Deity and Reality

105:1.1Ab­so­lute pri­mal cau­sa­tion in in­fin­ity the philoso­phers of the uni­verses at­trib­ute to the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther func­tion­ing as the in­fi­nite, the eter­nal, and the ab­so­lute I AM.

105:1.2There are many el­e­ments of dan­ger at­ten­dant upon the pre­sen­ta­tion to the mor­tal in­tel­lect of this idea of an in­fi­nite I AM since this con­cept is so re­mote from hu­man ex­pe­ri­en­tial un­der­stand­ing as to in­volve se­ri­ous dis­tor­tion of mean­ings and mis­con­cep­tion of val­ues. Nev­er­the­less, the philo­sophic con­cept of the I AM does af­ford fi­nite be­ings some ba­sis for an at­tempted ap­proach to the par­tial com­pre­hen­sion of ab­so­lute ori­gins and in­fi­nite des­tinies. But in all our at­tempts to elu­ci­date the gen­e­sis and fruition of re­al­ity, let it be made clear that this con­cept of the I AM is, in all per­son­al­ity mean­ings and val­ues, syn­ony­mous with the First Per­son of De­ity, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of all per­son­al­i­ties. But this pos­tu­late of the I AM is not so clearly iden­ti­fi­able in un­de­i­fied realms of uni­ver­sal re­al­ity.

105:1.3The I AM is the In­fi­nite; the I AM is also in­fin­ity. From the se­quen­tial, time view­point, all re­al­ity has its ori­gin in the in­fi­nite I AM, whose soli­tary ex­is­tence in past in­fi­nite eter­nity must be a fi­nite crea­ture’s pre­mier philo­sophic pos­tu­late. The con­cept of the I AM con­notes un­qual­i­fied in­fin­ity, the un­dif­fer­en­ti­ated re­al­ity of all that could ever be in all of an in­fi­nite eter­nity.

105:1.4As an ex­is­ten­tial con­cept the I AM is nei­ther de­i­fied nor un­de­i­fied, nei­ther ac­tual nor po­ten­tial, nei­ther per­sonal nor im­per­sonal, nei­ther static nor dy­namic. No qual­i­fi­ca­tion can be ap­plied to the In­fi­nite ex­cept to state that the I AM is. The philo­sophic pos­tu­late of the I AM is one uni­verse con­cept which is some­what more dif­fi­cult of com­pre­hen­sion than that of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute.

105:1.5To the fi­nite mind there sim­ply must be a be­gin­ning, and though there never was a real be­gin­ning to re­al­ity, still there are cer­tain source re­la­tion­ships which re­al­ity man­i­fests to in­fin­ity. The pre­re­al­ity, pri­mor­dial, eter­nity sit­u­a­tion may be thought of some­thing like this: At some in­finitely dis­tant, hy­po­thet­i­cal, past-eter­nity mo­ment, the I AM may be con­ceived as both thing and no thing, as both cause and ef­fect, as both vo­li­tion and re­sponse. At this hy­po­thet­i­cal eter­nity mo­ment there is no dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion through­out all in­fin­ity. In­fin­ity is filled by the In­fi­nite; the In­fi­nite en­com­passes in­fin­ity. This is the hy­po­thet­i­cal static mo­ment of eter­nity; ac­tu­als are still con­tained within their po­ten­tials, and po­ten­tials have not yet ap­peared within the in­fin­ity of the I AM. But even in this con­jec­tured sit­u­a­tion we must as­sume the ex­is­tence of the pos­si­bil­ity of self-will.

105:1.6Ever re­mem­ber that man’s com­pre­hen­sion of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is a per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. God, as your spir­i­tual Fa­ther, is com­pre­hen­si­ble to you and to all other mor­tals; but your ex­pe­ri­en­tial wor­ship­ful con­cept of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther must al­ways be less than your philo­sophic pos­tu­late of the in­fin­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter, the I AM. When we speak of the Fa­ther, we mean God as he is un­der­stand­able by his crea­tures both high and low, but there is much more of De­ity which is not com­pre­hen­si­ble to uni­verse crea­tures. God, your Fa­ther and my Fa­ther, is that phase of the In­fi­nite which we per­ceive in our per­son­al­i­ties as an ac­tual ex­pe­ri­en­tial re­al­ity, but the I AM ever re­mains as our hy­poth­e­sis of all that we feel is un­know­able of the First Source and Cen­ter. And even that hy­poth­e­sis prob­a­bly falls far short of the un­fath­omed in­fin­ity of orig­i­nal re­al­ity.

105:1.7The uni­verse of uni­verses, with its in­nu­mer­able host of in­hab­it­ing per­son­al­i­ties, is a vast and com­plex or­gan­ism, but the First Source and Cen­ter is in­finitely more com­plex than the uni­verses and per­son­al­i­ties which have be­come real in re­sponse to his will­ful man­dates. When you stand in awe of the mag­ni­tude of the mas­ter uni­verse, pause to con­sider that even this in­con­ceiv­able cre­ation can be no more than a par­tial rev­e­la­tion of the In­fi­nite.

105:1.8In­fin­ity is in­deed re­mote from the ex­pe­ri­ence level of mor­tal com­pre­hen­sion, but even in this age on Uran­tia your con­cepts of in­fin­ity are grow­ing, and they will con­tinue to grow through­out your end­less ca­reers stretch­ing on­ward into fu­ture eter­nity. Un­qual­i­fied in­fin­ity is mean­ing­less to the fi­nite crea­ture, but in­fin­ity is ca­pa­ble of self-lim­i­ta­tion and is sus­cep­ti­ble of re­al­ity ex­pres­sion to all lev­els of uni­verse ex­is­tences. And the face which the In­fi­nite turns to­ward all uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties is the face of a Fa­ther, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of love.