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Teacher-Brother Dave's Compilation

of TOPICAL STUDIES from

The New Epochal Revelation of Truth, Page 351


(The current one is on our Home Page, left column)


Teacher-Brother Dave's initial comments: I am presenting some of my Topical Studies from the fully public domain, 2097 page, Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth and with my added comments. The Revealed text is free of copyright, so you may freely share individually these supernal quotes with your friends and relatives. But my order of selections, font types for emphasis and my added comments are Copyright 2021 by Dave@PureChristians.org All Rights Reserved. Contact me first about using the whole Study or group of Studies.

[My added comments of explanation below are in these square brackets]

Topical Study number 133

"LOVE -- A New

Comprehensive Revelation",

Part 26


Compiled March 12, 2021 by Dave@PureChristians.org


The Urantia Book

PAPER 193 FINAL APPEARANCES AND ASCENSION

Introduction

193:0.3 [Jesus:] “And now you should give ear to my words lest you again make the mistake of hearing my teaching with the mind while in your hearts you fail to comprehend the meaning. From the beginning of my sojourn as one of you, I taught you that my one purpose was to reveal my Father in Heaven to his children on Earth. I have lived the God-revealing Bestowal that you might experience the God-knowing [Eternal] Career. I have revealed God as your Father in Heaven; I have revealed you as the sons of God on Earth. [All humans are !!] It is a fact that God loves you, his sons. By faith in my word this fact becomes an eternal and living Truth in your hearts. [in our Spirit-of-God-led souls and minds.] When, by living faith, you become divinely God-conscious, you are then born of the Spirit as children of Light and Life, [sons of Jesus and thus also sons of the Universal Father !!] even the Eternal Life wherewith you shall ascend the universe of universes and attain the experience of finding God the Father on Paradise.

193:0.4 [The Very Important True Living Gospel of our Sovereign Savior Jesus Christ Michael that all humans on Earth most need to know, believe and live:] “I admonish you ever to remember that your mission among men is to proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom — the Reality of the Fatherhood of God and the Truth of the sonship of man. Proclaim the whole Truth of the good news, not just a part of the saving gospel. Your message is not changed by my resurrection experience. Sonship with God, by faith, is still the saving Truth of the gospel of the Kingdom. You are to go forth preaching the love of God and the service of man. That which the world needs most to know is: Men are the sons of God, and through faith they can actually realize, and daily experience, this ennobling Truth. My bestowal should help all men to know that they are the children of God, but such knowledge will not suffice if they fail personally to faith-grasp the saving Truth that they are the living Spirit sons of the eternal Father. [!!!] The gospel of the Kingdom is concerned with the love of the Father and the service of his children on Earth.

193:0.5 “Among yourselves, here, you share the knowledge that I have risen from the dead, but that is not strange. I have the power to lay down my life and to take it up again; the Father gives such power to his Paradise Sons. You should the rather be stirred in your hearts by the knowledge that the dead of an age entered upon the eternal ascent soon after I left Joseph’s new tomb. I lived my life in the flesh to show how you can, through loving service, become God-revealing to your fellow men even as, by loving you and serving you, I have become God-Revealing to you. I have lived among you as the Son of Man that you, and all other men, might know that you are all indeed the sons of God.[ !!!] Therefore, go you now into all the world preaching this gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven to all men. Love all men as I have loved you; serve your fellow mortals as I have served you. Freely you have received, freely give. Only tarry here in Jerusalem while I go to the Father, and until I send you the Spirit of Truth. He shall lead you into the enlarged Truth, and I will go with you into all the world. I AM with you always, and my peace I leave with you.”

1. THE APPEARANCE AT SYCHAR

193:1.2 “Peace be upon you. You rejoice to know that I AM the Resurrection and the Life, but this will avail you nothing unless you are first born of the Eternal Spirit, thereby coming to possess, by faith, the gift of eternal life. If you are the faith sons of my Father, you shall never die; you shall not perish. The gospel of the Kingdom has taught you that all men [ALL HUMANS !] are the sons of God. And this good news concerning the love of the heavenly Father for his children on Earth must be carried to all the world. The time has come when you worship God neither on Gerizim nor at Jerusalem, but where you are, as you are, in Spirit and in [Father-Son Union Eternal] Truth. It is your faith that saves your souls. Salvation is the gift of God to all who believe they are his sons. But be not deceived; while salvation is the free gift of God and is bestowed upon all who accept it by faith, there follows the experience of bearing the fruits of this Spirit life as it is lived in the flesh. The acceptance of the doctrine of the fatherhood of God implies that you also freely accept the associated truth of the brotherhood of man. And if man is your brother, he is even more than your neighbor, whom the Father requires you to love as yourself. Your brother, being of your own family, [All of us humans are now in the Family of God !] you will not only love with a family affection, but you will also serve as you would serve yourself. And you will thus love and serve your brother because you, being my brethren, have been thus loved and served by Me. Go, then, into all the world telling this good news to all creatures of every race, tribe, and nation. My Spirit shall go before you, and I will be with you always.”

PAPER 193 FINAL APPEARANCES AND ASCENSION, Cont.

2. THE PHOENICIAN APPEARANCE

193:2.2 “Peace be upon you. You rejoice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead because you thereby know that you and your brethren shall also survive mortal death. But such survival is dependent on your having been previously born of the Spirit of Truth-seeking and God-finding. The Bread of Life and the water thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness — for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the Kingdom. These great truths and these universe facts are all related to this gospel in that they are a part of the result of believing the good news and are embraced in the subsequent experience of those who, by faith, become, in deed and in Truth, the everlasting sons of the eternal God. My Father sent me into the world to proclaim this salvation of sonship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this salvation of sonship. Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the Spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the Spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine Spirit which are yielded in the lives of Spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace. If professed believers bear not these fruits of the divine Spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are useless branches on the living vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Father requires of the children of faith that they bear much Spirit fruit. If, therefore, you are not fruitful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your unfruitful branches. Increasingly, must you yield the fruits of the Spirit as you progress heavenward [maybe in about one trillion years of spiritual progression to then be all perfect in your domain and granted Eternal Paradise Residence !] in the Kingdom of God. You may enter the Kingdom as a child, but the Father requires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spiritual adulthood. And when you go abroad to tell all nations the good news of this gospel, I will go before you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.”

3. LAST APPEARANCE IN JERUSALEM

193:3.2 “Peace be upon you. I have asked you to tarry here in Jerusalem until I ascend to the Father, even until I send you the Spirit of Truth, who shall soon be poured out upon all flesh, and who shall endow you with power from on high.” Simon Zelotes interrupted Jesus, asking, “Then, Master, will you restore the Kingdom, and will we see the glory of God manifested on Earth?” When Jesus had listened to Simon’s question, he answered: “Simon, you still cling to your old ideas about the Jewish Messiah and the material kingdom. But you will receive spiritual power after the Spirit has descended upon you, and you will presently go into all the world preaching this gospel of the Kingdom. As the Father sent me into the world, so do I send you. And I wish that you would love and trust one another. Judas is no more with you because his love grew cold, and because he refused to trust you, his loyal brethren. Have you not read in the Scripture where it is written: ‘It is not good for man to be alone. No man lives to himself’? And also where it says: ‘He who would have friends must show himself friendly’? And did I not even send you out to teach, two and two, that you might not become lonely and fall into the mischief and miseries of isolation? You also well know that, when I was in the flesh, I did not permit myself to be alone for long periods. From the very beginning of our associations I always had two or three of you constantly by my side or else very near at hand even when I Communed with the Father. Trust, therefore, and confide in one another. And this is all the more needful since I am this day going to leave you alone in the world. The hour has come; I am about to go to the Father.” [That same day, May 18, A.D. 30, Jesus Christ ascended back to the Universal Father on Paradise; and They, Two as One Combined Spirit of All Truth, returned permanently upon all flesh on Earth and beyond ! ever leading each and all of us into All Truth: GOD !!!]

