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Paper 4: God's Relation to the Universe
Divine providence is not the childish material ministry that some mortals imagine it to be. Providence is possible due to related activities of spiritual beings who continuously work for the honor of God and for the spiritual advancement of his children. Providence is consistent with the perfect nature of God.
The watchword of the universe is progress.
God uses unlimited forces and personalities to fulfill his purposes and sustain his creatures. God creates, upholds, preserves, and renews all material and spiritual things. Without God, there would be no such thing as reality. The Father unceasingly pours energy, light, and life into his creations.
Much that appears haphazard to the human mind seems orderly and constructive to higher minds, but even high spiritual beings come across apparently fortuitous inter-associations of forces, energies, intellects, and spirits. The medley of physical, mental, moral, and spiritual phenomena in the universes undoubtedly accrue to the glory of God.
Nature is the perfection of Paradise divided by the evil and incompletion of the unfinished universes. Evolution modifies nature, diminishing the error of relative reality while augmenting the content of Paradise perfection. It is wrong to worship nature. Although nature is pervaded by God in a limited sense, it is also a manifestation of the imperfect results of the universe experiment of cosmic evolution. Apparent defects in the natural world do not indicate corresponding defects in the character of God.
God is incapable of wrath or anger. These emotions are hardly worthy of human beings, much less of God. God is the only changeless being in existence; he is self-existent and independent. God is all-wise and all-powerful. He has no limits other that those which he imposes on himself.
God's absoluteness pervades all levels of universe reality. He is eternally motivated by love. In science, God is the First Cause; in religion, God is the Universal Father; in philosophy, God is the one being who exists by himself.
Human religious thought confuses associated Deity personalities with the Universal Father himself. This failure to recognize the difference between God the Father and the local universe creators and administrators is a source of great confusion on earth. Mortals also suffer from primitive concepts of God. The idea of appeasing an angry God, of winning the favor of Deity through sacrifice and penance represents a repulsive philosophy unworthy of an enlightened age of science and truth. It is an affront to God to teach that innocent blood must be shed to win his favor or divert his wrath. The human race is destined to know the beauty of character of the Universal Father, that which was so magnificently portrayed by Jesus when he sojourned on earth.