Angelic Wisdom about Divine ProvidenceSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Providence and government of God -- Christianity
5. (iii) _This "one" is in some image in every created thing._ It can be
seen from what was demonstrated throughout the treatise _Divine Love and
Wisdom_ and especially at nn. 47-51, 55-60, 282-284, 290-295, 313-318,
319-326, 349-357, that divine love and wisdom which are one in the Lord
and proceed as one from Him, are in some image in each created thing. It
was shown that the divine is in every created thing because God the
Creator, who is the Lord from eternity, produced the sun of the spiritual
world from Himself, and all things of the universe through that sun. That
sun, which is from Him and in which He is, is therefore not only the
first but the sole substance from which are all things. As this is the
one substance, it is in everything made, but with endless variety in
accord with uses.
[2] In the Lord, then, are divine love and wisdom, and in the sun from
Him divine fire and radiance, and from the sun spiritual heat and light;
and in each instance the two make one. It follows that this oneness is in
every created thing. All things in the world are referable, therefore, to
good and truth, in fact to the conjunction of them. Or, what is the same,
they are referable to love and wisdom and to the union of these; for good
is of love and truth of wisdom, love calling all its own, "good," and
wisdom calling all its own, "truth." It will be seen in what follows that
there is a conjunction of these in each created thing.
6. Many avow that there is a single substance which is also the first,
from which are all things, but what that substance is, is not known. The
belief is that it is so simple nothing is more so, and that it can be
likened to a point without dimensions, and that dimensional forms arose
out of an infinite number of such points. But this is a fallacy,
springing from an idea of space. To such an idea there seems to be such a
least thing. The truth is that the simpler and purer a thing is, the more
replete it is and the more complete. This is why the more interiorly a
thing is examined, the more wonderful, perfect, and well formed are the
things seen in it, and in the first substance the most wonderful, perfect
and fully formed of all. For the first substance is from the spiritual
sun, which, as we said, is from the Lord and in which He is. That sun is
therefore the sole substance and, not being in space, is all in all, and
is in the greatest and least things of the created universe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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