Creation - How the world, its plant and animal life along with mankind, came into existence.
Lecture by Rev. Paul Booth
Lecture by Rev. Paul Booth
The first proceeding out from God is a spiritual Sun and this is His proceeding Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. This is the Sun of the spiritual world and through it Life is brought forth from its heat and light. Because the heat and light is far greater than any angel or man can endure there are radiant belts around it that temper its rays and, as such, diminish the 'fire' of it. These 'devolution of the Infinite' become weaker as they pass on one to another as heaven is made. After the first two belts around the spiritual Sun the third carries the Divine Truth down into the first discrete degree of heaven to the celestial state of heaven. Those who come in that degree will be nearest to the Lord. These are the atmospheres of spiritual heat that manifest the Lord's Love and His light that manifest His wisdom, thus these are also uses.
It is by these atmospheres and the spiritual of heaven that the Divine operates, that is, proceeds and creates. These act as one though they are not one. The Divine is seen as spiritual while the atmospheres as that being created and they both are distinct as idea and creating are distinct. These proceeds forth producing the heavens and even come to create the earth. Each proceeding atmosphere was formed into spheres, the last being the atmosphere of the natural world while in heaven there are the celestial sphere of love and the spiritual sphere of good. Those of heaven are spiritual atmospheres of the spiritual Sun and they bring forth the sphere of Divine Truth. These are also called the successives of spiritual substances in which the angelic heavens are formed into degrees or auras of the differing states of heaven from one thing after another and from one thing from another extending far and wide as different spiritual atmospheres, even on into our natural world.
The degrees or atmospheres are discrete and are not continuous degrees as degrees from darker to lighter; they are as degrees of altitude and are like generations and compositions of one thing from another such as from celestial to spiritual, and on to natural; these being next to one another, though not continuous from one another. In the heaven's creation which are seen as successive substances there were not angelic beings created, as many would think. Angels will be seen later coming into heaven after the earth's creation and a man's coming into existence. In heaven we see successive spiritual atmospheres of three distinct degrees where we see perfections created 'one from another' so as to become the ground of the original substance for the different degrees or states of heaven. These are 'as it was said' auras that represent the cause and formative internal for the three natural atmospheres and come to flow into the universe's creation and become their (the spiritual atmospheres) clothing, thus enabling their efficient power to enter nature and cause creation's ultimates.
The final of the three degree in heaven is the called the natural degree, though this degree has nothing to do with the natural of this world. The spiritual substances are finite forms, for if they were of the Divine Love and Wisdom Itself they would be God.
As already said such heavenly auras are formed as discrete degrees and they are the form of man's spirit and what would become a man's soul, and is his spiritual state and these become the construction of our affections and thoughts which make our minds. You can say also this is what makes heaven to be heaven.
The difference between heaven and the spiritual world with the natural world is that the states in heaven are but appearances of physical things and conditions and that there is no time or space in heaven; there are but variations of Divine Love and Wisdom and of charity and faith; these things touching and leading the angels who come there. However, these things are only from God who continually gives life filling them with heaven. Life is of a spiritual origin from God's love and wisdom. Man also receives this life, its origin being also spiritual from God.
Thus, one sees that spiritual atmospheres have Life within and angels who come to dwell in heaven will be active with that life in themselves. As such, they were created for the transmission of spiritual light and heat to them accommodating to their heavenly life into their minds and bodies, that they receive intelligence, see, and breathe, have sensation, and that their hearts beat and thus they are alive. In addition these heavenly atmospheres serve as means for man's creation before he becomes an angel. Thus far the heavenly atmospheres are like steps and stages in creation through discrete degrees spoken about one from another from the highest to the lowest.
In the spiritual world there are also ethers and airs as there are in our natural world, the only difference is that in the spiritual world they are spiritual and come forth from the spiritual Sun, that is, from the Divine's Love and Wisdom and are called the 'Divine fire' which is the Love and the light therefrom.
These atmospheres proceed to their ultimates through discrete degrees there - the celestial, spiritual, and natural. As they descend they decrease in degrees of breadth and gradually become imperceptibly less active, more inert and compressed until finally they are in ultimates, become no longer atmospheres, but substances. In the spiritual world they are substances and terminations or endings of the three degrees at rest and, as such, are living in intermediates, though living in their ultimates. They are not fixed and inactive matters as they are on earth. In the spiritual world there is retained no more life then what is efficient to produce a likeness of what is living. All who will come in the spiritual world have the ultimates of acting, creating, and forming inhered within. At this stage of heaven's development we see only potentialities there and it empty of inhabitants and barren of creative uses, though the spiritual atmospheres have come to their end or completion. However, we have seen the discrete degrees of heaven in relation to an end, cause, and effect. These are the immediates that cause the glories of heaven's creation. However, the spiritual universe cannot exist without a natural
universe. In fact, the only way the spiritual acts its effects and uses is through or by the natural universe, that the natural might subsist in ultimates, that it might also endure through the generations. In effect, the spiritual ends by being clothed with correspondent forms of the natural universe that go to serve for uses.
