PARADISE--Dwelling Place of God the Father
As far as I can determine, the Bible provides very little concrete information about Paradise. If a mortal survives, and chooses life eternal, then Paradise is the goal.
The following information is from The Urantia Book.
11:0.1 Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material, literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and spiritual beings are real.
11:0.2 The material beauty of Paradise consists in the magnificence of its physical perfection; the grandeur of the Isle of God is exhibited in the superb intellectual accomplishments and mind development of its inhabitants; the glory of the central Isle is shown forth in the infinite endowment of divine spirit personality—the light of life. But the depths of the spiritual beauty and the wonders of this magnificent ensemble are utterly beyond the comprehension of the finite mind of material creatures. The glory and spiritual splendor of the divine abode are impossible of mortal comprehension. And Paradise is from eternity; there are neither records nor traditions respecting the origin of this nuclear Isle of Light and Life.
11:1.1 Paradise serves many purposes in the administration of the universal realms, but to creature beings it exists primarily as the dwelling place of Deity. The personal presence of the Universal Father is resident at the very center of the upper surface of this well-nigh circular, but not spherical, abode of the Deities. This Paradise presence of the Universal Father is immediately surrounded by the personal presence of the Eternal Son, while they are both invested by the unspeakable glory of the Infinite Spirit.
11:1.2 God dwells, has dwelt, and everlastingly will dwell in this same central and eternal abode. We have always found him there and always will. The Universal Father is cosmically focalized, spiritually personalized, and geographically resident at this center of the universe of universes.
11:1.4 The Father is always to be found at this central location. Did he move, universal pandemonium would be precipitated, for there converge in him at this residential center the universal lines of gravity from the ends of creation. Here is God personally, literally, and actually present. And from his infinite being there flow the flood-streams of life, energy, and personality to all universes.
11:4:5 You must wait, and ascend while you wait, for truly, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the mind of mortal man, the things which the Universal Father has prepared for those who survive the life in the flesh on the worlds of time and space.”
11:9.1 Paradise is unique in that it is the realm of primal origin and the final goal of destiny for all spirit personalities. Although it is true that not all of the lower spirit beings of the local universes are immediately destined to Paradise, Paradise still remains the goal of desire for all supermaterial personalities.
11:9.2 Paradise is the geographic center of infinity; . . .
11:9.6 God’s residence is central and eternal, glorious and ideal. His home is the beauteous pattern for all universe headquarters worlds; and the central universe of his immediate indwelling is the pattern for all universes in their ideals, organization, and ultimate destiny.
11:9.8 After all, to mortals the most important thing about eternal Paradise is the fact that this perfect abode of the Universal Father is the real and far-distant destiny of the immortal souls of the mortal and material sons of God, the ascending creatures of the evolutionary worlds of time and space.
12:1.4 Havona, the central universe, is not a time creation; it is an eternal existence. This never-beginning, never-ending universe consists of one billion spheres of sublime perfection and is surrounded by the enormous dark gravity bodies. At the center of Havona is the stationary and absolutely stabilized Isle of Paradise, surrounded by its twenty-one satellites. Owing to the enormous encircling masses of the dark gravity bodies about the fringe of the central universe, the mass content of this central creation is far in excess of the total known mass of all seven sectors of the grand universe.
12:4:1 Absolutely nothing is stationary in all the master universe except the eternal Isle of Paradise, the center of gravity.
14:1.5 You have unwittingly read the truth when your eyes rested on the statement “A day is as a thousand years with God, as but a watch in the night.” [2Peter 3:8] One Paradise-Havona day is just seven minutes, three and one-eighth seconds less than one thousand years of the present Urantia leap-year calendar.
14:6.36 Paradise is the home, and Havona the workshop and playground, of the finaliters. And every God-knowing mortal craves to be a finaliter.
Source: The Urantia Book; The King James Study Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville.
Note: Most statements in this paper were quoted verbatim from the source.
Revised November 28 2008
When a mortal is resurrected in heaven, he is not in Paradise. Mortals on our confused planet will be resurrected on Mansion Number One. [However, if a mortal is spiritually and intellectually qualified, he may proceed to one of the mansion worlds two through seven.] It will require many ages of work and study before an ascendant mortal is qualified spiritually to stand in the presence of God the Father in Paradise.
It is not possible for celestial beings to fully visualize to mortals the glories of Paradise.
Comment. The above quote from 11:1:4 contradicts the belief of various groups that God has sometimes come to earth to dwell with mortals on a day to day basis, even providing food and drink for them.
Isaiah 64:4 For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
1Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither, have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Every God-knowing mortal who has espoused the career of doing the Father’s will has already embarked upon the long, long Paradise trail of divinity pursuit and perfection attainment. And when such an animal-origin being does stand, as countless numbers now do, before the Gods on Paradise, having ascended from the lowly spheres of space, such an achievement represents the reality of a spiritual transformation bordering on the limits of supremacy.