iniquity

• inherently and automatically suicidal

2:3.2How fu­tile to make puerile ap­peals to such a God to mod­ify his change­less de­crees so that we can avoid the just con­se­quences of the op­er­a­tion of his wise nat­u­ral laws and righ­teous spir­i­tual man­dates! “Be not de­ceived; God is not mocked, for what­so­ever a man sows that shall he also reap.” True, even in the jus­tice of reap­ing the har­vest of wrong­do­ing, this di­vine jus­tice is al­ways tem­pered with mercy. In­fi­nite wis­dom is the eter­nal ar­biter which de­ter­mines the pro­por­tions of jus­tice and mercy which shall be meted out in any given cir­cum­stance. The great­est pun­ish­ment (in re­al­ity an in­ev­i­ta­ble con­se­quence) for wrong­do­ing and de­lib­er­ate re­bel­lion against the gov­ern­ment of God is loss of ex­is­tence as an in­di­vid­ual sub­ject of that gov­ern­ment. The fi­nal re­sult of whole­hearted sin is an­ni­hi­la­tion. In the last anal­y­sis, such sin-iden­ti­fied in­di­vid­u­als have de­stroyed them­selves by be­com­ing wholly un­real through their em­brace of in­iq­uity. The fac­tual dis­ap­pear­ance of such a crea­ture is, how­ever, al­ways de­layed un­til the or­dained or­der of jus­tice cur­rent in that uni­verse has been fully com­plied with.

2:3.3Ces­sa­tion of ex­is­tence is usu­ally de­creed at the dis­pen­sa­tional or ep­ochal ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the realm or realms. On a world such as Uran­tia it comes at the end of a plan­e­tary dis­pen­sa­tion. Ces­sa­tion of ex­is­tence can be de­creed at such times by co-or­di­nate ac­tion of all tri­bu­nals of ju­ris­dic­tion, ex­tend­ing from the plan­e­tary coun­cil up through the courts of the Cre­ator Son to the judg­ment tri­bu­nals of the An­cients of Days. The man­date of dis­so­lu­tion orig­i­nates in the higher courts of the super­uni­verse fol­low­ing an un­bro­ken con­fir­ma­tion of the in­dict­ment orig­i­nat­ing on the sphere of the wrong­doer’s res­i­dence; and then, when sen­tence of ex­tinc­tion has been con­firmed on high, the ex­e­cu­tion is by the di­rect act of those judges res­i­den­tial on, and op­er­at­ing from, the head­quar­ters of the super­uni­verse.

2:3.4When this sen­tence is fi­nally con­firmed, the sin-iden­ti­fied be­ing in­stantly be­comes as though he had not been. There is no res­ur­rec­tion from such a fate; it is ev­er­last­ing and eter­nal. The liv­ing en­ergy fac­tors of iden­tity are re­solved by the trans­for­ma­tions of time and the meta­mor­phoses of space into the cos­mic po­ten­tials whence they once emerged. As for the per­son­al­ity of the in­iq­ui­tous one, it is de­prived of a con­tin­u­ing life ve­hi­cle by the crea­ture’s fail­ure to make those choices and fi­nal de­ci­sions which would have as­sured eter­nal life. When the con­tin­ued em­brace of sin by the as­so­ci­ated mind cul­mi­nates in com­plete self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with in­iq­uity, then upon the ces­sa­tion of life, upon cos­mic dis­so­lu­tion, such an iso­lated per­son­al­ity is ab­sorbed into the over­soul of cre­ation, be­com­ing a part of the evolv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of the Su­preme Be­ing. Never again does it ap­pear as a per­son­al­ity; its iden­tity be­comes as though it had never been. In the case of an Ad­juster-in­dwelt per­son­al­ity, the ex­pe­ri­en­tial spirit val­ues sur­vive in the re­al­ity of the con­tin­u­ing Ad­juster.

• cosmic insanity; defiance of reality; indicates vanishing personality control

2:3.5In any uni­verse con­test be­tween ac­tual lev­els of re­al­ity, the per­son­al­ity of the higher level will ul­ti­mately tri­umph over the per­son­al­ity of the lower level. This in­ev­i­ta­ble out­come of uni­verse con­tro­versy is in­her­ent in the fact that di­vin­ity of qual­ity equals the de­gree of re­al­ity or ac­tu­al­ity of any will crea­ture. Undi­luted evil, com­plete er­ror, will­ful sin, and un­mit­i­gated in­iq­uity are in­her­ently and au­to­mat­i­cally sui­ci­dal. Such at­ti­tudes of cos­mic un­re­al­ity can sur­vive in the uni­verse only be­cause of tran­sient mercy-tol­er­ance pend­ing the ac­tion of the jus­tice-de­ter­min­ing and fair­ness-find­ing mech­a­nisms of the uni­verse tri­bu­nals of righ­teous ad­ju­di­ca­tion.

• persistent pursuit of sin and error; transgression of divine law

54:0.1Evo­lu­tion­ary man finds it dif­fi­cult fully to com­pre­hend the sig­nif­i­cance and to grasp the mean­ings of evil, er­ror, sin, and in­iq­uity. Man is slow to per­ceive that con­trastive per­fec­tion and im­per­fec­tion pro­duce po­ten­tial evil; that con­flict­ing truth and false­hood cre­ate con­fus­ing er­ror; that the di­vine en­dow­ment of free­will choice even­tu­ates in the di­ver­gent realms of sin and righ­teous­ness; that the per­sis­tent pur­suit of di­vin­ity leads to the king­dom of God as con­trasted with its con­tin­u­ous re­jec­tion, which leads to the do­mains of in­iq­uity.

54:0.2The Gods nei­ther cre­ate evil nor per­mit sin and re­bel­lion. Po­ten­tial evil is time-ex­is­tent in a uni­verse em­brac­ing dif­fer­en­tial lev­els of per­fec­tion mean­ings and val­ues. Sin is po­ten­tial in all realms where im­per­fect be­ings are en­dowed with the abil­ity to choose be­tween good and evil. The very con­flict­ing pres­ence of truth and un­truth, fact and false­hood, con­sti­tutes the po­ten­tial­ity of er­ror. The de­lib­er­ate choice of evil con­sti­tutes sin; the will­ful re­jec­tion of truth is er­ror; the per­sis­tent pur­suit of sin and er­ror is in­iq­uity.

• cosmic insanity; defiance of reality; indicates vanishing personality control

67:1.4There are many ways of look­ing at sin, but from the uni­verse philo­sophic view­point sin is the at­ti­tude of a per­son­al­ity who is know­ingly re­sist­ing cos­mic re­al­ity. Er­ror might be re­garded as a mis­con­cep­tion or dis­tor­tion of re­al­ity. Evil is a par­tial re­al­iza­tion of, or mal­ad­just­ment to, uni­verse re­al­i­ties. But sin is a pur­pose­ful re­sis­tance to di­vine re­al­ity—a con­scious choos­ing to op­pose spir­i­tual prog­ress—while in­iq­uity con­sists in an open and per­sis­tent de­fi­ance of rec­og­nized re­al­ity and sig­ni­fies such a de­gree of per­son­al­ity dis­in­te­gra­tion as to bor­der on cos­mic in­san­ity.

67:1.5Er­ror sug­gests lack of in­tel­lec­tual keen­ness; evil, de­fi­ciency of wis­dom; sin, ab­ject spir­i­tual pov­erty; but in­iq­uity is in­dica­tive of van­ish­ing per­son­al­ity con­trol.

