© 2000 Jean Barr
© 2000 Urantia Association International (IUA)
| An Evening with Madiba: A report from the Parliament of the World's Religions | Journal — March 2000 — Index | A Balanced Unified Personality — the Foundation for Religious Growth |
Jean Barr
Texas, USA
There has been and is misunderstanding and confusion in the use of the word “Father” as God, “Son” of God, and “Brotherhood of Man” in The Urantia Book. There should be no confusion in this area, because, despite the conditions in which our current society conceives the concept of gender, the truth of the matter is that at our level of existence, the male-female reality exists and is necessary — but the male-female concept does not exist on God’s level of existence. In many passages, The Urantia Book is very clear on this subject; understanding the duality of God’s nature is natural for understanding the treasures of our revelation — but this duality extends into the superuniverses and has absolutely nothing to do with the “gender” of God.
God is total unity, and He is presented to us as our Father to help us accept His love, guidance and advice and reality on a personal level. The fact that He uses the technique of separation into seven Absolutes in the space-time continuum of eternity is necessary or we would not exist, but in reality He is ONE. Bringing our God down to the human level and arguing about His “gender” is not allowed — “gender” is for humans only — God has no “gender” — HE IS.
If you called God “one” you would have the same problem, and if you called it “it is” you would certainly be incorrect and destroy any resemblance of God’s personal nature - and it is impossible for us to learn to love an impersonal being. The First Source-Center is “prepersonal,” (UB 105:2.3) and Infinity is “impersonal,” but as “I AM,” He brings the “personal” and His love into our reality to be recognized by us or we could never even begin to grasp the immensity of our God. Our revelation tells us that only one personality can recognize another personality (UB 16:8.6 and UB 16:9.7). Even if you took love out of the equation, then you would have to dispute that God is not personal. However, we are informed again and again of His love and personal relationship with us, through the outpouring of the fragments of the Father that indwell each of us.
The first page of the Introduction tells us:
It is exceedingly difficult to present enlarged concepts and advanced truth, in our endeavor to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception, when we are restricted to the use of a circumscribed language of the realm. But our mandate admonishes us to make every effort to convey our meanings by using the word symbols of the English tongue. We have been instructed to introduce new terms only when the concept to be portrayed finds no terminology in English which can be employed to convey such a new concept partially or even with more or less distortion of meaning. UB 0:0.2
I tell anyone, it is impossible to know or write the true name of our Father in our language or any other language — anywhere — at any time — in this level of reality and more than likely in this eternity, because there is “nothing but God”, therefore, “Father” is just fine, and I would be proud to be called a son of God!—What an honor!
Have we forgotten that this book was written for the masses — that God always does the greatest good for the greatest number (UB 134:5.4)? For our world, for the vast majority of cultures and societies, the image of the Father is the revered and respected authority. In a family functioning on a spiritual level, there is always authority, and children should feel authority in their lives. What greater example — or analogy — could be given for us, as humans, to understand than that of the unconditional love of parents for their children, than that of a perfect, all-knowing, loving Father, who protects us, guides us, provides for everything, and controls everything that happens around his family—just like our God does!
Male-female duality is necessary at this level of existence, as are negative and positive electrical charges. This duality is part of the evolutionary growth of these superuniverses and the creatures populating the worlds of space-time. We will still be recognized as agondontaries (coming from a quarantined world) and I will wear that badge with pride, but should we also protest that fact? To be a female (as I am) and to be agondontary in this day and age is an honor!
We have so many prejudices, fears and insecurities in our society that we exaggerate when we finally start supporting whatever is right to compensate for the injustices of any society, system, situation or environment. And it takes time to finally balance out. This is normal for humanity, but it is time for us to take a look at everything that really exists in our world about the real information we now have about male-female equality in order to compensate. this condition and not to look ridiculous wasting valuable time and energy.
The Urantia Book revelation is very clear in its information regarding “genders.” If we start at the beginning, which is here and now, this is truly what we face.
Our intellectual origin is identical. Both male and female use the same Adjutant Mind-Spirits that are part of the human intellect. Adjutant Mind-Spirits grow in experience, but never become personal. They evolve in function, and the function of the first five [intuition, understanding, courage, knowledge and advice] in the animal orders is to a certain extent essential to the function of all seven as human intellect. [UB 36:5.13]. There is no such thing as a male adjutant or a female adjutant — just the wonderful gift of the seven Adjutant Mind-Spirits which comprise our intellectual aptitude and connect us with the mind.
