universe

• nature of the universe › intelligible only if mind made and personality managed

1:6.7To as­sume that the uni­verse can be known, that it is in­tel­li­gi­ble, is to as­sume that the uni­verse is mind made and per­son­al­ity man­aged. Man’s mind can only per­ceive the mind phe­nom­ena of other minds, be they hu­man or super­hu­man. If man’s per­son­al­ity can ex­pe­ri­ence the uni­verse, there is a di­vine mind and an ac­tual per­son­al­ity some­where con­cealed in that uni­verse.

• nature of the universe › can never contain infinity of God

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.

• physical aspects › gravity control of Paradise adequate for an infinite u.

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.

• nature of the universe › not inevitable, accidental, or self-existent

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.

• nature of the universe › not explainable; u. exists because God so willed

4:0.1The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has an eter­nal pur­pose per­tain­ing to the ma­te­rial, in­tel­lec­tual, and spir­i­tual phe­nom­ena of the uni­verse of uni­verses, which he is ex­e­cut­ing through­out all time. God cre­ated the uni­verses of his own free and sov­er­eign will, and he cre­ated them in ac­cor­dance with his all-wise and eter­nal pur­pose. It is doubt­ful whether any­one ex­cept the Par­a­dise De­i­ties and their high­est as­so­ciates re­ally knows very much about the eter­nal pur­pose of God. Even the ex­alted cit­i­zens of Par­a­dise hold very di­verse opin­ions about the na­ture of the eter­nal pur­pose of the De­i­ties.

• nature of the universe › watchword is progress

4:1.2Can you not ad­vance in your con­cept of God’s deal­ing with man to that level where you rec­og­nize that the watch­word of the uni­verse is prog­ress? Through long ages the hu­man race has strug­gled to reach its pres­ent po­si­tion. Through­out all these mil­len­ni­ums Prov­i­dence has been work­ing out the plan of pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion. The two thoughts are not op­posed in prac­tice, only in man’s mis­taken con­cepts. Di­vine prov­i­dence is never ar­rayed in op­po­si­tion to true hu­man prog­ress, ei­ther tem­po­ral or spir­i­tual. Prov­i­dence is al­ways con­sis­tent with the un­chang­ing and per­fect na­ture of the su­preme Law­maker.

• physical aspects › is stable; does not run down

4:1.5God up­holds “all things by the word of his power.” And when new worlds are born, he “sends forth his Sons and they are cre­ated.” God not only cre­ates, but he “pre­serves them all.” God con­stantly up­holds all things ma­te­rial and all be­ings spir­i­tual. The uni­verses are eter­nally sta­ble. There is sta­bil­ity in the midst of ap­par­ent in­sta­bil­ity. There is an un­der­ly­ing or­der and se­cu­rity in the midst of the en­ergy up­heavals and the phys­i­cal cat­a­clysms of the starry realms.

• physical aspects › constantly being renewed
• physical aspects › would collapse if God ceased to uphold

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.”

• physical aspects › material u. is physical presence of the Infinite

5:2.1The phys­i­cal pres­ence of the In­fi­nite is the re­al­ity of the ma­te­rial uni­verse. The mind pres­ence of De­ity must be de­ter­mined by the depth of in­di­vid­ual in­tel­lec­tual ex­pe­ri­ence and by the evo­lu­tion­ary per­son­al­ity level. The spir­i­tual pres­ence of Di­vin­ity must of ne­ces­sity be dif­fer­en­tial in the uni­verse. It is de­ter­mined by the spir­i­tual ca­pac­ity of re­cep­tiv­ity and by the de­gree of the con­se­cra­tion of the crea­ture’s will to the do­ing of the di­vine will.

• physical aspects › gravity control of Paradise adequate for an infinite u.

8:4.1Par­al­lel­ing the phys­i­cal uni­verse wherein Par­a­dise grav­ity holds all things to­gether is the spir­i­tual uni­verse wherein the word of the Son in­ter­prets the thought of God and, when “made flesh,” demon­strates the lov­ing mercy of the com­bined na­ture of the as­so­ci­ated Cre­ators. But in and through all this ma­te­rial and spir­i­tual cre­ation there is a vast stage whereon the In­fi­nite Spirit and his spirit off­spring show forth the com­bined mercy, pa­tience, and ev­er­last­ing af­fec­tion of the di­vine par­ents to­wards the in­tel­li­gent chil­dren of their co-op­er­a­tive de­vis­ing and mak­ing. Ev­er­last­ing min­istry to mind is the essence of the Spirit’s di­vine char­ac­ter. And all the spirit off­spring of the Con­joint Ac­tor par­take of this de­sire to min­is­ter, this di­vine urge to ser­vice.

• administered by Father, Son, and Spirit as one

8:6.6In the ad­min­is­tra­tion of uni­verses the Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit are per­fectly and eter­nally in­teras­so­ci­ated. Though each is en­gaged in a per­sonal min­istry to all cre­ation, all three are di­vinely and ab­so­lutely in­ter­locked in a ser­vice of cre­ation and con­trol which for­ever makes them one.

