This blog is Nuggets of Gold 2. It is a
sample preview of my new book Increate
Love by John Thwaytes.
Indestructibility of energy:
42.1.7
Force derived from self-existent Deity is in itself ever existent. Force-energy
is imperishable, indestructible; these manifestations of the Infinite may be
subject to unlimited transmutation, endless transformation, and eternal
metamorphosis; but in no sense or degree, not even to the slightest imaginable extent,
could they or ever shall they suffer extinction. But energy, though springing
from the Infinite, is not infinitely manifest; there are outer limits to the
presently conceived master universe.
42.1.8 Energy is eternal but not
infinite; it ever responds to the all-embracing grasp of Infinity. Forever force
and energy go on; having gone out from Paradise ,
they must return thereto, even if age upon age be required for the completion
of the ordained circuit. That which is of Paradise Deity origin can have only a
Paradise destination or a Deity destiny.
Time and space:
12.5.2 Space is not infinite, even
though it takes origin from Paradise ; not
absolute, for it is pervaded by the Unqualified Absolute. We do not know the
absolute limits of space, but we do know that the absolute of time is eternity.
12.5.3 Time and space are
inseparable only in the time-space creations, the seven superuniverses. Nontemporal
space (space without time) theoretically exists, but the only truly nontemporal
place is Paradise area. Nonspatial time
(time without space) exists in mind of the Paradise
level of function.
12.5.4 The relatively motionless
midspace zones impinging on Paradise and separating pervaded from unpervaded
space are the transition zones from time to eternity, hence the necessity of
Paradise pilgrims becoming unconscious during this transit when it is to
culminate in Paradise citizenship. Time-conscious visitors can go to Paradise without thus sleeping, but they remain creatures
of time.
12.5.5 Relationships to time do not
exist without motion in space, but consciousness of time does. Sequentiality
can consciousize time even in the absence of motion. Man’s mind is less
time-bound than space-bound because of the inherent nature of mind. Even during
the days of the earth life in the flesh, though man’s mind is rigidly space-bound,
the creative human imagination is comparatively time free. But time itself is
not genetically a quality of mind.
12.5.6 There are three different
levels of time cognizance:
12.5.7 1): Mind-perceived time —
consciousness of sequence, motion, and a sense of duration.
12.5.8 2): Spirit-perceived time —
insight into motion Godward and the awareness of the motion of ascent to levels
of increasing divinity.
12:5.9 3. Personality creates a
unique time sense out of insight into Reality plus a
consciousness
of presence and an awareness of duration.
Adventures:
14.5.7 Not until you traverse the
last of the Havona circuits and visit the last of the Havona worlds, will the
tonic of adventure and the stimulus of curiosity disappear from your career.
And then will the urge, the forward impulse of eternity, replace its
forerunner, the adventure lure of time.
14.5.8 Monotony is indicative of
immaturity of the creative imagination and inactivity of intellectual
coordination with the spiritual endowment. By the time an ascendant mortal
begins the exploration of these heavenly worlds, he has already attained
emotional, intellectual, and social, if not spiritual, maturity.
14.5.9 Not only will you find
undreamed-of changes confronting you as you advance from circuit to circuit in
Havona, but your astonishment will be inexpressible as you progress from planet
to planet within each circuit. Each of these billion study worlds is a
veritable university of surprises. Continuing astonishment, unending wonder, is
the experience of those who traverse these circuits and tour these gigantic
spheres. Monotony is not a part of the Havona career.
14.5.10 Love of adventure,
curiosity, and dread of monotony — these traits inherent in evolving human nature
— were not put there just to aggravate and annoy you during your short sojourn
on earth, but rather to suggest to you that death is only the beginning of an
endless career of adventure, an everlasting life of anticipation, an eternal
voyage of discovery.
14.5.11 Curiosity — the spirit of
investigation, the urge of discovery, the drive of exploration — is a part of
the inborn and divine endowment of evolutionary space creatures. These natural
impulses were not given you merely to be frustrated and repressed. True, these
ambitious urges must frequently be restrained during your short life on earth,
disappointment must be often experienced, but they are to be fully realized and
gloriously gratified during the long ages to come.
