The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 7
RELATION OF THE ETERNAL SON TO THE UNIVERSE
7:0.1
THE Original Son is ever concerned with the execution of
the spiritual aspects of the Father's eternal purpose as
it progressively unfolds in the phenomena of the
evolving universes with their manifold groups of living
beings. We do not fully comprehend this eternal plan,
but the Paradise Son undoubtedly does.
7:0.2
The Son is like the Father in that he seeks to bestow
everything possible of himself upon his co-ordinate Sons
and upon their subordinate Sons. And the Son shares the
Father's self-distributive nature in the unstinted
bestowal of himself upon the Infinite Spirit, their
conjoint executive.
7:0.3
As the upholder of spirit realities, the Second Source
and Center is the eternal counterpoise of the Isle of
Paradise, which so magnificently upholds all things
material. Thus is the First Source and Center forever
revealed in the material beauty of the exquisite
patterns of the central Isle and in the spiritual values
of the supernal personality of the Eternal Son.
7:0.4
The Eternal Son is the actual upholder of the vast
creation of spirit realities and spiritual beings. The
spirit world is the habit, the personal conduct, of the
Son, and the impersonal realities of spirit nature are
always responsive to the will and purpose of the perfect
personality of the Absolute Son.
7:0.5
The Son is not, however, personally responsible for the
conduct of all spirit personalities. The will of the
personal creature is relatively free and hence
determines the actions of such volitional beings.
Therefore the freewill spirit world is not always truly
representative of the character of the Eternal Son, even
as nature on Urantia is not truly revelatory of the
perfection and immutability of Paradise and Deity. But
no matter what may characterize the freewill action of
man or angel, the Son's eternal grasp of the universal
gravity control of all spirit realities continues as
absolute.
1. THE SPIRIT-GRAVITY CIRCUIT
7:1.1
Everything taught concerning the immanence of God, his
omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, is equally
true of the Son in the spiritual domains. The pure and
universal spirit gravity of all creation, this
exclusively spiritual circuit, leads directly back to
the person of the Second Source and Center on Paradise.
He presides over the control and operation of that
ever-present and unerring spiritual grasp of all true
spirit values. Thus does the Eternal Son exercise
absolute spiritual sovereignty. He literally holds all
spirit realities and all spiritualized values, as it
were, in the hollow of his hand. The control of
universal spiritual gravity
is universal
spiritual sovereignty.
7:1.2
This gravity control of spiritual things operates
independently of time and space; therefore is spirit
energy undiminished in transmission. Spirit gravity
never suffers time delays, nor does it undergo space
diminution. It does not decrease in accordance with the
square of the distance of its transmission; the circuits
of pure spirit power are not retarded by the mass of the
material creation. And this transcendence of time and
space by pure spirit energies is inherent in the
absoluteness of the Son; it is not due to the
interposition of the antigravity forces of the Third
Source and Center.
7:1.3
Spirit realities respond to the drawing power of the
center of spiritual gravity in accordance with their
qualitative value, their actual degree of spirit nature.
Spirit substance (quality) is just as responsive to
spirit gravity as the organized energy of physical
matter (quantity) is responsive to physical gravity.
Spiritual values and spirit forces are
real. From
the viewpoint of personality, spirit is the soul of
creation; matter is the shadowy physical body.
7:1.4
The reactions and fluctuations of spirit gravity are
ever true to the content of spiritual values, the
qualitative spiritual status of an individual or a
world. This drawing power is instantly responsive to the
inter- and intraspirit values of any universe situation
or planetary condition. Every time a spiritual reality
actualizes in the universes, this change necessitates
the immediate and instantaneous readjustment of spirit
gravity. Such a new spirit is actually a part of the
Second Source and Center; and just as certainly as
mortal man becomes a spiritized being, he will attain
the spiritual Son, the center and source of spirit
gravity.
7:1.5
The Son's spiritual drawing power is inherent to a
lesser degree in many Paradise orders of sonship. For
there do exist within the absolute spirit-gravity
circuit those local systems of spiritual attraction that
function in the lesser units of creation. Such
subabsolute focalizations of spirit gravity are a part
of the divinity of the Creator personalities of time and
space and are correlated with the emerging experiential
overcontrol of the Supreme Being.
