Universal Father

• functions › on prepersonal, personal, and superpersonal levels

0:2.31. Preper­sonal—as in the min­istry of the Fa­ther frag­ments, such as the Thought Ad­justers.

0:2.42. Per­sonal—as in the evo­lu­tion­ary ex­pe­ri­ence of cre­ated and pro­cre­ated be­ings.

0:2.53. Super­per­sonal—as in the even­tu­ated ex­is­tences of cer­tain ab­so­nite and as­so­ci­ated be­ings.

• also known as › Creator, Controller, Upholder, First Person of Deity

0:2.121. God the Fa­ther—Cre­ator, Con­trol­ler, and Up­holder. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the First Per­son of De­ity.

0:3.1To­tal, in­fi­nite re­al­ity is ex­is­ten­tial in seven phases and as seven co-or­di­nate Ab­so­lutes:

0:3.21. The First Source and Cen­ter.

0:3.32. The Sec­ond Source and Cen­ter.

0:3.43. The Third Source and Cen­ter.

0:3.54. The Isle of Par­a­dise.

0:3.65. The De­ity Ab­so­lute.

0:3.76. The Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute.

0:3.87. The Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute.

• described › limited only by volition

0:3.9God, as the First Source and Cen­ter, is pri­mal in re­la­tion to to­tal re­al­ity—un­qual­i­fiedly. The First Source and Cen­ter is in­fi­nite as well as eter­nal and is there­fore lim­ited or con­di­tioned only by vo­li­tion.

• delegation of power › has reserved all final decisions; may act independently; power delegated can be exercised direct

0:3.10God—the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther—is the per­son­al­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter and as such main­tains per­sonal re­la­tions of in­fi­nite con­trol over all co-or­di­nate and sub­or­di­nate sources and cen­ters. Such con­trol is per­sonal and in­fi­nite in po­ten­tial, even though it may never ac­tu­ally func­tion ow­ing to the per­fec­tion of the func­tion of such co-or­di­nate and sub­or­di­nate sources and cen­ters and per­son­al­i­ties.

• described › all things consist in

0:3.11The First Source and Cen­ter is, there­fore, pri­mal in all do­mains: de­i­fied or un­de­i­fied, per­sonal or im­per­sonal, ac­tual or po­ten­tial, fi­nite or in­fi­nite. No thing or be­ing, no rel­a­tiv­ity or fi­nal­ity, ex­ists ex­cept in di­rect or in­di­rect re­la­tion to, and de­pen­dence on, the pri­macy of the First Source and Cen­ter.

0:3.12The First Source and Cen­ter is re­lated to the uni­verse as:

• described › geographical location eternally fixed on upper Paradise

0:3.131. The grav­ity forces of the ma­te­rial uni­verses are con­ver­gent in the grav­ity cen­ter of nether Par­a­dise. That is just why the ge­o­graphic lo­ca­tion of his per­son is eter­nally fixed in ab­so­lute re­la­tion to the force-en­ergy cen­ter of the nether or ma­te­rial plane of Par­a­dise. But the ab­so­lute per­son­al­ity of De­ity ex­ists on the up­per or spir­i­tual plane of Par­a­dise.

0:3.142. The mind forces are con­ver­gent in the In­fi­nite Spirit; the dif­fer­en­tial and di­ver­gent cos­mic mind in the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its; the fac­tu­al­iz­ing mind of the Su­preme as a time-space ex­pe­ri­ence in Maj­es­ton.

0:3.153. The uni­verse spirit forces are con­ver­gent in the Eter­nal Son.

0:3.164. The un­lim­ited ca­pac­ity for de­ity ac­tion re­sides in the De­ity Ab­so­lute.

0:3.175. The un­lim­ited ca­pac­ity for in­fin­ity re­sponse ex­ists in the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute.

0:3.186. The two Ab­so­lutes—Qual­i­fied and Un­qual­i­fied—are co-or­di­nated and uni­fied in and by the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute.

0:3.197. The po­ten­tial per­son­al­ity of an evo­lu­tion­ary moral be­ing or of any other moral be­ing is cen­tered in the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

0:3.20RE­AL­ITY, as com­pre­hended by fi­nite be­ings, is par­tial, rel­a­tive, and shad­owy. The max­i­mum De­ity re­al­ity fully com­pre­hen­si­ble by evo­lu­tion­ary fi­nite crea­tures is em­braced within the Su­preme Be­ing. Nev­er­the­less there are an­te­ced­ent and eter­nal re­al­i­ties, super­fi­nite re­al­i­ties, which are an­ces­tral to this Su­preme De­ity of evo­lu­tion­ary time-space crea­tures. In at­tempt­ing to por­tray the ori­gin and na­ture of uni­ver­sal re­al­ity, we are forced to em­ploy the tech­nique of time-space rea­son­ing in or­der to reach the level of the fi­nite mind. There­fore must many of the si­mul­ta­ne­ous events of eter­nity be pre­sented as se­quen­tial trans­ac­tions.

0:3.21As a time-space crea­ture would view the ori­gin and dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of Re­al­ity, the eter­nal and in­fi­nite I AM achieved De­ity lib­er­a­tion from the fet­ters of un­qual­i­fied in­fin­ity through the ex­er­cise of in­her­ent and eter­nal free will, and this di­vorce­ment from un­qual­i­fied in­fin­ity pro­duced the first ab­so­lute di­vin­ity-ten­sion. This ten­sion of in­fin­ity dif­fer­en­tial is re­solved by the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute, which func­tions to unify and co-or­di­nate the dy­namic in­fin­ity of To­tal De­ity and the static in­fin­ity of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute.

• described › differentiation from I AM

0:3.22In this orig­i­nal trans­ac­tion the the­o­ret­i­cal I AM achieved the re­al­iza­tion of per­son­al­ity by be­com­ing the Eter­nal Fa­ther of the Orig­i­nal Son si­mul­ta­ne­ously with be­com­ing the Eter­nal Source of the Isle of Par­a­dise. Co­ex­is­tent with the dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of the Son from the Fa­ther, and in the pres­ence of Par­a­dise, there ap­peared the per­son of the In­fi­nite Spirit and the cen­tral uni­verse of Ha­vona. With the ap­pear­ance of co­ex­is­tent per­sonal De­ity, the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit, the Fa­ther es­caped, as a per­son­al­ity, from oth­er­wise in­ev­i­ta­ble dif­fu­sion through­out the po­ten­tial of To­tal De­ity. Thence­forth it is only in Trin­ity as­so­ci­a­tion with his two De­ity equals that the Fa­ther fills all De­ity po­ten­tial, while in­creas­ingly ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity is be­ing ac­tu­al­ized on the di­vin­ity lev­els of Su­prem­acy, Ul­ti­macy, and Ab­so­lute­ness.

0:3.23The con­cept of the I AM is a philo­sophic con­ces­sion which we make to the time-bound, space-fet­tered, fi­nite mind of man, to the im­pos­si­bil­ity of crea­ture com­pre­hen­sion of eter­nity ex­is­tences—non­be­gin­ning, non­end­ing re­al­i­ties and re­la­tion­ships. To the time-space crea­ture, all things must have a be­gin­ning save only the ONE UN­CAUSED—the primeval cause of causes. There­fore do we con­cep­tu­al­ize this philo­sophic value-level as the I AM, at the same time in­struct­ing all crea­tures that the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit are co­eter­nal with the I AM; in other words, that there never was a time when the I AM was not the Fa­ther of the Son and, with him, of the Spirit.

0:3.24The In­fi­nite is used to de­note the full­ness—the fi­nal­ity—im­plied by the pri­macy of the First Source and Cen­ter. The the­o­ret­i­cal I AM is a crea­ture-philo­sophic ex­ten­sion of the “in­fin­ity of will,” but the In­fi­nite is an ac­tual value-level rep­re­sent­ing the eter­nity-in­ten­sion of the true in­fin­ity of the ab­so­lute and un­fet­tered free will of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. This con­cept is some­times des­ig­nated the Fa­ther-In­fi­nite.

• described › only Son and Spirit know as infinity

0:3.25Much of the con­fu­sion of all or­ders of be­ings, high and low, in their ef­forts to dis­cover the Fa­ther-In­fi­nite, is in­her­ent in their lim­i­ta­tions of com­pre­hen­sion. The ab­so­lute pri­macy of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is not ap­par­ent on subin­fi­nite lev­els; there­fore is it prob­a­ble that only the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit truly know the Fa­ther as an in­fin­ity; to all other per­son­al­i­ties such a con­cept rep­re­sents the ex­er­cise of faith.

• functions › focalizes personality and mobilizes power through evolutionary Deity

0:9.3The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, through the mech­a­nism of evo­lu­tion­ary De­ity, is ac­tu­ally en­gaged in the stu­pen­dous and amaz­ing act of per­son­al­ity fo­cal­iza­tion and power mo­bi­liza­tion, on their re­spec­tive uni­verse mean­ing-lev­els, of the di­vine re­al­ity val­ues of the fi­nite, the ab­so­nite, and even of the ab­so­lute.

• described › infinite in love and volition; universal upholder

0:12.9The philoso­phers of the uni­verses pos­tu­late a Trin­ity of Trin­i­ties, an ex­is­ten­tial-ex­pe­ri­en­tial Trin­ity In­fi­nite, but they are not able to en­vis­age its per­son­al­iza­tion; pos­si­bly it would equiv­alate to the per­son of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther on the con­cep­tual level of the I AM. But ir­re­spec­tive of all this, the orig­i­nal Par­a­dise Trin­ity is po­ten­tially in­fi­nite since the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ac­tu­ally is in­fi­nite.

• also known as › First Source and Center

1:0.1The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the God of all cre­ation, the First Source and Cen­ter of all things and be­ings. First think of God as a cre­ator, then as a con­trol­ler, and lastly as an in­fi­nite up­holder. The truth about the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther had be­gun to dawn upon man­kind when the prophet said: “You, God, are alone; there is none be­side you. You have cre­ated the heaven and the heaven of heav­ens, with all their hosts; you pre­serve and con­trol them. By the Sons of God were the uni­verses made. The Cre­ator cov­ers him­self with light as with a gar­ment and stretches out the heav­ens as a cur­tain.” Only the con­cept of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther—one God in the place of many gods—en­abled mor­tal man to com­pre­hend the Fa­ther as di­vine cre­ator and in­fi­nite con­trol­ler.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

1:0.3The en­light­ened worlds all rec­og­nize and wor­ship the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the eter­nal maker and in­fi­nite up­holder of all cre­ation. The will crea­tures of uni­verse upon uni­verse have em­barked upon the long, long Par­a­dise jour­ney, the fas­ci­nat­ing strug­gle of the eter­nal ad­ven­ture of at­tain­ing God the Fa­ther. The tran­scen­dent goal of the chil­dren of time is to find the eter­nal God, to com­pre­hend the di­vine na­ture, to rec­og­nize the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God-know­ing crea­tures have only one su­preme am­bi­tion, just one con­sum­ing de­sire, and that is to be­come, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Par­a­dise per­fec­tion of per­son­al­ity and in his uni­ver­sal sphere of righ­teous su­prem­acy. From the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther who in­hab­its eter­nity there has gone forth the su­preme man­date, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.” In love and mercy the mes­sen­gers of Par­a­dise have car­ried this di­vine ex­hor­ta­tion down through the ages and out through the uni­verses, even to such lowly an­i­mal-ori­gin crea­tures as the hu­man races of Uran­tia.

1:0.4This mag­nif­i­cent and uni­ver­sal in­junc­tion to strive for the at­tain­ment of the per­fec­tion of di­vin­ity is the first duty, and should be the high­est am­bi­tion, of all the strug­gling crea­ture cre­ation of the God of per­fec­tion. This pos­si­bil­ity of the at­tain­ment of di­vine per­fec­tion is the fi­nal and cer­tain des­tiny of all man’s eter­nal spir­i­tual prog­ress.

1:0.5Uran­tia mor­tals can hardly hope to be per­fect in the in­fi­nite sense, but it is en­tirely pos­si­ble for hu­man be­ings, start­ing out as they do on this planet, to at­tain the su­per­nal and di­vine goal which the in­fi­nite God has set for mor­tal man; and when they do achieve this des­tiny, they will, in all that per­tains to self-re­al­iza­tion and mind at­tain­ment, be just as re­plete in their sphere of di­vine per­fec­tion as God him­self is in his sphere of in­fin­ity and eter­nity. Such per­fec­tion may not be uni­ver­sal in the ma­te­rial sense, un­lim­ited in in­tel­lec­tual grasp, or fi­nal in spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, but it is fi­nal and com­plete in all fi­nite as­pects of di­vin­ity of will, per­fec­tion of per­son­al­ity mo­ti­va­tion, and God-con­scious­ness.

1:0.6This is the true mean­ing of that di­vine com­mand, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect,” which ever urges mor­tal man on­ward and beck­ons him in­ward in that long and fas­ci­nat­ing strug­gle for the at­tain­ment of higher and higher lev­els of spir­i­tual val­ues and true uni­verse mean­ings. This sub­lime search for the God of uni­verses is the su­preme ad­ven­ture of the in­hab­i­tants of all the worlds of time and space.

• also known as › Creator
• also known as › First Source and Center

1:1.1Of all the names by which God the Fa­ther is known through­out the uni­verses, those which des­ig­nate him as the First Source and the Uni­verse Cen­ter are most of­ten en­coun­tered. The First Fa­ther is known by var­i­ous names in dif­fer­ent uni­verses and in dif­fer­ent sec­tors of the same uni­verse. The names which the crea­ture as­signs to the Cre­ator are much de­pen­dent on the crea­ture’s con­cept of the Cre­ator. The First Source and Uni­verse Cen­ter has never re­vealed him­self by name, only by na­ture. If we be­lieve that we are the chil­dren of this Cre­ator, it is only nat­u­ral that we should even­tu­ally call him Fa­ther. But this is the name of our own choos­ing, and it grows out of the rec­og­ni­tion of our per­sonal re­la­tion­ship with the First Source and Cen­ter.

• attitude › has ordained spiritual free will
• attitude › never imposes arbitrary recognition
• described › in Him we live, move, and have our being

1:1.2The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never im­poses any form of ar­bi­trary rec­og­ni­tion, for­mal wor­ship, or slav­ish ser­vice upon the in­tel­li­gent will crea­tures of the uni­verses. The evo­lu­tion­ary in­hab­i­tants of the worlds of time and space must of them­selves—in their own hearts—rec­og­nize, love, and vol­un­tar­ily wor­ship him. The Cre­ator re­fuses to co­erce or com­pel the sub­mis­sion of the spir­i­tual free wills of his ma­te­rial crea­tures. The af­fec­tion­ate ded­i­ca­tion of the hu­man will to the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will is man’s choic­est gift to God; in fact, such a con­se­cra­tion of crea­ture will con­sti­tutes man’s only pos­si­ble gift of true value to the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. In God, man lives, moves, and has his be­ing; there is noth­ing which man can give to God ex­cept this choos­ing to abide by the Fa­ther’s will, and such de­ci­sions, ef­fected by the in­tel­li­gent will crea­tures of the uni­verses, con­sti­tute the re­al­ity of that true wor­ship which is so sat­is­fy­ing to the love-dom­i­nated na­ture of the Cre­ator Fa­ther.

• name stands for degree of enthronement in heart

1:1.3When you have once be­come truly God-con­scious, af­ter you re­ally dis­cover the ma­jes­tic Cre­ator and be­gin to ex­pe­ri­ence the re­al­iza­tion of the in­dwelling pres­ence of the di­vine con­trol­ler, then, in ac­cor­dance with your en­light­en­ment and in ac­cor­dance with the man­ner and method by which the di­vine Sons re­veal God, you will find a name for the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther which will be ad­e­quately ex­pres­sive of your con­cept of the First Great Source and Cen­ter. And so, on dif­fer­ent worlds and in var­i­ous uni­verses, the Cre­ator be­comes known by nu­mer­ous ap­pel­la­tions, in spirit of re­la­tion­ship all mean­ing the same but, in words and sym­bols, each name stand­ing for the de­gree, the depth, of his en­throne­ment in the hearts of his crea­tures of any given realm.

1:1.4Near the cen­ter of the uni­verse of uni­verses, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is gen­er­ally known by names which may be re­garded as mean­ing the First Source. Far­ther out in the uni­verses of space, the terms em­ployed to des­ig­nate the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther more of­ten mean the Uni­ver­sal Cen­ter. Still far­ther out in the starry cre­ation, he is known, as on the head­quar­ters world of your lo­cal uni­verse, as the First Cre­ative Source and Di­vine Cen­ter. In one near-by con­stel­la­tion God is called the Fa­ther of Uni­verses. In an­other, the In­fi­nite Up­holder, and to the east, the Di­vine Con­trol­ler. He has also been des­ig­nated the Fa­ther of Lights, the Gift of Life, and the All-pow­er­ful One.

• described › Father idea is highest human concept of God

1:1.5On those worlds where a Par­a­dise Son has lived a be­stowal life, God is gen­er­ally known by some name in­dica­tive of per­sonal re­la­tion­ship, ten­der af­fec­tion, and fa­therly de­vo­tion. On your con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters God is re­ferred to as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and on dif­fer­ent plan­ets in your lo­cal sys­tem of in­hab­ited worlds he is var­i­ously known as the Fa­ther of Fa­thers, the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, the Ha­vona Fa­ther, and the Spirit Fa­ther. Those who know God through the rev­e­la­tions of the be­stowals of the Par­a­dise Sons, even­tu­ally yield to the sen­ti­men­tal ap­peal of the touch­ing re­la­tion­ship of the crea­ture-Cre­ator as­so­ci­a­tion and re­fer to God as “our Fa­ther.”

• name stands for degree of enthronement in heart

1:1.6On a planet of sex crea­tures, in a world where the im­pulses of pa­ren­tal emo­tion are in­her­ent in the hearts of its in­tel­li­gent be­ings, the term Fa­ther be­comes a very ex­pres­sive and ap­pro­pri­ate name for the eter­nal God. He is best known, most uni­ver­sally ac­knowl­edged, on your planet, Uran­tia, by the name God. The name he is given is of lit­tle im­por­tance; the sig­nif­i­cant thing is that you should know him and as­pire to be like him. Your proph­ets of old truly called him “the ev­er­last­ing God” and re­ferred to him as the one who “in­hab­its eter­nity.”

• described › what U.F. is not

1:2.2The eter­nal God is in­finitely more than re­al­ity ide­al­ized or the uni­verse per­son­al­ized. God is not sim­ply the su­preme de­sire of man, the mor­tal quest ob­jec­ti­fied. Nei­ther is God merely a con­cept, the power-po­ten­tial of righ­teous­ness. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is not a syn­onym for na­ture, nei­ther is he nat­u­ral law per­son­i­fied. God is a tran­scen­dent re­al­ity, not merely man’s tra­di­tional con­cept of su­preme val­ues. God is not a psy­cho­log­i­cal fo­cal­iza­tion of spir­i­tual mean­ings, nei­ther is he “the no­blest work of man.” God may be any or all of these con­cepts in the minds of men, but he is more. He is a sav­ing per­son and a lov­ing Fa­ther to all who en­joy spir­i­tual peace on earth, and who crave to ex­pe­ri­ence per­son­al­ity sur­vival in death.

• described › existence beyond demonstration except by Adjuster

1:2.7The ex­is­tence of God can never be proved by sci­en­tific ex­per­i­ment or by the pure rea­son of log­i­cal de­duc­tion. God can be re­al­ized only in the realms of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence; nev­er­the­less, the true con­cept of the re­al­ity of God is rea­son­able to logic, plau­si­ble to phi­los­o­phy, es­sen­tial to re­li­gion, and in­dis­pens­able to any hope of per­son­al­ity sur­vival.

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

1:2.8Those who know God have ex­pe­ri­enced the fact of his pres­ence; such God-know­ing mor­tals hold in their per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence the only pos­i­tive proof of the ex­is­tence of the liv­ing God which one hu­man be­ing can of­fer to an­other. The ex­is­tence of God is ut­terly be­yond all pos­si­bil­ity of dem­on­stra­tion ex­cept for the con­tact be­tween the God-con­scious­ness of the hu­man mind and the God-pres­ence of the Thought Ad­juster that in­dwells the mor­tal in­tel­lect and is be­stowed upon man as the free gift of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• delegation of power › has reserved all final decisions; may act independently; power delegated can be exercised direct
• delegation of power › may at any time interpose a fatherly hand in the stream of cosmic events
• functions › as physical controller, through Paradise
• functions › participates through ordained agencies
• methods of contact with man

1:2.10As a phys­i­cal con­trol­ler in the ma­te­rial uni­verse of uni­verses, the First Source and Cen­ter func­tions in the pat­terns of the eter­nal Isle of Par­a­dise, and through this ab­so­lute grav­ity cen­ter the eter­nal God ex­er­cises cos­mic over­con­trol of the phys­i­cal level equally in the cen­tral uni­verse and through­out the uni­verse of uni­verses. As mind, God func­tions in the De­ity of the In­fi­nite Spirit; as spirit, God is man­i­fest in the per­son of the Eter­nal Son and in the per­sons of the di­vine chil­dren of the Eter­nal Son. This in­ter­re­la­tion of the First Source and Cen­ter with the co-or­di­nate Per­sons and Ab­so­lutes of Par­a­dise does not in the least pre­clude the di­rect per­sonal ac­tion of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther through­out all cre­ation and on all lev­els thereof. Through the pres­ence of his frag­men­tized spirit the Cre­ator Fa­ther main­tains im­me­di­ate con­tact with his crea­ture chil­dren and his cre­ated uni­verses.

• described › is infinite
• described › is invisible
• described › Thought Adjuster is image of

1:3.1“God is spirit.” He is a uni­ver­sal spir­i­tual pres­ence. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is an in­fi­nite spir­i­tual re­al­ity; he is “the sov­er­eign, eter­nal, im­mor­tal, in­vis­i­ble, and only true God.” Even though you are “the off­spring of God,” you ought not to think that the Fa­ther is like your­selves in form and physique be­cause you are said to be cre­ated “in his im­age”—in­dwelt by Mys­tery Mon­i­tors dis­patched from the cen­tral abode of his eter­nal pres­ence. Spirit be­ings are real, not­with­stand­ing they are in­vis­i­ble to hu­man eyes; even though they have not flesh and blood.

• described › testimony by Divine Counselor

1:3.8I come forth from the Eter­nal, and I have re­peat­edly re­turned to the pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. I know of the ac­tu­al­ity and per­son­al­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter, the Eter­nal and Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. I know that, while the great God is ab­so­lute, eter­nal, and in­fi­nite, he is also good, di­vine, and gra­cious. I know the truth of the great dec­la­ra­tions: “God is spirit” and “God is love,” and these two at­tri­butes are most com­pletely re­vealed to the uni­verse in the Eter­nal Son.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

1:4.6To ev­ery spirit be­ing and to ev­ery mor­tal crea­ture in ev­ery sphere and on ev­ery world of the uni­verse of uni­verses, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther re­veals all of his gra­cious and di­vine self that can be dis­cerned or com­pre­hended by such spirit be­ings and by such mor­tal crea­tures. God is no re­specter of per­sons, ei­ther spir­i­tual or ma­te­rial. The di­vine pres­ence which any child of the uni­verse en­joys at any given mo­ment is lim­ited only by the ca­pac­ity of such a crea­ture to re­ceive and to dis­cern the spirit ac­tu­al­i­ties of the super­ma­te­rial world.

• described › origin and destiny of personality

1:5.1Do not per­mit the mag­ni­tude of God, his in­fin­ity, ei­ther to ob­scure or eclipse his per­son­al­ity. “He who planned the ear, shall he not hear? He who formed the eye, shall he not see?” The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the acme of di­vine per­son­al­ity; he is the ori­gin and des­tiny of per­son­al­ity through­out all cre­ation. God is both in­fi­nite and per­sonal; he is an in­fi­nite per­son­al­ity. The Fa­ther is truly a per­son­al­ity, not­with­stand­ing that the in­fin­ity of his per­son places him for­ever be­yond the full com­pre­hen­sion of ma­te­rial and fi­nite be­ings.

1:5.2God is much more than a per­son­al­ity as per­son­al­ity is un­der­stood by the hu­man mind; he is even far more than any pos­si­ble con­cept of a super­per­son­al­ity. But it is ut­terly fu­tile to dis­cuss such in­com­pre­hen­si­ble con­cepts of di­vine per­son­al­ity with the minds of ma­te­rial crea­tures whose max­i­mum con­cept of the re­al­ity of be­ing con­sists in the idea and ideal of per­son­al­ity. The ma­te­rial crea­ture’s high­est pos­si­ble con­cept of the Uni­ver­sal Cre­ator is em­braced within the spir­i­tual ide­als of the ex­alted idea of di­vine per­son­al­ity. There­fore, al­though you may know that God must be much more than the hu­man con­cep­tion of per­son­al­ity, you equally well know that the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can­not pos­si­bly be any­thing less than an eter­nal, in­fi­nite, true, good, and beau­ti­ful per­son­al­ity.

• described › is invisible

1:5.3God is not hid­ing from any of his crea­tures. He is un­ap­proach­able to so many or­ders of be­ings only be­cause he “dwells in a light which no ma­te­rial crea­ture can ap­proach.” The im­men­sity and grandeur of the di­vine per­son­al­ity is be­yond the grasp of the un­per­fected mind of evo­lu­tion­ary mor­tals. He “mea­sures the wa­ters in the hol­low of his hand, mea­sures a uni­verse with the span of his hand. It is he who sits on the cir­cle of the earth, who stretches out the heav­ens as a cur­tain and spreads them out as a uni­verse to dwell in.” “Lift up your eyes on high and be­hold who has cre­ated all these things, who brings out their worlds by num­ber and calls them all by their names”; and so it is true that “the in­vis­i­ble things of God are par­tially un­der­stood by the things which are made.” To­day, and as you are, you must dis­cern the in­vis­i­ble Maker through his man­i­fold and di­verse cre­ation, as well as through the rev­e­la­tion and min­is­tra­tion of his Sons and their nu­mer­ous sub­or­di­nates.

• attitude › delights in his children

1:5.4Even though ma­te­rial mor­tals can­not see the per­son of God, they should re­joice in the as­sur­ance that he is a per­son; by faith ac­cept the truth which por­trays that the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther so loved the world as to pro­vide for the eter­nal spir­i­tual pro­gres­sion of its lowly in­hab­i­tants; that he “de­lights in his chil­dren.” God is lack­ing in none of those super­hu­man and di­vine at­tri­butes which con­sti­tute a per­fect, eter­nal, lov­ing, and in­fi­nite Cre­ator per­son­al­ity.

• described › man cannot see U.F. until Paradise

1:5.5In the lo­cal cre­ations (ex­cept­ing the per­son­nel of the super­uni­verses) God has no per­sonal or res­i­den­tial man­i­fes­ta­tion aside from the Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons who are the fa­thers of the in­hab­ited worlds and the sov­er­eigns of the lo­cal uni­verses. If the faith of the crea­ture were per­fect, he would as­suredly know that when he had seen a Cre­ator Son he had seen the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; in seek­ing for the Fa­ther, he would not ask nor ex­pect to see other than the Son. Mor­tal man sim­ply can­not see God un­til he achieves com­pleted spirit trans­for­ma­tion and ac­tu­ally at­tains Par­a­dise.

• functions › comes to us as a personality only through the divine Sons

1:5.6The na­tures of the Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons do not en­com­pass all the un­qual­i­fied po­ten­tials of the uni­ver­sal ab­so­lute­ness of the in­fi­nite na­ture of the First Great Source and Cen­ter, but the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is in ev­ery way di­vinely pres­ent in the Cre­ator Sons. The Fa­ther and his Sons are one. These Par­a­dise Sons of the or­der of Mi­chael are per­fect per­son­al­i­ties, even the pat­tern for all lo­cal uni­verse per­son­al­ity from that of the Bright and Morn­ing Star down to the low­est hu­man crea­ture of pro­gress­ing an­i­mal evo­lu­tion.

1:5.7With­out God and ex­cept for his great and cen­tral per­son, there would be no per­son­al­ity through­out all the vast uni­verse of uni­verses. God is per­son­al­ity.

1:5.8Not­with­stand­ing that God is an eter­nal power, a ma­jes­tic pres­ence, a tran­scen­dent ideal, and a glo­ri­ous spirit, though he is all these and in­finitely more, nonethe­less, he is truly and ev­er­last­ingly a per­fect Cre­ator per­son­al­ity, a per­son who can “know and be known,” who can “love and be loved,” and one who can be­friend us; while you can be known, as other hu­mans have been known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a spir­i­tual re­al­ity.

• described › maintains personal relations with all his creatures

1:5.9As we see the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther re­vealed through­out his uni­verse; as we dis­cern him in­dwelling his myr­i­ads of crea­tures; as we be­hold him in the per­sons of his Sov­er­eign Sons; as we con­tinue to sense his di­vine pres­ence here and there, near and afar, let us not doubt nor ques­tion his per­son­al­ity pri­macy. Not­with­stand­ing all these far-flung dis­tri­bu­tions, he re­mains a true per­son and ev­er­last­ingly main­tains per­sonal con­nec­tion with the count­less hosts of his crea­tures scat­tered through­out the uni­verse of uni­verses.

• idea of U.F.’s personality brought by revelation

1:5.10The idea of the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is an en­larged and truer con­cept of God which has come to man­kind chiefly through rev­e­la­tion. Rea­son, wis­dom, and re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence all in­fer and im­ply the per­son­al­ity of God, but they do not al­to­gether val­i­date it. Even the in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster is preper­sonal. The truth and ma­tu­rity of any re­li­gion is di­rectly pro­por­tional to its con­cept of the in­fi­nite per­son­al­ity of God and to its grasp of the ab­so­lute unity of De­ity. The idea of a per­sonal De­ity be­comes, then, the mea­sure of re­li­gious ma­tu­rity af­ter re­li­gion has first for­mu­lated the con­cept of the unity of God.

1:5.11Prim­i­tive re­li­gion had many per­sonal gods, and they were fash­ioned in the im­age of man. Rev­e­la­tion af­firms the va­lid­ity of the per­son­al­ity con­cept of God which is merely pos­si­ble in the sci­en­tific pos­tu­late of a First Cause and is only pro­vi­sion­ally sug­gested in the philo­sophic idea of Uni­ver­sal Unity. Only by per­son­al­ity ap­proach can any per­son be­gin to com­pre­hend the unity of God. To deny the per­son­al­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter leaves one only the choice of two philo­sophic dilem­mas: ma­te­ri­al­ism or pan­the­ism.

1:5.12In the con­tem­pla­tion of De­ity, the con­cept of per­son­al­ity must be di­vested of the idea of cor­po­re­al­ity. A ma­te­rial body is not in­dis­pens­able to per­son­al­ity in ei­ther man or God. The cor­po­re­al­ity er­ror is shown in both ex­tremes of hu­man phi­los­o­phy. In ma­te­ri­al­ism, since man loses his body at death, he ceases to ex­ist as a per­son­al­ity; in pan­the­ism, since God has no body, he is not, there­fore, a per­son. The super­hu­man type of pro­gress­ing per­son­al­ity func­tions in a union of mind and spirit.

1:5.13Per­son­al­ity is not sim­ply an at­tri­bute of God; it rather stands for the to­tal­ity of the co-or­di­nated in­fi­nite na­ture and the uni­fied di­vine will which is ex­hib­ited in eter­nity and uni­ver­sal­ity of per­fect ex­pres­sion. Per­son­al­ity, in the su­preme sense, is the rev­e­la­tion of God to the uni­verse of uni­verses.

1:5.14God, be­ing eter­nal, uni­ver­sal, ab­so­lute, and in­fi­nite, does not grow in knowl­edge nor in­crease in wis­dom. God does not ac­quire ex­pe­ri­ence, as fi­nite man might con­jec­ture or com­pre­hend, but he does, within the realms of his own eter­nal per­son­al­ity, en­joy those con­tin­u­ous ex­pan­sions of self-re­al­iza­tion which are in cer­tain ways com­pa­ra­ble to, and anal­o­gous with, the ac­quire­ment of new ex­pe­ri­ence by the fi­nite crea­tures of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

• functions › participates in our struggles, our experience with immaturity

1:5.15The ab­so­lute per­fec­tion of the in­fi­nite God would cause him to suf­fer the aw­ful lim­i­ta­tions of un­qual­i­fied fi­nal­ity of per­fect­ness were it not a fact that the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther di­rectly par­tic­i­pates in the per­son­al­ity strug­gle of ev­ery im­per­fect soul in the wide uni­verse who seeks, by di­vine aid, to as­cend to the spir­i­tu­ally per­fect worlds on high. This pro­gres­sive ex­pe­ri­ence of ev­ery spirit be­ing and ev­ery mor­tal crea­ture through­out the uni­verse of uni­verses is a part of the Fa­ther’s ever-ex­pand­ing De­ity-con­scious­ness of the never-end­ing di­vine cir­cle of cease­less self-re­al­iza­tion.

• described › in Him we live, move, and have our being

1:5.16It is lit­er­ally true: “In all your af­flic­tions he is af­flicted.” “In all your tri­umphs he tri­umphs in and with you.” His preper­sonal di­vine spirit is a real part of you. The Isle of Par­a­dise re­sponds to all the phys­i­cal meta­mor­phoses of the uni­verse of uni­verses; the Eter­nal Son in­cludes all the spirit im­pulses of all cre­ation; the Con­joint Ac­tor en­com­passes all the mind ex­pres­sion of the ex­pand­ing cos­mos. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther re­al­izes in the full­ness of the di­vine con­scious­ness all the in­di­vid­ual ex­pe­ri­ence of the pro­gres­sive strug­gles of the ex­pand­ing minds and the as­cend­ing spir­its of ev­ery en­tity, be­ing, and per­son­al­ity of the whole evo­lu­tion­ary cre­ation of time and space. And all this is lit­er­ally true, for “in Him we all live and move and have our be­ing.”

• described › best understood in Jesus’ life

1:6.8God is spirit—spirit per­son­al­ity; man is also a spirit—po­ten­tial spirit per­son­al­ity. Je­sus of Naz­a­reth at­tained the full re­al­iza­tion of this po­ten­tial of spirit per­son­al­ity in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence; there­fore his life of achiev­ing the Fa­ther’s will be­comes man’s most real and ideal rev­e­la­tion of the per­son­al­ity of God. Even though the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can be grasped only in ac­tual re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, in Je­sus’ earth life we are in­spired by the per­fect dem­on­stra­tion of such a re­al­iza­tion and rev­e­la­tion of the per­son­al­ity of God in a truly hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

• described › transcends all mind, matter, and spirit

1:7.7This con­cept of in­di­vis­i­bil­ity in as­so­ci­a­tion with the con­cept of unity im­plies tran­scen­dence of both time and space by the Ul­ti­macy of De­ity; there­fore nei­ther space nor time can be ab­so­lute or in­fi­nite. The First Source and Cen­ter is that in­fin­ity who un­qual­i­fiedly tran­scends all mind, all mat­ter, and all spirit.

• described › testimony by Divine Counselor

1:7.9[Pre­sented by a Di­vine Coun­selor, a mem­ber of a group of ce­les­tial per­son­al­i­ties as­signed by the An­cients of Days on Uversa, the head­quar­ters of the sev­enth super­uni­verse, to super­vise those por­tions of this forth­com­ing rev­e­la­tion which have to do with af­fairs be­yond the bor­ders of the lo­cal uni­verse of Neb­a­don. I am com­mis­sioned to spon­sor those pa­pers por­tray­ing the na­ture and at­tri­butes of God be­cause I rep­re­sent the high­est source of in­for­ma­tion avail­able for such a pur­pose on any in­hab­ited world. I have served as a Di­vine Coun­selor in all seven of the super­uni­verses and have long resided at the Par­a­dise cen­ter of all things. Many times have I en­joyed the su­preme plea­sure of a so­journ in the im­me­di­ate per­sonal pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. I por­tray the re­al­ity and truth of the Fa­ther’s na­ture and at­tri­butes with un­chal­lenge­able au­thor­ity; I know whereof I speak.]

• described › best understood in Jesus’ life

2:0.1Inas­much as man’s high­est pos­si­ble con­cept of God is em­braced within the hu­man idea and ideal of a pri­mal and in­fi­nite per­son­al­ity, it is per­mis­si­ble, and may prove help­ful, to study cer­tain char­ac­ter­is­tics of the di­vine na­ture which con­sti­tute the char­ac­ter of De­ity. The na­ture of God can best be un­der­stood by the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther which Mi­chael of Neb­a­don un­folded in his man­i­fold teach­ings and in his su­perb mor­tal life in the flesh. The di­vine na­ture can also be bet­ter un­der­stood by man if he re­gards him­self as a child of God and looks up to the Par­a­dise Cre­ator as a true spir­i­tual Fa­ther.

2:0.2The na­ture of God can be stud­ied in a rev­e­la­tion of su­preme ideas, the di­vine char­ac­ter can be en­vis­aged as a por­trayal of su­per­nal ide­als, but the most en­light­en­ing and spir­i­tu­ally ed­i­fy­ing of all rev­e­la­tions of the di­vine na­ture is to be found in the com­pre­hen­sion of the re­li­gious life of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, both be­fore and af­ter his at­tain­ment of full con­scious­ness of di­vin­ity. If the in­car­nated life of Mi­chael is taken as the back­ground of the rev­e­la­tion of God to man, we may at­tempt to put in hu­man word sym­bols cer­tain ideas and ide­als con­cern­ing the di­vine na­ture which may pos­si­bly con­tribute to a fur­ther il­lu­mi­na­tion and uni­fi­ca­tion of the hu­man con­cept of the na­ture and the char­ac­ter of the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• described › unqualifiedly self-conscious

2:1.3Not­with­stand­ing the in­fin­ity of the stu­pen­dous man­i­fes­ta­tions of the Fa­ther’s eter­nal and uni­ver­sal per­son­al­ity, he is un­qual­i­fiedly self-con­scious of both his in­fin­ity and eter­nity; like­wise he knows fully his per­fec­tion and power. He is the only be­ing in the uni­verse, aside from his di­vine co-or­di­nates, who ex­pe­ri­ences a per­fect, proper, and com­plete ap­praisal of him­self.

• described › is omniscient

2:1.4The Fa­ther con­stantly and un­fail­ingly meets the need of the dif­fer­en­tial of de­mand for him­self as it changes from time to time in var­i­ous sec­tions of his mas­ter uni­verse. The great God knows and un­der­stands him­self; he is in­finitely self-con­scious of all his pri­mal at­tri­butes of per­fec­tion. God is not a cos­mic ac­ci­dent; nei­ther is he a uni­verse ex­per­i­menter. The Uni­verse Sov­er­eigns may en­gage in ad­ven­ture; the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers may ex­per­i­ment; the sys­tem heads may prac­tice; but the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther sees the end from the be­gin­ning, and his di­vine plan and eter­nal pur­pose ac­tu­ally em­brace and com­pre­hend all the ex­per­i­ments and all the ad­ven­tures of all his sub­or­di­nates in ev­ery world, sys­tem, and con­stel­la­tion in ev­ery uni­verse of his vast do­mains.

2:1.5No thing is new to God, and no cos­mic event ever comes as a sur­prise; he in­hab­its the cir­cle of eter­nity. He is with­out be­gin­ning or end of days. To God there is no past, pres­ent, or fu­ture; all time is pres­ent at any given mo­ment. He is the great and only I AM.

• described › is infinite

2:1.6The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is ab­so­lutely and with­out qual­i­fi­ca­tion in­fi­nite in all his at­tri­butes; and this fact, in and of it­self, au­to­mat­i­cally shuts him off from all di­rect per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with fi­nite ma­te­rial be­ings and other lowly cre­ated in­tel­li­gences.

• methods of contact with man

2:1.7And all this ne­ces­si­tates such ar­range­ments for con­tact and com­mu­ni­ca­tion with his man­i­fold crea­tures as have been or­dained, first, in the per­son­al­i­ties of the Par­a­dise Sons of God, who, al­though per­fect in di­vin­ity, also of­ten par­take of the na­ture of the very flesh and blood of the plan­e­tary races, be­com­ing one of you and one with you; thus, as it were, God be­comes man, as oc­curred in the be­stowal of Mi­chael, who was called in­ter­change­ably the Son of God and the Son of Man. And sec­ond, there are the per­son­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite Spirit, the var­i­ous or­ders of the se­raphic hosts and other ce­les­tial in­tel­li­gences who draw near to the ma­te­rial be­ings of lowly ori­gin and in so many ways min­is­ter to them and serve them. And third, there are the im­per­sonal Mys­tery Mon­i­tors, Thought Ad­justers, the ac­tual gift of the great God him­self sent to in­dwell such as the hu­mans of Uran­tia, sent with­out an­nounce­ment and with­out ex­pla­na­tion. In end­less pro­fu­sion they de­scend from the heights of glory to grace and in­dwell the hum­ble minds of those mor­tals who pos­sess the ca­pac­ity for God-con­scious­ness or the po­ten­tial there­for.

2:1.8In these ways and in many oth­ers, in ways un­known to you and ut­terly be­yond fi­nite com­pre­hen­sion, does the Par­a­dise Fa­ther lov­ingly and will­ingly down­step and oth­er­wise mod­ify, di­lute, and at­ten­u­ate his in­fin­ity in or­der that he may be able to draw nearer the fi­nite minds of his crea­ture chil­dren. And so, through a se­ries of per­son­al­ity dis­tri­bu­tions which are di­min­ish­ingly ab­so­lute, the in­fi­nite Fa­ther is en­abled to en­joy close con­tact with the di­verse in­tel­li­gences of the many realms of his far-flung uni­verse.

