Chapter 14

Those who have a corporeal natural idea of God as a Man, are wholly unable to comprehend how God as a Man could have created the universe and all things thereof; for they think within themselves, How can God as a Man wander all over the universe from space to space, and create? Or how can He, from His place, speak the word, and as soon as it is spoken, creation follow? When it is said that God is a Man, such ideas present themselves to those whose conception of the God-Man is like their conception of a man in the world, and who think of God from nature and its properties, which are time and space. But those whose conception of God-Man is not drawn from their conception of a man in the world, nor from nature and its space and time, clearly perceive that unless God were a man the universe could not have been created. Bring your thought into the angelic idea of God as being a Man, putting away, as much as you can, the idea of space, and you will come near in thought to the truth. In fact, some of the learned have a perception of spirits and angels as not in space, because they have a perception of the spiritual as apart from space. For the spiritual is like thought, which although it is in man, man is nevertheless able by means of it to be present as it were elsewhere, in any place however remote. Such is the state of spirits and angels, who are men even as regards their bodies. In whatever place their thought is, there they appear, because in the spiritual world spaces and distances are appearances, and make one with the thought that is from their affection. From all this it can be seen that God, who appears as a sun far above the spiritual world, and to whom there can belong no appearance of space, is not to be thought of from space. And it can then be comprehended that He created the universe out of Himself, and not out of nothing; also that His Human Body cannot be thought great or small, that is, of any one stature, because this also pertains to space; consequently that in things first and last, and in things greatest and least, He is the same; and still further, that the Human is the inmost in every created thing, though apart from space. That the Divine is the same in things greatest and least may be seen above (n. 77-82); and that the Divine apart from space fills all spaces (n. 69-72). And because the Divine is not in space, it is not continuous [nec est continuum], as the inmost of nature is.

286. That God unless He were a Man could not have created the universe and all things thereof, may be clearly apprehended by any intelligent person from this, that he cannot deny that in God there is Love and Wisdom, mercy and clemency, and also goodness itself and truth itself, inasmuch as these are from God. And because he cannot deny this, neither can he deny that God is a Man; for abstractly from man not one of these is possible; for man is their subject, and to separate them from their subject is to say that they are not. Think of wisdom, and place it outside of man - is it anything? Can you conceive of it as something ethereal, or as something flaming? You cannot; unless perchance you conceive of it as being within these; and if within these, it must be wisdom in a form such as man has; it must be wholly in the form of man, not one thing can be lacking if wisdom is to be in that form. In a word, the form of wisdom is man; and because man is the form of wisdom, he is also the form of love, mercy, clemency, good and truth, because these make one with wisdom. That love and wisdom are not possible except in a form, see above (n. 50-53).

287. That love and wisdom are man is further evident from the fact that the angels of heaven are men in beauty in the measure in which they are in love and its wisdom from the Lord. The same is evident from what is said of Adam in the Word, that he was created into the likeness and into the image of God (Gen. 1:26), because into the form of love and wisdom. Every man on earth is born into the human form as regards his body, for the reason that his spirit, which is also called his soul, is a man; and this is a man because it is receptive of love and wisdom from the Lord; and so far as these are received by the spirit or soul of man, so far it becomes a man after the death of the material body which it had drawn about it; and so far as these are not received it becomes a monster, which derives something of manhood from the ability to receive.

288. Because God is a Man, the whole angelic heaven in the aggregate resembles a single man, and is divided into regions and provinces according to the members, viscera, and organs of man. Thus there are societies of heaven which constitute the province of all things of the brain, of all things of the facial organs, and of all things of the viscera of the body; and these provinces are distinct from each other, just as those organs are in man; moreover, the angels know in what province of Man they are. The whole heaven is in this image, because God is a Man. God is also heaven, because the angels, who constitute heaven, are recipients of love and wisdom from the Lord, and recipients are images. That heaven is in the form of all things of man is shown in the Arcana Coelestia, at the end of various chapters.

289. All this makes evident how empty are the ideas of those who think of God as something else than a Man, and of the Divine attributes as not being in God as a Man, since these separated from man are mere figments of reason. That God is very Man, from whom every man is a man according to his reception of love and wisdom, may be seen above (n. 11-13). This truth is here corroborated on account of what follows, that the creation of the universe by God, because He is a Man, may be perceived.

290. THE LORD FROM ETERNITY, THAT IS, JEHOVAH, BROUGHT FORTH FROM HIMSELF THE SUN OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, AND FROM THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND ALL THINGS THEREOF.

