Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 11
THE ETERNAL ISLE OF PARADISE
1. Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well s a spiritual abode...The glory and spiritual splendor of the divine abode are impossible of mortal comprehension. And Paradise is from eternity; there are neither records nor traditions respecting the origin of this nuclear Isle of Light and Life.
2. God dwells, has dwelt, and everlastingly will dwell in this same central and eternal abode. We have always found him there and always will. The Universal Father is cosmically focalized, spiritually personalized, and geographically resident at this center of the universe of universes... Provided with all the necessities for the journey, it is just as possible to find the personal presence of God at the center of all things as to find distant cities on your own planet.
3. The Father is always to be found at this central location; Did he move, universal pandemonium would be precipitated, for there converge in him at this residential center the universal lines of gravity from the ends of creation...And from his infinite being there flow the flood-streams of life, energy, and personality to all universes.
4. In form Paradise differs from the inhabited space bodies: it is not spherical. It is definitely ellipsoid ...The central Isle is essentially flat...The central Isle is geographically divided into three domains of activity:
1. Upper Paradise.
2. Peripheral Paradise.
3. Nether Paradise.
The Trinity seems to dominate the personal or upper plane, the Unqualified Absolute the nether or impersonal plane.
5. The eternal Isle is composed of a single form of materialization—stationary systems of reality ...the Melchizedeks of Nebadon long since named it absolutum. This Paradise source material is neither dead nor alive; it is the original nonspiritual expression of the First Source and Center; it is Paradise, and Paradise is without duplicate.
6. Paradise exists without time and has no location In space. Roughly: space seemingly originates just below nether Paradise; time just above upper Paradise...the citizens of the central Isle are fully conscious of nontime sequence of events...the concept of distance...has very much meaning as it may be applied to relative locations on Paradise.
7. On upper Paradise there are three grand spheres of activity, the Deity presence, the Most Holy Sphere, and the Holy Area. The vast region immediately surrounding the presence of the Deities is set aside as the Most Holy Sphere and is reserved for the functions of worship, trinitization, and high spiritual attainment.
8. The Holy Area, the outlying or residential region, is divided into seven concentric zones...The inner or first zone is occupied by Paradise Citizens and the natives of Havona, who may chance to be dwelling on Paradise. The next or second zone is the residential area of the natives of the seven superuniverses of time and space...the staggering number of residential designations on Paradise, a number beyond your concept, occupies considerably less than one per cent of the assigned area of the Holy Land. There is still plenty of room for those who shall not start the Paradise climb until the times of the eternal future.
9. The peripheral surface of Paradise is occupied, in part, by the landing and dispatching fields for various groups of spirit personalities ... Here on peripheral Paradise are the enormous historic and prophetic exhibit areas assigned to the Creator Sons, dedicated to the local universes of time and space. There are just seven trillion of these historic reservations now set up or in reserve, but these arrangements all together occupy only about four per cent of that portion of the peripheral area thus assigned. We infer that these vast reserves belong to creations sometime to be situated beyond the borders of the present known and inhabited seven superuniverses.
10. Concerning nether Paradise, we know only that which is revealed; personalities do not sojourn there...We are informed that all physical-energy and cosmic-force circuits have their origin on nether Paradise.
11. All forms of force and all phases of energy seem to be encircuited; they circulate throughout the universes and return by definite routes. But with the emanation of the activated zone of the Unqualified Absolute there appears to be either an outgoing or an incoming—never both simultaneously. This outer zone pulsates in agelong cycles of gigantic proportions. For a little more than one billion Urantia years the space-force of this center is outgoing; then for a similar length of time it will be incoming.
12. All physical force, energy, and matter are one. All force-energy originally proceeded from nether Paradise and will eventually return thereto following the completion of its space circuit. But the energies and material organizations of the universe of universes did not all come from nether Paradise in their present phenomenal states; space is the womb of several forms of matter and prematter.
13. As the universes of the horizontal extension of pervaded space expand, the reservoirs of the vertical extension and unpervaded space contract and vice versa...We do not know whether there is a creative intent concerning unpervaded space; we really know very little about the space reservoirs...Pervaded space is now approaching the midpoint of the expanding phase.
14. Space does not touch Paradise; only the quiescent midspace zones come in contact with the central Isle. Paradise is the actually motionless nucleus of the relatively quiescent zones existing between pervaded and unpervaded space...If you imagine a finite, but inconceivably large, V-shaped plane situated at right angles to both the upper and lower surfaces of Paradise, with its point nearly tangent to peripheral Paradise, and then visualize this plane in elliptical revolution about Paradise, its revolution would roughly outline the volume of pervaded space.
15. The inescapable pull of gravity effectively grips all the worlds of all the universes of all space. Gravity is the all-powerful grasp of the physical presence of Paradise...Every known form of cosmic reality has the bend of the ages, the trend of the circle, the swing of the great ellipse.
16. Space is nonresponsive to gravity, but it acts as an equilibrant on gravity. Without the space cushion, explosive action would jerk surrounding space bodies. Pervaded space also exerts an antigravity influence upon physical or linear gravity.
17. The numerous forms of cosmic force, physical energy, universe power, and various materializations disclose three general, though not perfectly clear-cut, stages of response to Paradise gravity:
1. Pregravity Stages (Force)...sometimes called pure energy or segregata.
2. Gravity Stages (Energy)...It signalizes the appearance of energy systems responsive to the pull of Paradise gravity ... ultimata.
3. Postgravity Stages (Universe Power). In this stage, energy-matter discloses response to the control of linear gravity. In the central universe these physical systems are threefold organizations known as triata...The physical systems of the superuniverses...are dual in constitution and are known an gravita.
18. Paradise is unique in that it is the realm of primal origin and the final goal of destiny for all spirit personalities...Paradise is the geographic center of infinity; it is not a part of universal creation ... Paradise is an eternal and exclusive existence.
19. In the eternity of the past, when the Universal Father gave infinite personality expression of his spirit self in the being of the Eternal Son, simultaneously he revealed the infinity potential of his nonpersonal self as Paradise...The tension between them, in the face of will to action by the Father and the Son, gave existence to the Conjoint Actor and the central universe of material worlds and spiritual beings...Paradise is the absolute of patterns; Havona is an exhibit of these potentials in actuality.
20. Paradise is the universal headquarters of all personality activities and the source-center of all force-space and energy manifestations. Everything which has been, now is, or is yet to be, has come, now comes, or will come forth from this central abiding place of the eternal Gods. Paradise is the center of all creation, the source of all energies, and the place of primal origin of all personalities.
21. After all, to mortals the most important thing about eternal Paradise is the fact that this perfect abode of the Universal Father is the real and far-distant destiny of the immortal souls of the mortal and material sons of God...Every God-knowing mortal who has espoused the career of doing the Father's will has already embarked upon the long, long Paradise trail of divinity pursuit and perfection attainment.
Discussion Questions
1. What advantage does the concentric cosmology of the universe have over the three-story (hell-earth-heaven) cosmology of the prescientific society?
2. Are there analogies that might help us conceptualize material that is neither dead or alive?
3. How might a "no time" sequence of events differ from a time sequence of events?
4. From the residential and historic exhibit area reservations on Paradise it appears that we are living close to the beginning of the historical events of the master universe; what advantages and handicaps do you see associated with our historical position?
5. Are the absolute patterns of Paradise similar to Plato’s concept of the eternal and immutable forms?
6. Our reality comprehension and distance from the Isle of Paradise is so great that our understanding of it is largely impressionistic; what do you find most impressive or meaningful about this gigantic body of cosmic reality?
7. Since all of us who have dedicated ourselves to doing the Father's will have already started on this long journey toward Paradise, do you think this revelation of the geographic goal of our quest acts as an additional motivating force or is it the ground cause of frustration and impatience?
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship