© 2003 Jeanmarie Chaise
© 2003 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| Le Lien Urantien — Issue 27 — Autumn 2003 — Contents | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 27 — Autumn 2003 | The Hidden Version of Part IV of The Urantia Book |
We should therefore arrive at the end of our sevenfold Havonian journey around the central Paradise Isle with a strong conceptualization of time and space, so strong that we will finally be able to “the final slumber of time, in the sleep of the transit of eternity toward the Paradise goal.” On these wonderful planets of Havona, we will achieve complete freedom from time and space, for “in Paradise, time is not counted; the sequence of successive events is inherent in the concept of the natives of the central Isle.” [UB 22:9.8] In contact with the natives of Havona we will become almost perfect for a space without time and a time without space, for “The Paradise mind is beyond human comprehension; it is existential, non-spatial and non-temporal.” [UB 42:10.7] Our judgments on all acts will become immediate, because “From the point of view of Paradise, judgment is concomitant with the act.” [UB 54:5.13] We will become more and more like God, without ever becoming God; we will not be God but we will be divine. We will have had all the temporal and spatial experience of climbing the steps of transcendence in immanence, and we will be ready to begin our mission in the extraordinary spaces of the outer galaxies. We will then participate in the career of service intended to make people understand how God the Father “proclaims the end from the beginning” [UB 2:2.1], the goal of the absolute. And all this can only be done through the guidance of the Infinite Spirit.
But concerning the finalities of the spiritual domain, we have yet to determine what the options of our future are. And, precisely, it seems that our eternal future is yet to be determined, while we are passing from one world to another on the circuits of the billion worlds of Havona. Let us see what it is:
In one of his last appendices, W.S. Sadler Jr., on the subject of the existence of a hypothetical “end” to eternal growth, asks this question: “Is the concept of an ”end“ simply a ‘weakness of thought’ resulting from the space-time limitations of the human mind?” To such a question and notwithstanding the weakness of our mind, as well as in view of all that is revealed to us of the unfolding of divine creation, can we not ask ourselves this other corollary question which will not fail to surprise: But are spatial and temporal realities anything other than the simple quantitative manifestation of matter-energy? Here is my question which attempts to answer at the same time that of W.S. Sadler Jr.: Could the existential Trinity of Paradise have set in motion an eternally growing and infinite creation without necessarily taking into account the arithmetic laws offered by the simple statement of numeration with its unavoidable particularities? In other words, does not absonity appear in a certain way as the transcendence of what creates time and space, that is to say, a transcendence of the quantifiable, that is to say again a transcendence of the laws of number in its quantifying as well as qualifying aspects? We must answer this question, and we will see that it was far from innocent.
In fact, what is absonite, if not, as we are constantly told, the transcendence of the parameters of time and space, by means of which the Ultimacy can present itself as finally occurring (eventuating), that is to say absonitizing itself to begin the eternal quest for absoluteness, for infinity? We must think, here as we have seen above, that the word “absonite” expresses an intermediate stage between, on the one hand the stage of finite, spatial and temporal creation, and as such subject to the laws of number, and on the other hand the pre-temporal and pre-spatial stage. We are in Havona and we have to consider that “The Paradise Trinity takes into consideration the levels of existence which are more than finite but less than absolute and this relationship is sometimes called the Trinity of Ultimacy.” [UB 10:5.5]
Let us think again. To ask the question of the inevitable sequence 1, 2, 3, … etc., is this not already to ask the question of quantifiable and qualifiable infinity? Moreover, "to set oneself up as an eventual God of supertime and transcended space***, (eventuating God of supertime and transcended space) as the Ultimate does, [UB 0:2.17] is this not to present oneself on the margins of spatio-temporality, on the margins of this numerous sequence which qualifies and describes space-time everywhere? The Urantia Book distinctly establishes the respective roles of God the Supreme and God the Ultimate. The second transcends space-time, while the first extends its entire action into space and time according to number: “The grand universe is the triple Deity domain of the Trinity of Supremacy, God the Sevenfold, and the Supreme Being.” [UB 0:8.10] Its central component is the Sevenfold God, an eminently numeral component. This action of the Sevenfold God concerns us directly because it establishes for all of us the milestones of our experiential career. “This sevenfold personalization of Deity in time and space and for the seven superuniverses enables mortal man to attain the presence of God, who is spirit. This sevenfold Deity, who, for the creatures of finite space-time, personalizing in his time power in the Supreme Being, is the functional Deity of the evolutionary mortal creatures of the Paradise ascension career. Such a career of experiential discovery of God-realization begins with the recognition of the divinity of the local universe Creator Son, ascends through the recognition of the superuniverse Ancients of Days and the person of one of the Seven Master Spirits, and culminates in the discovery and recognition of the divine personality of the Universal Father on Paradise. » [UB 0:8.9]
