Preview: a read-only copy of the forum. To post or reply, use the current forum.

Religion In Human Experience – Paper 100

235 posts · 9 participants · started Jan 7, 2018, 4:53 PM

BonitaParticipant
Jan 25, 2018, 6:05 PM
Without doing a little research, I think first century Jews believed that God was not only the First Source and Center, but the only Source and Center. The Lord God is One. He resides in the heaven of heavens. Since they had an earth-centric cosmology at the time, I doubt Jesus would have, or even should have, been able to convince folks that the universes spin around a central paradise where God resides. But I don’t know if that’s what you’re asking. The religion of Jesus, or the gospel, is sonship, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, right? I’m not sure how cosmology makes a real difference when it comes to religious living and spiritual insight. Jesus’ religion is about the relationship between Father and son, Creator and creature. The center of that relationship is in the soul, not in space somewhere, right?
George ParkParticipant
Jan 25, 2018, 7:45 PM

Bonita wrote:

Since they had an earth-centric cosmology at the time, I doubt Jesus would have, or even should have, been able to convince folks that the universes spin around a central paradise where God resides.

I wasn’t thinking of Jewish cosmology, such as it was, but of why Rodan included “the eternal center of the universe” in his characterization of the religion of Jesus. (Rodan mentions nothing about the universe revolving about this center.) What I’m wondering is if Rodan included this cosmological idea on his own initiative or if he obtained it from what Jesus taught. The spiritual essence of the gospel is the relationship between the Father and his sons. But doesn’t this also include the relationship between the Creator of the universe and the creatures he endows with personality who dwell therein?

It is well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God’s transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. These two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the faith-grasp of the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in order to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival. (5:5.6)

The immanence and transcendence of God are two essential concepts of Deity which are required “to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival.” The idea that God is transcendentally present at “the eternal center of the universe” and the idea of his divine immanence are both necessary elements in the religion of Jesus. For this reason I think that Rodan is faithfully reflecting the actual teachings of Jesus. The Father is really present at the center of the universe as the First Source and Center, even as he is really present in the soul as the divine Adjuster.
BonitaParticipant
Jan 25, 2018, 8:27 PM

George Park wrote:

The idea that God is transcendentally present at “the eternal center of the universe” and the idea of his divine immanence are both necessary elements in the religion of Jesus.

I’m not reading the quote that way. I think it’s saying that the two ideas must be realized in the concept of a personal God, or the personality of God. God is a person in the central universe and also a person in your head (as well as every other head). Rodan was taught by Abner, and he was not convinced that God is a person, which is why Nathaniel and Thomas spent so much time with him. In the end he did accept the fact that the God present in the eternal center of the universe is a personality and thereby capable of communing with individual personalities. So, what unifies the two concepts of God is the fact of his personality. And that, I think, is the crux of the Jesus message.

(1783.3) 161:1.1 There was one matter on which Rodan and the two apostles did not see alike, and that was the personality of God. Rodan readily accepted all that was presented to him regarding the attributes of God, but he contended that the Father in heaven is not, cannot be, a person as man conceives personality. While the apostles found themselves in difficulty trying to prove that God is a person, Rodan found it still more difficult to prove he is not a person.

(1784.8) 161:1.11 When Rodan heard these arguments, he said: “I am convinced. I will confess God as a person if you will permit me to qualify my confession of such a belief by attaching to the meaning of personality a group of extended values, such as superhuman, transcendent, supreme, infinite, eternal, final, and universal. I am now convinced that, while God must be infinitely more than a personality, he cannot be anything less. I am satisfied to end the argument and to accept Jesus as the personal revelation of the Father and the satisfaction of all unsatisfied factors in logic, reason, and philosophy.”
George ParkParticipant
Jan 25, 2018, 8:58 PM

Bonita wrote:

God is a person in the central universe and also a person in your head

I’m not sure what you mean when you say that God is “a person in your head.” We are repeatedly told that the Adjuster is prepersonal in nature. While it may not be entirely clear what “prepersonal” signifies, we know it is something other than the reality of personality. The Adjuster has eternal identity but does not have personality. We have personality but do not have eternal identity until fusion occurs. The immanence of God within the soul is a prepersonal reality, while the personality of the Father is a transcendent presence who dwells at the center of the universe on Paradise. More explicitly, the personality of the Father only dwells on Paradise. He sends his spirit to indwell us. If he sent his personality to indwell us, this would be pantheism, which is an incorrect concept of the relation between God and man.
BradlyParticipant
Jan 25, 2018, 9:19 PM
I agree that ‘prepersonal’ is a difficult concept….but it obviously does not mean impersonal but rather a very personal relationship:

107:0.1 (1176.1) ALTHOUGH the Universal Father is personally resident on Paradise, at the very center of the universes, he is also actually present on the worlds of space in the minds of his countless children of time, for he indwells them as the Mystery Monitors. The eternal Father is at one and the same time farthest removed from, and most intimately associated with, his planetary mortal sons.

