The Attributes of God

3:5.1In his con­tact with the post-Ha­vona cre­ations, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther does not ex­er­cise his in­fi­nite power and fi­nal au­thor­ity by di­rect trans­mit­tal but rather through his Sons and their sub­or­di­nate per­son­al­i­ties. And God does all this of his own free will. Any and all pow­ers del­e­gated, if oc­ca­sion should arise, if it should be­come the choice of the di­vine mind, could be ex­er­cised di­rect; but, as a rule, such ac­tion only takes place as a re­sult of the fail­ure of the del­e­gated per­son­al­ity to ful­fill the di­vine trust. At such times and in the face of such de­fault and within the lim­its of the reser­va­tion of di­vine power and po­ten­tial, the Fa­ther does act in­de­pen­dently and in ac­cor­dance with the man­dates of his own choice; and that choice is al­ways one of un­fail­ing per­fec­tion and in­fi­nite wis­dom.

3:5.2The Fa­ther rules through his Sons; on down through the uni­verse or­ga­ni­za­tion there is an un­bro­ken chain of rulers end­ing with the Plan­e­tary Princes, who di­rect the des­tinies of the evo­lu­tion­ary spheres of the Fa­ther’s vast do­mains. It is no mere po­etic ex­pres­sion that ex­claims: “The earth is the Lord’s and the full­ness thereof.” “He re­moves kings and sets up kings.” “The Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men.”

3:5.3In the af­fairs of men’s hearts the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther may not al­ways have his way; but in the con­duct and des­tiny of a planet the di­vine plan pre­vails; the eter­nal pur­pose of wis­dom and love tri­umphs.

3:5.4Said Je­sus: “My Fa­ther, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to pluck them out of my Fa­ther’s hand.” As you glimpse the man­i­fold work­ings and view the stag­ger­ing im­men­sity of God’s well-nigh lim­it­less cre­ation, you may fal­ter in your con­cept of his pri­macy, but you should not fail to ac­cept him as se­curely and ev­er­last­ingly en­throned at the Par­a­dise cen­ter of all things and as the benef­i­cent Fa­ther of all in­tel­li­gent be­ings. There is but “one God and Fa­ther of all, who is above all and in all,” “and he is be­fore all things, and in him all things con­sist.”

3:5.5The un­cer­tain­ties of life and the vi­cis­si­tudes of ex­is­tence do not in any man­ner con­tra­dict the con­cept of the uni­ver­sal sov­er­eignty of God. All evo­lu­tion­ary crea­ture life is be­set by cer­tain in­evitabil­i­ties. Con­sider the fol­low­ing:

3:5.61. Is cour­age—strength of char­ac­ter—de­sir­able? Then must man be reared in an en­vi­ron­ment which ne­ces­si­tates grap­pling with hard­ships and re­act­ing to dis­ap­point­ments.

3:5.72. Is al­tru­ism—ser­vice of one’s fel­lows—de­sir­able? Then must life ex­pe­ri­ence pro­vide for en­coun­ter­ing sit­u­a­tions of so­cial in­equal­ity.

3:5.83. Is hope—the grandeur of trust—de­sir­a­ble? Then hu­man ex­is­tence must con­stantly be con­fronted with in­se­cu­ri­ties and re­cur­rent un­cer­tain­ties.

3:5.94. Is faith—the su­preme as­ser­tion of hu­man thought—de­sir­able? Then must the mind of man find it­self in that trou­ble­some predica­ment where it ever knows less than it can be­lieve.

3:5.105. Is the love of truth and the will­ing­ness to go wher­ever it leads, de­sir­able? Then must man grow up in a world where er­ror is pres­ent and false­hood al­ways pos­si­ble.

3:5.116. Is ide­al­ism—the ap­proach­ing con­cept of the di­vine—de­sir­able? Then must man strug­gle in an en­vi­ron­ment of rel­a­tive good­ness and beauty, sur­round­ings stim­u­la­tive of the ir­re­press­ible reach for bet­ter things.

3:5.127. Is loy­alty—de­vo­tion to high­est duty—de­sir­able? Then must man carry on amid the pos­si­bil­i­ties of be­trayal and de­ser­tion. The valor of de­vo­tion to duty con­sists in the im­plied dan­ger of de­fault.