7:1.6
Spirit-gravity pull and response thereto operate not
only on the universe as a whole but also even between
individuals and groups of individuals. There is a
spiritual cohesiveness among the spiritual and
spiritized personalities of any world, race, nation, or
believing group of individuals. There is a direct
attractiveness of a spirit nature between spiritually
minded persons of like tastes and longings. The term
kindred spirits
is not wholly a figure of speech.
7:1.7
Like the material gravity of Paradise, the spiritual
gravity of the Eternal Son is absolute. Sin and
rebellion may interfere with the operation of local
universe circuits, but nothing can suspend the spirit
gravity of the Eternal Son. The Lucifer rebellion
produced many changes in your system of inhabited worlds
and on Urantia, but we do not observe that the resultant
spiritual quarantine of your planet in the least
affected the presence and function of either the
omnipresent spirit of the Eternal Son or the associated
spirit-gravity circuit.
7:1.8
All reactions of the spirit-gravity circuit of the grand
universe are predictable. We recognize all actions and
reactions of the omnipresent spirit of the Eternal Son
and find them to be dependable. In accordance with
well-known laws, we can and do measure spiritual gravity
just as man attempts to compute the workings of finite
physical gravity. There is an unvarying response of the
Son's spirit to all spirit things, beings, and persons,
and this response is always in accordance with the
degree of actuality (the qualitative degree of reality)
of all such spiritual values.
7:1.9
But alongside this very dependable and predictable
function of the spiritual presence of the Eternal Son,
there are encountered phenomena which are not so
predictable in their reactions. Such phenomena probably
indicate the co-ordinate action of the Deity Absolute in
the realms of emerging spiritual potentials. We know
that the spirit presence of the Eternal Son is the
influence of a majestic and infinite personality, but we
hardly regard the reactions associated with the
conjectured performances of the Deity Absolute as
personal.
7:1.10
Viewed from the personality standpoint and by persons,
the Eternal Son and the Deity Absolute appear to be
related in the following way: The Eternal Son dominates
the realm of actual spiritual values, whereas the Deity
Absolute seems to pervade the vast domain of potential
spirit values. All actual value of spirit nature finds
lodgment in the gravity grasp of the Eternal Son but, if
potential, then apparently in the presence of the Deity
Absolute.
7:1.11
Spirit seems to emerge from the potentials of the Deity
Absolute; evolving spirit finds correlation in the
experiential and incomplete grasps of the Supreme and
the Ultimate; spirit eventually finds final destiny in
the absolute grasp of the spiritual gravity of the
Eternal Son. This appears to be the cycle of
experiential spirit, but existential spirit is inherent
in the infinity of the Second Source and Center.
2. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ETERNAL SON
7:2.1
On Paradise the presence and personal activity of the
Original Son is profound, absolute in the spiritual
sense. As we pass outward from Paradise through Havona
and into the realms of the seven superuniverses, we
detect less and less of the personal activity of the
Eternal Son. In the post-Havona universes the presence
of the Eternal Son is personalized in the Paradise Sons,
conditioned by the experiential realities of the Supreme
and the Ultimate, and co-ordinated with the unlimited
spirit potential of the Deity Absolute.
7:2.2
In the central universe the personal activity of the
Original Son is discernible in the exquisite spiritual
harmony of the eternal creation. Havona is so
marvelously perfect that the spiritual status and the
energy states of this pattern universe are in perfect
and perpetual balance.
7:2.3
In the superuniverses the Son is not personally present
or resident; in these creations he maintains only a
superpersonal representation. These spirit
manifestations of the Son are not personal; they are not
in the personality circuit of the Universal Father. We
know of no better term to use than to designate them
superpersonalities; and they are finite beings; they
are neither absonite nor absolute.
7:2.4
The administration of the Eternal Son in the
superuniverses, being exclusively spiritual and
superpersonal, is not discernible by creature
personalities. Nonetheless, the all-pervading spiritual
urge of the Son's personal influence is encountered in
every phase of the activities of all sectors of the
domains of the Ancients of Days. In the local universes,
however, we observe the Eternal Son personally present
in the persons of the Paradise Sons. Here the infinite
Son spiritually and creatively functions in the persons
of the majestic corps of the co-ordinate Creator Sons.
