PAPER 4
- GOD'S RELATION TO THE UNIVERSE
THE 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.
It is easy to
deduce that the purpose in creating the perfect
central universe of Havona was purely the
satisfaction of the divine nature. Havona may serve
as the pattern creation for all other universes and
as the finishing school for the pilgrims of time on
their way to Paradise; however, such a supernal
creation must exist primarily for the pleasure and
satisfaction of the perfect and infinite Creators.
The amazing plan
for perfecting evolutionary mortals and, after their
attainment of Paradise and the Corps of the
Finality, providing further training for some
undisclosed future work, does seem to be, at
present, one of the chief concerns of the seven
superuniverses and their many subdivisions; but this
ascension scheme for spiritualizing and training the
mortals of time and space is by no means the
exclusive occupation of the universe intelligences.
There are, indeed, many other fascinating pursuits
which occupy the time and enlist the energies of the
celestial hosts.
1. THE
UNIVERSE ATTITUDE OF THE FATHER
For ages the
inhabitants of Urantia have misunderstood the
providence of God. There is a providence of divine
outworking on your world, but it is not the
childish, arbitrary, and material ministry many
mortals have conceived it to be. The providence of
God consists in the interlocking activities of the
celestial beings and the divine spirits who, in
accordance with cosmic law, unceasingly labor for
the honor of God and for the spiritual advancement
of his universe children.
Can 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.
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"God is faithful"
and "all his commandments are just." "His
faithfulness is established in the very skies."
"Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven.
Your faithfulness is to all generations; you have
established the earth and it abides." "He is a
faithful Creator."
There is no
limitation of the forces and personalities which the
Father may use to uphold his purpose and sustain his
creatures. "The eternal God is our refuge, and
underneath are the everlasting arms." "He who dwells
in the secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty." "Behold, he who
keeps us shall neither slumber nor sleep." "We know
that all things work together for good to those who
love God," "for the eyes of the Lord are over the
righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers."
God 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.
The 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."
A being of my
order is able to discover ultimate harmony and to
detect far-reaching and profound co-ordination in
the routine affairs of universe administration. Much
that seems disjointed and haphazard to the mortal
mind appears orderly and constructive to my
understanding. But there is very much going on in
the universes that I do not fully comprehend. I have
long been a student of, and am more or less
conversant with, the recognized forces, energies,
minds, morontias, spirits, and personalities of the
local universes and the superuniverses. I have a
general understanding of how these agencies and
personalities operate, and I am intimately familiar
with the workings of the accredited spirit
intelligences of the grand universe. Notwithstanding
my knowledge of the phenomena of the universes, I am
constantly confronted with cosmic reactions which I
cannot fully fathom. I am continually encountering
apparently fortuitous conspiracies of the
interassociation of forces, energies, intellects,
and spirits, which I cannot satisfactorily explain.
I am entirely
competent to trace out and to analyze the working of
all phenomena directly resulting from the
functioning of the Universal Father, the Eternal
Son, the Infinite Spirit, and, to a large extent,
the Isle of Paradise. My perplexity is occasioned by
encountering what appears to be the performance of
their mysterious co-ordinates, the three Absolutes
of potentiality. These Absolutes seem to supersede
matter, to transcend mind, and to supervene spirit.
I am constantly confused and often perplexed by my
inability to comprehend these complex transactions
which I attribute to the presences and performances
of the Unqualified Absolute, the Deity Absolute, and
the Universal Absolute.
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These Absolutes
must be the not-fully-revealed presences abroad in
the universe which, in the phenomena of space
potency and in the function of other superultimates,
render it impossible for physicists, philosophers,
or even religionists to predict with certainty as to
just how the primordials of force, concept, or
spirit will respond to demands made in a complex
reality situation involving supreme adjustments and
ultimate values.
There is also an
organic unity in the universes of time and space
which seems to underlie the whole fabric of cosmic
events. This living presence of the evolving Supreme
Being, this Immanence of the Projected Incomplete,
is inexplicably manifested ever and anon by what
appears to be an amazingly fortuitous co-ordination
of apparently unrelated universe happenings. This
must be the function of Providence--the realm of the
Supreme Being and the Conjoint Actor.
I am inclined to
believe that it is this far-flung and generally
unrecognizable control of the co-ordination and
interassociation of all phases and forms of universe
activity that causes such a variegated and
apparently hopelessly confused medley of physical,
mental, moral, and spiritual phenomena so unerringly
to work out to the glory of God and for the good of
men and angels.
But in the larger
sense the apparent "accidents" of the cosmos are
undoubtedly a part of the finite drama of the
time-space adventure of the Infinite in his eternal
manipulation of the Absolutes.
