Episode:Experiential Deity—Supreme and Ultimate (Part 6)
If personality has the prerogative of exercising volitional choice of reality identification, and if this is a true and free choice, then must evolving personality also have the possible choice of becoming self-confusing, self-disrupting, and self-destroying. The possibility of cosmic self-destruction cannot be avoided if the evolving personality is to be truly free in the exercise of finite will.
Keywords: Urantia, Omniscience, Predestination, Sin, Iniquity
Summary by Kermit
Commentary after Review
The distinction between choice and decision bears review. For our purposes, consider choice to be a consecration of mind synchronized with eternity and decisions linked to moments and acts in time, predicated on a timeless choice. This immediately underscores the importance of correctly distinguishing between true choice and so-called choice, actually a temporal decision. Imbuing a decision with zeal does not elevate it to the level of choice.
Revisiting the question of transmuting the inner individuality-focused Father love into loving service to our fellows in consonance with the Mother’s totality attitude, think of the reciprocating relation between the intensive singular, absolute, individuality attitude qualities of Father love, and the extensive cosmic totality qualities of Mother love. The realization of such reciprocation is nothing less than the living gospel of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. We briefly elaborated on the extended consequences of a failure to make such reciprocal adjustments in our attempts at social ministry such as leads to civilizational retrogression.
118:7 Omniscience and Predestination
Long have philosophic and theological debates struggled with logically harmonizing creature freewill with divine omniscience. The 5th ER enables such with its disclosure of the universe levels of the finite and the absonite, along with the understanding that time is an actuality, but not a reality. That we have been informed of the existence of the Architects of the Master Universe, and their role in establishing the limits and possibilities of the finite (grand universe level) provides us with the concept frame in which creature freewill and divine omniscience can be harmonized. All finite choice potential is foreknown by the designers of the finite without abrogating the freewill choosing of finite creatures. It should be no surprise that on the grand universe level finite creature will is delimited. It is, however, a revelation that the will of a Creator Son, whom we can rightly call God is likewise limited by these mysterious Architects. But recall that the absolute dimension of creature personality confers destiny-choice sovereignty within the superuniverse arena of choice.
The top-down supreme correlation of all past, present, and future choice consists of the encompassment by the Supreme Mind of the summation function of the Almighty and the focalization function of the Mother. Such correlation explains why foreknowledge of those creatures who will participate in experiential actualization of reality and those who will not is possible without abrogating the genuineness of such choices.
Continuing with issues of volition and choice in the finite domain, the author steps through the well-known progression to perdition: error, evil, sin, and iniquity. While time bound and limited, error, associated with evil (mistaken choosing) existing only within the Universal Mother (evolving presence of the Supreme Being), it represents a necessary boundary condition within which creatures must be able to function in order to progress through freewill contact with reality.
Sin is here presented, not as disobedience to God in contrast to righteousness, but in terms of the immature exercise of the freedom of the relatively sovereign will without the recognition of the obligations and duties of cosmic citizenship. Note the emphasis on a totality attitude.
Iniquity, persistent sin as described above, is evident in the transient reality of God-unidentified selfhood. Only through God identification does a creature become truly real in the universes.
The bestowal of life animation on material-energy systems produces living organisms with capabilities of self-perpetuation, self-propagation, and self-adaptation. The additional bestowal of personality extends these prerogatives to include self-determination, self-evolution, and self-identification with a fusion spirit of Deity. This list of capabilities and prerogatives of creature selfhood can be logically juxtaposed with a list of facets of “self-abilities” of Deity found in [0:1] to suggest a profound resonance between the capabilities and prerogatives of an individual person with specific facets Deity. Listen to the discussion.
We also noted that life bestowal capabilities and personality bestowal prerogatives suggest their inheritance from the Mother and the Father. And along with the capabilities and prerogatives mentioned, creature freewill choice carries the possibility of becoming self-confusing, self-disrupting, self-destroying, even culminating in self-destruction. Do not these unfortunate ever more regressive forms of self-harm clearly coincide with the path to perdition mentioned above?—error, evil, sin and iniquity.
So it is for our own good that in our current fledgling and immature universe status our personality choices are limited. Yet even now we enjoy the promise of increasing liberty in our ascension through the dual consecration of the will to the will of God the Father and the mind to the universal harmony of God the Mother.
