The Created Universe - An Image Representative of God-Man

Selection from Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

• All things in the universe were created from the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of God-Man.

• 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
• of his outmost life with all things of the mineral kingdom.

That there is such a correspondence is not apparent to any one in the natural world, but it is apparent to every one who gives heed to it in the spiritual world. In that world [the spiritual world], there are all things that take form in the natural world in its three kingdoms, and they are correspondences of affections and thoughts, that is, of affections from the will and of thoughts from the understanding, also of the outmost things of the life, of those who are in that world, around whom all these things are visible, presenting an appearance like that of the created universe, with the difference that it is in lesser form.

• From this it is very evident to angels, that the created universe is an image representative of God-Man, and that it is His Love and Wisdom which are presented, in an image, in the universe. Not that the created universe is God-Man, but that it is 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, yea, neither is man a man in himself, but all is from God, who is MAN, Wisdom and Love, also Form and Substance, in itself. That which has Being-in-itself is uncreate and infinite; but whatever is from Very Being, since it contains in it nothing of Being-in-itself, is created and finite, and this exhibits an image of Him from whom it has being and has form.

• Of things created and finite Esse [Being] and Existere [Taking Form] can be predicated, likewise substance and form, also life, and even love and wisdom; but these are all created and finite. This can be said of things created and finite, not because they possess anything Divine, but because they are in the Divine, and the Divine is in them. For everything that has been created is, in itself, inanimate and dead, but all things are animated and made alive by this, that the Divine is in them, and that they are in the Divine.

(Divine Love and Wisdom 52, 53)

[emphasis by editor]