유랜시아 책
제 3. 부 유란시아의 역사
제 118 편. 최상과 궁극―시간과 공간
Paper 118
Supreme and Ultimate—Time and Space
Supreme and Ultimate—Time and Space
Sections
- Introduction
- § 1. Time and Eternity
- § 2. Omnipresence and Ubiquity
- § 3. Time-Space Relationships
- § 4. Primary and Secondary Causation
- § 5. Omnipotence and Compossibility
- § 6. Omnipotence and Omnificence
- § 7. Omniscience and Predestination
- § 8. Control and Overcontrol
- § 9. Universe Mechanisms
- § 10. Functions of Providence
118:0.9 (1294.9)
While God the Sevenfold is indispensable to the evolutionary attainment of the Supreme, the Supreme is also indispensable to the eventual emergence of the Ultimate. And the dual presence of the Supreme and the Ultimate constitutes the basic association of subabsolute and derived Deity, for they are interdependently complemental in the attainment of destiny. Together they constitute the experiential bridge linking the beginnings and the completions of all creative growth in the master universe.
118:0.10 (1294.10)
Creative growth is unending but ever satisfying, endless in extent but always punctuated by those personality-satisfying moments of transient goal attainment which serve so effectively as the mobilization preludes to new adventures in cosmic growth, universe exploration, and Deity attainment.
118:0.11 (1294.11)
While the domain of mathematics is beset with qualitative limitations, it does provide the finite mind with a conceptual basis of contemplating infinity. There is no quantitative limitation to numbers, even in the comprehension of the finite mind. No matter how large the number conceived, you can always envisage one more being added. And also, you can comprehend that that is short of infinity, for no matter how many times you repeat this addition to number, still always one more can be added.
118:0.12 (1294.12)
At the same time, the infinite series can be totaled at any given point, and this total (more properly, a subtotal) provides the fullness of the sweetness of goal attainment for a given person at a given time and status. But sooner or later, this same person begins to hunger and yearn for new and greater goals, and such adventures in growth will be forever forthcoming in the fullness of time and the cycles of eternity.
118:0.13 (1294.13)
Each successive universe age is the antechamber of the following era of cosmic growth, and each universe epoch provides immediate destiny for all preceding stages. Havona, in and of itself, is a perfect, but perfection-limited, creation; Havona perfection, expanding out into the evolutionary superuniverses, finds not only cosmic destiny but also liberation from the limitations of pre-evolutionary existence.
118:1.1 (1295.1)
It is helpful to man’s cosmic orientation to attain all possible comprehension of Deity’s relation to the cosmos. While absolute Deity is eternal in nature, the Gods are related to time as an experience in eternity. In the evolutionary universes eternity is temporal everlastingness—the everlasting now.
필사 인간의 성격은 아버지의 뜻 행하기를 선택하는 기법을 통해서 깃드는 영과 자신을 일체화함으로 영원하게 될지도 모른다. 그렇게 뜻을 거룩하게 바치는 것은 목적이 영원의 실체임을 깨닫는 것과 마찬가지다. 이것은 순간들이 연속되어도 사람의 목적이 고정되었음을 뜻한다. 달리 말하면, 순간들의 연속이 사람의 목적에 아무런 변화를 입증하지 못하리라는 것이다. 1백만이나 10억의 순간이[1] 지나도 아무런 차이를 보이지 않을 것이다. 사람의 목적에 관하여, 수(數)의 의미가 없어진 것이다. 따라서 사람의 선택과 하나님의 선택을 더하는 것은 하나님의 자녀와 파라다이스 아버지가 영구하게 봉사할 때, 궁극에 하나님의 영과 사람의 성품이 결코 끝없이 연합된 영원한 현실이 된다.
118:1.2 (1295.2)
The personality of the mortal creature may eternalize by self-identification with the indwelling spirit through the technique of choosing to do the will of the Father. Such a consecration of will is tantamount to the realization of eternity-reality of purpose. This means that the purpose of the creature has become fixed with regard to the succession of moments; stated otherwise, that the succession of moments will witness no change in creature purpose. A million or a billion moments makes no difference. Number has ceased to have meaning with regard to the creature’s purpose. Thus does creature choice plus God’s choice eventuate in the eternal realities of the never-ending union of the spirit of God and the nature of man in the everlasting service of the children of God and of their Paradise Father.
118:1.3 (1295.3)
There is a direct relationship between maturity and the unit of time consciousness in any given intellect. The time unit may be a day, a year, or a longer period, but inevitably it is the criterion by which the conscious self evaluates the circumstances of life, and by which the conceiving intellect measures and evaluates the facts of temporal existence.
118:1.4 (1295.4)
Experience, wisdom, and judgment are the concomitants of the lengthening of the time unit in mortal experience. As the human mind reckons backward into the past, it is evaluating past experience for the purpose of bringing it to bear on a present situation. As mind reaches out into the future, it is attempting to evaluate the future significance of possible action. And having thus reckoned with both experience and wisdom, the human will exercises judgment-decision in the present, and the plan of action thus born of the past and the future becomes existent.
118:1.5 (1295.5)
In the maturity of the developing self, the past and future are brought together to illuminate the true meaning of the present. As the self matures, it reaches further and further back into the past for experience, while its wisdom forecasts seek to penetrate deeper and deeper into the unknown future. And as the conceiving self extends this reach ever further into both past and future, so does judgment become less and less dependent on the momentary present. In this way does decision-action begin to escape from the fetters of the moving present, while it begins to take on the aspects of past-future significance.
118:1.8 (1295.8)
The time unit of immaturity concentrates meaning-value into the present moment in such a way as to divorce the present of its true relationship to the not-present—the past-future. The time unit of maturity is proportioned so to reveal the co-ordinate relationship of past-present-future that the self begins to gain insight into the wholeness of events, begins to view the landscape of time from the panoramic perspective of broadened horizons, begins perhaps to suspect the nonbeginning, nonending eternal continuum, the fragments of which are called time.
118:1.10 (1296.2)
On the absolute and eternal level, potential reality is just as meaningful as actual reality. Only on the finite level and to time-bound creatures does there appear to be such a vast difference. To God, as absolute, an ascending mortal who has made the eternal decision is already a Paradise finaliter. But the Universal Father, through the indwelling Thought Adjuster, is not thus limited in awareness but can also know of, and participate in, every temporal struggle with the problems of the creature ascent from animallike to Godlike levels of existence.
118:2.1 (1296.3)
The ubiquity of Deity must not be confused with the ultimacy of the divine omnipresence. It is volitional with the Universal Father that the Supreme, the Ultimate, and the Absolute should compensate, co-ordinate, and unify his time-space ubiquity and his time-space-transcended omnipresence with his timeless and spaceless universal and absolute presence. And you should remember that, while Deity ubiquity may be so often space associated, it is not necessarily time conditioned.
필사자이자 상물질 승천자로서 너희는 칠중 신이 베푸는 봉사를 통해서 하나님을 차츰 식별한다. 하보나를 통해서 너희는 최상위 하나님을 발견한다. 파라다이스에서 너희는 그가 한 성격자임을 발견하며, 다음에 최후자로서 너희는 당장에 그가 궁극위인 것을 알려고 애쓸 것이다. 최후자이니까, 궁극위에 다다른 뒤에 추구할 과정이 오직 하나 있는 듯이 보이고, 이는 절대자를 찾기 시작하는 것이겠다. 아무 최후자도 신 절대자에 도달할까 하는 불확실성에 마음이 흔들리지는 않을 터이니, 최상ㆍ궁극의 승천 끝에 아버지 하나님을 만났기 때문이다. 절대자 하나님을 찾는 데 성공한다 하더라도, 그러한 최후자들은 의심할 여지 없이, 똑같은 하나님을 발견할 뿐이리라 믿을 터이니, 그는 무한에 더욱 가까운 보편적 수준에서 자신을 나타내는 파라다이스 아버지이다. 의심할 여지 없이, 절대적인 하나님에 도달하는 것은 성격자들의 마지막 아버지 뿐 아니라, 우주들의 시초 조상을 드러낼 것이다.
118:2.2 (1296.4)
As mortal and morontia ascenders you progressively discern God through the ministry of God the Sevenfold. Through Havona you discover God the Supreme. On Paradise you find him as a person, and then as finaliters you will presently attempt to know him as Ultimate. Being finaliters, there would seem to be but one course to pursue after having attained the Ultimate, and that would be to begin the quest of the Absolute. No finaliter will be disturbed by the uncertainties of the attainment of the Deity Absolute since at the end of the supreme and ultimate ascensions he encountered God the Father. Such finaliters will no doubt believe that, even if they should be successful in finding God the Absolute, they would only be discovering the same God, the Paradise Father manifesting himself on more nearly infinite and universal levels. Undoubtedly the attainment of God in absolute would reveal the Primal Ancestor of universes as well as the Final Father of personalities.
118:2.3 (1296.5)
God the Supreme may not be a demonstration of the time-space omnipresence of Deity, but he is literally a manifestation of divine ubiquity. Between the spiritual presence of the Creator and the material manifestations of creation there exists a vast domain of the ubiquitous becoming—the universe emergence of evolutionary Deity.
118:2.4 (1296.6)
If God the Supreme ever assumes direct control of the universes of time and space, we are confident such a Deity administration will function under the overcontrol of the Ultimate. In such an event God the Ultimate would begin to become manifest to the universes of time as the transcendental Almighty (the Omnipotent) exercising the overcontrol of supertime and transcended space concerning the administrative functions of the Almighty Supreme.
118:2.5 (1297.1)
The mortal mind may ask, even as we do: If the evolution of God the Supreme to administrative authority in the grand universe is attended by augmented manifestations of God the Ultimate, will a corresponding emergence of God the Ultimate in the postulated universes of outer space be attended by similar and enhanced revelations of God the Absolute? But we really do not know.
118:3.1 (1297.2)
Only by ubiquity could Deity unify time-space manifestations to the finite conception, for time is a succession of instants while space is a system of associated points. You do, after all, perceive time by analysis and space by synthesis. You co-ordinate and associate these two dissimilar conceptions by the integrating insight of personality. Of all the animal world only man possesses this time-space perceptibility. To an animal, motion has a meaning, but motion exhibits value only to a creature of personality status.
118:3.3 (1297.4)
Truth is inconcussible—forever exempt from all transient vicissitudes, albeit never dead and formal, always vibrant and adaptable—radiantly alive. But when truth becomes linked with fact, then both time and space condition its meanings and correlate its values. Such realities of truth wedded to fact become concepts and are accordingly relegated to the domain of relative cosmic realities.
118:3.4 (1297.5)
The linking of the absolute and eternal truth of the Creator with the factual experience of the finite and temporal creature eventuates a new and emerging value of the Supreme. The concept of the Supreme is essential to the co-ordination of the divine and unchanging overworld with the finite and ever-changing underworld.
118:3.5 (1297.6)
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.
118:3.6 (1297.7)
It may help to an understanding of space relationships if you would conjecture that, relatively speaking, space is after all a property of all material bodies. Hence, when a body moves through space, it also takes all its properties with it, even the space which is in and of such a moving body.
118:3.7 (1297.8)
All patterns of reality occupy space on the material levels, but spirit patterns only exist in relation to space; they do not occupy or displace space, neither do they contain it. But to us the master riddle of space pertains to the pattern of an idea. When we enter the mind domain, we encounter many a puzzle. Does the pattern—the reality—of an idea occupy space? We really do not know, albeit we are sure that an idea pattern does not contain space. But it would hardly be safe to postulate that the immaterial is always nonspatial.
118:4.1 (1298.1)
Many of the theologic difficulties and the metaphysical dilemmas of mortal man are due to man’s mislocation of Deity personality and consequent assignment of infinite and absolute attributes to subordinate Divinity and to evolutionary Deity. You must not forget that, while there is indeed a true First Cause, there are also a host of co-ordinate and subordinate causes, both associate and secondary causes.
118:4.2 (1298.2)
The vital distinction between first causes and second causes is that first causes produce original effects which are free from inheritance of any factor derived from any antecedent causation. Secondary causes yield effects which invariably exhibit inheritance from other and preceding causation.
118:4.3 (1298.3)
The purely static potentials inherent in the Unqualified Absolute are reactive to those causations of the Deity Absolute which are produced by the actions of the Paradise Trinity. In the presence of the Universal Absolute these causative-impregnated static potentials forthwith become active and responsive to the influence of certain transcendental agencies whose actions result in the transmutation of these activated potentials to the status of true universe possibilities for development, actualized capacities for growth. It is upon such matured potentials that the creators and controllers of the grand universe enact the never-ending drama of cosmic evolution.
