The Urantia Book Fellowship

A Study of the Master Universe:
A Development of Concepts in the Urantia Book

Bill Sadler (William S. Sadler, Jr.)
Copyright © 1968 Second Society Foundation

Table of Contents for This Study

Chapter 9: Second Synthesis: God the Ultimate

Large as is the master universe, it does have limits. There is an outer-most edge. The last outer space level does come to an end -- somewhere. Given enough time this limit will be reached and, in eternity, we may be sure that there will be "enough time." The master universe is of extraordinary size, and it will take an extraordinary length of time to complete its growth. But, somewhere in the remote regions of outer space it has an end, and expanding growth will eventually reach these most distant regions and will finally come to an end.

1. UNIFICATION OF THE FIRST EXPERIENTIAL TRINITY

The completion of the master universe brings us face-to-face with the second major synthesis. To refresh memory, let us go back and look at the First Cycle of Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis: First Thesis was the challenge of the perfect central creation; First Antithesis was the original imperfection of the seven superuniverses; the First Synthesis took place when the superuniverses achieved the perfected status of light and life and attained finite coordination with the perfect central creation. This synthesis was reflected on deity levels by the final emergence of the Supreme Being. In the Supreme Being, a spirit person (God the Supreme) was united with the evolved and experiential sovereign power (of the Almighty) coming up from the time-space creations. This is the completion of power-personality synthesis in relation to total finite reality.

With the appearance of the Supreme a new trinity is able to form in fact. Because of the formation of this new trinity, the First Synthesis becomes transformed into the Second Thesis. This Second Thesis is the First Experiential Trinity, which operates from the new power base of the new nuclear universe (the Grand Universe) and reaches out into the outer space creations in conjunction with a host of concurring creators and co-operating creatures.

The Second Antithesis consists of the cytoplasmic outer space universes. These are the post-Supreme creations of the four outer space levels, and the nature of these creations is quite unlike anything that has yet appeared in the entire master creation.

Second Synthesis. The final completion of the entire master universe is the triumph of the First Experiential Trinity. The Paradise Trinity could have produced an existential universe on the scale of the master creation -- but to what purpose? This would have been nothing more than Havona all over again only on a vaster scale. Such an enormous creation of inherent perfection would probably have added nothing to the quality of actual existential divinity, merely more quantity. The Paradise Trinity did not do this; Havona must have been designed to be just large enough to serve as a proper pattern for all subsequent universes. This quantitative restraint on the part of the Paradise Trinity makes possible the appearance and the collaboration of the First Experiential Trinity, by virtue of which the master universe is organized and established as an experiential creation -- not a duplicate of Havona, but something new and different.

The completion of the master universe is due to the successful efforts of the First Experiential Trinity to achieve deity unification -- to become a unified deity reality like the Paradise Trinity. The Trinity Ultimate was a qualified reality (a partial, or incomplete, reality) even before the emergence of the Supreme Being. It became a factual reality when the full emergence of the Supreme Being completed its membership. And now, with the completion of the master universe, it has achieved final power-personality synthesis and has become a fully unified reality. This experiential Trinity has achieved destiny.

With the completion of the whole master universe, and with the unification of the Trinity Ultimate, the Second Synthesis becomes possible. This means the unification of the nuclear grand universe with the cytoplasmic outer universes. This synthesis is reflected on deity levels in the final emergence of God the Ultimate, the experiential sovereign of the master creation.

2. EMERGENCE OF GOD THE ULTIMATE

All during the long time of the growth of the master universe, God the Ultimate has been slowly emerging from the status of an unknowable and incomplete Deity, to the status of a knowable and experientially completed Deity. Mortals have been conscious of the challenge of the Ultimate ever since they entered the finaliter corps. After the attainment of the Supreme, the Ultimate becomes the experiential Deity quest of the finaliters -- and of all other growing beings. From the standpoint of relative time magnitudes, the Supreme can be attained rather quickly; the Ultimate takes much longer. If we recall our consideration of master universe magnitudes -- our symbolic concepts of the "tennis ball" at the beginning, and the "moon" at the end -- then we can say that it takes the magnitude of the former to complete the Supreme, and the magnitude of the latter to complete the Ultimate. From the standpoint of relative time, the Supreme emerges rather quickly, in the matter of about an "hour" on the eternity scale; the Ultimate takes quite a bit longer. If we were to say that the superuniverses took as long as an "eternity hour" to achieve perfection, then, by comparison we estimate that the master universe would require "ten thousand eternity years." The completion of the master universe and the emergence of God the Ultimate is going to require a respectable amount of time -- respectable even by the standards of eternal Havona.

God the Ultimate is the second experiential Deity. What the Supreme is to finite growth, the Ultimate is to absonite growth. What the Supreme power-personalizes (unifies) in terms of the grand universe, the Ultimate power-personalizes with respect to the entire master universe. As the Supreme symbolizes (personifies) the Paradise Trinity to finite creatures, so the Ultimate symbolizes the Paradise Trinity to absonite beings. But the Ultimate is more than a super-Supreme Deity; the Ultimate is not only quantitatively larger than the Supreme, but also qualitatively more complex.

As the Supreme is ubiquitous (many-where present) so the Ultimate is omnipresent (every-where present). The Supreme is truly almighty, the Ultimate is omnipotent. The reflectivity consciousness of the Supreme stands in contrast to the omniscience of the Ultimate. The ability of the Supreme to correlate and totalize foreknowledge could also be contrasted with the omniscience of the Ultimate. Within the confines of the master universe the Ultimate is truly omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.

