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 Post subject: Made In The Image Of God
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What does it mean that mortals are made in the image of God? How so? Why so? Maryjo started a topic on the Big Questions of Life -

1. What is the Meaning of Life?
2. Who am I?

This discussion is related to that one and to those questions as well. Why are We? What patterns and potentials and traits are imbedded within us tadpoles? How do we reflect the Divine Creators of Perfection? What makes mortals so special? How are humans related to Deity? Who are we really?

I hope you will join in here to discuss and discover the many ways the UB describes our very being and our very purpose by posting both Q's and A's you wish to share here with this student body. The Urantia Papers offer so much material for our discovery, study, and learning about God and about ourselves....a celebration of the human "condition" and our potential destiny!


4. The Divine Perfection Plans

7:4.1 (85.2) The Eternal Son is in everlasting liaison with the Father in the successful prosecution of the divine plan of progress: the universal plan for the creation, evolution, ascension, and perfection of will creatures. And, in divine faithfulness, the Son is the eternal equal of the Father.

7:4.2 (85.3) The Father and his Son are as one in the formulation and prosecution of this gigantic attainment plan for advancing the material beings of time to the perfection of eternity. This project for the spiritual elevation of the ascendant souls of space is a joint creation of the Father and the Son, and they are, with the co-operation of the Infinite Spirit, engaged in associative execution of their divine purpose.

7:4.3 (85.4) This divine plan of perfection attainment embraces three unique, though marvelously correlated, enterprises of universal adventure:

7:4.4 (85.5) 1. The Plan of Progressive Attainment. This is the Universal Father’s plan of evolutionary ascension, a program unreservedly accepted by the Eternal Son when he concurred in the Father’s proposal, “Let us make mortal creatures in our own image.” This provision for upstepping the creatures of time involves the Father’s bestowal of the Thought Adjusters and the endowing of material creatures with the prerogatives of personality.

7:4.5 (85.6) 2. The Bestowal Plan. The next universal plan is the great Father-revelation enterprise of the Eternal Son and his co-ordinate Sons. This is the proposal of the Eternal Son and consists of his bestowal of the Sons of God upon the evolutionary creations, there to personalize and factualize, to incarnate and make real, the love of the Father and the mercy of the Son to the creatures of all universes. Inherent in the bestowal plan, and as a provisional feature of this ministration of love, the Paradise Sons act as rehabilitators of that which misguided creature will has placed in spiritual jeopardy. Whenever and wherever there occurs a delay in the functioning of the attainment plan, if rebellion, perchance, should mar or complicate this enterprise, then do the emergency provisions of the bestowal plan become active forthwith. The Paradise Sons stand pledged and ready to function as retrievers, to go into the very realms of rebellion and there restore the spiritual status of the spheres. And such a heroic service a co-ordinate Creator Son did perform on Urantia in connection with his experiential bestowal career of sovereignty acquirement.

7:4.6 (85.7) 3. The Plan of Mercy Ministry. When the attainment plan and the bestowal plan had been formulated and proclaimed, alone and of himself, the Infinite Spirit projected and put in operation the tremendous and universal enterprise of mercy ministry. This is the service so essential to the practical and effective operation of both the attainment and the bestowal undertakings, and the spiritual personalities of the Third Source and Center all partake of the spirit of mercy ministry which is so much a part of the nature of the Third Person of Deity. Not only in creation but also in administration, the Infinite Spirit functions truly and literally as the conjoint executive of the Father and the Son.

7:4.7 (86.1) The Eternal Son is the personal trustee, the divine custodian, of the Father’s universal plan of creature ascension. Having promulgated the universal mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect,” the Father intrusted the execution of this tremendous undertaking to the Eternal Son; and the Eternal Son shares the fostering of this supernal enterprise with his divine co-ordinate, the Infinite Spirit. Thus do the Deities effectively co-operate in the work of creation, control, evolution, revelation, and ministration—and if required, in restoration and rehabilitation.

117:3.5 Mortal man is more than figuratively made in the image of God. From a physical standpoint this statement is hardly true, but with reference to certain universe potentialities it is an actual fact. In the human race, something of the same drama of evolutionary attainment is being unfolded as takes place, on a vastly larger scale, in the universe of universes. Man, a volitional personality, becomes creative in liaison with an Adjuster, an impersonal entity, in the presence of the finite potentialities of the Supreme, and the result is the flowering of an immortal soul. In the universes the Creator personalities of time and space function in liaison with the impersonal spirit of the Paradise Trinity and become thereby creative of a new power potential of Deity reality.

117:3.6 Mortal man, being a creature, is not exactly like the Supreme Being, who is deity, but man's evolution does in some ways resemble the growth of the Supreme. Man consciously grows from the material toward the spiritual by the strength, power, and persistency of his own decisions; he also grows as his Thought Adjuster develops new techniques for reaching down from the spiritual to the morontial soul levels; and once the soul comes into being, it begins to grow in and of itself.

