HE
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. 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.
21§2 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."
21§3 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.
22§1 1:0.4 This magnificent and universal injunction to strive for the attainment of the perfection of divinity is the first duty, and should be the highest ambition, of all the struggling creature creation of the God of perfection. This possibility of the attainment of divine perfection is the final and certain destiny of all man's eternal spiritual progress.
22§2 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 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.
22§3 1:0.6 This is the true meaning of that divine command, "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect," which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons him inward in that long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and higher levels of spiritual values and true universe meanings. This sublime search for the God of universes is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the worlds of time and space.
22§4
1:1.1
Of all the names by which God the Father is known throughout the universes, those which designate him as the First Source and the
Universe Center are most often encountered. The First Father is known by various names in different universes and in different sectors of
the same universe. The names which the creature assigns to the Creator are much dependent on the creature's concept of the Creator.
The First Source and Universe Center has never revealed himself by name, only by nature. If we believe that we are the children of this
Creator, it is only natural that we should eventually call him Father. But this is the name of our own choosing, and it grows out of the
recognition of our personal relationship with the First Source and Center.
23§1
1:1.4
Near the center of the universe of universes, the Universal Father is generally known by names which may be regarded as meaning the
First Source. Farther out in the universes of space, the terms employed to designate the Universal Father more often mean the Universal
Center. Still farther out in the starry creation, he is known, as on the headquarters world of your local universe, as the First Creative
Source and Divine Center. In one near-by constellation God is called the Father of Universes. In another, the Infinite Upholder, and to the
east, the Divine Controller. He has also been designated the Father of Lights, the Gift of Life, and the All-powerful One.
23§4
1:2.1
God is primal reality in the spirit world; God is the source of truth in the mind spheres; God overshadows all throughout the material
realms. To all created intelligences God is a personality, and to the universe of universes he is the First Source and Center of eternal
reality. God is neither manlike nor machinelike. The First Father is universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite reality, and father personality.
23§5
1:2.2
The eternal God is infinitely more than reality idealized or the universe personalized. God is not simply the supreme desire of man, the
mortal quest objectified. Neither is God merely a concept, the power-potential of righteousness. The Universal Father is not a synonym for
nature, neither is he natural law personified. God is a transcendent reality, not merely man's traditional concept of supreme values. God is
not a psychological focalization of spiritual meanings, neither is he "the noblest work of man." God may be any or all of these concepts in
the minds of men, but he is more. He is a saving person and a loving Father to all who enjoy spiritual peace on earth, and who crave to
experience personality survival in death.
24§1
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 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:
24§5
1:2.4
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.
24§7
1:2.6
In theory you may think of God as the Creator, and he is the personal creator of Paradise and the central universe of perfection, but the
universes of time and space are all created and organized by the Paradise corps of the Creator Sons. The Universal Father is not the
personal creator of the local universe of Nebadon; the universe in which you live is the creation of his Son Michael. Though the Father
does not personally create the evolutionary universes, he does control them in many of their universal relationships and in certain of their
manifestations of physical, mindal, and spiritual energies. God the Father is the personal creator of the Paradise universe and, in
association with the Eternal Son, the creator of all other personal universe Creators.
24§8
1:2.7
As a physical controller in the material universe of universes, the First Source and Center functions in the patterns of the eternal Isle of
Paradise, and through this absolute gravity center the eternal God exercises cosmic overcontrol of the physical level equally in the central
universe and throughout the universe of universes. As mind, God functions in the Deity of the Infinite Spirit; as spirit, God is manifest in
the person of the Eternal Son and in the persons of the divine children of the Eternal Son. This interrelation of the First Source and Center
with the co-ordinate Persons and Absolutes of Paradise does not in the least preclude the
direct
personal action of the Universal Father
throughout all creation and on all levels thereof. Through the presence of his fragmentized spirit the Creator Father maintains immediate
contact with his creature children and his created universes.
25§1
1:3.1
"God is spirit." He is a universal spiritual presence. The Universal Father is an infinite spiritual reality; he is "the sovereign, eternal,
immortal, invisible, and only true God." Even though you are "the offspring of God," you ought not to think that the Father is like yourselves
in form and physique because you are said to be created "in his image"—indwelt by Mystery Monitors dispatched from the central abode
of his eternal presence. Spirit beings are real, notwithstanding they are invisible to human eyes; even though they have not flesh and
blood.
25§4
1:3.4
The spirit nature of the Universal Father is shared fully with his coexistent self, the Eternal Son of Paradise. Both the Father and the Son
in like manner share the universal and eternal spirit fully and unreservedly with their conjoint personality co-ordinate, the Infinite Spirit.
