10. The Father's Eternal Perfection.
      Even our olden prophets understood the eternal, never-beginning, never-ending, circular nature of God. He is literally and eternally present in his universe of universes. He inhabits the present moment with all his absolute majesty and eternal greatness. "The Father has life in himself, and this life is eternal life."  [John 5:26]  [John 17:3]  [1 John 5:11;5:20]  Throughout the eternal ages it has been the Father who "gives to all life." There is infinite perfection in the divine integrity. "I am the Lord; I change not."  [Malachi 3:6]  In his conduct of universe affairs there "is no variableness neither shadow of changing."  [James 1:17]  He "declares the end from the beginning." He says: "My counsel shall stand; I will do all my pleasures" "according to the eternal purpose which I purposed in my Son."  [Isaiah 46:10]  [Ephesians 3:11]  His plans and purposes are eternal, perfect, and forever changeless.  [2:2:1]

    There is finality of completeness and perfection of repleteness in the mandates of the Father. "Whatsoever God does, it shall be forever; nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it."  [Ecclesiastes 3:14]  The Universal Father does not repent of his original purposes of wisdom and perfection. His plans are steadfast, his counsel immutable, while his acts are divine and infallible. "A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night."  [II Peter 3:8]  The perfection of divinity and the magnitude of eternity are forever beyond the full grasp of the circumscribed mind of mortal man.  [2:2:2]

    God's primal perfection consists not in an assumed righteousness but rather in the inherent perfection of the goodness of his divine nature. God is eternally and infinitely perfect: He is final, complete, and perfect. There is no thing lacking in the beauty and perfection of his righteous character.  [2:2:5,6]

11. Justice and Righteousness.
      God is righteous; therefore is he just. "The Lord is righteous in all his ways."  "I have not done without cause all that I have done," says the Lord.  [Ezekiel 14:23]  "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."  [Psalms 19:9]  The justice of the Universal Father cannot be influenced by the acts and performances of his creatures, "for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, no respect of persons, no taking of gifts."  [II Chronicles 19:7]  [2:3:1]
      How futile to make puerile appeals to such a God to modify his changeless decrees so that we can avoid the just consequences of the operation of his wise natural laws and righteous spiritual mandates! "Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap."  [Galatians 6:7]  True, even in the justice of reaping the harvest of wrongdoing, this divine justice is always tempered with mercy. Infinite wisdom is the eternal arbiter which determines the proportions of justice and mercy which shall be meted out in any given circumstance.  [2:3:2]

      For the wages of sin is death; . . .  [Romans 6:23]
     The greatest punishment [in reality an inevitable consequence] for wrongdoing and deliberate rebellion against God is loss of existence as an individual. The final result of wholehearted sin is annihilation. In the last analysis, such sin-identified individuals have destroyed themselves by their embrace of iniquity.  [2:3:2]
     When a sin-identified mortal dies, he becomes as though he had not been. There is no resurrection from such a fate; it is everlasting and eternal.  [2:3:4]
     When a sin-identified mortal dies a physical death, his universe career is ended. It is my understanding that the number of casualties due to soul-death as a result of the Lucifer Rebellion will be horrendous. You, yourself, may know numerous persons who will never be resurrected from the grave.
     Undiluted evil, complete error, willful sin, and unmitigated iniquity are inherently and automatically suicidal.  [2:3:5]

12. The Divine Mercy.
      Mercy is the natural and inevitable offspring of goodness and love. Mercy is simply justice tempered by that wisdom which grows out of perfection of knowledge and the full recognition of the natural weaknesses and environmental handicaps of finite creatures. "Our God is full of compassion, gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous of mercy."  [Psalms 86:15]  Therefore "whosoever calls upon the Lord shall be saved," "for he will abundantly pardon."  [Isaiah 55:7]  [Acts 2:21]  [Romans 10:13]  "The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting"; yes, "his mercy endures forever."  [Ezra 3:11]  [Psalm 103:17]  [Psalm 136:3]  "I am the Lord who executes loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight."  [Jeremiah 9:24]  "I do not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men,"  [Lamentations 3:33]  for I am "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort."  [II Corinthians 1:3]  [2:4:1,4]
       God is inherently kind, naturally compassionate, and everlastingly merciful. And never is it necessary that any influence be brought to bear upon the Father to call forth his loving-kindness. The creature's need is wholly sufficient to insure the full flow of the Father's tender mercies and his saving grace.  [2:4:2]

     The following excerpts from The Urantia Book, Paper 28: "Ministering Spirits of the Superuniverses," provide a glimpse of the procedure used by the celestial judges in determining whether a mortal will be resurrected in heaven.  [Also see my Paper 27: Unraveling the Book of Revelation, Item 11.]

