The Urantia Book
PAPER 104
GROWTH OF THE TRINITY CONCEPT
Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
104:0.1 THE Trinity concept of revealed
religion must not be confused with the triad beliefs of
evolutionary religions. The ideas of triads arose from many
suggestive relationships but chiefly because of the three joints
of the fingers, because three legs were the fewest which could
stabilize a stool, because three support points could keep up a
tent; furthermore, primitive man, for a long time, could not
count beyond three.
104:0.2 Aside from certain natural couplets,
such as past and present, day and night, hot and cold, and male
and female, man generally tends to think in triads: yesterday,
today, and tomorrow; sunrise, noon, and sunset; father, mother,
and child. Three cheers are given the victor. The dead are
buried on the third day, and the ghost is placated by three
ablutions of water.
104:0.3 As a consequence of these natural
associations in human experience, the triad made its appearance
in religion, and this long before the Paradise Trinity of
Deities, or even any of their representatives, had been revealed
to mankind. Later on, the Persians, Hindus, Greeks, Egyptians,
Babylonians, Romans, and Scandinavians all had triad gods, but
these were still not true trinities. Triad deities all had a
natural origin and have appeared at one time or another among
most of the intelligent peoples of Urantia. Sometimes the
concept of an evolutionary triad has become mixed with that of a
revealed Trinity; in these instances it is often impossible to
distinguish one from the other.
1. URANTIAN TRINITY CONCEPTS
104:1.1 The first Urantian revelation leading
to the comprehension of the Paradise Trinity was made by the
staff of Prince Caligastia about one-half million years ago.
This earliest Trinity concept was lost to the world in the
unsettled times following the planetary rebellion.
104:1.2 The second presentation of the Trinity
was made by Adam and Eve in the first and second gardens. These
teachings had not been wholly obliterated even in the times of
Machiventa Melchizedek about thirty-five thousand years later,
for the Trinity concept of the Sethites persisted in both
Mesopotamia and Egypt but more especially in India, where it was
long perpetuated in Agni, the Vedic three-headed fire god.
104:1.3 The third presentation of the Trinity
was made by Machiventa Melchizedek, and this doctrine was
symbolized by the three concentric circles which the sage of
Salem wore on his breast plate. But Machiventa found it very
difficult to teach the Palestinian Bedouins about the Universal
Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit. Most of his
disciples thought that the Trinity consisted of the three Most
Highs of Norlatiadek; a few conceived of the Trinity as the
System Sovereign, the Constellation Father, and the local
universe Creator Deity; still fewer even remotely grasped the
idea of the Paradise association of the Father, Son, and Spirit.
104:1.4 Through the activities of the Salem
missionaries the Melchizedek teachings of the Trinity gradually
spread throughout much of Eurasia and northern Africa. It is
often difficult to distinguish between the triads and the
trinities in the later Andite and the post-Melchizedek ages,
when both concepts to a certain extent intermingled and
coalesced.
104:1.5 Among the Hindus the trinitarian
concept took root as Being, Intelligence, and Joy. (A later
Indian conception was Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu.) While the
earlier Trinity portrayals were brought to India by the Sethite
priests, the later ideas of the Trinity were imported by the
Salem missionaries and were developed by the native intellects
of India through a compounding of these doctrines with the
evolutionary triad conceptions.
104:1.6 The Buddhist faith developed two
doctrines of a trinitarian nature: The earlier was Teacher, Law,
and Brotherhood; that was the presentation made by Gautama
Siddhartha. The later idea, developing among the northern branch
of the followers of Buddha, embraced Supreme Lord, Holy Spirit,
and Incarnate Savior.
104:1.7 And these ideas of the Hindus and
Buddhists were real trinitarian postulates, that is, the idea of
a threefold manifestation of a monotheistic God. A true trinity
conception is not just a grouping together of three separate
gods.
