The Urantia Book
PAPER 118
SUPREME AND ULTIMATE -- TIME AND
SPACE
Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on
Urantia.
118:0.1 CONCERNING the several natures of
Deity, it may be said:
118:0.2 1. The Father is self-existent self.
118:0.3 2. The Son is coexistent self.
118:0.4 3. The Spirit is conjoint-existent
self.
118:0.5 4. The Supreme is
evolutionary-experiential self.
118:0.6 5. The Sevenfold is self-distributive
divinity.
118:0.7 6. The Ultimate is
transcendental-experiential self.
118:0.8 7. The Absolute is
existential-experiential self.
118:0.9 While God the Sevenfold is
indispensable to the evolutionary attainment of the Supreme, the
Supreme is also indispensable to the eventual emergence of the
Ultimate. And the dual presence of the Supreme and the Ultimate
constitutes the basic association of subabsolute and derived
Deity, for they are interdependently complemental in the
attainment of destiny. Together they constitute the experiential
bridge linking the beginnings and the completions of all
creative growth in the master universe.
118:0.10 Creative growth is unending but ever
satisfying, endless in extent but always punctuated by those
personality-satisfying moments of transient goal attainment
which serve so effectively as the mobilization preludes to new
adventures in cosmic growth, universe exploration, and Deity
attainment.
118:0.11 While the domain of mathematics is
beset with qualitative limitations, it does provide the finite
mind with a conceptual basis of contemplating infinity. There is
no quantitative limitation to numbers, even in the comprehension
of the finite mind. No matter how large the number conceived,
you can always envisage one more being added. And also, you can
comprehend that that is short of infinity, for no matter how
many times you repeat this addition to number, still always one
more can be added.
118:0.12 At the same time, the infinite series
can be totaled at any given point, and this total (more
properly, a subtotal) provides the fullness of the sweetness of
goal attainment for a given person at a given time and status.
But sooner or later, this same person begins to hunger and yearn
for new and greater goals, and such adventures in growth will be
forever forthcoming in the fullness of time and the cycles of
eternity.
118:0.13 Each successive universe age is the
antechamber of the following era of cosmic growth, and each
universe epoch provides immediate destiny for all preceding
stages. Havona, in and of itself, is a perfect, but
perfection-limited, creation; Havona perfection, expanding out
into the evolutionary superuniverses, finds not only cosmic
destiny but also liberation from the limitations of
pre-evolutionary existence.
1. TIME AND ETERNITY
118:1.1 It is helpful to man's cosmic
orientation to attain all possible comprehension of Deity's
relation to the cosmos. While absolute Deity is eternal in
nature, the Gods are related to time as an experience in
eternity. In the evolutionary universes eternity is temporal
everlastingness -- the everlasting now.
118:1.2 The personality of the mortal creature
may eternalize by self-identification with the indwelling spirit
through the technique of choosing to do the will of the Father.
Such a consecration of will is tantamount to the realization of
eternity-reality of purpose. This means that the purpose of the
creature has become fixed with regard to the succession of
moments; stated otherwise, that the succession of moments will
witness no change in creature purpose. A million or a billion
moments makes no difference. Number has ceased to have meaning
with regard to the creature's purpose. Thus does creature choice
plus God's choice eventuate in the eternal realities of the
never-ending union of the spirit of God and the nature of man in
the everlasting service of the children of God and of their
Paradise Father.
118:1.3 There is a direct relationship between
maturity and the unit of time consciousness in any given
intellect. The time unit may be a day, a year, or a longer
period, but inevitably it is the criterion by which the
conscious self evaluates the circumstances of life, and by which
the conceiving intellect measures and evaluates the facts of
temporal existence.
118:1.4 Experience, wisdom, and judgment are
the concomitants of the lengthening of the time unit in mortal
experience. As the human mind reckons backward into the past, it
is evaluating past experience for the purpose of bringing it to
bear on a present situation. As mind reaches out into the
future, it is attempting to evaluate the future significance of
possible action. And having thus reckoned with both experience
and wisdom, the human will exercises judgment-decision in the
present, and the plan of action thus born of the past and the
future becomes existent.
118:1.5 In the maturity of the developing
self, the past and future are brought together to illuminate the
true meaning of the present. As the self matures, it reaches
further and further back into the past for experience, while its
wisdom forecasts seek to penetrate deeper and deeper into the
unknown future. And as the conceiving self extends this reach
ever further into both past and future, so does judgment become
less and less dependent on the momentary present. In this way
does decision-action begin to escape from the fetters of the
moving present, while it begins to take on the aspects of
past-future significance.
118:1.6 Patience is exercised by those mortals
whose time units are short; true maturity transcends patience by
a forbearance born of real understanding.
