Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence

by Emanuel Swedenborg

[5] 2. The one essence, substance and form is divine love and wisdom from which is all that is referable to love and wisdom in man. This also was fully demonstrated in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom. Whatever appears to live in man is referable to will and understanding in him; any-one can perceive by the reason and acknowledge that these two constitute his life. What else is "This I will," or "This I understand," or "I love this," or "I think this"? And as man wills what he loves, and thinks what he understands, all things of the will relate to love and those of the understanding to wisdom. As no one has love or wisdom from himself but only from Him who is love itself and wisdom itself, they are from the Lord-from-eternity or Jehovah. If they were not, man would be love itself and wisdom itself, thus God-from-eternity, at which the human reason itself is horrified. Can anything exist except from a prior self? Or the prior self exist except from one prior to it? And finally from a first or from underived being?

[6] 3. It is also good itself and truth itself, to which all things are referable. Everyone possessed of reason agrees and acknowledges that God is good itself and truth itself, likewise that all good and truth are from Him, therefore that any good and truth can come only from good itself and truth itself. All this is acknowledged by every rational person when he first hears it. When it is said, then, that everything of the will and understanding, of love and wisdom, or of affection and thought in a man who is led by the Lord relates to good and truth, it follows that all that such a man wills and understands or loves and has for his wisdom, or is affected by and thinks, is from the Lord. Hence anyone in the church knows that whatever good and truth a man has in himself is not good and truth except as it is from the Lord. Since this is true, all that such a man wills and thinks is from the Lord. It will be seen in following numbers that an evil man can will and think from no other source.

[7] 4. The one essence, substance and form is likewise life, from which is the life of all and all things of life. This we have shown in many places in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom. At the first hearing the human reason also agrees and acknowledges that all man's life is that of the will and understanding, for if these are taken away he ceases to live, or what is the same, that all his life is one of love and thought, for if these are taken away he does not live. Inasmuch as all of the will and understanding or all of love and thought in man is from the Lord, all of his life, as we said above, is from Him.

[8] 5. This only One and very Self is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. This also every Christian acknowledges from his doctrine and every gentile from his religion. In consequence, wherever he is, a man thinks that God is there and that he prays to God at hand; thinking and praying so, men cannot but think that God is everywhere, that is, omnipresent; likewise omniscient and omnipotent. Everyone praying to God, therefore, implores Him from the heart to lead him because He can lead him; thus he acknowledges the divine omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence, doing so in turning his face to the Lord; thereupon the truth flows in from the Lord.

[9] 6. This only One and very Self is the Lord-from-eternity or Jehovah. In Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord it was shown that God is one in essence and in person and that He is the Lord, and that the Divine itself, called Jehovah Father, is the Lord-from-eternity; that the Divine Human is the Son conceived by His Divine from eternity and born in the world; and that the proceeding Divine is the Holy Spirit. He is called "very Self" and "only One" because, as was said, the Lord-from-eternity or Jehovah is life itself, being love itself and wisdom itself or good itself and truth itself, from which are all things. That the Lord created all things from Himself and not from nothing may be seen in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom nn. 282-284, 349-357. So the truth that the human being is led and taught by the Lord alone is established by reasons.

158. This same truth is established in angels not only by reasons but also by living perceptions, especially with angels of the third heaven. They perceive the influx of divine love and wisdom from the Lord. Perceiving it and in their wisdom aware that love and wisdom are life, they declare that they live from the Lord and not of themselves, and not only say so but love and will it so. Yet they are in the full appearance that they live of themselves, yes, more strongly in the appearance than other angels. For as was shown above (nn. 42-45) the more nearly one is united with the Lord, the more distinctly does he seem to himself to be his own, and the more plainly is he aware that he is the Lord's. For many years now it has been granted me to be in a similar simultaneous perception and appearance, and I am fully convinced that I will and think nothing from myself but that it only appears to be from myself; it has also been granted to love and will it so. The same truth may be established by much else from the spiritual world, but these two references must suffice now.

159. It is plain from the following passages in the Word that life is the Lord's alone.

I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me, though he die, shall live (Jn 11:25).

I am the way and the truth and the life (Jn 14:6).

The Word was God . . . and in Him was life; and the life was the light of men (Jn 1:1, 4).