It seems reasonable to assume that no creature will find the Ultimate until all creatures find him; this is what we have been told about the Supreme. But, when we do find the Ultimate, we will be able to understand him. And, in thus understanding, we will also be able to comprehend the Father as Ultimate. This, then, must be the end of the absonite quest for the Universal Father.

Ultimate Deity. With the emergence of God the Ultimate, we have finally reached the completion of the seventh level of total deity function. This is the final creative level. We have studied static Deity, potential Deity, and associative Deity. We have considered how God willed to change from stillness and quiet to the making of a plan for action; and then to the execution of that plan, resulting in the appearance of the Son and Paradise; then, in the appearance of the Spirit and Havona. Then we studied creative Deity; the Gods are now drawing on the infinite reservoirs of the Absolutes of Potentiality -- the new post-Havona universes are coming into being. After this, we studied evolutional Deity -- both the Supreme Being and God the Sevenfold evolve (change and grow) with the passing of time and the participation in experience. And last of all we considered the sixth level of total deity function, the supreme level. On this level there is interaction between the Paradise Trinity, the Supreme, and the Sevenfold, operating in and on the finite level as the Supremacy of Deity. (See summary at bottom of this page.)

Now, in our study of Second Synthesis, we observe Deity working on the seventh level, the level of the Ultimacy of Deity. This is the level of the interaction of the two trinities (existential and firstexperiential) in association with God the Ultimate. This is the final creative level, and on this level Deity is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

We can recapitulate: Deity is functioning on three precreative levels static, potential, and associative. Then Deity operates on two outgoing levels of action creative and evolutional. These are followed by two incoming or consolidating levels supreme and ultimate. Final power-ersonality synthesis (experiential unification) on these last two levels is achieved by the Supreme and the Ultimate.

3. THE COMPLETED MASTER UNIVERSE

The completion and the unification of the master universe, from Havona to the last outer space level, is an awesome prospect. The master universe is so very large! Nevertheless, let us attempt a survey of the completed master creation, starting with the inner universes and proceeding outward.

The central universe. Now, the central creation should begin to correlate with the post-Havona universes somewhere near its full potential. The divine universe contains much that is superfinite, and some of these meanings and values should become functionally coordinated with the master universe by the end of the Sixth Age. The final emergence of the Ultimate would appear to mark the completion, the end, of all experiential growth of an absonite nature; this must mean the beginning of post-absonite (post-ultimate) growth. Such post-ultimate growth must be super-ltimate, and super-ultimates are absolute or, at the very least, coabsolute or associable-absolute.

We believe this development will open certain phases of Havona life that have been hitherto unpenetrated by experiential beings, phases which are the post-ultimate aspects of Havona life. We are informed that life in the central universe extends in range from the finite to the absolute levels of existence. One thing is certain: there is no development within the master universe (or outside the master universe) that is likely to exceed the capacities and the functions of the pattern universe, the central and divine creation.

The grand universe. The grand universe probably continues under the rule of the Supreme, and under the over sovereignty of the Ultimate. The superuniverses are now, for the second time, breaking through the experiential barriers to growth. The first break through was at the time of the emergence of the Supreme Being, when absonite growth was superimposed on the finite limitations of settled status in light and life. The second breakthrough is now taking place in connection with the final emergence of the Ultimate, when post-ultimate potentials are superimposed on the experiential limitations of completed absonite growth. This exposes the inner universes to the unfathomable possibilities of coabsolute expansion.

Could we possibly imagine what a planet such as Urantia would be like at this very distant time? Consider an inhabited world, a world that has been long established in the final stage of light and life; consider this world in relation to a very primitive world, the two worlds are a great distance apart in terms of civilization and culture. We would suggest that a world like ours, in the post-ultimate stage of development, would be more remote from a world in the final stage of light and life than such a settled world would be in relation to a primitive planet of cavedwelling days. A post-ultimate inhabited world is simply beyond our capacity to imagine!

The master universe is now united under the experiential sovereignty of the Ultimate. This absonite sovereign now fully and completely unifies this vast domain, from the innermost circuits of the central creation to the outermost space level from the Father's circuit in the near regions of Paradise to the outer periphery of the Quartan Space Level. (This is also the functional domain of the First Experiential Trinity.)

The outer universes are experiencing the first breakthrough as concerns the limits of experiential growth, the transcendence of absonite growth limits. Thus, the entire master universe stands on the verge of post-ultimate growth, and this development of the master universe very likely completes the story of creation.

The Master Architects have fulfilled their function as universe planners. They are the living blueprints of the whole master universe, the eternal personifications of God's entire plan for the whole master creation. Now this plan has been consummated it has become an actual reality the Architects have fulfilled their ordained function as universe planners. But we would raise the question: have they also fulfilled their function as concerns the internal and intensive growth of the master universe on post-ultimate levels? In other words, even though the Architects have fostered the development of the master creation through the supreme (finite) and the ultimate (absonite) levels of growth, still there remain potentialities of a Supreme-Ultimate nature that appear to be unrealized even at the close of the Sixth Universe Age.

We might possibly consider that our study of the master universe had reached its logical conclusion at this point in our survey of the events of the remote future. Indeed, our study of the expanding growth of the master universe has come to a close. But this is not the end of the story as concerns internal and intensive growth. As we have already learned, the successful completion of a major synthesis has proved to be the beginning of the transformation of that completed synthesis into a new thesis.

The growth of the master universe has been followed through the remoteness of all four of the post-Supreme ages -- Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth. Let us now look beyond the closing of the Sixth Universe Age; let us look even farther ahead, into the still more remote future, to see what we may learn about the master universe in the post-Ultimate age.

SUMMARY: THE SEVEN LEVELS OF TOTAL DEITY FUNCTION