The Paradise Trinity

10:3.1Not­with­stand­ing there is only one De­ity, there are three pos­i­tive and di­vine per­son­al­iza­tions of De­ity. Re­gard­ing the en­dow­ment of man with the di­vine Ad­justers, the Fa­ther said: “Let us make mor­tal man in our own im­age.” Re­peat­edly through­out the Uran­tian writ­ings there oc­curs this ref­er­ence to the acts and do­ings of plu­ral De­ity, clearly show­ing rec­og­ni­tion of the ex­is­tence and work­ing of the three Sources and Cen­ters.

10:3.2We are taught that the Son and the Spirit sus­tain the same and equal re­la­tions to the Fa­ther in the Trin­ity as­so­ci­a­tion. In eter­nity and as De­i­ties they un­doubt­edly do, but in time and as per­son­al­i­ties they cer­tainly dis­close re­la­tion­ships of a very di­verse na­ture. Look­ing from Par­a­dise out on the uni­verses, these re­la­tion­ships do seem to be very sim­i­lar, but when viewed from the do­mains of space, they ap­pear to be quite dif­fer­ent.

10:3.3The di­vine Sons are in­deed the “Word of God,” but the chil­dren of the Spirit are truly the “Act of God.” God speaks through the Son and, with the Son, acts through the In­fi­nite Spirit, while in all uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties the Son and the Spirit are ex­qui­sitely fra­ter­nal, work­ing as two equal broth­ers with ad­mi­ra­tion and love for an hon­ored and di­vinely re­spected com­mon Fa­ther.

10:3.4The Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit are cer­tainly equal in na­ture, co-or­di­nate in be­ing, but there are un­mis­tak­able dif­fer­ences in their uni­verse per­for­mances, and when act­ing alone, each per­son of De­ity is ap­par­ently lim­ited in ab­so­lute­ness.

10:3.5The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, prior to his self-willed di­vest­ment of the per­son­al­ity, pow­ers, and at­tri­butes which con­sti­tute the Son and the Spirit, seems to have been (phil­o­soph­i­cally con­sid­ered) an un­qual­i­fied, ab­so­lute, and in­fi­nite De­ity. But such a the­o­ret­i­cal First Source and Cen­ter with­out a Son could not in any sense of the word be con­sid­ered the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; fa­ther­hood is not real with­out son­ship. Fur­ther­more, the Fa­ther, to have been ab­so­lute in a to­tal sense, must have ex­isted at some eter­nally dis­tant mo­ment alone. But he never had such a soli­tary ex­is­tence; the Son and the Spirit are both co­eter­nal with the Fa­ther. The First Source and Cen­ter has al­ways been, and will for­ever be, the eter­nal Fa­ther of the Orig­i­nal Son and, with the Son, the eter­nal pro­gen­i­tor of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

10:3.6We ob­serve that the Fa­ther has di­vested him­self of all di­rect man­i­fes­ta­tions of ab­so­lute­ness ex­cept ab­so­lute fa­ther­hood and ab­so­lute vo­li­tion. We do not know whether vo­li­tion is an in­alien­able at­tri­bute of the Fa­ther; we can only ob­serve that he did not di­vest him­self of vo­li­tion. Such in­fin­ity of will must have been eter­nally in­her­ent in the First Source and Cen­ter.

10:3.7In be­stow­ing ab­so­lute­ness of per­son­al­ity upon the Eter­nal Son, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther es­capes from the fet­ters of per­son­al­ity ab­so­lutism, but in so do­ing he takes a step which makes it for­ever im­pos­si­ble for him to act alone as the per­son­al­ity-ab­so­lute. And with the fi­nal per­son­al­iza­tion of co­ex­is­tent De­ity—the Con­joint Ac­tor—there en­sues the crit­i­cal trini­tar­ian in­ter­de­pen­dence of the three di­vine per­son­al­i­ties with re­gard to the to­tal­ity of De­ity func­tion in ab­so­lute.

10:3.8God is the Fa­ther-Ab­so­lute of all per­son­al­i­ties in the uni­verse of uni­verses. The Fa­ther is per­son­ally ab­so­lute in lib­erty of ac­tion, but in the uni­verses of time and space, made, in the mak­ing, and yet to be made, the Fa­ther is not dis­cernibly ab­so­lute as to­tal De­ity ex­cept in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

10:3.9The First Source and Cen­ter func­tions out­side of Ha­vona in the phe­nom­e­nal uni­verses as fol­lows:

10:3.101. As cre­ator, through the Cre­ator Sons, his grand­sons.

10:3.112. As con­trol­ler, through the grav­ity cen­ter of Par­a­dise.

10:3.123. As spirit, through the Eter­nal Son.

10:3.134. As mind, through the Con­joint Cre­ator.

10:3.145. As a Fa­ther, he main­tains pa­ren­tal con­tact with all crea­tures through his per­son­al­ity cir­cuit.

10:3.156. As a per­son, he acts di­rectly through­out cre­ation by his ex­clu­sive frag­ments—in mor­tal man by the Thought Ad­justers.

10:3.167. As to­tal De­ity, he func­tions only in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

10:3.17All these re­lin­quish­ments and del­e­ga­tions of ju­ris­dic­tion by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther are wholly vol­un­tary and self-im­posed. The all-pow­er­ful Fa­ther pur­pose­fully as­sumes these lim­i­ta­tions of uni­verse au­thor­ity.

10:3.18The Eter­nal Son seems to func­tion as one with the Fa­ther in all spir­i­tual re­spects ex­cept in the be­stowals of the God frag­ments and in other preper­sonal ac­tiv­i­ties. Nei­ther is the Son closely iden­ti­fied with the in­tel­lec­tual ac­tiv­i­ties of ma­te­rial crea­tures nor with the en­ergy ac­tiv­i­ties of the ma­te­rial uni­verses. As ab­so­lute the Son func­tions as a per­son and only in the do­main of the spir­i­tual uni­verse.

10:3.19The In­fi­nite Spirit is amaz­ingly uni­ver­sal and un­be­liev­ably ver­sa­tile in all his op­er­a­tions. He per­forms in the spheres of mind, mat­ter, and spirit. The Con­joint Ac­tor rep­re­sents the Fa­ther-Son as­so­ci­a­tion, but he also func­tions as him­self. He is not di­rectly con­cerned with phys­i­cal grav­ity, with spir­i­tual grav­ity, or with the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit, but he more or less par­tic­i­pates in all other uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties. While ap­par­ently de­pen­dent on three ex­is­ten­tial and ab­so­lute grav­ity con­trols, the In­fi­nite Spirit ap­pears to ex­er­cise three super­con­trols. This three­fold en­dow­ment is em­ployed in many ways to tran­scend and seem­ingly to neu­tral­ize even the man­i­fes­ta­tions of pri­mary forces and en­er­gies, right up to the super­ul­ti­mate bor­ders of ab­so­lute­ness. In cer­tain sit­u­a­tions these super­con­trols ab­so­lutely tran­scend even the pri­mal man­i­fes­ta­tions of cos­mic re­al­ity.