THE URANTIA BOOK

AS THEY function in the superuniverse of Orvonton, the Sons of God are classified under three general heads:

Descending orders of sonship include personalities who are of direct and divine creation. Ascending sons, such as mortal creatures, achieve this status by experiential participation in the creative technique known as evolution. Trinitized Sons are a group of composite origin which includes all beings embraced by the Paradise Trinity even though not of direct Trinity origin.

All descending Sons of God have high and divine origins. They are dedicated to the descending ministry of service on the worlds and systems of time and space, there to facilitate the progress in the Paradise climb of the lowly creatures of evolutionary origin--the ascending sons of God. Of the numerous orders of descending Sons, seven will be depicted in these narratives. Those Sons who come forth from the Deities on the central Isle of Light and Life are called the Paradise Sons of God and embrace the following three orders:

1. Creator Sons--the Michaels.

2. Magisterial Sons--the Avonals.

3. Trinity Teacher Sons--the Daynals.

The remaining four orders of descending sonship are known as the Local Universe Sons of God:

4. Melchizedek Sons.

5. Vorondadek Sons.

6. Lanonandek Sons.

7. The Life Carriers.

Melchizedeks are the joint offspring of a local universe Creator Son, Creative Spirit, and Father Melchizedek. Both Vorondadeks and Lanonandeks are brought into being by a Creator Son and his Creative Spirit associate. Vorondadeks are best known as the Most Highs, the Constellation Fathers; Lanonandeks as System Sovereigns and as Planetary Princes. The threefold order of Life Carriers is brought into being by a Creator Son and Creative Spirit associated

The Paradise Sons of God are of threefold origin: The primary or Creator Sons are brought into being by the Universal Father and the Eternal Son; the secondary or Magisterial Sons are children of the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit; the Trinity Teacher Sons are the offspring of the Father, Son, and Spirit. From the standpoint of service, worship, and supplication the Paradise Sons are as one; their spirit is one, and their work is identical in quality and completeness.

As the Paradise orders of Days proved to be divine administrators, so have the orders of Paradise Sons revealed themselves as divine ministers--creators, servers, bestowers, judges, teachers, and truth revealers. They range the universe of universes from the shores of the eternal Isle to the inhabited worlds of time and space, performing manifold services in the central and superuniverses not disclosed in these narratives. They are variously organized, dependent on the nature and whereabouts of their service, but in a local universe both Magisterial and Teacher Sons serve under the direction of the Creator Son who presides over that domain.

The Creator Sons seem to possess a spiritual endowment centering in their persons, which they control and which they can bestow, as did your own Creator Son when he poured out his spirit upon all mortal flesh on Urantia. Each Creator Son is endowed with this spiritual drawing power in his own realm; he is personally conscious of every act and emotion of every descending Son of God serving in his domain. Here is a divine reflection, a local universe duplication, of that absolute spiritual drawing power of the Eternal Son which enables him to reach out to make and maintain contact with all his Paradise Sons, no matter where they may be in all the universe of universes.

The Paradise Creator Sons serve not only as Sons in their descending ministrations of service and bestowal, but when they have completed their bestowal careers, each functions as a universe Father in his own creation, while the other Sons of God continue the service of bestowal and spiritual uplifting designed to win the planets, one by one, to the willing recognition of the loving rule of the Universal Father, culminating in creature consecration to the will of the Paradise Father and in planetary loyalty to the universe sovereignty of his Creator Son.

In a sevenfold Creator Son, Creator and creature are forever blended in understanding, sympathetic, and merciful association. The entire order of Michael, the Creator Sons, is so unique that the consideration of their natures and activities will be reserved to the next paper in this series, while this narrative will be chiefly concerned with the two remaining orders of Paradise sonship: the Magisterial Sons and the Trinity Teacher Sons.

Every time an original and absolute concept of being formulated by the Eternal Son unites with a new and divine ideal of loving service conceived by the Infinite Spirit, a new and original Son of God, a Paradise Magisterial Son, is produced. These Sons constitute the order of Avonals in contradistinction to the order of Michael, the Creator Sons. Though not creators in the personal

We have reasons for believing that the total number of Magisterial Sons in the grand universe is about one billion. They are a self-governing order, being directed by their supreme council on Paradise, which is made up of experienced Avonals drawn from the services of all universes. But when assigned to, and commissioned in, a local universe, they serve under the direction of the Creator Son of that domain.

Avonals are the Paradise Sons of service and bestowal to the individual planets of the local universes. And since each Avonal Son has an exclusive personality, since no two are alike, their work is individually unique in the realms of their sojourn, where they are often incarnated in the likeness of mortal flesh and sometimes are born of earthly mothers on the evolutionary worlds.

In addition to their services on the higher administrative levels, the Avonals have a threefold function on the inhabited worlds:

1. Judicial Actions. They act at the close of the planetary dispensations. In time, scores--hundreds--of such missions may be executed on each individual world, and they may go to the same or to other worlds times without number as dispensation terminators, liberators of the sleeping survivors.

2. Magisterial Missions. A planetary visitation of this type usually occurs prior to the arrival of a bestowal Son. On such a mission an Avonal appears as an adult of the realm by a technique of incarnation not involving mortal birth. Subsequent to this first and usual magisterial visit, Avonals may repeatedly serve in a magisterial capacity on the same planet both before and after the appearance of the bestowal Son. On these additional magisterial missions an Avonal may or may not appear in material and visible form, but on none of them will he be born into the world as a helpless babe.

3. Bestowal Missions. The Avonal Sons do all, at least once, bestow themselves upon some mortal race on some evolutionary world. Judicial visits are numerous, magisterial missions may be plural, but on each planet there appears but one bestowal Son. Bestowal Avonals are born of woman as Michael of Nebadon was incarnated on Urantia.

There is no limit to the number of times the Avonal Sons may serve on magisterial and on bestowal missions, but usually, when the experience has been seven times traversed, there is suspension in favor of those who have had less of such service. These Sons of multiple bestowal experience are then assigned to the high personal council of a Creator Son, thus becoming participants in the administration of universe affairs.

In all their work for and on the inhabited worlds, the Magisterial Sons are assisted by two orders of local universe creatures, the Melchizedeks and the archangels, while on bestowal missions they are also accompanied by the Brilliant Evening Stars, likewise of origin in the local creations. In every planetary effort the secondary Paradise Sons, the Avonals, are supported by the full power and authority of a primary Paradise Son, the Creator Son of their local universe of service. To all intents and purposes their work on the inhabited spheres is just as effective and acceptable as would have been the service of a Creator Son upon such worlds of mortal habitation.

The Avonals are known as Magisterial Sons because they are the high magistrates of the realms, the adjudicators of the successive dispensations of the worlds of time. They preside over the awakening of the sleeping survivors, sit in judgment on the realm, bring to an end a dispensation of suspended justice, execute the mandates of an age of probationary mercy, reassign the space creatures of planetary ministry to the tasks of the new dispensation, and return to the headquarters of their local universe upon the completion of their mission.

When they sit in judgment on the destinies of an age, the Avonals decree the fate of the evolutionary races, but though they may render judgments extinguishing the identity of personal creatures, they do not execute such sentences. Verdicts of this nature are executed by none but the authorities of a superuniverse.

The arrival of a Paradise Avonal on an evolutionary world for the purpose of terminating a dispensation and of inaugurating a new era of planetary progression is not necessarily either a magisterial mission or a bestowal mission. Magisterial missions sometimes, and bestowal missions always, are incarnations; that is, on such assignments the Avonals serve on a planet in material form--literally. Their other visits are "technical," and in this capacity an Avonal is not incarnated for planetary service. If a Magisterial Son comes solely as a dispensational adjudicator, he arrives on a planet as a spiritual being, invisible to the material creatures of the realm. Such technical visits occur repeatedly in the long history of an inhabited world.

Avonal Sons may act as planetary judges prior to both the magisterial and bestowal experiences. On either of these missions, however, the incarnated Son will judge the passing planetary age; likewise does a Creator Son when incarnated on a mission of bestowal in the likeness of mortal flesh. When a Paradise Son visits an evolutionary world and becomes like one of its people, his presence terminates a dispensation and constitutes a judgment of the realm.

Prior to the planetary appearance of a bestowal Son, an inhabited world is usually visited by a Paradise Avonal on a magisterial mission. If it is an initial magisterial visitation, the Avonal is always incarnated as a material being. He appears on the planet of assignment as a full-fledged male of the mortal races, a being fully visible to, and in physical contact with, the mortal creatures of his day and generation. Throughout a magisterial incarnation the connection of the Avonal Son with the local and the universal spiritual forces is complete and unbroken.

A planet may experience many magisterial visitations both before and after the appearance of a bestowal Son. It may be visited many times by the same or other Avonals, acting as dispensational adjudicators, but such technical missions of judgment are neither bestowal nor magisterial, and the Avonals are never incarnated at such times. Even when a planet is blessed with repeated magisterial missions, the Avonals do not always submit to mortal incarnation; and when they do serve in the likeness of mortal flesh, they always appear as adult beings of the realm; they are not born of woman.

Urantia has never been host to an Avonal Son on a magisterial mission. Had Urantia followed the general plan of inhabited worlds, it would have been blessed with a magisterial mission sometime between the days of Adam and the bestowal of Christ Michael. But the regular sequence of Paradise Sons on your planet was wholly deranged by the appearance of your Creator Son on his terminal bestowal nineteen hundred years ago.

Urantia may yet be visited by an Avonal commissioned to incarnate on a magisterial mission, but regarding the future appearance of Paradise Sons, not even "the angels in heaven know the time or manner of such visitations," for a Michael-bestowal world becomes the individual and personal ward of a Master Son and, as such, is wholly subject to his own plans and rulings. And with your world, this is further complicated by Michael's promise to return. Regardless of the misunderstandings about the Urantian sojourn of Michael of Nebadon, one thing is certainly authentic--his promise to come back to your world. In view of this prospect, only time can reveal the future order of the visitations of the Paradise Sons of God on Urantia.

The Eternal Son is the eternal Word of God. The Eternal Son is the perfect expression of the "first" absolute and infinite thought of his eternal Father. When a personal duplication or divine extension of this Original Son starts on a bestowal mission of mortal incarnation, it becomes literally true that the divine "Word is made flesh," and that the Word thus dwells among the lowly beings of animal origin.

On Urantia there is a widespread belief that the purpose of a Son's bestowal is, in some manner, to influence the attitude of the Universal Father. But your enlightenment should indicate that this is not true. The bestowals of the Avonal and the Michael Sons are a necessary part of the experiential process designed to make these Sons safe and sympathetic magistrates and rulers of the peoples and planets of time and space. The career of sevenfold bestowal is the supreme goal of all Paradise Creator Sons. And all Magisterial Sons are motivated by this same spirit of service which so abundantly characterizes the primary Creator Sons and the Eternal Son of Paradise.

Some order of Paradise Son must be bestowed upon each mortal-inhabited world in order to make it possible for Thought Adjusters to indwell the minds of all normal human beings on that sphere, for the Adjusters do not come to all bona fide human beings until the Spirit of Truth has been poured out upon all flesh; and the sending of the Spirit of Truth is dependent upon the return to

During the course of the long history of an inhabited planet, many dispensational adjudications will take place, and more than one magisterial mission may occur, but ordinarily only once will a bestowal Son serve on the sphere. It is only required that each inhabited world have one bestowal Son come to live the full mortal life from birth to death. Sooner or later, regardless of spiritual status, every mortal-inhabited world is destined to become host to a Magisterial Son on a bestowal mission except the one planet in each local universe whereon a Creator Son elects to make his mortal bestowal.

Understanding more about the bestowal Sons, you discern why so much interest attaches to Urantia in the history of Nebadon. Your small and insignificant planet is of local universe concern simply because it is the mortal home world of Jesus of Nazareth. It was the scene of the final and triumphant bestowal of your Creator Son, the arena in which Michael won the supreme personal sovereignty of the universe of Nebadon.

At the headquarters of his local universe a Creator Son, especially after the completion of his own mortal bestowal, spends much of his time in counseling and instructing the college of associate Sons, the Magisterial Sons and others. In love and devotion, with tender mercy and affectionate consideration, these Magisterial Sons bestow themselves upon the worlds of space. And in no way are these planetary services inferior to the mortal bestowals of the Michaels. It is true that your Creator Son selected for the realm of his final adventure in creature experience one which had had unusual misfortunes. But no planet could ever be in such a condition that it would require the bestowal of a Creator Son to effect its spiritual rehabilitation. Any Son of the bestowal group would have equally sufficed, for in all their work on the worlds of a local universe the Magisterial Sons are just as divinely effective and all wise as would have been their Paradise brother, the Creator Son.

Though the possibility of disaster always attends these Paradise Sons during their bestowal incarnations, I have yet to see the record of the failure or default of either a Magisterial or a Creator Son on a mission of bestowal. Both are of origin too close to absolute perfection to fail. They indeed assume the risk, really become like the mortal creatures of flesh and blood and thereby gain the unique creature experience, but within the range of my observation they always succeed. They never fail to achieve the goal of the bestowal mission. The story of their bestowal and planetary service throughout Nebadon constitutes the most noble and fascinating chapter in the history of your local universe.

The method whereby a Paradise Son becomes ready for mortal incarnation as a bestowal Son, becomes enmothered on the bestowal planet, is a universal mystery; and any effort to detect the working of this Sonarington technique is doomed to meet with certain failure. Let the sublime knowledge of the mortal life of Jesus of Nazareth sink into your souls, but waste no thought in useless speculation as to how this mysterious incarnation of Michael of Nebadon was effected. Let us all rejoice in the knowledge and assurance that such achievements are

On a mortal-bestowal mission a Paradise Son is always born of woman and grows up as a male child of the realm, as Jesus did on Urantia. These Sons of supreme service all pass from infancy through youth to manhood just as does a human being. In every respect they become like the mortals of the race into which they are born. They make petitions to the Father as do the children of the realms in which they serve. From a material viewpoint, these human-divine Sons live ordinary lives with just one exception: They do not beget offspring on the worlds of their sojourn; that is a universal restriction imposed on all orders of the Paradise bestowal Sons.

As Jesus worked on your world as the carpenter's son, so do other Paradise Sons labor in various capacities on their bestowal planets. You could hardly think of a vocation that has not been followed by some Paradise Son in the course of his bestowal on some one of the evolutionary planets of time.

When a bestowal Son has mastered the experience of living the mortal life, when he has achieved perfection of attunement with his indwelling Adjuster, thereupon he begins that part of his planetary mission designed to illuminate the minds and to inspire the souls of his brethren in the flesh. As teachers, these Sons are exclusively devoted to the spiritual enlightenment of the mortal races on the worlds of their sojourn.

The mortal-bestowal careers of the Michaels and the Avonals, while comparable in most respects, are not identical in all: Never does a Magisterial Son proclaim, "Whosoever has seen the Son has seen the Father," as did your Creator Son when on Urantia and in the flesh. But a bestowed Avonal does declare, "Whosoever has seen me has seen the Eternal Son of God." The Magisterial Sons are not of immediate descent from the Universal Father, nor do they incarnate subject to the Father's will; always do they bestow themselves as Paradise Sons subject to the will of the Eternal Son of Paradise.

When the bestowal Sons, Creator or Magisterial, enter the portals of death, they reappear on the third day. But you should not entertain the idea that they always meet with the tragic end encountered by the Creator Son who sojourned on your world nineteen hundred years ago. The extraordinary and unusually cruel experience through which Jesus of Nazareth passed has caused Urantia to become locally known as "the world of the cross." It is not necessary that such inhuman treatment be accorded a Son of God, and the vast majority of planets have afforded them a more considerate reception, allowing them to finish their mortal careers, terminate the age, adjudicate the sleeping survivors, and inaugurate a new dispensation, without imposing a violent death. A bestowal Son must encounter death, must pass through the whole of the actual experience of mortals of the realms, but it is not a requirement of the divine plan that this death be either violent or unusual.

When bestowal Sons are not put to death by violence, they voluntarily relinquish their lives and pass through the portals of death, not to satisfy the demands of "stern justice" or "divine wrath," but rather to complete the bestowal, "to drink the cup" of the career of incarnation and personal experience in all that constitutes a creature's life as it is lived on the planets of mortal existence. Bestowal is a planetary and a universe necessity, and physical death is nothing more than a necessary part of a bestowal mission.