104:1.8 The Hebrews knew about the Trinity
from the Kenite traditions of the days of Melchizedek, but their
monotheistic zeal for the one God, Yahweh, so eclipsed all such
teachings that by the time of Jesus' appearance the Elohim
doctrine had been practically eradicated from Jewish theology.
The Hebrew mind could not reconcile the trinitarian concept with
the monotheistic belief in the One Lord, the God of Israel.
104:1.9 The followers of the Islamic faith
likewise failed to grasp the idea of the Trinity. It is always
difficult for an emerging monotheism to tolerate trinitarianism
when confronted by polytheism. The trinity idea takes best hold
of those religions which have a firm monotheistic tradition
coupled with doctrinal elasticity. The great monotheists, the
Hebrews and Mohammedans, found it difficult to distinguish
between worshiping three gods, polytheism, and trinitarianism,
the worship of one Deity existing in a triune manifestation of
divinity and personality.
104:1.10 Jesus taught his apostles the truth
regarding the persons of the Paradise Trinity, but they thought
he spoke figuratively and symbolically. Having been nurtured in
Hebraic monotheism, they found it difficult to entertain any
belief that seemed to conflict with their dominating concept of
Yahweh. And the early Christians inherited the Hebraic prejudice
against the Trinity concept.
104:1.11 The first Trinity of Christianity was
proclaimed at Antioch and consisted of God, his Word, and his
Wisdom. Paul knew of the Paradise Trinity of Father, Son, and
Spirit, but he seldom preached about it and made mention thereof
in only a few of his letters to the newly forming churches. Even
then, as did his fellow apostles, Paul confused Jesus, the
Creator Son of the local universe, with the Second Person of
Deity, the Eternal Son of Paradise.
104:1.12 The Christian concept of the Trinity,
which began to gain recognition near the close of the first
century after Christ, was comprised of the Universal Father, the
Creator Son of Nebadon, and the Divine Minister of Salvington --
Mother Spirit of the local universe and creative consort of the
Creator Son.
104:1.13 Not since the times of Jesus has the
factual identity of the Paradise Trinity been known on Urantia
(except by a few individuals to whom it was especially revealed)
until its presentation in these revelatory disclosures. But
though the Christian concept of the Trinity erred in fact, it
was practically true with respect to spiritual relationships.
Only in its philosophic implications and cosmological
consequences did this concept suffer embarrassment: It has been
difficult for many who are cosmic minded to believe that the
Second Person of Deity, the second member of an infinite
Trinity, once dwelt on Urantia; and while in spirit this is
true, in actuality it is not a fact. The Michael Creators fully
embody the divinity of the Eternal Son, but they are not the
absolute personality.
2. TRINITY UNITY AND DEITY PLURALITY
104:2.1 Monotheism arose as a philosophic
protest against the inconsistency of polytheism. It developed
first through pantheon organizations with the
departmentalization of supernatural activities, then through the
henotheistic exaltation of one god above the many, and finally
through the exclusion of all but the One God of final value.
104:2.2 Trinitarianism grows out of the
experiential protest against the impossibility of conceiving the
oneness of a deanthropomorphized solitary Deity of unrelated
universe significance. Given a sufficient time, philosophy tends
to abstract the personal qualities from the Deity concept of
pure monotheism, thus reducing this idea of an unrelated God to
the status of a pantheistic Absolute. It has always been
difficult to understand the personal nature of a God who has no
personal relationships in equality with other and co-ordinate
personal beings. Personality in Deity demands that such Deity
exist in relation to other and equal personal Deity.
104:2.3 Through the recognition of the Trinity
concept the mind of man can hope to grasp something of the
interrelationship of love and law in the time-space creations.
Through spiritual faith man gains insight into the love of God
but soon discovers that this spiritual faith has no influence on
the ordained laws of the material universe. Irrespective of the
firmness of man's belief in God as his Paradise Father,
expanding cosmic horizons demand that he also give recognition
to the reality of Paradise Deity as universal law, that he
recognize the Trinity sovereignty extending outward from
Paradise and overshadowing even the evolving local universes of
the Creator Sons and Creative Daughters of the three eternal
persons whose deity union is the fact and reality and eternal
indivisibility of the Paradise Trinity.
104:2.4 And this selfsame Paradise Trinity is
a real entity -- not a personality but nonetheless a true and
absolute reality; not a personality but nonetheless compatible
with coexistent personalities -- the personalities of the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Trinity is a supersummative
Deity reality eventuating out of the conjoining of the three
Paradise Deities. The qualities, characteristics, and functions
of the Trinity are not the simple sum of the attributes of the
three Paradise Deities; Trinity functions are something unique,
original, and not wholly predictable from an analysis of the
attributes of Father, Son, and Spirit.
104:2.5 For example: The Master, when on
earth, admonished his followers that justice is never a
personal act; it is always a group function. Neither
do the Gods, as persons, administer justice. But they perform
this very function as a collective whole, as the Paradise
Trinity.
104:2.6 The conceptual grasp of the Trinity
association of Father, Son, and Spirit prepares the human mind
for the further presentation of certain other threefold
relationships. Theological reason may be fully satisfied by the
concept of the Paradise Trinity, but philosophical and
cosmological reason demand the recognition of the other triune
associations of the First Source and Center, those triunities in
which the Infinite functions in various non-Father capacities of
universal manifestation -- the relationships of the God of
force, energy, power, causation, reaction, potentiality,
actuality, gravity, tension, pattern, principle, and unity.
3. TRINITIES AND TRIUNITIES
104:3.1 While mankind has sometimes grasped at
an understanding of the Trinity of the three persons of Deity,
consistency demands that the human intellect perceive that there
are certain relationships between all seven Absolutes. But all
that which is true of the Paradise Trinity is not necessarily
true of a triunity, for a triunity is something other
than a trinity. In certain functional aspects a triunity may be
analogous to a trinity, but it is never homologous in nature
with a trinity.
104:3.2 Mortal man is passing through a great
age of expanding horizons and enlarging concepts on Urantia, and
his cosmic philosophy must accelerate in evolution to keep pace
with the expansion of the intellectual arena of human thought.
As the cosmic consciousness of mortal man expands, he perceives
the interrelatedness of all that he finds in his material
science, intellectual philosophy, and spiritual insight. Still,
with all this belief in the unity of the cosmos, man perceives
the diversity of all existence. In spite of all concepts
concerning the immutability of Deity, man perceives that he
lives in a universe of constant change and experiential growth.
Regardless of the realization of the survival of spiritual
values, man has ever to reckon with the mathematics and
premathematics of force, energy, and power.
104:3.3 In some manner the eternal repleteness
of infinity must be reconciled with the time-growth of the
evolving universes and with the incompleteness of the
experiential inhabitants thereof. In some way the conception of
total infinitude must be so segmented and qualified that the
mortal intellect and the morontia soul can grasp this concept of
final value and spiritualizing significance.
104:3.4 While reason demands a monotheistic
unity of cosmic reality, finite experience requires the
postulate of plural Absolutes and of their co-ordination in
cosmic relationships. Without co-ordinate existences there is no
possibility for the appearance of diversity of absolute
relationships, no chance for the operation of differentials,
variables, modifiers, attenuators, qualifiers, or diminishers.
104:3.5 In these papers total reality
(infinity) has been presented as it exists in the seven
Absolutes:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Eternal Son.
3. The Infinite Spirit.
4. The Isle of Paradise.
5. The Deity Absolute.
6. The Universal Absolute.
7. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:3.6 The First Source and Center, who is
Father to the Eternal Son, is also Pattern to the Paradise Isle.
He is personality unqualified in the Son but personality
potentialized in the Deity Absolute. The Father is energy
revealed in Paradise-Havona and at the same time energy
concealed in the Unqualified Absolute. The Infinite is ever
disclosed in the ceaseless acts of the Conjoint Actor while he
is eternally functioning in the compensating but enshrouded
activities of the Universal Absolute. Thus is the Father related
to the six co-ordinate Absolutes, and thus do all seven
encompass the circle of infinity throughout the endless cycles
of eternity.