• postulated ever-expanding universe of infinity

12:1.16The cen­tral uni­verse is the cre­ation of eter­nity; the seven super­uni­verses are the cre­ations of time; the four outer space lev­els are un­doubt­edly des­tined to even­tu­ate-evolve the ul­ti­macy of cre­ation. And there are those who main­tain that the In­fi­nite can never at­tain full ex­pres­sion short of in­fin­ity; and there­fore do they pos­tu­late an ad­di­tional and un­re­vealed cre­ation be­yond the fourth and out­er­most space level, a pos­si­ble ever-ex­pand­ing, never-end­ing uni­verse of in­fin­ity. In the­ory we do not know how to limit ei­ther the in­fin­ity of the Cre­ator or the po­ten­tial in­fin­ity of cre­ation, but as it ex­ists and is ad­min­is­tered, we re­gard the mas­ter uni­verse as hav­ing lim­i­ta­tions, as be­ing def­i­nitely de­lim­ited and bounded on its outer mar­gins by open space.

• physical aspects › 375 million new galaxies soon observable

12:2.3In the not-dis­tant fu­ture, new tele­scopes will re­veal to the won­der­ing gaze of Uran­tian as­tron­o­mers no less than 375 mil­lion new galax­ies in the re­mote stretches of outer space. At the same time these more pow­er­ful tele­scopes will dis­close that many is­land uni­verses for­merly be­lieved to be in outer space are re­ally a part of the galac­tic sys­tem of Or­von­ton. The seven super­uni­verses are still grow­ing; the pe­riph­ery of each is grad­u­ally ex­pand­ing; new neb­u­lae are con­stantly be­ing sta­bi­lized and or­ga­nized; and some of the neb­u­lae which Uran­tian as­tron­o­mers re­gard as ex­tra­galac­tic are ac­tu­ally on the fringe of Or­von­ton and are trav­el­ing along with us.

• physical aspects › is delimited; moves in vast elongated circle around Paradise

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.

• physical aspects › is stable; does not run down

15:8.10The super­uni­verse of Or­von­ton is ap­par­ently now run­ning down; the outer uni­verses seem to be wind­ing up for un­par­al­leled fu­ture ac­tiv­i­ties; the cen­tral Ha­vona uni­verse is eter­nally sta­bi­lized. Grav­ity and ab­sence of heat (cold) or­ga­nize and hold mat­ter to­gether; heat and anti­grav­ity dis­rupt mat­ter and dis­si­pate en­ergy. The liv­ing power di­rec­tors and force or­ga­niz­ers are the se­cret of the spe­cial con­trol and in­tel­li­gent di­rec­tion of the end­less meta­mor­phoses of uni­verse mak­ing, un­mak­ing, and re­mak­ing. Neb­u­lae may dis­perse, suns burn out, sys­tems van­ish, and plan­ets per­ish, but the uni­verses do not run down.

• nature of the universe › not egocentric

28:6.18The uni­ver­sal econ­omy is based on in­take and out­put; through­out the eter­nal ca­reer you will never en­counter mo­not­ony of in­ac­tion or stag­na­tion of per­son­al­ity. Prog­ress is made pos­si­ble by in­her­ent mo­tion, ad­vance­ment grows out of the di­vine ca­pac­ity for ac­tion, and achieve­ment is the child of imag­i­na­tive ad­ven­ture. But in­her­ent in this ca­pac­ity for achieve­ment is the re­spon­si­bil­ity of ethics, the ne­ces­sity for rec­og­niz­ing that the world and the uni­verse are filled with a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ing types of be­ings. All of this mag­nif­i­cent cre­ation, in­clud­ing your­self, was not made just for you. This is not an ego­cen­tric uni­verse. The Gods have de­creed, “It is more blessed to give than to re­ceive,” and said your Mas­ter Son, “He who would be great­est among you let him be server of all.”

• physical aspects › all but infinite

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.

• physical aspects › is delimited; moves in vast elongated circle around Paradise

32:5.5The sec­tors of time are like the flashes of per­son­al­ity in tem­po­ral form; they ap­pear for a sea­son, and then they are lost to hu­man sight, only to reap­pear as new ac­tors and con­tin­u­ing fac­tors in the higher life of the end­less swing around the eter­nal cir­cle. Eter­nity can hardly be con­ceived as a straight­away drive, in view of our be­lief in a de­lim­ited uni­verse mov­ing over a vast, elon­gated cir­cle around the cen­tral dwell­ing place of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• nature of the universe › vast training school

37:6.2This train­ing of mind and ed­u­ca­tion of spirit is car­ried on from the worlds of hu­man ori­gin up through the sys­tem man­sion worlds and the other spheres of prog­ress as­so­ci­ated with Je­ru­sem, on the sev­enty so­cial­iz­ing realms at­tached to Eden­tia, and on the four hun­dred and ninety spheres of spirit prog­ress en­cir­cling Sal­ving­ton. On the uni­verse head­quar­ters it­self are nu­mer­ous Mel­chiz­e­dek schools, the col­leges of the Uni­verse Sons, the se­raphic uni­ver­si­ties, and the schools of the Teacher Sons and the Union of Days. Ev­ery pos­si­ble pro­vi­sion is made to qual­ify the var­i­ous per­son­al­i­ties of the uni­verse for ad­vanc­ing ser­vice and im­prov­ing func­tion. The en­tire uni­verse is one vast school.

