THE LORD BY HIS DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM ANIMATES ALL THINGS IN HEAVEN AND ALL THINGS IN THE WORLD, TO THE VERY ULTIMATES OF THEM, SOME IN ORDER THAT THEY MAY BE LIVING, AND SOME IN ORDER THAT THEY MAY BE AND MAY HAVE EXISTENCE

The eye sees the universe and the mind thinks concerning it, first, It has been created, and then, By whom was it created. The mind that does its thinking from what the eye sees, thinks that it was created by nature: the mind that does not, thinks that it was created from God; but the mind that takes the middle course, perceiving that there is not anything that is out of nothing, thinks that the universe is derived from an Entity, of whose nature it has no conception. This mind, however, on account of having a spatial idea of Infinity and a temporal idea of Eternity, falls away into the thought of Nature. These are interior natural men, while those who simply think of nature as being the source of the creation of the universe, are exterior natural men. Those, on the other hand, who from a principle of religion simply think of God as being Creator of the universe are exterior spiritual men, while those who do so with discernment, are interior spiritual men. Both these latter classes, however, are thinking from the Lord.

But now, in order that there may be a perception, and in this way a knowledge, that all things have been created by God, Who is the Lord from Eternity, Divine Love Itself and Divine Wisdom Itself, thus Life Itself, it will be necessary to proceed by dividing the subject into separate parts, and this will be done in this order:

(1) The Lord is the Sun in the angelic heaven.

(2) It is from that Sun that all things have originated.

N.B. (3) It is from that Sun that the Lord's presence is everywhere.*

(4) All things created have been created to serve the purposes of Life Itself, which is the Lord.

(5) Souls of life, and living souls, and vegetative souls are, by the life that is from the Lord, animated through their uses and according to them.

[155.] (1) The Lord is the Sun in the angelic heaven. Men have not known this hitherto, because they have not known that the spiritual world is distinct from the natural world, that it is above it, and that the two worlds have not anything in common except a relationship like that between "what precedes" (prior) and "what follows from it" (posterior), or between a cause and its effect. In consequence, they have not known what "spiritual" is, and besides they have not known that it is in the spiritual world that angels and spirits are, and that angels and spirits are men, resembling in every respect men in the world, the only difference being that they are spiritual whereas men are natural; nor have they known that everything in the spiritual world is of spiritual origin only, whereas everything in this world is of both spiritual and natural origin. Furthermore, because men have been ignorant of these things, it has also been unknown to them that angels and spirits enjoy a light and heat different from that of men, and that the light and heat in their world derive their essence from their Sun, just as the light and heat in this world derive their essence from our sun, and in consequence of this, the essence of the light and heat from their Sun is spiritual, whereas the essence of the light and heat from our sun is natural, to which, however, there is adjoined from their Sun the spiritual, which with men enlightens their Understanding when the natural is enlightening their eyes.

[156.] All this makes it plain that the Sun of the spiritual world is, in its essence, that from which everything spiritual takes its rise, and the sun of the natural world is, in its essence, that from which everything natural takes its rise. The spiritual cannot derive its essence from any other source than Divine Love and Wisdom, for it is loving and being wise that is the spiritual; the natural on the other hand cannot derive its essence from any other source than pure fire and pure light. From this, then, it follows that the Sun of the spiritual world in its Being (Esse) is God, Who is the Lord from Eternity, and that the heat from that Sun is Love, and the light from it is Wisdom. The reason nothing has been revealed about that Sun before, although it is what is meant in many places in the Word where "sun" is mentioned, is that it had not to be revealed until after the Last Judgment was accomplished, and a New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, was to be established by the Lord. There are several reasons for its not having been revealed before then, but this is not the place for introducing them.

When once it has become known that angels and spirits are men, and live together, just as men in the world do, and that they are entirely above the plane of Nature, whereas men are within Nature, then one can conclude, on the ground of reason, that they have a different sun, and that it is the source from which everything of love and everything of wisdom, and consequently everything of truly human life, derives its origin. That this Sun has been seen by me, and also that the Lord is in it, may be seen in HEAVEN AND HELL, Nos. 116-140, and in the little work THE PLANETS AND EARTHS IN THE UNIVERSE, Nos. 40-42.

