Article #143
Subject: Some related defintions which depend on themselves
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 5/7/2012 11:11:30 AM

Some Definitions Which Depend on Themselves

Angels---Individual, self-existing beings who do God's will and are
messengers for God to humankind of his goodness and faith in all of us.
Authoritative Sovereignty---Something which exists very infrequently in
heaven.
Beauty---Controlled grace.
Being---What do we mean when we say an object of thought has being?
An object of thought may have being without having reality. And, this may or
may not depend on the circumstances it finds itself in. The concept of
reality (or true being)includes that, in some sense, of embodiment. Faith
contains its own substance of the reality of what it hopes for but knowledge
based on sense impressions does not. Being can be in the state of possibility
(not having reality) or actuality (having reality). A concept has possible
being...whether or not the experiences (sense perceptions or the realized
truth of intuitive faithful knowledge) required to make it actual realized
knowledge are accompanying the concept.
Belief—Faith.
Change---Something which exists very frequently on earth and very
infrequently in heaven.
Compassion---Love that participates with us in our lives. It co-creates with
us what is good.
Contingent---What does not exist by itself.
Earth---A fundamental realm of the realization of creation where things are
as they are in heaven.
God has hidden wisdom and spiritual understanding inside of his heavenly
earth in us. Both the beginning and the end of it he has placed as a basis of
his truth in us. He placed it as the certain circumstances of a precious
cornerstone of truth inside of the way his eternal (the past and the future)
present moment dwells in us.
Eternal Life--- Light, love, truth, and goodness which is independently
existing, non-contingent and non-temporal.
Eternal Light---Wisdom, Spiritual Understanding.
Faith---The light of the one increasing. A mental sustaining power created by
God and each of us for our mutual benefit. Faith comes from God, but the base
of its location is not in the part of him that is in the World. For faith to
exist inside of us, God must first place the seed of its truth deep inside of
us. For it to grow we must mentally acknowledge and accept it and know it (or
understand it) as something that is good and helpful in us.
Forgiveness---Compassion in the face of what is not good.
Freedom—The state of existing independently and non-contingently and for our
mutual well-being.
God the Father—A part of oneself and ourselves which is non-contingent and
good. He created the Universe by himself, with his Son, and also with our
help. He sustains and nourishes the creation of all things in the Universe.
God the Son--- A part of oneself and ourselves that reveals oneself and
ourself to us. He is both contingent and non-contingent and he is himself
good. He existed in the beginning with the Father and all things were created
in him, with his help, and through him and God and us.
God the Holy Spirit---The Lord the giver of life. He (It) is a part of
oneself and ourselves that is the expression of God the Father and God the
Son in us. He enters the Spirits and Souls of those who call upon him.
God's Name--- That part of God's being which defines that which God is. It
tells us that the three parts of the Trinity are co-existent but different
and different but co-existent.
Goodness---What is desirable for its own sake. Love exists for another, but
goodness exists because of itself. When goodness in us is guided by the Love
in us, then divine order is established in us. Reality both exists for its
own sake and also for other’s sake (for it is always an objective truth).
Therefore reality is something more than just goodness…it is consciousness,
love, good will, action, knowledge existing subjectively as well as
objectively.
Grace---Love that gives.
Happiness---Knowledge of goodness. The co-existence in us and among us of
peace along with goodness.
Heaven---A primary realm of creation where God exists and lives.
Hope---to desire or seek.
Humankind—The collective living and intelligent image of God which exists in
heaven and on earth.
Joy---Spiritual understanding of what its good.
Knowledge---Assured belief: wisdom, spiritual understanding, and truth.
Obedience--- Submission of our individual and collective will and purposes to
those of God.
Patience---Peaceful dependence on the Eternal Life in God for meaning and
Truth in our lives.
Peace---Satisfied stillness along with joy and the expectation of future
transcendent quietness and happiness in our lives.
Life—A continuous co-expression with God of one's being.
Love---A Correspondence between God ourselves and an other that most of the
time exists for the sake of another. But, thankfully to God, sometimes it
exists for its own sake between two beings that exist for their own sake.
Meaning---Independently existing spiritual understanding
Nothing---How we explain or define what the nothing we are talking is depends
on how we are trying to know things. If we are looking at things from a
materialistic, scientific viewpoint... then something is experienced as
a "nothing" if it has no sense impressions associated with it. But, for a
religious person this is not necessarily the case. A practicing Buddhist, for
instance, is able to talk meaninfully about experiencing "nothingness" from a
standpoint of having real knowledge of it. Understanding and knowing how to
experience this "nothingness" in the present moment can be a source of
healing, peacefulness, and liberation.
Reality--- Reality is not something which as the philosopher George Berkeley
has said,does not exist when a tree falls in a distant forest where "no-
body" is there to hear it. It is something which exists because there is
a "no- body" (God and us) inside of us all. Wherever we are it "is", and it
has the potential to be us, wherever it "is." When God created the reality in
the World and the reality in you and I there was nothingness (spiritual
emptiness) inside of nothingness (the wise knowing of this spiritual
emptiness). For there was nothingness inside of him (his or her spirit) and
nothingness (spirit) inside of you and I. For, then, at that time, in those
days, in that place, two or three of us were gathered togethered in his name.
And, he created it and us in him and out there and in us.God created the
World out of nothingness, but he created you and I out of something (himself
or herself).
Spiritual Understanding---Reflection of truth in one's being.
Strength---A non-mental sustaining power created by God in us and him to help
us in our human lives.
Truth---Correspondence between what is and what is. What is may be contingent
or non-contingent. The correspondence may be meaningful or not. When a self
exists for a real non-self (not an illusory non-self), then it can create its
own existence. The self which exists for itself is true (being a true self)
only when it can be and has been known by itself and by that which it is not.
Thus, in order to speak the truth, we should be ready for and not surprised
by being known as we know others.
Wisdom---A patience, obedience (or fear) of the importance of and
understanding and respect for the well being of God's name in us in order
that one's own well-being be benefited.
note: some of the wording and some of the ideas for the definitions of some
of these terms came from the book "A Metaphysical Dictionary" by Charles
Fillmore
published by our long time prayer friends in the Unity School of Christianity
and Unity Press, Unity Village MO 64065