P137:3, 12:7.2 In all his dealings with all his beings it is true that the laws of
God are not inherently arbitrary. To you, with your limited vision and
finite viewpoint, the acts of God must often appear to be dictatorial
and arbitrary. The laws of God are merely the habits of God, his way
of repeatedly doing things; and he ever does all things well. You observe
that God does the same thing in the same way, repeatedly, simply because
that is the best way to do that particular thing in a given circumstance;
and the best way is the right way, and therefore does infinite wisdom
always order it done in that precise and perfect manner. You should
also remember that nature is not the exclusive act of Deity; other influences
are present in those phenomena which man calls nature.
P137:4, 12:7.3 It is repugnant to the divine nature to suffer any sort of deterioration
or ever to permit the execution of any purely personal act in an inferior
way. It should be made clear, however, that, if, in the divinity
of any situation, in the extremity of any circumstance, in any case
where the course of supreme wisdom might indicate the demand for different
conduct -- if the demands of perfection might for any reason dictate
another method of reaction, a better one, then and there would the all-wise
God function in that better and more suitable way. That would be the
expression of a higher law, not the reversal of a lower law.
P137:5, 12:7.4 God is not a habit-bound slave to the chronicity
of the repetition of his own voluntary acts. There is no conflict among
the laws of the Infinite; they are all perfections of the infallible
nature; they are all the unquestioned acts expressive of faultless decisions.
Law is the unchanging reaction of an infinite, perfect, and divine mind.
The acts of God are all volitional notwithstanding this apparent sameness.
In God there "is no variableness neither shadow of changing." But all
this which can be truly said of the Universal Father cannot be said
with equal certainty of all his subordinate intelligences or of his
evolutionary creatures.
P137:6, 12:7.5 Because God is changeless, therefore can you depend, in all ordinary
circumstances, on his doing the same thing in the same identical and
ordinary way. God is the assurance of stability for all created things
and beings. He is God; therefore he changes not.
P138:1, 12:7.6 And all this steadfastness of conduct and uniformity of action is personal,
conscious, and highly volitional, for the great God is not a helpless
slave to his own perfection and infinity. God is not a self-acting automatic
force; he is not a slavish law-bound power.
God is neither a mathematical equation nor a chemical formula. He is
a freewill and primal personality. He is the Universal Father, a being
surcharged with personality and the universal fount of all creature
personality.
P138:2, 12:7.7 The will of God does not uniformly prevail in the heart of the God-seeking
material mortal, but if the time frame is enlarged beyond the moment
to embrace the whole of the first life, then does God's will become
increasingly discernible in the spirit fruits which are borne in the
lives of the spirit-led children of God. And then, if human life is
further enlarged to include the morontia experience, the divine will
is observed to shine brighter and brighter in the spiritualizing acts
of those creatures of time who have begun to taste the divine delights
of experiencing the relationship of the personality of man with the
personality of the Universal Father.
P138:3, 12:7.8 The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man present the paradox
of the part and the whole on the level of personality. God loves each individual as an individual child in the heavenly family. Yet God
thus loves every individual; he is no respecter of persons, and
the universality of his love brings into being a relationship of the
whole, the universal brotherhood.
P138:4, 12:7.9 The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as
a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in
infinity, a will creature irreplaceable in all eternity. The Father's
love glorifies each child of God, illuminating each member of the celestial
family, sharply silhouetting the unique
nature of each personal being against the impersonal levels that lie
outside the fraternal circuit of the Father of all. The love of God
strikingly portrays the transcendent value of each will creature, unmistakably
reveals the high value which the Universal Father has placed upon each
and every one of his children from the highest creator personality of
Paradise status to the lowest personality of will dignity among the
savage tribes of men in the dawn of the human species on some evolutionary
world of time and space.
P138:5, 12:7.10 This very love of God for the individual brings into being the divine
family of all individuals, the universal brotherhood of the freewill
children of the Paradise Father. And this brotherhood, being universal,
is a relationship of the whole. Brotherhood, when universal, discloses
not the each relationship, but the all relationship. Brotherhood
is a reality of the total and therefore discloses qualities of the whole
in contradistinction to qualities of the part.
P138:6, 12:7.11 Brotherhood constitutes a fact of relationship between every personality
in universal existence. No person can escape the benefits or the penalties
that may come as a result of relationship to other persons. The part
profits or suffers in measure with the whole. The good effort of each
man benefits all men; the error or evil of each man augments the tribulation
of all men. As moves the part, so moves the whole. As the progress of
the whole, so the progress of the part. The relative velocities of part
and whole determine whether the part is retarded by the inertia of the
whole or is carried forward by the momentum of the cosmic brotherhood.
P139:1, 12:7.12 It is a mystery that God is a highly personal self-conscious being with
residential headquarters, and at the same time personally present in
such a vast universe and personally in contact with such a well-nigh
infinite number of beings. That such a phenomenon is a mystery beyond
human comprehension should not in the least lessen your faith. Do not
allow the magnitude of the infinity, the immensity of the eternity,
and the grandeur and glory of the matchless character of God to overawe,
stagger, or discourage you; for the Father is not very far from any
one of you; he dwells within you, and in him do we all literally move,
actually live, and veritably have our being.
P139:2, 12:7.13 Even though the Paradise Father functions through his divine creators
and his creature children, he also enjoys the most intimate inner contact
with you, so sublime, so highly personal, that it is even beyond my
comprehension -- that mysterious communion of the Father fragment with
the human soul and with the mortal mind of its actual indwelling. Knowing
what you do of these gifts of God, you therefore know that the Father
is in intimate touch, not only with his divine associates, but also
with his evolutionary mortal children of time. The Father indeed abides
on Paradise, but his divine presence also dwells in the minds of men.
P139:3, 12:7.14 Even though the spirit of a Son be poured out upon all flesh, even though
a Son once dwelt with you in the likeness of mortal flesh, even though
the seraphim personally guard and guide you, how can any of these divine
beings of the Second and Third Centers ever hope to come as near to
you or to understand you as fully as the Father, who has given a part
of himself to be in you, to be your real and divine, even your eternal,
self?