Chapter Three
DEITY

Over the heavens and all things hovers a limitless presence. Spreading invisibly through the plumbless void, it brings forth life upon life and sets the numberless worlds into teeming activity. Shaping and reforming itself with infinite fluidity, penetrating and encompassing the creatures and gods of time and eternity, this ineffable presence has been given the hushed, awe-striking appellation, Deity .

Like an arrow speeding straight to a long-obscured target, The URANTIA Book's opening sentence declares humankind's ideational confusion and conceptual poverty regarding Deity and divinity. The ensuing URANTIA Book description of human and divine origins, evolution, relationships, and destiny is a seamless tapestry of reality picturization woven in terms of magnificent Deity concepts.

The Search for Deity

The concepts of Deity and personality described in The URANTIA Book cross and recross each other's paths like endless lovers' glances betokening a secret and intimate relationship (195:6). Each of these two mysterious realities (70:4) is characterized by volition (71:4; 194:5; 637:4; 1155:2; 1156:4) and unity (2:3; 9:2; 640:2; 1138:2; 1225:7; 1282:5). Each is described in terms of the other. Personality , teaches The URANTIA Book, is a level of deified reality (8:1), while Total Deity is all personalizable reality (7:1).

Deity, the most sacred reality imaginable, and personality, the most human, seem to be two manifestations of one high reality. The URANTIA Book describes personality as the presence of the Universal Father in his personality circuit (9:4; 71:5-6). Deity in terms of presence , it does not directly describe, but rather implies in certain statements.

The Presence of Deity

The basic volitional reality of infinity, tells The URANTIA Book, is pure spirit (638:3). Its nonvolitional counterpart is pure energy (638:3). Controlled by the Universal Father, these boundless primordialities are unified in him (638:3)-- are, in fact, his presence (638:2-3).

Thought Adjusters are volitional, prepersonal presences of the Universal Father (1176:4; 1177:4; 1183:6). The URANTIA Book describes these indwelling advisors of the human mind as of the essence of original Deity (1177:3) and fragments of pure Deity (35:5; 1180:5)--also as pure spirit (1182:7). (Realitized at a level antecedent to the divergence of spirit and energy, they are also pure energy (1182:7; 1183:2)). Since no level of volitional reality intervenes between the Universal Father and either pure spirit (638:2) or Total Deity (5:11,15; 645:3,5; 1147:5), the words Deity and pure spirit appear to be synonymous, or at least closely related.

Deity and pure spirit are each separately described in The URANTIA Book as the potential overcontroller of physical reality (14:3; 637:4; 638:3); thus, again, Deity is closely associated with, or is, pure spirit , the free-will presence of the Universal Father. Unifying (640:2; 645:7) and motivating (55:4) infinity itself, the Universal Father, the loving, ever-present friend and companion of each individual human (1299:2), is the source and reality of both personality (28:5; 70:6; 71:4-5; 111:7) and Deity (7:3; 111:7,15), which are his factual presence. The Universal Father is present in every manifestation of Deity (645:6), as he is in every manifestation of personality (71:5).

Deity and Personality

As unifiers, Deity and personality each act at the level of the total. Deity always seeks manifestation as personality (16:2); this it does on the levels of the prepersonal , personal, and superpersonal (2:3-4; 3:15-18), all of which manifest phases of volition (31:6; 78:5; 333:7; 334:6-7; 1183:6). One distinction between Deity and personality is the realities they unify. Personality strives to unify the physical, mindal, and spirital realities within the realm of its influence (102:6; 640:2). A unifier of personalities, Deity endeavors to join the personality of its association with other Deity-associated personalities and with itself.

The Universal Father thus manifests the unity of volitional infinity in two interlocking ways: as Deity and as personality . As personality, he is countless individuated unities--personalities. A vast universe of personal beings, each enthroned within a relatively individuated unification of impersonal energies (8:4; 9:2), functions as free-will entities under his liberating, will-giving sponsorship (8:5; 71:4; 1301:4).