104:3.7 It would seem that triunity of
absolute relationships is inevitable. Personality seeks other
personality association on absolute as well as on all other
levels. And the association of the three Paradise personalities
eternalizes the first triunity, the personality union of the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit. For when these three persons,
as persons, conjoin for united function, they thereby
constitute a triunity of functional unity, not a trinity -- an
organic entity -- but nonetheless a triunity, a threefold
functional aggregate unanimity.
104:3.8 The Paradise Trinity is not a
triunity; it is not a functional unanimity; rather is it
undivided and indivisible Deity. The Father, Son, and Spirit (as
persons) can sustain a relationship to the Paradise Trinity, for
the Trinity is their undivided Deity. The Father, Son, and
Spirit sustain no such personal relationship to the first
triunity, for that is their functional union as three persons.
Only as the Trinity -- as undivided Deity -- do they
collectively sustain an external relationship to the triunity of
their personal aggregation.
104:3.9 Thus does the Paradise Trinity stand
unique among absolute relationships; there are several
existential triunities but only one existential Trinity. A
triunity is not an entity. It is functional rather than organic.
Its members are partners rather than corporative. The components
of the triunities may be entities, but a triunity itself is an
association.
104:3.10 There is, however, one point of
comparison between trinity and triunity: Both eventuate in
functions that are something other than the discernible sum of
the attributes of the component members. But while they are thus
comparable from a functional standpoint, they otherwise exhibit
no categorical relationship. They are roughly related as the
relation of function to structure. But the function of the
triunity association is not the function of the trinity
structure or entity.
104:3.11 The triunities are nonetheless real;
they are very real. In them is total reality functionalized, and
through them does the Universal Father exercise immediate and
personal control over the master functions of infinity.
4. THE SEVEN TRIUNITIES
104:4.1 In attempting the description of seven
triunities, attention is directed to the fact that the Universal
Father is the primal member of each. He is, was, and ever will
be: the First Universal Father-Source, Absolute Center, Primal
Cause, Universal Controller, Limitless Energizer, Original
Unity, Unqualified Upholder, First Person of Deity, Primal
Cosmic Pattern, and Essence of Infinity. The Universal Father is
the personal cause of the Absolutes; he is the absolute of
Absolutes.
104:4.2 The nature and meaning of the seven
triunities may be suggested as:
104:4.3 The First Triunity -- the
personal-purposive triunity. This is the grouping of the
three Deity personalities:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Eternal Son.
3. The Infinite Spirit.
104:4.4 This is the threefold union of love,
mercy, and ministry -- the purposive and personal association of
the three eternal Paradise personalities. This is the divinely
fraternal, creature-loving, fatherly-acting, and
ascension-promoting association. The divine personalities of
this first triunity are personality-bequeathing,
spirit-bestowing, and mind-endowing Gods.
104:4.5 This is the triunity of infinite
volition; it acts throughout the eternal present and in all of
the past-present-future flow of time. This association yields
volitional infinity and provides the mechanisms whereby personal
Deity becomes self-revelatory to the creatures of the evolving
cosmos.
104:4.6 The Second Triunity -- the
power-pattern triunity. Whether it be a tiny ultimaton, a
blazing star, or a whirling nebula, even the central or
superuniverses, from the smallest to the largest material
organizations, always is the physical pattern -- the cosmic
configuration -- derived from the function of this triunity.
This association consists of:
1. The Father-Son.
2. The Paradise Isle.
3. The Conjoint Actor.
104:4.7 Energy is organized by the cosmic
agents of the Third Source and Center; energy is fashioned after
the pattern of Paradise, the absolute materialization; but
behind all of this ceaseless manipulation is the presence of the
Father-Son, whose union first activated the Paradise pattern in
the appearance of Havona concomitant with the birth of the
Infinite Spirit, the Conjoint Actor.
