The Supreme Dominion of The Father

The supreme dominion of the Father

3:5.1 (50.6)In his contact with the creations that arose after Havona, the Universal Father exercises his infinite power and supreme authority not by asserting it directly, but rather through his Sons and the personalities subordinate to them. And God does all this of His own free will. If occasion should arise, if divine thought should prefer it, all delegated power could also be exercised directly, but as a rule such action takes place only if the delegated personality has failed to accomplish what God has entrusted to him. At such times, when faced with such negligence, the Father does act independently and in accordance with the precepts he himself has chosen, always remaining within the limits of what he has reserved for himself in terms of divine power and potential, and his choice is always of unfailing perfection and infinite wisdom.

3:5.2 (51.1)The Father rules through His Sons: there runs through the organization of the universe from high to low an unbroken chain of rulers, ending with the Planetary Sovereigns who are in charge of the destiny of the evolutionary worlds in the Father's awesome domains. 'The earth is the Lord's and its fullness.' 'He sets down kings and raises kings to thrones.' 'The Most Exalted reign in the kingdoms of men.' These exclamations are not merely expressions of poetic nature....

3:5.3 (51.2)In the affairs of the hearts of men things may not always go as the Father wills, but in the reign over and vis-à-vis the destiny of a planet the divine plan wins: the eternal intention of wisdom and love triumphs.

3:5.4 (51.3)Jesus said, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. When you catch a glimpse of what is going on in many areas of God's well-nigh infinite creation, and catch sight of its overwhelming immensity, it is possible that your understanding of his primacy may be shaken, but you must accept as certain that he is eternally enthroned in the Paradise center of all things, and that he is the beneficent Father of all thinking beings. There is only “one God and Father of all, who is above all and in all,” and “he is before all things and all things exist in him.

3:5.5 (51.4)The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence in no way contradict the idea of the universal sovereignty of God. The life of all evolutionary creatures is surrounded by certain inevitabilities. Will consider the following:

3:5.6 (51.5)1. Is courage - strength of character - desirable? If so, man must be raised in an environment that requires him to wrestle with hardships and respond to disappointments.

3:5.7 (51.6)2. Is altruism - serving one's fellow man - desirable? If so, life experience must be such that one must also cope with conditions of social inequality.

3:5.8 (51.7)3. Is hope - the greatness of trust - desirable? Then human existence must be constantly confronted with risks and ever-recurring uncertainties.

3:5.9 (51.8)4. Is faith - the highest assertion to which human thought can come - desirable? That must be human consciousness in the difficult circumstance that it always knows less, than it can believe.

3:5.10 (51.9)5. Is love of truth and a willingness to go wherever it leads desirable? If so, man must grow up in a world where error is available and lies are always possible.

3:5.11 (51.10)6. Is idealism-the daytime understanding of the divine-desirable? If so, man must struggle in an environment of relatable goodness and beauty that stimulates the irresistible pursuit of the better.

3:5.12 (51.11)7. Is faithfulness - the highest performance of duty - desirable? Then man must persevere amid the possibilities of infidelity and apostasy. The heroism of dutifulness consists in the implied danger of negligence.

3:5.13 (51.12)8. Is altruism-the spiritual institution of selflessness-desirable? If so, mortal man must live in confrontation with an inescapable self that ceaselessly cries out for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life, if there were no ego-life to renounce. Man could never make saving righteousness his own, if there were no potential evil as a contrast to elevate and make the good more evident.

3:5.14 (51.13)9. Is pleasure - the satisfaction of happiness - desirable? Then man must live in a world where the alternative of pain and the probability of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities.

3:5.15 (52.1)Throughout the universe, each unit is considered a part of the whole. The survival of the part depends on its cooperation with the plan and intention of the whole, its sincere desire and utter willingness to do the divine will of the Father. The only evolutionary world without error (the possibility of unwise judgment) would be a world without free intelligence. The Havona universe has a billion perfect worlds with their perfect inhabitants, but evolutionary man must be fallible if he is to be free. The free but still inexperienced intelligence cannot initially be wise across the board with any possibility. The possibility of wrong judgment (evil) becomes sin only when man knowingly endorses and accepts a deliberately immoral judgment.

3:5.16 (52.2)The full appreciation of truth, beauty and goodness is inherent in the perfection of the divine universe. The inhabitants of the Havona worlds do not need the potential evil associated with the relative levels of value as an incentive to make choices: these perfect beings are able to recognize and choose the good even without contrasting moral situations that call for reflection. But all these perfect beings are as they are, in terms of moral nature and spiritual status, merely by virtue of the fact that they exist. They have merely acquired experiential progress within their inherent status. Mortal man even earns his status as a candidate for the way up through his own faith and hope. All the divinity that human thought understands and the human soul acquires is attained through experience; it is a reality of personal experience and is therefore a unique possession, unlike the inherent goodness and righteousness of the infallible personalities of Havona.

3:5.17 (52.3)The creatures of Havona are naturally brave, but they are not oodish in the human sense. Kindness and courtesy are innate to them, but one can hardly call them altruistic, as humans can be. They expect a pleasant future, but do not live in hope, as the mortal on the uncertain evolutionary worlds can do so confidently and exquisitely. They believe in the stability of the universe, but the saving faith by which mortal man ascends from the status of an animal to the gates of Paradise is utterly unknown to them. They love the truth, but know nothing of those qualities of truth that preserve the soul. They are idealists, but they are born that way; the rapture with which one develops into an idealist by one's own stimulating choice is totally unknown to them. They are faithful, but have never felt the excitement of sincere, intelligent devotion to duty when faced with the temptation to abandon one's duty. They are selfless, but have not reached this level of experience through the lustrous victory over a belligerent self. They know pleasure, but do not understand the sweetness of pleasure as a means of escape from the potential of pain. A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book