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God's Incomprehensibility

6 posts · 2 participants · started Jan 3, 2015, 12:49 PM

Richard E WarrenParticipant
Jan 3, 2015, 12:49 PM
Dear Forum Friends,

The authors of the Truth, Beauty & Goodness quotes refer to comprehending Our Father several times, but then also suggest God is not entirely comprehensible. The third of the 84 is about God’s INcomprehensibility:

…God is much more than a personality as personality is understood by the human mind; he is even far more than any possible concept of a superpersonality. But it is utterly futile to discuss such incomprehensible concepts of divine personality with the minds of material creatures whose maximum concept of the reality of being consists in the idea and ideal of personality. The material creature’s highest possible concept of the Universal Creator is embraced within the spiritual ideals of the exalted idea of divine personality. Therefore, although you may know that God must be much more than the human conception of personality, you equally well know that the Universal Father cannot possibly be anything less than an eternal, infinite, true, good, and beautiful personality…. (27.4) 1:5.2

Would we want the God of the Universe any other way?

***

All 84 TB&G quotes are available in 16 languages:

https://urassoc.arko.nyc/forums/topic/84-truth-beauty-goodness-quotes-2/

Richard E Warren
BonitaParticipant
Jan 3, 2015, 4:01 PM
That is amazing Rick. Just two days ago I began working on an essay concerning all that is described as incomprehensible in the UB. We must be working on similar ideas, which is proof that minds sometimes run together in channels. In my study I came up against a question I have yet to answer for myself: Is the incomprehensibility of God make him partially unknowable? I think there is a subtle difference between knowing God and comprehending God . . . but I’m still thinking on that.

As for now, my thoughts on the incomprehensibility of God center on the fact that the incomprehensible God actually lives within us and desires to make himself comprehensible, and knowable. That fact alone is pretty incomprehensible. And even though we have an eternity to comprehend God, he will never exhaust his potential to reveal more of his incomprehensibleness. So there it is . . . no matter how much we comprehend, there is more to comprehend. And yes, that is the way I want it to be, I relish the thrill of knowing that there is always something else to experience and know. I think it’s related to the concept of uncertainty, another sweet blessing to feast upon.

But that aside, there are two other projects I just started working on for the forum for the new year. I think I’ll hold off and see if you’ll do that work for me Rick, as an experiment concerning kindred minds. What do you think?
Richard E WarrenParticipant
Jan 4, 2015, 11:05 AM

Bonita wrote:

.

…I think there is a subtle difference between knowing God and comprehending God . . . but I’m still thinking on that.

Agree! And it may not even be subtle.

Bonita wrote:

As for now, my thoughts on the incomprehensibility of God center on the fact that the incomprehensible God actually lives within us and desires to make himself comprehensible, and knowable. That fact alone is pretty incomprehensible. And even though we have an eternity to comprehend God, he will never exhaust his potential to reveal more of his incomprehensibleness. So there it is . . . no matter how much we comprehend, there is more to comprehend. And yes, that is the way I want it to be, I relish the thrill of knowing that there is always something else to experience and know. I think it’s related to the concept of uncertainty, another sweet blessing to feast upon. But that aside, there are two other projects I just started working on for the forum for the new year. I think I’ll hold off and see if you’ll do that work for me Rick, as an experiment concerning kindred minds. What do you think?

Ok, let’s see if this is the theme of one of your two projects:

Eight of the 84 TB&G quotes (and one the primary themes of The Urantia Book) are associated with doing Father’s will. Note the emphasis on Godlikeness in the first three:

60. …An experience is good when it heightens the appreciation of beauty, augments the moral will, enhances the discernment of truth, enlarges the capacity to love and serve one’s fellows, exalts the spiritual ideals, and unifies the supreme human motives of time with the eternal plans of the indwelling Adjuster, all of which lead directly to an increased desire to do the Father’s will, thereby fostering the divine passion to find God and to be more like him…. (1458.2) 132:2.5

63. …Revealed truth, personally discovered truth, is the supreme delight of the human soul; it is the joint creation of the material mind and the indwelling spirit. The eternal salvation of this truth-discerning and beauty-loving soul is assured by that hunger and thirst for goodness which leads this mortal to develop a singleness of purpose to do the Father’s will, to find God and to become like him…. (1459.4) 132:3.4

59. …In substance Jesus said: The will of God is the way of God, partnership with the choice of God in the face of any potential alternative. To do the will of God, therefore, is the progressive experience of becoming more and more like God, and God is the source and destiny of all that is good and beautiful and true…. (1431.2) 130:2.7

43. …To material, evolutionary, finite creatures, a life predicated on the living of the Father’s will leads directly to the attainment of spirit supremacy in the personality arena and brings such creatures one step nearer the comprehension of the Father-Infinite. Such a Father life is one predicated on truth, sensitive to beauty, and dominated by goodness…. (1175.1) 106:9.12

78. …The human Jesus saw God as being holy, just, and great, as well as being true, beautiful, and good. All these attributes of divinity he focused in his mind as the “will of the Father in heaven.” (2087.2) 196:0.2

16. …As mortal man strives to do the will of God, these beings of the central universe live to gratify the ideals of the Paradise Trinity. In their very nature they are the will of God. Man rejoices in the goodness of God, Havoners exult in the divine beauty, while you both enjoy the ministry of the liberty of living truth…. (157.5) 14:4.13

47. …The Adjuster bestowed upon man is, in the last analysis, impervious to evil and incapable of sin, but mortal mind can actually be twisted, distorted, and rendered evil and ugly by the sinful machinations of a perverse and self-seeking human will. Likewise can this mind be made noble, beautiful, true, and good–actually great–in accordance with the spirit-illuminated will of a God-knowing human being…. (1217.1) 111:1.6

12. …The divine omnipotence is perfectly co-ordinated with the other attributes of the personality of God. The power of God is, ordinarily, only limited in its universe spiritual manifestation by three conditions or situations:

1. By the nature of God, especially by his infinite love, by truth, beauty, and goodness.
2. By the will of God, by his mercy ministry and fatherly relationship with the personalities of the universe.
3. By the law of God, by the righteousness and justice of the eternal Paradise Trinity…. (48.3) 3:2.11

Bingo?

.

Richard E Warren
BonitaParticipant
Jan 4, 2015, 5:54 PM

Rick Warren wrote:

Ok, let’s see if this is the theme of one of your two projects:

Naah, I was thinking of something much more mundane. But I like this one too. Truth, beauty and goodness are the comprehensible attributes of God which we are capable of experiencing.

0:1.17 Divinity is creature comprehensible as truth, beauty, and goodness; correlated in personality as love, mercy, and ministry; disclosed on impersonal levels as justice, power, and sovereignty.

1:4.5 The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness of that creature’s capacity to spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness.

So, are you saying that Godlikeness is the same as doing the will of God and that the will of God is the experience of truth, beauty and goodness?

44:7.4 These divine qualities are perfectly and absolutely unified in God. And every God-knowing man or angel possesses the potential of unlimited self-expression on ever-progressive levels of unified self-realization by the technique of the never-ending achievement of Godlikeness – the experiential blending in the evolutionary experience of eternal truth, universal beauty, and divine goodness.

I can see that, but my favorite Godlikeness is sharing. The UB says that doing the will of God is nothing more or less than sharing the inner life with him. But I do think that such sharing is true, beautiful and good as well.

111:5.1 The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God — with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible. Sharing is Godlike — divine. God shares all with the Eternal Son and theInfinite Spirit, while they, in turn, share all things with the divine Sons and spirit Daughters of the universes.
Richard E WarrenParticipant
Jan 5, 2015, 10:40 AM

Bonita wrote:

So, are you saying that Godlikeness is the same as doing the will of God and that the will of God is the experience of truth, beauty and goodness?

Couldn’t have stated it better!

Bonita wrote:

…The UB says that doing the will of God is nothing more or less than sharing the inner life with him. But I do think that such sharing is true, beautiful and good as well.

That we have such marvelous ability, made possible by an abiding Indweller from Paradise, becomes a wondrous experience and central feature of living and growing into the Divine Truth, doesn’t it?! Thank goodness we don’t have to completely comprehend the Universal Father to love, worship and attain Him. And even if we should somehow, someday understand Our Father, what of the I AM?

The Divine Counselor, who authored the first one hundred pages, has actually met God and suggests we CAN at least fathom his nature, even if we cannot comprehend the totality of his being, and his methods of conjuring reality:

…The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father….^(21.3) ^1:0.3

***

Richard E Warren
BonitaParticipant
Jan 5, 2015, 3:44 PM
The quote, (1:0.3), tells us that our goal is to recognize and comprehend the divine nature of the personality of God. Yet, we know that God is much more than personality. He is the first truth and the last fact (102:6.6). We are capable of immediately knowing the personality of God as a personal religious experience; but understanding the facts of God will take an eternity. Truth takes origin in the person of God, whereas facts exist relative to him. The good news for us is that the Adjuster, even after fusion, will never run out of truths and facts to reveal to us. The Adjuster is an actual fragment, of not only the prepersonality of the Father, but the existential Cause of the entire cosmos itself.

107:4.7 Can you really realize the true significance of the Adjuster’s indwelling? Do you really fathom what it means to have an absolute fragment of the absolute and infinite Deity, the Universal Father, indwelling and fusing with your finite mortal natures? When mortal man fuses with an actual fragment of the existential Cause of the total cosmos, no limit can ever be placed upon the destiny of such an unprecedented and unimaginable partnership. In eternity, man will be discovering not only the infinity of the objective Deity but also the unending potentiality of the subjective fragment of this same God. Always will the Adjuster be revealing to the mortal personality the wonder of God, and never can this supernal revelation come to an end, for the Adjuster is of God and as God to mortal man.

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