In speaking with others today, should we adapt the language of The Urantia Book, with its talk, for example, of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, in order the better to communicate to a generation that expects gender equality to be expressed in our language?
The issues of gender and language in The Urantia Book are the sort that cannot be handled by human research and reason alone, but only with the divine spirit. The present essay cannot hope to be definitive, but only to advance the conversation.
What is the factual situation as these issues have been discussed in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries? A world-wide movement is seeking the equality of women with men. Especially in the United States, in higher education and in liberal seminaries and churches, the language of religion is being questioned in connection with this social and political movement. The feminist critique of sexism and demand for inclusive language have made talk of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man unwelcome; though in other parts of the society and in other parts of the world this critique and demand have had less impact.
The creative tension on the issue is implicit in the juxtaposition of two passages. In the first the Master warned against interpreting divine teaching through the lens of social issues. In the second, we are advised to revise our language to keep pace with the times.
“Thomas, Thomas, how long before you will acquire the ability to listen with the ear of the spirit? How long will it be before you discern that this kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, and that my Father is also a spiritual being? Do you not understand that I am teaching you as spiritual children in the spirit family of heaven, of which the fatherhead is an infinite and eternal spirit? Will you not allow me to use the earth family as an illustration of divine relationships without so literally applying my teaching to material affairs? In your minds cannot you separate the spiritual realities of the kingdom from the material, social, economic, and political problems of the age? When I speak the language of the spirit, why do you insist on translating my meaning into the language of the flesh just because I presume to employ commonplace and literal relationships for purposes of illustration? My children, I implore that you cease to apply the teaching of the kingdom of the spirit to the sordid affairs of slavery, poverty, houses, and lands, and to the material problems of human equity and justice. These temporal matters are the concern of the men of this world, and while in a way they affect all men, you have been called to represent me in the world, even as I represent my Father. You are spiritual ambassadors of a spiritual kingdom, special representatives of the spirit Father. By this time it should be possible for me to instruct you as full-grown men of the spirit kingdom. Must I ever address you only as children? Will you never grow up in spirit perception? Nevertheless, I love you and will bear with you, even to the very end of our association in the flesh. And even then shall my spirit go before you into all the world.” (142:7, 1605.2)
Religion must not become organically involved in the secular work of social reconstruction and economic reorganization. But it must actively keep pace with all these advances in civilization by making clear-cut and vigorous restatements of its moral mandates and spiritual precepts, its progressive philosophy of human living and transcendent survival. The spirit of religion is eternal, but the form of its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language is revised. (99: 1, 1087.3)
How shall we compose this tension? In the freedom of the spirit we do not have to think alike or speak alike, but The Urantia Book gives relevant teachings on Deity, the brotherhood of beings, men and women, and language.
- The Father Papers
Paper One begins with the resounding and unforgettable proclamation: “The Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings.” After paragraphs about the love of God, the Father’s will, and our ascent to Paradise perfection, the very first section addresses the question of the Father’s name. The main point of the section is that there is to be no pressure to use any particular name. The Universal Father is known by diverse names. Once we truly find God, we find a name that fits the quality of our heart-felt relationship. Something of the rationale for the term “father” is given.
On those worlds where a Paradise Son has lived a bestowal life, God is generally known by some name indicative of personal relationship, tender affection, and fatherly devotion. On your constellation headquarters God is referred to as the Universal Father, and on different planets in your local system of inhabited worlds he is variously known as the Father of Fathers, the Paradise Father, the Havona Father, and the Spirit Father. 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.” (1.1, 23.2)
On a planet of sex creatures, in a world where the impulses of parental emotion are inherent in the hearts of its intelligent beings, the term Father becomes a very expressive and appropriate name for the eternal God. He is best known, most universally acknowledged, on your planet, Urantia, by the name God. The name he is given is of little importance; the significant thing is that you should know him and aspire to be like him. Your prophets of old truly called him “the everlasting God” and referred to him as the one who “inhabits eternity.” (1.1, 23.2-3)
We shall cherish the fatherhood of God as a revealed treasure, but we shall also recognize that whenever there is pressure or antagonism or defensiveness about the Father’s name, something has gone wrong.
The fatherhood of God cannot be proven. When we use family terms, we refer to personality—which is a mystery. The truths of science we discover by experiment. The truths of philosophy we gain by interpreting meanings. The truths of spiritual experience we become ours by faith.
1:5.10 (28.7) 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. Reason, wisdom, and religious experience all infer and imply the personality of God, but they do not altogether validate it.
2:6.9 (42.1) Facing the world of personality, God is discovered to be a loving person; facing the spiritual world, he is a personal love; in religious experience he is both.
The fatherhood of God is not a metaphor. We are also told, “God loves not like a father, but as a father” (2:6, 41.2).
At the conclusion of Paper One we see a forthright note added by the Divine Counselor who authored the Father Papers—and a being of this order is the counsel of the Paradise Trinity.
I am commissioned to sponsor those 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. (1:7, 32)
The same author concludes Paper Five with these words.
And this represents my efforts to present the relation of the living God to the children of time. And when all is said and done, I can do nothing more helpful than to reiterate that God is your universe Father, and that you are all his planetary children. (5:6, 72.1)
Thus we have authoritative revelation without pressure to conform.
Terms gain meaning by contrast with other terms, but throughout the first five papers the fatherhood of God is never presented in contrast with the motherhood of God. The primary implicit contrast is with non-personal dimensions of Deity. The Universal Father is the personality of the First Source and Center, and he is the one we worship as our loving Creator, our parent.
Precision may characterize trinitarian justice in the universe of universes, but in all his vast family relationship with the creatures of time the God of universes is governed by divine sentiment. First and last—eternally—the infinite God is a Father. Of all the possible titles by which he might appropriately be known, I have been instructed to portray the God of all creation as the Universal Father. (4:4, 59.1)
Obviously the Father Papers in their fullness add articulation, texture, and nuance to these sketchy observations.
There is a question about the very differentiation of fatherly and motherly Deity figures. Why bother making a distinction at all? Arguments against interpreting this distinction as being of much significance include the following.
“Although Divinity may be plural in manifestation, in human experience, Deity is singular, always one.” (380.4; cf. 95.8-96.1; and 100.8-101.1).
We are told, “You worship God; pray to, and commune with, the Son; and work out the details of your earthly sojourn in connection with the intelligencese of the Infinite Spirit . . . .” (66.0).
Even though we cannot distinguish the Paradise Deities within our earthly experience, we can distinguish motherly and fatherly love. Even though we cannot identify separate sources for distinguishable types of experience, we can begin, even in the mortal life, to acquire maturity in universe relationships.
- The Motherhood of God
The second person of Deity, the Eternal Son, is called “the Mother-Son” (8:1, 90.6). The Eternal Mother Son is “the spiritual personalization of the Paradise Father’s universal and infinite concept of divine reality, unqualified spirit, and absolute personality” (6:0, 73.3). “In the same sense that God is the Universal Father, the Son is the Universal Mother. And all of us, high and low, constitute their universal family. (6:8, 79.4) When the father-mother contrast is introduced, it is given with qualifications.
As love is comprehended on a sex planet, the love of God is more comparable to the love of a father, while the love of the Eternal Son is more like the affection of a mother. Crude, indeed, are such illustrations, but I employ them in the hope of conveying to the human mind the thought that there is a difference, not in divine content but in quality and technique of expression, between the love of the Father and the love of the Son. (6:3, 76.0)
Their equality and complementary are affirmed together. “Concerning identity, nature, and other attributes of personality, the Eternal Son is the full equal, the perfect complement, and the eternal counterpart of the Universal Father” (6:8, 79.4).
| The Universal Father | The Universal Mother |
| The Volitional Absolute | The Personality Absolute |
| Initiating thought | Expressionful word |
| Love | Mercy |
Complementarity is affirmed. The Son specializes, as it were, in the spiritual realm. “God is, indeed, a universal spirit; God is spirit; and this spirit nature of the Father is focalized and personalized in the Deity of the Eternal Son” (6:2, 75.3). “The Son is omnipotent only in the spiritual realm. In the eternal economy of universe administration, wasteful and needless repetition of function is never encountered; the Deities are not given to useless duplication of universe ministry.” (6:4, 76.2)
One title of the Infinite Spirit is “the Paradise Mother Spirit” (8:2, 92.3) The primary explicit meaning of the term seems to be parent, and the function extends throughout the universe.
Together with their Infinite Mother Spirit, the Supreme Spirit groups are the immediate creators of the vast creature family of the Third Source and Center. All orders of the ministering spirits spring from this association. Primary supernaphim originate in the Infinite Spirit; secondary beings of this order are created by the Master Spirits; tertiary supernaphim by the Seven Spirits of the Circuits. The Reflective Spirits, collectively, are the mother-makers of a marvelous order of the angelic hosts, the mighty seconaphim of the superuniverse services. A Creative Spirit is the mother of the angelic orders of a local creation; such seraphic ministers are original in each local universe, though they are fashioned after the patterns of the central universe. All these creators of ministering spirits are only indirectly assisted by the central lodgment of the Infinite Spirit, the original and eternal mother of all the angelic ministers. (17:8, 205.3)
The Supreme Being is also our Mother. “As God is your divine Father, so is the Supreme your divine Mother, in whom you are nurtured throughout your lives as universe creatures” (117:6, 1288.1). Indeed the divinely motherly influence predominates over the divinely fatherly influence during the early phase of our universe career.
The morontia soul of an evolving mortal is really the son of the Adjuster action of the Universal Father and the child of the cosmic reaction of the Supreme Being, the Universal Mother. The mother influence dominates the human personality throughout the local universe childhood of the growing soul. The influence of the Deity parents becomes more equal after the Adjuster fusion and during the superuniverse career, but when the creatures of time begin the traversal of the central universe of eternity, the Father nature becomes increasingly manifest, attaining its height of finite manifestation upon the recognition of the Universal Father and the admission into the Corps of the Finality. (117:6, 1288.4)
- Patterns for human marriage
The relationship between the Creator Son and the Local Universe Mother Spirit is the main pattern for human marriage (33:5, 370.7)
At the head of all personality in Nebadon stands the Creator and Master Son, Michael, the universe father and sovereign. Co-ordinate in divinity and complemental in creative attributes is the local universe Mother Spirit, the Divine Minister of Salvington. And these creators are in a very literal sense the Father-Son and the Spirit-Mother of all the native creatures of Nebadon. (37:0, 406.1)
The central universe is triune, whereas the local universes are dual in origin. Therefore it is potentially confusing to seek the pattern of human pair marriage in the relations of the Universal Father with the Eternal Son or the Infinite Spirit or the Supreme Being. The creative partnership between the Seven Master Spirits and the Seven Supreme Power Directors is a pattern:
The Havona Servitals are the joint creative work of the Seven Master Spirits and their associates, the Seven Supreme Power Directors. This creative collaboration comes the nearest to being the pattern for the long list of reproductions of the dual order in the evolutionary universes, extending from the creation of a Bright and Morning Star by a Creator Son-Creative Spirit liaison down to sex procreation on worlds like Urantia. (25:1, 273.11)
“The local universes are characterized by dual supervision, the beginning of the father-mother concept. The universe father is the Creator Son; the universe mother is the Divine Minister, the local universe Creative Spirit.” (33:5, 370.6)
Studying the relation between the Universe Son and Spirit (368.3), it is not always clear which details of their relationship are intended to function as a pattern for us. First, I note that she volunteered to accompany him in his creative venture (33:3, 368.2). I continue quoting most of section 3 of Paper 33, Administration of the Local Universe.
The Master Creator Son is the personal sovereign of his universe, but in all the details of its management the Universe Spirit is codirector with the Son. While the Spirit ever acknowledges the Son as sovereign and ruler, the Son always accords the Spirit a co-ordinate position and equality of authority in all the affairs of the realm. In all his work of love and life bestowal the Creator Son is always and ever perfectly sustained and ably assisted by the all-wise and ever-faithful Universe Spirit and by all of her diversified retinue of angelic personalities. Such a Divine Minister is in reality the mother of spirits and spirit personalities, the ever-present and all-wise adviser of the Creator Son, a faithful and true manifestation of the Paradise Infinite Spirit.
