The Urantia Book

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predictability

12 paragraphs · about 5 minutes

Every paragraph the index cites under predictability, once, in the order of the book. Beside each stand the entries that cite it.

7:1.8All re­ac­tions of the spirit-grav­ity cir­cuit of the grand uni­verse are pre­dictable. We rec­og­nize all ac­tions and re­ac­tions of the om­ni­pres­ent spirit of the Eter­nal Son and find them to be de­pend­able. In ac­cor­dance with well-known laws, we can and do mea­sure spir­i­tual grav­ity just as man at­tempts to com­pute the work­ings of fi­nite phys­i­cal grav­ity. There is an un­vary­ing re­sponse of the Son’s spirit to all spirit things, be­ings, and per­sons, and this re­sponse is al­ways in ac­cor­dance with the de­gree of ac­tu­al­ity (the qual­i­ta­tive de­gree of re­al­ity) of all such spir­i­tual val­ues.

9:6.8The mind-grav­ity cir­cuit is de­pend­able; it em­anates from the Third Per­son of De­ity on Par­a­dise, but not all the ob­serv­able func­tion of mind is pre­dictable. Through­out all known cre­ation there par­al­lels this cir­cuit of mind some lit­tle-un­der­stood pres­ence whose func­tion is not pre­dictable. We be­lieve that this un­pre­dictabil­ity is partly at­tributable to the func­tion of the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute. What this func­tion is, we do not know; what ac­tu­ates it, we can only con­jec­ture; con­cern­ing its re­la­tion to crea­tures, we can only spec­u­late.

9:6.9Cer­tain phases of the un­pre­dictabil­ity of fi­nite mind may be due to the in­com­plete­ness of the Su­preme Be­ing, and there is a vast zone of ac­tiv­i­ties wherein the Con­joint Ac­tor and the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute may pos­si­bly be tan­gent. There is much about mind that is un­known, but of this we are sure: The In­fi­nite Spirit is the per­fect ex­pres­sion of the mind of the Cre­ator to all crea­tures; the Su­preme Be­ing is the evolv­ing ex­pres­sion of the minds of all crea­tures to their Cre­ator.

10:7.4We do not find the over­con­trol of Su­prem­acy to be wholly pre­dictable. Fur­ther­more, this un­pre­dictabil­ity ap­pears to be char­ac­ter­ized by a cer­tain de­vel­op­men­tal in­com­plete­ness, un­doubt­edly an ear­mark of the in­com­plete­ness of the Su­preme and of the in­com­plete­ness of fi­nite re­ac­tion to the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

12:6.4In all your con­tem­pla­tion of uni­ver­sal phe­nom­ena, make cer­tain that you take into con­sid­er­a­tion the in­ter­re­la­tion of phys­i­cal, in­tel­lec­tual, and spir­i­tual en­er­gies, and that due al­lowance is made for the un­ex­pected phe­nom­ena at­ten­dant upon their uni­fi­ca­tion by per­son­al­ity and for the un­pre­dictable phe­nom­ena re­sult­ing from the ac­tions and re­ac­tions of ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity and the Ab­so­lutes.

12:6.5The uni­verse is highly pre­dictable only in the quan­ti­ta­tive or grav­ity-mea­sure­ment sense; even the pri­mal phys­i­cal forces are not re­spon­sive to lin­ear grav­ity, nor are the higher mind mean­ings and true spirit val­ues of ul­ti­mate uni­verse re­al­i­ties. Qual­i­ta­tively, the uni­verse is not highly pre­dictable as re­gards new as­so­ci­a­tions of forces, ei­ther phys­i­cal, mindal, or spir­i­tual, al­though many such com­bi­na­tions of en­er­gies or forces be­come par­tially pre­dictable when sub­jected to crit­i­cal ob­ser­va­tion. When mat­ter, mind, and spirit are uni­fied by crea­ture per­son­al­ity, we are un­able fully to pre­dict the de­ci­sions of such a free­will be­ing.

12:6.6All phases of pri­mor­dial force, nas­cent spirit, and other non­per­sonal ul­ti­mates ap­pear to re­act in ac­cor­dance with cer­tain rel­a­tively sta­ble but un­known laws and are char­ac­ter­ized by a lat­i­tude of per­for­mance and an elas­tic­ity of re­sponse which are of­ten dis­con­cert­ing when en­coun­tered in the phe­nom­ena of a cir­cum­scribed and iso­lated sit­u­a­tion. What is the ex­pla­na­tion of this un­pre­dictable free­dom of re­ac­tion dis­closed by these emerg­ing uni­verse ac­tu­al­i­ties? These un­known, un­fath­omable un­pre­dicta­bles—whether per­tain­ing to the be­hav­ior of a pri­mor­dial unit of force, the re­ac­tion of an uniden­ti­fied level of mind, or the phe­nom­e­non of a vast pre­uni­verse in the mak­ing in the do­mains of outer space—prob­a­bly dis­close the ac­tiv­i­ties of the Ul­ti­mate and the pres­ence-per­for­mances of the Ab­so­lutes, which an­te­date the func­tion of all uni­verse Cre­ators.

12:6.7We do not re­ally know, but we sur­mise that such amaz­ing ver­sa­til­ity and such pro­found co-or­di­na­tion sig­nify the pres­ence and per­for­mance of the Ab­so­lutes, and that such di­ver­sity of re­sponse in the face of ap­par­ently uni­form cau­sa­tion dis­closes the re­ac­tion of the Ab­so­lutes, not only to the im­me­di­ate and sit­u­a­tional cau­sa­tion, but also to all other re­lated cau­sa­tions through­out the en­tire mas­ter uni­verse.

14:2.9Ha­vona is a spir­i­tu­ally per­fect and phys­i­cally sta­ble uni­verse. The con­trol and bal­anced sta­bil­ity of the cen­tral uni­verse ap­pear to be per­fect. Ev­ery­thing phys­i­cal or spir­i­tual is per­fectly pre­dictable, but mind phe­nom­ena and per­son­al­ity vo­li­tion are not. We do in­fer that sin can be reck­oned as im­pos­si­ble of oc­cur­rence, but we do this on the ground that the na­tive free­will crea­tures of Ha­vona have never been guilty of trans­gress­ing the will of De­ity. Through all eter­nity these su­per­nal be­ings have been con­sis­tently loyal to the Eter­nals of Days. Nei­ther has sin ap­peared in any crea­ture who has en­tered Ha­vona as a pil­grim. There has never been an in­stance of mis­con­duct by any crea­ture of any group of per­son­al­i­ties ever cre­ated in, or ad­mit­ted to, the cen­tral Ha­vona uni­verse. So per­fect and so di­vine are the meth­ods and means of se­lec­tion in the uni­verses of time that never in the rec­ords of Ha­vona has an er­ror oc­curred; no mis­takes have ever been made; no as­cen­dant soul has ever been pre­ma­turely ad­mit­ted to the cen­tral uni­verse.

15:8.8We are able to rec­og­nize most of the laws gov­ern­ing uni­verse equi­lib­rium and to pre­dict much per­tain­ing to uni­verse sta­bil­ity. Prac­ti­cally, our fore­casts are re­li­able, but we are al­ways con­fronted by cer­tain forces which are not wholly amenable to the laws of en­ergy con­trol and mat­ter be­hav­ior known to us. The pre­dictabil­ity of all phys­i­cal phe­nom­ena be­comes in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult as we pro­ceed out­ward in the uni­verses from Par­a­dise. As we pass be­yond the bor­ders of the per­sonal ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Par­a­dise Rulers, we are con­fronted with in­creas­ing in­abil­ity to reckon in ac­cor­dance with the stan­dards es­tab­lished and the ex­pe­ri­ence ac­quired in con­nec­tion with ob­ser­va­tions hav­ing ex­clu­sively to do with the phys­i­cal phe­nom­ena of the near-by as­tro­nomic sys­tems. Even in the realms of the seven super­uni­verses we are liv­ing in the midst of force ac­tions and en­ergy re­ac­tions which per­vade all our do­mains and ex­tend in uni­fied equi­lib­rium on through all re­gions of outer space.

15:8.9The far­ther out we go, the more cer­tainly we en­counter those vari­a­tional and un­pre­dictable phe­nom­ena which are so unerringly char­ac­ter­is­tic of the un­fath­omable pres­ence-per­for­mances of the Ab­so­lutes and the ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­i­ties. And these phe­nom­ena must be in­dica­tive of some uni­ver­sal over­con­trol of all things.

65:6.8Physics and chem­istry alone can­not ex­plain how a hu­man be­ing evolved out of the primeval pro­to­plasm of the early seas. The abil­ity to learn, mem­ory and dif­fer­en­tial re­sponse to en­vi­ron­ment, is the en­dow­ment of mind. The laws of physics are not re­spon­sive to train­ing; they are im­mutable and un­chang­ing. The re­ac­tions of chem­istry are not mod­i­fied by ed­u­ca­tion; they are uni­form and de­pend­able. Aside from the pres­ence of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute, elec­tri­cal and chem­i­cal re­ac­tions are pre­dictable. But mind can profit from ex­pe­ri­ence, can learn from re­ac­tive habits of be­hav­ior in re­sponse to rep­e­ti­tion of stim­uli.

Onward

Cited alongside: uncertainty, mind, personality, Universal Absolute, Unqualified Absolute, Supreme, the, Deity Absolute, gravity