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 6: The Second Creative Thesis

This chapter really begins the second story of the master universe, the Absonite Story. This story is a far longer one than the Finite Story. We can symbolize this in terms that convey some feeling: if the whole of the Finite Story could be told in about an hour, then, by comparison, we estimate that it would take more than 10,000 years to complete the telling of the Absonite Story.

1. NEW FACTORS APPEARING ON THE ABSONITE LEVEL

The Finite Story, the study of the Second Universe Age, closed with the perfection of the seven superuniverses and the final emergence of the Supreme Being as their experiential sovereign. This emergence of God the Supreme on the stage of cosmic action produces a number of changes in the absonite level of existence; it introduces at least four new elements onto the absonite level of reality.

(a) The First Experiential Trinity. The Supreme Being is a member of this Trinity, the Trinity Ultimate, together with the Corps of the Supreme Creators and the Architects of the Master Universe.

(b) The Supreme Being. The Supreme functions as a Deity-member of the First Experiential Trinity, but be is also personally active in the master universe. This is his activity as a super-almighty and his expression of some new and unknown potential of mind.

(c) The Corps of Supreme Creators. The Corps of Supreme Creators has to be looked at in two ways: as unified Deity and as many personalities. As unified Deity, the Corps, itself, is a member of the Trinity Ultimate. But the Supreme Creators, themselves, are also personally active in the master universe of the post-Supreme ages. These beings are the post-Havona creators and organizers of the (then) perfected time-space evolutionary universes; the corps embraces the Master Spirits, the Ancients of Days, and the Creator Sons (with their associated Creative Spirits). These beings are the creative leaders of all that vast host of Paradise-Havona personalities who responded to the first great experiential challenge in the dawn of the Second Age, and who embarked upon the Supreme Adventure out in the newly-organizing and imperfect realms of the superuniverses. They have completed this adventure; they have perfected these universes of one-time imperfection; they, themselves, have been changed in status and modified in nature by having evolved along with their evolutionary realms. These beings have become more than creators of Paradise perfection; they are also beings of experiential attainment, status, and nature.

Perhaps the best illustrative example of the results of this evolutionary growth is offered by comparing a Master Son to a Creator Son. They are the same order of being, but a Master Son has experientially added the nature of the creature to the nature of the creator. A Creator Son is of the essence of Paradise divinity; a Master Son incorporates in his nature the hard-won experience of organizer of a local universe, and of having experientially earned the sovereignty of this domain by his seven bestowals in the likeness of the nature of his creatures. As an example: Michael of Nebadon is more than a Creator Son; his composite nature incorporates the nature and character of a Melchizedek, a Lanonandek, an Adam, a seraphim, and the three levels of evolving human nature - spiritual, morontial, and material. (1319,1) Michael of Nebadon is an experiential creature as well as a divine creator, and he is (or will be) one of 700,000 others like him.

At the same time, the post-Supreme ages will be opening avenues for service to all the Creator Sons and Creative Spirits who were afforded no chance to organize local universes in the Second Age. We believe these younger creators will be supporting the efforts of their seniors in outer space. The addition of these new Universe Sons and Spirits may result in the forming of the Second Corps of the Supreme Creators.

We deem it likely that all of these beings will be functioning in a superfinite manner. We are informed that all of them have such capacities -Master Spirits, Ancients of Days, and the Creator Sons and Creative Spirits.

(d) Post-finite Creatures. These are the personalities, perfect and perfected, who have participated in the growth of the Supreme and, in association with him, escape previous limitations to begin the new adventure toward the goal of creature existence on new levels of Ultimate reality. These beings will specifically include the mortal finaliters as well as their finaliter-associates of the six non-mortal finaliter corps, and many non-finaliter colleagues. All of these beings will be serving in the outer space universes, and will, at the same time, be engaged in the absonite quest for God the Father - the attempt to find God as Ultimate.

These are the known factors that will be introduced on the absonite level of reality by the emergence of the Supreme Being, the first experiential Deity. These new influences are destined to have a profound effect on the development of the outer universes as they bring to these realms the ingredient of finite experience - the finite experience that has been experientially distilled out of the perfecting of the seven superuniverses..

