PAPER 2
THE NATURE OF GOD
2:0.1 INASMUCH as man's highest possible concept of
God is embraced within the human idea and ideal of a primal and infinite
personality, it is permissible, and may prove helpful, to study certain
characteristics of the divine nature which constitute the character of Deity.
The nature of God can best be understood by the revelation of the Father which
Michael of Nebadon unfolded in his manifold teachings and in his superb mortal
life in the flesh. The divine nature can also be better understood by man if
he regards himself as a child of God and looks up to the Paradise Creator as a
true spiritual Father.
2:0.2 The nature of God can be studied in a
revelation of supreme ideas, the divine character can be envisaged as a
portrayal of supernal ideals, but the most enlightening and spiritually
edifying of all revelations of the divine nature is to be found in the
comprehension of the religious life of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and
after his attainment of full consciousness of divinity. If the incarnated life
of Michael is taken as the background of the revelation of God to man, we may
attempt to put in human word symbols certain ideas and ideals concerning the
divine nature which may possibly contribute to a further illumination and
unification of the human concept of the nature and the character of the
personality of the Universal Father.
2:0.3 In all our efforts to enlarge and spiritualize
the human concept of God, we are tremendously handicapped by the limited
capacity of the mortal mind. We are also seriously handicapped in the
execution of our assignment by the limitations of language and by the poverty
of material which can be utilized for purposes of illustration or comparison
in our efforts to portray divine values and to present spiritual meanings to
the finite, mortal mind of man. All our efforts to enlarge the human concept
of God would be well-nigh futile except for the fact that the mortal mind is
indwelt by the bestowed Adjuster of the Universal Father and is pervaded by
the Truth Spirit of the Creator Son. Depending, therefore, on the presence of
these divine spirits within the heart of man for assistance in the enlargement
of the concept of God, I cheerfully undertake the execution of my mandate to
attempt the further portrayal of the nature of God to the mind of man.
1. THE INFINITY OF GOD
2:1.1 "Touching the Infinite, we cannot find him
out. The divine footsteps are not known." "His understanding is infinite and
his greatness is unsearchable." The blinding light of the Father's presence is
such that to his lowly creatures he apparently "dwells in the thick darkness."
Not only are his thoughts and plans unsearchable, but "he does great and
marvelous things without number." "God is great; we comprehend him not,
neither can the number of his years be searched out." "Will God indeed dwell
on the earth? Behold, the heaven (universe) and the heaven of heavens
(universe of universes) cannot contain him." "How unsearchable are his
judgments and his ways past finding out!"
2:1.2 "There is but one God, the infinite Father,
who is also a faithful Creator." "The divine Creator is also the Universal
Disposer, the source and destiny of souls. He is the Supreme Soul, the Primal
Mind, and the Unlimited Spirit of all creation." "The great Controller makes
no mistakes. He is resplendent in majesty and glory." "The Creator God is
wholly devoid of fear and enmity. He is immortal, eternal, self-existent,
divine, and bountiful." "How pure and beautiful, how deep and unfathomable is
the supernal Ancestor of all things!" "The Infinite is most excellent in that
he imparts himself to men. He is the beginning and the end, the Father of
every good and perfect purpose." "With God all things are possible; the
eternal Creator is the cause of causes."
2:1.3 Notwithstanding the infinity of the stupendous
manifestations of the Father's eternal and universal personality, he is
unqualifiedly self-conscious of both his infinity and eternity; likewise he
knows fully his perfection and power. He is the only being in the universe,
aside from his divine co-ordinates, who experiences a perfect, proper, and
complete appraisal of himself.
2:1.4 The Father constantly and unfailingly meets
the need of the differential of demand for himself as it changes from time to
time in various sections of his master universe. The great God knows and
understands himself; he is infinitely self-conscious of all his primal
attributes of perfection. God is not a cosmic accident; neither is he a
universe experimenter. The Universe Sovereigns may engage in adventure; the
Constellation Fathers may experiment; the system heads may practice; but the
Universal Father sees the end from the beginning, and his divine plan and
eternal purpose actually embrace and comprehend all the experiments and all
the adventures of all his subordinates in every world, system, and
constellation in every universe of his vast domains.
2:1.5 No thing is new to God, and no cosmic event
ever comes as a surprise; he inhabits the circle of eternity. He is without
beginning or end of days. To God there is no past, present, or future; all
time is present at any given moment. He is the great and only I AM.
