|
The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 118
SUPREME AND ULTIMATE -- TIME AND SPACE
118:0.1
CONCERNING the several natures of Deity, it may be said:
118:0.2
1. The Father is self-existent self.
118:0.3
2. The Son is coexistent self.
118:0.4
3. The Spirit is conjoint-existent self.
118:0.5
4. The Supreme is evolutionary-experiential self.
118:0.6
5. The Sevenfold is self-distributive divinity.
118:0.7
6. The Ultimate is transcendental-experiential self.
118:0.8
7. The Absolute is existential-experiential self.
118:0.9
While God the Sevenfold is indispensable to the
evolutionary attainment of the Supreme, the Supreme is
also indispensable to the eventual emergence of the
Ultimate. And the dual presence of the Supreme and the
Ultimate constitutes the basic association of
subabsolute and derived Deity, for they are
interdependently complemental in the attainment of
destiny. Together they constitute the experiential
bridge linking the beginnings and the completions of all
creative growth in the master universe.
118:0.10
Creative growth is unending but ever satisfying, endless
in extent but always punctuated by those
personality-satisfying moments of transient goal
attainment which serve so effectively as the
mobilization preludes to new adventures in cosmic
growth, universe exploration, and Deity attainment.
118:0.11
While the domain of mathematics is beset with
qualitative limitations, it does provide the finite mind
with a conceptual basis of contemplating infinity. There
is no quantitative limitation to numbers, even in the
comprehension of the finite mind. No matter how large
the number conceived, you can always envisage one more
being added. And also, you can comprehend that that is
short of infinity, for no matter how many times you
repeat this addition to number, still always one more
can be added.
118:0.12
At the same time, the infinite series can be totaled at
any given point, and this total (more properly, a
subtotal) provides the fullness of the sweetness of goal
attainment for a given person at a given time and
status. But sooner or later, this same person begins to
hunger and yearn for new and greater goals, and such
adventures in growth will be forever forthcoming in the
fullness of time and the cycles of eternity.
118:0.13
Each successive universe age is the antechamber of the
following era of cosmic growth, and each universe epoch
provides immediate destiny for all preceding stages.
Havona, in and of itself, is a perfect, but
perfection-limited, creation; Havona perfection,
expanding out into the evolutionary superuniverses,
finds not only cosmic destiny but also liberation from
the limitations of pre-evolutionary existence.
1. TIME AND ETERNITY
118:1.1
It is helpful to man's cosmic orientation to attain all
possible comprehension of Deity's relation to the
cosmos. While absolute Deity is eternal in nature, the
Gods are related to time as an experience in eternity.
In the evolutionary universes eternity is temporal
everlastingness -- the everlasting
now.
118:1.2
The personality of the mortal creature may eternalize by
self-identification with the indwelling spirit through
the technique of choosing to do the will of the Father.
Such a consecration of will is tantamount to the
realization of eternity-reality of purpose. This means
that the purpose of the creature has become fixed with
regard to the succession of moments; stated otherwise,
that the succession of moments will witness no change in
creature purpose. A million or a billion moments makes
no difference. Number has ceased to have meaning with
regard to the creature's purpose. Thus does creature
choice plus God's choice eventuate in the eternal
realities of the never-ending union of the spirit of God
and the nature of man in the everlasting service of the
children of God and of their Paradise Father.
118:1.3
There is a direct relationship between maturity and the
unit of time consciousness in any given intellect. The
time unit may be a day, a year, or a longer period, but
inevitably it is the criterion by which the conscious
self evaluates the circumstances of life, and by which
the conceiving intellect measures and evaluates the
facts of temporal existence.
118:1.4
Experience, wisdom, and judgment are the concomitants of
the lengthening of the time unit in mortal experience.
As the human mind reckons backward into the past, it is
evaluating past experience for the purpose of bringing
it to bear on a present situation. As mind reaches out
into the future, it is attempting to evaluate the future
significance of possible action. And having thus
reckoned with both experience and wisdom, the human will
exercises judgment-decision in the present, and the plan
of action thus born of the past and the future becomes
existent.
118:1.5
In the maturity of the developing self, the past and
future are brought together to illuminate the true
meaning of the present. As the self matures, it reaches
further and further back into the past for experience,
while its wisdom forecasts seek to penetrate deeper and
deeper into the unknown future. And as the conceiving
self extends this reach ever further into both past and
future, so does judgment become less and less dependent
on the momentary present. In this way does
decision-action begin to escape from the fetters of the
moving present, while it begins to take on the aspects
of past-future significance.
118:1.6
Patience is exercised by those mortals whose time units
are short; true maturity transcends patience by a
forbearance born of real understanding.