God's spirit is, in and of himself, absolute; in the Son it is unqualified, in the Spirit, universal, and in and by all of them, infinite.
25§5
1:3.5
God is a universal spirit; God is the universal person. The supreme personal reality of the finite creation is spirit; the ultimate reality of the
personal cosmos is absonite spirit. Only the levels of infinity are absolute, and only on such levels is there finality of oneness between
matter, mind, and spirit.
25§6
1:3.6
In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontroller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung personality
circuit does God deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in
the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes. This Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals
of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal Father.
But the minds of such evolutionary creatures originate in the local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving those
experiential transformations of spiritual attainment which are the inevitable result of a creature's choosing to do the will of the Father in
heaven.
26§2
1:3.8
I 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.
26§3
1:4.1
The infinity of the perfection of God is such that it eternally constitutes him mystery. And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of
God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of
time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
26§6
1:4.4
We are constantly confronted with this mystery of God; we are nonplused by the increasing unfolding of the endless panorama of the truth
of his infinite goodness, endless mercy, matchless wisdom, and superb character.
26§7
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.
27§3
1:5.1
Do not permit the magnitude of God, his infinity, either to obscure or eclipse his 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.
28§2
1:5.5
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.
28§4
1:5.7
Without God and except for his great and central person, there would be no personality throughout all the vast universe of universes.
God is personality.
28§5
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.
28§7
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. 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. 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.
29§3
1:5.13
Personality is not simply an attribute of God; it rather stands for the totality of the co-ordinated infinite nature and the unified divine will
which is exhibited in eternity and universality of perfect expression. Personality, in the supreme sense, is the revelation of God to the
universe of universes.
29§4
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.
29§7
1:6.1
Human personality is the time-space image-shadow cast by the divine Creator personality. And no actuality can ever be adequately
comprehended by an examination of its shadow. Shadows should be interpreted in terms of the true substance.
30§1
1:6.2
God is to science a cause, to philosophy an idea, to religion a person, even the loving heavenly Father. God is to the scientist a primal
force, to the philosopher a hypothesis of unity, to the religionist a living spiritual experience. Man's inadequate concept of the personality of
the Universal Father can be improved only by man's spiritual progress in the universe and will become truly adequate only when the
pilgrims of time and space finally attain the divine embrace of the living God on Paradise.
30§3
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.
30§6
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.
30§7
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.
31§1
1:7.1
When Jesus talked about
"the living God,"
he referred to a personal Deity—the Father in heaven. The concept of the personality of Deity
facilitates fellowship; it favors intelligent worship; it promotes refreshing trustfulness. Interactions can be had between nonpersonal things,
but not fellowship. The fellowship relation of father and son, as between God and man, cannot be enjoyed unless both are persons. Only
personalities can commune with each other, albeit this personal communion may be greatly facilitated by the presence of just such an
impersonal entity as the Thought Adjuster.
31§3
1:7.3
The concept of truth might possibly be entertained apart from personality, the concept of beauty may exist without personality, but the
concept of divine goodness is understandable only in relation to personality. Only a
person
can love and be loved. Even beauty and truth
would be divorced from survival hope if they were not attributes of a personal God, a loving Father.
31§4
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.
31§6
1:7.6
The higher concepts of universe personality imply: identity, self-consciousness, self-will, and possibility for self-revelation. And these
characteristics further imply fellowship with other and equal personalities, such as exists in the personality associations of the Paradise
Deities. And the absolute unity of these associations is so perfect that divinity becomes known by indivisibility, by oneness. "The Lord God
is
one."
Indivisibility of personality does not interfere with God's bestowing his spirit to live in the hearts of mortal men. Indivisibility of a
human father's personality does not prevent the reproduction of mortal sons and daughters.
22§5
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.
22§6
1:1.3
When you have once become truly God-conscious, after you really discover the majestic Creator and begin to experience the realization of
the indwelling presence of the divine controller, then, in accordance with your enlightenment and in accordance with the manner and
method by which the divine Sons reveal God, you will find a name for the Universal Father which will be adequately expressive of your
concept of the First Great Source and Center. And so, on different worlds and in various universes, the Creator becomes known by
numerous appellations, in spirit of relationship all meaning the same but, in words and symbols, each name standing for the degree, the
depth, of his enthronement in the hearts of his creatures of any given realm.
23§2
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 constellation headquarters God is referred to as the Universal Father, and on different
planets in your 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."
23§3
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 acknowledged, 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. Your prophets of old truly called him "the everlasting God" and referred to him as the one who "inhabits eternity."