4. CAUSES OF JUDAS’S DOWNFALL

193:4.2 As we look back upon this tragedy, we conceive that Judas went wrong, primarily, because he was very markedly an isolated personality, a personality shut in and away from ordinary social contacts. He persistently refused to confide in, or freely fraternize with, his fellow apostles. But his being an isolated type of personality would not, in and of itself, have wrought such mischief for Judas had it not been that he also failed to increase in love and grow in spiritual grace. And then, as if to make a bad matter worse, he persistently harbored grudges and fostered such psychologic enemies as revenge and the generalized craving to “get even” with somebody for all his disappointments.

193:4.3 This unfortunate combination of individual peculiarities and mental tendencies conspired to destroy a well-intentioned man who failed to subdue these evils by love, faith, and trust. That Judas need not have gone wrong is well proved by the cases of Thomas and Nathaniel, both of whom were cursed with this same sort of suspicion and overdevelopment of the individualistic tendency. Even Andrew and Matthew had many leanings in this direction; but all these men grew to love Jesus and their fellow apostles more, and not less, as time passed. They grew in grace and in a knowledge of the truth. They became increasingly more trustful of their brethren and slowly developed the ability to confide in their fellows. Judas persistently refused to confide in his brethren. When he was impelled, by the accumulation of his emotional conflicts, to seek relief in self-expression, he invariably sought the advice and received the unwise consolation of his unspiritual relatives or those chance acquaintances who were either indifferent, or actually hostile, to the welfare and progress of the spiritual realities of the heavenly Kingdom, of which he was one of the twelve consecrated ambassadors on Earth.

193:4.10 6. [On Judas:] He disliked to discuss his personal problems with his immediate associates; he refused to talk over his difficulties with his real friends and those who truly loved him. In all the years of their association he never once went to the Master with a purely personal problem.

193:4.13 [On Judas:] While this self-centered and ultraindividualistic apostle had many psychic, emotional, and spiritual troubles, his main difficulties were: In personality, he was isolated. In mind, he was suspicious and vengeful. In temperament, he was surly and vindictive. Emotionally, he was loveless and unforgiving. Socially, he was unconfiding and almost wholly self-contained. In spirit, he became arrogant and selfishly ambitious. In life, he ignored those who loved him, and in death, he was friendless.

5. THE MASTER’S ASCENSION

193:5.2 Jesus, to his apostles, May 18, A.D.30:] “I bade you tarry in Jerusalem until you were endowed with power from on high. I am now about to take leave of you; I am about to ascend to my Father, and soon, very soon, will we send into this world of my sojourn the Spirit of Truth; and when HE [not "it"] has come, you shall begin the new proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom, first in Jerusalem and then to the uttermost parts of the world. Love men with the love wherewith I have loved you and serve your fellow mortals even as I have served you. By the Spirit fruits of your lives impel souls to believe the truth that man is a son of God, and that all men are brethren. Remember all I have taught you and the life I have lived among you. My love overshadows you, my Spirit will dwell with you, and my peace shall abide upon you. Farewell.” [Not goodbye, but do well !]

PAPER 194 BESTOWAL OF THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH

2. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PENTECOST

194:2.9 But these mistakes of the intellect in no way interfered with the believer’s great progress in growth in Spirit. In less than a month after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, the apostles made [about fifty times] more individual spiritual progress than during their almost four years of personal and loving association with the Master. Neither did this substitution of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus for the saving gospel truth of sonship with God in any way interfere with the rapid spread of their teachings; on the contrary, this overshadowing of Jesus’ message by the new teachings about his person and resurrection seemed greatly to facilitate the preaching of the good news. [But they failed to teach the real gospel of Jesus: that each and every human being is now a divinely beloved son of God and in the Family of God !! That is what this confused world most needs to know and to live in Spirit and in Truth !]

3. WHAT HAPPENED AT PENTECOST

194:3.1 Many queer and strange teachings became associated with the early narratives of the day of Pentecost. In subsequent times the events of this day, on which the Spirit of Truth, the New Teacher, came to dwell with mankind, have become confused with the foolish outbreaks of rampant emotionalism. [Glossolalia -- speaking in tongues.] The chief Mission of this outpoured Spirit of the Father and the Son [as One] is to teach men about the truths of the Father’s love and the Son’s mercy. These are the truths of divinity which men can comprehend more fully than all the other divine traits of character. The Spirit of Truth is concerned primarily with the Revelation of the Father’s Spirit nature and the Son’s moral character. The Creator Son, [our Jesus Christ Michael] in the flesh, revealed God to men; the Spirit of Truth, in the heart, reveals the Creator Son to men. [!!] When man yields the “fruits of the Spirit” in his life, he is simply showing forth the traits which the Master manifested in his own earthly life. When Jesus was on Earth, he lived his life as one personality — Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling Spirit of the “New Teacher,” the Master has, since Pentecost, been able to live his life anew in the experience of every truth-taught believer. [Amen !]

194:3.2 Many things which happen in the course of a human life are hard to understand, difficult to reconcile with the idea that this is a universe in which truth prevails and in which righteousness triumphs. It so often appears that slander, lies, dishonesty, and unrighteousness — sin — prevail. Does faith, after all, triumph over evil, sin, and iniquity? It does. And the life and death of Jesus are the eternal proof that the truth of goodness and the faith of the Spirit-led creature will always be vindicated. They taunted Jesus on the cross, saying, “Let us see if God will come and deliver him.” It looked dark on that day of the crucifixion, but it was gloriously bright on the resurrection morning; it was still brighter and more joyous on the day of Pentecost. The religions of pessimistic despair seek to obtain release from the burdens of life; they crave extinction in endless slumber and rest. These are the religions of primitive fear and dread. The religion of Jesus is a new gospel of faith to be proclaimed to struggling humanity. This new religion is founded on faith, hope, and love.

194:3.6 Do not overlook the fact that the Spirit of Truth was bestowed [worldwide] upon all sincere believers; this gift of the Spirit did not come only to the apostles. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the upper chamber all received the New Teacher, as did all the honest of heart throughout the whole world. This New Teacher was bestowed upon mankind, and every soul received him in accordance with the love for truth and the capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities. At last, true religion is delivered from the custody of priests and all sacred classes and finds its real manifestation in the individual souls of men. [Personal God-consciousness at all times and in all places is true religion and true spirituality !!]

194:3.11 Pentecost, with its spiritual endowment, was designed forever to loose the religion of the Master from all dependence upon physical force; the teachers of this New Religion are now equipped with spiritual weapons. They are to go out to conquer the world with unfailing forgiveness, matchless good will, and abounding love. They are equipped to overcome evil with good, to vanquish hate by love, to destroy fear with a courageous and living faith in truth. Jesus had already taught his followers that his religion was never passive; always were his disciples to be active and positive in their ministry of mercy and in their manifestations of love. No longer did these believers look upon Yahweh as “the Lord of Hosts.” They now regarded the eternal Deity as the “God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.” They made that progress, at least, even if they did in some measure fail fully to grasp the Truth that God is also the spiritual Father of every individual. [!!]

194:3.12 Pentecost endowed mortal man with the power to forgive personal injuries, to keep sweet in the midst of the gravest injustice, to remain unmoved in the face of appalling danger, and to challenge the evils of hate and anger by the fearless acts of love and forbearance. Earth has passed through the ravages of great and destructive wars in its history. All participants in these terrible struggles met with defeat. There was but one victor; there was only one who came out of these embittered struggles with an enhanced reputation — that was Jesus of Nazareth and his gospel of overcoming evil with good. The secret of a better civilization is bound up in the Master’s teachings of the brotherhood of man, the good will of love and mutual trust.

4. BEGINNINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

194:4.6 Christ was about to become the creed of the rapidly forming [human founded, partly correct doctrines] church. Jesus lives; he died for men; he gave the Spirit; he is coming again. Jesus filled all their thoughts and determined all their new concept of God and everything else. They were too much enthused over the new doctrine that “God is the Father of the Lord Jesus” to be concerned with the old [true gospel of Jesus] message that “God is the loving Father of all men,” even of every single individual. True, a marvelous manifestation of brotherly love and unexampled good will did spring up in these early communities of believers. But it was a fellowship of believers in Jesus, not a fellowship of brothers in the family Kingdom of the Father in Heaven. Their good will arose from the love born of the concept of Jesus’ bestowal and not from the recognition of the brotherhood of [all] mortal man. Nevertheless, they were filled with joy, and they lived such new and unique lives that all men were attracted to their teachings about Jesus. They made the great mistake of using the living and illustrative commentary on the gospel of the Kingdom for that gospel, but even that represented the greatest religion mankind had ever known.

194:4.7 Unmistakably, a new fellowship was arising in the world. “The multitude who believed continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” They called each other brother and sister; they greeted one another with a holy kiss; they ministered to the poor. It was a fellowship of living as well as of worship. They were not communal by decree but by the desire to share their goods with their fellow believers. They confidently expected that Jesus would return to complete the establishment of the Father’s Kingdom during their generation. This spontaneous sharing of earthly possessions was not a direct feature of Jesus’ teaching; it came about because these men and women so sincerely and so confidently believed that he was to return any day to finish his work and to consummate the Kingdom. [according to their materialistic beliefs !] But the final results of this well-meant experiment in thoughtless brotherly love were disastrous and sorrow-breeding. Thousands of earnest believers sold their property and disposed of all their capital goods and other productive assets. With the passing of time, the dwindling resources of Christian “equal-sharing” came to an end — but the world did not. Very soon the believers at Antioch were taking up a collection to keep their fellow believers at Jerusalem from starving. [Even today, some Christian churches still preach a materialistic "prosperity gospel" that is unreal and sub-spiritual.]

PAPER 195 AFTER PENTECOST

1. INFLUENCE OF THE GREEKS

195:1.6 The Greek revered beauty, the Jew holiness, but both peoples loved truth. For centuries the Greek had seriously thought and earnestly debated about all human problems — social, economic, political, and philosophic — except religion. Few Greeks had paid much attention to religion; they did not take even their own religion very seriously. For centuries the Jews had neglected these other fields of thought while they devoted their minds to religion. They took their religion very seriously, too seriously. As illuminated by the content of Jesus’ message, the united product of the centuries of the thought of these two peoples now became the driving power of a new order of human society and, to a certain extent, of a new order of human religious belief and practice.

3. UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE

195:3.5 The teaching regarding Christ’s love for children soon put an end to the widespread practice of exposing children to death when they were not wanted, particularly girl babies.

5. THE MODERN PROBLEM

195:5.11 In confusion over man’s origin, do not lose sight of his eternal destiny. [with God the Universal Father-Infinite I AM on Paradise !] Forget not that Jesus loved even little children, and that he forever made clear the great worth of human personality.

195:5.14 In religion, Jesus advocated and followed the method of experience, even as modern science pursues the technique of experiment. We find God through the leadings of spiritual insight, but we approach this insight of the soul through the love of the beautiful, the pursuit of truth, loyalty to duty, and the worship of divine goodness. But of all these values, love is the true guide to real insight.

6. MATERIALISM

195:6.12 Science may be physical, but the mind of the truth-discerning scientist is at once supermaterial. Matter knows not truth, neither can it love mercy nor delight in spiritual realities. Moral convictions based on spiritual enlightenment and rooted in human experience are just as real and certain as mathematical deductions based on physical observations, but on another and higher level.

7. THE VULNERABILITY OF MATERIALISM

195:7.21 In language, an alphabet represents the mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals — of love and hate, of cowardice and courage — represent the performances of mind within the scope defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment.

10. THE FUTURE

195:10.2 The beauty and sublimity, the humanity and divinity, the simplicity and uniqueness, of Jesus’ life on Earth present such a striking and appealing picture of man-saving and God-revealing that the theologians and philosophers of all time should be effectively restrained from daring to form creeds or create theological systems of spiritual bondage out of such a transcendental bestowal of God in the form of man. In Jesus the universe produced a mortal man in whom the Spirit of love triumphed over the material handicaps of time and overcame the fact of physical origin.

195:10.4 “The Kingdom of God is within you” was probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made, next to the declaration that his Father is a living and loving Spirit.

195:10.5 In winning souls for the Master, it is not the first mile of compulsion, duty, or convention that will transform man and his world, but rather the second mile of free service and liberty-loving devotion that betokens the Jesusonian reaching forth to grasp his brother in love and sweep him on under spiritual guidance toward the higher and divine goal of mortal existence. Christianity even now willingly goes the first mile, but mankind languishes and stumbles along in moral darkness because there are so few genuine second-milers — so few professed followers of Jesus who really live and love as he taught his disciples to live and love and serve.

195:10.13 But there is no excuse for the involvement of the church in commerce and politics; such unholy alliances are a flagrant betrayal of the Master. And the genuine lovers of truth will be slow to forget that this powerful institutionalized church has often dared to smother newborn faith and persecute truth bearers who chanced to appear in unorthodox raiment.

195:10.16 The great hope of Earth lies in the possibility of a New Revelation of Jesus with a new and enlarged presentation of his saving [gospel] message which would spiritually unite in loving service the numerous families of his present-day professed followers. [A further union of now greatly divided Christianity: United Jesusonians !(Jesusonian Christians !)]

Topical Study number 133

"LOVE -- A New

Comprehensive Revelation",

Part 27 of 27


Compiled March 15, 2021 by Dave@PureChristians.org


The Urantia Book

PAPER 196 THE FAITH OF JESUS

Introduction

[Paper:Section.Paragraph (numbers)]

196:0.2 The human Jesus saw God as being holy, just, and great, as well as being true, beautiful, and good. All these attributes of divinity he focused in his mind as the “will of the Father in Heaven.” Jesus’ God was at one and the same time “The Holy One of Israel” and “The living and loving Father in Heaven.” The concept of God as a Father was not original with Jesus, but he exalted and elevated the idea into a sublime experience by achieving a New Revelation of God and by proclaiming that every mortal creature is a child of this Father of love, a son of God.

196:0.3 Jesus did not cling to faith in God as would a struggling soul at war with the universe and at death grips with a hostile and sinful world; he did not resort to faith merely as a consolation in the midst of difficulties or as a comfort in threatened despair; faith was not just an illusory compensation for the unpleasant realities and the sorrows of living. In the very face of all the natural difficulties and the temporal contradictions of mortal existence, he experienced the tranquillity of supreme and unquestioned trust in God and felt the tremendous thrill of living, by faith, in the very presence of the heavenly Father. And this triumphant faith was a living experience of actual spirit attainment. Jesus’ great contribution to the values of human experience was not that he revealed so many new ideas about the Father in heaven, but rather that he so magnificently and humanly demonstrated a new and higher type of living faith in God. Never on all the worlds of this universe, in the life of any one mortal, did God ever become such a living reality as in the human experience of Jesus of Nazareth.

196:0.7 The all-consuming and indomitable spiritual faith of Jesus never became fanatical, for it never attempted to run away with his well-balanced intellectual judgments concerning the proportional values of practical and commonplace social, economic, and moral life situations. The Son of Man was a splendidly unified human personality; he was a perfectly endowed divine being; he was also magnificently coordinated as a combined human and divine being functioning on Earth as a single personality. Always did the Master coordinate the faith of the soul with the wisdom-appraisals of seasoned experience. Personal faith, spiritual hope, and moral devotion were always correlated in a matchless religious unity of harmonious association with the keen realization of the reality and sacredness of all human loyalties — personal honor, family love, religious obligation, social duty, and economic necessity.

196:0.11 In the earthly life of Jesus, religion was a living experience, a direct and personal movement from spiritual reverence to practical righteousness. The faith of Jesus bore the transcendent fruits of the divine spirit. His faith was not immature and credulous like that of a child, but in many ways it did resemble the unsuspecting trust of the child mind. Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent. He had a profound confidence in the universe — just such a trust as the child has in its parental environment. Jesus’ wholehearted faith in the fundamental goodness of the universe very much resembled the child’s trust in the security of its earthly surroundings. He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its earthly parent, and his fervent faith never for one moment doubted the certainty of the heavenly Father’s overcare. He was not disturbed seriously by fears, doubts, and skepticism. Unbelief did not inhibit the free and original expression of his life. He combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a full-grown man with the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child. His faith grew to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear.

196:0.13 Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, “Follow me.”