Upon the completion of a Creator Son's final bestowal the Spirit of Truth previously sent into all Avonal-bestowal worlds of that local universe changes in nature, becoming more literally the spirit of the sovereign Michael. This phenomenon takes place concurrently with the liberation of the Spirit of Truth for service on the Michael-mortal-bestowal planet. Thereafter, each world honored by a Magisterial bestowal will receive the same spirit Comforter from the sevenfold Creator Son, in association with that Magisterial Son, which it would have received had the local universe Sovereign personally incarnated as its bestowal Son.

These highly personal and highly spiritual Paradise Sons are brought into being by the Paradise Trinity. They are known in Havona as the order of Daynals. In Orvonton they are of record as Trinity Teacher Sons, so named because of their parentage. On Salvington they are sometimes denominated the Paradise Spiritual Sons.

In numbers the Teacher Sons are constantly increasing. The last universal census broadcast gave the number of these Trinity Sons functioning in the central and superuniverses as a little more than twenty-one billion, and this is exclusive of the Paradise reserves, which include more than one third of all Trinity Teacher Sons in existence.

The Daynal order of sonship is not an organic part of the local or superuniverse administrations. Its members are neither creators nor retrievers, neither judges nor rulers. They are not so much concerned with universe administration as with moral enlightenment and spiritual development. They are the universal educators, being dedicated to the spiritual awakening and moral guidance of all realms. Their ministry is intimately interrelated with that of the personalities of the Infinite Spirit and is closely associated with the Paradise ascension of creature beings.

These Sons of the Trinity partake of the combined natures of the three Paradise Deities, but in Havona they seem more to reflect the nature of the Universal Father. In the superuniverses they seem to portray the nature of the Eternal Son, while in the local creations they appear to show forth the character of the Infinite Spirit. In all universes they are the embodiment of service and the discretion of wisdom.

Unlike their Paradise brethren, Michaels and Avonals, Trinity Teacher Sons receive no preliminary training in the central universe. They are dispatched directly to the headquarters of the superuniverses and from there are commissioned for service in some local universe. In their ministry to these evolutionary realms they utilize the combined spiritual influence of a Creator Son and the associated Magisterial Sons, for the Daynals do not possess a spiritual drawing power in and of themselves.

The Paradise Spiritual Sons are unique Trinity-origin beings and the only Trinity creatures to be so completely associated with the conduct of the dual-origin universes. They are affectionately devoted to the educational ministry to mortal creatures and the lower orders of spiritual beings. They begin their labors in the local systems and, in accordance with experience and achievement, are advanced inward through the constellation service to the highest work of the local creation. Upon certification they may become spiritual ambassadors representing the local universes of their service.

The exact number of Teacher Sons in Nebadon I do not know; there are many thousands of them. Many of the heads of departments in the Melchizedek schools belong to this order, while the combined staff of the regularly constituted University of Salvington embraces over one hundred thousand including these Sons. Large numbers are stationed on the various morontia-training worlds, but they are not wholly occupied with the spiritual and intellectual advancement of mortal creatures; they are equally concerned with the instruction of seraphic beings and other natives of the local creations. Many of their assistants are drawn from the ranks of the creature-trinitized beings.

The Teacher Sons compose the faculties who administer all examinations and conduct all tests for the qualification and certification of all subordinate phases of universe service, from the duties of outpost sentinels to those of star students. They conduct an agelong course of training, ranging from the planetary courses up to the high College of Wisdom located on Salvington. Recognition indicative of effort and attainment is granted to all, ascending mortal or ambitious cherubim, who complete these adventures in wisdom and truth.

In all universes all the Sons of God are beholden to these ever-faithful and universally efficient Trinity Teacher Sons. They are the exalted teachers of all spirit personalities, even the tried and true teachers of the Sons of God themselves. But of the endless details of the duties and functions of the Teacher Sons I can hardly instruct you. The vast domain of Daynal-sonship activities will be better understood on Urantia when you are more advanced in intelligence, and after the spiritual isolation of your planet has been terminated.

When the progress of events on an evolutionary world indicates that the time is ripe to initiate a spiritual age, the Trinity Teacher Sons always volunteer for this service. You are not familiar with this order of sonship because Urantia has never experienced a spiritual age, a millennium of cosmic enlightenment. But the Teacher Sons even now visit your world for the purpose of formulating plans concerning their projected sojourn on your sphere. They will be due to appear on Urantia after its inhabitants have gained comparative deliverance from the shackles of animalism and from the fetters of materialism.

Trinity Teacher Sons have nothing to do with terminating planetary dispensations. They neither judge the dead nor translate the living, but on each planetary mission they are accompanied by a Magisterial Son who performs these services. Teacher Sons are wholly concerned with the initiation of a spiritual age, with the dawn of the era of spiritual realities on an evolutionary planet.

The Teacher Sons usually remain on their visitation planets for one thousand years of planetary time. One Teacher Son presides over the planetary millennial reign and is assisted by seventy associates of his order. The Daynals do not incarnate or otherwise so materialize themselves as to be visible to mortal beings; therefore is contact with the world of visitation maintained through the activities of the Brilliant Evening Stars, local universe personalities who are associated with the Trinity Teacher Sons.

The Daynals may return many times to an inhabited world, and following their final mission the planet will be ushered into the settled status of a sphere of light and life, the evolutionary goal of all the mortal-inhabited worlds of the present universe age. The Mortal Corps of the Finality has much to do with the spheres settled in light and life, and their planetary activities touch upon those of the Teacher Sons. Indeed, the whole order of Daynal sonship is intimately connected with all phases of finaliter activities in the evolutionary creations of time and space.

The Trinity Teacher Sons seem to be so completely identified with the regime of mortal progression through the earlier stages of evolutionary ascension that we are often led to speculate regarding their possible association with the finaliters in the undisclosed career of the future universes. We observe that the administrators of the superuniverses are part Trinity-origin personalities and part Trinity-embraced ascendant evolutionary creatures. We firmly believe that the Teacher Sons and the finaliters are now engaged in acquiring the experience of time-association which may be the preliminary training to prepare them for close association in some unrevealed future destiny. On Uversa it is our belief that, when the superuniverses are finally settled in light and life, these Paradise Teacher Sons, who have become so thoroughly familiar with the problems of evolutionary worlds and have been so long associated with the career of evolutionary mortals, will probably be transferred to eternal association with the Paradise Corps of the Finality.

All the Paradise Sons of God are divine in origin and in nature. The work of each Paradise Son in behalf of each world is just as if the Son of service were the first and only Son of God.

The Paradise Sons are the divine presentation of the acting natures of the three persons of Deity to the domains of time and space. The Creator, Magisterial, and Teacher Sons are the gifts of the eternal Deities to the children of men and to all other universe creatures of ascension potential. These Sons of God are the divine ministers who are unceasingly devoted to the work of helping the creatures of time attain the high spiritual goal of eternity.

In the Creator Sons the love of the Universal Father is blended with the mercy of the Eternal Son and is disclosed to the local universes in the creative power, loving ministry, and understanding sovereignty of the Michaels. In the Magisterial Sons the mercy of the Eternal Son, united with the ministry of the Infinite Spirit, is revealed to the evolutionary domains in the careers of these Avonals of judgment, service, and bestowal. In the Trinity Teacher Sons the

In the local universes these orders of sonship collaborate to effect the revelation of the Deities of Paradise to the creatures of space: As the Father of a local universe, a Creator Son portrays the infinite character of the Universal Father. As the bestowal Sons of mercy, the Avonals reveal the matchless nature of the Eternal Son of infinite compassion. As the true teachers of ascending personalities, the Trinity Daynal Sons disclose the teacher personality of the Infinite Spirit. In their divinely perfect co-operation, Michaels, Avonals, and Daynals are contributing to the actualization and revelation of the personality and sovereignty of God the Supreme in and to the time-space universes. In the harmony of their triune activities these Paradise Sons of God ever function in the vanguard of the personalities of Deity as they follow the never-ending expansion of the divinity of the First Great Source and Center from the everlasting Isle of Paradise into the unknown depths of space.

[Presented by a Perfector of Wisdom from Uversa.]