2. 우주를 만들 능력이 궁극에 생기는 것. 이것은 차별되지 않은 잠재성을 분리되고 규명된 여러 계획으로 변화시키는 것을 포함한다. 이것은 궁극위 신, 그리고 초월 수준에 있는 다양한 대리자들의 행위이다. 그러한 행위는 총 우주 전체의 미래 필요 사항을 완전히 예상한 행위이다. 잠재성을 분리하는 것과 관련하여, 총 우주 건축가들은 우주들에 대한 신의 개념을 진정하게 구현(具現)한 것으로서 존재한다. 그들의 계획의 범위가 궁극에 공간에서 총 우주 개념의 경계에 제한을 받는 듯하지만, 계획으로서 달리 시간이나 공간에 제약을 받지 않는다.
118:4.6 (1298.6)
2. Eventuation of universe capacities. This involves the transformation of undifferentiated potentials into segregated and defined plans. This is the act of the Ultimacy of Deity and of the manifold agencies of the transcendental level. Such acts are in perfect anticipation of the future needs of the entire master universe. It is in connection with the segregation of potentials that the Architects of the Master Universe exist as the veritable embodiments of the Deity concept of the universes. Their plans appear to be ultimately space limited in extent by the concept periphery of the master universe, but as plans they are not otherwise conditioned by time or space.
3. 우주에 실재하는 것들의 창조와 진화. 수용 능력을 만들어 내는, 궁극위 신의 계심으로 말미암아 잉태된 한 우주 위에, 성숙한 잠재성을 체험적인 실재물로 시간 속에서 변질시키려고 최상 창조자들이 작용한다. 총 우주 안에서, 잠재하는 실체의 현실화는 모두 궁극의 발전 능력에 제한을 받으며, 마지막 출생 단계에서 시간과 공간에 제약을 받는다. 파라다이스로부터 나가는 창조 아들들은 사실로, 우주 의미에서 변화시키는 창조자이다. 그러나 이것은 어떤 면에서도 그들이 창조자라는, 사람의 개념을 무효로 만들지 않는다. 유한한 관점에서 볼 때, 그들은 확실히 창조할 수 있고, 또 창조한다.
118:4.7 (1298.7)
3. Creation and evolution of universe actuals. It is upon a cosmos impregnated by the capacity-producing presence of the Ultimacy of Deity that the Supreme Creators operate to effect the time transmutations of matured potentials into experiential actuals. Within the master universe all actualization of potential reality is limited by ultimate capacity for development and is time-space conditioned in the final stages of emergence. The Creator Sons going out from Paradise are, in actuality, transformative creators in the cosmic sense. But this in no manner invalidates man’s concept of them as creators; from the finite viewpoint they certainly can and do create.
신이 전능(全能)하다는 것은 할 수 없는 것을 행하는 힘을 뜻하지 않는다. 시간과 공간의 틀 안에서, 필사자가 이해하는 지적(知的) 기준점에서 볼 때, 무한한 하나님조차 네모난 동그라미를 만들거나 본래부터 착한 악을 만들 수 없다. 하나님은 신답지 않은 일을 할 수 없다. 철학 용어의 그러한 모순은 비존재에 상당하며, 아무것도 그렇게 창조되지 않음을 의미한다. 성격의 모습은 동시에 하나님다우면서 신답지 않게 될 수 없다. 공동 가능성은 신의 힘에 본래부터 있다. 이 모두가, 전능한 성질은 성품을 가진 사물을 창조할 뿐 아니라, 또한 모든 물건과 존재의 성품에 기원을 준다는 사실로부터 유래한다.
118:5.1 (1299.1)
The omnipotence of Deity does not imply the power to do the nondoable. Within the time-space frame and from the intellectual reference point of mortal comprehension, even the infinite God cannot create square circles or produce evil that is inherently good. God cannot do the ungodlike thing. Such a contradiction of philosophic terms is the equivalent of nonentity and implies that nothing is thus created. A personality trait cannot at the same time be Godlike and ungodlike. Compossibility is innate in divine power. And all of this is derived from the fact that omnipotence not only creates things with a nature but also gives origin to the nature of all things and beings.
처음에는 아버지가 모든 일을 하지만, 무한자의 뜻과 명령에 반응하여 영원의 전체 광경이 펼쳐짐에 따라서, 생물이, 아니 사람들조차, 최후의 운명을 실현하는 데 하나님과 협동자가 되리라는 것이 더욱 명백해진다. 이것은 육체를 입은 인생에서도 참말이다. 사람과 하나님이 협동 관계에 들어갈 때, 그러한 협동 관계의 미래 가능성에 아무런 한계를 지울 수 없다. 사람이 영원히 진보하면서 우주의 아버지가 짝이라는 것을 깨달을 때, 그가 깃드는 아버지의 계심과 융합할 때, 그는 정신적으로 시간의 사슬을 깨뜨렸고, 우주의 아버지를 추구하면서 영원히 진보하는 길에 이미 들어간 것이다.
118:5.2 (1299.2)
In the beginning the Father does all, but as the panorama of eternity unfolds in response to the will and mandates of the Infinite, it becomes increasingly apparent that creatures, even men, are to become God’s partners in the realization of finality of destiny. And this is true even in the life in the flesh; when man and God enter into partnership, no limitation can be placed upon the future possibilities of such a partnership. When man realizes that the Universal Father is his partner in eternal progression, when he fuses with the indwelling Father presence, he has, in spirit, broken the fetters of time and has already entered upon the progressions of eternity in the quest for the Universal Father.
필사자의 의식은 사실로부터 의미까지, 그리고 다음에 가치에 이르기까지 나아간다. 창조자의 의식은 생각과 가치로부터, 말씀과 의미를 거쳐서, 행위하는 사실로 나아간다. 언제나 하나님은 실존적 무한에 본래 있는 무제한 통일의 정지 상태를 깨뜨리려고 행동해야 한다. 언제나 신은 원본이 되는 우주, 완전한 성격자들을 마련하고, 신 아래에 있는 창조들이 얻으려고 애쓰는 최초의 진리ㆍ아름다움ㆍ선을 마련해야 한다. 나중에 사람이 하나님을 찾아내도록, 하나님은 반드시 먼저 사람을 찾아내야 한다. 우주의 아들들, 그리고 그 결과로 우주의 형제 단체가 있을 수 있기 전에, 우주의 아버지가 반드시 계셔야 한다.
118:5.3 (1299.3)
Mortal consciousness proceeds from the fact, to the meaning, and then to the value. Creator consciousness proceeds from the thought-value, through the word-meaning, to the fact of action. Always must God act to break the deadlock of the unqualified unity inherent in existential infinity. Always must Deity provide the pattern universe, the perfect personalities, the original truth, beauty, and goodness for which all subdeity creations strive. Always must God first find man that man may later find God. Always must there be a Universal Father before there can ever be universal sonship and consequent universal brotherhood.
118:6.2 (1299.5)
To advocate the omnificence of primal Deity would be equal to disenfranchising well-nigh a million Creator Sons of Paradise, not to mention the innumerable hosts of various other orders of concurring creative assistants. There is but one uncaused Cause in the whole universe. All other causes are derivatives of this one First Great Source and Center. And none of this philosophy does any violence to the free-willness of the myriads of the children of Deity scattered through a vast universe.
118:6.4 (1299.7)
All volition is relative. In the originating sense, only the Father-I AM possesses finality of volition; in the absolute sense, only the Father, the Son, and the Spirit exhibit the prerogatives of volition unconditioned by time and unlimited by space. Mortal man is endowed with free will, the power of choice, and though such choosing is not absolute, nevertheless, it is relatively final on the finite level and concerning the destiny of the choosing personality.
118:6.5 (1300.1)
Volition on any level short of the absolute encounters limitations which are constitutive in the very personality exercising the power of choice. Man cannot choose beyond the range of that which is choosable. He cannot, for instance, choose to be other than a human being except that he can elect to become more than a man; he can choose to embark upon the voyage of universe ascension, but this is because the human choice and the divine will happen to be coincident upon this point. And what a son desires and the Father wills will certainly come to pass.
118:6.6 (1300.2)
In the mortal life, paths of differential conduct are continually opening and closing, and during the times when choice is possible the human personality is constantly deciding between these many courses of action. Temporal volition is linked to time, and it must await the passing of time to find opportunity for expression. Spiritual volition has begun to taste liberation from the fetters of time, having achieved partial escape from time sequence, and that is because spiritual volition is self-identifying with the will of God.
118:6.7 (1300.3)
Volition, the act of choosing, must function within the universe frame which has actualized in response to higher and prior choosing. The entire range of human will is strictly finite-limited except in one particular: When man chooses to find God and to be like him, such a choice is superfinite; only eternity can disclose whether this choice is also superabsonite.
창조자의 의지와 인간 의지의 작용은, 대우주에서, 으뜸 건축가들이 지정한 한계 안에서, 그리고 그 가능성에 따라서 작용한다. 그러나 이 최대 한계를 이처럼 미리 예정한 것은, 이 테두리 안에서 인간 의지의 주권을 조금도 줄이지 않는다. 궁극의 선견(先見)도―모든 유한한 선택을 충분히 허락하면서―유한한 의지를 취소하지 않는다. 성숙하고 멀리 내다보는 인간은 어떤 나이 어린 동료의 결정을 아주 정확하게 예측할 수 있을지 모른다. 그러나 이 선견은 바로 그 결정을 내릴 자유와 진정한 성질을 전혀 빼앗지 않는다. 신들은 미숙한 의지(意志)의 행동 범위를 지혜롭게 제한했지만, 그런데도 그것은 이 정해진 한계 안에서 참된 의지이다.
118:7.1 (1300.5)
The function of Creator will and creature will, in the grand universe, operates within the limits, and in accordance with the possibilities, established by the Master Architects. This foreordination of these maximum limits does not, however, in the least abridge the sovereignty of creature will within these boundaries. Neither does ultimate foreknowledge—full allowance for all finite choice—constitute an abrogation of finite volition. A mature and farseeing human being might be able to forecast the decision of some younger associate most accurately, but this foreknowledge takes nothing away from the freedom and genuineness of the decision itself. The Gods have wisely limited the range of the action of immature will, but it is true will, nonetheless, within these defined limits.
118:7.2 (1300.6)
Even the supreme correlation of all past, present, and future choice does not invalidate the authenticity of such choosings. It rather indicates the foreordained trend of the cosmos and suggests foreknowledge of those volitional beings who may, or may not, elect to become contributory parts of the experiential actualization of all reality.
118:7.3 (1300.7)
Error in finite choosing is time bound and time limited. It can exist only in time and within the evolving presence of the Supreme Being. Such mistaken choosing is time possible and indicates (besides the incompleteness of the Supreme) that certain range of choice with which immature creatures must be endowed in order to enjoy universe progression by making freewill contact with reality.
118:7.5 (1301.2)
Iniquity in the finite domains reveals the transient reality of all God-unidentified selfhood. Only as a creature becomes God identified, does he become truly real in the universes. Finite personality is not self-created, but in the superuniverse arena of choice it does self-determine destiny.
118:7.6 (1301.3)
The bestowal of life renders material-energy systems capable of self-perpetuation, self-propagation, and self-adaptation. The bestowal of personality imparts to living organisms the further prerogatives of self-determination, self-evolution, and self-identification with a fusion spirit of Deity.
인격이 없는 살아 있는 존재들은, 처음에는 물리 통제자로서, 다음에는 보조 지성 영으로서, 에너지와 물질을 활성화시키는 지성이 있음을 가리킨다. 인격의 부여는 아버지로부터 오며, 살아 있는 체계에 독특한 선택할 특권을 나눠준다. 그러나 인격이 의지함으로 실체를 확인하려고 선택하는 특권이 있고, 이것이 참되고 자유로운 선택이라면, 진화하는 인격은 또한 자신을 혼동시키고, 자아를 교란하고 자아를 파괴하게 되는 선택을 내릴 수 있어야 한다. 진화하는 인격이 유한자의 의지를 참으로 자유롭게 행사하려면, 우주에서 스스로 파멸하는 가능성은 피할 수 없다.
118:7.7 (1301.4)
Subpersonal living things indicate mind activating energy-matter, first as physical controllers, and then as adjutant mind-spirits. Personality endowment comes from the Father and imparts unique prerogatives of choice to the living system. But if personality has the prerogative of exercising volitional choice of reality identification, and if this is a true and free choice, then must evolving personality also have the possible choice of becoming self-confusing, self-disrupting, and self-destroying. The possibility of cosmic self-destruction cannot be avoided if the evolving personality is to be truly free in the exercise of finite will.
