Episode:God the Father—The Universal Father (Part 5)

From Symmetry of Soul


To assume that the universe can be known, that it is intelligible, is to assume that the universe is mind made and personality managed. Man’s mind can only perceive the mind phenomena of other minds, be they human or superhuman. If man’s personality can experience the universe, there is a divine mind and an actual personality somewhere concealed in that universe.

Listen to the broadcast

Keywords: Urantia, God, Personality, Unity, Oneness

Summary by Kermit

Commentary after Review

We considered the final sentence from last week: And all this is literally true, for “in Him we all live and move and have our being.” This statement challenges us to attempt to understand the complexities of the Father’s existential Deity and how it relates to us, notwithstanding he has no relation to time and space, thus how can we literally be in Him? Literal truth does not necessarily imply a literal fact. In fact we are in the Supreme Father. How then to engage the directness of the statement? Consider that even without experiential Deity, the Father does have the sum of all experience from the beginning to the end of endless cycles of eternity embodied within his self-experiential Deity before experience began. This is the degree to which the Father is removed from us. He accesses our experience via the existential foundation of the experiential. Such is the steepness of concept we encounter when attempting comprehension of the 5th ER. Utterly transcendently is the Father “with” us.

1:6. Personality in the Universe

Our author begins this section playing off of Plato’s shadow analogy. Here we find another illustration of the need to carefully ascertain the sense of meaning intended by the author in the use of words, in this case personality. Does the Divine Counselor mean personalized self or spirit pattern? Listen to our discussion in the archive for details of this discussion.

We drew an intriguing parallel between the aspect of God which is able to be individuated and engage time and space, the Thought Adjuster, and personality. Human personality is individuated will, capable of engaging time and space. Divine personality is not able to be individuated and therefore unable to engage time and space. Pondering the shadow analogy, we cannot comprehend the substance (Father personality) from the shadow (human personality). And only when we attempt to interpret the shadow (human personality) with the insight regarding the unindividuatable Father personality and individuated will of human personality do we begin to have a glimpse of the nature of human personality as an influence from eternity (top-down).

Just about the time we begin to feel completely confused with the impenetrability of these transcendent concepts our author assuages our discomfort with a reminder that our concepts of Father personality will improve as we spiritually progress in the universe, becoming truly adequate only when we meet the living God on Paradise.

We had fun with the revelator’s use of the word antipodal to contrast the personalities of God and man, as the highest and lowest types of personalities. Here again we see the importance of the correct understanding of meaning of the word personality. The low and high types of personality make sense when personality is taken to mean personalized self. This is reinforced as we are told that we can have better concepts of divine and human personality through the revelation of the bestowal life of our Creator Son.

While the Thought Adjuster’s presence validates its presence, the concept of divine personality is only grasped through the insight of religious experience. Personality can be inferred apart from external reactions and material presence of that person, unlike the self which requires such proximity.

Listen to our discussion regarding criteria for friendship between two person and even with divine personalities. Wholehearted efforts are essential for success. Cosmic synchronization is required as opposed to merely spiritual synchronization.

The journey to knowing God begins with self-understanding leading to the appreciation of others, thence to the craving to know and be like God. We share these experiences for edification and mutual satisfaction of believers and not for the conversion of unbelievers.

Interestingly, the assumption that the universe can be known, the basic assumption of science recognized 2600 years ago by the Greeks, leads to a basic assumption of religion that the universe is mind made and personality managed.

The section ends with another reminder concerning the earth life of Jesus and how he attained full realization of the potential of spirit personality in human experience, constituting the most real and ideal revelation of the personality of God.

1:7. Spiritual Value of the Personality Concept

The concept of a personal Deity tremendously facilitates fellowship, favors intelligent worship and promotes trustfulness. The Father-son relationship is enabled by this concept and facilitated by the presence of the Father’s gift of the Thought Adjuster.

Man’s achievement of union with God is through reciprocal spiritual communion between persons, not as a point to point interaction but in relation to the whole and through the individuality of the whole.

Truth and beauty can be entertained apart from personality but not goodness. Only persons can love and be loved. Listen to our discussion concerning perfectness and perfectingness.

The remaining paragraphs of this section and our discussion thereof are of a depth or height and complexity that defy my ability to succinctly summarize. Listen to the final twenty minutes of the archive for the exploration of among other things the distinctions between unity and oneness (indivisibility).

I take refuge in the confession of our Divine Counselor when he states, “I am fully aware that I have at my command no language adequate to make clear to the mortal mind how these universe problems appear to us. But you should not become discouraged; not all of these things are wholly clear to even the high personalities belonging to my group of Paradise beings. Ever bear in mind that these profound truths pertaining to Deity will increasingly clarify as your minds become progressively spiritualized during the successive epochs of the long mortal ascent to Paradise.”

Notes by Brad

  • Do we literally "live, move and have our being" in God the Father?
    • In truth, yes.
    • In fact, however, we are within God the Supreme--out here in time and space.


  • This author reports it's almost like this paper is all new words. He's read it for some 30 years, but it's as if it's all new.
    • As our insight deepens, our sight appears to change, too.
    • Becoming aware of a word in a book is a more profound concept that we might think. The eyeball just responds to photons. How does it register in the mind?
      • In a way, even visual sight seems to involve insight of some kind.


  • Personality is individuated will, and as such it can engage time and space.
  • Antipodal: opposite places to plant your feet.
    • Our language suggests the importance of footing. Even a gastropod, with only one "pod" (foot), is footed.
    • If you cannot eventually plant your feet in eternity, it will be "hell" for you, so to speak.
      • It's also hell on Earth when your literal feet aren't working well! Ahem. But let that be.


  • The "lowest type of personality" refers to a personalized self
    • remember there always is this necessary contextualization of the word "personality."
  • Can psychology help us understand personality?
    • Probably only by deductive reasoning. "Well, that component of the self is known, so that isn't personality."


  • Sight versus insight. When you "See" your loved ones on the first mansion worlds, you will recognize them by insight, not by sight. Their body won't be the body here.
  • Moral affinity. Affinity literally means "to the border."
    • And moral suggests cosmic, 3-dimensional, wholehearted.


  • We've been "assuming the universe can be known" since ancient Greece. It is not to be glossed over lightly.
    • The fact that you can understand anything at all means you are interacting with a mind. Some transcendent mind--God the mother.
  • "Man is also a spirit." In the truths of eternity, this is already the case. And that's the way in which personality engages us.


  • When we beheld Jesus' miracles, is that insight into the personality of God?
    • Don't count on it, tempting as it is to our mystical ways. Aim higher.


  • The prepersonal Thought Adjuster is catalyzing. Focalizing. It isn't fundamentally what allows fellowship between personalities.


  • Two billiard balls can interact--bounce off one another. But the billiard balls cannot commune--cannot consciousize the wholeness context within which this interaction is occurring.
    • I will recognize my grandmother (by insight) in the afterlife because, superconsciously, we communed.
    • A lot of my memories of her were interactions. And only the spiritually valuable parts of those interactions will go with us to the afterlife (via the Adjuster and its copying function)


  • Adoration. Such a common word. Ad + oration. There's something deeper here.
    • An idea of communication.
  • "Progressive reciprocal spiritual communion." There's a packed phrase!


  • Perfectability is in personality, is in spirit pattern.
    • Perfecting spirit is goodness.
    • Hence, goodness requires personality to be understandable.
    • And that's "the spiritual value of the personality concept"--the title of section 7!


  • Unity and oneness are not synonyms in the 5th ER.
    • Unity is continuum-ness, and is divisible.
    • Oneness is not divisible.


  • The last 2 paragraphs of section 7 are quite advanced. Easy to nod in agreement with, but deeply about Deity.