Urantia Book Paper 1 The Universal Father

Urantia Book Paper 1 The Universal Father
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART I: The Central and Super
Universes : The Universal Father The Nature Of God The Attributes Of God God's
Relation To The Universe God's Relation To The Individual The Eternal Son
Relation Of The Eternal Son To The Universe The Infinite Spirit Relation Of The
Infinite Spirit To The Universe The Paradise Trinity The Eternal Isle Of
Paradise The Universe Of Universes The Sacred Spheres Of Paradise The Central
And Divine Universe The Seven Superuniverses The Seven Master Spirits The Seven
Supreme Spirit Groups The Supreme Trinity Personalities The Co-ordinate
Trinity-origin Beings The Paradise Sons Of God The Paradise Creator Sons The
Trinitized Sons Of God The Solitary Messengers Higher Personalities Of The
Infinite Spirit The Messenger Hosts Of Space Ministering Spirits Of The Central
Universe Ministry Of The Primary Supernaphim Ministering Spirits Of The
Superuniverses The Universe Power Directors Personalities Of The Grand Universe
The Corps Of The Finality
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Paper 1 The Universal Father

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Introduction

THE Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of
all things and beings. First think of God as a creator, then as a controller,
and lastly as an infinite upholder. The truth about the Universal Father had
begun to dawn upon mankind when the prophet said: "You, God, are alone; there
is none beside you. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens, with
all their hosts; you preserve and control them. By the Sons of God were the
universes made. The Creator covers himself with light as with a garment and
stretches out the heavens as a curtain." Only the concept of the Universal
Father--one God in the place of many gods--enabled mortal man to comprehend the
Father as divine creator and infinite controller.

The myriads of planetary systems were all made to be eventually inhabited by
many different types of intelligent creatures, beings who could know God,
receive the divine affection, and love him in return. The universe of universes
is the work of God and the dwelling place of his diverse creatures. "God
created the heavens and formed the earth; he established the universe and
created this world not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited."

The enlightened worlds all recognize and worship the Universal Father, the
eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The will creatures of
universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the
fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The
transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to
comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father. God-knowing
creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that
is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise
perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy.
From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the
supreme mandate, "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect." In love and mercy the
messengers of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation down through the
ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly animal-origin creatures
as the human races of Urantia.

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This magnificent and universal injunction to strive for the attainment of the
perfection of divinity is the first duty, and should be the highest ambition,
of all the struggling creature creation of the God of perfection. This
possibility of the attainment of divine perfection is the final and certain
destiny of all man's eternal spiritual progress.

Urantia mortals can hardly hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is
entirely possible for human beings, starting out as they do on this planet, to
attain the supernal and divine goal which the infinite God has set for mortal
man; and when they do achieve this destiny, they will, in all that pertains to
self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete in their sphere of
divine perfection as God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity.
Such perfection may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in
intellectual grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and
complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality
motivation, and God-consciousness.

This is the true meaning of that divine command, "Be you perfect, even as I am
perfect," which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons him inward in that
long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and higher levels of
spiritual values and true universe meanings. This sublime search for the God of
universes is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the worlds of time
and space.

1. THE FATHER'S NAME

Of all the names by which God the Father is known throughout the universes,
those which designate him as the First Source and the Universe Center are most
often encountered. The First Father is known by various names in different
universes and in different sectors of the same universe. The names which the
creature assigns to the Creator are much dependent on the creature's concept of
the Creator. The First Source and Universe Center has never revealed himself by
name, only by nature. If we believe that we are the children of this Creator,
it is only natural that we should eventually call him Father. But this is the
name of our own choosing, and it grows out of the recognition of our personal
relationship with the First Source and Center.

The Universal Father never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal
worship, or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the
universes. The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space must of
themselves--in their own hearts--recognize, love, and voluntarily worship him.
The Creator refuses to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free
wills of his material creatures. The affectionate dedication of the human will
to the doing of the Father's will is man's choicest gift to God; in fact, such
a consecration of creature will constitutes man's only possible gift of true
value to the Paradise Father. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being;
there is nothing which man can give to God except this choosing to abide by the
Father's will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures
of the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship which is so
satisfying to the love-dominated nature of the Creator Father.

