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from:
Angelic Wisdom Concerning Divine Love and Wisdom,
by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1763:
GOD IS A MAN
DLW 11. In all the heavens
there is no other idea of God than that He is a Man. This is because heaven as
a whole and in part is in form like a man, and because it is the Divine which
is with the angels that constitutes heaven and inasmuch as thought proceeds
according to the form of heaven, it is impossible for the angels to think of
God in any other way. From this it is that all those in the world who are
conjoined with heaven think of God in the same way when they think interiorly
in themselves, that is, in their spirit. From this fact that God is a Man, all
angels and all spirits, in their complete form, are men. This results from the
form of heaven, which is like itself in its greatest and in its least parts.
That heaven as a whole and in part is in form like a man, see (HH n.
59-87); and that thoughts proceed according to the form of heaven, see (HH
n. 203, 204). It is known from (Genesis 1:26, 27), that men were
created after the image and likeness of God. God also appeared as a man to
Abraham and to others. The ancients, from the wise even to the simple, thought
of God no otherwise than as being a Man; and when at length they began to
worship a plurality of gods, as at Athens and Rome, they worship them all as
men. What is here said may be illustrated by the following extract from a
small treatise already published:-
The Gentiles, especially the Africans, who acknowledge and
worship one God, the Creator of the universe, have concerning God the idea
that He is a Man, and declare that no one can have any other idea of God. When
they learn that there are many who cherish an idea of God as something
cloud-like in the midst of things, they ask where such persons are; and on
being told that they are among Christians, they declare it to be impossible.
They are informed, however, that this idea arises from the fact that God in
the Word is called "a Spirit," and of a spirit they have no other idea than of
a bit of cloud, not knowing that every spirit and every angel is a man. An
examination, nevertheless, was made, whether the spiritual idea of such
persons was like their natural idea, and it was found not to be so with those
who acknowledge the Lord interiorly as God of heaven and earth. I heard a
certain elder from the Christians say that no one can have an idea of a Human
Divine; and I saw him taken about to various Gentile nations, and successively
to such as were more and more interior, and from them to their heavens, and
finally to the Christian heaven; and everywhere their interior perception
concerning God was communicated to him, and he observed that they had no other
idea of God than that He is a man, which is the same as the idea of a Human
Divine (LJ n. 74).
DLW 12. The common people in
Christendom have an idea that God is a Man, because God in the Athanasian
doctrine of the Trinity is called a "Person." But those who are more learned
than the common people pronounce God to be invisible; and this for the reason
that they cannot comprehend how God, as a Man, could have created heaven and
earth, and then fill the universe with His presence, and many things besides,
which cannot enter the understanding so long as the truth that the Divine is
not in space is ignored. Those, however, who go to the Lord alone think of a
Human Divine, thus of God as a Man.
DLW 13. How important it is to
have a correct idea of God can be known from the truth that the idea of God
constitutes the inmost of thought with all who have religion, for all things
of religion and all things of worship look to God. And since God, universally
and in particular, is in all things of religion and of worship, without a
proper idea of God no communication with the heavens is possible. From this it
is that in the spiritual world every nation has its place allotted in
accordance with its idea of God as a Man; for in this idea, and in no other,
is the idea of the Lord. That man's state of life after death is according to
the idea of God in which he has become confirmed, is manifest from the
opposite of this, namely, that the denial of God, and, in the Christian world,
the denial of the Divinity of the Lord, constitutes hell.
GOD IS AN INFINITE MAN
DLW 18. That in God there are
infinite things, anyone may convince himself who believes that God is a Man;
for, being a Man, He has a body and every thing pertaining to it, that is, a
face, breast, abdomen, loins and feet; for without these He would not be a
Man. And having these, He also has eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and tongue; also
the parts within man, as the heart and lungs, and their dependencies, all of
which, taken together, make man to be a man. In a created man these parts are
many, and regarded in their details of structure are numberless; but in
God-Man they are infinite, nothing whatever is lacking, and from this He has
infinite perfection. This comparison holds between the uncreated Man who is
God and created man, because God is a Man; and He Himself says that the man of
this world was created after His image and into His likeness (Gen.
1:26, 27).
DLW 19. That in God there are
infinite things, is still more evident to the angels from the heavens in which
they dwell. The whole heaven, consisting of myriads of myriads of angels, in
its universal form is like a man. So is each society of heaven, be it larger
or smaller. From this, too, an angel is a man, for an angel is a heaven in
least form. This is shown in (HH n. 51-86). Heaven as a whole, in part,
and in the individual, is in that form by virtue of the Divine which angels
receive; for in the measure in which an angel receives from the Divine is he
in complete form a man. From this it is that angels are said to be in God, and
God in them; also, that God is their all. How many things there are in heaven
cannot told; and because the Divine is what makes heaven, and consequently
these unspeakably many things are from the Divine, it is clearly evident that
there are infinite things in Very Man, who is God.
DLW 20. From the created
universe a like conclusion may be drawn when it is regarded from uses and
their correspondences. But before this can be understood some preliminary
illustrations must be given.
DLW 21. Because in God-Man
there are infinite things which appear in heaven, in angel, and in man, as in
a mirror; and because God-Man is not in space (n. 7-10), it can, to some
extent, be seen and comprehended how God can be Omnipresent, Omniscient, and
All-providing; and how, as Man, He could create all things, and as Man can
hold the things created by Himself in their order to eternity.
DLW 22. That in God-Man
infinite things are one distinctly, can also be seen, as in a mirror, from
man. In man there are many and numberless things, as said above; but still man
feels them all as one. From sensation he knows nothing of his brains, of his
heart and lungs, of his liver, spleen, and pancreas; or of the numberless
things in his eyes, ears, tongue, stomach, generative organs, and the
remaining parts; and because from sensation he has no knowledge of these
things, he is to himself as a one. The reason is that all these are in such a
form that not one can be lacking; for it is a form recipient of life from
God-Man (n. 4-6). From the order and connection of all things in such a form
there comes the feeling, and from that the idea, as if they were not many and
numberless, but were one. From this it may be concluded that the many and
numberless things which make in man a seeming one, a Very-Man who is God, are
one distinctly, yea, most distinctly.
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