DLW 236
These three degrees of height
exist in every person from birth
and
can be progressively opened,
and as they are opened,
the person is
in the Lord and the Lord in him.
DLW 237
We call these three degrees of height
natural, spiritual, and
celestial . . ..
When a person is born,
he comes first into the natural degree,
and this grows in him by a continuous progression
according to
his accumulations of knowledge
and the understanding he acquires
by means of them,
until it reaches the highest point of
understanding
called rationality.
But still this does not result
in the opening of the second
degree,
which we call spiritual.
This degree is opened by a love
of useful endeavors
in accord with one's intellectual
attainments -
only by a spiritual love of useful endeavors,
a
love which is love for the neighbor.
This degree may likewise
grow
by a continuous progression of the degree
until it reaches
its highest point,
and it grows
by the accumulation of concepts
of truth and good,
or of spiritual truths.
But even so, these still do not bring about
the opening of
the third degree,
which we call celestial.
Rather this degree is
opened by
a celestial love of useful endeavors,
a love which is
love toward the Lord;
and love toward the Lord is nothing other
than to commit the precepts of the Word to life,
the sum of
which is to refrain from evils
because they are hellish and
diabolical,
and to do good things
because they are heavenly and
Divine.
These three degrees
are thus progressively opened in a person.
DLW 241
Everyone who consults his reason
when it is in a state of light
can see that a person's love is in all things his end,
for what
he loves he thinks about, resolves, and does.
Consequently he
has it as his end.
A person can also see in the light of his
reason
that wisdom is the cause,
for he, or rather his love,
which is his end,
seeks out in the intellect
the means by which
to achieve its end,
thus consulting his wisdom,
and these means
form the cause
by which the end is achieved.
It is evident
without explanation
that useful endeavor is the effect.
One person's love, however,
is not the same as another's.
Consequently neither is one person's wisdom
the same as
another's;
nor, therefore, his useful endeavor.
And because
these three are homogeneous,
. . . it follows that
whatever the
character of the love is in a person,
such is the character of
the wisdom in him,
and such is the character of his useful
endeavor.
We say wisdom,
but we mean whatever is a matter of his
intellect.
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