When you have once become truly God-conscious, after you really discover the
majestic Creator and begin to experience the realization of the indwelling
presence of the divine controller, then, in accordance with your enlightenment
and in accordance with the manner and method by which the divine Sons reveal

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God, you will find a name for the Universal Father which will be adequately
expressive of your concept of the First Great Source and Center. And so, on
different worlds and in various universes, the Creator becomes known by
numerous appellations, in spirit of relationship all meaning the same but, in
words and symbols, each name standing for the degree, the depth, of his
enthronement in the hearts of his creatures of any given realm.

Near the center of the universe of universes, the Universal Father is generally
known by names which may be regarded as meaning the First Source. Farther out
in the universes of space, the terms employed to designate the Universal Father
more often mean the Universal Center. Still farther out in the starry creation,
he is known, as on the headquarters world of your local universe, as the First
Creative Source and Divine Center. In one near-by constellation God is called
the Father of Universes. In another, the Infinite Upholder, and to the east,
the Divine Controller. He has also been designated the Father of Lights, the
Gift of Life, and the All-powerful One.

On those worlds where a Paradise Son has lived a bestowal life, God is
generally known by some name indicative of personal relationship, tender
affection, and fatherly devotion. On your constellation headquarters God is
referred to as the Universal Father, and on different planets in your local
system of inhabited worlds he is variously known as the Father of Fathers, the
Paradise Father, the Havona Father, and the Spirit Father. Those who know God
through the revelations of the bestowals of the Paradise Sons, eventually yield
to the sentimental appeal of the touching relationship of the creature-Creator
association and refer to God as "our Father."

On a planet of sex creatures, in a world where the impulses of parental emotion
are inherent in the hearts of its intelligent beings, the term Father becomes a
very expressive and appropriate name for the eternal God. He is best known,
most universally acknowledged, on your planet, Urantia, by the name God. The
name he is given is of little importance; the significant thing is that you
should know him and aspire to be like him. Your prophets of old truly called
him "the everlasting God" and referred to him as the one who "inhabits
eternity."

2. THE REALITY OF GOD

God is primal reality in the spirit world; God is the source of truth in the
mind spheres; God overshadows all throughout the material realms. To all
created intelligences God is a personality, and to the universe of universes he
is the First Source and Center of eternal reality. God is neither manlike nor
machinelike. The First Father is universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite
reality, and father personality.

The eternal God is infinitely more than reality idealized or the universe
personalized. God is not simply the supreme desire of man, the mortal quest
objectified. Neither is God merely a concept, the power-potential of
righteousness. The Universal Father is not a synonym for nature, neither is he
natural law personified. God is a transcendent reality, not merely man's
traditional concept of supreme values. God is not a psychological focalization
of spiritual meanings, neither is he "the noblest work of man." God may be any
or all of these concepts

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in the minds of men, but he is more. He is a saving person and a loving Father
to all who enjoy spiritual peace on earth, and who crave to experience
personality survival in death.

The actuality of the existence of God is demonstrated in human experience by
the indwelling of the divine presence, the spirit Monitor sent from Paradise to
live in the mortal mind of man and there to assist in evolving the immortal
soul of eternal survival. The presence of this divine Adjuster in the human
mind is disclosed by three experiential phenomena:

1. The intellectual capacity for knowing God--God-consciousness.

2. The spiritual urge to find God--God-seeking.

3. The personality craving to be like God--the wholehearted desire to do the
Father's will.

The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the
pure reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of
human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is
reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and
indispensable to any hope of personality survival.

Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing
mortals hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the
existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The
existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for
the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the
God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the mortal intellect and is
bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father.

In theory you may think of God as the Creator, and he is the personal creator
of Paradise and the central universe of perfection, but the universes of time
and space are all created and organized by the Paradise corps of the Creator
Sons. The Universal Father is not the personal creator of the local universe of
Nebadon; the universe in which you live is the creation of his Son Michael.
Though the Father does not personally create the evolutionary universes, he
does control them in many of their universal relationships and in certain of
their manifestations of physical, mindal, and spiritual energies. God the
Father is the personal creator of the Paradise universe and, in association
with the Eternal Son, the creator of all other personal universe Creators.

