Recent Ideas: The Making and Passing of the Personality

Is the creation process fair? Fairness is a common question when people get a glimpse of spiritual burdens they did not ask for. Why has God thrust this upon me? Well, someone is going to hold that burden when they are placed in your shoes, and it is likely such a burden was not God's direct fault. God does not stop personalizing humans because their challenges will be too great. That would limit the experiences of the Supreme after all. But let's get back to the issue of fairness.

What choice could exist in between future survival and death? You either live or you don't. And how do you choose to become alive before you are? It may seem unfair, but that is how reality works. You can't know ahead of time if you want to live before you come into being. And the human personality really can't make these kinds of decisions without any sense of grown identity and knowledge, which requires human experience (a young personality doesn't question existence, it just exists). Personality gets created at conception, so someone's personality is going to be made then and there whether anyone wants that to occur or not. Let's say you end up regretting coming into existence. Well, even if we could turn back time and undo your existence, someone else would take your place gaining your identity and living your life a little differently.

Personalities get created whether they want that or not, because they can't really have an opinion on the matter beforehand. There is no fair or unfair. This judgement can't exist when you aren't around to do the judging. If it were unfair for personalities to be challenged without them desiring it first, and since God doesn't act unfairly, the universe would be devoid of life. It is a challenging experience, and everyone has some problem facing them. People who do not want to exist are not forced to, but they cannot make that decision before they exist in the first place. I know I am repeating this over and over, but I want to be clear about it.
 
For many, it is debatable whether or not humans become individualized at conception or during the growth of the fetus. Those familiar with the Urantia Book will likely understand that the personality is created at conception. If new personalities are created in all such cases, then it is clear that reincarnation simply isn't possible (besides the fact that this fact is directly stated).

Even if you debate this, the personality has to be attached to something else so that it can function, even if that is just an energy system. The personality would then have to be translated from what it controlled before to the growing fetus (or cells). It does not sound impossible since Christ Michael did something similar, but creating the personality within the dividing cells sounds far less complicated. And again, how would a personality know that it wants a human life without experiencing it first? How would it know it wants to live at all without learning?

If becoming human were a choice, you would need to understand that choice, and this would require training. But the evolutionary spheres are the first training worlds. The very point is for this to be a somewhat messy place where people lack experience and can make mistakes. If people did learn enough to know that they wanted to be human, but ended up forgetting everything they learned after becoming little babies again, what is the real value in making that decision? What about the pre-humans who don't want to be human? This example is never mentioned as a type of sonship with God. Does the personality just die? And for the record, how would the first personality even make this decision when there are no other humans with personality or free will to use as examples?

Creating the individual during the beginning growth of the fetus is simply the easiest and most efficient means to mass produce free will creatures of evolutionary origin. If this process were different, I doubt we would be called evolutionary in the first place. The point of this post is to show that not only is there no reincarnation, but we cannot possibly exist outside of God as an individual and pick our human life, and we are still being treated fairly while this fact remains true. 

Subjective fairness can only be established when such a judge is present, so something can only be subjectively fair or unfair to us when we are there to observe such a fact. Objective fairness is God's territory, and is judged based on the values of the Trinity. How can we know God's actions are fair or if these values are correct? Well, they would have to be if God is perfect.

There is no semi-existence in the present. You either exist now or you do not. That is at least how the superuniverses of time operate. There are potentials that may be real to God, but they are not currently around to have any sort of opinion. I can see why some might not like this logic, as it could be used incorrectly to cause more suffering for future humans on this world, but those who would be so negligent are not following the values of God. I think God does operate in a way so that potential beings are benefited. I don't think God ever creates a personality where the state of existing is objectively so unfair that the individual is forced to pursue nonexistence.

But if God deemed it necessary or fair for us to make an informed decision to be mortal, couldn't He make this possible?

The answer really depends on what it means to have an informed decision. Just having all the facts in front of you is one thing, experiencing those facts is another. What is more important when making a decision? Who is better at deciding whether he or she wants to ride a roller coaster, the person who understands every ounce of physics involved or the person who just rode it a minute ago? I believe truly informed decisions require experience, and that is reflected in my answer.

Understanding mortality requires the experience of mortality. You need to be a mortal in order to truly know if you want to be a mortal (never having second thoughts later). Mortality (possibility of death) is more an experiential value, not an existential one. Christ did not fully comprehend the life of a mortal human until after death. The threat of nonexistence is not something the Trinity can experience, but it is an experience that becomes part of the Supreme indirectly. I believe experiential Deity can understand death, but existential Deity cannot.

You start off getting an informed decision to become mortal because you are already mortal when you are capable of making that decision. The exact same thing is experienced by those beings who are immortal. They are created that way, and have no say in the matter until after the fact. Two gray areas also exist. There are two types of immortality: absolute immortality (death is impossible) and circumstantial immortality (what could cause death does not necessarily occur). There are also two types of mortality: absolute mortality (threat of permanent death) and circumstantial mortality (threat of death for the physical body only, or temporary death). A circumstantial state can exist alongside an opposing absolute state. Also, two states of the same type cannot exist together. I should also include that mortality does not automatically make you a human, but being human automatically makes you a mortal.

Another question is whether you could ever make an informed decision about entering a state you are not in yet. Basically, if you have to experience something to make informed decisions, could you ever be truly informed about immortality after fusion with the Adjuster? You would have experience doing the Father's will, but you have not experienced being bound to that will for eternity (though technically, you never will since it goes on forever). Also, moving from mortality to immortality and immortality to mortality are entirely different experiences. Actually, true immortality means you cannot ever choose permanent death, so while those entering the forms of absolute and circumstantial mortality can then experience both absolute and circumstantial immortality, only those who are circumstantially immortal can face both types of mortality. The reason this looks complicated is because the true opposite of immortality is permanent nonexistence, which doesn't show up as an example.

If it is already established that God is always fair, then His decisions or the decisions He gives us should be fair too. It is just simple logic. The actions of God match His traits. If it is not established that God is fair, then that is what you need to first create an argument for, and that relates to the values of the Trinity. If you want to focus on why the choices themselves should be fair, well this I have tried to answer. It would be far better giving humans free will than not, especially if they already exist. They either die like they would have anyway or they are able to make the decision to live longer (and eventually forever).

(1185.2) 108:0.2 Nothing in the entire universe can substitute for the fact of experience on nonexistential levels. The infinite God is, as always, replete and complete, infinitely inclusive of all things except evil and creature experience. God cannot do wrong; he is infallible. God cannot experientially know what he has never personally experienced; God’s preknowledge is existential. Therefore does the spirit of the Father descend from Paradise to participate with finite mortals in every bona fide experience of the ascending career; it is only by such a method that the existential God could become in truth and in fact man’s experiential Father. The infinity of the eternal God encompasses the potential for finite experience, which indeed becomes actual in the ministry of the Adjuster fragments that actually share the life vicissitude experiences of human beings.