• nature of the universe › vast training school

37:10.6There are still other types of in­tel­li­gent life con­cerned with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of a lo­cal uni­verse, but the plan of this nar­ra­tive does not pro­vide for the fur­ther rev­e­la­tion of these or­ders of cre­ation. Enough of the life and ad­min­is­tra­tion of this uni­verse is be­ing here­with por­trayed to af­ford the mor­tal mind a grasp of the re­al­ity and grandeur of the sur­vival ex­is­tence. Fur­ther ex­pe­ri­ence in your ad­vanc­ing ca­reers will in­creas­ingly re­veal these in­ter­est­ing and charm­ing be­ings. This nar­ra­tive can­not be more than a brief out­line of the na­ture and work of the man­i­fold per­son­al­i­ties who throng the uni­verses of space ad­min­is­ter­ing these cre­ations as enor­mous train­ing schools, schools wherein the pil­grims of time ad­vance from life to life and from world to world un­til they are lov­ingly dis­patched from the bor­ders of the uni­verse of their ori­gin to the higher ed­u­ca­tional regime of the super­uni­verse and thence on to the spirit-train­ing worlds of Ha­vona and even­tu­ally to Par­a­dise and the high des­tiny of the fi­nal­i­ters—the eter­nal as­sign­ment on mis­sions not yet re­vealed to the uni­verses of time and space.

• physical aspects › foundation of u. is material

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.

• physical aspects › foundation of u. is material

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.

• physical aspects › is delimited; moves in vast elongated circle around Paradise

42:1.9And all this con­firms our be­lief in a cir­cu­lar, some­what lim­ited, but or­derly and far-flung uni­verse of uni­verses. If this were not true, then ev­i­dence of en­ergy de­ple­tion at some point would sooner or later ap­pear. All laws, or­ga­ni­za­tions, ad­min­is­tra­tion, and the tes­ti­mony of uni­verse ex­plor­ers—ev­ery­thing points to the ex­is­tence of an in­fi­nite God but, as yet, a fi­nite uni­verse, a cir­cu­lar­ity of end­less ex­is­tence, well-nigh lim­it­less but, nev­er­the­less, fi­nite in con­trast with in­fin­ity.

• physical aspects › emanated from Paradise through Unqualified Absolute

42:2.31. Space po­tency. This is the un­ques­tioned free space pres­ence of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute. The ex­ten­sion of this con­cept con­notes the uni­verse force-space po­ten­tial in­her­ent in the func­tional to­tal­ity of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute, while the in­ten­sion of this con­cept im­plies the to­tal­ity of cos­mic re­al­ity—uni­verses—which em­anated eter­ni­ty­wise from the never-be­gin­ning, never-end­ing, never-mov­ing, never-chang­ing Isle of Par­a­dise.

• nature of the universe › mind planned, mind made, mind administered

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.

42:11.2Mech­a­nisms do not ab­so­lutely dom­i­nate the to­tal cre­ation; the uni­verse of uni­verses in toto is mind planned, mind made, and mind ad­min­is­tered. But the di­vine mech­a­nism of the uni­verse of uni­verses is al­to­gether too per­fect for the sci­en­tific meth­ods of the fi­nite mind of man to dis­cern even a trace of the dom­i­nance of the in­fi­nite mind. For this cre­at­ing, con­trol­ling, and up­hold­ing mind is nei­ther ma­te­rial mind nor crea­ture mind; it is spirit-mind func­tion­ing on and from cre­ator lev­els of di­vine re­al­ity.

• nature of the universe › vast training school

48:8.3The mor­tal-sur­vival plan has a prac­ti­cal and ser­vice­able ob­jec­tive; you are not the re­cip­i­ents of all this di­vine la­bor and painstak­ing train­ing only that you may sur­vive just to en­joy end­less bliss and eter­nal ease. There is a goal of tran­scen­dent ser­vice con­cealed be­yond the hori­zon of the pres­ent uni­verse age. If the Gods de­signed merely to take you on one long and eter­nal joy ex­cur­sion, they cer­tainly would not so largely turn the whole uni­verse into one vast and in­tri­cate prac­ti­cal train­ing school, req­ui­si­tion a sub­stan­tial part of the ce­les­tial cre­ation as teach­ers and in­struc­tors, and then spend ages upon ages pi­lot­ing you, one by one, through this gi­gan­tic uni­verse school of ex­pe­ri­en­tial train­ing. The fur­ther­ance of the scheme of mor­tal pro­gres­sion seems to be one of the chief busi­nesses of the pres­ent or­ga­nized uni­verse, and the ma­jor­ity of in­nu­mer­able or­ders of cre­ated in­tel­li­gences are ei­ther di­rectly or in­di­rectly en­gaged in ad­vanc­ing some phase of this pro­gres­sive per­fec­tion plan.