Proof that the UB is deliberately
incomplete, and that it encourages imagination and speculation, as Jesus did:
30.0.2 It is not possible to
formulate comprehensive and entirely consistent classifications of the personalities
of the grand universe because all of the groups are not revealed. It
would require numerous additional papers to cover the further revelation
required to systematically classify all groups. Such conceptual expansion would
hardly be desirable as it would deprive the thinking mortals of the next thousand
years of that stimulus to creative speculation which these partially revealed
concepts supply. It is
best
that man not have an overrevelation; it stifles imagination.
Hypocrisy:
82.1.10 No human emotion or impulse,
when unbridled and overindulged, can produce so much harm and sorrow as this
powerful sex urge. Intelligent submission of this impulse to the regulations of
society is the supreme test of the actuality of any civilization. Self-control,
more and more self-control, is the everincreasing demand of advancing mankind.
Secrecy, insincerity, and hypocrisy may obscure sex problems,
but
they do not provide solutions, nor do they advance ethics.
131.7.3 “‘Every time man yields to
anxiety, he takes one step away from the leading of the spirit of his heart.’
Pride obscures God. If you would obtain heavenly help, put away your pride;
every hair of pride shuts off saving light, as it were, by a great cloud. If
you are not right on the inside, it is useless to pray for that which is on the
outside. ‘If I hear your prayers, it is because you come before me with a clean
heart, free from falsehood and hypocrisy, with a soul which reflects truth like
a mirror. If you would gain immortality, forsake the world and come to me.’”
140.8.21 Jesus had little to say
about the social vices of his day; seldom did he make reference to moral
delinquency. He was a positive teacher of true virtue. He studiously avoided the
negative method of imparting instruction; he refused to advertise evil. He was
not even a moral reformer. He well knew, and so taught his apostles, that the
sensual urges of mankind are not suppressed by either religious rebuke or legal
prohibitions. His few denunciations were largely directed against pride,
cruelty, oppression, and hypocrisy.
149.2.11 Jesus transcended all the
teachings of his forebears when he boldly substituted clean hearts for clean
hands as the mark of true religion. He put reality in the place of tradition
and swept aside all pretensions of vanity and hypocrisy. And yet this fearless
man of God did not give vent to destructive criticism or manifest an utter
disregard of the religious, social, economic, and political usages of his day.
He was not a militant revolutionist; he was a progressive evolutionist. He
engaged in the destruction of that which was only when he simultaneously
offered his fellows the superior thing which ought to be.
149.6.9 “Out of your wrong concepts
of the Father in heaven grow your false ideas of humility and springs much of
your hypocrisy. Man may be a worm of the dust by nature and origin, but when he
becomes indwelt by my Father’s spirit, that man becomes divine in his destiny.
The bestowal spirit of my Father will surely return to the divine source and
universe level of origin, and the human soul of mortal man which shall have
become the reborn child of this indwelling spirit shall certainly ascend with
the divine
spirit
to the very presence of the eternal Father.
149.6.10 “Humility, indeed, becomes
mortal man who receives all these gifts from the Father in heaven, albeit there
is a divine dignity attached to all such faith candidates for the eternal
ascent of the heavenly kingdom. The meaningless and menial practices of an
ostentatious and false humility are incompatible with the appreciation of the
source of your salvation and the recognition of the destiny of your spirit-born
souls.
Humility
before God is altogether appropriate in the depths of your hearts; meekness
before men is commendable; but the hypocrisy of self-conscious and
attention-craving humility is childish and unworthy of the enlightened sons of
the kingdom.
149.6.11 “You do well to be meek
before God and self-controlled before men, but let your meekness be of
spiritual origin and not the self-deceptive display of a self-conscious sense
of self-righteous superiority. The prophet spoke advisedly when he said, ‘Walk
humbly with God,’ for, while the Father in heaven is the Infinite and the
Eternal, he also dwells ‘with him who is of a contrite mind and a humble
spirit.’ My Father
disdains
pride, loathes hypocrisy, and abhors iniquity. And it was to emphasize the
value of sincerity and perfect trust in the loving support and faithful
guidance of the heavenly Father that I have so often referred to the little
child as illustrative of the attitude of mind and the response of spirit which
are so essential to the entrance of mortal man into the spirit realities of the
kingdom of heaven.
