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I just ran into this quote and had to laugh. Perhaps the reason why some folks cannot wrap their minds around the idea that “it’s really all good,” is because of the lack of appreciation for humor. Or, I guess it could also be a lack of faith in loving over care and divine stability. But if you can laugh at your own insecurities, then you have to have faith. So, it’s humor, I think.
48:4.7 3. Prophetic joy. It will perhaps be difficult for mortals to envisage this phase of humor, but we do get a peculiar satisfaction out of the assurance “that all things work together for good” – for spirits and morontians as well as for mortals. This aspect of celestial humor grows out of our faith in the loving overcare of our superiors and in the divine stability of our Supreme Directors.
Thanks Bonita, for the encouragement and the reflection on humor. But still, I can’t see joy or humor in God having to execute one of his own children.
Richard E Warren
I think the term “execute” is erroneous and misleading. As I understand it, the functional reality is self erasure by personal choice with self annihilation as its terminus – there is no reality or real person left by the persistent embrace of iniquity and falsehood and self importance and denial of reality and love and God.
I’m sure this does bring some sense of loss to Deity at some level, perhaps even regret and sympathy….I don’t know. But the only alternatives are the end of free will or the protection of sin as an ongoing influence upon reality….sin would become real.
False sympathy is immature and unwise….to sympathize with those who suffer only by their own free will and choices. All are provided adequate mercy, patience, and love for the repentant child who comes to embrace reality but justice requires, in the final evaluation that reality prevails and unreality terminates….self terminates….execution is far more like pulling the plug on the brain dead we know of here; there simply is nobody home and no circuits to sustain AND recover that life form to function any longer. Or so I see it.
54:3.2 (615.4) Although conscious and wholehearted identification with evil (sin) is the equivalent of nonexistence (annihilation), there must always intervene between the time of such personal identification with sin and the execution of the penalty — the automatic result of such a willful embrace of evil — a period of time of sufficient length to allow for such an adjudication of such an individual’s universe status as will prove entirely satisfactory to all related universe personalities, and which will be so fair and just as to win the approval of the sinner himself.
54:3.3 (615.5) But if this universe rebel against the reality of truth and goodness refuses to approve the verdict, and if the guilty one knows in his heart the justice of his condemnation but refuses to make such confession, then must the execution of sentence be delayed in accordance with the discretion of the Ancients of Days. And the Ancients of Days refuse to annihilate any being until all moral values and all spiritual realities are extinct, both in the evildoer and in all related supporters and possible sympathizers.
Bradly’s absolutely right. God doesn’t execute anyone. That is assigning human activity to God, a theological error. All that is real, including personality, persists even if identity ceases to exist. All that is good about a personality, with or without identity, persists for all eternity. Why would that cause suffering? Loss of identity means loss of free will. Without free will the unifying power of personality cannot keep the elements of the self together. Those parts of the self that are unreal cannot exist in a real universe. That which is real, will exist. And that’s all good. There’s no “bad” left, it doesn’t exist.
Bradly’s absolutely right. God doesn’t execute anyone. That is assigning human activity to God, a theological error. All that is real, including personality, persists even if identity ceases to exist. All that is good about a personality, with or without identity, persists for all eternity. Why would that cause suffering? Loss of identity means loss of free will. Without free will the unifying power of personality cannot keep the elements of the self together. Those parts of the self that are unreal cannot exist in a real universe. That which is real, will exist. And that’s all good. There’s no “bad” left, it doesn’t exist.
We know God Our Father necessarily has to delegate execution to his highest sons in time and space, but still God must give consent, the Ancients of Days don’t do other than the divine will. So what if you or I were in Our Father’s place, would we philosophically declare: It’s good that I slay my son? No, it’s bad, but necessary. In that sense, God has the toughest job in the universe.
Richard E Warren
I think I already commented on this. Here’s what I said a few pages ago:
If there is nothing there, there is nothing to annihilate; all that is real is already extinct. You can’t execute or annihilate non-reality. Yes, the personality is denied identity, but it remains as part of the Supreme. All that is good remains. All that is not good is not real and therefore is already gone before the Ancients of Days ever make a decision. Truly, it’s all good.
54:3.3 And the Ancients of Days refuse to annihilate any being until all moral values and all spiritual realities are extinct, both in the evildoer and in all related supporters and possible sympathizers.
The Ancients of Days don’t slay anyone. It looks to me like they merely declare that annihilation has taken place after the individual has made himself extinct. Is there a quote that says the Ancients of Days ask God before they make any such decisions? Share it if you have it.