As a physical controller in the material universe of universes, the First
Source and Center functions in the patterns of the eternal Isle of Paradise,
and through this absolute gravity center the eternal God exercises cosmic
overcontrol of the physical level equally in the central universe and
throughout the universe of universes. As mind, God functions in the Deity of
the Infinite Spirit; as spirit, God is manifest in the person of the Eternal
Son and in the persons of the divine children of the Eternal Son. This
interrelation of the First Source and Center with the co-ordinate Persons and
Absolutes of Paradise does not in the least preclude the direct personal action
of the Universal Father throughout all creation and on all levels thereof.
Through the presence of his fragmentized spirit the Creator Father maintains
immediate contact with his creature children and his created universes.

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3. GOD IS A UNIVERSAL SPIRIT

"God is spirit." He is a universal spiritual presence. The Universal Father is
an infinite spiritual reality; he is "the sovereign, eternal, immortal,
invisible, and only true God." Even though you are "the offspring of God," you
ought not to think that the Father is like yourselves in form and physique
because you are said to be created "in his image"--indwelt by Mystery Monitors
dispatched from the central abode of his eternal presence. Spirit beings are
real, notwithstanding they are invisible to human eyes; even though they have
not flesh and blood.

Said the seer of old: "Lo, he goes by me, and I see him not; he passes on also,
but I perceive him not." We may constantly observe the works of God, we may be
highly conscious of the material evidences of his majestic conduct, but rarely
may we gaze upon the visible manifestation of his divinity, not even to behold
the presence of his delegated spirit of human indwelling.

The Universal Father is not invisible because he is hiding himself away from
the lowly creatures of materialistic handicaps and limited spiritual
endowments. The situation rather is: "You cannot see my face, for no mortal can
see me and live." No material man could behold the spirit God and preserve his
mortal existence. The glory and the spiritual brilliance of the divine
personality presence is impossible of approach by the lower groups of spirit
beings or by any order of material personalities. The spiritual luminosity of
the Father's personal presence is a "light which no mortal man can approach;
which no material creature has seen or can see." But it is not necessary to see
God with the eyes of the flesh in order to discern him by the faith-vision of
the spiritualized mind.

The spirit nature of the Universal Father is shared fully with his coexistent
self, the Eternal Son of Paradise. Both the Father and the Son in like manner
share the universal and eternal spirit fully and unreservedly with their
conjoint personality co-ordinate, the Infinite Spirit. God's spirit is, in and
of himself, absolute; in the Son it is unqualified, in the Spirit, universal,
and in and by all of them, infinite.

God is a universal spirit; God is the universal person. The supreme personal
reality of the finite creation is spirit; the ultimate reality of the personal
cosmos is absonite spirit. Only the levels of infinity are absolute, and only
on such levels is there finality of oneness between matter, mind, and spirit.

In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontroller of matter,
mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung personality circuit does God
deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures,
but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his
fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes. This Paradise
spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals of time and there fosters the
evolution of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and
divinity of the Universal Father. But the minds of such evolutionary creatures
originate in the local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving
those experiential transformations of spiritual attainment which are the
inevitable result of a creature's choosing to do the will of the Father in
heaven.

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In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked
minds cannot survive mortal death. The technique of survival is embraced in
those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal
mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and
eventually spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter association
to spirit union results in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases
of the mortal mind into the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal
mind subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and
consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit
is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness
with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to attain survival
and eternity of personality existence.

I come forth from the Eternal, and I have repeatedly returned to the presence
of the Universal Father. I know of the actuality and personality of the First
Source and Center, the Eternal and Universal Father. I know that, while the
great God is absolute, eternal, and infinite, he is also good, divine, and
gracious. I know the truth of the great declarations: "God is spirit" and "God
is love," and these two attributes are most completely revealed to the universe
in the Eternal Son.

