groups

• spirit gravity creates cohesiveness among believers

7:1.6Spirit-grav­ity pull and re­sponse thereto op­er­ate not only on the uni­verse as a whole but also even be­tween in­di­vid­u­als and groups of in­di­vid­u­als. There is a spir­i­tual co­he­sive­ness among the spir­i­tual and spir­i­tized per­son­al­i­ties of any world, race, na­tion, or be­liev­ing group of in­di­vid­u­als. There is a di­rect at­trac­tive­ness of a spirit na­ture be­tween spir­i­tu­ally minded per­sons of like tastes and long­ings. The term kin­dred spir­its is not wholly a fig­ure of speech.

• 3 persons are minimum group

10:2.3The Son is in­dis­pens­able to the fa­ther­hood of God. The Spirit is in­dis­pens­able to the fra­ter­nity of the Sec­ond and Third Per­sons. Three per­sons are a min­i­mum so­cial group, but this is least of all the many rea­sons for be­liev­ing in the in­evitabil­ity of the Con­joint Ac­tor.

• value of groups › organized g. vastly stronger than sum of individuals

10:5.2The func­tions of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity are not sim­ply the sum of the Fa­ther’s ap­par­ent en­dow­ment of di­vin­ity plus those spe­cial­ized at­tri­butes that are unique in the per­sonal ex­is­tence of the Son and the Spirit. The Trin­ity as­so­ci­a­tion of the three Par­a­dise De­i­ties re­sults in the evo­lu­tion, even­tu­a­tion, and deiti­za­tion of new mean­ings, val­ues, pow­ers, and ca­pac­i­ties for uni­ver­sal rev­e­la­tion, ac­tion, and ad­min­is­tra­tion. Liv­ing as­so­ci­a­tions, hu­man fam­i­lies, so­cial groups, or the Par­a­dise Trin­ity are not aug­mented by mere arith­meti­cal sum­ma­tion. The group po­ten­tial is al­ways far in ex­cess of the sim­ple sum of the at­tri­butes of the com­po­nent in­di­vid­u­als.

• value of groups › members reap benefits and suffer consequences of others’ actions

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.

• celestial involvement › Solitary Messengers contribute to development of group identity in spirit beings

23:4.1The Soli­tary Mes­sen­gers seem to be per­son­al­ity co-or­di­na­tors for all types of spirit be­ings. Their min­istry helps to make all the per­son­al­i­ties of the far-flung spir­i­tual world akin. They con­tribute much to the de­vel­op­ment, in all spirit be­ings, of a con­scious­ness of group iden­tity. Ev­ery type of spirit be­ing is served by spe­cial groups of Soli­tary Mes­sen­gers who fos­ter the abil­ity of such be­ings to un­der­stand and frat­er­nize with all other types and or­ders, how­ever dis­sim­i­lar.

• celestial involvement › dispensational resurrections keep g. together for long effective service

30:4.13These dis­pen­sa­tional classes of world pil­grims are uti­lized for group mor­ontia ac­tiv­i­ties in the work of the lo­cal uni­verses. There is a great ad­van­tage in the mo­bi­liza­tion of such enor­mous groups; they are thus kept to­gether for long pe­ri­ods of ef­fec­tive ser­vice.

• celestial involvement › Creator Son rules in relations between g.

32:4.3As re­gards the poli­cies, con­duct, and ad­min­is­tra­tion of a lo­cal uni­verse, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther acts in the per­son of his Cre­ator Son. In the in­ter­re­la­tion­ships of the Sons of God, in the group as­so­ci­a­tions of the per­son­al­i­ties of ori­gin in the Third Source and Cen­ter, or in the re­la­tion­ship be­tween any other crea­tures, such as hu­man be­ings—as con­cerns such as­so­ci­a­tions the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never in­ter­venes. The law of the Cre­ator Son, the rule of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, the Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns, and the Plan­e­tary Princes—the or­dained poli­cies and pro­ce­dures for that uni­verse—al­ways pre­vail. There is no di­vi­sion of au­thor­ity; never is there a cross work­ing of di­vine power and pur­pose. The De­i­ties are in per­fect and eter­nal una­nim­ity.

