82. I need to say something about vacuum at this point. I once heard some angels talking with Newton about vacuum, saying that they could not stand the notion of vacuum. This was because in their world, which is a spiritual one, within or above the space and time of our earthly world, they were still feeling, thinking, being moved, loving, intending, and breathing, and still talking and acting, which could not possibly happen in a vacuum that was "nothing" because nothing is nothing, and we cannot attribute anything to nothing.

Newton said he knew that Divinity, the One who is, fills everything, and that he was aghast at the notion of a vacuum as nothing because this was a totally destructive notion. He urged the angels who were discussing vacuum with him to beware the notion of nothing, calling it a fantasy because there is no mental activity in nothing.

445. XLVI. THE RESUSCITATION OF MAN FROM THE DEAD AND HIS ENTRANCE INTO ETERNAL LIFE.

When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit's thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense "death" signifies resurrection and continuation of life. ¹

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