The I AM and the absolutes

Meanings and values of the I AM

and the seven absolutes of infinity

4/98, for a conference in Helsinki, Finland

    When I think of the challenge of listening to the deepest teachings of The Urantia Book, I recall the following story. According to a collection of traditional Finnish songs, a dead giant was once forced to sing cosmic truth. Hear a few words from the Kalevala [Poem 17, lines 520-80]: “Then Vipunen rich in songs, that old man of great resources, in whose mouth was great knowledge, . . . opened his chest of words . . . to sing good things, . . . those profound origin charms . . . . He sang the origin charms in the proper way, . . . how by leave of its Creator, at the Almighty’s demand, the sky was created of itself, how water separated from the heavens . . . . He sang of the forming of the moon, the establishing of the sun, of the erecting of the pillars of heaven, the studding of the heavens with stars. . . . A better singer was not heard or seen . . . . He sang day after day, he sang night after night. The sun stopped to listen, the lovely moon to look; the waves stood still in the sea, the billows at the head of the bay; the streams stopped flowing . . . the river Jourtan came to a stop. (The Kalevala, tr. Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., Harvard University Press, 1963). I imagine that, as the beautiful music of the Urantia Papers was being indited, beings from all over Nebadon and beyond stopped to listen. Students today are still listening.

The study of the I AM and the seven Absolutes of Infinity offers three major benefits.

    1. The first benefit is to our personal growth. These revelations integrate our understanding of reality and expand our concept of God. We are told, “The truth and maturity of any religion is directly proportional to its concept of the infinite personality of God and to its grasp of the absolute unity of Deity” (28.7). When things get confusing, the idea to remember is that the Universal Father is the personality of the First Source and Center.

    2. The second benefit is to the gospel movement. Those who aspire to proclaim and teach the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man have in these revelations the deepest intellectual support possible. Jesus of Nazareth, who “brought the philosophy of religion down to earth” (1771.1), encouraged his apostles: “Be not dismayed that you fail to grasp the full meaning of the gospel. You are but finite, mortal men, and that which I have taught you is infinite, divine, and eternal” (1961.4). The Urantia Papers restate and expand Jesus’ revelation of the Father of us all. Although the authors speak primarily of the Universal Father, they also mention the Father-Infinite (6.4; 1175.1), the Father-Absolute (58.9), and the Father-I AM (1169.4).

    3. The third benefit is to the broader culture. These revelations will eventually contribute to the rapidly growing dialogues between different religions and the dialogues about science and religion. Advanced thinkers on the planet need to be in conversation with students of The URANTIA Book who can understand the most highest humanly attained truths. Some Hindus have speculated on levels of Deity that most of us found only in the Foreword (2#1; 1030.3). Some Buddhists have already proposed the concept of the Buddha Absolute as an infinite creative force contained within the infinite I AM (1040.3,4). The concept of the Supreme is implicit in the concept of karma (1030.5) and in contemporary process theology and cosmology.

    Only in The Urantia Book do we find an acknowledgement of the partial insights contained in unbalanced philosophies, theologies, and cosmologies, integrated in a context that harmonizes these partial insights with the restated religion of Jesus. There are cosmologists, philosophers, and theologians who are aching to learn that “the infinite and eternal Ruler of the universe of universes is power, form, energy, process, pattern, principle, presence, and idealized reality. But he is more; he is personal; he exercises a sovereign will, experiences self-consciousness of divinity, executes the mandates of a creative mind, pursues the satisfaction of the realization of an eternal purpose, and manifests a Father’s love and affection for his universe children” (53.5).

1. MEANING AND VALUE

If we are going to talk about meaning and value on absolute levels, we should consider what meaning and value are in general. The human mind would like to define them in terms of more basic realities; but meaning and value are too basic to define thus. Instead we simply have to grasp them in our experience. Meaning and value are grasped in correlation with the part of the personality that recognizes them. Thus, meanings are what the intellect understands in single words, sentences, and discourses. The soul feels the presence of values and the lack of values. Value is also the correlate of volition, willing. Values are those potentials for which the will strives and those actualities in which the soul rejoices. As finite creatures engaged in thinking, feeling, and doing, we can comprehend supreme values–truth, beauty, and goodness–as qualities of divinity that illumine the intellectual, material, and volitional levels of human experience.

    Indeed the correlation is so intimate between consciousness and its objects that they are referred to interchangeably in at least one key passage. “There are just three elements in universal reality: fact, idea, and relation. The religious consciousness identifies these realities as science, philosophy, and truth. Philosophy would be inclined to view these activities as reason, wisdom, and faith–physical reality, intellectual reality, and spiritual reality. We are in the habit of designating these realities as thing, meaning, and value” (2094.1). My point, again, is that consciousness is identified with its correlated objects: science with thing, fact; philosophy with meaning, intellectual reality; religion, with spiritual experience, value (cf. 69.2-6).

2. STRIVING FOR UNGRASPABLE MEANINGS

    If we desire to move beyond passive reading to the level of active reading, if we desire to bring to mind as much as possible the truth of what we are reading, there are various things we can do. If we are reading about evolution, we can visit a zoo. If we are reading about Jesus, we can vividly imagine the drama being described. When we study the I AM and the Seven Absolutes of Infinity, however, there is little that we can do other than to ponder and reread. The most we can hope for is a glimpse, not a grasp.

    The passages that are most encouraging about our mortal cognitive potentials tell us what we can discern, sense, or glimpse, not what we can comprehend (27.2; 92.5; 1279.5; 1728.7). Only by severe distortion can remote cosmic concepts be presented to the human mind and in human language. Not only is it hard to understand sentences that convey these concepts; but even when we do somewhat understand a sentence, we do not thereby achieve comprehension of an Absolute. We cannot correct for the distortion of concept that has already taken place.

    Listen to one of many humbling reminders. “God is immutable; but not until you achieve Paradise status can you even begin to understand how God can pass from simplicity to complexity, from identity to variation, from quiescence to motion, from infinity to finitude, from the divine to the human, and from unity to duality and triunity” (58.7; cf. 364.4; 1163.4-11; 1269.7).

Part of the difficulty is that, because of the limitations of our language, the word “comprehend” is used with different meanings. We worship God “for what we comprehend him to be”–including his “lovable nature and adorable attributes” (65.5); but his nature encompasses infinity and eternal perfection, and his attributes include infinite power and limitlessness (33#1; 32#2; 46#2; 49#4). As much as we can comprehend becomes the basis for the worship experience; and we use the concept of the I AM to symbolize all of infinity that lies beyond what we can comprehend of the Father (1153.3). Strictly speaking, the truth, beauty, and goodness of the Supreme are the maximum we finite creatures can ever comprehend; we can only recognizethe Father (1279.5; 1434.2). In a wider sense, we are told that our “comprehension of the Universal Father is a personal experience. God, as your spiritual Father, is comprehensible to you . . . .” (1153.3). I believe that the tension between these senses of “comprehend” is harmonized on page 69 where we read of how our mind consciousness of meanings pertaining to the idea of God and our soul consciousness of values pertaining to the ideal of God and our spirit consciousness are unified by our personality which “at all times overspreads all conscious levels with a realization of the personality of God.” It is because of the integration of all dimensions in the personality relation that we can speak of our growing comprehension of God (1175.1).

    There are even dangers to the study of absolute reality.

    1. Distortion of the God concept. Some gifted minds have looked down on the personality concept of God. Attempting to transcend personality, however, they do not succeed in identifying with the superpersonal; instead they embrace devitalized abstractions and pantheistic trances. The I AM, we are told, is a philosophic concession to the human mind (6.3; 1152.5), but no such apology is ever made about the Father concept of God.

    2. Pride, the occupational hazard for those who work with revelation. Those who consider themselves beyond the fatherhood of God may miss the experience of brotherhood.

