Episode:God the Father—Nature of God (Part 3)

From Symmetry of Soul


As you ponder the loving nature of God, there is only one reasonable and natural personality reaction thereto: You will increasingly love your Maker; you will yield to God an affection analogous to that given by a child to an earthly parent; for, as a father, a real father, a true father, loves his children, so the Universal Father loves and forever seeks the welfare of his created sons and daughters.

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Keywords: Urantia, God, Wisdom, Mercy, Love

Summary by Kermit

Commentary after Review

We considered a clarification of the etymology of the word “abstract”—draw from as opposed to draw out (extract). This illustrates a challenge to students of the revelation to establish correct understanding of the words in the effort to more closely approach the truth therein. We aim to abstract the truths of the revelation instead of merely extracting the facts.

This series and arc has been focused on attempting to abstract the truths of the Universal Father, who by his existential nature and his willful sequestration from experiential levels of reality is not directly accessible to his subabsolute creatures. A caller posed a question concerning the best way for us to approach God in prayer. Approach God as a spiritual father and not as an abstraction.

The caller went on to inquire about the idea of the Universal Father subordinating himself to the Paradise Trinity, which led to a yet deeper discussion concerning consideration of cosmic wholeness, individualities of wholeness and Mother Deity, which if painstakingly followed leads to the postulate of the Trinity Infinite. These pursuits of logic, difficult as they may be, lead to the recognition of the necessity of the existence of specific elements and agencies to maintain consistency of a budding cosmology. This capacity-expanding activity by the Paradise pilgrim leans heavily on a correct understanding of words and their meaning, returning full circle to our upfront discussion of the importance of precise vocabulary.

All of this being said, current initiatives among the readership to revise the revelation’s use of male and female pronouns might best be antidoted with a large dose of humility.

2:4. The Divine Mercy

The author’s use of Bible passages demonstrates that mercy has long been recognized as fundamental to God’s nature. Considering mercy in light of the previous section (justice and righteousness) we are told that mercy (applied love) is justice (applied law), tempered by wisdom. The temporal wholeness of wisdom encompasses justice and mercy. In eternity this wholeness is truth. Mercy and justice must be wisely and proportionally meted out. We discussed how lack of wisdom in such application can often do more harm than the intended good.

God’s very nature is kind, compassionate, and merciful. He does not need to be coerced into kindness and forgiveness for his children. This may challenge our ideas regarding prayer for such, but as mentioned before genuine prayer evolves in practice and faith. Expanding on the idea of forgiveness, think of it as patient love.

We discussed God’s infinite wisdom in his application of mercy and justice simultaneously. We usually think of wisdom in a temporal frame as adjustments based on prior experiential tribulation. Even though God is not experiential, we recall that his expanding self-realization encompasses the essence of the wholeness of all experience. God’s eternal justice and divine mercy can be thought of in human terms as fairness.

The final paragraph of this section reminds us of other such section endings where the revelators present clues to deeper complexities in the revelation for the more advanced student. Listen to the archive of this discussion for insights regarding how the Paradise Trinity as the Trinity of Supremacy figure in these transactions and discover why lady justice is depicted with a blindfold.

2:5. The Love of God

God is love! The human experience of God’s love is made real on the 6th level of meaning LoM as the personal realization of divine fellowship, the highest insight of the cosmic mind. We examined the idea of God’s personal attitude towards the affairs of the universe being always a reaction of divine affection. Again, the examination of the word affection leads to the verb affect, to do to. Instead of thinking of affection in the common mode of external persons and events doing to us that which is pleasurable, think of the inner life where God is and he meets us at the 6th LoM to engage us (do to) lovingly. Remember, Love is the desire to do good to others [56:10.21]. Do not reduce God’s love to mere feelings, thereby failing in the approach of the real God.

Note the severity with which our Divine Counselor warns of the evil in thinking God requires sacrifices and the intercession of subordinates before loving his children. He tells us it is wrong to so think. The greatest demonstration of this paternal affection is the gift of the Adjuster to dwell in the minds of men.

More Bible passages remind us that he mercifully receives repentant rebels and lovingly pardons transgressors by not even remembering our sins. Now, with the 5th ER we can have a more transcendent understanding of this Bible passage: God, because of his existential sequestration is not even conscious of our wrongdoings. And this vast separation between the God of eternity and his children of time is bridged by the aforementioned Adjusters, who are the promise of eternity leading us to his personal Paradise presence.

After all, we are moved to love, in direct response to being loved. To creatures high and low from the Divine Counselor to the humble mortal, God’s love and mercy is more compelling and endearing than his attributes of supremacy, ultimacy, and absoluteness. Pondering God’s love for us should lead each of us to increasingly love him as a real and true spiritual father, analogous to the love of a child for his earthly parent.

