new church life: september / october 2013
all, but is variously received, and indeed according to the quality which the person
has induced on his soul by his life. Hence with the evil, goods and truths are turned
into evils and falsities, but with the good they are received – goods as goods, and
truths as truths. … While a person lives in the world he induces a form on the purest
substances of his interiors, so that it may be said that he forms his soul, that is, its
quality; and according to this form the Lord’s life is received, which is the life of His
love toward the universal human race. (Arcana Coelestia 5847, emphasis added. cf.
Ibid. 6467)
Note again, this passage clearly states that the Lord alone has life, yet in
the same breath it says that we have a role in responding, with acceptance or
rejection.
Since our formation must be in ultimates2, the Writings often state that
there are no angels or devils who have not been born first into the natural
world. In a treatment on this subject we read:
(2) It is not possible for [an angelic] mind to be formed except in a human being [in
the natural world]. There are several reasons for this. One is that all Divine influx
is from first things into ultimates, and, through the connection with ultimates,
into intermediate things. And in this way the Lord connects all things of creation
together. On account of this He is called “the First and the Last.” … [A]ll creating is
effected in ultimates and all Divine operating Passes through down to ultimates, and
there creates and operates. …(4) It is owing to spirits and angels having been men,
that they are able to continue existing and to live forever. This is because the angel
or spirit, in virtue of his having been first born a human being on earth, has that
in him which continues to exist, for he brings with him out of the inmost things of
Nature a medium between the spiritual and the natural, which medium provides him
with termination, so that he may be continuously existent and be permanently himself.
Owing to this, he possesses something that has relation with things in Nature,
and also something corresponding to them. (Divine Wisdom 8, the last emphasis
added)
Divine Providence (220.2-3) echoes the idea of termination. By virtue of
our birth and life in the natural world we are provided “with outmost and
lowest constituents which in themselves are fixed and set, within which and by
which [our] inner constituents can be held in connection.” We put off grosser
substances at death, but retain “the purer things of nature which are closest to
spiritual things.” 3 These purer things “conform and accord with spiritual and
heavenly ones and serve them as containing vessels.”
In this way the ultimate form of our spirit is retained. This is what
guarantees the permanence of our eternal identity. But since it can only be
accessed and changed while we were in our natural state, that ultimate form
2 “Ultimates” could also be translated “last elements,” or “outermost elements.” The Latin word
refers to the last and lowest elements in a descending series.
3 On the natural substances we retain, cf. Divine Love and Wisdom 257.5-6; True Christian Religion
103.
482