The substances at every degree ends and become the primes or the firsts of another order or degree. The results is a beginning or an initial material descending towards nature. In this way, the natural degree draws its origin from the spiritual world and its existence is nothing other than congeries congregated or the parts coming together out from spiritual things.
It may be said nature has its essence from which it comes forth into existence from the spiritual world, thus it is a by-product therefrom. Nature's creation begins with its sun and its sun comes from the spiritual Sun, since we have learned that spiritual substance is the inmost of nature; it being created as a final and fixed ultimate in space and time from the substance of the spiritual Sun. As such, the sun of this world is the first and only material or substance of nature that comes forth in nature's creation. In the nature's creation there are again three atmospheres and they are fixed terminations and are the by-products in time and space of successive spiritual atmospheres and their ultimates. One learns that the ultimates are the substances and matters and are as it were 'bundles of energy' made up of atoms, their neutrons, and protons, etc., in complex organizations which are the first elements of earthly matters. In these we see a motion and focus or concentration point which E. Swedenborg called 'conatus' which means an endeavor. However, this motion is not to be be connected to the matter itself, but to life and, so, to the life of the world which results in living forces.
These forces of motion are of a continuous endeavor; if endeavor ceased, motion ceases and life ceases. As such this conatus or endeavor is spiritual having come from the spiritual world. So, in all natural things there is an endeavor producing action and growth, both in plants and animals and so, too, in mankind. Through this conatus comes the potential of spiritual things into focus and expression. Such conatus or spiritual endeavor causes action and motion in organic life such as speech and act within mankind; though these are regarded as non-living. However, in man they are living in the will and motion, as so, in his spiritual person or life. It is such matter that eventually becomes fashioned as the clothing for life's interior forces, such as love and will and use. It is in this way that the inflowing life returns back to its origin, back to heaven and ultimately to the Lord God.
Second Part
The world's sun first came into existence from the spiritual Sun for the purpose that in the end the ultimate things would become fixed, static, and constant. In this way
spiritual creation forms nature as a tool for uses of spiritual ends. The earthly sun became a vice-regent of the spiritual Sun and thus is the 'mother of the earth and its
system'. In the beginning there were atmospheres and planets formed from the sun and auras came forth, all proceeding 'as it were' from their fountain. The first ether, the furthest, was closest and purest to the sun. The less pure came next and at last was the ether around the earth These, as in the spiritual world, are of discrete degrees. Naturally, the expanse alone does not make nature in which the uses of life are clothed. However it is in these that natural life comes into existence.
Swedenborg wrote '"n the beginning there was a time like no time when our sun was as it were 'pregnant' with our universe's planets and when the time came for their birth into the regions of air were delivered from the sun as from a parent.'" We may be seeing today other planets' (earths') births appearing of other universe's from the Hubbell telescope. Out from our sun's center flowed a vaporous or invisible abundance in every direction eventually coming to rest. These fluids condensed in time and there existed a surrounding nebulous of expanse, a mass 'as it were' like the white of an egg; the sun being included in it resembled as a 'Great Egg of the Universe.' A crust was formed or a kind of shell and the "sun's rays were closed up until the time of parturition and by the inward heat and agitation there 'burst' forth or was hatched 'as it were' numerous off springs as there are globes in our universe today." [Worship and Love of God-Origin of the Earth 9-1]
So far we learned there are three natural atmospheres. The first is of pure ether and is known as gravity, the middle is the vortex and it is around the planets in which is light and satellites and from which comes magnetism, and the last is the ultimate and is air. In these are seen the discrete degrees, because air cannot be raised up into ether or ether in aura. These atmospheres are called 'active forces,' and waters, which are called the 'mediate forces,' and the lands are the 'passive forces.' The 'active forces' are not living forces since they come from the sun, though as we have shown they do have motion or movement from the spiritual world.
So far we have seen bursting forth from the sun an immense repository of large masses of planets into the empty universe along with powers and forces filling it with auras and thus with spaces. At that time ether arose around the sun and the masses encompassed the sun. These masses were merely fluids and as it were molten. They began to assume an orbicular form from their centripetal force. Later they began to creep and later walk 'as it were' around the sun and today the day and year have been brought into existence, and causes also the hours of the day and thus time along with space exists.
Remember it was said the spiritual world caused the natural world; it having been its effect. In this one sees that one thing exists from another in a progression, the cause
becoming the cause of the efficient effect and so on in an order to the last cause where force subsists as an effector while the spiritual remains alone the force. It is the heat and light of the sun of our world that are the mediate causes and as such the sun's light
modifies substances and its heat moves substances. Thus its presence causes the activity of forces and substances of every particle according to its form from the beginning of natural creation.
One sees that our earth was impelled round its sun turning in revolutions so that it might receive the sun's heat making it only a fluent heap of inert nature boiling from its depths with the intent that heaver elements of inert nature would begin to coalesce into sedentary and water, salt, earth in order that there would be principle fetuses of an infinite variety and come to be hatched. Until at last effects might be produced
according to the order of these causes. The principles of nature are both active and passive; the active principles fill the whole universe of force and the passive were heaped together into globes suspended in centers of circum-gyration of active forces.