The sun of the spiritual world was treated of in Part Second of this work, and the following propositions were there established:-Divine Love and Divine Wisdom appear in the spiritual world as a sun (n. 83-88). Spiritual heat and spiritual light go forth from that sun (n. 89-92). That sun is not God, but is a Proceeding from the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom of God-Man; so also are the heat and light from that sun (n. 93-98). The sun of the spiritual world is at a middle altitude, and appears far off from the angels like the sun of the natural world from men (n. 103-107). In the spiritual world the east is where the Lord appears as a sun, and from that the other quarters are determined (n. 119-123, 125-128). Angels turn their faces constantly to the Lord as a sum (n. 129-134, 135-139). The Lord created the universe and all things thereof by means of the sun, which is the first proceeding of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom (n. 151-156). The sun of the natural world is mere fire, and nature, which derives its origin from that sun, is consequently dead; and the sun of the natural world was created in order that the work of creation might completed and finished (n. 157-162). Without a double sun, one living and the other dead, no creation is possible (n. 163-166).

291. This also, among other things, is shown in Part Second:-that the spiritual sun is not the Lord, but is a Proceeding from His Divine Love and His Divine Wisdom. It is called a proceeding, because the sun was brought forth out of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom which are in themselves substance and form, and it is by means of this that the Divine proceeds. But as human reason is such as to be unwilling to yield assent unless it sees a thing from its cause, and therefore has some perception of how it is, - thus in the present case, how the sun of the spiritual world, which is not the Lord, but a proceeding from Him, was brought forth - something shall be said on this subject. In regard to this matter I have conversed much with the angels. They said that they have a clear perception of it in their own spiritual light, but that they cannot easily present it to man, in his natural light, owing to the difference between the two kinds of light and the consequent difference of thought. The matter, however, may be likened, they said, to the sphere of affections and of thoughts therefrom which encompasses each angel, whereby his presence is made evident to others near and far. But that encompassing sphere, they said, is not the angel himself; it is from each and everything of his body, wherefrom substances are constantly flowing out like a stream, and what flows out surrounds him; also that these substances, contiguous to his body, as they are constantly moved by his life's two fountains of motion, the heart and the lungs, arouse the same activities in the atmospheres, and thereby produce a perception as of his presence with others; therefore that it is not a separate sphere of affections and of thoughts therefrom that goes forth and is continuous from him, although it is so called, since the affections are mere states of the mind's forms in the angel. They said, moreover, that there is such a sphere about every angel, because there is one about the Lord, and that the sphere about the Lord is in like manner from Him, and that that sphere is their sun, that is, the sun of the spiritual world.

292. A perception has often been granted me of such a sphere around each angel and spirit, and also a general sphere around many in a society. I have also been permitted to see it under various appearances, in heaven sometimes appearing like a thin flame, in hell like gross fire, also sometimes in heaven like a thin and shining white cloud, and in hell like a thick and black cloud. It has also been granted me to perceive these spheres as various kinds of odors and stenches. By these experiences I was convinced that a sphere, consisting of substances set free and separated from- their bodies, encompasses every one in heaven and every one in hell.

293. It was also perceived that a sphere flows forth, not only from angels and spirits but also from each and all things that appear in the spiritual world, - from trees and from their fruits, from shrubs and from their flowers, from herbs, and from grasses, even from the soils and from their very particles. From which it was patent that both in the case of things living and things dead this is a universal law, That each thing is encompassed by something like that which is within it, and that this is continually exhaled from it. It is known, from the observation of many learned men, that it is the same in the natural world - that is, that there is a wave of effluvia constantly flowing forth out of man, also out of every animal, likewise out of tree, fruit, shrub, flower, and even out of metal and stone. This the natural world derives from the spiritual, and the spiritual world from the Divine.

294. Because those things that constitute the sun of the spiritual world are from the Lord, but are not the Lord, they are not life in itself, but are devoid of life in itself; just as those things that flow forth from angel or man, and constitute spheres around him are not the angel or the man, but are from him, and devoid of his life. These spheres make one with the angel or man no otherwise than that they are concordant; and this they are because taken from the forms of their bodies, which in them were forms of their life. This is an arcanum which angels, with their spiritual ideas, are able to see in thought and also express in speech, but men with their natural ideas are not; because a thousand spiritual ideas make one natural idea, and one natural idea cannot be resolved by man into any spiritual idea, much less into so many. The reason is that these ideas differ according to degrees of height, which were treated of in Part Third.

