Foreword Overview

The Foreword of The Urantia Book explains important terms about God, divinity, and the universe. It was written by a Divine Counselor from Orvonton who wanted to help humans understand the meanings of words used throughout the book. The writer explains that there is much confusion on earth (Urantia) about the meaning of terms like God, divinity, and deity, so they provide clearer definitions.

This introduction sets up the rest of the book by explaining the big picture of the universe, including the central universe of Havona, the seven superuniverses, and the local universes. It also describes different levels of reality, from the finite, to the absonite, to the absolute. The Foreword helps readers understand the basic structure of reality before moving into more detailed explanations in later papers.

The Divine Counselor who wrote this Foreword explains that there is great confusion among humans about terms like God, divinity, and deity. They have been asked to explain the meanings of these words as they will be used in the rest of the book. The writer says it is hard to explain big ideas and higher truths when limited to using the English language, but they will try their best to help humans understand.

Deity can become personal as God, and it can also be prepersonal and superpersonal in ways humans can't fully understand. Deity works on seven different levels, from static (self-contained), to potential (self-willed), to associative (fraternal), to creative (self-distributing), to evolutional (self-expansive), to supreme (creature-unifying), and finally to ultimate (time-space-transcending). Divinity is the quality that unifies Deity and can be understood by creatures as truth, beauty, and goodness.

People naturally want to create symbols for their ideas about God. God, the Universal Father, works on three levels: prepersonal (like with Thought Adjusters), personal (with created beings), and superpersonal (with certain higher beings). The word "God" in the book can mean different things depending on how it's used, including God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, God the Supreme, God the Sevenfold, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute.

Total reality exists in seven phases: the First, Second, and Third Source and Center, the Isle of Paradise, and the Deity, Universal, and Unqualified Absolutes. The First Source and Center (the Universal Father) is the basis of all reality. Everything in the universe relates to the First Source and Center through gravity (for material things), mind (for intellectual things), and spirit (for spiritual things), as well as through personality and other connections.

Reality shows up in different ways on different universe levels. It can be undeified (not connected to Deity), deified (connected to Deity), or interassociated (somewhere in between). From the view of time and space, reality can be actual or potential, absolute or subabsolute, existential or experiential, and personal or impersonal. Paradise is the center of all reality and is the only stationary thing in the universe of universes.

Personality exists at different levels, from mortal beings up to spiritual beings. Reality can expand, and personality can become more diverse, with both being coordinated and stabilized by Deity. Personality is never spontaneous but is given by the Paradise Father. On Urantia (earth), reality appears as body (physical), mind (thinking), spirit (divine), and soul (experiential), with personality being the one unchanging reality amid all these changing factors.

Things that respond to the Father's personality circuit are personal, to the Son's spirit circuit are spirit, to the Conjoint Actor's mind circuit are mind, and to Paradise's material-gravity circuit are matter. Energy is used to describe spiritual, mindal, and material realms. Physical energy appears as cosmic force (from the Unqualified Absolute), emergent energy (responsive to Paradise gravity), and universe power (responsive to both Paradise and linear gravity). Pattern can be material, spiritual, or mindal and is a configuration of reality.

The universe has two kinds of Deity: existential (beings that have always existed) and experiential (beings that are developing). The Father, Son, and Spirit are existential, while the Supreme, Ultimate, and Absolute are experiential. The Supreme Being is evolving in the grand universe as both a power (the Almighty Supreme) and a personality, coming together as one being. The Supreme Being helps coordinate and unify all finite reality.

To help limited creatures approach Deity, the Universal Father established a sevenfold approach: the Paradise Creator Sons, the Ancients of Days, the Seven Master Spirits, the Supreme Being, God the Spirit, God the Son, and God the Father. This sevenfold Deity helps mortal humans reach God. It starts with recognizing the divinity of the local universe Creator Son and moves up through higher levels until reaching the Universal Father on Paradise.

Just as the Supreme Being grows from the potential of the grand universe, God the Ultimate grows from the potential of the master universe. The Ultimate represents a higher level of Deity unification beyond the Supreme. God the Ultimate works on the level of absonite reality, which is beyond time and space. The Ultimate is a future eternal, conditioned by time and space, with a beginning but no end.

God the Absolute would come from the unification of the Absolute Trinity. This would bring together absolute meanings on absolute levels. However, we don't know if this would include all absolute values since we don't know if the Qualified Absolute equals the Infinite. God the Absolute is the goal for all superabsonite beings, but the power and personality potential of the Deity Absolute is beyond our understanding.

The Unqualified Absolute, the Deity Absolute, and the Universal Absolute work together to balance all of reality. The Deity Absolute contains all divine potential, the Unqualified Absolute is a positive reality beyond the grand universe, and the Universal Absolute connects the other two. Together, they help bridge the gap between the finite and the infinite, allowing mortal beings to exist alongside infinite reality.

The original Paradise Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit) has always existed. It is the only Deity that fully embraces infinity. The other Trinities—the Ultimate Trinity and the Absolute Trinity - are still developing. The Ultimate Trinity will include the Supreme Being, Supreme Creator Personalities, and the Architects of the Master Universe. The Absolute Trinity will include God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and the Consummator of Universe Destiny.

The writer explains that in presenting information about God and the universe, they have used over a thousand human concepts that represent the highest understanding of spiritual values. When these concepts aren't enough, they supplement them with their own knowledge. They recognize how hard it is to translate ideas about divinity into human language. However, they know that the fragment of God within humans and the Spirit of Truth can help people grasp spiritual values and universe meanings.