DLW 69
The Divine fills
every space and interval of space in the universe
independently of space.
Nature has two properties, space and time.
A
person in the natural world
forms his mental concepts and thus his
understanding
in accordance with them.
If he remains immersed in these
concepts
and does not raise his mind above them,
he is incapable of ever
perceiving
anything spiritual or Divine,
for he wraps his notions of
them
in ideas drawn from space and time,
and to the extent that he does
this,
to the same extent
the sight of his intellect becomes merely
natural.
To think from this sight
in reasoning about spiritual and
Divine matters
is like thinking from the darkness of night
about things
which appear only in the light of day.
That is the origin of naturalism.
DLW 71
The merely natural person thinks in terms of ideas
that he has
acquired from objects visible to his sight,
all of which exhibit in them
a configuration
possessing length, breadth and height
and having a
shape delimited by these,
whether angular or curvilinear.
These
dimensions are clearly present in his
mental conceptions of visible
objects in the world,
and they are also present in his
mental
conceptions of things not visible,
as in his conceptions of civil and
moral matters.
He does not, indeed, see them,
but still they are present
as extended concepts.
It is otherwise in the case of a spiritual person,
especially in the
case of an angel in heaven.
His thinking is unrelated to configuration
and form
having anything do to with
spatial length, breadth or height,
but having to do with the state of a thing
arising from the state of a
person's life.
Consequently, instead of spatial length
he pictures the
goodness of a thing
arising from the goodness of a person's life,
instead of spatial breadth the truth of a thing
arising from the truth
of a person's life,
and instead of height degrees of these.
Thus he
thinks in terms of correspondence,
which is the relation
of spiritual
and natural things to each other.
And it is because of this
correspondence
that length in the Word
symbolizes the goodness of a
thing,
breadth the truth of a thing,
and height degrees of these.
__________
by Rev. Prescott A. Rogers
Comment on 69-72:
. . . consider human beings.
Their bodies are spatial,
but their minds or spirits are not.
The mind exists in every part of the body,
causing it to exist,
but it does not belong to the body.
Further Thoughts - DLW 69-72
. . . Natural thinking is about and from
space and time (also person and object).
Spiritual thinking is about and from
states of love and wisdom.
The appearance of space in the spiritual world
corresponds to, and so is the product of,
the state of love with the angels.
In the natural world
space also corresponds to states of love.
Space here has a general correspondence
with states of love.
In heaven it has a specific correspondence.
This means space in the natural world
corresponds to the state of love
apart from the spiritual states
of the people who see things in space.
In the spiritual world the states of with with an angel
determine the appearance of space.
For example,
when one angel thinks of another with love,
the second angel becomes aware
of the first (angel) and of that love.
Since he or she loves the first angel in return,
the two are together instantly.
The "space" between them seems to disappear
since the space between the two angels
is specifically and immediately determined by
the state of love in each one.
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