522. First, though, let me state what divine mercy is. Divine mercy is a pure mercy toward the whole human race with the intent of saving it, and it is constant toward every individual, never withdrawing from anyone. This means that everyone who can be saved is saved. However, no one can be saved except by divine means, the means revealed by the Lord in the Word. Divine means are what we refer to as divine truths. They teach how we are to live in order to be saved. The Lord uses them to lead us to heaven and to instill heaven's life into us. The Lord does this for everyone; but he cannot instill heaven's life into anyone who does not refrain from evil, since evil bars the way. So to the extent that we do refrain from evil, the Lord in his divine mercy leads us by divine means, from infancy to the end of life in the world and thereafter to eternity. This is the divine mercy that I mean. We can therefore see that the Lord's mercy is pure mercy, but not unmediated: that is, it does not save people whenever it feels like it, no matter how they have lived.

363. (1) Love and wisdom, and consequently the will and intellect, constitute a person's very life. Scarcely anyone knows what life is. When anyone thinks about it, it seems as though it were something vaporous, of which no idea is possible. It seems so because people do not know that God alone is life, and that His life is Divine love and wisdom. Consequently it is apparent that nothing else is the life in a person, and that it is the life in him in the degree that he receives it.

People know that the sun radiates heat and light, of which all things in the universe are recipients, and that in the degree that they receive them they are warmed and illuminated. So it is with the sun where the Lord is, the heat radiating from it being love, and the light radiating from it being wisdom, as we showed in Part Two.

Life therefore comes from these two elements which emanate from the Lord as a sun.

[2] That love and wisdom from the Lord are life can also be seen from the fact that as love wanes in a person he becomes listless, and as wisdom fades, dull-witted; and if these were to vanish altogether, he would cease to live.

There are many properties of love which have been given other names, because they are derivations of it, such as affections, lusts, appetites, and their pleasures and delights. There are also many properties of wisdom, such as perception, reflection, recollection, cogitation, and attention to something. In addition there are many properties of both love and wisdom together, such as consent, resolve, and determination to a course of action, among others. Actually, all of these are properties of both, but they are characterized by the one that is predominant and more immediately present.

[3] Deriving finally from these two are sensations, which are those of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, with their delights and gratifications. The appearance is that the eye sees, but it is the intellect which sees through the eye. Consequently seeing is predicated also of the intellect. The appearance is that the ear hears, but it is the intellect which hears by means of the ear. Consequently hearing is predicated also of paying attention and listening, which is a function of the intellect. The appearance is that the nose smells, and that the tongue tastes, but it is the intellect with its perception which smells, and also tastes. Consequently smelling and tasting are predicated also of perception. And so on.

The founts of all of these phenomena are love and wisdom, from which it can be seen that these two constitute a person's life.