The Urantia Book
PAPER 4
GOD'S RELATION TO THE UNIVERSE
Presented by a Divine Counselor of Uversa.
4:0.1 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.
4:0.2 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.
4:0.3 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
4:1.1 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.
4:1.2 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.
4:1.3 "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."
4:1.4 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."
4:1.5 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.
4:1.6 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."
4:1.7 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.
4:1.8 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.
4:1.9 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.
4:1.10 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.
4:1.11 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.
4:1.12 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
4:2.1 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.
4:2.2 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.
4:2.3 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 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.
4:2.4 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.
4:2.5 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.
4:2.6 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.
4:2.7 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.
4:2.8 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
4:3.1 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.
4:3.2 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.
4:3.3 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.
4:3.4 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.
4:3.5 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.
4:3.6 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.
4:3.7 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
4:4.1 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.
4:4.2 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.
4:4.3 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.
4:4.4 The Father-Absolute is the creator of
the central and perfect universe and the Father of all other
Creators. Personality, goodness, and numerous other
characteristics, God shares with man and other beings, but
infinity of will is his alone. God is limited in his creative
acts only by the sentiments of his eternal nature and by the
dictates of his infinite wisdom. God personally chooses only
that which is infinitely perfect, hence the supernal perfection
of the central universe; and while the Creator Sons fully share
his divinity, even phases of his absoluteness, they are not
altogether limited by that finality of wisdom which directs the
Father's infinity of will. Hence, in the Michael order of
sonship, creative free will becomes even more active, wholly
divine and well-nigh ultimate, if not absolute. The Father is
infinite and eternal, but to deny the possibility of his
volitional self-limitation amounts to a denial of this very
concept of his volitional absoluteness.
4:4.5 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.
4:4.6 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.
4:4.7 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.
4:4.8 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.
4:4.9 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
4:5.1 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 Father. Such ancient beliefs have been invariably
altered by the fact that primitive man was a mythmaker.
4:5.2 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.
4:5.3 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.
4:5.4 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.
4:5.5 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.
4:5.6 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!
4:5.7 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 of attributes so magnificently
portrayed by the Creator Son who sojourned on Urantia as the Son
of Man and the Son of God.
4:5.8
Presented by a Divine Counselor of Uversa.