118:1.7
To become mature is to live more intensely in the
present, at the same time escaping from the limitations
of the present. The plans of maturity, founded on past
experience, are coming into being in the present in such
manner as to enhance the values of the future.
118:1.8
The time unit of immaturity concentrates meaning-value
into the present moment in such a way as to divorce the
present of its true relationship to the not-present --
the past-future. The time unit of maturity is
proportioned so to reveal the co-ordinate relationship
of past-present-future that the self begins to gain
insight into the wholeness of events, begins to view the
landscape of time from the panoramic perspective of
broadened horizons, begins perhaps to suspect the
nonbeginning, nonending eternal continuum, the fragments
of which are called time.
118:1.9
On the levels of the infinite and the absolute the
moment of the present contains all of the past as well
as all of the future. I AM signifies also I WAS and I
WILL BE. And this represents our best concept of
eternity and the eternal.
118:1.10
On the absolute and eternal level, potential reality is
just as meaningful as actual reality. Only on the finite
level and to time-bound creatures does there appear to
be such a vast difference. To God, as absolute, an
ascending mortal who has made the eternal decision is
already a Paradise finaliter. But the Universal Father,
through the indwelling Thought Adjuster, is not thus
limited in awareness but can also know of, and
participate in, every temporal struggle with the
problems of the creature ascent from animallike to
Godlike levels of existence.
2. OMNIPRESENCE AND UBIQUITY
118:2.1
The ubiquity of Deity must not be confused with the
ultimacy of the divine omnipresence. It is volitional
with the Universal Father that the Supreme, the
Ultimate, and the Absolute should compensate,
co-ordinate, and unify his time-space ubiquity and his
time-space-transcended omnipresence with his timeless
and spaceless universal and absolute presence. And you
should remember that, while Deity ubiquity may be so
often space associated, it is not necessarily time
conditioned.
118:2.2
As mortal and morontia ascenders you progressively
discern God through the ministry of God the Sevenfold.
Through Havona you discover God the Supreme. On Paradise
you find him as a person, and then as finaliters you
will presently attempt to know him as Ultimate. Being
finaliters, there would seem to be but one course to
pursue after having attained the Ultimate, and that
would be to begin the quest of the Absolute. No
finaliter will be disturbed by the uncertainties of the
attainment of the Deity Absolute since at the end of the
supreme and ultimate ascensions he encountered God the
Father. Such finaliters will no doubt believe that, even
if they should be successful in finding God the
Absolute, they would only be discovering the same God,
the Paradise Father manifesting himself on more nearly
infinite and universal levels. Undoubtedly the
attainment of God in absolute would reveal the Primal
Ancestor of universes as well as the Final Father of
personalities.
118:2.3
God the Supreme may not be a demonstration of the
time-space omnipresence of Deity, but he is literally a
manifestation of divine ubiquity. Between the spiritual
presence of the Creator and the material manifestations
of creation there exists a vast domain of the ubiquitous
becoming --
the universe emergence of evolutionary Deity.
118:2.4
If God the Supreme ever assumes direct control of the
universes of time and space, we are confident such a
Deity administration will function under the overcontrol
of the Ultimate. In such an event God the Ultimate would
begin to become manifest to the universes of time as the
transcendental Almighty (the Omnipotent) exercising the
overcontrol of supertime and transcended space
concerning the administrative functions of the Almighty
Supreme.
118:2.5
The mortal mind may ask, even as we do: If the evolution
of God the Supreme to administrative authority in the
grand universe is attended by augmented manifestations
of God the Ultimate, will a corresponding emergence of
God the Ultimate in the postulated universes of outer
space be attended by similar and enhanced revelations of
God the Absolute? But we really do not know.
3. TIME-SPACE RELATIONSHIPS
118:3.1
Only by ubiquity could Deity unify time-space
manifestations to the finite conception, for time is a
succession of instants while space is a system of
associated points. You do, after all, perceive time by
analysis and space by synthesis. You co-ordinate and
associate these two dissimilar conceptions by the
integrating insight of personality. Of all the animal
world only man possesses this time-space perceptibility.
To an animal, motion has a meaning, but motion exhibits
value only to a creature of personality status.
118:3.2
Things are time conditioned, but truth is timeless. The
more truth you know, the more truth you are, the more of
the past you can understand and of the future you can
comprehend.
118:3.3
Truth is inconcussible -- forever exempt from all
transient vicissitudes, albeit never dead and formal,
always vibrant and adaptable -- radiantly alive. But
when truth becomes linked with fact, then both time and
space condition its meanings and correlate its values.
Such realities of truth wedded to fact become concepts
and are accordingly relegated to the domain of relative
cosmic realities.
118:3.4
The linking of the absolute and eternal truth of the
Creator with the factual experience of the finite and
temporal creature eventuates a new and emerging value of
the Supreme. The concept of the Supreme is essential to
the co-ordination of the divine and unchanging overworld
with the finite and ever-changing underworld.
118:3.5
Space comes the nearest of all nonabsolute things to
being absolute. Space is apparently absolutely ultimate.
The real difficulty we have in understanding space on
the material level is due to the fact that, while
material bodies exist in space, space also exists in
these same material bodies. While there is much about
space that is absolute, that does not mean that space is
absolute.
118:3.6
It may help to an understanding of space relationships
if you would conjecture that, relatively speaking, space
is after all a property of all material bodies. Hence,
when a body moves through space, it also takes all its
properties with it, even the space which is in and of
such a moving body.
118:3.7
All patterns of reality occupy space on the material
levels, but spirit patterns only exist in relation to
space; they do not occupy or displace space, neither do
they contain it. But to us the master riddle of space
pertains to the pattern of an idea. When we enter the
mind domain, we encounter many a puzzle. Does the
pattern -- the reality -- of an idea occupy space? We
really do not know, albeit we are sure that an idea
pattern does not contain space. But it would hardly be
safe to postulate that the immaterial is always
nonspatial.
4. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CAUSATION
118:4.1
Many of the theologic difficulties and the metaphysical
dilemmas of mortal man are due to man's mislocation of
Deity personality and consequent assignment of infinite
and absolute attributes to subordinate Divinity and to
evolutionary Deity. You must not forget that, while
there is indeed a true First Cause, there are also a
host of co-ordinate and subordinate causes, both
associate and secondary causes.
118:4.2
The vital distinction between first causes and second
causes is that first causes produce original effects
which are free from inheritance of any factor derived
from any antecedent causation. Secondary causes yield
effects which invariably exhibit inheritance from other
and preceding causation.
118:4.3
The purely static potentials inherent in the Unqualified
Absolute are reactive to those causations of the Deity
Absolute which are produced by the actions of the
Paradise Trinity. In the presence of the Universal
Absolute these causative-impregnated static potentials
forthwith become active and responsive to the influence
of certain transcendental agencies whose actions result
in the transmutation of these activated potentials to
the status of true universe possibilities for
development, actualized capacities for growth. It is
upon such matured potentials that the creators and
controllers of the grand universe enact the never-ending
drama of cosmic evolution.
118:4.4
Causation, disregarding existentials, is threefold in
its basic constitution. As it operates in this universe
age and concerning the finite level of the seven
superuniverses, it may be conceived as follows:
118:4.5
1. Activation of
static potentials. The establishment of destiny in
the Universal Absolute by the actions of the Deity
Absolute, operating in and upon the Unqualified Absolute
and in consequence of the volitional mandates of the
Paradise Trinity.
118:4.6
2. Eventuation of
universe capacities. This involves the
transformation of undifferentiated potentials into
segregated and defined plans. This is the act of the
Ultimacy of Deity and of the manifold agencies of the
transcendental level. Such acts are in perfect
anticipation of the future needs of the entire master
universe. It is in connection with the segregation of
potentials that the Architects of the Master Universe
exist as the veritable embodiments of the Deity concept
of the universes. Their plans appear to be ultimately
space limited in extent by the concept periphery of the
master universe, but as
plans they
are not otherwise conditioned by time or space.
118:4.7
3. Creation and
evolution of universe actuals. It is upon a cosmos
impregnated by the capacity-producing presence of the
Ultimacy of Deity that the Supreme Creators operate to
effect the time transmutations of matured potentials
into experiential actuals. Within the master universe
all actualization of potential reality is limited by
ultimate capacity for development and is time-space
conditioned in the final stages of emergence. The
Creator Sons going out from Paradise are, in actuality,
transformative
creators in the cosmic sense. But this in no manner
invalidates man's concept of them as creators; from the
finite viewpoint they certainly can and do create.
5. OMNIPOTENCE AND COMPOSSIBILITY
118:5.1
The omnipotence of Deity does not imply the power to do
the nondoable. Within the time-space frame and from the
intellectual reference point of mortal comprehension,
even the infinite God cannot create square circles or
produce evil that is inherently good. God cannot do the
ungodlike thing. Such a contradiction of philosophic
terms is the equivalent of nonentity and implies that
nothing is thus created. A personality trait cannot at
the same time be Godlike and ungodlike. Compossibility
is innate in divine power. And all of this is derived
from the fact that omnipotence not only creates things
with a nature but also gives origin to the nature of all
things and beings.
118:5.2
In the beginning the Father does all, but as the
panorama of eternity unfolds in response to the will and
mandates of the Infinite, it becomes increasingly
apparent that creatures, even men, are to become God's
partners in the realization of finality of destiny. And
this is true even in the life in the flesh; when man and
God enter into partnership, no limitation can be placed
upon the future possibilities of such a partnership.
When man realizes that the Universal Father is his
partner in eternal progression, when he fuses with the
indwelling Father presence, he has, in spirit, broken
the fetters of time and has already entered upon the
progressions of eternity in the quest for the Universal
Father.
118:5.3
Mortal consciousness proceeds from the fact, to the
meaning, and then to the value. Creator consciousness
proceeds from the thought-value, through the
word-meaning, to the fact of action. Always must God act
to break the deadlock of the unqualified unity inherent
in existential infinity. Always must Deity provide the
pattern universe, the perfect personalities, the
original truth, beauty, and goodness for which all
subdeity creations strive. Always must God first find
man that man may later find God. Always must there be a
Universal Father before there can ever be universal
sonship and consequent universal brotherhood.
6. OMNIPOTENCE AND OMNIFICENCE
118:6.1
God is truly omnipotent, but he is not omnificent -- he
does not personally do all that is done. Omnipotence
embraces the power-potential of the Almighty Supreme and
the Supreme Being, but the volitional acts of God the
Supreme are not the personal doings of God the Infinite.
118:6.2
To advocate the omnificence of primal Deity would be
equal to disenfranchising well-nigh a million Creator
Sons of Paradise, not to mention the innumerable hosts
of various other orders of concurring creative
assistants. There is but one uncaused Cause in the whole
universe. All other causes are derivatives of this one
First Great Source and Center. And none of this
philosophy does any violence to the freewillness of the
myriads of the children of Deity scattered through a
vast universe.
118:6.3
Within a local frame, volition may appear to function as
an uncaused cause, but it unfailingly exhibits
inheritance factors which establish relationship with
the unique, original, and absolute First Causes.
118:6.4
All volition is relative. In the originating sense, only
the Father-I AM possesses finality of volition; in the
absolute sense, only the Father, the Son, and the Spirit
exhibit the prerogatives of volition unconditioned by
time and unlimited by space. Mortal man is endowed with
free will, the power of choice, and though such choosing
is not absolute, nevertheless, it is relatively final on
the finite level and concerning the destiny of the
choosing personality.
118:6.5
Volition on any level short of the absolute encounters
limitations which are constitutive in the very
personality exercising the power of choice. Man cannot
choose beyond the range of that which is choosable. He
cannot, for instance, choose to be other than a human
being except that he can elect to become more than a
man; he can choose to embark upon the voyage of universe
ascension, but this is because the human choice and the
divine will happen to be coincident upon this point. And
what a son desires and the Father wills will certainly
come to pass.
118:6.6
In the mortal life, paths of differential conduct are
continually opening and closing, and during the times
when choice is possible the human personality is
constantly deciding between these many courses of
action. Temporal volition is linked to time, and it must
await the passing of time to find opportunity for
expression. Spiritual volition has begun to taste
liberation from the fetters of time, having achieved
partial escape from time sequence, and that is because
spiritual volition is self-identifying with the will of
God.
118:6.7
Volition, the act of choosing, must function within the
universe frame which has actualized in response to
higher and prior choosing. The entire range of human
will is strictly finite-limited except in one
particular: When man chooses to find God and to be like
him, such a choice is superfinite; only eternity can
disclose whether this choice is also superabsonite.
118:6.8
To recognize Deity omnipotence is to enjoy security in
your experience of cosmic citizenship, to possess
assurance of safety in the long journey to Paradise. But
to accept the fallacy of omnificence is to embrace the
colossal error of Pantheism.
7. OMNISCIENCE AND PREDESTINATION
118:7.1
The function of Creator will and creature will, in the
grand universe, operates within the limits, and in
accordance with the possibilities, established by the
Master Architects. This foreordination of these maximum
limits does not, however, in the least abridge the
sovereignty of creature will within these boundaries.
Neither does ultimate foreknowledge -- full allowance
for all finite choice -- constitute an abrogation of
finite volition. A mature and farseeing human being
might be able to forecast the decision of some younger
associate most accurately, but this foreknowledge takes
nothing away from the freedom and genuineness of the
decision itself. The Gods have wisely limited the range
of the action of immature will, but it is true will,
nonetheless, within these defined limits.
118:7.2
Even the supreme correlation of all past, present, and
future choice does not invalidate the authenticity of
such choosings. It rather indicates the foreordained
trend of the cosmos and suggests foreknowledge of those
volitional beings who may, or may not, elect to become
contributory parts of the experiential actualization of
all reality.
118:7.3
Error in finite choosing is time bound and time limited.
It can exist only in time and
within the
evolving presence of the Supreme Being. Such mistaken
choosing is time possible and indicates (besides the
incompleteness of the Supreme) that certain range of
choice with which immature creatures must be endowed in
order to enjoy universe progression by making freewill
contact with reality.
118:7.4
Sin in time-conditioned space clearly proves the
temporal liberty -- even license -- of the finite will.
Sin depicts immaturity dazzled by the freedom of the
relatively sovereign will of personality while failing
to perceive the supreme obligations and duties of cosmic
citizenship.
118:7.5
Iniquity in the finite domains reveals the transient
reality of all God-unidentified selfhood. Only as a
creature becomes God identified, does he become truly
real in the universes. Finite personality is not
self-created, but in the superuniverse arena of choice
it does self-determine destiny.
118:7.6
The bestowal of life renders material-energy systems
capable of self-perpetuation, self-propagation, and
self-adaptation. The bestowal of personality imparts to
living organisms the further prerogatives of
self-determination, self-evolution, and
self-identification with a fusion spirit of Deity.
118:7.7
Subpersonal living things indicate mind activating
energy-matter, first as physical controllers, and then
as adjutant mind-spirits. Personality endowment comes
from the Father and imparts unique prerogatives of
choice to the living system. But if personality has the
prerogative of exercising volitional choice of reality
identification, and if this is a true and free choice,
then must evolving personality also have the possible
choice of becoming self-confusing, self-disrupting, and
self-destroying. The possibility of cosmic
self-destruction cannot be avoided if the evolving
personality is to be truly free in the exercise of
finite will.
118:7.8
Therefore is there increased safety in narrowing the
limits of personality choice throughout the lower levels
of existence. Choice becomes increasingly liberated as
the universes are ascended; choice eventually
approximates divine freedom when the ascending
personality achieves divinity of status, supremacy of
consecration to the purposes of the universe, completion
of cosmic-wisdom attainment, and finality of creature
identification with the will and the way of God.
8. CONTROL AND OVERCONTROL
118:8.1
In the time-space creations, free will is hedged about
with restraints, with limitations. Material-life
evolution is first mechanical, then mind activated, and
(after the bestowal of personality) it may become spirit
directed. Organic evolution on the inhabited worlds is
physically limited by the potentials of the original
physical-life implantations of the Life Carriers.
118:8.2
Mortal man is a machine, a living mechanism; his roots
are truly in the physical world of energy. Many human
reactions are mechanical in nature; much of life is
machinelike. But man, a mechanism, is much more than a
machine; he is mind endowed and spirit indwelt; and
though he can never throughout his material life escape
the chemical and electrical mechanics of his existence,
he can increasingly learn how to subordinate this
physical-life machine to the directive wisdom of
experience by the process of consecrating the human mind
to the execution of the spiritual urges of the
indwelling Thought Adjuster.
118:8.3
The spirit liberates, and the mechanism limits, the
function of will. Imperfect choice, uncontrolled by
mechanism, unidentified with spirit, is dangerous and
unstable. Mechanical dominance insures stability at the
expense of progress; spirit alliance liberates choice
from the physical level and at the same time assures the
divine stability produced by augmented universe insight
and increased cosmic comprehension.
118:8.4
The great danger that besets the creature is that, in
achieving liberation from the fetters of the life
mechanism, he will fail to compensate this loss of
stability by effecting a harmonious working liaison with
spirit. Creature choice, when relatively liberated from
mechanical stability, may attempt further
self-liberation independent of greater spirit
identification.
118:8.5
The whole principle of biologic evolution makes it
impossible for primitive man to appear on the inhabited
worlds with any large endowment of self-restraint.
Therefore does the same creative design which purposed
evolution likewise provide those external restraints of
time and space, hunger and fear, which effectively
circumscribe the subspiritual choice range of such
uncultured creatures. As man's mind successfully
overstrides increasingly difficult barriers, this same
creative design has also provided for the slow
accumulation of the racial heritage of painfully
garnered experiential wisdom -- in other words, for the
maintenance of a balance between the diminishing
external restraints and the augmenting internal
restraints.
118:8.6
The slowness of evolution, of human cultural progress,
testifies to the effectiveness of that brake -- material
inertia -- which so efficiently operates to retard
dangerous velocities of progress. Thus does time itself
cushion and distribute the otherwise lethal results of
premature escape from the next-encompassing barriers to
human action. For when culture advances overfast, when
material achievement outruns the evolution of
worship-wisdom, then does civilization contain within
itself the seeds of retrogression; and unless buttressed
by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such
human societies will recede from high but premature
levels of attainment, and the "dark ages" of the
interregnum of wisdom will bear witness to the
inexorable restoration of the imbalance between
self-liberty and self-control.
118:8.7
The iniquity of Caligastia was the by-passing of the
time governor of progressive human liberation -- the
gratuitous destruction of restraining barriers, barriers
which the mortal minds of those times had not
experientially overridden.
118:8.8
That mind which can effect a partial abridgment of time
and space, by this very act proves itself possessed of
the seeds of wisdom which can effectively serve in lieu
of the transcended barrier of restraint.
118:8.9
Lucifer similarly sought to disrupt the time governor
operating in restraint of the premature attainment of
certain liberties in the local system. A local system
settled in light and life has experientially achieved
those viewpoints and insights which make feasible the
operation of many techniques that would be disruptive
and destructive in the presettled eras of that very
realm.
118:8.10
As man shakes off the shackles of fear, as he bridges
continents and oceans with his machines, generations and
centuries with his records, he must substitute for each
transcended restraint a new and voluntarily assumed
restraint in accordance with the moral dictates of
expanding human wisdom. These self-imposed restraints
are at once the most powerful and the most tenuous of
all the factors of human civilization -- concepts of
justice and ideals of brotherhood. Man even qualifies
himself for the restraining garments of mercy when he
dares to love his fellow men, while he achieves the
beginnings of spiritual brotherhood when he elects to
mete out to them that treatment which he himself would
be accorded, even that treatment which he conceives that
God would accord them.
118:8.11
An automatic universe reaction is stable and, in some
form, continuing in the cosmos. A personality who knows
God and desires to do his will, who has spirit insight,
is divinely stable and eternally existent. Man's great
universe adventure consists in the transit of his mortal
mind from the stability of mechanical statics to the
divinity of spiritual dynamics, and he achieves this
transformation by the force and constancy of his own
personality decisions, in each of life's situations
declaring, "It is my will that your will be done."
9. UNIVERSE MECHANISMS
118:9.1
Time and space are a conjoined mechanism of the master
universe. They are the devices whereby finite creatures
are enabled to coexist in the cosmos with the Infinite.
Finite creatures are effectively insulated from the
absolute levels by time and space. But these insulating
media, without which no mortal could exist, operate
directly to limit the range of finite action. Without
them no creature could act, but by them the acts of
every creature are definitely limited.
118:9.2
Mechanisms produced by higher minds function to liberate
their creative sources but to some degree unvaryingly
limit the action of all subordinate intelligences. To
the creatures of the universes this limitation becomes
apparent as the mechanism of the universes. Man does not
have unfettered free will; there are limits to his range
of choice, but within the radius of this choice his will
is relatively sovereign.
118:9.3
The life mechanism of the mortal personality, the human
body, is the product of supermortal creative design;
therefore it can never be perfectly controlled by man
himself. Only when ascending man, in liaison with the
fused Adjuster, self-creates the mechanism for
personality expression, will he achieve perfected
control thereof.
118:9.4
The grand universe is mechanism as well as organism,
mechanical and living -- a living mechanism activated by
a Supreme Mind, co-ordinating with a Supreme Spirit, and
finding expression on maximum levels of power and
personality unification as the Supreme Being. But to
deny the mechanism of the finite creation is to deny
fact and to disregard reality.
118:9.5
Mechanisms are the products of mind, creative mind
acting on and in cosmic potentials. Mechanisms are the
fixed crystallizations of Creator thought, and they ever
function true to the volitional concept that gave them
origin. But the purposiveness of any mechanism is in its
origin, not in its function.
118:9.6
These mechanisms should not be thought of as limiting
the action of Deity; rather is it true that in these
very mechanics Deity has achieved one phase of eternal
expression. The basic universe mechanisms have come into
existence in response to the absolute will of the First
Source and Center, and they will therefore eternally
function in perfect harmony with the plan of the
Infinite; they are, indeed, the nonvolitional patterns
of that very plan.
118:9.7
We understand something of how the mechanism of Paradise
is correlated with the personality of the Eternal Son;
this is the function of the Conjoint Actor. And we have
theories regarding the operations of the Universal
Absolute with respect to the theoretical mechanisms of
the Unqualified and the potential person of the Deity
Absolute. But in the evolving Deities of Supreme and
Ultimate we observe that certain impersonal phases are
being actually united with their volitional
counterparts, and thus there is evolving a new
relationship between pattern and person.
118:9.8
In the eternity of the past the Father and the Son found
union in the unity of the expression of the Infinite
Spirit. If, in the eternity of the future, the Creator
Sons and the Creative Spirits of the local universes of
time and space should attain creative union in the
realms of outer space, what would their unity create as
the combined expression of their divine natures? It may
well be that we are to witness a hitherto unrevealed
manifestation of Ultimate Deity, a new type of
superadministrator. Such beings would embrace unique
prerogatives of personality, being the union of personal
Creator, impersonal Creative Spirit, mortal-creature
experience, and progressive personalization of the
Divine Minister. Such beings could be ultimate in that
they would embrace personal and impersonal reality,
while they would combine the experiences of Creator and
creature. Whatever the attributes of such third persons
of these postulated functioning trinities of the
creations of outer space, they will sustain something of
the same relation to their Creator Fathers and their
Creative Mothers that the Infinite Spirit does to the
Universal Father and the Eternal Son.
