The Eternal Quest

What a beautiful calling the Papers lay before us:

The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best in the human soul. (42.3) 2:7.10

It’s no meager challenge, and many have missed unifying all aspects of reality, among them various philosophers and religious groups.

Philosophers commit their gravest error when they are misled into the fallacy of abstraction, the practice of focusing the attention upon one aspect of reality and then of pronouncing such an isolated aspect to be the whole truth.  (42.6) 2:7.5

The great mistake of the Hebrew religion was its failure to associate the goodness of God with the factual truths of science and the appealing beauty of art. As civilization progressed, and since religion continued to pursue the same unwise course of overemphasizing the goodness of God to the relative exclusion of truth and neglect of beauty, there developed an increasing tendency for certain types of men to turn away from the abstract and dissociated concept of isolated goodness. (43.2) 2:7.9

Who knows if modern religion today will turn a corner and begin to integrate truth and beauty into its teaching. But thankfully we don’t have to wait. By developing our own integrated, artful philosophy of living, we demonstrate to others the harmony of unity possible through our experience. And this righteousness will ring true to them, just as it will ring even to the Ear of the Infinite.

Philosophic assault of the Atonement Doctrine

The Atonement Doctrine never made sense to me.

In the eyes of the most just, merciful and loving personality ever, how could all humanity be held guilty of a crime they did not commit? Especially when the proof of their innocence was incontrovertible?

It may have made sense to the minds that thought it up, but today such a proposal would not stand up even in our flawed and imperfect courts. Yet it remains as the bedrock for modern Christian thought.

Here and there the Papers comment on the atonement doctrine, and when they do, they always highlight its errors. Here’s one from Paper 2, Section 6, The Goodness of God:

 The erroneous supposition that the righteousness of God was irreconcilable with the selfless love of the heavenly Father, presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity and led directly to the elaboration of the atonement doctrine, which is a philosophic assault upon both the unity and the free-willness of God.  (41.3) 2:6.5

The affectionate heavenly Father, whose spirit indwells his children on earth, is not a divided personality — one of justice and one of mercy — neither does it require a mediator to secure the Father’s favor or forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict retributive justice; God as a father transcends God as a judge. (41.3) 2:6.6

No experience is ever lost

Even in personalities who choose evil, then sin, then iniquity, and ultimately turn away all mercy and finally choose again the Father’s will, their experiences of survival value are still preserved. They still contribute to the universe evolving toward light and life, despite their rejection of divine truth and reality. Their valuable experience contributes to the Supreme Being, and if an Adjuster is present, they too keep the experience of sojourning with the lost soul.

Just one more example of the perfection of Divinity in their planning of all universal development. I stand in awe how He captures experiential value even from those who choose unreality.

When the continued embrace of sin by the associated mind culminates in complete self-identification with iniquity, then upon the cessation of life, upon cosmic dissolution, such an isolated personality is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the evolving experience of the Supreme Being. Never again does it appear as a personality; its identity becomes as though it had never been. In the case of an Adjuster-indwelt personality, the experiential spirit values survive in the reality of the continuing Adjuster. (37.2) 2:3.4

Infinity vs. Eternity

From what I infer, eternity is a reference to time, and only time. It doesn’t apply to space, mind, spirit, personality or any other concept, just time.

Infinity, on the other hand, seems to mean an endless supply of something, and you often see it modify various concepts like those above, and more.  I often think of eternity as an infinity of time.

This distinction is small (or infinite! Ha! Sorry, couldn’t resist), but a deeper understand of the Papers often turns on definitions like these. It seems this is why the UB often refers to God, the Universal Father, as “The Infinite” but not “The Eternal”. Infinity encompasses Eternity.

Can machines live?

No. Machines cannot live.

It’s a popular science fiction idea that machines can come to life, with the singular purpose of taking over mankind (of course). Having worked in IT for 11+ years, I figured this only made for good entertainment, since I couldn’t reason how a computer could develop imagination, much less life. This was my own theory, and I always liked to back it up with ideas from the UB. Here’s one from Paper 42, Energy – Mind and Matter.

The foundation of the universe is material, but the essence of life is spirit. ^{(467.3)42:1.1}

… forever will scientists be powerless to … add to matter that which we call life. ^{(468.1)42:1.4}

Can a machine receive a spirit? Excellent question, I don’t know just yet. The papers make it clear that we cannot add life to matter, not even through normal childbirth. We assist with the development of the material body, but bestowing life is a perogative of Divinity.

