In the New Church we whole-heartedly believe in the Holy Trinity. In fact, we are very interested in the “trinity” concept. But to us, a trinity does not consist of three similar things on the same level (which might be regarded as a “trio”), but a trinity consists of one thing on three different levels. For example, three houses in a terrace do not form a trinity, but one house with three stories is a trinity. (Noah’s Ark was like that; it had “lower, second and third stories.” [Genesis 6:16]) Three oranges do not make a trinity; but one orange does, if you consider its skin, its flesh, and its pips or seeds. Three people do not make a trinity; but one person does, if you consider his soul, his body, and his influence or outflowing life.

The Holy Trinity—False View

The old, false idea of God was that he was, is, and ever has been, a trinity of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, all existing side by side since before the creation of the universe. The theory is that at a certain point in time, one of these three persons, the Son, came into the world as a baby, grew up here to adult status, was crucified, was buried, and then ascended back to Heaven, to rejoin the Father and the Holy Ghost; after which everything was as it had been.

No “Son from Eternity”

The main error here is the supposition that the Son of God existed as a second person of the Holy Trinity since the beginning. We have already discussed this in Chapter 11, but let us recapitulate some reasons for disbelieving it.

(1) A son must have a mother, and there were no women available before the creation. Mary of Nazareth was the mother of Jesus, and she came comparatively late in the story.

(2) If the Son had been there from the beginning, surely he would have been mentioned in the Old Testament, which he isn’t! On the contrary, Jehovah declares in Isaiah: “I am God, and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:21)

N.B.—The “Son of God” mentioned in Daniel 3:25 (A.V.) is a mistranslation that should read: “a son of the gods”— Nebuchadnezzar’s idea of a glorious spiritual being. It was, of course, an angel. (See Psalm 34:7)

(3) If the Son of God had been in existence from eternity, presumably an adult, how was it that he came into Mary’s womb as an embryo, then a fetus, and finally a sucking baby? Surely he would have arrived a full-grown man, knowing everything!

It is true that Jesus claimed to have been in existence since “before Abraham was.” (John 8:58.) He was not a created being, like other men. His soul was Jehovah himself, the great “I am.” That is why, when Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am!” the Jews tried to stone him for blasphemy. He did not say, however, that he had been the Son of God prior to his birth in Bethlehem.

Let us make this point perfectly clear. In so far as Jesus was divine, he was God. Not the Son of God (which he was when mixed with Mary’s heredity) but simply God.

Three Essentials in One Person

We have seen that everyone is a trinity, consisting of three essentials in one person. You have a soul or spirit, a physical body, and an “influence” or sphere or outgoing personality by which others know you. There is also another kind of trinity involved in every project you undertake: love, wisdom, and power (or, in the terms of the old philosophers: end, cause, and effect.) Suppose you set out to mend an electric fuse. (1) There must be the love—the desire to have the fuse mended, which is in your heart, or will. This is the end in view. (2) You must have the wisdom—the know-how, which is in your head, or understanding. This is what causes the project to be undertaken. (3) Lastly, you must have the power, which resides in your hands. This produces the effect.

In the beginning, God was a trinity like this. At heart, he was just love. But love cannot exist alone, it needs others outside itself whom it can love and make happy. So love produced wisdom, which set to work to plan the creation of a finite universe full of creatures, including people. His wisdom was (as it were) the architect, the builder. “In the beginning was the Word; all things were made by him.” (John 1:1, 3)  Finally, the divine wisdom sent out energy from the divine love to accomplish its plans, rather as an architect employs construction workers. This energy was the divine power. In Old Testament times, then, the holy trinity consisted of love, wisdom, and power, three essentials in one person, that person being Jehovah God.

The Word Became Flesh

When, later on, God wished to enter his universe as a man, he naturally came as the divine wisdom or Word, which had created the universe in the first place. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) Now, in Bethlehem, for the first time, we have the Father-Son relationship within the Godhead. The divine love was the Father, and the divine wisdom was (as it were) the Son. And their outpouring energy was the Holy Spirit.