117:3.7 This is somewhat like the way in which the Supreme Being expands. His sovereignty grows in and out of the acts and achievements of the Supreme Creator Personalities; that is the evolution of the majesty of his power as the ruler of the grand universe. His deity nature is likewise dependent on the pre-existent unity of the Paradise Trinity. But there is still another aspect to the evolution of God the Supreme: He is not only Creator-evolved and Trinity-derived; he is also self-evolved and self-derived. God the Supreme is himself a volitional, creative participant in his own deity actualization. The human morontial soul is likewise a volitional, cocreative partner in its own immortalization.

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Those of us who understand that God is a person or being with personality and selfhood and free will and mind and the volitional expressions of those 4 characteristics can begin to understand that there is purpose and a plan to God's creation. Creation IS God's expression of himself (although it is incorrect to depersonalize God as IT or itself, it is also inaccurate to think of God as HIM or himself too - God is the source of and encompasses all attributes of all realities and possibilities - Fatherhood, we are told, is the closest and best human example of God's paternal nature and relationship to creation). Mortals and all other creatures are also expressions of God's self, will, purpose, and plan.


I've always wondered about and marveled at God's unwillingness to "settle" for perfection. And also God's interest in "potential". Perfection has no potential I do not think. And apparently potential has no perfection as every and all potential realized and actualized appears to create evermore potential!! God's plan has set in motion a forever and perpetual "perfecting" mechanism and organism. Even that which might achieve future perfection remains but an element of and influence for further and greater perfecting...there appears to be no terminus or end to the acquirement and expression of experiential wisdom. Or so I understand it.


Reminder: While there are those among us who make great assertions and bold declarations and invent elaborate theories and construct obtuse fables about reality, anything I post which is not direct text from the UB is merely personal opinion and my own understanding of the teachings we share here and are subject to error, correction, completion, and revisions by others and by myself over time! My opinions and perspective hold no privilege or power or great insights.
Merely another tadpole's view of reality! Just happy to be here!! :wink:

4:0.1 (54.1) THE Universal Father has an eternal purpose pertaining to the material, intellectual, and spiritual phenomena of the universe of universes, which he is executing throughout all time. God created the universes of his own free and sovereign will, and he created them in accordance with his all-wise and eternal purpose. It is doubtful whether anyone except the Paradise Deities and their highest associates really knows very much about the eternal purpose of God. Even the exalted citizens of Paradise hold very diverse opinions about the nature of the eternal purpose of the Deities.

4:1.6 (55.4) The Universal Father has not withdrawn from the management of the universes; he is not an inactive Deity. If God should retire as the present upholder of all creation, there would immediately occur a universal collapse. Except for God, there would be no such thing as reality. At this very moment, as during the remote ages of the past and in the eternal future, God continues to uphold. The divine reach extends around the circle of eternity. The universe is not wound up like a clock to run just so long and then cease to function; all things are constantly being renewed. The Father unceasingly pours forth energy, light, and life. The work of God is literal as well as spiritual. “He stretches out the north over the empty space and hangs the earth upon nothing.”

4:4.6 (59.2) In God the Father freewill performances are not ruled by power, nor are they guided by intellect alone; the divine personality is defined as consisting in spirit and manifesting himself to the universes as love. Therefore, in all his personal relations with the creature personalities of the universes, the First Source and Center is always and consistently a loving Father. God is a Father in the highest sense of the term. He is eternally motivated by the perfect idealism of divine love, and that tender nature finds its strongest expression and greatest satisfaction in loving and being loved.

4:4.7 (59.3) In science, God is the First Cause; in religion, the universal and loving Father; in philosophy, the one being who exists by himself, not dependent on any other being for existence but beneficently conferring reality of existence on all things and upon all other beings. But it requires revelation to show that the First Cause of science and the self-existent Unity of philosophy are the God of religion, full of mercy and goodness and pledged to effect the eternal survival of his children on earth.

5:0.2 (62.2) God has distributed the infinity of his eternal nature throughout the existential realities of his six absolute co-ordinates, but he may, at any time, make direct personal contact with any part or phase or kind of creation through the agency of his prepersonal fragments. And the eternal God has also reserved to himself the prerogative of bestowing personality upon the divine Creators and the living creatures of the universe of universes, while he has further reserved the prerogative of maintaining direct and parental contact with all these personal beings through the personality circuit.

5:1.4 (63.2) The mortals of the realms of time and space may differ greatly in innate abilities and intellectual endowment, they may enjoy environments exceptionally favorable to social advancement and moral progress, or they may suffer from the lack of almost every human aid to culture and supposed advancement in the arts of civilization; but the possibilities for spiritual progress in the ascension career are equal to all; increasing levels of spiritual insight and cosmic meanings are attained quite independently of all such sociomoral differentials of the diversified material environments on the evolutionary worlds.

5:1.5 (63.3) However Urantia mortals may differ in their intellectual, social, economic, and even moral opportunities and endowments, forget not that their spiritual endowment is uniform and unique. They all enjoy the same divine presence of the gift from the Father, and they are all equally privileged to seek intimate personal communion with this indwelling spirit of divine origin, while they may all equally choose to accept the uniform spiritual leading of these Mystery Monitors.


Me here: So we children of time each and all are connected to God and as God's children are related one to another. And it is this simple fact and truth that have been presented to us for us to know and to base our motives, priorities, intentions, choices, and actions upon. And whenever we do there is an individual fruits and social improvement to all outcomes. And whenever we don't there are repercussions to suffer, the better to differentiate the results of free will choice...the cause and effect relationship - which should lead the discerning and learning mind toward wisdom and spiritization. We are made in God's image and the more we respond to God's inner presence and the more like God we become, the happier we are and the more productive and powerful we become. As we realize our personal potential, evermore potential comes into existence. Forever I think.


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Bradly,
This is a great discussion topic; thanks for starting it. I can really relate, most especially, to this paragraph that you wrote: "I've always wondered about and marveled at God's unwillingness to "settle" for perfection. And also God's interest in "potential". Perfection has no potential I do not think. And apparently potential has no perfection as every and all potential realized and actualized appears to create evermore potential!! God's plan has set in motion a forever and perpetual "perfecting" mechanism and organism. Even that which might achieve future perfection remains but an element of and influence for further and greater perfecting...there appears to be no terminus or end to the acquirement and expression of experiential wisdom. Or so I understand it."

When I first started to glimpse this perspective the first time I read TUB, I found it both exhilarating and, somehow, depressing. Exhilarating because it means we always have something to look forward to; a new challenge to strive for; but depressing for the same reason: will there be no rest? Will we never feel like we have 'arrived'? I realize that the latter emotion is most likely due to my dual nature as a material being and the difficulties inherent in grasping the concepts of eternity and perfection-potential. And so, I remind myself that patience must be adopted, paired with faith.

On a slightly related topic, we are told to become more like God; but TUB also reminds us that God is so much more complex and sophisticated than we can possibly grasp in our current material state. I expect it will remain difficult to fully grasp the entirety of God even for many Mansion Worlds and beyond. So the request that we become more like .... a thing we have no means of fully understanding .... can feel discouraging at times or even self-defeating?

Patience and faith! That is all I can do when attempting to wrap my mind around these extremely cosmic-perspective concepts.
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I think mortals actually have an advantage compared to many celestials once we experience soul survival but especially once we achieve fusion with our TA. Mortals have a unique "assurance ministry" in mind and to soul and the TA's are the source of personal revelation so that us mortals enjoy the Holy Spirit's faith assurance ministry and the TA's revelatory truth assurance ministry. And then, upon survival, we now witness reality on whole new levels of awareness. Still we are told that it will be a long, long time before our progress does not depend upon faith - even fusion does not remove the faith-factor from our progress and journey to Paradise.

As a lad in a evangelical church, I was taught that salvation and soul survival delivered immediate perfection upon death. I was always a little depressed by that notion. I think I understood, even then, the value and benefit and exhilaration of adventure and learning and experience and failure and achievement....none of which is experienced within perfection....but only in perfecting. I found the UB's description of endless adventure and education and wisdom and enlightening such a profoundly important portrait of reality and destiny!! It always seemed to me that floating around on a cloud playing a harp was going to be mighty boring....forever! Sometimes it even seemed like more of a punishment than a reward! But our destiny is an endless and glorious adventure of forever achievement and growth and purpose!


We share this destiny and this trait with God the Supreme....the adventure of experience and perfecting. I think the key is learning to embrace uncertainty by the understanding that adventure requires and demands uncertainty but that all such uncertainty of potentials and temporal outcomes may be approached with the absolute confidence of ultimacies and actualities and the eventuations of every potential. We may be confident in all uncertainties which allows us to approach life with a whole new enthusiasm of being. This is what makes the tadpole life so glorious....for those of us believers and faith children for whom it is true.

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One way to approach and consider how mortals are made in God's image I think is to study that which differentiates us from the plant and animal kingdoms - there is life that is not made in God's image but is made to evolve into that and those which might be made so...the canvas and framework of life upon which is immortal potential created and which itself now creates new potential for actualization and realization - a grand symphony of experience and expression of reality. I think such a transformation of being made in "our image" is not validated or true or proofed, if you will, until the mortal mind makes our first moral free will choice - that choice where another being receives our love and/or our mercy. Then have we truly chosen our first God-Response and made a choice that is not self centered or self important - and this is a reflection of God's nature and not the animal nature - the birth of the spirit nature and the arrival of the duality of the mortal mind and being.

