Divine Love and Divine Wisdom

When these faculties are closed up from within, the understanding and will are still called by those names, but in their essence, they are no longer truly such. Therefore, if those faculties were taken away, everything human would vanish, for being human consists of thinking and speaking from thought, and in willing and acting from the will. Thus, it is clear that the Divine resides within a person in these two faculties: the capacity to be wise and the capacity to love (that is, in the potential to do so). I have learned through much experience—which you may read about in detail elsewhere—that humans possess a power of loving even when they are not wise or do not love as they should.

31. Because the Divine Essence itself is love and wisdom, everything in the universe relates to goodness and truth. This is because everything that comes from love is called "good," and everything that comes from wisdom is called "truth." More will be said on this later.

32. Because the Divine Essence is love and wisdom, the universe and everything in it—both living and non-living—exist through heat and light. This is because heat corresponds to love, and light corresponds to wisdom. Therefore, spiritual heat is actually love, and spiritual light is actually wisdom. More will be said on this as well.

33. All human feelings original: "affections" and thoughts come from the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom; feelings come from Divine Love, and thoughts from Divine Wisdom. Every single thing belonging to a person is nothing more than feeling and thought; these two principles are the sources of everything in their life. All the joys and pleasures of life are derived from them: joys come from the feelings of their love, and pleasures from the thoughts grounded in that love. Since human beings were created to be receivers—and they are receivers only as much as they love God and gain wisdom from that love (that is, as much as they are moved by things from God and think from that feeling)—it follows that the Divine Essence from which everything was created is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom.

34. THAT DIVINE LOVE BELONGS TO DIVINE WISDOM, AND DIVINE WISDOM BELONGS TO DIVINE LOVE.

It was shown above (numbers 14 to 16) that the Divine Being original Latin: esse and the Divine Manifestation original Latin: existere in the God-Man are "distinctly one." Since the Divine Being is Divine Love, and the Divine Manifestation is Divine Wisdom, these two are likewise "distinctly one." They are called "distinctly one" because love and wisdom are two distinct things, yet they are so united that love belongs to wisdom and wisdom belongs to love. Love exists within wisdom, and wisdom comes into being within love. As it was said earlier (number 14), because wisdom derives its manifestation from love, Divine Wisdom is also a form of "being." It follows from this that love and wisdom, taken together, are the Divine Being original Latin: esse; but when viewed separately, love is called the Divine Being, and wisdom the...