PAPER 5
GOD'S RELATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL
5:0.1 IF THE finite mind of man is unable to
comprehend how so great and so majestic a God as the Universal Father can
descend from his eternal abode in infinite perfection to fraternize with the
individual human creature, then must such a finite intellect rest assurance of
divine fellowship upon the truth of the fact that an actual fragment of the
living God resides within the intellect of every normal-minded and morally
conscious Urantia mortal. The indwelling Thought Adjusters are a part of the
eternal Deity of the Paradise Father. Man does not have to go farther than his
own inner experience of the soul's contemplation of this spiritual-reality
presence to find God and attempt communion with him.
5:0.2 God has distributed the infinity of his
eternal nature throughout the existential realities of his six absolute
co-ordinates, but he may, at any time, make direct personal contact with any
part or phase or kind of creation through the agency of his prepersonal
fragments. And the eternal God has also reserved to himself the prerogative of
bestowing personality upon the divine Creators and the living creatures of the
universe of universes, while he has further reserved the prerogative of
maintaining direct and parental contact with all these personal beings through
the personality circuit.
1. THE APPROACH TO GOD
5:1.1 The inability of the finite creature to
approach the infinite Father is inherent, not in the Father's aloofness, but
in the finiteness and material limitations of created beings. The magnitude of
the spiritual difference between the highest personality of universe existence
and the lower groups of created intelligences is inconceivable. Were it
possible for the lower orders of intelligence to be transported instantly into
the presence of the Father himself, they would not know they were there. They
would there be just as oblivious of the presence of the Universal Father as
where they now are. There is a long, long road ahead of mortal man before he
can consistently and within the realms of possibility ask for safe conduct
into the Paradise presence of the Universal Father. Spiritually, man must be
translated many times before he can attain a plane that will yield the
spiritual vision which will enable him to see even any one of the Seven Master
Spirits.
5:1.2 Our Father is not in hiding; he is not in
arbitrary seclusion. He has mobilized the resources of divine wisdom in a
never-ending effort to reveal himself to the children of his universal
domains. There is an infinite grandeur and an inexpressible generosity
connected with the majesty of his love which causes him to yearn for the
association of every created being who can comprehend, love, or approach him;
and it is, therefore, the limitations inherent in you, inseparable from your
finite personality and material existence, that determine the time and place
and circumstances in which you may achieve the goal of the journey of mortal
ascension and stand in the presence of the Father at the center of all things.
5:1.3 Although the approach to the Paradise presence
of the Father must await your attainment of the highest finite levels of
spirit progression, you should rejoice in the recognition of the ever-present
possibility of immediate communion with the bestowal spirit of the Father so
intimately associated with your inner soul and your spiritualizing
self.
5:1.4 The mortals of the realms of time and space
may differ greatly in innate abilities and intellectual endowment, they may
enjoy environments exceptionally favorable to social advancement and moral
progress, or they may suffer from the lack of almost every human aid to
culture and supposed advancement in the arts of civilization; but the
possibilities for spiritual progress in the ascension career are equal to all;
increasing levels of spiritual insight and cosmic meanings are attained quite
independently of all such sociomoral differentials of the diversified material
environments on the evolutionary worlds.
5:1.5 However Urantia mortals may differ in their
intellectual, social, economic, and even moral opportunities and endowments,
forget not that their spiritual endowment is uniform and unique. They all
enjoy the same divine presence of the gift from the Father, and they are all
equally privileged to seek intimate personal communion with this indwelling
spirit of divine origin, while they may all equally choose to accept the
uniform spiritual leading of these Mystery Monitors.
5:1.6 If mortal man is wholeheartedly spiritually
motivated, unreservedly consecrated to the doing of the Father's will, then,
since he is so certainly and so effectively spiritually endowed by the
indwelling and divine Adjuster, there cannot fail to materialize in that
individual's experience the sublime consciousness of knowing God and the
supernal assurance of surviving for the purpose of finding God by the
progressive experience of becoming more and more like him.
5:1.7 Man is spiritually indwelt by a surviving
Thought Adjuster. If such a human mind is sincerely and spiritually motivated,
if such a human soul desires to know God and become like him, honestly wants
to do the Father's will, there exists no negative influence of mortal
deprivation nor positive power of possible interference which can prevent such
a divinely motivated soul from securely ascending to the portals of
Paradise.
5:1.8 The Father desires all his creatures to be in
personal communion with him. He has on Paradise a place to receive all those
whose survival status and spiritual nature make possible such attainment.
Therefore settle in your philosophy now and forever: To each of you and to all
of us, God is approachable, the Father is attainable, the way is open; the
forces of divine love and the ways and means of divine administration are all
interlocked in an effort to facilitate the advancement of every worthy
intelligence of every universe to the Paradise presence of the Universal
Father.
5:1.9 The fact that vast time is involved in the
attainment of God makes the presence and personality of the Infinite none the
less real. Your ascension is a part of the circuit of the seven
superuniverses, and though you swing around it countless times, you may
expect, in spirit and in status, to be ever swinging inward. You can depend
upon being translated from sphere to sphere, from the outer circuits ever
nearer the inner center, and some day, doubt not, you shall stand in the
divine and central presence and see him, figuratively speaking, face to face.
It is a question of the attainment of actual and literal spiritual levels; and
these spiritual levels are attainable by any being who has been indwelt by a
Mystery Monitor, and who has subsequently eternally fused with that Thought
Adjuster.
5:1.10 The Father is not in spiritual hiding, but so
many of his creatures have hidden themselves away in the mists of their own
willful decisions and for the time being have separated themselves from the
communion of his spirit and the spirit of his Son by the choosing of their own
perverse ways and by the indulgence of the self-assertiveness of their
intolerant minds and unspiritual natures.
5:1.11 Mortal man may draw near God and may
repeatedly forsake the divine will so long as the power of choice remains.
Man's final doom is not sealed until he has lost the power to choose the
Father's will. There is never a closure of the Father's heart to the need and
the petition of his children. Only do his offspring close their hearts forever
to the Father's drawing power when they finally and forever lose the desire to
do his divine will -- to know him and to be like him. Likewise is man's
eternal destiny assured when Adjuster fusion proclaims to the universe that
such an ascender has made the final and irrevocable choice to live the
Father's will.
5:1.12 The great God makes direct contact with
mortal man and gives a part of his infinite and eternal and incomprehensible
self to live and dwell within him. God has embarked upon the eternal adventure
with man. If you yield to the leadings of the spiritual forces in you and
around you, you cannot fail to attain the high destiny established by a loving
God as the universe goal of his ascendant creatures from the evolutionary
worlds of space.
2. THE PRESENCE OF GOD
5:2.1 The physical presence of the Infinite is the
reality of the material universe. The mind presence of Deity must be
determined by the depth of individual intellectual experience and by the
evolutionary personality level. The spiritual presence of Divinity must of
necessity be differential in the universe. It is determined by the spiritual
capacity of receptivity and by the degree of the consecration of the
creature's will to the doing of the divine will.
5:2.2 God lives in every one of his spirit-born
sons. The Paradise Sons always have access to the presence of God, "the right
hand of the Father," and all of his creature personalities have access to the
"bosom of the Father." This refers to the personality circuit, whenever,
wherever, and however contacted, or otherwise entails personal, self-conscious
contact and communion with the Universal Father, whether at the central abode
or at some other designated place, as on one of the seven sacred spheres of
Paradise.
5:2.3 The divine presence cannot, however, be
discovered anywhere in nature or even in the lives of God-knowing mortals so
fully and so certainly as in your attempted communion with the indwelling
Mystery Monitor, the Paradise Thought Adjuster. What a mistake to dream of God
far off in the skies when the spirit of the Universal Father lives within your
own mind!