Thus, while God the Supreme through God the sevenfold organizes our career according to number, as Plato said, God the Ultimate transcends the quantifiable and all that it includes of personalized and spiritualized existence without having recourse to unitary, ternary, septenary, denary laws, etc. From then on, if the path of the Supreme was organized spatio-temporally from the action of the 28,011 Master Architects of the master universe, it must be admitted that beyond, that is to say by approaching the domain of God the Ultimate, a resolution of infinity must emerge which must border on absoluteness without the aid of the quantifiable intervening. But it is not up to either of them to reach such a resolution: “Neither the Ultimate nor the Supreme fully represents the Paradise Trinity, but, in a restrictive sense and for their respective levels, each appears to represent the Trinity during the pre-personal epochs when experiential power develops.” [UB 10:3.8]
Thus, in the divine project, like the creativity of the Supreme, the absonity of the Ultimate is a means and not an end. Only acquired absoluteness will be able to complete the experiential unification of all potentials. But even our Revelators and the philosophers of the universes, to whom they claim to belong, do not know how such a final unification could be accomplished in a context of infinity. Nevertheless, and to return to the distinction that should be made between creativity and absonity, we can make a hypothesis here. Indeed, we must recognize that beyond our condition as ascenders of space-time, our efforts directed towards the Father will undoubtedly result for some of us in at least two major categories of destiny. Here is why:
Some of us (the first category of ascenders) will become Finaliters and their future missions seem to have to be distributed among the billions of formations of the levels of external creations, by which means, they will not escape the quantifiable, that is to say, space and time, and these missions will still be conditioned by the numbered and numbering modus vivendi. (Let us recall here that the global sum of the aggregates of all the external formations amounts according to a simple calculation to 28 million, that is to say the sum: 70,000 + 490,000 + 3,343,000 + 24,010,000. And if we consider that each of these formations will be larger than one of the seven superuniverses, I leave to others the task of counting or imagining the number of personalities who will be likely to occupy this immensity.) Such will doubtless be the work of the ascenders of the first category; they will have to accomplish the work of leading towards the Father these populations to whom, as Finaliters, they will undoubtedly have the task of teaching experientiality.
Ascendant finaliters, having been born in the local universes, nurtured in the superuniverses, and trained in the central universe, embrace in their personal experiences the full potential of the comprehension of the time-space divinity of God the Sevenfold unifying in the Supreme. Finaliters serve successively in superuniverses other than those of nativity, thereby superimposing experience upon experience until the fullness of the sevenfold diversity of possible creature experience has been encompassed. Through the ministry of the indwelling Adjusters the finaliters are enabled to find the Universal Father, but it is by these techniques of experience that such finaliters come really to know the Supreme Being, and they are destined to the service and the revelation of this Supreme Deity in and to the future universes of outer space. ([UB 56:8.2)
Other ascenders (the second category), although also operating in the universes of space and time, will act on a level transcending space-time, thus reaching to a certain extent the absonitarian condition. This is, it seems, what must happen to all those ascenders who will be able to go beyond the stage of the quantifiable; they seem from then on to have become worthy of being embraced by the Trinity and remain, as such, “consecrated and assigned forever to its service.” [UB 22:1.1]
These ascenders, because they have, in their way, transcended time and space, become nameless and numberless, and we are told of them that they “constitute the third and final group of the Trinitized Sons of Attainment. They are the ascending souls who have developed a capacity for worship surpassing in skill that of all the sons and daughters of the evolutionary races of the worlds of time and space. They have acquired a spiritual concept of the eternal purpose of the Universal Father in a manner which, by comparison, transcends the comprehension of evolutionary creatures of name and number; hence they are called the Nameless and Numberless. A more strict translation of their appellation would be Those Who Have Transcended Name and Number.” [UB 22:4.1]
Whether our progress in our future eternity reserves for us a fate as Finaliters or as Nameless and Numberless, it seems that in either case we have to discover for ourselves the eternal importance of number, that is to say the importance of time and space; and if we are looking for a spatio-temporal symbolism describing the aspirations of the Deity regarding its experiential project, is it not in numbers that we must look?
From such an intellectual approach, it is possible to describe the experiential manifestation as voluntarily subjected by the Deity to the numerical laws, time and space presenting themselves as a sort of abscissa and ordinate of a cosmic construction which can only be surpassed by the achievement of the absolute. And all this numbering capacity is inscribed within the ten numerical symbols. This set, with its unique and thus symbolizing symbolizing functions, undoubtedly constitutes what the revelators call “the premathematics of force, energy and power.” [UB 104:3.2], essential bases of the experiential creation of time and space.
Jeanmarie Chair
| Le Lien Urantien — Issue 27 — Autumn 2003 — Contents | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 27 — Autumn 2003 | The Hidden Version of Part IV of The Urantia Book |