118:1.7 To become mature is to live more
intensely in the present, at the same time escaping from the
limitations of the present. The plans of maturity, founded on
past experience, are coming into being in the present in such
manner as to enhance the values of the future.
118:1.8 The time unit of immaturity
concentrates meaning-value into the present moment in such a way
as to divorce the present of its true relationship to the
not-present -- the past-future. The time unit of maturity is
proportioned so to reveal the co-ordinate relationship of
past-present-future that the self begins to gain insight into
the wholeness of events, begins to view the landscape of time
from the panoramic perspective of broadened horizons, begins
perhaps to suspect the nonbeginning, nonending eternal
continuum, the fragments of which are called time.
118:1.9 On the levels of the infinite and the
absolute the moment of the present contains all of the past as
well as all of the future. I AM signifies also I WAS and I WILL
BE. And this represents our best concept of eternity and the
eternal.
118:1.10 On the absolute and eternal level,
potential reality is just as meaningful as actual reality. Only
on the finite level and to time-bound creatures does there
appear to be such a vast difference. To God, as absolute, an
ascending mortal who has made the eternal decision is already a
Paradise finaliter. But the Universal Father, through the
indwelling Thought Adjuster, is not thus limited in awareness
but can also know of, and participate in, every temporal
struggle with the problems of the creature ascent from
animallike to Godlike levels of existence.
2. OMNIPRESENCE AND UBIQUITY
118:2.1 The ubiquity of Deity must not be
confused with the ultimacy of the divine omnipresence. It is
volitional with the Universal Father that the Supreme, the
Ultimate, and the Absolute should compensate, co-ordinate, and
unify his time-space ubiquity and his time-space-transcended
omnipresence with his timeless and spaceless universal and
absolute presence. And you should remember that, while Deity
ubiquity may be so often space associated, it is not necessarily
time conditioned.
118:2.2 As mortal and morontia ascenders you
progressively discern God through the ministry of God the
Sevenfold. Through Havona you discover God the Supreme. On
Paradise you find him as a person, and then as finaliters you
will presently attempt to know him as Ultimate. Being
finaliters, there would seem to be but one course to pursue
after having attained the Ultimate, and that would be to begin
the quest of the Absolute. No finaliter will be disturbed by the
uncertainties of the attainment of the Deity Absolute since at
the end of the supreme and ultimate ascensions he encountered
God the Father. Such finaliters will no doubt believe that, even
if they should be successful in finding God the Absolute, they
would only be discovering the same God, the Paradise Father
manifesting himself on more nearly infinite and universal
levels. Undoubtedly the attainment of God in absolute would
reveal the Primal Ancestor of universes as well as the Final
Father of personalities.
118:2.3 God the Supreme may not be a
demonstration of the time-space omnipresence of Deity, but he is
literally a manifestation of divine ubiquity. Between the
spiritual presence of the Creator and the material
manifestations of creation there exists a vast domain of the
ubiquitous becoming -- the universe emergence of
evolutionary Deity.
118:2.4 If God the Supreme ever assumes direct
control of the universes of time and space, we are confident
such a Deity administration will function under the overcontrol
of the Ultimate. In such an event God the Ultimate would begin
to become manifest to the universes of time as the
transcendental Almighty (the Omnipotent) exercising the
overcontrol of supertime and transcended space concerning the
administrative functions of the Almighty Supreme.
118:2.5 The mortal mind may ask, even as we
do: If the evolution of God the Supreme to administrative
authority in the grand universe is attended by augmented
manifestations of God the Ultimate, will a corresponding
emergence of God the Ultimate in the postulated universes of
outer space be attended by similar and enhanced revelations of
God the Absolute? But we really do not know.
3. TIME-SPACE RELATIONSHIPS
118:3.1 Only by ubiquity could Deity unify
time-space manifestations to the finite conception, for time is
a succession of instants while space is a system of associated
points. You do, after all, perceive time by analysis and space
by synthesis. You co-ordinate and associate these two dissimilar
conceptions by the integrating insight of personality. Of all
the animal world only man possesses this time-space
perceptibility. To an animal, motion has a meaning, but motion
exhibits value only to a creature of personality status.
118:3.2 Things are time conditioned, but truth
is timeless. The more truth you know, the more truth you are,
the more of the past you can understand and of the future you
can comprehend.
118:3.3 Truth is inconcussible -- forever
exempt from all transient vicissitudes, albeit never dead and
formal, always vibrant and adaptable -- radiantly alive. But
when truth becomes linked with fact, then both time and space
condition its meanings and correlate its values. Such realities
of truth wedded to fact become concepts and are accordingly
relegated to the domain of relative cosmic realities.
