Paper 20 Overview: The Paradise Sons of God

Paper 20 presents a comprehensive examination of the Paradise Sons of God, categorizing them into three general classifications: Descending Sons who are of direct divine creation, Ascending Sons who achieve their status through evolutionary experience, and Trinitized Sons who possess composite origins related to the Paradise Trinity. The paper primarily focuses on the Descending Sons, particularly the Magisterial Sons (Avonals) and the Trinity Teacher Sons (Daynals), exploring their origins, purposes, and various types of missions throughout the universes.

The Descending Sons serve crucial roles in universe administration and the spiritual advancement of evolutionary worlds. The Magisterial Sons conduct judicial actions, magisterial missions, and bestowal missions on inhabited planets, while the Trinity Teacher Sons facilitate spiritual ages and educational advancement across the realms. The paper emphasizes how these various Paradise Sons work together in harmony to reveal the divine nature of the Paradise Deities and advance the progressive plan for spiritual evolution throughout the grand universe.

As they function in the superuniverse of Orvonton, the Sons of God are organized into three general classifications: the Descending Sons of God, the Ascending Sons of God, and the Trinitized Sons of God. The Descending Sons are beings of direct and divine creation, while Ascending Sons, such as mortal creatures, achieve their status through participation in evolutionary processes. The Trinitized Sons represent a group of composite origin that includes all beings embraced by the Paradise Trinity, even if they are not directly created by the Trinity itself.

All Descending Sons of God possess high and divine origins and are dedicated to facilitating the Paradise-bound progress of the lower evolutionary beings known as the ascending sons of God. Of the numerous orders of Descending Sons, seven will be discussed in these narratives, with the first three being the Paradise Sons of God: Creator Sons (Michaels), Magisterial Sons (Avonals), and Trinity Teacher Sons (Daynals). The remaining four are classified as Local Universe Sons of God: Melchizedek Sons, Vorondadek Sons, Lanonandek Sons, and the Life Carriers, each created through different combinations of the Creator Son, Creative Spirit, and other divine personalities.

The Paradise Sons perform diverse functions throughout the universe of universes, from administration on the central Isle to service on the inhabited worlds of time and space. They serve as divine ministers – creators, servers, bestowers, judges, teachers, and truth revealers – with their organization varying based on their service location. Every Creator Son possesses a unique spiritual drawing power centered in his person, allowing him to maintain contact with all descending Sons serving in his domain, similar to how the Eternal Son maintains contact with all Paradise Sons throughout the universes.

The Magisterial Sons, or Avonals, come into existence when an original concept of being from the Eternal Son unites with a new ideal of loving service conceived by the Infinite Spirit. Though not creators in a personal sense, they work closely with the Michael Sons in all their endeavors. They function as planetary ministers and judges – the magistrates of the time-space realms for all races across all worlds and universes. The total number of Magisterial Sons in the grand universe is believed to be approximately one billion, and they govern themselves through their supreme council on Paradise while serving under the direction of the Creator Son when assigned to a local universe.

Avonals are Paradise Sons dedicated to service and bestowal on individual planets within local universes, with each possessing a unique personality that makes their work individually distinctive. They perform three primary functions on inhabited worlds: judicial actions at the close of planetary dispensations, magisterial missions that typically precede the arrival of a bestowal Son, and bestowal missions where they incarnate as members of the mortal races. After serving on seven bestowal missions, these Sons are typically assigned to the high personal council of a Creator Son to participate in universe administration.

The Avonals are known as Magisterial Sons because they serve as the high magistrates of the realms, adjudicating the successive dispensations of evolutionary worlds. They preside over the awakening of sleeping survivors, sit in judgment on the realm, bring dispensations of suspended justice to an end, execute the mandates of probationary mercy, reassign planetary ministering creatures to new tasks, and return to their local universe headquarters upon mission completion. While they may render judgments affecting the identity of personal creatures, they do not execute such sentences, as this authority belongs exclusively to the superuniverse administrators.

A Paradise Avonal may visit an evolutionary world to terminate a dispensation and initiate a new era through either a magisterial mission or a bestowal mission, both of which involve incarnation in material form. Other visits, classified as "technical," do not involve incarnation, with the Avonal arriving as a spiritual being invisible to the material inhabitants. Regardless of the type of visit, when a Paradise Son appears on an evolutionary world and becomes like one of its people, his presence terminates a dispensation and constitutes a judgment of the realm.

Prior to the appearance of a bestowal Son on an inhabited world, that planet is typically visited by a Paradise Avonal on a magisterial mission. During an initial magisterial visitation, the Avonal incarnates as a material being, appearing as a full-fledged male of the mortal races who is fully visible and can physically interact with the planet's inhabitants. Throughout such an incarnation, the Avonal Son maintains complete and uninterrupted connection with both local and universal spiritual forces. A planet may experience numerous magisterial visitations both before and after the appearance of a bestowal Son, though the Avonals do not always incarnate during these missions.

Urantia has never hosted an Avonal Son on a magisterial mission, though according to the general plan for inhabited worlds, it should have been blessed with such a mission sometime between the days of Adam and the bestowal of Christ Michael. The regular sequence of Paradise Sons visiting Urantia was disrupted by the appearance of the Creator Son on his terminal bestowal nineteen hundred years ago. Because Urantia is now a Michael-bestowal world, it has become the personal ward of a Master Son and is subject to his plans and rulings, though a future Avonal visit on a magisterial mission remains possible.

When the Eternal Son, who is the perfect expression of the Father's "first" infinite thought, sends a personal extension of himself on a bestowal mission of mortal incarnation, it becomes literally true that the divine "Word is made flesh" and dwells among the lowly beings of animal origin. Contrary to widespread belief on Urantia, the purpose of these bestowals is not to influence the attitude of the Universal Father. Rather, they form a necessary part of the experiential process that prepares these Sons to become safe and sympathetic magistrates and rulers of the peoples and planets within time and space.

A Paradise Son must be bestowed upon each mortal-inhabited world to enable Thought Adjusters to indwell the minds of all normal human beings, as Adjusters come only after the Spirit of Truth has been poured out upon all flesh. While a planet may experience many dispensational adjudications and magisterial missions, ordinarily only one bestowal Son serves on each world. Urantia holds special significance in Nebadon's history as the mortal home of Jesus of Nazareth, where Michael completed his final bestowal and earned supreme personal sovereignty over the universe of Nebadon.

The method by which a Paradise Son prepares for mortal incarnation as a bestowal Son remains a universal mystery, and any attempt to understand the Sonarington technique is destined to fail. Instead of speculating on this process, we should simply appreciate the sublime knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth's mortal life and rejoice that such achievements are possible for divine beings. On mortal-bestowal missions, Paradise Sons are always born of women and grow up as male children, just as Jesus did on Urantia, passing through all stages of life from infancy to manhood.

These Sons live ordinary lives with one universal restriction: they do not have children on the worlds they visit. After mastering mortal life and achieving perfect attunement with their indwelling Adjusters, they begin their mission of spiritual enlightenment. Though the mortal careers of Michaels and Avonals are similar in many respects, only Creator Sons can say, "Whosoever has seen the Son has seen the Father." When bestowal Sons complete their missions and pass through death, they reappear on the third day, though they don't necessarily experience the cruel death that Jesus faced on Urantia.

The Trinity Teacher Sons are highly personal and spiritual beings created by the Paradise Trinity. In Havona, they are known as the order of Daynals, while in Orvonton they are recorded as Trinity Teacher Sons, and on Salvington they are sometimes called Paradise Spiritual Sons. Their numbers constantly increase, with the last universal census counting more than 21 billion serving in the central and superuniverses, excluding the Paradise reserves which include over one-third of all existing Trinity Teacher Sons.

The Daynal order of sonship does not form an organic part of local or superuniverse administrations, as they focus more on moral enlightenment and spiritual development than on universe governance. They serve as universal educators dedicated to the spiritual awakening and moral guidance of all realms, with their ministry closely connected to the personalities of the Infinite Spirit and the Paradise ascension of creature beings. Unlike their Paradise brothers (Michaels and Avonals), Trinity Teacher Sons receive no preliminary training in the central universe and are sent directly to superuniverse headquarters before being commissioned for service in local universes.

The Paradise Spiritual Sons occupy a unique position as Trinity-origin beings who are extensively involved with dual-origin universes. They begin their service in local systems and, as they gain experience and achieve success, advance through constellation service to the highest responsibilities of the local creation. Upon certification, they may become spiritual ambassadors representing their local universes of service. In Nebadon, there are many thousands of Teacher Sons, with many heading departments in the Melchizedek schools and over one hundred thousand serving on the staff of the University of Salvington.

The Teacher Sons conduct all examinations and tests for qualification and certification of all subordinate phases of universe service, from the duties of outpost sentinels to those of star students. They administer an extensive educational program ranging from planetary courses up to the high College of Wisdom on Salvington, recognizing the achievements of all who complete these adventures in wisdom and truth. All Sons of God are indebted to these faithful and universally efficient Trinity Teacher Sons, who serve as exalted teachers of all spirit personalities, including the Sons of God themselves.

When evolutionary worlds show signs of readiness for a spiritual age, the Trinity Teacher Sons volunteer to initiate this service. Urantia has never experienced a spiritual age or millennium of cosmic enlightenment, yet Teacher Sons already visit your world to formulate plans for their future sojourn. They will appear on Urantia after its inhabitants have achieved comparative freedom from the limitations of animalism and the constraints of materialism. Unlike other Paradise Sons, Trinity Teacher Sons have no role in ending planetary dispensations or judging the dead and living, though they are accompanied by Magisterial Sons who perform these functions.

The Teacher Sons typically remain on their visitation planets for one thousand years of planetary time, with one Teacher Son presiding over the millennial reign assisted by seventy associates of the same order. They do not incarnate or materialize in forms visible to mortal beings; instead, they maintain contact with the world through the activities of the Brilliant Evening Stars, local universe personalities associated with the Trinity Teacher Sons. After multiple visits and their final mission, a planet enters the settled status of light and life, the evolutionary goal for all mortal-inhabited worlds in the current universe age.

All Paradise Sons of God share divine origins and natures, and the work of each Paradise Son for any world is performed as if he were the first and only Son of God. These Sons represent the divine presentation of the three persons of Deity to the domains of time and space, serving as divine ministers unceasingly devoted to helping time creatures achieve their eternal spiritual goal. The Creator Sons embody the Universal Father's love, the Magisterial Sons manifest the Eternal Son's mercy, and the Trinity Teacher Sons coordinate the love, mercy, and ministry of all three Paradise Deities.

In local universes, these orders of sonship collaborate to reveal the Paradise Deities to space creatures: Creator Sons portray the Universal Father's infinite character; Avonals, as bestowal Sons of mercy, reveal the compassionate nature of the Eternal Son; and Trinity Daynal Sons disclose the teacher personality of the Infinite Spirit. Through their perfect cooperation, these Paradise Sons contribute to actualizing and revealing the personality and sovereignty of God the Supreme throughout the time-space universes, functioning at the forefront of Deity's expansion from Paradise into the unknown depths of space.