Foreword Overview

The Foreword of The Urantia Book serves as an essential foundation for understanding the terminology and concepts used throughout the text. Written by a Divine Counselor from Orvonton, it addresses the confusion that exists among humans regarding terms such as God, divinity, and deity, providing clear definitions and frameworks for comprehension. This introductory paper outlines the structure of the universe, including the relationship between the central universe of Havona, the seven superuniverses, and the local universes.

The Foreword also explains different levels of reality—finite, absonite, and absolute—and introduces various manifestations of Deity, including God the Father, Son, Spirit, Supreme, Sevenfold, Ultimate, and Absolute. It clarifies the relationships between the First, Second, and Third Sources and Centers, the Isle of Paradise, and the three Absolutes. This comprehensive introduction prepares readers for the deeper explorations of cosmic reality that follow in subsequent papers.

The Divine Counselor begins by acknowledging the great confusion in human minds regarding terms like God, divinity, and deity, as well as the relationships between divine personalities. The Counselor has been directed to formulate this introductory statement to explain the meanings of certain word symbols as they will be used throughout the papers that follow. The challenge lies in presenting enlarged concepts and advanced truth while being restricted to the limitations of human language.

The Foreword aims to facilitate comprehension and prevent confusion by outlining the meanings attached to terms designating Deity and associated concepts of universal reality. This initial statement is not complete in itself but serves as a definitive guide to assist readers in understanding the papers about Deity and the universe of universes. The Divine Counselor explains that Urantia (earth) is one of many inhabited planets in the local universe of Nebadon, which is part of the superuniverse of Orvonton, all encircling the central universe of Havona with the Isle of Paradise at its center.

Deity presents phenomena of activities on diverse levels of cosmic realities, mind meanings, and spirit values, all of which are divinely coordinated. Deity can be personalized as God and exists on personal, prepersonal, and superpersonal levels, characterized by unity that creatures comprehend as divinity. Deity functions on seven levels: static (self-contained), potential (self-willed), associative (fraternal), creative (self-distributive), evolutional (creature-identified), supreme (creature-Creator-unifying), and ultimate (time-space-transcending).

Divinity is the characteristic, unifying quality of Deity that creatures comprehend as truth, beauty, and goodness, correlated in personality as love, mercy, and ministry. It may be perfect, imperfect, or relative, depending on the level of existence. The Foreword identifies seven conceivable types of perfection, ranging from absolute perfection in all aspects to absolute perfection in none, with various combinations of absolute, relative, and imperfect aspects in between.

Evolving mortal creatures feel an irresistible urge to symbolize their finite concepts of God, representing a value level that is difficult to symbolize. God, the Universal Father, functions on three Deity-personality levels: prepersonal (as with Thought Adjusters), personal (in experience with created beings), and superpersonal (with eventuated existences). The term "God" designates all personalizations of Deity and requires different definitions based on the level of Deity function.

The word "God" in these papers has seven specific meanings: God the Father (Creator, Controller, Upholder), God the Son (Co-ordinate Creator, Spirit Controller), God the Spirit (Conjoint Actor, Mind Bestower), God the Supreme (evolving God of time and space), God the Sevenfold (Deity functioning in time and space), God the Ultimate (eventuating God of supertime and transcended space), and God the Absolute (experientializing God of transcended superpersonal values). Each represents a distinct manifestation of Deity functioning at different levels of cosmic reality.

Total, infinite reality exists in seven phases as seven co-ordinate Absolutes: the First, Second, and Third Source and Centers, the Isle of Paradise, and the Deity, Universal, and Unqualified Absolutes. The First Source and Center (the Universal Father) is primal to total reality, being infinite and eternal, limited only by his own volition. As the personality of the First Source and Center, God maintains personal relations of infinite control over all co-ordinate and subordinate sources and centers.

The First Source and Center relates to the universe in multiple ways: material universe gravity converges in Paradise, mind forces converge in the Infinite Spirit, spirit forces converge in the Eternal Son, and the capacity for deity action resides in the Deity Absolute. The First Source and Center is also connected to unlimited infinity response (Unqualified Absolute), coordination of all Absolutes (Universal Absolute), and the potential personality of all moral beings. Reality as comprehended by finite beings is partial and relative, with the maximum Deity reality comprehensible by evolutionary creatures embodied in the Supreme Being.

