True Christian Religion

from its primitive [form], which is that every single letter of every word signifies some thing. Hence it is now that God is called Alpha and Omega; by which is signified that He is the Itself and the Unique One from firsts to lasts, from Whom are all things. Regarding this Language and its Scriptural flow from the Spiritual thought of Angels, see the work Conjugial Love original: "Amore Conjugiali," published by Swedenborg in 1768, numbers 326 to 329, and also in the following pages.

20. II. THAT THE ONE GOD IS SUBSTANCE ITSELF AND FORM ITSELF, AND THAT ANGELS AND MEN ARE SUBSTANCES AND FORMS FROM HIM; AND AS MUCH AS THEY ARE IN HIM, AND HE IN THEM, SO MUCH ARE THEY IMAGES AND LIKENESSES OF HIM.

Since God is Being Being: "Esse," the fundamental state of existing, He is also Substance, for Being, unless it is a substance, is a mere creature of reason creature of reason: "ens rationis," a philosophical term for something that exists only as a thought and not in reality; for substance is a subsisting entity. And He who is substance is also form, for substance, unless it is form, is a creature of reason. Therefore, both can be predicated of God, but in such a way that He is the unique, the very, and the first Substance and Form. That this Form is the truly Human Form—that is, that God is Very Man, in whom all things are Infinite—has been demonstrated in ANGELIC WISDOM CONCERNING THE DIVINE LOVE AND THE DIVINE WISDOM, published in Amsterdam in the year 1763. Similarly, it is demonstrated that Angels and Men are created and organized substances and forms for receiving the Divine things flowing into them through Heaven. Therefore, in the Book of Creation The book of Genesis, they are called "Images and Likenesses of God" (Chapter 1:26, 27), and elsewhere they are called His sons and born of Him. But how much a man lives under Divine auspices—that is, allows himself to be led by God—so much he becomes His image more and more interiorly, will be demonstrated in many places in the series of this Work. Unless an idea is formed of God as the first Substance and Form, and of His Form as the truly Human Form, human minds would easily adopt fantasies like ghosts regarding God Himself, the origin of men, and the Creation of the World. They would take no other notion of God than as the Nature of the universe in its first principles, or as its Expanse, or as a void or nothingness. Regarding the origin of men, they would see it as a chance confluence of elements into such a form; and regarding the Creation of the World, they would think the origin of its substances and forms was from geometric points and lines, which, because they have no properties, are in themselves nothing. Among such people, everything regarding the Church is like the Styx A river in the underworld of Greek mythology or the gloom of Tartarus The deepest abyss of the underworld.

21. III. THAT THE DIVINE BEING IS BEING IN ITSELF, AND AT THE SAME TIME EXISTING IN ITSELF.

That Jehovah God is Being Being: "Esse" in Himself is because He is the "I Am," the Itself, the Unique and the First, from eternity to eternity, from whom is everything that is, so that it may be something. Thus, and not otherwise, is He the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, and the Alpha and the Omega. It cannot be said that His Being is from Himself, because THIS "FROM HIMSELF" original: "HOC EX SE" posits a "before" and thus time, which does not apply to the Infinite (which is called FROM ETERNITY). It would also posit another God who is God in Himself—thus a God from a God—or suggest that God formed Himself, and thus He would not be Uncreated nor Infinite, because He would have limited Himself either by Himself or by another. From the fact that God is Being in Himself, it follows that He is Love in Himself, Wisdom in Himself, and Life in Himself, and that He is the Itself from Whom all things are, and to which all things relate, so that they may be something. That God is Life in Himself, and thus God, is evident from the Lord's words in John, Chapter 5:26. And in Isaiah: "I am Jehovah, making all things, stretching out the Heavens alone, and spreading out the Earth by Myself" (Chapter 44:24). And that He is the only God, and besides Him there is no God (Isaiah 45:14, 15, 20, 21; Hosea 13:4). That God is not only Being Esse in Himself, but also Existing Existing: "Existere," the manifestation or "standing forth" of Being in Himself, is because Being, unless it Exists, is not anything; likewise, Existing is nothing unless it is from Being. Therefore, where one is given, the other will be given. Similarly, unless a substance is also a form, nothing can be predicated of that Substance; and this is because it has no quality, and is in itself nothing. The reason "Being" and "Existing" are used here, rather than "Essence" and "Existence," is because a distinction must be made between Being and Essence, and between Existing and Existence, as between a prior and a posterior. That which is prior is more universal than that which is posterior. Infinity and Eternity apply themselves to the Divine Being, but to the Divine Essence and Existence they apply—