Amazwana

 

The Universe

Ngu New Christian Bible Study Staff, Julian Duckworth

There is God - Divine Love and Divine Wisdom Itself. Love cannot live fully in a vacuum. Love to be full needs to be reciprocal. So, God created a universe and all that is in it in order that there may be humans He can love and who can love Him in return eventually in heaven to eternity. See True Christian Religion 13[6] which ends with the following: “This vast system which is called the universe is a work coherent as a unit from things first to things last, because in creating it God had a single end in view, which was an angelic heaven from the human race; and all things of which the world consists are means to that end; since he who seeks an end seeks also the means.”

God's love and wisdom are shown in the universe as in an image. The universe is not God, but it is from God and nothing in the universe exists in itself. Each human being is also an image of God. “God created man in His own image, in the image of Go created He him; male and female created He them.” Genesis 1:27

We are created in God’s image and the universe is an image of God, and everything in the universe corresponds with everything in man - man is a kind of mini universe.

Divine Love and Wisdom 52 offers a nice sweeping explanation of this correspondence:

“So full of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom is the universe in greatest and least, and in first and last things, that it may be said to be Divine Love and Divine Wisdom in an image. That this is so is clearly evident from the correspondence of all things of the universe with all things of man. There is such correspondence of each and every thing that takes form in the created universe with each and every thing of man, that man may be said to be a sort of universe. There is a correspondence of his affections, and thence of his thoughts, with all things of the animal kingdom; of his will, and thence of his understanding, with all things of the vegetable kingdom; and of his outmost life with all things of the mineral kingdom….”

We have a chance to live in a way that this can keep on coming true: “God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Genesis 1:31

(Izinkomba: True Christian Religion 13)

Okususelwe Emisebenzini kaSwedenborg

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #52

Funda lesi Sigaba

  
Yiya esigabeni / 432  
  

52. Everything in the universe has been created by the Divine love and wisdom of the human God. The universe in its greatest and least elements and in its first and last elements is so full of Divine love and wisdom that it can be said to be Divine love and wisdom in an image. The reality of this clearly appears from the correspondence that all the constituents of the universe have with all the constituents of a human being. Each and every phenomenon that occurs in the created universe has such a correspondence with each and every constituent of the human being that one may declare the human being to be also a kind of universe. His affections and resulting thoughts have a correspondence with all the constituents of the animal kingdom, his will and consequent understanding with all the constituents of the plant kingdom, and the outmost constituents of his life with all the constituents of the mineral kingdom.

[2] The existence of such a correspondence is not apparent to anyone in the natural world, but it is to everyone who takes note of it in the spiritual world. That world contains all the phenomena that occur in the three kingdoms of the natural world, and they are correspondent manifestations of the affections and thoughts of the inhabitants there - of the affections emanating from the will and of the thoughts emanating from the intellect - and of the outmost constituents of their life. Moreover, these correspondent manifestations and phenomena appear round about them in a visible form like that of the created universe, with the difference that they do so in a lesser image of it.

[3] It is clearly apparent to angels from this that the created universe is a representative image of the human God, and that it is His love and wisdom which are displayed in an image in the universe. Not that the created universe is the human God, but that it exists from Him. For nothing whatever in the created universe is substance and form in itself, or life in itself, or love and wisdom in itself, indeed neither is the human being human in himself, but all is from God, who is human in Himself, wisdom and love in itself, and form and substance in itself. Whatever exists in itself is uncreated and infinite. Whatever exists from that, however - this, because it retains nothing in it that exists in itself, is created and finite, and it reflects an image of Him from whom it exists and takes form.

  
Yiya esigabeni / 432  
  

Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.