PAPER 116
- THE ALMIGHTY SUPREME
If man recognized that his
Creators--his immediate supervisors--while being divine were
also finite, and that the God of time and space was an
evolving and nonabsolute Deity, then would the
inconsistencies of temporal inequalities cease to be
profound religious paradoxes. No longer would religious
faith be prostituted to the promotion of social smugness in
the fortunate while serving only to encourage stoical
resignation in the unfortunate victims of social
deprivation.
When viewing the
exquisitely perfect spheres of Havona, it is both reasonable
and logical to believe they were made by a perfect,
infinite, and absolute Creator. But that same reason and
logic would compel any honest being, when viewing the
turmoil, imperfections, and inequities of Urantia, to
conclude that your world had been made by, and was being
managed by, Creators who were subabsolute, preinfinite, and
other than perfect.
Experiential growth
implies creature-Creator partnership--God and man in
association. Growth is the earmark of experiential Deity:
Havona did not grow; Havona is and always has been; it is
existential like the everlasting Gods who are its source.
But growth characterizes the grand universe.
The Almighty Supreme is a
living and evolving Deity of power and personality. His
present domain, the grand universe, is also a growing realm
of power and personality. His destiny is perfection, but his
present experience encompasses the elements of growth and
incomplete status.
The Supreme Being
functions primarily in the central universe as a spirit
personality; secondarily in the grand universe as God the
Almighty, a personality of power. The tertiary function of
the Supreme in the master universe is now latent, existing
only as an unknown mind potential. No one knows just what
this third development of the Supreme Being will disclose.
Some believe that, when the superuniverses are settled in
light and life, the Supreme will become functional from
Uversa as the almighty and experiential sovereign of the
grand universe while expanding in power as the superalmighty
of the outer universes. Others speculate that the third
stage of Supremacy will involve the third level of Deity
manifestation. But none of us really know.
1. THE SUPREME
MIND
The experience of every
evolving creature personality is a phase of the experience
of the Almighty Supreme. The intelligent subjugation of
every physical segment of the superuniverses is a part of
the growing control of the
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Almighty Supreme. The
creative synthesis of power and personality is a part of the
creative urge of the Supreme Mind and is the very essence of
the evolutionary growth of unity in the Supreme Being.
The union of the power and
personality attributes of Supremacy is the function of
Supreme Mind; and the completed evolution of the Almighty
Supreme will result in one unified and personal Deity--not
in any loosely co-ordinated association of divine
attributes. From the broader perspective, there will be no
Almighty apart from the Supreme, no Supreme apart from the
Almighty.
Throughout the
evolutionary ages the physical power potential of the
Supreme is vested in the Seven Supreme Power Directors, and
the mind potential reposes in the Seven Master Spirits. The
Infinite Mind is the function of the Infinite Spirit; the
cosmic mind, the ministry of the Seven Master Spirits; the
Supreme Mind is in process of actualizing in the
co-ordination of the grand universe and in functional
association with the revelation and attainment of God the
Sevenfold.
The time-space mind, the
cosmic mind, is differently functioning in the seven
superuniverses, but it is co-ordinated by some unknown
associative technique in the Supreme Being. The Almighty
overcontrol of the grand universe is not exclusively
physical and spiritual. In the seven superuniverses it is
primarily material and spiritual, but there are also present
phenomena of the Supreme which are both intellectual and
spiritual.
We really know less about
the mind of Supremacy than about any other aspect of this
evolving Deity. It is unquestionably active throughout the
grand universe and is believed to have a potential destiny
of master universe function which is of vast extent. But
this we do know: Whereas physique may attain completed
growth, and whereas spirit may achieve perfection of
development, mind never ceases to progress--it is the
experiential technique of endless progress. The Supreme is
an experiential Deity and therefore never achieves
completion of mind attainment.
2. THE ALMIGHTY
AND GOD THE SEVENFOLD
The appearance of the
universe power presence of the Almighty is concomitant with
the appearance on the stage of cosmic action of the high
creators and controllers of the evolutionary superuniverses.
God the Supreme derives
his spirit and personality attributes from the Paradise
Trinity, but he is power-actualizing in the doings of the
Creator Sons, the Ancients of Days, and the Master Spirits,
whose collective acts are the source of his growing power as
almighty sovereign to and in the seven superuniverses.
