© 2010 Charles Laurence Olivea
© 2010 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| Religion of Experience vs. Religion of Authority | Volume 11, Number 1, 2010 (Summer) — Index | The Urantia Book, Human Concepts, and Revelatory Validation |
_The following article was presented as the plenary speech at the Summer Study Session, at Dominican University, River Forest, IL, July 31, 2009. _
According to The Urantia Book, “Ability to comprehend is the mortal passport to Paradise.” [UB 26:4.15] So it would appear that the ability to find God depends on our consciousness of him.
A definition of consciousness that appeals to me is the notion of an “inward awareness of an external object, state or fact…of what is really at stake in modern philosophy.” (Webster’s Third International Dictionary) If this is extended to God, then the stakes, indeed, are the highest possible.
But we need not be overawed or intimidated by this as many people seem to be. The beauty of a celestial revelation is the help it gives to the mortal side of things. The revelatory text in The Urantia Book provides the necessary compensation for finite human mind to grasp something of the divinely infinite. As a proposition, this generalization is more than reasonable; it is quite attainable I should say.
Our consciousness of God and His consciousness of us are wonderfully, beautifully reciprocal. The Universal Father has even gone so far as to invest in us a perfect fragment of His nature as we make our way back to the source and center of all things and beings.
This relationship is not only reciprocal, but a profoundly, beautifully, intimate one between God and mortal. Can you think of anything quite so intimate as indwelling the mind of another? There is every reason to believe and hope that the pathway of this adventure which starts in Paradise reaches down to individuals on the planetary shores of inhabited spheres and then returns to Paradise will actually work!
This is the core of our faith, the safe harbor of our spiritual imagination in time and space. Yet the religion of the spirit depends on the content and quality of our mind-set. Our ability to discern God depends ultimately on our sense and appreciation of His nature. This is where revelation can come to the aid of evolutionary mind.
Here, then, is my thesis: a truer, higher, characterization of God’s consciousness ought to assist us in developing a broader, deeper mental and spiritual culture for ourselves. Coming, therefore, to a better comprehension of God’s nature (potentially) should allow us to achieve a status akin in our personal lives to life and light—perhaps closer to what Jesus accomplished.
With this as a premise, it may be worthwhile to examine two general features about God presented in the first five papers in The Urantia Book. The first consists of His name and what is implied by that; the second is focused on salient characteristics of His divine nature.
I think it is curiously revealing that “The names which the creature assigns to the Creator are much dependent on the creature’s concept of the Creator. The First Source and Universe Center has never revealed himself by name, only by nature.” [UB 1:1.1] I would like to suggest to you that the name we pick for God will undoubtedly be qualitatively proportional to the scope and depth of our consciousness of God’s nature. Utilizing the advantage given to us through the Fifth Epochal Revelation, let us take a look at the myriad of names others in the universe have given to God as a way to enlighten our own awareness of Him. (I used only names in which the first letter of key words was capitalized, sort of giving them the weight of proper nouns, for a total of thirty.)
| Names | |
|---|---|
| God | First Source |
| Universal Father | Creator |
| First Source and Center | Universal Center |
| First Father | Eternal and Universal Father |
| Paradise Father | The Eternal |
| Creator Father | The Infinite |
| “I AM” | Father of Fathers |
| Havona Father | Spirit Father |
| Universal Center | Father of Universes |
| Infinite Upholder | Divine Controller |
| Father of Lights | Gift of Life |
| All-Powerful One | Universal Disposer |
| Supreme Soul | Primal Mind |
| Universal Controller | Ancestor of all things |
| Original and Eternal | “Our Father” |
| Personality | |
From [Papers 1−5].
The Divine Counselor, the author of these first five papers, is correct in reminding us that the important consideration is for us to get to “know him and aspire to be like him.” [UB 1:1.6] Yet, a name can define, shape, and guide one’s consciousness of someone or something. Given our Agondonter circumstances, the predominance of the role of Father in that list (one third plus), emphasizes the power and grace of Fathering in human personality existence.
Fathering carries forth an attitude of love and respect that sets no conditions. Its consciousness is revealed as considerably greater than even brotherly or sisterly love. In speaking about the Golden Rule, Jesus taught that on the highest or spiritual level, we should “treat all men as we conceive God would treat them.” [UB 147:4.9]
Revelation, then, teaches us that fatherhood is the procreational creatures’ greatest and most endearing thought-picture of the nature of God—i.e., our consciousness of Him—and one that ought to shape our attitude toward our fellow creatures. The Godlike or Father-like perspective is the view from above: spiritual wisdom in contrast to genetic knowledge, and the product of celestial thinking and action.
In addition to the significance of His name, there is a second general feature of Him, alluded to earlier, consisting of spirit characteristics of the Father’s divine nature. I have identified eight. These are characteristics directly associated with Him in the first five papers. They are living values of His perfect, infinite, eternal, universal, and absolute character. In light of His declaration that we should become perfect, even as He is perfect, we ought to make every effort to incorporate His virtues into our own character, hence, the importance of identifying the Father’s value-judgments. They can become, to the best of our ability, a kind of behavioral marker of our consciousness of Him and a manifestation as well toward our fellow mortals.
