The Supreme Being

115:3.1The ab­so­lute cos­mos is con­cep­tu­ally with­out limit; to de­fine the ex­tent and na­ture of this pri­mal re­al­ity is to place qual­i­fi­ca­tions upon in­fin­ity and to at­ten­u­ate the pure con­cept of eter­nity. The idea of the in­fi­nite-eter­nal, the eter­nal-in­fi­nite, is un­qual­i­fied in ex­tent and ab­so­lute in fact. There is no lan­guage in the past, pres­ent, or fu­ture of Uran­tia ad­e­quate to ex­press the re­al­ity of in­fin­ity or the in­fin­ity of re­al­ity. Man, a fi­nite crea­ture in an in­fi­nite cos­mos, must con­tent him­self with dis­torted re­flec­tions and at­ten­u­ated con­cep­tions of that lim­it­less, bound­less, never-be­gin­ning, never-end­ing ex­is­tence the com­pre­hen­sion of which is re­ally be­yond his abil­ity.

115:3.2Mind can never hope to grasp the con­cept of an Ab­so­lute with­out at­tempt­ing first to break the unity of such a re­al­ity. Mind is uni­fy­ing of all di­ver­gen­cies, but in the very ab­sence of such di­ver­gen­cies, mind finds no ba­sis upon which to at­tempt to for­mu­late un­der­stand­ing con­cepts.

115:3.3The pri­mor­dial sta­sis of in­fin­ity re­quires seg­men­ta­tion prior to hu­man at­tempts at com­pre­hen­sion. There is a unity in in­fin­ity which has been ex­pressed in these pa­pers as the I AM—the pre­mier pos­tu­late of the crea­ture mind. But never can a crea­ture un­der­stand how it is that this unity be­comes du­al­ity, tri­unity, and di­ver­sity while yet re­main­ing an un­qual­i­fied unity. Man en­coun­ters a sim­i­lar prob­lem when he pauses to con­tem­plate the un­di­vided De­ity of Trin­ity along­side the plu­ral per­son­al­iza­tion of God.

115:3.4It is only man’s dis­tance from in­fin­ity that causes this con­cept to be ex­pressed as one word. While in­fin­ity is on the one hand UNITY, on the other it is DI­VER­SITY with­out end or limit. In­fin­ity, as it is ob­served by fi­nite in­tel­li­gences, is the max­i­mum para­dox of crea­ture phi­los­o­phy and fi­nite meta­physics. Though man’s spir­i­tual na­ture reaches up in the wor­ship ex­pe­ri­ence to the Fa­ther who is in­fi­nite, man’s in­tel­lec­tual com­pre­hen­sion ca­pac­ity is ex­hausted by the max­i­mum con­cep­tion of the Su­preme Be­ing. Be­yond the Su­preme, con­cepts are in­creas­ingly names; less and less are they true des­ig­na­tions of re­al­ity; more and more do they be­come the crea­ture’s pro­jec­tion of fi­nite un­der­stand­ing to­ward the super­fi­nite.

115:3.5One ba­sic con­cep­tion of the ab­so­lute level in­volves a pos­tu­late of three phases:

115:3.61. The Orig­i­nal. The un­qual­i­fied con­cept of the First Source and Cen­ter, that source man­i­fes­ta­tion of the I AM from which all re­al­ity takes ori­gin.

115:3.72. The Ac­tual. The union of the three Ab­so­lutes of ac­tu­al­ity, the Sec­ond, Third, and Par­a­dise Sources and Cen­ters. This tri­odity of the Eter­nal Son, the In­fi­nite Spirit, and the Par­a­dise Isle con­sti­tutes the ac­tual rev­e­la­tion of the orig­i­nal­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter.

115:3.83. The Po­ten­tial. The union of the three Ab­so­lutes of po­ten­tial­ity, the De­ity, Un­qual­i­fied, and Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lutes. This tri­odity of ex­is­ten­tial po­ten­tial­ity con­sti­tutes the po­ten­tial rev­e­la­tion of the orig­i­nal­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter.

115:3.9The in­teras­so­ci­a­tion of the Orig­i­nal, the Ac­tual, and the Po­ten­tial yields the ten­sions within in­fin­ity which re­sult in the pos­si­bil­ity for all uni­verse growth; and growth is the na­ture of the Sev­en­fold, the Su­preme, and the Ul­ti­mate.

115:3.10In the as­so­ci­a­tion of the De­ity, Uni­ver­sal, and Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lutes, po­ten­tial­ity is ab­so­lute while ac­tu­al­ity is emer­gent; in the as­so­ci­a­tion of the Sec­ond, Third, and Par­a­dise Sources and Cen­ters, ac­tu­al­ity is ab­so­lute while po­ten­tial­ity is emer­gent; in the orig­i­nal­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter, we can­not say that ei­ther ac­tu­al­ity or po­ten­tial­ity is ei­ther ex­is­tent or emer­gent—the Fa­ther is.

115:3.11From the time view­point, the Ac­tual is that which was and is; the Po­ten­tial is that which is be­com­ing and will be; the Orig­i­nal is that which is. From the eter­nity view­point, the dif­fer­ences be­tween the Orig­i­nal, the Ac­tual, and the Po­ten­tial are not thus ap­par­ent. These tri­une qual­i­ties are not so dis­tin­guished on Par­a­dise-eter­nity lev­els. In eter­nity all is—only has all not yet been re­vealed in time and space.

