The relationships of this family are projected down through the echelons of derivative universe personalities, at each level giving expression to a fundamental Paradise pattern. And it is the sum of all these cosmic relationships that constitutes the universe family of beings.

     Perhaps we can better understand the nature of this pattern "family" if we first examine the natures of the family members.

     We can best understand the Absolute Origin as a father. The Father's essence we know as love, but if love is to truly represent the Father to us, we must know it as a selfless, an unbounded, an infinite love that triumphs over everything that is, that was, and that ever will be. We must imagine a love infinitely greater than any love yet imagined and, having imagined this super-love, we must imagine one still greater, and on and on until we have exhausted all our lives in just imagining. This is an awful and incomprehensible love that gives absolute and terrible meaning to the phrase, "love is the desire to do good to others."

     Consider now the challenge of understanding the nature of the Son. As finite mortals, we have great difficulty, because the Son is the Absolute Person, the infinite and infinitely individual expression of personal identity. Imagine for a moment the most entirely unique, individualistic, independent, self-motivated and self-directed person you have ever known. A person who, though utterly selfless in word and deed, never in the slightest way disclosed a hint of identification with the group. If you have ever had the pleasure of knowing someone like this, you must have always struggled to understand their true nature. I believe the nature of the Eternal Son is something like that incomprehensibly unique and self-sufficient mortal, but infinitely and divinely more so. The Urantia Book tells us that, if the Father is love, the Son is mercy.

     We can understand this in the nature of our own Creator Son by considering the contrasting aspects of the natures of the Father and the Son. For we are told that, although the natures of the Father and the Son are indistinguishably commingled in the Creator Sons, these Sons are sometimes more Father-like and sometimes more Son-like, and that Michael of Nebadon more nearly resembles the Eternal Son in the organization and administration of his universe.

     Consider the challenge presented to a Son-like Creator Son in having to live a terminal bestowal, in the flesh, subject to the will of the Father. No divinely perfect act could be more contrary to his personal, individual nature. Although he is one with the Father, this is as far from his personal inclinations as it is possible to be. No wonder he has tolerated rebellion in his universe. By seeking the maximum expression of individuality, he has necessarily created a universe that supports the same heightened sense of individuality in his creatures. And if such individuality is to be explored to the fullest, there is a risk of rebellion if and when the boundary of reality is passed. Thus does mercy determine the attitude of love.

     Returning to the Paradise Trinity, let's try to understand the Absolute Action, the Infinite Reality. Because the Infinite Spirit has personality and individuality, rather than being personality, like the Son, we have a better chance of relating to part of his nature. And that nature is doing — infinite, eternal, universal doing — doing of good. For if the Father is love, the desire to do good to others, and the Son is mercy, the attitude of love conditioned by the viewpoint of the individual, then the Spirit is service, the doing of good to others. And the Spirit is just as infinite in his serving as the Father is in his loving. We must imagine service, action, ministry, that is infinitely greater than the greatest service we can imagine and project this outward and inward through unending layers of infinity and eternity, knowing that no concept our minds can hold will represent more than an infinitesimal fraction of the service, the action of the Spirit. If the unbounded love of the Father and the unconditioned mercy of the Son are awful and incomprehensible, so also is the infinite action, the ministry of the Spirit.

     The Urantia Book tells us we would comprehend the Spirit better if we thought of him as the Infinite Reality, the Universal Organizer, or the Personality Coordinator. And, of course, the personalities he first and foremost coordinates are the terribly divergent natures of the Father and the Son. And the reality he first creates is Havona, but he is really the personalization of the infinity of all reality.

     We are told that the Spirit recognizes and acknowledges his origin in the Father and his identity in the Son and that they each acknowledge his distinct deity. Certainly neither the Father nor the Son can have any interest in "taking over" the work of the Spirit, and this feeling must be mutual throughout the Paradise Trinity.

     There is one other absolute we haven't mentioned, but can try to understand, and that is Paradise, the Absolute Thing, the infinite and perfect complement to the Absolute Person. Although the Spirit, as a deity person, complements the persons of the Father and the Son, it is the existence of Paradise and the reality tension between it and the Son that determines the manifestation of the Spirit as the God of Action.

     The Trinity would not quite be the Trinity without Paradise. For Paradise is where the Trinity is, and where its persons are. And Paradise, the Absolute Thing, must be the pattern from which the deities themselves inherit the manifestation of their spirit persons as literal, focal realities.

     We now understand a bit about this absolute cosmic family, the Paradise Trinity. We know their origins and natures, and we know their actions and domicile. But what are these three diverse persons, in their strange house, actually trying to do or to be or to become? The Urantia Book is quite clear on this. They are trying to establish the deity penetration of universal absolute reality without becoming personally constrained by the totality of infinity. In effect, the First Source and Center has developed multiple personalities to avoid having to do everything and multiple manifestations (through Paradise) to avoid having to be everything.

     But from this division there comes a problem, for the diverse natures required for the First Source to escape the limitations of unqualified infinity are so infinitely dissimilar that, only in eternity, can they hope to achieve the unity of purpose that comes so easily to an individual. As one, the First Source is limited by being unable to be or to do apart from himself. As three, the Trinity is limited by the inability to achieve a fully unified expression of purpose about anything, except in eternity. Yes, in eternity the Trinity is unified. But on subabsolute levels the actions of the Spirit are in the process of unifying with the thought of the Father and the word of the Son.

     From the finite viewpoint it is impossible to respond to the diverse natures of the Trinity. The Father sits on Paradise and loves everyone, more than anyone can ever understand or appreciate. The Son exists on Paradise being himself and making sure everyone is able to be themselves, too, far more than any mortal is ever likely to be. And the Spirit is on Paradise, but certainly isn't just sitting or being. Oh, no. The Spirit is doing. And the Spirit is making more spirits to be doing. And just about everything that's actually going on is being done either by the Spirit or by one of his deputies. What a fire drill! The whole universe fairly seethes with the spirit's work, and it all coheres in the person of the Absolute Reality.

     Of course, the Trinity wants the finite to be unified in time and space, even as the Trinity is unified in eternity. That emergent time-space unity of the finite constitutes the Supreme Being. So how will the Trinity EVER be able to achieve unity in the finite? Certainly not by everyone AGREEING about everything. No, unity is achieved by each person achieving perfected expression of their own personality, but reacting perfectly to the environment, the context, created by the perfect expressions of other personalities. HARMONY is the term that describes this perfect interplay of perfect actions. And this harmony is the spontaneous product of each individual "doing his own thing."

     The quality of unity is sought and finds expression through harmony, not identity. The perfect finite unity of the Paradise Trinity in the Supreme will be a harmonious unity, not an identical uniformity. For identity and uniformity can only lead to cosmic regression, away from trinitarian liberation and back to the limitations of unqualified absoluteness. While harmony leads to the effective, plural realization of each dimension of cosmic reality — of the Father's limitless self-bestowal expressed as love, of the Son's definitive identity expressed as mercy, of the Spirit's unrestrained and ebullient activity expressed as ministry, and of Paradise, the one pattern for each element of the infinitude, expressed in every thing.

     If the cardinal precepts of the teachings of Melchizedek were trust and faith, and if the essence of Jesus' teaching was love and service, then the great revelation of the Urantia Book is the unity and harmony of the universe.

     Three persons, one abode, and the quest for power-personality unity in finite harmony. This is the absolute cosmic family, the pattern family of all creation, that we find reflected down through the levels of the universe, even on Urantia, in every nation, every culture, every society, every community, every organization, and, of course, every human family. But in seeking this recurring pattern we must remember to look for the relationships of the pattern family, not individual persons, because all mortals are sons of the nature of the Father-Son.

     Among our celestial friends, the supreme family pattern seems to appear in many situations. For example, we find three Ancients of Days resident on Uversa, and we find three classes of beings comprising a juridical trio — the Divine Counselor, the Perfector of Wisdom, and the Universal Censor. Where pattern associations are personalized, we find seven Master Spirits, each resident on one of the seven Paradise satellites of the Infinite Spirit. Perhaps the most striking manifestation of the organizing pattern revealed to us is in the quartet of beings constituting a conciliating commission, for here we find three spirit beings united with one semi-material being, the Divine Executioner. And the pattern recurs in the actions and deliberations of such a commission.

     Expressions of the pattern of the absolute family is not limited to associations of celestial beings. Time and again we find the pattern of three generations of causation, combined in a single enterprise, seeking harmonious unity of function.

Do not nations have their founding fathers, their governments, and their citizens? Do not governments have their legislators, their judges, and their executives? Do not economies have investors, entrepreneurs, and workers? Do not companies have their owners, their managers, and their employees? And do not human families encompass triads relationships both within the nuclear unit and across successive generations?

     And is not each of these associations also a recognizable thing?

And is not the essence of this association harmony of function achieved through unity of purpose? Is not each of these things a projection of the pattern of the absolute family upon the finite? And does not each of these things evoke the nature of the Supreme?

     For the pattern of the absolute cosmic family is the pattern which gives meaning and form to the Almighty Supreme. We experience no collective reality in which we do not find this pattern, and there is no place in our experience where the supreme goal of unity through harmony will fail. This, then, is the revelation of the cosmic family, the pattern which organizes the universe, the revelation of universal unity through harmony, the finality of supremacy, the great revelation of the Urantia Book.