165.3.2 “What I have many times said
to my apostles and to my disciples, I now declare to this multitude: Beware of
the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy, born of prejudice and nurtured
in traditional bondage, albeit many of these Pharisees are honest of heart and
some of them abide here as my disciples. Presently all of you shall understand
my teaching, for there is nothing now covered that shall not be revealed. That
which is now hid from you shall all be made known when the Son of Man has completed
his mission on earth and in the flesh.
3. Renunciation and Humiliation in contrast
with pleasure.
89.3.1 Renunciation came as the next
step in religious evolution; fasting was a common practice. Soon it became the
custom to forgo many forms of physical pleasure, especially of a sexual nature.
The ritual of the fast was deeply rooted in many ancient religions and has been
handed down to practically all modern theologic systems of thought.
89.3.2 Just about the time barbarian
man was recovering from the wasteful practice of burning and burying property
with the dead, just as the economic structure of the races was beginning to
take shape, this new religious doctrine of renunciation appeared, and tens of
thousands of earnest souls began to court poverty. Property was regarded as a
spiritual handicap. These notions of the spiritual dangers of material
possession
were widespreadly entertained in the times of Philo and Paul, and they have
markedly influenced European philosophy ever since.
89.3.3 Poverty was just a part of
the ritual of the mortification of the flesh which, unfortunately, became incorporated
into the writings and teachings of many religions, notably Christianity.
Penance is the negative form of this ofttimes foolish ritual of renunciation.
But all this taught the savage self-control, and that was a worth-while
advancement in social evolution. Self-denial and self-control were two of the
greatest social gains from early evolutionary religion. Self-control gave man a
new philosophy of life; it taught him the art of augmenting life’s fraction by
lowering the denominator of personal demands instead of always attempting to
increase the numerator of selfish gratification.
89.3.4 These olden ideas of
self-discipline embraced flogging and all sorts of physical torture. The
priests of the mother cult were especially active in teaching the virtue of
physical suffering, setting the example by submitting themselves to castration.
The Hebrews, Hindus, and Buddhists were earnest devotees of this doctrine of
physical humiliation.
89.3.5 All through the olden times
men sought in these ways for extra credits on the self-denial ledgers of their
gods. It was once customary, when under some emotional stress, to make vows of
self-denial and self-torture. In time these vows assumed the form of contracts
with the gods and, in that sense, represented true evolutionary progress in
that the gods were supposed to do something definite in return for this
self-torture and mortification of the flesh. Vows were both negative and
positive. Pledges of this
harmful
and extreme nature are best observed today among certain groups in India .
89.3.6 It was only natural that the
cult of renunciation and humiliation should have paid attention to sexual
gratification. The continence cult originated as a ritual among soldiers prior
to engaging in battle; in later days it became the practice of “saints.” This
cult tolerated marriage only as an evil lesser than fornication. Many of the
world’s great religions have been adversely influenced by this ancient cult,
but none more markedly than Christianity. The Apostle Paul was a devotee of
this cult, and his personal views are reflected in the teachings which he
fastened onto Christian theology: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”
“I would that all men were even as I myself.” “I say, therefore, to the
unmarried and widows, it is good for them to abide even as I.” Paul well knew
that such teachings were not a part of Jesus’ gospel, and his acknowledgment of
this is illustrated by his statement, “I speak this by permission and not by command-ment.”
But this cult led Paul to look down upon women. And the pity of it all is that
his personal opinions have long influenced the teachings of a great world
religion. If the advice of the tentmaker-teacher were to be literally and
universally obeyed, then would the human race come to a sudden and inglorious end.
Furthermore, the involvement of a religion with the ancient continence cult
leads directly to a war against marriage and the home, society’s veritable
foundation and the basic institution of human progress. And it is not to be
wondered at that all such beliefs fostered the formation of celibate priesthoods
in the many religions of various peoples.
89.3.7 Someday man should learn how
to enjoy liberty without license, nourishment without gluttony, and pleasure
without debauchery. Self-control is a better human policy of behavior
regulation than is extreme self-denial. Nor did Jesus ever teach these
unreasonable views to his followers.
3.5.14 9. Is pleasure — the
satisfaction of happiness — desirable? Then must man live in a world where the
alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present
experiential possibilities.
