3
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Explanation of John 1:3
By Brian David
It sounds strange to say that the universe was created by divine truth – “truth” doesn’t
sound like an active, building kind of thing – but it makes more sense when we think of
“truth” in its deepest sense: as love expressed, as love given form. Because the Lord was
love itself He had to create so He would have something to love. And truth is the thing
that turns love into creation, by giving love expression and giving it form.
That’s not easy to visualize. But it’s interesting – and a bit stunning – how those ideas
from the Writings were borne out by Albert Einstein 130-some years later. One of
Einstein’s most important findings was that mass and energy are really the same thing.
That’s expressed in the famous equation e=mc^2 , in which “e” is energy, “m” is mass and
“c” is the speed of light. It meant that mass – the “stuff” things are made of, the stuff we
can feel and heft – is actually made up of huge amounts of energy trapped in very small
spaces. This meant that breaking up “stuff” and releasing the energy would be very
powerful – it is the basis of nuclear weapons and powerplants – and also meant that the
universe was ultimately one big energy field, folded and crinkled to form mass, in ways
complex enough to form the world we know.
These things were not known or even imagined when the Writing were written, but
replace energy with “love” and mass with “truth” and you can see how alike it is. Truth is
love in patterns, crinkled and folded to form solid concepts, just as mass is energy in
patterns, folded and crinkled to form physical things. And that natural reality of mass and
energy is an extension of the spiritual reality of truth and love.Arcana Coelestia 9410:5Athanasian Creed 145
Worlds in Space #122
122. In addition to the reasons already noted, the inhabitants and spirits of our world answer in the Grand Man to the natural and external sense. This sense is the ultimate point at which the interiors of life come to an end, and in which they come to rest as on their common base. Divine truth in the letter, which we call the Word, is similar; and it was for this reason that it was given in this world and not in another. 1 And because the Lord is the Word, and its First and Last, it was so that everything should come into being in proper order that He chose to be born in this world, and to become the Word. This is in agreement with John's words:
In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made by His means, and nothing that was made was made without Him. And the Word was made flesh, and lived among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the only son of the Father. No one has ever seen God, but the only son, who is in the Father's bosom, He has explained Him. John 1:1-4, 14, 18.
The Word is the Lord in respect of Divine truth, and so Divine truth coming from the Lord. 2 But this is a mystery which few can understand.
Footnotes:
1. [Swedenborg’s Footnote] The Word is natural in its literal sense (Arcana Caelestia 8783). This is because the natural is the lowest level on which the spiritual and celestial levels rest, and as it were the foundation on which the others are built. Otherwise the inner or spiritual sense of the Word, if devoid of an outer or natural sense, would be like a house without foundations (Arcana Caelestia 9430, 9433, 9824, 10044, 10436).
2. [Swedenborg’s Footnote] The Word is the Lord as regards Divine truth, and thus Divine truth coming from the Lord (Arcana Caelestia 2859, 4692, 5075, 9987). All things were created and made by means of Divine truth (Arcana Caelestia 2803, 2894 [2884 in original], Arcana Caelestia 5272, 7835 [perhaps Arcana Caelestia 7678]).