110:0.2 (1203.2) As far as I am conversant with the affairs of a universe, I regard the love and devotion of a Thought Adjuster as the most truly divine affection in all creation. The love of the Sons in their ministry to the races is superb, but the devotion of an Adjuster to the individual is touchingly sublime, divinely Fatherlike. The Paradise Father has apparently reserved this form of personal contact with his individual creatures as an exclusive Creator prerogative. And there is nothing in all the universe of universes exactly comparable to the marvelous ministry of these impersonal entities that so fascinatingly indwell the children of the evolutionary planets.

2:0.1 (33.1) INASMUCH as man’s highest possible concept of God is embraced within the human idea and ideal of a primal and infinite personality, it is permissible, and may prove helpful, to study certain characteristics of the divine nature which constitute the character of Deity. The nature of God can best be understood by the revelation of the Father which Michael of Nebadon unfolded in his manifold teachings and in his superb mortal life in the flesh. The divine nature can also be better understood by man if he regards himself as a child of God and looks up to the Paradise Creator as a true spiritual Father.

2:0.2 (33.2) The nature of God can be studied in a revelation of supreme ideas, the divine character can be envisaged as a portrayal of supernal ideals, but the most enlightening and spiritually edifying of all revelations of the divine nature is to be found in the comprehension of the religious life of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and after his attainment of full consciousness of divinity. If the incarnated life of Michael is taken as the background of the revelation of God to man, we may attempt to put in human word symbols certain ideas and ideals concerning the divine nature which may possibly contribute to a further illumination and unification of the human concept of the nature and the character of the personality of the Universal Father.

God resides at the center of ALL and EACH at the same time. And this personal relationship is key to the Gospel and profoundly important in any concept of God….God must be personalized as well as eternal, primal, absolute, etc., etc., etc…..not just all powerful but all caring….not just all knowing but all understanding….the God of ALL and the God of EACH is hardly the same God as the God OVER ALL. A clear distinction I think…one which took Rodan some time to discern…but as he said, God must be more but cannot be less than personal.

Great discussion…thanks to ALL and EACH!!

"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
BradlyParticipant
Jan 25, 2018, 9:55 PM

Bonita wrote:

I noticed that section one of paper 100 is about religious growth and section two is about spiritual growth. What’s the difference?

I hope you have some thoughts on this interesting question. Is personal religion and religious growth the device or skeleton or vehicle while spiritual growth is the fruit? One is the attachment to the vine (the branch) and the other the subsequent result of that attachment (the fruit)?

Hmmmm……..

"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
BonitaParticipant
Jan 25, 2018, 11:13 PM

George Park wrote:

I’m not sure what you mean when you say that God is “a person in your head.” We are repeatedly told that the Adjuster is prepersonal in nature. While it may not be entirely clear what “prepersonal” signifies, we know it is something other than the reality of personality.

Hmmm . . . what do you think of these quotes?

103:1.6 . . . The spirit of God that dwells in man is not personal — the Adjuster is prepersonal — but this Monitor presents a value, exudes a flavor of divinity, which is personal in the highest and infinite sense. If God were not at least personal, he could not be conscious, and if not conscious, then would he be infrahuman.

32:3.4 . . . In the central universe the Father is personally present as such but absent in the minds of the children of that perfect creation; in the universes of space the Father is absent in person, being represented by his Sovereign Sons, while he is intimately present in the minds of his mortal children, being spiritually represented by the prepersonal presence of the Mystery Monitors that reside in the minds of these will creatures.

32:4.5 In the mortal will creatures the Father is actually present in the indwelling Adjuster, a fragment of his prepersonal spirit; and the Father is also the source of the personality of such a mortal will creature

109:4.2 Animals do, in a crude way, communicate with each other, but there is little or no personality in such primitive contact. Adjusters are not personality; they are prepersonal beings. But they do hail from the source of personality, and their presence does augment the qualitative manifestations of human personality; especially is this true if the Adjuster has had previous experience.