115:3.12From a crea­ture’s view­point, ac­tu­al­ity is sub­stance, po­ten­tial­ity is ca­pac­ity. Ac­tu­al­ity ex­ists cen­ter­most and ex­pands there­from into pe­riph­eral in­fin­ity; po­ten­tial­ity comes in­ward from the in­fin­ity pe­riph­ery and con­verges at the cen­ter of all things. Orig­i­nal­ity is that which first causes and then bal­ances the dual mo­tions of the cy­cle of re­al­ity meta­mor­pho­sis from po­ten­tials to ac­tu­als and the po­ten­tial­iz­ing of ex­ist­ing ac­tu­als.

115:3.13The three Ab­so­lutes of po­ten­tial­ity are op­er­a­tive on the purely eter­nal level of the cos­mos, hence never func­tion as such on sub­ab­so­lute lev­els. On the de­scend­ing lev­els of re­al­ity the tri­odity of po­ten­tial­ity is man­i­fest with the Ul­ti­mate and upon the Su­preme. The po­ten­tial may fail to time-ac­tu­al­ize with re­spect to a part on some sub­ab­so­lute level, but never in the ag­gre­gate. The will of God does ul­ti­mately pre­vail, not al­ways con­cern­ing the in­di­vid­ual but in­vari­ably con­cern­ing the to­tal.

115:3.14It is in the tri­odity of ac­tu­al­ity that the ex­is­tents of the cos­mos have their cen­ter; be it spirit, mind, or en­ergy, all cen­ter in this as­so­ci­a­tion of the Son, the Spirit, and Par­a­dise. The per­son­al­ity of the spirit Son is the mas­ter pat­tern for all per­son­al­ity through­out all uni­verses. The sub­stance of the Par­a­dise Isle is the mas­ter pat­tern of which Ha­vona is a per­fect, and the super­uni­verses are a per­fect­ing, rev­e­la­tion. The Con­joint Ac­tor is at one and the same time the mind ac­ti­va­tion of cos­mic en­ergy, the con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion of spirit pur­pose, and the in­te­gra­tion of the math­e­mat­i­cal causes and ef­fects of the ma­te­rial lev­els with the vo­li­tional pur­poses and mo­tives of the spir­i­tual level. In and to a fi­nite uni­verse the Son, Spirit, and Par­a­dise func­tion in and upon the Ul­ti­mate as he is con­di­tioned and qual­i­fied in the Su­preme.

115:3.15Ac­tu­al­ity (of De­ity) is what man seeks in the Par­a­dise as­cent. Po­ten­tial­ity (of hu­man di­vin­ity) is what man evolves in that search. The Orig­i­nal is what makes pos­si­ble the co­ex­is­tence and in­te­gra­tion of man the ac­tual, man the po­ten­tial, and man the eter­nal.

115:3.16The fi­nal dy­nam­ics of the cos­mos have to do with the con­tin­ual trans­fer of re­al­ity from po­ten­tial­ity to ac­tu­al­ity. In the­ory, there may be an end to this meta­mor­pho­sis, but in fact, such is im­pos­si­ble since the Po­ten­tial and the Ac­tual are both en­cir­cuited in the Orig­i­nal (the I AM), and this iden­ti­fi­ca­tion makes it for­ever im­pos­si­ble to place a limit on the de­vel­op­men­tal pro­gres­sion of the uni­verse. What­so­ever is iden­ti­fied with the I AM can never find an end to pro­gres­sion since the ac­tu­al­ity of the po­ten­tials of the I AM is ab­so­lute, and the po­ten­tial­ity of the ac­tu­als of the I AM is also ab­so­lute. Al­ways will ac­tu­als be open­ing up new av­enues of the re­al­iza­tion of hith­erto im­pos­si­ble po­ten­tials—ev­ery hu­man de­ci­sion not only ac­tu­al­izes a new re­al­ity in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence but also opens up a new ca­pac­ity for hu­man growth. The man lives in ev­ery child, and the mor­ontia pro­gres­sor is res­i­dent in the ma­ture God-know­ing man.

115:3.17Stat­ics in growth can never ap­pear in the to­tal cos­mos since the ba­sis for growth—the ab­so­lute ac­tu­als—is un­qual­i­fied, and since the pos­si­bil­i­ties for growth—the ab­so­lute po­ten­tials—are un­lim­ited. From a prac­ti­cal view­point the philoso­phers of the uni­verse have come to the con­clu­sion that there is no such thing as an end.

115:3.18From a cir­cum­scribed view there are, in­deed, many ends, many ter­mi­na­tions of ac­tiv­i­ties, but from a larger view­point on a higher uni­verse level, there are no end­ings, merely tran­si­tions from one phase of de­vel­op­ment to an­other. The ma­jor chronic­ity of the mas­ter uni­verse is con­cerned with the sev­eral uni­verse ages, the Ha­vona, the super­uni­verse, and the outer uni­verse ages. But even these ba­sic di­vi­sions of se­quence re­la­tion­ships can­not be more than rel­a­tive land­marks on the un­end­ing high­way of eter­nity.

115:3.19The fi­nal pen­e­tra­tion of the truth, beauty, and good­ness of the Su­preme Be­ing could only open up to the pro­gress­ing crea­ture those ab­so­nite qual­i­ties of ul­ti­mate di­vin­ity which lie be­yond the con­cept lev­els of truth, beauty, and good­ness.