The Memory of Mercy.
     The Memory of Mercy is one order of tertiary seconaphim [angels]. These are the actual, full and replete, living records of the mercy which has been extended to individuals and races by the tender ministrations of the instrumentalities of the Infinite Spirit in the mission of adapting the justice of righteousness to the status of the realms, as disclosed by the portrayals of the Significance of Origins. The Memory of Mercy discloses the moral debt of the children of mercy--their spiritual liabilities--to be set down against their assets of the saving provision established by the Sons of God. In revealing the Father's pre-existent mercy, the Sons of God establish the necessary credit to insure the survival of all. And then, in accordance with the findings of the Significance of Origins, a mercy credit is established for the survival of each rational creature, a credit of lavish proportions and one of sufficient grace to insure the survival of every soul who really desires divine citizenship.  [28:6:5]

     The Memory of Mercy is a living trial balance, a current statement of your account with the supernatural forces of the realms. These are the living records of mercy ministration which are read into the testimony of the courts of Uversa when each individual's right to unending life comes up for adjudication, when "thrones are cast up and the Ancients of Days are seated. The broadcasts of Uversa issue and come forth from before them; thousands upon thousands minister to them, and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before them. The judgment is set, and the books are opened." And the books which are opened on such a momentous occasion are the living records of the tertiary seconaphim of the superuniverses. The formal records are on file to corroborate the testimony of the Memories of Mercy if they are required.  [28:6:6]  [Revelation 5:11; Rev. 7:9; Rev. 20:4, 11-13];  [Daniel 7:9,10]

     The Memory of Mercy must show that the saving credit established by the Sons of God has been fully and faithfully paid out in the loving ministry of the patient personalities of the Infinite Spirit. But when mercy is exhausted, when the "memory" thereof testifies to its depletion, then does justice prevail and righteousness decree. For mercy is not to be thrust upon those who despise it; mercy is not a gift to be trampled under foot by the persistent rebels of time. Nevertheless, though mercy is thus precious and dearly bestowed, your individual drawing credits are always far in excess of your ability to exhaust the reserve if you are sincere of purpose and honest of heart.  [28:6:7]
     [Note: You may be interested in reading the immediately following paragraphs 9, 13, 16, 20: The Import of Time; The Solemnity of Trust; The Sanctity of Service; and The Secret of Greatness and the Soul of Goodness.
     Although God is infinitely patient and merciful, if a mortal embraces iniquity for a sufficient period of time, the day will arrive when justice must be meted out. It is my understanding that the number of causalities due to soul death will be horrific. A Christian, as well as followers of other religious beliefs, should be aware that salvation is not automatic.]

     The following information is taken from The Urantia Book, Paper 37: "Personalities of the Local Universe."

     Two senior archangels are always assigned as the personal aids of a Paradise Avonal on all planetary missions, whether involving judicial actions, magisterial missions, or bestowal incarnations. When this Paradise Son has finished the judgment of a realm and the dead are called to record (the so-called resurrection), it is literally true that the seraphic guardians of the slumbering personalities respond to “the voice of the archangel.”  [I Thessalonians 4:16]  The roll call of a dispensation termination is promulgated by an attendant archangel. This is the archangel of the resurrection, sometimes referred to as the “archangel of Michael.”  [Jude 1:9]  [37:3:6]
     [Note: See The Urantia Book, Paper 20, Sections 1-6 for a description of the functions of the Paradise Avonals (the Magisterial Sons).]

     The Worlds of the Archangels. The seventh group of the encircling Salvington worlds, with their associated satellites, is assigned to the archangels. Sphere number one and all of its six tributary satellites are occupied by the personality record keepers. This enormous corps of recorders busy themselves with keeping straight the record of each mortal of time from the moment of birth up through the universe career until such an individual either leaves Salvington for the superuniverse regime or is “blotted out of recorded existence” by the mandate of the Ancients of Days.  [37:3:7]
     It is on these worlds that personality records and identification sureties are classified, filed, and preserved during that time which intervenes between mortal death and the hour of repersonalization, the resurrection from death.  [37:3:8]

     The following information is taken from The Urantia Book, Paper 39, "The Seraphic Hosts."

     The Voice of Mercy. Mercy is the keynote of seraphic service and angelic ministry. It is therefore fitting that there should be a corps of angels who, in a special manner, portray mercy. These seraphim are the real mercy ministers of the local universes. They are the inspired leaders who foster the higher impulses and holier emotions of men and angels. The directors of these legions are now always completion seraphim who are also graduate guardians of mortal destiny; that is, each angelic pair has guided at least one soul of animal origin during the life in the flesh and has subsequently traversed the circles of Seraphington and has been mustered into the Seraphic Corps of Completion.  [39:2:5]

     [Note: It is apparent that vast numbers of celestial beings are involved in the adjudication of a world when surviving mortals are called to judgment. We may conclude that nothing is automatic in universe administration: Someone is responsible for accomplishing the task.
     The spectacular events of the End Times will begin in the not too distant future. This means that Christians will become more concerned about the prophecies in the Book of Revelation and in various books of prophecy in the Old Testament. They may become much more interested in the Second Death as it pertains to their own salvation. There are several passages in the Book of Revelation that mention the Second Death: Rev.2:11; Rev.20:6; Rev.20:14; Rev.21:8.
     Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, the Book of Revelation, which we now have is greatly abridged and distorted. It contains the surviving fragments of a great revelation, large portions of which were lost, other portions of which were removed, subsequent to John's writing. It is preserved in only fragmentary and adulterated form. (139:4:14)
     This being the case, it comes as no surprise that the passages which purport to explain the Second Death are erroneous. (See my Paper number 10: The Probationary Nursery, paragraph 5.)]

13. The Love of God.
      "God is love"  [I John 4:8];  therefore his only personal attitude towards the affairs of the universe is always a reaction of divine affection. The Father loves us sufficiently to bestow his life upon us. "He makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."  [Matthew 5:45]  [2:5:1]
      It is wrong to think of God as being coaxed into loving his children because of the sacrifice of his Son or the intercession of his subordinate creatures, "for the Father himself loves you."  [John 16:27]  It is in response to this paternal affection that God sends the marvelous Indwelling Spirits to indwell the minds of men. God's love is universal; "whosoever will may come."  [Mark 8:34,35?]  He would "have all men be saved by coming into the knowledge of the truth."  [Romans 2:20?]  [I Timothy 2:4]  [II Timothy 3:7]  He is "not willing that any should perish."  [II Peter 3:9]  [2:5:2]
      God's love is by nature a fatherly affection; therefore does he sometimes "chasten us for our own profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness."  [Hebrews 12:10]  Even during your fiery trials remember that "in all your afflictions he is afflicted with you."  [Isaiah 63:9?]  [2:5:3]

      God is divinely kind to sinners. When rebels return to righteousness, they are mercifully received, "for our God will abundantly pardon."  [Isaiah 55:7]  "I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins."  [Psalms 51:1]  [Isaiah 43:25]  [Acts 3:19]  "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God."  [I John 3:1]  [2:5:4]
      Between God and us there is a tremendous distance [physical space] to be traversed. There likewise exists a great gulf of spiritual differential which must be bridged; but notwithstanding all that physically and spiritually separates you from the Paradise personal presence of God, stop and ponder the solemn fact that God lives within us; he has in his own way already bridged the gulf. He has sent of himself, his spirit [the Indwelling Spirit], to live in us and to toil with us as we pursue our eternal universe career.  [2:5:6]
      The greatest manifestation of the divine love for mortal beings is observed in the bestowal of the Indwelling Spirit, but our greatest revelation of the Father's love is seen in the bestowal life of Jesus as he lived on earth the ideal spiritual life. It is the Indwelling Spirit who individualizes the love of God to each human soul.  [2:5:10]

