Chapter Eight
UB Paper 105
Deity and Reality
(by a Melchizedek of Nebadon)
105.0.1 TO EVEN high orders of universe intelligences infinity is only partially comprehensible, and the finality of reality is only relatively understandable. The human mind, as it seeks to penetrate the eternity mystery of the origin and destiny of all that is called real, may helpfully approach the problem by conceiving eternity-infinity as an almost limitless ellipse which is produced by one absolute cause, and which functions throughout this universal circle of endless diversification, ever seeking some absolute and infinite potential of destiny.
(JRT) Basically, the Grand Universe is shaped like a watch, except that the length in much greater than the breadth, so it is far from circular. The depth is relatively very small: so the universe is quite thin. This means that there is a definite distinction between a horizontal plane and a vertical plane. Then come the four outer rings of universes being built in four bands of outer space that encircle the grand universe. All together this is called the Master Universe. In the vertical plane we have the engine of circulation of energy/matter, which is like a pump, alternately pumping in energy for one billion years and pumping it out for the next one billion years. All energy goes out from Paradise, circulates through the whole cosmos and returns to Paradise . There is a definite polar North aspect in the vertical plane in that it maintains higher energy than in the other directions. This gives cosmos an absolute directionality, useful for navigation.
105.0.2 When the mortal intellect attempts to grasp the concept of reality totality, such a finite mind is face to face with infinity-reality; reality totality is infinity and therefore can never be fully comprehended by any mind that is subinfinite in concept capacity.
(JRT) Notice the equation: Reality Totality=Infinity. Infinity does not exist except as the totality of reality. No reality can exist outside of infinity. A difficulty arises because the UB tells us two facts that seem paradoxical: 1) that God the Father is Infinity , and 2) that infinity contains both conscious and unconscious realities. The conscious realities are deified, and the unconscious realities are undeified. They are eternally co-existent with the conscious realities. Clearly, consciousness is dominant and has command and control through the power of will. But the unconscious part cannot be ignored, no matter how difficult or even impossible it is to explain. We do know that the unconscious part comes from the conscious part, because we know that matter comes from spirit. Spirit is always conscious. It is consciousness itself. But matter is unconscious and inherently chaotic. Yet, since some of the unconscious entities are eternal absolutes that appear to precede creation, they are not actually created, but appear to be part of the self-existent Infinity and also eternal. So it is not possible for our mortal minds to comprehend the true relationship between these absolute entities and God.
(JRT) One of the effects of this paradox is to make the three levels of reality described in the UB much more real in their own right than the type of reality described by the Hindu, Yogananda, for example, where all reality is solely the product of the dreams of Purushottama. The three levels of reality in the UB are the finite, the transcendent and the absolute. Each of these levels has its own mix of matter, mind and spirit. The finite reality is conditioned by time and space. The transcendent is beyond time. The absolute is beyond both time and space and has the quality of indestructibility and perfection to the extent that whatever changes impinge upon it, they do not alter its fundamental character.
(JRT) The Original God, the Father has freely decided to control Infinity through seven Absolutes: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Paradise , the Deity Absolute, the Unqualified Absolute and the Universal Absolute. The Unqualified Absolute is a reservoir of unlimited unconscious energies that can supply the infinite future needs of the evolving cosmos, and so its domain is in the supergravity of the future, not the gravity of the present actual now. As time moves on, energies from the Unqualified Absolute are supplied to the present cosmos, and as they trickle in they leave the domain of the Unqualified and enter the domain of the Universal Absolute, which co-ordinates the Unqualified with the Deity Absolute. They then form a measurable part of the physical gravity controlled by the Father through Paradise . This has now reached only about 5% of capacity, but is slowly increasing. This shows that while the Absolutes are in their most fundamental aspects unchangeable, they are adapting themselves to evolutionary development in some respects. If there is a hidden time-line in the Absolute, it might possibly be found in this arrangement.
