33. (vi) EVERY CREATED OBJECT IS FINITE, AND THE INFINITE IS CONTAINED IN FINITE OBJECTS AS IN RECEIVERS, AND IN HUMAN BEINGS AS IMAGES OF IT.

Every created object is finite, because it is from Jehovah God that all things exist by means of the sun of the spiritual world, which most nearly surrounds Him; and that sun is composed of a substance which has emanated from Him, the essence of which is love. From that sun by means of its heat and light the universe, from first to last, was created; but this is not the place to expound the order of creation. A sketch of this will be given later. Here it is only important to know that one was formed from another, and that thus the three degrees were established: three in the spiritual world, and three corresponding to these in the natural world, and three more in the inert substances of which the terrestrial globe is composed. The origin and nature of those degrees have been fully expounded in my ANGELIC WISDOM CONCERNING THE DIVINE LOVE AND THE DIVINE WISDOM (Amsterdam, 1763) and the booklet ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE SOUL AND THE BODY (London, 1769). It was these degrees which made all subsequent things receivers of earlier ones, and these of yet earlier ones, and so eventually a receiver of the primordial substances which compose the sun of the heaven of angels; thus they are finite receivers of the infinite. This too is in agreement with the wisdom of the ancients, who held that everything is infinitely divisible. It is generally thought that because the finite cannot contain the infinite, finite things cannot be receivers of the infinite. But it has been established by what I have written about creation in my books that God first limited His infinity by means of substances emanating from Him, and this was the origin of the circuit most nearly surrounding Him which constitutes the sun of the spiritual world, and that by means of that sun He made the remaining circuits down to the last, which is composed of inert matter; and thus by degrees He made the world more and more limited. These remarks are made so as to satisfy the human reason, which is not happy unless it sees the cause.

10619. 'And great in goodness and truth' means that He is absolute Goodness and absolute Truth. This is clear from the consideration that the Divine is infinite, and nothing other can be said of the Infinite than that He is the Absolute, or Being itself, and so is absolute Goodness; and being absolute Goodness He is also absolute Truth since all truth is the complement of good. But this Absoluteness is expressed in the sense of the letter by the description 'great in goodness and truth', thus by words descriptive of something finite on account of man's finite power of perception. That the Divine is absolute Goodness is clear in Matthew,

Jesus said to the young man, Why do you call Me good? None is good except one, God. Matthew 19:17.

By this one should understand that the Lord, and the Lord alone, is good, thus is absolute Goodness. And that He is absolute Truth is clear in John,

Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. John 14:6.