infinity

105:0.1To even high or­ders of uni­verse in­tel­li­gences in­fin­ity is only par­tially com­pre­hen­si­ble, and the fi­nal­ity of re­al­ity is only rel­a­tively un­der­stand­able. The hu­man mind, as it seeks to pen­e­trate the eter­nity-mys­tery of the ori­gin and des­tiny of all that is called real, may help­fully ap­proach the prob­lem by con­ceiv­ing eter­nity-in­fin­ity as an al­most lim­it­less el­lipse which is pro­duced by one ab­so­lute cause, and which func­tions through­out this uni­ver­sal cir­cle of end­less di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, ever seek­ing some ab­so­lute and in­fi­nite po­ten­tial of des­tiny.

115:3.4It is only man’s dis­tance from in­fin­ity that causes this con­cept to be ex­pressed as one word. While in­fin­ity is on the one hand UNITY, on the other it is DI­VER­SITY with­out end or limit. In­fin­ity, as it is ob­served by fi­nite in­tel­li­gences, is the max­i­mum para­dox of crea­ture phi­los­o­phy and fi­nite meta­physics. Though man’s spir­i­tual na­ture reaches up in the wor­ship ex­pe­ri­ence to the Fa­ther who is in­fi­nite, man’s in­tel­lec­tual com­pre­hen­sion ca­pac­ity is ex­hausted by the max­i­mum con­cep­tion of the Su­preme Be­ing. Be­yond the Su­preme, con­cepts are in­creas­ingly names; less and less are they true des­ig­na­tions of re­al­ity; more and more do they be­come the crea­ture’s pro­jec­tion of fi­nite un­der­stand­ing to­ward the super­fi­nite.

105:1.8In­fin­ity is in­deed re­mote from the ex­pe­ri­ence level of mor­tal com­pre­hen­sion, but even in this age on Uran­tia your con­cepts of in­fin­ity are grow­ing, and they will con­tinue to grow through­out your end­less ca­reers stretch­ing on­ward into fu­ture eter­nity. Un­qual­i­fied in­fin­ity is mean­ing­less to the fi­nite crea­ture, but in­fin­ity is ca­pa­ble of self-lim­i­ta­tion and is sus­cep­ti­ble of re­al­ity ex­pres­sion to all lev­els of uni­verse ex­is­tences. And the face which the In­fi­nite turns to­ward all uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties is the face of a Fa­ther, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of love.

105:5.4Fi­nite pos­si­bil­ity is in­her­ent in the In­fi­nite, but the trans­mu­ta­tion of pos­si­bil­ity to prob­a­bil­ity and in­evitabil­ity must be at­tributed to the self-ex­is­tent free will of the First Source and Cen­ter, ac­ti­vat­ing all tri­unity as­so­ci­a­tions. Only the in­fin­ity of the Fa­ther’s will could ever have so qual­i­fied the ab­so­lute level of ex­is­tence as to even­tu­ate an ul­ti­mate or to cre­ate a fi­nite.

108:0.2Noth­ing in the en­tire uni­verse can sub­sti­tute for the fact of ex­pe­ri­ence on nonex­is­ten­tial lev­els. The in­fi­nite God is, as al­ways, re­plete and com­plete, in­finitely in­clu­sive of all things ex­cept evil and crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence. God can­not do wrong; he is in­fal­li­ble. God can­not ex­pe­ri­en­tially know what he has never per­son­ally ex­pe­ri­enced; God’s pre­knowl­edge is ex­is­ten­tial. There­fore does the spirit of the Fa­ther de­scend from Par­a­dise to par­tic­i­pate with fi­nite mor­tals in ev­ery bona fide ex­pe­ri­ence of the as­cend­ing ca­reer; it is only by such a method that the ex­is­ten­tial God could be­come in truth and in fact man’s ex­pe­ri­en­tial Fa­ther. The in­fin­ity of the eter­nal God en­com­passes the po­ten­tial for fi­nite ex­pe­ri­ence, which in­deed be­comes ac­tual in the min­istry of the Ad­juster frag­ments that ac­tu­ally share the life vi­cis­si­tude ex­pe­ri­ences of hu­man be­ings.

115:2.4The ap­par­ent method whereby the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the cos­mos are brought into ac­tual ex­is­tence varies from level to level, be­ing ex­pe­ri­en­tial evo­lu­tion in the fi­nite and ex­pe­ri­en­tial even­tu­a­tion in the ab­so­nite. Ex­is­ten­tial in­fin­ity is in­deed un­qual­i­fied in all-in­clu­sive­ness, and this very all-in­clu­sive­ness must, per­force, en­com­pass even the pos­si­bil­ity for evo­lu­tion­ary fi­nite ex­pe­ri­enc­ing. And the pos­si­bil­ity for such ex­pe­ri­en­tial growth be­comes a uni­verse ac­tu­al­ity through tri­odity re­la­tion­ships im­ping­ing upon and in the Su­preme.

115:4.3If it is dif­fi­cult to com­pre­hend that the in­fi­nite tri­odi­ties can func­tion on the fi­nite level, pause to con­sider that their very in­fin­ity must in it­self con­tain the po­ten­tial­ity of the fi­nite; in­fin­ity en­com­passes all things rang­ing from the low­est and most qual­i­fied fi­nite ex­is­tence to the high­est and un­qual­i­fiedly ab­so­lute re­al­i­ties.

115:4.4It is not so dif­fi­cult to com­pre­hend that the in­fi­nite does con­tain the fi­nite as it is to un­der­stand just how this in­fi­nite ac­tu­ally is man­i­fest to the fi­nite. But the Thought Ad­justers in­dwelling mor­tal man are one of the eter­nal proofs that even the ab­so­lute God (as ab­so­lute) can and does ac­tu­ally make di­rect con­tact with even the low­est and least of all uni­verse will crea­tures.

104:3.5In these pa­pers to­tal re­al­ity (in­fin­ity) has been pre­sented as it ex­ists in the seven Ab­so­lutes:

104:3.61. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

104:3.72. The Eter­nal Son.

104:3.83. The In­fi­nite Spirit.

104:3.94. The Isle of Par­a­dise.

104:3.105. The De­ity Ab­so­lute.

104:3.116. The Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute.

104:3.127. The Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute.

115:2.1From the ex­is­ten­tial stand­point, noth­ing new can hap­pen through­out the galax­ies, for the com­ple­tion of in­fin­ity in­her­ent in the I AM is eter­nally pres­ent in the seven Ab­so­lutes, is func­tion­ally as­so­ci­ated in the tri­uni­ties, and is trans­mi­tively as­so­ci­ated in the tri­odi­ties. But the fact that in­fin­ity is thus ex­is­ten­tially pres­ent in these ab­so­lute as­so­ci­a­tions in no way makes it im­pos­si­ble to re­al­ize new cos­mic ex­pe­ri­en­tials. From a fi­nite crea­ture’s view­point, in­fin­ity con­tains much that is po­ten­tial, much that is on the or­der of a fu­ture pos­si­bil­ity rather than a pres­ent ac­tu­al­ity.

2:1.11Di­vin­ity and eter­nity the Fa­ther shares with large num­bers of the higher Par­a­dise be­ings, but we ques­tion whether in­fin­ity and con­se­quent uni­ver­sal pri­macy is fully shared with any save his co-or­di­nate as­so­ciates of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. In­fin­ity of per­son­al­ity must, per­force, em­brace all fini­tude of per­son­al­ity; hence the truth—lit­eral truth—of the teach­ing which de­clares that “In Him we live and move and have our be­ing.” That frag­ment of the pure De­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther which in­dwells mor­tal man is a part of the in­fin­ity of the First Great Source and Cen­ter, the Fa­ther of Fa­thers.