• nature of the universe › vast training school

49:0.1All mor­tal-in­hab­ited worlds are evo­lu­tion­ary in ori­gin and na­ture. These spheres are the spawn­ing ground, the evo­lu­tion­ary cra­dle, of the mor­tal races of time and space. Each unit of the as­cen­dant life is a ver­i­ta­ble train­ing school for the stage of ex­is­tence just ahead, and this is true of ev­ery stage of man’s pro­gres­sive Par­a­dise as­cent; just as true of the ini­tial mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence on an evo­lu­tion­ary planet as of the fi­nal uni­verse head­quar­ters school of the Mel­chiz­e­deks, a school which is not at­tended by as­cend­ing mor­tals un­til just be­fore their trans­la­tion to the regime of the super­uni­verse and the at­tain­ment of first-stage spirit ex­is­tence.

• nature of the universe › one vast integrated mechanism absolutely controlled by one infinite mind

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.”

• physical aspects › emanated from Paradise through Unqualified Absolute
• physical aspects › is delimited; moves in vast elongated circle around Paradise

56:1.1The phys­i­cal or ma­te­rial cre­ation is not in­fi­nite, but it is per­fectly co-or­di­nated. There are force, en­ergy, and power, but they are all one in ori­gin. The seven super­uni­verses are seem­ingly dual; the cen­tral uni­verse, tri­une; but Par­a­dise is of sin­gle con­sti­tu­tion. And Par­a­dise is the ac­tual source of all ma­te­rial uni­verses—past, pres­ent, and fu­ture. But this cos­mic deriva­tion is an eter­nity event; at no time—past, pres­ent, or fu­ture—does ei­ther space or the ma­te­rial cos­mos come forth from the nu­clear Isle of Light. As the cos­mic source, Par­a­dise func­tions prior to space and be­fore time; hence would its deriva­tions seem to be or­phaned in time and space did they not emerge through the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute, their ul­ti­mate re­pos­i­tory in space and their re­vealer and reg­u­la­tor in time.

• nature of the universe › brief history

56:9.12The Mas­ter Force Or­ga­niz­ers go out into space and mo­bi­lize its en­er­gies to be­come grav­ity re­spon­sive to the Par­a­dise pull of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; and sub­se­quently there come the Cre­ator Sons, who or­ga­nize these grav­ity-re­spond­ing forces into in­hab­ited uni­verses and therein evolve in­tel­li­gent crea­tures who re­ceive unto them­selves the spirit of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther and sub­se­quently as­cend to the Fa­ther to be­come like him in all pos­si­ble di­vin­ity at­tri­butes.

56:9.13The cease­less and ex­pand­ing march of the Par­a­dise cre­ative forces through space seems to presage the ever-ex­tend­ing do­main of the grav­ity grasp of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and the never-end­ing mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of var­ied types of in­tel­li­gent crea­tures who are able to love God and be loved by him, and who, by thus be­com­ing God-know­ing, may choose to be like him, may elect to at­tain Par­a­dise and find God.

• nature of the universe › not being managed merely to meet our approval

65:5.3The uni­verse of uni­verses, in­clud­ing this small world called Uran­tia, is not be­ing man­aged merely to meet our ap­proval nor just to suit our con­ve­nience, much less to grat­ify our whims and sat­isfy our cu­rios­ity. The wise and all-pow­er­ful be­ings who are re­spon­si­ble for uni­verse man­age­ment un­doubt­edly know ex­actly what they are about; and so it be­comes Life Car­ri­ers and be­hooves mor­tal minds to en­list in pa­tient wait­ing and hearty co-op­er­a­tion with the rule of wis­dom, the reign of power, and the march of prog­ress.

• nature of the universe › creation of love, law, unity, and progressive Deity attainment

101:10.6Never can there be ei­ther sci­en­tific or log­i­cal proofs of di­vin­ity. Rea­son alone can never val­i­date the val­ues and good­nesses of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. But it will al­ways re­main true: Whoso­ever wills to do the will of God shall com­pre­hend the va­lid­ity of spir­i­tual val­ues. This is the near­est ap­proach that can be made on the mor­tal level to of­fer­ing proofs of the re­al­ity of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. Such faith af­fords the only es­cape from the me­chan­i­cal clutch of the ma­te­rial world and from the er­ror dis­tor­tion of the in­com­plete­ness of the in­tel­lec­tual world; it is the only dis­cov­ered so­lu­tion to the im­passe in mor­tal think­ing re­gard­ing the con­tin­u­ing sur­vival of the in­di­vid­ual per­son­al­ity. It is the only pass­port to com­ple­tion of re­al­ity and to eter­nity of life in a uni­ver­sal cre­ation of love, law, unity, and pro­gres­sive De­ity at­tain­ment.

• physical aspects › endless, limitless, and all-inclusive – timeless, spaceless, and unqualified

102:3.10Sci­ence seeks to iden­tify, an­a­lyze, and clas­sify the seg­mented parts of the lim­it­less cos­mos. Re­li­gion grasps the idea-of-the-whole, the en­tire cos­mos. Phi­los­o­phy at­tempts the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the ma­te­rial seg­ments of sci­ence with the spir­i­tual-in­sight con­cept of the whole. Wherein phi­los­o­phy fails in this at­tempt, rev­e­la­tion suc­ceeds, af­firm­ing that the cos­mic cir­cle is uni­ver­sal, eter­nal, ab­so­lute, and in­fi­nite. This cos­mos of the In­fi­nite I AM is there­fore end­less, lim­it­less, and all-in­clu­sive—time­less, space­less, and un­qual­i­fied. And we bear tes­ti­mony that the In­fi­nite I AM is also the Fa­ther of Mi­chael of Neb­a­don and the God of hu­man sal­va­tion.