• functions › self-bestowal does not lessen potential

2:1.9All this he has done and now does, and ev­er­more will con­tinue to do, with­out in the least de­tract­ing from the fact and re­al­ity of his in­fin­ity, eter­nity, and pri­macy. And these things are ab­so­lutely true, not­with­stand­ing the dif­fi­culty of their com­pre­hen­sion, the mys­tery in which they are en­shrouded, or the im­pos­si­bil­ity of their be­ing fully un­der­stood by crea­tures such as dwell on Uran­tia.

• described › in Him we live, move, and have our being

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.

• described › is changeless

2:2.1Even your olden proph­ets un­der­stood the eter­nal, never-be­gin­ning, never-end­ing, cir­cu­lar na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God is lit­er­ally and eter­nally pres­ent in his uni­verse of uni­verses. He in­hab­its the pres­ent mo­ment with all his ab­so­lute majesty and eter­nal great­ness. “The Fa­ther has life in him­self, and this life is eter­nal life.” Through­out the eter­nal ages it has been the Fa­ther who “gives to all life.” There is in­fi­nite per­fec­tion in the di­vine in­tegrity. “I am the Lord; I change not.” Our knowl­edge of the uni­verse of uni­verses dis­closes not only that he is the Fa­ther of lights, but also that in his con­duct of in­ter­plan­e­tary af­fairs there “is no vari­able­ness nei­ther shadow of chang­ing.” He “de­clares the end from the be­gin­ning.” He says: “My coun­sel shall stand; I will do all my plea­sures” “ac­cord­ing to the eter­nal pur­pose which I pur­posed in my Son.” Thus are the plans and pur­poses of the First Source and Cen­ter like him­self: eter­nal, per­fect, and for­ever change­less.

• attitude › doings are all purposeful, wise, and eternally considerate of all concerned

2:2.2There is fi­nal­ity of com­plete­ness and per­fec­tion of re­plete­ness in the man­dates of the Fa­ther. “What­so­ever God does, it shall be for­ever; noth­ing can be added to it nor any­thing taken from it.” The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther does not re­pent of his orig­i­nal pur­poses of wis­dom and per­fec­tion. His plans are stead­fast, his coun­sel im­mutable, while his acts are di­vine and in­fal­li­ble. “A thou­sand years in his sight are but as yes­ter­day when it is past and as a watch in the night.” The per­fec­tion of di­vin­ity and the mag­ni­tude of eter­nity are for­ever be­yond the full grasp of the cir­cum­scribed mind of mor­tal man.

• described › is changeless

2:2.3The re­ac­tions of a change­less God, in the ex­e­cu­tion of his eter­nal pur­pose, may seem to vary in ac­cor­dance with the chang­ing at­ti­tude and the shift­ing minds of his cre­ated in­tel­li­gences; that is, they may ap­par­ently and su­per­fi­cially vary; but un­der­neath the sur­face and be­neath all out­ward man­i­fes­ta­tions, there is still pres­ent the change­less pur­pose, the ev­er­last­ing plan, of the eter­nal God.

2:2.4Out in the uni­verses, per­fec­tion must nec­es­sar­ily be a rel­a­tive term, but in the cen­tral uni­verse and es­pe­cially on Par­a­dise, per­fec­tion is undi­luted; in cer­tain phases it is even ab­so­lute. Trin­ity man­i­fes­ta­tions vary the ex­hi­bi­tion of the di­vine per­fec­tion but do not at­ten­u­ate it.

• delegation of power › freely distributes himself; is not self-centered

2:2.5God’s pri­mal per­fec­tion con­sists not in an as­sumed righ­teous­ness but rather in the in­her­ent per­fec­tion of the good­ness of his di­vine na­ture. He is fi­nal, com­plete, and per­fect. There is no thing lack­ing in the beauty and per­fec­tion of his righ­teous char­ac­ter. And the whole scheme of liv­ing ex­is­tences on the worlds of space is cen­tered in the di­vine pur­pose of el­e­vat­ing all will crea­tures to the high des­tiny of the ex­pe­ri­ence of shar­ing the Fa­ther’s Par­a­dise per­fec­tion. God is nei­ther self-cen­tered nor self-con­tained; he never ceases to be­stow him­self upon all self-con­scious crea­tures of the vast uni­verse of uni­verses.

• functions › participates in our struggles, our experience with immaturity

2:2.6God is eter­nally and in­finitely per­fect, he can­not per­son­ally know im­per­fec­tion as his own ex­pe­ri­ence, but he does share the con­scious­ness of all the ex­pe­ri­ence of im­per­fect­ness of all the strug­gling crea­tures of the evo­lu­tion­ary uni­verses of all the Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons. The per­sonal and lib­er­at­ing touch of the God of per­fec­tion over­shad­ows the hearts and en­cir­cuits the na­tures of all those mor­tal crea­tures who have as­cended to the uni­verse level of moral dis­cern­ment. In this man­ner, as well as through the con­tacts of the di­vine pres­ence, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ac­tu­ally par­tic­i­pates in the ex­pe­ri­ence with im­ma­tu­rity and im­per­fec­tion in the evolv­ing ca­reer of ev­ery moral be­ing of the en­tire uni­verse.

2:2.7Hu­man lim­i­ta­tions, po­ten­tial evil, are not a part of the di­vine na­ture, but mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence with evil and all man’s re­la­tions thereto are most cer­tainly a part of God’s ever-ex­pand­ing self-re­al­iza­tion in the chil­dren of time—crea­tures of moral re­spon­si­bil­ity who have been cre­ated or evolved by ev­ery Cre­ator Son go­ing out from Par­a­dise.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

2:3.1God is righ­teous; there­fore is he just. “The Lord is righ­teous in all his ways.” “‘I have not done with­out cause all that I have done,’ says the Lord.” “The judg­ments of the Lord are true and righ­teous al­to­gether.” The jus­tice of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can­not be in­flu­enced by the acts and per­for­mances of his crea­tures, “for there is no in­iq­uity with the Lord our God, no re­spect of per­sons, no tak­ing of gifts.”

• attitude › never torn by conflicting attitudes

2:4.3Only the dis­cern­ment of in­fi­nite wis­dom en­ables a righ­teous God to min­is­ter jus­tice and mercy at the same time and in any given uni­verse sit­u­a­tion. The heav­enly Fa­ther is never torn by con­flict­ing at­ti­tudes to­wards his uni­verse chil­dren; God is never a vic­tim of at­ti­tu­di­nal an­tag­o­nisms. God’s all-know­ing­ness un­fail­ingly di­rects his free will in the choos­ing of that uni­verse con­duct which per­fectly, si­mul­ta­ne­ously, and equally sat­is­fies the de­mands of all his di­vine at­tri­butes and the in­fi­nite qual­i­ties of his eter­nal na­ture.

• attitude › always one of divine affection
• attitude › loves the righteous and the unrighteous

2:5.1“God is love”; there­fore his only per­sonal at­ti­tude to­wards the af­fairs of the uni­verse is al­ways a re­ac­tion of di­vine af­fec­tion. The Fa­ther loves us suf­fi­ciently to be­stow his life upon us. “He makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the un­just.”

• attitude › not willing any should perish

2:5.2It is wrong to think of God as be­ing coaxed into lov­ing his chil­dren be­cause of the sac­ri­fices of his Sons or the in­ter­ces­sion of his sub­or­di­nate crea­tures, “for the Fa­ther him­self loves you.” It is in re­sponse to this pa­ter­nal af­fec­tion that God sends the mar­velous Ad­justers to in­dwell the minds of men. God’s love is uni­ver­sal; “whoso­ever will may come.” He would “have all men be saved by com­ing into the knowl­edge of the truth.” He is “not will­ing that any should per­ish.”

• loved more for his nature than for his attributes
• worship U.F., first because he is

2:5.7I find it easy and pleas­ant to wor­ship one who is so great and at the same time so af­fec­tion­ately de­voted to the up­lift­ing min­istry of his lowly crea­tures. I nat­u­rally love one who is so pow­er­ful in cre­ation and in the con­trol thereof, and yet who is so per­fect in good­ness and so faith­ful in the lov­ing-kind­ness which con­stantly over­shad­ows us. I think I would love God just as much if he were not so great and pow­er­ful, as long as he is so good and mer­ci­ful. We all love the Fa­ther more be­cause of his na­ture than in rec­og­ni­tion of his amaz­ing at­tri­butes.

• described › best understood in Jesus’ life
• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

2:5.10But the love of God is an in­tel­li­gent and farsee­ing pa­ren­tal af­fec­tion. The di­vine love func­tions in uni­fied as­so­ci­a­tion with di­vine wis­dom and all other in­fi­nite char­ac­ter­is­tics of the per­fect na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God is love, but love is not God. The great­est man­i­fes­ta­tion of the di­vine love for mor­tal be­ings is ob­served in the be­stowal of the Thought Ad­justers, but your great­est rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther’s love is seen in the be­stowal life of his Son Mi­chael as he lived on earth the ideal spir­i­tual life. It is the in­dwelling Ad­juster who in­di­vid­u­al­izes the love of God to each hu­man soul.

• attitude › loves not like a father but as a father
• described › Father of every individual

2:6.4The con­cept of God as a king-judge, al­though it fos­tered a high moral stan­dard and cre­ated a law-re­spect­ing peo­ple as a group, left the in­di­vid­ual be­liever in a sad po­si­tion of in­se­cu­rity re­spect­ing his sta­tus in time and in eter­nity. The later He­brew proph­ets pro­claimed God to be a Fa­ther to Is­rael; Je­sus re­vealed God as the Fa­ther of each hu­man be­ing. The en­tire mor­tal con­cept of God is tran­scen­dently il­lu­mi­nated by the life of Je­sus. Self­less­ness is in­her­ent in pa­ren­tal love. God loves not like a fa­ther, but as a fa­ther. He is the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of ev­ery uni­verse per­son­al­ity.

2:6.5Righ­teous­ness im­plies that God is the source of the moral law of the uni­verse. Truth ex­hibits God as a re­vealer, as a teacher. But love gives and craves af­fec­tion, seeks un­der­stand­ing fel­low­ship such as ex­ists be­tween par­ent and child. Righ­teous­ness may be the di­vine thought, but love is a fa­ther’s at­ti­tude. The er­ro­neous sup­po­si­tion that the righ­teous­ness of God was ir­rec­on­cil­able with the self­less love of the heav­enly Fa­ther, pre­sup­posed ab­sence of unity in the na­ture of De­ity and led di­rectly to the elab­o­ra­tion of the atone­ment doc­trine, which is a philo­sophic as­sault upon both the unity and the free-will­ness of God.

• attitude › wisdom often restrains his love; justice conditions his rejected mercy

2:6.7God is never wrath­ful, venge­ful, or an­gry. It is true that wis­dom does of­ten re­strain his love, while jus­tice con­di­tions his re­jected mercy. His love of righ­teous­ness can­not help be­ing ex­hib­ited as equal ha­tred for sin. The Fa­ther is not an in­con­sis­tent per­son­al­ity; the di­vine unity is per­fect. In the Par­a­dise Trin­ity there is ab­so­lute unity de­spite the eter­nal iden­ti­ties of the co-or­di­nates of God.

• attitude › loves the sinner, hates the sin

2:6.8God loves the sin­ner and hates the sin: such a state­ment is true phil­o­soph­i­cally, but God is a tran­scen­dent per­son­al­ity, and per­sons can only love and hate other per­sons. Sin is not a per­son. God loves the sin­ner be­cause he is a per­son­al­ity re­al­ity (po­ten­tially eter­nal), while to­wards sin God strikes no per­sonal at­ti­tude, for sin is not a spir­i­tual re­al­ity; it is not per­sonal; there­fore does only the jus­tice of God take cog­nizance of its ex­is­tence. The love of God saves the sin­ner; the law of God de­stroys the sin. This at­ti­tude of the di­vine na­ture would ap­par­ently change if the sin­ner fi­nally iden­ti­fied him­self wholly with sin just as the same mor­tal mind may also fully iden­tify it­self with the in­dwelling spirit Ad­juster. Such a sin-iden­ti­fied mor­tal would then be­come wholly un­spir­i­tual in na­ture (and there­fore per­son­ally un­real) and would ex­pe­ri­ence even­tual ex­tinc­tion of be­ing. Un­re­al­ity, even in­com­plete­ness of crea­ture na­ture, can­not ex­ist for­ever in a pro­gress­ingly real and in­creas­ingly spir­i­tual uni­verse.

• bestows life through his Sons

3:0.1God is ev­ery­where pres­ent; the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther rules the cir­cle of eter­nity. But he rules in the lo­cal uni­verses in the per­sons of his Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons, even as he be­stows life through these Sons. “God has given us eter­nal life, and this life is in his Sons.” These Cre­ator Sons of God are the per­sonal ex­pres­sion of him­self in the sec­tors of time and to the chil­dren of the whirling plan­ets of the evolv­ing uni­verses of space.

• Creator Sons compensate for invisibility of
• described › is invisible

3:0.2The highly per­son­al­ized Sons of God are clearly dis­cern­i­ble by the lower or­ders of cre­ated in­tel­li­gences, and so do they com­pen­sate for the in­vis­i­bil­ity of the in­fi­nite and there­fore less dis­cern­i­ble Fa­ther. The Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther are a rev­e­la­tion of an oth­er­wise in­vis­i­ble be­ing, in­vis­i­ble be­cause of the ab­so­lute­ness and in­fin­ity in­her­ent in the cir­cle of eter­nity and in the per­son­al­i­ties of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties.

3:1.1The abil­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther to be ev­ery­where pres­ent, and at the same time, con­sti­tutes his om­nipres­ence. God alone can be in two places, in num­ber­less places, at the same time. God is si­mul­ta­ne­ously pres­ent “in heaven above and on the earth be­neath”; as the Psalmist ex­claimed: “Whither shall I go from your spirit? or whither shall I flee from your pres­ence?”

• described › infinitely more complex than the universes

3:1.2“‘I am a God at hand as well as afar off,’ says the Lord. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’” The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is all the time pres­ent in all parts and in all hearts of his far-flung cre­ation. He is “the full­ness of him who fills all and in all,” and “who works all in all,” and fur­ther, the con­cept of his per­son­al­ity is such that “the heaven (uni­verse) and heaven of heav­ens (uni­verse of uni­verses) can­not con­tain him.” It is lit­er­ally true that God is all and in all. But even that is not all of God. The In­fi­nite can be fi­nally re­vealed only in in­fin­ity; the cause can never be fully com­pre­hended by an anal­y­sis of ef­fects; the liv­ing God is im­mea­sur­ably greater than the sum to­tal of cre­ation that has come into be­ing as a re­sult of the cre­ative acts of his un­fet­tered free will. God is re­vealed through­out the cos­mos, but the cos­mos can never con­tain or en­com­pass the en­tirety of the in­fin­ity of God.

3:1.3The Fa­ther’s pres­ence un­ceas­ingly pa­trols the mas­ter uni­verse. “His go­ing forth is from the end of the heaven, and his cir­cuit to the ends of it; and there is noth­ing hid­den from the light thereof.”

• described › in Him we live, move, and have our being

3:1.4The crea­ture not only ex­ists in God, but God also lives in the crea­ture. “We know we dwell in him be­cause he lives in us; he has given us his spirit. This gift from the Par­a­dise Fa­ther is man’s in­sep­a­ra­ble com­pan­ion.” “He is the ever-pres­ent and all-per­vad­ing God.” “The spirit of the ev­er­last­ing Fa­ther is con­cealed in the mind of ev­ery mor­tal child.” “Man goes forth search­ing for a friend while that very friend lives within his own heart.” “The true God is not afar off; he is a part of us; his spirit speaks from within us.” “The Fa­ther lives in the child. God is al­ways with us. He is the guid­ing spirit of eter­nal des­tiny.”

3:1.5Truly of the hu­man race has it been said, “You are of God” be­cause “he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.” Even in wrong­do­ing you tor­ment the in­dwelling gift of God, for the Thought Ad­juster must needs go through the con­se­quences of evil think­ing with the hu­man mind of its in­car­cer­a­tion.

• attitude › delegation of power limits his presence in recognition of prerogatives of subordinates
• delegation of power › Father retires to give his children opportunity for experience and function

3:1.6The om­nipres­ence of God is in re­al­ity a part of his in­fi­nite na­ture; space con­sti­tutes no bar­rier to De­ity. God is, in per­fec­tion and with­out lim­i­ta­tion, dis­cernibly pres­ent only on Par­a­dise and in the cen­tral uni­verse. He is not thus ob­serv­ably pres­ent in the cre­ations en­cir­cling Ha­vona, for God has lim­ited his di­rect and ac­tual pres­ence in rec­og­ni­tion of the sov­er­eignty and the di­vine pre­rog­a­tives of the co-or­di­nate cre­ators and rulers of the uni­verses of time and space. Hence must the con­cept of the di­vine pres­ence al­low for a wide range of both mode and chan­nel of man­i­fes­ta­tion em­brac­ing the pres­ence cir­cuits of the Eter­nal Son, the In­fi­nite Spirit, and the Isle of Par­a­dise. Nor is it al­ways pos­si­ble to dis­tin­guish be­tween the pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and the ac­tions of his eter­nal co-or­di­nates and agen­cies, so per­fectly do they ful­fill all the in­fi­nite re­quire­ments of his un­chang­ing pur­pose. But not so with the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit and the Ad­justers; here God acts uniquely, di­rectly, and ex­clu­sively.

• described › all things consist in

3:1.7The Uni­ver­sal Con­trol­ler is po­ten­tially pres­ent in the grav­ity cir­cuits of the Isle of Par­a­dise in all parts of the uni­verse at all times and in the same de­gree, in ac­cor­dance with the mass, in re­sponse to the phys­i­cal de­mands for this pres­ence, and be­cause of the in­her­ent na­ture of all cre­ation which causes all things to ad­here and con­sist in him. Like­wise is the First Source and Cen­ter po­ten­tially pres­ent in the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute, the re­pos­i­tory of the un­cre­ated uni­verses of the eter­nal fu­ture. God thus po­ten­tially per­vades the phys­i­cal uni­verses of the past, pres­ent, and fu­ture. He is the pri­mor­dial foun­da­tion of the co­her­ence of the so-called ma­te­rial cre­ation. This non­spir­i­tual De­ity po­ten­tial be­comes ac­tual here and there through­out the level of phys­i­cal ex­is­tences by the in­ex­pli­ca­ble in­tru­sion of some one of his ex­clu­sive agen­cies upon the stage of uni­verse ac­tion.

3:1.8The mind pres­ence of God is cor­re­lated with the ab­so­lute mind of the Con­joint Ac­tor, the In­fi­nite Spirit, but in the fi­nite cre­ations it is bet­ter dis­cerned in the ev­ery­where func­tion­ing of the cos­mic mind of the Par­a­dise Mas­ter Spir­its. Just as the First Source and Cen­ter is po­ten­tially pres­ent in the mind cir­cuits of the Con­joint Ac­tor, so is he po­ten­tially pres­ent in the ten­sions of the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute. But mind of the hu­man or­der is a be­stowal of the Daugh­ters of the Con­joint Ac­tor, the Di­vine Min­is­ters of the evolv­ing uni­verses.

3:1.9The ev­ery­where-pres­ent spirit of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is co-or­di­nated with the func­tion of the uni­ver­sal spirit pres­ence of the Eter­nal Son and the ev­er­last­ing di­vine po­ten­tial of the De­ity Ab­so­lute. But nei­ther the spir­i­tual ac­tiv­ity of the Eter­nal Son and his Par­a­dise Sons nor the mind be­stowals of the In­fi­nite Spirit seem to ex­clude the di­rect ac­tion of the Thought Ad­justers, the in­dwelling frag­ments of God, in the hearts of his crea­ture chil­dren.

3:1.10Con­cern­ing God’s pres­ence in a planet, sys­tem, con­stel­la­tion, or a uni­verse, the de­gree of such pres­ence in any cre­ational unit is a mea­sure of the de­gree of the evolv­ing pres­ence of the Su­preme Be­ing: It is de­ter­mined by the en masse rec­og­ni­tion of God and loy­alty to him on the part of the vast uni­verse or­ga­ni­za­tion, run­ning down to the sys­tems and plan­ets them­selves. There­fore it is some­times with the hope of con­serv­ing and safe­guard­ing these phases of God’s pre­cious pres­ence that, when some plan­ets (or even sys­tems) have plunged far into spir­i­tual dark­ness, they are in a cer­tain sense quar­an­tined, or par­tially iso­lated from in­ter­course with the larger units of cre­ation. And all this, as it op­er­ates on Uran­tia, is a spir­i­tu­ally de­fen­sive re­ac­tion of the ma­jor­ity of the worlds to save them­selves, as far as pos­si­ble, from suf­fer­ing the iso­lat­ing con­se­quences of the alien­at­ing acts of a head­strong, wicked, and re­bel­lious mi­nor­ity.

3:1.11While the Fa­ther parentally en­cir­cuits all his sons—all per­son­al­i­ties—his in­flu­ence in them is lim­ited by the re­mote­ness of their ori­gin from the Sec­ond and the Third Per­sons of De­ity and aug­mented as their des­tiny at­tain­ment nears such lev­els. The fact of God’s pres­ence in crea­ture minds is de­ter­mined by whether or not they are in­dwelt by Fa­ther frag­ments, such as the Mys­tery Mon­i­tors, but his ef­fec­tive pres­ence is de­ter­mined by the de­gree of co-op­er­a­tion ac­corded these in­dwelling Ad­justers by the minds of their so­journ.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations
• attitude › sin does not alienate affections of
• delegation of power › freely distributes himself; is not self-centered

3:1.12The fluc­tu­a­tions of the Fa­ther’s pres­ence are not due to the change­able­ness of God. The Fa­ther does not re­tire in seclu­sion be­cause he has been slighted; his af­fec­tions are not alien­ated be­cause of the crea­ture’s wrong­do­ing. Rather, hav­ing been en­dowed with the power of choice (con­cern­ing Him­self), his chil­dren, in the ex­er­cise of that choice, di­rectly de­ter­mine the de­gree and lim­i­ta­tions of the Fa­ther’s di­vine in­flu­ence in their own hearts and souls. The Fa­ther has freely be­stowed him­self upon us with­out limit and with­out fa­vor. He is no re­specter of per­sons, plan­ets, sys­tems, or uni­verses. In the sec­tors of time he con­fers dif­fer­en­tial honor only on the Par­a­dise per­son­al­i­ties of God the Sev­en­fold, the co-or­di­nate cre­ators of the fi­nite uni­verses.

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.

• described › cause of all material phenomena

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.

• described › what U.F. is not

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.

• attitude › doings are all purposeful, wise, and eternally considerate of all concerned

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.

• described › unlimited in power, divine in nature, final in will, infinite in attributes, eternal in wisdom, absolute in reality

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.

3:3.1“God knows all things.” The di­vine mind is con­scious of, and con­ver­sant with, the thought of all cre­ation. His knowl­edge of events is uni­ver­sal and per­fect. The di­vine en­ti­ties go­ing out from him are a part of him; he who “bal­ances the clouds” is also “per­fect in knowl­edge.” “The eyes of the Lord are in ev­ery place.” Said your great teacher of the in­signif­i­cant spar­row, “One of them shall not fall to the ground with­out my Fa­ther’s knowl­edge,” and also, “The very hairs of your head are num­bered.” “He tells the num­ber of the stars; he calls them all by their names.”

3:3.2The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the only per­son­al­ity in all the uni­verse who does ac­tu­ally know the num­ber of the stars and plan­ets of space. All the worlds of ev­ery uni­verse are con­stantly within the con­scious­ness of God. He also says: “I have surely seen the af­flic­tion of my peo­ple, I have heard their cry, and I know their sor­rows.” For “the Lord looks from heaven; he be­holds all the sons of men; from the place of his habi­ta­tion he looks upon all the in­hab­i­tants of the earth.” Ev­ery crea­ture child may truly say: “He knows the way I take, and when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” “God knows our down­sit­tings and our up­ris­ings; he un­der­stands our thoughts afar off and is ac­quainted with all our ways.” “All things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” And it should be a real com­fort to ev­ery hu­man be­ing to un­der­stand that “he knows your frame; he re­mem­bers that you are dust.” Je­sus, speak­ing of the liv­ing God, said, “Your Fa­ther knows what you have need of even be­fore you ask him.”

3:3.3God is pos­sessed of un­lim­ited power to know all things; his con­scious­ness is uni­ver­sal. His per­sonal cir­cuit en­com­passes all per­son­al­i­ties, and his knowl­edge of even the lowly crea­tures is sup­ple­mented in­di­rectly through the de­scend­ing se­ries of di­vine Sons and di­rectly through the in­dwelling Thought Ad­justers. And fur­ther­more, the In­fi­nite Spirit is all the time ev­ery­where pres­ent.

3:3.4We are not wholly cer­tain as to whether or not God chooses to fore­know events of sin. But even if God should fore­know the free­will acts of his chil­dren, such fore­knowl­edge does not in the least ab­ro­gate their free­dom. One thing is cer­tain: God is never sub­jected to sur­prise.

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.

3:4.1The suc­ces­sive be­stowal of him­self upon the uni­verses as they are brought into be­ing in no wise lessens the po­ten­tial of power or the store of wis­dom as they con­tinue to re­side and re­pose in the cen­tral per­son­al­ity of De­ity. In po­ten­tial of force, wis­dom, and love, the Fa­ther has never less­ened aught of his pos­ses­sion nor be­come di­vested of any at­tri­bute of his glo­ri­ous per­son­al­ity as the re­sult of the un­stinted be­stowal of him­self upon the Par­a­dise Sons, upon his sub­or­di­nate cre­ations, and upon the man­i­fold crea­tures thereof.

3:4.2The cre­ation of ev­ery new uni­verse calls for a new ad­just­ment of grav­ity; but even if cre­ation should con­tinue in­def­i­nitely, eter­nally, even to in­fin­ity, so that even­tu­ally the ma­te­rial cre­ation would ex­ist with­out lim­i­ta­tions, still the power of con­trol and co-or­di­na­tion repos­ing in the Isle of Par­a­dise would be found equal to, and ad­e­quate for, the mas­tery, con­trol, and co-or­di­na­tion of such an in­fi­nite uni­verse. And sub­se­quent to this be­stowal of lim­it­less force and power upon a bound­less uni­verse, the In­fi­nite would still be sur­charged with the same de­gree of force and en­ergy; the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute would still be undi­min­ished; God would still pos­sess the same in­fi­nite po­ten­tial, just as if force, en­ergy, and power had never been poured forth for the en­dow­ment of uni­verse upon uni­verse.

3:4.3And so with wis­dom: The fact that mind is so freely dis­tributed to the think­ing of the realms in no wise im­pov­er­ishes the cen­tral source of di­vine wis­dom. As the uni­verses mul­ti­ply, and be­ings of the realms in­crease in num­ber to the lim­its of com­pre­hen­sion, if mind con­tin­ues with­out end to be be­stowed upon these be­ings of high and low es­tate, still will God’s cen­tral per­son­al­ity con­tinue to em­brace the same eter­nal, in­fi­nite, and all-wise mind.

3:4.4The fact that he sends forth spirit mes­sen­gers from him­self to in­dwell the men and women of your world and other worlds in no wise lessens his abil­ity to func­tion as a di­vine and all-pow­er­ful spirit per­son­al­ity; and there is ab­so­lutely no limit to the ex­tent or num­ber of such spirit Mon­i­tors which he can and may send out. This giv­ing of him­self to his crea­tures cre­ates a bound­less, al­most in­con­ceiv­able fu­ture pos­si­bil­ity of pro­gres­sive and suc­ces­sive ex­is­tences for these di­vinely en­dowed mor­tals. And this prodi­gal dis­tri­bu­tion of him­self as these min­is­ter­ing spirit en­ti­ties in no man­ner di­min­ishes the wis­dom and per­fec­tion of truth and knowl­edge which re­pose in the per­son of the all-wise, all-know­ing, and all-pow­er­ful Fa­ther.

3:4.5To the mor­tals of time there is a fu­ture, but God in­hab­its eter­nity. Even though I hail from near the very abid­ing place of De­ity, I can­not pre­sume to speak with per­fec­tion of un­der­stand­ing con­cern­ing the in­fin­ity of many of the di­vine at­tri­butes. In­fin­ity of mind alone can fully com­pre­hend in­fin­ity of ex­is­tence and eter­nity of ac­tion.

3:4.6Mor­tal man can­not pos­si­bly know the in­fini­tude of the heav­enly Fa­ther. Fi­nite mind can­not think through such an ab­so­lute truth or fact. But this same fi­nite hu­man be­ing can ac­tu­ally feel—lit­er­ally ex­pe­ri­ence—the full and undi­min­ished im­pact of such an in­fi­nite Fa­ther’s LOVE. Such a love can be truly ex­pe­ri­enced, al­beit while qual­ity of ex­pe­ri­ence is un­lim­ited, quan­tity of such an ex­pe­ri­ence is strictly lim­ited by the hu­man ca­pac­ity for spir­i­tual re­cep­tiv­ity and by the as­so­ci­ated ca­pac­ity to love the Fa­ther in re­turn.

• described › Thought Adjuster is image of

3:4.7Fi­nite ap­pre­ci­a­tion of in­fi­nite qual­i­ties far tran­scends the log­i­cally lim­ited ca­pac­i­ties of the crea­ture be­cause of the fact that mor­tal man is made in the im­age of God—there lives within him a frag­ment of in­fin­ity. There­fore man’s near­est and dear­est ap­proach to God is by and through love, for God is love. And all of such a unique re­la­tion­ship is an ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence in cos­mic so­ci­ol­ogy, the Cre­ator-crea­ture re­la­tion­ship—the Fa­ther-child af­fec­tion.

• attitude › delegation of power limits his presence in recognition of prerogatives of subordinates
• delegation of power › Father retires to give his children opportunity for experience and function
• delegation of power › has reserved all final decisions; may act independently; power delegated can be exercised direct

3:5.1In his con­tact with the post-Ha­vona cre­ations, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther does not ex­er­cise his in­fi­nite power and fi­nal au­thor­ity by di­rect trans­mit­tal but rather through his Sons and their sub­or­di­nate per­son­al­i­ties. And God does all this of his own free will. Any and all pow­ers del­e­gated, if oc­ca­sion should arise, if it should be­come the choice of the di­vine mind, could be ex­er­cised di­rect; but, as a rule, such ac­tion only takes place as a re­sult of the fail­ure of the del­e­gated per­son­al­ity to ful­fill the di­vine trust. At such times and in the face of such de­fault and within the lim­its of the reser­va­tion of di­vine power and po­ten­tial, the Fa­ther does act in­de­pen­dently and in ac­cor­dance with the man­dates of his own choice; and that choice is al­ways one of un­fail­ing per­fec­tion and in­fi­nite wis­dom.

3:5.2The Fa­ther rules through his Sons; on down through the uni­verse or­ga­ni­za­tion there is an un­bro­ken chain of rulers end­ing with the Plan­e­tary Princes, who di­rect the des­tinies of the evo­lu­tion­ary spheres of the Fa­ther’s vast do­mains. It is no mere po­etic ex­pres­sion that ex­claims: “The earth is the Lord’s and the full­ness thereof.” “He re­moves kings and sets up kings.” “The Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men.”

3:5.3In the af­fairs of men’s hearts the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther may not al­ways have his way; but in the con­duct and des­tiny of a planet the di­vine plan pre­vails; the eter­nal pur­pose of wis­dom and love tri­umphs.

• described › all things consist in

3:5.4Said Je­sus: “My Fa­ther, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to pluck them out of my Fa­ther’s hand.” As you glimpse the man­i­fold work­ings and view the stag­ger­ing im­men­sity of God’s well-nigh lim­it­less cre­ation, you may fal­ter in your con­cept of his pri­macy, but you should not fail to ac­cept him as se­curely and ev­er­last­ingly en­throned at the Par­a­dise cen­ter of all things and as the benef­i­cent Fa­ther of all in­tel­li­gent be­ings. There is but “one God and Fa­ther of all, who is above all and in all,” “and he is be­fore all things, and in him all things con­sist.”

3:5.5The un­cer­tain­ties of life and the vi­cis­si­tudes of ex­is­tence do not in any man­ner con­tra­dict the con­cept of the uni­ver­sal sov­er­eignty of God. All evo­lu­tion­ary crea­ture life is be­set by cer­tain in­evitabil­i­ties. Con­sider the fol­low­ing:

3:5.61. Is cour­age—strength of char­ac­ter—de­sir­able? Then must man be reared in an en­vi­ron­ment which ne­ces­si­tates grap­pling with hard­ships and re­act­ing to dis­ap­point­ments.

3:5.72. Is al­tru­ism—ser­vice of one’s fel­lows—de­sir­able? Then must life ex­pe­ri­ence pro­vide for en­coun­ter­ing sit­u­a­tions of so­cial in­equal­ity.

3:5.83. Is hope—the grandeur of trust—de­sir­a­ble? Then hu­man ex­is­tence must con­stantly be con­fronted with in­se­cu­ri­ties and re­cur­rent un­cer­tain­ties.

3:5.94. Is faith—the su­preme as­ser­tion of hu­man thought—de­sir­able? Then must the mind of man find it­self in that trou­ble­some predica­ment where it ever knows less than it can be­lieve.

3:5.105. Is the love of truth and the will­ing­ness to go wher­ever it leads, de­sir­able? Then must man grow up in a world where er­ror is pres­ent and false­hood al­ways pos­si­ble.

3:5.116. Is ide­al­ism—the ap­proach­ing con­cept of the di­vine—de­sir­able? Then must man strug­gle in an en­vi­ron­ment of rel­a­tive good­ness and beauty, sur­round­ings stim­u­la­tive of the ir­re­press­ible reach for bet­ter things.

3:5.127. Is loy­alty—de­vo­tion to high­est duty—de­sir­able? Then must man carry on amid the pos­si­bil­i­ties of be­trayal and de­ser­tion. The valor of de­vo­tion to duty con­sists in the im­plied dan­ger of de­fault.

3:5.138. Is un­selfish­ness—the spirit of self-for­get­ful­ness—de­sir­able? Then must mor­tal man live face to face with the in­ces­sant clam­or­ing of an in­escapable self for recog­ni­tion and honor. Man could not dy­nam­i­cally choose the di­vine life if there were no self-life to for­sake. Man could never lay sav­ing hold on right­eous­ness if there were no po­ten­tial evil to ex­alt and dif­fer­en­ti­ate the good by con­trast.

3:5.149. Is plea­sure—the sat­is­fac­tion of hap­pi­ness—de­sir­able? Then must man live in a world where the al­ter­na­tive of pain and the like­li­hood of suf­fer­ing are ever-pres­ent ex­pe­ri­en­tial pos­si­bil­i­ties.

3:5.15Through­out the uni­verse, ev­ery unit is re­garded as a part of the whole. Sur­vival of the part is de­pen­dent on co-op­er­a­tion with the plan and pur­pose of the whole, the whole­hearted de­sire and per­fect will­ing­ness to do the Fa­ther’s di­vine will. The only evo­lu­tion­ary world with­out er­ror (the pos­si­bil­ity of un­wise judg­ment) would be a world with­out free in­tel­li­gence. In the Ha­vona uni­verse there are a bil­lion per­fect worlds with their per­fect in­hab­i­tants, but evolv­ing man must be fal­li­ble if he is to be free. Free and in­ex­pe­ri­enced in­tel­li­gence can­not pos­si­bly at first be uni­formly wise. The pos­si­bil­ity of mis­taken judg­ment (evil) be­comes sin only when the hu­man will con­sciously en­dorses and know­ingly em­braces a de­lib­er­ate im­moral judg­ment.

3:5.16The full ap­pre­ci­a­tion of truth, beauty, and good­ness is in­her­ent in the per­fec­tion of the di­vine uni­verse. The in­hab­i­tants of the Ha­vona worlds do not re­quire the po­ten­tial of rel­a­tive value lev­els as a choice stim­u­lus; such per­fect be­ings are able to iden­tify and choose the good in the ab­sence of all con­trastive and thought-com­pelling moral sit­u­a­tions. But all such per­fect be­ings are, in moral na­ture and spir­i­tual sta­tus, what they are by virtue of the fact of ex­is­tence. They have ex­pe­ri­en­tially earned ad­vance­ment only within their in­her­ent sta­tus. Mor­tal man earns even his sta­tus as an as­cen­sion can­di­date by his own faith and hope. Ev­ery­thing di­vine which the hu­man mind grasps and the hu­man soul ac­quires is an ex­pe­ri­en­tial at­tain­ment; it is a re­al­ity of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence and is there­fore a unique pos­ses­sion in con­trast to the in­her­ent good­ness and righ­teous­ness of the in­errant per­son­al­i­ties of Ha­vona.

3:5.17The crea­tures of Ha­vona are nat­u­rally brave, but they are not coura­geous in the hu­man sense. They are in­nately kind and con­sid­er­ate, but hardly al­tru­is­tic in the hu­man way. They are ex­pec­tant of a pleas­ant fu­ture, but not hope­ful in the ex­qui­site man­ner of the trust­ing mor­tal of the un­cer­tain evo­lu­tion­ary spheres. They have faith in the sta­bil­ity of the uni­verse, but they are ut­ter strangers to that sav­ing faith whereby mor­tal man climbs from the sta­tus of an an­i­mal up to the por­tals of Par­a­dise. They love the truth, but they know noth­ing of its soul-sav­ing qual­i­ties. They are ide­al­ists, but they were born that way; they are wholly ig­no­rant of the ec­stasy of be­com­ing such by ex­hil­a­rat­ing choice. They are loyal, but they have never ex­pe­ri­enced the thrill of whole­hearted and in­tel­li­gent de­vo­tion to duty in the face of temp­ta­tion to de­fault. They are un­selfish, but they never gained such lev­els of ex­pe­ri­ence by the mag­nif­i­cent con­quest of a bel­liger­ent self. They en­joy plea­sure, but they do not com­pre­hend the sweet­ness of the plea­sure es­cape from the pain po­ten­tial.

• delegation of power › has reserved all final decisions; may act independently; power delegated can be exercised direct

3:6.1With di­vine self­less­ness, con­sum­mate gen­eros­ity, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther re­lin­quishes au­thor­ity and del­e­gates power, but he is still pri­mal; his hand is on the mighty lever of the cir­cum­stances of the uni­ver­sal realms; he has re­served all fi­nal de­ci­sions and unerringly wields the all-pow­er­ful veto scepter of his eter­nal pur­pose with un­chal­lenge­able au­thor­ity over the wel­fare and des­tiny of the out­stretched, whirling, and ever-cir­cling cre­ation.

3:6.2The sov­er­eignty of God is un­lim­ited; it is the fun­da­men­tal fact of all cre­ation. The uni­verse was not in­ev­i­ta­ble. The uni­verse is not an ac­ci­dent, nei­ther is it self-ex­is­tent. The uni­verse is a work of cre­ation and is there­fore wholly sub­ject to the will of the Cre­ator. The will of God is di­vine truth, liv­ing love; there­fore are the per­fect­ing cre­ations of the evo­lu­tion­ary uni­verses char­ac­ter­ized by good­ness—near­ness to di­vin­ity; by po­ten­tial evil—re­mote­ness from di­vin­ity.

3:6.3All re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy, sooner or later, ar­rives at the con­cept of uni­fied uni­verse rule, of one God. Uni­verse causes can­not be lower than uni­verse ef­fects. The source of the streams of uni­verse life and of the cos­mic mind must be above the lev­els of their man­i­fes­ta­tion. The hu­man mind can­not be con­sis­tently ex­plained in terms of the lower or­ders of ex­is­tence. Man’s mind can be truly com­pre­hended only by rec­og­niz­ing the re­al­ity of higher or­ders of thought and pur­po­sive will. Man as a moral be­ing is in­ex­pli­ca­ble un­less the re­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is ac­knowl­edged.

3:6.4The mech­a­nis­tic philoso­pher pro­fesses to re­ject the idea of a uni­ver­sal and sov­er­eign will, the very sov­er­eign will whose ac­tiv­ity in the elab­o­ra­tion of uni­verse laws he so deeply rev­er­ences. What un­in­tended homage the mech­a­nist pays the law-Cre­ator when he con­ceives such laws to be self-act­ing and self-ex­plana­tory!

3:6.5It is a great blun­der to hu­man­ize God, ex­cept in the con­cept of the in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster, but even that is not so stupid as com­pletely to mech­a­nize the idea of the First Great Source and Cen­ter.

3:6.6Does the Par­a­dise Fa­ther suf­fer? I do not know. The Cre­ator Sons most cer­tainly can and some­times do, even as do mor­tals. The Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit suf­fer in a mod­i­fied sense. I think the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther does, but I can­not un­der­stand how; per­haps through the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit or through the in­di­vid­u­al­ity of the Thought Ad­justers and other be­stowals of his eter­nal na­ture. He has said of the mor­tal races, “In all your af­flic­tions I am af­flicted.” He un­ques­tion­ably ex­pe­ri­ences a fa­therly and sym­pa­thetic un­der­stand­ing; he may truly suf­fer, but I do not com­pre­hend the na­ture thereof.

• described
• described › best understood in Jesus’ life
• described › unqualifiedly self-conscious

3:6.7The in­fi­nite and eter­nal Ruler of the uni­verse of uni­verses is power, form, en­ergy, pro­cess, pat­tern, prin­ci­ple, pres­ence, and ide­al­ized re­al­ity. But he is more; he is per­sonal; he ex­er­cises a sov­er­eign will, ex­pe­ri­ences self-con­scious­ness of di­vin­ity, ex­e­cutes the man­dates of a cre­ative mind, pur­sues the sat­is­fac­tion of the re­al­iza­tion of an eter­nal pur­pose, and man­i­fests a Fa­ther’s love and af­fec­tion for his uni­verse chil­dren. And all these more per­sonal traits of the Fa­ther can be bet­ter un­der­stood by ob­serv­ing them as they were re­vealed in the be­stowal life of Mi­chael, your Cre­ator Son, while he was in­car­nated on Uran­tia.

3:6.8God the Fa­ther loves men; God the Son serves men; God the Spirit in­spires the chil­dren of the uni­verse to the ever-as­cend­ing ad­ven­ture of find­ing God the Fa­ther by the ways or­dained by God the Sons through the min­istry of the grace of God the Spirit.

3:6.9[Be­ing the Di­vine Coun­selor as­signed to the pre­sen­ta­tion of the rev­e­la­tion of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, I have con­tin­ued with this state­ment of the at­tri­butes of De­ity.]

• delegation of power › not silent or inactive

4:1.6The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has not with­drawn from the man­age­ment of the uni­verses; he is not an in­ac­tive De­ity. If God should re­tire as the pres­ent up­holder of all cre­ation, there would im­me­di­ately oc­cur a uni­ver­sal col­lapse. Ex­cept for God, there would be no such thing as re­al­ity. At this very mo­ment, as dur­ing the re­mote ages of the past and in the eter­nal fu­ture, God con­tin­ues to up­hold. The di­vine reach ex­tends around the cir­cle of eter­nity. The uni­verse is not wound up like a clock to run just so long and then cease to func­tion; all things are con­stantly be­ing re­newed. The Fa­ther un­ceas­ingly pours forth en­ergy, light, and life. The work of God is lit­eral as well as spir­i­tual. “He stretches out the north over the empty space and hangs the earth upon noth­ing.”

4:3.1All too long has man thought of God as one like him­self. God is not, never was, and never will be jeal­ous of man or any other be­ing in the uni­verse of uni­verses. Know­ing that the Cre­ator Son in­tended man to be the mas­ter­piece of the plan­e­tary cre­ation, to be the ruler of all the earth, the sight of his be­ing dom­i­nated by his own baser pas­sions, the spec­ta­cle of his bow­ing down be­fore idols of wood, stone, gold, and self­ish am­bi­tion—these sor­did scenes stir God and his Sons to be jeal­ous for man, but never of him.

4:3.2The eter­nal God is in­ca­pable of wrath and anger in the sense of these hu­man emo­tions and as man un­der­stands such re­ac­tions. These sen­ti­ments are mean and de­spi­ca­ble; they are hardly wor­thy of be­ing called hu­man, much less di­vine; and such at­ti­tudes are ut­terly for­eign to the per­fect na­ture and gra­cious char­ac­ter of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

4:3.3Much, very much, of the dif­fi­culty which Uran­tia mor­tals have in un­der­stand­ing God is due to the far-reach­ing con­se­quences of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion and the Cali­gas­tia be­trayal. On worlds not seg­re­gated by sin, the evo­lu­tion­ary races are able to for­mu­late far bet­ter ideas of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; they suf­fer less from con­fu­sion, dis­tor­tion, and per­ver­sion of con­cept.

4:3.4God re­pents of noth­ing he has ever done, now does, or ever will do. He is all-wise as well as all-pow­er­ful. Man’s wis­dom grows out of the tri­als and er­rors of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence; God’s wis­dom con­sists in the un­qual­i­fied per­fec­tion of his in­fi­nite uni­verse in­sight, and this di­vine fore­knowl­edge ef­fec­tively di­rects the cre­ative free will.

• attitude › always one of divine affection
• attitude › grieves when his children fail

4:3.5The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never does any­thing that causes sub­se­quent sor­row or re­gret, but the will crea­tures of the plan­ning and mak­ing of his Cre­ator per­son­al­i­ties in the out­ly­ing uni­verses, by their un­for­tu­nate choos­ing, some­times oc­ca­sion emo­tions of di­vine sor­row in the per­son­al­i­ties of their Cre­ator par­ents. But though the Fa­ther nei­ther makes mis­takes, har­bors re­grets, nor ex­pe­ri­ences sor­rows, he is a be­ing with a fa­ther’s af­fec­tion, and his heart is un­doubt­edly grieved when his chil­dren fail to at­tain the spir­i­tual lev­els they are ca­pa­ble of reach­ing with the as­sis­tance which has been so freely pro­vided by the spir­i­tual-at­tain­ment plans and the mor­tal-as­cen­sion poli­cies of the uni­verses.

4:3.6The in­fi­nite good­ness of the Fa­ther is be­yond the com­pre­hen­sion of the fi­nite mind of time; hence must there al­ways be af­forded a con­trast with com­par­a­tive evil (not sin) for the ef­fec­tive ex­hi­bi­tion of all phases of rel­a­tive good­ness. Per­fec­tion of di­vine good­ness can be dis­cerned by mor­tal im­per­fec­tion of in­sight only be­cause it stands in con­trastive as­so­ci­a­tion with rel­a­tive im­per­fec­tion in the re­la­tion­ships of time and mat­ter in the mo­tions of space.

4:3.7The char­ac­ter of God is in­finitely super­hu­man; there­fore must such a na­ture of di­vin­ity be per­son­al­ized, as in the di­vine Sons, be­fore it can even be faith-grasped by the fi­nite mind of man.

• described
• described › has no outside
• described › is absolute will, volition
• described › is purposive energy (creative spirit)
• described › is self-existent

4:4.1God is the only sta­tion­ary, self-con­tained, and change­less be­ing in the whole uni­verse of uni­verses, hav­ing no out­side, no be­yond, no past, and no fu­ture. God is pur­po­sive en­ergy (cre­ative spirit) and ab­so­lute will, and these are self-ex­is­tent and uni­ver­sal.

• described › is absolutely independent
• described › is immutable, but immutability does not imply immobility

4:4.2Since God is self-ex­is­tent, he is ab­so­lutely in­de­pen­dent. The very iden­tity of God is in­im­i­cal to change. “I, the Lord, change not.” God is im­mutable; but not un­til you achieve Par­a­dise sta­tus can you even be­gin to un­der­stand how God can pass from sim­plic­ity to com­plex­ity, from iden­tity to vari­a­tion, from qui­es­cence to mo­tion, from in­fin­ity to fini­tude, from the di­vine to the hu­man, and from unity to du­al­ity and tri­unity. And God can thus mod­ify the man­i­fes­ta­tions of his ab­so­lute­ness be­cause di­vine im­mutabil­ity does not im­ply im­mo­bil­ity; God has will—he is will.

• described › being of final goodness plus will of creative infinity

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.

• attitude › always one of divine affection
• described › absoluteness pervades all 7 levels of universe reality
• described › Father idea is highest human concept of God

4:4.5God’s ab­so­lute­ness per­vades all seven lev­els of uni­verse re­al­ity. And the whole of this ab­so­lute na­ture is sub­ject to the re­la­tion­ship of the Cre­ator to his uni­verse crea­ture fam­ily. Pre­ci­sion may char­ac­ter­ize trini­tar­ian jus­tice in the uni­verse of uni­verses, but in all his vast fam­ily re­la­tion­ship with the crea­tures of time the God of uni­verses is gov­erned by di­vine sen­ti­ment. First and last—eter­nally—the in­fi­nite God is a Fa­ther. Of all the pos­si­ble ti­tles by which he might ap­pro­pri­ately be known, I have been in­structed to por­tray the God of all cre­ation as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• described › consists in spirit, manifests as love
• described › freewill performances not ruled by power, nor guided by intellect alone

4:4.6In God the Fa­ther free­will per­for­mances are not ruled by power, nor are they guided by in­tel­lect alone; the di­vine per­son­al­ity is de­fined as con­sist­ing in spirit and man­i­fest­ing him­self to the uni­verses as love. There­fore, in all his per­sonal re­la­tions with the crea­ture per­son­al­i­ties of the uni­verses, the First Source and Cen­ter is al­ways and con­sis­tently a lov­ing Fa­ther. God is a Fa­ther in the high­est sense of the term. He is eter­nally mo­ti­vated by the per­fect ide­al­ism of di­vine love, and that ten­der na­ture finds its strong­est ex­pres­sion and great­est sat­is­fac­tion in lov­ing and be­ing loved.

4:4.7In sci­ence, God is the First Cause; in re­li­gion, the uni­ver­sal and lov­ing Fa­ther; in phi­los­o­phy, the one be­ing who ex­ists by him­self, not de­pen­dent on any other be­ing for ex­is­tence but benef­i­cently con­fer­ring re­al­ity of ex­is­tence on all things and upon all other be­ings. But it re­quires rev­e­la­tion to show that the First Cause of sci­ence and the self-ex­is­tent Unity of phi­los­o­phy are the God of re­li­gion, full of mercy and good­ness and pledged to ef­fect the eter­nal sur­vival of his chil­dren on earth.

4:4.8We crave the con­cept of the In­fi­nite, but we wor­ship the ex­pe­ri­ence-idea of God, our any­where and any-time ca­pac­ity to grasp the per­son­al­ity and di­vin­ity fac­tors of our high­est con­cept of De­ity.

4:4.9The con­scious­ness of a vic­to­ri­ous hu­man life on earth is born of that crea­ture faith which dares to chal­lenge each re­cur­ring episode of ex­is­tence when con­fronted with the aw­ful spec­ta­cle of hu­man lim­i­ta­tions, by the un­fail­ing dec­la­ra­tion: Even if I can­not do this, there lives in me one who can and will do it, a part of the Fa­ther-Ab­so­lute of the uni­verse of uni­verses. And that is “the vic­tory which over­comes the world, even your faith.”

4:5.1Re­li­gious tra­di­tion is the im­per­fectly pre­served rec­ord of the ex­pe­ri­ences of the God-know­ing men of past ages, but such rec­ords are un­trust­wor­thy as guides for re­li­gious liv­ing or as the source of true in­for­ma­tion about the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Such an­cient be­liefs have been in­vari­ably al­tered by the fact that prim­i­tive man was a myth­maker.

4:5.2One of the great­est sources of con­fu­sion on Uran­tia con­cern­ing the na­ture of God grows out of the fail­ure of your sa­cred books clearly to dis­tin­guish be­tween the per­son­al­i­ties of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity and be­tween Par­a­dise De­ity and the lo­cal uni­verse cre­ators and ad­min­is­tra­tors. Dur­ing the past dis­pen­sa­tions of par­tial un­der­stand­ing, your priests and proph­ets failed clearly to dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween Plan­e­tary Princes, Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns, Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, Cre­ator Sons, Super­uni­verse Rulers, the Su­preme Be­ing, and the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Many of the mes­sages of sub­or­di­nate per­son­al­i­ties, such as Life Car­ri­ers and var­i­ous or­ders of an­gels, have been, in your rec­ords, pre­sented as com­ing from God him­self. Uran­tian re­li­gious thought still con­fuses the as­so­ciate per­son­al­i­ties of De­ity with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther him­self, so that all are in­cluded un­der one ap­pel­la­tion.

4:5.3The peo­ple of Uran­tia con­tinue to suf­fer from the in­flu­ence of prim­i­tive con­cepts of God. The gods who go on a ram­page in the storm; who shake the earth in their wrath and strike down men in their anger; who in­flict their judg­ments of dis­plea­sure in times of famine and flood—these are the gods of prim­i­tive re­li­gion; they are not the Gods who live and rule the uni­verses. Such con­cepts are a relic of the times when men sup­posed that the uni­verse was un­der the guid­ance and dom­i­na­tion of the whims of such imag­i­nary gods. But mor­tal man is be­gin­ning to re­al­ize that he lives in a realm of com­par­a­tive law and or­der as far as con­cerns the ad­min­is­tra­tive poli­cies and con­duct of the Su­preme Cre­ators and the Su­preme Con­trol­lers.

4:5.4The bar­barous idea of ap­peas­ing an an­gry God, of pro­pi­ti­at­ing an of­fended Lord, of win­ning the fa­vor of De­ity through sac­ri­fices and pen­ance and even by the shed­ding of blood, rep­re­sents a re­li­gion wholly puerile and prim­i­tive, a phi­los­o­phy un­wor­thy of an en­light­ened age of sci­ence and truth. Such be­liefs are ut­terly re­pul­sive to the ce­les­tial be­ings and the di­vine rulers who serve and reign in the uni­verses. It is an af­front to God to be­lieve, hold, or teach that in­no­cent blood must be shed in or­der to win his fa­vor or to di­vert the fic­ti­tious di­vine wrath.

4:5.5The He­brews be­lieved that “with­out the shed­ding of blood there could be no re­mis­sion of sin.” They had not found de­liv­er­ance from the old and pa­gan idea that the Gods could not be ap­peased ex­cept by the sight of blood, though Moses did make a dis­tinct ad­vance when he for­bade hu­man sac­ri­fices and sub­sti­tuted there­for, in the prim­i­tive minds of his child­like Bed­ouin fol­low­ers, the cer­e­mo­nial sac­ri­fice of an­i­mals.

4:5.6The be­stowal of a Par­a­dise Son on your world was in­her­ent in the sit­u­a­tion of clos­ing a plan­e­tary age; it was in­es­cap­able, and it was not made nec­es­sary for the pur­pose of win­ning the fa­vor of God. This be­stowal also hap­pened to be the fi­nal per­sonal act of a Cre­ator Son in the long ad­ven­ture of earn­ing the ex­pe­ri­en­tial sov­er­eignty of his uni­verse. What a trav­esty upon the in­fi­nite char­ac­ter of God! this teach­ing that his fa­therly heart in all its aus­tere cold­ness and hard­ness was so un­touched by the mis­for­tunes and sor­rows of his crea­tures that his ten­der mer­cies were not forth­com­ing un­til he saw his blame­less Son bleed­ing and dy­ing upon the cross of Cal­vary!

4:5.7But the in­hab­i­tants of Uran­tia are to find de­liv­er­ance from these an­cient er­rors and pa­gan su­per­sti­tions re­spect­ing the na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. The rev­e­la­tion of the truth about God is ap­pear­ing, and the hu­man race is des­tined to know the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in all that beauty of char­ac­ter and love­li­ness of at­tri­butes so mag­nif­i­cently por­trayed by the Cre­ator Son who so­journed on Uran­tia as the Son of Man and the Son of God.

4:5.8[Pre­sented by a Di­vine Coun­selor of Uversa.]

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

5:0.1If the fi­nite mind of man is un­able to com­pre­hend how so great and so ma­jes­tic a God as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can de­scend from his eter­nal abode in in­fi­nite per­fec­tion to frat­er­nize with the in­di­vid­ual hu­man crea­ture, then must such a fi­nite in­tel­lect rest as­sur­ance of di­vine fel­low­ship upon the truth of the fact that an ac­tual frag­ment of the liv­ing God re­sides within the in­tel­lect of ev­ery nor­mal-minded and morally con­scious Uran­tia mor­tal. The in­dwelling Thought Ad­justers are a part of the eter­nal De­ity of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Man does not have to go far­ther than his own in­ner ex­pe­ri­ence of the soul’s con­tem­pla­tion of this spir­i­tual-re­al­ity pres­ence to find God and at­tempt com­mu­nion with him.

• delegation of power › Father has distributed himself to his 6 absolute co-ordinates
• functions › maintains contact through personality circuit
• methods of contact with man

5:0.2God has dis­tributed the in­fin­ity of his eter­nal na­ture through­out the ex­is­ten­tial re­al­i­ties of his six ab­so­lute co-or­di­nates, but he may, at any time, make di­rect per­sonal con­tact with any part or phase or kind of cre­ation through the agency of his preper­sonal frag­ments. And the eter­nal God has also re­served to him­self the pre­rog­a­tive of be­stow­ing per­son­al­ity upon the di­vine Cre­ators and the liv­ing crea­tures of the uni­verse of uni­verses, while he has fur­ther re­served the pre­rog­a­tive of main­tain­ing di­rect and pa­ren­tal con­tact with all these per­sonal be­ings through the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit.

• attitude › not in hiding
• attitude › yearns for our association

5:1.2Our Fa­ther is not in hid­ing; he is not in ar­bi­trary seclu­sion. He has mo­bi­lized the re­sources of di­vine wis­dom in a never-end­ing ef­fort to re­veal him­self to the chil­dren of his uni­ver­sal do­mains. There is an in­fi­nite grandeur and an in­ex­press­ible gen­eros­ity con­nected with the majesty of his love which causes him to yearn for the as­so­ci­a­tion of ev­ery cre­ated be­ing who can com­pre­hend, love, or ap­proach him; and it is, there­fore, the lim­i­ta­tions in­her­ent in you, in­sep­a­ra­ble from your fi­nite per­son­al­ity and ma­te­rial ex­is­tence, that de­ter­mine the time and place and cir­cum­stances in which you may achieve the goal of the jour­ney of mor­tal as­cen­sion and stand in the pres­ence of the Fa­ther at the cen­ter of all things.

• attitude › not willing any should perish

5:1.8The Fa­ther de­sires all his crea­tures to be in per­sonal com­mu­nion with him. He has on Par­a­dise a place to re­ceive all those whose sur­vival sta­tus and spir­i­tual na­ture make pos­si­ble such at­tain­ment. There­fore set­tle in your phi­los­o­phy now and for­ever: To each of you and to all of us, God is ap­proach­able, the Fa­ther is at­tain­able, the way is open; the forces of di­vine love and the ways and means of di­vine ad­min­is­tra­tion are all in­ter­locked in an ef­fort to fa­cil­i­tate the ad­vance­ment of ev­ery wor­thy in­tel­li­gence of ev­ery uni­verse to the Par­a­dise pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• attitude › not in hiding

5:1.10The Fa­ther is not in spir­i­tual hid­ing, but so many of his crea­tures have hid­den them­selves away in the mists of their own will­ful de­ci­sions and for the time be­ing have sep­a­rated them­selves from the com­mu­nion of his spirit and the spirit of his Son by the choos­ing of their own per­verse ways and by the in­dul­gence of the self-as­sertive­ness of their in­tol­er­ant minds and un­spir­i­tual na­tures.

• direct worship to Father alone

5:3.1Though the Par­a­dise De­i­ties, from the uni­verse stand­point, are as one, in their spir­i­tual re­la­tions with such be­ings as in­habit Uran­tia they are also three dis­tinct and sep­a­rate per­sons. There is a dif­fer­ence be­tween the God­heads in the mat­ter of per­sonal ap­peals, com­mu­nion, and other in­ti­mate re­la­tions. In the high­est sense, we wor­ship the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and him only. True, we can and do wor­ship the Fa­ther as he is man­i­fested in his Cre­ator Sons, but it is the Fa­ther, di­rectly or in­di­rectly, who is wor­shiped and adored.

• described › man’s eternal destination

5:4.3God is not only the de­ter­miner of des­tiny; he is man’s eter­nal des­ti­na­tion. All non­re­li­gious hu­man ac­tiv­i­ties seek to bend the uni­verse to the dis­tort­ing ser­vice of self; the truly re­li­gious in­di­vid­ual seeks to iden­tify the self with the uni­verse and then to ded­i­cate the ac­tiv­i­ties of this uni­fied self to the ser­vice of the uni­verse fam­ily of fel­low be­ings, hu­man and super­hu­man.

• attitude › loves not like a father but as a father
• described › Father of every individual

5:4.15In the study of the re­li­gious life of Je­sus, view him pos­i­tively. Think not so much of his sin­less­ness as of his righ­teous­ness, his lov­ing ser­vice. Je­sus up­stepped the pas­sive love dis­closed in the He­brew con­cept of the heav­enly Fa­ther to the higher ac­tive and crea­ture-lov­ing af­fec­tion of a God who is the Fa­ther of ev­ery in­di­vid­ual, even of the wrong­doer.

5:5.1Moral­ity has its ori­gin in the rea­son of self-con­scious­ness; it is super­an­i­mal but wholly evo­lu­tion­ary. Hu­man evo­lu­tion em­braces in its un­fold­ing all en­dow­ments an­te­ced­ent to the be­stowal of the Ad­justers and to the pour­ing out of the Spirit of Truth. But the at­tain­ment of lev­els of moral­ity does not de­liver man from the real strug­gles of mor­tal liv­ing. Man’s phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment en­tails the bat­tle for ex­is­tence; the so­cial sur­round­ings ne­ces­si­tate eth­i­cal ad­just­ments; the moral sit­u­a­tions re­quire the mak­ing of choices in the high­est realms of rea­son; the spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence (hav­ing re­al­ized God) de­mands that man find him and sin­cerely strive to be like him.

5:5.2Re­li­gion is not grounded in the facts of sci­ence, the obli­ga­tions of so­ci­ety, the as­sump­tions of phi­los­o­phy, or the im­plied du­ties of moral­ity. Re­li­gion is an in­de­pen­dent realm of hu­man re­sponse to life sit­u­a­tions and is un­fail­ingly ex­hib­ited at all stages of hu­man de­vel­op­ment which are post­moral. Re­li­gion may per­me­ate all four lev­els of the re­al­iza­tion of val­ues and the en­joy­ment of uni­verse fel­low­ship: the phys­i­cal or ma­te­rial level of self-preser­va­tion; the so­cial or emo­tional level of fel­low­ship; the moral or duty level of rea­son; the spir­i­tual level of the con­scious­ness of uni­verse fel­low­ship through di­vine wor­ship.

5:5.3The fact-seek­ing sci­en­tist con­ceives of God as the First Cause, a God of force. The emo­tional artist sees God as the ideal of beauty, a God of aes­thet­ics. The rea­son­ing philoso­pher is some­times in­clined to posit a God of uni­ver­sal unity, even a pan­the­is­tic De­ity. The re­li­gion­ist of faith be­lieves in a God who fos­ters sur­vival, the Fa­ther in heaven, the God of love.

5:5.4Moral con­duct is al­ways an an­te­ced­ent of evolved re­li­gion and a part of even re­vealed re­li­gion, but never the whole of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. So­cial ser­vice is the re­sult of moral think­ing and re­li­gious liv­ing. Moral­ity does not bi­o­log­i­cally lead to the higher spir­i­tual lev­els of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. The ado­ra­tion of the ab­stract beau­ti­ful is not the wor­ship of God; nei­ther is ex­al­ta­tion of na­ture nor the rev­er­ence of unity the wor­ship of God.

5:5.5Evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion is the mother of the sci­ence, art, and phi­los­o­phy which el­e­vated man to the level of re­cep­tiv­ity to re­vealed re­li­gion, in­clud­ing the be­stowal of Ad­justers and the com­ing of the Spirit of Truth. The evo­lu­tion­ary pic­ture of hu­man ex­is­tence be­gins and ends with re­li­gion, al­beit very dif­fer­ent qual­i­ties of re­li­gion, one evo­lu­tional and bi­o­log­i­cal, the other rev­e­la­tional and pe­ri­od­i­cal. And so, while re­li­gion is nor­mal and nat­u­ral to man, it is also op­tional. Man does not have to be re­li­gious against his will.

5:5.6Re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, be­ing es­sen­tially spir­i­tual, can never be fully un­der­stood by the ma­te­rial mind; hence the func­tion of the­ol­ogy, the psy­chol­ogy of re­li­gion. The es­sen­tial doc­trine of the hu­man re­al­iza­tion of God cre­ates a para­dox in fi­nite com­pre­hen­sion. It is well-nigh im­pos­si­ble for hu­man logic and fi­nite rea­son to har­mo­nize the con­cept of di­vine im­ma­nence, God within and a part of ev­ery in­di­vid­ual, with the idea of God’s tran­scen­dence, the di­vine dom­i­na­tion of the uni­verse of uni­verses. These two es­sen­tial con­cepts of De­ity must be uni­fied in the faith-grasp of the con­cept of the tran­scen­dence of a per­sonal God and in the re­al­iza­tion of the in­dwelling pres­ence of a frag­ment of that God in or­der to jus­tify in­tel­li­gent wor­ship and val­i­date the hope of per­son­al­ity sur­vival. The dif­fi­cul­ties and para­doxes of re­li­gion are in­her­ent in the fact that the re­al­i­ties of re­li­gion are ut­terly be­yond the mor­tal ca­pac­ity for in­tel­lec­tual com­pre­hen­sion.

5:5.7Mor­tal man se­cures three great sat­is­fac­tions from re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, even in the days of his tem­po­ral so­journ on earth:

5:5.81. In­tel­lec­tu­ally he ac­quires the sat­is­fac­tions of a more uni­fied hu­man con­scious­ness.

5:5.92. Phil­o­soph­i­cally he en­joys the sub­stan­ti­a­tion of his ide­als of moral val­ues.

5:5.103. Spir­i­tu­ally he thrives in the ex­pe­ri­ence of di­vine com­pan­ion­ship, in the spir­i­tual sat­is­fac­tions of true wor­ship.

5:5.11God-con­scious­ness, as it is ex­pe­ri­enced by an evolv­ing mor­tal of the realms, must con­sist of three vary­ing fac­tors, three dif­fer­en­tial lev­els of re­al­ity re­al­iza­tion. There is first the mind con­scious­ness—the com­pre­hen­sion of the idea of God. Then fol­lows the soul con­scious­ness—the re­al­iza­tion of the ideal of God. Last, dawns the spirit con­scious­ness—the re­al­iza­tion of the spirit re­al­ity of God. By the uni­fi­ca­tion of these fac­tors of the di­vine re­al­iza­tion, no mat­ter how in­com­plete, the mor­tal per­son­al­ity at all times over­spreads all con­scious lev­els with a re­al­iza­tion of the per­son­al­ity of God. In those mor­tals who have at­tained the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity all this will in time lead to the re­al­iza­tion of the su­prem­acy of God and may sub­se­quently even­tu­ate in the re­al­iza­tion of the ul­ti­macy of God, some phase of the ab­so­nite super­con­scious­ness of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

5:5.12The ex­pe­ri­ence of God-con­scious­ness re­mains the same from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, but with each ad­vanc­ing epoch in hu­man knowl­edge the philo­sophic con­cept and the the­o­logic def­i­ni­tions of God must change. God-know­ing­ness, re­li­gious con­scious­ness, is a uni­verse re­al­ity, but no mat­ter how valid (real) re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence is, it must be will­ing to sub­ject it­self to in­tel­li­gent crit­i­cism and rea­son­able philo­sophic in­ter­pre­ta­tion; it must not seek to be a thing apart in the to­tal­ity of hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

5:5.13Eter­nal sur­vival of per­son­al­ity is wholly de­pen­dent on the choos­ing of the mor­tal mind, whose de­ci­sions de­ter­mine the sur­vival po­ten­tial of the im­mor­tal soul. When the mind be­lieves God and the soul knows God, and when, with the fos­ter­ing Ad­juster, they all de­sire God, then is sur­vival as­sured. Lim­i­ta­tions of in­tel­lect, cur­tail­ment of ed­u­ca­tion, de­pri­va­tion of cul­ture, im­pov­er­ish­ment of so­cial sta­tus, even in­fe­ri­or­ity of the hu­man stan­dards of moral­ity re­sult­ing from the un­for­tu­nate lack of ed­u­ca­tional, cul­tural, and so­cial ad­van­tages, can­not in­val­i­date the pres­ence of the di­vine spirit in such un­for­tu­nate and hu­manly hand­i­capped but be­liev­ing in­di­vid­u­als. The in­dwelling of the Mys­tery Mon­i­tor con­sti­tutes the in­cep­tion and in­sures the pos­si­bil­ity of the po­ten­tial of growth and sur­vival of the im­mor­tal soul.

5:5.14The abil­ity of mor­tal par­ents to pro­cre­ate is not pred­i­cated on their ed­u­ca­tional, cul­tural, so­cial, or eco­nomic sta­tus. The union of the pa­ren­tal fac­tors un­der nat­u­ral con­di­tions is quite suf­fi­cient to ini­ti­ate off­spring. A hu­man mind dis­cern­ing right and wrong and pos­sess­ing the ca­pac­ity to wor­ship God, in union with a di­vine Ad­juster, is all that is re­quired in that mor­tal to ini­ti­ate and fos­ter the pro­duc­tion of his im­mor­tal soul of sur­vival qual­i­ties if such a spirit-en­dowed in­di­vid­ual seeks God and sin­cerely de­sires to be­come like him, hon­estly elects to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

• described › origin and destiny of personality

5:6.1The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the God of per­son­al­i­ties. The do­main of uni­verse per­son­al­ity, from the low­est mor­tal and ma­te­rial crea­ture of per­son­al­ity sta­tus to the high­est per­sons of cre­ator dig­nity and di­vine sta­tus, has its cen­ter and cir­cum­fer­ence in the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God the Fa­ther is the be­stower and the con­ser­va­tor of ev­ery per­son­al­ity. And the Par­a­dise Fa­ther is like­wise the des­tiny of all those fi­nite per­son­al­i­ties who whole­heart­edly choose to do the di­vine will, those who love God and long to be like him.

5:6.2Per­son­al­ity is one of the un­solved mys­ter­ies of the uni­verses. We are able to form ad­e­quate con­cepts of the fac­tors en­ter­ing into the make-up of var­i­ous or­ders and lev­els of per­son­al­ity, but we do not fully com­pre­hend the real na­ture of the per­son­al­ity it­self. We clearly per­ceive the nu­mer­ous fac­tors which, when put to­gether, con­sti­tute the ve­hi­cle for hu­man per­son­al­ity, but we do not fully com­pre­hend the na­ture and sig­nif­i­cance of such a fi­nite per­son­al­ity.

5:6.3Per­son­al­ity is po­ten­tial in all crea­tures who pos­sess a mind en­dow­ment rang­ing from the min­i­mum of self-con­scious­ness to the max­i­mum of God-con­scious­ness. But mind en­dow­ment alone is not per­son­al­ity, nei­ther is spirit nor phys­i­cal en­ergy. Per­son­al­ity is that qual­ity and value in cos­mic re­al­ity which is ex­clu­sively be­stowed by God the Fa­ther upon these liv­ing sys­tems of the as­so­ci­ated and co-or­di­nated en­er­gies of mat­ter, mind, and spirit. Nei­ther is per­son­al­ity a pro­gres­sive achieve­ment. Per­son­al­ity may be ma­te­rial or spir­i­tual, but there ei­ther is per­son­al­ity or there is no per­son­al­ity. The other-than-per­sonal never at­tains the level of the per­sonal ex­cept by the di­rect act of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

5:6.4The be­stowal of per­son­al­ity is the ex­clu­sive func­tion of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the per­son­al­iza­tion of the liv­ing en­ergy sys­tems which he en­dows with the at­tri­butes of rel­a­tive cre­ative con­scious­ness and the free­will con­trol thereof. There is no per­son­al­ity apart from God the Fa­ther, and no per­son­al­ity ex­ists ex­cept for God the Fa­ther. The fun­da­men­tal at­tri­butes of hu­man self­hood, as well as the ab­so­lute Ad­juster nu­cleus of the hu­man per­son­al­ity, are the be­stowals of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, act­ing in his ex­clu­sively per­sonal do­main of cos­mic min­istry.

5:6.5The Ad­justers of preper­sonal sta­tus in­dwell nu­mer­ous types of mor­tal crea­tures, thus in­sur­ing that these same be­ings may sur­vive mor­tal death to per­son­al­ize as mor­ontia crea­tures with the po­ten­tial of ul­ti­mate spirit at­tain­ment. For, when such a crea­ture mind of per­son­al­ity en­dow­ment is in­dwelt by a frag­ment of the spirit of the eter­nal God, the preper­sonal be­stowal of the per­sonal Fa­ther, then does this fi­nite per­son­al­ity pos­sess the po­ten­tial of the di­vine and the eter­nal and as­pire to a des­tiny akin to the Ul­ti­mate, even reach­ing out for a re­al­iza­tion of the Ab­so­lute.

5:6.6Ca­pac­ity for di­vine per­son­al­ity is in­her­ent in the preper­sonal Ad­juster; ca­pac­ity for hu­man per­son­al­ity is po­ten­tial in the cos­mic-mind en­dow­ment of the hu­man be­ing. But the ex­pe­ri­en­tial per­son­al­ity of mor­tal man is not ob­serv­able as an ac­tive and func­tional re­al­ity un­til af­ter the ma­te­rial life ve­hi­cle of the mor­tal crea­ture has been touched by the lib­er­at­ing di­vin­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, be­ing thus launched upon the seas of ex­pe­ri­ence as a self-con­scious and a (rel­a­tively) self-de­ter­mi­na­tive and self-cre­ative per­son­al­ity. The ma­te­rial self is truly and un­qual­i­fiedly per­sonal.

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

5:6.7The ma­te­rial self has per­son­al­ity and iden­tity, tem­po­ral iden­tity; the preper­sonal spirit Ad­juster also has iden­tity, eter­nal iden­tity. This ma­te­rial per­son­al­ity and this spirit preper­son­al­ity are ca­pa­ble of so unit­ing their cre­ative at­tri­butes as to bring into ex­is­tence the sur­viv­ing iden­tity of the im­mor­tal soul.

5:6.8Hav­ing thus pro­vided for the growth of the im­mor­tal soul and hav­ing lib­er­ated man’s in­ner self from the fet­ters of ab­so­lute de­pen­dence on an­te­ced­ent cau­sa­tion, the Fa­ther stands aside. Now, man hav­ing thus been lib­er­ated from the fet­ters of cau­sa­tion re­sponse, at least as per­tains to eter­nal des­tiny, and pro­vi­sion hav­ing been made for the growth of the im­mor­tal self, the soul, it re­mains for man him­self to will the cre­ation or to in­hibit the cre­ation of this sur­viv­ing and eter­nal self which is his for the choos­ing. No other be­ing, force, cre­ator, or agency in all the wide uni­verse of uni­verses can in­ter­fere to any de­gree with the ab­so­lute sov­er­eignty of the mor­tal free will, as it op­er­ates within the realms of choice, re­gard­ing the eter­nal des­tiny of the per­son­al­ity of the choos­ing mor­tal. As per­tains to eter­nal sur­vival, God has de­creed the sov­er­eignty of the ma­te­rial and mor­tal will, and that de­cree is ab­so­lute.

5:6.9The be­stowal of crea­ture per­son­al­ity con­fers rel­a­tive lib­er­a­tion from slav­ish re­sponse to an­te­ced­ent cau­sa­tion, and the per­son­al­i­ties of all such moral be­ings, evo­lu­tion­ary or oth­er­wise, are cen­tered in the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. They are ever drawn to­wards his Par­a­dise pres­ence by that kin­ship of be­ing which con­sti­tutes the vast and uni­ver­sal fam­ily cir­cle and fra­ter­nal cir­cuit of the eter­nal God. There is a kin­ship of di­vine spon­tane­ity in all per­son­al­ity.

• described › in personal touch with all personalities, independently of Adjusters’ mission

5:6.10The per­son­al­ity cir­cuit of the uni­verse of uni­verses is cen­tered in the per­son of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and the Par­a­dise Fa­ther is per­son­ally con­scious of, and in per­sonal touch with, all per­son­al­i­ties of all lev­els of self-con­scious ex­is­tence. And this per­son­al­ity con­scious­ness of all cre­ation ex­ists in­de­pen­dently of the mis­sion of the Thought Ad­justers.

5:6.11As all grav­ity is cir­cuited in the Isle of Par­a­dise, as all mind is cir­cuited in the Con­joint Ac­tor and all spirit in the Eter­nal Son, so is all per­son­al­ity cir­cuited in the per­sonal pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and this cir­cuit unerringly trans­mits the wor­ship of all per­son­al­i­ties to the Orig­i­nal and Eter­nal Per­son­al­ity.

5:6.12Con­cern­ing those per­son­al­i­ties who are not Ad­juster in­dwelt: The at­tri­bute of choice-lib­erty is also be­stowed by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and such per­sons are like­wise em­braced in the great cir­cuit of di­vine love, the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. God pro­vides for the sov­er­eign choice of all true per­son­al­i­ties. No per­sonal crea­ture can be co­erced into the eter­nal ad­ven­ture; the por­tal of eter­nity opens only in re­sponse to the free­will choice of the free­will sons of the God of free will.

• described › Father idea is highest human concept of God

5:6.13And this rep­re­sents my ef­forts to pre­sent the re­la­tion of the liv­ing God to the chil­dren of time. And when all is said and done, I can do noth­ing more help­ful than to re­it­er­ate that God is your uni­verse Fa­ther, and that you are all his plan­e­tary chil­dren.

5:6.14[This is the fifth and last of the se­ries pre­sent­ing the nar­ra­tive of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther by a Di­vine Coun­selor of Uversa.]

• presences of Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit enshroud

6:0.1The Eter­nal Son is the per­fect and fi­nal ex­pres­sion of the “first” per­sonal and ab­so­lute con­cept of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Ac­cord­ingly, when­ever and how­ever the Fa­ther per­son­ally and ab­so­lutely ex­presses him­self, he does so through his Eter­nal Son, who ever has been, now is, and ever will be, the liv­ing and di­vine Word. And this Eter­nal Son is res­i­den­tial at the cen­ter of all things, in as­so­ci­a­tion with, and im­me­di­ately en­shroud­ing the per­sonal pres­ence of, the Eter­nal and Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• described › is eternal

6:0.2We speak of God’s “first” thought and al­lude to an im­pos­si­ble time ori­gin of the Eter­nal Son for the pur­pose of gain­ing ac­cess to the thought chan­nels of the hu­man in­tel­lect. Such dis­tor­tions of lan­guage rep­re­sent our best ef­forts at con­tact-com­pro­mise with the time-bound minds of mor­tal crea­tures. In the se­quen­tial sense the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never could have had a first thought, nor could the Eter­nal Son ever have had a be­gin­ning. But I was in­structed to por­tray the re­al­i­ties of eter­nity to the time-lim­ited minds of mor­tals by such sym­bols of thought and to des­ig­nate the re­la­tion­ships of eter­nity by such time con­cepts of se­quen­tial­ity.

• described › speaks to universes only through Eternal Son

6:0.3The Eter­nal Son is the spir­i­tual per­son­al­iza­tion of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther’s uni­ver­sal and in­fi­nite con­cept of di­vine re­al­ity, un­qual­i­fied spirit, and ab­so­lute per­son­al­ity. And thereby does the Son con­sti­tute the di­vine rev­e­la­tion of the cre­ator iden­tity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. The per­fect per­son­al­ity of the Son dis­closes that the Fa­ther is ac­tu­ally the eter­nal and uni­ver­sal source of all the mean­ings and val­ues of the spir­i­tual, the vo­li­tional, the pur­pose­ful, and the per­sonal.

• described › is eternal

6:0.4In an ef­fort to en­able the fi­nite mind of time to form some se­quen­tial con­cept of the re­la­tion­ships of the eter­nal and in­fi­nite be­ings of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, we uti­lize such li­cense of con­cep­tion as to re­fer to the “Fa­ther’s first per­sonal, uni­ver­sal, and in­fi­nite con­cept.” It is im­pos­si­ble for me to con­vey to the hu­man mind any ad­e­quate idea of the eter­nal re­la­tions of the De­i­ties; there­fore do I em­ploy such terms as will af­ford the fi­nite mind some­thing of an idea of the re­la­tion­ship of these eter­nal be­ings in the sub­se­quent eras of time. We be­lieve the Son sprang from the Fa­ther; we are taught that both are un­qual­i­fiedly eter­nal. It is ap­par­ent, there­fore, that no time crea­ture can ever fully com­pre­hend this mys­tery of a Son who is de­rived from the Fa­ther, and yet who is co-or­di­nately eter­nal with the Fa­ther him­self.

• also known as › Volitional Absolute

6:1.2The Eter­nal Son is the spir­i­tual cen­ter and the di­vine ad­min­is­tra­tor of the spir­i­tual gov­ern­ment of the uni­verse of uni­verses. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is first a cre­ator and then a con­trol­ler; the Eter­nal Son is first a cocre­ator and then a spir­i­tual ad­min­is­tra­tor. “God is spirit,” and the Son is a per­sonal rev­e­la­tion of that spirit. The First Source and Cen­ter is the Vo­li­tional Ab­so­lute; the Sec­ond Source and Cen­ter is the Per­son­al­ity Ab­so­lute.

• functions › as Creator, only in conjunction with Eternal Son

6:1.3The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never per­son­ally func­tions as a cre­ator ex­cept in con­junc­tion with the Son or with the co-or­di­nate ac­tion of the Son. Had the New Tes­ta­ment writer re­ferred to the Eter­nal Son, he would have ut­tered the truth when he wrote: “In the be­gin­ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and with­out him was not any­thing made that was made.”

• described › he who has seen a Creator Son has seen

6:2.2The Eter­nal Son is the eter­nal Word of God. He is wholly like the Fa­ther; in fact, the Eter­nal Son is God the Fa­ther per­son­ally man­i­fest to the uni­verse of uni­verses. And thus it was and is and for­ever will be true of the Eter­nal Son and of all the co-or­di­nate Cre­ator Sons: “He who has seen the Son has seen the Fa­ther.”

• described › is love

6:3.3To com­pre­hend the love of the Eter­nal Son, you must first per­ceive its di­vine source, the Fa­ther, who is love, and then be­hold the un­fold­ing of this in­fi­nite af­fec­tion in the far-flung min­istry of the In­fi­nite Spirit and his al­most lim­it­less host of min­is­ter­ing per­son­al­i­ties.

• attitude › loves not like a father but as a father
• described › is love

6:3.5God is love, the Son is mercy. Mercy is ap­plied love, the Fa­ther’s love in ac­tion in the per­son of his Eter­nal Son. The love of this uni­ver­sal Son is like­wise uni­ver­sal. As love is com­pre­hended on a sex planet, the love of God is more com­pa­ra­ble to the love of a fa­ther, while the love of the Eter­nal Son is more like the af­fec­tion of a mother. Crude, in­deed, are such il­lus­tra­tions, but I em­ploy them in the hope of con­vey­ing to the hu­man mind the thought that there is a dif­fer­ence, not in di­vine con­tent but in qual­ity and tech­nique of ex­pres­sion, be­tween the love of the Fa­ther and the love of the Son.

• functions › sole source of personality

6:5.3Per­son­al­ity is the ex­clu­sive gift of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. The Eter­nal Son de­rives per­son­al­ity from the Fa­ther, but he does not, with­out the Fa­ther, be­stow per­son­al­ity. The Son gives ori­gin to a vast spirit host, but such deriva­tions are not per­son­al­i­ties. When the Son cre­ates per­son­al­ity, he does so in con­junc­tion with the Fa­ther or with the Con­joint Cre­ator, who may act for the Fa­ther in such re­la­tion­ships. The Eter­nal Son is thus a cocre­ator of per­son­al­i­ties, but he be­stows per­son­al­ity upon no be­ing and of him­self, alone, never cre­ates per­sonal be­ings. This lim­i­ta­tion of ac­tion does not, how­ever, de­prive the Son of the abil­ity to cre­ate any or all types of other-than-per­sonal re­al­ity.

• functions › sole source of personality

6:7.1The Eter­nal Son is that in­fi­nite per­son­al­ity from whose un­qual­i­fied per­son­al­ity fet­ters the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther es­caped by the tech­nique of trin­i­ti­za­tion, and by virtue of which he has ever since con­tin­ued to be­stow him­self in end­less pro­fu­sion upon his ever-ex­pand­ing uni­verse of Cre­ators and crea­tures. The Son is ab­so­lute per­son­al­ity; God is fa­ther per­son­al­ity—the source of per­son­al­ity, the be­stower of per­son­al­ity, the cause of per­son­al­ity. Ev­ery per­sonal be­ing de­rives per­son­al­ity from the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther just as the Orig­i­nal Son eter­nally de­rives his per­son­al­ity from the Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

• delegation of power › freely distributes himself; is not self-centered

7:0.2The Son is like the Fa­ther in that he seeks to be­stow ev­ery­thing pos­si­ble of him­self upon his co-or­di­nate Sons and upon their sub­or­di­nate Sons. And the Son shares the Fa­ther’s self-dis­tribu­tive na­ture in the un­stinted be­stowal of him­self upon the In­fi­nite Spirit, their con­joint ex­ec­u­tive.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

7:4.7The Eter­nal Son is the per­sonal trus­tee, the di­vine cus­to­dian, of the Fa­ther’s uni­ver­sal plan of crea­ture as­cen­sion. Hav­ing pro­mul­gated the uni­ver­sal man­date, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect,” the Fa­ther in­trusted the ex­e­cu­tion of this tremen­dous un­der­tak­ing to the Eter­nal Son; and the Eter­nal Son shares the fos­ter­ing of this su­per­nal en­ter­prise with his di­vine co-or­di­nate, the In­fi­nite Spirit. Thus do the De­i­ties ef­fec­tively co-op­er­ate in the work of cre­ation, con­trol, evo­lu­tion, rev­e­la­tion, and min­is­tra­tion—and if re­quired, in restora­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

7:5.1The Eter­nal Son with­out reser­va­tion joined with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in broad­cast­ing that tremen­dous in­junc­tion to all cre­ation: “Be you per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in Ha­vona is per­fect.” And ever since, that in­vi­ta­tion-com­mand has mo­ti­vated all the sur­vival plans and the be­stowal projects of the Eter­nal Son and his vast fam­ily of co-or­di­nate and as­so­ci­ated Sons. And in these very be­stowals the Sons of God have be­come to all evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures “the way, the truth, and the life.”

• described › is primal

7:6.4The Cre­ator Sons go out from Par­a­dise into the uni­verses of time and, with the co-op­er­a­tion of the con­trol­ling and cre­ative agen­cies of the Third Source and Cen­ter, com­plete the or­ga­ni­za­tion of the lo­cal uni­verses of pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion. These Sons are not at­tached to, nor are they con­cerned with, the cen­tral and uni­ver­sal con­trols of mat­ter, mind, and spirit. Hence are they lim­ited in their cre­ative acts by the pre-ex­is­tence, pri­or­ity, and pri­macy of the First Source and Cen­ter and his co-or­di­nate Ab­so­lutes. These Sons are able to ad­min­is­ter only that which they bring into ex­is­tence. Ab­so­lute ad­min­is­tra­tion is in­her­ent in pri­or­ity of ex­is­tence and is in­sep­a­ra­ble from eter­nity of pres­ence. The Fa­ther re­mains pri­mal in the uni­verses.

• described › speaks to universes only through Eternal Son

7:7.1The Eter­nal Son is a com­plete, ex­clu­sive, uni­ver­sal, and fi­nal rev­e­la­tion of the spirit and the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. All knowl­edge of, and in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing, the Fa­ther must come from the Eter­nal Son and his Par­a­dise Sons. The Eter­nal Son is from eter­nity and is wholly and with­out spir­i­tual qual­i­fi­ca­tion one with the Fa­ther. In di­vine per­son­al­ity they are co-or­di­nate; in spir­i­tual na­ture they are equal; in di­vin­ity they are iden­ti­cal.

• functions › comes to us as a personality only through the divine Sons

7:7.4The Fa­ther comes down to you as a per­son­al­ity only through the di­vine Sons of the Eter­nal Son. And you at­tain the Fa­ther by this same liv­ing way; you as­cend to the Fa­ther by the guid­ance of this group of di­vine Sons. And this re­mains true not­with­stand­ing that your very per­son­al­ity is a di­rect be­stowal of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• all goodness takes origin in

8:2.7It is not pos­si­ble that the Spirit could have more of good­ness than the Fa­ther since all good­ness takes ori­gin in the Fa­ther, but in the acts of the Spirit we can the bet­ter com­pre­hend such good­ness. The Fa­ther’s faith­ful­ness and the Son’s con­stancy are made very real to the spirit be­ings and the ma­te­rial crea­tures of the spheres by the lov­ing min­istry and cease­less ser­vice of the per­son­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

• delegation of power › Father delegates everything possible to Eternal Son
• functions › no longer personally participates in universe creation since personalization of Infinite Spirit

8:3.2Since the per­son­al­iza­tion of the Third Source, the First Source no more per­son­ally par­tic­i­pates in uni­verse cre­ation. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther del­e­gates ev­ery­thing pos­si­ble to his Eter­nal Son; like­wise does the Eter­nal Son be­stow all pos­si­ble au­thor­ity and power upon the Con­joint Cre­ator.

• no man attains U.F. except through Eternal Son

8:3.7The Eter­nal Son is the only av­enue of ap­proach to the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and the In­fi­nite Spirit is the only means of at­tain­ing the Eter­nal Son. Only by the pa­tient min­istry of the Spirit are the as­cen­dant be­ings of time able to dis­cover the Son.

• presences of Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit enshroud

8:3.8At the cen­ter of all things the In­fi­nite Spirit is the first of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties to be at­tained by the as­cend­ing pil­grims. The Third Per­son en­shrouds the Sec­ond and the First Per­sons and there­fore must al­ways be first rec­og­nized by all who are can­di­dates for pre­sen­ta­tion to the Son and his Fa­ther.

• described › infinite in love and volition; universal upholder
• described › is present with the Eternal Son and in the Infinite Spirit
• described › limited only by volition
• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters
• functions › sole source of personality

8:5.2The Fa­ther is in­fi­nite and is there­fore lim­ited only by vo­li­tion. In the be­stowal of Ad­justers and in the en­cir­cuit­ment of per­son­al­ity, the Fa­ther acts alone, but in the con­tact of spirit forces with in­tel­li­gent be­ings, he uti­lizes the spir­its and per­son­al­i­ties of the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit. He is at will spir­i­tu­ally pres­ent equally with the Son or with the Con­joint Ac­tor; he is pres­ent with the Son and in the Spirit. The Fa­ther is most cer­tainly ev­ery­where pres­ent, and we dis­cern his pres­ence by and through any and all of these di­verse but as­so­ci­ated forces, in­flu­ences, and pres­ences.

• described › Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit liberate from personality absolutism

9:0.1A strange thing oc­curred when, in the pres­ence of Par­a­dise, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and the Eter­nal Son unite to per­son­al­ize them­selves. Noth­ing in this eter­nity sit­u­a­tion fore­shad­ows that the Con­joint Ac­tor would per­son­al­ize as an un­lim­ited spir­i­tu­al­ity co-or­di­nated with ab­so­lute mind and en­dowed with unique pre­rog­a­tives of en­ergy ma­nip­u­la­tion. His com­ing into be­ing com­pletes the Fa­ther’s lib­er­a­tion from the bonds of cen­tral­ized per­fec­tion and from the fet­ters of per­son­al­ity ab­so­lutism. And this lib­er­a­tion is dis­closed in the amaz­ing power of the Con­joint Cre­ator to cre­ate be­ings well adapted to serve as min­is­ter­ing spir­its even to the ma­te­rial crea­tures of the sub­se­quently evolv­ing uni­verses.

• described › infinite in love and volition; universal upholder

9:0.2The Fa­ther is in­fi­nite in love and vo­li­tion, in spir­i­tual thought and pur­pose; he is the uni­ver­sal up­holder. The Son is in­fi­nite in wis­dom and truth, in spir­i­tual ex­pres­sion and in­ter­pre­ta­tion; he is the uni­ver­sal re­vealer. Par­a­dise is in­fi­nite in po­ten­tial for force en­dow­ment and in ca­pac­ity for en­ergy dom­i­nance; it is the uni­ver­sal sta­bi­lizer. The Con­joint Ac­tor pos­sesses unique pre­rog­a­tives of syn­the­sis, in­fi­nite ca­pac­ity to co-or­di­nate all ex­ist­ing uni­verse en­er­gies, all ac­tual uni­verse spir­its, and all real uni­verse in­tel­lects; the Third Source and Cen­ter is the uni­ver­sal uni­fier of the man­i­fold en­er­gies and di­verse cre­ations which have ap­peared in con­se­quence of the di­vine plan and the eter­nal pur­pose of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• described › all things consist in

9:0.4Through­out the uni­verses the agen­cies of the Con­joint Ac­tor cease­lessly ma­nip­u­late the forces and en­er­gies of all space. Like the First Source and Cen­ter, the Third is re­spon­sive to both the spir­i­tual and the ma­te­rial. The Con­joint Ac­tor is the rev­e­la­tion of the unity of God, in whom all things con­sist—things, mean­ings, and val­ues; en­er­gies, minds, and spir­its.

• functions › presides over pre-energy, prespirit, and personality

9:1.4The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther pre­sides over the realms of pre-en­ergy, pre­spirit, and per­son­al­ity; the Eter­nal Son dom­i­nates the spheres of spir­i­tual ac­tiv­i­ties; the pres­ence of the Isle of Par­a­dise uni­fies the do­main of phys­i­cal en­ergy and ma­te­ri­al­iz­ing power; the Con­joint Ac­tor op­er­ates not only as an in­fi­nite spirit rep­re­sent­ing the Son but also as a uni­ver­sal ma­nip­u­la­tor of the forces and en­er­gies of Par­a­dise, thus bring­ing into ex­is­tence the uni­ver­sal and ab­so­lute mind. The Con­joint Ac­tor func­tions through­out the grand uni­verse as a pos­i­tive and dis­tinct per­son­al­ity, es­pe­cially in the higher spheres of spir­i­tual val­ues, phys­i­cal-en­ergy re­la­tion­ships, and true mind mean­ings. He func­tions specif­i­cally wher­ever and when­ever en­ergy and spirit as­so­ciate and in­ter­act; he dom­i­nates all re­ac­tions with mind, wields great power in the spir­i­tual world, and ex­erts a mighty in­flu­ence over en­ergy and mat­ter. At all times the Third Source is ex­pres­sive of the na­ture of the First Source and Cen­ter.

• described › Paradise and Eternal Son are simultaneously eternalized antipodal revelations of

9:1.7And herein is an in­fi­nite mys­tery: That the In­fi­nite si­mul­ta­ne­ously re­vealed his in­fin­ity in the Son and as Par­a­dise, and then there springs into ex­is­tence a be­ing equal to God in di­vin­ity, re­flec­tive of the Son’s spir­i­tual na­ture, and ca­pa­ble of ac­ti­vat­ing the Par­a­dise pat­tern, a be­ing pro­vi­sion­ally sub­or­di­nate in sov­er­eignty but in many ways ap­par­ently the most ver­sa­tile in ac­tion. And such ap­par­ent su­pe­ri­or­ity in ac­tion is dis­closed in an at­tri­bute of the Third Source and Cen­ter which is su­pe­rior even to phys­i­cal grav­ity—the uni­ver­sal man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Isle of Par­a­dise.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

9:5.6Mind, on Uran­tia, is a com­pro­mise be­tween the essence of thought per­fec­tion and the evolv­ing men­tal­ity of your im­ma­ture hu­man na­ture. The plan for your in­tel­lec­tual evo­lu­tion is, in­deed, one of sub­lime per­fec­tion, but you are far short of that di­vine goal as you func­tion in the taber­na­cles of the flesh. Mind is truly of di­vine ori­gin, and it does have a di­vine des­tiny, but your mor­tal minds are not yet of di­vine dig­nity.

• functions › sole source of personality

9:6.4Self­hood of per­son­al­ity dig­nity, hu­man or di­vine, im­mor­tal or po­ten­tially im­mor­tal, does not how­ever orig­i­nate in ei­ther spirit, mind, or mat­ter; it is the be­stowal of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Nei­ther is the in­ter­ac­tion of spirit, mind, and ma­te­rial grav­ity a pre­req­ui­site to the ap­pear­ance of per­son­al­ity grav­ity. The Fa­ther’s cir­cuit may em­brace a mind-ma­te­rial be­ing who is un­re­spon­sive to spirit grav­ity, or it may in­clude a mind-spirit be­ing who is un­re­spon­sive to ma­te­rial grav­ity. The op­er­a­tion of per­son­al­ity grav­ity is al­ways a vo­li­tional act of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• described › Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit liberate from personality absolutism

10:0.1The Par­a­dise Trin­ity of eter­nal De­i­ties fa­cil­i­tates the Fa­ther’s es­cape from per­son­al­ity ab­so­lutism. The Trin­ity per­fectly as­so­ciates the lim­it­less ex­pres­sion of God’s in­fi­nite per­sonal will with the ab­so­lute­ness of De­ity. The Eter­nal Son and the var­i­ous Sons of di­vine ori­gin, to­gether with the Con­joint Ac­tor and his uni­verse chil­dren, ef­fec­tively pro­vide for the Fa­ther’s lib­er­a­tion from the lim­i­ta­tions oth­er­wise in­her­ent in pri­macy, per­fec­tion, change­less­ness, eter­nity, uni­ver­sal­ity, ab­so­lute­ness, and in­fin­ity.

• described › is present with the Eternal Son and in the Infinite Spirit

10:0.2The Par­a­dise Trin­ity ef­fec­tively pro­vides for the full ex­pres­sion and per­fect rev­e­la­tion of the eter­nal na­ture of De­ity. The Sta­tion­ary Sons of the Trin­ity like­wise af­ford a full and per­fect rev­e­la­tion of di­vine jus­tice. The Trin­ity is De­ity unity, and this unity rests eter­nally upon the ab­so­lute foun­da­tions of the di­vine one­ness of the three orig­i­nal and co-or­di­nate and co­ex­is­tent per­son­al­i­ties, God the Fa­ther, God the Son, and God the Spirit.

• delegation of power › freely distributes himself; is not self-centered

10:1.1It would seem that the Fa­ther, back in eter­nity, in­au­gu­rated a pol­icy of pro­found self-dis­tri­bu­tion. There is in­her­ent in the self­less, lov­ing, and lov­able na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther some­thing which causes him to re­serve to him­self the ex­er­cise of only those pow­ers and that au­thor­ity which he ap­par­ently finds it im­pos­si­ble to del­e­gate or to be­stow.

10:1.2The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther all along has di­vested him­self of ev­ery part of him­self that was be­stow­able on any other Cre­ator or crea­ture. He has del­e­gated to his di­vine Sons and their as­so­ci­ated in­tel­li­gences ev­ery power and all au­thor­ity that could be del­e­gated. He has ac­tu­ally trans­ferred to his Sov­er­eign Sons, in their re­spec­tive uni­verses, ev­ery pre­rog­a­tive of ad­min­is­tra­tive au­thor­ity that was trans­fer­able. In the af­fairs of a lo­cal uni­verse, he has made each Sov­er­eign Cre­ator Son just as per­fect, com­pe­tent, and au­thor­i­ta­tive as is the Eter­nal Son in the orig­i­nal and cen­tral uni­verse. He has given away, ac­tu­ally be­stowed, with the dig­nity and sanc­tity of per­son­al­ity pos­ses­sion, all of him­self and all of his at­tri­butes, ev­ery­thing he pos­si­bly could di­vest him­self of, in ev­ery way, in ev­ery age, in ev­ery place, and to ev­ery per­son, and in ev­ery uni­verse ex­cept that of his cen­tral in­dwelling.

• described › personality of the Infinite

10:1.3Di­vine per­son­al­ity is not self-cen­tered; self-dis­tri­bu­tion and shar­ing of per­son­al­ity char­ac­ter­ize di­vine free­will self­hood. Crea­tures crave as­so­ci­a­tion with other per­sonal crea­tures; Cre­ators are moved to share di­vin­ity with their uni­verse chil­dren; the per­son­al­ity of the In­fi­nite is dis­closed as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, who shares re­al­ity of be­ing and equal­ity of self with two co-or­di­nate per­son­al­i­ties, the Eter­nal Son and the Con­joint Ac­tor.

• described › speaks to universes only through Eternal Son

10:1.4For knowl­edge con­cern­ing the Fa­ther’s per­son­al­ity and di­vine at­tri­butes we will al­ways be de­pen­dent on the rev­e­la­tions of the Eter­nal Son, for when the con­joint act of cre­ation was ef­fected, when the Third Per­son of De­ity sprang into per­son­al­ity ex­is­tence and ex­e­cuted the com­bined con­cepts of his di­vine par­ents, the Fa­ther ceased to ex­ist as the un­qual­i­fied per­son­al­ity. With the com­ing into be­ing of the Con­joint Ac­tor and the ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion of the cen­tral core of cre­ation, cer­tain eter­nal changes took place. God gave him­self as an ab­so­lute per­son­al­ity to his Eter­nal Son. Thus does the Fa­ther be­stow the “per­son­al­ity of in­fin­ity” upon his only-be­got­ten Son, while they both be­stow the “con­joint per­son­al­ity” of their eter­nal union upon the In­fi­nite Spirit.

10:1.5For these and other rea­sons be­yond the con­cept of the fi­nite mind, it is ex­ceed­ingly dif­fi­cult for the hu­man crea­ture to com­pre­hend God’s in­fi­nite fa­ther-per­son­al­ity ex­cept as it is uni­ver­sally re­vealed in the Eter­nal Son and, with the Son, is uni­ver­sally ac­tive in the In­fi­nite Spirit.

• described › he who has seen a Creator Son has seen

10:1.6Since the Par­a­dise Sons of God visit the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds and some­times even there dwell in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, and since these be­stowals make it pos­si­ble for mor­tal man ac­tu­ally to know some­thing of the na­ture and char­ac­ter of di­vine per­son­al­ity, there­fore must the crea­tures of the plan­e­tary spheres look to the be­stowals of these Par­a­dise Sons for re­li­able and trust­wor­thy in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the Fa­ther, the Son, and the Spirit.

• described › Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit liberate from personality absolutism
• functions › as absolute personality, functions as Eternal Son

10:2.1By the tech­nique of trin­i­ti­za­tion the Fa­ther di­vests him­self of that un­qual­i­fied spirit per­son­al­ity which is the Son, but in so do­ing he con­sti­tutes him­self the Fa­ther of this very Son and thereby pos­sesses him­self of un­lim­ited ca­pac­ity to be­come the di­vine Fa­ther of all sub­se­quently cre­ated, even­tu­ated, or other per­son­al­ized types of in­tel­li­gent will crea­tures. As the ab­so­lute and un­qual­i­fied per­son­al­ity the Fa­ther can func­tion only as and with the Son, but as a per­sonal Fa­ther he con­tin­ues to be­stow per­son­al­ity upon the di­verse hosts of the dif­fer­ing lev­els of in­tel­li­gent will crea­tures, and he for­ever main­tains per­sonal re­la­tions of lov­ing as­so­ci­a­tion with this vast fam­ily of uni­verse chil­dren.

• functions › sole source of personality

10:2.4The First Source and Cen­ter is the in­fi­nite fa­ther-per­son­al­ity, the un­lim­ited source per­son­al­ity. The Eter­nal Son is the un­qual­i­fied per­son­al­ity-ab­so­lute, that di­vine be­ing who stands through­out all time and eter­nity as the per­fect rev­e­la­tion of the per­sonal na­ture of God. The In­fi­nite Spirit is the con­joint per­son­al­ity, the unique per­sonal con­se­quence of the ev­er­last­ing Fa­ther-Son union.

• described › personality of infinity minus absolute personality of Eternal Son

10:2.5The per­son­al­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter is the per­son­al­ity of in­fin­ity mi­nus the ab­so­lute per­son­al­ity of the Eter­nal Son. The per­son­al­ity of the Third Source and Cen­ter is the super­ad­di­tive con­se­quence of the union of the lib­er­ated Fa­ther-per­son­al­ity and the ab­so­lute Son-per­son­al­ity.

• described › speaks to universes only through Eternal Son

10:3.3The di­vine Sons are in­deed the “Word of God,” but the chil­dren of the Spirit are truly the “Act of God.” God speaks through the Son and, with the Son, acts through the In­fi­nite Spirit, while in all uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties the Son and the Spirit are ex­qui­sitely fra­ter­nal, work­ing as two equal broth­ers with ad­mi­ra­tion and love for an hon­ored and di­vinely re­spected com­mon Fa­ther.

• described › is eternal

10:3.5The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, prior to his self-willed di­vest­ment of the per­son­al­ity, pow­ers, and at­tri­butes which con­sti­tute the Son and the Spirit, seems to have been (phil­o­soph­i­cally con­sid­ered) an un­qual­i­fied, ab­so­lute, and in­fi­nite De­ity. But such a the­o­ret­i­cal First Source and Cen­ter with­out a Son could not in any sense of the word be con­sid­ered the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; fa­ther­hood is not real with­out son­ship. Fur­ther­more, the Fa­ther, to have been ab­so­lute in a to­tal sense, must have ex­isted at some eter­nally dis­tant mo­ment alone. But he never had such a soli­tary ex­is­tence; the Son and the Spirit are both co­eter­nal with the Fa­ther. The First Source and Cen­ter has al­ways been, and will for­ever be, the eter­nal Fa­ther of the Orig­i­nal Son and, with the Son, the eter­nal pro­gen­i­tor of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

• delegation of power › reserves only powers impossible to delegate – what is necessary to maintain all else
• described › is absolute will, volition

10:3.6We ob­serve that the Fa­ther has di­vested him­self of all di­rect man­i­fes­ta­tions of ab­so­lute­ness ex­cept ab­so­lute fa­ther­hood and ab­so­lute vo­li­tion. We do not know whether vo­li­tion is an in­alien­able at­tri­bute of the Fa­ther; we can only ob­serve that he did not di­vest him­self of vo­li­tion. Such in­fin­ity of will must have been eter­nally in­her­ent in the First Source and Cen­ter.

• described › Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit liberate from personality absolutism

10:3.7In be­stow­ing ab­so­lute­ness of per­son­al­ity upon the Eter­nal Son, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther es­capes from the fet­ters of per­son­al­ity ab­so­lutism, but in so do­ing he takes a step which makes it for­ever im­pos­si­ble for him to act alone as the per­son­al­ity-ab­so­lute. And with the fi­nal per­son­al­iza­tion of co­ex­is­tent De­ity—the Con­joint Ac­tor—there en­sues the crit­i­cal trini­tar­ian in­ter­de­pen­dence of the three di­vine per­son­al­i­ties with re­gard to the to­tal­ity of De­ity func­tion in ab­so­lute.

• described › absolute in liberty of action

10:3.8God is the Fa­ther-Ab­so­lute of all per­son­al­i­ties in the uni­verse of uni­verses. The Fa­ther is per­son­ally ab­so­lute in lib­erty of ac­tion, but in the uni­verses of time and space, made, in the mak­ing, and yet to be made, the Fa­ther is not dis­cernibly ab­so­lute as to­tal De­ity ex­cept in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

• functions › outside Havona

10:3.9The First Source and Cen­ter func­tions out­side of Ha­vona in the phe­nom­e­nal uni­verses as fol­lows:

10:3.101. As cre­ator, through the Cre­ator Sons, his grand­sons.

• functions › as physical controller, through Paradise

10:3.112. As con­trol­ler, through the grav­ity cen­ter of Par­a­dise.

10:3.123. As spirit, through the Eter­nal Son.

10:3.134. As mind, through the Con­joint Cre­ator.

10:3.145. As a Fa­ther, he main­tains pa­ren­tal con­tact with all crea­tures through his per­son­al­ity cir­cuit.

• functions › directly through Thought Adjusters

10:3.156. As a per­son, he acts di­rectly through­out cre­ation by his ex­clu­sive frag­ments—in mor­tal man by the Thought Ad­justers.

10:3.167. As to­tal De­ity, he func­tions only in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

• delegation of power › freely distributes himself; is not self-centered

10:3.17All these re­lin­quish­ments and del­e­ga­tions of ju­ris­dic­tion by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther are wholly vol­un­tary and self-im­posed. The all-pow­er­ful Fa­ther pur­pose­fully as­sumes these lim­i­ta­tions of uni­verse au­thor­ity.

• functions › as absolute Deity, only in Trinity

10:4.1Of all ab­so­lute as­so­ci­a­tions, the Par­a­dise Trin­ity (the first tri­unity) is unique as an ex­clu­sive as­so­ci­a­tion of per­sonal De­ity. God func­tions as God only in re­la­tion to God and to those who can know God, but as ab­so­lute De­ity only in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity and in re­la­tion to uni­verse to­tal­ity.

• described › is law

10:6.1All law takes ori­gin in the First Source and Cen­ter; he is law. The ad­min­is­tra­tion of spir­i­tual law in­heres in the Sec­ond Source and Cen­ter. The rev­e­la­tion of law, the pro­mul­ga­tion and in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the di­vine statutes, is the func­tion of the Third Source and Cen­ter. The ap­pli­ca­tion of law, jus­tice, falls within the prov­ince of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity and is car­ried out by cer­tain Sons of the Trin­ity.

• described › is present with the Eternal Son and in the Infinite Spirit

10:7.1The First, Sec­ond, and Third Per­sons of De­ity are equal to each other, and they are one. “The Lord our God is one God.” There is per­fec­tion of pur­pose and one­ness of ex­e­cu­tion in the di­vine Trin­ity of eter­nal De­i­ties. The Fa­ther, the Son, and the Con­joint Ac­tor are truly and di­vinely one. Of a truth it is writ­ten: “I am the first, and I am the last, and be­side me there is no God.”

• attitude › doings are all purposeful, wise, and eternally considerate of all concerned

10:7.6As a son of God you can dis­cern the per­sonal at­ti­tude of love in all the acts of God the Fa­ther. But you will not al­ways be able to un­der­stand how many of the uni­verse acts of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity re­dound to the good of the in­di­vid­ual mor­tal on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of space. In the prog­ress of eter­nity the acts of the Trin­ity will be re­vealed as al­to­gether mean­ing­ful and con­sid­er­ate, but they do not al­ways so ap­pear to the crea­tures of time.

• described › only infinity can disclose

10:8.9Only in­fin­ity can dis­close the Fa­ther-In­fi­nite.

• presences of Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit enshroud

11:1.1Par­a­dise serves many pur­poses in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the uni­ver­sal realms, but to crea­ture be­ings it ex­ists pri­mar­ily as the dwell­ing place of De­ity. The per­sonal pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is res­i­dent at the very cen­ter of the up­per sur­face of this well-nigh cir­cu­lar, but not spher­i­cal, abode of the De­i­ties. This Par­a­dise pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is im­me­di­ately sur­rounded by the per­sonal pres­ence of the Eter­nal Son, while they are both in­vested by the un­speak­able glory of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

11:1.2God dwells, has dwelt, and ev­er­last­ingly will dwell in this same cen­tral and eter­nal abode. We have al­ways found him there and al­ways will. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is cos­mi­cally fo­cal­ized, spir­i­tu­ally per­son­al­ized, and ge­o­graph­i­cally res­i­dent at this cen­ter of the uni­verse of uni­verses.

11:1.3We all know the di­rect course to pur­sue to find the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. You are not able to com­pre­hend much about the di­vine res­i­dence be­cause of its re­mote­ness from you and the im­men­sity of the in­ter­ven­ing space, but those who are able to com­pre­hend the mean­ing of these enor­mous dis­tances know God’s lo­ca­tion and res­i­dence just as cer­tainly and lit­er­ally as you know the lo­ca­tion of New York, Lon­don, Rome, or Sin­ga­pore, cities def­i­nitely and ge­o­graph­i­cally lo­cated on Uran­tia. If you were an in­tel­li­gent nav­i­ga­tor, equipped with ship, maps, and com­pass, you could read­ily find these cities. Like­wise, if you had the time and means of pas­sage, were spir­i­tu­ally qual­i­fied, and had the nec­es­sary guid­ance, you could be pi­loted through uni­verse upon uni­verse and from cir­cuit to cir­cuit, ever jour­ney­ing in­ward through the starry realms, un­til at last you would stand be­fore the cen­tral shin­ing of the spir­i­tual glory of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Pro­vided with all the ne­ces­si­ties for the jour­ney, it is just as pos­si­ble to find the per­sonal pres­ence of God at the cen­ter of all things as to find dis­tant cities on your own planet. That you have not vis­ited these places in no way dis­proves their re­al­ity or ac­tual ex­is­tence. That so few of the uni­verse crea­tures have found God on Par­a­dise in no way dis­proves ei­ther the re­al­ity of his ex­is­tence or the ac­tu­al­ity of his spir­i­tual per­son at the cen­ter of all things.

• described › convergence of all universal lines of gravity
• described › source of flood-streams of life, energy, and personality to universes

11:1.4The Fa­ther is al­ways to be found at this cen­tral lo­ca­tion. Did he move, uni­ver­sal pan­de­mo­nium would be pre­cip­i­tated, for there con­verge in him at this res­i­den­tial cen­ter the uni­ver­sal lines of grav­ity from the ends of cre­ation. Whether we trace the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit back through the uni­verses or fol­low the as­cend­ing per­son­al­i­ties as they jour­ney in­ward to the Fa­ther; whether we trace the lines of ma­te­rial grav­ity to nether Par­a­dise or fol­low the in­surg­ing cy­cles of cos­mic force; whether we trace the lines of spir­i­tual grav­ity to the Eter­nal Son or fol­low the in­ward pro­ces­sional of the Par­a­dise Sons of God; whether we trace out the mind cir­cuits or fol­low the tril­lions upon tril­lions of ce­les­tial be­ings who spring from the In­fi­nite Spirit—by any of these ob­ser­va­tions or by all of them we are led di­rectly back to the Fa­ther’s pres­ence, to his cen­tral abode. Here is God per­son­ally, lit­er­ally, and ac­tu­ally pres­ent. And from his in­fi­nite be­ing there flow the flood-streams of life, en­ergy, and per­son­al­ity to all uni­verses.

• absolutum is original nonspiritual expression of

11:2.9The eter­nal Isle is com­posed of a sin­gle form of ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion—sta­tion­ary sys­tems of re­al­ity. This lit­eral sub­stance of Par­a­dise is a ho­mo­ge­neous or­ga­ni­za­tion of space po­tency not to be found else­where in all the wide uni­verse of uni­verses. It has re­ceived many names in dif­fer­ent uni­verses, and the Mel­chiz­e­deks of Neb­a­don long since named it ab­so­lu­tum. This Par­a­dise source ma­te­rial is nei­ther dead nor alive; it is the orig­i­nal non­spir­i­tual ex­pres­sion of the First Source and Cen­ter; it is Par­a­dise, and Par­a­dise is with­out du­pli­cate.

• functions › has concentrated all potential reality in Paradise

11:2.10It ap­pears to us that the First Source and Cen­ter has con­cen­trated all ab­so­lute po­ten­tial for cos­mic re­al­ity in Par­a­dise as a part of his tech­nique of self-lib­er­a­tion from in­fin­ity lim­i­ta­tions, as a means of mak­ing pos­si­ble subin­fi­nite, even time-space, cre­ation. But it does not fol­low that Par­a­dise is time-space lim­ited just be­cause the uni­verse of uni­verses dis­closes these qual­i­ties. Par­a­dise ex­ists with­out time and has no lo­ca­tion in space.

• described › all things consist in

11:8.1The in­es­cap­able pull of grav­ity ef­fec­tively grips all the worlds of all the uni­verses of all space. Grav­ity is the all-pow­er­ful grasp of the phys­i­cal pres­ence of Par­a­dise. Grav­ity is the om­nipo­tent strand on which are strung the gleam­ing stars, blaz­ing suns, and whirling spheres which con­sti­tute the uni­ver­sal phys­i­cal adorn­ment of the eter­nal God, who is all things, fills all things, and in whom all things con­sist.

• described › Paradise and Eternal Son are simultaneously eternalized antipodal revelations of

11:9.3In the eter­nity of the past, when the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther gave in­fi­nite per­son­al­ity ex­pres­sion of his spirit self in the be­ing of the Eter­nal Son, si­mul­ta­ne­ously he re­vealed the in­fin­ity po­ten­tial of his non­per­sonal self as Par­a­dise. Non­per­sonal and non­spir­i­tual Par­a­dise ap­pears to have been the in­ev­i­ta­ble reper­cus­sion to the Fa­ther’s will and act which eter­nal­ized the Orig­i­nal Son. Thus did the Fa­ther project re­al­ity in two ac­tual phases—the per­sonal and the non­per­sonal, the spir­i­tual and the non­spir­i­tual. The ten­sion be­tween them, in the face of will to ac­tion by the Fa­ther and the Son, gave ex­is­tence to the Con­joint Ac­tor and the cen­tral uni­verse of ma­te­rial worlds and spir­i­tual be­ings.

• described › is infinite

12:0.2In prin­ci­ple, that is, in eter­nal po­ten­tial, we con­ceive of ma­te­rial cre­ation as be­ing in­fi­nite be­cause the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is ac­tu­ally in­fi­nite, but as we study and ob­serve the to­tal ma­te­rial cre­ation, we know that at any given mo­ment in time it is lim­ited, al­though to your fi­nite minds it is com­par­a­tively lim­it­less, vir­tu­ally bound­less.

• functions › over all 4 absolute-gravity circuits

12:3.1All forms of force-en­ergy—ma­te­rial, mindal, or spir­i­tual—are alike sub­ject to those grasps, those uni­ver­sal pres­ences, which we call grav­ity. Per­son­al­ity also is re­spon­sive to grav­ity—to the Fa­ther’s ex­clu­sive cir­cuit; but though this cir­cuit is ex­clu­sive to the Fa­ther, he is not ex­cluded from the other cir­cuits; the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is in­fi­nite and acts over all four ab­so­lute-grav­ity cir­cuits in the mas­ter uni­verse:

12:3.21. The Per­son­al­ity Grav­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

12:3.32. The Spirit Grav­ity of the Eter­nal Son.

12:3.43. The Mind Grav­ity of the Con­joint Ac­tor.

12:3.54. The Cos­mic Grav­ity of the Isle of Par­a­dise.

• functions › as physical controller, through Paradise

12:6.2In the phys­i­cal con­trol of the mas­ter uni­verse the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ex­er­cises pri­or­ity and pri­macy through the Isle of Par­a­dise; God is ab­so­lute in the spir­i­tual ad­min­is­tra­tion of the cos­mos in the per­son of the Eter­nal Son. Con­cern­ing the do­mains of mind, the Fa­ther and the Son func­tion co-or­di­nately in the Con­joint Ac­tor.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

12:7.1There is op­er­a­tive through­out all time and space and with re­gard to all re­al­ity of what­ever na­ture an in­ex­orable and im­per­sonal law which is equiv­a­lent to the func­tion of a cos­mic prov­i­dence. Mercy char­ac­ter­izes God’s at­ti­tude of love for the in­di­vid­ual; im­par­tial­ity mo­ti­vates God’s at­ti­tude to­ward the to­tal. The will of God does not nec­es­sar­ily pre­vail in the part—the heart of any one per­son­al­ity—but his will does ac­tu­ally rule the whole, the uni­verse of uni­verses.

• described › is changeless

12:7.5Be­cause God is change­less, there­fore can you de­pend, in all or­di­nary cir­cum­stances, on his do­ing the same thing in the same iden­ti­cal and or­di­nary way. God is the as­sur­ance of sta­bil­ity for all cre­ated things and be­ings. He is God; there­fore he changes not.

• described › what U.F. is not

12:7.6And all this stead­fast­ness of con­duct and uni­for­mity of ac­tion is per­sonal, con­scious, and highly vo­li­tional, for the great God is not a help­less slave to his own per­fec­tion and in­fin­ity. God is not a self-act­ing au­to­matic force; he is not a slav­ish law-bound power. God is nei­ther a math­e­mat­i­cal equa­tion nor a chem­i­cal for­mula. He is a free­will and pri­mal per­son­al­ity. He is the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, a be­ing sur­charged with per­son­al­ity and the uni­ver­sal fount of all crea­ture per­son­al­ity.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations
• paradox of fatherhood

12:7.8The Fa­ther­hood of God and the broth­er­hood of man pre­sent the para­dox of the part and the whole on the level of per­son­al­ity. God loves each in­di­vid­ual as an in­di­vid­ual child in the heav­enly fam­ily. Yet God thus loves ev­ery in­di­vid­ual; he is no re­specter of per­sons, and the uni­ver­sal­ity of his love brings into be­ing a re­la­tion­ship of the whole, the uni­ver­sal broth­er­hood.

• described › abides on Paradise and in human minds
• described › in Him we live, move, and have our being

12:7.12It is a mys­tery that God is a highly per­sonal self-con­scious be­ing with res­i­den­tial head­quar­ters, and at the same time per­son­ally pres­ent in such a vast uni­verse and per­son­ally in con­tact with such a well-nigh in­fi­nite num­ber of be­ings. That such a phe­nom­e­non is a mys­tery be­yond hu­man com­pre­hen­sion should not in the least lessen your faith. Do not al­low the mag­ni­tude of the in­fin­ity, the im­men­sity of the eter­nity, and the grandeur and glory of the match­less char­ac­ter of God to over­awe, stag­ger, or dis­cour­age you; for the Fa­ther is not very far from any one of you; he dwells within you, and in him do we all lit­er­ally move, ac­tu­ally live, and ver­i­ta­bly have our be­ing.

12:7.13Even though the Par­a­dise Fa­ther func­tions through his di­vine cre­ators and his crea­ture chil­dren, he also en­joys the most in­ti­mate in­ner con­tact with you, so sub­lime, so highly per­sonal, that it is even be­yond my com­pre­hen­sion—that mys­te­ri­ous com­mu­nion of the Fa­ther frag­ment with the hu­man soul and with the mor­tal mind of its ac­tual in­dwelling. Know­ing what you do of these gifts of God, you there­fore know that the Fa­ther is in in­ti­mate touch, not only with his di­vine as­so­ciates, but also with his evo­lu­tion­ary mor­tal chil­dren of time. The Fa­ther in­deed abides on Par­a­dise, but his di­vine pres­ence also dwells in the minds of men.

• attitude › gives part of himself to be our eternal self

12:7.14Even though the spirit of a Son be poured out upon all flesh, even though a Son once dwelt with you in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, even though the ser­a­phim per­son­ally guard and guide you, how can any of these di­vine be­ings of the Sec­ond and Third Cen­ters ever hope to come as near to you or to un­der­stand you as fully as the Fa­ther, who has given a part of him­self to be in you, to be your real and di­vine, even your eter­nal, self?

• described › absolutes of energy and spirit converge in

12:8.13The goal of ex­is­tence of all per­son­al­i­ties is spirit; ma­te­rial man­i­fes­ta­tions are rel­a­tive, and the cos­mic mind in­ter­venes be­tween these uni­ver­sal op­po­sites. The be­stowal of mind and the min­is­tra­tion of spirit are the work of the as­so­ciate per­sons of De­ity, the In­fi­nite Spirit and the Eter­nal Son. To­tal De­ity re­al­ity is not mind but spirit-mind—mind-spirit uni­fied by per­son­al­ity. Nev­er­the­less the ab­so­lutes of both the spirit and the thing con­verge in the per­son of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• 7 sacred worlds of

13:0.3The seven se­cret spheres of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, cir­cu­lat­ing about Par­a­dise in close prox­im­ity to the eter­nal Isle, are highly re­flec­tive of the spir­i­tual lu­mi­nos­ity of the cen­tral shin­ing of the eter­nal De­i­ties, shed­ding this light of di­vine glory through­out Par­a­dise and even upon the seven cir­cuits of Ha­vona.

13:1.1The Fa­ther’s cir­cuit of sa­cred life spheres con­tains the only in­her­ent per­son­al­ity se­crets in the uni­verse of uni­verses. These satel­lites of Par­a­dise, the in­ner­most of the three cir­cuits, are the only for­bid­den do­mains con­cerned with per­son­al­ity in the cen­tral uni­verse. Nether Par­a­dise and the worlds of the Son are like­wise closed to per­son­al­i­ties, but nei­ther of those realms is in any way di­rectly con­cerned with per­son­al­ity.

13:1.2The Par­a­dise worlds of the Fa­ther are di­rected by the high­est or­der of the Sta­tion­ary Sons of the Trin­ity, the Trin­i­tized Se­crets of Su­prem­acy. Of these worlds I can tell lit­tle; of their man­i­fold ac­tiv­i­ties I may tell less. Such in­for­ma­tion con­cerns only those be­ings who func­tion thereon and go forth there­from. And though I am some­what fa­mil­iar with six of these spe­cial worlds, never have I landed on Di­vin­ing­ton; that world is wholly for­bid­den to me.

