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THE NATURE OF GOD THE INFINITY OF GOD |
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CEDOMIL VUGRINCIC, M.D., Ph.D. |
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Inasmuch as man's
highest possible concept of God is embraced within the human idea and ideal
of a primal and infinite personality, it is permissible, and may prove
helpful, to study certain characteristics of the divine nature which
constitute the character of Deity. The
nature of God can best be understood by the revelation of the Father which
Michael of Nebadon unfolded in his manifold teachings and in his superb
mortal life in the flesh. The
divine nature can also be better understood by man if he regards himself as a
child of God and looks up to the Paradise Creator as a true spiritual Father.
The nature of God can be studied in a revelation of
supreme ideas, the divine character can be envisaged as a portrayal of
supernal ideals, but the most enlightening and spiritually edifying of all
revelations of the divine nature is to be found in the comprehension of the
religious life of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and after his attainment of
full consciousness of divinity. If the incarnated life of Michael is taken as
the background of the revelation of God to man, we may attempt to put in
human word symbols certain ideas and ideals concerning the divine nature
which may possibly contribute to a further illumination and unification of
the human concept of the nature and the character of the personality of the
Universal Father.
Efforts
to enlarge the human concept of God, due to limited capacity of the mortal
mind, would be well-nigh futile except for the fact that the mortal mind is
indwelt by the bestowed Thought Adjuster of the Universal Father, and is
pervaded by the Truth Spirit of the Creator Son, because the presence of
these divine spirits within the heart of man is assisting in the enlargement
of the concept of God. The Thought Adjuster fragment of the pure Deity of the
Universal Father which indwells mortal man is a part of the infinity of the
First Great Source and Center, the Father of Fathers. "Touching
the Infinite, we cannot find Him out. The divine footsteps are not
known." "His understanding is infinite
and his greatness is unsearchable."
" Not only are His thoughts
and plans unsearchable, but He does great and marvelous things without
number." "God is great; we comprehend
him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out." “Will God indeed dwell on the
earth? Behold, the heaven (universe) and the heaven of heavens (universe of
universes) cannot contain Him." "How unsearchable are his judgments
and His ways past finding out!"
"There is but one God, the infinite Father,
who is also a faithful Creator." "The divine Creator is also
the Universal Disposer, the source and destiny of souls. He is the Supreme
Soul, the Primal Mind, and the Unlimited Spirit of all creation." "The great Controller makes no
mistakes. He is resplendent in majesty and glory." "The Creator God is wholly
devoid of fear and enmity. He is immortal, eternal, self-existent, divine,
and bountiful." "How pure and beautiful, how
deep and unfathomable is the supernal Ancestor of all things!" "The Infinite is most
excellent in that He imparts Himself to men. He is the beginning and the end,
the Father of every good and perfect purpose." "With God all things are
possible; the eternal Creator is the cause of causes."
Notwithstanding the infinity of the stupendous
manifestations of the Father's eternal and universal personality, He is
unqualifiedly self-conscious of both his infinity and eternity; likewise He
knows fully His perfection and power. He is the only being in the universe,
aside from His divine co-ordinates, who experiences a perfect, proper, and
complete appraisal of Himself.
The Father constantly and unfailingly meets the
need of the differential of demand for Himself as it changes from time to
time in various sections of his master universe. The great God knows and
understands Himself; He is infinitely self-conscious of all His primal
attributes of perfection. God is not a cosmic accident; neither is He a
universe experimenter. The Universe Sovereigns may engage in adventure; the
Constellation Fathers may experiment; the system heads may practice; but the
Universal Father sees the end from the beginning, and His divine plan and
eternal purpose actually embrace and comprehend all the experiments and all
the adventures of all His subordinates in every world, system, and
constellation in every universe of His vast domains.
No thing is new to God, and no cosmic event ever
comes as a surprise; He inhabits the circle of eternity. He is without
beginning or end of days. To God there is no past, present, or future; all
time is present at any given moment. He is the great and only I AM.
The Universal Father is absolutely and without
qualification infinite in all His attributes; and this fact, in and of
itself, automatically shuts Him off from all direct personal communication
with finite material beings and other lowly created intelligences.
And first, all this necessitates such
arrangements for contact and communication with His manifold creatures as
have been ordained, first, in the personalities of the Paradise Sons of God,
who, although perfect in divinity, also often partake of the nature of the
very flesh and blood of the planetary races, becoming one of men and one with
men; thus, as it were, God becomes man, as occurred in the bestowal of
Michael, who was called interchangeably the Son of God and the Son of Man. And second, there are the
personalities of the Infinite Spirit, the various orders of the seraphic
hosts and other celestial intelligences who draw near to the material beings
of lowly origin and in so many ways minister to them and serve them. And third, there are the
impersonal Mystery Monitors, Thought Adjusters, the actual gift of the great
God Himself sent to indwell such as the humans of Urantia, sent without
announcement and without explanation. In endless profusion they descend from
the heights of glory to grace and indwell the humble minds of those mortals
who possess the capacity for God-consciousness or the potential therefore.
In these ways and in many others, and utterly
beyond finite comprehension, does the Paradise Father lovingly and willingly
down step and otherwise modify, dilute, and attenuate His infinity in order
that He may be able to draw nearer the finite minds of his creature children.
And
so, through a series of personality distributions which are diminishingly
absolute, the infinite Father is enabled to enjoy close contact with the
diverse intelligences of the many realms of his far-flung universe.
All this He has done and now does, and evermore
will continue to do, without in the least detracting from the fact and
reality of his infinity, eternity, and primacy. And these things are
absolutely true, notwithstanding the difficulty of their comprehension, the
mystery in which they are enshrouded, or the impossibility of their being
fully understood by creatures such as dwell on Urantia.
Because the First Father is infinite in His plans
and eternal in his purposes, it is inherently impossible for any finite being
ever to grasp or comprehend these divine plans and purposes in their
fullness. Mortal man can glimpse the Father's purposes only now and then,
here and there, as they are revealed in relation to the outworking of the
plan of creature ascension on its successive levels of universe progression.
Though man cannot encompass the significance of infinity, the infinite Father
does most certainly fully comprehend and lovingly embrace all the finity of
all His children in all universes.
Divinity and eternity the Father shares with
large numbers of the higher Paradise beings. Infinity of personality must,
perforce, embrace all finitude of personality; hence the truth--literal truth--of
the teaching which declares that "In Him we live and move and have our
being." Reference:
The
Urantia Book, Paper 2, Section 1 (edit/modif), The Urantia Foundation |
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