1. Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence

Divine Providence Is the Form of Government Exercised by the Lord's Divine Love and Wisdom

To understand what divine providence is--that it is the way the Lord's divine love and wisdom govern us--it is important to be aware of the following things, which were presented in my book on the subject.

In the Lord, divine love is a property of divine wisdom and divine wisdom is a property of divine love (Divine Love and Wisdom 34-39).

Divine love and wisdom cannot fail to be and to be manifested in others that it has created (Divine Love and Wisdom 47-51).

Everything in the universe was created by divine love and wisdom (Divine Love and Wisdom 52, 53, 151-156).

Everything in the created universe is a vessel of divine love and wisdom (54-60 [55-60]).

The Lord looks like the sun to angels; its radiating warmth is love and its radiating light is wisdom (Divine Love and Wisdom 83-88, 89-92, 93-98, 296-301).

The divine love and wisdom that emanate from the Lord constitute a single whole (Divine Love and Wisdom 99-102).

The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, created the universe and everything in it from himself and not from nothing (Divine Love and Wisdom 282-284, 290-295). These propositions may be found in the work titled Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom.

55. Everything in the created universe is a vessel for the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. We acknowledge that everything in the universe, great and small, has been created by God. That is why the universe and absolutely everything in it is called "the work of Jehovah's hands" in the Word.

People do say that the whole world was created out of nothing, and they like to think of "nothing" as absolutely nothing. However, nothing comes from "absolutely nothing" and nothing can. This is an abiding truth. This means that the universe, being an image of God and therefore full of God, could be created by God only in God. God is reality itself, and everything that exists must come from that reality. To speak of creating something that exists from a "nothing" that does not exist is a plain contradiction of terms.

Still, what is created by God in God is not a continuation of him, since God is intrinsic reality and there is no trace of intrinsic reality in anything created. If there were any intrinsic reality in a created being, it would be a continuation of God, and any continuation of God is God.

The angelic concept involved is that anything created by God in God is like something within ourselves that we have put forth from our life, but the life is then withdrawn from it. It then agrees with our life, but still, it is not our life. In support of this, angels cite many things that happen in their heaven, where they say that they are in God and that God is in them, and yet that they have in their being no trace of God that is actually God. This may serve simply as information; more of the angels' evidence will be offered later [116].

290. The Lord from eternity, or Jehovah, produced from Himself the sun of the spiritual world, and out of it created the universe and all of its constituents. We discussed the sun of the spiritual world in Part Two of this work, and in it we showed the following:

That Divine love and wisdom appear in the spiritual world as the sun (nos. 83-88). That from that sun emanate spiritual heat and light (nos. 89-92). That that sun is not God, but that it is an emanation of the Divine love and wisdom of the human God; so, too, the heat and light from that sun (nos. 93-98). That the sun in the spiritual world is at a middle height and appears as distant from the angels as the sun in the natural world does from people (nos. 103-107). That in the spiritual world, the east is where the Lord appears as the sun, and the other points of the compass are determined in relation to it (nos. 119-128). That angels turn their faces continually to the Lord as the sun (nos. 129-139). That the Lord created the universe and everything in it by means of that sun, which is the first emanation of His Divine love and wisdom (nos. 151-156). That the sun in the natural world is nothing but fire, and that nature, which takes its origin from that sun, is consequently lifeless; moreover, that the sun in the natural world was created in order that the work of creation might be completed and concluded (nos. 157-162). That without the two suns, one alive and the other lifeless, creation would not exist (nos. 163-166).