107:7.3 They have affection for mortals, they function in universe crises, they are always waiting to act decisively in accordance with human choice, and all these are highly volitional reactions. In all situations not concerned with the domain of the human will, they unquestionably exhibit conduct which betokens the exercise of powers in every sense the equivalent of will, maximated decision.

(333.7) 30:1.99 God, as a superperson, eventuates; God, as a person, creates; God, as a preperson, fragments; and such an Adjuster fragment of himself evolves the spirit soul upon the material and mortal mind in accordance with the freewill choosing of the personality which has been bestowed upon such a mortal creature by the parental act of God as a Father

George Park wrote:

The immanence of God within the soul is a prepersonal reality, while the personality of the Father is a transcendent presence who dwells at the center of the universe on Paradise. More explicitly, the personality of the Father only dwells on Paradise. He sends his spirit to indwell us. If he sent his personality to indwell us, this would be pantheism, which is an incorrect concept of the relation between God and man.

The Adjusters are fragments of the prepersonal reality of the First Source and Center (30:1.100) God doesn’t send his actual personality to indwell us, he sends a fragment of personality from the reservoir which gave rise to his own. And when this fragment enters our heads it behaves as the Father’s personality since it’s of the same origin. Because the volition of this fragment is prepersonal, it is preferentially responsive to the actual will of an existent personality, which would be mine. To me, a presence in my mind who also has a mind and a will, is a person. Just because this person relies on my will for expression does not diminish its reality. God is a personal presence who lives in my head, and Jesus said that I ” . . . . should increasingly grow in the ability to feel the presence of God.” (155:6.12)
BonitaParticipant
Jan 25, 2018, 11:26 PM

Bradly wrote:

One is the attachment to the vine (the branch) and the other the subsequent result of that attachment (the fruit)?

That’s kinda what I’m thinking. I think religious growth precedes spiritual growth. Religion is derived from the two higher adjutants, hence is material in origin. Spiritual growth is something that happens in the soul, albeit it has repercussions on the material level.

I think that religious living enlarges and reinforces the gateway to the soul. The first paragraph in the section about spiritual growth says it is dependent upon a living spiritual connection with spiritual forces. Wouldn’t that be the vine? And isn’t the vine a metaphor for prayer? I think religious growth develops, enlarges and reinforces the gateway, then prayer maintains the connection to the soul where spiritual growth occurs. It’s the up-escalator where the problems of the material world contribute to spiritual growth; and, it’s the down-escalator where soul powers are mobilized for religious living. I don’t know . . . sometimes I just blabber. This is an idea under-construction, so pardon our appearance.
Mark606Participant
Jan 26, 2018, 1:13 AM

George Park wrote:

Is the First Source and Center in any way essential to the full realization of the religion of Jesus?

I believe it is George. And the answer may be tucked away in an odd place, specifically 19:1 where the implication is made that the UB starts from the Universal Father on Paradise because starting from the top down, from divine destinies to human origins, is the path that leads to spiritual wisdom.

Jesus often mentions that our Father is the Creator of all things and, as such, must be the First Cause, or Source, although he never uses this specific wording (as far as we are told). And while he often mentions our Paradise Father, he also refers to Paradise as a place and a destiny, and by what he says, I think the listener could only conclude that Paradise is both the dwelling place of our Father as well as our ultimate goal. I see few references to suggest that Jesus specifically said that Paradise is at the center of all things except in two of the prayers that he taught (145:5.12 and 145:5.74). However, the implication is strong in much of his teaching.

“Very plainly Jesus explained that the kingdom of heaven was an evolutionary experience, beginning here on earth and progressing up through successive life stations to Paradise.” 142:7.3

“Our creative Parent, who is in the center of the universe…” 144:5.12

And finally, if we accept the UB as an extension of Jesus’ teaching, there seems to be a considerable amount of effort on the part of the revelators to impress upon us the centrality of Paradise and the First Source. So I lean toward the belief that the concept is essential.
BradlyParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 10:10 AM

Bradly wrote:

I agree that ‘prepersonal’ is a difficult concept….but it obviously does not mean impersonal but rather a very personal relationship:
110:0.2 (1203.2) As far as I am conversant with the affairs of a universe, I regard the love and devotion of a Thought Adjuster as the most truly divine affection in all creation. The love of the Sons in their ministry to the races is superb, but the devotion of an Adjuster to the individual is touchingly sublime, divinely Fatherlike. The Paradise Father has apparently reserved this form of personal contact with his individual creatures as an exclusive Creator prerogative. And there is nothing in all the universe of universes exactly comparable to the marvelous ministry of these impersonal entities that so fascinatingly indwell the children of the evolutionary planets.

