God’s Relation to the Universe

4:1.1For ages the in­hab­i­tants of Uran­tia have mis­un­der­stood the prov­i­dence of God. There is a prov­i­dence of di­vine out­work­ing on your world, but it is not the child­ish, ar­bi­trary, and ma­te­rial min­istry many mor­tals have con­ceived it to be. The prov­i­dence of God con­sists in the in­ter­lock­ing ac­tiv­i­ties of the ce­les­tial be­ings and the di­vine spir­its who, in ac­cor­dance with cos­mic law, un­ceas­ingly la­bor for the honor of God and for the spir­i­tual ad­vance­ment of his uni­verse chil­dren.

4:1.2Can you not ad­vance in your con­cept of God’s deal­ing with man to that level where you rec­og­nize that the watch­word of the uni­verse is prog­ress? Through long ages the hu­man race has strug­gled to reach its pres­ent po­si­tion. Through­out all these mil­len­ni­ums Prov­i­dence has been work­ing out the plan of pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion. The two thoughts are not op­posed in prac­tice, only in man’s mis­taken con­cepts. Di­vine prov­i­dence is never ar­rayed in op­po­si­tion to true hu­man prog­ress, ei­ther tem­po­ral or spir­i­tual. Prov­i­dence is al­ways con­sis­tent with the un­chang­ing and per­fect na­ture of the su­preme Law­maker.

4:1.3“God is faith­ful” and “all his com­mand­ments are just.” “His faith­ful­ness is es­tab­lished in the very skies.” “For­ever, O Lord, your word is set­tled in heaven. Your faith­ful­ness is to all gen­er­a­tions; you have es­tab­lished the earth and it abides.” “He is a faith­ful Cre­ator.”

4:1.4There is no lim­i­ta­tion of the forces and per­son­al­i­ties which the Fa­ther may use to up­hold his pur­pose and sus­tain his crea­tures. “The eter­nal God is our refuge, and un­der­neath are the ev­er­last­ing arms.” “He who dwells in the se­cret place of the Most High shall abide un­der the shadow of the Al­mighty.” “Be­hold, he who keeps us shall nei­ther slum­ber nor sleep.” “We know that all things work to­gether for good to those who love God,” “for the eyes of the Lord are over the righ­teous, and his ears are open to their prayers.”

4:1.5God up­holds “all things by the word of his power.” And when new worlds are born, he “sends forth his Sons and they are cre­ated.” God not only cre­ates, but he “pre­serves them all.” God con­stantly up­holds all things ma­te­rial and all be­ings spir­i­tual. The uni­verses are eter­nally sta­ble. There is sta­bil­ity in the midst of ap­par­ent in­sta­bil­ity. There is an un­der­ly­ing or­der and se­cu­rity in the midst of the en­ergy up­heavals and the phys­i­cal cat­a­clysms of the starry realms.

4:1.6The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has not with­drawn from the man­age­ment of the uni­verses; he is not an in­ac­tive De­ity. If God should re­tire as the pres­ent up­holder of all cre­ation, there would im­me­di­ately oc­cur a uni­ver­sal col­lapse. Ex­cept for God, there would be no such thing as re­al­ity. At this very mo­ment, as dur­ing the re­mote ages of the past and in the eter­nal fu­ture, God con­tin­ues to up­hold. The di­vine reach ex­tends around the cir­cle of eter­nity. The uni­verse is not wound up like a clock to run just so long and then cease to func­tion; all things are con­stantly be­ing re­newed. The Fa­ther un­ceas­ingly pours forth en­ergy, light, and life. The work of God is lit­eral as well as spir­i­tual. “He stretches out the north over the empty space and hangs the earth upon noth­ing.”