This Father-Son relationship lasted for only only 33 years, from the birth of Jesus until his resurrection from death. After the ascension, the Holy Trinity consisted of (1) the divine Inmost, (2) the divine Human, and (3) the outflowing divine life. These three essentials correspond to the heat, light, and radiation of the spiritual Sun in Heaven, which is the Lord as seen by the angels.

We will now place these trinities together, side by side, and we think you will see how similar they are. In fact, they are really the same, under different names! God’s nature has not essentially changed, and we are in his image and likeness.

The Holy Ghost

Nobody seems to know why the Holy Ghost should be addressed as “him,” and called a “person.” The word “ghost” simply means spirit, breath or wind, and suggests “outflowing life or activity.” At the baptism of Jesus (Luke 3:2) the holy spirit entered him from Jehovah and was seen as a dove; only after receiving it was he enabled to do his redemptive work. He later promised his disciples that, when he was glorified, or united completed with his Father, this same holy spirit would overflow from him into them, as the comforter. (John 14:26 and 7:39) Thus, immediately after the resurrection, Jesus “breathed” on them in the upper room, and said: “Receive ye the holy ghost.” (John 20:22) A few weeks later, at Pentecost, the same holy spirit came down in full force upon all who believed in him—”as tongues of fire and a rushing mighty wind.” (Acts 2:2-4) Since then, the holy spirit was, and still is, the powerful stream of life that flows into men’s hearts and minds from the glorified Lord Jesus Christ; i.e., from the Divine-Human. Those who receive it are said to be “baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Death in Infancy

“As soon as little children are resuscitated, which takes place immediately after death, they are taken into heaven and confided to angel women who in the life of the body tenderly loved little children and at the same time loved God.” (Heaven and Hell 332)

When children die, they wake up as children in the spiritual world, since their spirits, like their bodies, are immature and unformed. They have to grow up and develop into adult men and women before they can become angels. This growth takes place in the middle region, very close to its frontiers with Heaven.

They are cared for by foster mothers: women angels who, when on earth, loved children dearly. (No one is their “father,” except the Lord, the Father of us all.) These children have a very happy upbringing, as all their lessons are in the form of games and play.

Naturally, angel children are not always good, for they inherit evil tendencies from their earthly parents. But they are taught from the very beginning to struggle against selfishness and bad temper, and to look to their heavenly Father, doing nothing contrary to his will.

As they grow older, the boys go to male angels who instruct them further, while the girls  are cared for and taught by married women (angels).

It appears that some of the “children” had been mentally defective adults in the world. Because they had had the mentality of babies, they quickly reverted to babyhood in the spiritual world and had to begin their growth and development there from the beginning, as if they had died in infancy. If a teenager on earth has a motorbike accident, which permanently damages his brain, so that for the rest of his life he is unable to be responsible for his own choices and decisions, then, even though he may grow to be a very old man, he will begin his life on the other side at the point he had reached when he had his accident, that is to say, as a teenager.

When the children have quite grown up in the World of Spirits and have learned all they need to know, they graduate as angels and enter one of the numerous societies of Heaven. It is a firm teaching of the New Church that no one who dies in childhood goes to Hell. All are saved; and this has nothing to do with whether or not they were baptized, as churches used to teach. All end up as angels in Heaven. Probably they are of a tender and sensitive character, as compared with those who bore the heat and burden of the day while on earth, and no doubt they have to be protected and helped in many ways by their tougher brethren. But there is work of a delicate nature that only they can perform. (Swedenborg compares them with the “eye” of the body.) We can be sure they are entirely and blissfully happy in their own way, just as other angels are in theirs. Thus, even the obvious evil of premature death is over-ruled by the Lord for good.

Death in Old Age

Those who die in old age, naturally wake up as “old folk” in the spiritual world. There is never any immediate change in one’s appearance after death. However, once the physical body has been dropped, the effects of old age soon begin to wear off. If the old man is good at heart, he finds his health improving and his body growing more vigorous. He wants to run and dance and play strenuous games. Finally he reaches the state of virile early manhood and develops a radiant youthfulness of face, body and manner, combined with ripe experience and wisdom. He then moves forward into Heaven and becomes an angel in the usual way. So also with the female sex. “Women who have died worn out with age,” writes Swedenborg, “if they have lived in faith in the Lord and charity towards their neighbor, come more and more into the flower of youth and early womanhood, and into a beauty which exceeds all idea of beauty perceivable by our sight. The angels in Heaven are continually advancing into the springtime of life; and the more thousands of years they live, the more delightful and happy is the spring to which they attain. “People in heaven are continually progressing toward the springtime of life. The more thousands of years they live, the more pleasant and happy is their springtime…. In a word, to grow old in Heaven is to grow young.” (Heaven and Hell 414)

On the other hand, evil people, whether old or young, grow more and more ugly and ill-favored after death, as their ruling love comes to the surface, until they end up as devils or satans in Hell.

Non-Christians After Death

It used to be fashionable for Christians to condemn all non-Christians to Hell. But in the New Church we know that it is the ruling love that makes a person an angel or a devil, and the ruling love of a Hindu or Islamist or so-called heathen savage is just as likely to be good as that of a “civilized” Christian.

When Jesus was on earth, the Samaritans were regarded as heathen and were despised and cold-shouldered by the strict Jews. Yet Jesus obviously liked them, and spent so much of his time with them that the Pharisees complained: “Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil!” (John 8:48.) In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus actually compared a Samaritan favorably with a Jewish priest and a Levite and pointed to him as the “neighbor who is to be loved.” And remember, it was a Samaritan woman who first recognized Jesus as the Christ. (John 4:29.)

In two other of our Lord’s parables, he seems to have been referring to the gentiles or non-churchgoers of his day.

(1) The story of the rich man at his dinner table, and the beggar Lazarus lying at his gate, full or sores. (Luke 16:19-31.) Here the beggar stands for the gentiles, while the rich man represents the complacent members of the dying church.
(2) The story of the wedding feast to which those who were invited would not come. (Luke 14:16-24.) Here the gentiles are the poor, maimed, crippled and blind, who eventually enjoyed the banquet, to the exclusion of the indifferent nobility.

Evidently Jesus had a great deal of sympathy with the gentiles of his day; and in fact the Christian church took root among the gentiles more readily than among the Jews. Swedenborg gave grounds for believing that the New Church also would develop most freely among the gentiles, especially the Africans; and it is a fact that the New Church organizations in South and West Africa have far more members today than all the branches in the rest of the world put together.

This raises a very interesting question. If the heathen or gentiles have just as good a chance of getting to Heaven as Christians, why try to convert them to Christianity? Why have missions? This is a deep matter, which cannot be dealt with briefly. Suffice it to say that Jesus commissioned his disciples to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15.) Indeed, it is only natural for us to want to share with others what means a lot to us, to give them the wonderful and exciting information that they don’t know about. Then there is the important consideration that, by spreading the New Church doctrines, we are helping to make this world a better place to live in. This world will always be a hell, so long as falsities reign in it. If it is to become more like Heaven, then people on earth must learn the heavenly doctrines and try to live according to them.

Nevertheless, the teaching still holds good that in individual cases, however false a person’s beliefs may be, however his religion may violate our sense of right or wrong, he will surely get to Heaven in the end, if his ruling love is good.

It is probable that when some of the heathen first wake up in the spiritual world they will appear full of sores, or maimed, crippled and blind, like the guests at the feast in our Lord’s parable. This will be because their spirits are diseased and their beliefs twisted and corrupt. If their religion involved cruel rites and ceremonies, they will unthinkingly begin to practice them, as far as they are able, in the spirit. But angels will come and stop them, and explain to them about the true God, our Lord, who is love itself and mercy itself, and who came into the world to redeem and save humankind. If they are good at heart, they will listen eagerly and be deeply touched; they will receive the good news gladly and cease altogether from their base practices. At the same time, they will freely submit to the pain of having their twisted bodies straightened out; and eventually, when they have accepted the Lord as their God, and learned something of his Word, they will become angels and enter Heaven. Some will no doubt go even to the Celestial Heaven, the Heaven of love to the Lord, which is the highest Heaven of all.