32:4.4The Cre­ator Son rules su­preme in all mat­ters of eth­i­cal as­so­ci­a­tions, the re­la­tions of any di­vi­sion of crea­tures to any other class of crea­tures or of two or more in­di­vid­u­als within any given group; but such a plan does not mean that the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther may not in his own way in­ter­vene and do aught that pleases the di­vine mind with any in­di­vid­ual crea­ture through­out all cre­ation, as per­tains to that in­di­vid­ual’s pres­ent sta­tus or fu­ture prospects and as con­cerns the Fa­ther’s eter­nal plan and in­fi­nite pur­pose.

• celestial involvement › transition from universe phases usually by classes

37:6.5The pur­pose of all this train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence is to pre­pare you for ad­mis­sion to the higher and more spir­i­tual train­ing spheres of the super­uni­verse. Prog­ress within a given realm is in­di­vid­ual, but tran­si­tion from one phase to an­other is usu­ally by classes.

• celestial involvement › g. under jurisdiction of social architects

39:3.43. So­cial Ar­chi­tects. From the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets up through the mor­ontia train­ing worlds, these ser­a­phim la­bor to en­hance all sin­cere so­cial con­tacts and to fur­ther the so­cial evo­lu­tion of uni­verse crea­tures. These are the an­gels who seek to di­vest the as­so­ci­a­tions of in­tel­li­gent be­ings of all ar­ti­fi­cial­ity while en­deav­or­ing to fa­cil­i­tate the in­teras­so­ci­a­tion of will crea­tures on a ba­sis of real self-un­der­stand­ing and gen­uine mu­tual ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

• mortals may reassociate for service on mansion worlds

39:3.5So­cial ar­chi­tects do ev­ery­thing within their prov­ince and power to bring to­gether suit­able in­di­vid­u­als that they may con­sti­tute ef­fi­cient and agree­able work­ing groups on earth; and some­times such groups have found them­selves re­as­so­ci­ated on the man­sion worlds for con­tin­ued fruit­ful ser­vice. But not al­ways do these ser­a­phim at­tain their ends; not al­ways are they able to bring to­gether those who would form the most ideal group to achieve a given pur­pose or to ac­com­plish a cer­tain task; un­der these con­di­tions they must uti­lize the best of the ma­te­rial avail­able.

• 3 persons are minimum group

39:3.6These an­gels con­tinue their min­istry on the man­sion and higher mor­ontia worlds. They are con­cerned with any un­der­tak­ing hav­ing to do with prog­ress on the mor­ontia worlds and which con­cerns three or more per­sons. Two be­ings are re­garded as op­er­at­ing on the mat­ing, com­ple­men­tal, or part­ner­ship ba­sis, but when three or more are grouped for ser­vice, they con­sti­tute a so­cial prob­lem and there­fore fall within the ju­ris­dic­tion of the so­cial ar­chi­tects. These ef­fi­cient ser­a­phim are or­ga­nized in sev­enty di­vi­sions on Eden­tia, and these di­vi­sions min­is­ter on the sev­enty mor­ontia prog­ress worlds en­cir­cling the head­quar­ters sphere.

• submitting the self to disciplines of

43:8.4On the man­sion worlds you com­pleted the uni­fi­ca­tion of the evolv­ing mor­tal per­son­al­ity; on the sys­tem cap­i­tal you at­tained Je­ru­sem cit­i­zen­ship and achieved the will­ing­ness to sub­mit the self to the dis­ci­plines of group ac­tiv­i­ties and co-or­di­nated un­der­tak­ings; but now on the con­stel­la­tion train­ing worlds you are to achieve the real so­cial­iza­tion of your evolv­ing mor­ontia per­son­al­ity. This su­per­nal cul­tural ac­quire­ment con­sists in learn­ing how to:

• perfecting ability to live in intimate contact with lessened irritability

43:8.95. While at­tain­ing sat­is­fac­tory so­cial­iza­tion of the per­son­al­ity on in­tel­lec­tual and vo­ca­tional lev­els, fur­ther per­fect the abil­ity to live in in­ti­mate con­tact with sim­i­lar and slightly dis­sim­i­lar be­ings with ever-less­en­ing ir­ri­tabil­ity and ever-di­min­ish­ing re­sent­ment. The re­ver­sion di­rec­tors con­tribute much to this lat­ter at­tain­ment through their group-play ac­tiv­i­ties.

• value of groups › partnership technique quadruples achievement possibilities

43:8.117. And then, cli­max all of these pro­ce­dures of mul­ti­so­cial­iza­tion with the con­cur­rent en­hance­ment of spir­i­tual in­sight as it per­tains to the aug­men­ta­tion of all phases of per­sonal en­dow­ment through group spir­i­tual as­so­ci­a­tion and mor­ontia co-or­di­na­tion. In­tel­lec­tu­ally, so­cially, and spir­i­tu­ally two moral crea­tures do not merely dou­ble their per­sonal po­ten­tials of uni­verse achieve­ment by part­ner­ship tech­nique; they more nearly quadru­ple their at­tain­ment and ac­com­plish­ment pos­si­bil­i­ties.

• survivors depart for Jerusem in

47:9.3Now be­gins the for­ma­tion of classes for grad­u­a­tion to Je­ru­sem. You have gone from world to world as in­di­vid­u­als, but now you pre­pare to de­part for Je­ru­sem in groups, al­though, within cer­tain lim­its, an as­cender may elect to tarry on the sev­enth man­sion world for the pur­pose of en­abling a tardy mem­ber of his earthly or man­so­nia work­ing group to catch up with him.

• celestial involvement › selective assorters group morontia personalities for projects

48:2.24The se­lec­tive as­sorters are also of great ser­vice in the group­ing of mor­ontia per­son­al­i­ties for pur­poses of study, teach­ing, and other projects. They nat­u­rally in­di­cate those who will best func­tion in tem­po­rary as­so­ci­a­tion.

• celestial involvement › mind planner seraphim organize teamwork on mansion worlds

48:6.243. Mind Plan­ners. These ser­a­phim are de­voted to the ef­fec­tive group­ing of mor­ontia be­ings and to or­ga­niz­ing their team­work on the man­sion worlds. They are the psy­chol­o­gists of the first heaven. The ma­jor­ity of this par­tic­u­lar di­vi­sion of se­raphic min­is­ters have had pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence as guard­ian an­gels to the chil­dren of time, but their wards, for some rea­son, failed to per­son­al­ize on the man­sion worlds or else sur­vived by the tech­nique of Spirit fu­sion.

48:6.25It is the task of the mind plan­ners to study the na­ture, ex­pe­ri­ence, and sta­tus of the Ad­juster souls in tran­sit through the man­sion worlds and to fa­cil­i­tate their group­ing for as­sign­ment and ad­vance­ment. But these mind plan­ners do not scheme, ma­nip­u­late, or oth­er­wise take ad­van­tage of the ig­no­rance or other lim­i­ta­tions of man­sion world stu­dents. They are wholly fair and em­i­nently just. They re­spect your new­born mor­ontia will; they re­gard you as in­de­pen­dent vo­li­tional be­ings, and they seek to en­cour­age your speedy de­vel­op­ment and ad­vance­ment. Here you are face to face with true friends and un­der­stand­ing coun­selors, an­gels who are re­ally able to help you “to see your­self as oth­ers see you” and “to know your­self as an­gels know you.”

• value of groups › members reap benefits and suffer consequences of others’ actions

54:6.3If an af­fec­tion­ate fa­ther of a large fam­ily chooses to show mercy to one of his chil­dren guilty of griev­ous wrong­do­ing, it may well be that the ex­ten­sion of mercy to this mis­be­hav­ing child will work a tem­po­rary hard­ship upon all the other and well-be­haved chil­dren. Such even­tu­al­i­ties are in­ev­i­ta­ble; such a risk is in­sep­a­ra­ble from the re­al­ity sit­u­a­tion of hav­ing a lov­ing par­ent and of be­ing a mem­ber of a fam­ily group. Each mem­ber of a fam­ily prof­its by the righ­teous con­duct of ev­ery other mem­ber; like­wise must each mem­ber suf­fer the im­me­di­ate time-con­se­quences of the mis­con­duct of ev­ery other mem­ber. Fam­i­lies, groups, na­tions, races, worlds, sys­tems, con­stel­la­tions, and uni­verses are re­la­tion­ships of as­so­ci­a­tion which pos­sess in­di­vid­u­al­ity; and there­fore does ev­ery mem­ber of any such group, large or small, reap the ben­e­fits and suf­fer the con­se­quences of the right­do­ing and the wrong­do­ing of all other mem­bers of the group con­cerned.

