The Urantia Book -- Part I. The Central and Superuniverses
PAPER 2: Section 6.
The Goodness Of God
P40:5, 2:6.1 In the physical universe we may see the divine beauty, in the intellectual
world we may discern eternal truth, but the goodness of God is found
only in the spiritual world of personal religious experience. In its
true essence, religion is a faith-trust in the goodness of God. God
could be great and absolute, somehow even intelligent and personal,
in philosophy, but in religion God must also be moral; he must be good.
Man might fear a great God, but he trusts and loves only a good God.
This goodness of God is a part of the personality of God, and its full
revelation appears only in the personal religious experience of the
believing sons of God.
P40:6, 2:6.2 Religion implies that the superworld of
spirit nature is cognizant of, and responsive to, the fundamental needs
of the human world. Evolutionary religion may become ethical, but only
revealed religion becomes truly and spiritually moral. The olden concept
that God is a Deity dominated by kingly morality was upstepped by Jesus
to that affectionately touching level of intimate family morality of
the parent-child relationship, than which there is none more tender
and beautiful in mortal experience.
P41:1, 2:6.3 The "richness of the goodness of God leads erring man to repentance."
"Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of
lights." "God is good; he is the eternal refuge of the souls of men."
"The Lord God is merciful and gracious. He is long-suffering and abundant
in goodness and truth." "Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed
is the man who trusts him." "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.
He is the God of salvation." "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up
the wounds of the soul. He is man's all-powerful benefactor."
P41:2, 2:6.4 The concept of God as a king-judge, although
it fostered a high moral standard and created a law-respecting people as a group, left the individual believer in a sad position of
insecurity respecting his status in time and in eternity. The later
Hebrew prophets proclaimed God to be a Father to Israel; Jesus revealed
God as the Father of each human being. The entire mortal concept of
God is transcendently illuminated by the life of Jesus. Selflessness
is inherent in parental love. God loves not like a father, but as a father. He is the Paradise Father of every universe personality.
P41:3, 2:6.5 Righteousness implies that God is the source of the moral law of the
universe. Truth exhibits God as a revealer, as a teacher. But love gives
and craves affection, seeks understanding fellowship such as exists
between parent and child. Righteousness may be the divine thought, but
love is a father's attitude. The erroneous supposition that the righteousness
of God was irreconcilable with the selfless
love of the heavenly Father, presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity and led directly to the elaboration
of the atonement doctrine, which is a philosophic assault upon both
the unity and the free-willness of God.
P41:4, 2:6.6 The affectionate heavenly Father, whose spirit indwells his children
on earth, is not a divided personality -- one of justice and one of
mercy -- neither does it require a mediator to secure the Father's favor
or forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict retributive
justice; God as a father transcends God as a judge.
P41:5, 2:6.7 God is never wrathful, vengeful, or angry. It is true that wisdom does
often restrain his love, while justice conditions his rejected mercy.
His love of righteousness cannot help being exhibited as equal hatred
for sin. The Father is not an inconsistent personality; the divine unity
is perfect. In the Paradise Trinity there is absolute unity despite
the eternal identities of the co-ordinates of God.
P41:6, 2:6.8 God loves the sinner and hates the sin: such a statement is true
philosophically, but God is a transcendent personality, and persons
can only love and hate other persons. Sin is not a person. God loves
the sinner because he is a personality reality (potentially eternal),
while towards sin God strikes no personal attitude, for sin is not a
spiritual reality; it is not personal; therefore does only the justice
of God take cognizance of its existence. The love of God saves the sinner;
the law of God destroys the sin. This attitude of the divine nature
would apparently change if the sinner finally identified himself wholly
with sin just as the same mortal mind may also fully identify itself
with the indwelling spirit Adjuster. Such a sin-identified mortal would
then become wholly unspiritual in nature (and therefore personally unreal)
and would experience eventual extinction of being. Unreality, even incompleteness
of creature nature, cannot exist forever in a progressingly real and increasingly spiritual universe.
P42:1, 2:6.9 Facing the world of personality, God is discovered to be a loving person;
facing the spiritual world, he is a personal love; in religious experience
he is both. Love identifies the volitional will of God. The goodness
of God rests at the bottom of the divine free-willness -- the universal
tendency to love, show mercy, manifest patience, and minister forgiveness.