3. RELATION OF THE ETERNAL SON TO THE INDIVIDUAL
7:3.1
In the local universe ascent the mortals of time look to
the Creator Son as the personal representative of the
Eternal Son. But when they begin the ascent of the
superuniverse training regime, the pilgrims of time
increasingly detect the supernal presence of the
inspiring spirit of the Eternal Son, and they are able
to profit by the intake of this ministry of spiritual
energization. In Havona the ascenders become still more
conscious of the loving embrace of the all-pervading
spirit of the Original Son. At no stage of the entire
mortal ascension does the spirit of the Eternal Son
indwell the mind or soul of the pilgrim of time, but his
beneficence is ever near and always concerned with the
welfare and spiritual security of the advancing children
of time.
7:3.2
The spiritual-gravity pull of the Eternal Son
constitutes the inherent secret of the Paradise
ascension of surviving human souls. All genuine spirit
values and all bona fide spiritualized individuals are
held within the unfailing grasp of the spiritual gravity
of the Eternal Son. The mortal mind, for example,
initiates its career as a material mechanism and is
eventually mustered into the Corps of the Finality as a
well-nigh perfected spirit existence, becoming
progressively less subject to material gravity and
correspondingly more responsive to the inward pulling
urge of spirit gravity during this entire experience.
The spirit-gravity circuit literally pulls the soul of
man Paradiseward.
7:3.3
The spirit-gravity circuit is the basic channel for
transmitting the genuine prayers of the believing human
heart from the level of human consciousness to the
actual consciousness of Deity. That which represents
true spiritual value in your petitions will be seized by
the universal circuit of spirit gravity and will pass
immediately and simultaneously to all divine
personalities concerned. Each will occupy himself with
that which belongs to his personal province. Therefore,
in your practical religious experience, it is immaterial
whether, in addressing your supplications, you visualize
the Creator Son of your local universe or the Eternal
Son at the center of all things.
7:3.4
The discriminative operation of the spirit-gravity
circuit might possibly be compared to the functions of
the neural circuits in the material human body:
Sensations travel inward over the neural paths; some are
detained and responded to by the lower automatic spinal
centers; others pass on to the less automatic but
habit-trained centers of the lower brain, while the most
important and vital incoming messages flash by these
subordinate centers and are immediately registered in
the highest levels of human consciousness.
7:3.5
But how much more perfect is the superb technique of the
spiritual world! If anything originates in your
consciousness that is fraught with supreme spiritual
value, when once you give it expression, no power in the
universe can prevent its flashing directly to the
Absolute Spirit Personality of all creation.
7:3.6
Conversely, if your supplications are purely material
and wholly self-centered, there exists no plan whereby
such unworthy prayers can find lodgment in the spirit
circuit of the Eternal Son. The content of any petition
which is not "spirit indited" can find no place in the
universal spiritual circuit; such purely selfish and
material requests fall dead; they do not ascend in the
circuits of true spirit values. Such words are as
"sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."
7:3.7
It is the motivating thought, the spiritual content,
that validates the mortal supplication. Words are
valueless.
4. THE DIVINE PERFECTION PLANS
7:4.1
The Eternal Son is in everlasting liaison with the
Father in the successful prosecution of the
divine plan of
progress: the universal plan for the creation,
evolution, ascension, and perfection of will creatures.
And, in divine faithfulness, the Son is the eternal
equal of the Father.
7:4.2
The Father and his Son are as one in the formulation and
prosecution of this gigantic attainment plan for
advancing the material beings of time to the perfection
of eternity. This project for the spiritual elevation of
the ascendant souls of space is a joint creation of the
Father and the Son, and they are, with the co-operation
of the Infinite Spirit, engaged in associative execution
of their divine purpose.
7:4.3
This divine plan of perfection attainment embraces three
unique, though marvelously correlated, enterprises of
universal adventure:
7:4.4
1. The Plan of
Progressive Attainment. This is the Universal
Father's plan of evolutionary ascension, a program
unreservedly accepted by the Eternal Son when he
concurred in the Father's proposal, "Let us make mortal
creatures in our own image." This provision for
upstepping the creatures of time involves the Father's
bestowal of the Thought Adjusters and the endowing of
material creatures with the prerogatives of personality.
7:4.5
2. The Bestowal
Plan. The next universal plan is the great
Father-revelation enterprise of the Eternal Son and his
co-ordinate Sons. This is the proposal of the Eternal
Son and consists of his bestowal of the Sons of God upon
the evolutionary creations, there to personalize and
factualize, to incarnate and make real, the love of the
Father and the mercy of the Son to the creatures of all
universes. Inherent in the bestowal plan, and as a
provisional feature of this ministration of love, the
Paradise Sons act as rehabilitators of that which
misguided creature will has placed in spiritual
jeopardy. Whenever and wherever there occurs a delay in
the functioning of the attainment plan, if rebellion,
perchance, should mar or complicate this enterprise,
then do the emergency provisions of the bestowal plan
become active forthwith. The Paradise Sons stand pledged
and ready to function as retrievers, to go into the very
realms of rebellion and there restore the spiritual
status of the spheres. And such a heroic service a
co-ordinate Creator Son did perform on Urantia in
connection with his experiential bestowal career of
sovereignty acquirement.
7:4.6
3. The Plan of
Mercy Ministry. When the attainment plan and the
bestowal plan had been formulated and proclaimed, alone
and of himself, the Infinite Spirit projected and put in
operation the tremendous and universal enterprise of
mercy ministry. This is the service so essential to the
practical and effective operation of both the attainment
and the bestowal undertakings, and the spiritual
personalities of the Third Source and Center all partake
of the spirit of mercy ministry which is so much a part
of the nature of the Third Person of Deity. Not only in
creation but also in administration, the Infinite Spirit
functions truly and literally as the conjoint executive
of the Father and the Son.
7:4.7
The Eternal Son is the personal trustee, the divine
custodian, of the Father's universal plan of creature
ascension. Having promulgated the universal mandate, "Be
you perfect, even as I am perfect," the Father intrusted
the execution of this tremendous undertaking to the
Eternal Son; and the Eternal Son shares the fostering of
this supernal enterprise with his divine co-ordinate,
the Infinite Spirit. Thus do the Deities effectively
co-operate in the work of creation, control, evolution,
revelation, and ministration -- and if required, in
restoration and rehabilitation.
5. THE SPIRIT OF BESTOWAL
7:5.1
The Eternal Son without reservation joined with the
Universal Father in broadcasting that tremendous
injunction to all creation: "Be you perfect, even as
your Father in Havona is perfect." And ever since, that
invitation-command has motivated all the survival plans
and the bestowal projects of the Eternal Son and his
vast family of co-ordinate and associated Sons. And in
these very bestowals the Sons of God have become to all
evolutionary creatures "the way, the truth, and the
life."
7:5.2
The Eternal Son cannot contact directly with human
beings as does the Father through the gift of the
prepersonal Thought Adjusters, but the Eternal Son does
draw near to created personalities by a series of
downstepping gradations of divine sonship until he is
enabled to stand in man's presence and, at times, as man
himself.
7:5.3
The purely personal nature of the Eternal Son is
incapable of fragmentation. The Eternal Son ministers as
a spiritual influence or as a person, never otherwise.
The Son finds it impossible to become a part of creature
experience in the sense that the Father-Adjuster
participates therein, but the Eternal Son compensates
this limitation by the technique of bestowal. What the
experience of fragmented entities means to the Universal
Father, the incarnation experiences of the Paradise Sons
mean to the Eternal Son.
7:5.4
The Eternal Son comes not to mortal man as the divine
will, the Thought Adjuster indwelling the human mind,
but the Eternal Son did come to mortal man on Urantia
when the divine
personality of his Son, Michael of Nebadon,
incarnated in the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth. To
share the experience of created personalities, the
Paradise Sons of God must assume the very natures of
such creatures and incarnate their divine personalities
as the actual creatures themselves. Incarnation, the
secret of Sonarington, is the technique of the Son's
escape from the otherwise all-encompassing fetters of
personality absolutism.
7:5.5
Long, long ago the Eternal Son bestowed himself upon
each of the circuits of the central creation for the
enlightenment and advancement of all the inhabitants and
pilgrims of Havona, including the ascending pilgrims of
time. On none of these seven bestowals did he function
as either an ascender or a Havoner. He existed as
himself. His experience was unique; it was not
with or
as a human or
other pilgrim but in some way associative in the
superpersonal sense.
7:5.6
Neither did he pass through the rest that intervenes
between the inner Havona circuit and the shores of
Paradise. It is not possible for him, an absolute being,
to suspend consciousness of personality, for in him
center all lines of spiritual gravity. And during the
times of these bestowals the central Paradise lodgment
of spiritual luminosity was undimmed, and the Son's
grasp of universal spirit gravity was undiminished.
7:5.7
The bestowals of the Eternal Son in Havona are not
within the scope of human imagination; they were
transcendental. He added to the experience of all Havona
then and subsequently, but we do not know whether he
added to the supposed experiential capacity of his
existential nature. That would fall within the bestowal
mystery of the Paradise Sons. We do, however, believe
that whatever the Eternal Son acquired on these bestowal
missions, he has ever since retained; but we do not know
what it is.
7:5.8
Whatever our difficulty in comprehending the bestowals
of the Second Person of Deity, we do comprehend the
Havona bestowal of a Son of the Eternal Son, who
literally passed through the circuits of the central
universe and actually shared those experiences which
constitute an ascender's preparation for Deity
attainment. This was the original Michael, the
first-born Creator Son, and he passed through the life
experiences of the ascending pilgrims from circuit to
circuit, personally journeying a stage of each circle
with them in the days of Grandfanda, the first of all
mortals to attain Havona.
7:5.9
Whatever else this original Michael revealed, he made
the transcendent bestowal of the Original Mother Son
real to the creatures of Havona. So real, that
forevermore each pilgrim of time who labors in the
adventure of making the Havona circuits is cheered and
strengthened by the certain knowledge that the Eternal
Son of God seven times abdicated the power and glory of
Paradise to participate in the experiences of the
time-space pilgrims on the seven circuits of progressive
Havona attainment.
7:5.10
The Eternal Son is the exemplary inspiration for all the
Sons of God in their ministrations of bestowal
throughout the universes of time and space. The
co-ordinate Creator Sons and the associate Magisterial
Sons, together with other unrevealed orders of sonship,
all partake of this wonderful willingness to bestow
themselves upon the varied orders of creature life and
as the creatures themselves. Therefore, in spirit and
because of kinship of nature as well as fact of origin,
it becomes true that in the bestowal of each Son of God
upon the worlds of space, in and through and by these
bestowals, the Eternal Son has bestowed himself upon the
intelligent will creatures of the universes.
7:5.11
In spirit and nature, if not in all attributes, each
Paradise Son is a divinely perfect portraiture of the
Original Son. It is literally true, whosoever has seen a
Paradise Son has seen the Eternal Son of God.
6. THE PARADISE SONS OF GOD
7:6.1
The lack of a knowledge of the multiple Sons of God is a
source of great confusion on Urantia. And this ignorance
persists in the face of such statements as the record of
a conclave of these divine personalities: "When the Sons
of God proclaimed joy, and all of the Morning Stars sang
together." Every millennium of sector standard time the
various orders of the divine Sons forgather for their
periodic conclaves.
7:6.2
The Eternal Son is the personal source of the adorable
attributes of mercy and service which so abundantly
characterize all orders of the descending Sons of God as
they function throughout creation. All the divine
nature, if not all the infinity of attributes, the
Eternal Son unfailingly transmits to the Paradise Sons
who go out from the eternal Isle to reveal his divine
character to the universe of universes.
7:6.3
The Original and Eternal Son is the offspring-person of
the "first" completed and infinite thought of the
Universal Father. Every time the Universal Father and
the Eternal Son jointly project a new, original,
identical, unique, and absolute personal thought, that
very instant this creative idea is perfectly and finally
personalized in the being and personality of a new and
original Creator
Son. In spirit nature, divine wisdom, and
co-ordinate creative power, these Creator Sons are
potentially equal with God the Father and God the Son.
7:6.4
The Creator Sons go out from Paradise into the universes
of time and, with the co-operation of the controlling
and creative agencies of the Third Source and Center,
complete the organization of the local universes of
progressive evolution. These Sons are not attached to,
nor are they concerned with, the central and universal
controls of matter, mind, and spirit. Hence are they
limited in their creative acts by the pre-existence,
priority, and primacy of the First Source and Center and
his co-ordinate Absolutes. These Sons are able to
administer only that which they bring into existence.
Absolute administration is inherent in priority of
existence and is inseparable from eternity of presence.
The Father remains primal in the universes.
7:6.5
Much as the Creator Sons are personalized by the Father
and the Son, so are the
Magisterial Sons
personalized by the Son and the Spirit. These are the
Sons who, in the experiences of creature incarnation,
earn the right to serve as the judges of survival in the
creations of time and space.
7:6.6
The Father, Son, and Spirit also unite to personalize
the versatile
Trinity Teacher Sons, who range the grand universe
as the supernal teachers of all personalities, human and
divine. And there are numerous other orders of Paradise
sonship that have not been brought to the attention of
Urantia mortals.
7:6.7
Between the Original Mother Son and these hosts of
Paradise Sons scattered throughout all creation, there
is a direct and exclusive channel of communication, a
channel whose function is inherent in the quality of
spiritual kinship which unites them in bonds of
near-absolute spiritual association. This intersonship
circuit is entirely different from the universal circuit
of spirit gravity, which also centers in the person of
the Second Source and Center. All Sons of God who take
origin in the persons of the Paradise Deities are in
direct and constant communication with the Eternal
Mother Son. And such communication is instantaneous; it
is independent of time though sometimes conditioned by
space.
7:6.8
The Eternal Son not only has at all times perfect
knowledge concerning the status, thoughts, and manifold
activities of all orders of Paradise sonship, but he
also has perfection of knowledge at all times regarding
everything of spiritual value which exists in the hearts
of all creatures in the primary central creation of
eternity and in the secondary time creations of the
co-ordinate Creator Sons.
7. THE SUPREME REVELATION OF THE FATHER
7:7.1
The Eternal Son is a complete, exclusive, universal, and
final revelation of the spirit and the personality of
the Universal Father. All knowledge of, and information
concerning, the Father must come from the Eternal Son
and his Paradise Sons. The Eternal Son is from eternity
and is wholly and without spiritual qualification one
with the Father. In divine personality they are
co-ordinate; in spiritual nature they are equal; in
divinity they are identical.
7:7.2
The character of God could not possibly be intrinsically
improved upon in the person of the Son, for the divine
Father is infinitely perfect, but that character and
personality are amplified, by divestment of the
nonpersonal and nonspiritual, for revelation to creature
beings. The First Source and Center is much more than a
personality, but all of the spirit qualities of the
father personality of the First Source and Center are
spiritually present in the absolute personality of the
Eternal Son.
7:7.3
The primal Son and his Sons are engaged in making a
universal revelation of the spiritual and personal
nature of the Father to all creation. In the central
universe, the superuniverses, the local universes, or on
the inhabited planets, it is a Paradise Son who reveals
the Universal Father to men and angels. The Eternal Son
and his Sons reveal the avenue of creature approach to
the Universal Father. And even we of high origin
understand the Father much more fully as we study the
revelation of his character and personality in the
Eternal Son and in the Sons of the Eternal Son.
7:7.4
The Father comes down to you as a personality only
through the divine Sons of the Eternal Son. And you
attain the Father by this same living way; you ascend to
the Father by the guidance of this group of divine Sons.
And this remains true notwithstanding that your very
personality is a direct bestowal of the Universal
Father.
7:7.5
In all these widespread activities of the far-flung
spiritual administration of the Eternal Son, do not
forget that the Son is a person just as truly and
actually as the Father is a person. Indeed, to beings of
the onetime human order the Eternal Son will be more
easy to approach than the Universal Father. In the
progress of the pilgrims of time through the circuits of
Havona, you will be competent to attain the Son long
before you are prepared to discern the Father.
7:7.6
More of the character and merciful nature of the Eternal
Son of mercy you should comprehend as you meditate on
the revelation of these divine attributes which was made
in loving service by your own Creator Son, onetime Son
of Man on earth, now the exalted sovereign of your local
universe -- the Son of Man and the Son of God.
7:7.7
Indited by a Divine Counselor assigned to formulate this
statement depicting the Eternal Son of Paradise.
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