116. However, this calls for an explanation of how angels can feel and sense this as their own and so accept and retain it when in fact it is not theirs, given the statement that angels are not angels on their own but by virtue of what is within them from the Lord. The essence of the matter is this. There is freedom and rationality in every angel. These two qualities are there so that angels can be open to love and wisdom from the Lord. Neither of these, though--neither the freedom nor the rationality--belongs to the angels. They are in them but belong to the Lord. However, since these two elements are intimately united to angels' life, so intimately united that you could call them linked to their life, it seems as though they belong to the angels. Freedom and rationality enable them to think and intend and to speak and act; and what they think, intend, speak, and act as a result seems to be done on their own. This gives rise to the reciprocal element that is the means to union.

Still, the more that angels believe that love and wisdom are within them and claim them for themselves as their own, the more there is nothing angelic within them. To the same extent, then, there is no union with the Lord for them. They are outside the truth; and since truth is identical with heaven's light, they are correspondingly unable to be in heaven. This leads to a denial that they live from the Lord and a belief that they live on their own and therefore that they possess some divine essence. The life called angelic and human consists of these two elements--freedom and rationality.

This leads to the conclusion that angels have a reciprocal ability for the sake of their union with the Lord, but that the reciprocal element, seen as an ability, is the Lord's and not theirs. As a result, angels fall from angelhood if they abuse this reciprocal element that enables them to feel and sense what is the Lord's as their own by actually claiming it for themselves. The Lord himself teaches us in John 14:20-24, 15:4-5, 6 that union is reciprocal, and in John 15:7 that the Lord's union with us and ours with him occurs in things that belong to him, things called "his words."

3404. 'Isaac sowed in that land' means interior truths from the Lord as they appear to the rational. This is clear from the meaning of 'sowing' in the highest sense as Divine Truth from the Lord who is the Sower, 3038, and in the internal sense as the truth and good residing with a person, which stem from that Divine Truth, 3373; and from the meaning of 'land' as rational concepts which, when enlightened from the Divine, are appearances of truth, 3368, or what amounts to the same, are interior truths from the Lord as they appear to the rational. These appearances or truths belong on a higher degree, for as far as verse 14 it is these that are the subject in the internal sense. These appearances of truth are the kind that exist with angels, and are such as go immeasurably above anyone's understanding as long as he lives in the world.

[2] To make it clearer still what appearances of truth are, let the following example be added: It is well known that the Divine is infinite as regards Being (Esse) and eternal as regards Manifestation (Existere), and that what is finite is incapable of comprehending what is infinite, or indeed of comprehending what is eternal, since what is eternal is the Manifestation (Existere) of what is infinite. And because the Divine itself is infinite and eternal, so are all things which proceed from the Divine infinite and also eternal. And as those things are infinite angels are quite incapable of grasping them, for they too are finite beings. That being so, things that are infinite and eternal present themselves to angels within appearances that are finite, though within appearances such as are very far above the range of what man can comprehend. For example, man is quite incapable of possessing any idea of what is eternal except from what is temporal. And being incapable of having any idea other than this he is incapable of comprehending what 'from eternity' is and so what the Divine prior to the existence of time or creation of the world is. And as long as his thinking contains any idea at all that is formed from what is temporal, he slips inevitably, if he thinks about what is eternal, into errors from which he cannot be rescued. But the angels, whose ideas are not formed from anything temporal but from timeless state, are enabled to perceive it supremely well, for to them eternity is not eternity of time but eternity of state devoid of any idea of that which is temporal.

[3] From this one may see what the appearances existing with angels are like compared with man's, and how superior their appearances are to man's. For man cannot have one shred of thought, not even the least shred, that is not in some way temporal and spatial in origin, whereas angels' thought has no such origin at all. Instead their thought has its origin in timeless state, in which the being (esse) and the manifestation (existere) of things is the only consideration. These few comments show the nature of the appearances of truth which are the subject in these verses, and that these appearances belong to a higher degree. The verses that follow deal in order with the appearances of truth that belong to a lower degree which are also suitable to the human race.