Personality Survival

The Urantia Book; Paper 112, Section 0

^{P1225:1, 112:0.1} The evolutionary planets are the spheres of human origin, the initial worlds of the ascending mortal career. Urantia is your starting point; here you and your divine Thought Adjuster are joined in temporary union. You have been endowed with a perfect guide; therefore, if you will sincerely run the race of time and gain the final goal of faith, the reward of the ages shall be yours; you will be eternally united with your indwelling Adjuster. Then will begin your real life, the ascending life, to which your present mortal state is but the vestibule. Then will begin your exalted and progressive mission as finaliters in the eternity which stretches out before you. And throughout all of these successive ages and stages of evolutionary growth, there is one part of you that remains absolutely unaltered, and that is personality -- permanence in the presence of change.

^{P1225:2, 112:0.2} While it would be presumptuous to attempt the definition of personality, it may prove helpful to recount some of the things which are known about personality:

^{P1225:3, 112:0.3} 1. Personality is that quality in reality which is bestowed by the Universal Father himself or by the Conjoint Actor, acting for the Father.

^{P1225:4, 112:0.4} 2. It may be bestowed upon any living energy system which includes mind or spirit.

^{P1225:5, 112:0.5} 3. It is not wholly subject to the fetters of antecedent causation. It is relatively creative or cocreative.

^{P1225:6, 112:0.6} 4. When bestowed upon evolutionary material creatures, it causes spirit to strive for the mastery of energy-matter through the mediation of mind.

^{P1225:7, 112:0.7} 5. Personality, while devoid of identity, can unify the identity of any living energy system.

^{P1225:8, 112:0.8} 6. It discloses only qualitative response to the personality circuit in contradistinction to the three energies which show both qualitative and quantitative response to gravity.

^{P1225:9, 112:0.9} 7. Personality is changeless in the presence of change.

^{P1225:10, 112:0.10} 8. It can make a gift to God -- dedication of the free will to the doing of the will of God.

^{P1225:11, 112:0.11} 9. It is characterized by morality -- awareness of relativity of relationship with other persons. It discerns conduct levels and choosingly discriminates between them.

^{P1225:12, 112:0.12} 10. Personality is unique, absolutely unique: It is unique in time and space; it is unique in eternity and on Paradise; it is unique when bestowed -- there are no duplicates; it is unique during every moment of existence; it is unique in relation to God -- he is no respecter of persons, but neither does he add them together, for they are nonaddable -- they are associable but nontotalable.

^{P1226:1, 112:0.13} 11. Personality responds directly to other-personality presence.

^{P1226:2, 112:0.14} 12. It is one thing which can be added to spirit, thus illustrating the primacy of the Father in relation to the Son. (Mind does not have to be added to spirit.)

^{P1226:3, 112:0.15} 13. Personality may survive mortal death with identity in the surviving soul. The Adjuster and the personality are changeless; the relationship between them (in the soul) is nothing but change, continuing evolution; and if this change (growth) ceased, the soul would cease.

^{P1226:4, 112:0.16} 14. Personality is uniquely conscious of time, and this is something other than the time perception of mind or spirit.

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