The Universe of Universes

12:7.1There is op­er­a­tive through­out all time and space and with re­gard to all re­al­ity of what­ever na­ture an in­ex­orable and im­per­sonal law which is equiv­a­lent to the func­tion of a cos­mic prov­i­dence. Mercy char­ac­ter­izes God’s at­ti­tude of love for the in­di­vid­ual; im­par­tial­ity mo­ti­vates God’s at­ti­tude to­ward the to­tal. The will of God does not nec­es­sar­ily pre­vail in the part—the heart of any one per­son­al­ity—but his will does ac­tu­ally rule the whole, the uni­verse of uni­verses.

12:7.2In all his deal­ings with all his be­ings it is true that the laws of God are not in­her­ently ar­bi­trary. To you, with your lim­ited vi­sion and fi­nite view­point, the acts of God must of­ten ap­pear to be dic­ta­to­rial and ar­bi­trary. The laws of God are merely the habits of God, his way of re­peat­edly do­ing things; and he ever does all things well. You ob­serve that God does the same thing in the same way, re­peat­edly, sim­ply be­cause that is the best way to do that par­tic­u­lar thing in a given cir­cum­stance; and the best way is the right way, and there­fore does in­fi­nite wis­dom al­ways or­der it done in that pre­cise and per­fect man­ner. You should also re­mem­ber that na­ture is not the ex­clu­sive act of De­ity; other in­flu­ences are pres­ent in those phe­nom­ena which man calls na­ture.

12:7.3It is re­pug­nant to the di­vine na­ture to suf­fer any sort of de­te­ri­o­ra­tion or ever to per­mit the ex­e­cu­tion of any purely per­sonal act in an in­fe­rior way. It should be made clear, how­ever, that, if, in the di­vin­ity of any sit­u­a­tion, in the ex­trem­ity of any cir­cum­stance, in any case where the course of su­preme wis­dom might in­di­cate the de­mand for dif­fer­ent con­duct—if the de­mands of per­fec­tion might for any rea­son dic­tate an­other method of re­ac­tion, a bet­ter one, then and there would the all-wise God func­tion in that bet­ter and more suit­able way. That would be the ex­pres­sion of a higher law, not the re­ver­sal of a lower law.

12:7.4God is not a habit-bound slave to the chronic­ity of the rep­e­ti­tion of his own vol­un­tary acts. There is no con­flict among the laws of the In­fi­nite; they are all per­fec­tions of the in­fal­li­ble na­ture; they are all the un­ques­tioned acts ex­pres­sive of fault­less de­ci­sions. Law is the un­chang­ing re­ac­tion of an in­fi­nite, per­fect, and di­vine mind. The acts of God are all vo­li­tional not­with­stand­ing this ap­par­ent same­ness. In God there “is no vari­able­ness nei­ther shadow of chang­ing.” But all this which can be truly said of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can­not be said with equal cer­tainty of all his sub­or­di­nate in­tel­li­gences or of his evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures.

12:7.5Be­cause God is change­less, there­fore can you de­pend, in all or­di­nary cir­cum­stances, on his do­ing the same thing in the same iden­ti­cal and or­di­nary way. God is the as­sur­ance of sta­bil­ity for all cre­ated things and be­ings. He is God; there­fore he changes not.

12:7.6And all this stead­fast­ness of con­duct and uni­for­mity of ac­tion is per­sonal, con­scious, and highly vo­li­tional, for the great God is not a help­less slave to his own per­fec­tion and in­fin­ity. God is not a self-act­ing au­to­matic force; he is not a slav­ish law-bound power. God is nei­ther a math­e­mat­i­cal equa­tion nor a chem­i­cal for­mula. He is a free­will and pri­mal per­son­al­ity. He is the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, a be­ing sur­charged with per­son­al­ity and the uni­ver­sal fount of all crea­ture per­son­al­ity.

12:7.7The will of God does not uni­formly pre­vail in the heart of the God-seek­ing ma­te­rial mor­tal, but if the time frame is en­larged be­yond the mo­ment to em­brace the whole of the first life, then does God’s will be­come in­creas­ingly dis­cern­i­ble in the spirit fruits which are borne in the lives of the spirit-led chil­dren of God. And then, if hu­man life is fur­ther en­larged to in­clude the mor­ontia ex­pe­ri­ence, the di­vine will is ob­served to shine brighter and brighter in the spir­i­tu­al­iz­ing acts of those crea­tures of time who have be­gun to taste the di­vine de­lights of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the re­la­tion­ship of the per­son­al­ity of man with the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

12:7.8The Fa­ther­hood of God and the broth­er­hood of man pre­sent the para­dox of the part and the whole on the level of per­son­al­ity. God loves each in­di­vid­ual as an in­di­vid­ual child in the heav­enly fam­ily. Yet God thus loves ev­ery in­di­vid­ual; he is no re­specter of per­sons, and the uni­ver­sal­ity of his love brings into be­ing a re­la­tion­ship of the whole, the uni­ver­sal broth­er­hood.

12:7.9The love of the Fa­ther ab­so­lutely in­di­vid­u­al­izes each per­son­al­ity as a unique child of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, a child with­out du­pli­cate in in­fin­ity, a will crea­ture ir­re­place­able in all eter­nity. The Fa­ther’s love glo­ri­fies each child of God, il­lu­mi­nat­ing each mem­ber of the ce­les­tial fam­ily, sharply sil­hou­et­ting the unique na­ture of each per­sonal be­ing against the im­per­sonal lev­els that lie out­side the fra­ter­nal cir­cuit of the Fa­ther of all. The love of God strik­ingly por­trays the tran­scen­dent value of each will crea­ture, un­mis­tak­ably re­veals the high value which the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has placed upon each and ev­ery one of his chil­dren from the high­est cre­ator per­son­al­ity of Par­a­dise sta­tus to the low­est per­son­al­ity of will dig­nity among the sav­age tribes of men in the dawn of the hu­man species on some evo­lu­tion­ary world of time and space.

12:7.10This very love of God for the in­di­vid­ual brings into be­ing the di­vine fam­ily of all in­di­vid­u­als, the uni­ver­sal broth­er­hood of the free­will chil­dren of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. And this broth­er­hood, be­ing uni­ver­sal, is a re­la­tion­ship of the whole. Broth­er­hood, when uni­ver­sal, dis­closes not the each re­la­tion­ship, but the all re­la­tion­ship. Broth­er­hood is a re­al­ity of the to­tal and there­fore dis­closes qual­i­ties of the whole in con­tradis­tinc­tion to qual­i­ties of the part.

12:7.11Broth­er­hood con­sti­tutes a fact of re­la­tion­ship be­tween ev­ery per­son­al­ity in uni­ver­sal ex­is­tence. No per­son can es­cape the ben­e­fits or the penal­ties that may come as a re­sult of re­la­tion­ship to other per­sons. The part prof­its or suf­fers in mea­sure with the whole. The good ef­fort of each man ben­e­fits all men; the er­ror or evil of each man aug­ments the tribu­la­tion of all men. As moves the part, so moves the whole. As the prog­ress of the whole, so the prog­ress of the part. The rel­a­tive ve­loc­i­ties of part and whole de­ter­mine whether the part is re­tarded by the in­er­tia of the whole or is car­ried for­ward by the mo­men­tum of the cos­mic broth­er­hood.

12:7.12It is a mys­tery that God is a highly per­sonal self-con­scious be­ing with res­i­den­tial head­quar­ters, and at the same time per­son­ally pres­ent in such a vast uni­verse and per­son­ally in con­tact with such a well-nigh in­fi­nite num­ber of be­ings. That such a phe­nom­e­non is a mys­tery be­yond hu­man com­pre­hen­sion should not in the least lessen your faith. Do not al­low the mag­ni­tude of the in­fin­ity, the im­men­sity of the eter­nity, and the grandeur and glory of the match­less char­ac­ter of God to over­awe, stag­ger, or dis­cour­age you; for the Fa­ther is not very far from any one of you; he dwells within you, and in him do we all lit­er­ally move, ac­tu­ally live, and ver­i­ta­bly have our be­ing.

12:7.13Even though the Par­a­dise Fa­ther func­tions through his di­vine cre­ators and his crea­ture chil­dren, he also en­joys the most in­ti­mate in­ner con­tact with you, so sub­lime, so highly per­sonal, that it is even be­yond my com­pre­hen­sion—that mys­te­ri­ous com­mu­nion of the Fa­ther frag­ment with the hu­man soul and with the mor­tal mind of its ac­tual in­dwelling. Know­ing what you do of these gifts of God, you there­fore know that the Fa­ther is in in­ti­mate touch, not only with his di­vine as­so­ciates, but also with his evo­lu­tion­ary mor­tal chil­dren of time. The Fa­ther in­deed abides on Par­a­dise, but his di­vine pres­ence also dwells in the minds of men.

12:7.14Even though the spirit of a Son be poured out upon all flesh, even though a Son once dwelt with you in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, even though the ser­a­phim per­son­ally guard and guide you, how can any of these di­vine be­ings of the Sec­ond and Third Cen­ters ever hope to come as near to you or to un­der­stand you as fully as the Fa­ther, who has given a part of him­self to be in you, to be your real and di­vine, even your eter­nal, self?