Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 20
THE PARADISE SONS OF GOD
1. Those Sons who come forth from the Deities on the central Isle of Light and Life are called the Paradise Sons of God and embrace the following three orders:
1. Creator Sons ‑ the Michaels.
2. Magisterial Sons ‑ the Avonals.
3. Trinity Teacher Sons ‑ the Daynals.
The Paradise Sons of God are of threefold origin: The primary or Creator Sons are brought into being by the Universal Father and the Eternal Son; the secondary or Magisterial Sons are children of the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit; the Trinity Teacher Sons are the offspring of the Father, Son, and Spirit. From the standpoint of service, worship, and supplication the Paradise Sons are as one; their spirit is one, and their work is identical in quality and completeness.
2. The Creator Sons seem to possess a spiritual endowment centering in their persons, which they control and which they can bestow, as did your own creator Son when he poured out his spirit upon all mortal flesh on Urantia. Each Creator Son is endowed with this spiritual drawing power in his own realm ... each functions as a universe Father in his own creation... In a sevenfold Creator Son, Creator and creature are forever blended in understanding, sympathetic, and merciful association.
3. The Avonals are known as Magisterial Sons because they are the high magistrates of the realms, the adjudicators of the successive dispensations of the worlds of time. They preside over the awakening of the sleeping survivors, sit in judgment on the realm, bring to an end a dispensation of suspended justice, execute the mandates of an age of probationary mercy, reassign the space creatures of planetary ministry to the tasks of the new dispensation and return to the headquarters of their local universe upon the completion of their mission.
4. Prior to the planetary appearance of a bestowal Son, an inhabited world is usually visited by a Paradise Avonal on a magisterial mission. If it is an initial magisterial visitation, the Avonal is always incarnated as a material being. He appears on the planet of assignment as a full‑fledged male of the mortal races ... A planet may experience many magisterial visitations both before and after the appearance of a bestowal Son.
5. Urantia has never been host to an Avonal Son on a magisterial mission. Had Urantia followed the general plan of inhabited worlds, it would have been blessed with a magisterial mission sometime between the days of Adam and the bestowal of Christ Michael. But the regular sequence of Paradise Sons on your planet was wholly deranged by the appearance of your Creator Son on his terminal bestowal nineteen hundred years ago.
6. Urantia may yet be visited by an Avonal commissioned to incarnate on a magisterial mission, but regarding the future appearance of Paradise Sons, not even "the angels in heaven know the time or manner of such visitations," for a Michael‑bestowal world becomes the individual and personal ward of a Master Son and, as such., is wholly subject to his own plans and rulings. And with your world, this is further complicated by Michael's promise to return. Regardless of the misunderstandings about the Urantian sojourn of Michael of Nebadon, one thing is certainly authentic—his promise to come back to your world. In view of this prospect, only time can reveal the future order of the visitations of the Paradise Sons of God on Urantia.
7. The bestowals of the Avonal and the Michael Sons are a necessary part of the experiential process designed to make these Sons safe and sympathetic magistrates and rulers of the peoples and planets of time and space.
8. Some order of Paradise Son must be bestowed upon each mortal‑inhabited world in order to make it possible for Thought Adjusters to indwell the minds of all normal human beings on that sphere ... Sooner or later, regardless of spiritual status, every mortal inhabited world is destined to become host to a Magisterial Son on a bestowal mission except the one planet in each local universe whereon a Creator Son elects to make his mortal bestowal,
9. In love and devotion, with tender mercy and affectionate consideration, these Magisterial Sons bestow themselves upon the worlds of space. And in no way are these planetary services inferior to the mortal bestowals of the Michaels...in all their work on the worlds of a local universe the Magisterial Sons are just as divinely effective and all wise as would have been their Paradise brother, the Creator Son.
10. Though the possibility of disaster always attends these Paradise Sons during their bestowal incarnations, I have yet to see the record of the failure or default of either a Magisterial or a Creator Son on a mission of bestowal. Both are of origin too close to absolute perfection to fail ... The story of their bestowal and planetary service throughout Nebadon constitutes the most noble and fascinating chapter in the history of your local universe.
11. The method whereby a Paradise Son becomes ready for mortal incarnation as a bestowal Son...is a universal mystery...On a mortal‑bestowal mission a Paradise Son is always born of a woman and grows up as a male child of the realm, as Jesus did on Urantia... From a material viewpoint, these human‑divine Sons live ordinary lives with just one exception; they do not beget offspring on the worlds of their sojourn ... You could hardly think of a vocation that has not been followed by some Paradise Son in the course of his bestowal on some one of the evolutionary planets of time.
12. When a bestowal Son has mastered the experience of living the mortal life, when he has achieved perfection of attunement with his indwelling Adjuster, thereupon he begins that part of his planetary mission designed to illuminate the minds and to inspire the souls of his brethren in the flesh. As teachers, these Sons are exclusively devoted to the spiritual enlightenment of the mortal races on the worlds of their sojourn.
