Skip to main content
Also known as: God the Supreme, The Almighty Supreme, The Supreme, The Finite GodKey papers: Paper 115 (The Supreme Being), Paper 116 (The Almighty Supreme), Paper 117 (God the Supreme)

​
What Is the Supreme Being?

The Supreme Being is one of the most distinctive and original concepts in the Urantia Book. Unlike the eternal, unchanging Universal Father, the Supreme Being is an experiential deity — a God who is growing, evolving, and actualizing through the collective experiences of every creature in the grand universe. The Supreme is not yet complete; he is in the process of becoming, and every mortal’s growth, every creature’s experience, contributes directly to his emergence. This concept fundamentally transforms the relationship between creatures and deity: you are not merely living under God but actively participating in the growth of God the Supreme. Your struggles, your moral choices, your spiritual progress — all of these contribute to the actualization of a deity who encompasses and unifies all finite reality.

​
Existential vs. Experiential Deity

The Urantia Book distinguishes between two fundamental types of deity reality:
  • Existential deity — The Paradise Trinity (the Universal Father, Eternal Son, and Infinite Spirit) who are eternal, infinite, and complete from all eternity. They never change or grow because they are already perfect and infinite.
  • Experiential deity — The Supreme Being, who is actualizing through the experiences of finite creatures in time and space. The Supreme grows as the universes evolve.
This distinction explains why the universe of time and space exists at all. The experiential universes provide the arena in which a new kind of deity reality can emerge — one born of actual experience rather than eternal existence.

​
The Two Phases of the Supreme

The Supreme Being has two aspects that are progressively unifying:
  1. God the Supreme — The spirit person of the Supreme, residing in Havona, who derives personality and spirit nature from the Paradise Trinity
  2. The Almighty Supreme — The power aspect of the Supreme, which is evolving in the grand universe through the actions of the Creator Sons, Ancients of Days, and Master Spirits
The full emergence of the Supreme Being will occur when these two phases completely unify — when the spirit person of God the Supreme and the power sovereignty of the Almighty Supreme achieve perfect synthesis. This will happen when all seven superuniverses are settled in light and life.

​
Every Creature Contributes

Perhaps the most profound implication of the Supreme Being concept is that every creature’s life matters cosmically. When a mortal chooses to do the will of God, that choice creates a new experiential reality that becomes part of the Supreme. When a being grows in wisdom, love, or service, the Supreme grows. When an entire world achieves spiritual maturity, the Supreme advances toward completion. This means the universe is not a static stage on which creatures merely perform — it is a living, growing organism in which every part contributes to the whole. The Supreme Being is, in a real sense, the sum total of all finite experience unified in deity.

​
Selected Quotes

“The Supreme is the beauty of physical harmony, the truth of intellectual meaning, and the goodness of spiritual value.” — Paper 117:1.1
“The Supreme is God-in-time; his is the secret of creature growth in time; his also is the conquest of the incomplete present and the consummation of the perfecting future.” — Paper 117:2.1
“With God the Supreme, achievement is the prerequisite to status — one must do something as well as be something.” — Paper 115:0.1
“When a human being chooses eternal survival, he is cocreating destiny; and in the life of this ascending mortal the finite God finds an increased measure of personality self-realization.” — Paper 117:4.2
“The Almighty Supreme is a living and evolving Deity of power and personality. His present domain, the grand universe, is also a growing realm of power and personality.” — Paper 116:0.4
  • Grand Universe — The domain of the Supreme Being’s evolution
  • Paradise — Where the existential deities eternally reside
  • Havona — Where God the Supreme’s spirit person resides
  • Personality Survival — How mortal choices contribute to the Supreme

​
Try the API

Search for paragraphs about the Supreme Being: 
curl -X POST https://api.urantia.dev/search \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "Supreme Being experiential", "type": "and", "limit": 10}'
Read Paper 117 (God the Supreme): 
curl https://api.urantia.dev/papers/117
The Supreme Being is one expression of deity but is not identical to the Universal Father. The Universal Father is an eternal, existential deity who has always existed in infinite perfection. The Supreme Being is an experiential deity who is evolving through the experiences of all creatures in the grand universe. The Supreme derives spirit and personality from the Paradise Trinity but derives power from the achievements of the creators and creatures of time and space.
According to the Urantia Book, when all seven superuniverses achieve the perfection of light and life, the Supreme Being will emerge as a fully actualized deity — accessible to all creatures and exercising complete sovereignty over the grand universe. This will mark the close of the present universe age and the beginning of a new era of cosmic growth related to the outer space levels.
Every genuine moral choice, every act of love, every experience of spiritual growth creates a new experiential reality that becomes part of the evolving Supreme Being. The Urantia Book teaches that no true experience is ever lost — it is preserved in the growing reality of the Supreme. This means that even the smallest sincere moral decision on the most remote inhabited world has cosmic significance.