Clearly I do not understand the nature of “pre-personal”…..as so well illustrated in this contradiction I posted earlier. What’s described sounds SO personal…so much to learn. Nonetheless, the TA God Fragments are within each mind and are affectionate in their devotion…how is this impersonal?

"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
George ParkParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 12:01 PM

Bonita wrote:

The Adjusters are fragments of the prepersonal reality of the First Source and Center (30:1.100) God doesn’t send his actual personality to indwell us, he sends a fragment of personality from the reservoir which gave rise to his own. And when this fragment enters our heads it behaves as the Father’s personality since it’s of the same origin.

The Adjuster is a fragment of the Deity of the “prepersonal reality of the First Source and Center” (30.1.100) not “a fragment of personality.” Deity is not the same as personality, it is something more: “DEITY is personalizable as God, is prepersonal and superpersonal in ways not altogether comprehensible by man.” (0:1.5) The Paradise Father is the personality of the First Source and Center who has infinite freewill. The personality of Deity is indivisible and non-fragment-able. The prepersonal reality of Deity is fragment-able. Adjusters are not personalities; they are potentially personal identities. The Father “is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes.” (1:3.6)

It is because the Adjuster is a spirit identity and not a personality that it is possible for our personality to transfer the seat of identity from the mortal intellect to the personalizing soul-spirit identity emerging around the Adjuster.

I agree with you that “God is a personal presence who lives in my head,” that this personal presence has “mind and will.” But mind and will are not sufficient to personhood. A person must have a mind and a will which are unified by the freewill of a personality, which is bestowed by the Father. The self-conscious intellectual ego is our (initial) personal identity and has will, but this personal identity is not the personality. The soul is our emerging eternal identity and it has a spiritualizing will. It is only the freewill of personality which can transfer the seat of personal identity from the intellect to soul-spirit identity by choosing to act upon the will of this higher identity.
George ParkParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 1:54 PM

Mark606 wrote:

Jesus often mentions that our Father is the Creator of all things and, as such, must be the First Cause, or Source, although he never uses this specific wording (as far as we are told). And while he often mentions our Paradise Father, he also refers to Paradise as a place and a destiny, and by what he says, I think the listener could only conclude that Paradise is both the dwelling place of our Father as well as our ultimate goal.

You bring up a central tenet of all major religions, Mark: God is the creator of the universe. He is not only sovereign over all things spiritual; he also reigns over all things material. The sovereign Creator is always thought of as actually dwelling in the heavens. Although different religions have different ideas about where exactly, they all believe God is transcendently present in the universe. According to Rodan, the religion of Jesus includes the concept of the Father dwelling at the center of the universe. We are told that the concept of the transcendence of a personal God is essential for religion. The other is the immanence of God: “‘The kingdom of God is within you’ was probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made, next to the declaration that his Father is a living and loving spirit.” (195:10.4)

So, it would seem that the concept of the Father dwelling in the universe is a part of the religion of Jesus. This concept, along with the immanence of God, justifies “intelligent worship and validate(s) the hope of personality survival.”
BonitaParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 2:19 PM
So George, you actually do understand what I mean when I say God is a person in my head. His prepersonality is my alter ego. If I can fellowship with this prepersonal entity; if I can increase my ability to feel his presence; if I can get to know his will well enough to choose it; and if I’m transferring my identity to him because I trust him, then he’s essentially becoming a bona fide person. Otherwise, my personality wouldn’t be able to do this. Only personalities fellowship with one another.

Prepersonality is simply a phase of personality, but all phases of personality are linked together associatively and cocreatively. (0:5.4) Prepersonality arises from existential personality reality which existed before the Trinity qualified personality. The prepersonality who lives in my head is in the process of becoming qualified. God qualified personality by trinitization; I will qualify my existential prepersonality fragment by association and cocreational experiential actualization. This is why the alter ego approach works so well. My alter ego is my prepersonalized self whom I learn to identify with and cocreationally actualize in Supremacy.

(2.9) 0:1.9 6. Supreme — self-experiential and creature-Creator-unifying Deity. Deity functioning on the first creature-identificational level as time-space overcontrollers of the grand universe, sometimes designated the Supremacy of Deity.
BonitaParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 2:51 PM

George Park wrote:

So, it would seem that the concept of the Father dwelling in the universe is a part of the religion of Jesus.

Isn’t that evident in the Lord’s Prayer? “Our Father who is in heaven” (144:3.2). But I don’t think it is necessary to comprehend both the transcendence and immanence of God in order to practice the religion of Jesus. The religion of Jesus is about personal religious experience, a relationship between God and man. The religion of Jesus is ” . . . salvation from self, deliverance from the evils of creature isolation in time and in eternity.”(5:4.5) We’re told that when we search for God, we’re searching for everything (117:6.9), and the best place to search is in our own hearts/souls, not in the heavens. In fact, TUB says it’s a mistake to dream of a far-off God, that doing so can lead a soul to famish.

5:2.3 Adjuster. What a mistake to dream of God far off in the skies when the spirit of the Universal Father lives within your own mind!

131:1.5 We search for the Most High and then find him in our hearts. You go in quest of a dear friend, and then you discover him within your soul.

159:3.8 The world is filled with hungry souls who famish in the very presence of the bread of life; men die searching for the very God who lives within them.
George ParkParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 3:45 PM

Bonita wrote:

So George, you actually do understand what I mean when I say God is a person in my head. His prepersonality is my alter ego. If I can fellowship with this prepersonal entity; if I can increase my ability to feel his presence; if I can get to know his will well enough to choose it; and if I’m transferring my identity to him because I trust him, then he’s essentially becoming a bona fide person.

As a matter of practical religious experience, I think I understand and agree with what you are saying. What is problematic for me is the idea of equating the reality of identity with the reality of personality. The intellectual ego is part of me, not the whole; it is a personal identity within me. The spiritual alter ego is another personal identity within me, not the whole. Unlike these two separate and distinct identities, the reality of personality embraces and unifies the whole of the reality of personhood. Where you conceive of the Adjuster becoming a “bona fide person,” I conceive of the spirit Adjuster as becoming the dominant personal identity within the personhood of the material personality, which also includes the personal material intellect.

The material self has personality and identity, temporal identity; the prepersonal spirit Adjuster also has identity, eternal identity. This material personality and this spirit prepersonality are capable of so uniting their creative attributes as to bring into existence the surviving identity of the immortal soul. (5:6.7)

I may be belaboring this point, but I think it is an important one for the religion of Jesus. Jesus is both the son of God and son of man, but he is always and forever one personality. At his baptism he had perfected the will of his temporal identity until it was in complete harmony with the will of his eternal identity. The will of God did not become a person within him. It became his divine spirit identity which fully dominated his temporal identity within the personhood of his personality. His Adjuster was not personalized while dwelling within him. This could not happen, because then there would have been two personalities with different identities associated with the person of Jesus, instead of one personality with two identities, the son of God and son of man.
George ParkParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 3:56 PM

Bonita wrote:

But I don’t think it is necessary to comprehend both the transcendence and immanence of God in order to practice the religion of Jesus.

I am puzzled by this statement. Why do you suppose we are explicitly told that both the transcendence and immanence of God are essential religious concepts which are required to justify “intelligent worship and validate the hope of eternal survival“? I am sure you aren’t implying that the religion of Jesus fails to provide this justification.
BradlyParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 5:33 PM
https://urassoc.arko.nyc/search/?zoom_sort=2&zoom_query=value+OR+values&zoom_per_page=100&zoom_and=0&zoom_cat%5B%5D=-1

Above is a link for the keyword search for value OR values….so many!! Meanings and values are critical to Religion In Human Experience. We are approaching the intersection of meanings, values, truth, experience, and wisdom….growth and progress!!

Great discussion…thanks George and Mark for joining in!! Again….feel free to move back, or forward, or sideways on this topical consideration of personal religious experience….and the example of the Master.

100:3.3 (1096.8) In the contemplation of values you must distinguish between that which is value and that which has value. You must recognize the relation between pleasurable activities and their meaningful integration and enhanced realization on ever progressively higher and higher levels of human experience.

100:3.4 (1097.1) Meaning is something which experience adds to value; it is the appreciative consciousness of values. An isolated and purely selfish pleasure may connote a virtual devaluation of meanings, a meaningless enjoyment bordering on relative evil. Values are experiential when realities are meaningful and mentally associated, when such relationships are recognized and appreciated by mind.

100:3.5 (1097.2) Values can never be static; reality signifies change, growth. Change without growth, expansion of meaning and exaltation of value, is valueless — is potential evil. The greater the quality of cosmic adaptation, the more of meaning any experience possesses. Values are not conceptual illusions; they are real, but always they depend on the fact of relationships. Values are always both actual and potential — not what was, but what is and is to be.

