Episode:Existential Deity—The Eternal Son (Part 2)
God, the Universal Father, is love; the Son is mercy. Mercy is applied love, the Father’s love in action in the person of his Eternal Son. The Eternal Son is the great mercy minister to all creation. Mercy is the essence of the Son’s spiritual character. The mandates of the Eternal Son, as they go forth over the spirit circuits of the Second Source and Center, are keyed in tones of mercy.
Keywords: Urantia, Transcendent Righteousness, Mother Love, Endless Mercy, Omnipresence
Opening thought: Then Moses said to the people, "Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand...For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the Lord...Tell your son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips." Exodus 13:3 (emphasis added)
Closing thought: May the Son's mercy be upon you and carry you through the week.
Note: Justin Armstrong filled in for Andrea Barnes this week.
Summary by Kermit
Commentary after Review
SoS reiterated the final thought from the previous summary concerning the benefits of willfully consenting to the action of the various spirit ministries impinging on and resident within the mind to focus and coordinate the meanings of the revelation in the superconscious mind for subsequent conscious insight. The very linguistic structure of the revelation is such that the efficiency of these spirit ministries is optimized for maximum truth discernment. This is one of the aspects of the cultivation of the inner life often spoken of on SoS. The revelation is in a class of its own with respect to this linguistic acumen and philosophic consistency.
The Eternal Son like the Universal Father puts himself in cooperative subordination to the Paradise Trinity by choice. As the Absolute Personality his choices are absolute. The choice factor in cosmic existence extends all the way down to us. As time-space creatures our choices are buffered by grace. In obedience to the Father’s perfection mandate we must choose to progress. The journey to Paradise is not an automatic one.
Because of the Father’s self-limitation to a purely existential nature, having no extent in the experiential realm the other two existential Deities, facilitated by the Paradise Trinity are needed for the full manifestation of God in the experiential realm.
Further commentary was had on the critical interpretation of the word “of” in characterizing the relationship of the eternal and infinite beings of the Paradise Trinity. From the three predominant meanings for the word “of”—that is, derived from, and as relates to, only “as relates to” leads to the correct understanding of the Trinity’s function in coordinating the relations among the Seven Absolutes of Infinity.
It was suggested that failure to recognize the Father’s self-limitation from the experiential hold the risk of over exaltation of liberty consciousness, misidentifying Divine law as some sort of interference with God given liberties instead of something calling forth obedience and loyalty. Lack of such self-control risks both the salvation of individuals and the continuing progress of civilization.
6:2 Nature of the Eternal Son
Like the Father, personalized Son type Deity is existential and changeless. But when we think of the Eternal Mother-Son we introduce the experiential nature, change. The Son appears more personal than the Father primarily because unlike the purely personal and spiritual nature of the Eternal Son, the Father’s nature also includes an infinite array of non-personal and non-spiritual aspects. Our personality gift from the Father enables us to abstract and recognize the personal and the spiritual aspects of the Father. However, Son recognition is a prerequisite for Father recognition.
It might be said that the substance of the Son is the essence of the Father, giving rise to the idea that he who has seen the Son has seen the Father. Jesus, Paradise Creator Son incarnate, used this statement in reference to himself while on Urantia. The same reference does not work for Magisterial Sons. Like to the archive for an explanation.
The 5th ER echoes John’s Gospel in referring to the Eternal Son as the Word of God. The Thought, Word, and Act of God as applied to the three Persons likely is derived from Greek philosophic foundations and find resonance in application to the hourglass analogy of the human mind as follows:
- thought: upper domain,
- word: lower domain, and
- act: external world.
As mentioned the purely existential nature of the Father necessitates the function of the Paradise Trinity and Mother Deity aspects of the other two Persons in such creature-Creator transactions as worship. In worship it is the Mother Deity aspects of the Son and the Spirit which allows creature adoration to reach the Father via the Paradise Trinity. All such transitions from the experiential to the existential are through the Paradise Trinity.
The qualities ascribed to the Son in his personal management of the spiritual government of the universes have long been viewed by religionists as being resident within the Father. It is the well-nigh complete lack of recognition of the Father’s exclusively existential nature which gives rise to this error.
Recognition of the spirit nature of the Father is made difficult due to the inclusion in his nature of much apart from spirit nature. Thus it is the Mother-Son which focalizes and personalizes this spirit nature for, do we dare say, easier recognition?
The final two paragraphs of the section explain the Father’s and Son’s equality in endowment of truth, beauty, and goodness noting the apparent extra measure of devotion in the Son’s realization of the exclusively spiritual beauty of universal values. Remember the whole appearance versus reality problem and how it is only the actuality of appearance which we experience directly.
6:3 Ministry of the Father’s Love
Study carefully the first paragraph of this section for an introduction to the idea that God is love and the Son is mercy. While the Son cannot love more than the Father his able to share the sonship experience with the creature which allows him to exceed the Father in the mercy department.
Here we find a resounding repudiation of the atonement doctrine. Listen to the archive for the use of the words compassion and sympathy.
Listen to the discussion of the last paragraph of this section on God is love, the Son is mercy with reference to the levels of meaning. The difference between the Father and the Son is likened to Father love and mother love respectively.
6:4 Attributes of the Eternal Son
The Eternal Son is the absolute of spirit reality, the absolute personality. He is in control of the interassociation of all undifferentiated spirit energy and over all actualized spirit reality through his absolute grasp of spirit gravity. Omnipotent only in the spiritual realm, he is omnipresent coordinate with the Father, again through the agency of the Paradise Trinity.
Listen to the discussion of how the Father’s Mystery Monitor adjusts, and conditions the mind of its indwelling to greater responsiveness to the drawing power of the Son’s spirit gravity circuit.
Notes by Brad
- Thought back on a sincere sermon by a longtime friend
