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.

3485. The representations that occur in the next life are appearances. But they are living representations because they come from the light of life. The light of life is Divine Wisdom, which is received from the Lord alone. Consequently all things that come into being from that light, unlike those from the light of the world, are real. For this reason people in the next life have said several times that the things they behold in that world are real, whereas those that man beholds are by contrast not real. The reason for this is that the former are living and so have a direct influence on their life, whereas the latter are not living and so have no direct influence on their life, except insofar as things with them belonging to the light of the world join themselves appropriately and by correspondence to those belonging to the light of heaven. From all these considerations it now becomes clear what representations are and what correspondences are.