3.5.17 The creatures of Havona are
naturally brave, but they are not courageous in the human sense. They are
innately kind and considerate, but hardly altruistic in the human way. They are
expectant of a pleasant future, but not hopeful in the exquisite manner of the
trusting mortal of the uncertain evolutionary spheres. They have faith in the
stability of the universe, but they are utter strangers to that saving faith whereby
mortal man climbs from the status of an animal up to the portals of Paradise . They love the truth, but they know nothing of
its soul-saving qualities. They are idealists, but they were born that way;
they are wholly ignorant of the ecstasy of becoming such by exhilarating
choice. They are loyal, but they have never experienced the thrill of
wholehearted and intelligent devotion to duty in the face of temptation to default.
They are unselfish, but they never gained such levels of experience by the
magnificent conquest of a belligerent self. They enjoy pleasure, but they do
not comprehend the sweetness of the pleasure escape from the pain potential.
14.6.9 Our Father beholds the
central universe with perfect pleasure because it is a worthy revelation of spirit
reality to all personalities of the universe of universes.
27.7.1 Worship is the highest
privilege and the first duty of all created intelligences. Worship is the conscious
and joyous act of recognizing and acknowledging the truth and fact of the
intimate and personal relationships of the Creators with their creatures. The
quality of worship is determined by the depth of creature perception; and as
the knowledge of the infinite character of the Gods progresses, the act of worship
becomes increasingly all-encompassing until it eventually attains the glory of
the highest
experiential
delight and the most exquisite pleasure known to created beings.
27.7.3 The periodic, spontaneous,
group, and other special outbursts of supreme adoration and spiritual praise
enjoyed on Paradise are conducted under the
leadership of a special corps of primary supernaphim. Under the direction of
these conductors of worship, such homage achieves the creature goal of supreme pleasure
and attains the heights of the perfection of sublime self-expression and
personal enjoyment. All primary supernaphim crave to be conductors of worship;
and all ascendant beings would enjoy forever remaining in the attitude of
worship did not the chiefs of assignment periodically disperse these assemblages.
But no ascendant being is ever required to enter upon the assignments of
eternal service until he has attained full satisfaction in worship.
(JRT)
I conclude that renunciation and denial of pleasure is not an appropriate
response to spiritual realities. But here is a caveat:
84.8.6
Let man enjoy himself; let the human race find pleasure in a thousand and one
ways; let evolutionary mankind explore all forms of legitimate
self-gratification, the fruits of the long upward biologic struggle. Man has
well earned some of his present-day joys and pleasures. But look you well to
the goal of destiny! Pleasures are indeed suicidal if they succeed in
destroying property, which has become the institution of self-maintenance; and
self-gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the
collapse
of marriage, the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home —
man’s supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization’s only hope of
survival.
84.8.7 [Presented by the Chief of
Seraphim stationed on Urantia.]
195.10.20 Christianity suffers under
a great handicap because it has become identified in the minds of all the world
as a part of the social system, the industrial life, and the moral standards of
Western civilization; and thus has Christianity unwittingly seemed to sponsor a
society which staggers under the guilt of tolerating science without idealism,
politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without restraint,
knowledge without character, power without conscience, and industry without
morality.
195.10.21 The hope of modern
Christianity is that it should cease to sponsor the social systems and industrial
policies of Western civilization while it humbly bows itself before the cross
it so valiantly extols, there to learn anew from Jesus of Nazareth the greatest
truths mortal man can ever hear — the living gospel of the fatherhood of God
and the brotherhood of man.
Jesus teaches tolerance:
146.3.2 The apostles were a bit
disconcerted by the open manner of Jesus’ assent to many of the Greek’s
propositions, but Jesus afterward privately said to them: “My children, marvel
not that I was tolerant of the Greek’s philosophy. True and genuine inward
certainty does not in the least fear outward analysis, nor does truth resent
honest criticism. You should never
forget that intolerance is the mask covering up the entertainment of secret
doubts as to the trueness of one’s belief. No man is at any time disturbed
by his neighbor’s attitude when he has perfect confidence in the truth of that
which he wholeheartedly believes. Courage is the confidence of thoroughgoing
honesty about those things which one professes to believe. Sincere men are
unafraid of the critical examination of their true convictions and noble ideals.”
Jewish ideas of heaven and hell:
95.6.6 The Jewish traditions of
heaven and hell and the doctrine of devils as recorded in the Hebrew scriptures,
while founded on the lingering traditions of Lucifer and Caligastia, were
principally derived from the Zoroastrians during the times when the Jews were
under the political and cultural dominance of the Persians. Zoroaster, like the
Egyptians, taught the “day of judgment,” but he connected this event with the end
of the world.
