God the Supreme

117:4.1As we view the cease­less strug­gles of the crea­ture cre­ation for per­fec­tion of sta­tus and di­vin­ity of be­ing, we can­not but be­lieve that these un­end­ing ef­forts be­speak the un­ceas­ing strug­gle of the Su­preme for di­vine self-re­al­iza­tion. God the Su­preme is the fi­nite De­ity, and he must cope with the prob­lems of the fi­nite in the to­tal sense of that word. Our strug­gles with the vi­cis­si­tudes of time in the evo­lu­tions of space are re­flec­tions of his ef­forts to achieve re­al­ity of self and com­ple­tion of sov­er­eignty within the sphere of ac­tion which his evolv­ing na­ture is ex­pand­ing to the out­er­most lim­its of pos­si­bil­ity.

117:4.2Through­out the grand uni­verse the Su­preme strug­gles for ex­pres­sion. His di­vine evo­lu­tion is in mea­sure pred­i­cated on the wis­dom-ac­tion of ev­ery per­son­al­ity in ex­is­tence. When a hu­man be­ing chooses eter­nal sur­vival, he is cocre­at­ing des­tiny; and in the life of this as­cend­ing mor­tal the fi­nite God finds an in­creased mea­sure of per­son­al­ity self-re­al­iza­tion and an en­large­ment of ex­pe­ri­en­tial sov­er­eignty. But if a crea­ture re­jects the eter­nal ca­reer, that part of the Su­preme which was de­pen­dent on this crea­ture’s choice ex­pe­ri­ences in­es­cap­able de­lay, a de­pri­va­tion which must be com­pen­sated by sub­sti­tu­tional or col­lat­eral ex­pe­ri­ence; as for the per­son­al­ity of the non­sur­vivor, it is ab­sorbed into the over­soul of cre­ation, be­com­ing a part of the De­ity of the Su­preme.

117:4.3God is so trust­ing, so lov­ing, that he gives a por­tion of his di­vine na­ture into the hands of even hu­man be­ings for safe­keep­ing and self-re­al­iza­tion. The Fa­ther na­ture, the Ad­juster pres­ence, is in­de­struc­tible re­gard­less of the choice of the mor­tal be­ing. The child of the Su­preme, the evolv­ing self, can be de­stroyed not­with­stand­ing that the po­ten­tially uni­fy­ing per­son­al­ity of such a mis­guided self will per­sist as a fac­tor of the De­ity of Su­prem­acy.

117:4.4The hu­man per­son­al­ity can truly de­stroy in­di­vid­u­al­ity of crea­ture­hood, and though all that was worth while in the life of such a cos­mic sui­cide will per­sist, these qual­i­ties will not per­sist as an in­di­vid­ual crea­ture. The Su­preme will again find ex­pres­sion in the crea­tures of the uni­verses but never again as that par­tic­u­lar per­son; the unique per­son­al­ity of a nonascen­der re­turns to the Su­preme as a drop of wa­ter re­turns to the sea.

117:4.5Any iso­lated ac­tion of the per­sonal parts of the fi­nite is com­par­a­tively ir­rel­e­vant to the even­tual ap­pear­ance of the Su­preme Whole, but the whole is nonethe­less de­pen­dent on the to­tal acts of the man­i­fold parts. The per­son­al­ity of the in­di­vid­ual mor­tal is in­signif­i­cant in the face of the to­tal of Su­prem­acy, but the per­son­al­ity of each hu­man be­ing rep­re­sents an ir­re­place­able mean­ing-value in the fi­nite; per­son­al­ity, hav­ing once been ex­pressed, never again finds iden­ti­cal ex­pres­sion ex­cept in the con­tin­u­ing ex­is­tence of that liv­ing per­son­al­ity.

117:4.6And so, as we strive for self-ex­pres­sion, the Su­preme is striv­ing in us, and with us, for de­ity ex­pres­sion. As we find the Fa­ther, so has the Su­preme again found the Par­a­dise Cre­ator of all things. As we mas­ter the prob­lems of self-re­al­iza­tion, so is the God of ex­pe­ri­ence achiev­ing al­mighty su­prem­acy in the uni­verses of time and space.

117:4.7Man­kind does not as­cend ef­fort­lessly in the uni­verse, nei­ther does the Su­preme evolve with­out pur­pose­ful and in­tel­li­gent ac­tion. Crea­tures do not at­tain per­fec­tion by mere pas­siv­ity, nor can the spirit of Su­prem­acy fac­tu­al­ize the power of the Al­mighty with­out un­ceas­ing ser­vice min­istry to the fi­nite cre­ation.

117:4.8The tem­po­ral re­la­tion of man to the Su­preme is the foun­da­tion for cos­mic moral­ity, the uni­ver­sal sen­si­tiv­ity to, and ac­cep­tance of, duty. This is a moral­ity which tran­scends the tem­po­ral sense of rel­a­tive right and wrong; it is a moral­ity di­rectly pred­i­cated on the self-con­scious crea­ture’s ap­pre­ci­a­tion of ex­pe­ri­en­tial obli­ga­tion to ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity. Mor­tal man and all other fi­nite crea­tures are cre­ated out of the liv­ing po­ten­tial of en­ergy, mind, and spirit ex­is­tent in the Su­preme. It is upon the Su­preme that the Ad­juster-mor­tal as­cender draws for the cre­ation of the im­mor­tal and di­vine char­ac­ter of a fi­nal­i­ter. It is out of the very re­al­ity of the Su­preme that the Ad­juster, with the con­sent of the hu­man will, weaves the pat­terns of the eter­nal na­ture of an as­cend­ing son of God.

117:4.9The evo­lu­tion of Ad­juster prog­ress in the spir­i­tu­al­iz­ing and eter­nal­iz­ing of a hu­man per­son­al­ity is di­rectly pro­duc­tive of an en­large­ment of the sov­er­eignty of the Su­preme. Such achieve­ments in hu­man evo­lu­tion are at the same time achieve­ments in the evo­lu­tion­ary ac­tu­al­iza­tion of the Su­preme. While it is true that crea­tures could not evolve with­out the Su­preme, it is prob­a­bly also true that the evo­lu­tion of the Su­preme can never be fully at­tained in­de­pen­dent of the com­pleted evo­lu­tion of all crea­tures. Herein lies the great cos­mic re­spon­si­bil­ity of self-con­scious per­son­al­i­ties: That Su­preme De­ity is in a cer­tain sense de­pen­dent on the choos­ing of the mor­tal will. And the mu­tual pro­gres­sion of crea­ture evo­lu­tion and of Su­preme evo­lu­tion is faith­fully and fully in­di­cated to the An­cients of Days over the in­scrutable mech­a­nisms of uni­verse re­flec­tiv­ity.

117:4.10The great chal­lenge that has been given to mor­tal man is this: Will you de­cide to per­son­al­ize the ex­pe­ri­en­ci­ble value mean­ings of the cos­mos into your own evolv­ing self­hood? or by re­ject­ing sur­vival, will you al­low these se­crets of Su­prem­acy to lie dor­mant, await­ing the ac­tion of an­other crea­ture at some other time who will in his way at­tempt a crea­ture con­tri­bu­tion to the evo­lu­tion of the fi­nite God? But that will be his con­tri­bu­tion to the Su­preme, not yours.

117:4.11The great strug­gle of this uni­verse age is be­tween the po­ten­tial and the ac­tual—the seek­ing for ac­tu­al­iza­tion by all that is as yet un­ex­pressed. If mor­tal man pro­ceeds upon the Par­a­dise ad­ven­ture, he is fol­low­ing the mo­tions of time, which flow as cur­rents within the stream of eter­nity; if mor­tal man re­jects the eter­nal ca­reer, he is mov­ing counter to the stream of events in the fi­nite uni­verses. The me­chan­i­cal cre­ation moves on in­ex­orably in ac­cor­dance with the un­fold­ing pur­pose of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, but the vo­li­tional cre­ation has the choice of ac­cept­ing or of re­ject­ing the role of per­son­al­ity par­tic­i­pa­tion in the ad­ven­ture of eter­nity. Mor­tal man can­not de­stroy the su­preme val­ues of hu­man ex­is­tence, but he can very def­i­nitely pre­vent the evo­lu­tion of these val­ues in his own per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. To the ex­tent that the hu­man self thus re­fuses to take part in the Par­a­dise as­cent, to just that ex­tent is the Su­preme de­layed in achiev­ing di­vin­ity ex­pres­sion in the grand uni­verse.

117:4.12Into the keep­ing of mor­tal man has been given not only the Ad­juster pres­ence of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther but also con­trol over the des­tiny of an in­finites­i­mal frac­tion of the fu­ture of the Su­preme. For as man at­tains hu­man des­tiny, so does the Su­preme achieve des­tiny on de­ity lev­els.

117:4.13And so the de­ci­sion awaits each of you as it once awaited each of us: Will you fail the God of time, who is so de­pen­dent upon the de­ci­sions of the fi­nite mind? will you fail the Su­preme per­son­al­ity of the uni­verses by the sloth­ful­ness of an­i­mal­is­tic ret­ro­gres­sion? will you fail the great brother of all crea­tures, who is so de­pen­dent on each crea­ture? can you al­low your­self to pass into the realm of the un­re­al­ized when be­fore you lies the en­chant­ing vista of the uni­verse ca­reer—the di­vine dis­cov­ery of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther and the di­vine par­tic­i­pa­tion in the search for, and the evo­lu­tion of, the God of Su­prem­acy?

117:4.14God’s gifts—his be­stowal of re­al­ity—are not di­vorce­ments from him­self; he does not alien­ate cre­ation from him­self, but he has set up ten­sions in the cre­ations cir­cling Par­a­dise. God first loves man and con­fers upon him the po­ten­tial of im­mor­tal­ity—eter­nal re­al­ity. And as man loves God, so does man be­come eter­nal in ac­tu­al­ity. And here is mys­tery: The more closely man ap­proaches God through love, the greater the re­al­ity—ac­tu­al­ity—of that man. The more man with­draws from God, the more nearly he ap­proaches non­re­al­ity—ces­sa­tion of ex­is­tence. When man con­se­crates his will to the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.