4. THE MYSTERY OF GOD

The infinity of the perfection of God is such that it eternally constitutes him
mystery. And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the
phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the
Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of
all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery
of mysteries.

The physical bodies of mortals are "the temples of God." Notwithstanding that
the Sovereign Creator Sons come near the creatures of their inhabited worlds
and "draw all men to themselves"; though they "stand at the door" of
consciousness "and knock" and delight to come in to all who will "open the
doors of their hearts"; although there does exist this intimate personal
communion between the Creator Sons and their mortal creatures, nevertheless,
mortal men have something from God himself which actually dwells within them;
their bodies are the temples thereof.

When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form
on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that
composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it
is revealed, the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There
sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and
parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is
designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.

We are constantly confronted with this mystery of God; we are nonplused by the
increasing unfolding of the endless panorama of the truth of his infinite
goodness, endless mercy, matchless wisdom, and superb character.

The divine mystery consists in the inherent difference which exists between the
finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the time-space creature

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and the Universal Creator, the material and the spiritual, the imperfection of
man and the perfection of Paradise Deity. The God of universal love unfailingly
manifests himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness of that
creature's capacity to spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty,
and goodness.

To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every
world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his
gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit
beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either
spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe
enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature
to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.

As a reality in human spiritual experience God is not a mystery. But when an
attempt is made to make plain the realities of the spirit world to the physical
minds of the material order, mystery appears: mysteries so subtle and so
profound that only the faith-grasp of the God-knowing mortal can achieve the
philosophic miracle of the recognition of the Infinite by the finite, the
discernment of the eternal God by the evolving mortals of the material worlds
of time and space.

5. PERSONALITY OF THE UNIVERSAL FATHER

Do not permit the magnitude of God, his infinity, either to obscure or eclipse
his personality. "He who planned the ear, shall he not hear? He who formed the
eye, shall he not see?" The Universal Father is the acme of divine personality;
he is the origin and destiny of personality throughout all creation. God is
both infinite and personal; he is an infinite personality. The Father is truly
a personality, notwithstanding that the infinity of his person places him
forever beyond the full comprehension of material and finite beings.

God is much more than a personality as personality is understood by the human
mind; he is even far more than any possible concept of a superpersonality. But
it is utterly futile to discuss such incomprehensible concepts of divine
personality with the minds of material creatures whose maximum concept of the
reality of being consists in the idea and ideal of personality. The material
creature's highest possible concept of the Universal Creator is embraced within
the spiritual ideals of the exalted idea of divine personality. Therefore,
although you may know that God must be much more than the human conception of
personality, you equally well know that the Universal Father cannot possibly be
anything less than an eternal, infinite, true, good, and beautiful personality.

God is not hiding from any of his creatures. He is unapproachable to so many
orders of beings only because he "dwells in a light which no material creature
can approach." The immensity and grandeur of the divine personality is beyond
the grasp of the unperfected mind of evolutionary mortals. He "measures the
waters in the hollow of his hand, measures a universe with the span of his
hand. It is he who sits on the circle of the earth, who stretches out the
heavens as a curtain and spreads them out as a universe to dwell in." "Lift up
your eyes on high and behold who has created all these things, who brings out
their worlds by number and calls them all by their names"; and so it is true
that "the invisible things of God are partially understood by the things which
are made." Today, and as you are, you must discern the invisible Maker through
his manifold and

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diverse creation, as well as through the revelation and ministration of his
Sons and their numerous subordinates.

Even though material mortals cannot see the person of God, they should rejoice
in the assurance that he is a person; by faith accept the truth which portrays
that the Universal Father so loved the world as to provide for the eternal
spiritual progression of its lowly inhabitants; that he "delights in his
children." God is lacking in none of those superhuman and divine attributes
which constitute a perfect, eternal, loving, and infinite Creator personality.