100:3.6 (1097.3) The association of actuals and potentials equals growth, the experiential realization of values. But growth is not mere progress. Progress is always meaningful, but it is relatively valueless without growth. The supreme value of human life consists in growth of values, progress in meanings, and realization of the cosmic interrelatedness of both of these experiences. And such an experience is the equivalent of God-consciousness. Such a mortal, while not supernatural, is truly becoming superhuman; an immortal soul is evolving.

"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
BonitaParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 5:42 PM

George Park wrote:

I am puzzled by this statement. Why do you suppose we are explicitly told that both the transcendence and immanence of God are essential religious concepts which are required to justify “intelligent worship and validate the hope of eternal survival“? I am sure you aren’t implying that the religion of Jesus fails to provide this justification.

I think you’re missing my word comprehend. Here’s what I said: “But I don’t think it is necessary to comprehend both the transcendence and immanence of God in order to practice the religion of Jesus.” Here’s the quote in question again:

(69.1) 5:5.6 Religious experience, being essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material mind; hence the function of theology, the psychology of religion. The essential doctrine of the human realization of God creates a paradox in finite comprehension. It is well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God’s transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. These two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the faith-grasp of the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in order to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival. The difficulties and paradoxes of religion are inherent in the fact that the realities of religion are utterly beyond the mortal capacity for intellectual comprehension.
George ParkParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 6:04 PM

Bonita wrote:

I think you’re missing my word comprehend. Here’s what I said: “But I don’t think it is necessary to comprehend both the transcendence and immanence of God in order to practice the religion of Jesus.”

These two concepts do create a paradox, which is difficult to comprehend, so I take your point. However, the original question was if both concepts are essential to religion, not whether or not logic and reason can comprehend how both can be true. Clearly, in the religion of Jesus it is faith-insight which discerns that the personality of the Father is transcendently present in the universe on Paradise and his spirit is immanently present within us, even though the intellect cannot really comprehend how this is so.
BonitaParticipant
Jan 26, 2018, 6:06 PM

George Park wrote:

What is problematic for me is the idea of equating the reality of identity with the reality of personality.

Did I do that? I don’t think I did.

George Park wrote:

Where you conceive of the Adjuster becoming a “bona fide person,” I conceive of the spirit Adjuster as becoming the dominant personal identity within the personhood of the material personality, which also includes the personal material intellect.

Same idea, different words. But I differ in the details. I think of it flipped around somewhat. The Adjuster doesn’t dominate the material intellect, he can’t do that because it is so incompatible with his own. Instead, we learn to identify with the dominating spirit premind of the Adjuster (after we’ve discovered, recognized, and interpreted it within the soul using the soul supermind), then, as a result of choosing that identification, naturally bear fruits in the material world (which will affect the material mind in the process). Subtle difference, very subtle, not sure if I’ve made it clear though.

George Park wrote:

The will of God did not become a person within him. It became his divine spirit identity which fully dominated his temporal identity within the personhood of his personality. His Adjuster was not personalized while dwelling within him. This could not happen, because then there would have been two personalities with different identities associated with the person of Jesus, instead of one personality with two identities, the son of God and son of man.

Well of course complete identification and transfer of dominance does not result in two personalities. Fusion results in one single personality with the actual and potential qualities of both. Hence qualified.

112.7.1 7. ADJUSTER FUSION Thought Adjuster fusion imparts eternal actualities to personality which were previously only potential. Among these new endowments may be mentioned: fixation of divinity quality, past-eternity experience and memory, immortality, and a phase of qualified potential absoluteness.

110:7.4 Subsequent to mortal fusion the Adjusters share your destiny and experience; they are you. After the fusion of the immortal morontia soul and the associated Adjuster, all of the experience and all of the values of the one eventually become the possession of the other, so that the two are actually one entity. In a certain sense, this new being is of the eternal past as well as for the eternal future. All that was once human in the surviving soul and all that is experientially divine in the Adjuster now become the actual possession of the new and ever-ascending universe personality. But on each universe level the Adjuster can endow the new creature only with those attributes which are meaningful and of value on that level. An absolute oneness with the divine Monitor, a complete exhaustion of the endowment of an Adjuster, can only be achieved in eternity subsequent to the final attainment of the Universal Father, the Father of spirits, ever the source of these divine gifts.

Also, I don’t think our Master Michael has two identities. He is one person with one identity. He is ” . . . the 611,121st original concept of infinite identity.” (33:1.1) They would have to give him another number if he had two identities, and then he’d have a split personality, which he does not have.

Reply on the current forum