The British Study Edition of the Urantia Papers

towards some phase of unity with Deity — spiritual, mindal, or personal.

^0:1.16 ¶ DIVINITY is the characteristic, unifying, and co-ordinating quality of Deity.

^0:1.17 Divinity is creature comprehensible as truth, beauty, and goodness; correlated in personality as love, mercy, and ministry; disclosed on impersonal levels as justice, power, and sovereignty.

^0:1.18 Divinity may be perfect — complete — as on existential and creator levels of Paradise perfection; it may be imperfect, as on experiential and creature levels of time-space evolution; or it may be relative, neither perfect nor imperfect, as on certain Havona levels of existential-experiential relationships.

^0:1.19 ¶ When we attempt to conceive of perfection in all phases and forms of relativity, we encounter seven conceivable types[9]:

^0:1.20 1. Absolute perfection in all aspects.

^0:1.21 2. Absolute perfection in some phases and relative perfection in all other aspects.

^0:1.22 3. Absolute, relative, and imperfect aspects in varied association.

^0:1.23 4. Absolute perfection in some respects, imperfection in all others.

^0:1.24 5. Absolute perfection in no direction, relative perfection in all[10] manifestations.

^0:1.25 6. Absolute perfection in no phase, relative in some, imperfect in others.

^0:1.26 7. Absolute perfection in no attribute, imperfection in all.

2. GOD

^0:2.1 Evolving mortal creatures experience an irresistible urge to symbolize their finite concepts of God. Man’s consciousness of moral duty and his spiritual idealism represent a value level — an experiential reality — which is difficult of symbolization.

^0:2.2 Cosmic consciousness implies the recognition of a First Cause, the one and only uncaused reality. God, the Universal Father, functions on three Deity-personality levels of subinfinite value and relative divinity expression:

^0:2.3 1. Prepersonal — as in the ministry of the Father fragments, such as the Thought Adjusters.

^0:2.4 2. Personal — as in the evolutionary experience of created and procreated beings.

^0:2.5 3. Superpersonal — as in the eventuated existences of certain absonite and associated beings.

^0:2.6 GOD is a word symbol designating all personalizations of Deity. The term requires a different definition on each personal level of Deity function and must be still further redefined within each of these levels, as this term may be used to designate the diverse co-ordinate and subordinate personalizations of Deity; for example: the Paradise Creator Sons — the local universe fathers.

^0:2.7 ¶ The term God, as we make use of it, may be understood:

^0:2.8 By designation — as God the Father.

^0:2.9 By context — as when used in the discussion of some one deity level or association. When in doubt as to the exact interpretation of the word God, it would be advisable to refer it to the person of the Universal Father.

^0:2.10 ¶ The term God always denotes personality. Deity may, or may not, refer to divinity personalities.

^0:2.11 ¶ The word GOD is used, in these papers, with the following meanings:

^0:2.12 1. God the Father — Creator, Controller, and Upholder. The Universal Father, the First Person of Deity.

^0:2.13 2. God the Son — Co-ordinate Creator, Spirit Controller, and Spiritual Administrator. The Eternal Son, the Second Person of Deity.

^0:2.14 3. God the Spirit — Conjoint Actor, Universal Integrator, and Mind Bestower. The Infinite Spirit, the Third Person of Deity.

^0:2.15 4. God the Supreme — the actualizing or evolving God of time and space. Personal Deity associatively realizing the time-space experiential achievement of creature-Creator identity. The Supreme Being is personally experiencing the achievement of Deity unity as the evolving and experiential God of the evolutionary creatures of time and space.

^0:2.16 5. God the Sevenfold — Deity personality anywhere actually functioning in time and space. The personal Paradise Deities and their creative associates functioning in and beyond the borders of the central universe and power-personalizing as the Supreme Being on the first creature level of unifying Deity revelation in time and space. This level, the grand universe, is the sphere of the time-space descension of Paradise personalities in reciprocal association with the time-space ascension of evolutionary creatures.

^0:2.17 6. God the Ultimate — the eventuating God of supertime and transcended space. The second experiential level of unifying Deity manifestation. God the Ultimate implies the attained realization of the synthesized absonite-superpersonal, time-space-transcended, and eventuated- experiential values, co-ordinated on final creative levels of Deity reality.

^0:2.18 7. God the Absolute — the experientializing God of transcended superpersonal values and divinity meanings, now existential as the Deity Absolute. This is the third level of unifying Deity expression and expansion. On this supercreative level, Deity experiences exhaustion of personalizable potential, encounters completion of divinity, and undergoes depletion of capacity for self-revelation to successive and progressive levels of other-personalization. Deity now encounters, impinges upon, and experiences identity with, the Unqualified Absolute.

3. THE FIRST SOURCE AND CENTRE

^0:3.1 Total, infinite reality is existential in seven phases and as seven co-ordinate Absolutes:

^0:3.2 1. The First Source and Centre.

^0:3.3 2. The Second Source and Centre.

^0:3.4 3. The Third Source and Centre.

^0:3.5 4. The Isle of Paradise.

^0:3.6 5. The Deity Absolute.

^0:3.7 6. The Universal Absolute.

^0:3.8 7. The Unqualified Absolute.

^0:3.9 ¶ God, as the First Source and Centre, is primal in relation to total reality — unqualifiedly. The First Source and Centre is infinite as well as eternal and is therefore limited or conditioned only by volition.

^0:3.10 God — the Universal Father — is the personality of the First Source and Centre and as such maintains personal relations of infinite control over all co-ordinate and subordinate sources and centres. Such control is personal and infinite in potential, even though it may never actually function owing to the perfection of the function of such co-ordinate and subordinate sources and centres and personalities.

^0:3.11 The First Source and Centre is, therefore, primal in all domains: deified or undeified, personal or impersonal, actual or potential, finite or infinite. No thing or being, no relativity or finality, exists except in direct or indirect relation to, and dependence on, the primacy of the First Source and Centre.

^0:3.12 ¶ The First Source and Centre is related to the universe as: