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      Paper 3

The Attributes of God

      3:0.1 (44.1) GOD is everywhere present; the Universal Father rules the circle of eternity. But he rules in the local universes in the persons of his Paradise Creator Sons, even as he bestows life through these Sons. “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Sons.” These Creator Sons of God are the personal expression of himself in the sectors of time and to the children of the whirling planets of the evolving universes of space.

      3:0.2 (44.2) The highly personalized Sons of God are clearly discernible by the lower orders of created intelligences, and so do they compensate for the invisibility of the infinite and therefore less discernible Father. The Paradise Creator Sons of the Universal Father are a revelation of an otherwise invisible being, invisible because of the absoluteness and infinity inherent in the circle of eternity and in the personalities of the Paradise Deities.

      3:0.3 (44.3) Creatorship is hardly an attribute of God; it is rather the aggregate of his acting nature. And this universal function of creatorship is eternally manifested as it is conditioned and controlled by all the co-ordinated attributes of the infinite and divine reality of the First Source and Center. We sincerely doubt whether any one characteristic of the divine nature can be regarded as being antecedent to the others, but if such were the case, then the creatorship nature of Deity would take precedence over all other natures, activities, and attributes. And the creatorship of Deity culminates in the universal truth of the Fatherhood of God.

1. God’s Everywhereness

      3:1.1 (44.4) The ability of the Universal Father to be everywhere present, and at the same time, constitutes his omnipresence. God alone can be in two places, in numberless places, at the same time. God is simultaneously present “in heaven above and on the earth beneath”; as the Psalmist exclaimed: “Whither shall I go from your spirit? or whither shall I flee from your presence?”

      3:1.2 (44.5) “‘I am a God at hand as well as afar off,’ says the Lord. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’” The Universal Father is all the time present in all parts and in all hearts of his far-flung creation. He is “the fullness of him who fills all and in all,” and “who works all in all,” and further, the concept of his personality is such that “the heaven (universe) and heaven of heavens (universe of universes) cannot contain him.” It is literally true that God is all and in all. But even that is not all of God. The Infinite can be finally revealed only in infinity; the cause can never be fully comprehended by an analysis of effects; the living God is immeasurably greater than the sum total of creation that has come into being as a result of the creative acts of his unfettered free will. God is revealed throughout the cosmos, but the cosmos can never contain or encompass the entirety of the infinity of God.

      3:1.3 (45.1) The Father’s presence unceasingly patrols the master universe. “His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it; and there is nothing hidden from the light thereof.”

      3:1.4 (45.2) The creature not only exists in God, but God also lives in the creature. “We know we dwell in him because he lives in us; he has given us his spirit. This gift from the Paradise Father is man’s inseparable companion.” “He is the ever-present and all-pervading God.” “The spirit of the everlasting Father is concealed in the mind of every mortal child.” “Man goes forth searching for a friend while that very friend lives within his own heart.” “The true God is not afar off; he is a part of us; his spirit speaks from within us.” “The Father lives in the child. God is always with us. He is the guiding spirit of eternal destiny.”

      3:1.5 (45.3) Truly of the human race has it been said, “You are of God” because “he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.” Even in wrongdoing you torment the indwelling gift of God, for the Thought Adjuster must needs go through the consequences of evil thinking with the human mind of its incarceration.

      3:1.6 (45.4) The omnipresence of God is in reality a part of his infinite nature; space constitutes no barrier to Deity. God is, in perfection and without limitation, discernibly present only on Paradise and in the central universe. He is not thus observably present in the creations encircling Havona, for God has limited his direct and actual presence in recognition of the sovereignty and the divine prerogatives of the co-ordinate creators and rulers of the universes of time and space. Hence must the concept of the divine presence allow for a wide range of both mode and channel of manifestation embracing the presence circuits of the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and the Isle of Paradise. Nor is it always possible to distinguish between the presence of the Universal Father and the actions of his eternal co-ordinates and agencies, so perfectly do they fulfill all the infinite requirements of his unchanging purpose. But not so with the personality circuit and the Adjusters; here God acts uniquely, directly, and exclusively.

      3:1.7 (45.5) The Universal Controller is potentially present in the gravity circuits of the Isle of Paradise in all parts of the universe at all times and in the same degree, in accordance with the mass, in response to the physical demands for this presence, and because of the inherent nature of all creation which causes all things to adhere and consist in him. Likewise is the First Source and Center potentially present in the Unqualified Absolute, the repository of the uncreated universes of the eternal future. God thus potentially pervades the physical universes of the past, present, and future. He is the primordial foundation of the coherence of the so-called material creation. This nonspiritual Deity potential becomes actual here and there throughout the level of physical existences by the inexplicable intrusion of some one of his exclusive agencies upon the stage of universe action.

      3:1.8 (45.6) The mind presence of God is correlated with the absolute mind of the Conjoint Actor, the Infinite Spirit, but in the finite creations it is better discerned in the everywhere functioning of the cosmic mind of the Paradise Master Spirits. Just as the First Source and Center is potentially present in the mind circuits of the Conjoint Actor, so is he potentially present in the tensions of the Universal Absolute. But mind of the human order is a bestowal of the Daughters of the Conjoint Actor, the Divine Ministers of the evolving universes.

      3:1.9 (46.1) The everywhere-present spirit