As I re-read the papers, I counted the number of times these eight living-values of God were mentioned. Using them as criteria, certain assessments may be offered concerning the potential for shaping human comprehension of our Father-deity. Here are the eight divine facets of our beloved Father from the most frequently mentioned to the least referenced:
| Facet | Num. |
|---|---|
| Love | 69 |
| Goodness | 28 |
| Wisdom | 21 |
| Mercy | 18 |
| Righteousness | 16 |
| Truth | 15 |
| Justice | 12 |
| Beauty | 8 |
Love, perhaps as no surprise, is the winner! Love, goodness, and mercy make up a total of 115; yet, goodness and mercy, adding up to 46 together, do not total more than love. While mercy is love-applied and reflects the presence of goodness, it (mercy, that is) requires wisdom (insight and foresight). Interestingly, the Divine Counselor chose to point to love, goodness, wisdom, and mercy 136 times, or more than twice the other four characteristics combined—righteousness, truth, justice, and beauty.
But I do not want to take this compartmentalization of mine too far; all of these relative numbers are merely concessions to my time-bound mind. For instance, all of the Father’s love is beautiful, true, and good! His mercy is righteous and His justice based entirely on truth. His wisdom is beautiful. Yet, love prevails!
Taken together, this sequence of the eight perfect virtues profiles our Father’s generous character; graciously divine attitudes; unerring insight and foresight; forgiving nature; perfectly correct behavior; absolute reality; fairness; and attractive harmony. His consciousness toward His creatures, who are really better described as His children, is a joy to behold. And still, His love—unfettered and unconditional devotion—prevails as the chief feature of His divinely complete and replete nature. For surely, it is a Father’s love, combining the primacy of a name with the fundamental value of this singular deity.
The identity and character of the Universal Father are indeed reflective of the divine consciousness and can certainly serve us simultaneously as a guide for forming and refining our own consciousness of Him, then, in turn become the basis of our own attitude toward those behind us, on a par with us, and ahead of us in the supernal ascension scheme of personality perfection.
I am grateful, my most sacred Father, for these revelations from on high of your incomparable nature. The Urantia Book itself constitutes another demonstration of your providential oversight and affectionate devotion as you delegate power and grace. I would like now to take this opportunity, dear Father, to express some of the range and depth of my appreciation for you by paraphrasing some of the statements in The Urantia Book—a book which for me Father is “sweet, soul music!!!”
I come now to worship You, Father, unbidden…in true liberty and joy!
“You, God, are alone; there is none beside You. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts; You preserve and control them.” You cover Yourself with light as with a curtain and stretch out the heavens as a curtain.
You are the everlasting God who inhabits eternity.
You are “universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite reality, and father personality.”
You are the “infinite spiritual reality” and You are “sovereign, eternal, immortal” and absolutely majestic.
In You, we all live and move and have our being.
Your understanding is infinite and Your greatness is unsearchable. You do great and marvelous things without number.
You are the Lord, who changes not, the Father of Lights in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of changing. Your counsel shall stand according to Your eternal purpose which You placed with Your sons.
You are righteous and just, Your natural laws wise, and Your spiritual mandates righteous.
Your mercy is the logical and inevitable offspring of good ness and love. You are the Lord who executes loving-kindness in judgment.
You are love. Your “love is universal”. Whosoever will may come! You would “have all men be saved by coming into the knowledge of [this] truth.” You are not willing that any should perish. In all our afflictions, You are afflicted with us.
You are our Father; a real Father; a true Father; the Universal Father.
Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from You, the Father of Lights. You are the eternal refuge of the souls of Your sons and daughters. You heal the broken-hearted and You bind up the wounds of the sin-sick soul. Lord, You are our all-powerful benefactor.
You know “our down sittings and our uprisings.” All things are open to You. You understand what we have need of even before we ask it of You.
We know that You are at hand as well as far off, Father. That You are ever-present and all-pervading. That Your spirit is everlasting and indwells the mind of every mortal. Because of You and Your divine son, we have a spirit-friend and partner within our very hearts, a guide toward eternal destiny.
There is no power but You, Father. Consistent with Your divine nature, all things are possible with You. You can make a way even when there appears to us to be no way.
You are absolutely secured and everlastingly enthroned at the Paradise source and center of all things as the beneficent Father of all intelligent beings. You are the one God and Father of all, who is above all and in all. You go before all things. In You, all good things consist.
It is a recurring wonder to me, dear Father, that somehow You validate that creature faith which dares to challenge each repeated episode of mortal existence—when confronted with the awful spectacle of human limitations—by the unfailing declaration; even if I cannot do this, there lives in me one who can and will do it, a part of You, the Father-absolute of the universe of universes. And that is “the victory which overcomes the world, even [our] faith.” [UB 4:4.9]
Charles Laurence Olivea has been a devoted student of the teachings of The Urantia Book since 1968, a commitment somewhat parallel to his classroom teaching of history at the public high school level. He is now positioned to retire soon from the classroom and to shift over to expanding his long-time effort to disseminate the book and its teachings while employing a strong pedagogy in that educational work. He serves at the pleasure of our Father and works with the Supreme as a cosmic citizen.
| Religion of Experience vs. Religion of Authority | Volume 11, Number 1, 2010 (Summer) — Index | The Urantia Book, Human Concepts, and Revelatory Validation |