P35:5, 2:2.1 Even your olden prophets understood
the eternal, never-beginning, never-ending, circular nature of the Universal
Father. God is literally and eternally present in his universe of universes.
He inhabits the present moment with all his absolute majesty and eternal
greatness. "The Father has life in himself, and this life is eternal
life." Throughout the eternal ages it has been the Father who "gives
to all life." There is infinite perfection in the divine integrity.
"I am the Lord; I change not." Our knowledge of the universe
of universes discloses not only that he is the Father of lights, but also
that in his conduct of interplanetary affairs there "is no variableness
neither shadow of changing." He "declares the end from the beginning."
He says: "My counsel shall stand; I will do all my pleasures"
"according to the eternal purpose which I purposed in my Son."
Thus are the plans and purposes of the First Source and Center like himself:
eternal, perfect, and forever changeless.
P35:6, 2:2.2 There is finality
of completeness and perfection of repleteness in the mandates of the Father.
"Whatsoever God does, it shall be forever; nothing can be added to
it nor anything taken from it." The Universal Father does not repent
of his original purposes of wisdom and perfection. His plans are steadfast,
his counsel immutable, while his acts are divine and infallible. "A
thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as
a watch in the night." The perfection of divinity and the magnitude
of eternity are forever beyond the full grasp of the circumscribed mind
of mortal man.
P36:1, 2:2.3 The reactions
of a changeless God, in the execution of his eternal purpose, may seem
to vary in accordance with the changing attitude and the shifting minds
of his created intelligences; that is, they may apparently and superficially
vary; but underneath the surface and beneath all outward manifestations,
there is still present the changeless purpose, the everlasting plan, of
the eternal God.
P36:2, 2:2.4 Out in the
universes, perfection must necessarily be a relative term, but in the central
universe and especially on Paradise, perfection is undiluted; in certain
phases it is even absolute. Trinity manifestations vary the exhibition
of the divine perfection but do not attenuate it.
P36:3, 2:2.5 God's primal
perfection consists not in an assumed righteousness but rather in the inherent
perfection of the goodness of his divine nature. He is final, complete,
and perfect. There is no thing lacking in the beauty and perfection of
his righteous character. And the whole scheme of living existences on the
worlds of space is centered in the divine purpose of elevating all will
creatures to the high destiny of the experience of sharing the Father's
Paradise perfection. God is neither self-centered nor self-contained; he
never ceases to bestow himself upon all self-conscious creatures of the
vast universe of universes.
P36:4, 2:2.6 God is eternally
and infinitely perfect; he cannot personally know imperfection as his own
experience, but he does share the consciousness of all the experience of
imperfectness of all the struggling creatures of the evolutionary universes
of all the Paradise Creator Sons. The personal and liberating touch of
the God of perfection overshadows the hearts and encircuits the natures
of all those mortal creatures who have ascended to the universe level of
moral discernment. In this manner, as well as through the contacts of the
divine presence, the Universal Father actually participates in the experience
with immaturity and imperfection in the evolving career of every
moral being of the entire universe.
P36:5, 2:2.7 Human limitations, potential
evil, are not a part of the divine nature, but mortal experience with
evil and all man's relations thereto are most certainly a part of God's
ever-expanding self-realization in the children of time -- creatures of
moral responsibility who have been created or evolved by every Creator
Son going out from Paradise.