• physical aspects › constantly being renewed

102:7.1The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, be­ing self-ex­is­tent, is also self-ex­plana­tory; he ac­tu­ally lives in ev­ery ra­tio­nal mor­tal. But you can­not be sure about God un­less you know him; son­ship is the only ex­pe­ri­ence which makes fa­ther­hood cer­tain. The uni­verse is ev­ery­where un­der­go­ing change. A chang­ing uni­verse is a de­pen­dent uni­verse; such a cre­ation can­not be ei­ther fi­nal or ab­so­lute. A fi­nite uni­verse is wholly de­pen­dent on the Ul­ti­mate and the Ab­so­lute. The uni­verse and God are not iden­ti­cal; one is cause, the other ef­fect. The cause is ab­so­lute, in­fi­nite, eter­nal, and change­less; the ef­fect, time-space and tran­scen­den­tal but ever chang­ing, al­ways grow­ing.

102:7.2God is the one and only self-caused fact in the uni­verse. He is the se­cret of the or­der, plan, and pur­pose of the whole cre­ation of things and be­ings. The ev­ery­where-chang­ing uni­verse is reg­u­lated and sta­bi­lized by ab­so­lutely un­chang­ing laws, the habits of an un­chang­ing God. The fact of God, the di­vine law, is change­less; the truth of God, his re­la­tion to the uni­verse, is a rel­a­tive rev­e­la­tion which is ever adapt­able to the con­stantly evolv­ing uni­verse.

• nature of the universe › brief history

105:4.9Pre-ex­is­ten­tials be­come ex­is­ten­tial in the seven Ab­so­lutes, and ex­is­ten­tials be­come func­tional in the tri­uni­ties, the ba­sic as­so­ci­a­tion of Ab­so­lutes. And con­comi­tant with the eter­nal­iza­tion of the tri­uni­ties the uni­verse stage is set—the po­ten­tials are ex­is­tent and the ac­tu­als are pres­ent—and the full­ness of eter­nity wit­nesses the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of cos­mic en­ergy, the out­spread­ing of Par­a­dise spirit, and the en­dow­ment of mind to­gether with the be­stowal of per­son­al­ity, by virtue of which all of these De­ity and Par­a­dise deriva­tives are uni­fied in ex­pe­ri­ence on the crea­ture level and by other tech­niques on the super­crea­ture level.

• nature of the universe › exists on finite, transcendental, and absolute levels

105:7.15The uni­verse in which we now live may be thought of as ex­ist­ing on fi­nite, tran­scen­den­tal, and ab­so­lute lev­els. This is the cos­mic stage on which is en­acted the end­less drama of per­son­al­ity per­for­mance and en­ergy meta­mor­pho­sis.

• destiny

105:7.18In the eter­nity of the past the forces of the Ab­so­lutes, the spir­its of the De­i­ties, and the per­son­al­i­ties of the Gods stirred in re­sponse to the pri­mor­dial self-will of self-ex­is­tent self-will. In this uni­verse age we are all wit­ness­ing the stu­pen­dous reper­cus­sions of the far-flung cos­mic pan­o­rama of the sub­ab­so­lute man­i­fes­ta­tions of the lim­it­less po­ten­tials of all these re­al­i­ties. And it is al­to­gether pos­si­ble that the con­tin­ued di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the orig­i­nal re­al­ity of the First Source and Cen­ter may pro­ceed on­ward and out­ward through­out age upon age, on and on, into the far­away and in­con­ceiv­able stretches of ab­so­lute in­fin­ity.

• destiny

106:0.18Re­al­ity growth is con­di­tioned by the cir­cum­stances of the suc­ces­sive uni­verse ages. The cen­tral uni­verse un­der­went no evo­lu­tion­ary change in the Ha­vona age, but in the pres­ent epochs of the super­uni­verse age it is un­der­go­ing cer­tain pro­gres­sive changes in­duced by co-or­di­na­tion with the evo­lu­tion­ary super­uni­verses. The seven super­uni­verses, now evolv­ing, will some­time at­tain the set­tled sta­tus of light and life, will at­tain the growth limit for the pres­ent uni­verse age. But be­yond doubt, the next age, the age of the first outer space level, will re­lease the super­uni­verses from the des­tiny lim­i­ta­tions of the pres­ent age. Re­ple­tion is con­tin­u­ally be­ing super­im­posed upon com­ple­tion.

• purpose

106:3.1The ab­so­nite ar­chi­tects even­tu­ate the plan; the Su­preme Cre­ators bring it into ex­is­tence; the Su­preme Be­ing will con­sum­mate its full­ness as it was time cre­ated by the Su­preme Cre­ators, and as it was space fore­cast by the Mas­ter Ar­chi­tects.

