365. (b) Therefore the Lord flows into everyone with the entire essence of faith and goodwill. This follows from the previous point, since the essence of faith is life from divine wisdom and the essence of goodwill is life from divine love. Therefore, since the Lord is present along with these things that belong to him (namely, divine wisdom and divine love), he is also present along with all the true perceptions related to faith and all the good actions related to goodwill. "Faith" means all the truth from the Lord that we perceive, think, and speak. "Goodwill" means all the goodness from the Lord which moves us and which we then intend and do.

[2] As I said just above, the divine love that emanates from the Lord as a sun is perceived by the angels as heat, and the divine wisdom from that love is perceived as light. Someone who does not think beyond appearances might surmise that the heat I just mentioned is mere heat and that the light is mere light, like the heat and light that emanate from the sun in our world. In fact, the heat and light that emanate from the Lord as a sun hold in their core all the infinities that are in the Lord. That heat holds all the infinities of his love and that light holds all the infinities of his wisdom. Therefore they also hold an infinity that includes everything good related to goodwill and everything true related to faith. The reason for this is that the spiritual sun is present everywhere that its heat and light are present. That sun is a sphere that immediately surrounds the Lord, radiating from his divine love together with his divine wisdom. (As I have noted a number of times before [24, 29, 35, 39, 41, 49, 63, 66, 75-76, 360], the Lord is within that sun.)

[3] These facts make it clear that nothing stands in the way of our being able to draw from the Lord everything good that relates to goodwill and everything true that relates to faith, since he is omnipresent. An example showing that nothing stands in the way is the love and the wisdom that heavens angels have from the Lord. The angels' love and wisdom are beyond words and incomprehensible to our earthly self; they are also capable of increasing to eternity.

The fact that there are infinite things in the heat and light that emanate from the Lord, although they are perceived as simple heat and light, can be illustrated by various phenomena on earth. For example, we hear the tone of someone's voice in speech as a noncomposite sound, yet when angels hear it they perceive in it all that person's feelings, and can list and describe each one. We too can sense to some extent that there are qualities that lie within a voice when we listen to people talking to us. We can tell if there is contempt, ridicule, or hatred, or else goodwill, benevolence, cheerfulness, or other feelings behind what they say. Similar things lie hidden in the visual impression we receive when we look at someone.

[4] This phenomenon can also be illustrated by the fragrances in an ample garden or in a vast field full of flowers. The sweet smell given off by those plants consists of thousands and even tens of thousands of different elements; yet they are sensed as one impression. It is similar with many other things that appear on the outside as something uniform but are inwardly complex.

The source of human attraction and repulsion is feelings that emanate from people's minds. These feelings attract others who have similar feelings and repel others who do not. Although these emanations are countless and are not picked up by any physical sensation, they are perceived by the sensation of our soul as a single thing. In the spiritual world, all connections and associations are formed on the basis of them.

I have mentioned these things to illustrate what I said before about the spiritual light that emanates from the Lord. It contains all things related to wisdom and all things related to faith. It is this light that enables our intellect to see and perceive the objects of reason in an analytical way, just as our eye sees and perceives earthly objects in a proportional way.

"Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the ground." Psalm 104:30

Additional readings: Isaiah 45:11-25, John 1:1-14, Psalm 104

Some today think of the universe as self-created, that its life is from itself, and that man is a product of the forces of nature. This is, in brief, the materialist's explanation of nature and of human life.

If this were true, the knowledge of nature and of its laws should solve all our problems. But there are qualities in man that are not found in nature. There is no morality in nature, nor is altruism to be found there. Nature's first law is the law of self-preservation, but among men—even the lowest of them—there is the feeling that they should not always seek to please themselves, that it is truly manly to try to save another at the risk of one's own life, that it is right to protect the weak, to help the neighbor.

Nature knows of no power above itself nor of any life after death. Likewise the materialists are unable to conceive of anything supernatural; they can acknowledge no supreme Being or Creator; they do not believe that they live after death. It should be obvious that nature cannot reveal anything that lies beyond its realm.

Yet in order that any finite thing may live there must be an infinite and uncreated source of life. If there were nothing to begin with, then plainly nothing could result. The forms of life which we see about us, and which we ourselves are, must derive their existence from One who is life itself. This is the meaning of the name Jehovah—the "I Am"—He who is in and of Himself. Such is the true conception which lies at the foundation of all intelligent thinking concerning Him. "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Greater of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" (Isaiah 40:28). Creation is but the effect of the outpouring of life from Him. This life is called in the Scriptures His breath or spirit. Accordingly we have such statements as that of our text: "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created."

