Supreme and Ultimate—Time and Space

118:10.1Prov­i­dence does not mean that God has de­cided all things for us and in ad­vance. God loves us too much to do that, for that would be noth­ing short of cos­mic tyranny. Man does have rel­a­tive pow­ers of choice. Nei­ther is the di­vine love that short­sighted af­fec­tion which would pam­per and spoil the chil­dren of men.

118:10.2The Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit—as the Trin­ity—are not the Al­mighty Su­preme, but the su­prem­acy of the Al­mighty can never be man­i­fest with­out them. The growth of the Al­mighty is cen­tered on the Ab­so­lutes of ac­tu­al­ity and pred­i­cated on the Ab­so­lutes of po­ten­tial­ity. But the func­tions of the Al­mighty Su­preme are re­lated to the func­tions of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

118:10.3It would ap­pear that, in the Su­preme Be­ing, all phases of uni­verse ac­tiv­ity are be­ing par­tially re­united by the per­son­al­ity of this ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity. When, there­fore, we de­sire to view the Trin­ity as one God, and if we limit this con­cept to the pres­ent known and or­ga­nized grand uni­verse, we dis­cover that the evolv­ing Su­preme Be­ing is the par­tial por­trai­ture of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. And we fur­ther find that this Su­preme De­ity is evolv­ing as the per­son­al­ity syn­the­sis of fi­nite mat­ter, mind, and spirit in the grand uni­verse.

118:10.4The Gods have at­tri­butes but the Trin­ity has func­tions, and like the Trin­ity, prov­i­dence is a func­tion, the com­pos­ite of the other-than-per­sonal over­con­trol of the uni­verse of uni­verses, ex­tend­ing from the evo­lu­tion­ary lev­els of the Sev­en­fold syn­the­siz­ing in the power of the Al­mighty on up through the tran­scen­den­tal realms of the Ul­ti­macy of De­ity.

118:10.5God loves each crea­ture as a child, and that love over­shad­ows each crea­ture through­out all time and eter­nity. Prov­i­dence func­tions with re­gard to the to­tal and deals with the func­tion of any crea­ture as such func­tion is re­lated to the to­tal. Prov­i­den­tial in­ter­ven­tion with re­gard to any be­ing is in­dica­tive of the im­por­tance of the func­tion of that be­ing as con­cerns the evo­lu­tion­ary growth of some to­tal; such to­tal may be the to­tal race, the to­tal na­tion, the to­tal planet, or even a higher to­tal. It is the im­por­tance of the func­tion of the crea­ture that oc­ca­sions prov­i­den­tial in­ter­ven­tion, not the im­por­tance of the crea­ture as a per­son.

118:10.6Nev­er­the­less, the Fa­ther as a per­son may at any time in­ter­pose a fa­therly hand in the stream of cos­mic events all in ac­cor­dance with the will of God and in con­so­nance with the wis­dom of God and as mo­ti­vated by the love of God.

118:10.7But what man calls prov­i­dence is all too of­ten the prod­uct of his own imag­i­na­tion, the for­tu­itous jux­ta­po­si­tion of the cir­cum­stances of chance. There is, how­ever, a real and emerg­ing prov­i­dence in the fi­nite realm of uni­verse ex­is­tence, a true and ac­tu­al­iz­ing cor­re­la­tion of the en­er­gies of space, the mo­tions of time, the thoughts of in­tel­lect, the ide­als of char­ac­ter, the de­sires of spir­i­tual na­tures, and the pur­po­sive vo­li­tional acts of evolv­ing per­son­al­i­ties. The cir­cum­stances of the ma­te­rial realms find fi­nal fi­nite in­te­gra­tion in the in­ter­lock­ing pres­ences of the Su­preme and the Ul­ti­mate.

118:10.8As the mech­a­nisms of the grand uni­verse are per­fected to a point of fi­nal pre­ci­sion through the over­con­trol of mind, and as crea­ture mind as­cends to the per­fec­tion of di­vin­ity at­tain­ment through per­fected in­te­gra­tion with spirit, and as the Su­preme con­se­quently emerges as an ac­tual uni­fier of all these uni­verse phe­nom­ena, so does prov­i­dence be­come in­creas­ingly dis­cern­i­ble.

118:10.9Some of the amaz­ingly for­tu­itous con­di­tions oc­ca­sion­ally pre­vail­ing on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds may be due to the grad­u­ally emerg­ing pres­ence of the Su­preme, the fore­tast­ing of his fu­ture uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties. Most of what a mor­tal would call prov­i­den­tial is not; his judg­ment of such mat­ters is very hand­i­capped by lack of far­sighted vi­sion into the true mean­ings of the cir­cum­stances of life. Much of what a mor­tal would call good luck might re­ally be bad luck; the smile of for­tune that be­stows un­earned leisure and un­de­served wealth may be the great­est of hu­man af­flic­tions; the ap­par­ent cru­elty of a per­verse fate that heaps tribu­la­tion upon some suf­fer­ing mor­tal may in re­al­ity be the tem­per­ing fire that is trans­mut­ing the soft iron of im­ma­ture per­son­al­ity into the tem­pered steel of real char­ac­ter.

118:10.10There is a prov­i­dence in the evolv­ing uni­verses, and it can be dis­cov­ered by crea­tures to just the ex­tent that they have at­tained ca­pac­ity to per­ceive the pur­pose of the evolv­ing uni­verses. Com­plete ca­pac­ity to dis­cern uni­verse pur­poses equals the evo­lu­tion­ary com­ple­tion of the crea­ture and may oth­er­wise be ex­pressed as the at­tain­ment of the Su­preme within the lim­its of the pres­ent state of the in­com­plete uni­verses.

118:10.11The love of the Fa­ther op­er­ates di­rectly in the heart of the in­di­vid­ual, in­de­pen­dent of the ac­tions or re­ac­tions of all other in­di­vid­u­als; the re­la­tion­ship is per­sonal—man and God. The im­per­sonal pres­ence of De­ity (Al­mighty Su­preme and Par­a­dise Trin­ity) man­i­fests re­gard for the whole, not for the part. The prov­i­dence of the over­con­trol of Su­prem­acy be­comes in­creas­ingly ap­par­ent as the suc­ces­sive parts of the uni­verse pro­gress in the at­tain­ment of fi­nite des­tinies. As the sys­tems, con­stel­la­tions, uni­verses, and super­uni­verses be­come set­tled in light and life, the Su­preme in­creas­ingly emerges as the mean­ing­ful cor­re­la­tor of all that is tran­spir­ing, while the Ul­ti­mate grad­u­ally emerges as the tran­scen­den­tal uni­fier of all things.

118:10.12In the be­gin­nings on an evo­lu­tion­ary world the nat­u­ral oc­cur­rences of the ma­te­rial or­der and the per­sonal de­sires of hu­man be­ings of­ten ap­pear to be an­tag­o­nis­tic. Much that takes place on an evolv­ing world is rather hard for mor­tal man to un­der­stand—nat­u­ral law is so of­ten ap­par­ently cruel, heart­less, and in­dif­fer­ent to all that is true, beau­ti­ful, and good in hu­man com­pre­hen­sion. But as hu­man­ity pro­gresses in plan­e­tary de­vel­op­ment, we ob­serve that this view­point is mod­i­fied by the fol­low­ing fac­tors:

118:10.131. Man’s aug­ment­ing vi­sion—his in­creased un­der­stand­ing of the world in which he lives; his en­larg­ing ca­pac­ity for the com­pre­hen­sion of the ma­te­rial facts of time, the mean­ing­ful ideas of thought, and the valu­able ide­als of spir­i­tual in­sight. As long as men mea­sure only by the yard­stick of the things of a phys­i­cal na­ture, they can never hope to find unity in time and space.

118:10.142. Man’s in­creas­ing con­trol—the grad­ual ac­cu­mu­la­tion of the knowl­edge of the laws of the ma­te­rial world, the pur­poses of spir­i­tual ex­is­tence, and the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the philo­sophic co-or­di­na­tion of these two re­al­i­ties. Man, the sav­age, was help­less be­fore the on­slaughts of nat­u­ral forces, was slav­ish be­fore the cruel mas­tery of his own in­ner fears. Semi­civ­i­lized man is be­gin­ning to un­lock the store­house of the se­crets of the nat­u­ral realms, and his sci­ence is slowly but ef­fec­tively de­stroy­ing his su­per­sti­tions while at the same time pro­vid­ing a new and en­larged fac­tual ba­sis for the com­pre­hen­sion of the mean­ings of phi­los­o­phy and the val­ues of true spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Man, the civ­i­lized, will some­day achieve rel­a­tive mas­tery of the phys­i­cal forces of his planet; the love of God in his heart will be ef­fec­tively out­poured as love for his fel­low men, while the val­ues of hu­man ex­is­tence will be near­ing the lim­its of mor­tal ca­pac­ity.

118:10.153. Man’s uni­verse in­te­gra­tion—the in­crease of hu­man in­sight plus the in­crease of hu­man ex­pe­ri­en­tial achieve­ment brings him into closer har­mony with the uni­fy­ing pres­ences of Su­prem­acy—Par­a­dise Trin­ity and Su­preme Be­ing. And this is what es­tab­lishes the sov­er­eignty of the Su­preme on the worlds long set­tled in light and life. Such ad­vanced plan­ets are in­deed po­ems of har­mony, pic­tures of the beauty of achieved good­ness at­tained through the pur­suit of cos­mic truth. And if such things can hap­pen to a planet, then even greater things can hap­pen to a sys­tem and the larger units of the grand uni­verse as they too achieve a set­tled­ness in­di­cat­ing the ex­haus­tion of the po­ten­tials for fi­nite growth.

118:10.16On a planet of this ad­vanced or­der, prov­i­dence has be­come an ac­tu­al­ity, the cir­cum­stances of life are cor­re­lated, but this is not only be­cause man has come to dom­i­nate the ma­te­rial prob­lems of his world; it is also be­cause he has be­gun to live ac­cord­ing to the trend of the uni­verses; he is fol­low­ing the path­way of Su­prem­acy to the at­tain­ment of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

118:10.17The king­dom of God is in the hearts of men, and when this king­dom be­comes ac­tual in the heart of ev­ery in­di­vid­ual on a world, then God’s rule has be­come ac­tual on that planet; and this is the at­tained sov­er­eignty of the Su­preme Be­ing.

118:10.18To re­al­ize prov­i­dence in time, man must ac­com­plish the task of achiev­ing per­fec­tion. But man can even now fore­taste this prov­i­dence in its eter­nity mean­ings as he pon­ders the uni­verse fact that all things, be they good or evil, work to­gether for the ad­vance­ment of God-know­ing mor­tals in their quest for the Fa­ther of all.

118:10.19Prov­i­dence be­comes in­creas­ingly dis­cern­i­ble as men reach up­ward from the ma­te­rial to the spir­i­tual. The at­tain­ment of com­pleted spir­i­tual in­sight en­ables the as­cend­ing per­son­al­ity to de­tect har­mony in what was thereto­fore chaos. Even mor­ontia mota rep­re­sents a real ad­vance in this di­rec­tion.

118:10.20Prov­i­dence is in part the over­con­trol of the in­com­plete Su­preme man­i­fested in the in­com­plete uni­verses, and it must there­fore ever be:

118:10.211. Par­tial—due to the in­com­plete­ness of the ac­tu­al­iza­tion of the Su­preme Be­ing, and

118:10.222. Un­pre­dictable—due to the fluc­tu­a­tions in crea­ture at­ti­tude, which ever varies from level to level, thus caus­ing ap­par­ently vari­able re­cip­ro­cal re­sponse in the Su­preme.

118:10.23When men pray for prov­i­den­tial in­ter­ven­tion in the cir­cum­stances of life, many times the an­swer to their prayer is their own changed at­ti­tudes to­ward life. But prov­i­dence is not whim­si­cal, nei­ther is it fan­tas­tic nor mag­i­cal. It is the slow and sure emer­gence of the mighty sov­er­eign of the fi­nite uni­verses, whose ma­jes­tic pres­ence the evolv­ing crea­tures oc­ca­sion­ally de­tect in their uni­verse pro­gres­sions. Prov­i­dence is the sure and cer­tain march of the galax­ies of space and the per­son­al­i­ties of time to­ward the goals of eter­nity, first in the Su­preme, then in the Ul­ti­mate, and per­haps in the Ab­so­lute. And in in­fin­ity we be­lieve there is the same prov­i­dence, and this is the will, the ac­tions, the pur­pose of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity thus mo­ti­vat­ing the cos­mic pan­o­rama of uni­verses upon uni­verses.

118:10.24[Spon­sored by a Mighty Mes­sen­ger tem­porar­ily so­journ­ing on Uran­tia.]