104:4.8 In religious experience, creatures
make contact with the God who is love, but such spiritual
insight must never eclipse the intelligent recognition of the
universe fact of the pattern which is Paradise. The Paradise
personalities enlist the freewill adoration of all creatures by
the compelling power of divine love and lead all such
spirit-born personalities into the supernal delights of the
unending service of the finaliter sons of God. The second
triunity is the architect of the space stage whereon these
transactions unfold; it determines the patterns of cosmic
configuration.
104:4.9 Love may characterize the divinity of
the first triunity, but pattern is the galactic manifestation of
the second triunity. What the first triunity is to evolving
personalities, the second triunity is to the evolving universes.
Pattern and personality are two of the great manifestations of
the acts of the First Source and Center; and no matter how
difficult it may be to comprehend, it is nonetheless true that
the power-pattern and the loving person are one and the same
universal reality; the Paradise Isle and the Eternal Son are
co-ordinate but antipodal revelations of the unfathomable nature
of the Universal Father-Force.
104:4.10 The Third Triunity -- the
spirit-evolutional triunity. The entirety of spiritual
manifestation has its beginning and end in this association,
consisting of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Son-Spirit.
3. The Deity Absolute.
104:4.11 From spirit potency to Paradise
spirit, all spirit finds reality expression in this triune
association of the pure spirit essence of the Father, the active
spirit values of the Son-Spirit, and the unlimited spirit
potentials of the Deity Absolute. The existential values of
spirit have their primordial genesis, complete manifestation,
and final destiny in this triunity.
104:4.12 The Father exists before spirit; the
Son-Spirit functions as active creative spirit; the Deity
Absolute exists as all-encompassing spirit, even beyond spirit.
104:4.13 The Fourth Triunity -- the
triunity of energy infinity. Within this triunity there
eternalizes the beginnings and the endings of all energy
reality, from space potency to monota. This grouping embraces
the following:
1. The Father-Spirit.
2. The Paradise Isle.
3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:4.14 Paradise is the center of the
force-energy activation of the cosmos -- the universe position
of the First Source and Center, the cosmic focal point of the
Unqualified Absolute, and the source of all energy.
Existentially present within this triunity is the energy
potential of the cosmos-infinite, of which the grand universe
and the master universe are only partial manifestations.
104:4.15 The fourth triunity absolutely
controls the fundamental units of cosmic energy and releases
them from the grasp of the Unqualified Absolute in direct
proportion to the appearance in the experiential Deities of
subabsolute capacity to control and stabilize the metamorphosing
cosmos.
104:4.16 This triunity is force and
energy. The endless possibilities of the Unqualified Absolute
are centered around the absolutum of the Isle of Paradise,
whence emanate the unimaginable agitations of the otherwise
static quiescence of the Unqualified. And the endless throbbing
of the material Paradise heart of the infinite cosmos beats in
harmony with the unfathomable pattern and the unsearchable plan
of the Infinite Energizer, the First Source and Center.
104:4.17 The Fifth Triunity -- the triunity of
reactive infinity. This association consists of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Universal Absolute.
3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:4.18 This grouping yields the
eternalization of the functional infinity realization of all
that is actualizable within the domains of nondeity reality.
This triunity manifests unlimited reactive capacity to the
volitional, causative, tensional, and patternal actions and
presences of the other triunities.
104:4.19 The Sixth Triunity -- the triunity of
cosmic-associated Deity. This grouping consists of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Deity Absolute.
3. The Universal Absolute.
104:4.20 This is the association of
Deity-in-the-cosmos, the immanence of Deity in conjunction with
the transcendence of Deity. This is the last outreach of
divinity on the levels of infinity toward those realities which
lie outside the domain of deified reality.