2. THE FIRST EXPERIENTIAL TRINITY

If the emergence of the Supreme Being is the Deity personification of the first major synthesis, then the factual formation of the First Experiential Trinity, the Trinity Ultimate, must constitute the Deity extension of the second major thesis. This new Trinity has the following membership:

Let us carefully consider the nature of this new Trinity. What is being unified - trinity unified - in this new association of Deity?

There is one feature of the Trinity Ultimate that is going to make us think more clearly about what a trinity is, and what it is not. When there are only three - like Father, Son, and Spirit - involved in the make-up of a trinity, we could think carelessly about their association; we may regard it as something like a loose partnership. However, we should not think carelessly of the First Experiential Trinity, for there are entirely too many involved. If we include the Creative Spirits along with their associated Creator Sons, we arrive at the startling total of 1,428,040 personalities that are related to this Trinity This makes it quite impossible not to see that a trinity is a real entity, a real entity that exists entirely separate and apart from the personal beings related to it. Each one of these 1,428,040 personalities can sustain a personal relationship to the factual entity of the Trinity Ultimate. This Trinity is their union as Deity, not as personalities.

Let us examine the corporate membership of the Trinity Ultimate the three Deity realities whose union is this Trinity:

(a) The Deity of the Corps of the Master Architects. These universe planners were present in the First Age and may have been present in the Zero Age. (See Third Prologue, 5.) These are the absonite beings who literally personify all of God's plans for the entire master creation. They are "living blueprints." They have ever been planning and working for the master universe as a whole - from Havona to the Quartan Space Level. They have been the co-ordinators of the master creation prior to the factualization of the Trinity Ultimate. They are members of this Trinity, not as persons (or superpersons) but in the sense that the unified Deity (a single entity) of their entire Corps is a member.

(b) The Deity of the Corps of the Supreme Creators. The completed evolution of the Almighty Supreme (in time and space) is to the Corps of the Supreme Creators, what the appearance of the Infinite Spirit (in eternity and on Paradise) is to the partnership of the Father and the Son. The successful efforts of the Supreme Creators is the source of the power of the Almighty, and their success in evolving this experiential power of the Almighty is probably the achievement that so unifies their total experiential divinity as to constitute it a real entity - a Deity entity that can qualify as a member in the Trinity Ultimate. While the Supreme Creators, as such, cannot be members of this Trinity (they are personalities), the unified Deity of their entire Corps (of over a million personalities) can be such a member. And this Deity entity of the entire Corps must be a true portrayal of the union of the original quality of Paradise perfection of divinity with the hard-won experiential qualities that were acquired by actual living, and striving, and victory, in the time-space creations.

(c) The Deity of the Supreme Being. This completed evolutionary Deity embodies total finite experience and all earned experiential power, since these evolutionary qualities have been unified with the spiritual personality that was bequeathed by the Paradise Trinity to the finite level as God the Supreme. The Supreme Being has synthesized the earned experiential power of the finite with this spiritual personality of Finite Reality.

The First Experiential Trinity incorporates the whole of the original Paradise endowment of divinity in the Master Architects, Supreme Creators, and Supreme Being, which has been enriched and enlarged by the participation in the Supreme Adventure, the adventure of the Second Universe Age - the age of the time-space perfecting of the seven superuniverses. This new Trinity is the Second Thesis; the challenge that moves spaceward in the dawn of the Third Age, outward into the new creative frontier, there to inaugurate the Ultimate Adventure.

3. NATURE OF THE TRINITY ULTIMATE

The Trinity Ultimate is something really new in the universes; it is an experiential trinity. The original Trinity, the Paradise Trinity, is an existential Trinity. The Paradise Trinity does not grow, the Ultimate Trinity does. The Paradise Trinity has nothing to "learn," the Trinity Ultimate has. The Paradise Trinity is a finished expression of deity unity, whereas, the Trinity Ultimate is able to form as a factual entity at the close of the Second Age, but it has to earn its unified status by experiential effort and success in the post-Supreme ages of the four outer space levels.

The objective of the First Experiential Trinity is the completed development of the entire master universe. Success in this project will equal the completion of the development (unification) of this Trinity, and will result in the emergence of the second of the experiential Deities - God the Ultimate. Like the Supreme, the Ultimate has long been present in Havona. Just as the Supreme emerges when the grand universe has completed its growth, so does the Ultimate emerge when the master universe has completed its growth.

