The Urantia Book -- Foreword
Foreword: Section I
I. Deity And Divinity
P2:2, 0:1.2 DEITY is personalizable
as God, is prepersonal and superpersonal in ways not altogether comprehensible
by man. Deity is characterized by the quality of unity -- actual or potential
-- on all supermaterial levels of reality; and this unifying quality is
best comprehended by creatures as divinity.
P2:3, 0:1.3 Deity functions
on personal, prepersonal, and superpersonal levels. Total Deity is functional
on the following seven levels:
P2:4, 0:1.4 1. Static
-- self-contained and self-existent Deity.
P2:5, 0:1.5 2. Potential
-- self-willed and
self-purposive Deity.
P2:6, 0:1.6 3. Associative
--
self-personalized and divinely fraternal Deity.
P2:7, 0:1.7 4. Creative
-- self-distributive and divinely revealed Deity.
P2:8, 0:1.8 5. Evolutional
--
self-expansive and
creature-identified Deity.
P2:9, 0:1.9 6. Supreme
--
self-experiential and
creature-Creator-unifying Deity.
Deity functioning on the first
creature-
identificational level as time-space
overcontrollers of the grand universe, sometimes designated the Supremacy
of Deity.
P2:10, 0:1.10 7. Ultimate
--
self-projected and
time-space-transcending Deity. Deity omnipotent,
omniscient, and omnipresent. Deity functioning on the second level of unifying
divinity expression as effective overcontrollers and absonite
upholders
of the master universe. As compared with the ministry of the Deities to
the grand universe, this absonite function in the master universe is tantamount
to universal overcontrol and supersustenance, sometimes called the Ultimacy
of Deity.
P2:11, 0:1.11 The finite
level of reality is characterized by creature life and time-space limitations.
Finite realities may not have endings, but they always have beginnings
-- they are created. The Deity level of Supremacy may be conceived as a
function in relation to finite existences.
P2:12, 0:1.12 The absonite
level of reality is characterized by things and beings without beginnings
or endings and by the transcendence of time and space.
Absoniters are not
created; they are eventuated -- they simply are. The Deity level of Ultimacy
connotes a function in relation to absonite realities. No matter in what
part of the master universe, whenever time and space are transcended, such
an absonite phenomenon is an act of the Ultimacy of Deity.
P2:13, 0:1.13 The absolute
level is
beginningless, endless, timeless, and spaceless. For example:
On Paradise, time and space are nonexistent; the time-space status of Paradise
is absolute. This level is Trinity attained, existentially, by the Paradise
Deities, but this third level of unifying Deity expression is not fully
unified experientially. Whenever, wherever, and however the absolute level
of Deity functions,
Paradise-absolute values and meanings are manifest.
P3:1, 0:1.14 Deity may be
existential, as in the Eternal Son; experiential, as in the Supreme Being;
associative, as in God the Sevenfold; undivided, as in the Paradise Trinity.
P3:2, 0:1.15 Deity is the
source of all that which is divine. Deity is characteristically and invariably
divine, but all that which is divine is not necessarily Deity, though it
will be co-ordinated with Deity and will tend towards some phase of unity
with Deity -- spiritual, mindal, or personal.
P3:3, 0:1.16 DIVINITY is
the characteristic, unifying, and co-ordinating quality of Deity.
P3:4, 0:1.17 Divinity is
creature comprehensible as truth, beauty, and goodness; correlated in personality
as love, mercy, and ministry; disclosed on impersonal levels as justice,
power, and sovereignty.
P3:5, 0:1.18 Divinity may
be perfect -- complete -- as on existential and creator levels of Paradise
perfection; it may be imperfect, as on experiential and creature levels
of time-space evolution; or it may be relative, neither perfect nor imperfect,
as on certain Havona levels of existential-experiential relationships.
P3:6, 0:1.19 When we attempt
to conceive of perfection in all phases and forms of relativity, we encounter
seven conceivable types: