Becoming Perfect and Divine

Attaining Perfection

Levels of Perfection There are seven conceivable types of perfection throughout all the phases and forms of relativity: 1. Absolute perfection in all aspects. 2. Absolute perfection in some phases and relative perfection in all other aspects. 3. Absolute, relative, and imperfect aspects in varied association. 4. Absolute perfection in some respects, imperfection in all others. 5. Absolute perfection in no direction, relative perfection in all manifestations. 6. Absolute perfection in no phase, relative in some, imperfect in others. 7. Absolute perfection in no attribute, imperfection in all (e.g., Earth mortals).

Progressive Evolution The divine universal plan of God provides for the creation, evolution, ascension, and perfection of finite will creatures from time and space to infinity. Due to the evolving mentality of the immature human nature, mortal minds require time delays in attaining perfection and divinity at every stage of growth. Evolutionary time-and-matter-conditioned phases of the finite become cosmically integrated only as a result of the growth and attainment of each individual.

The Evolving Soul On the evolutionary planets, selfhood is material. It is a thing in the universe and is subject to the laws of material existence. While selfhood is a fact in time and is responsive to the vicissitudes of time, it is during this important time that survival decisions must be formulated.    Mistakes of mortal mind and human conduct may delay the evolution of the soul, but they cannot inhibit the morontia soul phenomenon once it has been initiated by the indwelling Adjuster acting with the consent of the creature's will. (The morontia substance of the soul is the more rarified material intervening between spirit and matter.)   At any time prior to mortal death the material human will is empowered to rescind and reject the choice for survival. Even after Earth survival, but before fusion with the Adjuster, the evolving and ascending creature can refuse the will of the Paradise Father.    While the immortal soul is at first wholly morontial in nature, it possesses such a capacity for development that it ascends to true spirit levels for fusion with the Thought Adjuster.   Upon fusion with the Adjuster, the ascending mortal has eternally and unreservedly chosen to do the Father's will.

The Mansion Worlds and Beyond In the morontia state on the mansion worlds, the self becomes a new and more enduring universe reality. The continuing growth of the self is predicated on its increasing attunement to the mind and spirit circuits of the universes.   When the self attains the spiritual level, it becomes a secure value in the universe. This new value is predicated upon the fact that survival decisions have been made and confirmed by the eternal fusion with the Thought Adjuster.    Having achieved the status of a true universe value, the creature becomes liberated in potential for the seeking of the highest universe value, God.

Paradigm of Mortal Perfection Michael, the local universe creator who incarnated on Earth as Jesus, is a divine Son of the Universal Father.  Michael has been with the Father and comprehended him fully. As Jesus, Michael lived his earth life to the full satisfaction of the Father. Further, his incarnation in the flesh enabled him to fully comprehend man.    Jesus was the perfection of man. He attained perfection as all true believers are destined to attain in him and through him. Jesus revealed a God of perfection to man and displayed in himself the perfected mortal son of his kingdom.   In essence, the task of each mortal is to travel the reciprocal of the path pioneered by Michael's outward and downward descent from the Father to man by ascending upward and inward from mortal status to a perfected and divine spirit in personal communion with the Father in Paradise.

Man's Recognition of God Mortal cosmic consciousness implies the recognition of a First Cause, an uncaused reality. Normal evolving mortals experience an irresistible urge to symbolize or embody their finite concepts of God.    Man's consciousness of moral duty and his spiritual idealism represent a value level, an experiential reality, that is difficult but vital for man to symbolize.

Animal Origin Is No Stigma  In the view of the universe, man's animal evolutionary origin holds no stigma. Evolutionary origin is the exclusive method of producing one of the two basic types of finite intelligent will creatures.    When the heights of perfection and eternity are attained, there is great honor for those who began at the bottom and climbed the long ladder of life.    Successful pilgrims gain a personal experience that embodies an invaluable knowledge of every phase of life from the nadir to the zenith.

Mortal Obligation Mortal experience enables recognition of man's place in the family of divine sonship. This perception brings a sense of obligation to avail oneself of the advantages freely provided by the Paradise plan for mortal survival.   The Paradise Plan for mortal survival was illuminated by the life experience of Jesus.   Every facility and all power have been provided for insuring man's ultimate attainment of the Paradise goal of divine perfection. (The Force is with man.)