The Son functions as a father in his local universe. The Spirit, as mortal creatures would understand, enacts the role of a mother, always assisting the Son and being everlastingly indispensable to the administration of the universe. In the face of insurrection only the Son and his associated Sons can function as deliverers. Never can the Spirit undertake to contest rebellion or defend authority, but ever does the Spirit sustain the Son in all of everything he may be required to experience in his efforts to stabilize government and uphold authority on worlds tainted with evil or dominated by sin. Only a Son can retrieve the work of their joint creation, but no Son could hope for final success without the incessant co-operation of the Divine Minister and her vast assemblage of spirit helpers, the daughters of God, who so faithfully and valiantly struggle for the welfare of mortal men and the glory of their divine parents.
. . . . It is at the enthronement of the Creator Son as a Master Son, at the jubilee of jubilees, that the Universe Spirit, before the assembled hosts, first makes public and universal acknowledgment of subordination to the Son, pledging fidelity and obedience.
After this pledge of subordination by the Creative Mother Spirit, Michael of Nebadon nobly acknowledged his eternal dependence on his Spirit companion, constituting the Spirit coruler of his universe domains and requiring all their creatures to pledge themselves in loyalty to the Spirit as they had to the Son; and there issued and went forth the final “Proclamation of Equality.” Though he was the sovereign of this local universe, the Son published to the worlds the fact of the Spirit’s equality with him in all endowments of personality and attributes of divine character. And this becomes the transcendent pattern for the family organization and government of even the lowly creatures of the worlds of space. This is, in deed and in truth, the high ideal of the family and the human institution of voluntary marriage.
The Son and the Spirit now preside over the universe much as a father and mother watch over, and minister to, their family of sons and daughters. It is not altogether out of place to refer to the Universe Spirit as the creative companion of the Creator Son and to regard the creatures of the realms as their sons and daughters—a grand and glorious family but one of untold responsibilities and endless watchcare. (33:3, 368.3-369.2)
Moreover, some creative projects they do in common, some separately, but “in no creative act does the one do aught without the counsel and approval of the other” (33:3, 369.3).
- Sex and gender in human beings
Spiritual maturity achieves the recognition of both the equality of men and women and their complementarity. In origin, spiritual standing before God, and destiny, they are the same. “In the assignment and service of the Adjusters the sex of the creature is of no consideration” (108:1, 1186.5). Jesus affirmed equality without qualification. “The Master countenanced only those teachings which accorded women equality with men” (167:5, 1839.1).
The differentiation of the Universal Father and the Universal Mother has been reflected in human beings from the beginning.
Andon is the Nebadon name which signifies “the first Fatherlike creature to exhibit human perfection hunger.” Fonta signifies “the first Sonlike creature to exhibit human perfection hunger.” (63:0, 711.3)
Is it then surprising to read that woman “has always been the moral standard-bearer and the spiritual leader of mankind”? (84:6, 938.8) Complementarity has advantages.
A man and a woman, co-operating, even aside from family and offspring, are vastly superior in most ways to either two men or two women. (84.1: 932.6).
While the sexes never can hope fully to understand each other, they are effectively complementary, and though co-operation is often more or less personally antagonistic, it is capable of maintaining and reproducing society. (84:6, 393.2)
The differences of nature, reaction, viewpoint, and thinking between men and women, far from occasioning concern, should be regarded as highly beneficial to mankind, both individually and collectively. Many orders of universe creatures are created in dual phases of personality manifestation. Among mortals, Material Sons, and midsoniters, this difference is described as male and female; among seraphim, cherubim, and Morontia Companions, it has been denominated positive or aggressive and negative or retiring. Such dual associations greatly multiply versatility and overcome inherent limitations, even as do certain triune associations in the Paradise-Havona system. (84:6, 938.9)
Today, equality is sometimes asserted in ways that deny and suppress complementarity, and complementarity is sometimes asserted in stereotypes and restrictions ways that betray equality. Most theorists emphasize one at the cost of the other, but properly understood they are consistent and flourish together.
At a later stage of planetary evolution, we shall be able to see human beings reflecting more clearly what it means to be a father and a mother. The authors’ language permits a three-fold temporal classification of differences between the sexes: some of the differences are portrayed as characteristics of the sexes in the past. Some qualities are portrayed in the present tense in a way that conveys the impression that they are generic. And some qualities are evolving.