Our intellectual capacity is based on the level of evolution of the human brain at the moment when each adjutant is connected to the mind, whether male or female. The physiologic equipment and the anatomic structure of all new orders of life are in response to the action of physical law, but the subsequent endowment of mind is a bestowal of the adjutant mind-spirits in accordance with innate brain capacity. UB 58:6.7
We do not receive all seven adjutants at once, which causes a very wide variety in the male as well as female intellect. The Adjusters cannot invade the mortal mind until it has been duly prepared by the indwelling ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits and encircuited in the Holy Spirit. And it requires the co-ordinate function of all seven adjutants to thus qualify the human mind for the reception of an Adjuster. Creature mind must exhibit the worship outreach and indicate wisdom function by exhibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of good and evil—moral choice. UB 108:2.2
We are told that if the Spirit of Truth is functioning on a world, then the Adjusters unfailingly come the instant the seventh adjutant mind-spirit begins to function and signalizes to the Universe Mother Spirit that it has achieved in potential the co-ordination of the associated six adjutants of prior ministry to such a mortal intellect. UB 108:2.3
The last two of the seven adjutants are in order: those of adoration and wisdom. And since we are told on UB 108:2.1, that it takes the present generation, on average, five years, ten months and four days to effect the reception of the seventh circuit and the appearance of the Adjuster at the first moral decision , it becomes evident that it takes this amount of time for the seven adjutants to be connected and function in a child.
This implies increased responsibility on the part of parents to train and guide the child in the first five years of his life. But even more important is the patience and understanding one must have with children, because there is no way to determine when, or if, the child received the adjutants and whether they work.
Intuition must be present at birth for the mind to function, since adjutants bind us to the mind. We do not know when the baby receives Understanding; we do not know when he receives Courage until he demonstrates this ability; we do not know when Knowledge is circuited and neither do we know when the child receives the Advice. And, unless we pay close attention, we will not realize that questions about God probably indicate that Worship has appeared. Then Wisdom will arrive, and soon a moral decision will take place, if the child is properly instructed.
The personality has no gender, because it is a gift from the Father and there is no gender at its level of existence. Note: There is no difference between the male and the female in any of the initial contributions: adjutants, mind, intellect, personality, Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth and Thought Adjuster — she only exists as gender only in the necessary male-female duality, on the genetic, environmental, anatomical and chemical levels — it is on the material level that gender appears but there are other forms of duality in the individual.
Duality occurs as male and female, but also as individuals. We are duals with the animal-human nature that we must master (self-control), then we are duals to the soul-Adjuster fusion. God created a universe in which duality exists — in fact he alone is unity. Here are some other examples of duality:
Descending beings / Ascending beings.
Experiential / Existential.
Light/Darkness.
Material / Spiritual
Negative / Positive.
Etc…, we could go on for a long time just in our reality.
…unity begets duality…duality begets triunity and triunity is the eternal ancestor of all things. UB 105:4.3
Since God is self-existent, he is absolutely independent. The very identity of God is inimical to change. “I, the Lord, change not.” God is immutable; but not until you achieve Paradise status can you even begin to understand how God can pass from simplicity to complexity, from identity to variation, from quiescence to motion, from infinity to finitude, from the divine to the human, and from unity to duality and triunity. And God can thus modify the manifestations of his absoluteness because divine immutability does not imply immobility; God has will—he is will. UB 4:4.2
The primordial stasis of infinity requires segmentation prior to human attempts at comprehension. There is a unity in infinity which has been expressed in these papers as the I AM—the premier postulate of the creature mind. But never can a creature understand how it is that this unity becomes duality, triunity, and diversity while yet remaining an unqualified unity. Man encounters a similar problem when he pauses to contemplate the undivided Deity of Trinity alongside the plural personalization of God. UB 115:3.3
Rather than worrying about calling God our Father, let us instead be interested in learning more about Him and becoming more like Him, As He instructed us: “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect”. UB 140:10.1 and UB 161:1.10
| An Evening with Madiba: A report from the Parliament of the World's Religions | Journal — March 2000 — Index | A Balanced Unified Personality — the Foundation for Religious Growth |