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}

 

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.”

The truth is reasonable, plausible, essential and indispensable

Like most of the stuff I’ve read in the book, I’ve looked for this quote all over the place. Kept thinking it was in Part IV. No, no, it’s right in the beginning.

 … the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival. (24.6) 1:2.8

In my mind, the “true concept of the reality of God” is roughly analogous to the “truth”, when used broadly. While some thing may be any of these things individually, in order to rise to the level of the “truth”, it needs to meet all these tests. It’s like the ultimate Venn Diagram.

How to cite the Urantia Book

In terms of citing the Urantia Book, here’s how it works. Looks like there are two ways to do it.

The first method uses the page number as the primary reference, and only contains two numbers, separated by a period,  and surrounded by parentheses like this: (54.1). This example refers to the same spot as before, page 54, paragraph 1.

The second method uses the Paper as the primary reference. It contains three numbers, all separated by a colon then a period, like this: 4:0.1. They refer to Paper, page and paragraph. In this example, 4:0:1 points to Paper 4, God’s Relation to the Universe, the zeroth page, the first paragraph. Don’t know what zeroeth is? Skip to paragraph three then.

Since there are merits to both methods (and I usually see them used together), I’ll use both methods.  That way, if you have a UB copy handy, you can look up the wider context of any direct quotes used here.