295. That there is such a difference between the thoughts of angels and the thoughts of men was made known to me by this experience: The angels were asked to think spiritually on some subject, and afterwards to tell me what they had thought. This they did; but when they wished to tell me they could not, and said that these things could not be expressed in words. It was the same with their spiritual language and their spiritual writing; there was not a word of spiritual language that was like any word of natural language; nor was there anything of spiritual writing like natural writing, except the letters, each of which contained an entire meaning. But what is wonderful, they said that they seemed to themselves to think, speak, and write in the spiritual state in the same manner that man does in the natural state, when yet there is no similarity. From this it was plain that the natural and the spiritual differ according to degrees of height, and that they communicate with each other only by correspondences.

296. THERE ARE IN THE LORD THREE THINGS THAT ARE THE LORD, THE DIVINE OF LOVE, THE DIVINE OF WISDOM, AND THE DIVINE OF USE; AND THESE THREE ARE PRESENTED IN APPEARANCE OUTSIDE OF THE SUN OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, THE DIVINE OF LOVE BY HEAT, THE DIVINE OF WISDOM BY LIGHT AND THE DIVINE OF USE BY THE ATMOSPHERE WHICH IS THEIR CONTAINANT.

That heat and light go forth out of the sun of the spiritual world, heat out of the Lord's Divine Love, and light out of His Divine Wisdom, may be seen above (n. 89-92, 99-102, 156-150). Now it will be shown that the third which goes forth out of that sun is the atmosphere, which is the containant of heat and light, and that this goes forth out of the Lord's Divine which is called Use.

297. Any one who thinks with any enlightenment can see that love has use for an end and intends it, and brings it forth by means of wisdom; for love can bring forth no use of itself, but only by wisdom as a medium. What, in fact, is love unless there be something loved? That something is use; and because use is that which is loved, and is brought forth by means of wisdom, it follows that use is the containant of wisdom and love. That these three, love, wisdom and use follow in order according to degrees of height, and that the outmost degree is the complex, containant, and base of the prior degrees has been shown (n. 209-216, and elsewhere). From all this it can be seen that these three, the Divine of Love, the Divine of Wisdom, and the Divine of Use, are in the Lord, and are the Lord in essence.

298. That man, as regards both his exteriors and his interiors, is a form of all uses, and that all the uses in the created universe correspond to those uses in him, will be fully shown in what follows; it need only be mentioned here, that it may be known that God as a Man is the form itself of all uses, from which form all uses in the created universe derive their origin, thus that the created universe, viewed as to uses, is an image of Him. Those things are called uses which from God-Man, that is, from the Lord, are by creation in order; but those things which are from what is man's own are not called uses; since what is man's own is hell, and whatever is therefrom is contrary to order.

299. Now since these three, love, wisdom, and use, are in the Lord, and are the Lord; and since the Lord is everywhere, for He is omnipresent; and since the Lord cannot make Himself present, such as He is in Himself and such as He is in His own sun, to any angel or man, He therefore presents Himself by means of such things as can be received, presenting Himself, as to love by heat, as to wisdom by light, and as to use by an atmosphere. The Lord presents Himself as to use by an atmosphere, because an atmosphere is a containant of heat and light, as use is the containant of love and wisdom. For light and heat going forth from the Divine Sun cannot go forth in nothing, that is, in vacuum, but must go forth in a containant which is a subject. This containant we call an atmosphere; and this encompasses the sun, receiving the sun in its bosom, and bearing it to heaven where angels are, and then to the world where men are, thus making the Lord's presence everywhere manifest.

300. That there are atmospheres in the angelic world, as well as in the natural world, has been shown above (n. 173-178, 179-183). It was there declared that the atmospheres of the spiritual world are spiritual, and the atmospheres of the natural world are natural. It can now be seen, from the origin of the spiritual atmosphere most closely encompassing the spiritual sun, that everything belonging to it is in its essence such as the sun is in its essence. The angels, by means of their spiritual ideas, which are apart from space, elucidate this truth as follows: There is only one substance from which all things are, and the sun of the spiritual world is that substance; and since the Divine is not in space, and is the same in things greatest and least, this is also true of that sun which is the first going forth of God-Man; furthermore, this one only substance, which is the sun, going forth by means of atmospheres according to continuous degrees or degrees of breadth, and at the same time according to discrete degrees or degrees of height presents the varieties of all things in the created universe. The angels declared that these things are totally incomprehensible, unless spaces be removed from the ideas; and if not removed, appearances must needs induce fallacies. But so long as the thought is held that God is the very Esse from which all things are, fallacies cannot enter.

301. It is evident, moreover, from angelic ideas, which are apart from space, that in the created universe nothing lives except God-Man, that is, the Lord, neither is anything moved except by life from Him, nor has being except through the sun from Him; so that it is a truth, that in God we live, and move, and have our being.

302. THE ATMOSPHERES, OF WHICH THERE ARE THREE BOTH IN THE SPIRITUAL AND IN THE NATURAL WORLD, IN THEIR OUTMOSTS CLOSE INTO SUBSTANCES AND MATTERS SUCH AS ARE IN LANDS.

It has been shown in Part Third (n. 173-176), that there are three atmospheres both in the spiritual and in the natural world, which are distinct from each other according to degrees of height, and which, in their progress toward lower things, decrease [in activity] according to degrees of breadth. And since atmospheres in their progress toward lower things decrease [in activity], it follows that they constantly become more compressed and inert, and finally, in outmosts, become so compressed and inert as to be no longer atmospheres, but substances at rest, and in the natural world, fixed like those in the lands that are called matters. As such is the origin of substances and matters, it follows, first, that these substances and matters also are of three degrees; secondly, that they are held together in mutual connection by encompassing atmospheres; thirdly, that they are fitted for the production of all uses in their forms.

303. That such substances or matters as are in earths, were brought forth by the sun through its atmospheres any one will readily acknowledge who reflects that there are continual mediations from the First to outmosts, and that nothing can take form except from what is prior to itself, and so finally from the First. The First is the sun of the spiritual world, and the First of that sun is God-Man, or the Lord. Now as atmospheres are those prior things, whereby the spiritual sun manifests itself in outmosts, and as these prior things continually decrease in activity and expansion down to the outmosts, it follows that when their activity and expansion come to an end in outmosts they become substances, and matters such as are in lands, which retain within them, from the atmospheres out of which they originated, an effort and conatus to bring forth uses. Those who do not evolve the creation of the universe and all things thereof by continuous mediations from the First [Being], can but hold hypotheses, disjoined and divorced from their causes, which, when surveyed by a mind with an interior perception of things, do not appear like a house, but like heaps of rubbish.

304. From this universal origin of all things in the created universe, every particular thereof has a similar order; in that these also go forth from their first to outmosts which are relatively in a state of rest, that they may terminate and become permanent. Thus in the human body fibers proceed from their first forms until at last they become tendons; also fibers with vessels proceed from their first forms until they become cartilages and bones; upon these they may rest and become permanent. Because of such a progression of fibers and vessels in man from firsts to outmosts, there is a similar progression of their states, which are sensations, thoughts, and affections. These, also, from their firsts, where they are in light, proceed through to outmosts, where they are in shade; or from their firsts, where they are in heat, to outmosts where they are not in heat. With such a progression of these there is also a like progression of love and of all things thereof, and of wisdom and all things thereof. In a word, such is the progression of all things in the created universe. This is the same as was shown above (n. 222-229), that there are degrees of both kinds in the greatest and least of all created things. There are degrees of both kinds even in the least things of all, because the spiritual sun is the sole substance from which all things are (according to the spiritual ideas of the angels, n. 300).

305. IN THE SUBSTANCES AND MATTERS OF WHICH LANDS ARE FORMED THERE IS NOTHING OF THE DIVINE IN ITSELF, BUT STILL THEY ARE FROM THE DIVINE IN ITSELF.

From the origin of lands (treated of in the preceding chapter), it can be seen, that in their substances and matters there is nothing of the Divine in itself, but that they are devoid of all-that is Divine in itself. For they are, as was said, the endings and closings of the atmospheres, whose heat has died away into cold, whose light into darkness, and whose activity into inertness. Nevertheless, by continuation from the substance of the spiritual sun, they have brought with them what there was in that substance from the Divine, which (as said above, n. 291-298), was the sphere encompassing God-Man, or the Lord. From that sphere, by continuation from the sun through the atmospheres as mediums have arisen the substances and matters of which the lands are formed.

306. The origin of lands from the spiritual sun through the atmospheres, as mediums, can no otherwise be described by expressions flowing out of natural ideas, but may by expressions flowing out of spiritual ideas, because these are apart from space, and for this reason, they do not fall into any expressions of natural language. That spiritual thoughts, speech, and writings differ so entirely from natural thoughts, speech, and writings, that they have nothing in common, and have communication only by correspondences, may be seen above (n. 295). It may suffice, therefore, if the origin of lands be perceived in some measure naturally.

307. ALL USES, WHICH ARE ENDS OF CREATION ARE IN FORMS, WHICH FORMS THEY TAKE FROM SUBSTANCES AND MATTERS SUCH AS ARE IN LANDS.