118:7.8 (1301.5)
Therefore is there increased safety in narrowing the limits of personality choice throughout the lower levels of existence. Choice becomes increasingly liberated as the universes are ascended; choice eventually approximates divine freedom when the ascending personality achieves divinity of status, supremacy of consecration to the purposes of the universe, completion of cosmic-wisdom attainment, and finality of creature identification with the will and the way of God.
118:8.1 (1301.6)
In the time-space creations, free will is hedged about with restraints, with limitations. Material-life evolution is first mechanical, then mind activated, and (after the bestowal of personality) it may become spirit directed. Organic evolution on the inhabited worlds is physically limited by the potentials of the original physical-life implantations of the Life Carriers.
필사 인간은 기계요, 살아 있는 기계 작용이다. 사람의 뿌리는 참으로 물리적 에너지 세계에 있다. 인간의 여러 반응은 기계적 성질이 있고, 생명의 많은 부분이 기계와 같다. 그러나 하나의 기계 작용인 사람은 기계보다 훨씬 더 크다. 그는 지성을 부여 받고 그에게 영이 깃든다. 비록 그가 물질적 인생을 사는 동안 내내, 그의 존재의 화학 및 전기 작용을 피할 수 없어도, 깃드는 생각 조절자의 영적 충동을 집행하는 데 인간의 지성을 거룩하게 바치는 과정으로 인하여, 그는 어떻게 이 물질적 생명 기계를, 체험이 지휘하는 지혜에 굴복시키는가 더욱 배울 수 있다.
118:8.2 (1301.7)
Mortal man is a machine, a living mechanism; his roots are truly in the physical world of energy. Many human reactions are mechanical in nature; much of life is machinelike. But man, a mechanism, is much more than a machine; he is mind endowed and spirit indwelt; and though he can never throughout his material life escape the chemical and electrical mechanics of his existence, he can increasingly learn how to subordinate this physical-life machine to the directive wisdom of experience by the process of consecrating the human mind to the execution of the spiritual urges of the indwelling Thought Adjuster.
118:8.3 (1301.8)
The spirit liberates, and the mechanism limits, the function of will. Imperfect choice, uncontrolled by mechanism, unidentified with spirit, is dangerous and unstable. Mechanical dominance insures stability at the expense of progress; spirit alliance liberates choice from the physical level and at the same time assures the divine stability produced by augmented universe insight and increased cosmic comprehension.
118:8.4 (1302.1)
The great danger that besets the creature is that, in achieving liberation from the fetters of the life mechanism, he will fail to compensate this loss of stability by effecting a harmonious working liaison with spirit. Creature choice, when relatively liberated from mechanical stability, may attempt further self-liberation independent of greater spirit identification.
생물학적 진화의 총 원칙은 사람 사는 세계에서 원시인이 어떤 자제하는 큰 자질을 가지고 나타나는 것을 불가능하게 만든다. 따라서 진화를 의도한 바로 그 창조적 설계는 시공의 외부 제한, 즉 배고픔과 두려움을 마찬가지로 마련해 주어야 하며, 이것들은 교양이 없는 그러한 인간이 영적 수준 이하로 선택하는 범위에 실질적으로 선을 긋는다. 사람의 머리가 점점 더 어려운 장벽을 넘는 데 성공함에 따라서, 바로 이 창조적 설계는 또한 종족 유산, 곧 피땀 흘려서 얻은 체험적 지혜가 천천히 쌓이도록 마련하였다―다시 말해서, 감소되는 외부 제한과 증가하는 내부 제한 사이에 균형을 유지하게 만들었다.
118:8.5 (1302.2)
The whole principle of biologic evolution makes it impossible for primitive man to appear on the inhabited worlds with any large endowment of self-restraint. Therefore does the same creative design which purposed evolution likewise provide those external restraints of time and space, hunger and fear, which effectively circumscribe the subspiritual choice range of such uncultured creatures. As man’s mind successfully overstrides increasingly difficult barriers, this same creative design has also provided for the slow accumulation of the racial heritage of painfully garnered experiential wisdom—in other words, for the maintenance of a balance between the diminishing external restraints and the augmenting internal restraints.
진화, 즉 인간의 문화가 느리게 진보하는 것은 그 브레이크―물질적 타성―이 효과 있음을 증거하며, 이것은 위험한 진보 속도를 늦추도록 아주 효과 있게 작용한다. 이처럼 시간 그 자체는, 인간의 행위를 둘러싸는 다음 장벽을 때 이르게 벗어나는 결과, 그렇게 하지 않으면 치명적일 결과를 완화시키고 분산시킨다. 문화가 너무 빨리 진보할 때, 물질적 성취가 예배 및 지혜의 진화를 앞지를 때, 이때 문명은 그 속에 퇴보의 씨앗을 품기 때문이다. 체험적 지혜가 빠르게 늘어나서 뒷받침하지 않으면, 그러한 인간 사회는 높지만 때 이르게 도달한 수준에서 물러설 것이요, 지혜의 공백 기간, “암흑 시대”가 자아의 해방과 자제(自制) 사이의 불균형을 용서 없이 원상태로 회복할 것이다.
118:8.6 (1302.3)
The slowness of evolution, of human cultural progress, testifies to the effectiveness of that brake—material inertia—which so efficiently operates to retard dangerous velocities of progress. Thus does time itself cushion and distribute the otherwise lethal results of premature escape from the next-encompassing barriers to human action. For when culture advances overfast, when material achievement outruns the evolution of worship-wisdom, then does civilization contain within itself the seeds of retrogression; and unless buttressed by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such human societies will recede from high but premature levels of attainment, and the “dark ages” of the interregnum of wisdom will bear witness to the inexorable restoration of the imbalance between self-liberty and self-control.
118:8.9 (1302.6)
Lucifer similarly sought to disrupt the time governor operating in restraint of the premature attainment of certain liberties in the local system. A local system settled in light and life has experientially achieved those viewpoints and insights which make feasible the operation of many techniques that would be disruptive and destructive in the presettled eras of that very realm.
