God’s Relation to the Universe

4:5.1Re­li­gious tra­di­tion is the im­per­fectly pre­served rec­ord of the ex­pe­ri­ences of the God-know­ing men of past ages, but such rec­ords are un­trust­wor­thy as guides for re­li­gious liv­ing or as the source of true in­for­ma­tion about the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Such an­cient be­liefs have been in­vari­ably al­tered by the fact that prim­i­tive man was a myth­maker.

4:5.2One of the great­est sources of con­fu­sion on Uran­tia con­cern­ing the na­ture of God grows out of the fail­ure of your sa­cred books clearly to dis­tin­guish be­tween the per­son­al­i­ties of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity and be­tween Par­a­dise De­ity and the lo­cal uni­verse cre­ators and ad­min­is­tra­tors. Dur­ing the past dis­pen­sa­tions of par­tial un­der­stand­ing, your priests and proph­ets failed clearly to dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween Plan­e­tary Princes, Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns, Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, Cre­ator Sons, Super­uni­verse Rulers, the Su­preme Be­ing, and the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Many of the mes­sages of sub­or­di­nate per­son­al­i­ties, such as Life Car­ri­ers and var­i­ous or­ders of an­gels, have been, in your rec­ords, pre­sented as com­ing from God him­self. Uran­tian re­li­gious thought still con­fuses the as­so­ciate per­son­al­i­ties of De­ity with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther him­self, so that all are in­cluded un­der one ap­pel­la­tion.

4:5.3The peo­ple of Uran­tia con­tinue to suf­fer from the in­flu­ence of prim­i­tive con­cepts of God. The gods who go on a ram­page in the storm; who shake the earth in their wrath and strike down men in their anger; who in­flict their judg­ments of dis­plea­sure in times of famine and flood—these are the gods of prim­i­tive re­li­gion; they are not the Gods who live and rule the uni­verses. Such con­cepts are a relic of the times when men sup­posed that the uni­verse was un­der the guid­ance and dom­i­na­tion of the whims of such imag­i­nary gods. But mor­tal man is be­gin­ning to re­al­ize that he lives in a realm of com­par­a­tive law and or­der as far as con­cerns the ad­min­is­tra­tive poli­cies and con­duct of the Su­preme Cre­ators and the Su­preme Con­trol­lers.

4:5.4The bar­barous idea of ap­peas­ing an an­gry God, of pro­pi­ti­at­ing an of­fended Lord, of win­ning the fa­vor of De­ity through sac­ri­fices and pen­ance and even by the shed­ding of blood, rep­re­sents a re­li­gion wholly puerile and prim­i­tive, a phi­los­o­phy un­wor­thy of an en­light­ened age of sci­ence and truth. Such be­liefs are ut­terly re­pul­sive to the ce­les­tial be­ings and the di­vine rulers who serve and reign in the uni­verses. It is an af­front to God to be­lieve, hold, or teach that in­no­cent blood must be shed in or­der to win his fa­vor or to di­vert the fic­ti­tious di­vine wrath.

4:5.5The He­brews be­lieved that “with­out the shed­ding of blood there could be no re­mis­sion of sin.” They had not found de­liv­er­ance from the old and pa­gan idea that the Gods could not be ap­peased ex­cept by the sight of blood, though Moses did make a dis­tinct ad­vance when he for­bade hu­man sac­ri­fices and sub­sti­tuted there­for, in the prim­i­tive minds of his child­like Bed­ouin fol­low­ers, the cer­e­mo­nial sac­ri­fice of an­i­mals.

4:5.6The be­stowal of a Par­a­dise Son on your world was in­her­ent in the sit­u­a­tion of clos­ing a plan­e­tary age; it was in­es­cap­able, and it was not made nec­es­sary for the pur­pose of win­ning the fa­vor of God. This be­stowal also hap­pened to be the fi­nal per­sonal act of a Cre­ator Son in the long ad­ven­ture of earn­ing the ex­pe­ri­en­tial sov­er­eignty of his uni­verse. What a trav­esty upon the in­fi­nite char­ac­ter of God! this teach­ing that his fa­therly heart in all its aus­tere cold­ness and hard­ness was so un­touched by the mis­for­tunes and sor­rows of his crea­tures that his ten­der mer­cies were not forth­com­ing un­til he saw his blame­less Son bleed­ing and dy­ing upon the cross of Cal­vary!

4:5.7But the in­hab­i­tants of Uran­tia are to find de­liv­er­ance from these an­cient er­rors and pa­gan su­per­sti­tions re­spect­ing the na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. The rev­e­la­tion of the truth about God is ap­pear­ing, and the hu­man race is des­tined to know the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in all that beauty of char­ac­ter and love­li­ness of at­tri­butes so mag­nif­i­cently por­trayed by the Cre­ator Son who so­journed on Uran­tia as the Son of Man and the Son of God.

4:5.8[Pre­sented by a Di­vine Coun­selor of Uversa.]