At that event came the earth forth orbiting; the sun's heat was tempered and our liquid world began to contract a crust or a kind of coat, becoming denser until it became the earth without scars or valleys or hills and 'as it were' a sphere without boundary. Then rivers spring up from hot baths. Then dewy mist entered this new born atmosphere. This was the virgin and new-born earth like an egg with many smaller eggs or seeds collecting on the surface. These seeds or eggs eventually became the three kingdoms of the world - the mineral, the plant, and the animal. These seeds lay unseparated in their rudiments, one folded up in another, the vegetative within the mineral kingdom, this mineral kingdom was the matrix for the others, the animal kingdom was in the vegetative kingdom which served as the animal kingdom's nourisher. These kingdoms came forth distinctly from their own covering.
Within the eggs or the seeds there was an endeavor, which we have learned was spiritual to bring forth these kingdoms to their virgin birth. At their beginning there was merely the mineral kingdom. Here, one could say there only needed the fertilizing spirit so to speak to bring forth plants and animals. Then first came forth the vegetative kingdom that laid within the mineral, within the earth or soil. Thus, one sees the earth was prepared for natural life to come into existence in which case spiritual life was to became clothed just as Mary's womb was prepared for the Divine seed and the Lord was clothed.
Thus was there form and effecting forces accordingly from a spiritual endeavor and the three kingdoms came into existence. Let us take an example: from within a seed a tree is formed, but the seed's form is according to its effecting forces, first (the sun's heat) and second the spiritual endeavor. The material of the seed is mineral or of different chemicals and at its beginning stage of its natural creation there was a spiritual
endeavor guiding it as has already been shown. Combinations of minerals or of different chemicals went to make up the infinite number of seeds and as the sun's heat acted on them along with a spiritual endeavor the first plants sprang forth from the earth. From
these primary plants the early animal kingdom also came forth. The eggs of animals are also of different minerals and chemicals, the egg being either without or within the
animal as the ovum is within as all animal life comes forth. Today, we know that prehistory dinosaurs were born from eggs. Swedenborg, in 'Worship and Love of God' wrote that animals came forth from these early plants as if they were pregnant with them. It also says in the Word of the Third Testament that the three kingdoms were folded up one within another - within the mineral was the plant and within the plant the animal. Seeds and eggs could lie within the minerals of the earth and these then become hatched, both the species of plants and animals; the animals coming later to produce eggs which would be hatched. These eggs either within themselves as ovum and birth took place coming forth from within.
Swedenborg also says that the first man, Adam, came from the 'Tree of Life,' making one to think there was an actual 'tree' (a plant) from which Adam was born as fruit comes forth. The question we might ask here is: was that tree from a special seed which created mankind?
Thus far the matter or substance of nature's was merely motion in order that it be maintained as a unit, but has no creative power of itself and is only a form of inertia and tends to entropy. Thus that endeavor was shown as 'non-living;' yet it is the 'endeavor of life's ultimate forces' in that matter opposes change and tends to remain as is unless acted upon by outer forces. It is because of this that these forces cannot be changed to living unless a spiritual endeavor acts upon them. Here, we need to know that there arose forces that combined and recombined in different ways making a variety of composite substance and chemical combinations tending towards a balanced state of equilibrium of forces, yet without any living forms being created. Thus only when a higher spiritual endeavor acted did a plant and animal life come forth.
What should be recognized here is that life comes only from an influx from the spiritual world mediated by spiritual atmospheres thus showing that what is spiritual is not in space and most certainly is not confined by nature. However, it is within and around nature in all its degrees and only flows within according to its reception which may be seen in its form. It is transmitted through a spiritual media in a spiritual order to animate the universe's substances and forces. The spiritual world is a world of endeavor or conatus and contains the causes of all natural creation and formations; it is the source of the formative substance to the 'soul' of all living things in nature.
Plant and animal life springs forth from the higher spiritual conatus than that of substance's pure forces of motion. Nonetheless, the world began to direct that conatus
to determine that motion towards use. Here, we see our young earth with the seeds within beginning to produce, first the plants and later the animals from a spiritual endeavor which flows into it revealing its powers. Thus it was that life is manifested upon earth and endowed with a type of freedom and aspiration to grow as mediated by the spiritual atmospheres. "The first production from these earths when they are still fresh and in their simplicity was the production of seeds; the first effort in them could not be any other" (Divine Love and Wisdom 312). Thus, in the mineral kingdom was concealed and as it were involved the ends and beginnings of all uses which sprang forth from life. Stated in another way, when earthly matters are acted upon by a source of energy outside themselves, such as the sun's heat or radiation, they come into a state in which an influx of life occurs to change the quality of their conatus and this is nature's opportunity for the source of the spiritual heat that is conveyed through spiritual substances to exert guidance over nature.
Some people say God has implanted within nature a beginning power to produce such things, such as the reproduction of plants and animals of themselves. This would mean that God created the universe by command of His voice. But "no power as been implanted in nature." "It is the spiritual which derives its origin from the Sun where the Lord is, and which proceeds to the ultimates of nature that produces the forms of vegetables and animals, and exhibits the marvels that exist in both, and packs them with matters out of the ground" (Divine Love and Wisdom 340). In the spiritual world there are not just active and creative forces, but formative forces as well. They act in ultimates and are mediated by both heavenly and worldly atmospheres. The ends of the spiritual-natural degrees of heaven are the Lord's ends towards more specific uses. Creation proceeds toward a place where mankind is reached and when man meets his creator and becomes conjoined with Him.
