2789. 'And Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw' means thought and insight received from the Divine. This is clear from the meaning of 'the eyes' as intelligence, dealt with in 2701, so that 'lifting up the eyes' means raising one's intelligence, thus thinking; and from the meaning of 'seeing' as receiving insight from the Divine, since this experience is used to refer to the Lord.

35. Man has two inherent powers of will and understanding. When the understanding is governed by the will they then constitute one mind and so one life; for what a person in that case wills and does he also thinks and intends. But when the understanding is at variance with the will, as it is with people who claim to have faith and yet live otherwise, then a mind previously one is split in two. One half seeks to transport itself into heaven, while the other inclines towards hell. And because the will is what accomplishes everything, the whole man would rush straight into hell unless the Lord took pity on him.