© 1959 William S. Sadler
© 1961 Urantia Foundation
The finding of God on Paradise. UB 48:8.1
GOD is a word symbol designating all personalizations of Deity. The term requires a different definition on each level of Deity function and must be still further redefined within each of these levels, as this term may be used to designate the diverse co-ordinate and subordinate personalizations of Deity; for example: the Paradise Creator Sons—the local universe fathers.
The term God,as we make use of it, may be understood:
By designation—as God the Father
By context—as when used in the discussion of some one deity level or association. When in doubt as to the exact interpretation of the word God, it would be advisable to refer it to the person of the Universal Father…
The term God always denotes personality. Deity may, or may not refer to divinity personalities. The word GOD is used, in these papers, with the following meanings:
- God the Father—Creator, Controller, and Upholder. The Universal Father, the First person of Deity.
- God the Son—Co-ordinate Creator, Spirit Controller, and spiritual Administrator. The Eternal Son, the Second Person of Deity.
- God the Spirit—Conjoint Actor, Universal Integrator, and Mind Bestower. The Infinite Spirit, the Third Person of Deity.
- God the Supreme
- God the Sevenfold
- God the Ultimate
- God the Absolute UB 0:2.6-18
God-the Universal Father—is the personality of the First Source and Center. UB 0:3.10
God, as the First Source and Center, is primal in relation to total reality—unqualifiedly The First Source and Center is infinite as well as eternal and is therefore limited or conditioned only by volition. UB 0:3.9
God is personality. Notwithstanding that God is an eternal power, a majestic presence, a transcendent ideal, and a glorious spirit, though he is all these and infinitely more, nonetheless, he is truly and everlastingly a perfect Creator personality, a person who can “know and be known”, who can “love and be loved,” and one who can befriend us; while you can be known, as other humans have been known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a spiritual reality. UB 1:5.8
God is to science a cause, to philosophy an idea, to religion a person, even the loving heavenly Father. God is to the scientist a primal force, to the philosopher a hypothesis of unity, to the religionist a living spiritual experience. UB 1:6.2
God is spirit—spirit personality UB 1:6.8
God is not a cosmic accident; neither is he a universe experimenter. 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. UB 2:1.5
God is eternally and infinitely perfect, he cannot personally know imperfection as his own experience, but he does share the consciousness of all the experience of inperfectness of all the struggling creatures of the evolutionary universes of all the Paradies Creator Sons. UB 2:2.6
God is love, but love is not God. UB 2:5.10
God is inherently kind, naturally compassionate, and everlastingly merciful. UB 2:4.2
It is wrong to think of God as being coaxed into loving his children because of the sacrifices of his Sons or the intercessions of his subordinate creatures, “for the Father himself loves you.” It is in reaponse to this paternal affection that God sends the marvelous Adjusters to indwell the minds of men. God’s love is universal; “whosoever will may come.” He would “have all men be saved by coming into the knowledge of the truth.” He is “not willing that any should perish.” UB 2:5.2
God is never wrathful, vengeful, or angry. It is true that wisdom does often restrain his love, while justice conditions hes rejected mercy. His love of righteousness cannot help being exhibited as equal hatred for sin. The Father is not an inconsistent personality; the divine unity is perfect. UB 2:6.7
God is unlimited in power, divine in nature, final in will, infinite in attributes, eternal in wisdom, and absolute in reality. UB 3:2.15
If God should retire as the present upholder of all creation, there would immediately occur a universal collapse. Except for God, there would be no such thing as reality. At this very moment, as during the remote ages of the past and in the eternal future, God continues to uphold. UB 4:1.6
God repents of nothing he has ever done, now does, or ever will do. He is all-wise as well as all-powerful. UB 4:3.4
God is the only stationary, self-contained, and changeless being in the whole universe of universes, having no outside, no beyond, no past, and no future. God is purposive energy (creative spirit) and absolute will, and these are self-existent and universal.