Eternity explained in terms of Time

There are so many concepts presented in the UB that I simply cannot truly grasp, Eternity being one. Even the author of Paper 2, a Divine Counselor, admits as much:

 In all our efforts to enlarge and spiritualize the human concept of God, we are tremendously handicapped by the limited capacity of the mortal mind … All our efforts to enlarge the human concept of God would be well-nigh futile except for the fact that the mortal mind is indwelt by the bestowed Adjuster of the Universal Father and is pervaded by the Truth Spirit of the Creator Son.   ^(33.3)2:0.3

However, he/she the author still endeavors to explain to us time-limited mortals how the Universal Father lives in eternity, and he drops a couple hints along the way:

… he inhabits the circle of eternity … To God there is no past, present, or future; all time is present at any given moment. ^(34.4)2:1.5

That’s interesting, for a long time I’ve envisioned it this way, that to God “all time is present at any given moment”. It’s like He can look at any moment in time whenever he wants to, or more accurately, He can look at ALL moments of time whenever he wants to.

Not being bound by space or limited by time, he can view all of time at once, which he does at every moment. And since his mind is omnipotent, simultaneously viewing and comprehending all events that ever have, or ever will occur  is no problem.

Whew! Calgon, take me away.

Personality Pattern

I wonder about personality, knowing that God is the source of personality. Since we receive our personality from him, and clearly customize it over time with our own decisions and experiences, I figured it was more of a pattern we start from than an unchangeable item like the Thought Adjuster, which is also a gift from Him.

And sure enough, here it is (emphasis mine):

These Paradise Sons of the order of Michael are perfect personalities, even the pattern for all local universe personality from that of the Bright and Morning Star down to the lowest human creature of progressing animal evolution. ^{(28.3) 1:5.6}

Personality and the Universal Father

God has a personality, since he is the source all personalities. In fact:

Without God and except for his great and central person, there would be no personality throughout all the vast universe of universes. God is personality. ^{(28.4) 1:5.7}

We take his gift the pattern of personality, and over time (on Earth) quickly make it our own. In this sense, I think, we partner with him and a fragment of him is a part of us. On reaching our first moral decision, the Thought Adjuster comes to reside with us, and should we be so lucky, one day we’ll fuse with the perfected Adjuster.

As for God’s personality, it is infinitely more than what we understand as personality. It’s even more than our highest concept of super-personality. The infinite part is a mystery, but for me it’s sufficient to know that God is a person, and can be personally known. I can develop a relationship with him right here, right now. No third-party needed.

… he is truly and everlastingly a perfect Creator personality, a person who can “know and be known,” who can “love and be loved,” and one who can befriend us; while you can be known, as other humans have been known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a spiritual reality. ^{(28.5) 1:5.8}

 

Morontia Mota: Faith and Fear

I love the Morontia Mota. It was one of the sections I fell in love with as a teenager reading the UB. As I re-reread the book, new layers of meaning pop out at me. Here’s one about faith and fear.

Few persons live up to the faith which they really have. Unreasoned fear is a master intellectual fraud practiced upon the evolving mortal soul. ^{(556.4)48:7.4}

I think one of the things we are most afraid of is discovering the power of the our wondrous light. Our own inherent ability and developed skill has such phenomenal power to do good in the service of others, but when coupled with the true faith in our hearts, it’s nearly unstoppable. What we could accomplish without fear.

Fear is the ultimate fraud, the chains you cannot see or taste or smell or touch. It is a prison for your mind, the veil of illusion pulled over your perceptions to conceal the truth, that you are beautiful child of God, a coupled with a fragment of the divine who is an ally of unparalleled potential.

Mystery of Infinity

This is an interesting take on the meaning of the word mystery. Though Webster’s first definition of mystery is “a religious truth that one can know only by revelation and cannot fully understand”, I think the more common definition is “a private secret”.

However, when used in Part 1, they use the first definition, as in this sentence:

The infinity of the perfection of God is such that it eternally constitutes him mystery. ^(26.3)1:4.1

But they go on to expand on their meaning:

The divine mystery consists in the inherent difference which exists between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the time-space creature and the Universal Creator, the material and the spiritual, the imperfection of man and the perfection of Paradise Deity. ^(26.7)1:4.5

It’s not that the mystery of God is just a secret that no one’s talking about. Rather it’s that there is so much more to him than our matter-minds can comprehend, we just refer to all the stuff that make our heads explode as “mystery”.

Good word. I think I’ll start referring to my wife as “mystery.”