God may be love, but love is not God. Contrary to the song, love is not all you need! Love without God becomes a humanistic well-meaning sentiment devoid of survival value. Undeified goodness has no God knowingness or God-ascension. Thought Adjuster bestowal is the greatest demonstration of the Father’s love. But it is the ideal spiritual earth life of Michael that represents the greatest revelation of that love for his children.

The Divine Counselor laments having to portray the divine affection of the Father for his universe children with the word love. Yet, it is our climb up the levels of meaning that we attain an understanding of divine love—personal realization of divine fellowship. Perhaps as future generations attain such a realization in greater numbers a new word, a supernal and exclusive term will be coined to convey the true nature and beautiful significance of God’s divine affection, for it is God’s dominant characteristic in all his personal dealings with his creatures.

Notes by Brad

  • Instead of "extracting substance" from the 5th ER, try "abstracting essence" from it. Go beyond the words of the text.
    • Don't just follow the "extract" advice of an old colleague of this author. "Oh, to write the essay's abstract, just take the first sentence of each paragraph." ...That's extraction.
  • Be patient. Wait for your capacity to expand, and you can abstract more and more from this 5th ER.
    • Challenge yourself to expand your vocabulary. Our language circumscribes our adjutant-mind thought.


  • Do you feel the need to rewrite The Urantia Book (instead of adding upon it)? Consider your assumption: that your capacity is now greater than that of a Midwayer, or Divine Counselor.
    • Also, what fills your capacity is up to your free will. So, careful there.


  • Again, there is nothing new under the sun. Ancient thinkers have grasped the essence (substance?) of the nature of God.
    • Hence these paragraphs filled with quotes.
    • The mercy of God? Plenty of quotation on that. Not all the physics material we ponder here, of course.


  • What is mercy? Applied love, to put it succinctly.
  • Eternal wholeness could be classified as "truth," but temporal wholeness is wisdom.
    • Hence, we can aspire to "realize to the kingdom of the wise." (that's a song lyric this author likes)
    • Prudence is wise judgment. Prudence was one of the classic virtues; this author think it deserves to be fashionable again.


  • Pray as you need to--this is an evolutionary process.
    • But aspire to envision a religious future for yourself, a time when prayer will no longer be necessary scaffolding for you because you simply can trust.
    • In the meantime, prayer simply isn't necessary to coerce God. It's a bit silly to think it is, once you study how infinite and eternal God is.


  • What is this connection between forgiveness and love?
    • A pithy definition of forgiveness is "patient love."
    • Note that unconditioned love is simply... "love." No adjective.


  • Remember, tribulation is mandatory.
  • Remember, every story you've heard about God is probably high anthropomorphic, ghost-cult stuff.


  • We need to parse the word affection precisely. Otherwise "divine affection" is a strange phrase, because we thought affection was just a feeling.
    • It means "doing to"
    • So yes, in the outer world, a feeling has been generated in you by the outer world. That's bottom-up affection
    • What's top-down affection? It's you in the driver seat; you're doing it, from the inner life.
      • God obviously can do this. Just doing, no feelings. Doing. Down to us.
      • Hence, "love is the desire to do good to others" [Paper 56]. Doing to others.
    • Approaching the 2nd level of meaning (feelings) can reinvent it anew.


  • To the extent you believe you can coax/mock/etc God, you have a disruption in your mind. Which is evil.
    • Evil is inevitable in the evolving universe. But aim higher.


  • Keep noting, the author of this paper just keeps trying, over and over, to help us pull God outside of time.


  • What is fatherly affection (do-to-ingness?)
    • It would be initiating, directing. Not micromanaging, smothering, etc.


  • Another approach to the quotes from the Bible: use this an an opportunity to reinterpret them in light of the eternity viewpoint.
    • God "will not remember you sins." Boy have we heard this like a platitude. But now we can see, "Well yes of course! He's eternal! memory doesn't work that way for him!"


  • The growth of capacity required to stand on Paradise meaningfully? It's a long process. Billions of years. Be patient--it's the only way.


  • Have you ever thought "what's the point of worshiping God? He's way up there and I'm down here?" This author has.
    • This is classified as "unreasonable," not even "illogical."
    • Consider what is written here about worship being reasonable.
    • Try sincere, true worship. Your best shot at it. It will help make you a reasonable being, suggests section 3.


  • Even a divine counselor has feelings. They can feel affection.
    • Bottom-up feelings are not evil. They're appropriate to feel.
    • It's inappropriate to be nothing more than feelings.


  • A Thought Adjuster may not be a person, but it is an infinitely transcendent self.
    • So yes, strictly it cannot love us. But we have no better word to express the high thing it does to us.