118:5.3Mor­tal con­scious­ness pro­ceeds from the fact, to the mean­ing, and then to the value. Cre­ator con­scious­ness pro­ceeds from the thought-value, through the word-mean­ing, to the fact of ac­tion. Al­ways must God act to break the dead­lock of the un­qual­i­fied unity in­her­ent in ex­is­ten­tial in­fin­ity. Al­ways must De­ity pro­vide the pat­tern uni­verse, the per­fect per­son­al­i­ties, the orig­i­nal truth, beauty, and good­ness for which all sub­de­ity cre­ations strive. Al­ways must God first find man that man may later find God. Al­ways must there be a Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther be­fore there can ever be uni­ver­sal son­ship and con­se­quent uni­ver­sal broth­er­hood.

106:7.6Such in­abil­ity to at­tain God in a fi­nal sense should in no man­ner dis­cour­age uni­verse crea­tures; in­deed, you can and do at­tain De­ity lev­els of the Sev­en­fold, the Su­preme, and the Ul­ti­mate, which mean to you what the in­fi­nite re­al­iza­tion of God the Fa­ther means to the Eter­nal Son and to the Con­joint Ac­tor in their ab­so­lute sta­tus of eter­nity ex­is­tence. Far from ha­rass­ing the crea­ture, the in­fin­ity of God should be the su­preme as­sur­ance that through­out all end­less fu­tu­rity an as­cend­ing per­son­al­ity will have be­fore him the pos­si­bil­i­ties of per­son­al­ity de­vel­op­ment and De­ity as­so­ci­a­tion which even eter­nity will nei­ther ex­haust nor ter­mi­nate.

106:7.1Some of the dif­fi­cul­ties in form­ing con­cepts of in­fi­nite re­al­ity in­te­gra­tion are in­her­ent in the fact that all such ideas em­brace some­thing of the fi­nal­ity of uni­ver­sal de­vel­op­ment, some kind of an ex­pe­ri­en­tial re­al­iza­tion of all that could ever be. And it is in­con­ceiv­able that quan­ti­ta­tive in­fin­ity could ever be com­pletely re­al­ized in fi­nal­ity. Al­ways there must re­main un­ex­plored pos­si­bil­i­ties in the three po­ten­tial Ab­so­lutes which no quan­tity of ex­pe­ri­en­tial de­vel­op­ment could ever ex­haust. Eter­nity it­self, though ab­so­lute, is not more than ab­so­lute.

42:2.22These power di­rec­tors them­selves are en­ergy cat­alyz­ers; that is, they cause en­ergy to seg­ment, or­ga­nize, or as­sem­ble in unit for­ma­tion by their pres­ence. And all this im­plies that there must be some­thing in­her­ent in en­ergy which causes it thus to func­tion in the pres­ence of these power en­ti­ties. The Neb­a­don Mel­chiz­e­deks long since de­nom­i­nated the phe­nom­e­non of the trans­mu­ta­tion of cos­mic force into uni­verse power as one of the seven “in­fini­ties of di­vin­ity.” And that is as far as you will ad­vance on this point dur­ing your lo­cal uni­verse as­cen­sion.

118:0.11While the do­main of math­e­mat­ics is be­set with qual­i­ta­tive lim­i­ta­tions, it does pro­vide the fi­nite mind with a con­cep­tual ba­sis of con­tem­plat­ing in­fin­ity. There is no quan­ti­ta­tive lim­i­ta­tion to num­bers, even in the com­pre­hen­sion of the fi­nite mind. No mat­ter how large the num­ber con­ceived, you can al­ways en­vis­age one more be­ing added. And also, you can com­pre­hend that that is short of in­fin­ity, for no mat­ter how many times you re­peat this ad­di­tion to num­ber, still al­ways one more can be added.

0:11.12Al­ways re­mem­ber: Po­ten­tial in­fin­ity is ab­so­lute and in­sep­a­ra­ble from eter­nity. Ac­tual in­fin­ity in time can never be any­thing but par­tial and must there­fore be non­ab­so­lute; nei­ther can in­fin­ity of ac­tual per­son­al­ity be ab­so­lute ex­cept in un­qual­i­fied De­ity. And it is the dif­fer­en­tial of in­fin­ity po­ten­tial in the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute and the De­ity Ab­so­lute that eter­nal­izes the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute, thereby mak­ing it cos­mi­cally pos­si­ble to have ma­te­rial uni­verses in space and spir­i­tu­ally pos­si­ble to have fi­nite per­son­al­i­ties in time.

