Paper 1 Overview: The Universal Father

The Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of everything in existence. He is the divine creator, controller, and infinite upholder of the universe of universes. The idea of one God instead of many gods has enabled human beings to understand God as both the divine creator and infinite controller. God established the universes as dwelling places for his diverse creatures, who can recognize him, receive his divine love, and love him in return.

The enlightened worlds throughout the universe recognize and worship the Universal Father as the eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The supreme goal of all will creatures is to find the eternal God, comprehend his divine nature, and recognize him as the Universal Father. God has issued the supreme command to all his creation: "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect." Paradise messengers have carried this divine directive throughout the ages and universes, including to the human races of Earth (Urantia). This magnificent universal injunction to achieve divine perfection is the first duty and highest ambition of all struggling creatures of God.

The Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings. He can be understood first as a creator, then as a controller, and finally as an infinite upholder. The concept of one God replacing many gods allowed humans to comprehend God as both divine creator and infinite controller. The prophet described God as alone, with none beside him, having created the heavens and preserving them, and covering himself with light while stretching out the heavens like a curtain.

God created planetary systems to be inhabited by many types of intelligent beings who could know him, receive his divine affection, and love him in return. The enlightened worlds throughout the universe recognize and worship the Universal Father as the eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. All will creatures across the universes have embarked on the long Paradise journey of attaining God the Father. Their supreme goal is to find the eternal God, comprehend his divine nature, and recognize the Universal Father.

God the Father is known by various names throughout the universes, with the most common being those that designate him as the First Source and Universe Center. The First Father is known by different names in different universes and in different sectors of the same universe. These names largely depend on how creatures conceptualize the Creator. The First Source and Universe Center has never revealed himself by name, only by nature, making it natural for his children to call him Father.

The Universal Father never imposes arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon his intelligent creatures. The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds must recognize, love, and worship him voluntarily from their hearts. The Creator refuses to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free wills of his material creatures. The affectionate dedication of human will to doing the Father's will is humanity's choicest gift to God and the only possible gift of true value. When a person becomes truly God-conscious and discovers the majestic Creator, they will find a name for the Universal Father that adequately expresses their concept of the First Great Source and Center.

God is the primary reality in the spirit world, the source of truth in mind spheres, and the overshadower of all material realms. To all created intelligences, God is a personality, and to the universe of universes, he is the First Source and Center of eternal reality. The Universal Father is universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite reality, and father personality. He is infinitely more than reality idealized or the universe personalized, and not merely the supreme desire of humans or natural law personified.

The existence of God is demonstrated in human experience by the indwelling of the divine presence, the spirit Monitor sent from Paradise to live in the mortal mind. This divine Adjuster's presence is revealed through three experiential phenomena: the intellectual capacity for knowing God (God-consciousness), the spiritual urge to find God (God-seeking), and the personality craving to be like God (the wholehearted desire to do the Father's will). Though God's existence cannot be proven by scientific experiment or logical deduction, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.

God is a universal spiritual presence, an infinite spiritual reality, and the sovereign, eternal, immortal, invisible, and only true God. Though humans are the offspring of God, they should not think the Father is like them in form and physique because they are created in his image. Spirit beings are real, despite being invisible to human eyes, and do not have flesh and blood. The Universal Father is not invisible because he is hiding from his creatures but because the glory and spiritual brilliance of his divine presence would be impossible for lower spirit beings or material personalities to approach.

The spirit nature of the Universal Father is shared fully with the Eternal Son of Paradise, and both share the universal and eternal spirit with the Infinite Spirit. God is a universal spirit and the universal person - the supreme personal reality of the finite creation is spirit. In the universes, God the Father potentially overcontrols matter, mind, and spirit, dealing directly with personalities through his far-flung personality circuit. Outside of Paradise, God is contactable only through his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes, which indwells the minds of mortals and fosters the evolution of the immortal soul.

The perfection of God is so infinite that it eternally makes him a mystery. The greatest unfathomable mystery is the divine indwelling of mortal minds - the way the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound universe mystery. The physical bodies of mortals are "the temples of God," and despite the intimate communion that Creator Sons have with their mortal creatures, humans have something from God himself that actually dwells within them.

When a person's earthly life is finished and their mortal body returns to the earth, the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." A fragment of God, a part of divinity, resides within each mortal being on Earth. While not yet possessed by right, it is intended to be one with those who survive mortal existence. The divine mystery consists in the inherent difference between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the time-space creature and the Universal Creator. God reveals himself to every spirit being and mortal creature to the fullness of their capacity to spiritually grasp divine truth, beauty, and goodness.

The Universal Father is the pinnacle of divine personality, both the origin and destiny of personality throughout all creation. Though God is infinite, we should not let his magnitude obscure or eclipse his personality. He who planned the ear can hear, and he who formed the eye can see. God is truly a personality, although the infinity of his person places him forever beyond the full comprehension of material and finite beings. God is much more than personality as understood by humans, even far beyond any concept of superpersonality.

Material creatures' highest possible concept of the Universal Creator is found within the spiritual ideals of the exalted idea of divine personality. God is not hiding from any of his creatures; he is unapproachable to many orders of beings only because he "dwells in a light which no material creature can approach." Although material mortals cannot see God in person, they should rejoice that he is a person. By faith, they can accept the truth that the Universal Father loved the world enough to provide for the eternal spiritual progression of its lowly inhabitants, and that he "delights in his children." Without God and except for his great and central person, there would be no personality throughout the vast universe of universes.

Human personality is the time-space image-shadow cast by the divine Creator personality. No reality can be adequately understood by examining only its shadow; shadows should be interpreted in terms of the true substance. To science, God is a cause; to philosophy, an idea; to religion, a person - the loving heavenly Father. Man's inadequate concept of the Universal Father's personality can improve only through spiritual progress in the universe and will become truly adequate only when pilgrims of time and space finally attain the divine embrace of God on Paradise.

We must remember the opposing viewpoints of personality as conceived by God and humans. Humans view personality from the finite to the infinite, while God looks from the infinite to the finite. Humans possess the lowest type of personality, while God has the highest - supreme, ultimate, and absolute. The prepersonal divine spirit that indwells the mortal mind carries the valid proof of its existence, but the concept of divine personality can only be grasped through the spiritual insight of genuine personal religious experience. When Jesus of Nazareth fully realized the potential of spirit personality in human experience, his life of achieving the Father's will became mankind's most real and ideal revelation of God's personality.

When Jesus spoke of "the living God," he referred to a personal Deity - the Father in heaven. The concept of God's personality facilitates fellowship, intelligent worship, and refreshing trust. Only personalities can commune with each other, though this personal communion may be greatly enhanced by the presence of an impersonal entity like the Thought Adjuster. Humans do not achieve union with God as a drop of water might find unity with the ocean. Instead, they attain divine union through progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, personality interaction with the personal God, and increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted conformity to the divine will.

The concept of truth might possibly exist apart from personality, and beauty might exist without personality, but divine goodness is understandable only in relation to personality. Only a person can love and be loved. The personality of God cannot be validated by mathematics, logic, or philosophy - only through personal experience in progressive conformity to the divine will. The higher concepts of universe personality include identity, self-consciousness, self-will, and the possibility for self-revelation. These characteristics imply fellowship with other equal personalities, as exists in the personality associations of the Paradise Deities, where unity is so perfect that divinity becomes known by its indivisibility, its oneness.