Divine Love and Wisdom 116. It will now be explained how it comes about that an angel perceives and feels as his own, and thus receives and retains that which yet is not his (for, as was said above, an angel is not an angel from what is his own, but from those things which are with him from the Lord). The essence of the matter is thus. Every angel has liberty and rationality. He has these two so that he may be capable of receiving love and wisdom from the Lord. Yet each of these, liberty as much as rationality, is the Lord's with him, and not his. But because these two are intimately conjoined to his life, so intimately that they may be said to be joined into his life, therefore they appear as if they were his own. From these he is able to think and will, also to speak and act. And what he thinks, wills, speaks and does from them, appears as if it were from himself. This causes reciprocity by which there is conjunction. In so far, however, as an angel believes that love and wisdom are in him, and thus claims them to himself as his own, so far the angelic is not in Him and therefore to that extent he has no conjunction with the Lord. For he is not in the truth; and because truth makes one with the light of heaven, to that extent he cannot be in heaven. For he thereby denies that he lives from the Lord, and believes that he lives from himself, consequently that the Divine essence is his. In these two, liberty and rationality, consists the life which is called angelic and human. From these things it can be established that an angel has reciprocity for the sake of conjunction with the Lord, but that this reciprocity viewed in its own aspect, is not his, but the Lord's. Hence it is that if he abuses this reciprocity by which he perceives and feels as his own what is the Lord's, which is done by appropriating it to himself, he falls away from the angelic state. The Lord Himself teaches in John (John 14:20-24; 15:4-6) that conjunction is reciprocal; also that conjunction of the Lord with man, and of man with the Lord, is in those things of the Lord which are called His words, John 15:7.



The nature of Divine Love



DLW 48. Divine Love must necessarily have being (esse) and have form (existere) in others whom it may love, and by whom it may be loved. For as there is such a need in all love, it must be to the fullest extent, that is, infinitely in Love Itself.



Love has to have what is other to fulfil its nature, it cannot love itself



DLW 49. With respect to God: it is impossible for Him to love others and to be loved reciprocally by others in whom there is anything of infinity, that is, anything of the essence and life of love in itself, or anything of the Divine. For if there were beings having in them anything of infinity, that is, of the essence and life of love in itself, that is, of the Divine, it would not be God loved by others, but God loving Himself; since the Infinite, that is, the Divine, is one only, and if this were in others, Itself would be in them, and would be the love of self Itself; and of that love not the least trace can possibly be in God, since it is wholly opposed to the Divine Essence. Consequently, for this relation to be possible there must be others in whom there is nothing of the Divine in itself. 



Only the Divine is form and substance itself, is infinite and uncreated



DLW 52… the created universe is an image representative of God-Man, and that it is His Love and Wisdom which are presented, in an image, in the universe. Not that the created universe is God-Man, but that it is from Him; for nothing whatever in the created universe is substance and form in itself, or life in itself, or love and wisdom in itself, yea, neither is man a man in himself, but all is from God, who is Man, Wisdom and Love, also Form and Substance, in itself. That which has Being-in-itself is uncreate and infinite; but whatever is from Very Being, since it contains in it nothing of Being-in-itself,

Ver todos los episodios