1. Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence

Divine Providence Is the Form of Government Exercised by the Lord's Divine Love and Wisdom

To understand what divine providence is--that it is the way the Lord's divine love and wisdom govern us--it is important to be aware of the following things, which were presented in my book on the subject.

In the Lord, divine love is a property of divine wisdom and divine wisdom is a property of divine love (Divine Love and Wisdom 34-39).

Divine love and wisdom cannot fail to be and to be manifested in others that it has created (Divine Love and Wisdom 47-51).

Everything in the universe was created by divine love and wisdom (Divine Love and Wisdom 52, 53, 151-156).

Everything in the created universe is a vessel of divine love and wisdom (54-60 [55-60]).

The Lord looks like the sun to angels; its radiating warmth is love and its radiating light is wisdom (Divine Love and Wisdom 83-88, 89-92, 93-98, 296-301).

The divine love and wisdom that emanate from the Lord constitute a single whole (Divine Love and Wisdom 99-102).

The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, created the universe and everything in it from himself and not from nothing (Divine Love and Wisdom 282-284, 290-295). These propositions may be found in the work titled Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom.

34. Divine love is a property of divine wisdom, and divine wisdom is a property of divine love. On the divine reality and the divine manifestation being distinguishably one in the Divine-Human One, see 14-16 above. Since the divine reality is divine love and the divine manifestation is divine wisdom, these latter are similarly distinguishably one.

We refer to them as "distinguishably one" because love and wisdom are two distinguishable things, and yet they are so united that love is a property of wisdom and wisdom a property of love. Love finds its reality in wisdom, and wisdom finds its manifestation in love. Further, since wisdom derives its manifestation from love (as noted in 15 [14] above), divine wisdom is reality as well. It follows from this that love and wisdom together are the divine reality, though when they are distinguished we call love the divine reality and wisdom the divine manifestation. This is the quality of the angelic concept of divine love and wisdom.

401. (3) Love or the will cannot do anything through its human form without a marriage with wisdom or the intellect. This, too, is apparent from the correspondence of the heart with the will. The human fetus lives because of its heart, but not because of its lungs; for blood does not flow then from the heart into the lungs and grant them the power of respiration, but flows instead through an opening [from the right atrium into the left atrium and so] into the left ventricle of the heart. ¹ Consequently during that time the fetus cannot move any part of its body, but lies bound, nor is it capable of any sensation, its sensory organs being closed.

The case is the same with love or the will, which causes the fetus nevertheless to live, but dimly so, that is, without sensation or activity. As soon as the lungs open, however, which happens after birth, it then begins to experience sensation and to act, and likewise to will and think.

It can be seen from this that love or the will cannot do anything through its human form without a marriage with wisdom or the intellect.

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