8938. 'In every place where I shall put the memory of My name' means the state of faith [in the Lord] with each individual person. This is clear from the meaning of 'place' as state, dealt with in 2625, 2837, 3356, 3387, 3404, 4321, 4882, 5605, 7381, so that 'every place' is the state of each individual or with each individual person. The reason why the state of faith is meant is that 'the name of Jehovah' means everything in its entirety through which the Lord is worshipped, thus all aspects of faith and charity, 2724, 3006, 6674. Consequently 'putting the memory of the name of Jehovah God' means [that state in] the person with whom - that is, in whose heart - charity and faith that come from the Lord are present. The meaning in the literal sense is that they were to sacrifice burnt offerings and eucharistic offerings, thus their flocks and herds, in Jerusalem, this being the place chosen by the Lord for them in which to worship Him, and so in which 'He put the memory of His name'. A place is not meant however in the internal sense, but each individual person with whom charity and faith are present; for 'place' does not mean place in the internal sense but state, and 'name' does not mean name but faith and worship, so that a person who has attained a state in which faith is being received from the Lord is meant. In Jerusalem furthermore, the place in which the Lord was worshipped through the burnt offerings and eucharistic offerings, all things of the Church were represented. This is why 'Jerusalem' in the Word, and 'the New Jerusalem' in the Book of Revelation, means the Lord's Church; and the Lord's Church exists with each individual person in a state in which charity and faith received from the Lord are present. For a person is in himself the Church, and the many with whom the Church exists compose the Church collectively. From all this it is also evident that 'in every place in which I shall put the memory of My name' means the state of faith with each individual person.

46. In Everything That It Does, the Lord's Divine Providence Is Focusing on What Is Infinite and Eternal

It is widely recognized in Christian circles that God is infinite and eternal. In fact, it says in the doctrine of the Trinity named after Athanasius that God the Father is infinite, eternal, and omnipotent, as are God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, but that there are not three infinite, eternal, and omnipotent beings, but only one. It follows from this that since God is infinite and eternal, only what is infinite and eternal can be attributed to him.

However, we finite beings cannot grasp what anything infinite and eternal is--and yet at the same time we can. We cannot grasp it because the finite cannot contain the infinite; and we can grasp it because there are abstract notions that enable us to see that certain things do exist even though we cannot see what their nature is.

There are such notions about the infinite--for example, that because God is infinite, or Divinity is infinite, God is reality itself or essence itself and substance itself, love itself and wisdom itself, what is good itself and what is true itself, the Only--in fact, the essential Human. Then too, if we say that the infinite is the all, then infinite wisdom is omniscience and infinite power is omnipotence.

[2] These concepts, though, will get lost in the dim depths of our thought and perhaps even fall from incomprehension into denial unless we can rid them of elements that our thought gets from the material world, particularly those two essential features of the material world called space and time. These can only limit our concepts and make abstract concepts seem like nothing at all. However, if we can rid ourselves of them the way angels do, then the infinite can be grasped by means of the things I have just listed. This leads to a grasp of the fact that we ourselves are real because we have been created by the infinite God who is the All, that we are finite substances because we have been created by the infinite God who is substance itself, that we are wisdom because we have been created by the infinite God who is wisdom itself, and so on. For if the infinite God were not the All, substance itself, and wisdom itself, we would not be real, or would simply be nothing, or would be only ideas of existence, according to those dreamers called idealists.

[3] Material presented in the work Divine Love and Wisdom may serve to show that the divine essence is love and wisdom (Divine Love and Wisdom 28-39), that divine love and wisdom are substance itself and form itself and that divine love and wisdom are substance and form in and of themselves, and are therefore wholly "itself" and unique (Divine Love and Wisdom 40-46), and that God created the universe and everything in it not from nothing but from himself (Divine Love and Wisdom 282-284). It follows from this that everything that has been created, especially ourselves and the love and wisdom within us, is real, and is not just an image of reality.

If God were not infinite, then, nothing finite would exist; if the Infinite were not the All, there would not be anything; and if God had not created everything from himself, there would be nothing real, nothing at all. In short, we are because God is.

40. Divine love and wisdom are both substance and form. People commonly have an idea of love and wisdom as abstract entities flying about or floating in the subtler air or ether, or as exhalations emanating from something of that nature. Scarcely anyone thinks that they are really and actually substance and form.

People who do see that they are substance and form still perceive love and wisdom round about the subject of which they are predicated as properties emanating from it; and what they perceive round about a subject as emanating from it - even if perceived as something flying about or floating - they also call substance and form, not knowing that love and wisdom constitute the subject itself, and that whatever is perceived as flying or floating round about it is simply the appearance of the subject's underlying state.

[2] This has not been seen before for a number of reasons. One of these reasons is that the first perceptions out of which the human mind forms its understanding are appearances, appearances which it cannot dispel without investigating their cause; and if the cause lies deeply hidden, the mind cannot investigate it without keeping its intellect for a long time in spiritual light, which it cannot do because of the natural light that constantly draws it back down.

Yet the truth is that love and wisdom are real and actual substance and form, which constitute the very subject of which they are predicated.