In the local creations (excepting the personnel of the superuniverses) God has
no personal or residential manifestation aside from the Paradise Creator Sons
who are the fathers of the inhabited worlds and the sovereigns of the local
universes. If the faith of the creature were perfect, he would assuredly know
that when he had seen a Creator Son he had seen the Universal Father; in
seeking for the Father, he would not ask nor expect to see other than the Son.
Mortal man simply cannot see God until he achieves completed spirit
transformation and actually attains Paradise.

The natures of the Paradise Creator Sons do not encompass all the unqualified
potentials of the universal absoluteness of the infinite nature of the First
Great Source and Center, but the Universal Father is in every way divinely
present in the Creator Sons. The Father and his Sons are one. These Paradise
Sons of the order of Michael are perfect personalities, even the pattern for
all local universe personality from that of the Bright and Morning Star down to
the lowest human creature of progressing animal evolution.

Without God and except for his great and central person, there would be no
personality throughout all the vast universe of universes. God is personality.

Notwithstanding that God is an eternal power, a majestic presence, a
transcendent ideal, and a glorious spirit, though he is all these and
infinitely more, nonetheless, he is truly and everlastingly a perfect Creator
personality, a person who can "know and be known," who can "love and be loved,"
and one who can befriend us; while you can be known, as other humans have been
known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a spiritual reality.

As we see the Universal Father revealed throughout his universe; as we discern
him indwelling his myriads of creatures; as we behold him in the persons of his
Sovereign Sons; as we continue to sense his divine presence here and there,
near and afar, let us not doubt nor question his personality primacy.
Notwithstanding all these far-flung distributions, he remains a true person and
everlastingly maintains personal connection with the countless hosts of his
creatures scattered throughout the universe of universes.

The idea of the personality of the Universal Father is an enlarged and truer
concept of God which has come to mankind chiefly through revelation. Reason,
wisdom, and religious experience all infer and imply the personality of God,
but they do not altogether validate it. Even the indwelling Thought Adjuster is
prepersonal. The truth and maturity of any religion is directly proportional to
its concept of the infinite personality of God and to its grasp of the absolute
unity of Deity. The idea of a personal Deity becomes, then, the measure of
religious maturity after religion has first formulated the concept of the unity
of God.

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Primitive religion had many personal gods, and they were fashioned in the image
of man. Revelation affirms the validity of the personality concept of God which
is merely possible in the scientific postulate of a First Cause and is only
provisionally suggested in the philosophic idea of Universal Unity. Only by
personality approach can any person begin to comprehend the unity of God. To
deny the personality of the First Source and Center leaves one only the choice
of two philosophic dilemmas: materialism or pantheism.

In the contemplation of Deity, the concept of personality must be divested of
the idea of corporeality. A material body is not indispensable to personality
in either man or God. The corporeality error is shown in both extremes of human
philosophy. In materialism, since man loses his body at death, he ceases to
exist as a personality; in pantheism, since God has no body, he is not,
therefore, a person. The superhuman type of progressing personality functions
in a union of mind and spirit.

Personality is not simply an attribute of God; it rather stands for the
totality of the co-ordinated infinite nature and the unified divine will which
is exhibited in eternity and universality of perfect expression. Personality,
in the supreme sense, is the revelation of God to the universe of universes.

God, being eternal, universal, absolute, and infinite, does not grow in
knowledge nor increase in wisdom. God does not acquire experience, as finite
man might conjecture or comprehend, but he does, within the realms of his own
eternal personality, enjoy those continuous expansions of self-realization
which are in certain ways comparable to, and analogous with, the acquirement of
new experience by the finite creatures of the evolutionary worlds.

The absolute perfection of the infinite God would cause him to suffer the awful
limitations of unqualified finality of perfectness were it not a fact that the
Universal Father directly participates in the personality struggle of every
imperfect soul in the wide universe who seeks, by divine aid, to ascend to the
spiritually perfect worlds on high. This progressive experience of every spirit
being and every mortal creature throughout the universe of universes is a part
of the Father's ever-expanding Deity-consciousness of the never-ending divine
circle of ceaseless self-realization.

It is literally true: "In all your afflictions he is afflicted." "In all your
triumphs he triumphs in and with you." His prepersonal divine spirit is a real
part of you. The Isle of Paradise responds to all the physical metamorphoses of
the universe of universes; the Eternal Son includes all the spirit impulses of
all creation; the Conjoint Actor encompasses all the mind expression of the
expanding cosmos. The Universal Father realizes in the fullness of the divine
consciousness all the individual experience of the progressive struggles of the
expanding minds and the ascending spirits of every entity, being, and
personality of the whole evolutionary creation of time and space. And all this
is literally true, for "in Him we all live and move and have our being."

6. PERSONALITY IN THE UNIVERSE

Human personality is the time-space image-shadow cast by the divine Creator
personality. And no actuality can ever be adequately comprehended by an
examination of its shadow. Shadows should be interpreted in terms of the true
substance.

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God is to science a cause, to philosophy an idea, to religion a person, even
the loving heavenly Father. God is to the scientist a primal force, to the
philosopher a hypothesis of unity, to the religionist a living spiritual
experience. Man's inadequate concept of the personality of the Universal Father
can be improved only by man's spiritual progress in the universe and will
become truly adequate only when the pilgrims of time and space finally attain
the divine embrace of the living God on Paradise.

Never lose sight of the antipodal viewpoints of personality as it is conceived
by God and man. Man views and comprehends personality, looking from the finite
to the infinite; God looks from the infinite to the finite. Man possesses the
lowest type of personality; God, the highest, even supreme, ultimate, and
absolute. Therefore did the better concepts of the divine personality have
patiently to await the appearance of improved ideas of human personality,
especially the enhanced revelation of both human and divine personality in the
Urantian bestowal life of Michael, the Creator Son.

The prepersonal divine spirit which indwells the mortal mind carries, in its
very presence, the valid proof of its actual existence, but the concept of the
divine personality can be grasped only by the spiritual insight of genuine
personal religious experience. Any person, human or divine, may be known and
comprehended quite apart from the external reactions or the material presence
of that person.

Some degree of moral affinity and spiritual harmony is essential to friendship
between two persons; a loving personality can hardly reveal himself to a
loveless person. Even to approach the knowing of a divine personality, all of
man's personality endowments must be wholly consecrated to the effort;
halfhearted, partial devotion will be unavailing.

The more completely man understands himself and appreciates the personality
values of his fellows, the more he will crave to know the Original Personality,
and the more earnestly such a God-knowing human will strive to become like the
Original Personality. You can argue over opinions about God, but experience
with him and in him exists above and beyond all human controversy and mere
intellectual logic. The God-knowing man describes his spiritual experiences,
not to convince unbelievers, but for the edification and mutual satisfaction of
believers.

To assume that the universe can be known, that it is intelligible, is to assume
that the universe is mind made and personality managed. Man's mind can only
perceive the mind phenomena of other minds, be they human or superhuman. If
man's personality can experience the universe, there is a divine mind and an
actual personality somewhere concealed in that universe.

God is spirit--spirit personality; man is also a spirit--potential spirit
personality. Jesus of Nazareth attained the full realization of this potential
of spirit personality in human experience; therefore his life of achieving the
Father's will becomes man's most real and ideal revelation of the personality
of God. Even though the personality of the Universal Father can be grasped only
in actual religious experience, in Jesus' earth life we are inspired by the
perfect demonstration of such a realization and revelation of the personality
of God in a truly human experience.

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7. SPIRITUAL VALUE OF THE PERSONALITY CONCEPT

When Jesus talked about "the living God," he referred to a personal Deity--the
Father in heaven. The concept of the personality of Deity facilitates
fellowship; it favors intelligent worship; it promotes refreshing trustfulness.
Interactions can be had between nonpersonal things, but not fellowship. The
fellowship relation of father and son, as between God and man, cannot be
enjoyed unless both are persons. Only personalities can commune with each
other, albeit this personal communion may be greatly facilitated by the
presence of just such an impersonal entity as the Thought Adjuster.

Man does not achieve union with God as a drop of water might find unity with
the ocean. Man attains divine union by progressive reciprocal spiritual
communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly
attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to
the divine will. Such a sublime relationship can exist only between
personalities.