118:3.4 The linking of the absolute and
eternal truth of the Creator with the factual experience of the
finite and temporal creature eventuates a new and emerging value
of the Supreme. The concept of the Supreme is essential to the
co-ordination of the divine and unchanging overworld with the
finite and ever-changing underworld.
118:3.5 Space comes the nearest of all
nonabsolute things to being absolute. Space is apparently
absolutely ultimate. The real difficulty we have in
understanding space on the material level is due to the fact
that, while material bodies exist in space, space also exists in
these same material bodies. While there is much about space that
is absolute, that does not mean that space is absolute.
118:3.6 It may help to an understanding of
space relationships if you would conjecture that, relatively
speaking, space is after all a property of all material bodies.
Hence, when a body moves through space, it also takes all its
properties with it, even the space which is in and of such a
moving body.
118:3.7 All patterns of reality occupy space
on the material levels, but spirit patterns only exist in
relation to space; they do not occupy or displace space, neither
do they contain it. But to us the master riddle of space
pertains to the pattern of an idea. When we enter the mind
domain, we encounter many a puzzle. Does the pattern -- the
reality -- of an idea occupy space? We really do not know,
albeit we are sure that an idea pattern does not contain space.
But it would hardly be safe to postulate that the immaterial is
always nonspatial.
4. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CAUSATION
118:4.1 Many of the theologic difficulties and
the metaphysical dilemmas of mortal man are due to man's
mislocation of Deity personality and consequent assignment of
infinite and absolute attributes to subordinate Divinity and to
evolutionary Deity. You must not forget that, while there is
indeed a true First Cause, there are also a host of co-ordinate
and subordinate causes, both associate and secondary causes.
118:4.2 The vital distinction between first
causes and second causes is that first causes produce original
effects which are free from inheritance of any factor derived
from any antecedent causation. Secondary causes yield effects
which invariably exhibit inheritance from other and preceding
causation.
118:4.3 The purely static potentials inherent
in the Unqualified Absolute are reactive to those causations of
the Deity Absolute which are produced by the actions of the
Paradise Trinity. In the presence of the Universal Absolute
these causative-impregnated static potentials forthwith become
active and responsive to the influence of certain transcendental
agencies whose actions result in the transmutation of these
activated potentials to the status of true universe
possibilities for development, actualized capacities for growth.
It is upon such matured potentials that the creators and
controllers of the grand universe enact the never-ending drama
of cosmic evolution.
118:4.4 Causation, disregarding existentials,
is threefold in its basic constitution. As it operates in this
universe age and concerning the finite level of the seven
superuniverses, it may be conceived as follows:
118:4.5 1. Activation of static potentials.
The establishment of destiny in the Universal Absolute by the
actions of the Deity Absolute, operating in and upon the
Unqualified Absolute and in consequence of the volitional
mandates of the Paradise Trinity.
118:4.6 2. Eventuation of universe
capacities. This involves the transformation of
undifferentiated potentials into segregated and defined plans.
This is the act of the Ultimacy of Deity and of the manifold
agencies of the transcendental level. Such acts are in perfect
anticipation of the future needs of the entire master universe.
It is in connection with the segregation of potentials that the
Architects of the Master Universe exist as the veritable
embodiments of the Deity concept of the universes. Their plans
appear to be ultimately space limited in extent by the concept
periphery of the master universe, but as plans they are
not otherwise conditioned by time or space.
118:4.7 3. Creation and evolution of
universe actuals. It is upon a cosmos impregnated by the
capacity-producing presence of the Ultimacy of Deity that the
Supreme Creators operate to effect the time transmutations of
matured potentials into experiential actuals. Within the master
universe all actualization of potential reality is limited by
ultimate capacity for development and is time-space conditioned
in the final stages of emergence. The Creator Sons going out
from Paradise are, in actuality, transformative creators
in the cosmic sense. But this in no manner invalidates man's
concept of them as creators; from the finite viewpoint they
certainly can and do create.
5. OMNIPOTENCE AND COMPOSSIBILITY
118:5.1 The omnipotence of Deity does not
imply the power to do the nondoable. Within the time-space frame
and from the intellectual reference point of mortal
comprehension, even the infinite God cannot create square
circles or produce evil that is inherently good. God cannot do
the ungodlike thing. Such a contradiction of philosophic terms
is the equivalent of nonentity and implies that nothing is thus
created. A personality trait cannot at the same time be Godlike
and ungodlike. Compossibility is innate in divine power. And all
of this is derived from the fact that omnipotence not only
creates things with a nature but also gives origin to the nature
of all things and beings.
118:5.2 In the beginning the Father does all,
but as the panorama of eternity unfolds in response to the will
and mandates of the Infinite, it becomes increasingly apparent
that creatures, even men, are to become God's partners in the
realization of finality of destiny. And this is true even in the
life in the flesh; when man and God enter into partnership, no
limitation can be placed upon the future possibilities of such a
partnership. When man realizes that the Universal Father is his
partner in eternal progression, when he fuses with the
indwelling Father presence, he has, in spirit, broken the
fetters of time and has already entered upon the progressions of
eternity in the quest for the Universal Father.
118:5.3 Mortal consciousness proceeds from the
fact, to the meaning, and then to the value. Creator
consciousness proceeds from the thought-value, through the
word-meaning, to the fact of action. Always must God act to
break the deadlock of the unqualified unity inherent in
existential infinity. Always must Deity provide the pattern
universe, the perfect personalities, the original truth, beauty,
and goodness for which all subdeity creations strive. Always
must God first find man that man may later find God. Always must
there be a Universal Father before there can ever be universal
sonship and consequent universal brotherhood.
6. OMNIPOTENCE AND OMNIFICENCE
118:6.1 God is truly omnipotent, but he is not
omnificent -- he does not personally do all that is done.
Omnipotence embraces the power-potential of the Almighty Supreme
and the Supreme Being, but the volitional acts of God the
Supreme are not the personal doings of God the Infinite.
118:6.2 To advocate the omnificence of primal
Deity would be equal to disenfranchising well-nigh a million
Creator Sons of Paradise, not to mention the innumerable hosts
of various other orders of concurring creative assistants. There
is but one uncaused Cause in the whole universe. All other
causes are derivatives of this one First Great Source and
Center. And none of this philosophy does any violence to the
freewillness of the myriads of the children of Deity scattered
through a vast universe.
118:6.3 Within a local frame, volition may
appear to function as an uncaused cause, but it unfailingly
exhibits inheritance factors which establish relationship with
the unique, original, and absolute First Causes.
118:6.4 All volition is relative. In the
originating sense, only the Father-I AM possesses finality of
volition; in the absolute sense, only the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit exhibit the prerogatives of volition unconditioned by
time and unlimited by space. Mortal man is endowed with free
will, the power of choice, and though such choosing is not
absolute, nevertheless, it is relatively final on the finite
level and concerning the destiny of the choosing personality.
118:6.5 Volition on any level short of the
absolute encounters limitations which are constitutive in the
very personality exercising the power of choice. Man cannot
choose beyond the range of that which is choosable. He cannot,
for instance, choose to be other than a human being except that
he can elect to become more than a man; he can choose to embark
upon the voyage of universe ascension, but this is because the
human choice and the divine will happen to be coincident upon
this point. And what a son desires and the Father wills will
certainly come to pass.
118:6.6 In the mortal life, paths of
differential conduct are continually opening and closing, and
during the times when choice is possible the human personality
is constantly deciding between these many courses of action.
Temporal volition is linked to time, and it must await the
passing of time to find opportunity for expression. Spiritual
volition has begun to taste liberation from the fetters of time,
having achieved partial escape from time sequence, and that is
because spiritual volition is self-identifying with the will of
God.
118:6.7 Volition, the act of choosing, must
function within the universe frame which has actualized in
response to higher and prior choosing. The entire range of human
will is strictly finite-limited except in one particular: When
man chooses to find God and to be like him, such a choice is
superfinite; only eternity can disclose whether this choice is
also superabsonite.
118:6.8 To recognize Deity omnipotence is to
enjoy security in your experience of cosmic citizenship, to
possess assurance of safety in the long journey to Paradise. But
to accept the fallacy of omnificence is to embrace the colossal
error of Pantheism.
7. OMNISCIENCE AND PREDESTINATION
118:7.1 The function of Creator will and
creature will, in the grand universe, operates within the
limits, and in accordance with the possibilities, established by
the Master Architects. This foreordination of these maximum
limits does not, however, in the least abridge the sovereignty
of creature will within these boundaries. Neither does ultimate
foreknowledge -- full allowance for all finite choice --
constitute an abrogation of finite volition. A mature and
farseeing human being might be able to forecast the decision of
some younger associate most accurately, but this foreknowledge
takes nothing away from the freedom and genuineness of the
decision itself. The Gods have wisely limited the range of the
action of immature will, but it is true will, nonetheless,
within these defined limits.
118:7.2 Even the supreme correlation of all
past, present, and future choice does not invalidate the
authenticity of such choosings. It rather indicates the
foreordained trend of the cosmos and suggests foreknowledge of
those volitional beings who may, or may not, elect to become
contributory parts of the experiential actualization of all
reality.
118:7.3 Error in finite choosing is time bound
and time limited. It can exist only in time and within
the evolving presence of the Supreme Being. Such mistaken
choosing is time possible and indicates (besides the
incompleteness of the Supreme) that certain range of choice with
which immature creatures must be endowed in order to enjoy
universe progression by making freewill contact with reality.
118:7.4 Sin in time-conditioned space clearly
proves the temporal liberty -- even license -- of the finite
will. Sin depicts immaturity dazzled by the freedom of the
relatively sovereign will of personality while failing to
perceive the supreme obligations and duties of cosmic
citizenship.
118:7.5 Iniquity in the finite domains reveals
the transient reality of all God-unidentified selfhood. Only as
a creature becomes God identified, does he become truly real in
the universes. Finite personality is not self-created, but in
the superuniverse arena of choice it does self-determine
destiny.
118:7.6 The bestowal of life renders
material-energy systems capable of self-perpetuation,
self-propagation, and self-adaptation. The bestowal of
personality imparts to living organisms the further prerogatives
of self-determination, self-evolution, and self-identification
with a fusion spirit of Deity.
118:7.7 Subpersonal living things indicate
mind activating energy-matter, first as physical controllers,
and then as adjutant mind-spirits. Personality endowment comes
from the Father and imparts unique prerogatives of choice to the
living system. But if personality has the prerogative of
exercising volitional choice of reality identification, and if
this is a true and free choice, then must evolving personality
also have the possible choice of becoming self-confusing,
self-disrupting, and self-destroying. The possibility of cosmic
self-destruction cannot be avoided if the evolving personality
is to be truly free in the exercise of finite will.
118:7.8 Therefore is there increased safety in
narrowing the limits of personality choice throughout the lower
levels of existence. Choice becomes increasingly liberated as
the universes are ascended; choice eventually approximates
divine freedom when the ascending personality achieves divinity
of status, supremacy of consecration to the purposes of the
universe, completion of cosmic-wisdom attainment, and finality
of creature identification with the will and the way of God.
8. CONTROL AND OVERCONTROL
118:8.1 In the time-space creations, free will
is hedged about with restraints, with limitations. Material-life
evolution is first mechanical, then mind activated, and (after
the bestowal of personality) it may become spirit directed.
Organic evolution on the inhabited worlds is physically limited
by the potentials of the original physical-life implantations of
the Life Carriers.
118:8.2 Mortal man is a machine, a living
mechanism; his roots are truly in the physical world of energy.
Many human reactions are mechanical in nature; much of life is
machinelike. But man, a mechanism, is much more than a machine;
he is mind endowed and spirit indwelt; and though he can never
throughout his material life escape the chemical and electrical
mechanics of his existence, he can increasingly learn how to
subordinate this physical-life machine to the directive wisdom
of experience by the process of consecrating the human mind to
the execution of the spiritual urges of the indwelling Thought
Adjuster.
118:8.3 The spirit liberates, and the
mechanism limits, the function of will. Imperfect choice,
uncontrolled by mechanism, unidentified with spirit, is
dangerous and unstable. Mechanical dominance insures stability
at the expense of progress; spirit alliance liberates choice
from the physical level and at the same time assures the divine
stability produced by augmented universe insight and increased
cosmic comprehension.
118:8.4 The great danger that besets the
creature is that, in achieving liberation from the fetters of
the life mechanism, he will fail to compensate this loss of
stability by effecting a harmonious working liaison with spirit.
Creature choice, when relatively liberated from mechanical
stability, may attempt further self-liberation independent of
greater spirit identification.
118:8.5 The whole principle of biologic
evolution makes it impossible for primitive man to appear on the
inhabited worlds with any large endowment of self-restraint.
Therefore does the same creative design which purposed evolution
likewise provide those external restraints of time and space,
hunger and fear, which effectively circumscribe the subspiritual
choice range of such uncultured creatures. As man's mind
successfully overstrides increasingly difficult barriers, this
same creative design has also provided for the slow accumulation
of the racial heritage of painfully garnered experiential wisdom
-- in other words, for the maintenance of a balance between the
diminishing external restraints and the augmenting internal
restraints.
118:8.6 The slowness of evolution, of human
cultural progress, testifies to the effectiveness of that brake
-- material inertia -- which so efficiently operates to retard
dangerous velocities of progress. Thus does time itself cushion
and distribute the otherwise lethal results of premature escape
from the next-encompassing barriers to human action. For when
culture advances overfast, when material achievement outruns the
evolution of worship-wisdom, then does civilization contain
within itself the seeds of retrogression; and unless buttressed
by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such human
societies will recede from high but premature levels of
attainment, and the "dark ages" of the interregnum of wisdom
will bear witness to the inexorable restoration of the imbalance
between self-liberty and self-control.
118:8.7 The iniquity of Caligastia was the
by-passing of the time governor of progressive human liberation
-- the gratuitous destruction of restraining barriers, barriers
which the mortal minds of those times had not experientially
overridden.
118:8.8 That mind which can effect a partial
abridgment of time and space, by this very act proves itself
possessed of the seeds of wisdom which can effectively serve in
lieu of the transcended barrier of restraint.
118:8.9 Lucifer similarly sought to disrupt
the time governor operating in restraint of the premature
attainment of certain liberties in the local system. A local
system settled in light and life has experientially achieved
those viewpoints and insights which make feasible the operation
of many techniques that would be disruptive and destructive in
the presettled eras of that very realm.
118:8.10 As man shakes off the shackles of
fear, as he bridges continents and oceans with his machines,
generations and centuries with his records, he must substitute
for each transcended restraint a new and voluntarily assumed
restraint in accordance with the moral dictates of expanding
human wisdom. These self-imposed restraints are at once the most
powerful and the most tenuous of all the factors of human
civilization -- concepts of justice and ideals of brotherhood.
Man even qualifies himself for the restraining garments of mercy
when he dares to love his fellow men, while he achieves the
beginnings of spiritual brotherhood when he elects to mete out
to them that treatment which he himself would be accorded, even
that treatment which he conceives that God would accord them.
118:8.11 An automatic universe reaction is
stable and, in some form, continuing in the cosmos. A
personality who knows God and desires to do his will, who has
spirit insight, is divinely stable and eternally existent. Man's
great universe adventure consists in the transit of his mortal
mind from the stability of mechanical statics to the divinity of
spiritual dynamics, and he achieves this transformation by the
force and constancy of his own personality decisions, in each of
life's situations declaring, "It is my will that your will be
done."
9. UNIVERSE MECHANISMS
118:9.1 Time and space are a conjoined
mechanism of the master universe. They are the devices whereby
finite creatures are enabled to coexist in the cosmos with the
Infinite. Finite creatures are effectively insulated from the
absolute levels by time and space. But these insulating media,
without which no mortal could exist, operate directly to limit
the range of finite action. Without them no creature could act,
but by them the acts of every creature are definitely limited.
118:9.2 Mechanisms produced by higher minds
function to liberate their creative sources but to some degree
unvaryingly limit the action of all subordinate intelligences.
To the creatures of the universes this limitation becomes
apparent as the mechanism of the universes. Man does not have
unfettered free will; there are limits to his range of choice,
but within the radius of this choice his will is relatively
sovereign.
118:9.3 The life mechanism of the mortal
personality, the human body, is the product of supermortal
creative design; therefore it can never be perfectly controlled
by man himself. Only when ascending man, in liaison with the
fused Adjuster, self-creates the mechanism for personality
expression, will he achieve perfected control thereof.
118:9.4 The grand universe is mechanism as
well as organism, mechanical and living -- a living mechanism
activated by a Supreme Mind, co-ordinating with a Supreme
Spirit, and finding expression on maximum levels of power and
personality unification as the Supreme Being. But to deny the
mechanism of the finite creation is to deny fact and to
disregard reality.
118:9.5 Mechanisms are the products of mind,
creative mind acting on and in cosmic potentials. Mechanisms are
the fixed crystallizations of Creator thought, and they ever
function true to the volitional concept that gave them origin.
But the purposiveness of any mechanism is in its origin, not in
its function.
118:9.6 These mechanisms should not be thought
of as limiting the action of Deity; rather is it true that in
these very mechanics Deity has achieved one phase of eternal
expression. The basic universe mechanisms have come into
existence in response to the absolute will of the First Source
and Center, and they will therefore eternally function in
perfect harmony with the plan of the Infinite; they are, indeed,
the nonvolitional patterns of that very plan.
118:9.7 We understand something of how the
mechanism of Paradise is correlated with the personality of the
Eternal Son; this is the function of the Conjoint Actor. And we
have theories regarding the operations of the Universal Absolute
with respect to the theoretical mechanisms of the Unqualified
and the potential person of the Deity Absolute. But in the
evolving Deities of Supreme and Ultimate we observe that certain
impersonal phases are being actually united with their
volitional counterparts, and thus there is evolving a new
relationship between pattern and person.
118:9.8 In the eternity of the past the Father
and the Son found union in the unity of the expression of the
Infinite Spirit. If, in the eternity of the future, the Creator
Sons and the Creative Spirits of the local universes of time and
space should attain creative union in the realms of outer space,
what would their unity create as the combined expression of
their divine natures? It may well be that we are to witness a
hitherto unrevealed manifestation of Ultimate Deity, a new type
of superadministrator. Such beings would embrace unique
prerogatives of personality, being the union of personal
Creator, impersonal Creative Spirit, mortal-creature experience,
and progressive personalization of the Divine Minister. Such
beings could be ultimate in that they would embrace personal and
impersonal reality, while they would combine the experiences of
Creator and creature. Whatever the attributes of such third
persons of these postulated functioning trinities of the
creations of outer space, they will sustain something of the
same relation to their Creator Fathers and their Creative
Mothers that the Infinite Spirit does to the Universal Father
and the Eternal Son.
