SITE INDEX
INDEX TO SYNOPSIS

Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 112
PERSONALITY SURVIVAL

1.  The evolutionary planets are the spheres of human origin...here you and your divine Thought Adjuster are joined in temporary union. You have been endowed with a perfect guide; therefore, if you will sincerely run the race of time and gain the final goal of faith, the reward of the ages shall be yours; you will be eternally united with your indwelling Adjuster. Then will begin your real life ...And throughout all of these successive ages and stages of evolutionary growth, there is one part of you that remains absolutely unaltered, and that is personality—permanence in the presence of change.

2.  While it would be presumptuous to attempt the definition of personality, it may prove helpful to recount some of the things which are known about personality:

1. Personality is that quality in reality which is bestowed by the Universal Father himself or by the Conjoint Actor, acting for the Father.

2. It may be bestowed upon any living energy system which includes mind or spirit.

3. It is not wholly subject to the fetters of antecedent causation. It is relatively creative or cocreative.

4. When bestowed upon evolutionary material creatures, it causes spirit to strive for the mastery of energy‑matter through the mediation of mind.

5. Personality, while devoid of identity, can unify the identity of any living energy system.

6. It discloses only qualitative response to the personality circuit...

7. Personality is changeless in the presence of change.

8. It can make a gift to God—dedication of the free will of the doing of the will of God,

9. It is characterized by morality—awareness of relativity of relationship with other persons...

10. Personality is unique, absolutely unique...

11. Personality responds directly to other‑personality presence.

12. It is one thing which can be added to spirit...

13. Personality may survive mortal death with identity in the surviving soul...

14. Personality is uniquely conscious of time, and this is something other than the time perception of mind or spirit.

3.  Personality is bestowed by the Universal Father upon his creatures as a potentially eternal endowment ...Personality has a perfected range of cosmic dimensional performance. The dimensions of finite personality are three, and they are roughly functional as follows:

1. Length represents direction and nature of progression—movement through space and according to time—evolution.

2. Vertical depth embraces the organismal drives and attitudes, the varying levels of self‑realization and the general phenomenon of reaction to environment.

3. Breadth embraces the domain of co‑ordination, association, and self‑hood organization.

4Much trouble experienced by mortals in their study of human personality could be avoided if the finite creature would remember that dimensional levels and spiritual levels are not co‑ordinated in experiential personality realization.

5.  Life is really a process which takes place between the organism (selfhood) and its environment. The personality imparts value of identity and meanings and continuity to this organismal ‑ environmental association. Thus it will be recognized that the phenomenon of stimulus‑response is not a mere mechanical process since the personality functions as a factor in the total situation. It is ever true that mechanisms are innately passive; organisms, inherently active.

6.  It is through the mediation of mind that the self and the environment establish meaningful contact. The ability and willingness of the organism to make such significant contacts with environment (response to a drive) represents the attitude of the whole personality.

7.  Personality cannot very well perform in isolation. Man is innately a social creature; he is dominated by the craving of belongingness.

8.  But the concept of the personality as the meaning of the whole of the living and functioning creature means much more than the integration of relationships; it signifies the unification of all factors of reality as well as co‑ordination of relationships. Relationships exist between two objects, but three or more objects eventuates a system, and such a system is much more than just an enlarged or complex relationship.

9.  In aggregations parts are added; in systems parts are arranged. Systems are significant because of organization—positional values ...In the human system it is the personality which unifies all activities and in turn imparts the qualities of identity and creativity.

10. It would be helpful in the study of selfhood to remember:

     1. That physical systems are subordinate.

     2. That intellectual systems are co‑ordinate.

     3. That personality is superordinate.

     4. That the indwelling spiritual force is potentially directive.

11. In the true meaning of the word, love connotes mutual regard of whole personalities, whether human or divine or human and divine. Parts of the self may function in numerous ways—thinking, feeling, wishing—but only the co‑ordinated attributes of the whole personality are focused in intelligent action; and all of these powers are associated with the spiritual endowment of the mortal mind when a human being sincerely and unselfishly loves another being, human or divine.

12. Everything nonspiritual in human experience, excepting personality, is a means to an end. Every true relationship of mortal man with other persons—human or divine—is an end in itself. And such fellowship with the personality of Deity is the eternal goal of universe ascension.