13:1.3One of the rea­sons for the se­crecy of these worlds is be­cause each of these sa­cred spheres en­joys a spe­cial­ized rep­re­sen­ta­tion, or man­i­fes­ta­tion, of the De­i­ties com­pos­ing the Par­a­dise Trin­ity; not a per­son­al­ity, but a unique pres­ence of Di­vin­ity which can only be ap­pre­ci­ated and com­pre­hended by those par­tic­u­lar groups of in­tel­li­gences res­i­dent on, or ad­mis­si­ble to, that par­tic­u­lar sphere. The Trin­i­tized Se­crets of Su­prem­acy are the per­sonal agents of these spe­cial­ized and im­per­sonal pres­ences of Di­vin­ity. And the Se­crets of Su­prem­acy are highly per­sonal be­ings, su­perbly en­dowed and mar­velously adapted to their ex­alted and ex­act­ing work.

13:1.41. DI­VIN­ING­TON. This world is, in a unique sense, the “bo­som of the Fa­ther,” the per­sonal-com­mu­nion sphere of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and thereon is a spe­cial man­i­fes­ta­tion of his di­vin­ity. Di­vin­ing­ton is the Par­a­dise ren­dezvous of the Thought Ad­justers, but it is also the home of nu­mer­ous other en­ti­ties, per­son­al­i­ties, and other be­ings tak­ing ori­gin in the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Many per­son­al­i­ties be­sides the Eter­nal Son are of di­rect ori­gin by the soli­tary acts of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Only the Fa­ther frag­ments and those per­son­al­i­ties and other be­ings of di­rect and ex­clu­sive ori­gin in the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther frat­er­nize and func­tion on this abode.

13:1.5The se­crets of Di­vin­ing­ton in­clude the se­cret of the be­stowal and mis­sion of Thought Ad­justers. Their na­ture, ori­gin, and the tech­nique of their con­tact with the lowly crea­tures of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds is a se­cret of this Par­a­dise sphere. These amaz­ing trans­ac­tions do not per­son­ally con­cern the rest of us, and there­fore do the De­i­ties deem it proper to with­hold cer­tain fea­tures of this great and di­vine min­istry from our full un­der­stand­ing. In so far as we come in con­tact with this phase of di­vine ac­tiv­ity, we are per­mit­ted full knowl­edge of these trans­ac­tions, but con­cern­ing the in­ti­mate de­tails of this great be­stowal we are not fully in­formed.

13:1.6This sphere also holds the se­crets of the na­ture, pur­pose, and ac­tiv­i­ties of all other forms of Fa­ther frag­ments, of the Grav­ity Mes­sen­gers, and of hosts of other be­ings un­re­vealed to you. It is highly prob­a­ble that those truths per­tain­ing to Di­vin­ing­ton which are with­held from me, if re­vealed, would merely con­fuse and hand­i­cap me in my pres­ent work, and still again, per­haps they are be­yond the con­cep­tual ca­pac­ity of my or­der of be­ing.

13:1.72. SONAR­ING­TON. This sphere is the “bo­som of the Son,” the per­sonal re­ceiv­ing world of the Eter­nal Son. It is the Par­a­dise head­quar­ters of the de­scend­ing and as­cend­ing Sons of God when, and af­ter, they are fully ac­cred­ited and fi­nally ap­proved. This world is the Par­a­dise home for all Sons of the Eter­nal Son and of his co-or­di­nate and as­so­ciate Sons. There are nu­mer­ous or­ders of di­vine son­ship at­tached to this su­per­nal abode which have not been re­vealed to mor­tals since they are not con­cerned with the plans of the as­cen­sion scheme of hu­man spir­i­tual pro­gres­sion through the uni­verses and on to Par­a­dise.

13:1.8The se­crets of Sonar­ing­ton in­clude the se­cret of the in­car­na­tion of the di­vine Sons. When a Son of God be­comes a Son of Man, is lit­er­ally born of woman, as oc­curred on your world nine­teen hun­dred years ago, it is a uni­ver­sal mys­tery. It is oc­cur­ring right along through­out the uni­verses, and it is a Sonar­ing­ton se­cret of di­vine son­ship. The Ad­justers are a mys­tery of God the Fa­ther. The in­car­na­tion of the di­vine Sons is a mys­tery of God the Son; it is a se­cret locked up in the sev­enth sec­tor of Sonar­ing­ton, a realm pen­e­trated by none save those who have per­son­ally passed through this unique ex­pe­ri­ence. Only those phases of in­car­na­tion hav­ing to do with your as­cen­sion ca­reer have been brought to your no­tice. There are many other phases of the mys­tery of the in­car­na­tion of the Par­a­dise Sons of un­re­vealed types on mis­sions of uni­verse ser­vice which are undis­closed to you. And there are still other Sonar­ing­ton mys­ter­ies.

13:1.93. SPIR­IT­ING­TON. This world is the “bo­som of the Spirit,” the Par­a­dise home of the high be­ings that ex­clu­sively rep­re­sent the In­fi­nite Spirit. Here for­gather the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its and cer­tain of their off­spring from all uni­verses. At this ce­les­tial abode may also be found nu­mer­ous un­re­vealed or­ders of spirit per­son­al­i­ties, be­ings as­signed to the man­i­fold ac­tiv­i­ties of the uni­verse not as­so­ci­ated with the plans of up­step­ping the mor­tal crea­tures of time to the Par­a­dise lev­els of eter­nity.

13:1.10The se­crets of Spir­it­ing­ton in­volve the im­pen­e­tra­ble mys­ter­ies of re­flec­tiv­ity. We tell you of the vast and uni­ver­sal phe­nom­e­non of re­flec­tiv­ity, more par­tic­u­larly as it is op­er­a­tive on the head­quar­ters worlds of the seven super­uni­verses, but we never fully ex­plain this phe­nom­e­non, for we do not fully un­der­stand it. Much, very much, we do com­pre­hend, but many ba­sic de­tails are still mys­te­ri­ous to us. Re­flec­tiv­ity is a se­cret of God the Spirit. You have been in­structed con­cern­ing re­flec­tiv­ity func­tions in re­la­tion to the as­cen­sion scheme of mor­tal sur­vival, and it does so op­er­ate, but re­flec­tiv­ity is also an in­dis­pens­able fea­ture of the nor­mal work­ing of nu­mer­ous other phases of uni­verse oc­cu­pa­tion. This en­dow­ment of the In­fi­nite Spirit is also uti­lized in chan­nels other than those of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and in­for­ma­tion dis­sem­i­na­tion. And there are other se­crets of Spir­it­ing­ton.

13:1.114. VICEGERING­TON. This planet is the “bo­som of the Fa­ther and the Son” and is the se­cret sphere of cer­tain un­re­vealed be­ings who take ori­gin by the acts of the Fa­ther and the Son. This is also the Par­a­dise home of many glo­ri­fied be­ings of com­plex an­ces­try, those whose ori­gin is com­pli­cated be­cause of the many di­verse tech­niques op­er­a­tive in the seven super­uni­verses. Many groups of be­ings for­gather on this world whose iden­tity has not been re­vealed to Uran­tia mor­tals.

13:1.12The se­crets of Vicegering­ton in­clude the se­crets of trin­i­ti­za­tion, and trin­i­ti­za­tion con­sti­tutes the se­cret of au­thor­ity to rep­re­sent the Trin­ity, to act as vicegerents of the Gods. Au­thor­ity to rep­re­sent the Trin­ity at­taches only to those be­ings, re­vealed and un­re­vealed, who are trin­i­tized, cre­ated, even­tu­ated, or eter­nal­ized by any two or all three of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. Per­son­al­i­ties brought into be­ing by the trini­tiz­ing acts of cer­tain types of glo­ri­fied crea­tures rep­re­sent no more than the con­cep­tual po­ten­tial mo­bi­lized in that trin­i­ti­za­tion, al­beit such crea­tures may as­cend the path of De­ity em­brace open to all of their kind.

13:1.13Non­trini­tized be­ings do not fully un­der­stand the tech­nique of trin­i­ti­za­tion by ei­ther two or three Cre­ators or by cer­tain crea­tures. You will never fully un­der­stand such a phe­nom­e­non un­less, in the far-dis­tant fu­ture of your glo­ri­fied ca­reer, you should es­say and suc­ceed in such an ad­ven­ture, be­cause oth­er­wise these se­crets of Vicegering­ton will al­ways be for­bid­den you. But to me, a high Trin­ity-ori­gin be­ing, all sec­tors of Vicegering­ton are open. I fully un­der­stand, and just as fully and sa­credly pro­tect, the se­cret of my ori­gin and des­tiny.

13:1.14There are still other forms and phases of trin­i­ti­za­tion which have not been brought to the no­tice of the Uran­tia peo­ples, and these ex­pe­ri­ences, in their per­sonal as­pects, are duly pro­tected in the se­cret sec­tor of Vicegering­ton.

13:1.155. SOLI­TAR­ING­TON. This world is the “bo­som of the Fa­ther and the Spirit” and is the ren­dezvous of a mag­nif­i­cent host of un­re­vealed be­ings of ori­gin in the con­joint acts of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and the In­fi­nite Spirit, be­ings who par­take of the traits of the Fa­ther in ad­di­tion to their Spirit in­her­i­tance.

13:1.16This is also the home of the Soli­tary Mes­sen­gers and of other per­son­al­i­ties of the super­an­gelic or­ders. You know of very few of these be­ings; there are vast num­bers of or­ders un­re­vealed on Uran­tia. Be­cause they are domi­ciled on the fifth world, it does not nec­es­sar­ily fol­low that the Fa­ther had aught to do with the cre­ation of Soli­tary Mes­sen­gers or their super­an­gelic as­so­ciates, but in this uni­verse age he does have to do with their func­tion. Dur­ing the pres­ent uni­verse age this is also the sta­tus sphere of the Uni­verse Power Di­rec­tors.

13:1.17There are nu­mer­ous ad­di­tional or­ders of spirit per­son­al­i­ties, be­ings un­known to mor­tal man, who look upon Soli­tar­ing­ton as their Par­a­dise home sphere. It should be re­mem­bered that all di­vi­sions and lev­els of uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties are just as fully pro­vided with spirit min­is­ters as is the realm con­cerned with help­ing mor­tal man as­cend to his di­vine Par­a­dise des­tiny.

13:1.18The se­crets of Soli­tar­ing­ton. Be­sides cer­tain se­crets of trin­i­ti­za­tion, this world holds the se­crets of the per­sonal re­la­tion of the In­fi­nite Spirit with cer­tain of the higher off­spring of the Third Source and Cen­ter. On Soli­tar­ing­ton are held the mys­ter­ies of the in­ti­mate as­so­ci­a­tion of nu­mer­ous un­re­vealed or­ders with the spir­its of the Fa­ther, of the Son, and of the Spirit, with the three­fold spirit of the Trin­ity, and with the spir­its of the Su­preme, the Ul­ti­mate, and the Su­preme-Ul­ti­mate.

13:1.196. SERAPH­ING­TON. This sphere is the “bo­som of the Son and the Spirit” and is the home world of the vast hosts of un­re­vealed be­ings cre­ated by the Son and the Spirit. This is also the des­tiny sphere of all min­is­ter­ing or­ders of the an­gelic hosts, in­clud­ing super­na­phim, se­con­a­phim, and ser­a­phim. There also serve in the cen­tral and out­ly­ing uni­verses many or­ders of su­perb spir­its who are not “min­is­ter­ing spir­its to those who shall be heirs of sal­va­tion.” All these spirit work­ers in all lev­els and realms of uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties look upon Seraph­ing­ton as their Par­a­dise home.

13:1.20The se­crets of Seraph­ing­ton in­volve a three­fold mys­tery, only one of which I may men­tion—the mys­tery of se­raphic trans­port. The abil­ity of var­i­ous or­ders of ser­a­phim and al­lied spirit be­ings to en­velop within their spirit forms all or­ders of non­ma­te­rial per­son­al­i­ties and to carry them away on lengthy in­ter­plan­e­tary jour­neys, is a se­cret locked up in the sa­cred sec­tors of Seraph­ing­ton. The trans­port ser­a­phim com­pre­hend this mys­tery, but they do not com­mu­ni­cate it to the rest of us, or per­haps they can­not. The other mys­ter­ies of Seraph­ing­ton per­tain to the per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ences of types of spirit servers as yet not re­vealed to mor­tals. And we re­frain from dis­cussing the se­crets of such closely re­lated be­ings be­cause you can al­most com­pre­hend such near or­ders of ex­is­tence, and it would be akin to be­trayal of trust to pre­sent even our par­tial knowl­edge of such phe­nom­ena.

13:1.217. AS­CEND­ING­TON. This unique world is the “bo­som of the Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit,” the ren­dezvous of the as­cen­dant crea­tures of space, the re­ceiv­ing sphere of the pil­grims of time who are pass­ing through the Ha­vona uni­verse on their way to Par­a­dise. As­cend­ing­ton is the ac­tual Par­a­dise home of the as­cen­dant souls of time and space un­til they at­tain Par­a­dise sta­tus. You mor­tals will spend most of your Ha­vona “va­ca­tions” on As­cend­ing­ton. Dur­ing your Ha­vona life As­cend­ing­ton will be to you what the re­ver­sion di­rec­tors were dur­ing the lo­cal and super­uni­verse as­cen­sion. Here you will en­gage in thou­sands of ac­tiv­i­ties which are be­yond the grasp of mor­tal imag­i­na­tion. And as on ev­ery pre­vi­ous ad­vance in the God­ward as­cent, your hu­man self will here en­ter into new re­la­tion­ships with your di­vine self.

13:1.22The se­crets of As­cend­ing­ton in­clude the mys­tery of the grad­ual and cer­tain build­ing up in the ma­te­rial and mor­tal mind of a spir­i­tual and po­ten­tially im­mor­tal coun­ter­part of char­ac­ter and iden­tity. This phe­nom­e­non con­sti­tutes one of the most per­plex­ing mys­ter­ies of the uni­verses—the evo­lu­tion of an im­mor­tal soul within the mind of a mor­tal and ma­te­rial crea­ture.

13:1.23You will never fully un­der­stand this mys­te­ri­ous trans­ac­tion un­til you reach As­cend­ing­ton. And that is just why all As­cend­ing­ton will be open to your won­der­ing gaze. One sev­enth of As­cend­ing­ton is for­bid­den to me—that sec­tor con­cerned with this very se­cret which is (or will be) the ex­clu­sive ex­pe­ri­ence and pos­ses­sion of your type of be­ing. This ex­pe­ri­ence be­longs to your hu­man or­der of ex­is­tence. My or­der of per­son­al­ity is not di­rectly con­cerned with such trans­ac­tions. It is there­fore for­bid­den to me and even­tu­ally re­vealed to you. But even af­ter it is re­vealed to you, for some rea­son it for­ever re­mains your se­cret. You do not re­veal it to us nor to any other or­der of be­ings. We know about the eter­nal fu­sion of a di­vine Ad­juster and an im­mor­tal soul of hu­man ori­gin, but the as­cen­dant fi­nal­i­ters know this very ex­pe­ri­ence as an ab­so­lute re­al­ity.

13:2.1These home worlds of the di­verse or­ders of spir­i­tual be­ings are tremen­dous and stu­pen­dous spheres, and they are equal to Par­a­dise in their match­less beauty and su­perb glory. They are ren­dezvous worlds, re­union spheres, serv­ing as per­ma­nent cos­mic ad­dresses. As fi­nal­i­ters you will be domi­ciled on Par­a­dise, but As­cend­ing­ton will be your home ad­dress at all times, even when you en­ter ser­vice in outer space. Through all eter­nity you will re­gard As­cend­ing­ton as your home of sen­ti­men­tal mem­o­ries and rem­i­nis­cent rec­ol­lec­tions. When you be­come sev­enth-stage spirit be­ings, pos­si­bly you will give up your res­i­den­tial sta­tus on Par­a­dise.

13:2.2If outer uni­verses are in the mak­ing, if they are to be in­hab­ited by time crea­tures of as­cen­sion po­ten­tial, then we in­fer that these chil­dren of the fu­ture will also be des­tined to look upon As­cend­ing­ton as their Par­a­dise home world.

13:2.3As­cend­ing­ton is the only sa­cred sphere that will be un­re­servedly open to your in­spec­tion as a Par­a­dise ar­rival. Vicegering­ton is the only sa­cred sphere that is wholly and un­re­servedly open to my scrutiny. Though its se­crets are con­cerned in my ori­gin, in this uni­verse age I do not re­gard Vicegering­ton as my home. Trin­ity-ori­gin be­ings and trin­i­tized be­ings are not the same.

13:2.4The Trin­ity-ori­gin be­ings do not fully share the Fa­ther’s worlds; they have their sole homes on the Isle of Par­a­dise in close prox­im­ity to the Most Holy Sphere. They of­ten ap­pear on As­cend­ing­ton, the “bo­som of the Fa­ther-Son-Spirit,” where they frat­er­nize with their breth­ren who have come up from the lowly worlds of space.

13:2.5You might as­sume that Cre­ator Sons, be­ing of Fa­ther-Son ori­gin, would re­gard Vicegering­ton as their home, but such is not the case in this uni­verse age of the func­tion of God the Sev­en­fold. And there are many sim­i­lar prob­lems that will per­plex you, for you are sure to en­counter many dif­fi­cul­ties as you at­tempt to un­der­stand these things which are so near Par­a­dise. Nor can you suc­cess­fully rea­son out these ques­tions; you know so lit­tle. And if you knew more about the Fa­ther’s worlds, you would sim­ply en­counter more dif­fi­cul­ties un­til you knew all about them. Sta­tus on any of these se­cret worlds is ac­quired by ser­vice as well as by na­ture of ori­gin, and the suc­ces­sive uni­verse ages may and do re­dis­tribute cer­tain of these per­son­al­ity group­ings.

13:2.6The worlds of the in­ner cir­cuit are re­ally fra­ter­nal or sta­tus worlds more than ac­tual res­i­den­tial spheres. Mor­tals will at­tain some sta­tus on each of the Fa­ther’s worlds save one. For ex­am­ple: When you mor­tals at­tain Ha­vona, you are granted clear­ance for As­cend­ing­ton, where you are most wel­come, but you are not per­mit­ted to visit the other six sa­cred worlds. Sub­se­quent to your pas­sage through the Par­a­dise regime and af­ter your ad­mis­sion to the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity, you are granted clear­ance for Sonar­ing­ton since you are sons of God as well as as­cend­ers—and you are even more. But there will al­ways re­main one sev­enth of Sonar­ing­ton, the sec­tor of the in­car­na­tion se­crets of the di­vine Sons, which will not be open to your scrutiny. Never will those se­crets be re­vealed to the as­cen­dant sons of God.

13:2.7Even­tu­ally you will have full ac­cess to As­cend­ing­ton and rel­a­tive ac­cess to the other spheres of the Fa­ther ex­cept Di­vin­ing­ton. But even when you are granted per­mis­sion to land on five ad­di­tional se­cret spheres, af­ter you have be­come a fi­nal­i­ter, you will not be al­lowed to visit all sec­tors of such worlds. Nor will you be per­mit­ted to land on the shores of Di­vin­ing­ton, the “bo­som of the Fa­ther,” though you shall surely stand re­peat­edly at the “right hand of the Fa­ther.” Never through­out all eter­nity will there arise any ne­ces­sity for your pres­ence on the world of the Thought Ad­justers.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

13:2.8These ren­dezvous worlds of spirit life are for­bid­den ground to the ex­tent that we are asked not to ne­go­ti­ate en­trance to those phases of these spheres which are wholly out­side our realms of ex­pe­ri­ence. You may be­come crea­ture per­fect even as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is de­ity per­fect, but you may not know all the ex­pe­ri­en­tial se­crets of all other or­ders of uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties. When the Cre­ator has an ex­pe­ri­en­tial per­son­al­ity se­cret with his crea­ture, the Cre­ator pre­serves that se­cret in eter­nal con­fi­dence.

13:2.9All these se­crets are sup­pos­edly known to the col­lec­tive body of the Trin­i­tized Se­crets of Su­prem­acy. These be­ings are fully known only by their spe­cial world groups; they are lit­tle com­pre­hended by other or­ders. Af­ter you at­tain Par­a­dise, you will know and ar­dently love the ten Se­crets of Su­prem­acy who di­rect As­cend­ing­ton. Ex­cept­ing Di­vin­ing­ton, you will also achieve a par­tial un­der­stand­ing of the Se­crets of Su­prem­acy on the other worlds of the Fa­ther, though not so per­fectly as on As­cend­ing­ton.

13:2.10The Trin­i­tized Se­crets of Su­prem­acy, as their name might sug­gest, are re­lated to the Su­preme; they are like­wise re­lated to the Ul­ti­mate and to the fu­ture Su­preme-Ul­ti­mate. These Se­crets of Su­prem­acy are the se­crets of the Su­preme and also the se­crets of the Ul­ti­mate, even the se­crets of the Su­preme-Ul­ti­mate.

• attitude › has ordained spiritual free will
• attitude › sin does not alienate affections of

13:4.4Phys­i­cal au­thor­ity, pres­ence, and func­tion are un­vary­ing in all the uni­verses, small or great. The dif­fer­ing fac­tor in spir­i­tual pres­ence, or re­ac­tion, is the fluc­tu­at­ing dif­fer­en­tial in its rec­og­ni­tion and re­cep­tion by will crea­tures. Whereas the spir­i­tual pres­ence of ab­so­lute and ex­is­ten­tial De­ity is in no man­ner what­ever in­flu­enced by at­ti­tudes of loy­alty or dis­loy­alty on the part of cre­ated be­ings, at the same time it is true that the func­tion­ing pres­ence of sub­ab­so­lute and ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity is def­i­nitely and di­rectly in­flu­enced by the de­ci­sions, choices, and will-at­ti­tudes of such fi­nite crea­ture be­ings—by the loy­alty and de­vo­tion of the in­di­vid­ual be­ing, planet, sys­tem, con­stel­la­tion, or uni­verse. But this spir­i­tual pres­ence of di­vin­ity is not whim­si­cal nor ar­bi­trary; its ex­pe­ri­en­tial vari­ance is in­her­ent in the free­will en­dow­ment of per­sonal crea­tures.

13:4.5The de­ter­miner of the dif­fer­en­tial of spir­i­tual pres­ence ex­ists in your own hearts and minds and con­sists in the man­ner of your own choos­ing, in the de­ci­sions of your minds, and in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of your own wills. This dif­fer­en­tial is in­her­ent in the free­will re­ac­tions of in­tel­li­gent per­sonal be­ings, be­ings whom the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has or­dained shall ex­er­cise this lib­erty of choos­ing. And the De­i­ties are ever true to the ebb and flow of their spir­its in meet­ing and sat­is­fy­ing the con­di­tions and de­mands of this dif­fer­en­tial of crea­ture choice, now be­stow­ing more of their pres­ence in re­sponse to a sin­cere de­sire for the same and again with­draw­ing them­selves from the scene as their crea­tures de­cide ad­versely in the ex­er­cise of their di­vinely be­stowed free­dom of choice. And thus does the spirit of di­vin­ity be­come humbly obe­di­ent to the choos­ing of the crea­tures of the realms.

• also known as › First Source and Center

14:6.61. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther—the First Source and Cen­ter. God the Fa­ther de­rives su­preme pa­ren­tal sat­is­fac­tion from the per­fec­tion of the cen­tral cre­ation. He en­joys the ex­pe­ri­ence of love sati­ety on near-equal­ity lev­els. The per­fect Cre­ator is di­vinely pleased with the ado­ra­tion of the per­fect crea­ture.

• attitude › deals with personalities, not universes

15:0.1As far as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is con­cerned—as a Fa­ther—the uni­verses are vir­tu­ally nonex­is­tent; he deals with per­son­al­i­ties; he is the Fa­ther of per­son­al­i­ties. As far as the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit are con­cerned—as cre­ator part­ners—the uni­verses are lo­cal­ized and in­di­vid­ual un­der the joint rule of the Cre­ator Sons and the Cre­ative Spir­its. As far as the Par­a­dise Trin­ity is con­cerned, out­side Ha­vona there are just seven in­hab­ited uni­verses, the seven super­uni­verses which hold ju­ris­dic­tion over the cir­cle of the first post-Ha­vona space level. The Seven Mas­ter Spir­its ra­di­ate their in­flu­ence out from the cen­tral Isle, thus con­sti­tut­ing the vast cre­ation one gi­gan­tic wheel, the hub be­ing the eter­nal Isle of Par­a­dise, the seven spokes the ra­di­a­tions of the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its, the rim the outer re­gions of the grand uni­verse.

• also known as › First Source and Center

15:1.1Within the lim­ited range of the rec­ords, ob­ser­va­tions, and mem­o­ries of the gen­er­a­tions of a mil­lion or a bil­lion of your short years, to all prac­ti­cal in­tents and pur­poses, Uran­tia and the uni­verse to which it be­longs are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the ad­ven­ture of one long and un­charted plunge into new space; but ac­cord­ing to the rec­ords of Uversa, in ac­cor­dance with older ob­ser­va­tions, in har­mony with the more ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence and cal­cu­la­tions of our or­der, and as a re­sult of con­clu­sions based on these and other find­ings, we know that the uni­verses are en­gaged in an or­derly, well-un­der­stood, and per­fectly con­trolled pro­ces­sional, swing­ing in ma­jes­tic grandeur around the First Great Source and Cen­ter and his res­i­den­tial uni­verse.

• also known as › Center of Centers

15:1.4In this age and as di­rec­tion is re­garded on Uran­tia, super­uni­verse num­ber one swings al­most due north, ap­prox­i­mately op­po­site, in an east­erly di­rec­tion, to the Par­a­dise res­i­dence of the Great Sources and Cen­ters and the cen­tral uni­verse of Ha­vona. This po­si­tion, with the cor­re­spond­ing one to the west, rep­re­sents the near­est phys­i­cal ap­proach of the spheres of time to the eter­nal Isle. Super­uni­verse num­ber two is in the north, prepar­ing for the west­ward swing, while num­ber three now holds the north­ern­most seg­ment of the great space path, hav­ing al­ready turned into the bend lead­ing to the southerly plunge. Num­ber four is on the com­par­a­tively straight­away southerly flight, the ad­vance re­gions now ap­proach­ing op­po­si­tion to the Great Cen­ters. Num­ber five has about left its po­si­tion op­po­site the Cen­ter of Cen­ters while con­tin­u­ing on the di­rect southerly course just pre­ced­ing the east­ward swing; num­ber six oc­cu­pies most of the south­ern curve, the seg­ment from which your super­uni­verse has nearly passed.

• described › is omniscient

15:2.1Only the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther knows the lo­ca­tion and ac­tual num­ber of in­hab­ited worlds in space; he calls them all by name and num­ber. I can give only the ap­prox­i­mate num­ber of in­hab­ited or in­hab­it­able plan­ets, for some lo­cal uni­verses have more worlds suit­able for in­tel­li­gent life than oth­ers. Nor have all pro­jected lo­cal uni­verses been or­ga­nized. There­fore the es­ti­mates which I of­fer are solely for the pur­pose of af­ford­ing some idea of the im­men­sity of the ma­te­rial cre­ation.

• described › speaks to universes only through Eternal Son

16:2.2To the uni­verse of uni­verses the Par­a­dise Fa­ther speaks only through his Son, while he and the Son con­jointly act only through the In­fi­nite Spirit. Out­side of Par­a­dise and Ha­vona the In­fi­nite Spirit speaks only by the voices of the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its.

• functions › sole source of personality

16:8.1The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther be­stows per­son­al­ity upon nu­mer­ous or­ders of be­ings as they func­tion on di­verse lev­els of uni­verse ac­tu­al­ity. Uran­tia hu­man be­ings are en­dowed with per­son­al­ity of the fi­nite-mor­tal type, func­tion­ing on the level of the as­cend­ing sons of God.

16:8.2Though we can hardly un­der­take to de­fine per­son­al­ity, we may at­tempt to nar­rate our un­der­stand­ing of the known fac­tors which go to make up the en­sem­ble of ma­te­rial, men­tal, and spir­i­tual en­er­gies whose in­teras­so­ci­a­tion con­sti­tutes the mech­a­nism wherein and whereon and where­with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther causes his be­stowed per­son­al­ity to func­tion.

16:8.3Per­son­al­ity is a unique en­dow­ment of orig­i­nal na­ture whose ex­is­tence is in­de­pen­dent of, and an­te­ced­ent to, the be­stowal of the Thought Ad­juster. Nev­er­the­less, the pres­ence of the Ad­juster does aug­ment the qual­i­ta­tive man­i­fes­ta­tion of per­son­al­ity. Thought Ad­justers, when they come forth from the Fa­ther, are iden­ti­cal in na­ture, but per­son­al­ity is di­verse, orig­i­nal, and ex­clu­sive; and the man­i­fes­ta­tion of per­son­al­ity is fur­ther con­di­tioned and qual­i­fied by the na­ture and qual­i­ties of the as­so­ci­ated en­er­gies of a ma­te­rial, mindal, and spir­i­tual na­ture which con­sti­tute the or­gan­is­mal ve­hi­cle for per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion.

• functions › sole source of personality

16:8.19The full func­tion of such a per­son­al­ity en­dow­ment is the be­gin­ning re­al­iza­tion of De­ity kin­ship. Such a self­hood, in­dwelt by a preper­sonal frag­ment of God the Fa­ther, is in truth and in fact a spir­i­tual son of God. Such a crea­ture not only dis­closes ca­pac­ity for the re­cep­tion of the gift of the di­vine pres­ence but also ex­hibits re­ac­tive re­sponse to the per­son­al­ity-grav­ity cir­cuit of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of all per­son­al­i­ties.

• described › most inescapable of all presences
• described › realization of U.F. inalienable

16:9.4Hu­man self-con­scious­ness im­plies the rec­og­ni­tion of the re­al­ity of selves other than the con­scious self and fur­ther im­plies that such aware­ness is mu­tual; that the self is known as it knows. This is shown in a purely hu­man man­ner in man’s so­cial life. But you can­not be­come so ab­so­lutely cer­tain of a fel­low be­ing’s re­al­ity as you can of the re­al­ity of the pres­ence of God that lives within you. The so­cial con­scious­ness is not in­alien­able like the God-con­scious­ness; it is a cul­tural de­vel­op­ment and is de­pen­dent on knowl­edge, sym­bols, and the con­tri­bu­tions of the con­sti­tu­tive en­dow­ments of man—sci­ence, moral­ity, and re­li­gion. And these cos­mic gifts, so­cial­ized, con­sti­tute civ­i­liza­tion.

• described › realization of U.F. inalienable

16:9.6Je­sus not only re­vealed God to man, but he also made a new rev­e­la­tion of man to him­self and to other men. In the life of Je­sus you see man at his best. Man thus be­comes so beau­ti­fully real be­cause Je­sus had so much of God in his life, and the re­al­iza­tion (rec­og­ni­tion) of God is in­alien­able and con­sti­tu­tive in all men.

• described › all things consist in
• worship U.F., first because he is

16:9.14You be­come con­scious of man as your crea­ture brother be­cause you are al­ready con­scious of God as your Cre­ator Fa­ther. Fa­ther­hood is the re­la­tion­ship out of which we rea­son our­selves into the rec­og­ni­tion of broth­er­hood. And Fa­ther­hood be­comes, or may be­come, a uni­verse re­al­ity to all moral crea­tures be­cause the Fa­ther has him­self be­stowed per­son­al­ity upon all such be­ings and has en­cir­cuited them within the grasp of the uni­ver­sal per­son­al­ity cir­cuit. We wor­ship God, first, be­cause he is, then, be­cause he is in us, and last, be­cause we are in him.

• also known as › other titles

24:7.2A servi­tal will be long ab­sent from Ha­vona on super­uni­verse as­sign­ment, hav­ing been on many such mis­sions pre­vi­ously, will re­turn home, be granted the priv­i­lege of “per­sonal con­tact” with the Par­a­dise Cen­tral Shin­ing, will be em­braced by the Lu­mi­nous Per­sons, and dis­ap­pear from the rec­og­ni­tion of his spirit fel­lows, never more to reap­pear among those of his kind.

• no man attains U.F. except through Eternal Son

26:1.15All or­ders of the an­gelic hosts are de­voted to the var­i­ous uni­verse ser­vices, and they min­is­ter in one way or an­other to the higher or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings; but it is the super­na­phim, se­con­a­phim, and ser­a­phim who, in large num­bers, are em­ployed in the fur­ther­ance of the as­cend­ing scheme of pro­gres­sive per­fec­tion for the chil­dren of time. Func­tion­ing in the cen­tral, su­per-, and lo­cal uni­verses, they form that un­bro­ken chain of spirit min­is­ters which has been pro­vided by the In­fi­nite Spirit for the help and guid­ance of all who seek to at­tain the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther through the Eter­nal Son.

• also known as › First Source and Center
• attitude › commandment to become perfect

26:4.12The pil­grim lands on the re­ceiv­ing planet of Ha­vona, the pi­lot world of the sev­enth cir­cuit, with only one en­dow­ment of per­fec­tion, per­fec­tion of pur­pose. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has de­creed: “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.” That is the as­tound­ing in­vi­ta­tion-com­mand broad­cast to the fi­nite chil­dren of the worlds of space. The pro­mul­ga­tion of that in­junc­tion has set all cre­ation astir in the co-op­er­a­tive ef­fort of the ce­les­tial be­ings to as­sist in bring­ing about the ful­fill­ment and re­al­iza­tion of that tremen­dous com­mand of the First Great Source and Cen­ter.

• attainment of U.F. is passport to eternity

26:9.2The at­tain­ment of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the pass­port to eter­nity, not­with­stand­ing the re­main­ing cir­cuits to be tra­versed. It is there­fore a mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion on the pi­lot world of cir­cle num­ber three when the tran­sit trio an­nounce that the last ven­ture of time is about to en­sue; that an­other crea­ture of space seeks en­try to Par­a­dise through the por­tals of eter­nity.

• in Uversa personality register

30:2.111. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• functions › acts through Creator Sons in local universes
• personally present on Paradise, but does not indwell minds of Paradise-Havona beings

32:3.4With the ex­cep­tion of the de­ity pres­ence of the Fa­ther, ev­ery lo­cal uni­verse is, in a cer­tain sense, a du­pli­ca­tion of the ad­min­is­tra­tive or­ga­ni­za­tion of the cen­tral or pat­tern cre­ation. Al­though the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is per­son­ally pres­ent in the res­i­den­tial uni­verse, he does not in­dwell the minds of the be­ings orig­i­nat­ing in that uni­verse as he does lit­er­ally dwell with the souls of the mor­tals of time and space. There seems to be an all-wise com­pen­sa­tion in the ad­just­ment and reg­u­la­tion of the spir­i­tual af­fairs of the far-flung cre­ation. In the cen­tral uni­verse the Fa­ther is per­son­ally pres­ent as such but ab­sent in the minds of the chil­dren of that per­fect cre­ation; in the uni­verses of space the Fa­ther is ab­sent in per­son, be­ing rep­re­sented by his Sov­er­eign Sons, while he is in­ti­mately pres­ent in the minds of his mor­tal chil­dren, be­ing spir­i­tu­ally rep­re­sented by the preper­sonal pres­ence of the Mys­tery Mon­i­tors that re­side in the minds of these will crea­tures.

• described › he who has seen a Creator Son has seen

32:3.6The far­ther down the scale of life we go, the more dif­fi­cult it be­comes to lo­cate, with the eye of faith, the in­vis­i­ble Fa­ther. The lower crea­tures—and some­times even the higher per­son­al­i­ties—find it dif­fi­cult al­ways to en­vis­age the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in his Cre­ator Sons. And so, pend­ing the time of their spir­i­tual ex­al­ta­tion, when per­fec­tion of de­vel­op­ment will en­able them to see God in per­son, they grow weary in pro­gres­sion, en­ter­tain spir­i­tual doubts, stum­ble into con­fu­sion, and thus iso­late them­selves from the pro­gres­sive spir­i­tual aims of their time and uni­verse. In this way they lose the abil­ity to see the Fa­ther when be­hold­ing the Cre­ator Son. The surest safe­guard for the crea­ture through­out the long strug­gle to at­tain the Fa­ther, dur­ing this time when in­her­ent con­di­tions make such at­tain­ment im­pos­si­ble, is tena­ciously to hold on to the truth-fact of the Fa­ther’s pres­ence in his Sons. Lit­er­ally and fig­u­ra­tively, spir­i­tu­ally and per­son­ally, the Fa­ther and the Sons are one. It is a fact: He who has seen a Cre­ator Son has seen the Fa­ther.

• delegation of power › not silent or inactive
• delegation of power › reserves only powers impossible to delegate – what is necessary to maintain all else
• functions › participates through ordained agencies

32:4.1Do not en­ter­tain the idea that, since the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has del­e­gated so much of him­self and his power to oth­ers, he is a silent or in­ac­tive mem­ber of the De­ity part­ner­ship. Aside from per­son­al­ity do­mains and Ad­juster be­stowal, he is ap­par­ently the least ac­tive of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties in that he al­lows his De­ity co-or­di­nates, his Sons, and nu­mer­ous cre­ated in­tel­li­gences to per­form so much in the car­ry­ing out of his eter­nal pur­pose. He is the silent mem­ber of the cre­ative trio only in that he never does aught which any of his co-or­di­nate or sub­or­di­nate as­so­ciates can do.

• delegation of power › Father retires to give his children opportunity for experience and function
• delegation of power › reserves only powers impossible to delegate – what is necessary to maintain all else

32:4.2God has full un­der­stand­ing of the need of ev­ery in­tel­li­gent crea­ture for func­tion and ex­pe­ri­ence, and there­fore, in ev­ery sit­u­a­tion, be it con­cerned with the des­tiny of a uni­verse or the wel­fare of the hum­blest of his crea­tures, God re­tires from ac­tiv­ity in fa­vor of the galaxy of crea­ture and Cre­ator per­son­al­i­ties who in­her­ently in­ter­vene be­tween him­self and any given uni­verse sit­u­a­tion or cre­ative event. But not­with­stand­ing this re­tire­ment, this ex­hi­bi­tion of in­fi­nite co-or­di­na­tion, there is on God’s part an ac­tual, lit­eral, and per­sonal par­tic­i­pa­tion in these events by and through these or­dained agen­cies and per­son­al­i­ties. The Fa­ther is work­ing in and through all these chan­nels for the wel­fare of all his far-flung cre­ation.

• attitude › never intervenes in relationships between creatures
• delegation of power › resigned exercise of all direct personal power in behalf of Supreme Creators
• functions › acts through Creator Sons in local universes

32:4.3As re­gards the poli­cies, con­duct, and ad­min­is­tra­tion of a lo­cal uni­verse, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther acts in the per­son of his Cre­ator Son. In the in­ter­re­la­tion­ships of the Sons of God, in the group as­so­ci­a­tions of the per­son­al­i­ties of ori­gin in the Third Source and Cen­ter, or in the re­la­tion­ship be­tween any other crea­tures, such as hu­man be­ings—as con­cerns such as­so­ci­a­tions the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never in­ter­venes. The law of the Cre­ator Son, the rule of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, the Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns, and the Plan­e­tary Princes—the or­dained poli­cies and pro­ce­dures for that uni­verse—al­ways pre­vail. There is no di­vi­sion of au­thor­ity; never is there a cross work­ing of di­vine power and pur­pose. The De­i­ties are in per­fect and eter­nal una­nim­ity.

• attitude › deals with personalities, not universes
• delegation of power › has reserved all final decisions; may act independently; power delegated can be exercised direct
• delegation of power › may at any time interpose a fatherly hand in the stream of cosmic events
• functions › directly through Thought Adjusters

32:4.4The Cre­ator Son rules su­preme in all mat­ters of eth­i­cal as­so­ci­a­tions, the re­la­tions of any di­vi­sion of crea­tures to any other class of crea­tures or of two or more in­di­vid­u­als within any given group; but such a plan does not mean that the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther may not in his own way in­ter­vene and do aught that pleases the di­vine mind with any in­di­vid­ual crea­ture through­out all cre­ation, as per­tains to that in­di­vid­ual’s pres­ent sta­tus or fu­ture prospects and as con­cerns the Fa­ther’s eter­nal plan and in­fi­nite pur­pose.

• functions › sole source of personality

32:4.5In the mor­tal will crea­tures the Fa­ther is ac­tu­ally pres­ent in the in­dwelling Ad­juster, a frag­ment of his preper­sonal spirit; and the Fa­ther is also the source of the per­son­al­ity of such a mor­tal will crea­ture.

32:4.6These Thought Ad­justers, the be­stowals of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, are com­par­a­tively iso­lated; they in­dwell hu­man minds but have no dis­cern­i­ble con­nec­tion with the eth­i­cal af­fairs of a lo­cal cre­ation. They are not di­rectly co-or­di­nated with the se­raphic ser­vice nor with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of sys­tems, con­stel­la­tions, or a lo­cal uni­verse, not even with the rule of a Cre­ator Son, whose will is the su­preme law of his uni­verse.

• attitude › reveals himself to maximum extent possible

32:4.7The in­dwelling Ad­justers are one of God’s sep­a­rate but uni­fied modes of con­tact with the crea­tures of his all but in­fi­nite cre­ation. Thus does he who is in­vis­i­ble to mor­tal man man­i­fest his pres­ence, and could he do so, he would show him­self to us in still other ways, but such fur­ther rev­e­la­tion is not di­vinely pos­si­ble.

32:4.8We can see and un­der­stand the mech­a­nism whereby the Sons en­joy in­ti­mate and com­plete knowl­edge re­gard­ing the uni­verses of their ju­ris­dic­tion; but we can­not fully com­pre­hend the meth­ods whereby God is so fully and per­son­ally con­ver­sant with the de­tails of the uni­verse of uni­verses, al­though we at least can rec­og­nize the av­enue whereby the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can re­ceive in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing, and man­i­fest his pres­ence to, the be­ings of his im­mense cre­ation. Through the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit the Fa­ther is cog­nizant—has per­sonal knowl­edge—of all the thoughts and acts of all the be­ings in all the sys­tems of all the uni­verses of all cre­ation. Though we can­not fully grasp this tech­nique of God’s com­mu­nion with his chil­dren, we can be strength­ened in the as­sur­ance that the “Lord knows his chil­dren,” and that of each one of us “he takes note where we were born.”

• functions › Father is present in our hearts by our Master Spirit

32:4.9In your uni­verse and in your heart the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is pres­ent, spir­i­tu­ally speak­ing, by one of the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its of cen­tral abode and, specif­i­cally, by the di­vine Ad­juster who lives and works and waits in the depths of the mor­tal mind.

• delegation of power › freely distributes himself; is not self-centered
• delegation of power › reserves only powers impossible to delegate – what is necessary to maintain all else
• functions › acts through Creator Sons in local universes

32:4.10God is not a self-cen­tered per­son­al­ity; the Fa­ther freely dis­tributes him­self to his cre­ation and to his crea­tures. He lives and acts, not only in the De­i­ties, but also in his Sons, whom he in­trusts with the do­ing of ev­ery­thing that it is di­vinely pos­si­ble for them to do. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has truly di­vested him­self of ev­ery func­tion which it is pos­si­ble for an­other be­ing to per­form. And this is just as true of mor­tal man as of the Cre­ator Son who rules in God’s stead at the head­quar­ters of a lo­cal uni­verse. Thus we be­hold the out­work­ing of the ideal and in­fi­nite love of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

32:4.11In this uni­ver­sal be­stowal of him­self we have abun­dant proof of both the mag­ni­tude and the mag­na­nim­ity of the Fa­ther’s di­vine na­ture. If God has with­held aught of him­self from the uni­ver­sal cre­ation, then of that residue he is in lav­ish gen­eros­ity be­stow­ing the Thought Ad­justers upon the mor­tals of the realms, the Mys­tery Mon­i­tors of time, who so pa­tiently in­dwell the mor­tal can­di­dates for life ev­er­last­ing.

32:4.12The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has poured out him­self, as it were, to make all cre­ation rich in per­son­al­ity pos­ses­sion and po­ten­tial spir­i­tual at­tain­ment. God has given us him­self that we may be like him, and he has re­served for him­self of power and glory only that which is nec­es­sary for the main­te­nance of those things for the love of which he has thus di­vested him­self of all things else.

• delegation of power › resigned exercise of all direct personal power in behalf of Supreme Creators
• functions › acts through Creator Sons in local universes

33:0.1While the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther most cer­tainly rules over his vast cre­ation, he func­tions in a lo­cal uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion through the per­son of the Cre­ator Son. The Fa­ther does not oth­er­wise per­son­ally func­tion in the ad­min­is­tra­tive af­fairs of a lo­cal uni­verse. These mat­ters are in­trusted to the Cre­ator Son and to the lo­cal uni­verse Mother Spirit and to their man­i­fold chil­dren. The plans, poli­cies, and ad­min­is­tra­tive acts of the lo­cal uni­verse are formed and ex­e­cuted by this Son, who, in con­junc­tion with his Spirit as­so­ciate, del­e­gates ex­ec­u­tive power to Ga­briel and ju­ris­dic­tional au­thor­ity to the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns, and Plan­e­tary Princes.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

37:5.3Not be­ing Ad­juster fused, they never be­come fi­nal­i­ters, but they do even­tu­ally be­come en­rolled in the lo­cal uni­verse Corps of Per­fec­tion. They have in spirit obeyed the Fa­ther’s com­mand, “Be you per­fect.”

• described › draws nearest to mortals with Adjusters and personality circuit
• functions › comes to us as a personality only through the divine Sons

40:5.3God the Fa­ther does not, can­not, thus down­step him­self to make such near per­sonal con­tact with the al­most lim­it­less num­ber of as­cend­ing crea­tures through­out the uni­verse of uni­verses. But the Fa­ther is not de­prived of per­sonal con­tact with his lowly crea­tures; you are not with­out the di­vine pres­ence. Al­though God the Fa­ther can­not be with you by di­rect per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion, he is in you and of you in the iden­tity of the in­dwelling Thought Ad­justers, the di­vine Mon­i­tors. Thus does the Fa­ther, who is the far­thest from you in per­son­al­ity and in spirit, draw the near­est to you in the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit and in the spirit touch of in­ner com­mu­nion with the very souls of his mor­tal sons and daugh­ters.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

40:7.4These are the mor­tals who have been com­manded by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.” The Fa­ther has be­stowed him­self upon you, placed his own spirit within you; there­fore does he de­mand ul­ti­mate per­fec­tion of you. The nar­ra­tive of hu­man as­cent from the mor­tal spheres of time to the di­vine realms of eter­nity con­sti­tutes an in­trigu­ing recital not in­cluded in my as­sign­ment, but this su­per­nal ad­ven­ture should be the su­preme study of mor­tal man.

• attitude › loves with affection that is true, holy, divine, unlimited, eternal, and unique
• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

40:10.13Thus, in the fi­nal anal­y­sis, it would be hardly proper to use the words “greater” or “lesser” in con­trast­ing the des­tinies of the as­cend­ing or­ders of son­ship. Ev­ery such son of God shares the fa­ther­hood of God, and God loves each of his crea­ture sons alike; he is no more a re­specter of as­cen­dant des­tinies than is he of the crea­tures who may at­tain such des­tinies. The Fa­ther loves each of his sons, and that af­fec­tion is not less than true, holy, di­vine, un­lim­ited, eter­nal, and unique—a love be­stowed upon this son and upon that son, in­di­vid­u­ally, per­son­ally, and ex­clu­sively. And such a love ut­terly eclipses all other facts. Son­ship is the su­preme re­la­tion­ship of the crea­ture to the Cre­ator.

• functions › personally controls pure energy, pure spirit, and gravity

42:0.1The foun­da­tion of the uni­verse is ma­te­rial in the sense that en­ergy is the ba­sis of all ex­is­tence, and pure en­ergy is con­trolled by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Force, en­ergy, is the one thing which stands as an ev­er­last­ing mon­u­ment demon­strat­ing and prov­ing the ex­is­tence and pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute. This vast stream of en­ergy pro­ceed­ing from the Par­a­dise Pres­ences has never lapsed, never failed; there has never been a break in the in­fi­nite up­hold­ing.

• described › Paradise and Eternal Son are simultaneously eternalized antipodal revelations of

42:1.1The foun­da­tion of the uni­verse is ma­te­rial, but the essence of life is spirit. The Fa­ther of spir­its is also the an­ces­tor of uni­verses; the eter­nal Fa­ther of the Orig­i­nal Son is also the eter­nity-source of the orig­i­nal pat­tern, the Isle of Par­a­dise.

• described › all things consist in

42:1.2Mat­ter—en­ergy—for they are but di­verse man­i­fes­ta­tions of the same cos­mic re­al­ity, as a uni­verse phe­nom­e­non is in­her­ent in the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. “In him all things con­sist.” Mat­ter may ap­pear to man­i­fest in­her­ent en­ergy and to ex­hibit self-con­tained pow­ers, but the lines of grav­ity in­volved in the en­er­gies con­cerned in all these phys­i­cal phe­nom­ena are de­rived from, and are de­pen­dent on, Par­a­dise. The ul­ti­ma­ton, the first mea­sur­able form of en­ergy, has Par­a­dise as its nu­cleus.

• described › all things consist in

42:1.6En­ergy pro­ceeds from Par­a­dise, fash­ioned af­ter the di­vine or­der. En­ergy—pure en­ergy—par­takes of the na­ture of the di­vine or­ga­ni­za­tion; it is fash­ioned af­ter the simil­i­tude of the three Gods em­braced in one, as they func­tion at the head­quar­ters of the uni­verse of uni­verses. And all force is cir­cuited in Par­a­dise, comes from the Par­a­dise Pres­ences and re­turns thereto, and is in essence a man­i­fes­ta­tion of the un­caused Cause—the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; and with­out the Fa­ther would not any­thing ex­ist that does ex­ist.

• described › always self-realizing on ever-expanding arena of time-space

42:10.1The end­less sweep of rel­a­tive cos­mic re­al­ity, from the ab­so­lute­ness of Par­a­dise monota to the ab­so­lute­ness of space po­tency, is sug­ges­tive of cer­tain evo­lu­tions of re­la­tion­ship in the non­spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the First Source and Cen­ter—those re­al­i­ties which are con­cealed in space po­tency, re­vealed in monota, and pro­vi­sion­ally dis­closed on in­ter­ven­ing cos­mic lev­els. This eter­nal cy­cle of en­ergy, be­ing cir­cuited in the Fa­ther of uni­verses, is ab­so­lute and, be­ing ab­so­lute, is ex­pan­sile in nei­ther fact nor value; nev­er­the­less the Pri­mal Fa­ther is even now—as al­ways—self-re­al­iz­ing of an ever-ex­pand­ing arena of time-space, and of time-space-tran­scended, mean­ings, an arena of chang­ing re­la­tion­ships wherein en­ergy-mat­ter is be­ing pro­gres­sively sub­jected to the over­con­trol of liv­ing and di­vine spirit through the ex­pe­ri­en­tial striv­ing of liv­ing and per­sonal mind.

• described › appears personally outside Havona only as pure energy and pure spirit

42:11.1In the eval­u­a­tion and rec­og­ni­tion of mind it should be re­mem­bered that the uni­verse is nei­ther me­chan­i­cal nor mag­i­cal; it is a cre­ation of mind and a mech­a­nism of law. But while in prac­ti­cal ap­pli­ca­tion the laws of na­ture op­er­ate in what seems to be the dual realms of the phys­i­cal and the spir­i­tual, in re­al­ity they are one. The First Source and Cen­ter is the pri­mal cause of all ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion and at the same time the first and fi­nal Fa­ther of all spir­its. The Par­a­dise Fa­ther ap­pears per­son­ally in the ex­tra-Ha­vona uni­verses only as pure en­ergy and pure spirit—as the Thought Ad­justers and other sim­i­lar frag­men­ta­tions.

• parental relationship essential to understanding U.F.

45:6.4No sur­viv­ing mor­tal, mid­wayer, or ser­a­phim may as­cend to Par­a­dise, at­tain the Fa­ther, and be mus­tered into the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity with­out hav­ing passed through that sub­lime ex­pe­ri­ence of achiev­ing pa­ren­tal re­la­tion­ship to an evolv­ing child of the worlds or some other ex­pe­ri­ence anal­o­gous and equiv­a­lent thereto. The re­la­tion­ship of child and par­ent is fun­da­men­tal to the es­sen­tial con­cept of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and his uni­verse chil­dren. There­fore does such an ex­pe­ri­ence be­come in­dis­pens­able to the ex­pe­ri­en­tial train­ing of all as­cend­ers.

45:6.5The as­cend­ing mid­way crea­tures and the evo­lu­tion­ary ser­a­phim must pass through this par­ent­hood ex­pe­ri­ence in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters of the sys­tem head­quar­ters. Thus do such non­re­pro­duc­ing as­cend­ers ob­tain the ex­pe­ri­ence of par­ent­hood by as­sist­ing the Je­ru­sem Adams and Eves in rear­ing and train­ing their progeny.

45:6.6All mor­tal sur­vivors who have not ex­pe­ri­enced par­ent­hood on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds must also ob­tain this nec­es­sary train­ing while so­journ­ing in the homes of the Je­ru­sem Ma­te­rial Sons and as pa­ren­tal as­so­ciates of these su­perb fa­thers and moth­ers. This is true ex­cept in so far as such mor­tals have been able to com­pen­sate their de­fi­cien­cies on the sys­tem nurs­ery lo­cated on the first tran­si­tional-cul­ture world of Je­ru­sem.

45:6.7This pro­ba­tion nurs­ery of Sa­ta­nia is main­tained by cer­tain mor­ontia per­son­al­i­ties on the fi­nal­i­ters’ world, one half of the planet be­ing de­voted to this work of child rear­ing. Here are re­ceived and re­assem­bled cer­tain chil­dren of sur­viv­ing mor­tals, such as those off­spring who per­ished on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds be­fore ac­quir­ing spir­i­tual sta­tus as in­di­vid­u­als. The as­cen­sion of ei­ther of its nat­u­ral par­ents in­sures that such a mor­tal child of the realms will be ac­corded reper­son­al­iza­tion on the sys­tem fi­nal­i­ter planet and there be per­mit­ted to demon­strate by sub­se­quent free­will choice whether or not it elects to fol­low the pa­ren­tal path of mor­tal as­cen­sion. Chil­dren here ap­pear as on the na­tiv­ity world ex­cept for the ab­sence of sex dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion. There is no re­pro­duc­tion of mor­tal kind af­ter the life ex­pe­ri­ence on the in­hab­ited worlds.

45:6.8Man­sion world stu­dents who have one or more chil­dren in the pro­ba­tion­ary nurs­ery on the fi­nal­i­ters’ world, and who are de­fi­cient in es­sen­tial pa­ren­tal ex­pe­ri­ence, may ap­ply for a Mel­chiz­e­dek per­mit which will ef­fect their tem­po­rary trans­fer from as­cen­sion du­ties on the man­sion worlds to the fi­nal­i­ter world, where they are granted op­por­tu­nity to func­tion as as­so­ciate par­ents to their own and other chil­dren. This ser­vice of pa­ren­tal min­istry may be later ac­cred­ited on Je­ru­sem as the ful­fill­ment of one half of the train­ing which such as­cend­ers are re­quired to un­dergo in the fam­i­lies of the Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters.

45:6.9The pro­ba­tion nurs­ery it­self is super­vised by one thou­sand cou­ples of Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters, vol­un­teers from the Je­ru­sem colony of their or­der. They are im­me­di­ately as­sisted by about an equal num­ber of vol­un­teer mid­sonite pa­ren­tal groups who stop off here to ren­der this ser­vice on their way from the mid­sonite world of Sa­ta­nia to the un­re­vealed des­tiny on their spe­cial worlds of reser­va­tion among the fi­nal­i­ter spheres of Sal­ving­ton.

• parental relationship essential to understanding U.F.

47:1.4On the first man­sion world all sur­vivors must pass the re­quire­ments of the pa­ren­tal com­mis­sion from their na­tive plan­ets. The pres­ent Uran­tia com­mis­sion con­sists of twelve pa­ren­tal cou­ples, re­cently ar­rived, who have had mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence in rear­ing three or more chil­dren to the pubescent age. Ser­vice on this com­mis­sion is ro­ta­tional and is for only ten years as a rule. All who fail to sat­isfy these com­mis­sion­ers as to their pa­ren­tal ex­pe­ri­ence must fur­ther qual­ify by ser­vice in the homes of the Ma­te­rial Sons on Je­ru­sem or in part in the pro­ba­tion­ary nurs­ery on the fi­nal­i­ters’ world.

• parental relationship essential to understanding U.F.

47:1.6No as­cend­ing mor­tal can es­cape the ex­pe­ri­ence of rear­ing chil­dren—their own or oth­ers—ei­ther on the ma­te­rial worlds or sub­se­quently on the fi­nal­i­ter world or on Je­ru­sem. Fa­thers must pass through this es­sen­tial ex­pe­ri­ence just as cer­tainly as moth­ers. It is an un­for­tu­nate and mis­taken no­tion of mod­ern peo­ples on Uran­tia that child cul­ture is largely the task of moth­ers. Chil­dren need fa­thers as well as moth­ers, and fa­thers need this pa­ren­tal ex­pe­ri­ence as much as do moth­ers.

• attitude › cares what man is, not what he does

48:7.2422. The evolv­ing soul is not made di­vine by what it does, but by what it strives to do.

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

50:1.1The Plan­e­tary Prince and his as­sis­tant breth­ren rep­re­sent the near­est per­son­al­ized ap­proach (aside from in­car­na­tion) that the Eter­nal Son of Par­a­dise can make to the lowly crea­tures of time and space. True, the Cre­ator Son touches the crea­tures of the realms through his spirit, but the Plan­e­tary Prince is the last of the or­ders of per­sonal Sons ex­tend­ing out from Par­a­dise to the chil­dren of men. The In­fi­nite Spirit comes very near in the per­sons of the guard­i­ans of des­tiny and other an­gelic be­ings; the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther lives in man by the preper­sonal pres­ence of the Mys­tery Mon­i­tors; but the Plan­e­tary Prince rep­re­sents the last ef­fort of the Eter­nal Son and his Sons to draw near you. On a newly in­hab­ited world the Plan­e­tary Prince is the sole rep­re­sen­ta­tive of com­plete di­vin­ity, spring­ing from the Cre­ator Son (the off­spring of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and the Eter­nal Son) and the Di­vine Min­is­ter (the uni­verse Daugh­ter of the In­fi­nite Spirit).

• words and acts of subordinates attributed to

51:3.5The fifth or­der of an­gels, the plan­e­tary helpers, are at­tached to the Adamic mis­sion, al­ways ac­com­pa­ny­ing the Plan­e­tary Adams on their world ad­ven­tures. The corps of ini­tial as­sign­ment is usu­ally about one hun­dred thou­sand. When the work of the Uran­tia Adam and Eve was pre­ma­turely launched, when they de­parted from the or­dained plan, it was one of the se­raphic Voices of the Gar­den who re­mon­strated with them con­cern­ing their rep­re­hen­si­ble con­duct. And your nar­ra­tive of this oc­cur­rence well il­lus­trates the man­ner in which your plan­e­tary tra­di­tions have tended to as­cribe ev­ery­thing super­nat­u­ral to the Lord God. Be­cause of this, Uran­tians have of­ten be­come con­fused con­cern­ing the na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther since the words and acts of all his as­so­ciates and sub­or­di­nates have been so gen­er­ally at­tributed to him. In the case of Adam and Eve, the an­gel of the Gar­den was none other than the chief of the plan­e­tary helpers then on duty. This ser­a­phim, Solo­nia, pro­claimed the mis­car­riage of the di­vine plan and req­ui­si­tioned the re­turn of the Mel­chiz­e­dek re­ceivers to Uran­tia.

• also known as › Havona Father

51:6.137. The spirit or Ha­vona Fa­ther—the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, who dwells on Par­a­dise and be­stows his spirit to live and work in the minds of the lowly crea­tures who in­habit the uni­verse of uni­verses.

• Lucifer charged U.F. did not exist

53:3.21. The re­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. Lu­cifer charged that the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther did not re­ally ex­ist, that phys­i­cal grav­ity and space-en­ergy were in­her­ent in the uni­verse, and that the Fa­ther was a myth in­vented by the Par­a­dise Sons to en­able them to main­tain the rule of the uni­verses in the Fa­ther’s name. He de­nied that per­son­al­ity was a gift of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. He even in­ti­mated that the fi­nal­i­ters were in col­lu­sion with the Par­a­dise Sons to foist fraud upon all cre­ation since they never brought back a very clear-cut idea of the Fa­ther’s ac­tual per­son­al­ity as it is dis­cern­i­ble on Par­a­dise. He traded on rev­er­ence as ig­no­rance. The charge was sweep­ing, ter­ri­ble, and blas­phe­mous. It was this veiled at­tack upon the fi­nal­i­ters that no doubt in­flu­enced the as­cen­dant cit­i­zens then on Je­ru­sem to stand firm and re­main stead­fast in re­sis­tance to all the rebel’s pro­pos­als.

• also known as › Paradise Father

54:6.2In all their deal­ings with in­tel­li­gent be­ings, both the Cre­ator Son and his Par­a­dise Fa­ther are love dom­i­nated. It is im­pos­si­ble to com­pre­hend many phases of the at­ti­tude of the uni­verse rulers to­ward rebels and re­bel­lion—sin and sin­ners—un­less it be re­mem­bered that God as a Fa­ther takes prece­dence over all other phases of De­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion in all the deal­ings of di­vin­ity with hu­man­ity. It should also be re­called that the Par­a­dise Cre­ator Sons are all mercy mo­ti­vated.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect
• described › is unity

56:0.1God is unity. De­ity is uni­ver­sally co-or­di­nated. The uni­verse of uni­verses is one vast in­te­grated mech­a­nism which is ab­so­lutely con­trolled by one in­fi­nite mind. The phys­i­cal, in­tel­lec­tual, and spir­i­tual do­mains of uni­ver­sal cre­ation are di­vinely cor­re­lated. The per­fect and im­per­fect are truly in­ter­re­lated, and there­fore may the fi­nite evo­lu­tion­ary crea­ture as­cend to Par­a­dise in obe­di­ence to the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther’s man­date: “Be you per­fect, even as I am per­fect.”

• functions › personally controls pure energy, pure spirit, and gravity

56:1.3Grav­ity uni­fi­ca­tion is uni­ver­sal and un­vary­ing; pure-en­ergy re­sponse is like­wise uni­ver­sal and in­es­cap­able. Pure en­ergy (pri­mor­dial force) and pure spirit are wholly pre­re­spon­sive to grav­ity. These pri­mal forces, in­her­ing in the Ab­so­lutes, are per­son­ally con­trolled by the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; hence does all grav­ity cen­ter in the per­sonal pres­ence of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of pure en­ergy and pure spirit and in his super­ma­te­rial abode.

• described › is unity

56:1.4Pure en­ergy is the an­ces­tor of all rel­a­tive, non­spirit func­tional re­al­i­ties, while pure spirit is the po­ten­tial of the di­vine and di­rec­tive over­con­trol of all ba­sic en­ergy sys­tems. And these re­al­i­ties, so di­verse as man­i­fested through­out space and as ob­served in the mo­tions of time, are both cen­tered in the per­son of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. In him they are one—must be uni­fied—be­cause God is one. The Fa­ther’s per­son­al­ity is ab­so­lutely uni­fied.

• described › all things consist in

56:1.5In the in­fi­nite na­ture of God the Fa­ther there could not pos­si­bly ex­ist du­al­ity of re­al­ity, such as phys­i­cal and spir­i­tual; but the in­stant we look aside from the in­fi­nite lev­els and ab­so­lute re­al­ity of the per­sonal val­ues of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, we ob­serve the ex­is­tence of these two re­al­i­ties and rec­og­nize that they are fully re­spon­sive to his per­sonal pres­ence; in him all things con­sist.

• described › Paradise and Eternal Son are simultaneously eternalized antipodal revelations of

56:2.2Mind is the func­tional en­dow­ment of the In­fi­nite Spirit, there­fore in­fi­nite in po­ten­tial and uni­ver­sal in be­stowal. The pri­mal thought of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther eter­nal­izes in dual ex­pres­sion: the Isle of Par­a­dise and his De­ity equal, the spir­i­tual and Eter­nal Son. Such du­al­ity of eter­nal re­al­ity ren­ders the mind God, the In­fi­nite Spirit, in­ev­i­ta­ble. Mind is the in­dis­pens­able chan­nel of com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween spir­i­tual and ma­te­rial re­al­i­ties. The ma­te­rial evo­lu­tion­ary crea­ture can con­ceive and com­pre­hend the in­dwelling spirit only by the min­istry of mind.

• described › appears personally outside Havona only as pure energy and pure spirit
• functions › personally controls pure energy, pure spirit, and gravity

56:3.1As the uni­ver­sal mind grav­ity is cen­tered in the Par­a­dise per­sonal pres­ence of the In­fi­nite Spirit, so does the uni­ver­sal spirit grav­ity cen­ter in the Par­a­dise per­sonal pres­ence of the Eter­nal Son. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is one, but to time-space he is re­vealed in the dual phe­nom­ena of pure en­ergy and pure spirit.

• described › divinely unified personality

56:4.1The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is a di­vinely uni­fied per­son­al­ity; hence will all his as­cen­dant chil­dren who are car­ried to Par­a­dise by the re­bound mo­men­tum of the Thought Ad­justers, who went forth from Par­a­dise to in­dwell ma­te­rial mor­tals in obe­di­ence to the Fa­ther’s man­date, like­wise be fully uni­fied per­son­al­i­ties ere they reach Ha­vona.

• also known as › First Source and Center
• described › unifies 7 Absolutes

56:4.2Per­son­al­ity in­her­ently reaches out to unify all con­stituent re­al­i­ties. The in­fi­nite per­son­al­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, uni­fies all seven con­stituent Ab­so­lutes of In­fin­ity; and the per­son­al­ity of mor­tal man, be­ing an ex­clu­sive and di­rect be­stowal of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, like­wise pos­sesses the po­ten­tial of uni­fy­ing the con­stituent fac­tors of the mor­tal crea­ture. Such uni­fy­ing cre­ativ­ity of all crea­ture per­son­al­ity is a birth­mark of its high and ex­clu­sive source and is fur­ther ev­i­den­tial of its un­bro­ken con­tact with this same source through the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit, by means of which the per­son­al­ity of the crea­ture main­tains di­rect and sus­tain­ing con­tact with the Fa­ther of all per­son­al­ity on Par­a­dise.

• described › Father idea is highest human concept of God

56:4.4While God is to and in the uni­verses all that we have por­trayed, nev­er­the­less, to you and to all other God-know­ing crea­tures he is one, your Fa­ther and their Fa­ther. To per­son­al­ity God can­not be plu­ral. God is Fa­ther to each of his crea­tures, and it is lit­er­ally im­pos­si­ble for any child to have more than one fa­ther.

56:4.5Phil­o­soph­i­cally, cos­mi­cally, and with ref­er­ence to dif­fer­en­tial lev­els and lo­ca­tions of man­i­fes­ta­tion, you may and per­force must con­ceive of the func­tion­ing of plu­ral De­i­ties and pos­tu­late the ex­is­tence of plu­ral Trin­i­ties; but in the wor­ship­ful ex­pe­ri­ence of the per­sonal con­tact of ev­ery wor­ship­ing per­son­al­ity through­out the mas­ter uni­verse, God is one; and that uni­fied and per­sonal De­ity is our Par­a­dise par­ent, God the Fa­ther, the be­stower, con­ser­va­tor, and Fa­ther of all per­son­al­i­ties from mor­tal man on the in­hab­ited worlds to the Eter­nal Son on the cen­tral Isle of Light.

• God the Sevenfold provides progressive approach to

56:7.8We do know, how­ever, that in the uni­verses of time and space, God the Sev­en­fold pro­vides a pro­gres­sive ap­proach to the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and that this evo­lu­tion­ary ap­proach is ex­pe­ri­en­tially uni­fied in God the Su­preme. We might con­jec­ture that such a plan must pre­vail in the outer uni­verses; on the other hand, the new or­ders of be­ings that may some­time in­habit these uni­verses may be able to ap­proach De­ity on ul­ti­mate lev­els and by ab­so­nite tech­niques. In short, we have not the slight­est con­cept of what tech­nique of de­ity ap­proach may be­come op­er­a­tive in the fu­ture uni­verses of outer space.

• described › discernible from finite to infinite
• described › only Son and Spirit know as infinity

56:9.6God the Fa­ther is dis­cern­i­ble on all lev­els from the fi­nite to the in­fi­nite, and though his crea­tures from Par­a­dise to the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds have var­i­ously per­ceived him, only the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit know him as an in­fin­ity.

• described › personal source of all Deity and reality

56:9.10And God the Fa­ther is the per­sonal source of all man­i­fes­ta­tions of De­ity and re­al­ity to all in­tel­li­gent crea­tures and spirit be­ings through­out all the uni­verse of uni­verses. As per­son­al­i­ties, now or in the suc­ces­sive uni­verse ex­pe­ri­ences of the eter­nal fu­ture, no mat­ter if you achieve the at­tain­ment of God the Sev­en­fold, com­pre­hend God the Su­preme, find God the Ul­ti­mate, or at­tempt to grasp the con­cept of God the Ab­so­lute, you will dis­cover to your eter­nal sat­is­fac­tion that in the con­sum­ma­tion of each ad­ven­ture you have, on new ex­pe­ri­en­tial lev­els, re­dis­cov­ered the eter­nal God—the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of all uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties.

• described › explanation of universal unity

56:9.11The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the ex­pla­na­tion of uni­ver­sal unity as it must be su­premely, even ul­ti­mately, re­al­ized in the pos­tul­ti­mate unity of ab­so­lute val­ues and mean­ings—un­qual­i­fied Re­al­ity.

• described › all things consist in

56:9.14The uni­verse of uni­verses is al­to­gether uni­fied. God is one in power and per­son­al­ity. There is co-or­di­na­tion of all lev­els of en­ergy and all phases of per­son­al­ity. Phil­o­soph­i­cally and ex­pe­ri­en­tially, in con­cept and in re­al­ity, all things and be­ings cen­ter in the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. God is all and in all, and no things or be­ings ex­ist with­out him.

• direct worship to Father alone

74:4.5It was a mo­men­tous day, and just be­fore noon, about the time of the ar­rival of the se­raphic mes­sen­ger bear­ing the Je­ru­sem ac­knowl­edg­ment of the in­stal­la­tion of the world’s rulers, Adam and Eve, mov­ing apart from the throng, pointed to the Fa­ther’s tem­ple and said: “Go you now to the ma­te­rial em­blem of the Fa­ther’s in­vis­i­ble pres­ence and bow down in wor­ship of him who made us all and who keeps us liv­ing. And let this act be the sin­cere pledge that you never will again be tempted to wor­ship any­one but God.” They all did as Adam di­rected. The Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter stood alone on the mount with bowed heads while the peo­ple pros­trated them­selves about the tem­ple.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

94:3.1While the high­est phase of Brah­man­ism was hardly a re­li­gion, it was truly one of the most no­ble reaches of the mor­tal mind into the do­mains of phi­los­o­phy and meta­physics. Hav­ing started out to dis­cover fi­nal re­al­ity, the In­dian mind did not stop un­til it had spec­u­lated about al­most ev­ery phase of the­ol­ogy ex­cept­ing the es­sen­tial dual con­cept of re­li­gion: the ex­is­tence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of all uni­verse crea­tures and the fact of the as­cend­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the uni­verse of these very crea­tures as they seek to at­tain the eter­nal Fa­ther, who has com­manded them to be per­fect, even as he is per­fect.

• described › is personality

94:3.8Brah­manic phi­los­o­phy has ap­prox­i­mated many of the facts of the uni­verse and has ap­proached nu­mer­ous cos­mic truths, but it has all too of­ten fallen vic­tim to the er­ror of fail­ing to dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween the sev­eral lev­els of re­al­ity, such as ab­so­lute, tran­scen­den­tal, and fi­nite. It has failed to take into ac­count that what may be fi­nite-il­lu­sory on the ab­so­lute level may be ab­so­lutely real on the fi­nite level. And it has also taken no cog­nizance of the es­sen­tial per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, who is per­son­ally con­tactable on all lev­els from the evo­lu­tion­ary crea­ture’s lim­ited ex­pe­ri­ence with God on up to the lim­it­less ex­pe­ri­ence of the Eter­nal Son with the Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

99:5.3The re­li­gion of Je­sus is the most dy­namic in­flu­ence ever to ac­ti­vate the hu­man race. Je­sus shat­tered tra­di­tion, de­stroyed dogma, and called man­kind to the achieve­ment of its high­est ide­als in time and eter­nity—to be per­fect, even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.

• no argument concerning his reality would ever be convincing

101:2.16Re­li­gion must ever be its own critic and judge; it can never be ob­served, much less un­der­stood, from the out­side. Your only as­sur­ance of a per­sonal God con­sists in your own in­sight as to your be­lief in, and ex­pe­ri­ence with, things spir­i­tual. To all of your fel­lows who have had a sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ence, no ar­gu­ment about the per­son­al­ity or re­al­ity of God is nec­es­sary, while to all other men who are not thus sure of God no pos­si­ble ar­gu­ment could ever be truly con­vinc­ing.

• no argument concerning his reality would ever be convincing

102:1.5God is so all real and ab­so­lute that no ma­te­rial sign of proof or no dem­on­stra­tion of so-called mir­a­cle may be of­fered in tes­ti­mony of his re­al­ity. Al­ways will we know him be­cause we trust him, and our be­lief in him is wholly based on our per­sonal par­tic­i­pa­tion in the di­vine man­i­fes­ta­tions of his in­fi­nite re­al­ity.

• described › what U.F. is not

102:6.3The re­li­gion­ist of philo­sophic at­tain­ment has faith in a per­sonal God of per­sonal sal­va­tion, some­thing more than a re­al­ity, a value, a level of achieve­ment, an ex­alted pro­cess, a trans­mu­ta­tion, the ul­ti­mate of time-space, an ide­al­iza­tion, the per­son­al­iza­tion of en­ergy, the en­tity of grav­ity, a hu­man pro­jec­tion, the ide­al­iza­tion of self, na­ture’s up­thrust, the in­cli­na­tion to good­ness, the for­ward im­pulse of evo­lu­tion, or a sub­lime hy­poth­e­sis. The re­li­gion­ist has faith in a God of love. Love is the essence of re­li­gion and the well­spring of su­pe­rior civ­i­liza­tion.

• described › unifies 7 Absolutes

104:3.13The First Source and Cen­ter, who is Fa­ther to the Eter­nal Son, is also Pat­tern to the Par­a­dise Isle. He is per­son­al­ity un­qual­i­fied in the Son but per­son­al­ity po­ten­tial­ized in the De­ity Ab­so­lute. The Fa­ther is en­ergy re­vealed in Par­a­dise-Ha­vona and at the same time en­ergy con­cealed in the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute. The In­fi­nite is ever dis­closed in the cease­less acts of the Con­joint Ac­tor while he is eter­nally func­tion­ing in the com­pen­sat­ing but en­shrouded ac­tiv­i­ties of the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute. Thus is the Fa­ther re­lated to the six co-or­di­nate Ab­so­lutes, and thus do all seven en­com­pass the cir­cle of in­fin­ity through­out the end­less cy­cles of eter­nity.

• functions › exercises immediate personal control over master functions of infinity through triunities

104:3.18The tri­uni­ties are nonethe­less real; they are very real. In them is to­tal re­al­ity func­tion­al­ized, and through them does the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ex­er­cise im­me­di­ate and per­sonal con­trol over the mas­ter func­tions of in­fin­ity.

• also known as › First Person of Deity
• also known as › other titles
• functions › exercises immediate personal control over master functions of infinity through triunities

104:4.1In at­tempt­ing the de­scrip­tion of seven tri­uni­ties, at­ten­tion is di­rected to the fact that the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the pri­mal mem­ber of each. He is, was, and ever will be: the First Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther-Source, Ab­so­lute Cen­ter, Pri­mal Cause, Uni­ver­sal Con­trol­ler, Lim­it­less En­er­gizer, Orig­i­nal Unity, Un­qual­i­fied Up­holder, First Per­son of De­ity, Pri­mal Cos­mic Pat­tern, and Essence of In­fin­ity. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is the per­sonal cause of the Ab­so­lutes; he is the ab­so­lute of Ab­so­lutes.

• described › Paradise and Eternal Son are simultaneously eternalized antipodal revelations of

104:4.15Love may char­ac­ter­ize the di­vin­ity of the first tri­unity, but pat­tern is the galac­tic man­i­fes­ta­tion of the sec­ond tri­unity. What the first tri­unity is to evolv­ing per­son­al­i­ties, the sec­ond tri­unity is to the evolv­ing uni­verses. Pat­tern and per­son­al­ity are two of the great man­i­fes­ta­tions of the acts of the First Source and Cen­ter; and no mat­ter how dif­fi­cult it may be to com­pre­hend, it is nonethe­less true that the power-pat­tern and the lov­ing per­son are one and the same uni­ver­sal re­al­ity; the Par­a­dise Isle and the Eter­nal Son are co-or­di­nate but an­tipo­dal rev­e­la­tions of the un­fath­omable na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther-Force.

• described › exists before spirit

104:4.21The Fa­ther ex­ists be­fore spirit; the Son-Spirit func­tions as ac­tive cre­ative spirit; the De­ity Ab­so­lute ex­ists as all-en­com­pass­ing spirit, even be­yond spirit.

• described › all things consist in

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.”

• described › is I AM

105:1.2There are many el­e­ments of dan­ger at­ten­dant upon the pre­sen­ta­tion to the mor­tal in­tel­lect of this idea of an in­fi­nite I AM since this con­cept is so re­mote from hu­man ex­pe­ri­en­tial un­der­stand­ing as to in­volve se­ri­ous dis­tor­tion of mean­ings and mis­con­cep­tion of val­ues. Nev­er­the­less, the philo­sophic con­cept of the I AM does af­ford fi­nite be­ings some ba­sis for an at­tempted ap­proach to the par­tial com­pre­hen­sion of ab­so­lute ori­gins and in­fi­nite des­tinies. But in all our at­tempts to elu­ci­date the gen­e­sis and fruition of re­al­ity, let it be made clear that this con­cept of the I AM is, in all per­son­al­ity mean­ings and val­ues, syn­ony­mous with the First Per­son of De­ity, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of all per­son­al­i­ties. But this pos­tu­late of the I AM is not so clearly iden­ti­fi­able in un­de­i­fied realms of uni­ver­sal re­al­ity.

• described › Father idea is highest human concept of God

105:1.6Ever re­mem­ber that man’s com­pre­hen­sion of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is a per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. God, as your spir­i­tual Fa­ther, is com­pre­hen­si­ble to you and to all other mor­tals; but your ex­pe­ri­en­tial wor­ship­ful con­cept of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther must al­ways be less than your philo­sophic pos­tu­late of the in­fin­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter, the I AM. When we speak of the Fa­ther, we mean God as he is un­der­stand­able by his crea­tures both high and low, but there is much more of De­ity which is not com­pre­hen­si­ble to uni­verse crea­tures. God, your Fa­ther and my Fa­ther, is that phase of the In­fi­nite which we per­ceive in our per­son­al­i­ties as an ac­tual ex­pe­ri­en­tial re­al­ity, but the I AM ever re­mains as our hy­poth­e­sis of all that we feel is un­know­able of the First Source and Cen­ter. And even that hy­poth­e­sis prob­a­bly falls far short of the un­fath­omed in­fin­ity of orig­i­nal re­al­ity.

• described › infinitely more complex than the universes

105:1.7The uni­verse of uni­verses, with its in­nu­mer­able host of in­hab­it­ing per­son­al­i­ties, is a vast and com­plex or­gan­ism, but the First Source and Cen­ter is in­finitely more com­plex than the uni­verses and per­son­al­i­ties which have be­come real in re­sponse to his will­ful man­dates. When you stand in awe of the mag­ni­tude of the mas­ter uni­verse, pause to con­sider that even this in­con­ceiv­able cre­ation can be no more than a par­tial rev­e­la­tion of the In­fi­nite.

• described › is I AM

105:2.51. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. I AM fa­ther of the Eter­nal Son. This is the pri­mal per­son­al­ity re­la­tion­ship of ac­tu­al­i­ties. The ab­so­lute per­son­al­ity of the Son makes ab­so­lute the fact of God’s fa­ther­hood and es­tab­lishes the po­ten­tial son­ship of all per­son­al­i­ties. This re­la­tion­ship es­tab­lishes the per­son­al­ity of the In­fi­nite and con­sum­mates its spir­i­tual rev­e­la­tion in the per­son­al­ity of the Orig­i­nal Son. This phase of the I AM is par­tially ex­pe­ri­en­ci­ble on spir­i­tual lev­els even by mor­tals who, while yet in the flesh, may wor­ship our Fa­ther.

• described › in Him we live, move, and have our being

105:2.117. The Uni­ver­sal One of In­fin­ity. I AM as I AM. This is the sta­sis or self-re­la­tion­ship of In­fin­ity, the eter­nal fact of in­fin­ity-re­al­ity and the uni­ver­sal truth of re­al­ity-in­fin­ity. In so far as this re­la­tion­ship is dis­cern­i­ble as per­son­al­ity, it is re­vealed to the uni­verses in the di­vine Fa­ther of all per­son­al­ity—even of ab­so­lute per­son­al­ity. In so far as this re­la­tion­ship is im­per­son­ally ex­press­ible, it is con­tacted by the uni­verse as the ab­so­lute co­her­ence of pure en­ergy and of pure spirit in the pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. In so far as this re­la­tion­ship is con­ceiv­able as an ab­so­lute, it is re­vealed in the pri­macy of the First Source and Cen­ter; in him we all live and move and have our be­ing, from the crea­tures of space to the cit­i­zens of Par­a­dise; and this is just as true of the mas­ter uni­verse as of the in­finites­i­mal ul­ti­ma­ton, just as true of what is to be as of that which is and of what has been.

• described
• described › is infinite

105:3.21. The First Source and Cen­ter. First Per­son of De­ity and pri­mal non­de­ity pat­tern, God, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, cre­ator, con­trol­ler, and up­holder; uni­ver­sal love, eter­nal spirit, and in­fi­nite en­ergy; po­ten­tial of all po­ten­tials and source of all ac­tu­als; sta­bil­ity of all stat­ics and dy­namism of all change; source of pat­tern and Fa­ther of per­sons. Col­lec­tively, all seven Ab­so­lutes equiv­alate to in­fin­ity, but the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther him­self ac­tu­ally is in­fi­nite.

• no man attains U.F. except through Eternal Son

105:3.32. The Sec­ond Source and Cen­ter. Sec­ond Per­son of De­ity, the Eter­nal and Orig­i­nal Son; the ab­so­lute per­son­al­ity re­al­i­ties of the I AM and the ba­sis for the re­al­iza­tion-rev­e­la­tion of “I AM per­son­al­ity.” No per­son­al­ity can hope to at­tain the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ex­cept through his Eter­nal Son; nei­ther can per­son­al­ity at­tain to spirit lev­els of ex­is­tence apart from the ac­tion and aid of this ab­so­lute pat­tern for all per­son­al­i­ties. In the Sec­ond Source and Cen­ter spirit is un­qual­i­fied while per­son­al­ity is ab­so­lute.