But He who sends forth His life-giving spirit is hidden from our natural sight. Yes, even spirit itself is outwardly invisible. And so those who do not lift up their thoughts above nature are tempted to deny His existence. There are higher things than those that can be seen. The spirit of God and all else that is spiritual lie within and above the plane of the senses. Life flows from within outwards. What we see is its external effects; we do not see life itself. Our own spiritual natures are concealed from outward view. We cannot see the souls of those about us. The soul is within the body but is distinct from it. When it is withdrawn, the body dies. In like manner all life is internal and spiritual. He from whom it proceeds is the inmost fountain of all being. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created."

Again it has often been imagined by people who do believe in a personal God that He created the world and then let it go on by itself according to a system of laws provided for its government. This belief is in part due to the fact that God keeps Himself out of sight and in part to the fact that men think that His way of doing things would be like theirs. A man builds a house, and he may go away and never see it again. But we must remember that man does not create; he only makes use of materials at hand, reforming them to serve his immediate purpose. The Lord, because He creates, is never absent from any part of His creation. By His presence He keeps the universe alive, just as He originally called it into being. Were He to separate Himself from the things which He has made, they would all perish. This is what our text declares in saying, "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created." We are not told that the Lord did send out His spirit at some time many years ago, but that He is sending it out now. The language is not that things were created once upon a time, but that they are created. "Existence is perpetual creation." The present tense transforms the statement into a universal law.

It is so too with the second phrase of the text, "Thou renewest the face of the ground." Allusion is obviously made, in the sense of the letter, to the changes continually going on in nature—the succession of one generation by another and the endless alternation of the seasons. Mother earth is just as fresh and young and productive today as she was in most ancient times. She is in the constant reception of new life. Not a moment passes without the face of the ground being renewed.

There is a lesson for us in this. It should teach us of the nearness of our Heavenly Father and of His constant provision for us. He is present in the heat and light of the sun, in the fields, forests, and mountains, in the rivers, lakes, and seas, in the winds and skies. All tell of His majesty and power, and especially of His constant presence. If we can see this, nature becomes more beautiful and wonderful to us. We see in nature His spirit renewing the face of the ground.

How strange it is that study of nature should lead men to disbelief in God. If the universe did not have order, if its parts were disconnected, without relation or use to one another and to the service and enjoyment of men, we might perhaps believe that it was not designed or created by an intelligent Being. But as the case stands, love and wisdom could not have written themselves more plainly in living characters before our eyes. And what are love and wisdom but the essence of a perfect personality? They cannot possibly exist as mere abstractions: they must be embodied in a person. Love is the inmost vital principle, and wisdom is the means whereby love accomplishes its purposes.

The Lord alone has life in Himself. He needs must be the Source of all creation. "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). And of the creation of the earth it is written, "He created it not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited” (Isaiah 45:18). The purpose of the creation of the world was that there might be people upon it, that we might here be formed into God's own image and likeness and find happiness in heaven to eternity. For this reason, however long our life here may be, we are never completely satisfied with it. There has always been among all people a conviction that there is an afterlife. This conviction is not an idle dream but a perception that the goal of life cannot be reached here—that there is more which the Lord has prepared for us.

And just as the Lord is ever present in His creation, sustaining and controlling it from moment to moment, so He is ever present with us, giving us life, and guiding us if only we will be guided—for it is contrary to the Divine love to compel men—to our heavenly home. The Divine Providence is concerned with our spiritual and eternal life, and with bodily and temporal things only as they affect this. "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26).

This view of the relationship between God and His creation gives us a concept of God that is both rational and also satisfactory to our affectional nature. The Bible starts with the words "In the beginning God. created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1) to teach us that there is a Divine Being with a purpose supremely beneficent, and that there is an Intelligence altogether equal to the attainment of that purpose, and the rest of the Scriptures tell us of the Lord's operation in history to the accomplishment of His purposes. Knowledge of Him and of His purposes enables us to realize that there are better times ahead for us and happier times for the human race upon the earth, to which all lovers of mankind may look forward.

Moreover the Lord Himself came into the world as the Redeemer and Savior of men. In our own struggles we are not alone. The God of Battles is fighting for us. We are not cogs in a universal mechanism. The Lord is present everywhere in the universe. He comes to us outwardly in all the beneficent influences of nature, in the warmth and light of the sun and in all its other bounties. He is present in our souls, seeking to gladden us with the warmth of His love and to enlighten our minds with His wisdom, redeeming us from our iniquities and creating us anew into His own image and likeness.