18. Anyone can come to an inner assurance about the presence of infinite things in God--anyone, that is, who believes that God is a person; because if God is a person, he has a body and everything that having a body entails. So he has a face, torso, abdomen, upper legs, and lower legs, since without these he would not be a person. Since he has these components, he also has eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and tongue. He also has what we find within a person, such as a heart and lungs and the things that depend on them, all of which, taken together, make us human. We are created with these many components, and if we consider them in their interconnections, they are beyond counting. In the Divine-Human One, though, they are infinite. Nothing is lacking, so he has an infinite completeness.

We can make this comparison of the uncreated Person, who is God, with us who are created, because that God is a person. It is because of him that we earthly beings are said to have been created in his image and in his likeness (Genesis 1:26-27).

5879. 'Is my father still alive?' means the presence of spiritual good from the natural. This is clear from the representation of Israel, to whom 'father' refers here, as spiritual good from the natural, dealt with in 5801, 5803, 5806, 5812, 5817, 5819, 5826, 5833 (its derivation from the natural being dealt with in 4286); and from the meaning of 'is he still alive?' as the presence of that good. For when he revealed who he was Joseph thought first about his father, whom he knew to be alive. His father was therefore present in his thought at the beginning, and also constantly after that when he talks to his brothers. The reason for this is that the internal celestial, which is 'Joseph', cannot become joined to the truths in the natural, which are 'the sons of Jacob', except through spiritual good from the natural, which is 'Israel'. And once that joining together has taken place they are no longer the sons of Jacob but the sons of Israel; for 'the sons of Israel' are spiritual truths within the natural.