4:1.7A be­ing of my or­der is able to dis­cover ul­ti­mate har­mony and to de­tect far-reach­ing and pro­found co-or­di­na­tion in the rou­tine af­fairs of uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion. Much that seems dis­jointed and hap­haz­ard to the mor­tal mind ap­pears or­derly and con­struc­tive to my un­der­stand­ing. But there is very much go­ing on in the uni­verses that I do not fully com­pre­hend. I have long been a stu­dent of, and am more or less con­ver­sant with, the rec­og­nized forces, en­er­gies, minds, mor­ontias, spir­its, and per­son­al­i­ties of the lo­cal uni­verses and the super­uni­verses. I have a gen­eral un­der­stand­ing of how these agen­cies and per­son­al­i­ties op­er­ate, and I am in­ti­mately fa­mil­iar with the work­ings of the ac­cred­ited spirit in­tel­li­gences of the grand uni­verse. Not­with­stand­ing my knowl­edge of the phe­nom­ena of the uni­verses, I am con­stantly con­fronted with cos­mic re­ac­tions which I can­not fully fathom. I am con­tin­u­ally en­coun­ter­ing ap­par­ently for­tu­itous con­spir­a­cies of the in­teras­so­ci­a­tion of forces, en­er­gies, in­tel­lects, and spir­its, which I can­not sat­is­fac­to­rily ex­plain.

4:1.8I am en­tirely com­pe­tent to trace out and to an­a­lyze the work­ing of all phe­nom­ena di­rectly re­sult­ing from the func­tion­ing of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the Eter­nal Son, the In­fi­nite Spirit, and, to a large ex­tent, the Isle of Par­a­dise. My per­plex­ity is oc­ca­sioned by en­coun­ter­ing what ap­pears to be the per­for­mance of their mys­te­ri­ous co-or­di­nates, the three Ab­so­lutes of po­ten­tial­ity. These Ab­so­lutes seem to su­per­sede mat­ter, to tran­scend mind, and to super­vene spirit. I am con­stantly con­fused and of­ten per­plexed by my in­abil­ity to com­pre­hend these com­plex trans­ac­tions which I at­trib­ute to the pres­ences and per­for­mances of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute, the De­ity Ab­so­lute, and the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute.

4:1.9These Ab­so­lutes must be the not-fully-re­vealed pres­ences abroad in the uni­verse which, in the phe­nom­ena of space po­tency and in the func­tion of other super­ul­ti­mates, ren­der it im­pos­si­ble for physi­cists, philoso­phers, or even re­li­gion­ists to pre­dict with cer­tainty as to just how the pri­mor­dials of force, con­cept, or spirit will re­spond to de­mands made in a com­plex re­al­ity sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing su­preme ad­just­ments and ul­ti­mate val­ues.

4:1.10There is also an or­ganic unity in the uni­verses of time and space which seems to un­der­lie the whole fab­ric of cos­mic events. This liv­ing pres­ence of the evolv­ing Su­preme Be­ing, this Im­ma­nence of the Pro­jected In­com­plete, is in­ex­pli­ca­bly man­i­fested ever and anon by what ap­pears to be an amaz­ingly for­tu­itous co-or­di­na­tion of ap­par­ently un­re­lated uni­verse hap­pen­ings. This must be the func­tion of Prov­i­dence—the realm of the Su­preme Be­ing and the Con­joint Ac­tor.

4:1.11I am in­clined to be­lieve that it is this far-flung and gen­er­ally un­rec­og­niz­able con­trol of the co-or­di­na­tion and in­teras­so­ci­a­tion of all phases and forms of uni­verse ac­tiv­ity that causes such a var­ie­gated and ap­par­ently hope­lessly con­fused med­ley of phys­i­cal, men­tal, moral, and spir­i­tual phe­nom­ena so unerringly to work out to the glory of God and for the good of men and an­gels.

4:1.12But in the larger sense the ap­par­ent “ac­ci­dents” of the cos­mos are un­doubt­edly a part of the fi­nite drama of the time-space ad­ven­ture of the In­fi­nite in his eter­nal ma­nip­u­la­tion of the Ab­so­lutes.