Reality manifests differently on various universe levels, originating from the infinite volition of the Universal Father. It can be categorized as undeified (ranging from nonpersonal energy to nonpersonalizable values), deified (encompassing all infinite Deity potentials), or interassociated (the vast domain between deified and undeified reality). The primal relationship between deified and undeified reality creates a tension that is resolved through the Universal Absolute.

From the perspective of time and space, reality is further divisible into actual and potential (existing expressions versus undisclosed capacity for growth), absolute and subabsolute (eternal existences versus those projected in time and space), existential and experiential (Paradise Deity versus emerging Supreme and Ultimate), and personal and impersonal (mind-spirit-personal meanings versus things centering in Paradise). Paradise, properly qualified, may refer to any form of reality, but specifically the Isle of Paradise is the absolute of material-gravity control—motionless, stationary, and the source of physical universes.

Personality exists on a level of deified reality ranging from mortal mind activation of worship and wisdom up through morontial and spiritual levels to finality of personality status. Reality is subject to universal expansion, personality to infinite diversification, and both can be coordinated and stabilized by Deity. On experiential levels, all personality orders or values can associate and even co-create, as demonstrated in the status of Christ Michael as both Son of Man and Son of God.

The Universal Father is the secret of personality reality, bestowing personality and determining its destiny. The Eternal Son is the absolute personality and source of spirit energy, while the Conjoint Actor is the spirit-mind personality and source of intelligence. In human experience, these qualities manifest as body (the physical organism), mind (the thinking mechanism), spirit (the indwelling divine presence), and soul (an experiential acquirement arising from choosing to do God's will). Personality unifies these associated factors, surviving with the morontial soul—a vast level intervening between material and spiritual reality.

Things responding 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 encompasses spiritual, mindal, and material realms, with physical energy manifesting as cosmic force (from the Unqualified Absolute), emergent energy (responsive to Paradise gravity but not linear gravity), and universe power (responsive to both Paradise and linear gravity). Mind intervenes between spirit and matter, illuminating the universe with intellectual insight and spirit luminosity.

Pattern can be projected as material, spiritual, or mindal, or any combination of these energies, pervading personalities, identities, entities, or nonliving matter. Pattern configures energy but does not control it; gravity is the sole control of energy-matter. Pattern is a configuration of reality that has paid all gravity debt, and the reality of any pattern consists of its energies, mind, spirit, or material components. Paradise is the absolute of patterns, the Eternal Son is the pattern personality, and the Universal Father is the direct ancestor-source of both, though Paradise does not bestow pattern, and the Son cannot bestow personality.

The Deity mechanism of the master universe is twofold regarding eternity relationships: existential beings (Father, Son, Spirit) and actualizing Deity personalities (Supreme, Ultimate, Absolute). Deity is present as existential (beings of eternal existence) and experiential (beings actualizing in the present but of unending future existence). The Father, Son, and Spirit are existential, while the Supreme and Ultimate are wholly experiential, and the Deity Absolute is experiential in actualization but existential in potentiality.

The Supreme Being in Havona reflects the Paradise Trinity, expanding outward through God the Sevenfold and synthesizing in the Almighty Supreme. The Universal Father achieves freewill liberation from infinity through trinitization, while the Supreme Being evolves as a subeternal personality unification of Deity in time-space. Though not a direct creator, the Supreme Being coordinates all creature-Creator activities, ultimately constituting the eternal fusion of the finite and infinite. All finite reality is engaged in an ascending mobilization and unification under the Supreme Being to eventually reach absonite levels of attainment.

To compensate for creature limitations, the Universal Father established a sevenfold approach to Deity: the Paradise Creator Sons, Ancients of Days, Seven Master Spirits, Supreme Being, God the Spirit, God the Son, and God the Father. This sevenfold Deity enables mortal creatures to attain God's presence, beginning with recognition of the local universe Creator Son and ascending through higher levels to the Universal Father on Paradise. God the Sevenfold functions in the grand universe as the Trinity of Supremacy, with the Supreme Being actualizing from the personal Paradise Deities and their creative associates.