    3. Unbalanced growth. Intellectual development can outrun spiritual growth, when we read through the papers without continually and wholeheartedly updating our decisions for our advancing concept of the Father’s will.

    4. Intellectualized fellowship. Our conferences could become meetings of a teacher-student brotherhood (1037.3) more than of gatherings of a spiritual fellowship in the universal family.

    5. Discouragement. In the face of intellectual challenges, many readers neglect the more difficult sections of the book and cease to learn what they can as their capacity grows year by year.

    Since we cannot truly comprehend the I AM and the Absolutes, the sections dealing with them provide a unique exercise in cosmic problem-solving. We develop ascendant attitudes by learning “to feast upon uncertainty, to fatten upon disappointment, to enthuse over apparent defeat, to invigorate in the presence of difficulties, to exhibit indomitable courage in the face of immensity, and to exercise unconquerable faith when confronted with the challenge of the inexplicable” (291.3; 556#5; 1438.1). In my opinion these attitudes are more enduring than our human framework for thinking (1260.2). The challenge is not overwhelming because we can put it down whenever it becomes too much. We do not need to try to stuff a quart into a pint (556.5). We can come back another time when we are ready for another layer of learning. When Jesus gave the Discourse on Reality Ganid fell asleep, and no one should be embarrassed to fall asleep this morning.

    There is an interesting interplay between different passages regarding the challenge of the unfathomable. We are told: “Do not allow the magnitude of the infinity, the immensity of the eternity, and the grandeur and glory of the matchless character of God to overawe, stagger, or discourage you” (139.1). Elsewhere we are told that our mind will be staggered (1169.4), and our imagination will be staggered (1170.5). Nevertheless, as faith sons and daughters of the Universal Father, we should not allow our personality as a whole to be staggered as we study cosmic meanings.

    The authors encourage us to join in the universal brotherhood of beings who are continually working to push back the frontiers of their own limitations. In other words, even though our ideas of the Absolutes are distorted, we shall begin.

There is a wonderful story of what can happen in a wholehearted effort to penetrate these teachings. Dave Elders once told me of a study session of perhaps fifteen readers gathered at an Oklahoma conference to work on these teachings. Dave told them at the beginning that even though they could not fully understand they should try their best, and they did. About three-quarters of the way through their session, those present were all suddenly caught up in an awesome presence that was unfathomable yet inescapably real. They all fell into silence and stayed in silence until after they departed that evening. “Ascending mortals,” we are told, “may experience the impersonal presence of successive levels of Deity long before they become sufficiently spiritual and adequately educated to attain experiential personal recognition of, and contact with, these Deities as personal beings” (642.4).

3. TWO PATHS TO THE I AM: HUMAN EVOLUTION AND UNIVERSE PHILOSOPHY

    Recall the development of the God concept. Why do human beings talk about God at all? We are told, “Evolving mortal creatures experience an irresistible urge to symbolize their finite concepts of God. Man’s consciousness of moral duty and his spiritual idealism represent a value level–an experiential reality–which is difficult of symbolization” (3.14; 1091.6). Indeed, our partial concepts of the Infinite are potentially evil (1435.6).

    Our first human religious conceptions arose as the spirit of worship operated in an ignorant and fearful mind. But primitive polytheism was only a phase. “Monotheism arose as a philosophic protest against the inconsistency of polytheism” (1145.2). In other words, if one god was in charge of the sea and another god was in charge of the sky and still another god was in charge of love, and if the gods could fight against one another or defend opposing tribes or compete for human loyalty, then the spirit world seemed incoherent to a mind seeking unity. The meanings of polytheism are inadequate to support the desired value, unity.

