The Impossible Synthesis: A Study of the Master Universe

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

Chapter 12: The Impossible Synthesis

Contents of this chapter:
1. The Basis for Experiential Deity and Trinity
2. The Barrier of Infinity, The Impasse of the Absolutes
3. The Incompletion of the Trinity of Trinities

In our study, we have traced the history of the master universe from the "dawn of time" until after the close of the Sixth Age. We have seen the completion of the first major division of this history in the First Synthesis, the emergence of God the Supreme. Then we studied the second major division of this history and saw it culminate in the Second Synthesis, in the emergence of God the Ultimate. It is now time to ask these questions: Why do these experiential Deities evolve and emerge? Why have two such Deities emerged? Will there be a third?

1. THE BASIS FOR EXPERIENTIAL DEITY AND TRINITY

As usual, God's decisions and plans are at the bottom of this whole phenomena of the experiential Deities and Trinities. Those plans, back in past eternity, make the appearance of these Deities and Trinities quite inescapable. However, to answer our questions (why experiential Deities? and Trinities?) we will have to go all the way back to the First Universe Age, even back to the Zero Age.

Perhaps we can better understand the outworking of God's purposes by analyzing what actually happened. In this way, we can better understand what seem to be his plans in relation to experiential Deity and Trinity. Consider these steps:

(1) Existential synthesis of potentials. When God produces the Absolutes be synthesizes them in the Universal Absolute, so that in eternity they are one Absolute. This is an existential synthesis - it is not an experiential synthesis.
(2) Non-synthesis of Actuals. When God produces the deity thesis of the Eternal Son, be also produces the antithesis of the Son non-spiritual and non-personal Paradise. God does not synthesize these two absolute actualities. He does co-ordinate them by mind, but otherwise leaves them separated, as a problem to be solved by the later-appearing experiential Deities and Trinities.
(3) Thesis upon thesis. Since the Original Son is the Absolute Person, he becomes the original thesis of Deity; God, as the Father of this Son, becomes the pre-thesis of Deity. Then God joins with the Son in trinitizing the Spirit, who thus becomes the conjoint thesis of Deity. All three unite in the Paradise Trinity, which becomes the undivided thesis of Deity. This is a superimposition of thesis upon thesis -- not the creation of a synthesis. It has the effect of completely unifying existential Deity and of completely separating it from non-deity, except as functionally co-ordinated by mind.
(4) Sub-absolute reality. With the appearance of Havona, God projects two new levels of reality, in addition to the absolute level on which everything is taking place. These two new levels are the finite and the absonite levels, making three altogether; finite, absonite and absolute. In the First Age, and in Havona, all three levels are existential; nothing yet has appeared of an experiential nature.
(5) Experiential reality. In the dawn of time God projected a new kind of reality, experiential reality. Thus began the Second Universe Age. The Paradise Trinity had (presumably) always pervaded the three functional levels of reality - finite, absonite, and absolute. Consequently, on each level there could be a reflection of the presence of the Trinity. It seems reasonable to assume that with the creation of experiential realty these Trinity-reflections become the potentials of the three experiential Deities: on the finite level, the spirit person of God the Supreme; on the absonite level, God the Ultimate; on the absolute level, the potential of an experiential person in the Deity Absolute - the potential of God the Absolute.
(6) The synthesis of power and personality. These three potentials of experiential Deity - Supreme, Ultimate, and Absolute - can become personalized as actual Deities only by solving the problem that God has deliberately left unsolved. What to do about the Isle of Paradise? Or, how can total actual reality be consolidated (synthesized) on the finite, absonite and absolute levels? This problem (apparently) can be solved only by the process of power-personality synthesis, which means putting total power together on each level and co-ordinating (unifying) it with the spirit person of Deity by the action of mind. In other words, mind achieves the conquest of energy-matter and then becomes subordinated to spirit direction by virtue of the power of personality choice.

Finite power-personality synthesis. The Supreme Creators work with the Paradise Deities (in God the Sevenfold) and the results of their successes in the time-space creations is the convergence of the inflowing power of the Almighty Supreme. This power, this sovereign power, unites with the spirit person of the Supreme by virtue of the co-ordinating action of mind. When the total potential of the grand universe has been exhausted, then this synthesizing process has reached completion; the superuniverses are perfected, the Supreme has completed his growth, and he emerges as a newly-contactable Deity.

Absolute power-personality synthesis. The completion of the Supreme Being brings the First Experiential Trinity into factual existence. It is the function of this Trinity to bring about the completion of the master universe. The First Experiential Trinity is unifying itself, and in the process, is unifying (synthesizing) the total reality of the master creation - physical, mindal, and spiritual. When the master universe has become a completed creation God the Ultimate will have completed his growth. God the Ultimate is the power-personality synthesis of all the experiential power of the whole absonite level of reality in all the wide-spreading master universe.

Absolute power-personality synthesis. God existentially synthesizes the absoluteness of potential power and potential personality in the synthesis of the three Absolutes - in eternity and in infinity they are one. The problem remaining for experiential solution is the experiential synthesis of these Absolutes, which becomes the problem of the Second Experiential Trinity, the Trinity that comes into being with the appearance of God the Ultimate.

This outline, in many respects, is a recapitulation of the entire study of the Master Universe. It reasonably answers our questions: Why the experiential Deities? and Trinities? It also sets the stage for our consideration of the difficult problem that confronts the Second Experiential Trinity; the problem of attempting to bring about the experiential synthesis of the Absolutes.