The same principle applies to members of the great world religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. Or the smaller cults, some of which have quite beautiful features although they do not acknowledge Christ as God. And what of the gentiles in our own culture, those outside the Christian church—agnostics, freethinkers, atheists? Are we to cold-shoulder them, as the Jews did the Samaritans? And how about the present-day Jews? Are we to cold-shoulder them? The answer is the same in every case. We must do all we can to encourage Christian ways of life in this world; but one of the outstanding characteristics of true Christianity is toleration. We should not condemn anyone who believes differently from us. They may, in fact, be nearer to the kingdom of Heaven than we are!

There will be plenty of opportunity to learn the heavenly doctrines after death, even for those who never heard of them on earth. But in the spiritual world no one can absorb wisdom unless their heart is good. The evil turn away in disgust from their would-be angelic instructors; they deny any truth presented to them; or, if they accept it, they profane it by turning it to evil uses. Perhaps the worst of such profaners are those who actually belonged to the Christian church on earth but did not live according to its teachings. The good news brought to them by the angels makes not the slightest impression on them, because they are already familiar with it. “That’s old hat!” they jeer, “as stale as moldy bread!”— and they make off towards Hell. Such are the lepers of the other world—who blend truth with evil, mixing their knowledge of holy things with base desires.

We who belong to the Christian church on earth should take warning from this and realize that with special privileges comes special responsibility. More is expected of us than of others. As Jesus said: “That servant which knew his Lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be smitten with a few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required.” (Luke 12:47-8.)

The First State after Death

When we die, we wake up in the intermediate region of the spiritual world, neither in Heaven nor Hell, but in the neutral “no man’s land” which Swedenborg calls the World of Spirits. There is no immediate change in our situation; we are the same as we were before we went to sleep. In fact, we may not even realize that we have passed over. As to our characters, we shall probably be a mixture of good and evil. Those whose ruling love is overlaid and hidden (as it is with most of us) will continue to disguise their motives. This is the first state after death—one of continuity. But it doesn’t last for long!

Judgment Begins

After a short or longer period in the World of Spirits, a person’s ruling love begins to reveal itself, and he no longer cares whether it is seen or not. All the thoughts, affections and beliefs which he brought with him but which are not in harmony with his ruling love, begin to fall away; they are not really his own, and so he discards them, becoming completely integrated—”himself.” He can no longer play a role or “put on an act” or pretend to be what he isn’t.

This stripping of one’s self bare, even to one’s most secret thoughts and intentions, is the judgment. “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, nor hid that shall not be known.” (Matthew 10:26.) No need for a great white throne and a recording angel; one’s innocence or guilt is there for all to see!

 The Second State after Death

The second state can produce some surprises. Many who, while on earth, appeared to be good and wise and were respected by everybody are now seen to have been motivated by self-love or love of the world. All their respectability now falls away, and they plunge into unrestrained selfishness or acquisitiveness. Another person may have been a drunk or wastrel on earth, scorned by “good” people; or perhaps even a criminal—who knows? Yet in their heart they may have longed for better things: in which case, their good ruling love will now take over, and their disreputable exterior will fall away, leaving them sweet and angelic, as they always wanted to be.

At this stage the person is a spirit and  begins to forget what they had been in the world, nor will they cling to their former opinions and beliefs unless they have confirmed them and made them a part of themselves. In some cases, attachment to a particular situation on earth, in which they were intimately involved, may hold them back, and they will need to be released from it. Or they may have died in a state of extreme confusion and emotional stress (as, for example, in a case of suicide). Such people will need “straightening out” before they can progress further. Others of a hypocritical nature will be so convinced of their own self-righteousness that they will need to be reminded of their selfish motivation, in which case they may have to be presented with a play-back of incidents in their earth lives, drawn from their own inner memories. Always the principle is the same. Every single individual has to “come to himself’” after death, before he can pass on to his final home in Heaven or Hell.

It is impossible to determine how long people remain in the intermediate region before passing on, because time is not fixed and measurable in the spiritual world. During some eras in ancient times, they remained there for hundreds of years. But in this New Age it is probable that very few, if any, who died, say, thirty years ago, are still in the intermediate region.

Preparation for Heaven

If the newly-awakened spirit is good at heart, then he rejoices to find he is free from the restrictions and bad habits that perhaps drove him to sin while in the world. He can now express his love to the Lord and the neighbor much more freely than before, and he finds an increasing happiness in doing so. His face and expression become more relaxed and attractive. Many questions will be stirring in his mind. He may have regarded himself as an atheist in reaction to the false and even absurd ideas of God put out by some of the churches in the past. He now sees how mistaken he was in his negative attitude and feels an urgent need for enlightenment. People from a pagan culture will need to be released from their former religious convictions and be led to a clearer understanding of divine truth. In every case, the emerging soul finds his old false misconceptions falling away and begins to feel a “hunger and thirst after righteousness.”

Instruction is given in various ways, adapted to the needs of each individual. Fictitious “heavens” are provided, so that people can experiment with what they have believed Heaven to be like, to see whether it really satisfies their needs. Others are made to face mind-expanding situations, or to take part in guided discussion groups. The glorified Lord Jesus Christ is presented to them in all his divine beauty, and they are encouraged to open themselves to the inflow of his love and wisdom. Only when they have become Christians in the purest sense are they ready to enter Heaven, for in Heaven Christ alone is king.

 The Drop-Outs

How different is the progress of newly-awakened spirits whose ruling love is evil! As inhibitions fall away, they find themselves doing and saying blasphemies that they would never have dared to utter on earth, and not caring what anyone thinks! When angels come to help these spirits, they curse them and run away. They soon become bored with the companionship of decent people and seek out associates of a more spicy flavor. Their faces begin to take on cunning and repulsive expressions. They laugh with derision at his former religious beliefs and think up a lot of false ideas to justify their new attitudes. 

Finding One’s Eternal Home

Eventually, everyone in the intermediate region begins to feel the “pull” of their ruling love. They cannot resist it; they must move in the direction it draws them, like water finding its own level.

The evil go first. They are repeatedly warned that they are heading for Hell, but what do they care? It seems a pretty good place to them, the best they have ever been in! All the other inhabitants there are like themselves: they quarrel and lust and spit invectives at one another to their hearts’ content.

Who sent them to Hell? Nobody but themselves. There is no inquiry as to their faith or former church affiliations, or whether they were baptized, or even what kind of life they lived on earth. They migrate toward a hellish state because they are drawn to its way of life, and for no other reason. What makes an insect buzz around a pile of manure? Catch it and put it on a rose or sweet pea, and it will get back to the filth as quickly as it can! Presumably at any time evil spirits could go into reverse and become angels in Heaven. What a rejoicing there would be if they did! But no. At this point it is too late. They prefer to live among their own kind in Hell.

Good spirits also leave the intermediate region, but in the opposite direction, towards Heaven. Their ruling love takes them to precisely that point in Heaven where they feel at home and are at rest. All the other inhabitants there are of the same nature; they even resemble one another, like members of the same family, and they welcome them as new-found brothers or sisters.

In our material world, a person can settle down and live almost anywhere; but in the spiritual world there is only one place where any individual can feel at home, and this is determined by his or her deep-down attitude towards God and the neighbor. Those are near together who are alike in character. Love attracts, and hate repels. “Birds of a feather flock together.”

It is possible, of course, to leave one’s home for short periods at a time; but, if one does so, there is always a feeling of strain and anxiety, a “home sickness” until one returns.

 Ruling Love Fixed after Death

Theoretically it might be possible to change one’s ruling love at any time, even after death; but in practice nobody ever wants to do so because, especially after settling down in Heaven or Hell, one is totally committed either to good or to evil. Spirits can change in a hundred different ways in the course of their development to eternity, but it is always within the framework of their ruling love.

This could be illustrated in terms of one’s vocation or field of employment in this world. We choose our profession, more or less, while still at school: minister, doctor, lawyer, engineer, electrician, etc. This leads to specialized training at college which confirms us in our choice; and eventually we embark upon our life’s work. After that, we are not likely to switch to another line of employment; but our development does not cease, it goes on and on as we become more and more advanced and expert within our chosen sphere of activity. Far more so does this apply after death. The angels take up their varied “uses” in Heaven, according to the characters they have formed on earth. Their ruling love remains essentially the same thereafter, but they go on developing along the lines it indicates.

No angel ever wants to become a devil, and no devil ever wants to become an angel. Between them there is a “great gulf fixed.” (Luke 16:19-31) This great gulf is not fixed by God, but by the total incompatibility of the characters on the two sides. Only in the equilibrium or balance between Heaven and Hell that exists in this earth life does anyone change his ruling love, which is what makes this earth life so important!

The Uncreated Creator

God is infinite; God is love itself, wisdom itself, and power itself; God is always “there.” We are advised not to try to think how God came into existence; such speculations might drive us crazy! God is simply the uncreated Creator of everything. He created the entire universe, and many other worlds and universes we know nothing of; and he continues to hold them in being, through every moment of time. Scientists tell us of the enormous energy continually operating in every atom of matter; this comes direct from God. Also the life-force in every plant, insect and animal, and in every man, woman and child. He is the Creator and Preserver of all things.

Because God is loving and wise, we must think of God as a person. That is to say, God is not a blind force, like wind or gravitation; he is a Person, albeit a divine person. He is, in fact, the only self-existing or real person. We human beings are persons because we are made in the image and likeness of God; we are finite replicas of the One Infinite God. I do not mean we are in God’s “shape,” because God, being infinite, can have no “shape.” (You cannot say he is “here” but not “there,” because he is everywhere.) We are like him because we can love and think, albeit only in a finite way since he is love and wisdom itself. We are persons because God is personal. He knows us and loves us—every one of us. In fact, he is fully present with us. And if you find it difficult to understand how he can be fully present with me and with you and with every one of the billions of people alive on earth, and the billions of billions of people still alive in the spiritual world… well, we are only finite and obviously cannot conceive of the nature of the infinite.

As God is all-powerful, he must be ONE. It is self-contradictory to say there is more than one being who is all powerful! If there was more than one God, each would have to give way to some other, or one would destroy the other. (In a polytheistic system, all the “gods” are strictly limited in power and responsibility.) God has many attributes. He has several planes of being and works on several levels; this has led people to think of him as consisting of several different “persons.” But the splitting-up of God, even to make him Father, Son and Holy Spirit, produces a multi-headed monster which would, in the end, destroy itself. (In later chapters, we shall see how the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all one person, who is the glorified Lord Jesus Christ.)

Creative Love

Basically, all creation—the creative act itself—is motivated by love. The power within the universe that makes it operate is love. The Lord himself is the divine powerhouse: he is the source of the power that is love. Hence we say God is Love. This does not mean merely that God is loving and kind. It means he is love itself.

Our love is only finite, but it derives from his infinite source, and so it resembles his love, though on a finite plane. Think of a happy family among ourselves. The parents love their children. (It was their love which conceived the children in the first place.) This gives them a strong desire to make the children happy. The parent wants to give himself or herself out to them, and as it were, “unite them with himself.” If they love the parent in return, the parent’s happiness is complete; they ask for nothing more. The parent wants their family to grow in numbers: first one child, then another, then another. Each new child is someone else for the parents to love and make happy; so they grow with their family.

This brings out two important principles about love:

(1)  There must be self-conscious beings outside of oneself whom one can love and make happy, and who are free to reciprocate one’s love. Love finds no satisfaction if turned inwards to self; it must be directed outwards to others. And those others must be responsible beings, not robots or puppets.

(2) Love grows by giving itself out to others. If you love twenty people, your love is twenty times as great as if you love yourself only. (More than twenty times, as there is a bonus added!) The more love you give away, the more you have. This strange arithmetic is illustrated by our Lord’s feeding of the five thousand. (Matthew 14:13-22.) Spiritual commodities, such as love and wisdom, increase equally whether you multiply or divide them. (That is spiritual arithmetic!) They only decrease if you ignore them or have nothing to do with them: then they wither, dry up and fade away. Or they are “taken away,” like the talent buried in the ground. (Matthew 25:28.)

God is love itself. The two principles we have mentioned apply infinitely to him.