Unqualified Paradise Deity
is incomprehensible to the evolving creatures of time and
space. Eternity and infinity connote a level of deity
reality which time-space creatures cannot comprehend.
Infinity of deity and absoluteness of sovereignty are
inherent in the Paradise Trinity, and the Trinity is a
reality which lies somewhat beyond the understanding of
mortal man. Time-space creatures must have origins,
relativities, and destinies in order to grasp universe
relationships and to understand the meaning values of
divinity. Therefore does Paradise Deity attenuate and
otherwise qualify the extra-Paradise personalizations of
divinity, thus bringing into existence the Supreme Creators
and their
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associates, who ever carry
the light of life farther and farther from its Paradise
source until it finds its most distant and beautiful
expression in the earth lives of the bestowal Sons on the
evolutionary worlds.
And this is the origin of
God the Sevenfold, whose successive levels are encountered
by mortal man in the following order:
1. The Creator Sons (and
Creative Spirits).
2. The Ancients of Days.
3. The Seven Master
Spirits.
4. The Supreme Being.
5. The Conjoint Actor.
6. The Eternal Son.
7. The Universal Father.
The first three levels are
the Supreme Creators; the last three levels are the Paradise
Deities. The Supreme ever intervenes as the experiential
spirit personalization of the Paradise Trinity and as the
experiential focus of the evolutionary almighty power of the
creator children of the Paradise Deities. The Supreme Being
is the maximum revelation of Deity to the seven
superuniverses and for the present universe age.
By the technique of mortal
logic it might be inferred that the experiential
reunification of the collective acts of the first three
levels of God the Sevenfold would equivalate to the level of
Paradise Deity, but such is not the case. Paradise Deity is
existential Deity. The Supreme Creators, in their
divine unity of power and personality, are constitutive and
expressive of a new power potential of experiential
Deity. And this power potential of experiential origin finds
inevitable and inescapable union with the experiential Deity
of Trinity origin--the Supreme Being.
God the Supreme is not the
Paradise Trinity, neither is he any one or all of those
superuniverse Creators whose functional activities actually
synthesize his evolving almighty power. God the Supreme,
while of origin in the Trinity, becomes manifest to
evolutionary creatures as a personality of power only
through the co-ordinated functions of the first three levels
of God the Sevenfold. The Almighty Supreme is now
factualizing in time and space through the activities of the
Supreme Creator Personalities, even as in eternity the
Conjoint Actor flashed into being by the will of the
Universal Father and the Eternal Son. These beings of the
first three levels of God the Sevenfold are the very nature
and source of the power of the Almighty Supreme; therefore
must they ever accompany and sustain his administrative
acts.
3. THE ALMIGHTY
AND PARADISE DEITY
The Paradise Deities not
only act directly in their gravity circuits throughout the
grand universe, but they also function through their various
agencies and other manifestations, such as:
1. The mind
focalizations of the Third Source and Center. The finite
domains of energy and spirit are literally held together by
the mind presences of the Conjoint Actor. This is true from
the Creative Spirit in a local universe through the
Reflective Spirits of a superuniverse to the Master Spirits
in the
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grand universe. The mind
circuits emanating from these varied intelligence focuses
represent the cosmic arena of creature choice. Mind is the
flexible reality which creatures and Creators can so readily
manipulate; it is the vital link connecting matter and
spirit. The mind bestowal of the Third Source and Center
unifies the spirit person of God the Supreme with the
experiential power of the evolutionary Almighty.
2. The personality
revelations of the Second Source and Center. The mind
presences of the Conjoint Actor unify the spirit of divinity
with the pattern of energy. The bestowal incarnations of the
Eternal Son and his Paradise Sons unify, actually fuse, the
divine nature of a Creator with the evolving nature of a
creature. The Supreme is both creature and creator; the
possibility of his being such is revealed in the bestowal
actions of the Eternal Son and his co-ordinate and
subordinate Sons. The bestowal orders of sonship, the
Michaels and the Avonals, actually augment their divine
natures with bona fide creature natures which have become
theirs by the living of the actual creature life on the
evolutionary worlds. When divinity becomes like humanity,
inherent in this relationship is the possibility that
humanity can become divine.
3. 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.
The 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.
In these and many other
ways do the Paradise Deities participate in the evolutions
of time as they unfold on the circling planets of space, and
as they culminate in the emergence of the Supreme
personality consequence of all evolution.
