Episode:Experiential Deity—The Supreme Being (Part 3)

Experiential Deity—The Supreme Being (Part 3)
Broadcast on	June 9, 2020
Episode #	496
Study of	[Paper 115:3.1-8, p. 1261]

There is no language in the past, present, or future of our world, Urantia, adequate to express the reality of infinity or the infinity of reality. Man, a finite creature in an infinite cosmos, must content himself with distorted reflections and attenuated conceptions of that limitless, boundless, never-beginning, never-ending existence the comprehension of which is really beyond his ability.

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Keywords: Urantia, The Potential, The Actual, The Original, The I AM

Summary by Kermit

Commentary after Review

In our continuing efforts to establish a universe concept frame with which to enhance our understanding of Experiential Deity, SoS offers two concept-pairing points of reference in our thinking about time and eternity in relation to the existential and the experiential realms.

• That which is eternal is existential.
• That which is temporal, or time transcending is experiential.

We advise setting aside for later reflection any attempts to correlate the philosophical writings and concepts of 19th and 20th century existentialism with the 5th ER concept of existential. Begin to recognize when someone refers to their going through an existential crisis, using our two anchor points above, discern that more likely the crisis is primarily of temporal significance and therefore is actually an experiential crisis.

115:3. Original, Actual, and Potential

The final sentence of the first paragraph should help direct us to adopt a top down approach, starting with a recognition that the cosmos infinite literally exists—NOW, in eternity. Thus, do we encounter one of our initial major tests of philosophic thinking, to entertain the idea that time is not a reality.

Struggling to fashion new wineskins (concept frames) for better understanding of this material we use a philosophic technique of identifying contrasting word pairs. Keeping the contrasts separate in reflective thought provides a philosophic tension which can allow a superadditive understanding to emerge. Without stepping through each step of our logic chain, we employed [107:4.27] with our text in [115] to explore the terms extensive and intensive as they help us to illuminate other word pairs, as time and space, infinity and eternity, deity and reality, and others. Consider the word cosmos, a whole integrous object, extensively to mean harmonizing universe, while intensively meaning universal harmony. Further, we examined the significance and influence on the meaning of words depending on whether they are capitalized or in lower case. All of this is in an attempt to discern parts such that our minds can envision their arrangement in a coherent whole. Mind functions so as to unify divergencies such that it is incapable of forming understandable concepts in their absence. The revelation encourages us to postulate the unity of infinity in the concept of the I AM. But how are we to understand how infinity as an unqualified unity can be simultaneously a duality, triunity, and diversity? We find the same problem when confronted with attempting the contemplation of the undivided Deity of Trinity simultaneously with the three persons of Deity.

So for our purposes we approach the concept of infinity which on one hand is UNITY and on the other DIVERSITY, which we will arrange such that we have diversity represented in Reality and unity represented in Deity. Through rigorous synthetic efforts we separate the I AM into the seven Absolutes of Infinity (Reality) and reciprocally deriving corresponding characterizations of Deity. Important to remember the I AM is a philosophic postulate and not an actuality or a potentiality. Deity unity is not lost in the diversity of reality.

We need to review further the idea of unpacking UNITY and DIVERSITY in reciprocal fashion reaching alternatively the Father and The Mother.

As finite creatures, spiritually we can experience worship to the Father, but intellectual comprehension finds a ceiling in the Supreme. Conceptual attempts beyond the Supreme are extrapolations of finite understandings toward the superfinite.

I will save my attempts to summarize the basic conception of the absolute level involving three phases denominated The Original, The Actual, and The Potential until next week following a more through discussion of tonight.

Notes by Brad

• Language is limited. Words are used in multiple ways in different modes.
  • Infinity can be uppercase or lowercase. Can imply intensive or extensive. Etc.
  • When listening to SoS, it may seem we're making this up as we go. But no. It arises from synthesis of The Urantia Book.

• That which is eternal is existential. That which is temporal or time-transcending is experiential.
  • Pound the basics into your mind no matter how obvious they seem to you.
    • Yet there's a reason humans have selected words like "truth" and "existential" from time to time.
  • Reflect on misconceptions you encounter in your daily life (i.e., high words are laid low)
    • It's not an existential crisis if you're deciding whether to quit your job or buy a showy sportscar.
    • Your college class on existentialism class was false metaphysics. Seek first the true metaphysics revealed in the 5th ER (then return to the college class and see it for what it was).
    • Daily obsession over your own salvation. Can you understand why Jesus said "Fear not?"
  • We cannot literally conceptualize the existential; it's not in our nature.
    • The most we can get to really is the Supreme. Beyond that, it's all just "projection of finite understanding."
    • And yet, by grace, there is validity to those projections.

• Being a serious student: See contrast between two concepts
  • Usually one of these concepts is more easily graspable (e.g., things) than the other (e.g., values)
    • Start with what you can more immediately grasp. Then consider the opposite, no matter how abstract it is.
  • Keep both eyes open: each eye on 1 of the 2 concepts. And keep them open, patiently.
  • Hold the difference, humbly, even in abject ignorance.
  • Try to feel subtle difference, over some time, in your study.
  • Let an understanding be grown into your mind. There's no hope for understanding without separation.
  • Discernment (separation) comes first, then recognition.
  • We must break the "unity" of some reality, so mind has some basis for understanding.
  • Eventually mind unifies divergencies
    • But it must have divergencies to resolve--not all just unity in the mind!
    • Your favorable condition to offer? Hold the separation.
    • From the duality eventually comes a triunity: the separation produces a tension which a superadditive consequence resolves.
    • Why does mind do this? Because it, itself, is a superadditive consequence between matter and spirit.

• Intensive versus extensive, a foundational two-fold philosophical contrast.
  • Required to figure out Deity.
  • Extensive (stretching out) is relatable to us. Intensive (stretching in) is far more abstract.
  • Extensive is quantitative; intensive is qualitative
    • Our material mind handles the former better than the latter, at least innately.
  • Infinity is an extensive word; eternity is an intensive word.
    • The infinite cosmos is extensive; the absolute cosmos is intensive
    • Intensively, the cosmos is conceptually without limit (limit is not no space-bound a word as, say, "bound")
    • Extensively is measuring along a ruler out to infinity. Intensively is where a line stretches to zero (again, pretty abstract!)
    • This author reports "feeling" this difference... at least a bit.
  • Things are extensive; values are intensive
  • "Bound" is an extensive word; "limit" shades to an intensive word.
  • A thing's universality (its "extent") is an extensive flavor; its nature is an intensive flavor.
  • The infinity of reality is an extensive expression. Simple enough, feels correct.
  • But the reality of infinity is an intensive expression. Why?!
    • First, recall capital-I Infinity denotes Deity function, by convention. And Deity is not in reality.
    • Second, recall that divinity is Deity likeness. Divinity is in reality. Deity is not in reality and cannot be observed in reality.
    • Thus lowercase-i infinity signifies the divinity (in reality) of capital-I Infinity.
    • Divinity is an intensive concept, as opposed to the totality of reality (extensive).

• More reciprocal concept frames
  • Even an indivisible object can be looked at "from two sides", two reciprocal concept frames.
    • Extensive and intensive are reciprocal concept frames.
  • The cosmos is an indivisible object. But conceptually there is the extensive and intensive side of it.
    • Extensive side: The harmonizing universe
    • Intensive side: The universal harmony
  • The I AM is an indivisible object. Two concept frames to look at it from: UNITY and DIVERSITY perspectives.
    • Undivided UNITY is the I AM. The Father.
    • Undivided DIVERSITY is what we might call the ALL ARE. The Mother.
    • We confess the I AM is easier to grasp than "In the beginning there was the ALL ARE"
  • The I AM is an indivisible object. Two concept frames to look at it from: deity and reality
    • non-thing-ness and thing-ness, intensive and extensive.
    • The reality perspective is more familiar to us.
    • The Seven Absolute of Infinity—in reality—are more approachable to us, because they comprise The Father.
    • From The Original comes the foundation of the Father, and the Paradise trinity (the foundation of the Mother)

• Compared to the Cosmos Infinite, believing in God is a cakewalk.
  • You'll get to personally recognize the Universal Father in your ascension career. You'll not be able to observe the Cosmos Infinite.
  • The Cosmos Infinite is here. In eternity. Now. But you cannot observe it.
  • We're still finite creatures, our sight is finite. Our divinity is only finite even as residents someday on the Isle of Paradise.

• Be patient.
  • The United States was founded on some universal, eternal principles (No nation can endure if it's based on time).
    • There are superconscious ideas the founders had that cast shadows into even they didn't understand.
    • Are you humble enough to be shown a better, truer way to interpret the founding of the United States?
    • Are you a serious enough of a student to interpret the founding of the United States in the context of the 5th ER?
    • Are you patient about the evolution of civilization? Or are you susceptible to influence from those who seek to pull you down into impatience with temporal issues?
  • You start here with the un-individuated values of the cosmos within your grasp. As you ascend, those values that become your own become your personal survival values.
  • As you look back on your past, don't dismiss what once was important. You were on a low rung of the ladder, but if it hadn't been there you would have fallen!