• described › is infinite

106:7.5No mat­ter how much you may grow in Fa­ther com­pre­hen­sion, your mind will al­ways be stag­gered by the un­re­vealed in­fin­ity of the Fa­ther-I AM, the un­ex­plored vast­ness of which will al­ways re­main un­fath­omable and in­com­pre­hen­si­ble through­out all the cy­cles of eter­nity. No mat­ter how much of God you may at­tain, there will al­ways re­main much more of him, the ex­is­tence of which you will not even sus­pect. And we be­lieve that this is just as true on tran­scen­den­tal lev­els as it is in the do­mains of fi­nite ex­is­tence. The quest for God is end­less!

• final destiny of all personalities is final knowing of

106:8.22In the union of the Su­preme, Ul­ti­mate, and the com­plete Ab­so­lute, there could oc­cur the func­tional re­assem­bly of those as­pects of in­fin­ity which were orig­i­nally seg­men­tal­ized by the I AM, and which re­sulted in the ap­pear­ance of the Seven Ab­so­lutes of In­fin­ity. Though the uni­verse philoso­phers deem this to be a most re­mote prob­a­bil­ity, still, we of­ten ask this ques­tion: If the sec­ond level of the Trin­ity of Trin­i­ties could ever achieve trin­ity unity, what then would tran­spire as a con­se­quence of such de­ity unity? We do not know, but we are con­fi­dent that it would lead di­rectly to the re­al­iza­tion of the I AM as an ex­pe­ri­en­tial at­tain­able. From the stand­point of per­sonal be­ings it could mean that the un­know­able I AM had be­come ex­pe­ri­en­ci­ble as the Fa­ther-In­fi­nite. What these ab­so­lute des­tinies might mean from a non­per­sonal stand­point is an­other mat­ter and one which only eter­nity could pos­si­bly clar­ify. But as we view these re­mote even­tu­al­i­ties as per­sonal crea­tures, we de­duce that the fi­nal des­tiny of all per­son­al­i­ties is the fi­nal know­ing of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of these self­same per­son­al­i­ties.

• described › is I AM

106:9.9The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity is the I AM of the Trin­ity of Trin­i­ties, and the fail­ure to ex­pe­ri­ence the Fa­ther as in­fi­nite is due to fi­nite lim­i­ta­tions. The con­cept of the ex­is­ten­tial, soli­tary, pre-Trin­ity nonat­tain­able I AM and the pos­tu­late of the ex­pe­ri­en­tial post-Trin­ity of Trin­i­ties and at­tain­able I AM are one and the same hy­poth­e­sis; no ac­tual change has taken place in the In­fi­nite; all ap­par­ent de­vel­op­ments are due to in­creased ca­pac­i­ties for re­al­ity re­cep­tion and cos­mic ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

• described › revealed within qualities of divinity

106:9.11Sooner or later all uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties be­gin to re­al­ize that the fi­nal quest of eter­nity is the end­less ex­plo­ration of in­fin­ity, the never-end­ing voy­age of dis­cov­ery into the ab­so­lute­ness of the First Source and Cen­ter. Sooner or later we all be­come aware that all crea­ture growth is pro­por­tional to Fa­ther iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. We ar­rive at the un­der­stand­ing that liv­ing the will of God is the eter­nal pass­port to the end­less pos­si­bil­ity of in­fin­ity it­self. Mor­tals will some­time re­al­ize that suc­cess in the quest of the In­fi­nite is di­rectly pro­por­tional to the achieve­ment of Fa­ther­like­ness, and that in this uni­verse age the re­al­i­ties of the Fa­ther are re­vealed within the qual­i­ties of di­vin­ity. And these qual­i­ties of di­vin­ity are per­son­ally ap­pro­pri­ated by uni­verse crea­tures in the ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing di­vinely, and to live di­vinely means ac­tu­ally to live the will of God.

• described › farthest removed from, and most intimately associated with, planetary mortals

107:0.1Al­though the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is per­son­ally res­i­dent on Par­a­dise, at the very cen­ter of the uni­verses, he is also ac­tu­ally pres­ent on the worlds of space in the minds of his count­less chil­dren of time, for he in­dwells them as the Mys­tery Mon­i­tors. The eter­nal Fa­ther is at one and the same time far­thest re­moved from, and most in­ti­mately as­so­ci­ated with, his plan­e­tary mor­tal sons.

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

107:0.2The Ad­justers are the ac­tu­al­ity of the Fa­ther’s love in­car­nate in the souls of men; they are the ver­i­ta­ble prom­ise of man’s eter­nal ca­reer im­pris­oned within the mor­tal mind; they are the essence of man’s per­fected fi­nal­i­ter per­son­al­ity, which he can fore­taste in time as he pro­gres­sively mas­ters the di­vine tech­nique of achiev­ing the liv­ing of the Fa­ther’s will, step by step, through the as­cen­sion of uni­verse upon uni­verse un­til he ac­tu­ally at­tains the di­vine pres­ence of his Par­a­dise Fa­ther.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

107:0.3God, hav­ing com­manded man to be per­fect, even as he is per­fect, has de­scended as the Ad­juster to be­come man’s ex­pe­ri­en­tial part­ner in the achieve­ment of the su­per­nal des­tiny which has been thus or­dained. The frag­ment of God which in­dwells the mind of man is the ab­so­lute and un­qual­i­fied as­sur­ance that man can find the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in as­so­ci­a­tion with this di­vine Ad­juster, which came forth from God to find man and son­ship him even in the days of the flesh.

• described › he who has seen a Creator Son has seen

107:0.4Any mor­tal who has seen a Cre­ator Son has seen the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, and he who is in­dwelt by a di­vine Ad­juster is in­dwelt by the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Ev­ery mor­tal who is con­sciously or un­con­sciously fol­low­ing the lead­ing of his in­dwelling Ad­juster is liv­ing in ac­cor­dance with the will of God. Con­scious­ness of Ad­juster pres­ence is con­scious­ness of God’s pres­ence. Eter­nal fu­sion of the Ad­juster with the evo­lu­tion­ary soul of man is the fac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence of eter­nal union with God as a uni­verse as­so­ciate of De­ity.

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

107:6.2The Ad­juster is man’s eter­nity pos­si­bil­ity; man is the Ad­juster’s per­son­al­ity pos­si­bil­ity. Your in­di­vid­ual Ad­justers work to spir­i­tize you in the hope of eter­nal­iz­ing your tem­po­ral iden­tity. The Ad­justers are sat­u­rated with the beau­ti­ful and self-be­stow­ing love of the Fa­ther of spir­its. They truly and di­vinely love you; they are the pris­on­ers of spirit hope con­fined within the minds of men. They long for the di­vin­ity at­tain­ment of your mor­tal minds that their lone­li­ness may end, that they may be de­liv­ered with you from the lim­i­ta­tions of ma­te­rial in­vesti­ture and the ha­bil­i­ments of time.

• delegation of power › resigned exercise of all direct personal power in behalf of Supreme Creators

108:4.1Apart from pos­si­ble co-or­di­na­tion with other De­ity frag­ments, the Ad­justers are quite alone in their sphere of ac­tiv­ity in the mor­tal mind. The Mys­tery Mon­i­tors elo­quently be­speak the fact that, though the Fa­ther may have ap­par­ently re­signed the ex­er­cise of all di­rect per­sonal power and au­thor­ity through­out the grand uni­verse, not­with­stand­ing this act of ab­ne­ga­tion in be­half of the Su­preme Cre­ator chil­dren of the Par­a­dise De­i­ties, the Fa­ther has cer­tainly re­served to him­self the un­chal­lenge­able right to be pres­ent in the minds and souls of his evolv­ing crea­tures to the end that he may so act as to draw all crea­ture cre­ation to him­self, co-or­di­nately with the spir­i­tual grav­ity of the Par­a­dise Sons. Said your Par­a­dise be­stowal Son when yet on Uran­tia, “I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men.” This spir­i­tual draw­ing power of the Par­a­dise Sons and their cre­ative as­so­ciates we rec­og­nize and un­der­stand, but we do not so fully com­pre­hend the meth­ods of the all-wise Fa­ther’s func­tion­ing in and through these Mys­tery Mon­i­tors that live and work so valiantly within the hu­man mind.

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

108:6.3The Mys­tery Mon­i­tors are un­doubt­edly the be­stowal of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the re­flec­tion of the im­age of God abroad in the uni­verse. A great teacher once ad­mon­ished men that they should be re­newed in the spirit of their minds; that they be­come new men who, like God, are cre­ated in righ­teous­ness and in the com­ple­tion of truth. The Ad­juster is the mark of di­vin­ity, the pres­ence of God. The “im­age of God” does not re­fer to phys­i­cal like­ness nor to the cir­cum­scribed lim­i­ta­tions of ma­te­rial crea­ture en­dow­ment but rather to the gift of the spirit pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther in the su­per­nal be­stowal of the Thought Ad­justers upon the hum­ble crea­tures of the uni­verses.

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

110:0.2As far as I am con­ver­sant with the af­fairs of a uni­verse, I re­gard the love and de­vo­tion of a Thought Ad­juster as the most truly di­vine af­fec­tion in all cre­ation. The love of the Sons in their min­istry to the races is su­perb, but the de­vo­tion of an Ad­juster to the in­di­vid­ual is touch­ingly sub­lime, di­vinely Fa­ther­like. The Par­a­dise Fa­ther has ap­par­ently re­served this form of per­sonal con­tact with his in­di­vid­ual crea­tures as an ex­clu­sive Cre­ator pre­rog­a­tive. And there is noth­ing in all the uni­verse of uni­verses ex­actly com­pa­ra­ble to the mar­velous min­istry of these im­per­sonal en­ti­ties that so fas­ci­nat­ingly in­dwell the chil­dren of the evo­lu­tion­ary plan­ets.

• described › in Him we live, move, and have our being

111:5.2The im­i­ta­tion of God is the key to per­fec­tion; the do­ing of his will is the se­cret of sur­vival and of per­fec­tion in sur­vival.

• described › Father idea is highest human concept of God

115:1.2Con­cep­tual frames of the uni­verse are only rel­a­tively true; they are ser­vice­able scaf­fold­ing which must even­tu­ally give way be­fore the ex­pan­sions of en­larg­ing cos­mic com­pre­hen­sion. The un­der­stand­ings of truth, beauty, and good­ness, moral­ity, ethics, duty, love, di­vin­ity, ori­gin, ex­is­tence, pur­pose, des­tiny, time, space, even De­ity, are only rel­a­tively true. God is much, much more than a Fa­ther, but the Fa­ther is man’s high­est con­cept of God; nonethe­less, the Fa­ther-Son por­trayal of Cre­ator-crea­ture re­la­tion­ship will be aug­mented by those super­mor­tal con­cep­tions of De­ity which will be at­tained in Or­von­ton, in Ha­vona, and on Par­a­dise. Man must think in a mor­tal uni­verse frame, but that does not mean that he can­not en­vi­sion other and higher frames within which thought can take place.

• attitude › gives part of himself to be our eternal self

116:3.43. The in­dwelling pres­ences of the First Source and Cen­ter. Mind uni­fies spirit cau­sa­tions with en­ergy re­ac­tions; be­stowal min­istry uni­fies di­vin­ity de­scen­sions with crea­ture as­cen­sions; and the in­dwelling frag­ments of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ac­tu­ally unify the evolv­ing crea­tures with God on Par­a­dise. There are many such pres­ences of the Fa­ther which in­dwell nu­mer­ous or­ders of per­son­al­i­ties, and in mor­tal man these di­vine frag­ments of God are the Thought Ad­justers. The Mys­tery Mon­i­tors are to hu­man be­ings what the Par­a­dise Trin­ity is to the Su­preme Be­ing. The Ad­justers are ab­so­lute foun­da­tions, and upon ab­so­lute foun­da­tions free­will choice can cause to be evolved the di­vine re­al­ity of an eter­naliter na­ture, fi­nal­i­ter na­ture in the case of man, De­ity na­ture in God the Su­preme.

116:3.5The crea­ture be­stowals of the Par­a­dise or­ders of son­ship en­able these di­vine Sons to en­rich their per­son­al­i­ties by the ac­qui­si­tion of the ac­tual na­ture of uni­verse crea­tures, while such be­stowals un­fail­ingly re­veal to the crea­tures them­selves the Par­a­dise path of di­vin­ity at­tain­ment. The Ad­juster be­stowals of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther en­able him to draw the per­son­al­i­ties of the vo­li­tional will crea­tures to him­self. And through­out all these re­la­tion­ships in the fi­nite uni­verses the Con­joint Ac­tor is the ever-pres­ent source of the mind min­istry by virtue of which these ac­tiv­i­ties take place.

• described › Thought Adjuster is image of

117:3.5Mor­tal man is more than fig­u­ra­tively made in the im­age of God. From a phys­i­cal stand­point this state­ment is hardly true, but with ref­er­ence to cer­tain uni­verse po­ten­tial­i­ties it is an ac­tual fact. In the hu­man race, some­thing of the same drama of evo­lu­tion­ary at­tain­ment is be­ing un­folded as takes place, on a vastly larger scale, in the uni­verse of uni­verses. Man, a vo­li­tional per­son­al­ity, be­comes cre­ative in li­ai­son with an Ad­juster, an im­per­sonal en­tity, in the pres­ence of the fi­nite po­ten­tial­i­ties of the Su­preme, and the re­sult is the flow­er­ing of an im­mor­tal soul. In the uni­verses the Cre­ator per­son­al­i­ties of time and space func­tion in li­ai­son with the im­per­sonal spirit of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity and be­come thereby cre­ative of a new power po­ten­tial of De­ity re­al­ity.

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

117:3.9De­ity is unity, ex­is­ten­tial in the Trin­ity, ex­pe­ri­en­tial in the Su­preme, and, in mor­tals, crea­ture-re­al­ized in Ad­juster fu­sion. The pres­ence of the Thought Ad­justers in mor­tal man re­veals the es­sen­tial unity of the uni­verse, for man, the low­est pos­si­ble type of uni­verse per­son­al­ity, con­tains within him­self an ac­tual frag­ment of the high­est and eter­nal re­al­ity, even the orig­i­nal Fa­ther of all per­son­al­i­ties.

• functions › not personally responsible for everything

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.

• functions › not personally responsible for everything

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.

• delegation of power › may at any time interpose a fatherly hand in the stream of cosmic events

118:10.6Nev­er­the­less, the Fa­ther as a per­son may at any time in­ter­pose a fa­therly hand in the stream of cos­mic events all in ac­cor­dance with the will of God and in con­so­nance with the wis­dom of God and as mo­ti­vated by the love of God.

• described › Jesus revealed the Father, but taught little about him

120:1.4“Through­out your Uran­tia be­stowal you need be con­cerned with but one thing, the un­bro­ken com­mu­nion be­tween you and your Par­a­dise Fa­ther; and it will be by the per­fec­tion of such a re­la­tion­ship that the world of your be­stowal, even all the uni­verse of your cre­ation, will be­hold a new and more un­der­stand­able rev­e­la­tion of your Fa­ther and my Fa­ther, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of all. Your con­cern, there­fore, has only to do with your per­sonal life on Uran­tia. I will be fully and ef­fi­ciently re­spon­si­ble for the se­cu­rity and un­bro­ken ad­min­is­tra­tion of your uni­verse from the mo­ment of your vol­un­tary re­lin­quish­ment of au­thor­ity un­til you re­turn to us as Uni­verse Sov­er­eign, con­firmed by Par­a­dise, and re­ceive back from my hands, not the vicegerent au­thor­ity which you now sur­ren­der to me, but, in­stead, the su­preme power over, and ju­ris­dic­tion of, your uni­verse.

• described › manifests himself in the usual, normal way

120:4.6In and through all this ex­traor­di­nary ex­pe­ri­ence, God the Fa­ther chose to man­i­fest him­self as he al­ways does—in the usual way—in the nor­mal, nat­u­ral, and de­pend­able way of di­vine act­ing.

• described › is changeless

130:4.2The source of uni­verse re­al­ity is the In­fi­nite. The ma­te­rial things of fi­nite cre­ation are the time-space reper­cus­sions of the Par­a­dise Pat­tern and the Uni­ver­sal Mind of the eter­nal God. Cau­sa­tion in the phys­i­cal world, self-con­scious­ness in the in­tel­lec­tual world, and pro­gress­ing self­hood in the spirit world—these re­al­i­ties, pro­jected on a uni­ver­sal scale, com­bined in eter­nal re­lat­ed­ness, and ex­pe­ri­enced with per­fec­tion of qual­ity and di­vin­ity of value—con­sti­tute the re­al­ity of the Su­preme. But in an ever-chang­ing uni­verse the Orig­i­nal Per­son­al­ity of cau­sa­tion, in­tel­li­gence, and spirit ex­pe­ri­ence is change­less, ab­so­lute. All things, even in an eter­nal uni­verse of lim­it­less val­ues and di­vine qual­i­ties, may, and of­ten­times do, change ex­cept the Ab­so­lutes and that which has at­tained the phys­i­cal sta­tus, in­tel­lec­tual em­brace, or spir­i­tual iden­tity which is ab­so­lute.

• direct worship to Father alone

131:1.3“Even if the earth should pass away, the re­splen­dent face of the Su­preme would abide in majesty and glory. The Most High is the first and the last, the be­gin­ning and the end of ev­ery­thing. There is but this one God, and his name is Truth. God is self-ex­is­tent, and he is de­void of all anger and en­mity; he is im­mor­tal and in­fi­nite. Our God is om­nipo­tent and boun­teous. While he has many man­i­fes­ta­tions, we wor­ship only God him­self. God knows all—our se­crets and our procla­ma­tions; he also knows what each of us de­serves. His might is equal to all things.

• attitude › never imposes arbitrary recognition

131:1.8“At all times call upon his name, and as you be­lieve in his name, so shall your prayer be heard. What a great honor it is to wor­ship the Most High! All the worlds and the uni­verses wor­ship the Most High. And with all your prayers give thanks—as­cend to wor­ship. Prayer­ful wor­ship shuns evil and for­bids sin. At all times let us praise the name of the Most High. The man who takes shel­ter in the Most High con­ceals his de­fects from the uni­verse. When you stand be­fore God with a clean heart, you be­come fear­less of all cre­ation. The Most High is like a lov­ing fa­ther and mother; he re­ally loves us, his chil­dren on earth. Our God will for­give us and guide our foot­steps into the ways of sal­va­tion. He will take us by the hand and lead us to him­self. God saves those who trust him; he does not com­pel man to serve his name.

• attitude › cares what man is, not what he does

131:8.5“The Great Su­preme is all-per­vad­ing; he is on the left hand and on the right; he sup­ports all cre­ation and in­dwells all true be­ings. You can­not find the Su­preme, nei­ther can you go to a place where he is not. If a man rec­og­nizes the evil of his ways and re­pents of sin from the heart, then may he seek for­give­ness; he may es­cape the penalty; he may change calamity into bless­ing. The Su­preme is the se­cure refuge for all cre­ation; he is the guard­ian and sav­ior of man­kind. If you seek for him daily, you shall find him. Since he can for­give sins, he is in­deed most pre­cious to all men. Al­ways re­mem­ber that God does not re­ward man for what he does but for what he is; there­fore should you ex­tend help to your fel­lows with­out the thought of re­wards. Do good with­out thought of ben­e­fit to the self.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

131:9.4“A wise man is oc­cu­pied with the search for truth, not in seek­ing for a mere liv­ing. To at­tain the per­fec­tion of Heaven is the goal of man. The su­pe­rior man is given to self-ad­just­ment, and he is free from anx­i­ety and fear. God is with you; have no doubt in your heart. Ev­ery good deed has its rec­om­pense. The su­pe­rior man mur­murs not against Heaven nor holds a grudge against men. What you do not like when done to your­self, do not to oth­ers. Let com­pas­sion be a part of all pun­ish­ment; in ev­ery way en­deavor to make pun­ish­ment a bless­ing. Such is the way of Great Heaven. While all crea­tures must die and re­turn to the earth, the spirit of the no­ble man goes forth to be dis­played on high and to as­cend to the glo­ri­ous light of fi­nal bright­ness.”

• described › all things consist in

131:10.2“The Lord our God is one Lord, and you should love him with all your mind and heart while you do your very best to love all his chil­dren as you love your­self. This one God is our heav­enly Fa­ther, in whom all things con­sist, and who dwells, by his spirit, in ev­ery sin­cere hu­man soul. And we who are the chil­dren of God should learn how to com­mit the keep­ing of our souls to him as to a faith­ful Cre­ator. With our heav­enly Fa­ther all things are pos­si­ble. Since he is the Cre­ator, hav­ing made all things and all be­ings, it could not be oth­er­wise. Though we can­not see God, we can know him. And by daily liv­ing the will of the Fa­ther in heaven, we can re­veal him to our fel­low men.

• attitude › loves the righteous and the unrighteous
• attitude › not willing any should perish
• described › all things consist in
• described › is changeless

131:10.4“The Fa­ther in heaven will not suf­fer a sin­gle child on earth to per­ish if that child has a de­sire to find the Fa­ther and truly longs to be like him. Our Fa­ther even loves the wicked and is al­ways kind to the un­grate­ful. If more hu­man be­ings could only know about the good­ness of God, they would cer­tainly be led to re­pent of their evil ways and for­sake all known sin. All good things come down from the Fa­ther of light, in whom there is no vari­able­ness nei­ther shadow of chang­ing. The spirit of the true God is in man’s heart. He in­tends that all men should be broth­ers. When men be­gin to feel af­ter God, that is ev­i­dence that God has found them, and that they are in quest of knowl­edge about him. We live in God and God dwells in us.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

133:0.3One day while rest­ing at lunch, about half­way to Tar­en­tum, Ga­nid asked Je­sus a di­rect ques­tion as to what he thought of In­dia’s caste sys­tem. Said Je­sus: “Though hu­man be­ings dif­fer in many ways, the one from an­other, be­fore God and in the spir­i­tual world all mor­tals stand on an equal foot­ing. There are only two groups of mor­tals in the eyes of God: those who de­sire to do his will and those who do not. As the uni­verse looks upon an in­hab­ited world, it like­wise dis­cerns two great classes: those who know God and those who do not. Those who can­not know God are reck­oned among the an­i­mals of any given realm. Man­kind can ap­pro­pri­ately be di­vided into many classes in ac­cor­dance with dif­fer­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tions, as they may be viewed phys­i­cally, men­tally, so­cially, vo­ca­tion­ally, or morally, but as these dif­fer­ent classes of mor­tals ap­pear be­fore the judg­ment bar of God, they stand on an equal foot­ing; God is truly no re­specter of per­sons. Al­though you can­not es­cape the rec­og­ni­tion of dif­fer­en­tial hu­man abil­i­ties and en­dow­ments in mat­ters in­tel­lec­tual, so­cial, and moral, you should make no such dis­tinc­tions in the spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of men when as­sem­bled for wor­ship in the pres­ence of God.”

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

136:2.5It was the voice of the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster that John and Je­sus heard, speak­ing in be­half of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, for the Ad­juster is of, and as, the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Through­out the re­main­der of Je­sus’ earth life this Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster was as­so­ci­ated with him in all his labors; Je­sus was in con­stant com­mu­nion with this ex­alted Ad­juster.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

137:8.6“I have come to pro­claim the es­tab­lish­ment of the Fa­ther’s king­dom. And this king­dom shall in­clude the wor­ship­ing souls of Jew and gen­tile, rich and poor, free and bond, for my Fa­ther is no re­specter of per­sons; his love and his mercy are over all.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

137:8.13“And this king­dom which I de­clare to you is not a reign of power and plenty. The king­dom of heaven is not a mat­ter of meat and drink but rather a life of pro­gres­sive righ­teous­ness and in­creas­ing joy in the per­fect­ing ser­vice of my Fa­ther who is in heaven. For has not the Fa­ther said of his chil­dren of the world, ‘It is my will that they should even­tu­ally be per­fect, even as I am per­fect.’

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

138:8.2Je­sus taught them to preach the for­give­ness of sin through faith in God with­out pen­ance or sac­ri­fice, and that the Fa­ther in heaven loves all his chil­dren with the same eter­nal love. He en­joined his apos­tles to re­frain from dis­cussing:

• attitude › commandment to become perfect
• attitude › loves the righteous and the unrighteous
• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

140:3.16“Your Fa­ther in heaven makes the sun to shine on the evil as well as upon the good; like­wise he sends rain on the just and the un­just. You are the sons of God; even more, you are now the am­bas­sadors of my Fa­ther’s king­dom. Be mer­ci­ful, even as God is mer­ci­ful, and in the eter­nal fu­ture of the king­dom you shall be per­fect, even as your heav­enly Fa­ther is per­fect.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

140:5.15And then Je­sus went on to in­struct his fol­low­ers in the re­al­iza­tion of the chief pur­pose of all hu­man strug­gling—per­fec­tion—even di­vine at­tain­ment. Al­ways he ad­mon­ished them: “Be you per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.” He did not ex­hort the twelve to love their neigh­bors as they loved them­selves. That would have been a wor­thy achieve­ment; it would have in­di­cated the achieve­ment of broth­erly love. He rather ad­mon­ished his apos­tles to love men as he had loved them—to love with a fa­therly as well as a broth­erly af­fec­tion. And he il­lus­trated this by point­ing out four su­preme re­ac­tions of fa­therly love:

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

140:8.32The Mas­ter came to cre­ate in man a new spirit, a new will—to im­part a new ca­pac­ity for know­ing the truth, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing com­pas­sion, and choos­ing good­ness—the will to be in har­mony with God’s will, cou­pled with the eter­nal urge to be­come per­fect, even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

140:10.1That evening while teach­ing in the house, for it had be­gun to rain, Je­sus talked at great length, try­ing to show the twelve what they must be, not what they must do. They knew only a re­li­gion that im­posed the do­ing of cer­tain things as the means of at­tain­ing righ­teous­ness—sal­va­tion. But Je­sus would re­it­er­ate, “In the king­dom you must be righ­teous in or­der to do the work.” Many times did he re­peat, “Be you there­fore per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.” All the while was the Mas­ter ex­plain­ing to his be­wil­dered apos­tles that the sal­va­tion which he had come to bring to the world was to be had only by be­liev­ing, by sim­ple and sin­cere faith. Said Je­sus: “John preached a bap­tism of re­pen­tance, sor­row for the old way of liv­ing. You are to pro­claim the bap­tism of fel­low­ship with God. Preach re­pen­tance to those who stand in need of such teach­ing, but to those al­ready seek­ing sin­cere en­trance to the king­dom, open the doors wide and bid them en­ter into the joy­ous fel­low­ship of the sons of God.” But it was a dif­fi­cult task to per­suade these Galilean fish­er­men that, in the king­dom, be­ing righ­teous, by faith, must pre­cede do­ing righ­teous­ness in the daily life of the mor­tals of earth.

• described › in Him we live, move, and have our being

141:2.1The night be­fore they left Pella, Je­sus gave the apos­tles some fur­ther in­struc­tion with re­gard to the new king­dom. Said the Mas­ter: “You have been taught to look for the com­ing of the king­dom of God, and now I come an­nounc­ing that this long-looked-for king­dom is near at hand, even that it is al­ready here and in our midst. In ev­ery king­dom there must be a king seated upon his throne and de­cree­ing the laws of the realm. And so have you de­vel­oped a con­cept of the king­dom of heaven as a glo­ri­fied rule of the Jew­ish peo­ple over all the peo­ples of the earth with Mes­siah sit­ting on David’s throne and from this place of mirac­u­lous power pro­mul­gat­ing the laws of all the world. But, my chil­dren, you see not with the eye of faith, and you hear not with the un­der­stand­ing of the spirit. I de­clare that the king­dom of heaven is the re­al­iza­tion and ac­knowl­edg­ment of God’s rule within the hearts of men. True, there is a King in this king­dom, and that King is my Fa­ther and your Fa­ther. We are in­deed his loyal sub­jects, but far tran­scend­ing that fact is the trans­form­ing truth that we are his sons. In my life this truth is to be­come man­i­fest to all. Our Fa­ther also sits upon a throne, but not one made with hands. The throne of the In­fi­nite is the eter­nal dwell­ing place of the Fa­ther in the heaven of heav­ens; he fills all things and pro­claims his laws to uni­verses upon uni­verses. And the Fa­ther also rules within the hearts of his chil­dren on earth by the spirit which he has sent to live within the souls of mor­tal men.

141:2.2“When you are the sub­jects of this king­dom, you in­deed are made to hear the law of the Uni­verse Ruler; but when, be­cause of the gospel of the king­dom which I have come to de­clare, you faith-dis­cover your­selves as sons, you hence­forth look not upon your­selves as law-sub­ject crea­tures of an all-pow­er­ful king but as priv­i­leged sons of a lov­ing and di­vine Fa­ther. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, when the Fa­ther’s will is your law, you are hardly in the king­dom. But when the Fa­ther’s will be­comes truly your will, then are you in very truth in the king­dom be­cause the king­dom has thereby be­come an es­tab­lished ex­pe­ri­ence in you. When God’s will is your law, you are no­ble slave sub­jects; but when you be­lieve in this new gospel of di­vine son­ship, my Fa­ther’s will be­comes your will, and you are el­e­vated to the high po­si­tion of the free chil­dren of God, lib­er­ated sons of the king­dom.”

141:2.3Some of the apos­tles grasped some­thing of this teach­ing, but none of them com­pre­hended the full sig­nif­i­cance of this tremen­dous an­nounce­ment, un­less it was James Zeb­e­dee. But these words sank into their hearts and came forth to glad­den their min­istry dur­ing later years of ser­vice.

141:4.1While so­journ­ing at Am­athus, Je­sus spent much time with the apos­tles in­struct­ing them in the new con­cept of God; again and again did he im­press upon them that God is a Fa­ther, not a great and su­preme book­keeper who is chiefly en­gaged in mak­ing dam­ag­ing en­tries against his erring chil­dren on earth, record­ings of sin and evil to be used against them when he sub­se­quently sits in judg­ment upon them as the just Judge of all cre­ation. The Jews had long con­ceived of God as a king over all, even as a Fa­ther of the na­tion, but never be­fore had large num­bers of mor­tal men held the idea of God as a lov­ing Fa­ther of the in­di­vid­ual.

141:4.2In an­swer to Thomas’s ques­tion, “Who is this God of the king­dom?” Je­sus replied: “God is your Fa­ther, and re­li­gion—my gospel—is noth­ing more nor less than the be­liev­ing rec­og­ni­tion of the truth that you are his son. And I am here among you in the flesh to make clear both of these ideas in my life and teach­ings.”

141:4.3Je­sus also sought to free the minds of his apos­tles from the idea of of­fer­ing an­i­mal sac­ri­fices as a re­li­gious duty. But these men, trained in the re­li­gion of the daily sac­ri­fice, were slow to com­pre­hend what he meant. Nev­er­the­less, the Mas­ter did not grow weary in his teach­ing. When he failed to reach the minds of all of the apos­tles by means of one il­lus­tra­tion, he would re­state his mes­sage and em­ploy an­other type of para­ble for pur­poses of il­lu­mi­na­tion.

141:4.4At this same time Je­sus be­gan to teach the twelve more fully con­cern­ing their mis­sion “to com­fort the af­flicted and min­is­ter to the sick.” The Mas­ter taught them much about the whole man—the union of body, mind, and spirit to form the in­di­vid­ual man or woman. Je­sus told his as­so­ciates about the three forms of af­flic­tion they would meet and went on to ex­plain how they should min­is­ter to all who suf­fer the sor­rows of hu­man sick­ness. He taught them to rec­og­nize:

141:4.51. Dis­eases of the flesh—those af­flic­tions com­monly re­garded as phys­i­cal sick­ness.

141:4.62. Trou­bled minds—those non­phys­i­cal af­flic­tions which were sub­se­quently looked upon as emo­tional and men­tal dif­fi­cul­ties and dis­tur­bances.

141:4.73. The pos­ses­sion of evil spir­its.

141:4.8Je­sus ex­plained to his apos­tles on sev­eral oc­ca­sions the na­ture, and some­thing con­cern­ing the ori­gin, of these evil spir­its, in that day of­ten also called un­clean spir­its. The Mas­ter well knew the dif­fer­ence be­tween the pos­ses­sion of evil spir­its and in­san­ity, but the apos­tles did not. Nei­ther was it pos­si­ble, in view of their lim­ited knowl­edge of the early his­tory of Uran­tia, for Je­sus to un­der­take to make this mat­ter fully un­der­stand­able. But he many times said to them, al­lud­ing to these evil spir­its: “They shall no more mo­lest men when I shall have as­cended to my Fa­ther in heaven, and af­ter I shall have poured out my spirit upon all flesh in those times when the king­dom will come in great power and spir­i­tual glory.”

141:4.9From week to week and from month to month, through­out this en­tire year, the apos­tles paid more and more at­ten­tion to the heal­ing min­istry of the sick.

• described › is changeless

142:2.2When Ja­cob fin­ished speak­ing, Je­sus re­plied: “Ja­cob, you have well stated the teach­ings of the olden proph­ets who taught the chil­dren of their gen­er­a­tion in ac­cor­dance with the light of their day. Our Fa­ther in Par­a­dise is change­less. But the con­cept of his na­ture has en­larged and grown from the days of Moses down through the times of Amos and even to the gen­er­a­tion of the prophet Isa­iah. And now have I come in the flesh to re­veal the Fa­ther in new glory and to show forth his love and mercy to all men on all worlds. As the gospel of this king­dom shall spread over the world with its mes­sage of good cheer and good will to all men, there will grow up im­proved and bet­ter re­la­tions among the fam­i­lies of all na­tions. As time passes, fa­thers and their chil­dren will love each other more, and thus will be brought about a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the love of the Fa­ther in heaven for his chil­dren on earth. Re­mem­ber, Ja­cob, that a good and true fa­ther not only loves his fam­ily as a whole—as a fam­ily—but he also truly loves and af­fec­tion­ately cares for each in­di­vid­ual mem­ber.”

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

143:1.5“But who told you that my gospel was in­tended only for slaves and weak­lings? Do you, my cho­sen apos­tles, re­sem­ble weak­lings? Did John look like a weak­ling? Do you ob­serve that I am en­slaved by fear? True, the poor and op­pressed of this gen­er­a­tion have the gospel preached to them. The re­li­gions of this world have ne­glected the poor, but my Fa­ther is no re­specter of per­sons. Be­sides, the poor of this day are the first to heed the call to re­pen­tance and ac­cep­tance of son­ship. The gospel of the king­dom is to be preached to all men—Jew and gen­tile, Greek and Ro­man, rich and poor, free and bond—and equally to young and old, male and fe­male.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

143:2.6“Sal­va­tion is by the re­gen­er­a­tion of the spirit and not by the self-righ­teous deeds of the flesh. You are jus­ti­fied by faith and fel­low­shipped by grace, not by fear and the self-de­nial of the flesh, al­beit the Fa­ther’s chil­dren who have been born of the spirit are ever and al­ways mas­ters of the self and all that per­tains to the de­sires of the flesh. When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God. And all who fol­low in the way of this heav­enly peace are des­tined to be sanc­ti­fied to the eter­nal ser­vice of the ever-ad­vanc­ing sons of the eter­nal God. Hence­forth, it is not a duty but rather your ex­alted priv­i­lege to cleanse your­selves from all evils of mind and body while you seek for per­fec­tion in the love of God.

• functions › not personally responsible for everything

148:5.4“Na­than­iel, it is our mis­sion to help men solve their spir­i­tual prob­lems and in this way to quicken their minds so that they may be the bet­ter pre­pared and in­spired to go about solv­ing their man­i­fold ma­te­rial prob­lems. I know of your con­fu­sion as you have read the Scrip­tures. All too of­ten there has pre­vailed a ten­dency to as­cribe to God the re­spon­si­bil­ity for ev­ery­thing which ig­no­rant man fails to un­der­stand. The Fa­ther is not per­son­ally re­spon­si­ble for all you may fail to com­pre­hend. Do not doubt the love of the Fa­ther just be­cause some just and wise law of his or­dain­ing chances to af­flict you be­cause you have in­no­cently or de­lib­er­ately trans­gressed such a di­vine or­di­nance.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

148:6.2“My son, you do not com­pre­hend the mean­ing of ad­ver­sity or the mis­sion of suf­fer­ing. Have you not read that mas­ter­piece of Semitic lit­er­a­ture—the Scrip­ture story of the af­flic­tions of Job? Do you not re­call how this won­der­ful para­ble be­gins with the recital of the ma­te­rial pros­per­ity of the Lord’s ser­vant? You well re­mem­ber that Job was blessed with chil­dren, wealth, dig­nity, po­si­tion, health, and ev­ery­thing else which men value in this tem­po­ral life. Ac­cord­ing to the time-hon­ored teach­ings of the chil­dren of Abra­ham such ma­te­rial pros­per­ity was all-suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence of di­vine fa­vor. But such ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions and such tem­po­ral pros­per­ity do not in­di­cate God’s fa­vor. My Fa­ther in heaven loves the poor just as much as the rich; he is no re­specter of per­sons.

• described › speaks within heart as still, small voice

148:6.10“Job was al­to­gether right when he chal­lenged the doc­trine that God af­flicts chil­dren in or­der to pun­ish their par­ents. Job was ever ready to ad­mit that God is righ­teous, but he longed for some soul-sat­is­fy­ing rev­e­la­tion of the per­sonal char­ac­ter of the Eter­nal. And that is our mis­sion on earth. No more shall suf­fer­ing mor­tals be de­nied the com­fort of know­ing the love of God and un­der­stand­ing the mercy of the Fa­ther in heaven. While the speech of God spo­ken from the whirl­wind was a ma­jes­tic con­cept for the day of its ut­ter­ance, you have al­ready learned that the Fa­ther does not thus re­veal him­self, but rather that he speaks within the hu­man heart as a still, small voice, say­ing, ‘This is the way; walk therein.’ Do you not com­pre­hend that God dwells within you, that he has be­come what you are that he may make you what he is!”

• worship U.F., first because he is

149:6.5“Your fore­bears feared God be­cause he was mighty and mys­te­ri­ous. You shall adore him be­cause he is mag­nif­i­cent in love, plen­teous in mercy, and glo­ri­ous in truth. The power of God en­gen­ders fear in the heart of man, but the no­bil­ity and righ­teous­ness of his per­son­al­ity beget rev­er­ence, love, and will­ing wor­ship. A du­ti­ful and af­fec­tion­ate son does not fear or dread even a mighty and no­ble fa­ther. I have come into the world to put love in the place of fear, joy in the place of sor­row, con­fi­dence in the place of dread, lov­ing ser­vice and ap­pre­cia­tive wor­ship in the place of slav­ish bond­age and mean­ing­less cer­e­monies. But it is still true of those who sit in dark­ness that ‘the fear of the Lord is the be­gin­ning of wis­dom.’ But when the light has more fully come, the sons of God are led to praise the In­fi­nite for what he is rather than to fear him for what he does.

• described › man cannot see U.F. until Paradise

153:2.11By this time there was much mur­mur­ing in the syn­a­gogue, and such a tu­mult was threat­ened that Je­sus stood up and said: “Let us be pa­tient; the truth never suf­fers from hon­est ex­am­i­na­tion. I am all that you say but more. The Fa­ther and I are one; the Son does only that which the Fa­ther teaches him, while all those who are given to the Son by the Fa­ther, the Son will re­ceive to him­self. You have read where it is writ­ten in the Proph­ets, ‘You shall all be taught by God,’ and that ‘Those whom the Fa­ther teaches will hear also his Son.’ Ev­ery one who yields to the teach­ing of the Fa­ther’s in­dwelling spirit will even­tu­ally come to me. Not that any man has seen the Fa­ther, but the Fa­ther’s spirit does live within man. And the Son who came down from heaven, he has surely seen the Fa­ther. And those who truly be­lieve this Son al­ready have eter­nal life.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

155:6.2You have come out from among those of your fel­lows who choose to re­main sat­is­fied with a re­li­gion of mind, who crave se­cu­rity and pre­fer con­for­mity. You have elected to ex­change your feel­ings of au­thor­i­ta­tive cer­tainty for the as­sur­ances of the spirit of ad­ven­tur­ous and pro­gres­sive faith. You have dared to protest against the gru­el­ing bond­age of in­sti­tu­tional re­li­gion and to re­ject the au­thor­ity of the tra­di­tions of rec­ord which are now re­garded as the word of God. Our Fa­ther did in­deed speak through Moses, Eli­jah, Isa­iah, Amos, and Hosea, but he did not cease to min­is­ter words of truth to the world when these proph­ets of old made an end of their ut­ter­ances. My Fa­ther is no re­specter of races or gen­er­a­tions in that the word of truth is vouch­safed one age and with­held from an­other. Com­mit not the folly of call­ing that di­vine which is wholly hu­man, and fail not to dis­cern the words of truth which come not through the tra­di­tional or­a­cles of sup­posed in­spi­ra­tion.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations
• described › best understood in Jesus’ life

156:2.4In many ways these gen­tile be­liev­ers ap­pre­ci­ated Je­sus’ teach­ings more fully than the Jews. Many of these Greek-speak­ing Sy­rophoeni­cians came to know not only that Je­sus was like God but also that God was like Je­sus. These so-called hea­then achieved a good un­der­stand­ing of the Mas­ter’s teach­ings about the uni­for­mity of the laws of this world and the en­tire uni­verse. They grasped the teach­ing that God is no re­specter of per­sons, races, or na­tions; that there is no fa­voritism with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; that the uni­verse is wholly and ever law-abid­ing and un­fail­ingly de­pend­able. These gen­tiles were not afraid of Je­sus; they dared to ac­cept his mes­sage. All down through the ages men have not been un­able to com­pre­hend Je­sus; they have been afraid to.

• described › center and circumference of spiritual kingdom

157:6.5A new sig­nif­i­cance at­taches to all of Je­sus’ teach­ings from this point on. Be­fore Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi he pre­sented the gospel of the king­dom as its mas­ter teacher. Af­ter Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi he ap­peared not merely as a teacher but as the di­vine rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the eter­nal Fa­ther, who is the cen­ter and cir­cum­fer­ence of this spir­i­tual king­dom, and it was re­quired that he do all this as a hu­man be­ing, the Son of Man.