4. THE ALMIGHTY
AND THE SUPREME CREATORS
The unity of the Supreme
Whole is dependent on the progressive unification of the
finite parts; the actualization of the Supreme is resultant
from, and productive of, these very unifications of the
factors of supremacy--the creators, creatures,
intelligences, and energies of the universes.
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During those ages in which
the sovereignty of Supremacy is undergoing its time
development, the almighty power of the Supreme is dependent
on the divinity acts of God the Sevenfold, while there seems
to be a particularly close relationship between the Supreme
Being and the Conjoint Actor together with his primary
personalities, the Seven Master Spirits. The Infinite Spirit
as the Conjoint Actor functions in many ways which
compensate the incompletion of evolutionary Deity and
sustains very close relations to the Supreme. This closeness
of relationship is shared in measure by all of the Master
Spirits but especially by Master Spirit Number Seven, who
speaks for the Supreme. This Master Spirit knows--is in
personal contact with--the Supreme.
Early in the projection of
the superuniverse scheme of creation, the Master Spirits
joined with the ancestral Trinity in the cocreation of the
forty-nine Reflective Spirits, and concomitantly the Supreme
Being functioned creatively as the culminator of the
conjoined acts of the Paradise Trinity and the creative
children of Paradise Deity. Majeston appeared and ever since
has focalized the cosmic presence of the Supreme Mind, while
the Master Spirits continue as source-centers for the
far-flung ministry of the cosmic mind.
But the Master Spirits
continue in supervision of the Reflective Spirits. The
Seventh Master Spirit is (in his overall supervision of
Orvonton from the central universe) in personal contact with
(and has overcontrol of) the seven Reflective Spirits
located on Uversa. In his inter- and intrasuperuniverse
controls and administrations he is in reflective contact
with the Reflective Spirits of his own type located on each
superuniverse capital.
These Master Spirits are
not only the supporters and augmenters of the sovereignty of
Supremacy, but they are in turn affected by the creative
purposes of the Supreme. Ordinarily, the collective
creations of the Master Spirits are of the quasi-material
order (power directors, etc.), while their individual
creations are of the spiritual order (supernaphim, etc.).
But when the Master Spirits collectively produced the
Seven Circuit Spirits in response to the will and purpose of
the Supreme Being, it is to be noted that the offspring of
this creative act are spiritual, not material or
quasi-material.
And as it is with the
Master Spirits of the superuniverses, so is it with the
triune rulers of these supercreations--the Ancients of Days.
These personifications of Trinity justice-judgment in time
and space are the field fulcrums for the mobilizing almighty
power of the Supreme, serving as the sevenfold focal points
for the evolution of trinitarian sovereignty in the domains
of time and space. From their vantage point midway between
Paradise and the evolving worlds, these Trinity-origin
sovereigns see both ways, know both ways, and co-ordinate
both ways.
But the local universes
are the real laboratories in which are worked out the mind
experiments, galactic adventures, divinity unfoldings, and
personality progressions which, when cosmically totaled,
constitute the actual foundation upon which the Supreme is
achieving deity evolution in and by experience.
In the local universes
even the Creators evolve: The presence of the Conjoint Actor
evolves from a living power focus to the status of the
divine personality of a Universe Mother Spirit; the Creator
Son evolves from the nature of existential Paradise divinity
to the experiential nature of supreme sovereignty. The local
universes are the starting points of true evolution, the
spawning
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grounds of bona fide
imperfect personalities endowed with the freewill choice of
becoming cocreators of themselves as they are to be.
The Magisterial Sons in
their bestowals upon the evolutionary worlds eventually
acquire natures expressive of Paradise divinity in
experiential unification with the highest spiritual values
of material human nature. And through these and other
bestowals the Michael Creators likewise acquire the natures
and cosmic viewpoints of their actual local universe
children. Such Master Creator Sons approximate the
completion of subsupreme experience; and when their local
universe sovereignty is enlarged to embrace the associated
Creative Spirits, it may be said to approximate the limits
of supremacy within the present potentials of the
evolutionary grand universe.
When the bestowal Sons
reveal new ways for man to find God, they are not creating
these paths of divinity attainment; rather are they
illuminating the everlasting highways of progression which
lead through the presence of the Supreme to the person of
the Paradise Father.
