The Third Round: A tutorial in reading the text as psychological and spiritual processes

The human form is love, wisdom and use Conjugial Love 183. After this, the angels said, "Let us have an exchange of speech by questions and answers; for when a subject is taken in solely from hearing, the perception of that subject does indeed flow in, but unless the hearer think of it from himself and ask questions, it does not remain." [3] Some among that conjugial gathering then said to the angels, "We have heard that the origin of conjugial love is Divine-celestial because it is from influx from the Lord into men's souls; and that, being from the Lord, it is love, wisdom, and use, these being the three essentials which together make the one Divine essence, and nothing can proceed from Him and flow into man's inmost which is called his soul save what is of the Divine essence; also that, in their descent into the body, these three essentials are changed into things analogous and correspondential. Therefore, we now ask you first, What is meant by the third essential--the proceeding Divine which is called use?" The angels replied: "Without use, love and wisdom are merely abstract ideas of thought, and after some tarrying in the mind, these pass away like the wind; but in use, the two are brought together and become a one which is called real. Love, being the activity of life, cannot rest unless it is doing something; nor can wisdom exist and subsist except when doing something from love and with it; and doing is use. Therefore we define use as the doing of good from love by means of wisdom. Use is good itself. [4] Since these three, love, wisdom, and use, flow into the souls of men, it can be evident whence comes the saying that all good is from God; for every deed done from love by means of wisdom is called good, and use is also a deed. What is love without wisdom but something fatuous? and, without use, what is love together with wisdom but a state of the mind? But with use, love and wisdom not only make the man, they are the man. Indeed, and this perhaps will astonish you, they propagate man; for in man's seed is his soul in perfect human form, covered over with substances from the purest things of nature, from which, in the mother's womb, is formed a body. This use is the supreme and ultimate use of Divine Love by means of Divine Wisdom." [5] Finally the angels said: "The conclusion then must be that in its origin all fructification, all propagation, and all prolification is from the influx of love, wisdom, and use from the Lord---from immediate influx from the Lord into the souls of men, from mediate influx into the souls of animals, and from influx yet more mediate into the inmost parts of plants; and all are effected in ultimates from firsts. That fructifications, propagations, and prolifications are continuations of creation is evident; for creation can come from no other source than Divine Love by means of Divine wisdom in Divine Use. Therefore, all things in the universe are procreated and formed from use, in use, and for use." True Christian Religion 387(3)…. Love and wisdom without the good of use are nothing; they are only ideal entities, and do not become realities until they exist in use. Love, wisdom and use are three things which cannot be separated; if separated, they are nothing. Love is nothing without wisdom; but by means of wisdom it assumes a form, which is use; therefore, when love by means of wisdom is expressed in use, then it really is, because then it actually exists. Love, wisdom and use are like end, cause and effect; the end is nothing unless it is in the effect by means of the cause; and if one of these three is destroyed, the whole is destroyed, and nothing remains. CL13(6).In its essence, heavenly food is nothing else than love, wisdom, and use together, that is, use from love by means of wisdom. Therefore, in heaven, food for the body is given to every one according to the use which he performs, sumptuous to those who are in eminent use, moderate but of exquisite flavor to those in a use of medium degree, common to those in a common use, but none at all to the slothful."   Thinking from essence to person Index AR 2- #12. God is to be thought of from essence to person, and not from person to essence, and they who think concerning God from person, make God three, but they who think from essence make God one, illustrated n. 611. They also make God one, who think concerning God from the attributes of the Divine essence also from the proceeding attributes which are creation, preservation, salvation, and redemption, enlightenment, and instruction, illustrated n. 611, illustrated n. 961. Apocalypse Revealed  611 [6] The boys then asked, "What is it to meditate on the Word spiritually and materially?" And the master replied, "I will illustrate it by examples. Who, when he reads the Word, does not think of God, his neighbor, and heaven? Everyone who thinks of God only from Person, and not from Essence, thinks materially; also he who thinks of the neighbor only from form, and not from quality, thinks materially; and he who thinks of heaven only from place, and not from the love and wisdom which heaven is, he also thinks materially." But the boys said, "We have thought of God from Person, of the neighbor from form, that he is a man, and of heaven from place; did we therefore, when we were reading the Word, appear to anyone as dead horses?" [7] The master said, "No, you are yet boys, and could not think otherwise; but I have perceived in you an affection of knowing and understanding, which, because it is spiritual, shows that you have also thought spiritually. But I will return to what I said at first, that he who thinks materially, when he reads the Word or is meditating from it, appears at a distance like a dead horse; but he who reads it spiritually, like a living horse; and that he thinks materially concerning God and the Trinity, who thinks of God only from Person, and not from essence. For there are many attributes of the Divine essence, such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, mercy, grace, eternity, and others; and there are attributes proceeding from the Divine essence, which are creation and preservation, salvation and redemption, enlightenment and instruction. Everyone who thinks of God only from person, makes three Gods, saying that one God is the Creator and Preserver, another the Saviour and Redeemer, and the third the Enlightener and Instructor. But everyone who thinks of God from essence, makes one God, saying, God created and preserves us, redeems and saves us, enlightens and instructs us. "This is the reason why they who think of the Trinity in God from Person, and thus materially, cannot, from the ideas of their thought, which are material, do otherwise than out of one God make three; but yet, contrary to their thought, they are held to saying, that in each there is a communion of all the attributes, and this solely because they have also thought of God obscurely from essence. Therefore, my pupils, think of God from His essence, and from that of His Person, and not from His Person, and from this of His essence, for to think of His essence from Person, is to think materially of His essence also; but to think of His Person from essence, is to think spiritually even of His Person. The ancient Gentiles, because as they thought materially of God, and also of the attributes of God, not only imagined three gods, but many even to the number of a hundred. Know then that the material does not flow into the spiritual, but the spiritual into the material. It is similar with the thought of the neighbor from form, and not from his quality, and with the thought of heaven from place, and not from the love and wisdom which heaven is. It is similar with each and everything in the Word. Therefore, he who cherishes a material idea of God, and likewise of the neighbor and of heaven, cannot understand anything there. The Word is to him a dead letter, and he himself, when he reads it or meditates on it, appears at a distance as a dead horse. [8] "They whom you saw falling from heaven, and who appeared in your sight like dead horses, were such as had closed the rational sight in themselves and others by this peculiar dogma, that the understanding is to be kept in subjection to their faith; not considering that the understanding, when closed by religion, is as blind as a mole, and there is mere thick darkness in it, and such thick darkness as rejects from itself all spiritual light, opposes its influx from the Lord and from heaven, and sets up a barrier against it in the sensual corporeal part, far below the rational in matters of faith, that is, places it near the nose, and fixes it in its cartilage, on which account they cannot afterwards so much as scent spiritual things; whence some have become such that when they sensate the odor from spiritual things they fall into a swoon; by odor I mean perception. These are they who make God three. They say indeed from essence that God is one; but yet when they pray from their faith, which is that "God the Father would have mercy for the sake of the Son and send the Holy Spirit," they evidently make three Gods. They cannot do otherwise, for they pray to one to have mercy for the sake of another, and send a third." And then their master taught them concerning the Lord, that He is the one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity.   Giving finite attributes to the Divine  True Christian Religion 19. Since God alone is I am or Being, that is, Jehovah, therefore there cannot be anything in the created universe which does not owe its being to Him; TCR 21.Jehovah God is Being in itself, because He is I am, the very, sole and prime source, from eternity to eternity, of everything in existence, which allows it to exist. In this and no other sense He is the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, Alpha and Omega. One cannot say that His Being is from itself,...