• described › he who has seen Jesus has seen

157:6.13“Nev­er­the­less, I tell you that the Fa­ther and I are one. He who has seen me has seen the Fa­ther. My Fa­ther is work­ing with me in all these things, and he will never leave me alone in my mis­sion, even as I will never for­sake you when you pres­ently go forth to pro­claim this gospel through­out the world.

• attitude › desired Jesus pursue his bestowal to its natural end

158:3.4Je­sus wel­comed this tes­ti­mony re­gard­ing the suc­cess of his earth mis­sion pre­sented by the mes­sen­gers of the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit, but he noted that his Fa­ther did not in­di­cate that the Uran­tia be­stowal was fin­ished; only did the un­seen pres­ence of the Fa­ther bear wit­ness through Je­sus’ Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster, say­ing, “This is my beloved Son; give heed to him.” And this was spo­ken in words to be heard also by the three apos­tles.

158:3.5Af­ter this ce­les­tial vis­i­ta­tion Je­sus sought to know his Fa­ther’s will and de­cided to pur­sue the mor­tal be­stowal to its nat­u­ral end. This was the sig­nif­i­cance of the trans­fig­u­ra­tion to Je­sus. To the three apos­tles it was an event mark­ing the en­trance of the Mas­ter upon the fi­nal phase of his earth ca­reer as the Son of God and the Son of Man.

• attitude › desired Jesus pursue his bestowal to its natural end

158:7.4Pe­ter spoke thus be­cause he loved Je­sus; but the Mas­ter’s hu­man na­ture rec­og­nized in these words of well-meant af­fec­tion the sub­tle sug­ges­tion of temp­ta­tion that he change his pol­icy of pur­su­ing to the end his earth be­stowal in ac­cor­dance with the will of his Par­a­dise Fa­ther. And it was be­cause he de­tected the dan­ger of per­mit­ting the sug­ges­tions of even his af­fec­tion­ate and loyal friends to dis­suade him, that he turned upon Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, say­ing: “Get you be­hind me. You sa­vor of the spirit of the ad­ver­sary, the tempter. When you talk in this man­ner, you are not on my side but rather on the side of our en­emy. In this way do you make your love for me a stum­bling block to my do­ing the Fa­ther’s will. Mind not the ways of men but rather the will of God.”

• whosoever receives Jesus, receives U.F.

158:8.1En­ter­ing Ca­per­naum at twi­light, they went by un­fre­quented thor­ough­fares di­rectly to the home of Si­mon Pe­ter for their evening meal. While David Zeb­e­dee made ready to take them across the lake, they lin­gered at Si­mon’s house, and Je­sus, look­ing up at Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, asked: “As you walked along to­gether this af­ter­noon, what was it that you talked about so earnestly among your­selves?” The apos­tles held their peace be­cause many of them had con­tin­ued the dis­cus­sion be­gun at Mount Her­mon as to what po­si­tions they were to have in the com­ing king­dom; who should be the great­est, and so on. Je­sus, know­ing what it was that oc­cu­pied their thoughts that day, beck­oned to one of Pe­ter’s lit­tle ones and, set­ting the child down among them, said: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, ex­cept you turn about and be­come more like this child, you will make lit­tle prog­ress in the king­dom of heaven. Whoso­ever shall hum­ble him­self and be­come as this lit­tle one, the same shall be­come great­est in the king­dom of heaven. And whoso re­ceives such a lit­tle one re­ceives me. And they who re­ceive me re­ceive also Him who sent me. If you would be first in the king­dom, seek to min­is­ter these good truths to your breth­ren in the flesh. But whoso­ever causes one of these lit­tle ones to stum­ble, it would be bet­ter for him if a mill­stone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea. If the things you do with your hands, or the things you see with your eyes give of­fense in the prog­ress of the king­dom, sac­ri­fice these cher­ished idols, for it is bet­ter to en­ter the king­dom mi­nus many of the beloved things of life rather than to cling to these idols and find your­self shut out of the king­dom. But most of all, see that you de­spise not one of these lit­tle ones, for their an­gels do al­ways be­hold the faces of the heav­enly hosts.”

• attitude › not willing any should perish
• attitude › seeks sinners before they think of repentance

159:1.2“If a kind­hearted man has a hun­dred sheep and one of them goes astray, does he not im­me­di­ately leave the ninety and nine and go out in search of the one that has gone astray? And if he is a good shep­herd, will he not keep up his quest for the lost sheep un­til he finds it? And then, when the shep­herd has found his lost sheep, he lays it over his shoul­der and, go­ing home re­joic­ing, calls to his friends and neigh­bors, ‘Re­joice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ I de­clare that there is more joy in heaven over one sin­ner who re­pents than over ninety and nine righ­teous per­sons who need no re­pen­tance. Even so, it is not the will of my Fa­ther in heaven that one of these lit­tle ones should go astray, much less that they should per­ish. In your re­li­gion God may re­ceive re­pen­tant sin­ners; in the gospel of the king­dom the Fa­ther goes forth to find them even be­fore they have se­ri­ously thought of re­pen­tance.

161:1.1There was one mat­ter on which Ro­dan and the two apos­tles did not see alike, and that was the per­son­al­ity of God. Ro­dan read­ily ac­cepted all that was pre­sented to him re­gard­ing the at­tri­butes of God, but he con­tended that the Fa­ther in heaven is not, can­not be, a per­son as man con­ceives per­son­al­ity. While the apos­tles found them­selves in dif­fi­culty try­ing to prove that God is a per­son, Ro­dan found it still more dif­fi­cult to prove he is not a per­son.

161:1.2Ro­dan con­tended that the fact of per­son­al­ity con­sists in the co­ex­is­tent fact of full and mu­tual com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween be­ings of equal­ity, be­ings who are ca­pa­ble of sym­pa­thetic un­der­stand­ing. Said Ro­dan: “In or­der to be a per­son, God must have sym­bols of spirit com­mu­ni­ca­tion which would en­able him to be­come fully un­der­stood by those who make con­tact with him. But since God is in­fi­nite and eter­nal, the Cre­ator of all other be­ings, it fol­lows that, as re­gards be­ings of equal­ity, God is alone in the uni­verse. There are none equal to him; there are none with whom he can com­mu­ni­cate as an equal. God in­deed may be the source of all per­son­al­ity, but as such he is tran­scen­dent to per­son­al­ity, even as the Cre­ator is above and be­yond the crea­ture.”

161:1.3This con­tention greatly trou­bled Thomas and Na­than­iel, and they had asked Je­sus to come to their res­cue, but the Mas­ter re­fused to en­ter into their dis­cus­sions. He did say to Thomas: “It mat­ters lit­tle what idea of the Fa­ther you may en­ter­tain as long as you are spir­i­tu­ally ac­quainted with the ideal of his in­fi­nite and eter­nal na­ture.”

161:1.4Thomas con­tended that God does com­mu­ni­cate with man, and there­fore that the Fa­ther is a per­son, even within the def­i­ni­tion of Ro­dan. This the Greek re­jected on the ground that God does not re­veal him­self per­son­ally; that he is still a mys­tery. Then Na­than­iel ap­pealed to his own per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence with God, and that Ro­dan al­lowed, af­firm­ing that he had re­cently had sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences, but these ex­pe­ri­ences, he con­tended, proved only the re­al­ity of God, not his per­son­al­ity.

161:1.5By Mon­day night Thomas gave up. But by Tues­day night Na­than­iel had won Ro­dan to be­lieve in the per­son­al­ity of the Fa­ther, and he ef­fected this change in the Greek’s views by the fol­low­ing steps of rea­son­ing:

161:1.61. The Fa­ther in Par­a­dise does en­joy equal­ity of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with at least two other be­ings who are fully equal to him­self and wholly like him­self—the Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit. In view of the doc­trine of the Trin­ity, the Greek was com­pelled to con­cede the per­son­al­ity pos­si­bil­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. (It was the later con­sid­er­a­tion of these dis­cus­sions which led to the en­larged con­cep­tion of the Trin­ity in the minds of the twelve apos­tles. Of course, it was the gen­eral be­lief that Je­sus was the Eter­nal Son.)

161:1.72. Since Je­sus was equal with the Fa­ther, and since this Son had achieved the man­i­fes­ta­tion of per­son­al­ity to his earth chil­dren, such a phe­nom­e­non con­sti­tuted proof of the fact, and dem­on­stra­tion of the pos­si­bil­ity, of the pos­ses­sion of per­son­al­ity by all three of the God­heads and for­ever set­tled the ques­tion re­gard­ing the abil­ity of God to com­mu­ni­cate with man and the pos­si­bil­ity of man’s com­mu­ni­cat­ing with God.

• described › best understood in Jesus’ life

161:1.83. That Je­sus was on terms of mu­tual as­so­ci­a­tion and per­fect com­mu­ni­ca­tion with man; that Je­sus was the Son of God. That the re­la­tion of Son and Fa­ther pre­sup­poses equal­ity of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and mu­tu­al­ity of sym­pa­thetic un­der­stand­ing; that Je­sus and the Fa­ther were one. That Je­sus main­tained at one and the same time un­der­stand­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion with both God and man, and that, since both God and man com­pre­hended the mean­ing of the sym­bols of Je­sus’ com­mu­ni­ca­tion, both God and man pos­sessed the at­tri­butes of per­son­al­ity in so far as the re­quire­ments of the abil­ity of in­ter­com­mu­ni­ca­tion were con­cerned. That the per­son­al­ity of Je­sus demon­strated the per­son­al­ity of God, while it proved con­clu­sively the pres­ence of God in man. That two things which are re­lated to the same thing are re­lated to each other.

161:1.94. That per­son­al­ity rep­re­sents man’s high­est con­cept of hu­man re­al­ity and di­vine val­ues; that God also rep­re­sents man’s high­est con­cept of di­vine re­al­ity and in­fi­nite val­ues; there­fore, that God must be a di­vine and in­fi­nite per­son­al­ity, a per­son­al­ity in re­al­ity al­though in­finitely and eter­nally tran­scend­ing man’s con­cept and def­i­ni­tion of per­son­al­ity, but nev­er­the­less al­ways and uni­ver­sally a per­son­al­ity.

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

161:1.105. That God must be a per­son­al­ity since he is the Cre­ator of all per­son­al­ity and the des­tiny of all per­son­al­ity. Ro­dan had been tremen­dously in­flu­enced by the teach­ing of Je­sus, “Be you there­fore per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.”

161:1.11When Ro­dan heard these ar­gu­ments, he said: “I am con­vinced. I will con­fess God as a per­son if you will per­mit me to qual­ify my con­fes­sion of such a be­lief by at­tach­ing to the mean­ing of per­son­al­ity a group of ex­tended val­ues, such as super­hu­man, tran­scen­dent, su­preme, in­fi­nite, eter­nal, fi­nal, and uni­ver­sal. I am now con­vinced that, while God must be in­finitely more than a per­son­al­ity, he can­not be any­thing less. I am sat­is­fied to end the ar­gu­ment and to ac­cept Je­sus as the per­sonal rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther and the sat­is­fac­tion of all un­sat­is­fied fac­tors in logic, rea­son, and phi­los­o­phy.”

• whosoever receives Jesus, receives U.F.

162:2.3Then said an­other in­quirer: “Yes, Teacher, we do look for the Mes­siah, but when he comes, we know that his ap­pear­ance will be in mys­tery. We know whence you are. You have been among your breth­ren from the be­gin­ning. The de­liv­erer will come in power to re­store the throne of David’s king­dom. Do you re­ally claim to be the Mes­siah?” And Je­sus replied: “You claim to know me and to know whence I am. I wish your claims were true, for in­deed then would you find abun­dant life in that knowl­edge. But I de­clare that I have not come to you for my­self; I have been sent by the Fa­ther, and he who sent me is true and faith­ful. By re­fus­ing to hear me, you are re­fus­ing to re­ceive Him who sends me. You, if you will re­ceive this gospel, shall come to know Him who sent me. I know the Fa­ther, for I have come from the Fa­ther to de­clare and re­veal him to you.”

• described › only Jesus knew

163:6.3And it was at this time, just be­fore par­tak­ing of the evening meal, that Je­sus ex­pe­ri­enced one of those rare mo­ments of emo­tional ec­stasy which his fol­low­ers had oc­ca­sion­ally wit­nessed. He said: “I thank you, my Fa­ther, Lord of heaven and earth, that, while this won­der­ful gospel was hid­den from the wise and self-righ­teous, the spirit has re­vealed these spir­i­tual glo­ries to these chil­dren of the king­dom. Yes, my Fa­ther, it must have been pleas­ing in your sight to do this, and I re­joice to know that the good news will spread to all the world even af­ter I shall have re­turned to you and the work which you have given me to per­form. I am might­ily moved as I re­al­ize you are about to de­liver all au­thor­ity into my hands, that only you re­ally know who I am, and that only I re­ally know you, and those to whom I have re­vealed you. And when I have fin­ished this rev­e­la­tion to my breth­ren in the flesh, I will con­tinue the rev­e­la­tion to your crea­tures on high.”

• attitude › loves the righteous and the unrighteous

166:4.4“The Fa­ther causes his rain to fall on the just and the un­just; the sun like­wise shines on the righ­teous and the un­righ­teous. You know about those Galileans whose blood Pi­late min­gled with the sac­ri­fices, but I tell you these Galileans were not in any man­ner sin­ners above all their fel­lows just be­cause this hap­pened to them. You also know about the eigh­teen men upon whom the tower of Siloam fell, killing them. Think not that these men who were thus de­stroyed were of­fend­ers above all their breth­ren in Je­ru­sa­lem. These folks were sim­ply in­no­cent vic­tims of one of the ac­ci­dents of time.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

166:4.11“The Fa­ther’s hu­man chil­dren have equal ca­pac­ity for the re­cep­tion of ma­te­rial bless­ings; there­fore does he be­stow things phys­i­cal upon the chil­dren of men with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion. When it comes to the be­stowal of spir­i­tual gifts, the Fa­ther is lim­ited by man’s ca­pac­ity for re­ceiv­ing these di­vine en­dow­ments. Al­though the Fa­ther is no re­specter of per­sons, in the be­stowal of spir­i­tual gifts he is lim­ited by man’s faith and by his will­ing­ness al­ways to abide by the Fa­ther’s will.”

• attitude › seeks sinners before they think of repentance

169:1.3“You have been taught that di­vine ac­cep­tance comes af­ter your re­pen­tance and as a re­sult of all your works of sac­ri­fice and pen­i­tence, but I as­sure you that the Fa­ther ac­cepts you even be­fore you have re­pented and sends the Son and his as­so­ciates to find you and bring you, with re­joic­ing, back to the fold, the king­dom of son­ship and spir­i­tual prog­ress. You are all like sheep which have gone astray, and I have come to seek and to save those who are lost.

169:4.1Je­sus al­ways had trou­ble try­ing to ex­plain to the apos­tles that, while they pro­claimed the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom of God, the Fa­ther in heaven was not a king. At the time Je­sus lived on earth and taught in the flesh, the peo­ple of Uran­tia knew mostly of kings and em­per­ors in the gov­ern­ments of the na­tions, and the Jews had long con­tem­plated the com­ing of the king­dom of God. For these and other rea­sons, the Mas­ter thought best to des­ig­nate the spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of man as the king­dom of heaven and the spirit head of this broth­er­hood as the Fa­ther in heaven. Never did Je­sus re­fer to his Fa­ther as a king. In his in­ti­mate talks with the apos­tles he al­ways re­ferred to him­self as the Son of Man and as their el­der brother. He de­picted all his fol­low­ers as ser­vants of man­kind and mes­sen­gers of the gospel of the king­dom.

169:4.2Je­sus never gave his apos­tles a sys­tem­atic les­son con­cern­ing the per­son­al­ity and at­tri­butes of the Fa­ther in heaven. He never asked men to be­lieve in his Fa­ther; he took it for granted they did. Je­sus never be­lit­tled him­self by of­fer­ing ar­gu­ments in proof of the re­al­ity of the Fa­ther. His teach­ing re­gard­ing the Fa­ther all cen­tered in the dec­la­ra­tion that he and the Fa­ther are one; that he who has seen the Son has seen the Fa­ther; that the Fa­ther, like the Son, knows all things; that only the Son re­ally knows the Fa­ther, and he to whom the Son will re­veal him; that he who knows the Son knows also the Fa­ther; and that the Fa­ther sent him into the world to re­veal their com­bined na­tures and to show forth their con­joint work. He never made other pro­nounce­ments about his Fa­ther ex­cept to the woman of Samaria at Ja­cob’s well, when he de­clared, “God is spirit.”

• described › best understood in Jesus’ life

169:4.3You learn about God from Je­sus by ob­serv­ing the di­vin­ity of his life, not by de­pend­ing on his teach­ings. From the life of the Mas­ter you may each as­sim­i­late that con­cept of God which rep­re­sents the mea­sure of your ca­pac­ity to per­ceive re­al­i­ties spir­i­tual and di­vine, truths real and eter­nal. The fi­nite can never hope to com­pre­hend the In­fi­nite ex­cept as the In­fi­nite was fo­cal­ized in the time-space per­son­al­ity of the fi­nite ex­pe­ri­ence of the hu­man life of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.

169:4.4Je­sus well knew that God can be known only by the re­al­i­ties of ex­pe­ri­ence; never can he be un­der­stood by the mere teach­ing of the mind. Je­sus taught his apos­tles that, while they never could fully un­der­stand God, they could most cer­tainly know him, even as they had known the Son of Man. You can know God, not by un­der­stand­ing what Je­sus said, but by know­ing what Je­sus was. Je­sus was a rev­e­la­tion of God.

169:4.5Ex­cept when quot­ing the He­brew scrip­tures, Je­sus re­ferred to De­ity by only two names: God and Fa­ther. And when the Mas­ter made ref­er­ence to his Fa­ther as God, he usu­ally em­ployed the He­brew word sig­ni­fy­ing the plu­ral God (the Trin­ity) and not the word Yah­weh, which stood for the pro­gres­sive con­cep­tion of the tribal God of the Jews.

169:4.6Je­sus never called the Fa­ther a king, and he very much re­gret­ted that the Jew­ish hope for a re­stored king­dom and John’s procla­ma­tion of a com­ing king­dom made it nec­es­sary for him to de­nom­i­nate his pro­posed spir­i­tual broth­er­hood the king­dom of heaven. With the one ex­cep­tion—the dec­la­ra­tion that “God is spirit”—Je­sus never re­ferred to De­ity in any man­ner other than in terms de­scrip­tive of his own per­sonal re­la­tion­ship with the First Source and Cen­ter of Par­a­dise.

• described › Father idea is highest human concept of God

169:4.7Je­sus em­ployed the word God to des­ig­nate the idea of De­ity and the word Fa­ther to des­ig­nate the ex­pe­ri­ence of know­ing God. When the word Fa­ther is em­ployed to de­note God, it should be un­der­stood in its largest pos­si­ble mean­ing. The word God can­not be de­fined and there­fore stands for the in­fi­nite con­cept of the Fa­ther, while the term Fa­ther, be­ing ca­pa­ble of par­tial def­i­ni­tion, may be em­ployed to rep­re­sent the hu­man con­cept of the di­vine Fa­ther as he is as­so­ci­ated with man dur­ing the course of mor­tal ex­is­tence.

169:4.8To the Jews, Elo­him was the God of gods, while Yah­weh was the God of Is­rael. Je­sus ac­cepted the con­cept of Elo­him and called this su­preme group of be­ings God. In the place of the con­cept of Yah­weh, the racial de­ity, he in­tro­duced the idea of the fa­ther­hood of God and the world-wide broth­er­hood of man. He ex­alted the Yah­weh con­cept of a de­i­fied racial Fa­ther to the idea of a Fa­ther of all the chil­dren of men, a di­vine Fa­ther of the in­di­vid­ual be­liever. And he fur­ther taught that this God of uni­verses and this Fa­ther of all men were one and the same Par­a­dise De­ity.

169:4.9Je­sus never claimed to be the man­i­fes­ta­tion of Elo­him (God) in the flesh. He never de­clared that he was a rev­e­la­tion of Elo­him (God) to the worlds. He never taught that he who had seen him had seen Elo­him (God). But he did pro­claim him­self as the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther in the flesh, and he did say that whoso had seen him had seen the Fa­ther. As the di­vine Son he claimed to rep­re­sent only the Fa­ther.

169:4.10He was, in­deed, the Son of even the Elo­him God; but in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh and to the mor­tal sons of God, he chose to limit his life rev­e­la­tion to the por­trayal of his Fa­ther’s char­ac­ter in so far as such a rev­e­la­tion might be com­pre­hen­si­ble to mor­tal man. As re­gards the char­ac­ter of the other per­sons of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, we shall have to be con­tent with the teach­ing that they are al­to­gether like the Fa­ther, who has been re­vealed in per­sonal por­trai­ture in the life of his in­car­nated Son, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.

169:4.11Al­though Je­sus re­vealed the true na­ture of the heav­enly Fa­ther in his earth life, he taught lit­tle about him. In fact, he taught only two things: that God in him­self is spirit, and that, in all mat­ters of re­la­tion­ship with his crea­tures, he is a Fa­ther. On this evening Je­sus made the fi­nal pro­nounce­ment of his re­la­tion­ship with God when he de­clared: “I have come out from the Fa­ther, and I have come into the world; again, I will leave the world and go to the Fa­ther.”

169:4.12But mark you! never did Je­sus say, “Whoso has heard me has heard God.” But he did say, “He who has seen me has seen the Fa­ther.” To hear Je­sus’ teach­ing is not equiv­a­lent to know­ing God, but to see Je­sus is an ex­pe­ri­ence which in it­self is a rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther to the soul. The God of uni­verses rules the far-flung cre­ation, but it is the Fa­ther in heaven who sends forth his spirit to dwell within your minds.

169:4.13Je­sus is the spir­i­tual lens in hu­man like­ness which makes vis­i­ble to the ma­te­rial crea­ture Him who is in­vis­i­ble. He is your el­der brother who, in the flesh, makes known to you a Be­ing of in­fi­nite at­tri­butes whom not even the ce­les­tial hosts can pre­sume fully to un­der­stand. But all of this must con­sist in the per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­di­vid­ual be­liever. God who is spirit can be known only as a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. God can be re­vealed to the fi­nite sons of the ma­te­rial worlds, by the di­vine Son of the spir­i­tual realms, only as a Fa­ther. You can know the Eter­nal as a Fa­ther; you can wor­ship him as the God of uni­verses, the in­fi­nite Cre­ator of all ex­is­tences.

• described › sin not part of consciousness of

174:1.4“When a wise man un­der­stands the in­ner im­pulses of his fel­lows, he will love them. And when you love your brother, you have al­ready for­given him. This ca­pac­ity to un­der­stand man’s na­ture and for­give his ap­par­ent wrong­do­ing is God­like. If you are wise par­ents, this is the way you will love and un­der­stand your chil­dren, even for­give them when tran­sient mis­un­der­stand­ing has ap­par­ently sep­a­rated you. The child, be­ing im­ma­ture and lack­ing in the fuller un­der­stand­ing of the depth of the child-fa­ther re­la­tion­ship, must fre­quently feel a sense of guilty sep­a­ra­tion from a fa­ther’s full ap­proval, but the true fa­ther is never con­scious of any such sep­a­ra­tion. Sin is an ex­pe­ri­ence of crea­ture con­scious­ness; it is not a part of God’s con­scious­ness.

• described › in Him we live, move, and have our being

174:3.2Je­sus knew, and so did the peo­ple, that these Sad­ducees were not sin­cere in ask­ing this ques­tion be­cause it was not likely that such a case would re­ally oc­cur; and be­sides, this prac­tice of the broth­ers of a dead man seek­ing to beget chil­dren for him was prac­ti­cally a dead let­ter at this time among the Jews. Nev­er­the­less, Je­sus con­de­scended to re­ply to their mis­chievous ques­tion. He said: “You all do err in ask­ing such ques­tions be­cause you know nei­ther the Scrip­tures nor the liv­ing power of God. You know that the sons of this world can marry and are given in mar­riage, but you do not seem to un­der­stand that they who are ac­counted wor­thy to at­tain the worlds to come, through the res­ur­rec­tion of the righ­teous, nei­ther marry nor are given in mar­riage. Those who ex­pe­ri­ence the res­ur­rec­tion from the dead are more like the an­gels of heaven, and they never die. These res­ur­rected ones are eter­nally the sons of God; they are the chil­dren of light res­ur­rected into the prog­ress of eter­nal life. And even your Fa­ther Moses un­der­stood this, for, in con­nec­tion with his ex­pe­ri­ences at the burn­ing bush, he heard the Fa­ther say, ‘I am the God of Abra­ham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Ja­cob.’ And so, along with Moses, do I de­clare that my Fa­ther is not the God of the dead but of the liv­ing. In him you all do live, re­pro­duce, and pos­sess your mor­tal ex­is­tence.”

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

175:2.1The fact that the spir­i­tual lead­ers and the re­li­gious teach­ers of the Jew­ish na­tion one­time re­jected the teach­ings of Je­sus and con­spired to bring about his cruel death, does not in any man­ner af­fect the sta­tus of any in­di­vid­ual Jew in his stand­ing be­fore God. And it should not cause those who pro­fess to be fol­low­ers of the Christ to be prej­u­diced against the Jew as a fel­low mor­tal. The Jews, as a na­tion, as a so­ciopo­lit­i­cal group, paid in full the ter­ri­ble price of re­ject­ing the Prince of Peace. Long since they ceased to be the spir­i­tual torch­bear­ers of di­vine truth to the races of man­kind, but this con­sti­tutes no valid rea­son why the in­di­vid­ual de­scen­dants of these long-ago Jews should be made to suf­fer the per­se­cu­tions which have been vis­ited upon them by in­tol­er­ant, un­wor­thy, and big­oted pro­fessed fol­low­ers of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, who was, him­self, a Jew by nat­u­ral birth.

175:2.2Many times has this un­rea­son­ing and un-Christ­like ha­tred and per­se­cu­tion of mod­ern Jews ter­mi­nated in the suf­fer­ing and death of some in­no­cent and un­of­fend­ing Jew­ish in­di­vid­ual whose very an­ces­tors, in the times of Je­sus, heart­ily ac­cepted his gospel and pres­ently died un­flinch­ingly for that truth which they so whole­heart­edly be­lieved. What a shud­der of hor­ror passes over the on­look­ing ce­les­tial be­ings as they be­hold the pro­fessed fol­low­ers of Je­sus in­dulge them­selves in per­se­cut­ing, ha­rass­ing, and even mur­der­ing the later-day de­scen­dants of Pe­ter, Philip, Mat­thew, and oth­ers of the Pales­tinian Jews who so glo­ri­ously yielded up their lives as the first mar­tyrs of the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom!

175:2.3How cruel and un­rea­son­ing to com­pel in­no­cent chil­dren to suf­fer for the sins of their pro­gen­i­tors, mis­deeds of which they are wholly ig­no­rant, and for which they could in no way be re­spon­si­ble! And to do such wicked deeds in the name of one who taught his dis­ci­ples to love even their en­e­mies! It has be­come nec­es­sary, in this recital of the life of Je­sus, to por­tray the man­ner in which cer­tain of his fel­low Jews re­jected him and con­spired to bring about his ig­no­min­ious death; but we would warn all who read this nar­ra­tive that the pre­sen­ta­tion of such a his­tor­i­cal recital in no way jus­ti­fies the un­just ha­tred, nor con­dones the un­fair at­ti­tude of mind, which so many pro­fessed Chris­tians have main­tained to­ward in­di­vid­ual Jews for many cen­turies. King­dom be­liev­ers, those who fol­low the teach­ings of Je­sus, must cease to mis­treat the in­di­vid­ual Jew as one who is guilty of the re­jec­tion and cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus. The Fa­ther and his Cre­ator Son have never ceased to love the Jews. God is no re­specter of per­sons, and sal­va­tion is for the Jew as well as for the gen­tile.

• no man goes to U.F. except through Michael

180:3.7When Je­sus heard Thomas, he an­swered: “Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man goes to the Fa­ther ex­cept through me. All who find the Fa­ther, first find me. If you know me, you know the way to the Fa­ther. And you do know me, for you have lived with me and you now see me.”

• described › he who has seen Jesus has seen

180:3.9And when Philip had spo­ken, Je­sus said: “Philip, have I been so long with you and yet you do not even now know me? Again do I de­clare: He who has seen me has seen the Fa­ther. How can you then say, Show us the Fa­ther? Do you not be­lieve that I am in the Fa­ther and the Fa­ther in me? Have I not taught you that the words which I speak are not my words but the words of the Fa­ther? I speak for the Fa­ther and not of my­self. I am in this world to do the Fa­ther’s will, and that I have done. My Fa­ther abides in me and works through me. Be­lieve me when I say that the Fa­ther is in me, and that I am in the Fa­ther, or else be­lieve me for the sake of the very life I have lived—for the work’s sake.”

• attitude › desires to be revealed to us
• attitude › loves his children
• described › man cannot see U.F. until Paradise

180:6.8“Down here I have taught you in proverbs and spo­ken to you in para­bles. I did so be­cause you were only chil­dren in the spirit; but the time is com­ing when I will talk to you plainly con­cern­ing the Fa­ther and his king­dom. And I shall do this be­cause the Fa­ther him­self loves you and de­sires to be more fully re­vealed to you. Mor­tal man can­not see the spirit Fa­ther; there­fore have I come into the world to show the Fa­ther to your crea­ture eyes. But when you have be­come per­fected in spirit growth, you shall then see the Fa­ther him­self.”

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

181:2.14“Levi, I know much about your anx­i­eties, sac­ri­fices, and labors to keep the trea­sury re­plen­ished which your breth­ren do not know, and I am re­joiced that, though he who car­ried the bag is ab­sent, the pub­li­can am­bas­sador is here at my farewell gath­er­ing with the mes­sen­gers of the king­dom. I pray that you may dis­cern the mean­ing of my teach­ing with the eyes of the spirit. And when the new teacher comes into your heart, fol­low on as he will lead you and let your breth­ren see—even all the world—what the Fa­ther can do for a hated tax-gath­erer who dared to fol­low the Son of Man and to be­lieve the gospel of the king­dom. Even from the first, Levi, I loved you as I did these other Galileans. Know­ing then so well that nei­ther the Fa­ther nor the Son has re­spect of per­sons, see to it that you make no such dis­tinc­tions among those who be­come be­liev­ers in the gospel through your min­istry. And so, Mat­thew, ded­i­cate your whole fu­ture life ser­vice to show­ing all men that God is no re­specter of per­sons; that, in the sight of God and in the fel­low­ship of the king­dom, all men are equal, all be­liev­ers are the sons of God.”

• attitude › commandment to become perfect

181:2.25And then the Mas­ter, turn­ing to all of them, said: “Be not dis­mayed that you fail to grasp the full mean­ing of the gospel. You are but fi­nite, mor­tal men, and that which I have taught you is in­fi­nite, di­vine, and eter­nal. Be pa­tient and of good cour­age since you have the eter­nal ages be­fore you in which to con­tinue your pro­gres­sive at­tain­ment of the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­com­ing per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in Par­a­dise is per­fect.”

• attitude › loves his children

182:1.5“You gave me twelve men, and I have kept them all save one, the son of re­venge, who would not have fur­ther fel­low­ship with us. These men are weak and frail, but I know we can trust them; I have proved them; they love me, even as they rev­er­ence you. While they must suf­fer much for my sake, I de­sire that they should also be filled with the joy of the as­sur­ance of son­ship in the heav­enly king­dom. I have given these men your word and have taught them the truth. The world may hate them, even as it has hated me, but I do not ask that you take them out of the world, only that you keep them from the evil in the world. Sanc­tify them in the truth; your word is truth. And as you sent me into this world, even so am I about to send these men into the world. For their sakes I have lived among men and have con­se­crated my life to your ser­vice that I might in­spire them to be pu­ri­fied through the truth I have taught them and the love I have re­vealed to them. I well know, my Fa­ther, that there is no need for me to ask you to watch over these breth­ren af­ter I have gone; I know you love them even as I, but I do this that they may the bet­ter re­al­ize the Fa­ther loves mor­tal men even as does the Son.

• described › only Jesus knew

182:1.6“And now, my Fa­ther, I would pray not only for these eleven men but also for all oth­ers who now be­lieve, or who may here­after be­lieve the gospel of the king­dom through the word of their fu­ture min­istry. I want them all to be one, even as you and I are one. You are in me and I am in you, and I de­sire that these be­liev­ers like­wise be in us; that both of our spir­its in­dwell them. If my chil­dren are one as we are one, and if they love one an­other as I have loved them, all men will then be­lieve that I came forth from you and be will­ing to re­ceive the rev­e­la­tion of truth and glory which I have made. The glory which you gave me I have re­vealed to these be­liev­ers. As you have lived with me in spirit, so have I lived with them in the flesh. As you have been one with me, so have I been one with them, and so will the new teacher ever be one with them and in them. And all this have I done that my breth­ren in the flesh may know that the Fa­ther loves them even as does the Son, and that you love them even as you love me. Fa­ther, work with me to save these be­liev­ers that they may pres­ently come to be with me in glory and then go on to join you in the Par­a­dise em­brace. Those who serve with me in hu­mil­i­a­tion, I would have with me in glory so that they may see all you have given into my hands as the eter­nal har­vest of the seed sow­ing of time in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh. I long to show my earthly breth­ren the glory I had with you be­fore the found­ing of this world. This world knows very lit­tle of you, righ­teous Fa­ther, but I know you, and I have made you known to these be­liev­ers, and they will make known your name to other gen­er­a­tions. And now I prom­ise them that you will be with them in the world even as you have been with me—even so.”

• described › he who has seen Jesus has seen
• described › Jesus revealed the Father, but taught little about him

182:1.9The Mas­ter, dur­ing the course of this fi­nal prayer with his apos­tles, al­luded to the fact that he had man­i­fested the Fa­ther’s name to the world. And that is truly what he did by the rev­e­la­tion of God through his per­fected life in the flesh. The Fa­ther in heaven had sought to re­veal him­self to Moses, but he could pro­ceed no fur­ther than to cause it to be said, “I AM.” And when pressed for fur­ther rev­e­la­tion of him­self, it was only dis­closed, “I AM that I AM.” But when Je­sus had fin­ished his earth life, this name of the Fa­ther had been so re­vealed that the Mas­ter, who was the Fa­ther in­car­nate, could truly say:

182:1.10I am the bread of life.

182:1.11I am the liv­ing wa­ter.

182:1.12I am the light of the world.

182:1.13I am the de­sire of all ages.

182:1.14I am the open door to eter­nal sal­va­tion.

182:1.15I am the re­al­ity of end­less life.

182:1.16I am the good shep­herd.

182:1.17I am the path­way of in­fi­nite per­fec­tion.

182:1.18I am the res­ur­rec­tion and the life.

182:1.19I am the se­cret of eter­nal sur­vival.

182:1.20I am the way, the truth, and the life.

182:1.21I am the in­fi­nite Fa­ther of my fi­nite chil­dren.

182:1.22I am the true vine; you are the branches.

182:1.23I am the hope of all who know the liv­ing truth.

182:1.24I am the liv­ing bridge from one world to an­other.

182:1.25I am the liv­ing link be­tween time and eter­nity.

182:1.26Thus did Je­sus en­large the liv­ing rev­e­la­tion of the name of God to all gen­er­a­tions. As di­vine love re­veals the na­ture of God, eter­nal truth dis­closes his name in ever-en­larg­ing pro­por­tions.

• attitude › desired Jesus pursue his bestowal to its natural end

182:3.6Each time he prayed in the gar­den, his hu­man­ity laid a firmer faith-hold upon his di­vin­ity; his hu­man will more com­pletely be­came one with the di­vine will of his Fa­ther. Among other words spo­ken to him by the mighty an­gel was the mes­sage that the Fa­ther de­sired his Son to fin­ish his earth be­stowal by pass­ing through the crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence of death just as all mor­tal crea­tures must ex­pe­ri­ence ma­te­rial dis­so­lu­tion in pass­ing from the ex­is­tence of time into the pro­gres­sion of eter­nity.

182:3.7Ear­lier in the evening it had not seemed so dif­fi­cult to drink the cup, but as the hu­man Je­sus bade farewell to his apos­tles and sent them to their rest, the trial grew more ap­palling. Je­sus ex­pe­ri­enced that nat­u­ral ebb and flow of feel­ing which is com­mon to all hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, and just now he was weary from work, ex­hausted from the long hours of stren­u­ous la­bor and painful anx­i­ety con­cern­ing the safety of his apos­tles. While no mor­tal can pre­sume to un­der­stand the thoughts and feel­ings of the in­car­nate Son of God at such a time as this, we know that he en­dured great an­guish and suf­fered un­told sor­row, for the per­spi­ra­tion rolled off his face in great drops. He was at last con­vinced that the Fa­ther in­tended to al­low nat­u­ral events to take their course; he was fully de­ter­mined to em­ploy none of his sov­er­eign power as the su­preme head of a uni­verse to save him­self.

• attitude › desired Jesus pursue his bestowal to its natural end

183:1.2The Fa­ther in heaven de­sired the be­stowal Son to fin­ish his earth ca­reer nat­u­rally, just as all mor­tals must fin­ish up their lives on earth and in the flesh. Or­di­nary men and women can­not ex­pect to have their last hours on earth and the super­ven­ing episode of death made easy by a spe­cial dis­pen­sa­tion. Ac­cord­ingly, Je­sus elected to lay down his life in the flesh in the man­ner which was in keep­ing with the out­work­ing of nat­u­ral events, and he stead­fastly re­fused to ex­tri­cate him­self from the cruel clutches of a wicked con­spir­acy of in­hu­man events which swept on with hor­ri­ble cer­tainty to­ward his un­be­liev­able hu­mil­i­a­tion and ig­no­min­ious death. And ev­ery bit of all this as­tound­ing man­i­fes­ta­tion of ha­tred and this un­prece­dented dem­on­stra­tion of cru­elty was the work of evil men and wicked mor­tals. God in heaven did not will it, nei­ther did the arch­en­e­mies of Je­sus dic­tate it, though they did much to in­sure that un­think­ing and evil mor­tals would thus re­ject the be­stowal Son. Even the fa­ther of sin turned his face away from the ex­cru­ci­at­ing hor­ror of the scene of the cru­ci­fix­ion.

• attitude › no respecter of persons, races, or generations

192:2.2Je­sus then turned to­ward Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you love me?” Pe­ter an­swered, “Lord, you know I love you with all my soul.” Then said Je­sus: “If you love me, Pe­ter, feed my lambs. Do not ne­glect to min­is­ter to the weak, the poor, and the young. Preach the gospel with­out fear or fa­vor; re­mem­ber al­ways that God is no re­specter of per­sons. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you; for­give your fel­low mor­tals even as I have for­given you. Let ex­pe­ri­ence teach you the value of med­i­ta­tion and the power of in­tel­li­gent re­flec­tion.”

• functions › bestows Thought Adjusters

194:2.12In a way, man­kind is sub­ject to the dou­ble in­flu­ence of the sev­en­fold ap­peal of the uni­verse spirit in­flu­ences. The early evo­lu­tion­ary races of mor­tals are sub­ject to the pro­gres­sive con­tact of the seven ad­ju­tant mind-spir­its of the lo­cal uni­verse Mother Spirit. As man pro­gresses up­ward in the scale of in­tel­li­gence and spir­i­tual per­cep­tion, there even­tu­ally come to hover over him and dwell within him the seven higher spirit in­flu­ences. And these seven spir­its of the ad­vanc­ing worlds are:

• described › Father of every individual

194:3.11Pen­te­cost, with its spir­i­tual en­dow­ment, was de­signed for­ever to loose the re­li­gion of the Mas­ter from all de­pen­dence upon phys­i­cal force; the teach­ers of this new re­li­gion are now equipped with spir­i­tual weapons. They are to go out to con­quer the world with un­fail­ing for­give­ness, match­less good will, and abound­ing love. They are equipped to over­come evil with good, to van­quish hate by love, to de­stroy fear with a coura­geous and liv­ing faith in truth. Je­sus had al­ready taught his fol­low­ers that his re­li­gion was never pas­sive; al­ways were his dis­ci­ples to be ac­tive and pos­i­tive in their min­istry of mercy and in their man­i­fes­ta­tions of love. No longer did these be­liev­ers look upon Yah­weh as “the Lord of Hosts.” They now re­garded the eter­nal De­ity as the “God and Fa­ther of the Lord Je­sus Christ.” They made that prog­ress, at least, even if they did in some mea­sure fail fully to grasp the truth that God is also the spir­i­tual Fa­ther of ev­ery in­di­vid­ual.

• attitude › seeks sinners before they think of repentance

194:3.13Up to Pen­te­cost, re­li­gion had re­vealed only man seek­ing for God; since Pen­te­cost, man is still search­ing for God, but there shines out over the world the spec­ta­cle of God also seek­ing for man and send­ing his spirit to dwell within him when he has found him.

• described › Father idea is highest human concept of God
• described › is love

196:3.35And God-con­scious­ness is equiv­a­lent to the in­te­gra­tion of the self with the uni­verse, and on its high­est lev­els of spir­i­tual re­al­ity. Only the spirit con­tent of any value is im­per­ish­able. Even that which is true, beau­ti­ful, and good may not per­ish in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. If man does not choose to sur­vive, then does the sur­viv­ing Ad­juster con­serve those re­al­i­ties born of love and nur­tured in ser­vice. And all these things are a part of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. The Fa­ther is liv­ing love, and this life of the Fa­ther is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Fa­ther is in his Sons’ sons—mor­tal men. When all is said and done, the Fa­ther idea is still the high­est hu­man con­cept of God.