54:6.4But one thing should be made clear: If you are made to suf­fer the evil con­se­quences of the sin of some mem­ber of your fam­ily, some fel­low cit­i­zen or fel­low mor­tal, even re­bel­lion in the sys­tem or else­where—no mat­ter what you may have to en­dure be­cause of the wrong­do­ing of your as­so­ciates, fel­lows, or su­pe­ri­ors—you may rest se­cure in the eter­nal as­sur­ance that such tribu­la­tions are tran­sient af­flic­tions. None of these fra­ter­nal con­se­quences of mis­be­hav­ior in the group can ever jeop­ar­dize your eter­nal prospects or in the least de­gree de­prive you of your di­vine right of Par­a­dise as­cen­sion and God at­tain­ment.

67:7.1The per­sonal (cen­tripetal) con­se­quences of the crea­ture’s will­ful and per­sis­tent re­jec­tion of light are both in­ev­i­ta­ble and in­di­vid­ual and are of con­cern only to De­ity and to that per­sonal crea­ture. Such a soul-de­stroy­ing har­vest of in­iq­uity is the in­ner reap­ing of the in­iq­ui­tous will crea­ture.

67:7.2But not so with the ex­ter­nal reper­cus­sions of sin: The im­per­sonal (cen­trifu­gal) con­se­quences of em­braced sin are both in­ev­i­ta­ble and col­lec­tive, be­ing of con­cern to ev­ery crea­ture func­tion­ing within the af­fect-range of such events.

67:7.3By fifty thou­sand years af­ter the col­lapse of the plan­e­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion, earthly af­fairs were so dis­or­ga­nized and re­tarded that the hu­man race had gained very lit­tle over the gen­eral evo­lu­tion­ary sta­tus ex­ist­ing at the time of Cali­gas­tia’s ar­rival three hun­dred and fifty thou­sand years pre­vi­ously. In cer­tain re­spects prog­ress had been made; in other di­rec­tions much ground had been lost.

67:7.4Sin is never purely lo­cal in its ef­fects. The ad­min­is­tra­tive sec­tors of the uni­verses are or­gan­is­mal; the plight of one per­son­al­ity must to a cer­tain ex­tent be shared by all. Sin, be­ing an at­ti­tude of the per­son to­ward re­al­ity, is des­tined to ex­hibit its in­her­ent neg­a­tivis­tic har­vest upon any and all re­lated lev­els of uni­verse val­ues. But the full con­se­quences of er­ro­neous think­ing, evil-do­ing, or sin­ful plan­ning are ex­pe­ri­enced only on the level of ac­tual per­for­mance. The trans­gres­sion of uni­verse law may be fa­tal in the phys­i­cal realm with­out se­ri­ously in­volv­ing the mind or im­pair­ing the spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Sin is fraught with fa­tal con­se­quences to per­son­al­ity sur­vival only when it is the at­ti­tude of the whole be­ing, when it stands for the choos­ing of the mind and the will­ing of the soul.

67:7.5Evil and sin visit their con­se­quences in ma­te­rial and so­cial realms and may some­times even re­tard spir­i­tual prog­ress on cer­tain lev­els of uni­verse re­al­ity, but never does the sin of any be­ing rob an­other of the re­al­iza­tion of the di­vine right of per­son­al­ity sur­vival. Eter­nal sur­vival can be jeop­ar­dized only by the de­ci­sions of the mind and the choice of the soul of the in­di­vid­ual him­self.

67:7.6Sin on Uran­tia did very lit­tle to de­lay bi­o­logic evo­lu­tion, but it did op­er­ate to de­prive the mor­tal races of the full ben­e­fit of the Adamic in­her­i­tance. Sin enor­mously re­tards in­tel­lec­tual de­vel­op­ment, moral growth, so­cial prog­ress, and mass spir­i­tual at­tain­ment. But it does not pre­vent the high­est spir­i­tual achieve­ment by any in­di­vid­ual who chooses to know God and sin­cerely do his di­vine will.

67:7.7Cali­gas­tia re­belled, Adam and Eve did de­fault, but no mor­tal sub­se­quently born on Uran­tia has suf­fered in his per­sonal spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence be­cause of these blun­ders. Ev­ery mor­tal born on Uran­tia since Cali­gas­tia’s re­bel­lion has been in some man­ner time-pe­nal­ized, but the fu­ture wel­fare of such souls has never been in the least eter­nity-jeop­ar­dized. No per­son is ever made to suf­fer vi­tal spir­i­tual de­pri­va­tion be­cause of the sin of an­other. Sin is wholly per­sonal as to moral guilt or spir­i­tual con­se­quences, not­with­stand­ing its far-flung reper­cus­sions in ad­min­is­tra­tive, in­tel­lec­tual, and so­cial do­mains.

67:7.8While we can­not fathom the wis­dom that per­mits such catas­tro­phes, we can al­ways dis­cern the ben­e­fi­cial out­work­ing of these lo­cal dis­tur­bances as they are re­flected out upon the uni­verse at large.

• value of groups › organized g. vastly stronger than sum of individuals

68:1.4Prim­i­tive hu­man be­ings early learned that groups are vastly greater and stronger than the mere sum of their in­di­vid­ual units. One hun­dred men united and work­ing in uni­son can move a great stone; a score of well-trained guard­i­ans of the peace can re­strain an an­gry mob. And so so­ci­ety was born, not of mere as­so­ci­a­tion of num­bers, but rather as a re­sult of the or­ga­ni­za­tion of in­tel­li­gent co-op­er­a­tors. But co-op­er­a­tion is not a nat­u­ral trait of man; he learns to co-op­er­ate first through fear and then later be­cause he dis­cov­ers it is most ben­e­fi­cial in meet­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties of time and guard­ing against the sup­posed per­ils of eter­nity.

68:1.5The peo­ples who thus early or­ga­nized them­selves into a prim­i­tive so­ci­ety be­came more suc­cess­ful in their at­tacks on na­ture as well as in de­fense against their fel­lows; they pos­sessed greater sur­vival pos­si­bil­i­ties; hence has civ­i­liza­tion steadily pro­gressed on Uran­tia, not­with­stand­ing its many set­backs. And it is only be­cause of the en­hance­ment of sur­vival value in as­so­ci­a­tion that man’s many blun­ders have thus far failed to stop or de­stroy hu­man civ­i­liza­tion.

• primitive man recognized advantage of association

69:2.3Prim­i­tive man was not slow to rec­og­nize the ad­van­tages of as­so­ci­a­tion. As­so­ci­a­tion led to or­ga­ni­za­tion, and the first re­sult of or­ga­ni­za­tion was di­vi­sion of la­bor, with its im­me­di­ate sav­ing of time and ma­te­ri­als. These spe­cial­iza­tions of la­bor arose by adap­ta­tion to pres­sure—pur­su­ing the paths of less­ened re­sis­tance. Prim­i­tive sav­ages never did any real work cheer­fully or will­ingly. With them con­for­mity was due to the co­er­cion of ne­ces­sity.

• solution of Chinese irrigation problems demanded group co-operation; fostered interdependence

79:8.6De­spite fail­ure to ful­fill the prom­ise of an early de­vel­op­ment of ad­vanced state­hood, the yel­low race did pro­gres­sively move for­ward in the re­al­iza­tion of the arts of civ­i­liza­tion, es­pe­cially in the realms of agri­cul­ture and hor­ti­cul­ture. The hy­draulic prob­lems faced by the agri­cul­tur­ists in Shensi and Ho­nan de­manded group co-op­er­a­tion for so­lu­tion. Such ir­ri­ga­tion and soil-con­ser­va­tion dif­fi­cul­ties con­tributed in no small mea­sure to the de­vel­op­ment of in­ter­de­pen­dence with the con­se­quent pro­mo­tion of peace among farm­ing groups.

• leadership › effectiveness of g. depends upon leadership

81:6.3713. Ef­fec­tive and wise lead­er­ship. In civ­i­liza­tion much, very much, de­pends on an en­thu­si­as­tic and ef­fec­tive load-pulling spirit. Ten men are of lit­tle more value than one in lift­ing a great load un­less they lift to­gether—all at the same mo­ment. And such team­work—so­cial co-op­er­a­tion—is de­pen­dent on lead­er­ship. The cul­tural civ­i­liza­tions of the past and the pres­ent have been based upon the in­tel­li­gent co-op­er­a­tion of the cit­i­zenry with wise and pro­gres­sive lead­ers; and un­til man evolves to higher lev­els, civ­i­liza­tion will con­tinue to be de­pen­dent on wise and vig­or­ous lead­er­ship.

• value of groups › progress of each individual augmented through achievement of group

100:0.1The ex­pe­ri­ence of dy­namic re­li­gious liv­ing trans­forms the mediocre in­di­vid­ual into a per­son­al­ity of ide­al­is­tic power. Re­li­gion min­is­ters to the prog­ress of all through fos­ter­ing the prog­ress of each in­di­vid­ual, and the prog­ress of each is aug­mented through the achieve­ment of all.

• value of groups › spiritual growth stimulated by intimate association with other religionists

100:0.2Spir­i­tual growth is mu­tu­ally stim­u­lated by in­ti­mate as­so­ci­a­tion with other re­li­gion­ists. Love sup­plies the soil for re­li­gious growth—an ob­jec­tive lure in the place of sub­jec­tive grat­i­fi­ca­tion—yet it yields the su­preme sub­jec­tive sat­is­fac­tion. And re­li­gion en­no­bles the com­mon­place drudgery of daily liv­ing.

• value of groups › man benefits by loyalty to human associations and temporal institutions

100:2.6The goal of hu­man self-re­al­iza­tion should be spir­i­tual, not ma­te­rial. The only re­al­i­ties worth striv­ing for are di­vine, spir­i­tual, and eter­nal. Mor­tal man is en­ti­tled to the en­joy­ment of phys­i­cal plea­sures and to the sat­is­fac­tion of hu­man af­fec­tions; he is ben­e­fited by loy­alty to hu­man as­so­ci­a­tions and tem­po­ral in­sti­tu­tions; but these are not the eter­nal foun­da­tions upon which to build the im­mor­tal per­son­al­ity which must tran­scend space, van­quish time, and achieve the eter­nal des­tiny of di­vine per­fec­tion and fi­nal­i­ter ser­vice.

• value of groups › g. anticipate and transcend individual capacities

106:3.4The first ex­pe­ri­en­tial Trin­ity pro­vides for group at­tain­ment of ul­ti­mate even­tu­al­i­ties. Group as­so­ci­a­tions are en­abled to an­tic­i­pate, even to tran­scend, in­di­vid­ual ca­pac­i­ties; and this is true even be­yond the fi­nite level. In the ages to come, af­ter the seven super­uni­verses have been set­tled in light and life, the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity will doubt­less be pro­mul­gat­ing the pur­poses of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties as they are dic­tated by the Trin­ity Ul­ti­mate, and as they are power-per­son­al­ity uni­fied in the Su­preme Be­ing.

• value of groups › value of group is square the number involved

133:5.6Math­e­mat­ics as­serts that, if one per­son stands for a cer­tain unit of in­tel­lec­tual and moral value, ten per­sons would stand for ten times this value. But in deal­ing with hu­man per­son­al­ity it would be nearer the truth to say that such a per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion is a sum equal to the square of the num­ber of per­son­al­i­ties con­cerned in the equa­tion rather than the sim­ple arith­meti­cal sum. A so­cial group of hu­man be­ings in co-or­di­nated work­ing har­mony stands for a force far greater than the sim­ple sum of its parts.

• Thomas abided by group decisions

139:8.8In the coun­cils of the twelve Thomas was al­ways cau­tious, ad­vo­cat­ing a pol­icy of safety first, but if his con­ser­vatism was voted down or over­ruled, he was al­ways the first fear­lessly to move out in ex­e­cu­tion of the pro­gram de­cided upon. Again and again would he stand out against some project as be­ing fool­hardy and pre­sump­tu­ous; he would de­bate to the bit­ter end, but when An­drew would put the propo­si­tion to a vote, and af­ter the twelve would elect to do that which he had so stren­u­ously op­posed, Thomas was the first to say, “Let’s go!” He was a good loser. He did not hold grudges nor nurse wounded feel­ings. Time and again did he op­pose let­ting Je­sus ex­pose him­self to dan­ger, but when the Mas­ter would de­cide to take such risks, al­ways was it Thomas who ral­lied the apos­tles with his coura­geous words, “Come on, com­rades, let’s go and die with him.”

