From Swedenborg's Works

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #155

Study this Passage

  
/ 432  
  

155. Creation itself cannot be described intelligibly unless you banish space and time from your thoughts; but it can be understood if you banish them. If you can, or to the extent that you can, banish them and keep your mind on an image that is devoid of space and time. If you do, you will notice that there is no difference between the largest expanse and the smallest, and you will inevitably have the same image of the creation of the universe and of the creation of any particular feature of the universe. You will see that the diversity in created things arises from the fact that there are infinite things in the Divine-Human One and therefore unlimited things in that sun that is the first emanation from him, and those unlimited things emerge in the created universe as their reflections, so to speak. This is why there cannot be one thing identical to another anywhere. This is the cause of that variety of all things that meet our eyes in the context of space in this physical world, and in the appearance of space in the spiritual world. The variety is characteristic of both aggregates and details.

I presented the following points in part 1: Infinite things are distinguishably one in the Divine-Human One (17-22); everything in the universe was created by divine love and wisdom (52-53 [52-54]); everything in the created universe is a vessel for the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One (54-60 [55-60]); Divinity is not in space (7-10); Divinity fills all space nonspatially (69-72); and Divinity is the same in the largest and smallest things (77-82).

  
/ 432  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Heaven and Hell #445

Study this Passage

  
/ 603  
  

445. XLVI. THE RESUSCITATION OF MAN FROM THE DEAD AND HIS ENTRANCE INTO ETERNAL LIFE.

When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit's thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense "death" signifies resurrection and continuation of life. 1

Footnotes:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] In the Word "death" signifies resurrection, for when man dies his life still goes on (Arcana Coelestia 3498, 3505, 4618, 4621, 6036, 6221).

  
/ 603  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.