사람이 두려움의 쇠고랑을 떨쳐 버림에 따라서, 사람이 기계로 대륙과 대양을 좁히고, 그의 기록으로 여러 세대와 세기(世紀)를 좁힘에 따라서, 성장하는 인간 지혜의 도덕적 명령에 따라서, 그는 뛰어넘은 각 제한을 새롭고 자진해서 부과한 제한으로 갈아치워야 한다. 스스로 부과한 이 제한―응보의 개념과 형제 정신의 이상―은 인간 문명의 모든 요소 가운데 가장 강력하고도 가장 약하다. 사람은 감히 동료 인간을 사랑할 때 자제하는 자비의 옷을 입을 자격까지 갖추며, 한편 자신이 받고 싶어 하는 대로, 아니 하나님이 인간 동료를 어떻게 대접할 것이라 생각되는 대로 그들을 대우할 때, 비로소 영적 형제 정신에 도달한다.
118:8.10 (1302.7)
As man shakes off the shackles of fear, as he bridges continents and oceans with his machines, generations and centuries with his records, he must substitute for each transcended restraint a new and voluntarily assumed restraint in accordance with the moral dictates of expanding human wisdom. These self-imposed restraints are at once the most powerful and the most tenuous of all the factors of human civilization—concepts of justice and ideals of brotherhood. Man even qualifies himself for the restraining garments of mercy when he dares to love his fellow men, while he achieves the beginnings of spiritual brotherhood when he elects to mete out to them that treatment which he himself would be accorded, even that treatment which he conceives that God would accord them.
118:8.11 (1303.1)
An automatic universe reaction is stable and, in some form, continuing in the cosmos. A personality who knows God and desires to do his will, who has spirit insight, is divinely stable and eternally existent. Man’s great universe adventure consists in the transit of his mortal mind from the stability of mechanical statics to the divinity of spiritual dynamics, and he achieves this transformation by the force and constancy of his own personality decisions, in each of life’s situations declaring, “It is my will that your will be done.”
118:9.1 (1303.2)
Time and space are a conjoined mechanism of the master universe. They are the devices whereby finite creatures are enabled to coexist in the cosmos with the Infinite. Finite creatures are effectively insulated from the absolute levels by time and space. But these insulating media, without which no mortal could exist, operate directly to limit the range of finite action. Without them no creature could act, but by them the acts of every creature are definitely limited.
118:9.2 (1303.3)
Mechanisms produced by higher minds function to liberate their creative sources but to some degree unvaryingly limit the action of all subordinate intelligences. To the creatures of the universes this limitation becomes apparent as the mechanism of the universes. Man does not have unfettered free will; there are limits to his range of choice, but within the radius of this choice his will is relatively sovereign.
118:9.3 (1303.4)
The life mechanism of the mortal personality, the human body, is the product of supermortal creative design; therefore it can never be perfectly controlled by man himself. Only when ascending man, in liaison with the fused Adjuster, self-creates the mechanism for personality expression, will he achieve perfected control thereof.
118:9.4 (1303.5)
The grand universe is mechanism as well as organism, mechanical and living—a living mechanism activated by a Supreme Mind, co-ordinating with a Supreme Spirit, and finding expression on maximum levels of power and personality unification as the Supreme Being. But to deny the mechanism of the finite creation is to deny fact and to disregard reality.
118:9.5 (1303.6)
Mechanisms are the products of mind, creative mind acting on and in cosmic potentials. Mechanisms are the fixed crystallizations of Creator thought, and they ever function true to the volitional concept that gave them origin. But the purposiveness of any mechanism is in its origin, not in its function.
118:9.6 (1303.7)
These mechanisms should not be thought of as limiting the action of Deity; rather is it true that in these very mechanics Deity has achieved one phase of eternal expression. The basic universe mechanisms have come into existence in response to the absolute will of the First Source and Center, and they will therefore eternally function in perfect harmony with the plan of the Infinite; they are, indeed, the nonvolitional patterns of that very plan.
118:9.7 (1303.8)
We understand something of how the mechanism of Paradise is correlated with the personality of the Eternal Son; this is the function of the Conjoint Actor. And we have theories regarding the operations of the Universal Absolute with respect to the theoretical mechanisms of the Unqualified and the potential person of the Deity Absolute. But in the evolving Deities of Supreme and Ultimate we observe that certain impersonal phases are being actually united with their volitional counterparts, and thus there is evolving a new relationship between pattern and person.
과거 영원에 아버지와 아들은 일치하여 무한한 영을 표현한 가운데 연합하였다. 미래 영원에 만약 시공의 지역 우주의 창조 아들과 창조 영들이 바깥 공간 영역에서 창조적 연합을 이룬다면, 그들의 신다운 성품의 통합된 표현으로서 그들이 하나됨은 무엇을 창조할 것인가? 여태까지 밝혀지지 않은 궁극 신의 명시, 즉 새로운 부류의 초월 행정가를 우리가 구경하게 될지도 모른다. 그러한 존재들은 성격을 가진 창조자, 비성격인 창조 영, 필사 인간의 체험, 신성한 봉사자의 점진적 성격화의 연합이니까, 고유한 성격 특권을 지닐 것이다. 그들이 성격 및 비성격 실체를 포함하고, 한편 창조자와 인간의 체험을 통합할 것이므로, 그러한 존재들은 궁극의 존재일 수 있다. 바깥 공간의 우주들에서 활동할 것이라고 가정된, 이 여러 삼자일체의 그런 셋째 성격자들이 무슨 속성을 가졌든, 그들은 무한한 영이 우주의 아버지와 영원한 아들과 유지하는 바로 그 관계와 비슷한 무엇을 그들의 창조 아버지와 창조 어머니들에 대하여 유지할 것이다.
118:9.8 (1304.1)
In the eternity of the past the Father and the Son found union in the unity of the expression of the Infinite Spirit. If, in the eternity of the future, the Creator Sons and the Creative Spirits of the local universes of time and space should attain creative union in the realms of outer space, what would their unity create as the combined expression of their divine natures? It may well be that we are to witness a hitherto unrevealed manifestation of Ultimate Deity, a new type of superadministrator. Such beings would embrace unique prerogatives of personality, being the union of personal Creator, impersonal Creative Spirit, mortal-creature experience, and progressive personalization of the Divine Minister. Such beings could be ultimate in that they would embrace personal and impersonal reality, while they would combine the experiences of Creator and creature. Whatever the attributes of such third persons of these postulated functioning trinities of the creations of outer space, they will sustain something of the same relation to their Creator Fathers and their Creative Mothers that the Infinite Spirit does to the Universal Father and the Eternal Son.
