364. (i) The Lord flows into every human being with all His Divine love, all His Divine wisdom, and so with all His Divine life.

We read in the Book of Creation that man was created an image of God, and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 1:27; 2:7). This description means that he is an organ of life, not life itself. For God could not have created another like Himself; if He could have done so, there would be as many gods as there are people. Nor could He create life, just as neither can light be created. But He could create man to be a form for life to act on, just as He created the eye to be a form for light to act on. Nor could God, nor can He, divide His essence, since it is one and indivisible. So since God alone is life, it follows indubitably that God uses His own life to give life to every human being. Without that quickening man would be as regards flesh nothing but a sponge, and as regards bones nothing but a skeleton, no more alive than a clock, which is kept running by a pendulum together with a weight or a spring. Since this is so, it also follows that God flows in with every person with all His Divine life, that is, with all His Divine love and Divine wisdom. These two make up His Divine life (39-40 above); for the Divine cannot be divided.

[2] However, the manner in which God flows in with all His Divine life can be grasped as somewhat resembling the way the sun of the world flows in with all its essence, which is heat and light, into every tree, into every shrub and flower, into every stone, ordinary as well as precious, so that each single object draws its ration from this common inflow; but the sun does not split up its light and heat, giving part to this object and part to that. It is much the same with the sun of heaven, which radiates Divine love as heat and Divine wisdom as light. These two flow into human minds, just as the heat and light of the sun of the world flow into human bodies, giving them life depending on the nature of their form; the form of each takes from the common inflow what it needs. The following saying of the Lord can be applied to this:

Your Father makes His sun rise upon the wicked and the good, and sends rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous, Matthew 5:45.

[3] Also, the Lord is omnipresent, and where He is present, there He is with His whole essence. It is impossible for Him to take anything away from that essence, so as to give a part to one and another part to another, but He gives it in its entirety, enabling a person to take a little or much. He says too that He has His dwelling with those who keep His commandments, and that the faithful are in Him and He is in them. In short, everything is full of God, and from that fulness each takes his own share. Everything held in common is like this, for instance, the atmospheres or the oceans. The atmosphere is the same on the smallest as it is on the largest scale. It does not assign a part of itself to a person's breathing, to a bird's flying, or to the sails of a ship, or the sails of a wind-mill; but each takes from it its own portion and uses for itself as much as is enough. It is also similar with a granary full of wheat; the owner each day takes from it his own rations, and it is not the granary that distributes them.

40. We also read in John:

As the Father has life in Himself, so did He grant the Son to have life in Himself, John 5:26.

This means that just as the Divine itself, which existed from eternity, has life in itself, so has the Human which it assumed in time. Life in itself is the very, sole life which enables angels and men to live. Human reason can grasp this by considering the light radiated by the sun of the natural world. This light is not capable of being created, but the forms which receive it are created; the eyes are designed to receive light, and it is the light radiated by the sun which enables them to see. It is the same with life, which, as said before, is light radiated by the sun of the spiritual world; this is not capable of being created, but by its continuous radiation as it were lights up and gives life to men's understanding. It follows that since light, life and wisdom are one, wisdom too cannot be created; and the same is true of faith, truth, love, charity and good. It is the forms which receive them which are created, namely, the minds of men and angels.

[2] Let everyone therefore beware of convincing himself that he owes his life to himself, or his intelligence, belief, love, perception of truth or his willing and doing good. In so far as he convinces himself of these ideas, so far does he cast down his mind earthwards from heaven, and from being spiritual becomes natural, influenced by the senses and the body. For he thus shuts off the higher regions of his mind, so that he becomes blinded to everything which relates to God, heaven and the church. Everything he may then think, reason and say is mere foolishness, because he is in darkness; yet at the same time he becomes confident that these are the products of wisdom. For when the higher regions of the mind, the abode of the true light of life, are shut off, the region of the mind below these, which is illuminated only by the faint glimmer of the world, is opened up. This glimmer, unsupported by the light of the higher regions, is a misleading illumination, in which falsities look like truths, and truths like falsities; reasoning from falsities looks like wisdom, and from truths like madness. Then a person believes himself to have the keenness of sight of an eagle, though he can see no more of wisdom than a bat in daytime.