© 2001 The Brotherhood of Man Library
Concepts such as the changelessness of God, his perfection, righteousness, justice, mercy, love and forgiveness have always ended in confusion when finite mortal beings attempt to tie them down to meaningful definitions. Theologians, in particular, have made the primal mistake of believing in their own ability to precisely state what God is or is not, or what God can or cannot do.
Is it reasonable to expect that a created being can define its creator? How could such a being possibly know what limitations its creator had imposed upon it? How can the finite comprehend the infinite? Or the lower comprehend the higher?
The revelators of the Urantia Papers make no such mistake. They freely admit their limitations and are not afraid to state that they do not know or do not understand. Not only do they admit their own inadequacies, they also inform us about the real lowliness of our own intelligence and understanding.
Of all intelligent creatures actually possessing the innate, God-gifted ability to achieve God-consciousness, we Urantians are as low as it gets. So let’s cast aside the arrogance of others and approach what may be knowable about our Creator in reverence and humility, recognizing that in doing so we can only know what is revealed from on high.
“The nature of God can best be understood by the revelation of the Father which Michael of Nebadon unfolded in his manifold teachings and in his superb mortal life in the flesh.” (UB 2:0.1)
“Notwithstanding the infinity of the stupendous manifestations of the Father’s eternal and universal personality, he is unqualifiedly self-conscious of both his infinity and eternity; likewise he knows fully his perfection and power. He is the only being in the universe, aside from his divine co-ordinates, who experiences a perfect, proper, and complete appraisal of himself.” (UB 2:1.3)
“The Universal Father sees the end from the beginning, and his divine plan and eternal purpose actually embrace and comprehend all the experiments and all the adventures of all his subordinates in every world, system, and constellation in every universe of his vast domains.” (UB 2:1.4)
No thing is new to God, and no cosmic event ever comes as a surprise; he inhabits the circle of eternity. He is without beginning or end of days. To God there is no past, present, or future; all time is present at any given moment. He is the great and only I AM.
“The Universal Father is absolutely and without qualification infinite in all his attributes; and this fact, in and of itself, automatically shuts him off from all direct personal communication with finite material beings and other lowly created intelligences.” (UB 2:1.6)
Communication of the Universal Father and his finite mortal creatures is, of necessity, through his associates.
By these and other ways beyond our comprehension, “the Paradise Father lovingly and willingly downsteps and otherwise modifies, dilutes, and attenuates his infinity in order that he may be able to draw nearer the finite minds of his creature children.”
But there are difficulties:
Perhaps the greatest source of confusion about the nature of God has come from attempts to utilize Aristotelian-type logic in order to rationalize the perfect righteousness of God with his perfect love and mercy.
For many, many thousands of years human society has functioned on the basis of offenders being rewarded for their good works but punished for their offences against society.
The Jewish religion, in which Christianity has its roots, was strong on the concept of an angry and punishing God who would even punish the whole nation for the misdeeds of individuals.
The expectation of reward for virtue and punishment for sin is deeply rooted in our religion and in our psyche. Both of the major founders of Christian dogma, Paul and Augustine, had great difficulties with the sinfulness of man and the perfection of God, to the point that both decided that God chooses his “elect” even before they are born.
Paul taught that mankind was born in sin by inheriting the transgression of Adam. Augustine added that man cannot achieve righteousness through his own effort—for to assert that he could do so is to contradict the “fundamental truth that God is the giver of all good.”
From his study of Paul’s argument in his Epistle to the Romans, Augustine concluded that “no event in time can alter the eternal setting of God’s will towards any human soul,” hence his “elect” must be chosen before the foundations of the world. Thus mankind divides into two societies, the elect and the damned.
How could the “elect” be saved from inherited and personal sin? Augustine held that God knows, quite apart from the time process, how each individual will respond to God’s granting of grace when it is offered. Therefore the elect alone receive that offer, as their acceptance is already preordained.
Augustine’s arguments reappeared in virtually unmodified form in the writings of both St. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin, the most acute thinkers of Scholasticism and the Reform.
Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin—and many others—have had an enormous influence upon Christian theology and dogma. Together they constitute an excellent illustration of creature arrogance in that they appropriated to themselves the authority to state what the Creator can or cannot, will or will not, do.
Urantia Paper No. 2 makes an enormously important statement having the potential to eliminate much confusion in Christian dogma—doctrines such as original sin, atonement, and many other inventions of men that trace back to the erroneous logic of Paul, Augustine, and their successors:
“The affectionate heavenly Father, whose spirit indwells his children on earth, is not a divided personality—one of justice and one of mercy—neither does it require a mediator to secure the Father’s favor or forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict retributive justice; God as a father transcends God as a judge.” (UB 2:6.6)
In summary: “The love and mercy of God as our Father transcends God’s righteousness as our Judge.”
Knowledge of God can only derive from revelation. But the knowledge of what is or is not revelation cannot be other than the faith decision of the individual. We are responsible for ourselves. Certainty, whether on matters material, religious, or spiritual, is unavailable to mankind.
However we are never alone: “That fragment of the pure Deity of the Universal Father which indwells mortal man is a part of the infinity of the First Great Source and Center, the Father of Fathers.”
“In Him we live and move and have our being.”
God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please— you can never have both.
Emerson