3:5.138. Is un­selfish­ness—the spirit of self-for­get­ful­ness—de­sir­able? Then must mor­tal man live face to face with the in­ces­sant clam­or­ing of an in­escapable self for recog­ni­tion and honor. Man could not dy­nam­i­cally choose the di­vine life if there were no self-life to for­sake. Man could never lay sav­ing hold on right­eous­ness if there were no po­ten­tial evil to ex­alt and dif­fer­en­ti­ate the good by con­trast.

3:5.149. Is plea­sure—the sat­is­fac­tion of hap­pi­ness—de­sir­able? Then must man live in a world where the al­ter­na­tive of pain and the like­li­hood of suf­fer­ing are ever-pres­ent ex­pe­ri­en­tial pos­si­bil­i­ties.

3:5.15Through­out the uni­verse, ev­ery unit is re­garded as a part of the whole. Sur­vival of the part is de­pen­dent on co-op­er­a­tion with the plan and pur­pose of the whole, the whole­hearted de­sire and per­fect will­ing­ness to do the Fa­ther’s di­vine will. The only evo­lu­tion­ary world with­out er­ror (the pos­si­bil­ity of un­wise judg­ment) would be a world with­out free in­tel­li­gence. In the Ha­vona uni­verse there are a bil­lion per­fect worlds with their per­fect in­hab­i­tants, but evolv­ing man must be fal­li­ble if he is to be free. Free and in­ex­pe­ri­enced in­tel­li­gence can­not pos­si­bly at first be uni­formly wise. The pos­si­bil­ity of mis­taken judg­ment (evil) be­comes sin only when the hu­man will con­sciously en­dorses and know­ingly em­braces a de­lib­er­ate im­moral judg­ment.

3:5.16The full ap­pre­ci­a­tion of truth, beauty, and good­ness is in­her­ent in the per­fec­tion of the di­vine uni­verse. The in­hab­i­tants of the Ha­vona worlds do not re­quire the po­ten­tial of rel­a­tive value lev­els as a choice stim­u­lus; such per­fect be­ings are able to iden­tify and choose the good in the ab­sence of all con­trastive and thought-com­pelling moral sit­u­a­tions. But all such per­fect be­ings are, in moral na­ture and spir­i­tual sta­tus, what they are by virtue of the fact of ex­is­tence. They have ex­pe­ri­en­tially earned ad­vance­ment only within their in­her­ent sta­tus. Mor­tal man earns even his sta­tus as an as­cen­sion can­di­date by his own faith and hope. Ev­ery­thing di­vine which the hu­man mind grasps and the hu­man soul ac­quires is an ex­pe­ri­en­tial at­tain­ment; it is a re­al­ity of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence and is there­fore a unique pos­ses­sion in con­trast to the in­her­ent good­ness and righ­teous­ness of the in­errant per­son­al­i­ties of Ha­vona.

3:5.17The crea­tures of Ha­vona are nat­u­rally brave, but they are not coura­geous in the hu­man sense. They are in­nately kind and con­sid­er­ate, but hardly al­tru­is­tic in the hu­man way. They are ex­pec­tant of a pleas­ant fu­ture, but not hope­ful in the ex­qui­site man­ner of the trust­ing mor­tal of the un­cer­tain evo­lu­tion­ary spheres. They have faith in the sta­bil­ity of the uni­verse, but they are ut­ter strangers to that sav­ing faith whereby mor­tal man climbs from the sta­tus of an an­i­mal up to the por­tals of Par­a­dise. They love the truth, but they know noth­ing of its soul-sav­ing qual­i­ties. They are ide­al­ists, but they were born that way; they are wholly ig­no­rant of the ec­stasy of be­com­ing such by ex­hil­a­rat­ing choice. They are loyal, but they have never ex­pe­ri­enced the thrill of whole­hearted and in­tel­li­gent de­vo­tion to duty in the face of temp­ta­tion to de­fault. They are un­selfish, but they never gained such lev­els of ex­pe­ri­ence by the mag­nif­i­cent con­quest of a bel­liger­ent self. They en­joy plea­sure, but they do not com­pre­hend the sweet­ness of the plea­sure es­cape from the pain po­ten­tial.