Since God is self-existent, he is absolutely independent. The very identity of God is inimical to change. UB 4:4.1-2
In science, God is the First Causes; in religion, the universal and loving Father; in philosophy, the one being who exists by himself, not dependent on any other being for existence but beneficently conferring reality of existence on all things and upon all other beings. UB 4:4.7
It is an affront to God to believe, hold, or teach that innocent blood must be shed in order to win his favor or to divert the fictitious divine wrath. UB 4:5.4
What a travesty upon the infinite character of God! this teaching that his fatherly heart in all its austere coldness and hardness was so untouched by the misfortunes and sorrows of his creatures that his tender mercies were not forthcoming until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon the cross of Calvary. UB 4:5.6
God is not only the determiner of destiny; he is man’s eternal destination. All nonreligious human activities seek to bend the universe to the distorting service of self the truly religious individual seeks to identify the self with the universe and then to dedicate the activities of this unified self to the service of the universe family of fellow beings, human and superhuman. UB 5:4.3
God is father personality—the source of personality, the bestower of personality, the cause of personality. UB 6:7.1
Jesus employed the word God to designate the idea of Deity and the word Father to designate the experience of knowing God. When the word Father is employed to denote God, it should be understood in its largest possible meaning. The word God cannot be defined and therefore stands for the infinite concept of the Father, while the term Father, being capable of partial definition, may be employed to represent the human concept of the divine Father as he is associated with man during the course, of mortal existence. UB 169:4.7
God is not the mere invention of man’s idealism; he is the very source of all such superanimal insights and values. God is not a hypothesis formulated to unify the human concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness; he is the personality of love from whom all of these universe manifestations are derived. UB 196:3.24
The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness-contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitute God-consciousness an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such spirit consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith. And God-consciousness is equivalent to the integration of the self with the universe, and on its highest levels of spiritual reality. (24) The intellectual capacity for knowing God—God consciousness. UB 196:3.34
The spiritual urge to find God. UB 1:2.5
God the Supreme in Havona is the personal spirit reflection of the triune Paradise Deity. UB 0:7.7
The Almighty Supreme, evolving on the value-level of nonpersonal activities, and the spirit person of God the Supreme are one reality—the Supreme Being. UB 0:8.10
God the Ultimate is designative of personal Deity functioning on the divinity levels of the absonite and on the universe spheres of supertime and transcended space. The Ultimate is a supersupreme eventuation of Deity. The Supreme is the Trinity unification comprehended by finite beings; the Ultimate is the unification of the Paradise Trinity comprehended by absonite beings. UB 0:9.2
Goodness embraces the sense of ethics, morality, and religion—experiential perfection-hunger. UB 56:10.10
Goodness is the mental recognition of the relative values of the diverse levels of divine perfection. The recognition of goodness implies a.mind of moral status,a personal mind with ability to discriminate between good and evil. But the possession of goodness, greatness, is the measure of real divinity attainment. UB 56:10.12
Goodness is always growing toward new levels of the increasing liberty of moral self-realization and spiritual personality attainment—the discovery of, and identification with, the indwelling Adjuster. An experience is good when it heightens the appreciation of beauty,’ augments the moral will, enhances the discernment of truth, enlarges the capacity to love and serve one’s fellows, exalts the spiritual ideals: and unifies the supreme human motives of time with the eternal plans of the indwelling Adjuster, all of which lead directly to an increased desire to do the Father’s will, thereby fostering the divine passion to find God and to be more like him. UB 132:2.5
Goodness is living, relative, always progressing, invariably a personal experience, and everlastingly correlated with the discernment of truth and beauty. Goodness is found in the recognition of the positive truth-values of the spiritual level, which must, in human experience,. be contrasted with the negative counterpart—the shadows of potential evil. UB 132:2.7
The discernment of supreme beauty is the discovery and integration of reality: The discernment of the divine goodness in the eternal truth, that is ultimate beauty. UB 2:7.8
