52. Everything in the universe was created by the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. The universe, from beginning to end and from first to last, is so full of divine love and wisdom that you could call it divine love and wisdom in an image. This is clearly evidenced by the way everything in the universe answers to something in us. Every single thing that comes to light in the created universe has such an equivalence with every single thing in us that you could call us a kind of universe as well. There is a correspondence of our affective side and its consequent thought with everything in the animal kingdom, a correspondence of our volitional side and its consequent discernment with everything in the plant kingdom, and a correspondence of our outermost life with everything in the mineral kingdom.

This kind of correspondence is not apparent to anyone in our physical world, but it is apparent to observant people in the spiritual world. We find in this latter world all the things that occur in the three kingdoms of our physical world, and they reflect the feelings and thoughts of the people who are there--the feelings that come from their volition and the thoughts that come from their discernment--as well as the outermost aspects of their life. Both their feelings and their thoughts are visible around them looking much like the things we see in the created universe, though we see them in less perfect representations.

From this it is obvious to angels that the created universe is an image depicting the Divine-Human One and that it is his love and wisdom that are presented, in image, in the universe. It is not that the created universe is the Divine-Human One: rather, it comes from him; for nothing whatever in the universe is intrinsic substance and form or intrinsic life or intrinsic love and wisdom. We are not "intrinsic persons." It all comes from God, who is the intrinsic person, the intrinsic wisdom and love, and the intrinsic form and substance. Whatever has intrinsic existence is uncreated and infinite; while what comes from it, possessing nothing within itself that has intrinsic existence, is created and finite. This latter presents an image of the One from whom it derives its existence and manifestation.

300. I explained in 173-178, 179-183 above that there are atmospheres in the spiritual world just as there are in the physical world; and I noted that the atmospheres of the spiritual world are spiritual, and that those of the physical world are physical. Given the origin of the spiritual atmosphere most closely surrounding the spiritual sun, then, it stands to reason that in all respects it is, in essence, of the same quality as the sun is in its essence.

With their spiritual concepts, which are nonspatial, angels assert the truth of this by saying that there is only one single substance underlying everything and that the spiritual world's sun is that substance. Further, since Divinity is not in space and since it is the same in the largest and smallest things, the same holds true for that sun that is the first emanation of the Divine-Human One. They further assert that the one substance, the sun, radiating by its atmospheres, gives rise to the variety of everything in the created universe, in accord with both the gradual or horizontal levels and the distinct or vertical ones.

Angels have told me that there is no way to understand such things unless space is banished from our concepts; that if space is not banished, superficial appearances will inevitably give rise to illusions. We are not susceptible to them, though, if we hold in mind the fact that God is the absolute reality underlying everything.