• wholehearted rebellion against universe, divine reality

67:1.6And when sin has so many times been cho­sen and so of­ten been re­peated, it may be­come ha­bit­ual. Ha­bit­ual sin­ners can eas­ily be­come in­iq­ui­tous, be­come whole­hearted rebels against the uni­verse and all of its di­vine re­al­i­ties. While all man­ner of sins may be for­given, we doubt whether the es­tab­lished in­iq­ui­ter would ever sin­cerely ex­pe­ri­ence sor­row for his mis­deeds or ac­cept for­give­ness for his sins.

• reveals transient reality of God-unidentified selfhood

118:7.5In­iq­uity in the fi­nite do­mains re­veals the tran­sient re­al­ity of all God-uniden­ti­fied self­hood. Only as a crea­ture be­comes God iden­ti­fied, does he be­come truly real in the uni­verses. Fi­nite per­son­al­ity is not self-cre­ated, but in the super­uni­verse arena of choice it does self-de­ter­mine des­tiny.

• destroying connection of soul with spirit

146:2.21. The con­scious and per­sis­tent re­gard for in­iq­uity in the heart of man grad­u­ally de­stroys the prayer con­nec­tion of the hu­man soul with the spirit cir­cuits of com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween man and his Maker. Nat­u­rally God hears the pe­ti­tion of his child, but when the hu­man heart de­lib­er­ately and per­sis­tently har­bors the con­cepts of in­iq­uity, there grad­u­ally en­sues the loss of per­sonal com­mu­nion be­tween the earth child and his heav­enly Fa­ther.

• persistent pursuit of sin and error; transgression of divine law

148:4.5“In­iq­uity is the will­ful, de­ter­mined, and per­sis­tent trans­gres­sion of the di­vine law, the Fa­ther’s will. In­iq­uity is the mea­sure of the con­tin­ued re­jec­tion of the Fa­ther’s lov­ing plan of per­son­al­ity sur­vival and the Sons’ mer­ci­ful min­istry of sal­va­tion.

• inherently and automatically suicidal

148:5.3“But, my son, you should know that the Fa­ther does not pur­posely af­flict his chil­dren. Man brings down upon him­self un­nec­es­sary af­flic­tion as a re­sult of his per­sis­tent re­fusal to walk in the bet­ter ways of the di­vine will. Af­flic­tion is po­ten­tial in evil, but much of it has been pro­duced by sin and in­iq­uity. Many un­usual events have tran­spired on this world, and it is not strange that all think­ing men should be per­plexed by the scenes of suf­fer­ing and af­flic­tion which they wit­ness. But of one thing you may be sure: The Fa­ther does not send af­flic­tion as an ar­bi­trary pun­ish­ment for wrong­do­ing. The im­per­fec­tions and hand­i­caps of evil are in­her­ent; the penal­ties of sin are in­ev­i­ta­ble; the de­stroy­ing con­se­quences of in­iq­uity are in­ex­orable. Man should not blame God for those af­flic­tions which are the nat­u­ral re­sult of the life which he chooses to live; nei­ther should man com­plain of those ex­pe­ri­ences which are a part of life as it is lived on this world. It is the Fa­ther’s will that mor­tal man should work per­sis­tently and con­sis­tently to­ward the bet­ter­ment of his es­tate on earth. In­tel­li­gent ap­pli­ca­tion would en­able man to over­come much of his earthly mis­ery.

