Trinities and Triunities

The Urantia Book; Paper 104, Section 3

^{P1146:3, 104:3.1} While mankind has sometimes grasped at an understanding of the Trinity of the three persons of Deity, consistency demands that the human intellect perceive that there are certain relationships between all seven Absolutes. But all that which is true of the Paradise Trinity is not necessarily true of a triunity, for a triunity is something other than a trinity. In certain functional aspects a triunity may be analogous to a trinity, but it is never homologous in nature with a trinity.

^{P1146:4, 104:3.2} Mortal man is passing through a great age of expanding horizons and enlarging concepts on Urantia, and his cosmic philosophy must accelerate in evolution to keep pace with the expansion of the intellectual arena of human thought. As the cosmic consciousness of mortal man expands, he perceives the interrelatedness of all that he finds in his material science, intellectual philosophy, and spiritual insight. Still, with all this belief in the unity of the cosmos, man perceives the diversity of all existence. In spite of all concepts concerning the immutability of Deity, man perceives that he lives in a universe of constant change and experiential growth. Regardless of the realization of the survival of spiritual values, man has ever to reckon with the mathematics and premathematics of force, energy, and power.

^{P1146:5, 104:3.3} In some manner the eternal repleteness of infinity must be reconciled with the time-growth of the evolving universes and with the incompleteness of the experiential inhabitants thereof. In some way the conception of total infinitude must be so segmented and qualified that the mortal intellect and the morontia soul can grasp this concept of final value and spiritualizing significance.

^{P1146:6, 104:3.4} While reason demands a monotheistic unity of cosmic reality, finite experience requires the postulate of plural Absolutes and of their co-ordination in cosmic relationships. Without co-ordinate existences there is no possibility for the appearance of diversity of absolute relationships, no chance for the operation of differentials, variables, modifiers, attenuators, qualifiers, or diminishers.

^{P1146:7, 104:3.5} In these papers total reality (infinity) has been presented as it exists in the seven Absolutes:

1. The Universal Father.
2. The Eternal Son.
3. The Infinite Spirit.
4. The Isle of Paradise.
5. The Deity Absolute.
6. The Universal Absolute.
7. The Unqualified Absolute.

^{P1147:5, 104:3.6} The First Source and Center, who is Father to the Eternal Son, is also Pattern to the Paradise Isle. He is personality unqualified in the Son but personality potentialized in the Deity Absolute. The Father is energy revealed in Paradise-Havona and at the same time energy concealed in the Unqualified Absolute. The Infinite is ever disclosed in the ceaseless acts of the Conjoint Actor while he is eternally functioning in the compensating but enshrouded activities of the Universal Absolute. Thus is the Father related to the six co-ordinate Absolutes, and thus do all seven encompass the circle of infinity throughout the endless cycles of eternity.

^{P1147:6, 104:3.7} It would seem that triunity of absolute relationships is inevitable. Personality seeks other personality association on absolute as well as on all other levels. And the association of the three Paradise personalities eternalizes the first triunity, the personality union of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. For when these three persons, as persons, conjoin for united function, they thereby constitute a triunity of functional unity, not a trinity -- an organic entity -- but nonetheless a triunity, a threefold functional aggregate unanimity.

^{P1147:7, 104:3.8} The Paradise Trinity is not a triunity; it is not a functional unanimity; rather is it undivided and indivisible Deity. The Father, Son, and Spirit (as persons) can sustain a relationship to the Paradise Trinity, for the Trinity is their undivided Deity. The Father, Son, and Spirit sustain no such personal relationship to the first triunity, for that is their functional union as three persons. Only as the Trinity -- as undivided Deity -- do they collectively sustain an external relationship to the triunity of their personal aggregation.

^{P1147:8, 104:3.9}   Thus does the Paradise Trinity stand unique among absolute relationships; there are several existential triunities but only one existential Trinity. A triunity is not an entity. It is functional rather than organic. Its members are partners rather than corporative. The components of the triunities may be entities, but a triunity itself is an association.
^{P1147:9, 104:3.10} There is, however, one point of comparison between trinity and triunity: Both eventuate in functions that are something other than the discernible sum of the attributes of the component members. But while they are thus comparable from a functional standpoint, they otherwise exhibit no categorical relationship. They are roughly related as the relation of function to structure. But the function of the triunity association is not the function of the trinity structure or entity.

^{P1147:10, 104:3.11} The triunities are nonetheless real; they are very real. In them is total reality functionalized, and through them does the Universal Father exercise immediate and personal control over the master functions of infinity.

Next: The Seven Triunities