118:9.9
God the Supreme is the personalization of all universe
experience, the focalization of all finite evolution,
the maximation of all creature reality, the consummation
of cosmic wisdom, the embodiment of the harmonious
beauties of the galaxies of time, the truth of cosmic
mind meanings, and the goodness of supreme spirit
values. And God the Supreme will, in the eternal future,
synthesize these manifold finite diversities into one
experientially meaningful whole, even as they are now
existentially united on absolute levels in the Paradise
Trinity.
10. FUNCTIONS OF PROVIDENCE
118:10.1
Providence does not mean that God has decided all things
for us and in advance. God loves us too much to do that,
for that would be nothing short of cosmic tyranny. Man
does have relative powers of choice. Neither is the
divine love that shortsighted affection which would
pamper and spoil the children of men.
118:10.2
The Father, Son, and Spirit -- as the Trinity -- are not
the Almighty Supreme, but the supremacy of the Almighty
can never be manifest without them. The
growth of the
Almighty is centered on the Absolutes of actuality and
predicated on the Absolutes of potentiality. But the
functions of
the Almighty Supreme are related to the functions of the
Paradise Trinity.
118:10.3
It would appear that, in the Supreme Being, all phases
of universe activity are being partially reunited by the
personality of this experiential Deity. When, therefore,
we desire to view the Trinity as one God, and if we
limit this concept to the present known and organized
grand universe, we discover that the evolving Supreme
Being is the partial portraiture of the Paradise
Trinity. And we further find that this Supreme Deity is
evolving as the personality synthesis of finite matter,
mind, and spirit in the grand universe.
118:10.4
The Gods have attributes but the Trinity has functions,
and like the Trinity, providence is a function, the
composite of the other-than-personal overcontrol of the
universe of universes, extending from the evolutionary
levels of the Sevenfold synthesizing in the power of the
Almighty on up through the transcendental realms of the
Ultimacy of Deity.
118:10.5
God loves each creature as a child, and that love
overshadows each creature throughout all time and
eternity. Providence functions with regard to the total
and deals with the function of any creature as such
function is related to the total. Providential
intervention with regard to any being is indicative of
the importance of the
function of
that being as concerns the evolutionary growth of some
total; such total may be the total race, the total
nation, the total planet, or even a higher total. It is
the importance of the function of the creature that
occasions providential intervention, not the importance
of the creature as a person.
118:10.6
Nevertheless, the Father as a person may at any time
interpose a fatherly hand in the stream of cosmic events
all in accordance with the will of God and in consonance
with the wisdom of God and as motivated by the love of
God.
118:10.7
But what man calls providence is all too often the
product of his own imagination, the fortuitous
juxtaposition of the circumstances of chance. There is,
however, a real and emerging providence in the finite
realm of universe existence, a true and actualizing
correlation of the energies of space, the motions of
time, the thoughts of intellect, the ideals of
character, the desires of spiritual natures, and the
purposive volitional acts of evolving personalities. The
circumstances of the material realms find final finite
integration in the interlocking presences of the Supreme
and the Ultimate.
118:10.8
As the mechanisms of the grand universe are perfected to
a point of final precision through the overcontrol of
mind, and as creature mind ascends to the perfection of
divinity attainment through perfected integration with
spirit, and as the Supreme consequently emerges as an
actual
unifier of all these universe phenomena, so does
providence become increasingly discernible.
118:10.9
Some of the amazingly fortuitous conditions occasionally
prevailing on the evolutionary worlds may be due to the
gradually emerging presence of the Supreme, the
foretasting of his future universe activities. Most of
what a mortal would call providential is not; his
judgment of such matters is very handicapped by lack of
farsighted vision into the true meanings of the
circumstances of life. Much of what a mortal would call
good luck might really be bad luck; the smile of fortune
that bestows unearned leisure and undeserved wealth may
be the greatest of human afflictions; the apparent
cruelty of a perverse fate that heaps tribulation upon
some suffering mortal may in reality be the tempering
fire that is transmuting the soft iron of immature
personality into the tempered steel of real character.
118:10.10
There is a providence in the evolving universes, and it
can be discovered by creatures to just the extent that
they have attained capacity to perceive the purpose of
the evolving universes. Complete capacity to discern
universe purposes equals the evolutionary completion of
the creature and may otherwise be expressed as the
attainment of the Supreme within the limits of the
present state of the incomplete universes.
118:10.11
The love of the Father operates directly in the heart of
the individual, independent of the actions or reactions
of all other individuals; the relationship is personal
-- man and God. The impersonal presence of Deity
(Almighty Supreme and Paradise Trinity) manifests regard
for the whole, not for the part. The providence of the
overcontrol of Supremacy becomes increasingly apparent
as the successive parts of the universe progress in the
attainment of finite destinies. As the systems,
constellations, universes, and superuniverses become
settled in light and life, the Supreme increasingly
emerges as the meaningful correlator of all that is
transpiring, while the Ultimate gradually emerges as the
transcendental unifier of all things.
118:10.12
In the beginnings on an evolutionary world the natural
occurrences of the material order and the personal
desires of human beings often appear to be antagonistic.
Much that takes place on an evolving world is rather
hard for mortal man to understand -- natural law is so
often apparently cruel, heartless, and indifferent to
all that is true, beautiful, and good in human
comprehension. But as humanity progresses in planetary
development, we observe that this viewpoint is modified
by the following factors:
118:10.13
1. Man's
augmenting vision -- his increased understanding of
the world in which he lives; his enlarging capacity for
the comprehension of the material facts of time, the
meaningful ideas of thought, and the valuable ideals of
spiritual insight. As long as men measure only by the
yardstick of the things of a physical nature, they can
never hope to find unity in time and space.
118:10.14
2. Man's
increasing control -- the gradual accumulation of
the knowledge of the laws of the material world, the
purposes of spiritual existence, and the possibilities
of the philosophic co-ordination of these two realities.
Man, the savage, was helpless before the onslaughts of
natural forces, was slavish before the cruel mastery of
his own inner fears. Semicivilized man is beginning to
unlock the storehouse of the secrets of the natural
realms, and his science is slowly but effectively
destroying his superstitions while at the same time
providing a new and enlarged factual basis for the
comprehension of the meanings of philosophy and the
values of true spiritual experience. Man, the civilized,
will someday achieve relative mastery of the physical
forces of his planet; the love of God in his heart will
be effectively outpoured as love for his fellow men,
while the values of human existence will be nearing the
limits of mortal capacity.
118:10.15
3. Man's universe
integration -- the increase of human insight plus
the increase of human experiential achievement brings
him into closer harmony with the unifying presences of
Supremacy -- Paradise Trinity and Supreme Being. And
this is what establishes the sovereignty of the Supreme
on the worlds long settled in light and life. Such
advanced planets are indeed poems of harmony, pictures
of the beauty of achieved goodness attained through the
pursuit of cosmic truth. And if such things can happen
to a planet, then even greater things can happen to a
system and the larger units of the grand universe as
they too achieve a settledness indicating the exhaustion
of the potentials for finite growth.
118:10.16
On a planet of this advanced order, providence has
become an actuality, the circumstances of life are
correlated, but this is not only because man has come to
dominate the material problems of his world; it is also
because he has begun to live according to the trend of
the universes; he is following the pathway of Supremacy
to the attainment of the Universal Father.
118:10.17
The kingdom of God is in the hearts of men, and when
this kingdom becomes actual in the heart of every
individual on a world, then God's rule has become actual
on that planet; and this is the attained sovereignty of
the Supreme Being.
118:10.18
To realize providence in time, man must accomplish the
task of achieving perfection. But man can even now
foretaste this providence in its eternity meanings as he
ponders the universe fact that all things, be they good
or evil, work together for the advancement of
God-knowing mortals in their quest for the Father of
all.
118:10.19
Providence becomes increasingly discernible as men reach
upward from the material to the spiritual. The
attainment of completed spiritual insight enables the
ascending personality to detect harmony in what was
theretofore chaos. Even morontia mota represents a real
advance in this direction.
118:10.20
Providence is in part the overcontrol of the incomplete
Supreme manifested in the incomplete universes, and it
must therefore ever be:
1. Partial --
due to the incompleteness of the actualization of the
Supreme Being, and
2. Unpredictable
-- due to the fluctuations in creature attitude, which
ever varies from level to level, thus causing apparently
variable reciprocal response in the Supreme.
118:10.21
When men pray for providential intervention in the
circumstances of life, many times the answer to their
prayer is their own changed attitudes toward life. But
providence is not whimsical, neither is it fantastic nor
magical. It is the slow and sure emergence of the mighty
sovereign of the finite universes, whose majestic
presence the evolving creatures occasionally detect in
their universe progressions. Providence is the sure and
certain march of the galaxies of space and the
personalities of time toward the goals of eternity,
first in the Supreme, then in the Ultimate, and perhaps
in the Absolute. And in infinity we believe there is the
same providence, and this is the will, the actions, the
purpose of the Paradise Trinity thus motivating the
cosmic panorama of universes upon universes.
118:10.22
Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning
on Urantia.
*
|
.jpg)