I think that the phrase to be made in God's image also does not mean a one and done event - we are not simply born in God's image but we are "made" into God's image....by time, free will, personality, and mind endowments over time in conjunction with the Spirit ministries and endowments of the Adjutants, the Holy Spirit, the Father Fragments, and here for the last 2000 years, the Spirit of Truth. The angels and TA's lead us into situations and circumstances of decision to affect and form our transformation of motive, intent, priority, and choice. We are "made" by such an ongoing process and not by any singular event...like our birth. We are designed and wired for this process of spiritization and spiritualization.

Also, I noticed that we are made in "our" image in the many quotes including those from the Bible as well. We are a composite of images of the Father, Son, and Mother Spirits and share some attributes from all 3 Sources of life and creation.

I think perhaps that we are not made in the image of the gods until our soul is born? And it is the soul that is so created or "made"? The Adjutants give ministry to material mind but soul is spiritized and morontial mind. What do you think?

6:5.7 (78.3) Though the Eternal Son cannot personally participate in the bestowal of the Thought Adjusters, he did sit in council with the Universal Father in the eternal past, approving the plan and pledging endless co-operation, when the Father, in projecting the bestowal of the Thought Adjusters, proposed to the Son, “Let us make mortal man in our own image.” And as the spirit fragment of the Father dwells within you, so does the spirit presence of the Son envelop you, while these two forever work as one for your spiritual advancement.

108:6.3 (1193.2) The Mystery Monitors are undoubtedly the bestowal of the Universal Father, the reflection of the image of God abroad in the universe. A great teacher once admonished men that they should be renewed in the spirit of their minds; that they become new men who, like God, are created in righteousness and in the completion of truth. The Adjuster is the mark of divinity, the presence of God. The “image of God” does not refer to physical likeness nor to the circumscribed limitations of material creature endowment but rather to the gift of the spirit presence of the Universal Father in the supernal bestowal of the Thought Adjusters upon the humble creatures of the universes.

108:6.4 (1193.3) The Adjuster is the wellspring of spiritual attainment and the hope of divine character within you. He is the power, privilege, and the possibility of survival, which so fully and forever distinguishes you from mere animal creatures. He is the higher and truly internal spiritual stimulus of thought in contrast with the external and physical stimulus, which reaches the mind over the nerve-energy mechanism of the material body.

108:6.5 (1193.4) These faithful custodians of the future career unfailingly duplicate every mental creation with a spiritual counterpart; they are thus slowly and surely re-creating you as you really are (only spiritually) for resurrection on the survival worlds. And all of these exquisite spirit re-creations are being preserved in the emerging reality of your evolving and immortal soul, your morontia self. These realities are actually there, notwithstanding that the Adjuster is seldom able to exalt these duplicate creations sufficiently to exhibit them to the light of consciousness.

108:6.6 (1193.5) And as you are the human parent, so is the Adjuster the divine parent of the real you, your higher and advancing self, your better morontial and future spiritual self. And it is this evolving morontial soul that the judges and censors discern when they decree your survival and pass you upward to new worlds and never-ending existence in eternal liaison with your faithful partner—God, the Adjuster.

108:6.7 (1193.6) The Adjusters are the eternal ancestors, the divine originals, of your evolving immortal souls; they are the unceasing urge that leads man to attempt the mastery of the material and present existence in the light of the spiritual and future career. The Monitors are the prisoners of undying hope, the founts of everlasting progression. And how they do enjoy communicating with their subjects in more or less direct channels! How they rejoice when they can dispense with symbols and other methods of indirection and flash their messages straight to the intellects of their human partners!

108:6.8 (1194.1) You humans have begun an endless unfolding of an almost infinite panorama, a limitless expanding of never-ending, ever-widening spheres of opportunity for exhilarating service, matchless adventure, sublime uncertainty, and boundless attainment. When the clouds gather overhead, your faith should accept the fact of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster, and thus you should be able to look beyond the mists of mortal uncertainty into the clear shining of the sun of eternal righteousness on the beckoning heights of the mansion worlds of Satania.


Me here: In many ways we mortals might be considered the last and the least of the spirit natured creatures of the universe of universes. One poster here claims we are "merely human" and another has lamented we should never have been created at all and the plan and process of perfecting is flawed because we are not created perfect to begin with. Such disappointment and lamenting our humanity and our origin denies the miracle and potential we enjoy and the very purposes, plans, and power of God Almighty! Others lay blame for our suffering on God or on the Devil...or both for God allowing sin and iniquity. We mortals find much to complain about, indeed so. And much to blame others for too.


Such disappointments in God and others and our circumstances or even our being are regrettable and but vestiges of our animal heritage of self importance and our inability to embrace reality and our own blessings and the glorious achievement of the gods we have been given. Some of us appear to embrace misery and suffering and to reject love and mercy. Such a perspective denies reality and will suffer for it for as long as the embrace lasts. They have rejected the "image" that has been given to each of us and have chosen some personal construct that isolates them and makes everything cruel and harsh. So sad.


We are not born this way!!

103:2.5 (1131.4) The psychology of a child is naturally positive, not negative. So many mortals are negative because they were so trained. When it is said that the child is positive, reference is made to his moral impulses, those powers of mind whose emergence signals the arrival of the Thought Adjuster.

103:2.6 (1131.5) In the absence of wrong teaching, the mind of the normal child moves positively, in the emergence of religious consciousness, toward moral righteousness and social ministry, rather than negatively, away from sin and guilt. There may or may not be conflict in the development of religious experience, but there are always present the inevitable decisions, effort, and function of the human will.

103:2.7 (1131.6) Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict. And this very first conflict in the child mind is between the urges of egoism and the impulses of altruism. The Thought Adjuster does not disregard the personality values of the egoistic motive but does operate to place a slight preference upon the altruistic impulse as leading to the goal of human happiness and to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.

103:2.8 (1131.7) When a moral being chooses to be unselfish when confronted by the urge to be selfish, that is primitive religious experience. No animal can make such a choice; such a decision is both human and religious. It embraces the fact of God-consciousness and exhibits the impulse of social service, the basis of the brotherhood of man. When mind chooses a right moral judgment by an act of the free will, such a decision constitutes a religious experience.



We are truly made in the image of the gods and have been given all that is needed to find the happiness and purpose and contentment and joy hat is our heritage and to gleefully and generously share those with all others, which will and does transform all of creation into the image of its source. Our source is also our destiny. Our source is love and love is the way home to our destiny and our source. Every love response we choose we take a step closer. What an adventure!!


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So...if we are not created or born in God's image but "made" into God's image over time and by process and transformation, then every step of our ascendant careers would be part of that transcendent progression?

The birth of soul, the volitional commitment to the Spirit nature, the Circles of Progress, fusion with the God Fragment, all the schooling and education and experience on all the spheres visited in time and space, and our experience in Paradise too!!

Our entire adventure in the current Master Universe might be required to be completed to be said we are made in God's image? Until then we are being made or becoming made or perfecting in our making?

3. Glorified Mortals

31:3.1 (347.4) Ascendant Adjuster-fused mortals compose the bulk of the primary Corps of the Finality. Together with the adopted and glorified seraphim they usually constitute 990 in each finaliter company. The proportion of mortals and angels in any one group varies, though the mortals far outnumber the seraphim. The Havona natives, glorified Material Sons, glorified midway creatures, the Gravity Messengers, and the unknown and missing member make up only one per cent of the corps; each company of one thousand finaliters has places for just ten of these nonmortal and nonseraphic personalities.

31:3.2 (347.5) We of Uversa do not know the “finality destiny” of the ascendant mortals of time. At present they reside on Paradise and temporarily serve in the Corps of Light and Life, but such a tremendous course of ascendant training and such lengthy universe discipline must be designed to qualify them for even greater tests of trust and more sublime services of responsibility.

31:3.3 (347.6) Notwithstanding that these ascendant mortals have attained Paradise, have been mustered into the Corps of the Finality, and have been sent back in large numbers to participate in the conduct of local universes and to assist in the administration of superuniverse affairs—in the face of even this apparent destiny, there remains the significant fact that they are of record as only sixth-stage spirits. There undoubtedly remains one more step in the career of the Mortal Corps of the Finality. We do not know the nature of that step, but we have taken cognizance of, and here call attention to, three facts:

31:3.4 (348.1) 1. We know from the records that mortals are spirits of the first order during their sojourn in the minor sectors, and that they advance to the second order when translated to the major sectors, and to the third when they go forward to the central training worlds of the superuniverse. Mortals become quartan or graduate spirits after reaching the sixth circle of Havona and become spirits of the fifth order when they find the Universal Father. They subsequently attain the sixth stage of spirit existence upon taking the oath that musters them forever into the eternity assignment of the Corps of the Mortal Finality.

31:3.5 (348.2) We observe that spirit classification, or designation, has been determined by actual advancement from one realm of universe service to another realm of universe service or from one universe to another universe; and we surmise that the bestowal of seventh-spirit classification upon the Mortal Corps of the Finality will be simultaneous with their advancement to eternal assignment for service on hitherto unrecorded and unrevealed spheres and concomitant with their attainment of God the Supreme. But aside from these bold conjectures, we really know no more about all this than you do; our knowledge of the mortal career does not go beyond present Paradise destiny.

