Where paragraphs lean

Space comes the nearest of all nonabsolute things to being absolute. Space is apparently absolutely ultimate. The real difficulty we have in understanding space on the material level is due to the fact that, while material bodies exist in space, space also exists in these same material bodies. While there is much about space that is absolute, that does not mean that space is absolute.

When it is not possible fully to distinguish the Deity Absolute from the Unqualified Absolute, their supposedly combined function or co-ordinated presence is designated the action of the Universal Absolute.

These inconceivable transactions mark the beginning of universe history, mark the coming into existence of time itself. To a creature, the beginning of the finite is the genesis of reality; as viewed by creature mind, there is no actuality conceivable prior to the finite. This newly appearing finite reality exists in two original phases:

Notwithstanding our inability fully to comprehend the origin, nature, and transmutations of cosmic force, we are fully conversant with all phases of emergent-energy behavior from the times of its direct and unmistakable response to the action of Paradise gravity — about the time of the beginning of the function of the superuniverse power directors.

Stated otherwise: The Trinity Absolute, as its name implies, is really absolute in total function. We do not know how an absolute function can achieve total expression on a qualified, limited, or otherwise restricted basis. Hence we must assume that any such totality function will be unconditioned (in potential). And it would also appear that the unconditioned would also be unlimited, at least from a qualitative standpoint, though we are not so sure regarding quantitative relationships.

The first refinement of war was the taking of prisoners. Next, women were exempted from hostilities, and then came the recognition of noncombatants. Military castes and standing armies soon developed to keep pace with the increasing complexity of combat. Such warriors were early prohibited from associating with women, and women long ago ceased to fight, though they have always fed and nursed the soldiers and urged them on to battle.

We do not fully comprehend the almost endless changes to which physical energy may be subject. In one universe it appears as light, in another as light plus heat, in another as forms of energy unknown on Urantia; in untold millions of years it may reappear as some form of restless, surging electrical energy or magnetic power; and still later on it may again appear in a subsequent universe as some form of variable matter going through a series of metamorphoses, to be followed by its outward physical disappearance in some great cataclysm of the realms. And then, after countless ages and almost endless wandering through numberless universes, again may this same energy re-emerge and many times change its form and potential; and so do these transformations continue through successive ages and throughout countless realms. Thus matter sweeps on, undergoing the transmutations of time but swinging ever true to the circle of eternity; even if long prevented from returning to its source, it is ever responsive thereto, and it ever proceeds in the path ordained by the Infinite Personality who sent it forth.

While we present this narrative as a sequence and portray the historic appearance of the finite as a direct derivative of the absolute, it should be borne in mind that transcendentals both preceded and succeeded all that is finite. Transcendental ultimates are, in relation to the finite, both causal and consummational.

The nature of the Trinity of Trinities is difficult to portray to the human mind; it is the actual summation of the entirety of experiential infinity as such is manifested in a theoretical infinity of eternity realization. In the Trinity of Trinities the experiential infinite attains to identity with the existential infinite, and both are as one in the pre-experiential, pre-existential I AM. The Trinity of Trinities is the final expression of all that is implied in the fifteen triunities and associated triodities. Finalities are difficult for relative beings to comprehend, be they existential or experiential; therefore must they always be presented as relativities.

This world has never seriously or sincerely or honestly tried out these dynamic ideas and divine ideals of Jesus’ doctrine of the kingdom of heaven. But you should not become discouraged by the apparently slow progress of the kingdom idea on Urantia. Remember that the order of progressive evolution is subjected to sudden and unexpected periodical changes in both the material and the spiritual worlds. The bestowal of Jesus as an incarnated Son was just such a strange and unexpected event in the spiritual life of the world. Neither make the fatal mistake, in looking for the age manifestation of the kingdom, of failing to effect its establishment within your own souls.

The ideal state undertakes to regulate social conduct only enough to take violence out of individual competition and to prevent unfairness in personal initiative. Here is a great problem in statehood: How can you guarantee peace and quiet in industry, pay the taxes to support state power, and at the same time prevent taxation from handicapping industry and keep the state from becoming parasitical or tyrannical?

The ideas and ideals of Jesus, embodied in the teaching of the gospel of the kingdom, nearly failed of realization as his followers progressively distorted his pronouncements. The Master’s concept of the kingdom was notably modified by two great tendencies:

All experiential creations are interdependent in their realization of destiny. Only existential reality is self-contained and self-existent. Havona and the seven superuniverses require each other to achieve the maximum of finite attainment; likewise will they be sometime dependent on the future universes of outer space for finite transcendence.

At first the war chiefs were chosen only for military service, and they would relinquish some of their authority during peacetimes, when their duties were of a more social nature. But gradually they began to encroach upon the peace intervals, tending to continue to rule from one war on through to the next. They often saw to it that one war was not too long in following another. These early war lords were not fond of peace.

Effective state rule only came with the arrival of a chief with full executive authority. Man found that effective government could be had only by conferring power on a personality, not by endowing an idea.

From the time viewpoint, the Actual is that which was and is; the Potential is that which is becoming and will be; the Original is that which is. From the eternity viewpoint, the differences between the Original, the Actual, and the Potential are not thus apparent. These triune qualities are not so distinguished on Paradise-eternity levels. In eternity all is — only has all not yet been revealed in time and space.

The measure of the advance of society is directly determined by the degree to which public opinion can control personal behavior and state regulation through nonviolent expression. The really civilized government had arrived when public opinion was clothed with the powers of personal franchise. Popular elections may not always decide things rightly, but they represent the right way even to do a wrong thing. Evolution does not at once produce superlative perfection but rather comparative and advancing practical adjustment.

Some of the difficulties in forming concepts of infinite reality integration are inherent in the fact that all such ideas embrace something of the finality of universal development, some kind of an experiential realization of all that could ever be. And it is inconceivable that quantitative infinity could ever be completely realized in finality. Always there must remain unexplored possibilities in the three potential Absolutes which no quantity of experiential development could ever exhaust. Eternity itself, though absolute, is not more than absolute.

“Unpervaded” space means: unpervaded by those forces, energies, powers, and presences known to exist in pervaded space. We do not know whether vertical (reservoir) space is destined always to function as the equipoise of horizontal (universe) space; we do not know whether there is a creative intent concerning unpervaded space; we really know very little about the space reservoirs, merely that they exist, and that they seem to counterbalance the space-expansion-contraction cycles of the universe of universes.

The Conjoint Actor universally integrates the varying functional aspects of all actualized reality on all levels of manifestation, from finites through transcendentals and on to absolutes. The Universal Absolute perfectly compensates the differentials inherent in the varying aspects of all incomplete reality, from the limitless potentialities of active-volitional and causative Deity reality to the boundless possibilities of static, reactive, nondeity reality in the incomprehensible domains of the Unqualified Absolute.