Divine Love and Wisdom (Harleys) n. 70

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70. All who die and become angels put off those two things proper to Nature which, as was said, are space and time. For they then enter into spiritual light (lux) in which the objects of thought are truths, and the objects of sight are like those in the natural world, but correspondent to their thoughts. The objects of their thought which, as said above, are truths, derive absolutely nothing from space and time. Although the objects of their sight appear just as in space and time, still they do not think from these. The reason is that spaces and times there are not constant as in the natural world, but are subject to change in accordance with their states of life. Hence instead of these, there are in the ideas of their thought states of life, instead of spaces such things as refer to states of love, and instead of times such things as refer to states of wisdom. So it comes about that spiritual thought and therefore also spiritual speech differ from natural thought and the speech therefrom to such an extent that they have nothing in common, except as regards the interiors of things which are all spiritual. Concerning this difference more will be said elsewhere.

Now, because the angels' thoughts derive nothing from space and time, but everything from states of life, it appears that angels do not comprehend when it is said that the Divine fills spaces, for they do not know what spaces are. But when, apart from any idea of space, it is said that the Divine fills all things, they clearly comprehend.


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