The Ratio Between the Infinite and the Finite

Selection from Divine Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

All things created have been created to serve the purposes of Life Itself, which is the Lord.

First, something must be said about Life, and afterwards about all things being created to serve the purposes of Life.

Life is love and wisdom; for to the extent that any one loves God and the neighbour, wisdom showing the way, to that extent he lives. Life Itself, however, which is the Life of all, is the Divine Love and Wisdom: the Divine Love is the Being (Esse) of Life, and the Divine Wisdom is its Existing (Existere): the latter united to the former reciprocally is the Lord. Both, the Divine Being (Esse) and the Divine Existing (Existere), are Infinite and Eternal, for the Divine Love is Infinite and Eternal, and so is the Divine Wisdom. Nevertheless, both the one and the other can have conjunction with an angel or with a man, although no ratio exists between what is finite and what is infinite. As however it is difficult to conceive how there can be conjunction when there is no ratio between them, this needs explaining.

No ratio exists between what is natural and what is spiritual, BUT there is conjunction between them by means of correspondences; nor does any ratio exist between the spiritual in which angels of the ultimate heaven are and the celestial in which angels of the highest heaven are, but there is conjunction between them by means of correspondences; similarly, no ratio exists between the celestial in which angels of the highest heaven are and the Divine of the Lord, nevertheless there is conjunction between them by means of correspondences. The nature of conjunction by means of correspondences has been declared and demonstrated elsewhere.

That the Divine is Infinite and Eternal is because it is the All in all things of the life of love and wisdom with angels and men; angels and men are created recipients of life from the Lord, thus finite, whereas the Lord is uncreate, in Himself Life and consequently Life Itself. Therefore, if men, and angels and spirits from men, were to be multiplied to eternity, it would still be that the Lord gives them life, and from Himself leads them in the very least things, in this there is what is eternal, and where the eternal is, there, also, is what is infinite. As no ratio exists between what is infinite and what is finite, let every one be on their guard against thinking of the Infinite as nothing; one cannot say of "nothing" that it is infinite and eternal, nor can "nothing" be said to have conjunction with anything; nor out of "nothing" can anything be made. On the contrary the Infinite and Eternal Divine is the very Being (Esse) Itself, from Whom is created the finite with which there can be conjunction.

This could be illustrated much more fully however, by a comparison of natural and spiritual things, between which, though there is no ratio, there is conjunction by means of correspondences. Such is the relation [ratio] existing between every cause and its effect, and between everything "that precedes" (prior) and "what follows from it" (posterior), such also is the relation between a higher degree and a lower one, such the relation between men's love and wisdom and the love and wisdom of angels; even so, the love and wisdom of angels, although ineffable and incomprehensible to men, are still no more than finite and are incapable of grasping what is infinite, except through the medium of correspondences.

That all things have been created to serve the purposes of Life, which is the Lord, is a consequence in its turn of the fact that men, and angels from them, have been created for the receiving of life from the Lord, and are indeed nothing else than receptacles, although, because of the freedom in which they are held by the Lord, they seem not to be receptacles; none the less, however, receptacles they are, both the good and the wicked; for the freedom also, in which they are held, is from the Lord.

The life of men and angels consists in understanding and thence thinking and speaking, and in willing and thence doing; accordingly these are also constituents of life from the Lord, for they are effects of that life. All created things in the world have been created for the use of mankind, or for their benefit, or for them to find pleasure in, some things directly so, others less directly. Because, then, all these things have been created for the sake of mankind, it follows that they exist to serve the purposes of the Lord Who is the life with men. It seems, because the good live from the Lord, as if the serving of those purposes exists with them, but not with the wicked; yet the fact is that things created yield use, benefit and pleasure to the wicked the same as to the good. For the Lord says:

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. (Matthew v. 45 )

That the wicked also do not possess any life of themselves, and that they are led throughout by the Lord, notwithstanding their being ignorant of it and not wishing it, can be seen in the passages treating of the life of those in hell.

(from Divine Wisdom 12:4)

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Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The Lord by the intellectual faculty that each man has, or its opposite, is also present with those who are out of heaven and the church, with those who are in hell or who are to come into hell, and knows their whole state. Every man has three degrees of life, a lowest in common with beasts, and two higher that are not in common with beasts. By these two higher degrees man is a man; these are closed with the evil, but with the good are open. And yet, in regard to the light of heaven, which is the wisdom that proceeds from the Lord as a sun, these two degrees are not closed with the evil, but are closed in regard to the heat, which is the love, that at the same time proceeds therefrom. From this it is that every man, even an evil man, has a capacity to understand, but not a capacity to will from heavenly love, for the will is a receptacle of heat, that is, of love, and the understanding is a receptacle of light, that is, of wisdom, from that sun.

The reason why every man is not intelligent and wise is that some have by their lives closed up in themselves the receptacle of that love, and when that is closed they have no wish to understand anything except what they love, for that only do they wish and love to think about and thus understand. And as every man, even an evil man, has an ability to understand, and that ability is from an influx of light from the sun which is the Lord, it is clear that the Lord is also present with those who are out of heaven and the church, who are either in hell or are to come into hell. It is from the same ability that man is able to think and reason about various things, which beasts cannot do. It is from the same ability that man lives forever.

Another proof of the Lord's omnipresence in hell is that the entire hell, like the entire heaven, is before the Lord as one man, but as a man-devil or a man-monster; and in this all things are in opposition to those that are in the Divine man-angel, consequently from this latter everything that is in the former can be known, that is, from heaven everything that is in hell; for evil is known from good and falsity from truth, thus the entire quality of the one from the quality of the other.

There are three heavens, and there are three hells; and as the heavens are divided into societies so are the hells; and each society of hell corresponds by opposition to a society of heaven. The correspondence is like that between good affections and evil affections, for all societies are affections. So in the same way that each society of heaven, as has been said, is in the Lord's sight as one man-angel in the likeness of its affection, each society of hell is in the Lord's sight as one man-devil in the likeness of its evil affection. This, too, it has been granted me to see. They appear like men, but monstrous. I have seen three kinds of them, the fiery, the black, and the pallid, but all of them with deformed faces, a husky voice, external speech, and like gestures. They all have a lascivious love, and not one of them a chaste love. The delights of their will are evils, and the delights of their thoughts are falsities.

(from Apocalypse Explained 1224:2-5)

Uses Through Which Men and Angels have Wisdom

Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

To love uses is nothing else than to love the neighbor, for use in the spiritual sense is the neighbor. This can be seen from the fact that everyone loves another not because of his face and body, but from his will and understanding; he loves one who has a good will and a good understanding, and does not love one with a good will and a bad understanding, or with a good understanding and a bad will. And as a man is loved or not loved for these reasons, it follows that the neighbor is that from which everyone is a man, and that is his spiritual. Place ten men before your eyes that you may choose one of them to be your associate in any duty or business; will you first find out about them and choose the one who comes nearest to your use? Therefore he is your neighbor, and is loved more than the others. Or become acquainted with ten maidens with the purpose of choosing one of them for your wife; do you not at first ascertain the character of each one, and if she consents betroth to you the one that you love? That one is more your neighbor than the others. If you should say to yourself, "Every man is my neighbor, and is therefore to be loved without distinction," a devil-man and an angel-man or a harlot and a virgin might be equally loved. Use is the neighbor, because every man is valued and loved not for his will and understanding alone, but for the uses he performs or is able to perform from these. Therefore a man of use is a man according to his use; and a man not of use is a man not a man, for of such a man it is said that he is not useful for anything; and although in this world he may be tolerated in a community so long as he lives from what is his own, after death when he becomes a spirit he is cast out into a desert.

Man, therefore, is such as his use is. But uses are manifold; in general they are heavenly or infernal.

• Heavenly uses are those that are serviceable more or less, or more nearly or remotely, to the church, to the country, to society, and to a fellow-citizen, for the sake of these as ends.

• Infernal uses are those that are serviceable only to the man himself and those dependent on him; and if serviceable to the church, to the country, to society, or to a fellow citizen, it is not for the sake of these as ends, but for the sake of self as the end. And yet everyone ought from love, though not from self-love, to provide the necessaries and requisites of life for himself and those dependent on him.

When man loves uses by doing them in the first place, and loves the world and self in the second place, the former constitutes his spiritual and the latter his natural; and the spiritual rules, and the natural serves. This makes evident what the spiritual is, and what the natural is. This is the meaning of the Lord's words in Matthew:

Seek ye first the kingdom of the heavens and its justice, and all things shall be added unto you (Matt. 6:33).

"The kingdom of the heavens" means the Lord and His church, and "justice" means spiritual, moral, and civil good; and every good that is done from the love of these is a use. Then "all things shall be added," because when use is in the first place, the Lord, from whom is all good, is in the first place and rules, and gives whatever contributes to eternal life and happiness; for, as has been said, all things of the Lord's Divine providence pertaining to man look to what is eternal. "All things that shall be added" refer to food and raiment, because food means everything internal that nourishes the soul, and raiment everything external that like the body clothes it. Everything internal has reference to love and wisdom, and everything external to wealth and eminence. All this makes clear what is meant by loving uses for the sake of uses, and what the uses are from which man has wisdom, from which and according to which wisdom everyone has eminence and wealth in heaven.

As man was created to perform uses, and this is to love the neighbor, so all who come into heaven, however many there are, must do uses. All the delight and blessedness of these is according to uses and to the love of uses. Heavenly joy is from no other source. He who believes that such joy is possible in idleness is much deceived. No idle person is tolerated even in hell. Those who are there are in workhouses and under a judge who imposes tasks on the prisoners that they must do daily. To those who do not do them neither food nor clothing is given, but they stand hungry and naked; thus are they compelled to work there. The difference is that in hell uses are done from fear, but in heaven from love; and fear does not give joy, but love does. Nevertheless it is proper to vary occupations in different ways in company with others, and these serve as recreations, which are also uses. It has been granted me to see many things in heaven, many things in the world, and many things in the human body, and to consider at the same time their uses; and it has been revealed that every particular thing in them, both great and small, was created from use, in use, and for use; and that the part in which the ultimate that is for use ceases is separated as harmful and is cast out as condemned.

(from Apocalypse Explained 1193-1194)

Recipients of the Divine

Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

As the Divine omnipotence is such that man is not able to think and will, and thus to speak and act, of himself, but is able to do so only from the life which is God, it may be asked why every man is not saved. But he who concludes from this that everyone is saved, or that he is not to be blamed if he is not, is ignorant of the laws of Divine order respecting man's reformation, regeneration, and consequent salvation....

... it is important to make known that the Divine providence operates every particular thing pertaining to man, and even in the most minute particulars, for his eternal salvation;

for the salvation of man was the end of the creation of heaven and of earth. This end was that out of the human race a heaven might be formed, in which God could dwell as in His own very home, consequently the salvation of man is the all in all of the Divine providence.

But the Divine providence proceeds so secretly that man can see scarcely a trace of it, and yet it is active in the most minute particulars relating to him from infancy to old age in the world, and afterwards to eternity, and in each one of these it is the eternal that is regarded.

As the Divine wisdom is in itself nothing but an end, so providence acts from an end, in an end, and to an end. The end is that man may become wisdom and may become love, and thus a dwelling place and an image of the Divine life. ...

(from Apocalypse Explained 1135:3)

Selection from Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The universal end, that is, the end of all things of creation, is that there may be an eternal conjunction of the Creator with the created universe; and this is not possible unless there are subjects wherein His Divine can be as in Itself, thus in which it can dwell and abide. In order that these subjects may be dwelling-places and mansions of Him, they must be recipients of His love and wisdom as of themselves; such, therefore, as will elevate themselves to the Creator as of themselves, and conjoin themselves with Him. Without this ability to reciprocate no conjunction is possible. These subjects are men, who are able as of themselves to elevate and conjoin themselves. That men are such subjects, and that they are recipients of the Divine as of themselves.... By means of this conjunction, the Lord is present in every work created by Him; for everything has been created for man as its end; consequently the uses of all created things ascend by degrees from outmosts to man, and through man to God the Creator from whom [are all things].

(from Divine Love and Wisdom 170)