Do you recall the quote about the difference between the personality of God and the justice of God when it comes to sin? Here it is:
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 progressively real and increasingly spiritual universe.
God has no attitude toward a totally sin-identified person because the person is completely unreal. If God strikes no attitude, that would include the attitudes of suffering or sadness, wouldn’t it? Only the justice of God is aware (cognizant) of that person; the laws of the universe do the annihilating, not God himself, a person. God does not have to give his individual permission for such a thing. My guess is that the Ancients of Days only determine whether or not a person has become entirely unreal, whether there’s anything left to salvage, any mercy coupons unspent that can be scrounged up. The way I understand it is that the Ancients of Days merely issue a decree of dissolution, which means that they deem the individual dissolved or totally unreal. I’m sure there’s specific “paperwork” to be done after a person disappears him/herself which cannot be done without such a decree. I think it’s mostly administrative work in that the judgment required is only to determine that there is nothing left of the individual that is real, then the Ancients slam down the gavel and stamp the papers (metaphorically speaking).
Not even during Michael’s bestowal did the Ancients of Days actually plan on exterminating rebels, they merely allowed the investment of the “automatic seed of its own annihilation”. People annihilate themselves, and they don’t need God’s permission to do it. In a way, God gave his permission the moment he gave them free will, the opportunity to do whatever they want. Shouldn’t you be happy when people get what they want?
120:1.6 For the period of the Urantia bestowal the Ancients of Days have decreed that rebellion in Nebadon shall be invested with the automatic seed of its own annihilation.
I think I already commented on this. Here’s what I said a few pages ago:
If there is nothing there, there is nothing to annihilate; all that is real is already extinct. You can’t execute or annihilate non-reality. Yes, the personality is denied identity, but it remains as part of the Supreme. All that is good remains. All that is not good is not real and therefore is already gone before the Ancients of Days ever make a decision. Truly, it’s all good. 54:3.3 And the Ancients of Days refuse to annihilate any being until all moral values and all spiritual realities are extinct, both in the evildoer and in all related supporters and possible sympathizers.
The Ancients of Days don’t slay anyone. It looks to me like they merely declare that annihilation has taken place after the individual has made himself extinct. Is there a quote that says the Ancients of Days ask God before they make any such decisions? Share it if you have it. Do you recall the quote about the difference between the personality of God and the justice of God when it comes to sin? Here it is:
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 progressively real and increasingly spiritual universe.
God has no attitude toward a totally sin-identified person because the person is completely unreal. If God strikes no attitude, that would include the attitudes of suffering or sadness, wouldn’t it? Only the justice of God is aware (cognizant) of that person; the laws of the universe do the annihilating, not God himself, a person. God does not have to give his individual permission for such a thing. My guess is that the Ancients of Days only determine whether or not a person has become entirely unreal, whether there’s anything left to salvage, any mercy coupons unspent that can be scrounged up. The way I understand it is that the Ancients of Days merely issue a decree of dissolution, which means that they deem the individual dissolved or totally unreal. I’m sure there’s specific “paperwork” to be done after a person disappears him/herself which cannot be done without such a decree. I think it’s mostly administrative work in that the judgment required is only to determine that there is nothing left of the individual that is real, then the Ancients slam down the gavel and stamp the papers (metaphorically speaking). Not even during Michael’s bestowal did the Ancients of Days actually plan on exterminating rebels, they merely allowed the investment of the “automatic seed of its own annihilation”. People annihilate themselves, and they don’t need God’s permission to do it. In a way, God gave his permission the moment he gave them free will, the opportunity to do whatever they want. Shouldn’t you be happy when people get what they want?
120:1.6 For the period of the Urantia bestowal the Ancients of Days have decreed that rebellion in Nebadon shall be invested with the automatic seed of its own annihilation.
Sophistry Bonita. You are attempting to prove the Ancients of Days act without God’s backing. I submit they are perfect representatives of God’s will in time and space. You will recall God does participate in time/space decisions, Our Father withheld approval of Jesus letting the cup pass when the Son and the Spirit gave it.
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Richard E Warren
Geez. That’s the first time I’ve been accused of sophistry. No wait! That’s been a constant problem here on this forum, the reason I don’t like coming here. Let’s see, who else wrote that I’m a deceiver who presents fallacious arguments? I can recall a handful or so. Thankfully, they’re all gone. I sure didn’t expect it from you though. That’s a blow.