    Introducing us to the Father, the Divine Counselor writes, “The truth about the Universal Father had begun to dawn upon mankind when the prophet said, “You, God are alone; there is none beside you” (21.1; cf. 111.3, 1152.6). Finite mind wants a unitary source or beginning, a solitary origin. The theme of solitude is continued by the Melchizedek author(s?) of Papers 105 and 106. “From the sequential, time viewpoint, all reality has its origin in the infinite I AM, whose solitary existence in past infinite eternity must be a finite creature’s premier philosophic postulate” (1152.6). “As we philosophically conceive of the I AM in past eternity, he is alone, there is none beside him” (1173.1). In other words, the same drive that led human beings to monotheism leads universe philosophers to the I AM.

    When universe philosophers postulate the I AM (1157.2; cf. 1434.1), however, they do so for a different reason. They know that in fact there was never a time when the I AM was all alone (111.3), “when the I AM was not the Father of the Son and, with him, of the Spirit” (6.3). Facing the fact of seven eternal, co-ordinate Absolutes, they posit the I AM to express the truth of the primacy and infinity of the First Source and Center beyond what we can experience and comprehend of the Father (1153.3; 1157.1).

    The subtlety of the concept of the I AM, however, is that it expresses a unity in some sense “prior” to the differentiation between deified and undeified, actual and potential, personal and impersonal, static and dynamic (1153.1). Thus the I AM is prior to the differentiation implied in the concept of the Father, the personality of the First Source and Center–as distinguished from the non-personal phases of the First Source and Center. The I AM may also be “prior” to the concept of a First Source and Center–as distinguished from other sources and centers (1153.2).

    Most human attempts to portray infinite unity transcending basic differentiations simply use negation (“it is not this, not like that”), and they insist that the absolute is beyond language and thought. In contrast, the Melchizedek author presents the I AM as a unity of three oppositions: “both thing and no thing, . . . both cause and effect, . . . both volition and response. . . . Infinity is filled by the Infinite; the Infinite encompasses infinity.” (1153.2; 14, 15).

    Is the I AM identical to or different from the First Source and Center? Is the First Source and Center identical to or different from the Universal Father? We need a philosophically mature concept of identity that can encompass difference. When Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” he surely did not mean that there are no differences between him and the Father. When he prayed that his followers be one, he was referring to our spiritual unity.

    We might not even need to postulate the I AM if we could truly know the absolute primacy of the Father-Infinite (6.5). There are many beautiful and conceptually rich testimonies to the primacy of the First Source and Center (5.6-10; 52#6; 1147.11; 1155.6). In the Foreword, the Divine Counselor writes that the First Source and Center is “primal in relation to total reality–unqualifiedly. The First Source and Center is infinite as well as eternal . . . . God–the Universal Father–is the personality of the First Source and Center and as such maintains personal relations of infinite control over all coordinate and subordinate sources and centers. . . . The First Source and Center is, therefore, primal in all domains: deified or undeified, personal or impersonal, actual or potential, finite or infinite.” This passage goes on to portray the other six Absolutes as ways in which the First Source and Center relates to the universe (5.6-10).

    Lest we think of personality as a limited feature of the First Source and Center, Paper One states, “Personality is not simply an attribute of God; it rather stands for the totality of the co-ordinated infinite nature and the unified divine will which is exhibited in eternity and universality of perfect expression” (29.3).

    Note that, despite its philosophic difficulty, the concept of the I AM is intended to be of use in our religious life. Not only did God reveal himself to Moses as I AM; but Jesus revealed the name of God in many profound “I am” statements (1965); and God-knowing prophets of the present and future are also invited to defend themselves from dogmatic attack by replying, “I know what I have experienced because I am a son of I AM” (1127.1).

4. FROM THE I AM TO THE GENESIS OF REALITY

    If we start from the concept of the I AM, how shall we narrate the genesis of reality? Please refer to the handout.

    The I AM unfolds into unity relationships, duality relationships and triunity relationships.

I. Unity relationships are “relations existent within the I AM as the unity thereof is conceived as a threefold and then as a sevenfold self-differentiation” (1157.5).