Personality is nontotalable, every personality being uniquely individual (194:3-4; 1225:12-1226:1); but Deity, a unifier of personalities, is one. As Deity, the Universal Father is the one total unity of all the many individuated unities that are personalities. Each personal being, a relative island of volition on the seas of existence, is also a meaningful and representative part of a greater volitional whole (647:8). All personal beings thereby sustain an immensely significant relationship to one another (138:4-7; 648:4-5; 1227:7).

The Action of Deity

One can visualize personality as an inwardly directed unity. Like a hollow, elastic sphere of glowing, self-aware vitality, it perfectly or imperfectly pulls together, or unifies , the encompassed spirital, mindal, and physical realities of its association. In unifying mind to follow the spirit leading of the mind-indwelling Thought Adjuster, personality is also unifying itself with an individuated presence of Deity.

The action of Deity when associated with a personality can be visualized as an outwardly directed unity. An invisible bubble of high, destiny-charged presence surrounding the personality sphere, Deity is attracted to Deity presence surrounding other personalities. The value level, or action scope, of personality, as well as of Deity, is relative, depending upon the level of the realities with which it is associated (194:3; 1299:4-1300:5).

The unifying quality of Deity is known as divinity(2:3; 3:3). Like the swirling surface tension that preserves the boundaries of every shiny soap bubble ever floated in the bright sunlight, the action of divinity draws shimmering, personality-encompassing Deity bubbles into groups, coalescing them into larger bubbles of Deity presence. The individual presences of Deity guide the free wills of their associated personalities in vastly correlated activities (35:4-5) while their associations, true realities , hover and work as greater, more encompassing presences of Deity. And over all, ever and unfailingly, is the presence of the Universal Father: the personality of infinity, pure spirit, pure energy, the unity of infinity, and the reality of Deity (1153:6).

Deity Unity

Each of the three Paradise Deities is referred to in The URANTIA Book both as a person (110:5,8) and a Deity(13:2; 110:9; 233:1). The Paradise Trinity is portrayed in The URANTIA Book as the union not of the three personalities of the trinity nor of their personality realities, but rather as the union of their separate Deities (112:7; 114:3; 1145:5). Not to be visualized as an overentitydividing itself into three manifesting persons, it is the supersummative Deity result of the joining of their three Deities (1145:6). And it is real (112:7; 1145:6).

The word, God, refers to any personalization of Deity: for example, God the Father or God the Supreme (3:19-4:13). The level of total finite reality is designated the Supreme. The evolving unifier of finite time and space is the Supreme Being (11:3; 1281:4), whose spirit personality, God the Supreme, and impersonal aspect, the Almighty Supreme, will be joined together, or power-personalized , through the Supreme Mind (641:3-4; 1269:1-2). All finite creator and creature personalities are unified in the Deity of Supremacy (1232:4; 1279:4-5,8; 1283:2; 1283:6-1284:1; 1286:2-4), imperfectly at present and perfectly in the eternal future. Deity unity encompasses personal spirit values but is also cognizant of energy facts (1138:2). The unification of the Almighty Supreme is being brought about by the divinity successes (640:8-641:4; 1264:7; 1269:7) of many divine persons laboring among the personality realities of the Supreme Being. These persons, the Supreme Creators, are, through their divinity, one Deity reality.

The Deity of the Supreme Creators is the divine unity of the Seven Master Spirits, twenty-one Ancients of Days, and seven hundred thousand active Creator Sons (640:8; 1171:3). This Deity joins with the Deity of Supremacy and one other Deity as the experiential Trinity Ultimate, which personalizes as God the Ultimate (16:4; 1171:3). The experiential Trinity Ultimate, a Deity, joins with the existential Paradise Trinity and another experiential trinity--the Trinity Absolute (16:5; 1167:3-6)--to form an existential-experiential trinity, the Trinity of Trinities (16:7; 1170:5-1173:2).

Deity Concepts

Concepts approaching the Infinite unavoidably suffer inadequacies (13:4; 1157:2; 1163:4-11; 1260:3; 1261:5). The URANTIA Book conceptually divides primal reality into the purposive and the nonpurposive plus their relationship, referred to as the Deity, Unqualified, and Universal Absolute, respectively, each of which is potential, existential (6:7-7:3; 14:5; 1156:4-6), and a member of the Seven Absolutes of Infinity. This leaves no separate room for the three Deity actuals numbered among the Seven Absolutes of Infinity, whose Deity union is the Paradise Trinity --total existential actual Deity (111:7,15; 115:4). Yet these existential actuals are not derived from or a part of the three potential Absolutes (15:7; 1155:5; 1156:7-1157:2).

The URANTIA Book does separate the Paradise Trinity from the Deity Absolute in teaching that the Deity Absolute is reactive to the Paradise Trinity (1298:3-5). Whether the Paradise Trinity is the primordial upholder of the Absolute--the Deity, Unqualified, and Universal Absolutes as one (15:5; 644:3-4; 645:4)--or vice versa is posited by The URANTIA Book as THE philosophic question throughout the master universe (644:4-5). Taking a position on the question at a more inclusive level, The URANTIA Book declares that in light of the unqualified primality and eternity of the Paradise Trinity, the Absolute must be a specialized function of the Trinity of Trinities (644:6).

Total Deity Function

Possibly the most difficult part of The URANTIA Book to thread into its overall concept scheme is its vastly significant but tantalizingly brief description of the seven levels of Total Deity function (2:4-14). To try to understand this concept, it is necessary first to develop a concept of the true scope of the reality of the Universal Father.

The Universal Father is the First Person of Deity (4:7), also a member of the Paradise Trinity (112:7). He is the presence and source of all personality (28:5; 70:6; 71:4-5). As the First Source and Center of all things and beings, he is the source, reality, and presence of the Seven Absolutes of Infinity, including the Deity Absolute (4:14-5:18; 21:1). He is the Deities of the three personalities of the Paradise Trinity and the Deity of the Paradise Trinity (645:6). He is the I AM, the Infinite, and any and all other concepts of infinite unity and reality (6:5-6; 1147:11-1148:1). Like a deep shaft sunk through all the strata of creation, he is everywhere and at all levels present as his derivative presences and also as himself(5:8-10; 59:2; 95:6).

One visualization of the seven-tiered function of Total Deity might be as follows: imagine a terraced pillar constructed of seven thick, round disks set atop one another. The disks decrease in radius from disk one, the bottom disk, to disk four; then they increase in radius, disk seven being the same size as disk one. Now imagine that this whole structure is one hollow, transparent crystal filled with a golden, liquid light.

The golden light shining out through all Deity levels is the Universal Father as total, unified volitional reality. Level one, the bottom disk on the terraced pillar, corresponds to the staticlevel of Deity function (2:5), that aspect of the Universal Father as the theoretical I AM, the Infinite, which supports all derivative levels of purposive self-will. Level two, the potential (2:6), is the Deity Absolute. Level three, the associative (2:7), described as self-personalized and divinely fraternal , pertains to the Paradise Trinity in total and the three Paradise Deities as individual Deity focalizations. Level four, the creative (2:8), includes all Paradise-level Creator personalities--for example, the Creator Sons, Ancients of Days, and Master Spirits--as one overall Deity and as their individual focalizations of divinity . Level five, the evolutional level (2:9), described as creature-identified, pertains to the function of divinity in creatures; for example, the Thought Adjuster in the human mind. Levels six and seven, identified as the supreme and ultimate levels, have to do with time-space Deity unifying in the grand universe and time-space-transcending Deity unifying in the master universe, respectively (2:10-11). From the perspective of evolutionary reality, levels one through three might be viewed as inceptive, level four as transformative (1264:6), and levels five through seven as consummative . In the human experience, it all blends together as one glorious, never-ending, golden light.