Most would agree that animals and plants have some kind of soul, but would say it is not like that of a human's; the soul of plants and animals is a spiritual-natural soul. One can see that as the First Substance descended into lower forms it image it became less and less the image of the Divine. In fact, the soul of plants and animals are not immortal and the influx passes though them into the world and terminates and then vanishes never to return; it is not appropriated but returns back to nature. What one understands here is that nature cannot supply the material for the formation of spiritual life or higher life and that life in nature accordingly cannot induce changes of form. Such life's development cannot be by accidental mutation of plant or animal and must come from a higher spiritual source of endeavor from the First Life.
The purpose of creation was to make man and that man was made for heaven and for him to be conjoined with the Lord. Thus, man needs to become a recipient of the Divine so that he can reciprocate the Divine's love. All things of the universe was created for man, for his use, benefit, and delight. Therefore man was created last "and into him
were collated all things of Divine order from first to lasts. Internally he was a heaven in the least form, and His external was the world in the least form." In man are all the three degrees of the spiritual life and of the natural world of every substantial degree of created things, both from the spiritual Sun to that of the lowest natural matter from this world's sun.
In a sense man is born an animal but becomes a man, that is, a human, in which is the conjunction of his spiritual or internal which his rational with his external or natural, which is seen as an animal. Still, we must know that the man's soul within is the paternal seed, for the soul is the essence of the seed and continually aspires to the human form from the endeavor within its own substance. Thus the man clothes himself with a body - the body is in an image of itself and resembles itself. Man is finite from spiritual substances which are in the world, but it is the inmost man that is perfect and fully the human form and the whole of the body, even every part of it. Thus the soul forms itself, clothes itself, and become seed. "From spiritual marriage which flows into every single thing of the universe, being the marriage of good and truth, nothing else is received by males but truth and that which relates to truth; that in its progress into the body, this formed into seed, and that thence it is that seeds, spiritually understood are truths. . . The soul . . . the inmost of man . . . in its essence is spiritual, follows the descent and wills to procreate. . . Therefore the truth of the soul is the origin of seed, it follows that men have abundance according to their love of procreating the truth of wisdom" (Conjugial Love 220).
Our soul, being spiritual, also has three degrees, the celestial, the spiritual, and the spiritual-natural degrees of heaven. These are in man in impotency here on earth and will be opened up upon leaving the natural world. Thus, we see that the soul was created as the spiritual cause and formative principle to embrace these heavenly degrees. However, it is not the soul itself that creates; only the Lord alone creates both soul and body. Naturally, the man's body is to conform to this world, but not his spiritual body. One thus understands that the worldly atmospheres have no power to create a human body; they are however essential to promote clothing for the body. In Arcana Coelestia 4523, 3628 one reads, "In correspondence to the elements of nature; since the atmospheres are such as they are, to the end that they should form senses." By senses the internal and rational of man is meant, that is, his spirit is meant.
The soul is formed by forces external to itself and it is a vessel acting from the life of God within. How might the first humans have come into existence or become created? The Word does not say, except that God made the human male and female after His image and likeness; this may merely be understood in the literal sense and though it may be understood in the spiritual sense; it still does not reveal a man's natural creation. We also read that man was made of the 'dust of the ground and breathed into by God the breathe of life' and they (man) became celestial. Spiritually by the 'dust of
the ground' refers to being made from celestial things. By being 'breathed into by the breadth of God' refers to an internal sense where by the man would perceive the state of love and faith. It is in this way that man became a celestial Church. Here, of course, we see a human's spiritual development, but do not see his creation of his natural existence on earth.
This leaves us to revert back to the creation through the spiritual atmospheres or spiritual endeavors we spoke about before concerning the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. It was by such uses through means and methods that there came organic life on earth. We learned the Word, the Arcana Coelestia says these kingdoms were folded up one within the other. In the Word we can read "nothing of vegetation of that world (meaning the natural world) comes from seed sown but only from seed created." (Apocalypse Explained 65, 342:10). So, the three kingdoms have come forth by spiritual and heavenly endeavors. How else could they come into their natural existence except through that spiritual endeavor? We have already shown there is no power for that coming into existence.
Swedenborg, before he was chosen by the Lord to write the Word of the Divine Human, The Third Testament, he wrote the book The Worship and Love of God in which he wrote, "in the midst (of Paradise) was a fruit-tree, which bore a small egg, the most precious all, in which, as a jewel, nature concealed herself with her highest powers and stores, about to become the initiaments of the most consummated body; therefore this fruit-tree was called the TREE OF LIFE" (32e). Eventually we learn from that book that this 'egg' received a super-celestial form or soul in which was life and was capable of containing what is infinite or the infinite itself.