31:3.6 (348.3) 2. The mortal finaliters have fully complied with the injunction of the ages, “Be you perfect”; they have ascended the universal path of mortal attainment; they have found God, and they have been duly inducted into the Corps of the Finality. Such beings have attained the present limit of spirit progression but not finality of ultimate spirit status. They have achieved the present limit of creature perfection but not finality of creature service. They have experienced the fullness of Deity worship but not finality of experiential Deity attainment.

31:3.7 (348.4) 3. The glorified mortals of the Paradise Corps of Finality are ascendant beings in possession of experiential knowledge of every step of the actuality and philosophy of the fullest possible life of intelligent existence, while during the ages of this ascent from the lowest material worlds to the spiritual heights of Paradise, these surviving creatures have been trained to the limits of their capacity respecting every detail of every divine principle of the just and efficient, as well as merciful and patient, administration of all the universal creation of time and space.

31:3.8 (348.5) We deem that human beings are entitled to share our opinions, and that you are free to conjecture with us respecting the mystery of the ultimate destiny of the Paradise Corps of Finality. It seems evident to us that the present assignments of the perfected evolutionary creatures partake of the nature of postgraduate courses in universe understanding and superuniverse administration; and we all ask, “Why should the Gods be so concerned in so thoroughly training surviving mortals in the technique of universe management?”
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But "made into God's image" implies the long evolutionary journey of the original lifeplasm, from the chemical cellular community, through the frog, and eventually to become primates lemurman. Made into God's image implies Adam & Eve is the final pattern for the evolutionary goal. While we may be partly Andite and therefore Adamite in our biological nature, recognising this diet of light as it were. We should honour the ancient linneage of the LifeCarriers' heirloom, a gift from the Infinite Spirit into all life on Urantia.

We have dual images, dual goals for both the human individual and for the land Urantia. We apply the patterns from Edentia as a template, until even better patterns should be revealed. The image of God is imputed through the enhancement overlays of the cosmic mind spirits, as it guides the workers to increase their skills. It is an emergent quality that is forged on the improvement of cultures and soils. For the land Urantia, the image of God is something that we formulate in human wisdom to allow life to prosper best.

Romantically speaking, the skill of the craftsman is what proves them as a man. The romance of mutual cooperation is what guides the family unit to survive. In nature as in society, attraction is forged on the dominant partner's ability to woo, and this is proven in fitness. As the challenges in society become more refined, increasingly more rational means of craftsmanship and professionalism must be discovered. But how are the proofs of fitness displayed in the age of rationalism. Accomplishments are made, and then doubly verified with documentation, the written word and images. Investors demand recorded verified proof in order to give. Where is the morality: only fitness except fitness is dependent on the cosmic mind spirits to enhance human mind function.

At this point in history, it is the factor of human motivation that leads to the fulfillment of God's promise unto mankind. We are told that all necessary obligations on God's part have been fulfilled or will have been fulfilled in order for the human individual to spiritually mature. How does human motivation properly crave the fruits of the holy spirit? What about the moral imperative? How does the God-in-Man become united with the "seat-of-choice" i.e. the level of consciousness in the human mind which operates near the intellectual associations?

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SEla_Kelly wrote:
But "made into God's image" implies the long evolutionary journey of the original lifeplasm, from the chemical cellular community, through the frog, and eventually to become primates lemurman. Made into God's image implies Adam & Eve is the final pattern for the evolutionary goal.



Actually...neither of these statements is true. All personalities are made in God's image as the source and center of all personalities and all personalities can feel and can give love to other personalities. We are made in God's image by our association with and embrace of and eventual fusion with the Thought Adjuster/God Fragment. And as Finaliters in Paradise we become far more than the so-called "pattern" of Adam and Eve.

We are perfecting beings who are born human. The Material Sons and Daughters are also perfecting beings who must become humanized to achieve finality.

We are experiential beings who have the opportunity to fuse into a whole new being by our freewill choices.

1:6.1 (29.7) Human personality is the time-space image-shadow cast by the divine Creator personality. And no actuality can ever be adequately comprehended by an examination of its shadow. Shadows should be interpreted in terms of the true substance.

3:4.7 (50.5) Finite appreciation of infinite qualities far transcends the logically limited capacities of the creature because of the fact that mortal man is made in the image of God—there lives within him a fragment of infinity. Therefore man’s nearest and dearest approach to God is by and through love, for God is love. And all of such a unique relationship is an actual experience in cosmic sociology, the Creator-creature relationship—the Father-child affection.

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Last edited by fanofVan on Thu May 21, 2020 8:37 am +0000, edited 1 time in total.