1. JESUS — THE MAN

196:1.1 Jesus’ devotion to the Father’s will and the service of man was even more than mortal decision and human determination; it was a wholehearted consecration of himself to such an unreserved bestowal of love. No matter how great the fact of the sovereignty of [Christ] Michael, you must not take the human Jesus away from men. The Master has ascended on high as a [Spirit] Man, as well as [Spirit] God; he belongs to men; men belong to him. How unfortunate that religion itself should be so misinterpreted as to take the human Jesus away from struggling mortals! Let not the discussions of the humanity or the divinity of the Christ obscure the saving Truth that Jesus of Nazareth was a religious man who, by faith, achieved the knowing and the doing of the will of God; he was the most truly religious man who has ever lived on Earth. [And He is still here with us in Spirit !!!]

2. THE RELIGION OF JESUS

196:2.2 Jesus’ life in the flesh portrays a transcendent religious growth from the early ideas of primitive awe and human reverence up through years of personal spiritual communion until he finally arrived at that advanced and exalted status of the consciousness of his oneness with the Father. And thus, in one short life, did Jesus traverse that experience of religious spiritual progression which man begins on earth and ordinarily achieves only at the conclusion of his long sojourn in the spirit training schools of the successive levels of the pre-Paradise career. Jesus progressed from a purely human consciousness of the faith certainties of personal religious experience to the sublime spiritual heights of the positive realization of his divine nature and to the consciousness of his close association with the Universal Father in the management of a universe. He progressed from the humble status of mortal dependence which prompted him spontaneously to say to the one who called him Good Teacher, “Why do you call me good? None is good but God,” to that sublime consciousness of achieved divinity which led him to exclaim, “Which one of you convicts me of sin?” And this progressing ascent from the human to the divine was an exclusively mortal achievement. And when he had thus attained divinity, he was still the same human Jesus, the Son of Man as well as the Son of God.

3. THE SUPREMACY OF RELIGION

196:3.7 [Three evidences of God's Spirit indwelling the human mind:] 1. Humanitarian fellowship — love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the Spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.

196:3.16 Unless a divine lover lived in man, he could not unselfishly and spiritually love. Unless an interpreter lived in the mind, man could not truly realize the unity of the universe. Unless an evaluator dwelt with man, he could not possibly appraise moral values and recognize spiritual meanings. And this lover hails from the very source of infinite love; this interpreter is a part of Universal Unity; this evaluator is the child of the Center and Source of all absolute values of divine and eternal reality.

196:3.18 This profound experience of the reality of the divine indwelling forever transcends the crude materialistic technique of the physical sciences. You cannot put spiritual joy under a microscope; you cannot weigh love in a balance; you cannot measure moral values; neither can you estimate the quality of spiritual worship.

196:3.19 The Hebrews had a religion of moral sublimity; the Greeks evolved a religion of beauty; Paul and his conferees founded a religion of faith, hope, and charity. Jesus revealed and exemplified a religion of love: security in the Father’s love, with joy and satisfaction consequent upon sharing this love in the service of the human brotherhood.

196:3.21 The exquisite and transcendent experience of loving and being loved is not just a psychic illusion because it is so purely subjective. The one truly divine and objective reality that is associated with mortal beings, the Thought Adjuster, functions to human observation apparently as an exclusively subjective phenomenon. Man’s contact with the highest objective reality, God, is only through the purely subjective experience of knowing him, of worshiping him, of realizing sonship with him.

196:3.24 God is not the mere invention of man’s idealism; He is the very source of all such superanimal insights and values. God is not a hypothesis formulated to unify the human concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness; He is the [I AM] Personality of love from whom all of these universe manifestations are derived. The truth, beauty, and goodness of man’s world are unified by the increasing spirituality of the experience of mortals ascending toward Paradise Realities. The unity of truth, beauty, and goodness can only be realized in the spiritual experience of the God-knowing personality.

196:3.29 Religious insight possesses the power of turning defeat into higher desires and new determinations. Love is the highest motivation which man may utilize in his universe ascent. But love, divested of truth, beauty, and goodness, is only a sentiment, a philosophic distortion, a psychic illusion, a spiritual deception. Love must always be redefined on successive levels of morontia [soul] and Spirit progression.

196:3.32 Some men’s lives are too great and noble to descend to the low level of being merely successful. The animal must adapt itself to the environment, but the religious man transcends his environment and in this way escapes the limitations of the present material world through this insight of divine love. This concept of love generates in the soul of man that superanimal effort to find truth, beauty, and goodness; and when he does find them, he is glorified in their embrace; he is consumed with the desire to live them, to do righteousness.

196:3.33 [Very Important:] Be not discouraged; human evolution is still in progress, and the revelation of God to the world, in and through Jesus, shall not fail.

196:3.34 The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of Spirit-consciousness — contact with the divine Presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such Spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith. 196:3.35 And God-consciousness is equivalent to the integration of the self with the universe, and on its highest levels of spiritual reality. Only the Spirit content of any value is imperishable. Even that which is true, beautiful, and good may not perish in human experience. If man does not choose to survive, then does the surviving Adjuster conserve those realities born of love and nurtured in service. And all these things are a part of the Universal Father. The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the Spirit of the Father is in his Sons’ sons — mortal men. When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God.

* * * * *END * * * *

Topical Study number 134

"KNOW and related words !"

Part 1


Compiled March 17, 2021 by Dave@PureChristians.org


The Urantia Book

[Paper:Section.Paragraph (numbers)]

FOREWORD

III. The First Source and Center

0:3.25 Much of the confusion of all orders of beings, high and low, in their efforts to discover the Father-Infinite, is inherent in their limitations of *comprehension. The absolute primacy of the Universal Father is not apparent on subinfinite levels; therefore is it probable that only the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit truly *know the Father as an infinity; to all other personalities such a concept represents the exercise of faith. [Faith is a free spiritual Gift from God to all freewilled humans; they can choose to use faith or not.]

IV. Universe Reality

0:4.7 #1. Actual and Potential. Realities existing in fullness of expression in contrast to those which carry undisclosed capacity for growth. The Eternal Son is an absolute spiritual actuality; mortal man [male or female] is very largely an un*realized spiritual potentiality.

V. Personality Realities

0:5.2 Reality is subject to universal expansion, personality to infinite diversification, and both are capable of well-nigh unlimited Deity co-ordination and eternal stabilization. While the metamorphic range of nonpersonal reality is definitely limited, we *know of no limitations to the progressive evolution of personality realities. [!!]

0:5.6 These qualities of universal reality are manifest in Urantian *human experience on the following levels:

0:5.10 #4. Soul. The soul of man is an experiential acquirement. As a mortal creature chooses to “do the will of the Father in heaven,” so the indwelling spirit [your Thought Adjuster -- God's perfect eternal will !] becomes the father of a new reality in *human experience. The mortal and material mind is the mother of this same emerging reality. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor spiritual—it is morontial. [bridging soul reality] This is the emerging and immortal soul which is destined to survive mortal death and begin the Paradise ascension.

0:5.11 Personality. The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit; neither is it the soul. Personality is the one [unique, perfect, eternal] changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing *creature experience; and it unifies all other associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique bestowal which the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the survival of the morontial soul.

XI. The Three Absolutes

0:11.2 Both potency of cosmic force and potency of spirit force are in process of progressive revelation-realization as the enrichment of all reality is effected by experiential growth and through the correlation of the experiential with the existential by the Universal Absolute. By virtue of the equipoising presence of the Universal Absolute, the First Source and Center *realizes extension of experiential power, enjoys identification with his evolutionary creatures, and achieves expansion of experiential Deity on the levels of Supremacy, Ultimacy, and Absoluteness.

0:11.9 We [Paradise-level Divine Councilors] are convinced that the Unqualified Absolute is not an undifferentiated and all-pervading influence comparable either to the pantheistic concepts of metaphysics or to the sometime ether hypothesis of science. The Unqualified Absolute is force unlimited and Deity conditioned, but we do not fully *perceive the relation of this Absolute to the spirit realities of the universes.

