Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 1
THE UNIVERSAL FATHER
1. The Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and being. First think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and lastly as an infinite upholder.
2. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the universal Father ... From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate, "Be you perfect. even as I am perfect.”
3. Such perfection may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and God‑consciousness.
4. Of all the names by which God the Father is known throughout the universe, those which designate him as the First Source and the Universe Center are most often encountered...If we believe that we are the children of this Creator, it is only natural that we should eventually call him Father.
5. The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father's will is man’s choicest gift to God; In fact, such a consecration of the creature will constitutes man's only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father.
6. Those who know God through the revelations of the bestowals of the Paradise Sons, eventually yield to the sentimental appeal of the touching relationship of the creature‑Creator association and refer to God as "our Father"...The name he is given is of little importance; the significant thing is that you should know him and aspire to be like him.
7. God is neither manlike nor machinelike. The First Father is universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite reality, and Father personality...God is a transcendent reality, not merely man's traditional concept of supreme values. God is not a psychological focalization of spiritual meanings, neither is he "the noblest work of man."
8. The actuality of the existence of God is demonstrated in human experience by the indwelling of the divine presence...The presence of this divine Adjuster in the human mind in disclosed by three experiential phenomena:
1. The intellectual capacity for knowing God—God‑consciousness
2. The spiritual urge to find God—God‑seeking.
3. The personality craving to be like God—the wholehearted desire to do the Father's will,
9. The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.
10. The Universal Father is not invisible because he is hiding himself away from the lowly creatures of materialistic handicaps and limited spiritual endowments…No material man could behold the spirit God and preserve his mortal existence…But it is not necessary to see God with the eyes of the flesh in order to discern him by the faith‑vision of the spiritualized mind.
11. God is a universal spirit; God is the universal person. The supreme personal reality of the finite creation is spirit...Only the levels of infinity are absolute, and only on such levels is there finality of oneness between matter, mind, and spirit.
12. In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontoller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far‑flung personality circuit does God deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presence of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes.
13. Mortal mind subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to attain survival and eternity of personality existence.
14. The infinity of the perfection of God is such that it eternally constitutes his mystery. And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds…We are constantly confronted with this mystery of God; we are nonplused by the increasing unfolding of the endless panorama of the truth of his infinite goodness, endless mercy, matchless wisdom, and superb character.
15. The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness of that creature's capacity to spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness...God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
16. Do not permit the magnitude of God, his infinity, either to obscure or eclipse his personality...The Father is truly a personality, notwithstanding that the infinity of his person places him forever beyond the full comprehension of material and finite beings...God is much more than a personality as personality is understood by the human mind; he is even far more than any possible concept of a superpersonality. But it is utterly futile to discuss such incomprehensible concepts of divine personality with the minds, of material creatures whose maximal concept of the reality of being consists in the idea and ideal of personality.
17. Without God and except for his great and central person, there would be no personality throughout all the vast universe of universe, God is personality...The idea of the personality of the Universal Father is an enlarged and truer concept of God which has come to mankind chiefly through revelation.. .The truth and maturity of any religion is directly proportional to its concept of the infinite personality of God and its grasp of the absolute unity of Deity.
18. Only by personality approach can any person begin to comprehend the unity of God. To deny the personality of the First Source and Center leaves one only the choice of two philosophic dilemmas: materialism or pantheism.
In the contemplation of Deity, the concept of personality must be divested of the idea of corporeality. A material body is not indispensable to personality in either man or God.
19. The absolute perfection of the infinite God would cause him to suffer the awful limitations of unqualified finality of perfectness were it not a fact that the Universal Father directly participates in the personality struggle of every imperfect soul in the wide universe who seeks, by divine aid, to ascend to the spiritually perfect worlds on high...It is literally true: “In all your afflictions he is afflicted " “In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with you."
20. Some degree of moral affinity and spiritual harmony is essential to friendship between two persons; a loving personality can hardly reveal himself to a loveless person. Even to approach the knowing of a divine personality, all of man's personality endowments must be wholly consecrated to the effort; half‑hearted, partial devotion will be unavailing
21. The more completely man understands himself and appreciates the personality values of his fellows, the more he will crave to know the Original Personality, and the more earnestly such a God‑knowing human will strive to become like the Original Personality...The God‑knowing man describes his spiritual experiences, not to convince unbelievers, but for the edification and mutual satisfaction of believers.
22. Jesus of Nazareth attained the full realization of this potential of spirit personality in human experience; therefore his life of achieving the Father's will becomes man's most real and ideal revelation of the personality of God.
23. The concept of the personality of Deity facilitates fellowship; it favors intelligent worship; it promotes refreshing trustfulness. Interactions can be had between nonpersonal things, but not fellowship…Man does not achieve union with God as a drop of water might find unity with the ocean. Man attains divine union by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will. Such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities.
24. Ultimate universe reality cannot be grasped by mathematics, logic, or philosophy only by personal experience in progressive conformity to the divine will of a personal God. Neither science, philosophy, nor theology can validate the personality of God. Only the personal experience of the faith sons of the heavenly Father can effect the actual spiritual realization of the personality of God.
25. Indivisibility of personality does not interfere with God's bestowing his spirit to live in the hearts of mortal men. Indivisibility of a human father's personality does not prevent the reproduction of mortal sons and daughters.
26. I am fully aware that I have at my command no language adequate to make clear to the mortal mind how these universe problems appear to us. But you should not become discouraged; not all of those things are wholly clear to even the high personalities belonging to my group of Paradise beings. Ever bear in mind that these profound truths pertaining to Deity will increasingly clarify as your minds become progressively spiritualized during the successive epochs of the long mortal ascent to Paradise.
27. (Presented by a Divine Counselor...I am commissioned to sponsor those Synopsis of Papers portraying the nature and attributes of God because I represent the highest source of information available for such a purpose on any inhabited world. I have served as a Divine Counselor in all seven of the superuniverses and have long resided at the Paradise center of all things. Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a sojourn in the immediate personal presence of the Universal Father. I portray the reality and truth of the Father's nature and attributes with unchallengeable authority; I know whereof I speak.)
Discussion Questions
1. In seeking to understand God, to what extent do we “create him in our own image?”
2. How does the Urantia concept of God compare with the God concept in Christianity?
3. How do we determine God’s will?
4. What determines whether doing the Father’s will is primarily a negation of our will or an enhancement and fulfillment of our will?
5. Why is God’s indwelling of our minds an “unfathomable mystery?”
6. If the existence of God is primarily an intuitive mindal experience, what is the value of philosophical evidence for the existence of God?
7. Why is the concept of personality so important in understanding the nature of God?
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship