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.

92. It has not been known before that angels and spirits are in a completely different light and warmth than we are. It has not even been known that there was a different light and warmth. Human thought has not penetrated beyond the deeper or purer aspects of nature. As a result, many people have located the dwellings of angels and spirits in the ether or even in the stars--within nature, that is, and not above or beyond it. In fact, though, angels and spirits are wholly above or beyond nature. They are in their own world, one that is under a different sun. Further, since spatial intervals are only apparent in that world, as I have explained earlier [7], we cannot say that they are in the ether or in the stars. They are right with us, united to our own spirits in feeling and thought. Each of us is a spirit. That is the source of our thinking and intending. This means that the spiritual world is right where we are, not distanced from us in the least. In short, as far as the deeper levels of our minds are concerned we are all in that world, surrounded by angels and spirits there. We think because of the light of that world and love because of its warmth.

7. Divinity is not in space. Given the divine omnipresence--presence with everyone in the world, with every angel in heaven, and with every spirit under heaven--there is no way a merely physical image can compass the thought that Divinity, or God, is not in space. Only a spiritual image will suffice. Physical images are inadequate because they involve space. They are put together out of earthly things, and there is something spatial about absolutely every earthly thing we see with our eyes. Everything that is large or small here involves space, everything that is long or wide or high here involves space--in a word, every measurement, every shape, every form here involves space. This is why I said that a merely physical image cannot compass the fact that Divinity is not in space when the claim is made that it is everywhere.

Still, we can grasp this with our earthly thinking if only we let in a little spiritual light. This requires that I first say something about spiritual concepts and the spiritual thinking that arises from them. Spiritual concepts have nothing to do with space. They have to do solely with state, state being an attribute of love, life, wisdom, desires, and the delights they provide--in general, an attribute of what is good and true. A truly spiritual concept of these realities has nothing in common with space. It is higher and looks down on spatial concepts the way heaven looks down on earth.

However, since angels and spirits see with their eyes the way we do on earth, and since objects can be seen only in space, there does seem to be space in the spiritual world where angels and spirits are, space like ours on earth. Still, it is not space but an appearance of space. It is not fixed and invariant like ours. It can be lengthened and shortened, changed and altered; and since it cannot be defined by measurement, we here cannot grasp it with an earthly concept, but only with a spiritual one. Spiritual concepts are no different when they apply to spatial distances than when they apply to "distances" of what is good and "distances" of what is true, which are agreements and likenesses as to state.