0:11.12 Always *remember: Potential infinity is absolute and inseparable from eternity. Actual infinity in time can never be anything but partial and must therefore be nonabsolute; neither can infinity of actual personality be absolute except in unqualified Deity. And it is the differential of infinity potential in the Unqualified Absolute and the Deity Absolute that eternalizes the Universal Absolute, thereby making it cosmically possible to have material universes in space and spiritually possible to have finite personalities in time. [Within God the timeless and spaceless Omnipresent Universal Father I AM, all Potentials are Actuals !]

XII. The Trinities

0:12.11 In formulating the succeeding presentations having to do with the portrayal of the character of the Universal Father and the nature of his Paradise associates, together with an attempted description of the perfect [Paradise Isle and Havona one billion surrounding high spiritual spheres] central universe and the encircling seven [space-time lower reality galaxies] superuniverses, we are to be guided by the mandate of the superuniverse rulers which directs that we shall, in all our efforts to reveal truth and co-ordinate essential *knowledge, give preference to the highest existing human concepts pertaining to the subjects to be presented. We may resort to pure revelation only when the concept of presentation has had no adequate previous expression by the human mind.

0:12.12 Successive planetary revelations of divine truth invariably embrace the highest existing concepts of spiritual values as a part of the new and enhanced co-ordination of planetary *knowledge. Accordingly, in making these presentations about God and his universe associates, we have selected as the basis of these papers more than one thousand human concepts representing the highest and most advanced planetary *knowledge of spiritual values and universe meanings. Wherein these human concepts, assembled from the God-*knowing mortals of the past and the present, are inadequate to portray the truth as we are directed to reveal it, we will unhesitatingly supplement them, for this purpose drawing upon our own superior *knowledge of the reality and divinity of the Paradise Deities and their transcendent residential universe. [This mighty Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth, The Urantia (Earth) Book", indited into the American English language in years A.D. 1934-1935, is very advanced and useful to ever-advancing human souls and minds for one thousand years -- to A.D. 2935. Higher spiritual beings are continuing to arrive here to increase the cosmic consciousness, morality and spiritual awareness of all humans who desire same !]

0:12.13 We are fully cognizant of the difficulties of our assignment; we *recognize the impossibility of fully translating the language of the concepts of divinity and eternity into the symbols of the language of the finite concepts of the mortal mind. But we *know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further *know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to *grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we *know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.

PART I.The Central And Superuniverses

PAPER 1 THE UNIVERSAL FATHER

INTRODUCTION

1:0.1 The Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings. First think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and lastly as an infinite upholder. The truth about the Universal Father had begun to dawn upon mankind when the prophet said: “You, God, are alone; there is none beside you. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts; you preserve and control them. By the Sons of God were the universes made. [Our Sovereign Creator Son of God Jesus Christ Michael made and is evolving our local universe named Nebadon. It has a central spiritual Headquarters named Salvington, 570 progressively higher soul reality Heavens, and ten million evolving human-inhabited planets at the end of this first, Grand Universe Supreme Age.] The Creator covers himself with light as with a garment and stretches out the heavens as a curtain.” Only the concept of the Universal Father—one God in the place of many gods—enabled mortal man to comprehend the Father as divine creator and infinite controller.[The Sovereign Universal Father also delegates spiritual and cosmic powers to countless individuals on all levels; such is His eternal, loving, friendly, sharing nature !]

1:0.2 The myriads of planetary systems were all made to be eventually inhabited by many different types of intelligent creatures, beings who could *know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return. The universe of universes is the work of God and the dwelling place of his diverse creatures. “God created the heavens and formed the earth; he established the universe and created this world not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited.”[Three levels of Reality: Eternally Perfect Paradise, Perfected Havona, countless perfecting universes in time and space. All Unified-Unifying.]

1:0.3 The enlightened worlds all *recognize and worship the Universal Father, the eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The will creatures of universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to *recognize the Universal Father. God-*knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy. From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” In love and mercy the messengers of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation down through the ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly animal-origin creatures as the human races of Urantia.

1:0.5 Urantia mortals can hardly hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is entirely possible for human beings, starting out as they do on this planet, to attain the supernal [heavenly] and divine goal which the infinite God has set for mortal man; and when they do achieve this destiny, they will, in all that pertains to self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete in their sphere of divine perfection as God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity. Such perfection may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual *grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and God-consciousness.

1. THE FATHER'S NAME

1:1.2 The Universal Father never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes. The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space must of themselves—in their own hearts—*recognize, love, and voluntarily worship him. The Creator refuses to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free wills of his material creatures. The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature will constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being; there is nothing which man can give to God except this choosing to abide by the Father’s will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures of the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship which is so satisfying to the love-dominated nature of the Creator Father.

1:1.5 On those worlds where a Paradise Son has lived a bestowal life, God is generally *known by some name indicative of personal relationship, tender affection, and fatherly devotion. On your [Norlatiadek] constellation headquarters God is referred to as the Universal Father, and on different planets in your [Satania (loyal Lanaforge replaced rebel Satan 200,000 years ago)] local system of inhabited worlds he is variously *known as the Father of Fathers, the Paradise Father, the Havona Father, and the Spirit Father. Those who *know God through the revelations of the bestowals of the Paradise Sons, eventually yield to the sentimental appeal of the touching relationship of the creature-Creator association and refer to God as “our Father.”[Jesus,when Incarnate here, mostly called our Universal Father "Elohim" (Trinity Three Gods as One) and "Abba" (Personal Daddy !)]

1:1.6 On a planet of sex creatures, in a world where the impulses of parental emotion are inherent in the hearts of its intelligent beings, the term Father becomes a very expressive and appropriate name for the eternal God. He is best *known, most universally ac*knowledged, on your planet, Urantia, by the name God. The name he is given is of little importance; the significant thing is that you should *know him and aspire to be like him. [Our Father God's mighty Invitation-Command: Be you eventually Perfect; even as I AM Perfect !] Your prophets of old truly called him “the everlasting God” and referred to him as the one who “inhabits eternity.”

2. THE REALITY OF GOD

1:2.3 The actuality of the existence of God is demonstrated in *human experience by the indwelling of the divine presence, the spirit Monitor [aka Mystery Monitor, Thought Adjuster, Divine Pilot Light, others] sent from Paradise to live in the mortal mind of man and there to assist in evolving the immortal soul of eternal survival. The presence of this divine Adjuster in the human mind is disclosed by three experiential phenomena:

1:2.4 #1. The intellectual capacity for knowing God—God-consciousness.

1:2.5 #2. The spiritual urge to find God—God-seeking.

1:2.6 #3. The personality craving to be like God—the wholehearted desire to do the Father’s will.

1:2.7 The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God can be *realized only in the realms of *human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.

1:2.8 Those who *know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-*knowing mortals hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the moral intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father.

3. GOD IS A UNIVERSAL SPIRIT

1:3.2 Said the *seer of old: “Lo, he goes by me, and I *see him not; he passes on also, but I *perceive him not.” We may constantly observe the works of God, we may be highly conscious of the material evidences of his majestic conduct, but rarely may we gaze upon the visible manifestation of his divinity, [Spirit Luminosity] not even to *behold the presence of his delegated spirit of human indwelling.[Continuing today, very sincere truth-seekers may have a Sacred, Transforming Vision of God Eternally Omnipresent ! See my Topical Study #18 here on Visions of God.]

1:3.3 The Universal Father is not invisible because he is hiding himself away from the lowly creatures of materialistic handicaps and limited spiritual endowments. The situation rather is: “You cannot *see my face, for no mortal can *see me and live.” No material man could *behold the spirit God and preserve his mortal existence. The glory and the spiritual brilliance of the divine personality presence is impossible of approach by the lower groups of spirit beings or by any order of material personalities. The spiritual luminosity of the Father’s personal presence is a “light which no mortal man can approach; which no material creature has *seen or can *see.” But it is not necessary to *see God with the eyes of the flesh in order to *discern him by the faith-vision of the spiritualized mind.

1:3.8 I [a Paradise Divine Counselor] come forth from the Eternal, and I have repeatedly returned to the presence of the Universal Father. I *know of the actuality and personality of the First Source and Center, the Eternal and Universal Father. I *know that, while the great God is absolute, eternal, and infinite, he is also good, divine, and gracious. I *know the truth of the great declarations: “God is spirit” and “God is love,” and these two attributes are most completely revealed to the universe in the Eternal Son.

4. THE MYSTERY OF GOD

1:4.5 The divine mystery consists in the inherent difference which exists between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the time-space creature and the Universal Creator, the material and the spiritual, the imperfection of man and the perfection of Paradise Deity. The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness of that creature’s capacity to spiritually *grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness.

1:4.6 To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be *discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to *discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.[Sincerely seek God-Reality-Truth and you will find Him more. Then seek Him More and you will find Him much more ... and so, on and on, without end !]

1:4.7 As a reality in human spiritual experience God is not a mystery. But when an attempt is made to make plain the realities of the spirit world to the physical minds of the material order, mystery appears: mysteries so subtle and so profound that only the faith-*grasp of the God-*knowing mortal can achieve the philosophic miracle of the recognition of the Infinite by the finite, the *discernment of the eternal God by the evolving mortals of the material worlds of time and space.

5. PERSONALITY OF THE UNIVERSAL FATHER

1:5.1 Do not permit the magnitude of God, his infinity, either to obscure or eclipse his [I AM] personality. “He who planned the ear, shall he not hear? He who formed the eye, shall he not *see?” The Universal Father is the acme of divine personality; he is the origin and destiny of personality throughout all creation. God is both infinite and personal; he is an infinite personality. The Father is truly a personality, notwithstanding that the infinity of his person places him forever beyond the full comprehension of material and finite beings.[I am a Divinely Beloved son of I AM; and so are You !!!]

1:5.2 God is much more than a personality as personality is understood by the human mind; he is even far more than any possible concept of a superpersonality. But it is utterly futile to discuss such incomprehensible concepts of divine personality with the minds of material creatures whose maximum concept of the reality of being consists in the idea and ideal of personality. The material creature’s highest possible concept of the Universal Creator is embraced within the spiritual ideals of the exalted idea of divine personality. Therefore, although you may *know that God must be much more than the human conception of personality, you equally well *know that the Universal Father cannot possibly be anything less than an eternal, infinite, true, good, and beautiful personality.

1:5.3 God is not hiding from any of his creatures. He is unapproachable to so many orders of beings only because he “dwells in a light which no material creature can approach.” The immensity and grandeur of the divine personality is beyond the *grasp of the unperfected mind of evolutionary mortals. He “measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, measures a universe with the span of his hand. It is he who sits on the circle of the earth, who stretches out the heavens as a curtain and spreads them out as a universe to dwell in.” “Lift up your eyes on high and *behold who has created all these things, who brings out their worlds by number and calls them all by their names”; and so it is true that “the invisible things of God are partially understood by the things which are made.” Today, and as you are, you must *discern the invisible Maker through his manifold and diverse creation, as well as through the revelation and ministration of his Sons and their numerous subordinates.

1:5.4 Even though material mortals cannot *see the person of God, they should rejoice in the assurance that he is a person; by faith accept the truth which portrays that the Universal Father so loved the world as to provide for the eternal spiritual progression of its lowly inhabitants; that he “delights in his children.” God is lacking in none of those superhuman and divine attributes which constitute a perfect, eternal, loving, and infinite Creator personality.

1:5.5 [Important !] In the local creations (excepting the personnel of the superuniverses) God has no personal or residential manifestation aside from the Paradise Creator Sons who are the fathers of the inhabited worlds and the sovereigns of the local universes. If the faith of the creature were perfect, he would assuredly *know that when he had *seen a Creator Son he had *seen the Universal Father; in *seeking for the Father, he would not ask nor expect to *see other than the Son. Mortal man simply cannot *see God until he achieves completed spirit transformation and actually attains Paradise.

1:5.8 Notwithstanding that God is an eternal power, a majestic presence, a transcendent ideal, and a glorious spirit, though he is all these and infinitely more, nonetheless, he is truly and everlastingly a perfect Creator personality, a person who can “*know and be *known,” who can “love and be loved,” and one who can befriend us; while you can be *known, as other humans have been *known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a spiritual reality.

1:5.9 As we *see the Universal Father revealed throughout his universe; as we *discern him indwelling his myriads of creatures; as we *behold him in the persons of his Sovereign Sons; [in our local universe Creator Father-Son Jesus Christ Michael. "Michael"is a very high spiritual title which means: "HE Who IS Just Like GOD" He is fully our True God and Eternally One with God the Universal Father on Paradise and Omnipresent here in Spirit !!] as we continue to sense his divine presence here and there, near and afar, let us not doubt nor question his personality primacy. Notwithstanding all these far-flung distributions, he remains a true person and everlastingly maintains personal connection with the countless hosts of his creatures scattered throughout the universe of universes.

1:5.10 The idea of the personality of the Universal Father is an enlarged and truer concept of God which has come to mankind chiefly through revelation. [Surprise: The word "personality" is not found in any of the original Christian Bibles !] Reason, wisdom, and religious experience all infer and imply the personality of God, but they do not altogether validate it. Even the indwelling Thought Adjuster is prepersonal. [and sharing with you, YOUR personality !] The truth and maturity of any religion is directly proportional to its concept of the infinite personality of God and to its *grasp of the absolute unity of Deity. The idea of a personal Deity becomes, then, the measure of religious maturity after religion has first formulated the concept of the unity of God.

1:5.11 Primitive religion had many personal gods, and they were fashioned in the image of man. Revelation affirms the validity of the personality concept of God which is merely possible in the scientific postulate of a First Cause and is only provisionally suggested in the philosophic idea of Universal Unity. Only by [ am of I AM] personality approach can any person begin to comprehend the unity of God. To deny the personality of the First Source and Center leaves one only the choice of two philosophic dilemmas: materialism or pantheism.

1:5.14 God, being eternal, universal, absolute, and infinite, does not grow in *knowledge nor increase in wisdom. God does not acquire experience, as finite man might conjecture or comprehend, but he does, within the realms of his own eternal personality, enjoy those continuous expansions of self-realization which are in certain ways comparable to, and analogous with, the acquirement of new experience by the finite creatures of the evolutionary worlds.[The indwelling and adjusting Spirits of God within countless human and other beings, allow our Paradise Father-Infinite I AM to know and experience all finite thoughts and experiences of all humans -- AS each human is and does !]

1:5.16 It is literally true: “In all your afflictions he is afflicted.” “In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with you.” His prepersonal divine spirit is a real part of you. The Isle of Paradise responds to all the physical metamorphoses of the universe of universes; the Eternal Son includes all the spirit impulses of all creation; the Conjoint Actor encompasses all the mind expression of the expanding cosmos. The Universal Father *realizes in the fullness of the divine consciousness all the individual experience of the progressive struggles of the expanding minds and the ascending spirits of every entity, being, and personality of the whole evolutionary creation of time and space. And all this is literally true, for “in Him we all live and move and have our being.”

6. PERSONALITY IN THE UNIVERSE

1:6.4 The prepersonal divine spirit which indwells the mortal mind carries, in its very presence, the valid proof of its actual existence, but the concept of the divine personality can be *grasped only by the spiritual insight of genuine personal religious experience. Any person, human or divine, may be *known and comprehended quite apart from the external reactions or the material presence of that person.

1:6.6 The more completely man *understands himself and appreciates the personality values of his fellows, the more he will crave to *know the Original Personality, and the more earnestly such a God-*knowing human will strive to become like the Original Personality. You can argue over opinions about God, but experience with him and in him exists above and beyond all human controversy and mere intellectual logic. The God-*knowing man describes his spiritual experiences, not to convince unbelievers, but for the edification and mutual satisfaction of believers.

1:6.7 To assume that the universe can be *known, that it is intelligible, is to assume that the universe is mind made and personality managed. Man’s mind can only *perceive the mind phenomena of other minds, be they human or superhuman. If man’s personality can experience the universe, there is a divine mind and an actual personality somewhere concealed in that universe.[True cosmic-consciousness]

1:6.8 God is spirit—spirit personality; man is also a spirit—potential spirit personality. Jesus of Nazareth attained the full realization of this potential of spirit personality in *human experience; therefore his life of achieving the Father’s will becomes man’s most real and ideal revelation of the personality of God. Even though the personality of the Universal Father can be *grasped only in actual religious experience, in Jesus’ earth life we are inspired by the perfect demonstration of such a realization and revelation of the personality of God in a truly *human experience. [That which is of highest Value to all humans on Earth, and later on higher spheres, is to know more of the actual Life and Teachings of our Good Master Jesus Christ Michael !]

7. SPIRITUAL VALUE OF THE PERSONALITY CONCEPT

1:7.4 We cannot fully *understand how God can be primal, changeless, all-powerful, and perfect, and at the same time be surrounded by an ever-changing and apparently law-limited universe, an evolving universe of relative imperfections. But we can *know such a truth in our own personal experience since we all maintain identity of personality and unity of will in spite of the constant changing of both ourselves and our environment.[ !! True ...]

1:7.5 Ultimate universe reality cannot be *grasped by mathematics, logic, or philosophy, only by personal experience in progressive conformity to the divine will of a personal God. Neither science, philosophy, nor theology can validate the personality of God. Only the personal experience of the faith sons of the heavenly Father can effect the actual spiritual realization of the personality of God.

1:7.9 {Presented by a Divine Counselor, a member of a group of celestial personalities assigned by the Ancients of Days on Uversa, the headquarters of the seventh superuniverse, to supervise those portions of this forthcoming revelation which have to do with affairs beyond the borders of the local universe of Nebadon. I am commissioned to sponsor those papers portraying the nature and attributes of God because I represent the highest source of information available for such a purpose on any inhabited world. I have served as a Divine Counselor in all seven of the superuniverses [with seven trillion human-inhabited planets in 700,000 local universes in this first Grand Universe Age] and have long resided at the Paradise center of all things. Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a sojourn in the immediate personal presence of the Universal Father. I portray the reality and truth of the Father’s nature and attributes with unchallengeable authority; I *know whereof I speak.} [I add: Yes, seek Direct Spirit Confirmation of these Spirit Truths ! Let them "burn brightly" in you as a living soul in the Eternal Family of God ! Love, peace and sure progress in Jesus here with us !]

Topical Study number 134

"KNOW and related words !"

Part 2


Compiled March 19, 2021 by Dave@PureChristians.org


The Urantia Book

PAPER 2 THE NATURE OF GOD

1. THE INFINITY OF GOD

[Paper:Section.Paragraph (numbers)]

2:1.1 “Touching the Infinite, we cannot find him out. The divine footsteps are not *known.” [In the Old testament, God was mostly considered to be a limited six foot tall human being with hands and feet. Now we know that God is an Infinite Light Eternally Omnipresent. Thus, being everywhere, having no outside and no beyond, He never moves and has no limited feet.] “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.” [He is I AM Eternal !!] “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!”

2:1.4 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 [Creator Son] 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 [Cosmos Infinite !] domains.

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 [and indwelling you !] Father does most certainly fully comprehend and lovingly embrace all the finity of all his children in all universes.

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.” [In God's Infinite Eternal Universal View, all time is NOW to Him !] The perfection of divinity and the magnitude of eternity are forever beyond the full *grasp of the circumscribed mind of mortal man.

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 [now 700,000] 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 [soul birth just before age six years here now, on average] 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 [soul or higher] 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. [!!]

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.” [The false concept of a humanized stern god of wrath and quick destruction portrayed in the non-Christian Old Testament must be fully rejected ! Read again Jesus' three powerful God-Revealing Parables in Luke, chapter 15 !!!]

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.

5. THE LOVE OF GOD

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 [Thought] 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.”

2:5.6 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.

2:5.8 When I observe the [Sovereign] Creator Sons and their subordinate [lesser] 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. [Our Sovereign Creator Son of God Jesus Christ Michael is Coordinate Deity -- One in perfect will union with God the Paradise Universal Father.] 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.

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 [personally] 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.”

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.

2:7.3 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.

2:7.6 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. [Jesus here fully in Spirit !] 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.

2:7.8 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.

2:7.11 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.

PAPER 3 THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

0. INTRODUCTION

3:0.2 The highly personalized Sons of God are clearly *discernible by the lower orders of created intelligences, and so do they compensate for the invisibility of the infinite and therefore less *discernible Father. The Paradise Creator Sons of the Universal Father are a revelation of an otherwise invisible being, invisible because of the absoluteness and infinity inherent in the circle of eternity and in the personalities of the [Three] Paradise Deities.

1. GOD'S EVERYWHERENESS

3:1.4 The creature not only exists in God, but God also lives in the creature. “We *know we dwell in him because he lives in us; he has given us his spirit. This gift from the Paradise Father is man’s inseparable companion.” “He is the ever-present and all-pervading God.” “The spirit of the everlasting Father is concealed in the mind of every mortal child.” “Man goes forth searching for a friend while that very friend lives within his own heart.” “The true God is not afar off; he is a part of us; his spirit speaks from within us.” “The Father lives in the child. God is always with us. He is the guiding spirit of eternal destiny.”

3:1.6 The omnipresence of God is in reality a part of his infinite nature; space constitutes no barrier to Deity. God is, in perfection and without limitation, *discernibly present only on Paradise and in the central universe. He is not thus observably present in the creations encircling Havona, for God has limited his direct and actual presence in recognition of the sovereignty and the divine prerogatives of the co-ordinate creators and rulers of the universes of time and space. Hence must the concept of the divine presence allow for a wide range of both mode and channel of manifestation embracing the presence circuits of the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and the Isle of Paradise. Nor is it always possible to distinguish between the presence of the Universal Father and the actions of his eternal co-ordinates and agencies, so perfectly do they fulfill all the infinite requirements of his unchanging purpose. But not so with the [I AM] personality circuit and the Adjusters; here God acts uniquely, directly, and exclusively.

3:1.8 The mind presence of God is correlated with the absolute mind of the [Father-Son] Conjoint Actor, the Infinite Spirit, but in the finite creations it is better *discerned in the everywhere functioning of the cosmic mind of the [Seven] Paradise Master Spirits. Just as the First Source and Center is potentially present in the mind circuits of the Conjoint Actor, so is he potentially present in the tensions of the Universal Absolute. But mind of the human order is a bestowal of the Daughters of the [Infinite Spirit] Conjoint Actor, the Divine Ministers of the evolving universes. [The Creative (Holy) Spirit Partner united with our Creator Son Jesus; They run and evolve to perfection our local universe of Nebadon.]

2. GOD'S INFINITE POWER

3:2.1 All the universes *know that “the Lord God omnipotent reigns.” The affairs of this world and other worlds are divinely supervised. “He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.” It is eternally true, “there is no power but of God.” [The True Light Shines and the darkness is not !" God is fully Omnipotent with no opposition; there are no "devil" powers as falsely believed here by some humans.]

3:2.3 Of all the divine attributes, his omnipotence, especially as it prevails in the material universe, is the best understood. Viewed as an unspiritual phenomenon, God is energy. This declaration of physical fact is predicated on the incomprehensible truth that the First Source and Center is the primal cause of the universal physical phenomena of all space. From this divine activity all physical energy and other material manifestations are derived. Light, that is, light without heat, is another of the nonspiritual manifestations of the Deities. And there is still another form of nonspiritual energy which is virtually un*known on Urantia; it is as yet un*recognized. [Of the 30 forms of energy, 27 are available out in the universes of space and time. Today our Urantia (Earth) scientists know only a little about four energy forms -- strong and weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and local, linear gravity. They now suspect a fifth force; nothing yet about learning the remaining 22 basic forces here !]

3:2.4 God controls all power; he has made “a way for the lightning”; he has ordained the circuits of all energy. He has decreed the time and manner of the manifestation of all forms of energy-matter. And all these things are held forever in his everlasting *grasp—in the gravitational control centering on nether [under, lower] Paradise. The light and energy of the eternal God thus swing on forever around his majestic circuit, the endless but orderly procession of the starry hosts composing the universe of universes. All creation circles eternally around the Paradise-Personality center of all things and beings. [!!!]

3:2.6 The Universal Father is not a transient force, a shifting power, or a fluctuating energy. The power and wisdom of the Father are wholly adequate to cope with any and all universe exigencies. As the emergencies of *human experience arise, he has fore*seen them all, and therefore he does not react to the affairs of the universe in a detached way but rather in accordance with the dictates of eternal wisdom and in consonance with the mandates of infinite judgment. Regardless of appearances, the power of God is not functioning in the universe as a blind force. [!!]

3:2.7 Situations do arise in which it appears that emergency rulings have been made, that natural laws have been suspended, that misadaptations have been *recognized, and that an effort is being made to rectify the situation; but such is not the case. [!!!] Such concepts of God have their origin in the limited range of your viewpoint, in the finiteness of your comprehension, and in the circumscribed scope of your survey; such mis*understanding of God is due to the profound ignorance you enjoy regarding the existence of the higher laws of the realm, the magnitude of the Father’s character, the infinity of his attributes, and the fact of his free-willness.

3:2.10 Thus it is that your detached, sectional, finite, gross, and highly materialistic viewpoint and the limitations inherent in the nature of your being constitute such a handicap that you are unable to *see, comprehend, or *know the wisdom and kindness of many of the divine acts which to you seem fraught with such crushing cruelty, and which seem to be characterized by such utter indifference to the comfort and welfare, to the planetary happiness and personal prosperity, of your fellow creatures. It is because of the limits of human vision, it is because of your circumscribed *understanding and finite comprehension, that you mis*understand the motives, and pervert the purposes, of God. But many things occur on the evolutionary worlds which are not the personal doings of the Universal Father. [Billions of stupid, uneducated, sinning humans here with full freewill cause great harm to other humans in this brief first and only physical life. Then, when resurrected up in the next higher soul-reality Heavens, a few thousand years up there will remove all unspiritual barbaric tendencies -- "the mark of the beast"-- that we all may have had at first !]

3 GOD’S UNIVERSAL *KNOWLEDGE

3:3.1 “God *knows all things.” The divine mind is conscious of, and conversant with, the thought of all creation. His *knowledge of events is universal and perfect. The divine entities going out from him are a part of him; he who “balances the clouds” is also “perfect in *knowledge.” “The eyes of the Lord are in every place.” Said your great teacher of the insignificant sparrow, “One of them shall not fall to the ground without my Father’s *knowledge,” and also, “The very hairs of your head are numbered.” “He tells the number of the stars; he calls them all by their names.”

3:3.2 The Universal Father is the only personality in all the universe who does actually *know the number of the stars and planets of space. All the worlds of every universe are constantly within the consciousness of God. He also says: “I have surely *seen the affliction of my people, I have heard their cry, and I *know their sorrows.” For “the Lord looks from heaven; he *beholds all the sons of men; from the place of his habitation he looks upon all the inhabitants of the earth.” Every creature child may truly say: “He *knows the way I take, and when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” “God *knows our downsittings and our uprisings; he *understands our thoughts afar off and is acquainted with all our ways.” “All things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” And it should be a real comfort to every human being to *understand that “he *knows your frame; he *remembers that you are dust.” Jesus, speaking of the living God, said, “Your Father *knows what you have need of even before you ask him.”

3:3.3 God is possessed of unlimited power to *know all things; his consciousness is universal. His personal circuit encompasses all personalities, and his *knowledge of even the lowly creatures is supplemented indirectly through the descending series of divine Sons and directly through the indwelling Thought Adjusters. And furthermore, the Infinite Spirit is all the time everywhere present.

3:3.4 We are not wholly certain as to whether or not God chooses to fore*know events of sin. [I think He knows; as He is timeless and all-Knowing] But even if God should fore*know the freewill acts of his children, such fore*knowledge does not in the least abrogate their freedom. One thing is certain: God is never subjected to surprise.

3:3.5 Omnipotence does not imply the power to do the nondoable, the ungodlike act. Neither does omniscience imply the *knowing of the un*knowable. But such statements can hardly be made comprehensible to the finite mind. The creature can hardly *understand the range and limitations of the will of the Creator.

4. GOD'S LIMITLESSNESS

3:4.4 The fact that he sends forth spirit [Thought Adjuster and other] messengers from himself to indwell the men and women of your world and other worlds in no wise lessens his ability to function as a divine and all-powerful spirit personality; and there is absolutely no limit to the extent or number of such spirit Monitors which he can and may send out. [Infinite number !] This giving of himself to his creatures creates a boundless, almost inconceivable future possibility of progressive and successive existences for these divinely endowed mortals. And this prodigal distribution of himself as these ministering spirit entities in no manner diminishes the wisdom and perfection of truth and *knowledge which repose in the person of the all-wise, all-*knowing, and all-powerful Father.

3:4.5 To the mortals of time there is a future, but God inhabits eternity. Even though I hail from near the very abiding place of Deity, I cannot presume to speak with perfection of *understanding concerning the infinity of many of the divine attributes. Infinity of mind alone can fully comprehend infinity of existence and eternity of action.

3:4.6 Mortal man cannot possibly *know the infinitude of the heavenly Father. Finite mind cannot think through such an absolute truth or fact. But this same finite human being can actually feel—literally experience—the full and undiminished impact of such an infinite Father’s LOVE. Such a love can be truly experienced, albeit while quality of experience is unlimited, quantity of such an experience is strictly limited by the human capacity for spiritual receptivity and by the associated capacity to love the Father in return.

5. THE FATHER'S SUPREME RULE

3:5.13 #8. Is unselfishness—the spirit of self-*forgetfulness—desirable? Then must mortal man live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.

3:5.16 The full appreciation of truth, beauty, and goodness is inherent in the perfection of the divine universe. The inhabitants of the [one billion] Havona worlds do not require the potential of relative value levels as a choice stimulus; such perfect beings are able to identify and choose the good in the absence of all contrastive and thought-compelling moral situations. But all such perfect beings are, in moral nature and spiritual status, what they are by virtue of the fact of existence. They have experientially earned advancement only within their inherent status. Mortal man earns even his status as an ascension candidate by his own faith and hope. Everything divine which the human mind *grasps and the human soul acquires is an experiential attainment; it is a reality of personal experience and is therefore a unique possession in contrast to the inherent goodness and righteousness of the inerrant personalities of Havona.

3:5.17 The creatures of Havona are naturally brave, but they are not courageous in the human sense. They are innately kind and considerate, but hardly altruistic in the human way. They are expectant of a pleasant future, but not hopeful in the exquisite manner of the trusting mortal of the uncertain evolutionary spheres. They have faith in the stability of the universe, but they are utter strangers to that saving faith whereby mortal man climbs from the status of an animal up to the portals of Paradise. They love the truth, but they *know nothing of its soul-saving qualities. They are idealists, but they were born that way; they are wholly ignorant of the ecstasy of becoming such by exhilarating choice. They are loyal, but they have never experienced the thrill of wholehearted and intelligent devotion to duty in the face of temptation to default. They are unselfish, but they never gained such levels of experience by the magnificent conquest of a belligerent self. They enjoy pleasure, but they do not comprehend the sweetness of the pleasure escape from the pain potential.

6. THE FATHER'S PRIMACY

3:6.3 All religious philosophy, sooner or later, arrives at the concept of unified universe rule, of one God. Universe causes cannot be lower than universe effects. The source of the streams of universe life and of the cosmic mind must be above the levels of their manifestation. The human mind cannot be consistently explained in terms of the lower orders of existence. Man’s mind can be truly comprehended only by recognizing the reality of higher orders of thought and purposive will. Man as a moral being is inexplicable unless the reality of the Universal Father is ac*knowledged.

3:6.6 Does the Paradise Father suffer? I do not *know. The Creator Sons most certainly can and sometimes do, even as do mortals. The Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit suffer in a modified sense. I think the Universal Father does, but I cannot *understand how; perhaps through the personality circuit or through the individuality of the Thought Adjusters and other bestowals of his eternal nature. He has said of the mortal races, “In all your afflictions I am afflicted.” He unquestionably experiences a fatherly and sympathetic *understanding; he may truly suffer, but I do not comprehend the nature thereof.


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