Listen, I never said that God doesn’t back what the Ancients of Days do. I said that they don’t ask him for permission to pass judgment on any given personality. Don’t put words in my mouth Rick. It really peeves me when people do that. If you have the quote which says that the Ancients of Days ask for permission before issuing a decree of dissolution, then produce it. I can’t find it. Doesn’t mean that it’s not there. It means I can’t find it. If you have it, share it.
Let me try to say this again. Have you heard that the love of God saves the sinner and that the law of God destroys the sin. Yes, the law of God is his will, but he has delegated it apart from his person. The Ancients of Days are administrators of the law of God. Why does God delegate his laws? Because justice must be a group decision, even when it comes to God the Father. The Ancients of Days are plural. It’s a group decision. If God had to give his permission first, it wouldn’t be a group decision. It would be a dictatorial decree. Criminy!
10:6.18 Justice is the collective thought of righteousness; mercy is its personal expression. Mercy is the attitude of love; precision characterizes the operation of law; divine judgment is the soul of fairness, ever conforming to the justice of the Trinity, ever fulfilling the divine love of God. When fully perceived and completely understood, the righteous justice of the Trinity and the merciful love of the Universal Father are coincident. But man has no such full understanding of divine justice. Thus in the Trinity, as man would view it, the personalities of Father, Son, and Spirit are adjusted to co-ordinate ministry of love and law in the experiential universes of time.
104:2.3 Through the recognition of the Trinity concept the mind of man can hope to grasp something of the interrelationship of love and law in the time-space creations. Through spiritual faith man gains insight into the love of God but soon discovers that this spiritual faith has no influence on the ordained laws of the material universe.
146:2.5 There is a basic law of justice in the universe which mercy is powerless to circumvent. The unselfish glories of Paradise are not possible of reception by a thoroughly selfish creature of the realms of time and space. Even the infinite love of God cannot force the salvation of eternal survival upon any mortal creature who does not choose to survive. Mercy has great latitude of bestowal, but, after all, there are mandates of justice which even love combined with mercy cannot effectively abrogate.
Geez. That’s the first time I’ve been accused of sophistry. No wait! That’s been a constant problem here on this forum, the reason I don’t like coming here. Let’s see, who else wrote that I’m a deceiver who presents fallacious arguments? I can recall a handful or so. Thankfully, they’re all gone. I sure didn’t expect it from you though. That’s a blow. Listen, I never said that God doesn’t back what the Ancients of Days do. I said that they don’t ask him for permission to pass judgment on any given personality. Don’t put words in my mouth Rick. It really peeves me when people do that. If you have the quote which says that the Ancients of Days ask for permission before issuing a decree of dissolution, then produce it. I can’t find it. Doesn’t mean that it’s not there. It means I can’t find it. If you have it, share it. Let me try to say this again. Have you heard that the love of God saves the sinner and that the law of God destroys the sin. Yes, the law of God is his will, but he has delegated it apart from his person. The Ancients of Days are administrators of the law of God. Why does God delegate his laws? Because justice must be a group decision, even when it comes to God the Father. The Ancients of Days are plural. It’s a group decision. If God had to give his permission first, it wouldn’t be a group decision. It would be a dictatorial decree. Criminy!
10:6.18 Justice is the collective thought of righteousness; mercy is its personal expression. Mercy is the attitude of love; precision characterizes the operation of law; divine judgment is the soul of fairness, ever conforming to the justice of the Trinity, ever fulfilling the divine love of God. When fully perceived and completely understood, the righteous justice of the Trinity and the merciful love of the Universal Father are coincident. But man has no such full understanding of divine justice. Thus in the Trinity, as man would view it, the personalities of Father, Son, and Spirit are adjusted to co-ordinate ministry of love and law in the experiential universes of time. 104:2.3 Through the recognition of the Trinity concept the mind of man can hope to grasp something of the interrelationship of love and law in the time-space creations. Through spiritual faith man gains insight into the love of God but soon discovers that this spiritual faith has no influence on the ordained laws of the material universe. 146:2.5 There is a basic law of justice in the universe which mercy is powerless to circumvent. The unselfish glories of Paradise are not possible of reception by a thoroughly selfish creature of the realms of time and space. Even the infinite love of God cannot force the salvation of eternal survival upon any mortal creature who does not choose to survive. Mercy has great latitude of bestowal, but, after all, there are mandates of justice which even love combined with mercy cannot effectively abrogate.
Please don’t get offended, old friend and sister. No offense intended. And note a crucial detail, I did NOT say you were a sophist, rather that your argument was sophistry.
Seems to me God is the lawgiver, by which we are all admonished to abide. The Ancients of Days do what God wills I submit. They would not remove anyone unless God approved, no?
