The Urantia Book
PAPER 116
THE ALMIGHTY SUPREME
Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on
Urantia.
116:0.1 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.
116:0.2 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.
116:0.3 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.
116:0.4 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.
116:0.5 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
116:1.1 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 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.
116:1.2 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.
116:1.3 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.
116:1.4 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.
116:1.5 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
116:2.1 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.
116:2.2 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.
116:2.3 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 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.
116:2.4 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.
116:2.5 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.
116:2.6 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.
116:2.7 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
116:3.1 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:
116:3.2 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 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.
116:3.3 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.
116:3.4 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.
116:3.5 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.
116:3.6 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
116:4.1 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.
116:4.2 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.
116:4.3 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.
116:4.4 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.
116:4.5 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.
116:4.6 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.
116:4.7 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.
116:4.8 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 grounds of bona
fide imperfect personalities endowed with the freewill choice of
becoming cocreators of themselves as they are to be.
116:4.9 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.
116:4.10 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.
116:4.11 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.
116:4.12 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
116:5.1 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.
116:5.2 These seven groups are functionally
inseparable from God the Sevenfold and constitute the
physical-control level of this Deity association.
116:5.3 The bifurcation of energy and spirit
(stemming from the conjoint presence of the Eternal Son and the
Paradise Isle) was symbolized in the superuniverse 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.
116:5.4 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.
116:5.5 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.
116:5.6 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.
116:5.7 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.
116:5.8 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.
116:5.9 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.
116:5.10 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 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
116:6.1 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.
116:6.2 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.
116:6.3 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.
116:6.4 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.
116:6.5 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.
116:6.6 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.
116:6.7 On Paradise, monota and spirit are as
one -- indistinguishable except by name. In Havona, matter and
spirit, while distinguishably different, are at the 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.
116:6.8 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
116:7.1 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.
116:7.2 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.
116:7.3 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.
116:7.4 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.
116:7.5 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.
116:7.6 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 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.
116:7.7
Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on
Urantia.