2:1.6 The Universal Father is absolutely and without
qualification infinite in all his attributes; and this fact, in and of itself,
automatically shuts him off from all direct personal communication with finite
material beings and other lowly created intelligences.
2:1.7 And all this necessitates such arrangements
for contact and communication with his manifold creatures as have been
ordained, first, in the personalities of the Paradise Sons of God, who,
although perfect in divinity, also often partake of the nature of the very
flesh and blood of the planetary races, becoming one of you and one with you;
thus, as it were, God becomes man, as occurred in the bestowal of Michael, who
was called interchangeably the Son of God and the Son of Man. And second,
there are the personalities of the Infinite Spirit, the various orders of the
seraphic hosts and other celestial intelligences who draw near to the material
beings of lowly origin and in so many ways minister to them and serve them.
And third, there are the impersonal Mystery Monitors, Thought Adjusters, the
actual gift of the great God himself sent to indwell such as the humans of
Urantia, sent without announcement and without explanation. In endless
profusion they descend from the heights of glory to grace and indwell the
humble minds of those mortals who possess the capacity for God-consciousness
or the potential therefor.
2:1.8 In these ways and in many others, in ways
unknown to you and utterly beyond finite comprehension, does the Paradise
Father lovingly and willingly downstep and otherwise modify, dilute, and
attenuate his infinity in order that he may be able to draw nearer the finite
minds of his creature children. And so, through a series of personality
distributions which are diminishingly absolute, the infinite Father is enabled
to enjoy close contact with the diverse intelligences of the many realms of
his far-flung universe.
2:1.9 All this he has done and now does, and
evermore will continue to do, without in the least detracting from the fact
and reality of his infinity, eternity, and primacy. And these things are
absolutely true, notwithstanding the difficulty of their comprehension, the
mystery in which they are enshrouded, or the impossibility of their being
fully understood by creatures such as dwell on Urantia.
2:1.10 Because the First Father is infinite in his
plans and eternal in his purposes, it is inherently impossible for any finite
being ever to grasp or comprehend these divine plans and purposes in their
fullness. Mortal man can glimpse the Father's purposes only now and then, here
and there, as they are revealed in relation to the outworking of the plan of
creature ascension on its successive levels of universe progression. Though
man cannot encompass the significance of infinity, the infinite Father does
most certainly fully comprehend and lovingly embrace all the finity of all his
children in all universes.
2:1.11 Divinity and eternity the Father shares with
large numbers of the higher Paradise beings, but we question whether infinity
and consequent universal primacy is fully shared with any save his co-ordinate
associates of the Paradise Trinity. Infinity of personality must, perforce,
embrace all finitude of personality; hence the truth -- literal truth -- of
the teaching which declares that "In Him we live and move and have our being."
That fragment of the pure Deity of the Universal Father which indwells mortal
man is a part of the infinity of the First Great Source and Center, the
Father of Fathers.
2. THE FATHER'S ETERNAL PERFECTION
2:2.1 Even your olden prophets understood the
eternal, never-beginning, never-ending, circular nature of the Universal
Father. God is literally and eternally present in his universe of universes.
He inhabits the present moment with all his absolute majesty and eternal
greatness. "The Father has life in himself, and this life is eternal life."
Throughout the eternal ages it has been the Father who "gives to all life."
There is infinite perfection in the divine integrity. "I am the Lord; I change
not." Our knowledge of the universe of universes discloses not only that he is
the Father of lights, but also that in his conduct of interplanetary affairs
there "is no variableness neither shadow of changing." He "declares the end
from the beginning." He says: "My counsel shall stand; I will do all my
pleasures" "according to the eternal purpose which I purposed in my Son." Thus
are the plans and purposes of the First Source and Center like himself:
eternal, perfect, and forever changeless.
2:2.2 There is finality of completeness and
perfection of repleteness in the mandates of the Father. "Whatsoever God does,
it shall be forever; nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it."
The Universal Father does not repent of his original purposes of wisdom and
perfection. His plans are steadfast, his counsel immutable, while his acts are
divine and infallible. "A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday
when it is past and as a watch in the night." The perfection of divinity and
the magnitude of eternity are forever beyond the full grasp of the
circumscribed mind of mortal man.
