Athanasian Creed (Harley) n. 68

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68. The idea can with difficulty be held by Christians that the Divine, called the Father, is in the Lord, because they consider that the Divine of the Father, in as much as It created the universe, cannot be in the Human, and then owing to their thinking of the whole heaven and the whole earth, that it could not be conceived in a human body. They think from the idea of extent and space. Yet the Divine Itself is not to be thought of from an idea of extent and space. For in this way, instead of God, the purest substance of nature and of the visible universe is contemplated. From such an idea man becomes a natural man and at length an atheist, acknowledging nature as creator. Yet the idea of extent and space does not obtain in the spiritual world, where spaces are only appearances of space. Concerning this, see the work on HEAVEN AND HELL. There should, however, be no other idea of God than of a Divine Man, and of the creation of the whole heaven and earth as from the Sun which is the Divine Love. Regarding the Divine Proceeding from which are all things of heaven and the world, an idea of extent can be held, especially in the natural world.


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