With the nature of God established in the last chapter it is time to discuss God and creation. Because we believe God exists, and we empirically know that we exist, we need to make the connection between that belieffact. The most striking questions that have always come to my mind are these, “What were the reasons God created the universe, and how do I fit into those reasons?” Getting to the bottom of that understanding will take a bit of intuitive work.
There are ultimate, universal realities that are eternally existent:
1) God exists;
2) God is love;
3) you are truly important to The Creator. Your existence is precious to God, and you are cherished every moment of your life.
What this means is that God already has a personal and intimate relationship with you. God truly loves you, for only through you can God gain the experience of existence as a process of living. God cares for you and has provided a generous universe to support and assist you individually to have a meaningful and fulfilling life. There is no positive benefit for God when you suffer the harsh difficulties of life, but only when you overcome these difficulties with positive, constructive, and loving effort. Though you may challenge this eternal fact, that is the underlying reality of God's relationship to you and to each of us.
Sixteen Questions —
1. Why did The Creator create the universe?
For similar reasons that you go on vacations by yourself, and sometimes with others. You enjoy a personal experience. You enjoy getting to know who you are in larger terms. You gain experience in doing so and learn more about yourself. In that way, it probably was not much different for The Creator than it is for us. But, for The Creator, it was, in other ways, profoundly vast and eternally different.
First, you become aware that you want an experience that is broader than what you have been having. Second, you think about what it is you'd like to do and you make plans. And third, you actually do something to bring that new experience into existence. It is reasonable that God was in much the same situation before creation. Before creation, there was just God, only God — God alone. God had not yet expressed Itself.
2. What attribute did God have to want to create the universe?
In the situation before creation, God could only experience Itself by being conscious of Itself. God had consciousness. Consciousness is the essential common attribute of God and us! Consciousness is thinking and wondering about our existence and experiences. Being conscious expands our ability to live consciously, to experience more of life and living. To experience more than consciousness, God had to express Itself. Doing so, God created the universe and became "The Creator."
Without the first step, consciousness, we cannot become more than we are, or express ourselves in ways that fulfill all the potential that lies within us, just as God did. Consciousness is that God-like attribute that enables us to become aware of the immense, innate, and undeveloped potential within us. Consciousness leads us to the awareness that we have options and choices for living. Our journey of life is very similar to what God must have experienced before creation — an awakening awareness of needing to experience more of ourselves. The next step is to choose to express our will to bring our undeveloped potential into existence — and then experience and enjoy what we have created, ...even if that is a vacation.
We can surmise that the first experience of the universe was The Creator's awareness of Itself as solely alone without extension into any dimension beyond Itself. From this position, The Creator expressed Its innate capability — to create. And from this thought sprang the expanding universe, as we see and experience it today.
Surely, The Creator must have enjoyed watching the universe unfold, develop, and expand. Yet, a difficulty became apparent, if we can call it that. God existed and enjoyed the finite universe from the "outside" looking in. For us, it would be much like being in an airplane looking out the window. You are inside and everything else is outside. The only thing you can experience is what is inside the airplane. To experience the sky, you would have to become a bird.
3. What does the universe provide that The Creator could not get without it?
The creation of the universe gave The Creator the experience of expressing the potential to create. It gave The Creator the experience of creating.
Of all that existed and now exists in the universe, the one thing truly new that is added to the universe are the experiences of those who live in it. Look at it this way: if The Creator knows all there is to know, nothing would be new to know. As you probably realize, The Creator is a curious being, a characteristic of people "created in God's image" on all planets. If you are curious, you too will wonder about your life and ask, "Is this all there is?"
Do you see that simple point? Before creation, God had no way of experiencing, beyond self-awareness. God's existence was neither dead nor alive. The Creator was not dead for it had not lived. The Creator existed but was not living. In such a situation, you would ask, "Is this all there is?" The Creator probably did, too, and in less than an instant the totality of all-potential of a dimensional universe sprang into existence and will continue to expand into the infinite ages.
4. Once the physical universe was created, did this new relationship help The Creator experience Itself?
In that instant immediately following the initiation of Creation, which you would estimate at less than a nanosecond of time, God knew all that could be known about Its relationship to the dimensional universe and the totality of the universe that would come into being. All matters of the dimensional universe are predictable when you know all the laws of physics and you are also the "Grand Absolute Actuary” of the universe.
Perhaps an overly developed metaphor is that the dimensional universe, devoid of sentient beings, is a grand, four-dimensional billiard table that is not limited by gravity, other than that which emanates from the center of the physical universe, nor by the rotational motion of the whole of the universe.
In that moment, God knew that to experience the universe in a more intimate way it would be necessary to exist simultaneously as an experiential being inside the dimensional universe, while also being outside of time and the dimensional universe as the Eternal Creator in Paradise. Doing so, to continue the metaphor, God could simultaneously enjoy the experience of flying as a bird in the clouds, while still being "inside the airplane," i.e., the eternal universe, Paradise.
Although The Creator could observe all that was existent within the universe, God was, nonetheless, separate and apart from it. God resides in the Eternal Now of Paradise (without dimension or time), while the physical universe exists in time as a finite, developmental, material presence "outside" of Paradise.
The physical universe and its three dimensions provide measurable boundaries, while the fourth dimension, time, provides a way of measuring the process of existence, i.e., living. Living is a process of experiencing all that is around us from one development to another, as time passes. Without the universe, without some expressed form or manifestation of The Eternal Creator's potential, The Creator would have no process of existence to experience Itself and know Itself. The process of existence is what we call living that provides the experience for knowing ourselves.
While God The Creator encompasses all existent knowledge, even the omniscient God, the One who knows all, cannot know that which has not taken place, i.e., God cannot know that which does not exist. The future is predicated upon the present and what occurs in the present. The decisions we make today will affect the rest of our lives. If no one made any new decisions, the future would not change. You see, the future is predictable but only if no changes are made in the present. Any decisions and actions that are taken today cause the future to become different. Think of it in terms of making a cake. Mix the ingredients together and pour the batter into a pan. If the batter is not placed in the oven, it will remain the same almost indefinitely. But, put the pan of batter into the oven, and the future of the batter changes. Soon you have cake! The actions taken thirty minutes earlier changed the outcome.
5. Why did The Creator create imperfect beings who would make errors?
Because God is not material, has no dimensions, and exists outside of the finite physical universe, the element that was needed for God to experience the process of living was an extension of Itself within people who would live in the finite universe. This extension is an ethereal wisp of God's Consciousness — something very distinct and identifiable as God in every aspect. Some people call this fragment "the Kingdom of God," "the Father Fragment," or the "Holy Spirit." Due to the gender of the word "father," the Fragment will be referred to as the "Divine Fragment" in the rest of the book. It is through the Divine Fragment in each of us that The Creator personally experiences the universe as a process of existence — living. A Divine Fragment of God resides in us and experiences living through us!
We have all the necessary attributes of God that make this possible. Consider your own being. You are innately curious. You are also invested with self-will, will that is totally supported and guided by your own intelligence, wisdom, and spontaneous insights. Your will expresses in ways that are truly God-like, many of which you have only partially explored.
All these attributes of The Creator are primary to our being like The Creator. Yet, the attribute that is foundational to the development of our conscious, co-creative relationship with the Divine Fragment is the attribute that is foundational to God: consciousness. Our consciousness is the frontier where we become aware that we are not alone, but are accompanied by "the other" who travels with us in our life's course. The ethereal wisp of God's Consciousness in us and our own consciousness provide the window and doorway for a conscious and intimately personal relationship between God and us!
Though you have a finite beginning, you are given the possibility of an infinite life. You can live into the future for as long as The Creator will, if you make that choice and act on it. You have the innate capacity to learn, to grow, and to guide the evolution of your own spiritual development, which is inherent in the ascendant spiritual career. Lastly, you have choice of all that is in you and surrounding you, notwithstanding the congenital physical and mental problems of some individuals.
Primary to our development is our ability to be self-aware — our consciousness. When we are self-aware, we begin to question our existence, probably as God did before the universe was created. Only when we question our existence, and become aware of ourselves as having the God-like abilities to choose, decide, and act to change our lives, can we truly, consciously experience life as a conscious process of living. Until then, we will be dependent upon what the world dishes out to us.
Only through the willing participation of imperfect humans, who aspire and strive toward perfection of being, while interacting with all aspects of the universe and each other, can The Creator experience the process of becoming perfect.
Look at it this way: as a child you looked at yourself and knew yourself as who you were, not knowing any differently. But through your curiosity and your desire for an easier and more fulfilling life, you began to explore your being and to express its potential. Through experience and interacting with life and all its challenges, you became aware of who you were as fulfilled and unfulfilled potential. So, too, with God the Creator.
The joy of God's perfection of being can only be achieved and understood through the process of living from imperfection to perfection, if we accept the challenge. God can only experience this through us! And though this may take billions of years involving trillions upon trillions of ordinary people and created beings over the span of an immense dimensional universe that continues to expand, there is no necessity to hurry the process, but rather we should to enjoy it — both for all of us who engage the challenge and for God The Creator, and all Its helpers. No one loses, as it is to every creature's benefit to engage the challenge, and thus win.
Only through imperfect beings, who have total freedom and total responsibility for their lives through the choices they make as they experience living in each moment, could the Creator experience existence AS a personal process of living. Only through the most imperfect of beings could The Creator experience the process of becoming perfect — and only through those people who make decisions to survive, then perpetuate their survival, learn, gain experience, make wiser and wiser decisions, and thus create a more profound life. They learn to live in harmony with others, then with their planet, and then the universe. Some do not succeed, but only because they consciously decide not to continue, which is unfortunate but wholly their choice.
You can see then that life has purpose but only you can give it meaning. The purpose of life is to live and grow. The meaning you give it is your own life's expression of how you live your life to the fullness of your potential.
6. Why is our imperfection important to The Creator?
Almost immediately after the creation of the dimensional universe, God could predict all that could be known about the universe, even into the ageless infinity of the future. Though God knew all, God could not experience a relationship with Itself, or know Itself other than as The Creator. Initiation of material beings who would live on habitable worlds was begun, whereupon began the "seeding" of the universe with fragments of The Creator in individual humans when they were ready.
These "Divine Fragments" contain all the attributes of The Creator to promote growth and the eventual development of attributes of God-like qualities in the lives of material beings in the dimensional universe. Thus, The Creator could participate in the settling and development of the universe not only through but also in and with those individuals. The investment of so many God-potential attributes provides us with an everexpanding potential. This too is necessary for God to experience the process of becoming perfect through our imperfection, as we approach perfection through the expression of all of our potential capabilities.
This plan could only provide results approaching perfection if humans were in many ways created in The Creator's image with many of Its attributes inherent in their being, with total freedom of will, and total responsibility for their will and their actions, similar to The Creator. That is why The Creator did not create automatons or perfect beings for this task, but imperfect beings. Is this not an ingenious solution and absolute paradox of sorts?
Reasonably, the all-knowing Eternal Creator of the universe was curious enough about a personal relationship with Itself that It brought into existence short-lived, unknowing, and imperfect material beings to assist in that pursuit, and was loving enough to share it all with us. By doing so. The Creator also created an infinite and loving personal relationship with each of us. Each of us is personally needed, wanted, and loved by The Creator as though we were the only person in the universe that God loved. The relationship of The Creator with Itself is oneness, wholeness, and complete eternal love of self. In order for God to experience and enjoy this relationship, God extended that relationship to each of us, and we get to enjoy the benefits as our own. Take heart! God enjoys you, and me, and every person. And we can best support that relationship when we strive to attune our lives to God's — as creators of oneness, wholeness, with unselfish love of self and others.
The benefits for both partners in this relationship are similar. The Creator receives the experience of living through the lives of each person, totally at risk that he or she may never aspire, let alone strive, to become like The Creator. We receive the opportunity to use all of these attributes as a finite creator to make decisions and take actions that will propel us along an infinite journey of life that will never end, even after we are in the very presence of The Creator in Paradise. Then we will reside in eternity, in Paradise, with God, as active co-creative partners ready to serve God and those who are still on their ascendant spiritual journey.
This is neither a predatory nor vicarious relationship for either partner on this journey, but one that is highly beneficial and personal to both. The Divine Fragment is a guide, much like a pilot on a ship who guides the ship into safe harbor when the captain (your will, in this case) relinquishes control of the ship (your life) to the pilot. When we offer full cooperation to the Divine Fragment, we have engaged the journey with the most possible benefit to each of us.
7. Did God create us with any attributes to help us grow into perfection to join It in Paradise?
Because values always underlie decision-making, God gave us the freedom to make our own decisions; and gave us a set of values to guide our decision-making that would contribute to the success of our spiritual growth, maturity, and evolution — to eventually become more like God, loving in all our thoughts, decisions, and actions. When these values are used as a “code for decision-making” they become a socially sustainable morality that is consistent with the teachings of Jesus.