24§2
1.
The intellectual capacity for knowing God—God-consciousness.
24§3
2.
The spiritual urge to find God—God-seeking.
24§4
3.
The personality craving to be like God—the wholehearted desire to do the Father's will.
24§6
1:2.5
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 mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father.
25§2
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, not even to behold the presence of his delegated spirit of human indwelling.
25§3
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.
26§1
1:3.7
In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked minds cannot survive mortal death. The technique of
survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious
intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter association to spirit union
results in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind
subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded
to spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in
this way to attain survival and eternity of personality existence.
26§4
1:4.2
] The physical bodies of mortals are "the temples of God." Notwithstanding that the Sovereign Creator Sons come near the creatures of
their inhabited worlds and "draw all men to themselves"; though they "stand at the door" of consciousness "and knock" and delight to come
in to all who will "open the doors of their hearts"; although there does exist this intimate personal communion between the Creator Sons
and their mortal creatures, nevertheless, mortal men have something from God himself which actually dwells within them; their bodies are
the temples thereof.
26§5
1:4.3
When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished,
when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it is revealed, the indwelling "Spirit shall
return to God who gave it." There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not
yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.
27§1
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.
27§2
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.
27§4
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.
27§5
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.
28§1
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.
28§3
1:5.6
The natures of the Paradise Creator Sons do not encompass all the unqualified potentials of the universal absoluteness of the infinite
nature of the First Great Source and Center, but the Universal Father is in every way
divinely
present in the Creator Sons. The Father and his Sons are one. These Paradise Sons of the order of Michael are perfect personalities, even
the pattern for all local universe personality from that of the Bright and Morning Star down to the lowest human creature of progressing
animal evolution.
28§6
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; 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.
29§1
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 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.
29§2
1:5.12
In the contemplation of Deity, the concept of personality must be divested of the idea of corporeality. A material body is not indispensable
to personality in either man or God. The corporeality error is shown in both extremes of human philosophy. In materialism, since man
loses his body at death, he ceases to exist as a personality; in pantheism, since God has no body, he is not, therefore, a person. The
superhuman type of progressing personality functions in a union of mind and spirit.
29§5
1:5.15
The absolute perfection of the infinite God would cause him to suffer the awful limitations of unqualified finality of perfectness were it not a
fact that the Universal Father directly participates in the personality struggle of every imperfect soul in the wide universe who seeks, by
divine aid, to ascend to the spiritually perfect worlds on high. This progressive experience of every spirit being and every mortal creature
throughout the universe of universes is a part of the Father's ever-expanding Deity-consciousness of the never-ending divine circle of
ceaseless self-realization.
29§6
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."
30§2
1:6.3
Never lose sight of the antipodal viewpoints of personality as it is conceived by God and man. Man views and comprehends personality,
looking from the finite to the infinite; God looks from the infinite to the finite. Man possesses the lowest type of personality; God, the
highest, even supreme, ultimate, and absolute. Therefore did the better concepts of the divine personality have patiently to await the
appearance of improved ideas of human personality, especially the enhanced revelation of both human and divine personality in the
Urantian bestowal life of Michael, the Creator Son.
30§4
1:6.5
Some degree of moral affinity and spiritual harmony is essential to friendship between two persons; a loving personality can hardly reveal
himself to a loveless person. Even to approach the knowing of a divine personality, all of man's personality endowments must be wholly
consecrated to the effort; halfhearted, partial devotion will be unavailing.
30§5
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.
31§2
1:7.2
Man does not achieve union with God as a drop of water might find unity with the ocean. Man attains divine union by progressive
reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through
wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will. Such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities.
31§5
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.
31§7
1:7.7
This concept of indivisibility in association with the concept of unity implies transcendence of both time and space by the Ultimacy of
Deity; therefore neither space nor time can be absolute or infinite. The First Source and Center is that infinity who unqualifiedly transcends
all mind, all matter, and all spirit.
31§8
1:7.8
] The fact of the Paradise Trinity in no manner violates the truth of the divine unity. The three personalities of Paradise Deity are, in all
universe reality reactions and in all creature relations, as one. Neither does the existence of these three eternal persons violate the truth of
the indivisibility of Deity. I am fully aware that I have at my command no language adequate to make clear to the mortal mind how these
universe problems appear to us. But you should not become discouraged; not all of these things are wholly clear to even the high
personalities belonging to my group of Paradise beings. Ever bear in mind that these profound truths pertaining to Deity will increasingly
clarify as your minds become progressively spiritualized during the successive epochs of the long mortal ascent to Paradise.
32§1
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 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.]