omnipotence

3:2.1All the uni­verses know that “the Lord God om­nipo­tent reigns.” The af­fairs of this world and other worlds are di­vinely super­vised. “He does ac­cord­ing to his will in the army of heaven and among the in­hab­i­tants of the earth.” It is eter­nally true, “there is no power but of God.”

3:2.2Within the bounds of that which is con­sis­tent with the di­vine na­ture, it is lit­er­ally true that “with God all things are pos­si­ble.” The long-drawn-out evo­lu­tion­ary pro­cesses of peo­ples, plan­ets, and uni­verses are un­der the per­fect con­trol of the uni­verse cre­ators and ad­min­is­tra­tors and un­fold in ac­cor­dance with the eter­nal pur­pose of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, pro­ceed­ing in har­mony and or­der and in keep­ing with the all-wise plan of God. There is only one law­giver. He up­holds the worlds in space and swings the uni­verses around the end­less cir­cle of the eter­nal cir­cuit.

3:2.3Of all the di­vine at­tri­butes, his om­nipo­tence, es­pe­cially as it pre­vails in the ma­te­rial uni­verse, is the best un­der­stood. Viewed as an un­spir­i­tual phe­nom­e­non, God is en­ergy. This dec­la­ra­tion of phys­i­cal fact is pred­i­cated on the in­com­pre­hen­si­ble truth that the First Source and Cen­ter is the pri­mal cause of the uni­ver­sal phys­i­cal phe­nom­ena of all space. From this di­vine ac­tiv­ity all phys­i­cal en­ergy and other ma­te­rial man­i­fes­ta­tions are de­rived. Light, that is, light with­out heat, is an­other of the non­spir­i­tual man­i­fes­ta­tions of the De­i­ties. And there is still an­other form of non­spir­i­tual en­ergy which is vir­tu­ally un­known on Uran­tia; it is as yet un­rec­og­nized.

3:2.4God con­trols all power; he has made “a way for the light­ning”; he has or­dained the cir­cuits of all en­ergy. He has de­creed the time and man­ner of the man­i­fes­ta­tion of all forms of en­ergy-mat­ter. And all these things are held for­ever in his ev­er­last­ing grasp—in the grav­i­ta­tional con­trol cen­ter­ing on nether Par­a­dise. The light and en­ergy of the eter­nal God thus swing on for­ever around his ma­jes­tic cir­cuit, the end­less but or­derly pro­ces­sion of the starry hosts com­pos­ing the uni­verse of uni­verses. All cre­ation cir­cles eter­nally around the Par­a­dise-Per­son­al­ity cen­ter of all things and be­ings.

3:2.5The om­nipo­tence of the Fa­ther per­tains to the ev­ery­where dom­i­nance of the ab­so­lute level, whereon the three en­er­gies, ma­te­rial, mindal, and spir­i­tual, are in­dis­tin­guish­able in close prox­im­ity to him—the Source of all things. Crea­ture mind, be­ing nei­ther Par­a­dise monota nor Par­a­dise spirit, is not di­rectly re­spon­sive to the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God ad­justs with the mind of im­per­fec­tion—with Uran­tia mor­tals through the Thought Ad­justers.

3:2.6The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is not a tran­sient force, a shift­ing power, or a fluc­tu­at­ing en­ergy. The power and wis­dom of the Fa­ther are wholly ad­e­quate to cope with any and all uni­verse ex­i­gen­cies. As the emer­gen­cies of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence arise, he has fore­seen them all, and there­fore he does not re­act to the af­fairs of the uni­verse in a de­tached way but rather in ac­cor­dance with the dic­tates of eter­nal wis­dom and in con­so­nance with the man­dates of in­fi­nite judg­ment. Re­gard­less of ap­pear­ances, the power of God is not func­tion­ing in the uni­verse as a blind force.

3:2.7Sit­u­a­tions do arise in which it ap­pears that emer­gency rul­ings have been made, that nat­u­ral laws have been sus­pended, that mis­adap­ta­tions have been rec­og­nized, and that an ef­fort is be­ing made to rec­tify the sit­u­a­tion; but such is not the case. Such con­cepts of God have their ori­gin in the lim­ited range of your view­point, in the finite­ness of your com­pre­hen­sion, and in the cir­cum­scribed scope of your sur­vey; such mis­un­der­stand­ing of God is due to the pro­found ig­no­rance you en­joy re­gard­ing the ex­is­tence of the higher laws of the realm, the mag­ni­tude of the Fa­ther’s char­ac­ter, the in­fin­ity of his at­tri­butes, and the fact of his free-will­ness.

