Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine WisdomSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom
Swedenborg, Emanuel
God (Christianity) -- Love; God (Christianity) -- Wisdom
400. (2) Love or the will strives unceasingly towards the human form and
all things of that form. This is evident from the correspondence of heart
and will. For it is known that all things of the body are formed in the
womb, and that they are formed by means of fibers from the brains and
blood vessels from the heart, and that out of these two the tissues of
all organs and viscera are made; from which it is evident that all things
of man have their existence from the life of the will, which is love, from
their first principles, out of the brains, through the fibers; and all
things of his body out of the heart through the arteries and veins. From
this it is clearly evident that life (which is love and the will
therefrom), strives unceasingly towards the human form. And as the human
form is made up of all the things there are in man, it follows that love
or the will is in a continual conatus and effort to form all these. There
is such a conatus and effort towards the human form, because God is a Man,
and Divine Love and Divine Wisdom is His life, and from His life is
everything of life. Any one can see that unless Life which is very Man
acted into that which in itself is not life, the formation of anything
such as exists in man would be impossible, in whom are thousands of
thousands of things that make a one, and that unanimously aspire to an
image of the Life from which they spring, that man may become a receptacle
and abode of that Life. From all this it can be seen that love, and out
of the love the will, and out of the will the heart, strive unceasingly
towards the human form.
401. (3) Love or the will is unable to effect anything by its human form
without a marriage with wisdom or the understanding. This also is evident
from the correspondence of the heart with the will. The embryo man lives
by the heart, not by the lungs. For in the fetus the blood does not flow
from the heart into the lungs, giving it the ability to respire; but it
flows through the foramen ovale into the left ventricle of the heart;
consequently the fetus is unable to move any part of its body, but lies
enswathed, neither has it sensation, for its organs of sense are closed.
So is it with love or the will, from which the fetus lives indeed, though
obscurely, that is, without sensation or action. But as soon as the lungs
are opened, which is the case after birth, he begins to feel and act, and
likewise to will and think. From all this it can be seen, that love or the
will is unable to effect anything by means of its human form without a
marriage with wisdom or the understanding.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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