118:9.9 (1304.2)
God the Supreme is the personalization of all universe experience, the focalization of all finite evolution, the maximation of all creature reality, the consummation of cosmic wisdom, the embodiment of the harmonious beauties of the galaxies of time, the truth of cosmic mind meanings, and the goodness of supreme spirit values. And God the Supreme will, in the eternal future, synthesize these manifold finite diversities into one experientially meaningful whole, even as they are now existentially united on absolute levels in the Paradise Trinity.
118:10.1 (1304.3)
Providence does not mean that God has decided all things for us and in advance. God loves us too much to do that, for that would be nothing short of cosmic tyranny. Man does have relative powers of choice. Neither is the divine love that shortsighted affection which would pamper and spoil the children of men.
118:10.2 (1304.4)
The Father, Son, and Spirit—as the Trinity—are not the Almighty Supreme, but the supremacy of the Almighty can never be manifest without them. The growth of the Almighty is centered on the Absolutes of actuality and predicated on the Absolutes of potentiality. But the functions of the Almighty Supreme are related to the functions of the Paradise Trinity.
118:10.3 (1304.5)
It would appear that, in the Supreme Being, all phases of universe activity are being partially reunited by the personality of this experiential Deity. When, therefore, we desire to view the Trinity as one God, and if we limit this concept to the present known and organized grand universe, we discover that the evolving Supreme Being is the partial portraiture of the Paradise Trinity. And we further find that this Supreme Deity is evolving as the personality synthesis of finite matter, mind, and spirit in the grand universe.
118:10.4 (1304.6)
The Gods have attributes but the Trinity has functions, and like the Trinity, providence is a function, the composite of the other-than-personal overcontrol of the universe of universes, extending from the evolutionary levels of the Sevenfold synthesizing in the power of the Almighty on up through the transcendental realms of the Ultimacy of Deity.
118:10.5 (1304.7)
God loves each creature as a child, and that love overshadows each creature throughout all time and eternity. Providence functions with regard to the total and deals with the function of any creature as such function is related to the total. Providential intervention with regard to any being is indicative of the importance of the function of that being as concerns the evolutionary growth of some total; such total may be the total race, the total nation, the total planet, or even a higher total. It is the importance of the function of the creature that occasions providential intervention, not the importance of the creature as a person.
118:10.7 (1305.2)
But what man calls providence is all too often the product of his own imagination, the fortuitous juxtaposition of the circumstances of chance. There is, however, a real and emerging providence in the finite realm of universe existence, a true and actualizing correlation of the energies of space, the motions of time, the thoughts of intellect, the ideals of character, the desires of spiritual natures, and the purposive volitional acts of evolving personalities. The circumstances of the material realms find final finite integration in the interlocking presences of the Supreme and the Ultimate.
118:10.8 (1305.3)
As the mechanisms of the grand universe are perfected to a point of final precision through the overcontrol of mind, and as creature mind ascends to the perfection of divinity attainment through perfected integration with spirit, and as the Supreme consequently emerges as an actual unifier of all these universe phenomena, so does providence become increasingly discernible.
진화 세계에서 때때로 생기는 놀랍게 우연한 어떤 조건들은 차츰 솟아나는 최상위의 계심 때문일지 모르고, 이것은 그의 미래 우주 활동을 미리 맛보는 것이다. 필사자가 섭리라고 부르고 싶어 하는 것들의 대부분은 섭리가 아니다. 그러한 문제에 대한 판단은, 인생의 여러 상황의 참 의미까지 멀리 내다보는 시력이 모자라기 때문에 대단히 지장을 받는다. 필사자가 행운이라고 부르고 싶어 하는 많은 것은 정말로 불운인지 모른다. 벌어들이지 않은 여가와 받을 자격이 없는 재산을 주는 행운의 미소는 인간의 고통 가운데 가장 큰 것일지도 모른다. 고통받는 어느 필사자에게 시련을 퍼붓는, 잔인하게 보이는 부당한 운명은, 실제로 물렁한 쇠처럼 미숙한 인격을 단련된 강철 같은 참 인품으로 변화시키는, 단련의 불인지 모른다.
118:10.9 (1305.4)
Some of the amazingly fortuitous conditions occasionally prevailing on the evolutionary worlds may be due to the gradually emerging presence of the Supreme, the foretasting of his future universe activities. Most of what a mortal would call providential is not; his judgment of such matters is very handicapped by lack of farsighted vision into the true meanings of the circumstances of life. Much of what a mortal would call good luck might really be bad luck; the smile of fortune that bestows unearned leisure and undeserved wealth may be the greatest of human afflictions; the apparent cruelty of a perverse fate that heaps tribulation upon some suffering mortal may in reality be the tempering fire that is transmuting the soft iron of immature personality into the tempered steel of real character.
118:10.10 (1305.5)
There is a providence in the evolving universes, and it can be discovered by creatures to just the extent that they have attained capacity to perceive the purpose of the evolving universes. Complete capacity to discern universe purposes equals the evolutionary completion of the creature and may otherwise be expressed as the attainment of the Supreme within the limits of the present state of the incomplete universes.
아버지의 사랑은 개인의 마음 속에서, 모든 다른 개인의 행위나 반응에 상관 없이, 직접 작용한다. 그 관계―사람과 하나님―은 개인적이다. 신의 비성격 계심(전능한 최상위와 파라다이스 삼위일체)은 부분에 대해서가 아니라 전체에 대한 존중을 나타낸다. 최상위가 전반적으로 통제한다는 섭리는 유한한 운명에 도달하는 데 우주에서 진보하는 연속된 부분으로서 갈수록 더 명백해진다. 체계ㆍ별자리ㆍ우주ㆍ초우주들이 빛과 생명 속에 안정됨에 따라서, 최상위는 벌어지고 있는 모든 사건을 뜻 있게 상관시키는 자로서 점점 더 솟아나며, 한편 궁극위는 만물의 초월 통일자로서 차츰차츰 솟아난다.
118:10.11 (1305.6)
The love of the Father operates directly in the heart of the individual, independent of the actions or reactions of all other individuals; the relationship is personal—man and God. The impersonal presence of Deity (Almighty Supreme and Paradise Trinity) manifests regard for the whole, not for the part. The providence of the overcontrol of Supremacy becomes increasingly apparent as the successive parts of the universe progress in the attainment of finite destinies. As the systems, constellations, universes, and superuniverses become settled in light and life, the Supreme increasingly emerges as the meaningful correlator of all that is transpiring, while the Ultimate gradually emerges as the transcendental unifier of all things.