This book is not known to be the Word of God or if it should be accepted merely literally as the truth. In the Old Testament and the Third Testament one reads of a 'Tree of Life' and in the spiritual sense by a 'Tree of Life' signifies the Church of Good and Truth and, of course, we can understand this as a man, for naturally, if the man has good and truth within, then he is a Church and he becomes an angel in heaven upon leaving this world.
In the end it is a man's re-creation or what is his regeneration that is important and not how he became naturally created in this world.
End.
It is by these atmospheres and the spiritual of heaven that the Divine operates, that is, proceeds and creates. These act as one though they are not one. The Divine is seen as spiritual while the atmospheres as that being created and they both are distinct as idea and creating are distinct. These proceeds forth producing the heavens and even come to create the earth. Each proceeding atmosphere was formed into spheres, the last being the atmosphere of the natural world while in heaven there are the celestial sphere of love and the spiritual sphere of good. Those of heaven are spiritual atmospheres of the spiritual Sun and they bring forth the sphere of Divine Truth. These are also called the successives of spiritual substances in which the angelic heavens are formed into degrees or auras of the differing states of heaven from one thing after another and from one thing from another extending far and wide as different spiritual atmospheres, even on into our natural world.
The degrees or atmospheres are discrete and are not continuous degrees as degrees from darker to lighter; they are as degrees of altitude and are like generations and compositions of one thing from another such as from celestial to spiritual, and on to natural; these being next to one another, though not continuous from one another. In the heaven's creation which are seen as successive substances there were not angelic beings created, as many would think. Angels will be seen later coming into heaven after the earth's creation and a man's coming into existence. In heaven we see successive spiritual atmospheres of three distinct degrees where we see perfections created 'one from another' so as to become the ground of the original substance for the different degrees or states of heaven. These are 'as it was said' auras that represent the cause and formative internal for the three natural atmospheres and come to flow into the universe's creation and become their (the spiritual atmospheres) clothing, thus enabling their efficient power to enter nature and cause creation's ultimates.
The final of the three degree in heaven is the called the natural degree, though this degree has nothing to do with the natural of this world. The spiritual substances are finite forms, for if they were of the Divine Love and Wisdom Itself they would be God.
As already said such heavenly auras are formed as discrete degrees and they are the form of man's spirit and what would become a man's soul, and is his spiritual state and these become the construction of our affections and thoughts which make our minds. You can say also this is what makes heaven to be heaven.
The difference between heaven and the spiritual world with the natural world is that the states in heaven are but appearances of physical things and conditions and that there is no time or space in heaven; there are but variations of Divine Love and Wisdom and of charity and faith; these things touching and leading the angels who come there. However, these things are only from God who continually gives life filling them with heaven. Life is of a spiritual origin from God's love and wisdom. Man also receives this life, its origin being also spiritual from God.
Thus, one sees that spiritual atmospheres have Life within and angels who come to dwell in heaven will be active with that life in themselves. As such, they were created for the transmission of spiritual light and heat to them accommodating to their heavenly life into their minds and bodies, that they receive intelligence, see, and breathe, have sensation, and that their hearts beat and thus they are alive. In addition these heavenly atmospheres serve as means for man's creation before he becomes an angel. Thus far the heavenly atmospheres are like steps and stages in creation through discrete degrees spoken about one from another from the highest to the lowest.
In the spiritual world there are also ethers and airs as there are in our natural world, the only difference is that in the spiritual world they are spiritual and come forth from the spiritual Sun, that is, from the Divine's Love and Wisdom and are called the 'Divine fire' which is the Love and the light therefrom.
These atmospheres proceed to their ultimates through discrete degrees there - the celestial, spiritual, and natural. As they descend they decrease in degrees of breadth and gradually become imperceptibly less active, more inert and compressed until finally they are in ultimates, become no longer atmospheres, but substances. In the spiritual world they are substances and terminations or endings of the three degrees at rest and, as such, are living in intermediates, though living in their ultimates. They are not fixed and inactive matters as they are on earth. In the spiritual world there is retained no more life then what is efficient to produce a likeness of what is living. All who will come in the spiritual world have the ultimates of acting, creating, and forming inhered within. At this stage of heaven's development we see only potentialities there and it empty of inhabitants and barren of creative uses, though the spiritual atmospheres have come to their end or completion. However, we have seen the discrete degrees of heaven in relation to an end, cause, and effect. These are the immediates that cause the glories of heaven's creation. However, the spiritual universe cannot exist without a natural
universe. In fact, the only way the spiritual acts its effects and uses is through or by the natural universe, that the natural might subsist in ultimates, that it might also endure through the generations. In effect, the spiritual ends by being clothed with correspondent forms of the natural universe that go to serve for uses.
The substances at every degree ends and become the primes or the firsts of another order or degree. The results is a beginning or an initial material descending towards nature. In this way, the natural degree draws its origin from the spiritual world and its existence is nothing other than congeries congregated or the parts coming together out from spiritual things.
It may be said nature has its essence from which it comes forth into existence from the spiritual world, thus it is a by-product therefrom. Nature's creation begins with its sun and its sun comes from the spiritual Sun, since we have learned that spiritual substance is the inmost of nature; it being created as a final and fixed ultimate in space and time from the substance of the spiritual Sun. As such, the sun of this world is the first and only material or substance of nature that comes forth in nature's creation. In the nature's creation there are again three atmospheres and they are fixed terminations and are the by-products in time and space of successive spiritual atmospheres and their ultimates. One learns that the ultimates are the substances and matters and are as it were 'bundles of energy' made up of atoms, their neutrons, and protons, etc., in complex organizations which are the first elements of earthly matters. In these we see a motion and focus or concentration point which E. Swedenborg called 'conatus' which means an endeavor. However, this motion is not to be be connected to the matter itself, but to life and, so, to the life of the world which results in living forces.
These forces of motion are of a continuous endeavor; if endeavor ceased, motion ceases and life ceases. As such this conatus or endeavor is spiritual having come from the spiritual world. So, in all natural things there is an endeavor producing action and growth, both in plants and animals and so, too, in mankind. Through this conatus comes the potential of spiritual things into focus and expression. Such conatus or spiritual endeavor causes action and motion in organic life such as speech and act within mankind; though these are regarded as non-living. However, in man they are living in the will and motion, as so, in his spiritual person or life. It is such matter that eventually becomes fashioned as the clothing for life's interior forces, such as love and will and use. It is in this way that the inflowing life returns back to its origin, back to heaven and ultimately to the Lord God.
Second Part
The world's sun first came into existence from the spiritual Sun for the purpose that in the end the ultimate things would become fixed, static, and constant. In this way
spiritual creation forms nature as a tool for uses of spiritual ends. The earthly sun became a vice-regent of the spiritual Sun and thus is the 'mother of the earth and its
system'. In the beginning there were atmospheres and planets formed from the sun and auras came forth, all proceeding 'as it were' from their fountain. The first ether, the furthest, was closest and purest to the sun. The less pure came next and at last was the ether around the earth These, as in the spiritual world, are of discrete degrees. Naturally, the expanse alone does not make nature in which the uses of life are clothed. However it is in these that natural life comes into existence.
Swedenborg wrote '"n the beginning there was a time like no time when our sun was as it were 'pregnant' with our universe's planets and when the time came for their birth into the regions of air were delivered from the sun as from a parent.'" We may be seeing today other planets' (earths') births appearing of other universe's from the Hubbell telescope. Out from our sun's center flowed a vaporous or invisible abundance in every direction eventually coming to rest. These fluids condensed in time and there existed a surrounding nebulous of expanse, a mass 'as it were' like the white of an egg; the sun being included in it resembled as a 'Great Egg of the Universe.' A crust was formed or a kind of shell and the "sun's rays were closed up until the time of parturition and by the inward heat and agitation there 'burst' forth or was hatched 'as it were' numerous off springs as there are globes in our universe today." [Worship and Love of God-Origin of the Earth 9-1]
So far we learned there are three natural atmospheres. The first is of pure ether and is known as gravity, the middle is the vortex and it is around the planets in which is light and satellites and from which comes magnetism, and the last is the ultimate and is air. In these are seen the discrete degrees, because air cannot be raised up into ether or ether in aura. These atmospheres are called 'active forces,' and waters, which are called the 'mediate forces,' and the lands are the 'passive forces.' The 'active forces' are not living forces since they come from the sun, though as we have shown they do have motion or movement from the spiritual world.
So far we have seen bursting forth from the sun an immense repository of large masses of planets into the empty universe along with powers and forces filling it with auras and thus with spaces. At that time ether arose around the sun and the masses encompassed the sun. These masses were merely fluids and as it were molten. They began to assume an orbicular form from their centripetal force. Later they began to creep and later walk 'as it were' around the sun and today the day and year have been brought into existence, and causes also the hours of the day and thus time along with space exists.
Remember it was said the spiritual world caused the natural world; it having been its effect. In this one sees that one thing exists from another in a progression, the cause
becoming the cause of the efficient effect and so on in an order to the last cause where force subsists as an effector while the spiritual remains alone the force. It is the heat and light of the sun of our world that are the mediate causes and as such the sun's light
modifies substances and its heat moves substances. Thus its presence causes the activity of forces and substances of every particle according to its form from the beginning of natural creation.
One sees that our earth was impelled round its sun turning in revolutions so that it might receive the sun's heat making it only a fluent heap of inert nature boiling from its depths with the intent that heaver elements of inert nature would begin to coalesce into sedentary and water, salt, earth in order that there would be principle fetuses of an infinite variety and come to be hatched. Until at last effects might be produced
according to the order of these causes. The principles of nature are both active and passive; the active principles fill the whole universe of force and the passive were heaped together into globes suspended in centers of circum-gyration of active forces.
At that event came the earth forth orbiting; the sun's heat was tempered and our liquid world began to contract a crust or a kind of coat, becoming denser until it became the earth without scars or valleys or hills and 'as it were' a sphere without boundary. Then rivers spring up from hot baths. Then dewy mist entered this new born atmosphere. This was the virgin and new-born earth like an egg with many smaller eggs or seeds collecting on the surface. These seeds or eggs eventually became the three kingdoms of the world - the mineral, the plant, and the animal. These seeds lay unseparated in their rudiments, one folded up in another, the vegetative within the mineral kingdom, this mineral kingdom was the matrix for the others, the animal kingdom was in the vegetative kingdom which served as the animal kingdom's nourisher. These kingdoms came forth distinctly from their own covering.
