50. Since angels and spirits are affections of love and thoughts thence they are not in space or time, either, but only in an appearance of them. Space and time appear to them in keeping with the states of their affections and their thoughts thence. When one of them, therefore, thinks with affection of another, intently desiring to see or speak with him, the other is at once present.
[2] Hence, too, present with every man are spirits who are in an affection like his—evil spirits with a man in an affection of similar evil, and good spirits with the man in an affection of similar good. They are as fully present as though he was one of their society. Space and time have nothing to do with their presence, for affection and thought therefrom are not in space and time, and spirits and angels are affections and thoughts therefrom.
[3] I have been given to know this by living experience over many years. For I have spoken with many on their death, some in different kingdoms of Europe, and some in different kingdoms of Asia and Africa, and all were near me. If space and time existed for them, a journey and time to make it would have intervened.
[4] Indeed, every man knows this by some instinct in him or in his mind, as has been verified to me by the fact that nobody has thought of distances when I have reported that I had spoken with some person who died in Asia, Africa or Europe, for example with Calvin, Luther, or Melancthon, or with some king, governor or priest in a far region. The thought occurred to no one, "How could he speak with those who had lived there, and how could they come and be present with him, when lands and seas lay between?" So it was plain to me that in thinking of those in the spiritual world a man does not think of space and time. For those there, however, there is an appearance of time and space; see the work Heaven and Hell, nn. 162-169, 191-199.
51. From these considerations it may now be plain that the infinite and eternal, thus the Lord, are to be thought of apart from space and time and can be so thought of; plain, likewise, that they are so thought of by those who think interiorly and rationally; and plain that the infinite and eternal are identical with the Divine. So think angels and spirits. In thought withdrawn from space and time, divine omnipresence is comprehended, and divine omnipotence, also the Divine from eternity, but these are not at all grasped by thought to which an idea of space and time adheres. Plain it is, then, that one can conceive of God from eternity, but never of nature from eternity. So one can think of the creation of the world by God, but never of its creation from nature, for space and time are proper to nature, but the Divine is apart from them. That the Divine is apart from space and time may be seen in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom (nn. 7-10, 69-72, 73-76, and other places).
52. (ii) What is infinite and eternal in itself cannot but look to what is infinite and eternal from itself in finite things. By what is infinite and eternal in itself the Divine itself is meant, as was shown in the preceding section. By finite things are meant all things created by the Lord, especially men, spirits, and angels. By looking to the infinite and eternal from itself is meant to look to the Divine, that is to Himself, in these, as a person beholds his image in a mirror. This was shown in several places in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom, particularly where it was demonstrated that in the created universe there is an image of the human being and that this is an image of the infinite and eternal (nn. 317, 318), that is, of God the Creator, namely, the Lord from eternity. But be it known that the Divine-in-itself is in the Lord; whereas the divine-from-itself is the divine from the Lord in things created.
53. But for better comprehension let this be illustrated. The Divine can look only to the divine, and can do so only in what has been created by it. This is evident from the fact that no one can regard another except from what is his own in himself. One who loves another regards him from his own love; a wise man regards another from his own wisdom. He can note whether the other loves him or not, is wise or not; but this he does from the love and wisdom in himself. Therefore he unites himself with the other so far as the other loves him as he loves the other, or so far as the other is wise as he is wise; for thus they make one.
[2] It is the same with the Divine-in-itself. For the Divine cannot look to itself from another, that is, from man, spirit, or angel. For there is nothing in them of the Divine-in-itself from which are all things, and to look to the Divine from another in whom there is nothing of the Divine would be to look to the Divine from what is not divine, which is an impossibility. Hence the Lord is so conjoined to man, spirit, or angel that all which is referable to the Divine is not from them but from the Lord. For it is known that all good and truth which anyone has are not from him but from the Lord; indeed that no one can name the Lord or speak His names Jesus and Christ except from Him.
[3] Consequently the infinite and eternal, which is the same as the Divine, looks to all things in finite beings infinitely and conjoins itself with them in the degree in which they receive love and wisdom. In a word, the Lord can have His abode and dwell with man and angel only in His own, and not in what is solely theirs, for this is evil; if it is good, it is still finite, which in and of itself is incapable of the infinite. Plainly, the finite cannot possibly look to what is infinite, but the infinite can look to the infinite-from-itself in finite beings.
54. It seems as if the infinite could not be conjoined to the finite because no ratio is possible between them and because the finite cannot compass the infinite. Conjunction is possible, nevertheless, both because the Infinite created all things from Himself (as was shown in the work Divine Love and Wisdom, nn. 282-284), and because the Infinite cannot but look in things finite to what is infinite from Him, and this infinite-from-Him in finite beings can appear as if it were in them. Thereby a ratio is possible between finite and infinite, not from the finite, indeed, but from the infinite in the finite. Thereby, too, the finite is capable of the infinite, not the finite being in himself, but as if in himself from the infinite-from-itself in him. But of this more in what follows.