69. The reason why the wisdom about good and truth a person has from Divine omniscience is in proportion to the extent to which he lives according to the Divine order, is that all love of good and all wisdom about truth, in other words, all the good of love and all the truth of wisdom, come from God. This is borne out by the confession of all the churches in Christendom. It follows from this that a person cannot have inwardly any truth of wisdom except from God, since God has omniscience, that is, infinite wisdom. The human mind is, like the heaven of the angels, divided into three degrees; so it can be raised to a higher degree and one higher still, or be depressed to a lower degree and one lower still. To the extent, however, that it is raised to higher degrees, it enters into wisdom, because it enters to that extent into the light of heaven, and this could not be brought about except by God. To the extent it is raised into that light, a person is truly human; but to the extent that it sinks to the lower degrees, it comes into the deceptive light of hell, and the person is to that extent not human, but an animal. This is why man stands erect on his feet, with his face upturned to heaven, able to raise it to the zenith; and why an animal stands on its feet parallel to the ground, and fully faces that, so that it can only with difficulty lift its gaze to heaven.
[2] A person who lifts up his mind towards God, and acknowledges that all the truth of wisdom comes from Him, and at the same time lives in accordance with order, resembles someone standing on a lofty tower watching a densely populated city below him and seeing what goes on in its streets. But a person who convinces himself that all the truth of wisdom comes from his own natural enlightenment, that is, from himself, resembles someone living in a cellar under that tower, watching the same city through narrow holes; he can see no more than the wall of one house in the city, and study how the bricks in it hold together. Again, a person who draws wisdom from God is like a bird flying high, spying out everything in the gardens, woods and villages round about, and flying towards things that can be of service. But a person who derives what belongs to wisdom from himself, without believing that this still comes from God, is like a hornet flying close to the ground, and, when it sees a dunghill, flying up to it and taking pleasure in its stench.
[3] Every person, as long as he lives in the world, treads a path mid-way between heaven and hell; and he is in equilibrium, that is, he has free will to look up to God or down to hell. If he looks up to God, he acknowledges that all wisdom comes from God, and his spirit is really present among the angels in heaven. The person who looks down, as everyone does whose evil puts him under the power of falsities, is in his spirit really among the devils in hell.
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