104:4.21 The Seventh Triunity -- the
triunity of infinite unity. This is the unity of infinity
functionally manifest in time and eternity, the co-ordinate
unification of actuals and potentials. This group consists of:
1. The Universal Father.
2. The Conjoint Actor.
3. The Universal Absolute.
104:4.22 The Conjoint Actor universally
integrates the varying functional aspects of all actualized
reality on all levels of manifestation, from finites through
transcendentals and on to absolutes. The Universal Absolute
perfectly compensates the differentials inherent in the varying
aspects of all incomplete reality, from the limitless
potentialities of active-volitional and causative Deity reality
to the boundless possibilities of static, reactive, nondeity
reality in the incomprehensible domains of the Unqualified
Absolute.
104:4.23 As they function in this triunity,
the Conjoint Actor and the Universal Absolute are alike
responsive to Deity and to nondeity presences, as also is the
First Source and Center, who in this relationship is to all
intents and purposes conceptually indistinguishable from the I
AM.
104:4.24 These approximations are sufficient
to elucidate the concept of the triunities. Not knowing the
ultimate level of the triunities, you cannot fully comprehend
the first seven. While we do not deem it wise to attempt any
further elaboration, we may state that there are fifteen triune
associations of the First Source and Center, eight of which are
unrevealed in these papers. These unrevealed associations are
concerned with realities, actualities, and potentialities which
are beyond the experiential level of supremacy.
104:4.25 The triunities are the functional
balance wheel of infinity, the unification of the uniqueness of
the Seven Infinity Absolutes. It is the existential presence of
the triunities that enables the Father-I AM to experience
functional infinity unity despite the diversification of
infinity into seven Absolutes. The First Source and Center is
the unifying member of all triunities; in him all things have
their unqualified beginnings, eternal existences, and infinite
destinies -- "in him all things consist."
104:4.26 Although these associations cannot
augment the infinity of the Father-I AM, they do appear to make
possible the subinfinite and subabsolute manifestations of his
reality. The seven triunities multiply versatility, eternalize
new depths, deitize new values, disclose new potentialities,
reveal new meanings; and all these diversified manifestations in
time and space and in the eternal cosmos are existent in the
hypothetical stasis of the original infinity of the I AM.
5. TRIODITIES
104:5.1 There are certain other triune
relationships which are non-Father in constitution, but they are
not real triunities, and they are always distinguished from the
Father triunities. They are called variously, associate
triunities, co-ordinate triunities, and triodities. They
are consequential to the existence of the triunities. Two of
these associations are constituted as follows:
104:5.2 The Triodity of Actuality. This
triodity consists in the interrelationship of the three absolute
actuals:
1. The Eternal Son.
2. The Paradise Isle.
3. The Conjoint Actor.
104:5.3 The Eternal Son is the absolute of
spirit reality, the absolute personality. The Paradise Isle is
the absolute of cosmic reality, the absolute pattern. The
Conjoint Actor is the absolute of mind reality, the co-ordinate
of absolute spirit reality, and the existential Deity synthesis
of personality and power. This triune association eventuates the
co-ordination of the sum total of actualized reality -- spirit,
cosmic, or mindal. It is unqualified in actuality.
104:5.4 The Triodity of Potentiality.
This triodity consists in the association of the three Absolutes
of potentiality:
1. The Deity Absolute.
2. The Universal Absolute.
3. The Unqualified Absolute.
104:5.5 Thus are interassociated the infinity
reservoirs of all latent energy reality -- spirit, mindal, or
cosmic. This association yields the integration of all latent
energy reality. It is infinite in potential.
104:5.6 As the triunities are primarily
concerned with the functional unification of infinity, so are
triodities involved in the cosmic appearance of experiential
Deities. The triunities are indirectly concerned, but the
triodities are directly concerned, in the experiential Deities
-- Supreme, Ultimate, and Absolute. They appear in the emerging
power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being. And to the
time creatures of space the Supreme Being is a revelation of the
unity of the I AM.
104:5.7
Presented by a Melchizedek
of Nebadon.
