within
this triunity there eternalizes the beginnings and the
endings of all energy reality, from space potency to
monota. This grouping embraces the following:
1. The Father-Spirit.
2. The Paradise Isle.
3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:4.14
Paradise is the center of the force-energy activation of
the cosmos -- the universe position of the First Source
and Center, the cosmic focal point of the Unqualified
Absolute, and the source of all energy. Existentially
present within this triunity is the energy potential of
the cosmos-infinite, of which the grand universe and the
master universe are only partial manifestations.
104:4.15
The fourth triunity absolutely controls the fundamental
units of cosmic energy and releases them from the grasp
of the Unqualified Absolute in direct proportion to the
appearance in the experiential Deities of subabsolute
capacity to control and stabilize the metamorphosing
cosmos.
104:4.16
This triunity is
force and energy. The endless possibilities of the
Unqualified Absolute are centered around the absolutum
of the Isle of Paradise, whence emanate the unimaginable
agitations of the otherwise static quiescence of the
Unqualified. And the endless throbbing of the material
Paradise heart of the infinite cosmos beats in harmony
with the unfathomable pattern and the unsearchable plan
of the Infinite Energizer, the First Source and Center.
104:4.17
The Fifth Triunity -- the triunity of reactive infinity.
This association consists of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Universal Absolute.
3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:4.18
This grouping yields the eternalization of the
functional infinity realization of all that is
actualizable within the domains of nondeity reality.
This triunity manifests unlimited reactive capacity to
the volitional, causative, tensional, and patternal
actions and presences of the other triunities.
104:4.19
The Sixth Triunity -- the triunity of cosmic-associated
Deity. This grouping consists of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Deity Absolute.
3. The Universal Absolute.
104:4.20
This is the association of Deity-in-the-cosmos, the
immanence of Deity in conjunction with the transcendence
of Deity. This is the last outreach of divinity on the
levels of infinity toward those realities which lie
outside the domain of deified reality.
104:4.21
The Seventh
Triunity -- the triunity of infinite unity. This is
the unity of infinity functionally manifest in time and
eternity, the co-ordinate unification of actuals and
potentials. This group consists of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Conjoint Actor.
3. The Universal Absolute.
104:4.22
The Conjoint Actor universally integrates the varying
functional aspects of all actualized reality on all
levels of manifestation, from finites through
transcendentals and on to absolutes. The Universal
Absolute perfectly compensates the differentials
inherent in the varying aspects of all incomplete
reality, from the limitless potentialities of
active-volitional and causative Deity reality to the
boundless possibilities of static, reactive, nondeity
reality in the incomprehensible domains of the
Unqualified Absolute.
104:4.23
As they function in this triunity, the Conjoint Actor
and the Universal Absolute are alike responsive to Deity
and to nondeity presences, as also is the First Source
and Center, who in this relationship is to all intents
and purposes conceptually indistinguishable from the I
AM.
104:4.24
These approximations are sufficient to elucidate the
concept of the triunities. Not knowing the ultimate
level of the triunities, you cannot fully comprehend the
first seven. While we do not deem it wise to attempt any
further elaboration, we may state that there are fifteen
triune associations of the First Source and Center,
eight of which are unrevealed in these papers. These
unrevealed associations are concerned with realities,
actualities, and potentialities which are beyond the
experiential level of supremacy.
104:4.25
The triunities are the functional balance wheel of
infinity, the unification of the uniqueness of the Seven
Infinity Absolutes. It is the existential presence of
the triunities that enables the Father-I AM to
experience functional infinity unity despite the
diversification of infinity into seven Absolutes. The
First Source and Center is the unifying member of all
triunities; in him all things have their unqualified
beginnings, eternal existences, and infinite destinies
-- "in him all things consist."
104:4.26
Although these associations cannot augment the infinity
of the Father-I AM, they do appear to make possible the
subinfinite and subabsolute manifestations of his
reality. The seven triunities multiply versatility,
eternalize new depths, deitize new values, disclose new
potentialities, reveal new meanings; and all these
diversified manifestations in time and space and in the
eternal cosmos are existent in the hypothetical stasis
of the original infinity of the I AM.
5. TRIODITIES
104:5.1
There are certain other triune relationships which are
non-Father in constitution, but they are not real
triunities, and they are always distinguished from the
Father triunities. They are called variously, associate
triunities, co-ordinate triunities, and
triodities.
They are consequential to the existence of the
triunities. Two of these associations are constituted as
follows:
104:5.2
The Triodity of
Actuality. This triodity consists in the
interrelationship of the three absolute actuals:
1. The Eternal Son.
2. The Paradise Isle.
3. The Conjoint Actor.
104:5.3
The Eternal Son is the absolute of spirit reality, the
absolute personality. The Paradise Isle is the absolute
of cosmic reality, the absolute pattern. The Conjoint
Actor is the absolute of mind reality, the co-ordinate
of absolute spirit reality, and the existential Deity
synthesis of personality and power. This triune
association eventuates the co-ordination of the sum
total of actualized reality -- spirit, cosmic, or
mindal. It is unqualified in actuality.
104:5.4
The Triodity of
Potentiality. This triodity consists in the
association of the three Absolutes of potentiality:
1. The Deity Absolute.
2. The Universal Absolute.
3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:5.5
Thus are interassociated the infinity reservoirs of all
latent energy reality -- spirit, mindal, or cosmic. This
association yields the integration of all latent energy
reality. It is infinite in potential.
104:5.6
As the triunities are primarily concerned with the
functional unification of infinity, so are triodities
involved in the cosmic appearance of experiential
Deities. The triunities are indirectly concerned, but
the triodities are directly concerned, in the
experiential Deities -- Supreme, Ultimate, and Absolute.
They appear in the emerging power-personality synthesis
of the Supreme Being. And to the time creatures of space
the Supreme Being is a revelation of the unity of the I
AM.
104:5.7
Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
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