• nature of the universe › will be always young in face of limitless possibilities of never-ending eternity

106:7.8At the in­con­ceiv­ably dis­tant fu­ture eter­nity mo­ment of the fi­nal com­ple­tion of the en­tire mas­ter uni­verse, no doubt we will all look back upon its en­tire his­tory as only the be­gin­ning, sim­ply the cre­ation of cer­tain fi­nite and tran­scen­den­tal foun­da­tions for even greater and more en­thralling meta­mor­phoses in un­charted in­fin­ity. At such a fu­ture eter­nity mo­ment the mas­ter uni­verse will still seem youth­ful; in­deed, it will be al­ways young in the face of the lim­it­less pos­si­bil­i­ties of never-end­ing eter­nity.

• nature of the universe › infinitely integrated aggregation of real units, relatively subject to destiny of the whole

112:5.1Self­hood is a cos­mic re­al­ity whether ma­te­rial, mor­ontial, or spir­i­tual. The ac­tu­al­ity of the per­sonal is the be­stowal of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther act­ing in and of him­self or through his man­i­fold uni­verse agen­cies. To say that a be­ing is per­sonal is to rec­og­nize the rel­a­tive in­di­vid­u­a­tion of such a be­ing within the cos­mic or­gan­ism. The liv­ing cos­mos is an all but in­finitely in­te­grated ag­gre­ga­tion of real units, all of which are rel­a­tively sub­ject to the des­tiny of the whole. But those that are per­sonal have been en­dowed with the ac­tual choice of des­tiny ac­cep­tance or of des­tiny re­jec­tion.

• nature of the universe › not explainable; u. exists because God so willed

115:1.4The realms of the fi­nite ex­ist by virtue of the eter­nal pur­pose of God. Fi­nite crea­tures, high and low, may pro­pound the­o­ries, and have done so, as to the ne­ces­sity of the fi­nite in the cos­mic econ­omy, but in the last anal­y­sis it ex­ists be­cause God so willed. The uni­verse can­not be ex­plained, nei­ther can a fi­nite crea­ture of­fer a ra­tio­nal rea­son for his own in­di­vid­ual ex­is­tence with­out ap­peal­ing to the prior acts and pre-ex­is­tent vo­li­tion of an­ces­tral be­ings, Cre­ators or pro­cre­ators.

• nature of the universe › will be always young in face of limitless possibilities of never-ending eternity

115:3.16The fi­nal dy­nam­ics of the cos­mos have to do with the con­tin­ual trans­fer of re­al­ity from po­ten­tial­ity to ac­tu­al­ity. In the­ory, there may be an end to this meta­mor­pho­sis, but in fact, such is im­pos­si­ble since the Po­ten­tial and the Ac­tual are both en­cir­cuited in the Orig­i­nal (the I AM), and this iden­ti­fi­ca­tion makes it for­ever im­pos­si­ble to place a limit on the de­vel­op­men­tal pro­gres­sion of the uni­verse. What­so­ever is iden­ti­fied with the I AM can never find an end to pro­gres­sion since the ac­tu­al­ity of the po­ten­tials of the I AM is ab­so­lute, and the po­ten­tial­ity of the ac­tu­als of the I AM is also ab­so­lute. Al­ways will ac­tu­als be open­ing up new av­enues of the re­al­iza­tion of hith­erto im­pos­si­ble po­ten­tials—ev­ery hu­man de­ci­sion not only ac­tu­al­izes a new re­al­ity in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence but also opens up a new ca­pac­ity for hu­man growth. The man lives in ev­ery child, and the mor­ontia pro­gres­sor is res­i­dent in the ma­ture God-know­ing man.

• physical aspects › established circuits continually jeopardized by appearance of new energy and mass

116:5.16The dif­fi­culty in ar­riv­ing at a state of dy­namic equi­lib­rium is in­her­ent in the fact of the grow­ing cos­mos. The es­tab­lished cir­cuits of phys­i­cal cre­ation are be­ing con­tin­u­ally jeop­ar­dized by the ap­pear­ance of new en­ergy and new mass. A grow­ing uni­verse is an un­set­tled uni­verse; hence no part of the cos­mic whole can find real sta­bil­ity un­til the full­ness of time wit­nesses the ma­te­rial com­ple­tion of the seven super­uni­verses.

116:5.17In the set­tled uni­verses of light and life there are no un­ex­pected phys­i­cal events of ma­jor im­por­tance. Rel­a­tively com­plete con­trol over the ma­te­rial cre­ation has been achieved; still the prob­lems of the re­la­tion­ship of the set­tled uni­verses to the evolv­ing uni­verses con­tinue to chal­lenge the skill of the Uni­verse Power Di­rec­tors. But these prob­lems will grad­u­ally van­ish with the diminu­tion of new cre­ative ac­tiv­ity as the grand uni­verse ap­proaches cul­mi­na­tion of evo­lu­tion­ary ex­pres­sion.

• physical aspects › penetrated by intelligence circuits, energy lanes

116:7.1The grand uni­verse is not only a ma­te­rial cre­ation of phys­i­cal grandeur, spirit sub­lim­ity, and in­tel­lec­tual mag­ni­tude, it is also a mag­nif­i­cent and re­spon­sive liv­ing or­gan­ism. There is ac­tual life pul­sat­ing through­out the mech­a­nism of the vast cre­ation of the vi­brant cos­mos. The phys­i­cal re­al­ity of the uni­verses is sym­bolic of the per­ceiv­able re­al­ity of the Al­mighty Su­preme; and this ma­te­rial and liv­ing or­gan­ism is pen­e­trated by in­tel­li­gence cir­cuits, even as the hu­man body is tra­versed by a net­work of neu­ral sen­sa­tion paths. This phys­i­cal uni­verse is per­me­ated by en­ergy lanes which ef­fec­tively ac­ti­vate ma­te­rial cre­ation, even as the hu­man body is nour­ished and en­er­gized by the cir­cu­la­tory dis­tri­bu­tion of the as­sim­i­l­able en­ergy prod­ucts of nour­ish­ment. The vast uni­verse is not with­out those co-or­di­nat­ing cen­ters of mag­nif­i­cent over­con­trol which might be com­pared to the del­i­cate chem­i­cal-con­trol sys­tem of the hu­man mech­a­nism. But if you only knew some­thing about the physique of a power cen­ter, we could, by anal­ogy, tell you so much more about the phys­i­cal uni­verse.

• Architects of Master Universe embody Deity concept of

118:4.62. Even­tu­a­tion of uni­verse ca­pac­i­ties. This in­volves the trans­for­ma­tion of un­dif­fer­en­ti­ated po­ten­tials into seg­re­gated and de­fined plans. This is the act of the Ul­ti­macy of De­ity and of the man­i­fold agen­cies of the tran­scen­den­tal level. Such acts are in per­fect an­tic­i­pa­tion of the fu­ture needs of the en­tire mas­ter uni­verse. It is in con­nec­tion with the seg­re­ga­tion of po­ten­tials that the Ar­chi­tects of the Mas­ter Uni­verse ex­ist as the ver­i­ta­ble em­bod­i­ments of the De­ity con­cept of the uni­verses. Their plans ap­pear to be ul­ti­mately space lim­ited in ex­tent by the con­cept pe­riph­ery of the mas­ter uni­verse, but as plans they are not oth­er­wise con­di­tioned by time or space.

• nature of the universe › seven-dimensional

130:7.7It must be ap­par­ent that uni­ver­sal re­al­ity has an ex­pand­ing and al­ways rel­a­tive mean­ing on the as­cend­ing and per­fect­ing lev­els of the cos­mos. Ul­ti­mately, sur­viv­ing mor­tals achieve iden­tity in a seven-di­men­sional uni­verse.

• nature of the universe › is friendly

133:1.4“Ga­nid, I can well un­der­stand how some of these prob­lems per­plex you, and I will en­deavor to an­swer your ques­tion. First, in all at­tacks which might be made upon my per­son, I would de­ter­mine whether or not the ag­gres­sor was a son of God—my brother in the flesh—and if I thought such a crea­ture did not pos­sess moral judg­ment and spir­i­tual rea­son, I would un­hesi­tat­ingly de­fend my­self to the full ca­pac­ity of my pow­ers of re­sis­tance, re­gard­less of con­se­quences to the at­tacker. But I would not thus as­sault a fel­low man of son­ship sta­tus, even in self-de­fense. That is, I would not pun­ish him in ad­vance and with­out judg­ment for his as­sault upon me. I would by ev­ery pos­si­ble ar­ti­fice seek to pre­vent and dis­suade him from mak­ing such an at­tack and to mit­i­gate it in case of my fail­ure to abort it. Ga­nid, I have ab­so­lute con­fi­dence in my heav­enly Fa­ther’s over­care; I am con­se­crated to do­ing the will of my Fa­ther in heaven. I do not be­lieve that real harm can be­fall me; I do not be­lieve that my life­work can re­ally be jeop­ar­dized by any­thing my en­e­mies might wish to visit upon me, and surely we have no vi­o­lence to fear from our friends. I am ab­so­lutely as­sured that the en­tire uni­verse is friendly to me—this all-pow­er­ful truth I in­sist on be­liev­ing with a whole­hearted trust in spite of all ap­pear­ances to the con­trary.”

• nature of the universe › is friendly

133:5.8There is unity in the cos­mic uni­verse if you could only dis­cern its work­ings in ac­tu­al­ity. The real uni­verse is friendly to ev­ery child of the eter­nal God. The real prob­lem is: How can the fi­nite mind of man achieve a log­i­cal, true, and cor­re­spond­ing unity of thought? This uni­verse-know­ing state of mind can be had only by con­ceiv­ing that the quan­ti­ta­tive fact and the qual­i­ta­tive value have a com­mon cau­sa­tion in the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Such a con­cep­tion of re­al­ity yields a broader in­sight into the pur­pose­ful unity of uni­verse phe­nom­ena; it even re­veals a spir­i­tual goal of pro­gres­sive per­son­al­ity achieve­ment. And this is a con­cept of unity which can sense the un­chang­ing back­ground of a liv­ing uni­verse of con­tin­u­ally chang­ing im­per­sonal re­la­tions and evolv­ing per­sonal re­la­tion­ships.