A. The I AM as threefold involves “the self-differentiation of The Infinite One from The Infinitude . . . expanded to a triune conception by the recognition of the eternal continuum of The Infinity, the I AM” (1154.1; cf. 6.1-2; 13.6). As I interpret this sentence, the phrase “The Infinite One” expresses the hypothetical origin of the Deity Absolute; the phrase “The Infinitude” expresses the hypothetical origin of the Unqualified Absolute; and the phrase “The Infinity” expresses the hypothetical origin of the Universal Absolute.

B. When the I AM articulates as sevenfold we have the Universal Father, The Universal Controller, the Universal Creator, the Infinite Upholder, the Infinite Potential, the Infinite Capacity, and the Universal One of Infinity (1153#2). As we think of these aspects, we are engaged with meanings; as we enjoy them, we are feeling values.

II. “The seven prime relationships within the I AM eternalize as the Seven Absolutes of Infinity” (1153.5). The primal duality relationships are the relationships between the I AM as sevenfold and the Seven Absolutes of Infinity (1157.6). The Seven Absolutes are the First Source and Center, the Second Source and Center, the Paradise Source and Center, the Third Source and Center, the Deity Absolute, the Unqualified Absolute, and the Universal Absolute (1155#3).

III. Triunity relationships are the functional associations of the Seven Absolutes of Infinity (1157.7; 1147.4). They include the personal-purposive triunity, the power-pattern triunity, the spirit-evolutional triunity, the triunity of energy infinity, the triunity of reactive infinity, the triunity of cosmic-associated Deity, and the triunity of infinite unity. Note that when we talk of the functioning of the triunities, these meanings imply the realization of purpose and hence of value.

    The diversification into seven Absolutes has a most important function for the Father. It’s no fun to just be everything, so the Father wants liberation from his own infinity. Thanks to diversification, the Father escapes from “personality absolutism”–“the limitations otherwise inherent in primacy, perfection, changelessness, eternity, universality, absoluteness, and infinity” (108.1). But once the Father has differentiated his original infinity into the Paradise Trinity, he can only function as personality-absolute in union with the Eternal Son and Infinite Spirit (111.5; 6.2). Moreover–and this is the great function of the triunities for the Father–“it is the existential presence of the triunities that enables the Father-I AM to experience functional infinity unity despite the diversification of infinity into seven Absolutes” (1150.13).

5. SOME VALUES OF STUDYING COSMIC MEANINGS

    If our topic is difficult and dangerous, it also promises rewards (1162.1). We find gems of eternally true and divinely beautiful teaching (1769.3) that take us to a mountaintop of intellectual thought with “relaxation for the mind, strength for the soul, and communion for the spirit” (1778.3), gems that foster the “mind of perfect poise” (1209.4). The study of cosmic meanings leads to the experience of cosmic values.

    The more we learn of the Absolutes the more we realize what it means to be a human being. After brief descriptions in the Foreword about the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Conjoint Actor, and the Isle of Paradise, we read, “These qualities of universal reality are manifest in Urantian human experience” on the levels of body, mind, spirit, soul, and personality (8.6).

Do we glimpse what it means to be a personality? We are told, “Human personality is the time-space image shadow cast by the divine Creator personality. And no actuality can ever be adequately comprehended by an examination of its shadow. Shadows should be interpreted in terms of the true substance” (29.7).

    If we consider that our mind, body, soul, spirit, and personality are a level of manifestation of four Absolutes, we may glimpse why Jesus placed an infinite value on the individual human being, why there is so much rejoicing among the angels when a sinner repents, and why the book so encourages us to proclaim the gospel so that more mortals may choose the way of life. Whatever our service destiny may be as finaliters in the master universe, every one of us will be needed. Each created, indwelt, free-will mortal is destined to become eternally one with a fragment of the Father. Personalities who do not attain fusion become part of the Supreme, and the mortals who help actualize the Supreme will eventually reveal the Supreme in ages to come.

