UNDERSTANDING SPACE AND TIME SPIRITUALLY IN REGARD TO REGENERATION
By Rev. Paul Booth
By Rev. Paul Booth
Today, probably all Christian Churches do not believe that God, that is, the Divine, is in space, except the very young and naive. And, yet, doctrine in these Churches proclaims that the Divine is omnipresent with every man in the world, even with spirits in the spiritual world and with angels in Heaven. This dichotomy of God being present with man, who is in space and time, and still He is not in space or in time, but in eternity cannot be explained in any natural idea, but it can in a spiritual idea. Thus, it is that when something of spiritual light or understanding is admitted into a man's natural light or understanding it can be comprehended. Now, that spiritual light is derived from its state, for its state is predicated of love, of life, and of wisdom, and of the affections and joys and all of these with man are from God, and thus, they are predicated of good and truth and so, in man are seen as his faith and charity. From this is the idea that the spiritual state is higher than the natural where there are spaces and times. However, where angels and spirits are - in heaven and the spiritual world - there appears to be spaces, but there are not. In there appearances, the spaces change, whereas in the natural world they are fixed and measurable. Thus, it is that in Heaven and in the spiritual world an idea its self is spiritual, since they are predicated on spiritual thoughts from above, that is, on truth and good from the Lord God and these are from their affinities and similitude according to their states whether celestial, spiritual, or natural.
Therefore, those in the spiritual world can comprehend that the Divine is not in space and yet, He is everywhere. You may see from this how, also, a man can understand this when he admits spiritual light or intelligence into his mind, for it is not his body that thinks, but his spirit that is within that he thinks from. Though anyone may comprehend spiritual ideas, but most do not. The reason is that they love the natural state and are not willing to raise their thoughts of their understanding above the natural state. They, thus, think only from space and time, for it is constantly before their eyes.
It is in this knowledge and perception of how the Divine is not in space, but yet, the Divine is Omnipresent, Omniscience, Omnipotent, and is Infinity and Eternity.
When today a man thinks of God it is as a Man. Yet, how is it that this is so? Our thoughts come from God through the Heavens and through the entire spiritual world, for they are from the love and the life of God, who creates and sustains us, even though, now, our life has been distorted, because on our sins. Since, from God come or are created both the Heavens and the earth, and is in a form as the thought that proceeds from Him, then Heaven is in the form of the Divine, who is Man. The man who admits these spiritual truths and goods - that spiritual light and heat, that Intelligence and Love - into his self is conjoined with Heaven and thinks of God as do angels and comes to understand how it is that God is not in space and is yet with everyone and in all things, both natural and spiritual. Thus, it is that the Word in Genesis says that man was created after the image and likeness of God. And, that later God appeared to Abraham and others as a man. The Ancients, even though they, like the Most Ancient man, fell away into sin, and in their worship began worship a plurality of gods. Of course, we see the idea of God as a Man in the Christian Churches where, in the Athanasian Creed, they speak of the Trinity of God as in three Persons. However, Jesus, who assumed the Human when He came to earth was no longer present with men, having returned to His Father. He had ascended back to the Divine above the Heavens and, so, God was pronounced to be invisible as did the Israelites in their worship of God. Here, one learns how man cannot understand how God is everywhere and, yet, is not in space and, yet, that He is very Man. Yet, those who approach the Lord alone and not God in three separated persons think of a Divine Human, and so, think of God as a Man and not as three or even as some do as an energy or power or source of the universe.
In that idea of the Divine being not in space and still everywhere and with man and that the Divine is a Man is a correct idea. This idea constitutes the man's inmost thoughts and, so, man's religion and worship has respect to God. It is in this correct and just idea of God that a man on earth has communication with the Heavens and, thus with God and that God hears his prayers. Then, when the person leaves this world and enters the spiritual world and comes into Heaven he is, then, there in the state that he had affirmed in himself in this world. The same is said of those whose state, while in this world, is that of evils and falsities instead of good and truth and he enters hell and not Heaven and is there according to his state while he was on earth.
We have shown that the Divine is not is space, yet He is with everyone and we have shown that He is the Very Man and that good and truth proceed or flow 'as it were' from Him and forms Heaven as a man, and that angels in Heaven and men on earth are created in His image and likeness. Yet, we on earth see or understand everything according to space and time, for that is what is proper to our natural state and is from where one's (natural) thoughts are from and, therefore, is our understanding. Thus, it is, that unless, a man raises his mind above this - above thoughts wherein space and time adhere - nothing of spiritual, celestial or of the Divine are known or perceived. And, according to the Word such a man remains in darkness, for his thinking is only from worldly things and not of Heavenly things from God. Continuing in such a state leads to naturalism. However, when raising his mind above thinking in ideas of space and time, as has been shown, he begins to apprehend spiritual and Divine things and from spiritual light the darkness of the natural lumen (or light) begins to disperse and spiritual light begins to relegate the fallacies and falsities away from the middle or the center of his thought to the sides 'as it were' and eventually are turned under and are seen no longer and he 'as it were' is free from them. So it is that thinking from spiritual light or from God's truths a man is able to think above space and time and sees that the Divine in not in space, but is omnipresent. Thus, it is that the Divine fills all spaces of the universe apart from space.
We have said that space and time are natural properties from which a man on earth thinks. When man dies and leaves this world and becomes an angel these properties are no longer with him and, so, he does not think from them any longer. No longer does he live in natural light, but in spiritual light. In spiritual light objects of thought are of truths and the objects seen in their sight are similar to objects in the natural world, but correspond to their thoughts. Thus, as said, their thoughts are of truths and are not taken from space or time as they are with the man in the natural world. This is because angels think from states, that is, from their states of love, and not from space, and they think from states of wisdom instead of from time as men on earth do. As you know, on earth spaces and times are settled and do not change. What is seen is at a certain distance away does not change; times are set or are measured according to the rotation of the earth on its axis and as it travels around the sun. In Heaven there are only appearances of distance and they are not settled, but are mutable or changeable according to the states of one's life there. Thus, in the ideas of their thoughts they are according to the state of their life and not of the object that they sight as it is with the man on earth. From this we can understand that the Divine fills all spaces apart from space; however, angels clearly comprehend that the Divine fills all things, not spaces, for in Heaven there is no space, instead there are states of love and angels and some men, while on the earth, are in various states of love - celestial, spiritual, and natural, even infernal - though the man does not know or experience this. In this, one can understand that the Divine in Omnipresence with man on earth in the degree of his love.
What has been shown so far is that the natural man can think of spiritual and divine things from space and time, while the spiritual man thinks apart from space and time. The natural man thinks by ideas derived from objects he sees, what its length, height, and breadth are, and from its form. All these things adhere to the ideas of his thought. This idea is even carried into non-visible things such as civil and moral things, but still these ideas reach him by continuity, that is, from a continuation from God through the angles of Heaven and through spirits in the spiritual world to man in the natural world. It is just that on earth the idea of these thoughts seem derived from natural things and not from spiritual and divine things. For spiritual things are not comprehended according to space and time, but according to the state of the thing or object and the state of one's life.
Thus, an angel thinks of the good of a thing from the good of life, he thus thinks from correspondence, that is, from a relation of spiritual and natural things with each other. Now, has not the Lord asked us to love the neighbor? Since, as has been shown, the Lord God is present with man and is in man, then, our love towards our neighbor is to be directed towards the good in the neighbor. Here, a problem is seen because a man's will is for himself, that is, he loves himself more than the neighbor. In fact, the thoughts of the Divine's Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, and those of His Providence may indeed be understood, but it is not retained by man. In other words, those thoughts with man fall back into space, having rejected God's thoughts, thus, into this world and into his love for himself. And, it is there where his rational light abides and, if he does not know and even denies these divine things, he becomes irrational - his rational is from himself and is no longer from God, who has been cut-off from him by his sins.
Just as Jehovah God or the Divine fills all space apart from space, He is in all time apart from time, time being proper to Nature as is space. As space is measurable so, too, is time as shown above in the seasons, and by the rotation of the earth around the sun measuring in days, weeks, months, years, and centuries. However, like the apparent rotation of sun of the world, in the spiritual world time is there also in appearances. However, there, the Lord appears as the Sun of the spiritual world, but is constantly in the east and never moves away. So, it is that instead of times - hours, days, weeks, and so forth - there are states.
One sees that in spiritual life there are in the ideas of the thoughts states of life instead of spaces and times. Instead of spaces are states of love and instead of times there are states of wisdom. In this, you can see there is nothing common between natural and spiritual thought, except as regards the interiors of things, for these are spiritual. It is therefore that in the words of the written Word there is one meaning to man on earth and another to spirits in the world of spirits and likewise to the angels in Heaven. Thus, unless correspondences between Heaven and earth are known, communication between God and man is very limited, that is, that what is understood in the literal sense is not what is understood in the spiritual sense, but even more, there is no conjunction with God. It is through abstract thinking that one can come to understand spiritual things. It thus, behooved God to reveal the correspondences between Heaven and earth through the Word. That Word was only made possible when God became Man in the flesh and made Himself the Divine Human. For, in that state He - in the Divine Human - had defeated the evils that infest man and when a man accepts the Lord into his mind, into his will and understanding, making it new, the man can, through the knowledge of correspondences that are given in the Word of the Divine Human that is now on earth, come to understand spiritual things. And, when he believes and does or follows them, his regeneration is begun and he is, thus, not only is in communication, but is conjoined with God and Heaven.
End.
Therefore, those in the spiritual world can comprehend that the Divine is not in space and yet, He is everywhere. You may see from this how, also, a man can understand this when he admits spiritual light or intelligence into his mind, for it is not his body that thinks, but his spirit that is within that he thinks from. Though anyone may comprehend spiritual ideas, but most do not. The reason is that they love the natural state and are not willing to raise their thoughts of their understanding above the natural state. They, thus, think only from space and time, for it is constantly before their eyes.
It is in this knowledge and perception of how the Divine is not in space, but yet, the Divine is Omnipresent, Omniscience, Omnipotent, and is Infinity and Eternity.
When today a man thinks of God it is as a Man. Yet, how is it that this is so? Our thoughts come from God through the Heavens and through the entire spiritual world, for they are from the love and the life of God, who creates and sustains us, even though, now, our life has been distorted, because on our sins. Since, from God come or are created both the Heavens and the earth, and is in a form as the thought that proceeds from Him, then Heaven is in the form of the Divine, who is Man. The man who admits these spiritual truths and goods - that spiritual light and heat, that Intelligence and Love - into his self is conjoined with Heaven and thinks of God as do angels and comes to understand how it is that God is not in space and is yet with everyone and in all things, both natural and spiritual. Thus, it is that the Word in Genesis says that man was created after the image and likeness of God. And, that later God appeared to Abraham and others as a man. The Ancients, even though they, like the Most Ancient man, fell away into sin, and in their worship began worship a plurality of gods. Of course, we see the idea of God as a Man in the Christian Churches where, in the Athanasian Creed, they speak of the Trinity of God as in three Persons. However, Jesus, who assumed the Human when He came to earth was no longer present with men, having returned to His Father. He had ascended back to the Divine above the Heavens and, so, God was pronounced to be invisible as did the Israelites in their worship of God. Here, one learns how man cannot understand how God is everywhere and, yet, is not in space and, yet, that He is very Man. Yet, those who approach the Lord alone and not God in three separated persons think of a Divine Human, and so, think of God as a Man and not as three or even as some do as an energy or power or source of the universe.
In that idea of the Divine being not in space and still everywhere and with man and that the Divine is a Man is a correct idea. This idea constitutes the man's inmost thoughts and, so, man's religion and worship has respect to God. It is in this correct and just idea of God that a man on earth has communication with the Heavens and, thus with God and that God hears his prayers. Then, when the person leaves this world and enters the spiritual world and comes into Heaven he is, then, there in the state that he had affirmed in himself in this world. The same is said of those whose state, while in this world, is that of evils and falsities instead of good and truth and he enters hell and not Heaven and is there according to his state while he was on earth.
We have shown that the Divine is not is space, yet He is with everyone and we have shown that He is the Very Man and that good and truth proceed or flow 'as it were' from Him and forms Heaven as a man, and that angels in Heaven and men on earth are created in His image and likeness. Yet, we on earth see or understand everything according to space and time, for that is what is proper to our natural state and is from where one's (natural) thoughts are from and, therefore, is our understanding. Thus, it is, that unless, a man raises his mind above this - above thoughts wherein space and time adhere - nothing of spiritual, celestial or of the Divine are known or perceived. And, according to the Word such a man remains in darkness, for his thinking is only from worldly things and not of Heavenly things from God. Continuing in such a state leads to naturalism. However, when raising his mind above thinking in ideas of space and time, as has been shown, he begins to apprehend spiritual and Divine things and from spiritual light the darkness of the natural lumen (or light) begins to disperse and spiritual light begins to relegate the fallacies and falsities away from the middle or the center of his thought to the sides 'as it were' and eventually are turned under and are seen no longer and he 'as it were' is free from them. So it is that thinking from spiritual light or from God's truths a man is able to think above space and time and sees that the Divine in not in space, but is omnipresent. Thus, it is that the Divine fills all spaces of the universe apart from space.
We have said that space and time are natural properties from which a man on earth thinks. When man dies and leaves this world and becomes an angel these properties are no longer with him and, so, he does not think from them any longer. No longer does he live in natural light, but in spiritual light. In spiritual light objects of thought are of truths and the objects seen in their sight are similar to objects in the natural world, but correspond to their thoughts. Thus, as said, their thoughts are of truths and are not taken from space or time as they are with the man in the natural world. This is because angels think from states, that is, from their states of love, and not from space, and they think from states of wisdom instead of from time as men on earth do. As you know, on earth spaces and times are settled and do not change. What is seen is at a certain distance away does not change; times are set or are measured according to the rotation of the earth on its axis and as it travels around the sun. In Heaven there are only appearances of distance and they are not settled, but are mutable or changeable according to the states of one's life there. Thus, in the ideas of their thoughts they are according to the state of their life and not of the object that they sight as it is with the man on earth. From this we can understand that the Divine fills all spaces apart from space; however, angels clearly comprehend that the Divine fills all things, not spaces, for in Heaven there is no space, instead there are states of love and angels and some men, while on the earth, are in various states of love - celestial, spiritual, and natural, even infernal - though the man does not know or experience this. In this, one can understand that the Divine in Omnipresence with man on earth in the degree of his love.
What has been shown so far is that the natural man can think of spiritual and divine things from space and time, while the spiritual man thinks apart from space and time. The natural man thinks by ideas derived from objects he sees, what its length, height, and breadth are, and from its form. All these things adhere to the ideas of his thought. This idea is even carried into non-visible things such as civil and moral things, but still these ideas reach him by continuity, that is, from a continuation from God through the angles of Heaven and through spirits in the spiritual world to man in the natural world. It is just that on earth the idea of these thoughts seem derived from natural things and not from spiritual and divine things. For spiritual things are not comprehended according to space and time, but according to the state of the thing or object and the state of one's life.
Thus, an angel thinks of the good of a thing from the good of life, he thus thinks from correspondence, that is, from a relation of spiritual and natural things with each other. Now, has not the Lord asked us to love the neighbor? Since, as has been shown, the Lord God is present with man and is in man, then, our love towards our neighbor is to be directed towards the good in the neighbor. Here, a problem is seen because a man's will is for himself, that is, he loves himself more than the neighbor. In fact, the thoughts of the Divine's Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, and those of His Providence may indeed be understood, but it is not retained by man. In other words, those thoughts with man fall back into space, having rejected God's thoughts, thus, into this world and into his love for himself. And, it is there where his rational light abides and, if he does not know and even denies these divine things, he becomes irrational - his rational is from himself and is no longer from God, who has been cut-off from him by his sins.
Just as Jehovah God or the Divine fills all space apart from space, He is in all time apart from time, time being proper to Nature as is space. As space is measurable so, too, is time as shown above in the seasons, and by the rotation of the earth around the sun measuring in days, weeks, months, years, and centuries. However, like the apparent rotation of sun of the world, in the spiritual world time is there also in appearances. However, there, the Lord appears as the Sun of the spiritual world, but is constantly in the east and never moves away. So, it is that instead of times - hours, days, weeks, and so forth - there are states.
One sees that in spiritual life there are in the ideas of the thoughts states of life instead of spaces and times. Instead of spaces are states of love and instead of times there are states of wisdom. In this, you can see there is nothing common between natural and spiritual thought, except as regards the interiors of things, for these are spiritual. It is therefore that in the words of the written Word there is one meaning to man on earth and another to spirits in the world of spirits and likewise to the angels in Heaven. Thus, unless correspondences between Heaven and earth are known, communication between God and man is very limited, that is, that what is understood in the literal sense is not what is understood in the spiritual sense, but even more, there is no conjunction with God. It is through abstract thinking that one can come to understand spiritual things. It thus, behooved God to reveal the correspondences between Heaven and earth through the Word. That Word was only made possible when God became Man in the flesh and made Himself the Divine Human. For, in that state He - in the Divine Human - had defeated the evils that infest man and when a man accepts the Lord into his mind, into his will and understanding, making it new, the man can, through the knowledge of correspondences that are given in the Word of the Divine Human that is now on earth, come to understand spiritual things. And, when he believes and does or follows them, his regeneration is begun and he is, thus, not only is in communication, but is conjoined with God and Heaven.
End.
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