5:2.4 It is because of this God fragment that
indwells you that you can hope, as you progress in harmonizing with the
Adjuster's spiritual leadings, more fully to discern the presence and
transforming power of those other spiritual influences that surround you and
impinge upon you but do not function as an integral part of you. The fact that
you are not intellectually conscious of close and intimate contact with the
indwelling Adjuster does not in the least disprove such an exalted experience.
The proof of fraternity with the divine Adjuster consists wholly in the nature
and extent of the fruits of the spirit which are yielded in the life
experience of the individual believer. "By their fruits you shall know
them."
5:2.5 It is exceedingly difficult for the meagerly
spiritualized, material mind of mortal man to experience marked consciousness
of the spirit activities of such divine entities as the Paradise Adjusters. As
the soul of joint mind and Adjuster creation becomes increasingly existent,
there also evolves a new phase of soul consciousness which is capable of
experiencing the presence, and of recognizing the spirit leadings and other
supermaterial activities, of the Mystery Monitors.
5:2.6 The entire experience of Adjuster communion is
one involving moral status, mental motivation, and spiritual experience. The
self-realization of such an achievement is mainly, though not exclusively,
limited to the realms of soul consciousness, but the proofs are forthcoming
and abundant in the manifestation of the fruits of the spirit in the lives of
all such inner-spirit contactors.
3. TRUE WORSHIP
5:3.1 Though the Paradise Deities, from the universe
standpoint, are as one, in their spiritual relations with such beings as
inhabit Urantia they are also three distinct and separate persons. There is a
difference between the Godheads in the matter of personal appeals, communion,
and other intimate relations. In the highest sense, we worship the Universal
Father and him only. True, we can and do worship the Father as he is
manifested in his Creator Sons, but it is the Father, directly or indirectly,
who is worshiped and adored.
5:3.2 Supplications of all kinds belong to the realm
of the Eternal Son and the Son's spiritual organization. Prayers, all formal
communications, everything except adoration and worship of the Universal
Father, are matters that concern a local universe; they do not ordinarily
proceed out of the realm of the jurisdiction of a Creator Son. But worship is
undoubtedly encircuited and dispatched to the person of the Creator by the
function of the Father's personality circuit. We further believe that such
registry of the homage of an Adjuster-indwelt creature is facilitated by the
Father's spirit presence. There exists a tremendous amount of evidence to
substantiate such a belief, and I know that all orders of Father fragments are
empowered to register the bona fide adoration of their subjects acceptably in
the presence of the Universal Father. The Adjusters undoubtedly also utilize
direct prepersonal channels of communication with God, and they are likewise
able to utilize the spirit-gravity circuits of the Eternal Son.
5:3.3 Worship is for its own sake; prayer embodies a
self- or creature-interest element; that is the great difference between
worship and prayer. There is absolutely no self-request or other element of
personal interest in true worship; we simply worship God for what we
comprehend him to be. Worship asks nothing and expects nothing for the
worshiper. We do not worship the Father because of anything we may derive from
such veneration; we render such devotion and engage in such worship as a
natural and spontaneous reaction to the recognition of the Father's matchless
personality and because of his lovable nature and adorable
attributes.
5:3.4 The moment the element of self-interest
intrudes upon worship, that instant devotion translates from worship to prayer
and more appropriately should be directed to the person of the Eternal Son or
the Creator Son. But in practical religious experience there exists no reason
why prayer should not be addressed to God the Father as a part of true
worship.
5:3.5 When you deal with the practical affairs of
your daily life, you are in the hands of the spirit personalities having
origin in the Third Source and Center; you are co-operating with the agencies
of the Conjoint Actor. And so it is: You worship God; pray to, and commune
with, the Son; and work out the details of your earthly sojourn in connection
with the intelligences of the Infinite Spirit operating on your world and
throughout your universe.
5:3.6 The Creator or Sovereign Sons who preside over
the destinies of the local universes stand in the place of both the Universal
Father and the Eternal Son of Paradise. These Universe Sons receive, in the
name of the Father, the adoration of worship and give ear to the pleas of
their petitioning subjects throughout their respective creations. To the
children of a local universe a Michael Son is, to all practical intents and
purposes, God. He is the local universe personification of the Universal
Father and the Eternal Son. The Infinite Spirit maintains personal contact
with the children of these realms through the Universe Spirits, the
administrative and creative associates of the Paradise Creator Sons.
5:3.7 Sincere worship connotes the mobilization of
all the powers of the human personality under the dominance of the evolving
soul and subject to the divine directionization of the associated Thought
Adjuster. The mind of material limitations can never become highly conscious
of the real significance of true worship. Man's realization of the reality of
the worship experience is chiefly determined by the developmental status of
his evolving immortal soul. The spiritual growth of the soul takes place
wholly independently of the intellectual self-consciousness.
5:3.8 The worship experience consists in the sublime
attempt of the betrothed Adjuster to communicate to the divine Father the
inexpressible longings and the unutterable aspirations of the human soul --
the conjoint creation of the God-seeking mortal mind and the God-revealing
immortal Adjuster. Worship is, therefore, the act of the material mind's
assenting to the attempt of its spiritualizing self, under the guidance of the
associated spirit, to communicate with God as a faith son of the Universal
Father. The mortal mind consents to worship; the immortal soul craves and
initiates worship; the divine Adjuster presence conducts such worship in
behalf of the mortal mind and the evolving immortal soul. True worship, in the
last analysis, becomes an experience realized on four cosmic levels: the
intellectual, the morontial, the spiritual, and the personal -- the
consciousness of mind, soul, and spirit, and their unification in personality.
4. GOD IN RELIGION
5:4.1 The morality of the religions of evolution drives men forward in the God quest by the motive power of fear. The
religions of revelation allure men to seek for a God of love because
they crave to become like him. But religion is not merely a passive feeling of
"absolute dependence" and "surety of survival"; it is a living and dynamic
experience of divinity attainment predicated on humanity service.
5:4.2 The great and immediate service of true
religion is the establishment of an enduring unity in human experience, a
lasting peace and a profound assurance. With primitive man, even polytheism is
a relative unification of the evolving concept of Deity; polytheism is
monotheism in the making. Sooner or later, God is destined to be comprehended
as the reality of values, the substance of meanings, and the life of
truth.
5:4.3 God is not only the determiner of destiny; he is man's eternal destination. All nonreligious human activities seek to
bend the universe to the distorting service of self; the truly religious
individual seeks to identify the self with the universe and then to dedicate
the activities of this unified self to the service of the universe family of
fellow beings, human and superhuman.
5:4.4 The domains of philosophy and art intervene
between the nonreligious and the religious activities of the human self.
Through art and philosophy the material-minded man is inveigled into the
contemplation of the spiritual realities and universe values of eternal
meanings.
5:4.5 All religions teach the worship of Deity and
some doctrine of human salvation. The Buddhist religion promises salvation
from suffering, unending peace; the Jewish religion promises salvation from
difficulties, prosperity predicated on righteousness; the Greek religion
promised salvation from disharmony, ugliness, by the realization of beauty;
Christianity promises salvation from sin, sanctity; Mohammedanism provides
deliverance from the rigorous moral standards of Judaism and Christianity. The
religion of Jesus is salvation from self, deliverance from the evils of
creature isolation in time and in eternity.
5:4.6 The Hebrews based their religion on goodness;
the Greeks on beauty; both religions sought truth. Jesus revealed a God of
love, and love is all-embracing of truth, beauty, and goodness.
5:4.7 The Zoroastrians had a religion of morals; the
Hindus a religion of metaphysics; the Confucianists a religion of ethics.
Jesus lived a religion of service. All these religions are of value in
that they are valid approaches to the religion of Jesus. Religion is destined
to become the reality of the spiritual unification of all that is good,
beautiful, and true in human experience.