    We can even entertain the most speculative dream of destiny, that we may become “volitional participants in the self-revelation of the I AM,” and that we “will remain eternally as absolute volitional parts of the totality of infinity, final sons of the absolute Father” (1173.1).

    The study of the Absolutes stimulates speculation, and here is one of mine on the miracle of faith. We learn that all reality is either deified or undeified, although there is an intermediate zone that can be hard to classify (7.2). The human soul, the child of the material mind and the indwelling spirit, is in that intermediate zone (cf. 1478.6). The miracle of faith is to liberate material creatures us to function with our center of gravity on the spiritual level. We may be reckoned among the sons and daughters of God (448.2-3). One of the higher phases of the gospel that Jesus taught was divine sonship. That refers partly to his own divinity, but divine sonship and daughterhood also pertain to us (1704.5; 1589.0; 1815.2). The point is not that we are divine, but that spirit-born faith imparts the quality of divinity to our relationship with God (3.3).

    High truths inspire us to realize brotherhood. We are told, “While infinity is on the one hand UNITY, on the other it is DIVERSITY without end or limit” (1262.1). Moreover, the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit provide the pattern of teamwork, since they “are exquisitely fraternal, working as two equal brothers with admiration and love for an honored and divinely respected common Father” (111.1). Such teachings inspire us to work for harmony with other readers, other followers of Jesus, adherents of other religions, and other human beings generally. More than ever we need to seek spiritual unity without insisting on intellectual uniformity. This was the theme of the most recent conference of our United States Urantia Association.

    To be a peacemaker is the mortal analogue of the cosmic function of harmonizing differences. On the absolute level we find both the establishment of tensions and the harmonization of tensions between deified and undeified reality, between actuals and potentials. The tension between the Eternal Son and the Paradise Isle is resolved by the Conjoint Actor. The tension between the Deity Absolute and the Unqualified Absolute is resolved by the Universal Absolute (1151#5). We are told, “The finite can coexist in the cosmos along with the Infinite only because the associative presence of the Universal Absolute so perfectly equalizes the tensions between time and eternity, finity and infinity, reality potential and reality actuality, Paradise and space, man and God”(15.3). If the Universal Absolute can mediate between the finite and the Infinite, we can surely mediate between Amsterdam and the Andes, Chicago and Boulder, Bogata and Benares, Helsinki and Hamburg, London and Lagos, Oslo and Osaka, Paris and St. Petersburg, Stockholm and Seoul, Toronto and Tallinn, Madrid and Melbourne!

6. CONCLUSION

    I have a two-part conclusion: first, a quotation; second, a song.

    The quotation is typical of how the authors follow discussions of ungraspable meanings with understandable conclusions (cf. 17.2 and 646#10). Here are the final two paragraphs of Paper 106.

    Sooner or later all universe personalities begin to realize that the final quest of eternity is the endless exploration of infinity, the never-ending voyage of discovery into the absoluteness of the First Source and Center. Sooner or later we all become aware that all creature growth is proportional to Father identification. We arrive at the understanding that living the will of God is the eternal passport to the endless possibility of infinity itself. Mortals will sometime realize that success in the quest of the Infinite is directly proportional to the achievement of Fatherlikeness, and that in this universe age the realities of the Father are revealed within the qualities of divinity. And these qualities of divinity are personally appropriated by universe creatures in the experience of living divinely, and to live divinely means actually to live the will of God.

    To material, evolutionary, finite creatures, a life predicated on the living of the Father’s will leads directly to the attainment of spirit supremacy in the personality arena and brings such creatures one step nearer the comprehension of the Father-Infinite. Such a Father life is one predicated on truth, sensitive to beauty, and dominated by goodness. Such a God-knowing person is inwardly illuminated by worship and outwardly devoted to the wholehearted service of the universal brotherhood of all personalities, a service ministry which is filled with mercy and motivated by love, while all these life qualities are unified in the evolving personality on ever-ascending levels of cosmic wisdom, self-realization, God-finding, and Father worship.”