14. The Goodness of God.
      The "richness of the goodness of God leads erring man to repentance."  [Romans 2:4]  "Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights."  [James 1:17]  "God is good; he is the eternal refuge of the souls of men."  [Deuteronomy 33:27]  "The Lord God is merciful and gracious. He is long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth."  [Exodus 34:6]  "Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who trusts him."  [Psalm 34:8]  "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. He is the God of salvation."  [Psalm 86:15]  [Psalm 111:4]  [Psalm 145:8]  "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up the wounds of the soul. He is man's all-powerful benefactor."  [Isaiah 61:1]  [Luke 4:18]  [2:6:3]
      The concept of God as a king-judge, although it fostered a high moral standard and created a law-respecting people as a group, left the individual believer in a sad position of insecurity respecting his status in time and in eternity. The later Hebrew prophets proclaimed God to be a Father to Israel; Jesus revealed God as the Father of each human being. The entire mortal concept of God is transcendently illuminated by the life of Jesus. Selflessness is inherent in parental love. God loves not like a father, but as a father. He is the Paradise Father of every universe personality.  [2:6:4]
      Righteousness implies that God is the source of the moral law of the universe. Truth exhibits God as a revealer, as a teacher. But love gives and craves affection, seeks understanding fellowship such as exists between parent and child. Righteousness may be the divine thought, but love is a father's attitude. The erroneous supposition that the righteousness of God was irreconcilable with the selfless love of the heavenly Father, presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity and led directly to the elaboration of the atonement doctrine, which is a philosophic assault upon both the unity and the free-willness of God.  [2:6:5]
      The affectionate heavenly Father, whose spirit indwells his children on earth, is not a divided personality--one of justice and one of mercy--neither does it require a mediator to secure the Father's favor or forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict retributive justice; God as a father transcends God as a judge.  [2:6:6]

      God is never wrathful, vengeful, or angry. It is true that wisdom does often restrain his love, while justice conditions his rejected mercy. His love of righteousness cannot help being exhibited as equal hatred for sin. The Father is not an inconsistent personality; the divine unity is perfect. In the Paradise Trinity there is absolute unity despite the eternal identities of the co-ordinates of God [God the Son and God the Spirit].  [2:6:7]
      God loves the sinner and hates the sin: such a statement is true philosophically, but God is a transcendent personality, and persons can only love and hate other persons. Sin is not a person. God loves the sinner because he is a personality reality [potentially eternal], while towards sin God strikes no personal attitude, for sin is not a spiritual reality; it is not personal; therefore does only the justice of God take cognizance of its existence. The love of God saves the sinner; the law of God destroys the sin. This attitude of the divine nature would apparently change if the sinner finally identified himself wholly with sin just as the same mortal mind may also fully identity itself with the Indwelling Spirit. Such a sin-identified mortal would then become wholly unspiritual in nature [and therefore personally unreal] and would experience eventual extinction of being. Unreality, even incompleteness of creature nature, cannot exist forever in a progressingly real and increasingly spiritual universe.  [2:6:8]
      Facing the world of personality, God is discovered to be a loving person; facing the spiritual world, he is a personal love; in religious experience he is both. Love identifies the volitional will of God. The goodness of God rests at the bottom of the divine free-willness--the universal tendency to love, show mercy, manifest patience, and minister forgiveness.  [2:6:9]

15. Divine Truth and Beauty.
      The laws and decrees, the thoughts and attitudes, of God are eternally, infinitely, and universally true. As God is infinite in all his attributes, this means that the mind of God is unsearchable by finite mortals: "His understanding is infinite and his greatness is unsearchable."  [Psalm 145:3]  [Psalm 147:5]  [2:7:1,3]
      [Note: Even in eternity our knowledge of facts and our level of spiritual development will always be relative: We will never know everything. Eternally we will be reaching for additional knowledge and striving for higher levels of spiritual development.]

16. Only the I AM is causeless.
      God is the one and only self-caused fact in the universe. He is the secret of the order, plan, and purpose of the whole creation of things and beings. The everywhere-changing universe is regulated and stabilized by absolutely unchanging laws, the habits of an unchanging God. The fact of God, the divine law, is changeless; the truth of God, his relation to the universe, is a relative revelation which is ever adaptable to the constantly evolving universe.  [102:7:2,3]
      [Note: It should be apparent from the foregoing statements that the bestowal of Jesus on this planet changed not one of God's eternal laws. For example: Jesus rose from the dead. Surviving mortals will rise from the dead. Jesus rose from the dead the third day following death. Surviving mortals who meet the intellectual and spiritual requirements will be resurrected in heaven on the third day following death.]

17. God's dwelling place.
      God's dwelling place is the stationary, eternal, never-beginning, never-ending Isle of Paradise of divine perfection, the geographic center of infinity. The Isle of Paradise is the only stationary thing in the universe of universes. All heavenly bodies revolve around Paradise.  [Foreword:Introduction:Paragraph 5]  [Foreword:IV:12]

Note: Most statements in this paper were quoted verbatim from the source.