The local universe is the
starting place for those personalities who are farthest from
God, and who can therefore experience the greatest degree of
spiritual ascent in the universe, can achieve the maximum of
experiential participation in the cocreation of themselves.
These same local universes likewise provide the greatest
possible depth of experience for the descending
personalities, who thereby achieve something which is to
them just as meaningful as the Paradise ascent is to an
evolving creature.
Mortal man appears to be
necessary to the full function of God the Sevenfold as this
divinity grouping culminates in the actualizing Supreme.
There are many other orders of universe personalities who
are equally necessary to the evolution of the almighty power
of the Supreme, but this portrayal is presented for the
edification of human beings, hence is largely limited to
those factors operating in the evolution of God the
Sevenfold which are related to mortal man.
5. THE ALMIGHTY
AND THE SEVENFOLD CONTROLLERS
You have been instructed
in the relationship of God the Sevenfold to the Supreme
Being, and you should now recognize that the Sevenfold
encompasses the controllers as well as the creators of the
grand universe. These sevenfold controllers of the grand
universe embrace the following:
1. The Master Physical
Controllers.
2. The Supreme Power
Centers.
3. The Supreme Power
Directors.
4. The Almighty Supreme.
5. The God of Action--the
Infinite Spirit.
6. The Isle of Paradise.
7. The Source of
Paradise--the Universal Father.
These seven groups are
functionally inseparable from God the Sevenfold and
constitute the physical-control level of this Deity
association.
The bifurcation of energy
and spirit (stemming from the conjoint presence of the
Eternal Son and the Paradise Isle) was symbolized in the
superuniverse
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sense when the Seven Master
Spirits unitedly engaged in their first act of collective
creation. This episode witnessed the appearance of the Seven
Supreme Power Directors. Concomitant therewith the spiritual
circuits of the Master Spirits contrastively differentiated
from the physical activities of power director supervision,
and immediately did the cosmic mind appear as a new factor
co-ordinating matter and spirit.
The Almighty Supreme is
evolving as the overcontroller of the physical power of the
grand universe. In the present universe age this potential
of physical power appears to be centered in the Seven
Supreme Power Directors, who operate through the fixed
locations of the power centers and through the mobile
presences of the physical controllers.
The time universes are not
perfect; that is their destiny. The struggle for perfection
pertains not only to the intellectual and the spiritual
levels but also to the physical level of energy and mass.
The settlement of the seven superuniverses in light and life
presupposes their attainment of physical stability. And it
is conjectured that the final attainment of material
equilibrium will signify the completed evolution of the
physical control of the Almighty.
In the early days of
universe building even the Paradise Creators are primarily
concerned with material equilibrium. The pattern of a local
universe takes shape not only as a result of the activities
of the power centers but also because of the space presence
of the Creative Spirit. And throughout these early epochs of
local universe building the Creator Son exhibits a
little-understood attribute of material control, and he does
not leave his capital planet until the gross equilibrium of
the local universe has been established.
In the final analysis, all
energy responds to mind, and the physical controllers are
the children of the mind God, who is the activator of
Paradise pattern. The intelligence of the power directors is
unremittingly devoted to the task of bringing about material
control. Their struggle for physical dominance over the
relationships of energy and the motions of mass never ceases
until they achieve finite victory over the energies and
masses which constitute their perpetual domains of activity.
The spirit struggles of
time and space have to do with the evolution of spirit
dominance over matter by the mediation of (personal) mind;
the physical (nonpersonal) evolution of the universes has to
do with bringing cosmic energy into harmony with the
equilibrium concepts of mind subject to the overcontrol of
spirit. The total evolution of the entire grand universe is
a matter of the personality unification of the
energy-controlling mind with the spirit-co-ordinated
intellect and will be revealed in the full appearance of the
almighty power of the Supreme.
The 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.
In 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
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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.
6. SPIRIT
DOMINANCE
In the evolutionary
superuniverses energy-matter is dominant except in
personality, where spirit through the mediation of mind is
struggling for the mastery. The goal of the evolutionary
universes is the subjugation of energy-matter by mind, the
co-ordination of mind with spirit, and all of this by virtue
of the creative and unifying presence of personality. Thus,
in relation to personality, do physical systems become
subordinate; mind systems, co-ordinate; and spirit systems,
directive.