2. THE BARRIER OF INFINITY, THE IMPASSE OF THE ABSOLUTES

The problem of the unification of the Second Experiential Trinity, the achievement of the final power-personality synthesis, can be simply stated: The three Absolutes of Potentiality are infinite and the Second Experiential Trinity is not. This Trinity Absolute cannot be infinite because it embraces derived Deities - the Supreme and the Ultimate - experiential Deities derived from the existential Trinity, the Paradise Trinity.

The scope of power-personality synthesis has been growing from stage to stage and from level to level. The Supreme took in the total finite; the Ultimate took in the total absonite; and now, the Second Experiential Trinity is "face to face" with the total absolute - but this is infinite! The Supreme encompasses the total of the finite meaning-values of the grand universe; the Ultimate synthesizes the total of the absonite meaning-values of the master universe; God the Absolute (could he be experientialized) would take in the total of the experiential meaning-values of an unending universe - the Cosmos Infinite.

The Trinity Absolute, as its name suggests, is really absolute in possible function. We have, at last, reached the classical paradox: What happens when the "irresistible force" of an absolute trinity meets the "immovable fact" of eternal infinity?

The unification of experiential Deity has been total on each level, nothing is left out. Things, meanings, and values; matter, mind, and spirit; facts, ideas, and relationships; all are encompassed in the power synthesis of the emerging Deities of experiential nature. This process can proceed to completion on the finite and on the absonite levels because these levels have limits - just as the grand universe and the master universe have limits -each has an "outside." On the final level, however, we encounter a situation that has no limits. Where is the "outside" of an infinite creation?

The final power-personality synthesis would require the experiential unification of the Deity and the Unqualified Absolutes; it would mean the experiential unification of the Absolutes that are now existentially unified. This is an infinite project - it has no end, no limit, no outside, no beyond! Physically, this project would require the material completion of the Cosmos Infinite; spiritually, it would require the final experiential exhaustion (actualization) of the infinity potential in the Deity Absolute; personally, it would require the total unification of these two infinity-potentials (deified and non-deified) in one comprehensible and contactable Absolute. This is not possible. Infinity does not readily lend itself to quantitative exhaustion.

No sub-infinite trinity can do (experientially) what the infinite trinity actually did do (existentially). The Trinity Absolute may begin this project, may continue with it indefinitely, but will never finish it - will never achieve such unification.

This means that God the Absolute will not be able to emerge from the infinity potential of the Deity Absolute. This is the stalemate of The Barrier of Infinity; this is the stalemate of The Impasse of the Absolutes.

3. THE INCOMPLETION OF THE TRINITY OF TRINITIES

Regardless of the frustration of the Trinity Absolute, its factual appearance does make it possible to bring about the grand consolidation of total Deity (Trinity) in the union of the three Trinities. This union produces a multiple trinity, a three-fold trinity, the Trinity of Trinities. This is a unique deity union - not a trinity of three Deities, but a trinity of three trinities, and a trinity of three levels of deity association. Three trinities are united on the First Level, three experiential Deities are trying to unite on the Second Level, and some final deity reality must be present on the Third Level.

In considering the Trinity of Trinities, let us first review the natures of the three Trinities, whose union will bring this threefold Trinity into factual existence:

(a) The Paradise Trinity. The Original Trinity is existential, absolute, infinite, and unified.
(b) The Trinity Ultimate. The First Experiential Trinity is experiential, sub-infinite, sub-absolute, and unified.
(c) The Trinity Absolute. The Second Experiential Trinity is experiential, sub-infinite, absolute and not unified.

Here at last, is the objective of the long, long, growth and development of the master universe: the formation of a complex trinity union that takes in all of Deity - existential and experiential. This is the thesis of theses, the final deity thesis.

Since this Trinity also has a threefold vertical dimension, we should consider the nature of the Second Level. There are three Trinities on the First Level, and three experiential Deities are projected for the Second Level. Two-thirds of the membership of the Second Level is factually present, God the Supreme and God the Ultimate; but we are lacking God the Absolute - we do not have even a limited personalization of the Deity Absolute. The experiential personalization of God the Absolute is dependent on the unification of the Second Experiential Trinity. The unification of this Trinity requires the exhaustion of all infinity - but infinity cannot be quantitatively exhausted. Therefore, while the Trinity of Trinities can form, because its constituent Trinities are factual realities, it is not going to be possible to complete the Second Level of this threefold Trinity. And, if the Second Level cannot be completed, there is no use even speculating about what might possibly constitute the Third Level. Again, our study is frustrated by The Barrier of Infinity - by The Impasse of the Absolutes.

This appears to be the end of the story of the master universe. This gigantic experiential creation has the capacity to generate two experiential Deities and two experiential Trinities, and to provide for the factual formation of the Trinity of Trinities. But here we are stalemated. The Trinity Absolute is not able to unify, God the Absolute cannot therefore power-personalize, and the threefold Trinity cannot complete the factual formation of its Second Level.

God is not thus frustrated. He inhabits eternity, and accordingly approaches infinity from the inside - existentially. But experiential Deity must approach infinity from the outside; and to complete the experiential penetration of all infinity would require another eternity.

We have come all the way round the circle. In order to exhaust infinity it is necessary to reach the ends of eternity; but eternity is infinite, just as infinity is eternal. Even the Paradise Trinity could not experientialize the Deity Absolute; it could do this only if it were, itself, an experiential trinity. Even the Trinity of Infinity cannot do the nondoable.