© 2020 Claude Flibotte
© 2020 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Many discussions on UBIS revolve around the correct understanding of personality. I would like to share with you my very personal vision of the subject!
Human personality is the time-space image-shadow cast by the divine Creator personality. And no actuality can ever be adequately comprehended by an examination of its shadow. Shadows should be interpreted in terms of the true substance. (UB 1:6.1)
This perhaps explains why it is so difficult for us to get a correct idea of what personality is. If, to begin with, we were to ask ourselves what specifically characterizes personality and what is its function?
Personality is a level of deified reality and ranges from the mortal and midwayer level of the higher mind activation of worship and wisdom up through the morontial and spiritual to the attainment of finality of personality status. That is the evolutionary ascent of mortal- and kindred-creature personality, but there are numerous other orders of universe personalities. (UB 0:5.1)
So, like the infinite Father who reestablishes the unification of the Deity by the Trinity of Paradise following the trinitization of the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit, the human personality, gift of the Father, creates the unification of the many constituents of the human individuality (physical, hereditary, mental and behavioral). To understand this phenomenon a little more, let us observe what happens in the animal kingdom. We all agree that animals are not endowed with personality. Let us take an animal well appreciated by all, a beautiful little puppy. This dog is similar to his brothers and from the same litter. They are all endowed with a mind and they have or will eventually have the support of the first five adjutant mental spirits. They all possess an individuality inherited from the mental circuit which gives them the consciousness to live and interact with their environment in addition to the genes of their parents which characterize their physical appearance and their social behavior. This is what allows me to differentiate Fido from Nestor.
The higher concepts of universe personality imply: identity, self-consciousness, self-will, and possibility for self-revelation. And these characteristics further imply fellowship with other and equal personalities, such as exists in the personality associations of the Paradise Deities. And the absolute unity of these associations is so perfect that divinity becomes known by indivisibility, by oneness. “The Lord God is one.” Indivisibility of personality does not interfere with God’s bestowing his spirit to live in the hearts of mortal men. Indivisibility of a human father’s personality does not prevent the reproduction of mortal sons and daughters. (UB 1:7.6)
Now, how does this work out for the human being? The revelators tell us that the human personality is given to us before the arrival of the Thought Adjuster.
Personality is a unique endowment of original nature whose existence is independent of, and antecedent to, the bestowal of the Thought Adjuster. Nevertheless, the presence of the Adjuster does augment the qualitative manifestation of personality. Thought Adjusters, when they come forth from the Father, are identical in nature, but personality is diverse, original, and exclusive; and the manifestation of personality is further conditioned and qualified by the nature and qualities of the associated energies of a material, mindal, and spiritual nature which constitute the organismal vehicle for personality manifestation. (UB 16:8.3)
The revealers also describe our personality type as follows:
The Urantia type of human personality may be viewed as functioning in a physical mechanism consisting of the planetary modification of the Nebadon type of organism belonging to the electrochemical order of life activation and endowed with the Nebadon order of the Orvonton series of the cosmic mind of parental reproductive pattern. The bestowal of the divine gift of personality upon such a mind-endowed mortal mechanism confers the dignity of cosmic citizenship and enables such a mortal creature forthwith to become reactive to the constitutive recognition of the three basic mind realities of the cosmos:
- The mathematical or logical recognition of the uniformity of physical causation.
- The reasoned recognition of the obligation of moral conduct.
- The faith-grasp of the fellowship worship of Deity, associated with the loving service of humanity. (UB 16:8.15-18)
I asked myself, since the Father gives me the personality and the Thought Adjuster, why doesn’t He do it at the same time? After much thought, I came to the conclusion that it was absolutely necessary for me to know myself sufficiently and to unify the different components of my individuality through my personality to allow the Adjuster to come and inhabit my mind. In other words, the personality allows me not only to be conscious, as Fido is, but to be conscious that I am conscious. This addition of consciousness gives me the ability to know myself, to recognize other personalities, to morally choose the good, to become creative, to know my Creator and to seek to become like Him. The personality is in some way an addition of consciousness which attempts to divinize the host individuality by unifying its components in the image of the unity of Deity.
Creature personality is distinguished by two self-manifesting and characteristic phenomena of mortal reactive behavior: self-consciousness and associated relative free will.
Self-consciousness consists in intellectual awareness of personality actuality; it includes the ability to recognize the reality of other personalities. It indicates capacity for individualized experience in and with cosmic realities, equivalating to the attainment of identity status in the personality relationships of the universe. Self-consciousness connotes recognition of the actuality of mind ministration and the realization of relative independence of creative and determinative free will. (UB 16:8.5-6)
Through this additional information, we realize that self-consciousness also called the ego is linked to the mind and to the qualitative addition of the personality.
In conclusion, through the gift of human, deifying, and unifying personality, let us wisely cooperate with the leadings of our beloved Adjuster to become more and more like him—divine!
Claude Flibotte
Sainte-Julie