3:2.8The plan­e­tary crea­tures of God’s spirit in­dwelling, scat­tered hither and yon through­out the uni­verses of space, are so nearly in­fi­nite in num­ber and or­der, their in­tel­lects are so di­verse, their minds are so lim­ited and some­times so gross, their vi­sion is so cur­tailed and lo­cal­ized, that it is al­most im­pos­si­ble to for­mu­late gen­er­al­iza­tions of law ad­e­quately ex­pres­sive of the Fa­ther’s in­fi­nite at­tri­butes and at the same time to any de­gree com­pre­hen­si­ble to these cre­ated in­tel­li­gences. There­fore, to you the crea­ture, many of the acts of the all-pow­er­ful Cre­ator seem to be ar­bi­trary, de­tached, and not in­fre­quently heart­less and cruel. But again I as­sure you that this is not true. God’s do­ings are all pur­pose­ful, in­tel­li­gent, wise, kind, and eter­nally con­sid­er­ate of the best good, not al­ways of an in­di­vid­ual be­ing, an in­di­vid­ual race, an in­di­vid­ual planet, or even an in­di­vid­ual uni­verse; but they are for the wel­fare and best good of all con­cerned, from the low­est to the high­est. In the epochs of time the wel­fare of the part may some­times ap­pear to dif­fer from the wel­fare of the whole; in the cir­cle of eter­nity such ap­par­ent dif­fer­ences are nonex­is­tent.

3:2.9We are all a part of the fam­ily of God, and we must there­fore some­times share in the fam­ily dis­ci­pline. Many of the acts of God which so dis­turb and con­fuse us are the re­sult of the de­ci­sions and fi­nal rul­ings of all-wis­dom, em­pow­er­ing the Con­joint Ac­tor to ex­e­cute the choos­ing of the in­fal­li­ble will of the in­fi­nite mind, to en­force the de­ci­sions of the per­son­al­ity of per­fec­tion, whose sur­vey, vi­sion, and so­lic­i­tude em­brace the high­est and eter­nal wel­fare of all his vast and far-flung cre­ation.

3:2.10Thus it is that your de­tached, sec­tional, fi­nite, gross, and highly ma­te­ri­al­is­tic view­point and the lim­i­ta­tions in­her­ent in the na­ture of your be­ing con­sti­tute such a hand­i­cap that you are un­able to see, com­pre­hend, or know the wis­dom and kind­ness of many of the di­vine acts which to you seem fraught with such crush­ing cru­elty, and which seem to be char­ac­ter­ized by such ut­ter in­dif­fer­ence to the com­fort and wel­fare, to the plan­e­tary hap­pi­ness and per­sonal pros­per­ity, of your fel­low crea­tures. It is be­cause of the lim­its of hu­man vi­sion, it is be­cause of your cir­cum­scribed un­der­stand­ing and fi­nite com­pre­hen­sion, that you mis­un­der­stand the mo­tives, and per­vert the pur­poses, of God. But many things oc­cur on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds which are not the per­sonal do­ings of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

3:2.11The di­vine om­nipo­tence is per­fectly co-or­di­nated with the other at­tri­butes of the per­son­al­ity of God. The power of God is, or­di­nar­ily, only lim­ited in its uni­verse spir­i­tual man­i­fes­ta­tion by three con­di­tions or sit­u­a­tions:

3:2.121. By the na­ture of God, es­pe­cially by his in­fi­nite love, by truth, beauty, and good­ness.

3:2.132. By the will of God, by his mercy min­istry and fa­therly re­la­tion­ship with the per­son­al­i­ties of the uni­verse.

3:2.143. By the law of God, by the righ­teous­ness and jus­tice of the eter­nal Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

3:2.15God is un­lim­ited in power, di­vine in na­ture, fi­nal in will, in­fi­nite in at­tri­butes, eter­nal in wis­dom, and ab­so­lute in re­al­ity. But all these char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther are uni­fied in De­ity and uni­ver­sally ex­pressed in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity and in the di­vine Sons of the Trin­ity. Oth­er­wise, out­side of Par­a­dise and the cen­tral uni­verse of Ha­vona, ev­ery­thing per­tain­ing to God is lim­ited by the evo­lu­tion­ary pres­ence of the Su­preme, con­di­tioned by the even­tu­at­ing pres­ence of the Ul­ti­mate, and co-or­di­nated by the three ex­is­ten­tial Ab­so­lutes—De­ity, Uni­ver­sal, and Un­qual­i­fied. And God’s pres­ence is thus lim­ited be­cause such is the will of God.