Within the eggs or the seeds there was an endeavor, which we have learned was spiritual to bring forth these kingdoms to their virgin birth. At their beginning there was merely the mineral kingdom. Here, one could say there only needed the fertilizing spirit so to speak to bring forth plants and animals. Then first came forth the vegetative kingdom that laid within the mineral, within the earth or soil. Thus, one sees the earth was prepared for natural life to come into existence in which case spiritual life was to became clothed just as Mary's womb was prepared for the Divine seed and the Lord was clothed.
Thus was there form and effecting forces accordingly from a spiritual endeavor and the three kingdoms came into existence. Let us take an example: from within a seed a tree is formed, but the seed's form is according to its effecting forces, first (the sun's heat) and second the spiritual endeavor. The material of the seed is mineral or of different chemicals and at its beginning stage of its natural creation there was a spiritual
endeavor guiding it as has already been shown. Combinations of minerals or of different chemicals went to make up the infinite number of seeds and as the sun's heat acted on them along with a spiritual endeavor the first plants sprang forth from the earth. From
these primary plants the early animal kingdom also came forth. The eggs of animals are also of different minerals and chemicals, the egg being either without or within the
animal as the ovum is within as all animal life comes forth. Today, we know that prehistory dinosaurs were born from eggs. Swedenborg, in 'Worship and Love of God' wrote that animals came forth from these early plants as if they were pregnant with them. It also says in the Word of the Third Testament that the three kingdoms were folded up one within another - within the mineral was the plant and within the plant the animal. Seeds and eggs could lie within the minerals of the earth and these then become hatched, both the species of plants and animals; the animals coming later to produce eggs which would be hatched. These eggs either within themselves as ovum and birth took place coming forth from within.
Swedenborg also says that the first man, Adam, came from the 'Tree of Life,' making one to think there was an actual 'tree' (a plant) from which Adam was born as fruit comes forth. The question we might ask here is: was that tree from a special seed which created mankind?
Thus far the matter or substance of nature's was merely motion in order that it be maintained as a unit, but has no creative power of itself and is only a form of inertia and tends to entropy. Thus that endeavor was shown as 'non-living;' yet it is the 'endeavor of life's ultimate forces' in that matter opposes change and tends to remain as is unless acted upon by outer forces. It is because of this that these forces cannot be changed to living unless a spiritual endeavor acts upon them. Here, we need to know that there arose forces that combined and recombined in different ways making a variety of composite substance and chemical combinations tending towards a balanced state of equilibrium of forces, yet without any living forms being created. Thus only when a higher spiritual endeavor acted did a plant and animal life come forth.
What should be recognized here is that life comes only from an influx from the spiritual world mediated by spiritual atmospheres thus showing that what is spiritual is not in space and most certainly is not confined by nature. However, it is within and around nature in all its degrees and only flows within according to its reception which may be seen in its form. It is transmitted through a spiritual media in a spiritual order to animate the universe's substances and forces. The spiritual world is a world of endeavor or conatus and contains the causes of all natural creation and formations; it is the source of the formative substance to the 'soul' of all living things in nature.
Plant and animal life springs forth from the higher spiritual conatus than that of substance's pure forces of motion. Nonetheless, the world began to direct that conatus
to determine that motion towards use. Here, we see our young earth with the seeds within beginning to produce, first the plants and later the animals from a spiritual endeavor which flows into it revealing its powers. Thus it was that life is manifested upon earth and endowed with a type of freedom and aspiration to grow as mediated by the spiritual atmospheres. "The first production from these earths when they are still fresh and in their simplicity was the production of seeds; the first effort in them could not be any other" (Divine Love and Wisdom 312). Thus, in the mineral kingdom was concealed and as it were involved the ends and beginnings of all uses which sprang forth from life. Stated in another way, when earthly matters are acted upon by a source of energy outside themselves, such as the sun's heat or radiation, they come into a state in which an influx of life occurs to change the quality of their conatus and this is nature's opportunity for the source of the spiritual heat that is conveyed through spiritual substances to exert guidance over nature.
Some people say God has implanted within nature a beginning power to produce such things, such as the reproduction of plants and animals of themselves. This would mean that God created the universe by command of His voice. But "no power as been implanted in nature." "It is the spiritual which derives its origin from the Sun where the Lord is, and which proceeds to the ultimates of nature that produces the forms of vegetables and animals, and exhibits the marvels that exist in both, and packs them with matters out of the ground" (Divine Love and Wisdom 340). In the spiritual world there are not just active and creative forces, but formative forces as well. They act in ultimates and are mediated by both heavenly and worldly atmospheres. The ends of the spiritual-natural degrees of heaven are the Lord's ends towards more specific uses. Creation proceeds toward a place where mankind is reached and when man meets his creator and becomes conjoined with Him.