Natural beauty:
46.2.1 On Jerusem you will miss the
rugged mountain ranges of Urantia and other evolved worlds since there are
neither earthquakes nor rainfalls, but you will enjoy the beauteous highlands
and other unique variations of topography and landscape. Enormous areas of
Jerusem are preserved in a “natural state,” and the grandeur of such districts
is quite beyond the powers of human imagination.
46.2.2 There are thousands upon
thousands of small lakes but no raging rivers nor expansive oceans. There is no
rainfall, neither storms nor blizzards, on any of the architectural worlds, but
there is the daily precipitation of the condensation of moisture during the
time of lowest temperature attending the light recession. (The dew point is
higher on a three-gas world than on a two-gas planet like Urantia.) The physical
plant life and the morontia world of living things both require moisture, but
this is largely supplied
by
the subsoil system of circulation which extends all over the sphere, even up to
the very tops of the highlands. This water system is not entirely subsurface,
for there are many canals interconnecting the sparkling lakes of Jerusem.
54.1.2 True liberty is the quest of the ages
and the reward of evolutionary progress. False liberty is the subtle deception
of the error of time and the evil of space. Enduring liberty is predicated on
the reality of justice — intelligence, maturity, fraternity, and equity.
54.1.3 Liberty is a self-destroying technique of
cosmic existence when its motivation is unintelligent, unconditioned, and
uncontrolled. True liberty is progressively related to reality and is ever
regardful of social equity, cosmic fairness, universe fraternity, and divine
obligations.
54.1.4 Liberty
is suicidal when divorced from material justice, intellectual fairness, social
forbearance, moral duty, and spiritual values. Liberty is nonexistent apart from cosmic
reality, and all personality reality is proportional to its divinity
relationships.
54.1.5 Unbridled self-will and
unregulated self-expression equal unmitigated selfishness, the acme of ungodliness.
Liberty without
the associated and ever-increasing conquest of self is a figment of egoistic mortal
imagination. Self-motivated liberty is a conceptual illusion, a cruel
deception. License masquerading in the garments of liberty is the forerunner of
abject bondage.
54.1.6 True liberty is the associate
of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True
liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of
self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends
towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a
mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the
sake of possessing unjust
power
over his fellow beings.
54.1.7 Even wisdom is divine and safe only
when it is cosmic in scope and spiritual in motivation.
54.1.8 There is no error greater than that
species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise
of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their
natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such
fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness. Only true and genuine
liberty is compatible with the reign of love and the ministry of mercy.
54.1.9 How dare the self-willed
creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty
when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for
these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise
of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of
those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by
all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects.
54.1.10 Evolutionary man may have to
contend for his material liberties with tyrants and oppressors on a world of
sin and iniquity or during the early times of a primitive evolving sphere, but
not so on the morontia worlds or on the spirit spheres. War is the heritage of
early evolutionary man, but on worlds of normal advancing civilization physical
combat as a technique of adjusting racial misunderstandings has long since
fallen
into disrepute.
Fetishes:
Words eventually became fetishes,
more especially those which were regarded as God’s words; in this way the
sacred books of many religions have become fetishistic prisons incarcerating
the spiritual imagination of man. Moses’ very effort against fetishes became a
supreme fetish; his commandment was later used to stultify art and to retard
the enjoyment and adoration of the beautiful. ***
88.2.7 In olden times the fetish
word of authority was a fear-inspiring doctrine, the most terrible of
all tyrants which enslave men. A doctrinal fetish will lead mortal man to
betray himself into the clutches of bigotry, fanaticism, superstition,
intolerance, and the most atrocious of barbarous cruelties. Modern respect for
wisdom and truth is but the recent escape from the fetish-making tendency up to
the higher levels of thinking and reasoning. Concerning the accumulated fetish
writings which various religionists hold as sacred books, it is not only
believed that what is in the book is true, but also that every truth is
contained in the book. If one of these sacred books happens to speak of the
earth as being flat, then, for long generations, otherwise sane men and women
will refuse to accept positive evidence that the planet is round. ***
88.2.8 The practice of opening one
of these sacred books to let the eye chance upon a passage, the following of
which may determine important life decisions or projects, is nothing more nor
less than arrant fetishism. To take an oath on a “holy book” or to swear by
some object of supreme veneration is a form of refined fetishism.