(JRT) There is another way of understanding the Unqualified Absolute. It can be understood as the yet Unmanifest part of reality; whereas the Universal Absolute comprises all that is so far Manifest. This terminology is used by some Vedantic sages.
105.0.3 The human mind can hardly form an adequate concept of eternity existences, and without such comprehension it is impossible to portray even our concepts of reality totality. Nevertheless, we may attempt such a presentation, although we are fully aware that our concepts must be subjected to profound distortion in the process of translation-modification to the comprehension level of mortal mind.
(JRT) That’s okay. When I was a school boy I was accused of fuzzy thinking (by Father Faulkner,S.J.). But I don’t care, because I like fuzzy thinking. It has since been proved (in connection with cybernetics) that fuzzy thinking is much closer to the way reality actually works. I believe it is useful to contemplate Infinity (which is the same as God) even if we can only catch glimpses of it in a fuzzy sort of way. After all, it is the sole basis of all reality, and nothing else can bring us a better grasp of reality.
1. The Philosophic Concept of the I AM
105.1.1 Absolute primal causation in infinity the philosophers of the universes attribute to the Universal Father functioning as the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute I AM.
105.1.2 There are many elements of danger attendant upon the presentation to the mortal intellect of this idea of an infinite I AM since this concept is so remote from human experiential understanding as to involve serious distortion of meanings and misconception of values. Nevertheless, the philosophic concept of the I AM does afford finite beings some basis for an attempted approach to the partial comprehension of absolute origins and infinite destinies. But in all our attempts to elucidate the genesis and fruition of reality, let it be made clear that this concept of the I AM is, in all personality meanings and values, synonymous with the First Person of Deity, the Universal Father of all personalities. But this postulate of the I AM is not so clearly identifiable in undeified realms of universal reality.
(JRT) In my fourteenth chapter about God the Metatron, the concept of the Father as I AM takes on contemporary significance, because apparently He is just now using the Metatron method to create all things new on our planet in short order, and we are going to see some results of that before the year 2012 is finished. This is nothing to be afraid of. We should rather rejoice.
(JRT) Undeified realms are all sub-personal, but there are many prepersonal spirits that are deified, such as Thought Adjusters. They are all destined to enjoy personality in due course.Yet it is easy enough to understand that even sub-personal beings have their origin in God, without Whom nothing can exist. Many of them have consciousmess. Most are not endowed with consciousness. The I AM cannot be considered otherwise than as supreme consciousness knowing Itself as conscious. The unconscious absolutes are segregated features of infinity eternally eventuated by the I AM Father in order to bring about the right conditions for achieving the ultimate aims of creation. But He can override them in any emergency. In any case, God, being Infinity must be producing creation out of Himself, not out of nothing. There can be no such thing as nothing. It is a pure abstraction remaining in the intellectual domain alone. In my view, if there is something there can not be nothing. It is an either-or issue.
As I understand it, the concept of First Cause and Source of all being should not imply some kind of frozen isolation in outer darkness. It is much more like an explosion of boundless light into infinite expansion. Infinity must expand infinitely. So, even if it will go on expanding for the next billion years, it was already infinite a billion years ago. It is not actually a quantity but a principle of limitlessness that is more like a quality.
(JRT) Infinity must always expand infinitely. It could never reach a condition of stasis. Stasis might be found only in the Principle whereby it exists eternally, and this could be found only in that Self that is the essence of the I AM. That could never change. All else changes, but not that Self. That is what the Hindu sages say, and I think they are right. God is moving. God is changing. But He is always the same God. His identity does not change.
(JRT) According to the Melchizedeks there are seven infinities in God, but I have not yet found the details of this.
(JRT) However, we should not make the mistake of assuming that our own self is the same as that Self, as some Orientalists and New Agers do. It is very close, but it is not the same. We are not the Nagual. We are His children only. If we say that the Self in us is exactly the same as THAT SELF we are, in effect, denying the immortality of our own personality. This is counter-productive. It is on this point that the religion of Salem
(JRT) It was one of the mistakes of Lucifer to assume that the gift of life of a created being automatically contained the fullness of the principle of self-existence enjoyed only by the Creator. Although the Creator may theoretically be free to extend the Principle of Self-Existence to other beings, it might not always be conferred to exactly the same degree in every case, and could not be conferred in any way that militated against the will of God for the harmonious Unity of Infinity. Otherwise the lunatics would be taking over the asylum.
105.1.3 The I AM is the Infinite; the I AM is also infinity. From the sequential, time viewpoint, all reality has its origin in the infinite I AM, whose solitary existence in past infinite eternity must be a finite creature’s premier philosophic postulate. The concept of the I AM connotes unqualified infinity, the undifferentiated reality of all that could ever be in all of an infinite eternity.
(JRT) Okay, but philosophic concepts are not the same as reality. At best they are simplified abstract models of reality, with most of the parameters left out. So I do not buy that solitary existence concept at all. The I AM is the engine of the train of existence, but It must always have had a lot of carriages. Also, a complete philosophy can never remain shackled to the “sequential time viewpoint”. Instead, we must try to comprehend sequence beyond time. Monjosonson calls it a "developmental sequence" beyond time and space. Think of the idea of causality backwards as adopted by David Hume and by many quantum physicists of today. Think of timelessness in context of the theory of relativity. Think of instantaneous sequence of causality at the mechanical level in context of the contact breaker in a distributor opening and thus causing a spark in a spark plug in an engine running at 8,000 rpm in a Formula 1 racing car. There are many ways that the mortal mind can catch glimpses of sequences and chains of causality that seem to discount time.
105.1.4 As an existential concept the I AM is neither deified nor undeified, neither actual nor potential, neither personal nor impersonal, neither static nor dynamic. No qualification can be applied to the Infinite except to state that the I AM is. The philosophic postulate of the I AM is one universe concept which is somewhat more difficult of comprehension than that of the Unqualified Absolute.
(JRT) When Moses asked God to give His Name, He said “Eh Yeh asher Eh Yeh”. This means I AM THAT I AM. These words cannot be originated except by a conscious being. They imply not only consciousness but consciousness of being conscious, which is awareness. It is undoubtedly consciousness that controls the Infinity that He was and is and ever will be. He is also thought. But consciousness is not the same as thought. It is necessary to have it even before thought can begin. A further implication of the Name is that even God could not define Himself EXCEPT by the FACT of His self-existence. Like Ramakrishna, I think in terms of a Principle of Self-Existence, but not as something beyond the I AM, only as a "distinctio rationis cum fundamento in re", a logical explanation of the self-existence of the I AM: the "Ipsum esse subsistens" as Thomas of Aquin called Him. What I am trying to express is that, from the very beginning of the beginning, even if there was no beginning in the sense we can understand, God was fully in control. There is no place for blind chance. There is also no place for any kind of antecedent necessity.
105.1.5 To the finite mind there simply must be a beginning, and though there never was a real beginning to reality, still there are certain source relationships which reality manifests to infinity. The pre-reality, primordial, eternity situation may be thought of something like this: At some infinitely distant, hypothetical, past-eternity moment, the I AM may be conceived as both thing and no thing, as both cause and effect, as both volition and response. At this hypothetical eternity moment there is no differentiation throughout all infinity. Infinity is filled by the Infinite; the Infinite encompasses infinity. This is the hypothetical static moment of eternity; actuals are still contained within their potentials, and potentials have not yet appeared within the infinity of the I AM. But even in this conjectured situation we must assume the existence of the possibility of self-will.
(JRT) In the Tree of Life of the Holy Cabbala, the Names of God come into existence through three veils. The first is Ay-in ‘No-thing’, which is neither nothing nor something. The second is ain soph ‘endlessness’. The third is ain soph aur ‘endless light’. Coming through these three veils, the Names of God flash down the stations on the tree like lightning, following a zigzag path: Eh Yeh,(I AM), Yahweh, (I BECOME), Elohim, (MANY GODS), Yah, (BECOMING), El, (SUPREME), Yahweh-Elohim, (ONE IN MANY), Yahweh Zevaot, (LORD OF HOSTS – masculine), Elohim Zevaot, (LORD OF HOSTS – feminine), El Hai Shaddai, (ALMIGHTY LIVING GOD ENTHRONED AT THE CENTER OF COSMOS), Adonai Malek, (LORD AND MASTER), Schemhamphoras. (The English translations are only approximate). The last name is a combination of 70 names. It is also claimed by some that the camel knows the thousandth name of God. I don’t know if that it true, but, if it is, that might explain why camels go raving mad if someone tries to tease them.
105.1.6 Ever remember that man’s comprehension of the Universal Father is a personal experience. God, as your spiritual Father, is comprehensible to you and to all other mortals; but your experiential worshipful concept of the Universal Father must always be less than your philosophic postulate of the infinity of the First Source and Center, the I AM. When we speak of the Father, we mean God as he is understandable by his creatures both high and low, but there is much more of Deity which is not comprehensible to universe creatures. God, your Father and my Father, is that phase of the Infinite which we perceive in our personalities as an actual experiential reality, but the I AM ever remains as our hypothesis of all that we feel is unknowable of the First Source and Center. And even that hypothesis probably falls far short of the unfathomed infinity of original reality.
105.1.7 The universe of universes, with its innumerable host of inhabiting personalities, is a vast and complex organism, but the First Source and Center is infinitely more complex than the universes and personalities which have become real in response to his willful mandates. When you stand in awe of the magnitude of the master universe, pause to consider that even this inconceivable creation can be no more than a partial revelation of the Infinite.
(JRT) I once came up with this definition of God: ‘Infinite Living Cosmos Plus’, where the Plus is much greater than Cosmos. The way I see it is that, figuratively speaking, God can hold the whole Cosmos in the palm of His hand. He is both quantitatively and qualitatively far greater than the whole of His Creation. He is so great that we can only adore Him and His inexpressible greatness and goodness. I like to join in spirit with the worship of Paradise whenever I think of it.
105.1.8 Infinity is indeed remote from the experience level of mortal comprehension, but even in this age on Urantia your concepts of infinity are growing, and they will continue to grow throughout your endless careers stretching onward into future eternity. Unqualified infinity is meaningless to the finite creature, but infinity is capable of self-limitation and is susceptible of reality expression to all levels of universe existences. And the face which the Infinite turns toward all universe personalities is the face of a Father, the Universal Father of love.
(JRT) One should remember that the finite is always part of infinity, because nothing exists outside of infinity. Therefore, our finite segment of infinity is the homely, mundane world of every day. To think of it as part of the Infinite is not false, but exalts it to a level of transcendence felt by the soul. This is what the poet sees and expresses. Infinity flows through the finite. It flows through us.
2. The I AM as Triune and as Sevenfold
105.2.1 In considering the genesis of reality, ever bear in mind that all absolute reality is from eternity and is without beginning of existence. By absolute reality we refer to the three existential persons of Deity, the Isle of Paradise, and the three Absolutes. These seven realities are co-ordinately eternal, notwithstanding that we resort to time-space language in presenting their sequential origins to human beings.
(JRT) The seven absolutes jointly define the whole of Infinity, each one controlling some features of it, except that the Father has over-control of all of it. For example, Paradise is the absolute that controls all physical gravity and is the conduit for all physical energy. The Father alone controls personality gravity. The Eternal Son controls spiritual gravity. The Holy Spirit controls mindal gravity. Of the four types of gravity each can be measured except for personality gravity. That is the hidden province of the Father. The Unqualified Absolute is like a reservoir of various energies stored up for “future” use, but as and when these energies come into use they automatically get transferred to the Universal Absolute, which controls and co-ordinates everything that is so far actualized (or manifest). The Deity Absolute contains all deified properties of Infinity, but the Universal Absolute combines them with the undeified properties derived from the Unqualified Absolute, as well as from the Paradise Absolute.
(JRT) That is how God the Father functions; and we should emphasize that it is so by His free will choice not by fixed necessity. Could He have followed a different system? I think it is theoretically possible, except that whatever system He chose He could not have left out the Holy Trinity. The Eternal Son and the Holy Spirit are “Necessary Being”; and in scholastic philosophy God=Necessary Being. The Unqualified Absolute is not God, but it is an eternal concomitant of Infinity controlled by God. It is sacred.
(JRT) Could Creation be thought of as Necessary in the same sense as God? No, because, in that case it would certainly be perfect in all respects, which it is not. Also, we cannot deny the freedom of God to create what is not God.The Lucifer Rebellion has proved once and for all the imperfection of created beings, the existence of imperfection in creation, the possibility of both sin and iniquity, the genuine character of the freedom God has bestowed on all created personalities, the dire consequences of sin, and the power of God to redeem creatures by His goodness, justice and mercy. Therefore, Creation cannot be defined as Necessary Being in the same sense in which the perfect Persons of the Holy Trinity are Necessary Being. That does not rule out the probability that the desire to create is intrinsic in the divine character of Self-giving Love. However, there could be an infinite number of possible methods of creation, and the chosen one is the result of free will of God.
(JRT) Evil may be unintended, so it is not per se as bad as sin. Sin is deliberate contravention of the will of God by an individual person. In practice sin is equivalent to destruction and death, because it always leads to destruction and death unless you repent in time. Sin is self-destructive.
105.2.2 In following the chronological portrayal of the origins of reality, there must be a postulated theoretical moment of “first” volitional expression and “first” repercussional reaction within the I AM. In our attempts to portray the genesis and generation of reality, this stage may be conceived as the selfdifferentiation of The Infinite One from The Infinitude, but the postulation of this dual relationship must always be expanded to a triune conception by the recognition of the eternal continuum of The Infinity, the I AM.
(JRT) Is it really necessary to attempt a chronological portrayal of something that is not chronological? Instead it should be possible to think about a sequence of causality that is beyond time. In any case, the eternal continuity of the first Absolute could never be in doubt, even if He chopped it up into seven absolutes. Every absolute event is eternal, subsisting forever in an eternal NOW. At will, He can still have access to the One that He made into seven. That is clear from my chapter about God the Metatron. But He will never suspend the other two Absolute Persons of the Holy Trinity. That arrangement is irreversible.
(JRT) I give you a thought. Suppose the Absolute Acts of the Father are occurring NOW just as much as they were a zillion zillion years ago, and as they will be a zillion zillion years into the future. In that case the genesis of the Eternal Son, which was the First Act of the Father is going on Now, and always will be, along with all its consequences. Then you have a sequence of causality without any chronology. Also, you have the SPONTANEITY feature of the teachings of Lao-tse. To me that does make some kind of sense. I can support this from Paper 42:
42.11.7 Since mind co-ordinates the universe, fixity of mechanisms is nonexistent. The phenomenon of progressive evolution associated with cosmic self-maintenance is universal. The evolutionary capacity of the universe is inexhaustible in the infinity of spontaneity. Progress towards harmonious unity, a growing experiential synthesis superimposed on an ever-increasing complexity of relationships, could be effected only by a purposive and dominant mind.
(JRT) This declaration of the principle of mind over matter, working through spontaneity rather than mechanical means, is reminiscent of quantum mechanics, in which all material events are discontinuous, so that there is no chain of causality inside matter itself. Obviously, if mind is both dominant and spontaneous, there cannot be a chain of causality in matter by itself.
