20. Anyone who has learned about God's order can also understand that man was created so as to become an angel, because in him order reaches its ultimate stage (see 9 above). In this stage something of the wisdom of heaven and the angels can be formed, and it can be reconstituted and multiplied. God's order never stops half-way, and forms anything there without the ultimate stage; for it is not in its fullness and perfection unless it goes to the ultimate. But when it is there, then it takes shape and uses the means at its disposal there to reconstitute and extend itself, which it does by reproduction. The ultimate is therefore the seed-bed of heaven.

This too is what is meant by the description of man and his creation in the first chapter of Genesis:

God said, Let us make ¹ man in our image, according to our likeness. And God created man in His image, in the image of God did He create him. Male and female He created them; and God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply. Genesis 1:26-28.

Creating in the image of God and in the likeness of God means conferring on him the whole of God's order from first to last, and so making him an angel as regards the interiors of his mind.

അടിക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ:

7171. It should be recognized that the sun in this world is not at all visible to any spirit, nor is any light from it visible; for the light of the sun is to spirits like thick darkness. It remains only in spirits' minds, as a result of their having seen it when they were in the world; and the picture of it which presents itself in their minds is a kind of dark patch, a considerable distance away behind them, at a height slightly above head-level. The planets within the solar system appear in fixed positions in relation to the sun - Mercury behind it, slightly to the right; the planet Venus on the left, slightly to the rear; the planet Mars on the left, out in front; the planet Jupiter similarly out in front on the left, but further away; the planet Saturn directly in front, but a considerable distance away; the Moon on the left, quite high up; and other satellites too are on the left of their own planets. This is the way that the planets are aligned in spirits and angels' ideas about them. Also spirits are seen close to their own planet; but they remain outside it.