[2] [157.] (2) It is from that Sun that all things have originated. No one can conceive of the universe as having existed from eternity, nor can anyone conceive of it as having come from nothing; accordingly it cannot be denied that it has been created, and that it has been created by some Entity: and that this Entity is the very Infinite and Eternal Being (Esse) in Itself, Love Itself, Wisdom Itself, and Life Itself: and that there is a Common Centre from which He regards, rules, and provides for, all things as present before Him, and with which there exists conjunction, and thereby, according to the nature of the conjunction, a life of love and wisdom, and so of blessedness and happiness: and that this Centre has, in the sight of angels, the appearance of a glowing, flaming Sun, which appearance is derived from the Divine Love and Wisdom proceeding forth from Him; from these two all that is spiritual has existence, and, through the spiritual with this world's sun as intermediary, all that is natural. The human mind, by virtue of its Understanding capable of being elevated into the verities of light, can see if it will that the universe has been created by God, Who is of such a nature, and Who is One.

[158.] Seeing then that there are two suns, one the Sun of the spiritual world, the other the sun of the natural world, and that the Sun of the spiritual world regards the outermost things of creation from that which is first, whereas the sun of the natural world regards them from that which is intermediate, it is obvious that the Sun of the spiritual world, in which God is, and which is from God, Who is Life Itself, is that from which all things have been made and created, and that the sun of the natural world in which fire is and which is from the fire, which is not life, is that by means of which those things only have been created that are beneath the intermediate, which things in themselves are dead. To acknowledge Nature therefore, which in itself is dead, is to worship the fire in this world's sun; those who do this, are themselves dead. On the other hand, to acknowledge a creative Life is to worship God Who is in the Sun of heaven; those who do this, are themselves living. "Dead men" is what those in hell are termed, but "living men," those in heaven.

[3] [159.] (3) It is from that Sun that the Lord's presence is everywhere. That the Lord has Omnipresence is well known in the Church from the Word; and what His Omnipresence is, and the nature of it, has been stated previously; here it will be shown how it can be comprehended.

It can be comprehended from the correspondence existing between the world's sun and the Sun of heaven, and existing consequently between Nature and Life, this correspondence serving also as a comparison. Everyone knows that the world's sun is everywhere in its world, and that its presence there is effected by means of light and heat. This presence is a presence in the sense that the sun, although at a distance, is as it were within the light and heat, the difference being that the heat the sun sends forth is, in its origin, fire, and the light it sends forth as well, is, in its origin, the glow from that fire, and that all things created by means of the sun are recipients of it, more or less perfect according to their form and according to their distance from the sun. On this account all things in the natural world grow with its presence and die down with its absence. They grow, in so far as heat makes one with its light; in so far as it does not, they die down. This sun, however, acts in this way only upon things beneath it, termed natural things; it has no action at all upon things above it, termed spiritual things. For to act upon things beneath is according to order, but to act upon things above [is contrary to order], as this would be acting upon the very things it is itself derived from, whereas to act upon things beneath is according to order, for this is acting upon those things that are derived from itself. The Sun of heaven is that from which the world's sun is derived, and spiritual things are the things from which natural things are derived. [[2]] This comparison enables one to comprehend in some measure what is meant by "presence from the Sun".

[160.] The presence of the Sun of heaven, however, is a universal presence, being not only presence in the spiritual world where angels and spirits are, but also presence in the natural world where men are, for it is from no other source that men receive their Will's love and their Understanding's wisdom; moreover, without that Sun, no animal could live, nor any plant exist; on this subject see what has been stated and elucidated above [Nos. 1196-1215]**. The presence of this Sun also is effected by heat and light; its heat, however, in its essence is love, and its light in its essence is wisdom. To this heat and light, the heat and light of the world's sun are supplementary by supplying in addition what is necessary for them to acquire existence in nature and to continue in existence there.

But the presence, by spiritual heat and light, of the Sun of heaven differs from the presence of the world's sun, which is by natural heat and light, the presence of the Sun of heaven being universal and overruling in both the spiritual and natural worlds; whereas the presence of the world's sun is limited to the natural world and acts there in the capacity of attendant. There is also this difference, that the presence of the Sun of heaven is not in space-and time extension, whereas the presence of the world's sun is, space-and-time extension having been created together with Nature. It is due to this that the presence of the Sun of heaven is Omnipresence.