2. GOD
AND NATURE
Nature is in a
limited sense the physical habit of God. The
conduct, or action, of God is qualified and
provisionally modified by the experimental plans and
the evolutionary patterns of a local universe, a
constellation, a system, or a planet. God acts in
accordance with a well-defined, unchanging,
immutable law throughout the wide-spreading master
universe; but he modifies the patterns of his action
so as to contribute to the co-ordinate and balanced
conduct of each universe, constellation, system,
planet, and personality in accordance with the local
objects, aims, and plans of the finite projects of
evolutionary unfolding.
Therefore, nature,
as mortal man understands it, presents the
underlying foundation and fundamental background of
a changeless Deity and his immutable laws, modified
by, fluctuating because of, and experiencing
upheavals through, the working of the local plans,
purposes, patterns, and conditions which have been
inaugurated and are being carried out by the local
universe, constellation, system, and planetary
forces and personalities. For example: As God's laws
have been ordained in Nebadon, they are modified by
the plans established by the Creator Son and
Creative Spirit of this local universe; and in
addition to all this the operation of these laws has
been further influenced by the errors, defaults, and
insurrections of certain beings resident upon your
planet and belonging to your immediate planetary
system of Satania.
Nature is a
time-space resultant of two cosmic factors: first,
the immutability, perfection, and rectitude of
Paradise Deity, and second, the experimental plans,
executive blunders, insurrectionary errors,
incompleteness of development, and imperfection of
wisdom of the extra-Paradise creatures, from the
highest to the lowest. Nature therefore carries a
uniform, unchanging, majestic, and marvelous thread
of perfection from the circle of eternity; but in
each universe, on each planet, and in each
individual life, this nature is modified, qualified,
and perchance
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marred by the
acts, the mistakes, and the disloyalties of the
creatures of the evolutionary systems and universes;
and therefore must nature ever be of a changing
mood, whimsical withal, though stable underneath,
and varied in accordance with the operating
procedures of a local universe.
Nature is the
perfection of Paradise divided by the incompletion,
evil, and sin of the unfinished universes. This
quotient is thus expressive of both the perfect and
the partial, of both the eternal and the temporal.
Continuing evolution modifies nature by augmenting
the content of Paradise perfection and by
diminishing the content of the evil, error, and
disharmony of relative reality.
God is not
personally present in nature or in any of the forces
of nature, for the phenomenon of nature is the
superimposition of the imperfections of progressive
evolution and, sometimes, the consequences of
insurrectionary rebellion, upon the Paradise
foundations of God's universal law. As it appears on
such a world as Urantia, nature can never be the
adequate expression, the true representation, the
faithful portrayal, of an all-wise and infinite God.
Nature, on your
world, is a qualification of the laws of perfection
by the evolutionary plans of the local universe.
What a travesty to worship nature because it is in a
limited, qualified sense pervaded by God; because it
is a phase of the universal and, therefore, divine
power! Nature also is a manifestation of the
unfinished, the incomplete, the imperfect
outworkings of the development, growth, and progress
of a universe experiment in cosmic evolution.
The apparent
defects of the natural world are not indicative of
any such corresponding defects in the character of
God. Rather are such observed imperfections merely
the inevitable stop-moments in the exhibition of the
ever-moving reel of infinity picturization. It is
these very defect-interruptions of
perfection-continuity which make it possible for the
finite mind of material man to catch a fleeting
glimpse of divine reality in time and space. The
material manifestations of divinity appear defective
to the evolutionary mind of man only because mortal
man persists in viewing the phenomena of nature
through natural eyes, human vision unaided by
morontia mota or by revelation, its compensatory
substitute on the worlds of time.
And nature is
marred, her beautiful face is scarred, her features
are seared, by the rebellion, the misconduct, the
misthinking of the myriads of creatures who are a
part of nature, but who have contributed to her
disfigurement in time. No, nature is not God. Nature
is not an object of worship.
3. GOD'S
UNCHANGING CHARACTER
All 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.
The 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.
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Much, 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.
God 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.
The 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.
The 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.
The 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.
4. THE
REALIZATION OF GOD
God 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.
Since 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.
God 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.
The
Father-Absolute is the creator of the central and
perfect universe and the Father of all other
Creators. Personality, goodness, and numerous other
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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.
God'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.
In 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.
In 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.
We 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.
The 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."
5.
ERRONEOUS IDEAS OF GOD
Religious
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
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Father. Such
ancient beliefs have been invariably altered by the
fact that primitive man was a mythmaker.
One 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.
The 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.
The 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.
The 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.
The 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!
But 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
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of attributes so
magnificently portrayed by the Creator Son who
sojourned on Urantia as the Son of Man and the Son
of God.
[Presented by a
Divine Counselor of Uversa.]
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