Claim. Every created being reaches perfection only by passing through three ordered stages of growth — formation, growth, and completion. The number three is structurally necessary because the four position foundation is itself a three-stage process (origin-division-union), making God a “Being of the number three” whose nature recursively shapes creation.
Elaboration. Per 5.2.1. The Three Ordered Stages of the Growing Period: “The universe unfolds and manifests God’s original internal nature and original external form based on mathematical principles. Hence, we can infer that one aspect of God’s nature is mathematical. God is the one absolute reality in whom the dual characteristics interact in harmony; therefore, He is a Being of the number three. All created beings, having been conceived in the likeness of God, manifest their existence, movement and growth through a course of three stages.”
The three-fold pattern appears throughout the natural world (three kingdoms — mineral, plant, animal; three matter states — gas, liquid, solid; plants as roots, stems, leaves; animals as head, body, limbs) and throughout the Bible (Trinity; three Paradises; three archangels; three levels of Noah’s ark; three offerings of Abraham; three-day journey to sacrifice Isaac; three forty-year periods to Canaan; Jesus’s three years of public ministry, three temptations, three prayers at Gethsemane, Peter’s three denials, resurrection on the third day).
For DP this is not numerological coincidence: “human beings could not fulfill the purpose of their existence because they fell without completing the three stages of the growing period. Hence, in their renewed efforts to realize their purpose, human beings must pass through these three stages. In the providence of restoration, God has worked to reclaim the number three” (ibid). The pattern-of-three in scripture is the trace of God re-running aborted three-stage processes to completion.
See also. dp-fall-occurred-at-top-of-growth-stage