delegation

• freely distributes himself; is not self-centered

2:2.5God’s pri­mal per­fec­tion con­sists not in an as­sumed righ­teous­ness but rather in the in­her­ent per­fec­tion of the good­ness of his di­vine na­ture. He is fi­nal, com­plete, and per­fect. There is no thing lack­ing in the beauty and per­fec­tion of his righ­teous char­ac­ter. And the whole scheme of liv­ing ex­is­tences on the worlds of space is cen­tered in the di­vine pur­pose of el­e­vat­ing all will crea­tures to the high des­tiny of the ex­pe­ri­ence of shar­ing the Fa­ther’s Par­a­dise per­fec­tion. God is nei­ther self-cen­tered nor self-con­tained; he never ceases to be­stow him­self upon all self-con­scious crea­tures of the vast uni­verse of uni­verses.

• reserves only powers impossible to delegate

5:0.2God has dis­tributed the in­fin­ity of his eter­nal na­ture through­out the ex­is­ten­tial re­al­i­ties of his six ab­so­lute co-or­di­nates, but he may, at any time, make di­rect per­sonal con­tact with any part or phase or kind of cre­ation through the agency of his preper­sonal frag­ments. And the eter­nal God has also re­served to him­self the pre­rog­a­tive of be­stow­ing per­son­al­ity upon the di­vine Cre­ators and the liv­ing crea­tures of the uni­verse of uni­verses, while he has fur­ther re­served the pre­rog­a­tive of main­tain­ing di­rect and pa­ren­tal con­tact with all these per­sonal be­ings through the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit.

• freely distributes himself; is not self-centered

7:0.2The Son is like the Fa­ther in that he seeks to be­stow ev­ery­thing pos­si­ble of him­self upon his co-or­di­nate Sons and upon their sub­or­di­nate Sons. And the Son shares the Fa­ther’s self-dis­tribu­tive na­ture in the un­stinted be­stowal of him­self upon the In­fi­nite Spirit, their con­joint ex­ec­u­tive.

• reserves only powers impossible to delegate

8:3.2Since the per­son­al­iza­tion of the Third Source, the First Source no more per­son­ally par­tic­i­pates in uni­verse cre­ation. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther del­e­gates ev­ery­thing pos­si­ble to his Eter­nal Son; like­wise does the Eter­nal Son be­stow all pos­si­ble au­thor­ity and power upon the Con­joint Cre­ator.

10:1.1It would seem that the Fa­ther, back in eter­nity, in­au­gu­rated a pol­icy of pro­found self-dis­tri­bu­tion. There is in­her­ent in the self­less, lov­ing, and lov­able na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther some­thing which causes him to re­serve to him­self the ex­er­cise of only those pow­ers and that au­thor­ity which he ap­par­ently finds it im­pos­si­ble to del­e­gate or to be­stow.

10:1.2The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther all along has di­vested him­self of ev­ery part of him­self that was be­stow­able on any other Cre­ator or crea­ture. He has del­e­gated to his di­vine Sons and their as­so­ci­ated in­tel­li­gences ev­ery power and all au­thor­ity that could be del­e­gated. He has ac­tu­ally trans­ferred to his Sov­er­eign Sons, in their re­spec­tive uni­verses, ev­ery pre­rog­a­tive of ad­min­is­tra­tive au­thor­ity that was trans­fer­able. In the af­fairs of a lo­cal uni­verse, he has made each Sov­er­eign Cre­ator Son just as per­fect, com­pe­tent, and au­thor­i­ta­tive as is the Eter­nal Son in the orig­i­nal and cen­tral uni­verse. He has given away, ac­tu­ally be­stowed, with the dig­nity and sanc­tity of per­son­al­ity pos­ses­sion, all of him­self and all of his at­tri­butes, ev­ery­thing he pos­si­bly could di­vest him­self of, in ev­ery way, in ev­ery age, in ev­ery place, and to ev­ery per­son, and in ev­ery uni­verse ex­cept that of his cen­tral in­dwelling.

10:1.3Di­vine per­son­al­ity is not self-cen­tered; self-dis­tri­bu­tion and shar­ing of per­son­al­ity char­ac­ter­ize di­vine free­will self­hood. Crea­tures crave as­so­ci­a­tion with other per­sonal crea­tures; Cre­ators are moved to share di­vin­ity with their uni­verse chil­dren; the per­son­al­ity of the In­fi­nite is dis­closed as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, who shares re­al­ity of be­ing and equal­ity of self with two co-or­di­nate per­son­al­i­ties, the Eter­nal Son and the Con­joint Ac­tor.

