Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 117
GOD THE SUPREME
1. To the extent that we do the will of God in whatever universe station we may have our existence, in that measure the almighty potential of the Supreme becomes one step more actual.
2. The parts and individuals of the grand universe evolve as a reflection of the total evolution of the Supreme, while in turn the Supreme is the synthetic cumulative total of all grand universe evolution. From the mortal viewpoint both are evolutionary and experiential reciprocals.
3. The Supreme is the beauty of physical harmony, the truth of intellectual meaning, and the goodness of spiritual value. He is the sweetness of true success and the joy of everlasting achievement. He is the oversoul of the grand universe, the consciousness of the finite cosmos, the completion of finite reality, and the personification of Creator‑creature experience.
4. The grand universe contains the possibility of, and ever seeks for, complete unification, and this grows out of the fact that this comic existence is a consequence of the creative acts and the power mandates of the Paradise Trinity, which is unqualified unity.
5. Truth, beauty, and goodness are correlated in the ministry of the Spirit, the grandeur of Paradise, the mercy of the Son, and the experience of the Supreme. God the Supreme is truth, beauty, and goodness, for these concepts of divinity represent finite maximums of ideational experience.
6. The Supreme is God‑in‑time; his is the secret of creature growth in time...the present growth which characterizes creature existence in the present universe age is a function of the Supreme. We equally hold that this kind of growth is peculiar to the age of the growth of the Supreme, and that it will terminate with the completion of the growth of the Supreme.
7. Consider the status of the creature‑trinitized sons ...They have experience and the memory thereof, but they do not grow as do ascenders. It is our belief and understanding that these creature‑trinitized sons, while they are in the present universe age, are really of the next universe age...This is not true of the finaliters nor of any other of the evolutionary and experiential orders which are participants in the growth process of the Supreme. You mortals now living on Urantia who may aspire to Paradise attainment and finaliter status should understand that such a destiny is only realizable because you are in and of the Supreme, hence are participants in the cycle of the growth of the Supreme.
8. There will come an end sometime to the growth of the Supreme; his status will achieve completion (in the energy‑spirit sense)...:What kind of growth may characterize the universes of outer space, we do not know. But we are very sure that it will be something very different from anything that has been seen in the present age of the evolution of the seven superuniverses. It will undoubtedly be the function of the evolutionary citizens of the grand universe to compensate the outer‑spacers for this deprivation of the growth of Supremacy.
9. The cosmic reality variously designated as the Supreme Being, God the Supreme, and the Almighty Supreme, is the complex and universal synthesis of the emerging phases of all finite realities.
10. Said Jesus: "1 am the living way," and so he is the living way from the material level of self‑consciousness to the spiritual level of God‑consciousness. And even as he is this living way of ascension from the self to God, so is the Supreme the living way from finite consciousness to transcendence of consciousness, even to the insight of absonity.
11. Mortal man is more than figuratively made in the image of God. From a physical standpoint this statement is hardly true, but with reference to certain universe potentialities it is an actual fact. In the human race, something of the same drama of evolutionary attainment is being unfolded as takes place, on a vastly larger scale, in the universe of universes.
12. But there is still another aspect to the evolution of God the Supreme: He is not only Creator‑evolved and Trinity‑derived; he is also self‑evolved and self‑derived. God the Supreme is himself a volitional, creative participant in his own deity actualization. The human morontial soul is likewise a volitional, cocreative partner in its own immortalization.
13. The presence of the Thought Adjusters in mortal man reveals the essential unity of the universe, for man, the lowest possible type of universe personality, contains within himself an actual fragment of the highest and eternal reality, even the original Father of all personalities...What the Trinity is to God the Supreme, the Adjuster is to evolving man.
14. From the finite standpoint, we actually live, move, and have our being within the immanence of the Supreme. The Supreme apparently cannot initiate original causation but appears to be the catalyzer of all universe growth and is seemingly destined to provide totality culmination as regards the destiny of all experiential‑evolutionary beings.
15. God the Supreme is the finite Deity, and he must cope with the problems of the finite in the total sense of that word... Throughout the grand universe the Supreme struggles for expression. His divine evolution is in measure predicated on the wisdom‑action of every personality in existence.
16. God is so trusting, so loving, that he gives a portion of his divine nature into the hands of even human beings for safekeeping and. self‑realization.
17. The human personality can truly destroy individuality of creaturehood, and though all that was worth while in the life of such a cosmic suicide will persist, these qualities will not persist in an individual creature. The Supreme will again find expression in the creatures of the universes but never again as that particular person; the unique personality of a nonascender returns to the Supreme as a drop of water‑returns to the sea . ...the personality of each human being represents an irreplaceable meaning‑value in the finite; personality, having once been expressed, never again finds identical expression except in the continuing existence of that living personality.
18. Herein lies the great cosmic responsibility of self‑conscious personalities: That Supreme Deity is in a certain sense, dependent on the choosing of the mortal will ...The great challenge that has been given to mortal man is this: Will you decide to personalize the experiencible value meanings of the cosmos into your own evolving selfhood?
19. And so the decision awaits each of you as it once awaited each of us: Will you fail the God of time, who is so dependent upon the decisions of the finite mind? will you fail the Supreme personality of the universes by the slothfulness of animalistic retrogression? will you fail the great brother of all creatures, who is so dependent on each creature? can you allow yourself to pass into the realm of the unrealized when before you lies the enchanting vista of the universe career—the divine discovery of the Paradise Father and the divine participation in the search for, and the evolution of, the God of Supremacy?
20. And here is mystery: The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality—actuality—of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches nonreality—cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.
21. When the creature submits to the will of the Creator, he does not submerge or surrender his personality; the individual personality participants in the actualization of the finite God do not lose their volitional selfhood by so functioning. Rather are such personalities progressively augmented by participation in this great Deity adventure; by such union with divinity man exalts, enriches, spiritualizes, and unifies his evolving self to the very threshold of supremacy.
22. As the ascending mortal passes beyond the boundaries of his local universe of origin, he is not entirely deprived of the ministry of the Spirit of Truth which has so constantly taught and guided him through the philosophic mazes of the material and morontial worlds, in every crisis of ascension unfailingly directing the Paradise pilgrim, ever saying: 'This is the way."
23. When man decides, and when he consummates this decision in action, man experiences, and the meanings and the values of this experience are forever a part of his eternal character on all levels, from the finite to the final. Cosmically moral and divinely spiritual character represents the creature's capital accumulation of personal decisions which have been illuminated by sincere worship, glorified by intelligent love, and consummated in brotherly service.
24. The finite of time contains within itself the seeds of eternity; and we are taught that, when the fullness of evolution witnesses the exhaustion of the capacity for cosmic growth, the total finite will embark upon the absonite phases of the eternal career in quest of the Father as Ultimate.
25. As God is your divine Father, so is the Supreme your divine Mother, in whom you are nurtured throughout your lives as universe creatures.…What Michael is to Nebadon, the Supreme is to the finite cosmos.
26. Human life experience is the cosmic cocoon in which the universe endowments of the Supreme Being and the universe presence of the Universal Father (none of which are personalities) are evolving the morontia soul of time and the human‑divine finaliter character of universe destiny and eternal service.
27. Men all too often forget that God is the greatest experience in human existence…When men search for God, they are searching for everything. When they find God, they have found everything.
28. All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father's love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man's personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows.
29. God the Father can be found by any individual who has attained the divine level of God‑likeness, but God the Supreme will never be personally discovered by any one creature until that far‑distant time when, through the universal attainment of perfection, all creatures will simultaneously find him ...The fruits of the spirit are the substance of the Supreme as he is realizable in human experience ...The Supreme is not infinite, but he probably embraces all of infinity that a finite creature can ever really comprehend. To understand more than the Supreme is to be more than finite.
30. It is believed that, in the ages to come, the possibilities for disharmony, maladjustment, and misadaptation will be eventually exhausted in the superuniverses. The energy circuits will be in perfect balance and in complete subjugation to mind, while spirit, in the presence of personality, will have achieved the dominance of mind.
31. It is conjectured that at this far‑distant time the spirit person of the Supreme and attained power of the Almighty will have achieved co‑ordinate development, and that both, as unified in and by the Supreme Mind, will factualize as the Supreme Being, a completed actuality in the universes—an actuality which will be observable by all creature intelligences, reacted to by all created energies, co‑ordinated in all spiritual entities, and experienced by all universe personalities.
32. It is possible that the Supreme may then be personally resident on Uversa, the headquarters of Orvonton, from which he will direct the administration of the time creations, but this is really only a conjecture.
33. The perfected grand universe of those future days will be vastly different from what it is at present ...perhaps for a space there will be rest, relaxation from the agelong struggle for evolutionary perfection. But not for long! Certainly, surely, and inexorably the enigma of the emerging Deity of God the Ultimate will challenge these perfected citizens ...The curtain of cosmic destiny will draw back to reveal the transcendent grandeur of the alluring absonite quest for the attainment of the Universal Father on those new and higher levels revealed in the ultimate of creature experience.
Discussion Questions1. How does the knowledge that we are co-creating the future of the universe effect our current living?
2. Is there evidence that an evolutionary Deity is harmonious with contemporary religion?
3. What is the potential value of living in the immanence of the Supreme?
4. Why do we experience some people as more real than others?
5. What practical evidence is there that “when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is?”
6. How does love remain alive in our lives?
7. What is the advantage of living in the relatively young development of the universe of universes?
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship