THE Universal Father is the God of
all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings. First
think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and lastly as an
infinite upholder. 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. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens, with
all their hosts; you preserve and control them. By the Sons of God
were the universes made. The Creator covers himself with light as with a
garment and stretches out the heavens as a curtain.” Only the concept of the
Universal Father — one God in the place of many gods — enabled mortal
man to comprehend the Father as divine creator and infinite controller.
The
myriads of planetary systems were all made to be eventually inhabited by many
different types of intelligent creatures, beings who could know God, receive
the divine affection, and love him in return. The universe of
universes is the work of God and the dwelling place of his diverse creatures. “God
created the heavens and formed the earth; he established the universe and
created this world not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited.”
The
enlightened worlds all recognize and worship the Universal Father, the
eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The will creatures of
universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the
fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The
transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to
comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father. God-knowing
creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and
that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in
his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous
supremacy. From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone
forth the supreme mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” In
love and mercy the messengers of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation
down through the ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly
animal-origin creatures as the human races of Urantia.
This
magnificent and universal injunction to strive for the attainment of the
perfection of divinity is the first duty, and should be the highest
ambition, of all the struggling creature creation of the God of
perfection. This possibility of the attainment of divine perfection is the
final and certain destiny of all man’s eternal spiritual progress.
Urantia
mortals can hardly hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is
entirely possible for human beings, starting out as they do on this planet, to
attain the supernal and divine goal which the infinite God has set for mortal
man; and when they do achieve this destiny, they will, in all
that pertains to self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete
in their sphere of divine perfection as God himself is in his sphere of
infinity and eternity. Such perfection may not be universal in the
material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or final in
spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects
of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and
God-consciousness.
This
is the true meaning of that divine command, “Be you perfect, even as
I am perfect,” which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons him inward in
that long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and higher
levels of spiritual values and true universe meanings. This sublime search
for the God of universes is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the
worlds of time and space.
The Urantia Papers