The Values that Sustain Families, Societies, and Civilizations
© Copyright Daniel Raphael 2017 USA
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries Without them humanity cannot survive.”
— Dalai Lama
> The seven values will be discussed in Book 3, “Re-Inventing Christianity,” Chapter 5, “Seven Organic Values Given to Us by the Creator,” page 65.
8. If God knows everything and is all-powerful, doesn't that mean that our lives are a part of God's plan for the universe and that the course of our lives is predestined?
As The Creator living outside of time, in eternity that is timeless, God has an awareness, omniscience, of all that exists and happens. Yet, foreknowledge of events does not mean that what occurs is foreordained. Though each of us has a pre-destined plan for our life, it is not foreordained. Just as God has free will, we have free will, too. It is free and unfettered by any set course.
Though the universe has a plan of development, how we live our life in that process is totally up to us, dictated by our decisions from day to day. And though we are invested with a Fragment of The Creator that does not mean we are coerced to follow the course of the universe, what our Divine Fragment suggests, or our life plan. God has no need or desire to interfere in our free-will decisions. As the way of the universe is the flow of harmony, God has granted each person the freedom to make decisions to become a part of that harmony, or not.
9. Does God control everything?
Surely not, for that would be far less than The Creator's profound generosity. God has no need to control us, as that would limit God's ability to experience the universe through us. We are effectively controlled by our material nature and the decisions we make. While our material nature limits us, our spiritual nature provides us with a means of liberation through the use of our will and the decisions we make. Thus, we have the capacity to liberate ourselves when we make decisions that contribute to the expression of our God-like attributes. There is a balance at work: while our mechanical limitations provide for stability at the expense of progress, our spirit alliance liberates us from the physical level. Individually, as we gain universal insights and begin to comprehend the cosmic aspects and responsibilities of our decisions, we become more and more stabilized as a part of the larger universe. Doing so, we have less and less need for a material body to stabilize our reckless nature.
The stability of our life's course is important because our biological evolution has provided us with an immense lack of self-restraint. On one hand, that can be very detrimental to our finite existence, yet, on the other hand, it provides us with an immense capacity to try anything, and everything, to grow. Individually, it allows us to have a tremendous number of experiences from which we can gain vast treasures of wisdom, provided we use our mind to examine those experiences for wisdom.
And because of the energetic nature of our mind, this wisdom is imprinted and passed on to others through the universal mind function of the Infinite Spirit that connects everyone on our planet. The wisdom we gain after we beget children is not lost, but is passed on through this energetic circuit.
10. If God doesn't control everything and we have creative powers similar to God, why are we so incapable?
We are so incapable because we are so immature in our awareness of the consequences of our thoughts, decisions, and actions. It is our material nature that limits us. Fortunately, we are in possession of a mind to make rational decisions to remain as we are, grow, or regress. By the use of our mind mechanism we can enrich and develop our spirit-potential, or not. Our spirit-potential is that new, budding, and emerging spirit-being that will be fully existent after our material death. Developing it in this lifetime helps us be a part of the flow of the universe. Doing so, we become capable members, partners, in the universe.
11. Does this mean that the whole race of humanity becomes more and more mature as each individual does?
Yes, and to the contrary, too. The consciousness of genocidal warfare that has spread among our kind is to the contrary and now infects most of our species. Positive, constructive decisions contribute to the maturity of our species, while negative, destructive decisions do not. Using wisdom is the application of past constructive experience, yet even destructive experiences contribute to wisdom. Destructive past experiences give us the wisdom to say, "Not this way!" while positive experiences give us the wisdom to say, "This way!" It is still a matter of individual mind-decision. Each decision in our life is truly one that contributes to or tears down our life and others.
12. Are illnesses, genetic flaws, and physical, mental, and emotional degeneration a part of God's plan for us?
Although God The Creator is ultimately responsible for the consequences that creation set into motion, our bodies are susceptible to damage by processes that are also a part of creation. At the grossest level, we can fall down and break bones, pulverize muscle tissue, snap tendons, and crush ligaments. At the most definitive level, chromosomes can break due to exposure to harsh conditions. Radiation and chemicals inside and outside the body can affect gene structure so that when chromosomal splitting and fusion occur, the problems are passed onto the next generation. It is not personal.