Most would agree that animals and plants have some kind of soul, but would say it is not like that of a human's; the soul of plants and animals is a spiritual-natural soul. One can see that as the First Substance descended into lower forms it image it became less and less the image of the Divine. In fact, the soul of plants and animals are not immortal and the influx passes though them into the world and terminates and then vanishes never to return; it is not appropriated but returns back to nature. What one understands here is that nature cannot supply the material for the formation of spiritual life or higher life and that life in nature accordingly cannot induce changes of form. Such life's development cannot be by accidental mutation of plant or animal and must come from a higher spiritual source of endeavor from the First Life.
The purpose of creation was to make man and that man was made for heaven and for him to be conjoined with the Lord. Thus, man needs to become a recipient of the Divine so that he can reciprocate the Divine's love. All things of the universe was created for man, for his use, benefit, and delight. Therefore man was created last "and into him
were collated all things of Divine order from first to lasts. Internally he was a heaven in the least form, and His external was the world in the least form." In man are all the three degrees of the spiritual life and of the natural world of every substantial degree of created things, both from the spiritual Sun to that of the lowest natural matter from this world's sun.
In a sense man is born an animal but becomes a man, that is, a human, in which is the conjunction of his spiritual or internal which his rational with his external or natural, which is seen as an animal. Still, we must know that the man's soul within is the paternal seed, for the soul is the essence of the seed and continually aspires to the human form from the endeavor within its own substance. Thus the man clothes himself with a body - the body is in an image of itself and resembles itself. Man is finite from spiritual substances which are in the world, but it is the inmost man that is perfect and fully the human form and the whole of the body, even every part of it. Thus the soul forms itself, clothes itself, and become seed. "From spiritual marriage which flows into every single thing of the universe, being the marriage of good and truth, nothing else is received by males but truth and that which relates to truth; that in its progress into the body, this formed into seed, and that thence it is that seeds, spiritually understood are truths. . . The soul . . . the inmost of man . . . in its essence is spiritual, follows the descent and wills to procreate. . . Therefore the truth of the soul is the origin of seed, it follows that men have abundance according to their love of procreating the truth of wisdom" (Conjugial Love 220).
Our soul, being spiritual, also has three degrees, the celestial, the spiritual, and the spiritual-natural degrees of heaven. These are in man in impotency here on earth and will be opened up upon leaving the natural world. Thus, we see that the soul was created as the spiritual cause and formative principle to embrace these heavenly degrees. However, it is not the soul itself that creates; only the Lord alone creates both soul and body. Naturally, the man's body is to conform to this world, but not his spiritual body. One thus understands that the worldly atmospheres have no power to create a human body; they are however essential to promote clothing for the body. In Arcana Coelestia 4523, 3628 one reads, "In correspondence to the elements of nature; since the atmospheres are such as they are, to the end that they should form senses." By senses the internal and rational of man is meant, that is, his spirit is meant.
The soul is formed by forces external to itself and it is a vessel acting from the life of God within. How might the first humans have come into existence or become created? The Word does not say, except that God made the human male and female after His image and likeness; this may merely be understood in the literal sense and though it may be understood in the spiritual sense; it still does not reveal a man's natural creation. We also read that man was made of the 'dust of the ground and breathed into by God the breathe of life' and they (man) became celestial. Spiritually by the 'dust of
the ground' refers to being made from celestial things. By being 'breathed into by the breadth of God' refers to an internal sense where by the man would perceive the state of love and faith. It is in this way that man became a celestial Church. Here, of course, we see a human's spiritual development, but do not see his creation of his natural existence on earth.
This leaves us to revert back to the creation through the spiritual atmospheres or spiritual endeavors we spoke about before concerning the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. It was by such uses through means and methods that there came organic life on earth. We learned the Word, the Arcana Coelestia says these kingdoms were folded up one within the other. In the Word we can read "nothing of vegetation of that world (meaning the natural world) comes from seed sown but only from seed created." (Apocalypse Explained 65, 342:10). So, the three kingdoms have come forth by spiritual and heavenly endeavors. How else could they come into their natural existence except through that spiritual endeavor? We have already shown there is no power for that coming into existence.
Swedenborg, before he was chosen by the Lord to write the Word of the Divine Human, The Third Testament, he wrote the book The Worship and Love of God in which he wrote, "in the midst (of Paradise) was a fruit-tree, which bore a small egg, the most precious all, in which, as a jewel, nature concealed herself with her highest powers and stores, about to become the initiaments of the most consummated body; therefore this fruit-tree was called the TREE OF LIFE" (32e). Eventually we learn from that book that this 'egg' received a super-celestial form or soul in which was life and was capable of containing what is infinite or the infinite itself.
This book is not known to be the Word of God or if it should be accepted merely literally as the truth. In the Old Testament and the Third Testament one reads of a 'Tree of Life' and in the spiritual sense by a 'Tree of Life' signifies the Church of Good and Truth and, of course, we can understand this as a man, for naturally, if the man has good and truth within, then he is a Church and he becomes an angel in heaven upon leaving this world.
In the end it is a man's re-creation or what is his regeneration that is important and not how he became naturally created in this world.
End.
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