106:0.97. In­fin­ity. This level is pre-ex­is­ten­tial and pos­t­ex­pe­ri­en­tial. Un­qual­i­fied unity of in­fin­ity is a hy­po­thet­i­cal re­al­ity be­fore all be­gin­nings and af­ter all des­tinies.

115:3.2Mind can never hope to grasp the con­cept of an Ab­so­lute with­out at­tempt­ing first to break the unity of such a re­al­ity. Mind is uni­fy­ing of all di­ver­gen­cies, but in the very ab­sence of such di­ver­gen­cies, mind finds no ba­sis upon which to at­tempt to for­mu­late un­der­stand­ing con­cepts.

115:3.3The pri­mor­dial sta­sis of in­fin­ity re­quires seg­men­ta­tion prior to hu­man at­tempts at com­pre­hen­sion. There is a unity in in­fin­ity which has been ex­pressed in these pa­pers as the I AM—the pre­mier pos­tu­late of the crea­ture mind. But never can a crea­ture un­der­stand how it is that this unity be­comes du­al­ity, tri­unity, and di­ver­sity while yet re­main­ing an un­qual­i­fied unity. Man en­coun­ters a sim­i­lar prob­lem when he pauses to con­tem­plate the un­di­vided De­ity of Trin­ity along­side the plu­ral per­son­al­iza­tion of God.

2:1.10Be­cause the First Fa­ther is in­fi­nite in his plans and eter­nal in his pur­poses, it is in­her­ently im­pos­si­ble for any fi­nite be­ing ever to grasp or com­pre­hend these di­vine plans and pur­poses in their full­ness. Mor­tal man can glimpse the Fa­ther’s pur­poses only now and then, here and there, as they are re­vealed in re­la­tion to the out­work­ing of the plan of crea­ture as­cen­sion on its suc­ces­sive lev­els of uni­verse pro­gres­sion. Though man can­not en­com­pass the sig­nif­i­cance of in­fin­ity, the in­fi­nite Fa­ther does most cer­tainly fully com­pre­hend and lov­ingly em­brace all the fin­ity of all his chil­dren in all uni­verses.

116:2.3Un­qual­i­fied Par­a­dise De­ity is in­com­pre­hen­si­ble to the evolv­ing crea­tures of time and space. Eter­nity and in­fin­ity con­note a level of de­ity re­al­ity which time-space crea­tures can­not com­pre­hend. In­fin­ity of de­ity and ab­so­lute­ness of sov­er­eignty are in­her­ent in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, and the Trin­ity is a re­al­ity which lies some­what be­yond the un­der­stand­ing of mor­tal man. Time-space crea­tures must have ori­gins, rel­a­tiv­i­ties, and des­tinies in or­der to grasp uni­verse re­la­tion­ships and to un­der­stand the mean­ing val­ues of di­vin­ity. There­fore does Par­a­dise De­ity at­ten­u­ate and oth­er­wise qual­ify the ex­tra-Par­a­dise per­son­al­iza­tions of di­vin­ity, thus bring­ing into ex­is­tence the Su­preme Cre­ators and their as­so­ciates, who ever carry the light of life far­ther and far­ther from its Par­a­dise source un­til it finds its most dis­tant and beau­ti­ful ex­pres­sion in the earth lives of the be­stowal Sons on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

104:4.46The tri­uni­ties are the func­tional bal­ance wheel of in­fin­ity, the uni­fi­ca­tion of the unique­ness of the Seven In­fin­ity Ab­so­lutes. It is the ex­is­ten­tial pres­ence of the tri­uni­ties that en­ables the Fa­ther-I AM to ex­pe­ri­ence func­tional in­fin­ity unity de­spite the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of in­fin­ity into seven Ab­so­lutes. The First Source and Cen­ter is the uni­fy­ing mem­ber of all tri­uni­ties; in him all things have their un­qual­i­fied be­gin­nings, eter­nal ex­is­tences, and in­fi­nite des­tinies—“in him all things con­sist.”