In a very elementary parallel, the problems of physical health are not much different from the physical problems of a house. Yet, people in our culture do not assign responsibility for the problems of their house, such as a leaking roof, to God. People have separated the house from themselves. So, too, will people on our planet ultimately understand that their bodies are not who they are and that God is not using their bodies as a medium of showing discontent with them. Our illnesses and degenerative problems were not assigned to us personally or generally, but are a result of the evolutionary development of our species. As these problems affect every human being, it is a general affliction of being a material, evolutionary being on an undeveloped material planet. We could say that God is disposed to hurting humans in general, and we could say that God is disposed to hurt us individually, since we take our illnesses and problems personally. But neither is the case. The reason God does not interfere in our lives individually or in general is because of the gift of free will.
13. Are we alone in the universe?
There are far more beings in this large universe than just humans on our planet and on other planets. There are beings that God created. They were not born as humans are.
Angels, for example, are God's children of light. They have been called messengers, though message carrying is an activity they do only occasionally. They work for God in the long chain of delegation of universe organization. We do, too, when we have decided that is what we want to do for the duration of our infinite existence. In doing so, we not only do God's will but learn, grow, develop, and evolve to become more. Doing for us is the mechanism of learning how the universe works, how to work in harmony with the flow of the universe, which some call Tao.
When we live this way, doing, growing, and learning, then being in harmony and alignment with the flow of the universe becomes a way of life. It can be named any name you want, but it is the way that leads to God. Angels help us learn this first by guiding us into learning situations that support our universe path of growth.
14. What was God's intention in creating other creative beings?
God's intention in creating all the other creative beings, and humans, too, was to share the wealth and participate in the joy, love, and the "fun" of creating. It is much like parents watching their children and neighbor children play in a large park or playground. For the parent, it is both a vicarious thrill and one of great personal pleasure to experience. For God, there is the pleasure of being in and with each child and parent as they experience their world, themselves, and each other. God is available to each of us as a Fragment of Itself and gets to enjoy our creativity without overbearing our consciousness.
God is omnipotent, but God has chosen not to be omnificent. The Creator has chosen to share the joy of creating and doing what needs to be done in a large universe with many others. Look around you. Do you see only one type of flower, one animal, one plant, and one type of body of water? What you see is an abundance of everything around you. Our Creator is generous, vastly generous, and is not selfish with anything. Even you can create. Be assured that it delights your Creator to share Its creative abilities with many creatures.
There is one order of creative beings called "Creator Sons." They create as does The Creator and they have created vast arrays of worlds, stars, systems, and whole galaxies of stars and systems. What The Creator put in motion, however, was original and all else flows from that event.
15. Does this mean that there is more "outside" spiritual influence at work on our planet to help guide its development toward the flow of the Universe?
Yes. Larger cosmic insights are more readily available to each of us so we can make effective contributions to our own individual growth and that of humankind. This is not a "quick fix" or patchwork repair, but a remedial program of very long duration so the wisdom of more right decisions by individuals becomes invested in the consciousness of our species.
This influence became more evident in the late 1980s when the Berlin Wall came down, dictatorships were overturned, and apartheid in South Africa came apart. Many more positive influences have come into being, such as the many angel incidents, angel television shows, books on developing our inner awareness, the development of incredible advances in communications technologies, global commerce and finance, all of which help tie our basket of nations together more closely and interrelatedly. Yet, influencing the course of humankind and advancing the mechanisms of societal evolution does not abrogate or violate in any way the self-will decision sovereignty of individuals, but aids all to make more globally and cosmically responsible decisions. Everybody wins.
16. Does creation continue?
Yes. Is new energy created? Yes. The original expansion of the energetic universe continues to flow from the eternal center of the universe, never ending. Creation continues.
Our scientists look in the heavens and witness the birthing of stars from clouds of gasses, gasses that were formed from free atoms and molecules that were formed from universe energy. For scientists and yourself, these formations of stars appear to come from nothingness, and so creation is seen to continue. When you are more fully aware of material formation, you will know that this is simply one evolutionary step of many — from nothingness through the super novae explosions that disseminate material far and wide.
Creation from our perspective is the manipulation of universe energy to form new phenomena. While The Creator controls universe energy, The Creator generously encourages many beings to manipulate that energy.