    Here is a verse on brotherhood and reconciliation. This verse comes from one of the three songs in English that have been written to the music of the song Finlandia by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). This is from the hymn “We Would Be Building.”

We would be building; temples still undone

O’er crumbling walls their crosses scarcely lift,

Waiting till love can raise the broken stone,

And hearts creative bridge the human rift.

We would be building; Master, let thy plan

Reveal the life that God would give to man.

[Handout]

THE SELF-ARTICULATION OF THE I AM [from Papers 104-106]

I. Unity relationships. “Relations existent within the I AM as the unity thereof is conceived as a threefold and then as a sevenfold self-differentiation” (1157.5).

A. The I AM as threefold (1154.1): “the self-differentiation of The Infinite One from The Infinitude, . . . expanded to a triune conception by the recognition of the eternal continuum of The Infinity, the I AM” (1154.1).

[i] The Infinite One

[iii] The Infinity, the I AM” (1154.1).

[ii] The Infinitude

B. The I AM as a sevenfold self-differentiation (1153#2):

1. The Universal Father. I AM father of the Eternal Son.

2. The Universal Controller. I AM cause of eternal Paradise.

3. The Universal Creator. I AM one with the Eternal Son.

4. The Infinite Upholder. I AM self-associative.

5. The Infinite Potential. I AM self-qualified.

6. The Infinite Capacity. I AM static-reactive.

7. The Universal One of Infinity. I AM as I AM.

II. Duality relationships between the I AM as sevenfold and the Seven Absolutes of Infinity. (1157.6)

The Seven Absolutes of Infinity (1155#3):

1. The First Source and Center (the Father)

2. The Second Source and Center (the Eternal Son)

3. The Paradise Source and Center

4. The Third Source and Center (the Infinite Spirit)

5. The Deity Absolute

6. The Unqualified Absolute

7. The Universal Absolute

Duality relationships between

the I AM as sevenfold and . . . the Seven Absolutes of Infinity

Universal Father . . . . . . . . . The First Source and Center

Universal Controller . . . . . . . The Paradise Source and Center

Universal Creator . . . . . . . . The Second Source and Center

The Infinite Upholder . . . . . . The Third Source and Center

The Infinite Potential . . . . . . The Deity Absolute

The Infinite Capacity . . . . . . The Unqualified Absolute

The Universal One of Infinity . . The Universal Absolute

III. Triunity relationships, the functional associations of the Seven Absolutes of Infinity. (1157.7; 1147.4).

1. The personal-purposive triunity: the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit

2. The power-pattern triunity: The Father-Son, the Paradise Isle, the Conjoint Actor

3. The spirit-evolutional triunity: The Universal Father, the Son-Spirit, the Deity Absolute

4. The triunity of energy infinity: the Father-Spirit, the Paradise Isle, the Unqualified Absolute

5. The triunity of reactive infinity: the Universal Father, the Universal Absolute, the Unqualified Absolute

6. The triunity of cosmic-associated Deity: the Universal Father, the Deity Absolute, the Universal Absolute

7. The triunity of infinite unity: the Universal Father, the Conjoint Actor, the Universal Absolute

(Triunities 8-15 are unrevealed.)

Triodities (1151#5)

The Triodity of Actuality:

[i] Eternal Son (deified)

[iii] Conjoint Actor (resolves tension)

[ii] the Paradise Isle (undeified)

The Triodity of Potentiality:

[i] Deity Absolute (deified)

[iii] Universal Absolute (resolves tension)

[ii] Unqualified Absolute (undeified)

    “The Universal Father . . . is, was, and ever will be: the First Universal Father-Source, Absolute Center, Primal Cause, Universal Controller, Limitless Energizer, Original Unity, Unqualified Upholder, First Person of Deity, Primal Cosmic Pattern, and Essence of Infinity. The Universal Father is the personal cause of the Aboslutes; he is the absolute of Absolutes” (1147.11).