Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom

by Emanuel Swedenborg

It is known throughout the world, and acknowledged by every wise man from interior perception, that God, who is the Creator of the universe, is One; and it is known from the Word that God the Creator of the universe is called "Jehovah," which is from the verb to be, because He alone is. That the Lord from eternity is that Jehovah is shown by many statements from the Word in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the Lord. Jehovah is called the Lord from eternity, since Jehovah assumed a Human that He might save men from hell; He then commanded His disciples to call Him Lord. Therefore in the New Testament Jehovah is called "the Lord;" as can be seen from this:

Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul (Deut. 5:5);

but in the New Testament:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all
thy soul (Matt. 22:35).

It is the same in other passages in the Gospels, taken from the Old
Testament.

283. Every one who thinks from clear reason sees that the universe was not created out of nothing, for he sees that not anything can be made out of nothing; since nothing is nothing, and to make anything out of nothing is a contradiction, and a contradiction is contrary to the light of truth, which is from Divine Wisdom; and whatever is not from Divine Wisdom is not from Divine Omnipotence. Every one who thinks from clear reason sees also that all things have been created out of a Substance that is Substance in itself for that is Esse itself, out of which every thing that is can take form; and since God alone is Substance in itself, and therefore Esse itself, it is evident that from this source alone is the formation of things. Many have seen this, because reason causes them to see it; and yet they have not dared to confirm it, fearing lest they might thereby be led to think that the created universe is God, because from God, or that nature is from itself, and consequently that the inmost of nature is what is called God. For this reason, although many have seen that the formation of all things is from God alone and out of his Esse, yet they have not dared to go beyond their first thought on the subject, lest their understanding should become entangled in a so-called Gordian knot, beyond the possibility of release. Such release would be impossible, because their thought of God, and of the creation of the universe by God, has been in accordance with time and space, which are properties of nature; and from nature no one can have any perception of God and of the creation of the universe; but every one whose understanding is in any interior light can have a perception of nature and of its creation out of God, because God is not in time and space. That the Divine is not in space may be seen above (n. 7-10); that the Divine apart from space fills all the spaces of the universe (n. 69-72); and that the Divine apart from time is in all time (n. 73-76). In what follows it will be seen that although God has created the universe and all things thereof out of Himself, yet there is nothing whatever in the created universe that is God; and other things besides, which will place this matter in its proper light.

284. Part First of this Work treated of God, that He is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom; that He is life, and that He is substance and form, which is the very and only Esse. Part Second treated of the spiritual sun and its world, and of the natural sun and its world, and of the creation of the universe with all things thereof from God by means of these two suns. Part Third treated of degrees in which are each and all things that have been created. Part Fourth will now treat of the creation of the universe from God. All these subjects are now explained, because the angels have lamented before the Lord, that when they look upon the world they see nothing but darkness, and among men no knowledge of God, of heaven, or of the creation of nature, for their wisdom to rest upon.

285. THE LORD FROM ETERNITY, THAT IS, JEHOVAH, COULD NOT HAVE CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND ALL THINGS THEREOF UNLESS HE WERE A MAN.

Those who have a corporeal natural idea of God as a Man, are wholly unable to comprehend how God as a Man could have created the universe and all things thereof; for they think within themselves, How can God as a Man wander all over the universe from space to space, and create? Or how can He, from His place, speak the word, and as soon as it is spoken, creation follow? When it is said that God is a Man, such ideas present themselves to those whose conception of the God-Man is like their conception of a man in the world, and who think of God from nature and its properties, which are time and space. But those whose conception of God-Man is not drawn from their conception of a man in the world, nor from nature and its space and time, clearly perceive that unless God were a man the universe could not have been created. Bring your thought into the angelic idea of God as being a Man, putting away, as much as you can, the idea of space, and you will come near in thought to the truth. In fact, some of the learned have a perception of spirits and angels as not in space, because they have a perception of the spiritual as apart from space. For the spiritual is like thought, which although it is in man, man is nevertheless able by means of it to be present as it were elsewhere, in any place however remote. Such is the state of spirits and angels, who are men even as regards their bodies. In whatever place their thought is, there they appear, because in the spiritual world spaces and distances are appearances, and make one with the thought that is from their affection. From all this it can be seen that God, who appears as a sun far above the spiritual world, and to whom there can belong no appearance of space, is not to be thought of from space. And it can then be comprehended that He created the universe out of Himself, and not out of nothing; also that His Human Body cannot be thought great or small, that is, of any one stature, because this also pertains to space; consequently that in things first and last, and in things greatest and least, He is the same; and still further, that the Human is the inmost in every created thing, though apart from space. That the Divine is the same in things greatest and least may be seen above (n. 77-82); and that the Divine apart from space fills all spaces (n. 69-72). And because the Divine is not in space, it is not continuous [nec est continuum], as the inmost of nature is.

286. That God unless He were a Man could not have created the universe and all things thereof, may be clearly apprehended by any intelligent person from this, that he cannot deny that in God there is Love and Wisdom, mercy and clemency, and also goodness itself and truth itself, inasmuch as these are from God. And because he cannot deny this, neither can he deny that God is a Man; for abstractly from man not one of these is possible; for man is their subject, and to separate them from their subject is to say that they are not. Think of wisdom, and place it outside of man - is it anything? Can you conceive of it as something ethereal, or as something flaming? You cannot; unless perchance you conceive of it as being within these; and if within these, it must be wisdom in a form such as man has; it must be wholly in the form of man, not one thing can be lacking if wisdom is to be in that form. In a word, the form of wisdom is man; and because man is the form of wisdom, he is also the form of love, mercy, clemency, good and truth, because these make one with wisdom. That love and wisdom are not possible except in a form, see above (n. 50-53).