39. Verse 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things, living creatures; and let birds fly above the earth, upon the face ¹ of the expanse of the heavens.

After the great lights have been kindled and lodged in the internal man, from which the external man receives its light, a person starts to live for the first time. Till then he can hardly be said to have lived, for he had imagined that the good he had done he had done from himself, and the truth he had uttered he had spoken from himself. And since man functioning from himself is dead - there being nothing in him that is not evil and false - therefore whatever he brings forth from himself is not living. So true is this that of himself he is incapable of doing any good deed that is in itself good. The fact that man cannot begin to think about good or to will it, and so cannot do good, unless the Lord is the source, is clear to everyone from the doctrine of faith, for the Lord says in Matthew,

He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. Matthew 13:37.

Nor can good come from anywhere else than the one fount itself of all good, as yet again He says,

Nobody is good but one, God. Luke 18:19.

[2] Nevertheless when the Lord is revitalizing a person, or regenerating him, He does allow him, to begin with, to imagine that good and truth originate in himself, for at that point a person cannot grasp anything else, or be led to believe and finally perceive, that all good and truth come from the Lord alone. As long as he held the former opinion his truths and goods were comparable to 'a tender plant', then 'a plant bearing seed', and after that 'a fruit tree', which are inanimate. But once he has been brought to life by love and faith and believes that the Lord is at work in every good deed he does and in every truth he utters, he is compared first to creeping things from the water and to birds which fly above the earth, and then to beasts, all of which are animate and are called 'living creatures'.

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48. What is earthly and what is spiritual. How wrong-headed it is that today's world attributes almost everything to the physical world and almost nothing to the Divine: 3483. Why this is the case (5116) when the fact is that absolutely everything in the physical world not only arose but also continues to exist from the Divine, through the agency of the spiritual world (775, 8211). Things divine, heavenly, and spiritual have their outermost boundaries in the physical world: 4240, 4939. The physical world is the foundation on which they stand: 4240, 5651, 6275, 6284, 6299, 9216. Heavenly, spiritual, and earthly realities follow and progress in proper sequence, and are accompanied by what is divine because they come from the Divine: 880, 4938, 4939, 9992, 10005, 10017, 10068. Heavenly realities act as the head [in the universal human], spiritual realities the torso, and earthly realities the legs and feet: 4938, 4939. One of these flows into the next in the same order just mentioned: 4938, 4939. The goodness of the central or third heaven is called "heavenly," the goodness of the intermediate or second heaven is called "spiritual," and the goodness of the outermost or first heaven is called "spiritual-earthly," which make it possible for us to know what the terms "heavenly," "spiritual," and "earthly" mean: 4279, 4286, 4938, 4939, 9992, 10005, 10017, 10068. See also my book Heaven and Hell 20-28, 29-40.

[2] Everything in the physical world comes from the Divine through the spiritual world: 5013. So there is something spiritual within everything earthly, like an efficient cause within an effect (3562, 5711), like the impetus within motion (5173), and like an inner level within an outer level (3562, 5711, 5326); and since a cause is the essential element within an effect, the impetus is the essential element within a motion, and the inner level is the essential element within an outer level, it follows that what is spiritual is actually the essential element within what is earthly, and therefore so is the Divine, which is the source of all things (2987-3002, 9701-9709). Spiritual realities are manifested in what is earthly, and those manifestations are representations and correspondences: 1632, 2987-3002. Because of this, the whole physical world is a theater that portrays the spiritual world-that is, heaven: 2758, 2999, 3000, 4939, 8848, 9280. All things in the physical world are arranged in a design and sequence according to the purposes they serve: 4104. This [purposiveness] comes from the spiritual world (that is, heaven) because purposes, which are ways of being useful, are dominant there: 454, 696, 1103, 3645, 4054, 7038. We have been created in such a way that we perceive in ourselves divine things that are descending all the way into physical matter in accord with the divine design: 3702.

[3] If we are in accord with the divine design, we invariably have an inner level and an outer level. Our inner level is called "the spiritual level" or "the spiritual self," and our outer level is called "the earthly level" or "the earthly self": 978, 1015, 4459, 6309, 9701-9709. Our spiritual self is in heaven's light and our earthly self is in this world's light: 5965. Our earthly self cannot grasp anything on its own; its comprehension is a result of our spiritual self: 5286. Our earthly level is like a surface in which our deeper qualities see themselves; this is how thinking takes place: 5165. Our spiritual self produces thought in our earthly level and therefore thought in earthly terms, as long as our spiritual concerns come into our awareness down on the sensory level: 3679, 5165, 6284, 6299. The earthly plane is where what is spiritual has its outermost boundaries: 5651, 6275, 6284, 6299, 9216. Our spiritual self does not see anything in our earthly self unless our earthly self corresponds to our spiritual self: 3493, 3620, 3623. Our spiritual or inner self can see what is going on in our earthly or outer self, but not the reverse, because what is spiritual flows into what is earthly, but what is earthly does not flow into what is spiritual: 3219, 4667, 5119, 5259, 5427, 5428, 5477, 6322, 9110. On the basis of its own light, which is called earthly light, ¹ our earthly self does not know anything about God or heaven or life after death; and it does not believe anything it hears unless some spiritual illumination, which is light from heaven, flows into that [earthly] light: 8444.

[4] From birth and by nature, our earthly self is opposed to our spiritual self: 3913, 3928. As a result, as long as these selves remain opposed we find it irksome to think about spiritual and heavenly subjects but pleasant to think about earthly and bodily ones: 4096. We feel sick when we are faced with heavenly subjects-even when they are merely mentioned: 5006, 9109 (which include evidence from eyewitness experience). People who are entirely earthly regard anything that is spiritually good and true as a slave: 5013, 5025. Yet the earthly self should be subject to the spiritual self and should serve it: 3019, 5168. Our spiritual self can be said to be a slave to our earthly self when we use our intellect to garner justification, especially from the Word, for the kind of things that we crave: 3020, 5013, 5025, 5168. What merely earthly people look like in the other life, and what their state and destiny is there: 4630, 4633, 4940-4951, 5032, 5571.

[5] The truths that we have in the earthly self are called "factual" and "conceptual": 3293. In its natural state, our earthly self has a materialistic imagination and has drives like those of animals: 3020. When, however, the vision, action, and life of our earthly self depend on our inner or spiritual self, then we develop genuine thought and imagination: 3493, 5422, 5423, 5427, 5428, 5477, 5512.

[6] Relative to the contents of our spiritual self, the contents of our earthly self are very general (3513, 5707); and are therefore comparatively in the dark: (6686).

[7] Our earthly self has an inner and an outer layer: 3293, 3294, 3793, 5118, 5126, 5497, 5649. There is also a bridge between them: 4570, 9216. It is in and by means of our earthly self that our spiritual self is relieved of its burdens: 9572.

People who do good things solely because of the earthly disposition they were born with and not on the basis of religion are not accepted into heaven: 8772.

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