Paper 55 Overview: The Spheres of Light and Life

The age of light and life is the final evolutionary achievement of a world of time and space. During this time, planets reach their highest level of development after passing through many stages of progress. The Trinity Teacher Sons help worlds reach this status.

There are seven stages in the development of the era of light and life. These stages start at the planetary level and move through system, constellation, local universe, minor sector, major sector, and superuniverse stages. Each stage represents greater stability and spiritual advancement.

The age of light and life is the final evolutionary achievement for an inhabited world. A planet reaches this stage after passing through many developmental periods like the ages of the Planetary Prince, Adam and Eve, and the bestowal Son. Trinity Teacher Sons prepare a world for this final stage through their missions that teach divine truth and cosmic wisdom.

This era of light and life continues without end after the Teacher Sons establish it. The Magisterial Sons may divide this period into different dispensations for technical reasons, but these actions don't change the course of planetary events. Worlds that reach the main circuits of the superuniverse are assured continued survival through all future time.

The presence of a morontia temple at a planet's capital city shows that the world has entered the settled ages of light and life. Before the Teacher Sons leave a world after their final mission, they start this final stage of evolutionary achievement with a ceremony where the "holy temple comes down upon earth." The Paradise bestowal Son attends this event and names the Planetary Prince as the new Planetary Sovereign.

The morontia temple has three main parts. In the center is the sanctuary of the Paradise bestowal Son. On the right is the seat of the former Planetary Prince, who is now the Planetary Sovereign. On the left is the seat for the chief of the finaliters who are attached to the planet. These temples are not built with physical materials but are created according to plans from the system capital and constructed by the Morontia Power Supervisors and Master Physical Controllers.

Natural, physical death is not inevitable for mortal beings on worlds in the final era of light and life. Most advanced beings on these worlds do not die but are translated directly from physical life to morontia existence. This happens when their immortal soul fuses with their indwelling Thought Adjuster.

As planets progress through successive ages, more and more mortals experience this translation instead of natural death. By the time of the Teacher Sons' final mission, about one-fourth of mortals are exempt from natural death. When someone is ready for fusion, the midway creatures or their associates sense this approaching status and notify the destiny guardians. The person then says goodbye to their world and goes to the Planetary Sovereign's inner temple to await morontia transit.

During this age of light and life, the world prospers under the rule of the Planetary Sovereign. On normal worlds, people progress with one language, one religion, and usually one race. This age is not perfect - these worlds still have hospitals and must care for those with injuries or old age problems. Not all diseases have been eliminated and not all animals have been completely tamed.

Human government continues to function during this time of progress and near-perfection. On one world in the first stage of light and life, every adult worker paid ten percent of their income to the public treasury. This money was used for truth (science, education, and philosophy), beauty (play, social leisure, and art), goodness (social service, altruism, and religion), and insurance against work incapacity. Natural resources were considered social possessions that belonged to the community.

In the successive stages of settled existence, inhabited worlds make amazing progress under the wise administration of the volunteer Corps of the Finality. These finaliters are ascenders from Paradise who have come back to help their fellow beings. They start their real participation in world affairs when the morontia temple appears on earth.

The planet goes through different administrative adjustments as it moves through the seven stages of settlement. In the first stage, three rulers govern the world: the Planetary Sovereign (advised by a Trinity Teacher Son), the chief of the planetary corps of finaliters, and Adam and Eve who work together to unify the leadership. The midway creatures serve as interpreters for the seraphic guardians and the finaliters.

People living on a sin-troubled, evil-dominated, self-seeking, and isolated world like Urantia can hardly imagine the physical perfection, intellectual achievement, and spiritual development of these advanced stages of evolution on a sinless sphere. The advanced stages of a world settled in light and life represent the highest point of evolutionary material development.

On these highly developed worlds, poverty and social inequality have almost disappeared. Insanity has practically ceased to exist, and mental deficiency is rare. Economic, social, and administrative systems are highly organized and perfected. Science, art, and industry flourish, and society works smoothly with high material, intellectual, and cultural achievement. War has become a matter of history, and there are no more armies or police forces.

As worlds advance in light and life, society becomes more peaceful. The individual, while still independent and devoted to their family, becomes more unselfish and brotherly. On Urantia, as you are now, you have little understanding of the advanced status and progressive nature of the enlightened races of these perfected worlds.

The biologic fitness of the mortal race was brought to a high level during the post-Adamic ages. Now, throughout the settled eras, human physical evolution continues. Vision and hearing have improved. The population has become stable, and reproduction is regulated according to planetary needs and hereditary qualities. The continued improvement of such a magnificent race is largely due to selective reproduction of the better racial types.

This first stage extends from the appearance of the morontia temple at the new planetary headquarters to the time when the entire system is settled in light and life. This age begins when the Trinity Teacher Sons finish their missions and the Planetary Prince becomes the Planetary Sovereign by order of the Paradise bestowal Son. At the same time, the finaliters start actively participating in planetary affairs.

To outside observers, the actual rulers of such a world settled in light and life are the Material Son and Daughter, the Planetary Adam and Eve. The finaliters are invisible, as is the Prince-Sovereign except when in the morontia temple. This arrangement has given importance to the idea of kings and queens throughout the universe. These rulers are successful under these ideal conditions when they can act on behalf of higher but invisible rulers.

When an entire system becomes settled in life, a new form of government is established. The Planetary Sovereigns become members of the system council, and this new administrative body, subject to the veto of the Constellation Fathers, is supreme in authority. The system legislative assembly is set up on the headquarters world, and each planet sends ten representatives to it.

After the settling of an entire system in light and life, the System Sovereigns will no longer come and go. Such a sovereign remains permanently at the head of his system. The assistant sovereigns continue to change as in earlier ages. During this time of stabilization, midsoniters come from the universe headquarters to act as counselors to the legislative assemblies and advisers to the courts.

The unification of a whole constellation of settled systems brings new distributions of executive authority and additional changes in universe administration. During this age, advanced achievements happen on every inhabited world, but it is especially characterized by adjustments at the constellation headquarters. There are significant changes in relationships with both system supervision and local universe government.

When a constellation is settled in light, the legislative function stops, and the house of System Sovereigns, presided over by the Most Highs, functions instead. Now, for the first time, such administrative groups deal directly with the superuniverse government in matters relating to Havona and Paradise. Otherwise, the constellation remains related to the local universe as before. From stage to stage in the settled life, the univitatia continue to administer the constellation morontia worlds.

When a universe becomes settled in light and life, it soon enters the established superuniverse circuits, and the Ancients of Days announce the establishment of the supreme council of unlimited authority. This new governing body consists of the one hundred Faithfuls of Days, presided over by the Union of Days, and their first act is to acknowledge the continued sovereignty of the Master Creator Son.

The universe administration, as far as Gabriel and the Father Melchizedek are concerned, remains the same. This council of unlimited authority is mainly concerned with the new problems and conditions that arise from the advanced status of light and life. The Associate Inspector now organizes all Assigned Sentinels to form the stabilization corps of the local universe and asks the Father Melchizedek to share in its supervision.

Minor and major sectors of the superuniverse do not figure directly in the plan of being settled in light and life. This evolutionary progress mainly concerns the local universe as a unit and only affects the components of a local universe. A superuniverse is settled in light and life when all of its component local universes are perfected this way, but none of the seven superuniverses has reached a level of progression even approaching this.

The minor sector age seems to deal exclusively with physical status and with the coordinated settling of the one hundred associated local universes in the established circuits of the superuniverse. Apparently, only the power centers and their associates are concerned in these realignments of the material creation. For the major sector age, we can only guess since none of us have witnessed such an event, but we believe it would involve certain new intellectual levels of attainment, possibly some advanced achievements in the supreme realization of cosmic wisdom.

We cannot positively predict what would happen when a superuniverse became settled in light because such an event has never actually happened. From the teachings of the Melchizedeks, which have never been contradicted, we believe that sweeping changes would be made in the entire organization and administration of every unit of the creations of time and space extending from the inhabited worlds to the superuniverse headquarters.

It is generally believed that large numbers of the otherwise unattached creature-trinitized sons would gather on the headquarters and divisional capitals of the settled superuniverses. This might be in preparation for the eventual arrival of outer-spacers on their way to Havona and Paradise, but we really don't know. If and when a superuniverse should be settled in light and life, we believe that the now advisory Unqualified Supervisors of the Supreme would become the high administrative body on the headquarters world of the superuniverse.