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fanofVan wrote:
SEla_Kelly wrote:
But "made into God's image" implies the long evolutionary journey of the original lifeplasm, from the chemical cellular community, through the frog, and eventually to become primates lemurman. Made into God's image implies Adam & Eve is the final pattern for the evolutionary goal.



Actually...neither of these statements is true. All personalities are made in God's image as the source and center of all personalities and all personalities can feel and can give love to other personalities. We are made in God's image by our association with and embrace of and eventual fusion with the Thought Adjuster/God Fragment. And as Finaliters in Paradise we become far more than the so-called "pattern" of Adam and Eve.

We are perfecting beings who are born human. The Material Sons and Daughters are also perfecting beings who must become humanized to achieve finality.

We are experiential beings who have the opportunity to fuse into a whole new being by our freewill choices.

1:6.1 (29.7) Human personality is the time-space image-shadow cast by the divine Creator personality. And no actuality can ever be adequately comprehended by an examination of its shadow. Shadows should be interpreted in terms of the true substance.

3:4.7 (50.5) Finite appreciation of infinite qualities far transcends the logically limited capacities of the creature because of the fact that mortal man is made in the image of God—there lives within him a fragment of infinity. Therefore man’s nearest and dearest approach to God is by and through love, for God is love. And all of such a unique relationship is an actual experience in cosmic sociology, the Creator-creature relationship—the Father-child affection.

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There really is nothing of God's "image" in matter or energy or in pre-human animal or plant life. Life is not made in God's image. People are. And angels are. All life WITH personality is created in God's image. Personality is the key. So is freewill. God is the original personality with freewill. God's person is the source and origin of ALL personality and freewill.

We are not made in God's image by the Life Carriers or by evolutionary forces...neither of those. Certainly not by anything cellular, or by plasma, or by bio evolution from slime and ooze to frog and lemur. Nope. Evolution and physics are but tools of creation. To be created in God's image requires a spirit connection and capacity for wisdom. Only personality has such connection and capacity. Only personality can experience and express love - truth, beauty, and goodness.

0:1.17 (3.4) Divinity is creature comprehensible as truth, beauty, and goodness; correlated in personality as love, mercy, and ministry; disclosed on impersonal levels as justice, power, and sovereignty.

0:1.18 (3.5) Divinity may be perfect—complete—as on existential and creator levels of Paradise perfection; it may be imperfect, as on experiential and creature levels of time-space evolution; or it may be relative, neither perfect nor imperfect, as on certain Havona levels of existential-experiential relationships.

0:2.10 (4.4) The term God always denotes personality....

0:4.3 (7.1) 2. Deified reality embraces all infinite Deity potentials ranging upward through all realms of personality from the lowest finite to the highest infinite, thus encompassing the domain of all that which is personalizable and more—even to the presence of the Deity Absolute.

0:5.1 (8.1) Personality is a level of deified reality and ranges from the mortal and midwayer level of the higher mind activation of worship and wisdom up through the morontial and spiritual to the attainment of finality of personality status. That is the evolutionary ascent of mortal- and kindred-creature personality, but there are numerous other orders of universe personalities.

0:5.2 (8.2) Reality is subject to universal expansion, personality to infinite diversification, and both are capable of well-nigh unlimited Deity co-ordination and eternal stabilization. While the metamorphic range of nonpersonal reality is definitely limited, we know of no limitations to the progressive evolution of personality realities.

0:5.3 (8.3) On attained experiential levels all personality orders or values are associable and even cocreational. Even God and man can coexist in a unified personality, as is so exquisitely demonstrated in the present status of Christ Michael—Son of Man and Son of God.

0:5.4 (8.4) All subinfinite orders and phases of personality are associative attainables and are potentially cocreational. The prepersonal, the personal, and the superpersonal are all linked together by mutual potential of co-ordinate attainment, progressive achievement, and cocreational capacity. But never does the impersonal directly transmute to the personal. Personality is never spontaneous; it is the gift of the Paradise Father. Personality is superimposed upon energy, and it is associated only with living energy systems; identity can be associated with nonliving energy patterns.

0:5.5 (8.5) The Universal Father is the secret of the reality of personality, the bestowal of personality, and the destiny of personality. The Eternal Son is the absolute personality, the secret of spiritual energy, morontia spirits, and perfected spirits. The Conjoint Actor is the spirit-mind personality, the source of intelligence, reason, and the universal mind. But the Isle of Paradise is nonpersonal and extraspiritual, being the essence of the universal body, the source and center of physical matter, and the absolute master pattern of universal material reality.

1:3.6 (25.6) In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontroller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung personality circuit does God deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes. This Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal Father. But the minds of such evolutionary creatures originate in the local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving those experiential transformations of spiritual attainment which are the inevitable result of a creature’s choosing to do the will of the Father in heaven.