[[3]] [161.] Regarded in itself, the presence of the Sun of heaven never varies, for it is always "in its eastern quarter" (in suo ortu) and in its power. But with the recipients of it, and these are specially angels, spirits and men, it does vary and is not in its power: it varies according to their reception of it. In this respect the world's sun corresponds to that Sun, inasmuch as it also does not vary in its position or in its efficacy, yet on the globe receiving it, it becomes variable and is not in its efficacy; for it varies with the revolution of the earth on its axis, causing days and nights, and with the movement of the earth round the sun, causing springs, summers, autumns and winters. From this is apparent the correspondence of natural things in the world with spiritual things in heaven.

[[4]] The presence of the Sun of heaven in the natural world also, can be illustrated to some extent by the presence of a man's Will and Understanding in his body. For there, what the Understanding thinks, the mouth instantly speaks, and what the Will purposes, the body instantly carries out. For a man's mind is his spiritual world, and his body is his natural world. It is on this account that man was called by the ancients a microcosm.

With these things understood, a wise man can see and perceive the Divine operation and spiritual influx in the objects of nature, as for instance in the tree and its fruit, or the plant and its seed, or the grub and its two states of caterpillar and resulting butterfly, or the bee with its honey and wax, or any other creature; and he can smile at the absence of sound reason in those men, to whose sight and perception there is only Nature in all these things.

[4] [162.] (4) All things created have been created to serve the purposes of Life Itself, which is the Lord. First, something must be said about Life, and afterwards about all things being created to serve the purposes of Life. Life is love and wisdom; for to the extent that any one loves God and the neighbour, wisdom showing the way, to that extent he lives. Life Itself, however, which is the Life of all, is the Divine Love and Wisdom: the Divine Love is the Being (Esse) of Life, and the Divine Wisdom is its Existing (Existere): the latter united to the former reciprocally is the Lord. Both, the Divine Being (Esse) and the Divine Existing (Existere), are Infinite and Eternal, for the Divine Love is Infinite and Eternal, and so is the Divine Wisdom. Nevertheless, both the one and the other can have conjunction with an angel or with a man, although no ratio exists between what is finite and what is infinite. As however it is difficult to conceive how there can be conjunction when there is no ratio between them, this needs explaining. No ratio exists between what is natural and what is spiritual, but there is conjunction between them by means of correspondences; nor does any ratio exist between the spiritual in which angels of the ultimate heaven are and the celestial in which angels of the highest heaven are, but there is conjunction between them by means of correspondences; similarly, no ratio exists between the celestial in which angels of the highest heaven are and the Divine of the Lord, nevertheless there is conjunction between them by means of correspondences. The nature of conjunction by means of correspondences has been declared and demonstrated elsewhere.

[[2]] [163.] That the Divine is Infinite and Eternal is because it is the All in all things of the life of love and wisdom with angels and men; angels and men are created recipients of life from the Lord, thus finite, whereas the Lord is uncreate, in Himself Life and consequently Life Itself. Therefore, if men, and angels and spirits from men, were to be multiplied to eternity, it would still be that the Lord gives them life, and from Himself leads them in the very least things, as may be seen confirmed where His Divine Providence is treated of***; in this there is what is eternal, and where the eternal is, there, also, is what is infinite. As no ratio exists between what is infinite and what is finite, let every one be on their guard against thinking of the Infinite as nothing; one cannot say of "nothing" that it is infinite and eternal, nor can "nothing" be said to have conjunction with anything; nor out of "nothing" can anything be made. On the contrary the Infinite and Eternal Divine is the very Being (Esse) Itself, from Whom is created the finite with which there can be conjunction.

This could be illustrated much more fully however, by a comparison of natural and spiritual things, between which, though there is no ratio, there is conjunction by means of correspondences. Such is the relation existing between every cause and its effect, and between everything "that precedes" (prior) and "what follows from it" (posterior), such also is the relation between a higher degree and a lower one, such the relation between men's love and wisdom and the love and wisdom of angels; even so, the love and wisdom of angels, although ineffable and incomprehensible to men, are still no more than finite and are incapable of grasping what is infinite, except through the medium of correspondences.

