Concerning
the several natures of Deity, it may be said:
1. The
Father is self-existent self.
2. The
Son is coexistent self.
3. The
Spirit is conjoint-existent self.
4. The
Supreme is evolutionary-experiential self.
5. The
Sevenfold is self-distributive divinity.
6. The
Ultimate is transcendental-experiential self.
7. The
Absolute is existential-experiential self.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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1.
TIME AND ETERNITY
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Patience
is exercised by those mortals whose time units are
short; true maturity transcends patience by a
forbearance born of real understanding.
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.
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.
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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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4.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CAUSATION
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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5.
OMNIPOTENCE AND COMPOSSIBILITY
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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by a Mighty Messenger temporarily sojourning on Urantia.] |