10:1.4For knowl­edge con­cern­ing the Fa­ther’s per­son­al­ity and di­vine at­tri­butes we will al­ways be de­pen­dent on the rev­e­la­tions of the Eter­nal Son, for when the con­joint act of cre­ation was ef­fected, when the Third Per­son of De­ity sprang into per­son­al­ity ex­is­tence and ex­e­cuted the com­bined con­cepts of his di­vine par­ents, the Fa­ther ceased to ex­ist as the un­qual­i­fied per­son­al­ity. With the com­ing into be­ing of the Con­joint Ac­tor and the ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion of the cen­tral core of cre­ation, cer­tain eter­nal changes took place. God gave him­self as an ab­so­lute per­son­al­ity to his Eter­nal Son. Thus does the Fa­ther be­stow the “per­son­al­ity of in­fin­ity” upon his only-be­got­ten Son, while they both be­stow the “con­joint per­son­al­ity” of their eter­nal union upon the In­fi­nite Spirit.

10:1.5For these and other rea­sons be­yond the con­cept of the fi­nite mind, it is ex­ceed­ingly dif­fi­cult for the hu­man crea­ture to com­pre­hend God’s in­fi­nite fa­ther-per­son­al­ity ex­cept as it is uni­ver­sally re­vealed in the Eter­nal Son and, with the Son, is uni­ver­sally ac­tive in the In­fi­nite Spirit.

10:1.6Since the Par­a­dise Sons of God visit the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds and some­times even there dwell in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, and since these be­stowals make it pos­si­ble for mor­tal man ac­tu­ally to know some­thing of the na­ture and char­ac­ter of di­vine per­son­al­ity, there­fore must the crea­tures of the plan­e­tary spheres look to the be­stowals of these Par­a­dise Sons for re­li­able and trust­wor­thy in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the Fa­ther, the Son, and the Spirit.

• reserves only powers impossible to delegate

10:3.6We ob­serve that the Fa­ther has di­vested him­self of all di­rect man­i­fes­ta­tions of ab­so­lute­ness ex­cept ab­so­lute fa­ther­hood and ab­so­lute vo­li­tion. We do not know whether vo­li­tion is an in­alien­able at­tri­bute of the Fa­ther; we can only ob­serve that he did not di­vest him­self of vo­li­tion. Such in­fin­ity of will must have been eter­nally in­her­ent in the First Source and Cen­ter.

• reserves only powers impossible to delegate

32:4.1Do not en­ter­tain the idea that, since the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has del­e­gated so much of him­self and his power to oth­ers, he is a silent or in­ac­tive mem­ber of the De­ity part­ner­ship. Aside from per­son­al­ity do­mains and Ad­juster be­stowal, he is ap­par­ently the least ac­tive of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties in that he al­lows his De­ity co-or­di­nates, his Sons, and nu­mer­ous cre­ated in­tel­li­gences to per­form so much in the car­ry­ing out of his eter­nal pur­pose. He is the silent mem­ber of the cre­ative trio only in that he never does aught which any of his co-or­di­nate or sub­or­di­nate as­so­ciates can do.

32:4.2God has full un­der­stand­ing of the need of ev­ery in­tel­li­gent crea­ture for func­tion and ex­pe­ri­ence, and there­fore, in ev­ery sit­u­a­tion, be it con­cerned with the des­tiny of a uni­verse or the wel­fare of the hum­blest of his crea­tures, God re­tires from ac­tiv­ity in fa­vor of the galaxy of crea­ture and Cre­ator per­son­al­i­ties who in­her­ently in­ter­vene be­tween him­self and any given uni­verse sit­u­a­tion or cre­ative event. But not­with­stand­ing this re­tire­ment, this ex­hi­bi­tion of in­fi­nite co-or­di­na­tion, there is on God’s part an ac­tual, lit­eral, and per­sonal par­tic­i­pa­tion in these events by and through these or­dained agen­cies and per­son­al­i­ties. The Fa­ther is work­ing in and through all these chan­nels for the wel­fare of all his far-flung cre­ation.

• reserves only powers impossible to delegate

32:4.10God is not a self-cen­tered per­son­al­ity; the Fa­ther freely dis­tributes him­self to his cre­ation and to his crea­tures. He lives and acts, not only in the De­i­ties, but also in his Sons, whom he in­trusts with the do­ing of ev­ery­thing that it is di­vinely pos­si­ble for them to do. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has truly di­vested him­self of ev­ery func­tion which it is pos­si­ble for an­other be­ing to per­form. And this is just as true of mor­tal man as of the Cre­ator Son who rules in God’s stead at the head­quar­ters of a lo­cal uni­verse. Thus we be­hold the out­work­ing of the ideal and in­fi­nite love of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

32:4.11In this uni­ver­sal be­stowal of him­self we have abun­dant proof of both the mag­ni­tude and the mag­na­nim­ity of the Fa­ther’s di­vine na­ture. If God has with­held aught of him­self from the uni­ver­sal cre­ation, then of that residue he is in lav­ish gen­eros­ity be­stow­ing the Thought Ad­justers upon the mor­tals of the realms, the Mys­tery Mon­i­tors of time, who so pa­tiently in­dwell the mor­tal can­di­dates for life ev­er­last­ing.

32:4.12The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has poured out him­self, as it were, to make all cre­ation rich in per­son­al­ity pos­ses­sion and po­ten­tial spir­i­tual at­tain­ment. God has given us him­self that we may be like him, and he has re­served for him­self of power and glory only that which is nec­es­sary for the main­te­nance of those things for the love of which he has thus di­vested him­self of all things else.

• resigned exercise of all direct power in behalf of Supreme Creators

108:4.1Apart from pos­si­ble co-or­di­na­tion with other De­ity frag­ments, the Ad­justers are quite alone in their sphere of ac­tiv­ity in the mor­tal mind. The Mys­tery Mon­i­tors elo­quently be­speak the fact that, though the Fa­ther may have ap­par­ently re­signed the ex­er­cise of all di­rect per­sonal power and au­thor­ity through­out the grand uni­verse, not­with­stand­ing this act of ab­ne­ga­tion in be­half of the Su­preme Cre­ator chil­dren of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties, the Fa­ther has cer­tainly re­served to him­self the un­chal­lenge­able right to be pres­ent in the minds and souls of his evolv­ing crea­tures to the end that he may so act as to draw all crea­ture cre­ation to him­self, co-or­di­nately with the spir­i­tual grav­ity of the Par­a­dise Sons. Said your Par­a­dise be­stowal Son when yet on Uran­tia, “I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men.” This spir­i­tual draw­ing power of the Par­a­dise Sons and their cre­ative as­so­ciates we rec­og­nize and un­der­stand, but we do not so fully com­pre­hend the meth­ods of the all-wise Fa­ther’s func­tion­ing in and through these Mys­tery Mon­i­tors that live and work so valiantly within the hu­man mind.

141:1.3Je­sus did no pub­lic preach­ing. An­drew di­vided the mul­ti­tude and as­signed the preach­ers for the forenoon and af­ter­noon as­sem­blies; af­ter the evening meal Je­sus talked with the twelve. He taught them noth­ing new but re­viewed his for­mer teach­ing and an­swered their many ques­tions. On one of these evenings he told the twelve some­thing about the forty days which he spent in the hills near this place.

148:0.3While An­drew con­tin­ued in gen­eral charge of the apos­tolic ac­tiv­i­ties, Pe­ter was in full charge of the school of the evan­ge­lists. The apos­tles all did their share in teach­ing groups of evan­ge­lists each forenoon, and both teach­ers and pupils taught the peo­ple dur­ing the af­ter­noons. Af­ter the evening meal, five nights a week, the apos­tles con­ducted ques­tion classes for the ben­e­fit of the evan­ge­lists. Once a week Je­sus pre­sided at this ques­tion hour, an­swer­ing the holdover ques­tions from pre­vi­ous ses­sions.

149:0.2Be­fore the de­par­ture on this Sun­day morn­ing An­drew and Pe­ter asked Je­sus to give the fi­nal charge to the new evan­ge­lists, but the Mas­ter de­clined, say­ing that it was not his prov­ince to do those things which oth­ers could ac­cept­ably per­form. Af­ter due de­lib­er­a­tion it was de­cided that James Zeb­e­dee should ad­min­is­ter the charge. At the con­clu­sion of James’s re­marks Je­sus said to the evan­ge­lists: “Go now forth to do the work as you have been charged, and later on, when you have shown your­selves com­pe­tent and faith­ful, I will or­dain you to preach the gospel of the king­dom.”

128:2.4Be­fore tak­ing up his new em­ploy­ment at Sep­pho­ris, Je­sus held one of his pe­ri­odic fam­ily con­fer­ences and solemnly in­stalled James, then just past eigh­teen years old, as act­ing head of the fam­ily. He prom­ised his brother hearty sup­port and full co-op­er­a­tion and ex­acted for­mal promises of obe­di­ence to James from each mem­ber of the fam­ily. From this day James as­sumed full fi­nan­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity for the fam­ily, Je­sus mak­ing his weekly pay­ments to his brother. Never again did Je­sus take the reins out of James’s hands. While work­ing at Sep­pho­ris he could have walked home ev­ery night if nec­es­sary, but he pur­posely re­mained away, as­sign­ing weather and other rea­sons, but his true mo­tive was to train James and Joseph in the bear­ing of the fam­ily re­spon­si­bil­ity. He had be­gun the slow pro­cess of wean­ing his fam­ily. Each Sab­bath Je­sus re­turned to Naz­a­reth, and some­times dur­ing the week when oc­ca­sion re­quired, to ob­serve the work­ing of the new plan, to give ad­vice and of­fer help­ful sug­ges­tions.