• value of groups › members reap benefits and suffer consequences of others’ actions

145:2.8“No more should you fear that God will pun­ish a na­tion for the sin of an in­di­vid­ual; nei­ther will the Fa­ther in heaven pun­ish one of his be­liev­ing chil­dren for the sins of a na­tion, al­beit the in­di­vid­ual mem­ber of any fam­ily must of­ten suf­fer the ma­te­rial con­se­quences of fam­ily mis­takes and group trans­gres­sions. Do you not re­al­ize that the hope of a bet­ter na­tion—or a bet­ter world—is bound up in the prog­ress and en­light­en­ment of the in­di­vid­ual?”

• legislative and judicial authority vested in

159:1.6Thus did Je­sus teach the dan­gers and il­lus­trate the un­fair­ness of sit­ting in per­sonal judg­ment upon one’s fel­lows. Dis­ci­pline must be main­tained, jus­tice must be ad­min­is­tered, but in all these mat­ters the wis­dom of the broth­er­hood should pre­vail. Je­sus in­vested leg­isla­tive and ju­di­cial au­thor­ity in the group, not in the in­di­vid­ual. Even this in­vest­ment of au­thor­ity in the group must not be ex­er­cised as per­sonal au­thor­ity. There is al­ways dan­ger that the ver­dict of an in­di­vid­ual may be warped by prej­u­dice or dis­torted by pas­sion. Group judg­ment is more likely to re­move the dan­gers and elim­i­nate the un­fair­ness of per­sonal bias. Je­sus sought al­ways to min­i­mize the el­e­ments of un­fair­ness, re­tal­i­a­tion, and vengeance.

• leadership › leadership unfailingly provided for g.

181:2.16When the Mas­ter had fin­ished speak­ing to James Zeb­e­dee, he stepped around to the end of the ta­ble where An­drew sat and, look­ing his faith­ful helper in the eyes, said: “An­drew, you have faith­fully rep­re­sented me as act­ing head of the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. Al­though you have some­times doubted and at other times man­i­fested dan­ger­ous timid­ity, still, you have al­ways been sin­cerely just and em­i­nently fair in deal­ing with your as­so­ciates. Ever since the or­di­na­tion of you and your breth­ren as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, you have been self-gov­ern­ing in all group ad­min­is­tra­tive af­fairs ex­cept that I des­ig­nated you as the act­ing head of these cho­sen ones. In no other tem­po­ral mat­ter have I acted to di­rect or to in­flu­ence your de­ci­sions. And this I did in or­der to pro­vide for lead­er­ship in the di­rec­tion of all your sub­se­quent group de­lib­er­a­tions. In my uni­verse and in my Fa­ther’s uni­verse of uni­verses, our breth­ren-sons are dealt with as in­di­vid­u­als in all their spir­i­tual re­la­tions, but in all group re­la­tion­ships we un­fail­ingly pro­vide for def­i­nite lead­er­ship. Our king­dom is a realm of or­der, and where two or more will crea­tures act in co-op­er­a­tion, there is al­ways pro­vided the au­thor­ity of lead­er­ship.

• value of groups › accomplish more permanent things by working with brethren

181:2.22“If you would learn to work with your breth­ren, you might ac­com­plish more per­ma­nent things, but if you find your­self go­ing off in quest of those who think as you do, in that event ded­i­cate your life to prov­ing that the God-know­ing dis­ci­ple can be­come a king­dom builder even when alone in the world and wholly iso­lated from his fel­low be­liev­ers. I know you will be faith­ful to the end, and I will some day wel­come you to the en­larged ser­vice of my king­dom on high.”

• celestial involvement › Spirit of Truth lessens self-assertiveness of g.

194:3.18Pen­te­cost was de­signed to lessen the self-as­sertive­ness of in­di­vid­u­als, groups, na­tions, and races. It is this spirit of self-as­sertive­ness which so in­creases in ten­sion that it pe­ri­od­i­cally breaks loose in de­struc­tive wars. Man­kind can be uni­fied only by the spir­i­tual ap­proach, and the Spirit of Truth is a world in­flu­ence which is uni­ver­sal.

• Paul was a great organizer

195:0.61. Or­ga­ni­za­tion. Paul was a great or­ga­nizer and his suc­ces­sors kept up the pace he set.