2:2.3 The reactions of a changeless God, in the
execution of his eternal purpose, may seem to vary in accordance with the
changing attitude and the shifting minds of his created intelligences; that
is, they may apparently and superficially vary; but underneath the surface and
beneath all outward manifestations, there is still present the changeless
purpose, the everlasting plan, of the eternal God.
2:2.4 Out in the universes, perfection must
necessarily be a relative term, but in the central universe and especially on
Paradise, perfection is undiluted; in certain phases it is even absolute.
Trinity manifestations vary the exhibition of the divine perfection but do not
attenuate it.
2:2.5 God's primal perfection consists not in an
assumed righteousness but rather in the inherent perfection of the goodness of
his divine nature. He is final, complete, and perfect. There is no thing
lacking in the beauty and perfection of his righteous character. And the whole
scheme of living existences on the worlds of space is centered in the divine
purpose of elevating all will creatures to the high destiny of the experience
of sharing the Father's Paradise perfection. God is neither self-centered nor
self-contained; he never ceases to bestow himself upon all self-conscious
creatures of the vast universe of universes.
2:2.6 God is eternally and infinitely perfect, he
cannot personally know imperfection as his own experience, but he does share
the consciousness of all the experience of imperfectness of all the struggling
creatures of the evolutionary universes of all the Paradise Creator Sons. The
personal and liberating touch of the God of perfection overshadows the hearts
and encircuits the natures of all those mortal creatures who have ascended to
the universe level of moral discernment. In this manner, as well as through
the contacts of the divine presence, the Universal Father actually
participates in the experience with immaturity and imperfection in the
evolving career of every moral being of the entire universe.
2:2.7 Human limitations, potential evil, are not a
part of the divine nature, but mortal experience with evil and all
man's relations thereto are most certainly a part of God's ever-expanding
self-realization in the children of time -- creatures of moral responsibility
who have been created or evolved by every Creator Son going out from
Paradise.
3. JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS
2:3.1 God is righteous; therefore is he just. "The
Lord is righteous in all his ways." "`I have not done without cause all that I
have done,' says the Lord." "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether." The justice of the Universal Father cannot be influenced by the
acts and performances of his creatures, "for there is no iniquity with the
Lord our God, no respect of persons, no taking of gifts."
2:3.2 How futile to make puerile appeals to such a
God to modify his changeless decrees so that we can avoid the just
consequences of the operation of his wise natural laws and righteous spiritual
mandates! "Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows that
shall he also reap." True, even in the justice of reaping the harvest of
wrongdoing, this divine justice is always tempered with mercy. Infinite wisdom
is the eternal arbiter which determines the proportions of justice and mercy
which shall be meted out in any given circumstance. The greatest punishment
(in reality an inevitable consequence) for wrongdoing and deliberate rebellion
against the government of God is loss of existence as an individual subject of
that government. The final result of wholehearted sin is annihilation. In the
last analysis, such sin-identified individuals have destroyed themselves by
becoming wholly unreal through their embrace of iniquity. The factual
disappearance of such a creature is, however, always delayed until the
ordained order of justice current in that universe has been fully complied
with.
2:3.3 Cessation of existence is usually decreed at
the dispensational or epochal adjudication of the realm or realms. On a world
such as Urantia it comes at the end of a planetary dispensation. Cessation of
existence can be decreed at such times by co-ordinate action of all tribunals
of jurisdiction, extending from the planetary council up through the courts of
the Creator Son to the judgment tribunals of the Ancients of Days. The mandate
of dissolution originates in the higher courts of the superuniverse following
an unbroken confirmation of the indictment originating on the sphere of the
wrongdoer's residence; and then, when sentence of extinction has been
confirmed on high, the execution is by the direct act of those judges
residential on, and operating from, the headquarters of the
superuniverse.
2:3.4 When this sentence is finally confirmed, the
sin-identified being instantly becomes as though he had not been. There is no
resurrection from such a fate; it is everlasting and eternal. The living
energy factors of identity are resolved by the transformations of time and the
metamorphoses of space into the cosmic potentials whence they once emerged. As
for the personality of the iniquitous one, it is deprived of a continuing life
vehicle by the creature's failure to make those choices and final decisions
which would have assured eternal life. When the continued embrace of sin by
the associated mind culminates in complete self-identification with iniquity,
then upon the cessation of life, upon cosmic dissolution, such an isolated
personality is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the
evolving experience of the Supreme Being. Never again does it appear as a
personality; its identity becomes as though it had never been. In the case of
an Adjuster-indwelt personality, the experiential spirit values survive in the
reality of the continuing Adjuster.
