© 2024 Georges Michelson Dupont
© 2024 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
George Michelson Dupont
August 2024
First Part
This presentation aims to show how the I AM has operated since eternity to bring the material universes into existence. It will take place in two parts:
The first takes up the principle of causality initiated by the I AM, its diversification into the 7 Absolutes of Infinity and their triune associations into 15 triunities and 16 triodities.
The second part “dismantles” the mechanism of creation from the mandate of the Paradise Trinity to lead to the formation of the universes through the mobilization of the Absolutes of Potentiality, the Master Architects and the multiple agents of the Infinite Spirit.
Thus, we move from the level of Infinity to the absolute level then the ultimate level to end on the finite level.
¶ The Principle of CAUSALITY
“Cosmic consciousness implies the recognition of a First Cause, the one and only uncaused reality. God, the Universal Father, functions on three Deity-personality levels of subinfinite value and relative divinity expression:” ([ UB 0:2.2)
“Causality is the relationship that is established between a cause and its effect, the link that unites them. The cause is what produces something, what is at its origin. The effect is what is the consequence.”
This search for the origin of things and beings is not new, the quest for the First Cause has mobilized the thoughts of many philosophers and scientists from antiquity to the present day.
For Aristotle, the First Cause is the first motor simultaneous with the mu (from the verb to move), it is absolutely immobile, having in itself neither movement nor principle of movement. It is not taken as a final cause but as the origin of movement, that is to say as an efficient cause, or driving cause. It is this efficient cause which “moves” in the literal sense.
Descartes based his metaphysics on a first principle, namely God. He affirmed that this principle caused an infinite (and not finite) chain of causes and effects.
In addition to the definition of the First Cause, the Urantia Book introduces the idea of several first causes and secondary causes, which are defined as follows:
“The vital distinction between first causes and second causes is that first causes produce original effects which are free from inheritance of any factor derived from any antecedent causation. Secondary causes yield effects which invariably exhibit inheritance from other and preceding causation.” ([UB 118:4.2)
This statement “a host of first causes” challenges philosophical reason and scientific logic and seems to contradict what the Divine Counselor affirms “the recognition of a First Cause, the one and only reality without cause.”
¶ The authors of The Urantia Book warn us.
The First Cause is attributed by the authors of the book to the static and inclusive I AM ONE. The Melchizedek gently warns us that this presentation "carries many risks, because this concept is so far removed from human experiential understanding that it involves serious distortions of meanings and errors of conception of values during the process of translation-modification. We think in chronology because we are bound to time whereas, in eternity, time does not exist or rather its status is absolute and this is our conceptual difficulty.
Indeed, in our discussions in study groups on the origin of reality, we are constantly confronted with the difficulty of reasoning logically by replacing the subject on the level at which it takes place, situating the subject of the discussion according to whether we place ourselves on the finite, absonite or absolute level. We have difficulty reasoning and reconciling these three levels of reality when the authors present to our reflection events which relate to the last two levels, the finite level where causality and its effects are facts of experience, the absonite level where they become facts of superexperience and the absolute level where their status is absolute, everything IS.
Readers, here is a little puzzle concerning the principle of causality for your consideration.
In the image above, we see a little man pushing a first domino and his action will certainly cause the following ones to fall.
After reading this study, what does this image inspire in you and what, in your opinion, are the principles that emerge from it?
Note them below. In the second part to be published in December 2024, you will find some answers.
For us who live in space-time we can affirm that, by definition, nothingness produces nothing. Consequently, philosophical reason and scientific logic require that all reality, visible or invisible, potential or actual, comes from a First Cause, static, inclusive of all that can exist. The revelators present it to us as I AM and to explain the origin of reality, they offer us a very well detailed chronology in booklet 105 and on which I will not return because that is not the subject of the discussion.
The principle of causality implies time, space and movement as a continuum to develop. However, do things and beings that live in another continuum, for example, transcended space-time, the absonitarians, have a conception of the First Cause?
Our space-time is defined by four dimensions, three dimensions for space, , and , and one for time, t. What happens to this continuum when these four dimensions are transcended? Is there a “super chronology” that is adapted to them? “Absonites are not created; they are externalized - quite simply: they are.” So, at the absonite level, the First Cause exists simultaneously with the first effect? Are they separate but concomitant? On the absolute level, are the First Cause and its first effect ONE and undifferentiated?
In reality, we are at the bottom of the universal scale to the extent that the finite is a consequence of the absonite and the absonite a consequence of the absolute, hence our difficulty in understanding the first causes but also our greatest chance in starting from the most humble to go towards the highest.
Space-time is our greatest obstacle to understanding the Causeless Cause, the I AM, but also our greatest chance for growth in divine wisdom by providing us with a continuum of experiences in the form of the principle of causality that other continuums do not have, at least in this form.
¶ The I AM
I therefore suggest that we briefly review the diversification of the First Cause, the I AM, and the “crowd of first causes, associated or coordinated” whose effects must also be first, associated and coordinated.
By separating the deified from the non-deified, the potential from the actual and by internal combinations, 3 become 7 and then externalize themselves in the 7 Absolutes of Infinity. Then, the 7 Absolutes associate their attributes three by three and become functional in the form of triunities and triodities, from which and under the impulse of the Deity, all the subabsolute causalities and capacities will be activated to create the realities of energy, mind and spirit, as we know them on all universal levels, finite, absonite, ultimate and even absolute. Causality is the uninterrupted cord of events stretched between the finite and the absolute on which destiny is hung and which connects man to God.
Let us see how the principle of causality works from the level of the Absolutes to the level of finite beings, that is to say how the universes and their inhabitants are created.
For this let us review the nature and attributes of the Absolute of Deity, the Unqualified Absolute and the Universal Absolute because it is they who contain the potentials of causalities and actualizable capacities of the I AM and it is on them that the Trinity of Paradise in the form of the Trinity of Ultimacy on the absonite level and the Trinity of Supremacy on the finite levels activate them. [UB 106:8.9] This is the reason why the revelation of actualized reality must always be partial and less than its potentiality because the Absolutes are limitless, eternal and infinite, nothing can exhaust them.
But, before continuing, let us recall that: “God is love”, his unique personal attitude towards the affairs of the universe is therefore always a reaction of divine affection. "It follows from this affirmation that acts, causes and effects are, ultimately, motivated by his love, the desire to do good; the resulting causality is imbued with it.
¶ The Absolutes of Potentiality
When the combined thought of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son, functioning in the God of Action, constituted the creation of the divine and central universe, the Father followed the expression of his thought into the word of his Son and the act of their Conjoint Executive by differentiating his Havona presence from the potentials of infinity. And these undisclosed infinity potentials remain space concealed in the Unqualified Absolute and divinely enshrouded in the Deity Absolute, while these two become one in the functioning of the Universal Absolute, the unrevealed infinity-unity of the Paradise Father. ([UB 0:11.1)
The Absolutes of Potentiality are existential in actuality but experiential in manifestation.
The Absolute of Deity.
- The Deity Absolute is the potential revelation of I AM spirit, the reservoir containing the unrevealed infinity of all existential and experiential divinity activities, the totality of all actualizable Deity potential.
- The Deity Absolute produces primary causalities by activation of the Paradise Trinity, ultimate causalities by the Trinity of Ultimacy, and finite causalities by the Trinity of Supremacy.
- The Deity Absolute always appears to respond in terms involving the welfare of things and beings in all creation but also in view of the infinite possibilities of all future eternity.
- The unlimited capacity for deity action resides in the Deity Absolute. It is the initiator of destiny, while the Unqualified Absolute appears to be the all-efficient mechanic of the universe of universes.
The Unqualified Absolute.
- The Unqualified Absolute is the potential revelation of I AM energy, the reservoir containing the unrevealed infinity of all non-deity, non-personal potentials that have been separated from the total I AM by the volition of the First Cause. It is devoid of personality, divinity and all creator prerogative. [UB 0:11.7]
- The Unqualified Absolute is static; therefore the power of space [UB 11:7.4] which it contains is not subject to the gravitational attraction of Paradise. [UB 11:8.8]
- It is responsive and awaiting: The emergent, finite, absonite and absolute causalities of the Deity Absolute trigger corresponding effects in the Unqualified Absolute which becomes responsive. It is thus conditioned by Deity.
- Space limits the function of the Unqualified, but the presence of the Unqualified is limitless, it is infinite. As the formation of the universes takes place, the power of space manipulated by the agents of the Infinite Spirit gives way to the gravity-sensitive energies of Paradise and the presence of the Unqualified Absolute withdraws accordingly.
The Universal Absolute.
“The finite can coexist in the cosmos along with the Infinite only because the associative presence of the Universal Absolute so perfectly equalizes the tensions between time and eternity, finity and infinity, reality potential and reality actuality, Paradise and space, man and God. Associatively the Universal Absolute constitutes the identification of the zone of progressing evolutional reality existent in the time-space, and in the transcended time-space, universes of subinfinite Deity manifestation.” ([UB 0:11.13)
- The Universal Absolute is the unifier of the deified and the non-deified; the correlator of the absolute and the relative.
- The Universal Absolute is the mechanism that coordinates, unifies and compensates the tension between the existential and the experiential.
- The Universal Absolute makes experiential, on ultimate and finite levels, the effects produced by the Unqualified Absolute in response to the causalities activated by the Deity Absolute.
- The Universal Absolute makes the principle of causality operational at subabsolute levels, even absolute in eternity.
¶ The Trinity
The infinite and total reality is existential in seven phases composed of 4 Sources-Centers (including the Isle of Paradise) and 3 Absolutes, they are coordinated.
- “The First Source Center: First Person of Deity and primordial non-deity archetype, God, the Universal Father, creator, controller and sustainer; universal love, eternal spirit and infinite energy.”
- “The Second Source and Center: The Second Person of Deity, the Eternal and Original Son; the absolute personality realities of the I AM and the basis for the realization-revelation of the “I AM personality.”
- “The Third Source and Center: Third Person of Deity, the Conjoint Actor; the infinite integrator of the cosmic energies of Paradise with the spiritual energies of the Eternal Son; the perfect coordinator of the motives of will and the mechanisms of force”
The Trinity is the union in Deity of the three Source and Centers. It combines, integrates and unifies the nature, functions and attributes of the three Source and Centers. It is a Deity reality that is greater than the sum of its parts. The qualities, characteristics and functions of the Trinity are not the simple sum of the attributes of the three Paradise Deities. The functions of the Trinity are unique, original and not entirely predictable.
The role of the Paradise Trinity:
I readily compare it to the board of directors of a company whose role is to ensure that the purpose of the company for which it was created is ultimately achieved; it is the board that determines the overall policy and ensures compliance with the internal regulations and the cohesion of all the components of the company. Like the Trinity, it must administer justice within its establishments; it has the financial power since it votes the budget and the authority since it is a legal person.
The Trinity is not personal, it is only interested in the whole and not in the part. All its decisions marked by justice, power and sovereignty are applied to the whole and not to the part under the aspect of providence, this is why all its ordinances are taken in the interest and happiness of the finite, absonite and absolute creation.
At the same time as she applies Justice in the universes through her Stationary Sons she exercises supercontrol over the entire cosmos past, present and future.
On the finite level, as the Trinity of Supremacy, she oversees the destiny of the seven hundred thousand local universes constituting the seven superuniverses, with all their differences, specificities, and objectives which must ultimately be functionally and spiritually unified.
She ensures that they function in harmony and coordinate to achieve the goal set by the Universal Father, the anchoring in light and life and the emergence of the Supreme Being so that the ultimate destiny in the outer universes can begin. She functions identically in the outer universes in preparation.
She possesses the decision-making authority, she activates potentials and this is the reason why all cosmic creation depends on her mandates. She is the one who “appoints” the subinfinite Gods and her sovereignty extends from Paradise outward to the confines of the master universe and beyond into the unfathomed realms of infinity.
¶ Triunities and triodities.
Alone, and each separately, the seven Absolutes “produce nothing”. For reality to emerge and actualize itself, the 7 Absolutes of Infinity must associate their nature and their specific attributes in a triune functional relationship of interassociation, integration and unification. We can imagine these triunities and triodities as real workshops where the framework of universal reality as we know it is prepared, shaped and finally actualized, under the mandates of the Trinity and the Deities.
Numbering 15, 7 of which are functional on the finite level, and 8 or perhaps all 15 on post-experiential levels, the triunities establish the intention of divinity, activate the archetypes, animate movement and compensate for tensions, and make possible all potential and actual realities.
Thus, each triunity and triodity has the function of producing the diversification of an aspect of reality, actual or potential, deified or non-deified, resulting in something other than the sum of the attributes of its constituent members. Their interassociations are inevitable, because they respond to the universal project of the Universal Father.
All triunities include the presence of the Universal Father as a primary member, for he is the originator, possesses volition, and determines intention; his presence enables him to exercise immediate and personal control over the master functions of infinity.
To give an example of a function, let’s take the example of the company. It needs specialized teams to make the company work. For example, in the financial department, we will find a salesperson who informs about sales, an accountant who balances the accounts, and the essential bank account. It is a triunity in which it is the skills that are associated in production and not the personality of the members as such.
It was useful to review the preparation in eternity of the cosmic framework in which the universes will materialize and destiny will be established. In the next LINK we will see how the Paradise Trinity, the Absolutes of Potentiality, the experiential Deities, the triunities as well as the agents of the Infinite Spirit and the Architects of the Master universe unite their efforts to bring the universes into existence. Once again, let us keep in mind that the finite, absonite and even absolute material creation is only a material support for the manifestation of God’s Love.