1:3.7 (26.1) In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked minds cannot survive mortal death. The technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter association to spirit union results in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to attain survival and eternity of personality existence.

Me here: We cannot really consider being Made In The Image of God without studying personality. A key word search reveals over 1000 quotes in the UB to consider:

https://www.urantia.org/urantia-book/se ... &op=Search

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Selfhood is the image of God. Or so I understand the teachings.

Caring and sharing are the root of fellowship which only personalities may share. Personality craves and seeks and thrives in association with other personalities. Ethics, morals, meanings, values, ideals, aspirations, triumph, progress, adventure...love, truth, beauty ,and goodness...only personality can experience these realities. God's gift of personality and mind and freewill (selfhood) is the Divine sharing of Deity with the creation of Deity.

1:6.6 (30.5) The more completely man understands himself and appreciates the personality values of his fellows, the more he will crave to know the Original Personality, and the more earnestly such a God-knowing human will strive to become like the Original Personality. You can argue over opinions about God, but experience with him and in him exists above and beyond all human controversy and mere intellectual logic. The God-knowing man describes his spiritual experiences, not to convince unbelievers, but for the edification and mutual satisfaction of believers.

1:6.7 (30.6) To assume that the universe can be known, that it is intelligible, is to assume that the universe is mind made and personality managed. Man’s mind can only perceive the mind phenomena of other minds, be they human or superhuman. If man’s personality can experience the universe, there is a divine mind and an actual personality somewhere concealed in that universe.

1:6.8 (30.7) God is spirit—spirit personality; man is also a spirit—potential spirit personality. Jesus of Nazareth attained the full realization of this potential of spirit personality in human experience; therefore his life of achieving the Father’s will becomes man’s most real and ideal revelation of the personality of God. Even though the personality of the Universal Father can be grasped only in actual religious experience, in Jesus’ earth life we are inspired by the perfect demonstration of such a realization and revelation of the personality of God in a truly human experience.

7. Spiritual Value of the Personality Concept

1:7.1 (31.1) When Jesus talked about “the living God,” he referred to a personal Deity—the Father in heaven. The concept of the personality of Deity facilitates fellowship; it favors intelligent worship; it promotes refreshing trustfulness. Interactions can be had between nonpersonal things, but not fellowship. The fellowship relation of father and son, as between God and man, cannot be enjoyed unless both are persons. Only personalities can commune with each other, albeit this personal communion may be greatly facilitated by the presence of just such an impersonal entity as the Thought Adjuster.

1:7.2 (31.2) Man does not achieve union with God as a drop of water might find unity with the ocean. Man attains divine union by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will. Such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities.

1:7.3 (31.3) The concept of truth might possibly be entertained apart from personality, the concept of beauty may exist without personality, but the concept of divine goodness is understandable only in relation to personality. Only a person can love and be loved. Even beauty and truth would be divorced from survival hope if they were not attributes of a personal God, a loving Father.

1:7.4 (31.4) We cannot fully understand how God can be primal, changeless, all-powerful, and perfect, and at the same time be surrounded by an ever-changing and apparently law-limited universe, an evolving universe of relative imperfections. But we can know such a truth in our own personal experience since we all maintain identity of personality and unity of will in spite of the constant changing of both ourselves and our environment.


5:6.3 (70.4) Personality is potential in all creatures who possess a mind endowment ranging from the minimum of self-consciousness to the maximum of God-consciousness. But mind endowment alone is not personality, neither is spirit nor physical energy. Personality is that quality and value in cosmic reality which is exclusively bestowed by God the Father upon these living systems of the associated and co-ordinated energies of matter, mind, and spirit. Neither is personality a progressive achievement. Personality may be material or spiritual, but there either is personality or there is no personality. The other-than-personal never attains the level of the personal except by the direct act of the Paradise Father.

5:6.4 (70.5) The bestowal of personality is the exclusive function of the Universal Father, the personalization of the living energy systems which he endows with the attributes of relative creative consciousness and the freewill control thereof. There is no personality apart from God the Father, and no personality exists except for God the Father. The fundamental attributes of human selfhood, as well as the absolute Adjuster nucleus of the human personality, are the bestowals of the Universal Father, acting in his exclusively personal domain of cosmic ministry.

9:6.4 (104.2) Selfhood of personality dignity, human or divine, immortal or potentially immortal, does not however originate in either spirit, mind, or matter; it is the bestowal of the Universal Father. ....

102:4.3 (1123.3) Man very early becomes conscious that he is not alone in the world or the universe. There develops a natural spontaneous self-consciousness of other-mindness in the environment of selfhood. Faith translates this natural experience into religion, the recognition of God as the reality—source, nature, and destiny—of other-mindness. But such a knowledge of God is ever and always a reality of personal experience. If God were not a personality, he could not become a living part of the real religious experience of a human personality.

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