13. The possession of personality identifies man as a spiritual being since the unity of selfhood and the self‑consciousness of personality are endowments of the supermaterial world. The very fact that a mortal materialist can deny the existence of supermaterial realities in and of itself demonstrates the presence, and indicates the working, of spirit synthesis and cosmic consciousness in his human mind.

14. Accordingly does science give way to philosophy, while philosophy must surrender to the conclusions inherent in genuine spiritual experience. Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and reflective worship...In time, thinking leads to wisdom and wisdom leads to worship; in eternity, worship leads to wisdom, and wisdom eventuates in the finality of thought.

15. The possibility of the unification of the evolving self is inherent in the qualities of its constitutive factors: the basic energies, the master tissues, the fundamental chemical overcontrol, the supreme ideas, the supreme motives, the supreme goals, and the divine spirit of Paradise bestowal—the secret of the self‑consciousness of man's spiritual nature.

16. The purpose of cosmic evolution is to achieve unity of personality through increasing spirit dominance, volitional response to the teaching and leading of the Thought Adjuster. Personality, both human and superhuman, is characterized by an inherent cosmic quality which may be called "the evolution of dominance," the expansion of the control of both itself and its environment.

17. But selfhood of survival value...is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle—the material body—to the more enduring and immortal nature of the morontia soul ...This actual transfer from material association to morontia identification is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God‑seeking decisions of the human creature.

18. Urantians generally recognize only one kind of death, the physical cessation of life energies; but concerning personality survival there are really three kinds;

1. Spiritual (soul) death. If and when mortal man has finally rejected survival, when he has been pronounced spiritually insolvent, morontially bankrupt, in the conjoint opinion of the Adjuster and the surviving seraphim, when such co‑ordinate advice has been recorded on Uversa, and after the Censors and their reflective associates have verified these findings, thereupon do the rulers of Orvonton order the immediate release of the indwelling Monitor.

2. Intellectual (mind) death ...On the universe records a mortal personality is considered to have met with death whenever the essential mind circuits of human will‑action have been destroyed.

3. Physical (body and mind) death.

19. Upon death the Thought Adjuster temporarily loses personality, but not identity; the human subject temporarily loses identity, but not personality; on the mansion worlds both reunite in eternal manifestation ...Those who go to the mansion worlds are not permitted to send messages back to their loves ones. It is the policy throughout the universes to forbid such communication during the period of a current dispensation

20. If, when death overtakes you, you have attained the third circle or a higher realm and therefore have had assigned to you a personal guardian of destiny, and if the final transcript of the summary of survival character submitted by the Adjuster is uncondition­ally certified by the destiny guardian—if both seraphim and Adjuster essentially agree in every item of their life records and recommendations ...the tribunals of the Sovereign of Nebadon will decree the immediate passage of the surviving soul to the resurrection halls of the mansion worlds.

21. Human beings, from a cosmic perspective, are born, live, and die in a relative instant of time; they are not enduring. But mortal personality, through its own choosing, possesses the power of transferring its seat of identity from the passing material-­intellect system to the higher morontia‑soul system which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle for personality manifestation ...Upon the integrity of the human volition depends the eternal destiny of the future finaliter.

22. If ever there is doubt as to the advisability of advancing a human identity to the mansion worlds, the universe governments invariably rule in the personal interests of that individual...We had rather assume the risk of a system rebellion than to court the hazard of depriving one struggling mortal from any evolutionary world of the eternal joy of pursuing the ascending career.                                                                                                                             ‑

23. During the transit of surviving mortals from the world of origin to the mansion worlds... the record of personality constitution is faithfully preserved by the archangels on their worlds of special activities ...As to exact whereabouts of mortal personality during the time intervening between death and survival, we do not know.

24. The reassembly of the constituent parts of a onetime material personality involves:

1. The fabrication of a suitable form.
2. The return of the Adjuster to the waiting morontia creature. The Adjuster is the eternal custodian of your ascending identity.
3. When these prerequisites of repersonalization have been assembled, the seraphic custodian of the potentialities of the slumbering immortal soul bestows this morontia entity upon and in the awaiting morontia mind‑body form.

25. Selfhood persists in spite of a continuous change in all the factor components of self... The true reality of all selfhood (personality) is able to function responsively to universe conditions by virtue of the unceasing changing of its constituent parts; stagnation terminates in inevitable death.

26. And when you thus awaken on the mansion worlds of Jerusem, you will be so changed, the spiritual transformation will be so great that, were it not for your Thought Adjuster and the destiny guardian, who so fully connect up your new life in the new worlds with your old life in the first world, you would at first have difficulty in connecting the new morontia consciousness with the reviving memory of your previous identity...But much of your past life and its memories, having neither spiritual meaning nor morontia value, will perish with the material brain... But personality and, the relationships between personalities are never a scaffolding;...On the mansion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will remember, and be remembered by, your onetime associates in the short but intriguing life on Urantia.

27. In the physical life, mortals may be outwardly beautiful though inwardly unlovely; in the morontia life, and increasingly on its higher levels, the personality form will vary directly in accordance with the nature of the inner person. On the spiritual level, outward form and inner nature begin to approximate complete identification, which grows more and more perfect on higher and higher spirit levels.

28. During the times immediately following survival, the ascending personality is in great measure guided by the character patterns inherited from the human life and by the newly appearing action of morontia mota.

29. Mortal mind, prior to death, is self‑consciously independent of the Adjuster presence; adjutant mind needs only the associated material‑energy pattern to enable it to operate. But the morontia soul, being superadjutant, does not retain self‑consciousness without the Adjuster when deprived of the material‑mind mechanism ...The pattern of memory persists in the soul, but this pattern requires the presence of the former Adjuster to become immediately self‑realizable as continuing memory. Without the Adjuster, it requires considerable time for the mortal survivor to re‑explore and relearn, to recapture, the memory consciousness of the meanings and values of a former existence.

30. Thought Adjuster fusion imparts eternal actualities to personality which were previously only potential. Among these new endowments may be mentioned: fixation of divinity quality, past‑eternity experience and memory, immortality, and a phase of qualified potential absoluteness,

31. Fusion with the Adjuster is usually effected while the ascender is resident within his local system ...When fusion with the Adjuster has been effected, there can be no future danger to the eternal career of such a personality ...Fusion with the Adjuster never occurs until the mandates of the superuniverse have pronounced that the human nature has made a final and irrevocable choice for the eternal career.

32. On the evolutionary worlds, selfhood is material...Survival decisions must here be formulated. In the morontia state the self has become a new and more enduring universe reality ...Survival decisions are now being confirmed. When the self attains the spiritual level ...survival decisions have been made.

33. You shall finally be taken before the Sovereign of Nebadon, your local universe Father. And there, at the hand of the very being whose creative fatherhood in this universe of time has made possible the fact of your life, you will be granted those credentials which entitle you eventually to proceed upon your superuniverse career in quest of the Universal Father.

34. Has the triumphant Adjuster won personality by the magnificent service to humanity, or has the valiant human acquired immortality through sincere efforts to achieve Adjuster­likeness? It is neither; but they together have achieved the evolution of a member of one of the unique orders of the ascending personalities of the Supreme...This extra­ordinary partnership is one of the most engrossing and amazing of all the cosmic phenomena of this universe age.

35. The present known destiny of surviving mortals is.the Paradise Corps of the Finality... At present the Paradise finaliters are working throughout the grand universe in many undertakings ...We believe that the mortals of Adjuster fusion, together with their finaliter associates, are destined to function in some manner in the administration of the universes of the first outer space level.

36, What an adventure! What a romance! A gigantic creation to be administered by the children of the Supreme, these personalized and humanized Adjusters, these Adjusterized and eternalized mortals, these mysterious combinations and eternal associations of the highest known manifestation of the essence of the First Source and Center and the lowest form of intelligent life capable of comprehending and attaining the Universal Father. We conceive that such amalgamated beings, such partnerships of Creator and creature, will become superb rulers, matchless administrators, and understanding and sympathetic directors of any and all forms of intelligent life which may come into existence through­out these future universes of the first outer space level.

True it is, you mortals are of earthly, animal origin; your frame is indeed dust. But if you actually will, if you really desire, surely the heritage of the ages is yours, and you shall someday serve throughout the universes in your true characters—children of the Supreme God of experience and divine sons of the Paradise Father of all personalities.

Discussion Questions

1. Why is it difficult to define personality?

2. How do Christians understand the “soul?”

3. Why are sincere, persistent, steadfast God-seeking decisions so important to spiritual growth?

4. What do you think of the outward form of our appearance reflecting the inner quality of our personality?

5. How do you think we will recognize each other on the mansion worlds?

6. To what extent is partnership with God a new concept on our world?

7. What do you think of the destiny of being rulers and administrators on the worlds of outer space?


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