From Swedenborg's Works

 

Divine Providence #5

Study this Passage

  
/ 340  
  

5. 3. There is some image of this unity in everything that has been created. We can tell from what is presented throughout Divine Love and Wisdom that in everything created there is some image of the divine love and wisdom that are a whole in the Lord and that emanate from him as a whole. See especially Divine Love and Wisdom 47-51, 54-60 [Divine Love and Wisdom 55-60], Divine Love and Wisdom 282-284, 290-295, 316-318 [Divine Love and Wisdom 313-318], Divine Love and Wisdom 319-326, 349-357. I have explained in these passages that Divinity is present in everything that has been created because God the Creator, who is the Lord from eternity, brought forth the sun of the spiritual world from his actual self, and by means of that sun brought forth the whole universe. This means that that sun, which is from the Lord and is where the Lord is, is not only the first but the only substance of which everything is made. Since it is the only substance, it follows that it is present in everything that has been created, but with infinite variety depending on function.

[2] In the Lord, then, there is divine love and wisdom; in the sun that comes from him there is divine fire and divine radiance; and from that sun come spiritual warmth and spiritual light, with the two making a single whole. It follows, then, that some image of this whole is present in everything that has been created.

This is why everything in the universe is based on what is good and what is true and in fact on their union, or (which amounts to the same thing) everything in the universe is based on love and wisdom and on their union, since goodness is a matter of love and truth is a matter of wisdom. Love in fact calls everything of its own good, and wisdom calls everything of its own true.

We will see now that this union is present in everything that has been created.

  
/ 340  
  

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Heaven and Hell #320

Study this Passage

  
/ 603  
  

320. A certain spirit from among the heathen who had lived in the world in good of charity in accordance with his religion, hearing Christian spirits reasoning about what must be believed, (for spirits reason with each other far more thoroughly and acutely than men, especially about what is good and true,) wondered at such contentions, and said that he did not care to listen to them, for they reasoned from appearances and fallacies; and he gave them this instruction: "If I am good I can know from the good itself what is true; and what I do not know I can receive."

  
/ 603  
  

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