2:3.5 In any universe contest between actual levels
of reality, the personality of the higher level will ultimately triumph over
the personality of the lower level. This inevitable outcome of universe
controversy is inherent in the fact that divinity of quality equals the degree
of reality or actuality of any will creature. Undiluted evil, complete error,
willful sin, and unmitigated iniquity are inherently and automatically
suicidal. Such attitudes of cosmic unreality can survive in the universe only
because of transient mercy-tolerance pending the action of the
justice-determining and fairness-finding mechanisms of the universe tribunals
of righteous adjudication.
2:3.6 The rule of the Creator Sons in the local
universes is one of creation and spiritualization. These Sons devote
themselves to the effective execution of the Paradise plan of progressive
mortal ascension, to the rehabilitation of rebels and wrong thinkers, but when
all such loving efforts are finally and forever rejected, the final decree of
dissolution is executed by forces acting under the jurisdiction of the
Ancients of Days.
4. THE DIVINE MERCY
2:4.1 Mercy is simply justice tempered by that
wisdom which grows out of perfection of knowledge and the full recognition of
the natural weaknesses and environmental handicaps of finite creatures. "Our
God is full of compassion, gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy."
Therefore "whosoever calls upon the Lord shall be saved," "for he will
abundantly pardon." "The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to
everlasting"; yes, "his mercy endures forever." "I am the Lord who executes
loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things
I delight." "I do not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men," for I
am "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort."
2:4.2 God is inherently kind, naturally
compassionate, and everlastingly merciful. And never is it necessary that any
influence be brought to bear upon the Father to call forth his
loving-kindness. The creature's need is wholly sufficient to insure the full
flow of the Father's tender mercies and his saving grace. Since God knows all
about his children, it is easy for him to forgive. The better man understands
his neighbor, the easier it will be to forgive him, even to love him.
2:4.3 Only the discernment of infinite wisdom
enables a righteous God to minister justice and mercy at the same time and in
any given universe situation. The heavenly Father is never torn by conflicting
attitudes towards his universe children; God is never a victim of attitudinal
antagonisms. God's all-knowingness unfailingly directs his free will in the
choosing of that universe conduct which perfectly, simultaneously, and equally
satisfies the demands of all his divine attributes and the infinite qualities
of his eternal nature.
2:4.4 Mercy is the natural and inevitable offspring
of goodness and love. The good nature of a loving Father could not possibly
withhold the wise ministry of mercy to each member of every group of his
universe children. Eternal justice and divine mercy together constitute what
in human experience would be called fairness.
2:4.5 Divine mercy represents a fairness technique
of adjustment between the universe levels of perfection and imperfection.
Mercy is the justice of Supremacy adapted to the situations of the evolving
finite, the righteousness of eternity modified to meet the highest interests
and universe welfare of the children of time. Mercy is not a contravention of
justice but rather an understanding interpretation of the demands of supreme
justice as it is fairly applied to the subordinate spiritual beings and to the
material creatures of the evolving universes. Mercy is the justice of the
Paradise Trinity wisely and lovingly visited upon the manifold intelligences
of the creations of time and space as it is formulated by divine wisdom and
determined by the all-knowing mind and the sovereign free will of the
Universal Father and all his associated Creators.
5. THE LOVE OF GOD
2:5.1 "God is love"; therefore his only personal
attitude towards the affairs of the universe is always a reaction of divine
affection. The Father loves us sufficiently to bestow his life upon us. "He
makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just
and on the unjust."
2:5.2 It is wrong to think of God as being coaxed
into loving his children because of the sacrifices of his Sons or the
intercession of his subordinate creatures, "for the Father himself loves you."
It is in response to this paternal affection that God sends the marvelous
Adjusters to indwell the minds of men. God's love is universal; "whosoever
will may come." He would "have all men be saved by coming into the knowledge
of the truth." He is "not willing that any should perish."
2:5.3 The Creators are the very first to attempt to
save man from the disastrous results of his foolish transgression of the
divine laws. God's love is by nature a fatherly affection; therefore does he
sometimes "chasten us for our own profit, that we may be partakers of his
holiness." Even during your fiery trials remember that "in all our afflictions
he is afflicted with us."