5:4.8 The Greek religion had a watchword "Know
yourself"; the Hebrews centered their teaching on "Know your God"; the
Christians preach a gospel aimed at a "knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ";
Jesus proclaimed the good news of "knowing God, and yourself as a son of God."
These differing concepts of the purpose of religion determine the individual's
attitude in various life situations and foreshadow the depth of worship and
the nature of his personal habits of prayer. The spiritual status of any
religion may be determined by the nature of its prayers.
5:4.9 The concept of a semihuman and jealous God is
an inevitable transition between polytheism and sublime monotheism. An exalted
anthropomorphism is the highest attainment level of purely evolutionary
religion. Christianity has elevated the concept of anthropomorphism from the
ideal of the human to the transcendent and divine concept of the person of the
glorified Christ. And this is the highest anthropomorphism that man can ever
conceive.
5:4.10 The Christian concept of God is an attempt to
combine three separate teachings:
1. The Hebrew concept -- God as a
vindicator of moral values, a righteous God.
2. The Greek concept -- God as a unifier, a
God of wisdom.
3. Jesus' concept -- God as a living
friend, a loving Father, the divine presence.
5:4.11 It must therefore be evident that composite
Christian theology encounters great difficulty in attaining consistency. This
difficulty is further aggravated by the fact that the doctrines of early
Christianity were generally based on the personal religious experience of
three different persons: Philo of Alexandria, Jesus of Nazareth, and Paul of
Tarsus.
5:4.12 In the study of the religious life of Jesus,
view him positively. Think not so much of his sinlessness as of his
righteousness, his loving service. Jesus upstepped the passive love disclosed
in the Hebrew concept of the heavenly Father to the higher active and
creature-loving affection of a God who is the Father of every individual, even
of the wrongdoer.
5. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD
5:5.1 Morality has its origin in the reason of
self-consciousness; it is superanimal but wholly evolutionary. Human evolution
embraces in its unfolding all endowments antecedent to the bestowal of the
Adjusters and to the pouring out of the Spirit of Truth. But the attainment of
levels of morality does not deliver man from the real struggles of mortal
living. Man's physical environment entails the battle for existence; the
social surroundings necessitate ethical adjustments; the moral situations
require the making of choices in the highest realms of reason; the spiritual
experience (having realized God) demands that man find him and sincerely
strive to be like him.
5:5.2 Religion is not grounded in the facts of
science, the obligations of society, the assumptions of philosophy, or the
implied duties of morality. Religion is an independent realm of human response
to life situations and is unfailingly exhibited at all stages of human
development which are postmoral. Religion may permeate all four levels of the
realization of values and the enjoyment of universe fellowship: the physical
or material level of self-preservation; the social or emotional level of
fellowship; the moral or duty level of reason; the spiritual level of the
consciousness of universe fellowship through divine worship.
5:5.3 The fact-seeking scientist conceives of God as
the First Cause, a God of force. The emotional artist sees God as the ideal of
beauty, a God of aesthetics. The reasoning philosopher is sometimes inclined
to posit a God of universal unity, even a pantheistic Deity. The religionist
of faith believes in a God who fosters survival, the Father in heaven, the God
of love.
5:5.4 Moral conduct is always an antecedent of
evolved religion and a part of even revealed religion, but never the whole of
religious experience. Social service is the result of moral thinking and
religious living. Morality does not biologically lead to the higher spiritual
levels of religious experience. The adoration of the abstract beautiful is not
the worship of God; neither is exaltation of nature nor the reverence of unity
the worship of God.
5:5.5 Evolutionary religion is the mother of the
science, art, and philosophy which elevated man to the level of receptivity to
revealed religion, including the bestowal of Adjusters and the coming of the
Spirit of Truth. The evolutionary picture of human existence begins and ends
with religion, albeit very different qualities of religion, one evolutional
and biological, the other revelational and periodical. And so, while religion
is normal and natural to man, it is also optional. Man does not have to be
religious against his will.
