Divine Love and Wisdom
Tabella dei contenuti
PART ONE 1-3 God alone, thus the Lord, is love itself, because He is life itself; and angels and people are recipients of life. This observation will be clarified in a number of places in my treatises on Divine Providence and on Life. 4-6 The Divine does not exist in space. The Divine, or God, does not exist in space, even though He is omnipresent, and is with every person in the world, with every angel in heaven, and with every spirit beneath heaven. 7-10 God is supremely human. Throughout the heavens one finds no other idea of God than the idea of a person. The reason is that heaven in its totality and in every part is in its form as though a single person, and it is the Divine existing in angels which forms heaven. 11-13 Being and expression in the human God are, in a distinct combination, one. Wherever there is being, there is also expression. One is not possible without the other. For being exists through expression, and not apart from it. 14-16 The infinite elements in the human God are, in a distinct combination, one. People know that God is infinite, because He is called infinite; but He is called infinite because He is infinite. 17-22 There is one human God from whom springs all else. All powers of human reason join together and center, so to speak, on the existence of one God, the creator of the universe. 23-27 The Divine essence itself is love and wisdom. If you muster everything you know and submit it to your mind's inspection, and in a somewhat elevated state of the spirit examine what the universal element is in all things, you cannot help but conclude that it is love and wisdom. 28-33 Divine love is a property of Divine wisdom, and Divine wisdom is a property of Divine love. 34-39 Divine love and wisdom are both substance and form. People commonly have an idea of love and wisdom as abstract entities flying about or floating in the subtler air or ether, or as exhalations emanating from something of that nature. 40-43 Divine love and wisdom are substance and form in themselves, thus the one and only absolute. We have just established above that Divine love and wisdom are substance and form; and we have already said as well that the Divine being and expression are being and expression in itself. 44-46 Divine love and wisdom cannot but be and have expression in others it creates. The essence of love is not to love self, but to love others and through love to be conjoined with them. It is also the essence of love to be loved by others, for thus is conjunction achieved. 47-51 Everything in the universe has been created by the Divine love and wisdom of the human God. The universe in its greatest and least elements and in its first and last elements is so full of Divine love and wisdom that it can be said to be Divine love and wisdom in an image. 52-54 Everything in the created universe is a recipient of the Divine love and wisdom of the human God. People know that each and every constituent of the universe has been created by God. Therefore the universe with each and every thing in it is called in the Word the work of the hands of Jehovah. 55-60 Everything that has been created exhibits in some image of him a resemblance to the human being. This can be seen in each and every constituent of the animal kingdom, in each and every constituent of the plant kingdom, and in each and every constituent of the mineral kingdom. 61-64 The uses of all things that have been created ascend by degrees from the lowest created forms to mankind, and through mankind to God the Creator from whom they originate. 65-68 The Divine fills every space and interval of space in the universe independently of space. Nature has two properties, space and time. A person in the natural world forms his mental concepts and thus his understanding in accordance with them. 69-72 The Divine is present through all time independently of time. As the Divine is present through all space independently of space, so it is present through all time independently of time. For no property of nature can be predicated of the Divine, and space and time are properties of nature. 73-76 The Divine in the greatest and least of things is the same. 77-82 PART TWO 83-88 From the sun arising from Divine love and wisdom emanate heat and light. The spiritual world where angels and spirits dwell has in it heat and light just like the natural world where people dwell. Moreover the heat is also felt as heat and the light seen as light in a similar way. 89-92 That sun is not God, but it is an emanation from the Divine love and wisdom of the human God. So, too, the heat and light from that sun. 93-98 Spiritual heat and light as they emanate from the Lord as the sun are united, as His Divine love and wisdom are united. How Divine love and wisdom are united in the Lord was explained in Part One. 99-102 The sun in the spiritual world appears at a middle height as distant from the angels as the sun in the natural world does from people. Most people coming from the world bring with them an idea of God as being at a height above their head, and of the Lord as being in heaven among the angels. 103-107 The distance between the sun and angels in the spiritual world is an appearance in accordance with their reception of Divine love and wisdom. All misconceptions that prevail in evil people and in the simple originate from affirming appearances. 108-112 Angels are in the Lord and have the Lord in them; and because angels are recipient vessels, the Lord alone is heaven. Heaven is called the habitation or dwelling place of God, and also the throne of God, and consequently people believe that God dwells there as a king in his kingdom. 113-118 In the spiritual world, the east is where the Lord appears as the sun, and the other points of the compass are determined in relation to it. We have discussed the sun of the spiritual world and its essence, the heat and light emanating from it, and the Lord's presence because of them. 119-123 The zones in the spiritual world are not created by the Lord as the sun, but they are created by the angels in accordance with their reception. 124-128 Angels turn their faces continually to the Lord as the sun, and thus have the south to their right, the north to their left, and the west to their rear. 129-134 All the interior elements of both mind and body in angels are turned to the Lord as the sun. Angels possess an intellect and will, and they have a face and body. They also possess the interior elements of the intellect and will and of the face and body. 135-139 Every spirit of every kind turns in like manner to his dominant love. We must first define what we mean by a spirit and what we mean by an angel. 140-145 The Divine love and wisdom which emanate from the Lord as the sun and which constitute the warmth and light in heaven are the emanating Divine which is the Holy Spirit. 146-150 The Lord created the universe and everything in it by means of the sun which is the first emanation of His Divine love and wisdom. 