Tigran Aivazian - The British Study Edition of the Urantia Papers

1:3.1“God is spirit [6] [6] God is spirit , cf. John 4:24: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” .” He is a universal spiritual presence. The Universal Father is an infinite spiritual reality; he is “the sovereign, eternal, immortal, invisible, and only true God [7] [7] the sovereign, ... only true God , cf. I Timothy 1:17: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” .” Even though you are “the offspring of God,” you ought not to think that the Father is like yourselves in form and physique because you are said to be created “in his image” — indwelt by Mystery Monitors dispatched from the central abode of his eternal presence. Spirit beings are real, notwithstanding they are invisible to human eyes; even though they have not flesh and blood.

1:3.2Said the seer of old: “Lo, he goes by me, and I see him not; he passes on also, but I perceive him not [8] [8] Lo, he goes ... perceive him not , This is a direct quote of Job 9:11. .” We may constantly observe the works of God, we may be highly conscious of the material evidences of his majestic conduct, but rarely may we gaze upon the visible manifestation of his divinity, not even to behold the presence of his delegated spirit of human indwelling.

1:3.3The Universal Father is not invisible because he is hiding himself away from the lowly creatures of materialistic handicaps and limited spiritual endowments. The situation rather is: “You cannot see my face, for no mortal can see me and live [9] [9] You cannot ... and live , cf. Exodus 33:20: “And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.” .” No material man could behold the spirit God and preserve his mortal existence. The glory and the spiritual brilliance of the divine personality presence is impossible of approach by the lower groups of spirit beings or by any order of material personalities. The spiritual luminosity of the Father’s personal presence is a “light which no mortal man can approach; which no material creature has seen or can see [10] [10] light which ... can see , cf. I Timothy 6:16: “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” .” But it is not necessary to see God with the eyes of the flesh in order to discern him by the faith-vision of the spiritualized mind.

1:3.4¶ The spirit nature of the Universal Father is shared fully with his coexistent self, the Eternal Son of Paradise. Both the Father and the Son in like manner share the universal and eternal spirit fully and unreservedly with their conjoint personality co-ordinate, the Infinite Spirit. God’s spirit is, in and of himself, absolute; in the Son it is unqualified, in the Spirit, universal, and in and by all of them, infinite.

1:3.5¶ God is a universal spirit; God is the universal person. The supreme personal reality of the finite creation is spirit; the ultimate reality of the personal cosmos is absonite spirit. Only the levels of infinity are absolute, and only on such levels is there finality of oneness between matter, mind, and spirit.

1:3.6¶ In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontroller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung personality circuit does God deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes. This Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal Father. But the minds of such evolutionary creatures originate in the local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving those experiential transformations of spiritual attainment which are the inevitable result of a creature’s choosing to do the will of the Father in heaven.

1:3.7¶ In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked minds cannot survive mortal death. The technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter association to spirit union results in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to attain survival and eternity of personality existence.

1:3.8I come forth from the Eternal, and I have repeatedly returned to the presence of the Universal Father. I know of the actuality and personality of the First Source and Centre, the Eternal and Universal Father. I know that, while the great God is absolute, eternal, and infinite, he is also good, divine, and gracious. I know the truth of the great declarations: “God is spirit” and “God is love,” and these two attributes are most completely revealed to the universe in the Eternal Son.

1:4.1The infinity of the perfection of God is such that it eternally constitutes him mystery. And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.

1:4.2The physical bodies of mortals are “the temples of God [11] [11] the temples of God , cf. I Corinthians 3:16: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” .” Notwithstanding that the Sovereign Creator Sons come near the creatures of their inhabited worlds and “draw all men to themselves”; though they “stand at the door” of consciousness “and knock” and delight to come in to all who will “open the doors of their hearts”; although there does exist this intimate personal communion between the Creator Sons and their mortal creatures, nevertheless, mortal men have something from God himself which actually dwells within them; their bodies are the temples thereof.

1:4.3When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle “returns to the earth whence it came”; then, it is revealed, the indwelling “Spirit shall return to God who gave it [12] [12] when the dust ... to God who gave it , cf. Ecclesiastes 12:7: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” .” There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.

1:4.4¶ We are constantly confronted with this mystery of God; we are nonplussed by the increasing unfolding of the endless panorama of the truth of his infinite goodness, endless mercy, matchless wisdom, and superb character.

1:4.5¶ 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. The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness of that creature’s capacity to spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness.