Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence

by Emanuel Swedenborg

It should be known, however, that light in the spiritual world has nothing in common with light in the natural world; they are as different as what is living and what is lifeless. It is plain, then, from what has been said that it is spiritual light and not the natural light before our eyes that enlightens the understanding. Man does not know this, not having known anything hitherto about spiritual light. In the work Heaven and Hell we have shown (nn. 126-140) that spiritual light has its origin in divine wisdom and truth.

167. Having spoken about the light of heaven, we should say something about the light of hell. This also is of three degrees. The light in the lowest hell is like that from fiery coals; in the middle hell like that from the flame of a hearth; and in the highest hell like that from candles and to some like moonlight at night. All this is spiritual light and not natural, for all natural light is dead and extinguishes the understanding. As has been shown, those in hell possess the faculty of understanding called rationality; rationality itself comes from spiritual light and not from natural light. The spiritual light which they have in rationality is turned, however, into infernal light, as the light of day is into the dark of night.

[2] Nevertheless, all those in the spiritual world, whether in the heavens or the hells, see in their own light as clearly as man sees in his by day. This is because everyone's eyesight is formed to receive the light in which it finds itself. Thus the eyesight of the angels of heaven is formed to receive the light in which they see, and the sight of the spirits of hell is formed to receive their light; this is comparatively like that of birds of night and bats, which see objects at night and in the evening as clearly as other birds see them by day, for their eyes are formed to receive their light.

[3] The difference between the one light and the other appears very clearly, however, to those who look from one to the other. When, for instance, an angel of heaven looks into hell he sees only thick darkness, and when a spirit of hell looks into heaven he sees only thick darkness there. For heavenly wisdom is like thick darkness to those in hell; in turn, infernal insanity is like thick darkness to those in heaven. It is plain from all this that such as a man's understanding is, such is the light he has, and that after death everyone comes into his own light, for he sees in no other. In the spiritual world, moreover, where all are spiritual even to the body, the eyes of all are formed to see by their own light. Everyone's life-love fashions an understanding for itself and thus a light, also, for love is like the fire of life and from this comes the light of life.

168. As few know anything about the enlightenment in which the understanding of a man is who is taught by the Lord, something will be said of it. There is inner and outer enlightenment from the Lord, and inner and outer enlightenment from oneself. Inner enlightenment from the Lord consists in man's perceiving on first hearing something whether it is true or not; outer enlightenment consists in thought from this. Inner enlightenment from oneself is simply from confirmation and outer enlightenment merely from information. We will say something of each.

[2] By inner enlightenment from the Lord a rational person perceives about many things the moment he hears them whether they are true or not; for example, that love is the life of faith or that faith lives by love. By interior enlightenment a person also perceives that a man wills what he loves and does what he wills, consequently that to love is to do; again, that a man wills and does whatever he believes from love, and therefore to have faith is also to do; and that the impious man cannot have love for God or faith then in Him. By inner enlightenment a rational man also perceives the following truths at once on hearing them: God is one; He is omnipresent; all good is from Him; all things have relation to good and truth; all good is from good itself and all truth from truth itself. A man perceives these and other similar truths inwardly in himself on hearing them and does so because he possesses a rationality which is in heaven's enlightening light.

[3] Outer enlightenment is enlightenment of one's thought from this inner enlightenment. One's thought is in this enlightenment so far as it remains in the perception it has from inner enlightenment and so far as it possesses knowledge of good and truth, for it gets from this knowledge reasons confirming it. Thought from outer enlightenment sees a matter on both sides; on the one, it sees reasons which confirm it, and on the other, the appearances that weaken it; it dispels these and assembles the reasons.

[4] Inner enlightenment from oneself, however, is quite different. By it one regards a matter on one side only, and having confirmed it sees it in light apparently like that just spoken of, but it is a wintry light. For example, a judge who judges unjustly in view of gifts or gain, once he has confirmed the judgment by law and reason sees in it nothing but justice. Some judges see the injustice but not wanting to see it, they keep it out of sight and blind themselves and so do not see. The same is true of a judge who renders judgments out of friendship, or to gain favor, or on account of relationship.

[5] Such persons act in the same way in anything they have from a man in authority or from the mouth of a celebrity or have hatched from self-intelligence; they are blind reasoners, for they see from the falsities which they confirm; falsity closes the sight, just as truth opens it. They do not see any truth in the light of truth nor justice from a love for it but from the light of confirmation, which is an illusory light. They appear in the spiritual world like headless faces or like faces resembling human faces on wooden heads, and are called reasoning animals for rationality is potential in them. Those have outer enlightenment from themselves who think and speak solely from information impressed on the memory; of themselves they can hardly confirm anything.

169. Such are the differences in enlightenment and consequently in perception and thought. There is actual enlightenment by spiritual light, but it is not manifest to one in the natural world because natural light has nothing in common with spiritual light. This enlightenment has sometimes been manifested to me in the spiritual world, however, visible in those enlightened by the Lord as a luminosity around the head, aglow with the color of the human face. With those in enlightenment from themselves the luminosity was not around the head but around the mouth and over the chin.