[164.] That all things have been created to serve the purposes of Life, which is the Lord, is a consequence in its turn of the fact that men, and angels from them, have been created for the receiving of life from the Lord, and are indeed nothing else than receptacles, although, because of the freedom in which they are held by the Lord, they seem not to be receptacles; none the less, however, receptacles they are, both the good and the wicked; for the freedom also, in which they are held, is from the Lord. The life of men and angels consists in understanding and thence thinking and speaking, and in willing and thence doing; accordingly these are also constituents of life from the Lord, for they are effects of that life. All created things in the world have been created for the use of mankind, or for their benefit, or for them to find pleasure in, some things directly so, others less directly. Because, then, all these things have been created for the sake of mankind, it follows that they exist to serve the purposes of the Lord Who is the life with men. It seems, because the good live from the Lord, as if the serving of those purposes exists with them, but not with the wicked; yet the fact is that things created yield use, benefit and pleasure to the wicked the same as to the good. For the Lord says:

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. (Matthew v. 45 )

That the wicked also do not possess any life of themselves, and that they are led throughout by the Lord, notwithstanding their being ignorant of it and not wishing it, can be seen in the passages treating of the life of those in hell.****

[5] [165.] (5) Souls of life, and living souls, and vegetative souls are, by the life that is from the Lord, animated through their uses and according to them. By "souls of life" are meant men and angels: by "living souls" are meant animals, which moreover are called "living souls" in the Word: and by "vegetative souls" are meant trees and plants of every kind. That "souls of life," or men and angels, are animated by the life that is from the Lord, has been treated of in preceding sections. That "living souls," or animals, are animated by the life that is from the Lord, has also been treated of before. It is the same as regards "vegetative souls," these souls being uses that are ultimate effects of life; while "living souls" are affections of various kinds, corresponding to the life of those in the spiritual world; on account of this correspondence they may be termed "mediated lives". By "being animated" is meant that they not only live, but also are and exist. That their being animated by the Lord is continuous, that is, that continuously from Him they live, are, and exist, is because creation, as soon as it is completed, is maintained continuously by means of influx from the Sun of heaven; unless there were a continuous influx from that Sun, all things would perish; for without it, the influx from the world's sun is useless, this being instrumental cause only, whereas the influx from the Sun of heaven is principal cause. The correspondence of heat and its effect is with the life of the Lord's Love, and the correspondence of light and its effect is with the life of the Lord's Wisdom: for Divine Love proceeding forth from the Sun of heaven is heat in the spiritual world, and Divine Wisdom proceeding forth from that Sun is light there; to these, the heat and light of the world's sun correspond, everything being a correspondent.

[[2]] [166.] In what way, however, the Lord from His Divine Love and Wisdom, which are Life Itself, flows in and animates the created universe, will also be briefly stated. It is the proceeding Divine that, round about Him, appears to angels as a Sun; and out of this His Divine proceeds by means of spiritual atmospheres, created by Him to convey heat and light down to angels, and accommodated by Him to the life of their minds and of their bodies, so that from the light they may receive intelligence and also see, and in correspondence therewith breathe, for angels like men breathe, and so that from the heat they may receive love and also feel, and in correspondence therewith their hearts may beat, for angels like men enjoy pulsation of the heart. These spiritual atmospheres possess successively greater density, in discrete degrees, treated of above, down to angels of the lowest heaven, to whom in this way they become adapted. This is how it is that angels of the highest heaven live as it were in pure aura, angels of the middle heaven as it were in ether, and angels of the lowest heaven as it were in air. Under these atmospheres in their respective heavens are the lands where they dwell, and where their palaces and houses are, parklands too, as well as fields, rose gardens and lawns, these things coming into existence afresh each morning, each one in accordance with reception on the part of the angels there of love and wisdom from the Lord. These things are all of spiritual origin, not of natural origin in any way. The spiritual origin of them is life from the Lord. [3] It is to correspondence with them, that all things appearing in the natural world have been created, and in consequence similar things exist in this world, with this difference however, that these latter, while likewise of spiritual origin, have at the same time a natural origin. A natural origin is provided in addition, in order that they may be at the same time material, and consequently fixed, for the sake of the procreation of the human race, which can only take place on the ultimate plane where there is fullness; and thus in order that from the human race as a seminary there may come into, existence inhabitants of the spiritual world who are angels. This is the first and last end of creation. .