The Creator Sons provide the mechanism for mortals to become immortal and for the finite to reach the infinite. The Supreme Being synthesizes all these transactions, enabling finite creatures to attempt reaching the Ultimate. The Ancients of Days and Seven Master Spirits are permanent administrators in the grand universe, while the function of God the Sevenfold dates from the organization of the seven superuniverses. This function will likely expand with the evolution of the outer space creations, inaugurating the transcendent and absonite approach to Deity.

Just as the Supreme Being evolves from the grand universe potential, God the Ultimate emerges from the potentials of the transcended time-space domains of the master universe. The actualization of Ultimate Deity signifies the unification of the first experiential Trinity and represents Deity expansion on the second level of creative self-realization. This constitutes the personality-power equivalent of Paradise absonite realities on the levels of transcended time-space values, providing ultimate service-destiny for creatures who attain absonite levels.

God the Ultimate is personal Deity functioning on divinity levels of the absonite and on universe spheres of supertime and transcended space. The Ultimate is a supersupreme eventuation of Deity, representing the unification of the Paradise Trinity as comprehended by absonite beings. Through evolutionary Deity, the Universal Father focuses personality and mobilizes power on their respective universe meaning-levels. God the Supreme and God the Ultimate are evolving in the experiential universes as future eternals, conditioned by time-space and transcendental factors respectively.

Many aspects of the eternal reality of the Deity Absolute cannot be fully explained to the finite mind. The actualization of God the Absolute would result from the unification of the Absolute Trinity, constituting the experiential realization of absolute divinity and the unification of absolute meanings on absolute levels. It remains uncertain whether this would encompass all absolute values, as we do not know if the Qualified Absolute equates to the Infinite.

God the Absolute represents the realization-attainment goal for all superabsonite beings. However, the power and personality potential of the Deity Absolute transcends our conceptual abilities, making it difficult to discuss these remote realities. This level of Deity actualization involves superultimate destinies and infinite spirituality, representing the final level of unifying Deity expression and expansion.

When the Universal Father and Eternal Son, functioning through the God of Action, created the central universe, the Father differentiated his Havona presence from infinity potentials. These undisclosed potentials remain concealed in the Unqualified Absolute and enshrouded in the Deity Absolute, while both are unified in the Universal Absolute. Through this arrangement, the First Source and Center realizes extension of experiential power, identification with creatures, and expansion of experiential Deity.

The Deity Absolute contains all divinity activities and potential, while the Unqualified Absolute is a positive reality pervading the grand universe and beyond, representing space-force unlimited but conditioned by Deity. The Universal Absolute indicates the resolution of the tension created by differentiating universe reality, adjusting the differential between deity reality and undeified reality. The associative presence of the Universal Absolute equalizes tensions between time and eternity, finity and infinity, allowing finite beings to coexist with the Infinite in the cosmos.

The original Paradise Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit) was inevitable and eternal, inherent in the differentiation of the personal and nonpersonal by the Father's will. This existential Trinity is the only Deity embracing infinity, enabling the actualization of the Supreme, Ultimate, and Absolute. The post-Havona experiential Trinities cannot be infinite because they include derived Deities, yet they enrich the infinity of divinity through creature and Creator experience.

Two experiential Trinities are currently evolving: the Ultimate Trinity (consisting of the Supreme Being, Supreme Creator Personalities, and the Architects of the Master Universe) and the Absolute Trinity (including God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and the Consummator of Universe Destiny). While the Ultimate Trinity may eventually unite completely, the full unification of the Absolute Trinity seems doubtful. Some philosophers postulate a Trinity of Trinities, though they cannot envision its personalization, while the original Paradise Trinity remains potentially infinite through the Universal Father's actual infinity.

In formulating presentations about the Universal Father and the universe, the revelators were mandated to give preference to existing human concepts while resorting to revelation only when no adequate expression existed. They selected over one thousand human concepts representing the highest planetary knowledge of spiritual values and universe meanings. Where these concepts proved inadequate, they supplemented them with their superior knowledge of the Paradise Deities and their universe.

The revelators recognize the difficulty of translating concepts of divinity and eternity into the language of mortal mind. However, they know that fragments of God dwell within human minds, the Spirit of Truth with human souls, and that these divine forces enable material beings to grasp spiritual values and universe meanings. These spirits assist humans in appropriating truth that enhances personal religious experience—God-consciousness—which is the ultimate goal of these revelations.