• eternally rejecting divine forgiveness

153:4.3Then said Je­sus: “How can Sa­tan cast out Sa­tan? A king­dom di­vided against it­self can­not stand; if a house be di­vided against it­self, it is soon brought to des­o­la­tion. Can a city with­stand a siege if it is not united? If Sa­tan casts out Sa­tan, he is di­vided against him­self; how then shall his king­dom stand? But you should know that no one can en­ter into the house of a strong man and de­spoil his goods ex­cept he first over­power and bind that strong man. And so, if I by the power of Beelze­bub cast out dev­ils, by whom do your sons cast them out? There­fore shall they be your judges. But if I, by the spirit of God, cast out dev­ils, then has the king­dom of God truly come upon you. If you were not blinded by prej­u­dice and mis­led by fear and pride, you would eas­ily per­ceive that one who is greater than dev­ils stands in your midst. You com­pel me to de­clare that he who is not with me is against me, while he who gath­ers not with me scat­ters abroad. Let me ut­ter a solemn warn­ing to you who would pre­sume, with your eyes open and with pre­med­i­tated mal­ice, know­ingly to as­cribe the works of God to the do­ings of dev­ils! Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, all your sins shall be for­given, even all of your blas­phemies, but whoso­ever shall blas­pheme against God with de­lib­er­a­tion and wicked in­ten­tion shall never ob­tain for­give­ness. Since such per­sis­tent work­ers of in­iq­uity will never seek nor re­ceive for­give­ness, they are guilty of the sin of eter­nally re­ject­ing di­vine for­give­ness.

166:3.4“But herein is the dan­ger to all who would post­pone their en­trance into the king­dom while they con­tinue to pur­sue the plea­sures of im­ma­tu­rity and in­dulge the sat­is­fac­tions of self­ish­ness: Hav­ing re­fused to en­ter the king­dom as a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, they may sub­se­quently seek en­trance thereto when the glory of the bet­ter way be­comes re­vealed in the age to come. And when, there­fore, those who spurned the king­dom when I came in the like­ness of hu­man­ity seek to find an en­trance when it is re­vealed in the like­ness of di­vin­ity, then will I say to all such self­ish ones: I know not whence you are. You had your chance to pre­pare for this heav­enly cit­i­zen­ship, but you re­fused all such prof­fers of mercy; you re­jected all in­vi­ta­tions to come while the door was open. Now, to you who have re­fused sal­va­tion, the door is shut. This door is not open to those who would en­ter the king­dom for self­ish glory. Sal­va­tion is not for those who are un­will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to do­ing my Fa­ther’s will. When in spirit and soul you have turned your backs upon the Fa­ther’s king­dom, it is use­less in mind and body to stand be­fore this door and knock, say­ing, ‘Lord, open to us; we would also be great in the king­dom.’ Then will I de­clare that you are not of my fold. I will not re­ceive you to be among those who have fought the good fight of faith and won the re­ward of un­selfish ser­vice in the king­dom on earth. And when you say, ‘Did we not eat and drink with you, and did you not teach in our streets?’ then shall I again de­clare that you are spir­i­tual strangers; that we were not fel­low ser­vants in the Fa­ther’s min­istry of mercy on earth; that I do not know you; and then shall the Judge of all the earth say to you: ‘De­part from us, all you who have taken de­light in the works of in­iq­uity.’

149:6.11“You do well to be meek be­fore God and self-con­trolled be­fore men, but let your meek­ness be of spir­i­tual ori­gin and not the self-de­cep­tive dis­play of a self-con­scious sense of self-righ­teous su­pe­ri­or­ity. The prophet spoke ad­vis­edly when he said, ‘Walk humbly with God,’ for, while the Fa­ther in heaven is the In­fi­nite and the Eter­nal, he also dwells ‘with him who is of a con­trite mind and a hum­ble spirit.’ My Fa­ther dis­dains pride, loathes hypocrisy, and ab­hors in­iq­uity. And it was to em­pha­size the value of sin­cer­ity and per­fect trust in the lov­ing sup­port and faith­ful guid­ance of the heav­enly Fa­ther that I have so of­ten re­ferred to the lit­tle child as il­lus­tra­tive of the at­ti­tude of mind and the re­sponse of spirit which are so es­sen­tial to the en­trance of mor­tal man into the spirit re­al­i­ties of the king­dom of heaven.

159:3.9In preach­ing the gospel of the king­dom, you are sim­ply teach­ing friend­ship with God. And this fel­low­ship will ap­peal alike to men and women in that both will find that which most truly sat­is­fies their char­ac­ter­is­tic long­ings and ide­als. Tell my chil­dren that I am not only ten­der of their feel­ings and pa­tient with their frail­ties, but that I am also ruth­less with sin and in­tol­er­ant of in­iq­uity. I am in­deed meek and hum­ble in the pres­ence of my Fa­ther, but I am equally and re­lent­lessly in­ex­orable where there is de­lib­er­ate evil-do­ing and sin­ful re­bel­lion against the will of my Fa­ther in heaven.

5:1.11Mor­tal man may draw near God and may re­peat­edly for­sake the di­vine will so long as the power of choice re­mains. Man’s fi­nal doom is not sealed un­til he has lost the power to choose the Fa­ther’s will. There is never a clo­sure of the Fa­ther’s heart to the need and the pe­ti­tion of his chil­dren. Only do his off­spring close their hearts for­ever to the Fa­ther’s draw­ing power when they fi­nally and for­ever lose the de­sire to do his di­vine will—to know him and to be like him. Like­wise is man’s eter­nal des­tiny as­sured when Ad­juster fu­sion pro­claims to the uni­verse that such an as­cender has made the fi­nal and ir­re­vo­ca­ble choice to live the Fa­ther’s will.

196:2.9Je­sus led men to feel at home in the world; he de­liv­ered them from the slav­ery of taboo and taught them that the world was not fun­da­men­tally evil. He did not long to es­cape from his earthly life; he mas­tered a tech­nique of ac­cept­ably do­ing the Fa­ther’s will while in the flesh. He at­tained an ide­al­is­tic re­li­gious life in the very midst of a re­al­is­tic world. Je­sus did not share Paul’s pes­simistic view of hu­mankind. The Mas­ter looked upon men as the sons of God and fore­saw a mag­nif­i­cent and eter­nal fu­ture for those who chose sur­vival. He was not a moral skep­tic; he viewed man pos­i­tively, not neg­a­tively. He saw most men as weak rather than wicked, more dis­traught than de­praved. But no mat­ter what their sta­tus, they were all God’s chil­dren and his breth­ren.

133:3.7As they stood there in the moon­light, Je­sus went on to say: “There lives within ev­ery hu­man mind a di­vine spirit, the gift of the Fa­ther in heaven. This good spirit ever strives to lead us to God, to help us to find God and to know God; but also within mor­tals there are many nat­u­ral phys­i­cal ten­den­cies which the Cre­ator put there to serve the well-be­ing of the in­di­vid­ual and the race. Now, of­ten­times, men and women be­come con­fused in their ef­forts to un­der­stand them­selves and to grap­ple with the man­i­fold dif­fi­cul­ties of mak­ing a liv­ing in a world so largely dom­i­nated by self­ish­ness and sin. I per­ceive, Ga­nid, that nei­ther of these women is will­fully wicked. I can tell by their faces that they have ex­pe­ri­enced much sor­row; they have suf­fered much at the hands of an ap­par­ently cruel fate; they have not in­ten­tion­ally cho­sen this sort of life; they have, in dis­cour­age­ment bor­der­ing on de­spair, sur­ren­dered to the pres­sure of the hour and ac­cepted this dis­taste­ful means of ob­tain­ing a liveli­hood as the best way out of a sit­u­a­tion that to them ap­peared hope­less. Ga­nid, some peo­ple are re­ally wicked at heart; they de­lib­er­ately choose to do mean things, but, tell me, as you look into these now tear-stained faces, do you see any­thing bad or wicked?” And as Je­sus paused for his re­ply, Ga­nid’s voice choked up as he stam­mered out his an­swer: “No, Teacher, I do not. And I apol­o­gize for my rude­ness to them—I crave their for­give­ness.” Then said Je­sus: “And I be­speak for them that they have for­given you as I speak for my Fa­ther in heaven that he has for­given them. Now all of you come with me to a friend’s house where we will seek re­fresh­ment and plan for the new and bet­ter life ahead.” Up to this time the amazed women had not ut­tered a word; they looked at each other and silently fol­lowed as the men led the way.