46. (vi) THESE PROPERTIES OF THE DIVINE LOVE WERE THE REASON THE UNIVERSE WAS CREATED, AND ARE THE REASON IT IS PRESERVED IN EXISTENCE.

A thorough scrutiny and examination of these three essentials of the Divine Love can lead us to see that they were the reason for creation. That the first, loving others than itself, was a cause is clear from the universe being other than God, as the world is other than the sun, and something to which His love could extend and on which it could be exercised and so come to rest. We read too that, after God had created heaven and the earth, He rested, and this was the origin of the Sabbath (Genesis 2:2-3).

[2] The second essential, wishing to be one with them, was also a cause as is clear from the creation of man in the image and likeness of God. By this is meant that man was made as a form to receive love and wisdom from God, that is, to be someone with whom God could unite Himself, and on his account with every single thing in the universe, since these are nothing but means to the end. For being linked to a final cause involves also being linked to mediate causes. It is clear from the Book of Creation or Genesis (Genesis 1:28-30) that all things were created on account of man.

[3] The third essential, devoting oneself to their happiness, was also a cause, as is clear from the heaven of angels, which has been provided for every human being who receives the love of God; all there are made happy by God alone. These three essentials of God's love are also the reason why the universe is preserved, because preservation is perpetual creation, just as remaining in existence is a perpetual coming into existence; and the Divine Love is from eternity to eternity the same. So as it was in the creation of the world, such too it remains in the created world.

7153. 'And you shall deliver the tally of bricks' means the falsities which are to be introduced in abundance. This is clear from what has been stated above in 7116, where similar words occur. Such then are the [arcana] which these verses contain in the internal sense, things which perhaps seem to man to be of little importance and also unconnected with one another. Nevertheless each one is essential to the subject that is being dealt with; and all hang together in a very beautiful way. Angels perceive this to be true, for they see in the light of heaven the ways in which things follow one another and are linked together, and they see countless arcana formed out of interior truths, which gives those things a very beautiful and very lovely appearance. Man cannot do the same thing at all because interior truths are hidden from him. Nor therefore can he connect together the details contained in these verses; it seems to him as though they are disjointed, which is why, as has been stated, they seem to him to be of little importance.