…There is only one lawgiver. He upholds the worlds in space and swings the universes around the endless circle of the eternal circuit..
…The evolutionary mind is able to discover law, morals, and ethics; but the bestowed spirit, the indwelling Adjuster, reveals to the evolving human mind the lawgiver, the Father-source of all that is true, beautiful, and good; and such an illuminated man has a religion and is spiritually equipped to begin the long and adventurous search for God...
Richard E Warren
And note a crucial detail, I did NOT say you were a sophist, rather that your argument was sophistry.
One who delivers sophistry is a sophist. I am offended.
They would not remove anyone unless God approved, no?
No. But I’m not going to explain it again. I think I’m done here.
And note a crucial detail, I did NOT say you were a sophist, rather that your argument was sophistry.
One who delivers sophistry is a sophist. I am offended.
They would not remove anyone unless God approved, no?
No. But I’m not going to explain it again. I think I’m done here.
Well, then I must apologize. I would rather do that, and concede the point, than to offend one I consider a friend and a sister. Sorry Sis.
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Richard E Warren
Apology accepted Rick. But there’s no need to cede, that would be wrong. If you don’t get what I’m talking about, you don’t get it. There’s nothing I can do about it though. I’ve used up all my sophistry for today. But when you are so moved, I beg you to consider the difference between the personal and impersonal aspects of God. The law of God is impersonal. The personality of God is not involved in carrying out universe laws, even though he created them. The law of God is a Trinity thing, administered, interpreted and applied by a group. Anyway, I am done with this topic. It’s irritating me too much. Time to move on.
12:7.1 There is operative throughout all time and space and with regard to all reality of whatever nature an inexorable and impersonal law which is equivalent to the function of a cosmic providence. Mercy characterizes God’s attitude of love for the individual; impartiality motivates God’s attitude toward the total. The will of God does not necessarily prevail in the part — the heart of any one personality — but his will does actually rule the whole, the universe of universes.
10:6.1 All law takes origin in the First Source and Center; he is law. The administration of spiritual law inheres in the Second Source and Center. The revelation of law, the promulgation and interpretation of the divine statutes, is the function of the Third Source and Center. The application of law, justice, falls within the province of the Paradise Trinity and is carried out by certain Sons of the Trinity.
sophistry – 1. a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning. 2. false argument; sophism.
It is most unfortunate that any should claim any level of insincerity in Bonita’s presentations of her understanding of the Papers. One may disagree with a position that is sincerely proffered, especially where the text lacks specificity and clarity amidst the many mysteries that even the authors have uncertainties with…and there are many such. Hoping for warm hearts and cool heads here.
The word “executed” has been used here in fact in a false and misleading way IMO – execution of sentence or sentence executed is not a beheading, or execution of a person. The text is clear on one thing – annihilation is what one does to oneself – it is self extinction. There is nothing and no one to salvage or save at the end of such self erasure and self chosen irrelevancy – the sentence is self imposed.
Evidently some find this process to lack mercy or love or goodness….but the greater good for the greatest number determines much in the universe of universes I think. Shadows have no substance and offer no light to any other. When there is no love and there is no light then there is no “life”….the light is self extinguished by free will and not by any other means or method.
Thanks Bradly. I can always count on you to make sense of things. My head is cooling. I don’t mean to make a bigger issue out of this than has already been made, but why . . . . I really want to know why . . . why doesn’t the TUB community go after real sophistry, like inventing a whole new type of Deity such as the Spirit of Fact, a Deity that doesn’t even exist in TUB? Just sayin’.
Well, I guess I better shut up lest my inbox gets flooded with mail from Moderator 2 again. I have to say that it’s a sore spot. I should let it heal and forget about it. I definitely forgive, but have a lot of trouble forgetting painful things. Maybe I should just grow scales or something. I don’t know, but my buttons have been pushed and I have to wait for the steam to cool. Time is a gift.
Anyway, I’ll say it one more time just to be irritating, ’cause that’s what I seem to do best. God the Father does not personally sign off on the execution of any of his creatures. If the Creator Son doesn’t sit in judgment on any of his creatures, then God the Father doesn’t either. The Creator Son is a revelation of the personality of the Father, they are one.
p372:06 The Master Son, Michael, is supremely concerned with but three things: creation, sustenance, and ministry. He does not personally participate in the judicial work of the universe. Creators never sit in judgment on their creatures; that is the exclusive function of creatures of high training and actual creature experience.
32:3.6 Literally and figuratively, spiritually and personally, the Father and the Sons are one. It is a fact: He who has seen a Creator Son has seen the Father.
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