God's Personal Relationships God deals directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures through his personality circuit. He is contactable (outside of Paradise) in the presences of his fragmented entities (such as the Thought Adjusters), who are the will of God in the universes.    The Thought Adjuster is a Paradise spirit who indwells the minds of the mortals of time while fostering the evolution of the immortal soul of surviving mortals.    The minds of mortals originate in the local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving experiential transformations of spiritual attainment that are the result of a mortal's choosing to do the will of the Father in heaven.

Failures There probably never was a more disheartening miscarriage of wisdom on any planet in all the local universe of Nebadon than the fall of Adam and Eve, the material surrogate guides for the mortals of Earth.    However, while regretable, it is not surprising that missteps occur in the affairs of the evolutionary universes. The universe was not created in perfection. Perfection is the eternal goal, not the origin.

Qualitative Difference The wills of the Creator and the creature are qualitatively different, but they are analogous.    Creature and Creator can collaborate in the achievement of universe perfection. Man can work in liaison with God to cocreate an eternal finaliter (himself).    God the Father can even work as humanity through the human incarnations of his descending Sons, who achieve the supremacy of creature experience.

Collaborative Effort Mankind does not ascend without effort in the universe. Neither does God the Supreme evolve without purposeful and intelligent action. The benefits to both are reciprocal.   Creatures do not attain perfection through passivity, nor can the Spirit of Supremacy factualize the power of the Almighty (physical energy) without unceasing service ministry to the finite creation. The factualization of the Spirit of God the Supreme with the Almighty Supreme is the synthesis in Time and Space of the Qualified and the Unqualified Absolutes.   The ceaseless struggles of mortals are reflections of the finite deity, God the Supreme, to achieve reality of self and completion of sovereignty within the sphere of action in which his evolving nature is expanding to the outermost limits of possibility.

Growing Towards Perfection As man shakes off the shackles of animal fear, as he bridges continents and oceans with machines, as he records his sequential generations and centuries, he must substitute for each transcended obstacle a new and voluntarily assumed restraint in accordance with the moral dictates of expanding human wisdom. Voluntary self-imposed restraints are simultaneously the most powerful and the most abstract and tenuous of all the factors of human civilization. These self-imposed restraints are the principles of justice and the ideals of brotherhood. Man qualifies for the restraining garments of mercy when he dares to love his fellow men. He achieves the beginnings of spiritual brotherhood when he elects to mete out to others the same treatment he would like for himself from others and from God.

Realizing Perfection Universe progress is characterized by increasing personality freedom because it is coincidental with the progressive attainment of higher and higher levels of self-understanding and voluntary self-restraint. The attainment of perfection of spiritual self-restraint equals completeness of universe freedom and personal liberty.

Faith and Prayer Faith fosters and maintains man's soul through the confusion of his early orientation in the vast universe. Prayer becomes the great unifier of the various inspirations of the creative imagination and the faith urges of a soul trying to identify itself with the spirit ideals of the indwelling divine presence - the Thought Adjuster.

Enlightened Prayer Enlightened prayer must recognize not only an external and transcendent personal God, but also an internal and impersonal Divinity, the immanent indwelling Adjuster. When praying, it is fitting that man should strive to grasp the concept of the Universal Father on Paradise; but a more effective technique is to revert to man and God's alter ego, the Thought Adjuster. In the immediate presence of the Adjuster, man can talk directly with a real divine alter ego that indwells him, and is the very presence and essence of the living God, the Universal Father.

Dangerous Prayer When prayer becomes overly esthetic consisting almost exclusively of blissful contemplation of paradisiacal divinity, it loses much of its socializing influence and tends toward mysticism and isolation of its devotees. There is a danger associated with overmuch private praying that is prevented by group prayer and community devotions. Genuine prayer adds to spiritual growth, modifies attitudes, and yields the satisfaction that comes from communion with divinity, the spontaneous outburst of God-consciousness.

The Way of Salvation The divine Thought Adjuster is the deepest nature of humans. The Adjuster creates within man a hunger for righteousness and a craving for divine perfection. Personal religion (as opposed to organized religion) is the faith act of recognizing the inner urge to divine attainment. This recognition brings about a soul trust and assurance as the way of salvation, the technique for the survival of personality and all the values that men look upon as being true and good.

Articles of Faith and Progress While human beings must be known in order to be loved, divinity must be loved in order to be known. There must be a hunger for perfection in man's heart to ensure his capacity for comprehending the faith paths to supreme attainment. Honest doubts and sincere questionings are not sinful. Such attitudes merely spell delay in the progressive journey toward perfection attainment. Childlike trust secures man's entrance into the kingdom of heavenly ascent, but progress depends on the vigorous exercise of the confident faith of maturity. The work of the Thought Adjuster translates man's primitive and evolutionary sense of duty into a higher faith in the eternal realities of revelation.

Communion with God Along with a hunger for perfection, the indwelling Thought Adjuster arouses in man's soul an expanding curiosity that can be satisfied only by communion (spiritual intimacy) with God. The hungry soul of man refuses to be content with anything less than the personal realization and fellowship of the living God. Whatever more God may be than a high and perfect moral personality, he cannot be anything less in man's perception.

Jesus' Invitation "This kingdom is an everlasting dominion. Those who enter the kingdom shall ascend to my Father; they will certainly attain the right hand of his glory in Paradise.... And I have not come to call the would-be righteous but sinners and all who hunger and thirst for the righteousness of divine perfection." "John came preaching repentance to prepare you for the kingdom; now have I come proclaiming faith, the gift of God, as the price of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. If you would but believe that my Father loves you with an infinite love, then you are in the kingdom of God."

Salvation and Righteousness Salvation cannot be purchased. Righteousness cannot be earned. Salvation is a gift of God, and righteousness is the consequence of the spirit-born life of sonship in the kingdom. Men are not saved because they live a righteous life. Rather, they live a righteous life because they have already been saved. They recognize service in the kingdom as the supreme delight of life on earth. Realization of sonship makes any desire to sin repugnant.

Success Forceful ambition, intelligent judgment, and seasoned wisdom are essential for material success. Leadership depends upon natural ability, discretion, will power, and determination. Spiritual destiny is dependent on faith, love, and devotion to truth, the wholehearted desire to find God and to be like him.

Progress and Providence The divine plan of progress is for the creation, evolution, ascension, and perfection of will creatures. In the time-space universes, progress is made through evolution. The human race has struggled through long ages to reach its present position. Throughout all these millenniums, Providence has worked out the plan of progressive evolution. Only man's mistaken concepts have slowed evolution. Divine providence never opposes true human progress, temporal or spiritual. Providence is always consistent with the unchanging and perfect nature of the supreme Lawmaker.

Delegation of Control The Universal Father is the personality of the First Source and Center. The Father maintains infinite control through his personal relations with all his coordinate and subordinate sources and centers. In reality, the Universal Father's infinite control may never actually function due to the perfect operations of his coordinate and subordinate centers and personalities.

Initial Perfection Earth mortals cannot be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is entirely possible to attain the heavenly and divine goal that the infinite God has set for mortal man. Mortal perfection is not universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and God-consciousness.

Creation God is the personal creator of Paradise and the central universe of perfection (Havona), but the universes of time and space are all created and organized by the Paradise corps of the Creator Sons. God the Father, in association with the Eternal Son, is the creator of all the universe Creator Sons. While the home universe of Earth (Nebadon), is the creation of the Father's Son, Michael, the Father does control many of Nebadon's relationships outside this universe and some manifestations of the physical, mindal, and spiritual energies.

Omnipresence The omnipresence of God is in reality a part of his infinite nature. Space constitutes no barrier to Deity. God is, in perfection and without limitation, discernibly present only on Paradise and in the central universe. He limits his direct and actual presence in observence of the sovereignty and the divine prerogatives of the coordinate creators and rulers of the universes of time and space. While it is not always possible to distinguish between the presence of the Universal Father and the actions of his eternal coordinates and agencies, this is not true with the personality circuit and the Adjusters. In his personality circuit, God acts uniquely, directly, and exclusively.

The Mystery of Mysteries The manner in which the Universal Father resides in the minds of the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries. The mystery is abstruse because it relates to the inherent differences that exist between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the time-space creature and the Universal Creator, the material and the spiritual, the imperfection of man and the perfection of Paradise Deity. Regardless of the disparities, the Father manifests himself to every one of his creatures to the fullness of that creature's capacity to spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness.

Will While mortals exist and live in God, God wills to live in mortals. The Thought Adjuster, a fragment of the Universal Father, has consented to live in men and to indwell men subject to the human will. However, the secret of continuing human survival is learning to do God's will. Working in the minds of men, the Thought Adjusters unceasingly urges the creatures of their indwelling toward divine ideals, always luring men upward toward the purposes and aims of a future and better life.

Created in the Image of God The Thought Adjusters are the reflection of God in the universes of time and space. The Adjuster is the signature of divinity. Made in the "image of God" does not refer to man's physical likeness to God nor to the material creature's endowments, but rather to the spirit presence in humans of the Universal Father, the Thought Adjuster.

Adventure and Experimentation The Father constantly and unfailingly meets the need of different demands for himself as they change in various sections of his master universe. God's deity subordinates may engage in adventure and experimentation, but the Universal Father sees the end from the beginning. His divine plan and eternal purpose embrace and comprehend all the experiments and all the adventures of all his subordinates in every world, system, and constellation in every universe of his vast domains.

Eternal and Infinite Perfection God's primal perfection consists in the inherent perfection of the goodness of his divine nature. He is final, complete, and infinitely perfect. The whole scheme of living existences on the worlds of space is centered in the divine purpose of elevating all will creatures to the high destiny of the experience of sharing the Father's Paradise perfection. God never ceases to bestow himself upon all self-conscious creatures of the vast universe of universes.

Mercy Mercy is justice tempered by the wisdom that grows out of perfection of knowledge and the full recognition of the natural weaknesses and environmental handicaps of finite creatures. Mercy is not a breech or violation of justice but rather an understanding interpretation of the demands of supreme justice as it is fairly applied to the subordinate spiritual beings and to the material creatures of the evolving universes.

Role of Nature Nature is the time-space effect of two cosmic factors: 1. The immutability, perfection, and righteousness of Paradise Deity; 2. The incomplete experimental plans, executive blunders, insurrectionary errors, incompleteness of development, and imperfection of wisdom of the extra-Paradise creatures, from the highest to the lowest. In each universe, on each planet, and in each individual life, nature is modified, qualified, and possibly marred by the acts, the mistakes, and the disloyalties of the creatures of the evolutionary systems and universes. Therefore, nature must be stable underneath while changing and varying in accordance with the operating procedures of the local universe. It is a travesty to worship nature simply because it is in a limited sense pervaded by God.

Survival Attributes The acceptance of sonship and cooperation with the indwelling Adjuster is the price of evolutionary survival in time and space. Teamwork (working with all levels and types of brothers) is vital. The ascendant career is mastered step by step, life by life, world by world. Survival is complete in perfection. Perfection is complete in the supremacy of divinity.

The Father and the Creator Sons Are One The farther down the scale of life, the more difficult it is to locate the invisible Father with the vision of faith. Lower creatures, and at times even higher personalities, may find it difficult to envisage the Universal Father in his Creator Sons. Pending spiritual exaltation, when perfection of development will enable them to see God in person, ascenders sometimes grow weary in progression, entertain spiritual doubts, stumble into confusion, and thereby isolate themselves from the progressive spiritual aims of their time and universe. Like Lucifer, these pilgrims lose the ability to see the Father when beholding the Creator Son. The solution is to tenaciously cling to the truth of the Father's presence in his Sons. Literally and figuratively, spiritually and personally, the Father and the Sons are one. He who has seen a Creator Son has seen the Father.

Perfection Is Individually Owned The perfection of the creatures of time, when achieved, is an actual possession of the personality. While the elements of grace are blended, creature attainments that result from individual effort and actual living, are a personality reaction to the existing environment.

The Greatest Gift In the mind of God, there is a plan that embraces every creature in all his vast domains. This plan is for boundless opportunity, unlimited progress, and endless life. It would be easy for the Universal Father to make all mortals perfect beings, to impart perfection by his divine word. A perfect beginning, however, would deprive staunch beings the wonderful adventure and training associated with the long and gradual inward climb, an experience to be had only by those fortunate enough to begin at the very bottom of living existence.

Loyalty Loyalty is the result of the intelligent appreciation of universe brotherhood. One can not take so much and give nothing back. As mortals ascend the personality scale, they learn first to be loyal, then to love, then to be filial befitting a child to his parents. Mortals become free upon becoming finaliters. The finaliter stage is the perfection of loyalty, the finality of liberty.

Evil The Gods neither create evil nor permit sin and rebellion. Potential evil exists in time in a universe embracing different levels of perfection meanings and values. Sin is potential in all realms where imperfect beings are endowed with the ability to choose between good and evil. The conflicting presence of truth and untruth, fact and falsehood, constitutes the potential for error. The willful rejection of truth is error. The deliberate choice of evil constitutes sin. The persistent pursuit of sin and error is iniquity, wickedness.

Chances of Mortal Survival All souls of every possible phase of mortal existence will survive provided they manifest a willingness to cooperate with their indwelling Adjusters and exhibit a desire to find God and to attain divine perfection. The desire may be just the first faint flicker of the primitive comprehension of the "true light which lights every man who comes into the world" (the Thought Adjuster).

