Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 30
PERSONALITIES OF THE GRAND UNIVERSE
1. It is not possible to formulate comprehensive and entirely consistent classifications. of the personalities of the grand universe because all of the groups are not revealed…. Such conceptual expansion would hardly be desirable as it would deprive the thinking mortals of the next thousand years of that stimulus to creative speculation which these partially revealed concepts supply. It is best that man not have an overrevelation; it stifles imagination.
2. Living beings are classified on Paradise in accordance with inherent and attained relationship to the Paradise Deities. During the grand gatherings of the central and superuniverses those present are often grouped in accordance with origin: those of triune origin, or of Trinity attainment; those of dual origin; and those of single origin.
3. There is to be found on Paradise a vast host of transcendental beings whose origin is not ordinarily disclosed to the universes of time and space until they are settled in light and life. These Transcendentalers are neither creators nor creatures; they are the eventuated children of divinity, ultimacy, and eternity. These "eventuators" are neither finite nor infinite, they are absonite; and absonity is neither infinity nor absoluteness .…God, as a superperson, eventuates; God, as a person, creates; God, as a preperson, fragments.
4. Fusion with an Adjuster or other such fragment constitutes the creature a Father-fused being. The fragmentations of the premind spirit of the Third Source and Center, though hardly comparable to the Father fragments, should be here recorded .…such fragments of premind spirit are bestowed upon certain of the surviving mortals, and fusion therewith constitutes them Spirit‑fused mortals.…Still more difficult of description is the individualized spirit of a Creator Son, union with which constitutes the creature a Son‑fused mortal. And there are still other fragmentations of Deity.
5. There are spirits: spirit entities, spirit presences, personal spirits, prepersonal spirits, superpersonal spirits, spirit existences, spirit personalities—but neither mortal language nor mortal intellect are adequate. We may however state that there are no personalities of "pure mind"; no entity has personality unless he is endowed with it by God who is spirit. Any mind entity that is not associated with either spiritual or physical energy is not a personality.
6. These Synopsis of Papers do not—cannot—even begin to exhaust the story of the living creatures, creators, eventuators, and still-otherwise‑existent beings who live and worship and serve in the swarming universes of time and in the central universe of eternity. You mortals are persons; hence we can describe beings who are personalized, but how could an absonitized being ever be explained to you?
7. Any being on any world in any system of any universe may become a star student, may aspire to join some corps of celestial astronomers. The only requisites are: continuing life and sufficient knowledge of the worlds of space, especially their physical laws of evolution and control. Star students are not required to serve eternally in this corps, but no one admitted to this group may withdraw under one millennium of Uversa time ... Except on Paradise, knowledge is not inherent; understanding of the physical universe is largely dependent on observation and research.
8. The next higher residential world of the ascendant career always maintains a strong corps of teachers on the world just below, a sort of preparatory school for the progressing residents of that sphere; this is a phase of the ascendant scheme for advancing the pilgrims of time. These schools, their methods of instruction and examinations, are wholly unlike anything which you essay to conduct on Urantia. The entire ascendant plan of mortal progression is characterized by the practice of giving out to other beings new truth and experience just as soon as acquired. You work your way through the long school of Paradise attainment by serving as teachers to those pupils just behind you in the scale of progression.
9. The privilege of intrauniverse travel and observation is a part of the career of all ascending beings. The human desire to travel and observe new peoples and worlds will be fully gratified during the long and eventful climb to Paradise through the local, super‑, and central universes.
10. All mortals of survival status, in the custody of personal guardians of destiny, pass through the portals of natural death and, on the third period, personalize on the mansion worlds. Those accredited beings who have, for any reason, been unable to attain that level of intelligence mastery and endowment of spirituality which would entitle them to personal guardians, cannot thus immediately and directly go to the mansion worlds. Such surviving souls must rest in unconscious sleep until the judgment day of a new epoch, a new dispensation, the coming of a Son of God to call the rolls of the age and adjudicate the realm, and this is the general practice throughout all Nebadon.
11. The passing of time is of no moment to sleeping mortals; they are wholly unconscious and oblivious to the length of their rest. On reassembly of personality at the end of an age. those who have slept five thousand years will react no differently than those who have rested five days. Aside from this time delay these survivors pass on through the ascension regime identically with those who avoid the longer or shorter sleep of death.
