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THE SPIRIT OF BESTOWAL
THE INFINITE SPIRIT |
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CEDOMIL
VUGRINCIC, M.D., Ph.D.
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In the
previous Interim-Papers we have reviewed the meanings of the TRUE WORSHIP of
the Paradise Universal Father, the PRAYER SUPPLICATIONS to the realms of the
Paradise Eternal Son and His Spirit of Truth, and qualified PRAYER
REALIZATIONS by the spirit agencies of the Holy Spirit, the Mind of the
Paradise Conjoint Actor. The following
Interim-Paper is devoted to further enlightenment about the true nature of
God.
*** 10:3
THE THREE PERSONS OF DEITY 10:3.1 Notwithstanding there is only one Deity,
there are three positive and divine personalizations
of Deity. Regarding the endowment of man with the divine Adjusters, the
Father said: " Let us make mortal man in our
own image. " Repeatedly throughout the Urantian
writings there occurs this reference to the acts and doings of plural Deity,
clearly showing recognition of the existence and working of the three Sources
and Centers. 10:3.2 We are taught that the Son and the Spirit sustain the
same and equal relations to the Father in the Trinity
association. In eternity and as Deities they undoubtedly do, but in time and
as personalities they certainly disclose relationships of a very diverse
nature. Looking from Paradise
out on the universes, these relationships do seem to be very similar, but
when viewed from the domains of space, they appear to be quite different. 10:3.3 The divine Sons are indeed the "
Word of God, " but the children of the Spirit are truly the
" Act of God. " God speaks through the Son and, with the Son, acts
through the Infinite Spirit,
while in all universe activities the Son and the Spirit are exquisitely
fraternal, working as two equal brothers with admiration and love for an
honored and divinely respected common Father. 10:3.4 The Father, Son, and Spirit are certainly equal in
nature, co-ordinate in being, but there are unmistakable differences in their
universe performances, and when acting alone, each person of Deity is
apparently limited in absoluteness. 10:3.5 The Universal Father,
prior to his self-willed divestment of the personality,
powers, and attributes which constitute the Son and the Spirit, seems to have
been (philosophically considered) an unqualified, absolute, and infinite
Deity. But such a theoretical First Source and
Center without a Son could not in any sense of the word be
considered the Universal Father; fatherhood is not real without sonship. Furthermore, the Father, to have been absolute
in a total sense, must have existed at some eternally distant moment alone.
But he never had such a solitary existence; the Son and the Spirit are both
coeternal with the Father. The First Source and Center has always been, and
will forever be, the eternal Father of the Original Son and, with the Son,
the eternal progenitor of the Infinite Spirit. 10:3.6 We observe that the Father has divested himself of all
direct manifestations of absoluteness except absolute fatherhood and absolute
volition. We do not know whether volition is an inalienable attribute of the
Father; we can only observe that he did not divest himself of volition. Such
infinity of will must have been eternally inherent in the First Source and
Center. 10:3.7 In bestowing absoluteness of personality upon the Eternal Son,
the Universal Father escapes from the fetters of personality absolutism, but
in so doing he takes a step which makes it forever impossible for him to act
alone as the personality-absolute. And with the final personalization of
coexistent Deity—the Conjoint Actor—there
ensues the critical trinitarian interdependence of
the three divine personalities with regard to the totality of Deity function
in absolute. 10:3.8 God is the Father-Absolute of all personalities in the universe of
universes. The Father is personally absolute in liberty of action,
but in the universes of time and space, made, in the making, and yet to be
made, the Father is not discernibly absolute as total Deity except in the Paradise Trinity. 10:3.9 The First Source and Center functions outside of Havona in the phenomenal universes as follows: 10:3.10 As
creator, through the Creator Sons, his grandsons. 10:3.11 As
controller, through the gravity center of 10:3.12 As
spirit, through the Eternal Son. 10:3.13 As
mind, through the Conjoint Creator. 10:3.14 As
a Father, he maintains parental contact with all creatures through his personality circuit. 10:3.15 As
a person, he acts directly throughout creation by his exclusive fragments—in
mortal man by the Thought Adjusters. 10:3.16 As
total Deity, he functions only in the 10:3.17 All these relinquishments and delegations of
jurisdiction by the Universal Father are wholly voluntary and self-imposed.
The all-powerful Father purposefully assumes these limitations of universe
authority. 10:3.18 The Eternal Son seems to function as one with the
Father in all spiritual respects except in the bestowals of the God fragments
and in other prepersonal activities. Neither is the
Son closely identified with the intellectual activities of material creatures
nor with the energy activities of the material universes. As absolute the Son
functions as a person and only in the domain of the spiritual universe. 10:3.19 The
Infinite Spirit is amazingly universal and unbelievably versatile in all his
operations. He performs in the spheres of mind, matter, and spirit. The
Conjoint Actor represents the Father-Son association, but he also functions
as himself. He is not directly concerned with physical gravity, with
spiritual gravity, or with the personality circuit, but he more or less
participates in all other universe activities. While apparently dependent on
three existential and absolute gravity controls, the Infinite Spirit appears
to exercise three supercontrols. This threefold
endowment is employed in many ways to transcend and seemingly to neutralize
even the manifestations of primary forces and energies, right up to the superultimate borders of absoluteness. In certain
situations these supercontrols absolutely transcend
even the primal manifestations of cosmic reality. |