This union of power and
personality is expressive on deity levels in and as the
Supreme. But the actual evolution of spirit dominance is a
growth which is predicated on the freewill acts of the
Creators and creatures of the grand universe.
On absolute levels, energy
and spirit are one. But the moment departure is made from
such absolute levels, difference appears, and as energy and
spirit move spaceward from Paradise, the gulf between them
widens until in the local universes they have become quite
divergent. They are no longer identical, neither are they
alike, and mind must intervene to interrelate them.
That energy can be
directionized by the action of controller personalities
discloses the responsiveness of energy to mind action. That
mass can be stabilized through the action of these same
controlling entities indicates the responsiveness of mass to
the order-producing presence of mind. And that spirit itself
in volitional personality can strive through mind for the
mastery of energy-matter discloses the potential unity of
all finite creation.
There is an
interdependence of all forces and personalities throughout
the universe of universes. Creator Sons and Creative Spirits
depend on the co-operative function of the power centers and
physical controllers in the organization of universes; the
Supreme Power Directors are incomplete without the
overcontrol of the Master Spirits. In a human being the
mechanism of physical life is responsive, in part, to the
dictates of (personal) mind. This very mind may, in turn,
become dominated by the leadings of purposive spirit, and
the result of such evolutionary development is the
production of a new child of the Supreme, a new personal
unification of the several kinds of cosmic reality.
And as it is with the
parts, so it is with the whole; the spirit person of
Supremacy requires the evolutionary power of the Almighty to
achieve completion of Deity and to attain destiny of Trinity
association. The effort is made by the personalities of time
and space, but the culmination and consummation of this
effort is the act of the Almighty Supreme. And while the
growth of the whole is thus a totalizing of the collective
growth of the parts, it equally follows that the evolution
of the parts is a segmented reflection of the purposive
growth of the whole.
On Paradise, monota and
spirit are as one--indistinguishable except by name. In
Havona, matter and spirit, while distinguishably different,
are at the
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same time innately
harmonious. In the seven superuniverses, however, there is
great divergence; there is a wide gulf between cosmic energy
and divine spirit; therefore is there a greater experiential
potential for mind action in harmonizing and eventually
unifying physical pattern with spiritual purposes. In the
time-evolving universes of space there is greater divinity
attenuation, more difficult problems to be solved, and
larger opportunity to acquire experience in their solution.
And this entire superuniverse situation brings into being a
larger arena of evolutionary existence in which the
possibility of cosmic experience is made available alike to
creature and Creator--even to Supreme Deity.
The dominance of spirit,
which is existential on absolute levels, becomes an
evolutionary experience on finite levels and in the seven
superuniverses. And this experience is shared alike by all,
from mortal man to the Supreme Being. All strive, personally
strive, in the achievement; all participate, personally
participate, in the destiny.
7. THE LIVING
ORGANISM OF THE GRAND UNIVERSE
The 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.
Much as mortals look to
solar energy for life maintenance, so does the grand
universe depend upon the unfailing energies emanating from
nether Paradise to sustain the material activities and
cosmic motions of space.
Mind has been given to
mortals wherewith they may become self-conscious of identity
and personality; and mind--even a Supreme Mind--has been
bestowed upon the totality of the finite whereby the spirit
of this emerging personality of the cosmos ever strives for
the mastery of energy-matter.
Mortal man is responsive
to spirit guidance, even as the grand universe responds to
the far-flung spirit-gravity grasp of the Eternal Son, the
universal supermaterial cohesion of the eternal spiritual
values of all the creations of the finite cosmos of time and
space.
Human beings are capable
of making an everlasting self-identification with total and
indestructible universe reality--fusion with the indwelling
Thought Adjuster. Likewise does the Supreme everlastingly
depend on the absolute stability of Original Deity, the
Paradise Trinity.
Man's urge for Paradise
perfection, his striving for God-attainment, creates a
genuine divinity tension in the living cosmos which can only
be resolved by the evolution of an immortal soul; this is
what happens in the experience of a single mortal creature.
But when all creatures and all Creators in the grand
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universe likewise strive for
God-attainment and divine perfection, there is built up a
profound cosmic tension which can only find resolution in
the sublime synthesis of almighty power with the spirit
person of the evolving God of all creatures, the Supreme
Being.
[Sponsored by a Mighty
Messenger temporarily sojourning on Urantia.] |