(1) There must be someone “outside of” God, or “other than” God, whom He can love and make happy, and who can reciprocate His love in freedom. Hence the need for a finite universe, with finite people in it. (Only what is finite can be “outside” or “other  than” the infinite.) You can think of the created universe as consisting of a number of “vessels” capable of receiving and holding God’s outpouring life. A person’s innermost soul is like a wine glass which God fills with the choicest wine. The glass is never dissolved into the wine—if it were, the wine would be lost. Always the infinite and the finite exist side by side within us, the finite giving shape to the infinite, but never merging with it. (Swedenborg says the two are “conjoined” but never “united,” except in the case of Jesus Christ, as we shall see in a later chapter.) Any religion or philosophy that teaches that human beings are divine, that they can be merged with God or grow into God, is, in that matter, based on falsehood. The truth is that God is the infinite creator, and the human being is the finite creature: the finite can never become infinite, the creature can never become its own creator. The three main world religions that correctly emphasize this distinction between God and the universe are Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

( 2) Love grows by giving itself out to others. God, since he is love itself, actually “needs” to have finite beings whom he can love and make happy. He never stops creating. New babies are always being born. And he likes as much variety as possible, within human limits: white, yellow, brown and black; clever and dull, distinguished and commonplace. Each individual is unique, yet he loves them all equally, no one more than another. (Good parents have no favorites among their children!) God never grows weary as a creator, because love actually increases with its own out-pouring. On the human analogy, one might say that God is far “stronger” now than he was at the beginning of the creation, because he now has so many human beings to love!

How was the Universe Created?

God created the universe by pouring out divine substance from himself, and then, in some mysterious way we cannot understand, withdrawing himself from it, until it became dead matter, therefore finite. This might be explained in mathematical terms by saying “Infinity divided by infinity equals any finite number, or all finite numbers.”

If this proposition is correct, then this symbol could represent the “big bang” which exploded into stars, planets, oceans, forests, fertile lands, the whole tremendous universe!

We are on firm ground when we assert that creation started with dead matter, of the lowest and most inert degree—gases, water, rocks, minerals, etc. God then fashioned these into forms capable of receiving life on a higher level: first the vegetable kingdom, then the animal kingdom, which is sustained by the vegetable kingdom; then, from the animal kingdom, humanity. Somehow at this stage a “soul” must have been implanted, but when exactly this was done, and how (perhaps by a virgin birth?) we cannot tell, because we are part of the process. We know that love was the driving force, and that wisdom was the controlling factor. Divine love set the process going, and divine wisdom planned the action. And, when you have love and wisdom working together, then you have power.

Why were We Created?

Many different answers have been given to the question, “Why did God make us?”—such as, “So that we can serve him” (just as if he needed our assistance!) or, “So that we can worship and praise him.” The true answer would be, “So that he might love us, and make us happy from himself.” However, he does want us to serve and worship him, because he knows we are happiest when we are doing so. To be happy we must cooperate from our side, and reciprocate his love, thus completing the circle. If we misuse our freedom and turn away from him (which he lets us do if we really want to), then our creation has been a failure. Can God fail? Yes, when dealing with his children; because he has given us freedom to love him or not. Only because we have this freedom will our love be worth anything to him. Does God still love us if we are evil? Of course, he does! Parents still love their children, even when the children go wrong. They yearn after the children, and suffer on account of them, but still they love them. That is their nature.

Human Beings are Immortal

It is not God’s will that any of his children should perish or cease to exist. Their physical bodies will die in due course, but their souls will go on living to eternity. The good ones will become “angels,” and where they are will be Heaven. The bad ones will become “satans,” or “devils,” or just “evil spirits,” and where they are will be Hell. We are all potential angels. Life on earth is provided for the development of the angel-nature within us. The whole purpose of the world and everything in it, the whole purpose of Creation itself, is: To form a heaven of angels from the human race.

N.B.—Although human beings are finite, even as to spirit (the angels are still finite), yet our souls are immortal. We do not call ourselves “eternal” because we are not self-sustaining; yet, we go on living forever, because the eternal God perpetually sustains us. By way of analogy, think of an electric light bulb. It goes on giving light for as long as electricity from the powerhouse is fed into it: but in itself it is quite dead.