118:5.1The om­nipo­tence of De­ity does not im­ply the power to do the non­doable. Within the time-space frame and from the in­tel­lec­tual ref­er­ence point of mor­tal com­pre­hen­sion, even the in­fi­nite God can­not cre­ate square cir­cles or pro­duce evil that is in­her­ently good. God can­not do the un­god­like thing. Such a con­tra­dic­tion of philo­sophic terms is the equiv­a­lent of nonen­tity and im­plies that noth­ing is thus cre­ated. A per­son­al­ity trait can­not at the same time be God­like and un­god­like. Com­pos­si­bil­ity is in­nate in di­vine power. And all of this is de­rived from the fact that om­nipo­tence not only cre­ates things with a na­ture but also gives ori­gin to the na­ture of all things and be­ings.

118:5.2In the be­gin­ning the Fa­ther does all, but as the pan­o­rama of eter­nity un­folds in re­sponse to the will and man­dates of the In­fi­nite, it be­comes in­creas­ingly ap­par­ent that crea­tures, even men, are to be­come God’s part­ners in the re­al­iza­tion of fi­nal­ity of des­tiny. And this is true even in the life in the flesh; when man and God en­ter into part­ner­ship, no lim­i­ta­tion can be placed upon the fu­ture pos­si­bil­i­ties of such a part­ner­ship. When man re­al­izes that the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is his part­ner in eter­nal pro­gres­sion, when he fuses with the in­dwelling Fa­ther pres­ence, he has, in spirit, bro­ken the fet­ters of time and has al­ready en­tered upon the pro­gres­sions of eter­nity in the quest for the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

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.

118:6.1God is truly om­nipo­tent, but he is not om­nif­i­cent—he does not per­son­ally do all that is done. Om­nipo­tence em­braces the power-po­ten­tial of the Al­mighty Su­preme and the Su­preme Be­ing, but the vo­li­tional acts of God the Su­preme are not the per­sonal do­ings of God the In­fi­nite.

118:6.2To ad­vo­cate the om­nif­i­cence of pri­mal De­ity would be equal to dis­en­fran­chis­ing well-nigh a mil­lion Cre­ator Sons of Par­a­dise, not to men­tion the in­nu­mer­able hosts of var­i­ous other or­ders of con­cur­ring cre­ative as­sis­tants. There is but one un­caused Cause in the whole uni­verse. All other causes are deriva­tives of this one First Great Source and Cen­ter. And none of this phi­los­o­phy does any vi­o­lence to the free-will­ness of the myr­i­ads of the chil­dren of De­ity scat­tered through a vast uni­verse.

118:6.3Within a lo­cal frame, vo­li­tion may ap­pear to func­tion as an un­caused cause, but it un­fail­ingly ex­hibits in­her­i­tance fac­tors which es­tab­lish re­la­tion­ship with the unique, orig­i­nal, and ab­so­lute First Causes.

118:6.4All vo­li­tion is rel­a­tive. In the orig­i­nat­ing sense, only the Fa­ther-I AM pos­sesses fi­nal­ity of vo­li­tion; in the ab­so­lute sense, only the Fa­ther, the Son, and the Spirit ex­hibit the pre­rog­a­tives of vo­li­tion un­con­di­tioned by time and un­lim­ited by space. Mor­tal man is en­dowed with free will, the power of choice, and though such choos­ing is not ab­so­lute, nev­er­the­less, it is rel­a­tively fi­nal on the fi­nite level and con­cern­ing the des­tiny of the choos­ing per­son­al­ity.

118:6.5Vo­li­tion on any level short of the ab­so­lute en­coun­ters lim­i­ta­tions which are con­sti­tu­tive in the very per­son­al­ity ex­er­cis­ing the power of choice. Man can­not choose be­yond the range of that which is choos­able. He can­not, for in­stance, choose to be other than a hu­man be­ing ex­cept that he can elect to be­come more than a man; he can choose to em­bark upon the voy­age of uni­verse as­cen­sion, but this is be­cause the hu­man choice and the di­vine will hap­pen to be co­in­ci­dent upon this point. And what a son de­sires and the Fa­ther wills will cer­tainly come to pass.