(JRT) I also quote from Existence and the Existent by Jacques Maritain:
“First consideration: Relation between time and eternity. Each moment of time is present to divine eternity not only as being known to it, but ‘physically’ or in its being itself. John of St. Thomas has established his master’s doctrine on this point very clearly. All the moments of time are present to divine eternity – in which there is no succession, and which is an instant that endures without beginning or end—because the creative ideas embrace according to their own measure, which is eternity and which infinitely transcends time, the created beings which they cause to be, the proper measure of which is the succession of time. ‘This divine today is the incommutable, indefeasible, inaccessible eternity to which nothing can be added, from which nothing can be taken away. And all things which herebelow supervene upon and succeed one another by flowing progressively into non-being, and which are diversified according to the vicissitudes of their times, are present before this day and continue to exist motionless before it. In that today, the day when the world began is still immutable. And nevertheless, the day is already present also when it will be judged by the eternal judge.’
“Eternity contains and measures all time by possessing it in an indivisible manner. Thus any future event, which in itself and in its own duration does not yet exist, is already actually present in eternity with all the events that preceded it and all the events that will follow it. They are all there as terms of the creative action which, without a shadow of succession, causes them to occur successively and as indivisibly possessed and measured by the eternal instant which is the duration belonging properly to that action. There is no future thing for God.
“It follows from this that, properly speaking, God does not foresee the things of time, he sees them; and he sees in particular the free options and decisions of the created existent which, in so far as they are free, are absolutely unforeseeable. He sees them in the very instant when they take place, in the pure existential freshness of their emergence into being, in the humility of their own instant of coming forth.”
(JRT) All Masters and Sages say the same thing: for God there is only the One Holy Instant of Now. For us there is the illusion of many tiny and immeasurably short instants of now in continuous succession. These two instants coincide when we, by Faith, become aware of the Presence of God in our present, which is our own small moment of now. Now is the only place where we interface with God, and then, by Faith, our now also becomes the Holy Instant.
105.2.3 This self-metamorphosis of the I AM culminates in the multiple differentiation of deified reality and of undeified reality, of potential and actual reality, and of certain other realities that can hardly be so classified. These differentiations of the theoretical monistic I AM are eternally integrated by simultaneous relationships arising within the same I AM — the pre-potential, pre-actual, prepersonal, monothetic pre-reality which, though infinite, is revealed as absolute in the presence of the First Source and Center and as personality in the limitless love of the Universal Father.
(JRT) If you accept a totally monistic theory like advaita Vedanta, it is very difficult to grasp the genuine realities that exist, namely the finite, the transcendental and the absolute. All reality is reduced to a dream, while man himself is reduced to a dreamer. The highest form of spirituality is then seen as renunciation of the world. This is the opposite of the thrust of revelation given by the Urantia Book. Paradoxically, Ramakrishna was able to conceive of an advaita vedantic approach that preserved the reality of the world itself, because he saw God in everything and everyone, even in the filth of the world, and even in its worst criminal elements. But this is an example of one of the highest flights of mystical experience that our world has ever seen. I am not going to say that it is wrong. But, at the same time, for the average ordinary human the teaching of Jesus in part lV of the Urantia Book is, in my opinion, a far more practical form of spirituality; and that involves a strong grasp of all levels of reality. So I would not like to commit myself to philosophical monism. Besides, the solitary Dreamer cannot explain the hard reality of energy that forms the foundation of all reality. Ramakrishna always accepted the fact that our finite world is really real; and that is why he always tried to alleviate poverty and suffering. God can do no evil, but He innocently provides the energy by which free will beings can sin. His universally present energy may be what Ramakrishna called the Brahman, and His personal conscious presence would then be Narayana. Ramakrishna saw Narayana present in every person. That is true. God is present in the mind and heart of every person, but not always in exactly the same way. The Father Fragment does not come into a child until it has moral consciousness, but the spirit of the Divine Mother, as agent of the Holy Spirit, is there from the beginning of life.