151-156 The sun in the natural world is nothing but fire and consequently lifeless, and because nature takes its origin from that sun, it too is lifeless. 157-162 Without the two suns, one alive and the other lifeless, creation would not exist. The universe is divided in general into two worlds, one spiritual and one natural. Inhabiting the spiritual world are angels and spirits. Inhabiting the natural world are people. 163-166 The end in creation finds expression in the lasts of it, which is for everything to return to the Creator and conjunction take place. We must first say something about ends. 167-172 PART THREE 173-178 There are degrees of love and wisdom, and therefore degrees of heat and light, and so, too, degrees of atmospheres. 179-183 Degrees are of two kinds - degrees of height and degrees of breadth. A knowledge of degrees is, so to speak, the key to laying open the causes of things and entering into them. 184-188 Degrees of height are homogeneous, with one following after another in succession, like end, cause and effect. 189-194 The first degree is the all in all things of the subsequent degrees. The reason is that the degrees in every vessel and in every phenomenon are homogeneous; and they are homogeneous because they come into being from the first degree. 195-198 All perfections increase and ascend concomitantly with degrees and in accordance with them. 199-204 In sequential order the first degree constitutes the highest element, and the third the lowest; but in concurrent order the first degree constitutes the inmost element, and the third the outmost. Discrete degrees exist in sequential order and in concurrent order. 205-208 The last degree embraces, contains, and is the foundation of the prior degrees. 209-216 Degrees of height exist in their fullness and power in their last degree. In the preceding discussion we showed that the last degree embraces and contains the prior degrees. 217-221 Degrees of both kinds exist in the greatest and least of all created things. 222-229 There are three infinite and uncreated degrees of height in the Lord, and three finite and created degrees in people. 230-235 These three degrees of height exist in every person from birth and can be progressively opened, and as they are opened, the person is in the Lord and the Lord in him. The fact that there are in every person three degrees of height has not been known before. 236-241 Spiritual light flows in through the three degrees in a person, but not spiritual warmth except to the extent that the person refrains from evils as being sins and looks to the Lord. 242-247 If the higher or spiritual degree is not opened in a person, he becomes natural and sensual. We showed above that there are three degrees of the human mind, which we call natural, spiritual and celestial, and that these degrees can be progressively opened. 248-255 Regarded in itself, the natural degree of the human mind is continuous, but by correspondence with the two higher degrees, it appears, when elevated, as though it were distinguished into levels. 256-259 The natural mind, being the integument and containing vessel of the higher degrees of the human mind, is reactive, and if the higher degrees are not opened, it acts in opposition to them, whereas if they are opened, it acts in harmony with them. 260-263 The origin of evil comes from abuse of the faculties which are peculiar to mankind and are called rationality and freedom. 264-270 Evils and falsities stand in complete opposition to goods and truths, because evils and falsities are diabolical and hellish, while goods and truths are Divine and heavenly. 271-276 All the qualities belonging to the three degrees of the natural mind are contained in the works done through actions of the body. 277-281 PART FOUR 282-284 The Lord from eternity, or Jehovah, could not have created the universe and all its constituents without His being human. People who have a natural, corporeal idea of God as a person cannot at all comprehend how God as a person could have created the universe and all its constituents. 285-289 The Lord from eternity, or Jehovah, produced from Himself the sun of the spiritual world, and out of it created the universe and all of its constituents. We discussed the sun of the spiritual world in Part Two of this work, and in it we showed the following: 290-295 There are three elements in the Lord which are the Lord - the Divine element of love, the Divine element of wisdom. 296-301 There are in each world, in the spiritual world and in the natural world, three atmospheres, and these terminate in their final forms in such substances and materials as occur in the earth. 302-304 The substances and materials of which the earth consists have in them nothing of the Divine in itself, but still they originate from that which is Divine in itself. 305-306 All useful ends, which are the ends in creation, exist in forms, and they take their forms from such substances and materials as occur in the earth. All the things we have discussed so far, as in speaking of the sun, atmospheres and earth, are only means to ends. 307-318 Regarded from the perspective of their uses, all constituents of the created universe resemble in an image the human being, and this attests to the fact that God is human. 319-326 All phenomena created by the Lord are forms of use, and they are forms of use in the order, degree and respect that they have relation to mankind and through mankind to the Lord from whom they originate. 327-335 Evil forms of use were not created by the Lord, but arose together with hell. We call all good endeavors having actual expression forms of use, and we also call all evil endeavors having actual expression forms of use; but the latter we call evil forms of use, and the first, good forms of use. 336-348 Visible phenomena in the created universe attest that nothing has been or is produced by nature, but everything by the Divine from itself, and this through the spiritual world. 349-357 PART FIVE 358-361 The will and intellect, which are the recipient vessels of love and wisdom, exist in the brain, in the whole and in every part of it, and consequently in the body, in the whole and in every part of it. We propose to demonstrate this according to the following outline: 362-370 There is a correspondence of the will with the heart, and of the intellect with the lungs. We propose to demonstrate this according to the following outline: 371-393 From the correspondence of the heart with the will and of the intellect with the lungs, everything may be known that can be known about the will and intellect, or love and wisdom, thus about the human soul. Many in the learned world have toiled in an inquiry into the soul. 394-431 The rudimentary form of the human being and its nature from conception. The nature of the rudimentary or initial form of the human being in the womb after conception is something no one can know, because it cannot be seen. 432