The two trinities. For the first time in universe history, two trinities will be collaborating - the Paradise Trinity and the Trinity Ultimate. Both will be active on the absonite level in relation to the master universe. The Paradise Trinity has always (eternally) functioned on the absonite level -existentially. We have the opinion that the Paradise Trinity will withdraw in function just as fast as the Trinity Ultimate is able to function - experientially.

Relationship to God the Sevenfold. The Papers are rather clear in presenting the idea that God the Sevenfold will expand in function in the post-Supreme ages and in the service of the outer space creations. But what the relationship between the Sevenfold and the Trinity Ultimate will be is a matter for conjecture. As we have observed, there will be two trinities collaborating in the outer universes, and it would seem likely that God the Sevenfold would sustain a co-operative role in relation to each of them. Of one point, however, we are quite sure: the Master Spirits and the Creator Sons will be very active in these new realms. (This theme will be developed at greater length in the next chapter.

4. THE SECOND NUCLEAR UNIVERSE

Deity always seems to operate from a power-base - a base from which divinity and sovereignty can expand. Trinity is Deity, and is no exception to this seemingly general rule. The Existential Trinity operates from the power-base of the Paradise-Havona system; Havona provides the nuclear universe from which this Trinity expands outward in its activities. The First Experiential Trinity will operate from a similar power-base, the Second Nuclear Universe, the grand universe of existential-experiential status.

We have studied the grand universe in its growth stages, the superuniverses as the imperfect antithesis of central-universe perfection. We have considered the original challenge presented by the thesis of perfect Havona to the imperfect superuniverses. To creatures, this challenge is presented in the Father's astounding invitation-command, "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect." And now, in the Third Age, these evolutionary realms have completed their initial response - their finite response - to this challenge; they have achieved that status of (relative) perfection signalized by settlement in light and life. They have become co-ordinated with Havona (on the finite level) as one integrated whole, the nuclear grand universe. They have undergone the transition from a completed synthesis of the perfect and the perfected to their new status as a nuclear creation that expresses a new thesis - the Second Creative Thesis. This new thesis is the challenge to the new creations of outer space.

But, wherein does the grand universe as a completed synthesis differ from the same grand universe as a new thesis? It is something of the same difference that we have already noted in our study of Havona - the difference between First-Age Havona and Second-Age Havona. In the First Age, Havona was an isolated and self-sufficient universe; in the Second Age, it is a nuclear universe, and its citizens are expanding outward into the cytoplasmic superuniverses.

And as it was with Havona, so it is with the completed grand universe. At the close of the Second Age, the grand universe experiences the satisfaction of destiny-attained; at the opening of the Third Age, it will mobilize to meet the challenge of the new adventure - the Ultimate Adventure - in the unorganized domains of outer space. The transition from a completed synthesis to a new thesis is the transition from the passive to the active state -- from a temporary end to a new beginning. This is a difference caused by passing from a static state of destiny-attained, to a dynamic state of destiny-pursued.

New growth in the grand universe. The nuclear universe, the grand universe, will experience new kinds of growth because it is now in relation ship to the outer ' space universes. For comparisons, let us go back to the beginning of our study and consider Havona. In the First Age the central creation was caught in the existential stalemate of flawless perfection; how could there possibly be improvement in that which God has projected in divine perfection? And still, in the Second Age, the pilgrims of time broke the static stalemate of existential perfection by bringing the dynamic expansion of experiential growth to Havona. This resulted in a breakthrough of old barriers; Havona transcended its previous limit of growth. UP-doubtedly, Havona will break through its growth-limits a second time when the first of the outer-spacers arrive in the central universe. This will also hold true of the superuniverses; at the present time, they are limited in growth to the attainment of the status of light and life. The coming of the outer-spacers will change all that, and the once settled superuniverses will embark on a new adventure of growth - growth beyond the finite, beyond finite experience and finite limitations.

5. NUCLEAR AND CYTOPLASMIC CHARACTERISTICS

Perhaps the superuniverses will best serve to illustrate the difference between a nuclear creation and a cytoplasmic universe; they have been both. In the Second Age, when the superuniverses were cytoplasmic in relation to Havona, they were domains of maximum creative activity. During the Second Age, either on Paradise or on the billion worlds of Havona, what could compare with the outpouring of creativity in 700,000 local universes? - not to mention the probable torrent of procreativity among the midsonitcrs and the Material Sons in seven billion local systems, and among the human races on seven trillion inhabited worlds.

As the superuniverses pass in transition from cytoplasmic creations to become an integral part of a new nucleus, there must be a slowing down of creativity (and, perhaps, procreativity) in the process of the gradual transition to a more settled and stabilized status, a stability somewhat comparable to that of the central universe.

This transition is best seen in the local universes. If the Creator Sons (and the Creative Spirits) are to serve in outer space (and we believe that they are), then with their departure, the local universes must cease to be the areas of maximum creativity. The creators have departed. Such local universes will then become more like the sectors of the superuniverses, administrative units that are rather stable and which are no longer characterized by the maximum proliferation of new creatures. This does not mean that all creativity must stop, but it will probably be greatly diminished in comparison with the activities of the previous age.

A nuclear universe, then, is a domain that is characterized by (relative) stability, in contrast to a cytoplasmic universe which is a domain characterized by the (relative) instability that is inseparable from a high velocity of growth and change. Cosmically speaking, a nucleus is mature-, cosmically considered, a cytoplasm is not. A nuclear universe is a power base, a foundation from which outward expansion can be initiated. From a nuclear universe come those initiating creators, those concurring co-ordinates, and those co-operating subordinates, who constitute the pioneering personnel for the new expansion into the new creations on the new creative frontier.

6. MOBILIZATION AND THE INVASION OF OUTER SPACE

Long, long ago (in the dawn of time), the whole Paradise-Havona system must have been charged with expectancy as it stood on the brink of the Supreme Adventure, the invasion of the superuniverse space level. We must not forget that all of the descending beings are also personalities; God has endowed them with the capacity to respond to the exciting stimulus of the unknown. This must be true from the Ancients of Days to the volunteer supernaphim. All of these high-origin beings are personalities; they have imaginations, can be somewhat unpredictable in choice, even have the capacity to choose evil. (238,6), (238,8) In other words, theirs was a true adventure, a real experience of being tried and tested and stimulated by the unknown, the immense, the inexplicable, and the unpredictable.

Someday, in the far future, the grand universe will pass through a comparable experience. It, too, will be charged with expectancy as the First Experiential Trinity begins to marshal the powers and the personalities of the Second Nuclear Universe in preparation for the Ultimate Adventure in outer space. The "quiet time" between the universe a(yes will draw to a close as this great mobilization slowly becomes apparent, and as it slowly builds up momentum.

What will this mobilization be like? What will actually take place? We can only speculate, but there is enough in the Papers about the Ultimate Adventure to provide a foundation for reasonable speculation. (352, 10)

We believe this mobilization will slowly become evident as the finaliters are gradually withdrawn from superuniverse service. The Trinity Ultimate has at its disposal and command not only the Corps of Mortal Finaliters, but also the six other associated corps. Slowly, ever so slowly, these finaliters may withdraw from their long-established stations in the settled superuniverses as they converge on Paradise. Little by little this thinning out process will become apparent; it will become obvious that t-he finaliters are retiring from the time-space creations of perfected status. Little by little many of the personalities of single- and dual-origin are leaving their posts as their places are filled by Trinity-origin administrators. Slowly the pioneers of the Supreme Adventure and their evolutionary colleagues are withdrawing from the settled creations in preparation for new adventure in new and uncharted universes.

Finally, there will come that day when the mobilization is complete. All seven of the finaliter corps may be present in full strength on Paradise. What a gathering this could be! The solid ranks of the time-tested and faith-proven veterans of the First and the Second Universe Ages there assembled - probably for the first time, and perhaps for the last time - all together, from Creator Sons to midwayer and mortal finaliters. We would venture that it might be at this time that all of those concerned would receive their commissions as creators, organizers, and administrators of the outer space universes. Then, there might follow the command of execution, perhaps issuing from the Senior Architect of the Master Universe. Following the command of execution, the beginning of the great exodus from Paradise - wave upon wave, streaming outward through the settled and eternal circuits of Havona, and still on and outward through the superuniverses settled in light and life, and on beyond, past the outer rim of the grand universe and into the quiet zone that surrounds it, and still beyond - on into the formidable vastness of the first outer space level.