12. The physical body of mortal flesh is not a part of the reassembly of the sleeping survivor; the physical body has returned to dust. The seraphim of assignment sponsors the new body, the morontia form, as the new life vehicle for the immortal soul and for the indwelling of the returned Adjuster. The Adjuster is the custodian of the spirit transcript of the mind of the sleeping survivor. The assigned seraphim is the keeper of the surviving identity—the immortal soul—as far as it has evolved….Such a reassociation of soul and adjuster is quite properly called a resurrection...but. even this does not entirely explain the reappearance of the surviving personality.
13. Sometimes all training worlds of mortal residence are called universe "mansions," and it was to such spheres that Jesus alluded when he said: "In my Father's house are many mansions." From here on, within a given group of spheres like the mansion worlds, ascenders will progress individually from one sphere to another and from one phase of life to another, but they will always advance from one stage of universe study to another in class formation.
14. Morontia progression pertains to continuing advancement of intellect, spirit, and personality form. Survivors are still three‑natured beings .…The regime of the superuniverse does not function until the spirit career begins.…From this point on, the status of the ascending mortal is forever settled. Superuniverse wards have never been known to go astray.
15. As morontia ascenders studied and worked on the worlds of the local universe, so spirit ascenders continue to master new worlds while they practice at giving out to others that which they have imbibed at the experiential founts of wisdom. But going to school as a spirit being in the superuniverse career is very unlike anything that has ever entered the imaginative realms of the material mind of man.
16. Before spirit mortals reach Havona, their chief study, but not exclusive occupation, is the mastery of local and superuniverse administration. The reason for all of this experience is not fully apparent, but no doubt such training is wise and necessary in view of their possible future destiny as members of the Corps of the Finality. The superuniverse regime is not the same for all ascending mortals. They receive the same general education, but special groups and classes are carried through special courses of instruction and are put through specific courses of training.
17. When spirit development is complete, even though not replete, then the surviving mortal prepares for the long flight to Havona, ....with your arrival on the receiving worlds of Havona your spiritual education begins in reality and in earnest; your eventual appearance on Paradise will be as a perfected spirit.
18. From now on no more class or group instruction will be administered .…Now begins your personal education, your individual spiritual training. From first to last, throughout all Havona, the instruction is personal. and threefold in nature: intellectual, spiritual, and experiential.
19. The first act of your Havona career will be to recognize and thank your transport seconaphim for the long and safe Journey. Then you are presented to those beings who will sponsor your early Havona activities. Next you go to register your arrival and prepare your message of thanksgiving and adoration for dispatch to the Creator Son of your local universe, the universe Father who made possible your sonship career.
20. On reaching Paradise with residential status, you begin the progressive course in divinity and absonity .…Paradise arrivals are accorded a period of freedom, after which they begin their associations with the seven groups of the primary supernaphim. They are designated Paradise graduates when they have finished their course with the conductors of worship and then, as finaliters, are assigned on observational and co‑operative service to the ends of the far‑flung creation.
21. If there should be no future or unrevealed destiny for the Mortal Corps of the Finality, the present assignment of these ascendant beings would be altogether adequate and glorious. Their present destiny wholly justifies the universal plan of evolutionary ascent. But the future ages of the evolution of the spheres of outer space will undoubtedly further elaborate, and with more repleteness divinely illuminate, the wisdom and loving‑kindness of the Gods in the execution of their divine plan of human survival and mortal ascension.
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you suppose we were told of transcendental beings, since ordinarily planets are not told of them until they are settled in light and life?
2. How do we think of God as a superperson or as a preperson?
3. What is the purpose of mentioning absonite beings to us when such beings are impossible of human explanation?
4. Since many of us are unable to remember all of the many beings listed in the Uversa register, what is its value in our daily lives?
5. Should we establish the practice of requiring students to teach what they have learned to those just below them in the educational system?
6. Contrast Christian concepts of resurrection and heaven with Urantian concepts.
7. If our morontia bodies are different than our physical bodies, how will we recognize each other?
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