2:5.4 God is divinely kind to sinners. When rebels
return to righteousness, they are mercifully received, "for our God will
abundantly pardon." "I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own
sake, and I will not remember your sins." "Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of
God."
2:5.5 After all, the greatest evidence of the
goodness of God and the supreme reason for loving him is the indwelling gift
of the Father -- the Adjuster who so patiently awaits the hour when you both
shall be eternally made one. Though you cannot find God by searching, if you
will submit to the leading of the indwelling spirit, you will be unerringly
guided, step by step, life by life, through universe upon universe, and age by
age, until you finally stand in the presence of the Paradise personality of
the Universal Father.
2:5.6 How unreasonable that you should not worship
God because the limitations of human nature and the handicaps of your material
creation make it impossible for you to see him. Between you and God there is a
tremendous distance (physical space) to be traversed. There likewise exists a
great gulf of spiritual differential which must be bridged; but
notwithstanding all that physically and spiritually separates you from the
Paradise personal presence of God, stop and ponder the solemn fact that God
lives within you; he has in his own way already bridged the gulf. He has sent
of himself, his spirit, to live in you and to toil with you as you pursue your
eternal universe career.
2:5.7 I find it easy and pleasant to worship one who
is so great and at the same time so affectionately devoted to the uplifting
ministry of his lowly creatures. I naturally love one who is so powerful in
creation and in the control thereof, and yet who is so perfect in goodness and
so faithful in the loving-kindness which constantly overshadows us. I think I
would love God just as much if he were not so great and powerful, as long as
he is so good and merciful. We all love the Father more because of his nature
than in recognition of his amazing attributes.
2:5.8 When I observe the Creator Sons and their
subordinate administrators struggling so valiantly with the manifold
difficulties of time inherent in the evolution of the universes of space, I
discover that I bear these lesser rulers of the universes a great and profound
affection. After all, I think we all, including the mortals of the realms,
love the Universal Father and all other beings, divine or human, because we
discern that these personalities truly love us. The experience of loving is
very much a direct response to the experience of being loved. Knowing that God
loves me, I should continue to love him supremely, even though he were
divested of all his attributes of supremacy, ultimacy, and
absoluteness.
2:5.9 The Father's love follows us now and
throughout the endless circle of the eternal ages. As you ponder the loving
nature of God, there is only one reasonable and natural personality reaction
thereto: You will increasingly love your Maker; you will yield to God an
affection analogous to that given by a child to an earthly parent; for, as a
father, a real father, a true father, loves his children, so the Universal
Father loves and forever seeks the welfare of his created sons and
daughters.
2:5.10 But the love of God is an intelligent and
farseeing parental affection. The divine love functions in unified association
with divine wisdom and all other infinite characteristics of the perfect
nature of the Universal Father. God is love, but love is not God. The greatest
manifestation of the divine love for mortal beings is observed in the bestowal
of the Thought Adjusters, but your greatest revelation of the Father's love is
seen in the bestowal life of his Son Michael as he lived on earth the ideal
spiritual life. It is the indwelling Adjuster who individualizes the love of
God to each human soul.
2:5.11 At times I am almost pained to be compelled
to portray the divine affection of the heavenly Father for his universe
children by the employment of the human word symbol love. This term,
even though it does connote man's highest concept of the mortal relations of
respect and devotion, is so frequently designative of so much of human
relationship that is wholly ignoble and utterly unfit to be known by any word
which is also used to indicate the matchless affection of the living God for
his universe creatures! How unfortunate that I cannot make use of some
supernal and exclusive term which would convey to the mind of man the true
nature and exquisitely beautiful significance of the divine affection of the
Paradise Father.
2:5.12 When man loses sight of the love of a
personal God, the kingdom of God becomes merely the kingdom of good.
Notwithstanding the infinite unity of the divine nature, love is the dominant
characteristic of all God's personal dealings with his creatures.
6. THE GOODNESS OF GOD
2:6.1 In the physical universe we may see the divine
beauty, in the intellectual world we may discern eternal truth, but the
goodness of God is found only in the spiritual world of personal religious
experience. In its true essence, religion is a faith-trust in the goodness of
God. God could be great and absolute, somehow even intelligent and personal,
in philosophy, but in religion God must also be moral; he must be good. Man
might fear a great God, but he trusts and loves only a good God. This goodness
of God is a part of the personality of God, and its full revelation appears
only in the personal religious experience of the believing sons of
God.