• nature of the universe › is fatherly

140:4.11Ev­ery mor­tal re­ally craves to be a com­plete per­son, to be per­fect even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect, and such at­tain­ment is pos­si­ble be­cause in the last anal­y­sis the “uni­verse is truly fa­therly.”

• nature of the universe › is friendly

140:5.113. “Happy are the meek, for they shall in­herit the earth.” Gen­uine meek­ness has no re­la­tion to fear. It is rather an at­ti­tude of man co-op­er­at­ing with God—“Your will be done.” It em­braces pa­tience and for­bear­ance and is mo­ti­vated by an un­shak­able faith in a law­ful and friendly uni­verse. It mas­ters all temp­ta­tions to rebel against the di­vine lead­ing. Je­sus was the ideal meek man of Uran­tia, and he in­her­ited a vast uni­verse.

• nature of the universe › is friendly

180:5.8But the high­est re­al­iza­tion and the truest in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the golden rule con­sists in the con­scious­ness of the spirit of the truth of the en­dur­ing and liv­ing re­al­ity of such a di­vine dec­la­ra­tion. The true cos­mic mean­ing of this rule of uni­ver­sal re­la­tion­ship is re­vealed only in its spir­i­tual re­al­iza­tion, in the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the law of con­duct by the spirit of the Son to the spirit of the Fa­ther that in­dwells the soul of mor­tal man. And when such spirit-led mor­tals re­al­ize the true mean­ing of this golden rule, they are filled to over­flow­ing with the as­sur­ance of cit­i­zen­ship in a friendly uni­verse, and their ide­als of spirit re­al­ity are sat­is­fied only when they love their fel­lows as Je­sus loved us all, and that is the re­al­ity of the re­al­iza­tion of the love of God.

• Father’s house

181:1.2“When I have re­turned to live in you and work through you, I can the bet­ter lead you on through this life and guide you through the many abodes in the fu­ture life in the heaven of heav­ens. Life in the Fa­ther’s eter­nal cre­ation is not an end­less rest of idle­ness and self­ish ease but rather a cease­less pro­gres­sion in grace, truth, and glory. Each of the many, many sta­tions in my Fa­ther’s house is a stop­ping place, a life de­signed to pre­pare you for the next one ahead. And so will the chil­dren of light go on from glory to glory un­til they at­tain the di­vine es­tate wherein they are spir­i­tu­ally per­fected even as the Fa­ther is per­fect in all things.

• nature of the universe › without significance apart from I AM

195:7.18Any sci­en­tific in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the ma­te­rial uni­verse is val­ue­less un­less it pro­vides due rec­og­ni­tion for the sci­en­tist. No ap­pre­ci­a­tion of art is gen­uine un­less it ac­cords rec­og­ni­tion to the artist. No eval­u­a­tion of morals is worth while un­less it in­cludes the moral­ist. No rec­og­ni­tion of phi­los­o­phy is ed­i­fy­ing if it ig­nores the philoso­pher, and re­li­gion can­not ex­ist with­out the real ex­pe­ri­ence of the re­li­gion­ist who, in and through this very ex­pe­ri­ence, is seek­ing to find God and to know him. Like­wise is the uni­verse of uni­verses with­out sig­nif­i­cance apart from the I AM, the in­fi­nite God who made it and un­ceas­ingly man­ages it.

• nature of the universe › is like a scientist

195:7.22The uni­verse is not like the laws, mech­a­nisms, and the uni­for­mi­ties which the sci­en­tist dis­cov­ers, and which he comes to re­gard as sci­ence, but rather like the cu­ri­ous, think­ing, choos­ing, cre­ative, com­bin­ing, and dis­crim­i­nat­ing sci­en­tist who thus ob­serves uni­verse phe­nom­ena and clas­si­fies the math­e­mat­i­cal facts in­her­ent in the mech­a­nis­tic phases of the ma­te­rial side of cre­ation. Nei­ther is the uni­verse like the art of the artist, but rather like the striv­ing, dream­ing, as­pir­ing, and ad­vanc­ing artist who seeks to tran­scend the world of ma­te­rial things in an ef­fort to achieve a spir­i­tual goal.

195:7.23The sci­en­tist, not sci­ence, per­ceives the re­al­ity of an evolv­ing and ad­vanc­ing uni­verse of en­ergy and mat­ter. The artist, not art, demon­strates the ex­is­tence of the tran­sient mor­ontia world in­ter­ven­ing be­tween ma­te­rial ex­is­tence and spir­i­tual lib­erty. The re­li­gion­ist, not re­li­gion, proves the ex­is­tence of the spirit re­al­i­ties and di­vine val­ues which are to be en­coun­tered in the prog­ress of eter­nity.

• nature of the universe › is friendly

196:3.82. In­ter­pre­ta­tion of the uni­verse—wis­dom. Only the spirit-in­dwelt mind can com­pre­hend that the uni­verse is friendly to the in­di­vid­ual.