5:5.6 Religious experience, being essentially
spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material mind; hence the
function of theology, the psychology of religion. The essential doctrine of
the human realization of God creates a paradox in finite comprehension. It is
well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the
concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with
the idea of God's transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of
universes. These two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the
faith-grasp of the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the
realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in order to
justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival. The
difficulties and paradoxes of religion are inherent in the fact that the
realities of religion are utterly beyond the mortal capacity for intellectual
comprehension.
5:5.7 Mortal man secures three great satisfactions
from religious experience, even in the days of his temporal sojourn on
earth:
5:5.8 1. Intellectually he acquires the
satisfactions of a more unified human consciousness.
5:5.9 2. Philosophically he enjoys the
substantiation of his ideals of moral values.
5:5.10 3. Spiritually he thrives in the
experience of divine companionship, in the spiritual satisfactions of true
worship.
5:5.11 God-consciousness, as it is experienced by an
evolving mortal of the realms, must consist of three varying factors, three
differential levels of reality realization. There is first the mind
consciousness -- the comprehension of the idea of God. Then follows the
soul consciousness -- the realization of the ideal of God. Last, dawns
the spirit consciousness -- the realization of the spirit reality of
God. By the unification of these factors of the divine realization, no matter
how incomplete, the mortal personality at all times overspreads all conscious
levels with a realization of the personality of God. In those mortals
who have attained the Corps of the Finality all this will in time lead to the
realization of the supremacy of God and may subsequently eventuate in
the realization of the ultimacy of God, some phase of the absonite
superconsciousness of the Paradise Father.
5:5.12 The experience of God-consciousness remains
the same from generation to generation, but with each advancing epoch in human
knowledge the philosophic concept and the theologic definitions of God must change. God-knowingness, religious consciousness, is a universe
reality, but no matter how valid (real) religious experience is, it must be
willing to subject itself to intelligent criticism and reasonable philosophic
interpretation; it must not seek to be a thing apart in the totality of human
experience.
5:5.13 Eternal survival of personality is wholly
dependent on the choosing of the mortal mind, whose decisions determine the
survival potential of the immortal soul. When the mind believes God and the
soul knows God, and when, with the fostering Adjuster, they all desire God, then is survival assured. Limitations of intellect, curtailment of
education, deprivation of culture, impoverishment of social status, even
inferiority of the human standards of morality resulting from the unfortunate
lack of educational, cultural, and social advantages, cannot invalidate the
presence of the divine spirit in such unfortunate and humanly handicapped but
believing individuals. The indwelling of the Mystery Monitor constitutes the
inception and insures the possibility of the potential of growth and survival
of the immortal soul.
5:5.14 The ability of mortal parents to procreate is
not predicated on their educational, cultural, social, or economic status. The
union of the parental factors under natural conditions is quite sufficient to
initiate offspring. A human mind discerning right and wrong and possessing the
capacity to worship God, in union with a divine Adjuster, is all that is
required in that mortal to initiate and foster the production of his immortal
soul of survival qualities if such a spirit-endowed individual seeks God and
sincerely desires to become like him, honestly elects to do the will of the
Father in heaven.
6. THE GOD OF PERSONALITY
5:6.1 The Universal Father is the God of
personalities. The domain of universe personality, from the lowest mortal and
material creature of personality status to the highest persons of creator
dignity and divine status, has its center and circumference in the Universal
Father. God the Father is the bestower and the conservator of every
personality. And the Paradise Father is likewise the destiny of all those
finite personalities who wholeheartedly choose to do the divine will, those
who love God and long to be like him.
5:6.2 Personality is one of the unsolved mysteries
of the universes. We are able to form adequate concepts of the factors
entering into the make-up of various orders and levels of personality, but we
do not fully comprehend the real nature of the personality itself. We clearly
perceive the numerous factors which, when put together, constitute the vehicle
for human personality, but we do not fully comprehend the nature and
significance of such a finite personality.