2:6.2 Religion implies that the superworld of spirit
nature is cognizant of, and responsive to, the fundamental needs of the human
world. Evolutionary religion may become ethical, but only revealed religion
becomes truly and spiritually moral. The olden concept that God is a Deity
dominated by kingly morality was upstepped by Jesus to that affectionately
touching level of intimate family morality of the parent-child relationship,
than which there is none more tender and beautiful in mortal
experience.
2:6.3 The "richness of the goodness of God leads
erring man to repentance." "Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down
from the Father of lights." "God is good; he is the eternal refuge of the
souls of men." "The Lord God is merciful and gracious. He is long-suffering
and abundant in goodness and truth." "Taste and see that the Lord is good!
Blessed is the man who trusts him." "The Lord is gracious and full of
compassion. He is the God of salvation." "He heals the brokenhearted and binds
up the wounds of the soul. He is man's all-powerful benefactor."
2:6.4 The concept of God as a king-judge, although
it fostered a high moral standard and created a law-respecting people as a
group, left the individual believer in a sad position of insecurity respecting
his status in time and in eternity. The later Hebrew prophets proclaimed God
to be a Father to Israel; Jesus revealed God as the Father of each human
being. The entire mortal concept of God is transcendently illuminated by the
life of Jesus. Selflessness is inherent in parental love. God loves not like a
father, but as a father. He is the Paradise Father of every universe
personality.
2:6.5 Righteousness implies that God is the source
of the moral law of the universe. Truth exhibits God as a revealer, as a
teacher. But love gives and craves affection, seeks understanding fellowship
such as exists between parent and child. Righteousness may be the divine
thought, but love is a father's attitude. The erroneous supposition that the
righteousness of God was irreconcilable with the selfless love of the heavenly
Father, presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity and led directly
to the elaboration of the atonement doctrine, which is a philosophic assault
upon both the unity and the free-willness of God.
2:6.6 The affectionate heavenly Father, whose spirit
indwells his children on earth, is not a divided personality -- one of justice
and one of mercy -- neither does it require a mediator to secure the Father's
favor or forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict
retributive justice; God as a father transcends God as a judge.
2:6.7 God is never wrathful, vengeful, or angry. It
is true that wisdom does often restrain his love, while justice conditions his
rejected mercy. His love of righteousness cannot help being exhibited as equal
hatred for sin. The Father is not an inconsistent personality; the divine
unity is perfect. In the Paradise Trinity there is absolute unity despite the
eternal identities of the co-ordinates of God.
2:6.8 God loves the sinner and hates the sin: such a
statement is true philosophically, but God is a transcendent personality, and
persons can only love and hate other persons. Sin is not a person. God loves
the sinner because he is a personality reality (potentially eternal), while
towards sin God strikes no personal attitude, for sin is not a spiritual
reality; it is not personal; therefore does only the justice of God take
cognizance of its existence. The love of God saves the sinner; the law of God
destroys the sin. This attitude of the divine nature would apparently change
if the sinner finally identified himself wholly with sin just as the same
mortal mind may also fully identify itself with the indwelling spirit
Adjuster. Such a sin-identified mortal would then become wholly unspiritual in
nature (and therefore personally unreal) and would experience eventual
extinction of being. Unreality, even incompleteness of creature nature, cannot
exist forever in a progressingly real and increasingly spiritual
universe.
2:6.9 Facing the world of personality, God is
discovered to be a loving person; facing the spiritual world, he is a personal
love; in religious experience he is both. Love identifies the volitional will
of God. The goodness of God rests at the bottom of the divine free-willness --
the universal tendency to love, show mercy, manifest patience, and minister
forgiveness.
7. DIVINE TRUTH AND BEAUTY
2:7.1 All finite knowledge and creature
understanding are relative. Information and intelligence, gleaned from
even high sources, is only relatively complete, locally accurate, and
personally true.
2:7.2 Physical facts are fairly uniform, but truth
is a living and flexible factor in the philosophy of the universe. Evolving
personalities are only partially wise and relatively true in their
communications. They can be certain only as far as their personal experience
extends. That which apparently may be wholly true in one place may be only
relatively true in another segment of creation.