[167.] A complete idea, however, of the creation, or coming into existence, of all things in their order from Life, which is the Lord, cannot be given, on account of the arcane, which are well-known in heaven and have, indeed, been imparted to me, but which, involving such things as are deeply hidden in the sciences, could not be described except in many volumes, and hardly then in a way that would be comprehensible. However, this is the gist of them:

The Sun of heaven, in which the Lord is, is the Common Centre of the universe:

All things in the universe are circumferences upon circumferences, one after another, to an outermost (or ultimate) one; these the Lord rules from Himself alone as one continuous thing, the intermediate ones, however, being ruled from the outermost one.

These He animates and actuates unceasingly, with the same ease as a man, from his Understanding and Will, animates and actuates his body;

Influx takes place into uses, and from them into their forms.

(The MS. has here this note by the Author:)

"Angelic Idea" to follow, either to be inserted, or added as an appendix, or to appear as a footnote. * In the MS., in addition to the N.B. at the side, this clause is heavily underscored. ** APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED. *** In APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED, NOS. 1135-1191, specially NO. 1153. **** See APOCALYPSE. EXPLAINED, NOS. 1189, 1224.

[168.] THE ANGELIC IDEA OF THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE BY THE LORD

The angelic idea of the universe created by the Lord is like this:

God is the Centre, and He is a Man: unless He were a Man, creation would not have been possible: the Lord from Eternity is that God.

Of creation:

The Lord from Eternity, or God, by means of His Divine that proceeds forth, has created the universe and all things in it: and because the Divine that proceeds forth is also Life Itself, all things have been created out of Life and by means of Life: it is the Divine as it first proceeds forth, that appears before angels as a Sun: this is seen before their eyes as glowing and flaming, which is because the Divine that proceeds is the Divine Love and Wisdom, and these at a distance present such an appearance.

The angels added, that this proceeding Divine is what the ancients depicted by bright golden or luminous circles round the head of God, which modern painters retain to this day from ancient time.

They said that out of that Sun, as the great Centre, proceed circles, one after another, and one from another, continuing to an outermost (or ultimate) one, where their boundary, existing in a state of rest, is: and these circles, one from another, and one after another, appearing extended in every direction, are spiritual atmospheres which their Sun fills with light and heat, and by means of which that Sun conveys itself down to the outermost circle: and in this outermost circle, by the mediation of those atmospheres, and then by the mediation of natural atmospheres from the world's sun, was effected the creation of the earth, and upon it the creation of all things that are for use, this creation being afterwards carried on by production from seeds in either wombs or eggs.

Those angels, who knew that the universe, being so created, is a work that is continuous from the Creator right down to outermost things, and that, being a continuous work, it is, as a single chain, dependent upon, actuated by, and ruled by, the Lord who is the Common Centre, said that the First proceeding forth is continued down through a series of discrete degrees to outermost things in exactly the same way as an end is continued through causes into effects, or like that which produces, and the things produced in an unbroken series: and that this continuation is not only a continuation into, but also a continuation round about, from the First, and thence from each thing that precedes into the thing that follows from it, down to the last of all: and that thus the First, and, from it, all the succeeding things co-exist in their order in the last or outermost.

It is from this continuum, as it were one thing, that the angels obtain the idea of the Lord as being the All in all things, of His being Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient, of His being Infinite and Eternal: and also an idea of the order, according to which the Lord by His Divine Love and Wisdom, disposes, provides for, and controls all things.

The question was put to them, Where did hell come from, then? They said, From man's freedom, without which man would not be man. They said that from that freedom man had broken the continuum within himself and when this was broken, a separation took place; and the continuum that was in him from creation became like a chain or piece of chain-work, that having some of its links broken or wrenched away at the top, sags down, and is then left hanging by slender threads. The separation or break was caused and is caused by denying God.

[169.] (The following notes were found on the last page of the author's MS.:)

It is by means of that heat and that light, that all things in the spiritual world and all things in the natural world have been created.

There are degrees of that heat and light.

There are three degrees of that heat and light down to the outermost things of the spiritual world, and a further three degrees to the outermost things of the natural world.

God is the fountain of all uses, celestial, spiritual and natural.

In God all uses are in their very life, thus in their Being (Esse).

God being Love Itself, the uses are of His Divine Love.

Use and good are one thing.

The Divine Love is Divine Good.

The Divine Love is the love of uses.

The Divine Love and Wisdom appear in the spiritual world as a Sun.

From out of the sun, which is the Lord in the spiritual world, there goes forth heat and light.