5:6.3 Personality is potential in all creatures who
possess a mind endowment ranging from the minimum of self-consciousness to the
maximum of God-consciousness. But mind endowment alone is not personality,
neither is spirit nor physical energy. Personality is that quality and value
in cosmic reality which is exclusively bestowed by God the Father upon these
living systems of the associated and co-ordinated energies of matter, mind,
and spirit. Neither is personality a progressive achievement. Personality may
be material or spiritual, but there either is personality or there is no
personality. The other-than-personal never attains the level of the personal
except by the direct act of the Paradise Father.
5:6.4 The bestowal of personality is the exclusive
function of the Universal Father, the personalization of the living energy
systems which he endows with the attributes of relative creative consciousness
and the freewill control thereof. There is no personality apart from God the
Father, and no personality exists except for God the Father. The fundamental
attributes of human selfhood, as well as the absolute Adjuster nucleus of the
human personality, are the bestowals of the Universal Father, acting in his
exclusively personal domain of cosmic ministry.
5:6.5 The Adjusters of prepersonal status indwell
numerous types of mortal creatures, thus insuring that these same beings may
survive mortal death to personalize as morontia creatures with the potential
of ultimate spirit attainment. For, when such a creature mind of personality
endowment is indwelt by a fragment of the spirit of the eternal God, the
prepersonal bestowal of the personal Father, then does this finite personality
possess the potential of the divine and the eternal and aspire to a destiny
akin to the Ultimate, even reaching out for a realization of the Absolute.
5:6.6 Capacity for divine personality is inherent in
the prepersonal Adjuster; capacity for human personality is potential in the
cosmic-mind endowment of the human being. But the experiential personality of
mortal man is not observable as an active and functional reality until after
the material life vehicle of the mortal creature has been touched by the
liberating divinity of the Universal Father, being thus launched upon the seas
of experience as a self-conscious and a (relatively) self-determinative and
self-creative personality. The material self is truly and unqualifiedly
personal.
5:6.7 The material self has personality and
identity, temporal identity; the prepersonal spirit Adjuster also has
identity, eternal identity. This material personality and this spirit
prepersonality are capable of so uniting their creative attributes as to bring
into existence the surviving identity of the immortal soul.
5:6.8 Having thus provided for the growth of the
immortal soul and having liberated man's inner self from the fetters of
absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man
having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as
pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of
the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation
or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for
the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide
universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute
sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of
choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing
mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of
the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute.
5:6.9 The bestowal of creature personality confers
relative liberation from slavish response to antecedent causation, and the
personalities of all such moral beings, evolutionary or otherwise, are
centered in the personality of the Universal Father. They are ever drawn
towards his Paradise presence by that kinship of being which constitutes the
vast and universal family circle and fraternal circuit of the eternal God.
There is a kinship of divine spontaneity in all personality.
5:6.10 The personality circuit of the universe of
universes is centered in the person of the Universal Father, and the Paradise
Father is personally conscious of, and in personal touch with, all
personalities of all levels of self-conscious existence. And this personality
consciousness of all creation exists independently of the mission of the
Thought Adjusters.
5:6.11 As all gravity is circuited in the Isle of
Paradise, as all mind is circuited in the Conjoint Actor and all spirit in the
Eternal Son, so is all personality circuited in the personal presence of the
Universal Father, and this circuit unerringly transmits the worship of all
personalities to the Original and Eternal Personality.
5:6.12 Concerning those personalities who are not
Adjuster indwelt: The attribute of choice-liberty is also bestowed by the
Universal Father, and such persons are likewise embraced in the great circuit
of divine love, the personality circuit of the Universal Father. God provides
for the sovereign choice of all true personalities. No personal creature can
be coerced into the eternal adventure; the portal of eternity opens only in
response to the freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free will.
5:6.13 And this represents my efforts to present the
relation of the living God to the children of time. And when all is said and
done, I can do nothing more helpful than to reiterate that God is your
universe Father, and that you are all his planetary children.
5:6.14 [This is the
fifth and last of the series presenting the narrative of the Universal Father
by a Divine Counselor of Uversa.]
