Personality, Choice and Mind

   
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I think paper 5 is the most intimate of the five discussions on God, and it should be, because they're talking about God's relation to us. They're talking about the approach to God, his presence, what is true worship, what is his relation to religion, how does one become conscious of God. And then, in the very last section, they introduce this radically new concept of personality as a fourth reality–not matter, not mind, not spirit, but something yet again, something which God gives. I like this statement: "God provides for the sovereign choice of all true personalities. No personal creature can be coerced into the eternal adventure; the portal of eternity opens only in response to the freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free will."

This is first and last a family.

What does God get out of this? Love, freely given. And as near as I can see, that's all he wants.

In one place, the author of this group of papers says, if it were possible to divest God of all his tremendous powers, I think we would still love him just as much, because of what he is.

I think you might appropriately note down some cross-references here if you will. In this section on the God of Personality, cross-reference page 106. Let's take a little time out at this point, and we'll skip it. On page 106, they continue a discussion of personality because they're discussing the relationship of the Infinite Spirit to personality. And if you look at the third from the last paragraph, it's very interesting:

God "bestows personality by his personal free will. Why he does so, we can only conjecture; how he does so, we do not know. Neither do we know why the Third Source bestows non-Father personality. But this the Infinite Spirit does in his own behalf, in creative conjunction with the Eternal Son, and in numerous ways unknown to you. The Infinite Spirit can also act for the Father in the bestowal of First Source personality."

Let's take a little time out right now and talk about personality, as we're going to talk about matter, mind, spirit, space, time, as we encounter them.

There are basically two types of creatures who have freewill choice:

Type one possesses Father personality, and they may get that personality direct from the Universal Father, or the Conjoint Actor may give it to them. Look at it this way: Think of personality as being like money in the bank. God signs on the account. He's also made the Infinite Spirit an attorney-in-fact. The Infinite Spirit can sign checks on the Father's checking account, and bestow personality for the Father.

There is a second type of personality which is non-Father. What they call in here Third Source Personality. Third Source Personalities have free will choice, but they are not in the Father's personality circuit.

And we know some examples. The Power Centers are Third Source Personalities but are not in the Father's personality circuit. I've said Power Centers, not Master Physical Controllers–some of them are not personal. But all of the Power Centers have free will; they're highly volitional. The Associate Power Directors have free will, but some of their subordinates on the lower levels of the Master Physical Controllers do not have personality. They are living, intelligent machines.

The last half of the paper on the Seven Master Spirits starts with a discussion of cosmic mind. It goes on into a discussion of morals, virtue, and personality. It goes on to a discussion of Urantia personality. And concludes with a discussion of the reality of human consciousness.

You see, when you try to deal with personality as we know it, you just almost have to deal with mind at the same time, because our personality functions in the mind arena. And you can best see personality by observing its function. And when it functions, you're dealing with mind–personal mind. It's in this discussion that they point out that mind has three inalienable qualities:

Quality number one: the mathematical response of mind. All human civilizations develop mathematics and produce science of some quality.

Number two: the moral, or duty, response of mind. All civilizations evolve some form of justice.

And number three: the worshipful response of mind. All civilizations evolve religions of one kind or another.

Civilizations come, civilizations go. Cultures rise and fall, but these qualities are expressed in each succeeding civilization, because they're basic and constitutive in mind.

On page 194, they take inventory of seven functions of human mind, because it is personal mind. Here is personality in action in the human mind. These are the functions of the relative free will of a human being: moral decision, spiritual choice, unselfish love, group loyalty, cosmic insight, the attempt to do God's will, and the pursuit of divine values.

This is what mind can do because it's personal mind.

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