The concept of truth might possibly be entertained apart from personality, the
concept of beauty may exist without personality, but the concept of divine
goodness is understandable only in relation to personality. Only a person can
love and be loved. Even beauty and truth would be divorced from survival hope
if they were not attributes of a personal God, a loving Father.

We cannot fully understand how God can be primal, changeless, all-powerful, and
perfect, and at the same time be surrounded by an ever-changing and apparently
law-limited universe, an evolving universe of relative imperfections. But we
can know such a truth in our own personal experience since we all maintain
identity of personality and unity of will in spite of the constant changing of
both ourselves and our environment.

Ultimate universe reality cannot be grasped by mathematics, logic, or
philosophy, only by personal experience in progressive conformity to the divine
will of a personal God. Neither science, philosophy, nor theology can validate
the personality of God. Only the personal experience of the faith sons of the
heavenly Father can effect the actual spiritual realization of the personality
of God.

The higher concepts of universe personality imply: identity,
self-consciousness, self-will, and possibility for self-revelation. And these
characteristics further imply fellowship with other and equal personalities,
such as exists in the personality associations of the Paradise Deities. And the
absolute unity of these associations is so perfect that divinity becomes known
by indivisibility, by oneness. "The Lord God is one." Indivisibility of
personality does not interfere with God's bestowing his spirit to live in the
hearts of mortal men. Indivisibility of a human father's personality does not
prevent the reproduction of mortal sons and daughters.

This concept of indivisibility in association with the concept of unity implies
transcendence of both time and space by the Ultimacy of Deity; therefore
neither space nor time can be absolute or infinite. The First Source and Center
is that infinity who unqualifiedly transcends all mind, all matter, and all
spirit.

The fact of the Paradise Trinity in no manner violates the truth of the divine
unity. The three personalities of Paradise Deity are, in all universe reality
reactions and in all creature relations, as one. Neither does the existence of
these three

top of page - 32

eternal persons violate the truth of the indivisibility of Deity. I am fully
aware that I have at my command no language adequate to make clear to the
mortal mind how these universe problems appear to us. But you should not become
discouraged; not all of these things are wholly clear to even the high
personalities belonging to my group of Paradise beings. Ever bear in mind that
these profound truths pertaining to Deity will increasingly clarify as your
minds become progressively spiritualized during the successive epochs of the
long mortal ascent to Paradise.

[Presented by a Divine Counselor, a member of a group

of celestial personalities assigned by the Ancients of

Days on Uversa, the headquarters of the seventh

superuniverse, to supervise those portions of this

forthcoming revelation which have to do with affairs

beyond the borders of the local universe of Nebadon. I

am commissioned to sponsor those papers portraying the

nature and attributes of God because I represent the

highest source of information available for such a

purpose on any inhabited world. I have served as a

Divine Counselor in all seven of the superuniverses and

have long resided at the Paradise center of all things.

Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a

sojourn in the immediate personal presence of the

Universal Father. I portray the reality and truth of

the Father's nature and attributes with unchallengeable

authority; I know whereof I speak.]

top of page - 33

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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART I: The Central and Super
Universes : The Universal Father The Nature Of God The Attributes Of God God's
Relation To The Universe God's Relation To The Individual The Eternal Son
Relation Of The Eternal Son To The Universe The Infinite Spirit Relation Of The
Infinite Spirit To The Universe The Paradise Trinity The Eternal Isle Of
Paradise The Universe Of Universes The Sacred Spheres Of Paradise The Central
And Divine Universe The Seven Superuniverses The Seven Master Spirits The Seven
Supreme Spirit Groups The Supreme Trinity Personalities The Co-ordinate
Trinity-origin Beings The Paradise Sons Of God The Paradise Creator Sons The
Trinitized Sons Of God The Solitary Messengers Higher Personalities Of The
Infinite Spirit The Messenger Hosts Of Space Ministering Spirits Of The Central
Universe Ministry Of The Primary Supernaphim Ministering Spirits Of The
Superuniverses The Universe Power Directors Personalities Of The Grand Universe
The Corps Of The Finality

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