Partnerships Every creature in every evolving universe who aspires to do the Father's will is destined to become the partner of their universe time-space Creator in the adventure of experiential perfection attainment. If this were not true, the Father would not have endowed such creatures with creative free will, neither would he indwell them. The Father too has actually gone into partnership with each creature by bestowing his own spirit, the Thought Adjuster in them.

Truth, Beauty and Goodness Truth is the basis of science and philosophy, which provide the intellectual foundation of religion. Beauty sponsors art, music, and the meaningful rhythms of human experience. Goodness embraces the sense of ethics, morality, and religion, which manifests as the hunger for experiential perfection.  The possession of goodness (greatness), is the measure of real divinity attainment.

Insatiable Craving In every living plant or animal cell (material or spiritual), there is an insatiable craving for the attainment of ever-increasing perfection of environmental adjustment, organismal adaptation, and augmented life realization. The interminable effort of all living things manifests the existence within them of an innate striving for perfection.

Mentality and Desire Mind evolution depends on or is delayed by the rapid or slow development of physical conditions. Spiritual progress is dependent on mental expansion or is delayed by intellectual retardation. This does not mean that spiritual evolution is dependent on education, culture, or wisdom. The soul may evolve regardless of mental culture, but not in the absence of mental capacity and desire - the choice for survival and the decision to achieve ever-increasing perfection doing the will of the Father. While survival may not depend on the possession of knowledge and wisdom, progression does.

Short Cuts Never, in the ascent to Paradise, will mortals gain anything by impatiently attempting to circumvent the established divine plan through short cuts, personal inventions, or other devices for improving on the way of perfection to perfection.

The Force Is With Mortals The entire organization of high spirits, angelic hosts, and midwayer fellows is enthusiastically devoted to the furtherance of the Paradise plan for the progressive ascension and perfection attainment of evolutionary mortals. One of the celestial businesses of the universe, the superb survival plan of bringing God down to man and then, through a sublime partnership, carrying man up to God and on to an eternity of service and divinity of attainment, is the same for mortals and angels. When man gives his will to God, the forces of the universe support him.

Efficacious Prayer To engage in effective praying, mortals should: 1. Qualify as a potent prayer by sincerely and courageously facing the problems of universe reality. Have cosmic stamina. 2. Honestly exhaust the human capacity for human adjustment. Be industrious. 3. Surrender every wish of mind and every craving of soul to the transforming embrace of spiritual growth. Experience an enhancement of meanings and an elevation of values. 4. Make a wholehearted choice of the divine will. Obliterate the dead center of indecision. 5. Recognize the Father's will. Effect an unqualified consecration and a dynamic dedication to doing the Father's will. 6. Direct prayer for divine wisdom to solve the specific human problems encountered in the Paradise ascension - the attainment of divine perfection. 7. Have living faith.

The Goal The goal of human self-realization should be spiritual, not material. The only realities worth striving for are divine, spiritual, and eternal. Mortal man is entitled to the enjoyment of physical pleasures and to the satisfaction of human affections. He is benefited by loyalty to human associations and temporal institutions. However, these are not the eternal foundations upon which to build the immortal personality that must transcend space, vanquish time, and achieve the eternal destiny of divine perfection.

Spiritual Growth Spiritual development depends on maintaining a living spiritual connection with true spiritual forces, and on the continuous bearing of spiritual fruit (yielding the ministry received from one's spiritual benefactors to one's fellows by becoming a part of the spiritual force.). Spiritual progress is based upon intellectual recognition of one's spiritual deficiency coupled with a self-consciousness of perfection-hunger (the desire to know God and be like him, and the wholehearted intent to do the will of the Father in heaven). Spiritual growth is first an awakening to needs, next a discernment of meanings, and then a discovery of values. Evidence of true spiritual development is seen in a human personality motivated by love, activated by unselfish ministry, and dominated by the wholehearted worship of the perfection ideals of divinity. This spiritual experience constitutes the reality of religion as contrasted with mere theological beliefs.

Living Religiously Although the average mortal of Earth cannot hope to attain the high perfection of character that Jesus of Nazareth acquired while residing temporarily in human form, it is altogether possible for every mortal believer to develop a strong and unified personality along the perfected lines of the personality of Jesus. The unique feature of Jesus' personality was not so much its perfection as its exquisite and balanced symmetry and unification. The deepest nature of mortals (the divine Thought Adjuster), creates a craving for righteousness and divine perfection within the mortal mind. Personal (true) religion is the faith act of the recognition of this inner urge to divine attainment. This brings about a response of soul trust and assurance of which man becomes conscious as the way of salvation, and the values that man comes to look upon as being true and good.

Progressive Religious Experience The morontia phase of revealed religion in the mansion worlds continues to concentrate on the experience of survival. Its great urge is the attainment of spirit perfection. In addition, there also is present the higher urge of worship with an impelling call to increased ethical service. Morontia insight entails an ever-expanding consciousness of the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and even the Ultimate.1   1 For more on the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and the Ultimate, click here,and see "Appendix III, Diety Relationships."

Imperfection Perfection is not the point of departure for beings in the evolutionary experience. This fact introduced imperfection into the evolutionary creations. Imperfection permits potential evil. Misadaptation, disharmony, and conflict are inherent in evolutionary growth in both the physical universes and personal creatures. The divinity response to the imperfection inherent in the time lag of evolution is evident in the compensating presence of God the Sevenfold, by whose activities that which is perfecting is integrated with the perfect and the perfected. A time lag is inseparable from evolution, which is creativity in time. The time lag makes possible creature participation in divine creation by permitting creature personalities to become partners with Deity in the attainment of maximum development. Even the material mind of the mortal creature becomes a partner with the divine Adjuster in the dualization of the immortal soul.

Divine Goodness Spiritual evolution is an experience of the increasing and voluntary choice for goodness that is attended by an equal and progressive decrease in the possibility of evil. With the attainment of finality of choice for goodness and of completed capacity for truth appreciation, there comes into existence a perfection of beauty and holiness whose righteousness eternally inhibits the possibility of even the concept of potential evil emerging.

Voluntary Self-Restraint Universe progress is characterized by increasing personality freedom because it is associated with the progressive attainment of ever higher levels of self-understanding and consequent voluntary self-restraint.

No Bias Jesus said: "In my Father's kingdom there shall be neither Jew nor gentile, only those who seek perfection through service, for I declare that he who would be great in my Father's kingdom must first become server of all." Jesus continued:  "John (the Baptist) came preaching repentance to prepare you for the kingdom; now have I come proclaiming faith, the gift of God, as the price of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. If you would but believe that my Father loves you with an infinite love, then you are in the kingdom of God."

Purpose of Struggling Jesus told his followers that the chief purpose of all human struggling is perfection and divine attainment. He admonished them: "Be you perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." He did not exhort his followers to love their neighbors as they loved themselves. That would have been a worthy achievement indicating their achievement of brotherly love. Rather he encouraged people to love men as he had loved them - to love with a fatherly as well as a brotherly affection.

No Original Sin By nature, before being reborn in the spirit (the Thought Adjuster), mortal man is subject to inherent evil tendencies. Such natural imperfections of behavior are neither sin nor iniquity. Mortal man is just beginning his long ascent to the perfection of the Father in Paradise. To be imperfect or partial in natural endowment is not sinful. Man is subject to evil, but he is in no sense the child of the evil one (Lucifer) unless he has knowingly and deliberately chosen the path of sin and the life of iniquity. Evil is inherent in the natural order of this world. Sin is an attitude of conscious rebellion that was brought to Earth by those who fell from spiritual light into gross darkness.

Physical, Mindal and Spiritual Perfection The time universes are not perfect. Perfection is their destiny. The struggle for perfection pertains not only to the intellectual and the spiritual levels, but also to the physical level of energy and mass. The future settlement of the seven superuniverses in light and life (glory and spiritual splendor) presupposes their attainment of physical stability. The final attainment of material equilibrium (no earthquakes, volcanic activity, or weather disturbances) will signify the completed evolution of the physical control of the Almighty Supreme.

Perfection of the Grand Universe Life in the perfected grand universe in the far future days will be vastly different from what it is at present. Gone will be the adventures of organizing the galaxies of space, the planting of life on the uncertain worlds of time, and the evolving of harmony out of chaos, beauty out of potentials, truth out of meanings, and goodness out of values. The time universes will have achieved the fulfillment of finite destiny. For an interlude, there will be rest and relaxation from the agelong struggle for evolutionary perfection. At some point, the enigma of the emerging Deity of God the Ultimate will challenge the perfected citizens of the settled universes just as their struggling evolutionary forebearers were challenged by the quest for God the Supreme. The curtain of cosmic destiny will open again to reveal the transcendent grandeur of the alluring absonite quest for the attainment of the Universal Father on new and higher levels revealed in the ultimate of creature experience.