118:6.6In the mor­tal life, paths of dif­fer­en­tial con­duct are con­tin­u­ally open­ing and clos­ing, and dur­ing the times when choice is pos­si­ble the hu­man per­son­al­ity is con­stantly de­cid­ing be­tween these many courses of ac­tion. Tem­po­ral vo­li­tion is linked to time, and it must await the pass­ing of time to find op­por­tu­nity for ex­pres­sion. Spir­i­tual vo­li­tion has be­gun to taste lib­er­a­tion from the fet­ters of time, hav­ing achieved par­tial es­cape from time se­quence, and that is be­cause spir­i­tual vo­li­tion is self-iden­ti­fy­ing with the will of God.

118:6.7Vo­li­tion, the act of choos­ing, must func­tion within the uni­verse frame which has ac­tu­al­ized in re­sponse to higher and prior choos­ing. The en­tire range of hu­man will is strictly fi­nite-lim­ited ex­cept in one par­tic­u­lar: When man chooses to find God and to be like him, such a choice is super­fi­nite; only eter­nity can dis­close whether this choice is also super­ab­so­nite.

118:6.8To rec­og­nize De­ity om­nipo­tence is to en­joy se­cu­rity in your ex­pe­ri­ence of cos­mic cit­i­zen­ship, to pos­sess as­sur­ance of safety in the long jour­ney to Par­a­dise. But to ac­cept the fal­lacy of om­nif­i­cence is to em­brace the colos­sal er­ror of pan­the­ism.

4:4.3God is the be­ing of ab­so­lute self-de­ter­mi­na­tion; there are no lim­its to his uni­verse re­ac­tions save those which are self-im­posed, and his free­will acts are con­di­tioned only by those di­vine qual­i­ties and per­fect at­tri­butes which in­her­ently char­ac­ter­ize his eter­nal na­ture. There­fore is God re­lated to the uni­verse as the be­ing of fi­nal good­ness plus a free will of cre­ative in­fin­ity.

4:4.4The Fa­ther-Ab­so­lute is the cre­ator of the cen­tral and per­fect uni­verse and the Fa­ther of all other Cre­ators. Per­son­al­ity, good­ness, and nu­mer­ous other char­ac­ter­is­tics, God shares with man and other be­ings, but in­fin­ity of will is his alone. God is lim­ited in his cre­ative acts only by the sen­ti­ments of his eter­nal na­ture and by the dic­tates of his in­fi­nite wis­dom. God per­son­ally chooses only that which is in­finitely per­fect, hence the su­per­nal per­fec­tion of the cen­tral uni­verse; and while the Cre­ator Sons fully share his di­vin­ity, even phases of his ab­so­lute­ness, they are not al­to­gether lim­ited by that fi­nal­ity of wis­dom which di­rects the Fa­ther’s in­fin­ity of will. Hence, in the Mi­chael or­der of son­ship, cre­ative free will be­comes even more ac­tive, wholly di­vine and well-nigh ul­ti­mate, if not ab­so­lute. The Fa­ther is in­fi­nite and eter­nal, but to deny the pos­si­bil­ity of his vo­li­tional self-lim­i­ta­tion amounts to a de­nial of this very con­cept of his vo­li­tional ab­so­lute­ness.

3:3.5Om­nipo­tence does not im­ply the power to do the non­doable, the un­god­like act. Nei­ther does om­ni­science im­ply the know­ing of the un­know­able. But such state­ments can hardly be made com­pre­hen­si­ble to the fi­nite mind. The crea­ture can hardly un­der­stand the range and lim­i­ta­tions of the will of the Cre­ator.

16:2.4The Seven Mas­ter Spir­its are col­lec­tively en­dowed with the su­preme-ul­ti­mate at­tri­butes of the Third Source and Cen­ter. While each one in­di­vid­u­ally par­takes of this en­dow­ment, only col­lec­tively do they dis­close the at­tri­butes of om­nipo­tence, om­ni­science, and om­nipres­ence. No one of them can so func­tion uni­ver­sally; as in­di­vid­u­als and in the ex­er­cise of these pow­ers of su­prem­acy and ul­ti­macy each is per­son­ally lim­ited to the super­uni­verse of im­me­di­ate super­vi­sion.

105:7.139. Om­nipo­tence, om­ni­science, and om­nipres­ence.

131:1.2“God is su­preme; he is the Most High of heaven and earth. God is the per­fected cir­cle of eter­nity, and he rules the uni­verse of uni­verses. He is the sole maker of the heav­ens and the earth. When he de­crees a thing, that thing is. Our God is one God, and he is com­pas­sion­ate and mer­ci­ful. Ev­ery­thing that is high, holy, true, and beau­ti­ful is like our God. The Most High is the light of heaven and earth; he is the God of the east, the west, the north, and the south.