118:9.9 God the Supreme is the personalization
of all universe experience, the focalization of all finite
evolution, the maximation of all creature reality, the
consummation of cosmic wisdom, the embodiment of the harmonious
beauties of the galaxies of time, the truth of cosmic mind
meanings, and the goodness of supreme spirit values. And God the
Supreme will, in the eternal future, synthesize these manifold
finite diversities into one experientially meaningful whole,
even as they are now existentially united on absolute levels in
the Paradise Trinity.
10. FUNCTIONS OF PROVIDENCE
118:10.1 Providence does not mean that God has
decided all things for us and in advance. God loves us too much
to do that, for that would be nothing short of cosmic tyranny.
Man does have relative powers of choice. Neither is the divine
love that shortsighted affection which would pamper and spoil
the children of men.
118:10.2 The Father, Son, and Spirit -- as the
Trinity -- are not the Almighty Supreme, but the supremacy of
the Almighty can never be manifest without them. The growth
of the Almighty is centered on the Absolutes of actuality and
predicated on the Absolutes of potentiality. But the
functions of the Almighty Supreme are related to the
functions of the Paradise Trinity.
118:10.3 It would appear that, in the Supreme
Being, all phases of universe activity are being partially
reunited by the personality of this experiential Deity. When,
therefore, we desire to view the Trinity as one God, and if we
limit this concept to the present known and organized grand
universe, we discover that the evolving Supreme Being is the
partial portraiture of the Paradise Trinity. And we further find
that this Supreme Deity is evolving as the personality synthesis
of finite matter, mind, and spirit in the grand universe.
118:10.4 The Gods have attributes but the
Trinity has functions, and like the Trinity, providence is a
function, the composite of the other-than-personal overcontrol
of the universe of universes, extending from the evolutionary
levels of the Sevenfold synthesizing in the power of the
Almighty on up through the transcendental realms of the Ultimacy
of Deity.
118:10.5 God loves each creature as a child,
and that love overshadows each creature throughout all time and
eternity. Providence functions with regard to the total and
deals with the function of any creature as such function is
related to the total. Providential intervention with regard to
any being is indicative of the importance of the function
of that being as concerns the evolutionary growth of some total;
such total may be the total race, the total nation, the total
planet, or even a higher total. It is the importance of the
function of the creature that occasions providential
intervention, not the importance of the creature as a person.
118:10.6 Nevertheless, the Father as a person
may at any time interpose a fatherly hand in the stream of
cosmic events all in accordance with the will of God and in
consonance with the wisdom of God and as motivated by the love
of God.
118:10.7 But what man calls providence is all
too often the product of his own imagination, the fortuitous
juxtaposition of the circumstances of chance. There is, however,
a real and emerging providence in the finite realm of universe
existence, a true and actualizing correlation of the energies of
space, the motions of time, the thoughts of intellect, the
ideals of character, the desires of spiritual natures, and the
purposive volitional acts of evolving personalities. The
circumstances of the material realms find final finite
integration in the interlocking presences of the Supreme and the
Ultimate.
118:10.8 As the mechanisms of the grand
universe are perfected to a point of final precision through the
overcontrol of mind, and as creature mind ascends to the
perfection of divinity attainment through perfected integration
with spirit, and as the Supreme consequently emerges as an
actual unifier of all these universe phenomena, so does
providence become increasingly discernible.
118:10.9 Some of the amazingly fortuitous
conditions occasionally prevailing on the evolutionary worlds
may be due to the gradually emerging presence of the Supreme,
the foretasting of his future universe activities. Most of what
a mortal would call providential is not; his judgment of such
matters is very handicapped by lack of farsighted vision into
the true meanings of the circumstances of life. Much of what a
mortal would call good luck might really be bad luck; the smile
of fortune that bestows unearned leisure and undeserved wealth
may be the greatest of human afflictions; the apparent cruelty
of a perverse fate that heaps tribulation upon some suffering
mortal may in reality be the tempering fire that is transmuting
the soft iron of immature personality into the tempered steel of
real character.
118:10.10 There is a providence in the
evolving universes, and it can be discovered by creatures to
just the extent that they have attained capacity to perceive the
purpose of the evolving universes. Complete capacity to discern
universe purposes equals the evolutionary completion of the
creature and may otherwise be expressed as the attainment of the
Supreme within the limits of the present state of the incomplete
universes.
118:10.11 The love of the Father operates
directly in the heart of the individual, independent of the
actions or reactions of all other individuals; the relationship
is personal -- man and God. The impersonal presence of Deity
(Almighty Supreme and Paradise Trinity) manifests regard for the
whole, not for the part. The providence of the overcontrol of
Supremacy becomes increasingly apparent as the successive parts
of the universe progress in the attainment of finite destinies.
As the systems, constellations, universes, and superuniverses
become settled in light and life, the Supreme increasingly
emerges as the meaningful correlator of all that is transpiring,
while the Ultimate gradually emerges as the transcendental
unifier of all things.
118:10.12 In the beginnings on an evolutionary
world the natural occurrences of the material order and the
personal desires of human beings often appear to be
antagonistic. Much that takes place on an evolving world is
rather hard for mortal man to understand -- natural law is so
often apparently cruel, heartless, and indifferent to all that
is true, beautiful, and good in human comprehension. But as
humanity progresses in planetary development, we observe that
this viewpoint is modified by the following factors:
118:10.13 1. Man's augmenting vision --
his increased understanding of the world in which he lives; his
enlarging capacity for the comprehension of the material facts
of time, the meaningful ideas of thought, and the valuable
ideals of spiritual insight. As long as men measure only by the
yardstick of the things of a physical nature, they can never
hope to find unity in time and space.
118:10.14 2. Man's increasing control
-- the gradual accumulation of the knowledge of the laws of the
material world, the purposes of spiritual existence, and the
possibilities of the philosophic co-ordination of these two
realities. Man, the savage, was helpless before the onslaughts
of natural forces, was slavish before the cruel mastery of his
own inner fears. Semicivilized man is beginning to unlock the
storehouse of the secrets of the natural realms, and his science
is slowly but effectively destroying his superstitions while at
the same time providing a new and enlarged factual basis for the
comprehension of the meanings of philosophy and the values of
true spiritual experience. Man, the civilized, will someday
achieve relative mastery of the physical forces of his planet;
the love of God in his heart will be effectively outpoured as
love for his fellow men, while the values of human existence
will be nearing the limits of mortal capacity.
118:10.15 3. Man's universe integration
-- the increase of human insight plus the increase of human
experiential achievement brings him into closer harmony with the
unifying presences of Supremacy -- Paradise Trinity and Supreme
Being. And this is what establishes the sovereignty of the
Supreme on the worlds long settled in light and life. Such
advanced planets are indeed poems of harmony, pictures of the
beauty of achieved goodness attained through the pursuit of
cosmic truth. And if such things can happen to a planet, then
even greater things can happen to a system and the larger units
of the grand universe as they too achieve a settledness
indicating the exhaustion of the potentials for finite growth.
118:10.16 On a planet of this advanced order,
providence has become an actuality, the circumstances of life
are correlated, but this is not only because man has come to
dominate the material problems of his world; it is also because
he has begun to live according to the trend of the universes; he
is following the pathway of Supremacy to the attainment of the
Universal Father.
118:10.17 The kingdom of God is in the hearts
of men, and when this kingdom becomes actual in the heart of
every individual on a world, then God's rule has become actual
on that planet; and this is the attained sovereignty of the
Supreme Being.
118:10.18 To realize providence in time, man
must accomplish the task of achieving perfection. But man can
even now foretaste this providence in its eternity meanings as
he ponders the universe fact that all things, be they good or
evil, work together for the advancement of God-knowing mortals
in their quest for the Father of all.
118:10.19 Providence becomes increasingly
discernible as men reach upward from the material to the
spiritual. The attainment of completed spiritual insight enables
the ascending personality to detect harmony in what was
theretofore chaos. Even morontia mota represents a real advance
in this direction.
118:10.20 Providence is in part the
overcontrol of the incomplete Supreme manifested in the
incomplete universes, and it must therefore ever be:
1. Partial -- due to the
incompleteness of the actualization of the Supreme Being, and
2. Unpredictable -- due to
the fluctuations in creature attitude, which ever varies from
level to level, thus causing apparently variable reciprocal
response in the Supreme.
118:10.21 When men pray for providential
intervention in the circumstances of life, many times the answer
to their prayer is their own changed attitudes toward life. But
providence is not whimsical, neither is it fantastic nor
magical. It is the slow and sure emergence of the mighty
sovereign of the finite universes, whose majestic presence the
evolving creatures occasionally detect in their universe
progressions. Providence is the sure and certain march of the
galaxies of space and the personalities of time toward the goals
of eternity, first in the Supreme, then in the Ultimate, and
perhaps in the Absolute. And in infinity we believe there is the
same providence, and this is the will, the actions, the purpose
of the Paradise Trinity thus motivating the cosmic panorama of
universes upon universes.
118:10.22
Sponsored by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on
Urantia.