118:10.12 (1306.1)
In the beginnings on an evolutionary world the natural occurrences of the material order and the personal desires of human beings often appear to be antagonistic. Much that takes place on an evolving world is rather hard for mortal man to understand—natural law is so often apparently cruel, heartless, and indifferent to all that is true, beautiful, and good in human comprehension. But as humanity progresses in planetary development, we observe that this viewpoint is modified by the following factors:
118:10.13 (1306.2)
1. Man’s augmenting vision—his increased understanding of the world in which he lives; his enlarging capacity for the comprehension of the material facts of time, the meaningful ideas of thought, and the valuable ideals of spiritual insight. As long as men measure only by the yardstick of the things of a physical nature, they can never hope to find unity in time and space.
2. 사람의 증가하는 통제―물질 세계의 법칙에 대한 지식의 점진적 누적, 영적 존재의 목적, 그리고 이 두 실체를 철학으로 조정하는 가능성. 사람, 야만인은 자연력의 공격을 받고서 무력했고, 자신의 마음 속에 있는 두려움에 불쌍하게 지배되어 노예 같았다. 반(半)문명화된 사람은 자연 영역의 비밀이 쌓인 창고를 비로소 열고 있으며, 과학은 느리지만 효과 있게 미신(迷信)을 깨뜨리고 있고, 한편 동시에 철학의 의미와 참된 영적 체험의 가치를 이해하기 위하여, 새롭고 확대된 사실적 기초를 마련해 주고 있다. 문명화된 사람은 언젠가 행성의 자연력을 비교적 통달하는 일을 성취할 것이다. 마음 속에서 하나님을 사랑함은 동료 인간에게 주는 사랑으로서 실질적으로 퍼부어질 것이요, 한편 인간 존재의 가치는 필사자 능력의 한계에 가까이 갈 것이다.
118:10.14 (1306.3)
2. Man’s increasing control—the gradual accumulation of the knowledge of the laws of the material world, the purposes of spiritual existence, and the possibilities of the philosophic co-ordination of these two realities. Man, the savage, was helpless before the onslaughts of natural forces, was slavish before the cruel mastery of his own inner fears. Semicivilized man is beginning to unlock the storehouse of the secrets of the natural realms, and his science is slowly but effectively destroying his superstitions while at the same time providing a new and enlarged factual basis for the comprehension of the meanings of philosophy and the values of true spiritual experience. Man, the civilized, will someday achieve relative mastery of the physical forces of his planet; the love of God in his heart will be effectively outpoured as love for his fellow men, while the values of human existence will be nearing the limits of mortal capacity.
3. 사람의 우주 통합―인간의 통찰력이 높아지고 그 위에 인간의 체험적 성취가 증가하면, 사람을 최상위의 통일하는 계심―파라다이스 삼위일체와 최상 존재―와 더욱 조화되게 만든다. 바로 이것이 빛과 생명 속에 오랫동안 안정된 세계들에서 최상위의 통치권을 확립한다. 그렇게 진보된 행성들은 정말로 조화의 시(詩)요, 우주 진리를 추구함으로 얻은 선, 성취한 선의 아름다움을 나타내는 그림이다. 그러한 일이 한 행성에서 일어날 수 있다면, 이때 대우주에서 한 체계와 상급 단위에, 그들도 또한 유한한 성장 잠재성이 소모되었음을 가리키는 정착된 상태에 도달함에 따라서, 더욱 큰 일이 일어날 수 있다.
118:10.15 (1306.4)
3. Man’s universe integration—the increase of human insight plus the increase of human experiential achievement brings him into closer harmony with the unifying presences of Supremacy—Paradise Trinity and Supreme Being. And this is what establishes the sovereignty of the Supreme on the worlds long settled in light and life. Such advanced planets are indeed poems of harmony, pictures of the beauty of achieved goodness attained through the pursuit of cosmic truth. And if such things can happen to a planet, then even greater things can happen to a system and the larger units of the grand universe as they too achieve a settledness indicating the exhaustion of the potentials for finite growth.
118:10.16 (1306.5)
On a planet of this advanced order, providence has become an actuality, the circumstances of life are correlated, but this is not only because man has come to dominate the material problems of his world; it is also because he has begun to live according to the trend of the universes; he is following the pathway of Supremacy to the attainment of the Universal Father.
118:10.18 (1306.7)
To realize providence in time, man must accomplish the task of achieving perfection. But man can even now foretaste this providence in its eternity meanings as he ponders the universe fact that all things, be they good or evil, work together for the advancement of God-knowing mortals in their quest for the Father of all.
118:10.19 (1306.8)
Providence becomes increasingly discernible as men reach upward from the material to the spiritual. The attainment of completed spiritual insight enables the ascending personality to detect harmony in what was theretofore chaos. Even morontia mota represents a real advance in this direction.
사람들이 인생의 여러 상황에서 섭리의 간섭이 있기를 빌 때, 그들의 기도에 대한 응답은 인생에 대한 그들 자신의 태도를 변화시키는 경우가 많다. 그러나 섭리는 변덕스럽지 않고, 환상이나 요술도 아니다. 섭리는 유한한 우주들의 강력한 군주가 천천히, 확실히 솟아나는 것이요, 진화하는 인간은 우주에서 진보하면서 때때로 그의 위엄 있는 계심을 탐지한다. 섭리는 처음에 최상위에, 다음에 궁극위에, 그리고 아마도 절대자 안에 있는 영원의 목표들을 향하여, 공간의 은하와 시간 세계의 성격자들이 확실하고 분명하게 행진하는 것이다. 우리는 무한 속에 똑같은 섭리가 있다고 믿으며, 이것이 수많은 우주에서 우주의 전체 광경을 이처럼 동원하는 파라다이스 삼위일체의 뜻이요, 행위요, 목적이다.
118:10.23 (1307.4)
When men pray for providential intervention in the circumstances of life, many times the answer to their prayer is their own changed attitudes toward life. But providence is not whimsical, neither is it fantastic nor magical. It is the slow and sure emergence of the mighty sovereign of the finite universes, whose majestic presence the evolving creatures occasionally detect in their universe progressions. Providence is the sure and certain march of the galaxies of space and the personalities of time toward the goals of eternity, first in the Supreme, then in the Ultimate, and perhaps in the Absolute. And in infinity we believe there is the same providence, and this is the will, the actions, the purpose of the Paradise Trinity thus motivating the cosmic panorama of universes upon universes.