13. The mortal‑bestowal careers of the Michaels and the Avonals, while comparable in most respects, are not identical in all: Never does a Magisterial Son proclaim, "Whosoever has seen the Son has seen the Father," as did your Creator Son when on Urantia and in the flesh. But a bestowal Avonal does declare., "Whosoever has seen me has seen the Eternal Son of God."
14. When the bestowal Sons, Creator or Magisterial, enter the portals of death, they reappear on the third day. But you should not entertain the idea that they always meet with the tragic end encountered by the Creator Son who sojourned on your world nineteen hundred years ago. The extraordinary and unusually cruel experience through which Jesus of Nazareth passed has caused Urantia to become locally known as "the world of the cross." It is not necessary that such inhuman treatment be accorded a Son of God, and the vast majority of planets have afforded them a more considerate reception, allowing them to finish their mortal careers, terminate the age, adjudicate the sleeping survivors, and inaugurate a new dispensation, without imposing a violent death. A bestowal Son must encounter death, must pass through the whole of the actual experience of mortals of the realms, but it is not a requirement of the divine plan that this death be either violent or unusual.
15. Upon the completion of a Creator Son's final bestowal the Spirit of Truth previously sent into all Avonal‑bestowal worlds of that local universe changes in nature, becoming more literally the spirit of the sovereign Michael.
16. The Daynal order of sonship is not an organic part of the local or superuniverse administrations. Its members are neither creators nor retrievers, neither judges nor rulers. They are not so much concerned with universe administration as with moral enlightenment and spiritual development. They are the universal educators, being dedicated to the spiritual awakening and moral guidance of all realms. Their ministry is intimately interrelated with that of the personalities of the Infinite Spirit and is closely associated with the Paradise ascension of creature beings.
17. The Paradise Spiritual Sons are unique Trinity‑origin beings and the only Trinity creatures to be so completely associated with the conduct of the dual‑origin universes...Many of the heads of departments in the Melchizedek schools belong to this order ... They are the exalted teachers of all spirit personalities, even the tried and true teachers of the Sons of God themselves ... The vast domain of Daynal‑sonship activities will be better understood on Urantia when you are more advanced in intelligence, and after the spiritual isolation of your planet has been terminated.
18. When the progress of events on an evolutionary world indicates that the time is ripe to initiate a spiritual age, the Trinity Teacher Sons always volunteer for this service. You are not familiar with this order of sonship because Urantia has never experienced a spiritual age, a millennium of cosmic enlightenment ... Teacher Sons are wholly concerned with the initiation of a spiritual age, with the dawn of the era of spiritual realities on an evolutionary planet.
19. The Teacher Sons usually remain on their visitation planets for one thousand years of planetary time ... The Daynals do not incarnate or otherwise so materialize themselves as to be visible to mortal beings; therefore is contact with the world of visitation maintained through the activities of the Brilliant Evening Stars...The Daynals may return many times to an inhabited world, and following their final mission the planet will be ushered into the settled status of a sphere of light and life, the evolutionary goal of all the mortal‑inhabited worlds of the present universe age.
20. The Trinity Teacher Sons seem to be completely identified with the regime of mortal progression through the earlier stages of evolutionary ascension that we are often led to speculate regarding their possible association with the finaliters in the undisclosed career of the future universes ... On Uversa it is our belief that, when the superuniverses are finally settled in light and life, these Paradise Teacher Sons who have become so thoroughly familiar with the problems of evolutionary worlds and have been so long associated with the career of evolutionary mortals, will probably be transferred to eternal association with the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
21. These Sons of God are the divine ministers who are unceasingly devoted to the work of helping the creatures of time attain the high spiritual goal of eternity...In the local universes these orders of sonship collaborate to effect the revelation of the Deities of Paradise to the creatures of space: As the Father of a local universe, a Creator Son portrays the infinite character of the Universal Father. As the bestowal Sons of mercy, the Avonals reveal the matchless nature of the Eternal Son of infinite compassion. As the true teachers of ascending personalities, the Trinity Daynal Sons disclose the teacher personality of the Infinite Spirit. In their divinely perfect co‑operation, Michaels, Avonals, and Daynals are contributing to the actualization and revelation of the personality and sovereignty of God the Supreme in and to the time‑space universes.
Discussion Questions
1. What kind of new dispensation will the Fifth Epochal Revelation initiate on our world?
2. What do you think are the planetary conditions necessary before we would receive a magisterial mission?
3. If an Avonal Son was incarnated on a first magisterial mission on our world, would we recognize him as a supermortal person?
4. At what stage in our planetary development do you think Christ Michael will return to our world?
5. How do the Brilliant Evening Stars contact mortals for the Trinity Teacher Sons?
6. Why are the Trinity Teacher Sons more like the Infinite Spirit in the local universes?
7. What positive factors may result from our world being known as “the world of the cross?”
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship