Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence

by Emanuel Swedenborg

218. (iii) The temporal and the eternal are separated by man, but are united by the Lord. For all that is man's is temporal, and he may therefore be called temporal, but all things that are the Lord's are eternal, and so the Lord is called eternal. Temporal things are such as come to an end and perish, eternal things are such as do not. Anyone can see that the two can be united only by the infinite wisdom of the Lord, thus by Him and not by man. To make it known, however, that the two are separated by man and united by the Lord, this is to be demonstrated in the following order:

1. What temporal things are and what eternal are. 2. The human being is in himself temporal and the Lord in Himself eternal, and only the temporal can proceed from man, and only the eternal from the Lord. 3. Temporal things separate eternal things from themselves, while eternal things join temporal things to themselves. 4. The Lord joins man to Himself by means of appearances. 5. He does so by correspondences also.

219. These points will be clarified and established one by one. First: What temporal things are and what eternal are. The temporal are all things that are proper to nature and from nature proper to man. Space and time especially are proper to nature, both of them having a limit or termination. Things thence derived and proper to man are all things of his own will and understanding, thus of his affection and thought and especially of his prudence; it is well known that these are finite and limited. Eternal things, however, are all that are proper to the Lord and from Him seemingly proper to man. What is proper to the Lord is all of it infinite and eternal, thus timeless, endless and without limit; what is seemingly proper to man thence is also infinite and eternal; but nothing of this is actually proper to man, but the Lord's alone in him.

[2] Second: The human being is in himself temporal and the Lord in Himself eternal, and only the temporal can proceed from man, and from the Lord only the eternal. Man, we said, is in himself temporal and the Lord in Himself eternal. Since only what is in a person can proceed from him, nothing can proceed from man except what is temporal, and nothing from the Lord except what is eternal. For the infinite cannot proceed from the finite; that it can is a contradiction. The infinite, however, can proceed from the finite, still not from the finite but from the infinite by the finite. In turn, what is finite cannot proceed from the infinite; this is also a contradiction; it can be produced from the infinite and this is creation and not proceeding. On this subject see Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom, from beginning to end. If then the finite proceeds from the Lord, as it does in many ways with man, it proceeds not from the Lord but from man, and can be said to do so from the Lord by man, because it so appears.

[3] This may be clarified by these words of the Lord:

Let your communication be, Yea, yea, Nay, nay, what is more than these comes of evil (Mt 5:37).

Such is the speech of all in the third heaven. For they never reason about divine things whether a thing is so or not, but see in themselves from the Lord whether or not it is. To reason about divine things whether they are so or not comes from the reasoner's not seeing them from the Lord, but wanting to see them from himself, and what one sees from oneself is evil. But still the Lord desires man to think and speak about things divine, also to reason about them, in order that he may see whether or not they are so. Such thought, speech and reasoning may be said to be from the Lord in man provided the end is to see the truth, although they are from the man until he sees and acknowledges the truth. Meanwhile it is from the Lord alone that he can think, speak and reason; for he does so from the two faculties, called liberty and rationality, which are his from the Lord alone.

[4] Third: Temporal things separate eternal things from themselves, while eternal things join temporal things to themselves. That temporal things separate eternal things from themselves means that man, who is temporal, does so from the temporal in himself; and that eternal things join temporal things to themselves means that the Lord, who is eternal, does so from what is eternal in Himself, as was said above. In what precedes we showed that there is a conjunction of the Lord with man and a conjunction in turn of man with the Lord, but the reciprocal conjunction of man with the Lord is not man's doing but the Lord's; also that man's will goes counter to the Lord's will or, what is the same, man's own prudence goes counter to divine providence. From these circumstances it follows that man puts the eternal things of the Lord aside by force of the temporal things in him, but the Lord joins His eternal things to man's temporal, that is, Himself to man and man to Him. As these points have been treated many times in what precedes, there is no need to confirm them further.

[5] Fourth: The Lord joins man to Himself by means of appearances. For it is an appearance that of himself man loves the neighbor, does good, and speaks truth. Unless this appeared to man to be so, he would not love the neighbor, do good, or speak truth, and therefore would not be conjoined with the Lord. Since love, good and truth are from the Lord, plainly the Lord joins man to Himself by means of the appearance. This appearance, and the Lord's conjunction with man and man's with the Lord, have been treated above at length.

[6] Fifth: The Lord unites man to Himself by means of correspondences. He does this by means of the Word, the sense of the letter of which consists wholly of correspondences. In Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture, from beginning to end, it was shown that by means of that sense there is a conjunction of the Lord with man and a reciprocal conjunction of man with the Lord.