2:7.3 Divine truth, final truth, is uniform and
universal, but the story of things spiritual, as it is told by numerous
individuals hailing from various spheres, may sometimes vary in details owing
to this relativity in the completeness of knowledge and in the repleteness of
personal experience as well as in the length and extent of that experience.
While the laws and decrees, the thoughts and attitudes, of the First Great
Source and Center are eternally, infinitely, and universally true; at the same
time, their application to, and adjustment for, every universe, system, world,
and created intelligence, are in accordance with the plans and technique of
the Creator Sons as they function in their respective universes, as well as in
harmony with the local plans and procedures of the Infinite Spirit and of all
other associated celestial personalities.
2:7.4 The false science of materialism would
sentence mortal man to become an outcast in the universe. Such partial
knowledge is potentially evil; it is knowledge composed of both good and evil.
Truth is beautiful because it is both replete and symmetrical. When man
searches for truth, he pursues the divinely real.
2:7.5 Philosophers commit their gravest error when
they are misled into the fallacy of abstraction, the practice of focusing the
attention upon one aspect of reality and then of pronouncing such an isolated
aspect to be the whole truth. The wise philosopher will always look for the
creative design which is behind, and pre-existent to, all universe phenomena.
The creator thought invariably precedes creative action.
2:7.6 Intellectual self-consciousness can discover
the beauty of truth, its spiritual quality, not only by the philosophic
consistency of its concepts, but more certainly and surely by the unerring
response of the ever-present Spirit of Truth. Happiness ensues from the
recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived.
Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it
cannot be realized in experience. Divine truth is best known by its
spiritual flavor.
2:7.7 The eternal quest is for unification, for
divine coherence. The far-flung physical universe coheres in the Isle of
Paradise; the intellectual universe coheres in the God of mind, the Conjoint
Actor; the spiritual universe is coherent in the personality of the Eternal
Son. But the isolated mortal of time and space coheres in God the Father
through the direct relationship between the indwelling Thought Adjuster and
the Universal Father. Man's Adjuster is a fragment of God and everlastingly
seeks for divine unification; it coheres with, and in, the Paradise Deity of
the First Source and Center.
2:7.8 The discernment of supreme beauty is the
discovery and integration of reality: The discernment of the divine goodness
in the eternal truth, that is ultimate beauty. Even the charm of human art
consists in the harmony of its unity.
2:7.9 The great mistake of the Hebrew religion was
its failure to associate the goodness of God with the factual truths of
science and the appealing beauty of art. As civilization progressed, and since
religion continued to pursue the same unwise course of overemphasizing the
goodness of God to the relative exclusion of truth and neglect of beauty,
there developed an increasing tendency for certain types of men to turn away
from the abstract and dissociated concept of isolated goodness. The
overstressed and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails to hold the
devotion and loyalty of many twentieth-century men, would rehabilitate itself
if, in addition to its moral mandates, it would give equal consideration to
the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience, and to the
beauties of the physical creation, the charm of intellectual art, and the
grandeur of genuine character achievement.
2:7.10 The religious challenge of this age is to
those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who
will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the
enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe
beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will
attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best
in the human soul. Truth, beauty, and goodness are divine realities, and as
man ascends the scale of spiritual living, these supreme qualities of the
Eternal become increasingly co-ordinated and unified in God, who is love.
2:7.11 All truth -- material, philosophic, or
spiritual -- is both beautiful and good. All real beauty -- material art or
spiritual symmetry -- is both true and good. All genuine goodness -- whether
personal morality, social equity, or divine ministry -- is equally true and
beautiful. Health, sanity, and happiness are integrations of truth, beauty,
and goodness as they are blended in human experience. Such levels of efficient
living come about through the unification of energy systems, idea systems, and
spirit systems.
2:7.12 Truth is coherent, beauty attractive,
goodness stabilizing. And when these values of that which is real are
co-ordinated in personality experience, the result is a high order of love
conditioned by wisdom and qualified by loyalty. The real purpose of all
universe education is to effect the better co-ordination of the isolated child
of the worlds with the larger realities of his expanding experience. Reality
is finite on the human level, infinite and eternal on the higher and divine
levels.
2:7.13 [Presented by
a Divine Counselor acting by authority of the Ancients of Days on
Uversa.]
