predestination

• mortals are subjects of p., but may reject any part

110:2.1When Thought Ad­justers in­dwell hu­man minds, they bring with them the model ca­reers, the ideal lives, as de­ter­mined and fore­or­dained by them­selves and the Per­son­al­ized Ad­justers of Di­vin­ing­ton, which have been cer­ti­fied by the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster of Uran­tia. Thus they be­gin work with a def­i­nite and pre­de­ter­mined plan for the in­tel­lec­tual and spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment of their hu­man sub­jects, but it is not in­cum­bent upon any hu­man be­ing to ac­cept this plan. You are all sub­jects of pre­des­ti­na­tion, but it is not fore­or­dained that you must ac­cept this di­vine pre­des­ti­na­tion; you are at full lib­erty to re­ject any part or all of the Thought Ad­justers’ pro­gram. It is their mis­sion to ef­fect such mind changes and to make such spir­i­tual ad­just­ments as you may will­ingly and in­tel­li­gently au­tho­rize, to the end that they may gain more in­flu­ence over the per­son­al­ity di­rec­tion­iza­tion; but un­der no cir­cum­stances do these di­vine Mon­i­tors ever take ad­van­tage of you or in any way ar­bi­trar­ily in­flu­ence you in your choices and de­ci­sions. The Ad­justers re­spect your sov­er­eignty of per­son­al­ity; they are al­ways sub­servient to your will.

• cycle is foreordained; man’s participation is optional

112:5.2That which comes from the Fa­ther is like the Fa­ther eter­nal, and this is just as true of per­son­al­ity, which God gives by his own free­will choice, as it is of the di­vine Thought Ad­juster, an ac­tual frag­ment of God. Man’s per­son­al­ity is eter­nal but with re­gard to iden­tity a con­di­tioned eter­nal re­al­ity. Hav­ing ap­peared in re­sponse to the Fa­ther’s will, per­son­al­ity will at­tain De­ity des­tiny, but man must choose whether or not he will be pres­ent at the at­tain­ment of such des­tiny. In de­fault of such choice, per­son­al­ity at­tains ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity di­rectly, be­com­ing a part of the Su­preme Be­ing. The cy­cle is fore­or­dained, but man’s par­tic­i­pa­tion therein is op­tional, per­sonal, and ex­pe­ri­en­tial.

118:7.1The func­tion of Cre­ator will and crea­ture will, in the grand uni­verse, op­er­ates within the lim­its, and in ac­cor­dance with the pos­si­bil­i­ties, es­tab­lished by the Mas­ter Ar­chi­tects. This fore­or­di­na­tion of these max­i­mum lim­its does not, how­ever, in the least abridge the sov­er­eignty of crea­ture will within these bound­aries. Nei­ther does ul­ti­mate fore­knowl­edge—full al­lowance for all fi­nite choice—con­sti­tute an ab­ro­ga­tion of fi­nite vo­li­tion. A ma­ture and farsee­ing hu­man be­ing might be able to fore­cast the de­ci­sion of some younger as­so­ciate most ac­cu­rately, but this fore­knowl­edge takes noth­ing away from the free­dom and gen­uine­ness of the de­ci­sion it­self. The Gods have wisely lim­ited the range of the ac­tion of im­ma­ture will, but it is true will, nonethe­less, within these de­fined lim­its.

• supreme correlation of all past, present, and future choice; does not invalidate free will

118:7.2Even the su­preme cor­re­la­tion of all past, pres­ent, and fu­ture choice does not in­val­i­date the au­then­tic­ity of such choos­ings. It rather in­di­cates the fore­or­dained trend of the cos­mos and sug­gests fore­knowl­edge of those vo­li­tional be­ings who may, or may not, elect to be­come con­trib­u­tory parts of the ex­pe­ri­en­tial ac­tu­al­iza­tion of all re­al­ity.

118:7.3Er­ror in fi­nite choos­ing is time bound and time lim­ited. It can ex­ist only in time and within the evolv­ing pres­ence of the Su­preme Be­ing. Such mis­taken choos­ing is time pos­si­ble and in­di­cates (be­sides the in­com­plete­ness of the Su­preme) that cer­tain range of choice with which im­ma­ture crea­tures must be en­dowed in or­der to en­joy uni­verse pro­gres­sion by mak­ing free­will con­tact with re­al­ity.

118:7.4Sin in time-con­di­tioned space clearly proves the tem­po­ral lib­erty—even li­cense—of the fi­nite will. Sin de­picts im­ma­tu­rity daz­zled by the free­dom of the rel­a­tively sov­er­eign will of per­son­al­ity while fail­ing to per­ceive the su­preme obli­ga­tions and du­ties of cos­mic cit­i­zen­ship.

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.

118:7.6The be­stowal of life ren­ders ma­te­rial-en­ergy sys­tems ca­pa­ble of self-per­pet­u­a­tion, self-prop­a­ga­tion, and self-adap­ta­tion. The be­stowal of per­son­al­ity im­parts to liv­ing or­gan­isms the fur­ther pre­rog­a­tives of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, self-evo­lu­tion, and self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with a fu­sion spirit of De­ity.

118:7.7Sub­per­sonal liv­ing things in­di­cate mind ac­ti­vat­ing en­ergy-mat­ter, first as phys­i­cal con­trol­lers, and then as ad­ju­tant mind-spir­its. Per­son­al­ity en­dow­ment comes from the Fa­ther and im­parts unique pre­rog­a­tives of choice to the liv­ing sys­tem. But if per­son­al­ity has the pre­rog­a­tive of ex­er­cis­ing vo­li­tional choice of re­al­ity iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, and if this is a true and free choice, then must evolv­ing per­son­al­ity also have the pos­si­ble choice of be­com­ing self-con­fus­ing, self-dis­rupt­ing, and self-de­stroy­ing. The pos­si­bil­ity of cos­mic self-de­struc­tion can­not be avoided if the evolv­ing per­son­al­ity is to be truly free in the ex­er­cise of fi­nite will.

118:7.8There­fore is there in­creased safety in nar­row­ing the lim­its of per­son­al­ity choice through­out the lower lev­els of ex­is­tence. Choice be­comes in­creas­ingly lib­er­ated as the uni­verses are as­cended; choice even­tu­ally ap­prox­i­mates di­vine free­dom when the as­cend­ing per­son­al­ity achieves di­vin­ity of sta­tus, su­prem­acy of con­se­cra­tion to the pur­poses of the uni­verse, com­ple­tion of cos­mic-wis­dom at­tain­ment, and fi­nal­ity of crea­ture iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with the will and the way of God.