Faith and Belief:
101.8.2 Belief is always limiting
and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates.
But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is
more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned
with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing
and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be
personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up
only in the heart of
the
individual religionist.
101.8.3 Faith has falsified its
trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees assumed
knowledge. Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual
integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Faith
never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal living. Living faith does not
foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance.
101.8.4 Faith does not shackle the
creative imagination, neither does it maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward
the discoveries of scientific investigation. Faith vitalizes religion and
constrains the religionist heroically to live the golden rule. The zeal of
faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime
peace.
Materialism:
102.0.1 TO THE unbelieving
materialist, man is simply an evolutionary accident. His hopes of survival are
strung on a figment of mortal imagination; his fears, loves, longings, and
beliefs are but the reaction of the incidental juxtaposition of certain
lifeless atoms of matter. No display of energy nor expression of trust can
carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and inspirational genius of
the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by death, the long and lonely
night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction.
Nameless
despair is man’s only reward for living and toiling under the temporal sun of
mortal existence. Each day of life slowly and surely tightens the grasp of a
pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of matter has decreed
shall be the crowning insult to everything in human desire which is beautiful,
noble, lofty, and good.
102.0.2 But such is not man’s end
and eternal destiny; such a vision is but the cry of despair uttered by some
wandering soul who has become lost in spiritual darkness, and who bravely
struggles on in the face of the mechanistic sophistries of a material
philosophy, blinded by the confusion and distortion of a complex learning. And
all this doom of darkness and all this destiny of despair are forever dispelled
by one brave stretch of faith on the part of the most humble and unlearned of
God’s children on earth.
102.0.3 This saving faith has its
birth in the human heart when the moral consciousness of man realizes that
human values may be translated in mortal experience from the material to the
spiritual, from the human to the divine, from time to eternity.
The meaning of the Last Supper:
179.5.4 In instituting this
remembrance supper, the Master, as was always his habit, resorted to parables
and symbols. He employed symbols because he wanted to teach certain great
spiritual truths in such a manner as to make it difficult for his successors to
attach precise interpretations and definite meanings to his words. In this way
he sought to prevent successive generations from crystallizing his teaching and
binding down his spiritual meanings by the dead chains of tradition and dogma.
In the
establishment
of the only ceremony or sacrament associated with his whole life mission, Jesus
took great pains to suggest his meanings rather than to commit himself
to precise definitions. He did not wish to destroy the individual’s
concept of divine communion by establishing a precise form; neither did he
desire to limit the believer’s spiritual imagination by formally cramping it. He
rather sought to set man’s reborn soul free upon the joyous wings of a new and
living spiritual liberty.
How man becomes superfinite:
118.6.7 Volition, the act of
choosing, must function within the universe frame which has actualized in response
to higher and prior choosing. The entire range of human will is strictly
finite-limited except in one particular: When man chooses to find God and to be
like him, such a choice is superfinite; only eternity can disclose whether this
choice is also superabsonite.
(JRT)
If it is superabsonite it could even be subabsolute. That thought is enough to
make my hair stand on end anyway. To me this means that once you sincerely make
that final decision to find God, do God's will, and be like Him, then, in less
than a second the Father will plan out and hardwire your immortal career for
the whole of eternity, so that the you that you will be in a million years time
will be existing in the sight of the absolute right now. I also get the hunch
sometimes that I can draw power from my future self to help my present
time-bound self, through my faith in God.
Security:
118.6.8 To recognize Deity
omnipotence is to enjoy security in your experience of cosmic citizenship, to possess
assurance of safety in the long journey to Paradise .
But to accept the fallacy of omnificence is to embrace the colossal error of
pantheism. ***
(JRT)
Exactly! Lucifer was a pantheist. The omnipotence of God supports every act,
but God does not perform every act directly. If anyone says He does, then he is
saying in effect that there is no God, because God cannot be differentiated
from every single thing that exists. In fact, there are a host of other free
will agents as well as automated agents in the chain of causality coming down
from the First Cause, all of them put there in accordance with an orderly and
principled organization of reality. We should also note that the enjoyment of
security through our Faith is the basis of the Peace that passes all
understanding.
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