The Gospel of the kingdom is: the fact of the fatherhood of God, coupled with the resultant truth of the sonship-brotherhood of men. UB 194:0.4
Graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated soul. UB 171:7.1
The standard weight.(of Jerusem) the “gradent” is built up through the decimal system from the mature ultimaton and represents almost exactly ten ounces of your weight. UB 46:1.2
The Grand Universe is the present organized and inhabited creation. It consists of the seven superuniverses, with an aggregate evolutionary potential of around seven trillion inhabited planets, not to mention the eternal spheres of the central creation. But this tentative estimate takes no account of architectural administrative spheres, neither does it include the outlying groups of unorganized universes. The present ragged edge of the grand universe, its uneven and unfinished periphery, together with the tremendously unsettled condition of the whole astronomical plot, suggests to our star students that even the seven superuniverses are, as yet, uncompleted. As we move from within, from the divine center outward in any direction, we do, eventually, come to the outer limits of the organized and inhabited creation; we come to the outer limits of the grand universe. And it is near this outer border, in a far-off corner of such a magnificent creation, that your local universe has its eventful existence. UB 12:1.13
The Grand Universe. Seven superuniverses make up the present organized grand universe, consisting of approximately seven trillion inhabitable worlds plus the architectural spheres and the one billion inhabited spheres of Havona. UB 15:2.9
The physical systems of the superuniverses are mobilized by the Universe Power Director’s and their associates. These material organizations are dual in constitution and are known as gravita. UB 11:8.7
Universe power. Space-force has been changed into space-energy and thence into the energy of gravity control. Thus has physical energy been ripened to that point where it can be directed into channels of power and made to serve the manifold purposes of the universe Creators. This work is carried on by the versatile directors, centers, and controller of physical energy in the grand universe—the organized and inhabited creations. These Universe Power Directors assume the more or less complete control of twenty-one of the thirty phases of energy constituting the present energy system of the seven superuniverses. This domain of power-energy-matter is the realm of the intelligent activities of the Sevenfold, functioning under the time-space overcontrol of the Supreme… On Uversa we refer to the realm of universe power as GRAVITA. UB 42:2.14
Gravity is the sole control of energy-matter. UB 0:6.11
The inescapable pull of gravity effectively grips all the worlds of all the universes of all space. Gravity is the all-powerful grasp of the physical presence of Paradise. Gravity is the omnipotent strand on which are strung the gleaming stars, blazing suns, and whirling spheres which constitute the universal physical adornment of the eternal God, who is all things, fills all things, and in whom all things consist. UB 11:8.1
The center and focal point of absolute material gravity is the Isle of Paradise, complemented by the dark gravity bodies encircling Havona and equilibrated by the upper and nether space reservoirs. All known emanations of nether Paradise invariable and unerringly respond to the central gravity pull operating upon the endless circuits of the elliptical space levels of the master universe. Every known form of cosmic reality has the bend of the ages, the trend of the circle, the swing of the great ellipse.
Space is nonresponsive to gravity, but it acts as a equilibrant on gravity. Without the space cushion, explosive action would jerk surrounding space bodies. Pervaded space also exerts an antigravity influence upon physical or linear gravity; space can actually neutralize such gravity action even though it cannot delay it. Absolute gravity is paradise gravity. Local or linear gravity pertains to the electrical stage of energy or matter; it operates within the central, super-, and outer universes, wherever suitable materialization has taken place. UB 11:8.2-3
Creative growth is unending but ever satisfying, endless in extent but always punctuated by those personality-satisfying moments of transient goal attainment which serve so effectively as the mobilization preludes to new adventures in cosmic growth, universe exploration, and Deity attainment. UB 118:0.10
The sense of guilt (not the consciousness of sin) comes either from interrupted spiritual communion or from the lowering of one’s moral ideals. Deliverance from such a predicament can only come through the realization that one’s highest moral ideals are not necessarily synonymous with the will of God. Man cannot hope to live up to his highest ideals, but he can be true to his purpose of finding God and becoming more and more like him. UB 103:4.3