True Christian Religion (Ager) n. 70

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70. From the Divine omnipresence man is in God to the extent that he lives in accordance with order, for the reason that God is omnipresent; and where God is in His Divine order, there He is as in Himself, because He is order, as has been shown above. Since, then, man was created a form of Divine order, God is in him-fully in him-to the extent that he is living in accordance with Divine order. Nevertheless, God is in him if he is not living in accordance with Divine order, but only in the highest regions in him, thereby giving him the ability to understand what is true and to will what is good; that is, giving him the faculty of understanding and the inclination to love. But so far as man lives contrary to order he shuts up the lower regions of his mind or spirit, and thus prevents God's descending and filling these lower regions with His presence; consequently, while God is in him he is not in God. It is a general canon in heaven that God is in every man, the evil and the good alike; but that man is not in God unless he lives in accordance with order; for the Lord says:

That it is His will that man should be in Him and He in man (John 15:4). [2] Man is in God by means of a life in accordance with order, because God is omnipresent in the universe and in each and all things of it in their inmosts, for these inmosts are in order. But in those things that are contrary to order (which are solely those that are outside of the inmosts) God is omnipresent by a continual striving with them, and by a continual effort to bring them back to order. Thus it is that so far as man permits himself to be brought back to order, God is omnipresent in the whole of him, and consequently to the same extent God is in him and he is in God. The absence of God from man is no more possible than the absence of the sun from the earth through its heat and light. But earthly objects are affected by the sun's power only so far as they receive the heat and light that go forth from that sun, as in spring time and summer time. [3] This is applicable to the Divine omnipresence in this way, that so far as man is in order he is in spiritual heat and also in spiritual light; that is, in the good of love and the truth of wisdom. But spiritual heat and light are unlike natural heat and light, in that natural heat recedes from the earth and its objects in winter, and natural light at night; and this takes place because the earth by its diurnal and annual motions produces these periods. But with spiritual heat and light it is not so; since God through His sun is present with both heat and light, and does not undergo changes, as the sun of the world apparently does. Man turns himself away comparatively as the earth turns away from the sun; and when he turns away from the truths of wisdom he is like the earth when turned from its sun at night; and when he turns away from the goods of love he is like the earth when turned from its sun in winter. Such is the correspondence between the effects and uses from the sun of the spiritual world, and the effects and uses from the sun of the natural world.


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