The leading scientific theory of creation is what’s called the “Big
Bang.” It says that everything - all energy and matter in the universe, and even time and space themselves - started in one moment of unthinkable power in a point so small as to have no space at all. That power ballooned out to form time and space, and as it kept ballooning the power stretched and cooled enough to start forming patterns, which eventually got dense enough to form sub-atomic particles, which eventually clumped to form atoms, which eventually clumped to form stars, planets, air, water, simple life forms and ultimately people.
That theory has strong parallels to Swedenborg’s statements on reality. In a sense, Divine Love - the infinite love that is the essence and ultimate being of the Lord - is that infinite power that was without time or space at the moment of creation. Divine Wisdom - the “image of love,” as Swedenborg puts it - is that first ballooning, and the space-time continuum it created. It does not have any particular form, and it is difficult to define or measure in a way we can understand. But it exists, and its existence makes it possible for love to take form.
That sounds pretty distant from the idea of “wisdom” we all have. In everyday life, “wisdom” simply means the ability to make good, thoughtful decisions and judgments. If you dig into that idea, though, it’s not that different really. Those good, thoughtful decisions are generally not simply based in facts - they are a mix of facts and love, of facts and the desire for the best possible outcome. And when you get right down to it, true wisdom actually leads with love, with the desire for the best, most caring and most helpful outcome for all involved. The facts and ideas are really there to be organized by that desire, to give it a way to express itself. So just as in the paragraph above, wisdom is really an arena where love can take form, a medium that allows love to have an image.
Of course, such wisdom for us is sort of a mental area where we can do this kind of thinking. For the Lord this “mental area” is time and space itself, even reality itself, where love can be constantly channeled into forms that draw us toward heaven.
Passages from Swedenborg
Divine Love and Wisdom (Dole) n. 34
Divine love is a property of divine wisdom, and divine wisdom is a property of divine love. On the divine reality and the divine manifestation being distinguishably one in the Divine-Human One, see 14-16 above. Since the divine reality is divine love and the divine manifestation is divine wisdom, these latter are similarly distinguishably one.
We refer to them as "distinguishably one" because love and wisdom are two distinguishable things, and yet they are so united that love is a property of wisdomand wisdom a property of love. Love finds its reality in wisdom, and wisdom finds its manifestation in love. Further, since wisdom derives its manifestation from love (as noted in 15 [14] above), divine wisdom is reality as well. It follows from this that love and wisdom together are the divine reality, though when they are distinguished we call love the divine reality and wisdom the divine manifestation. This is the quality of the angelic concept of divine love and wisdom.
Divine Love and Wisdom (Dole) n. 35
Because there is such a oneness of love and wisdom and of wisdom and love in the Divine-Human One, the divine essence is one. In fact, the divine essence is divine love because that love is a property of divine wisdom, and it is divinewisdom because that wisdom is a property of divine love. Because of this oneness, the divine life is a unity as well: life is the divine essence.
The reason divine love and wisdom are one is that the union is reciprocal, and a reciprocal union makes complete unity.
Divine Love and Wisdom (Dole) n. 39
Even though love and wisdom seem to be two separate things in us, essentially they are distinguishably one. This is because the quality of our love determines the quality of our wisdom and the quality of our wisdom the quality of our love. Any wisdom that is not united to our love seems like wisdom, but it is not; and any love that is not united to our wisdom seems like wisdom's love even though it is not. Each gets its essence and its life from the other in mutual fashion.
The reason the wisdom and love within us seem to be two separate things is that our ability to understand can be raised into heaven's light, while our ability to love cannot, except to the extent that we act according to our understanding. So any trace of apparent wisdom that is not united to our love for wisdom relapses into the love with which it is united. This may not be a love for wisdom, and may even be a love for insanity. We are perfectly capable of knowing, from ourwisdom, that we ought to do one thing or another, and then of not doing it because we have no love for it. However, to the extent that we do the bidding of our wisdom, from love, we are images of God.
True Christian Religion 350
Wisdom has no other source except divine truths that have been analytically divided into forms by means of light flowing in from the Lord. Human intelligence that is truly intelligent has the same source.
Apocalypse Revealed 189
A person acquires wisdom from no other source than goodness gained through truths from the Lord. A person acquires wisdom through these truths because they are the means by which the Lord conjoins Himself with the person and the person with Himself, and the Lord is wisdom itself. Wisdom consequently perishes in a person when he stops putting truths into practice, that is, when he stops living in accordance with them. He also then ceases to love wisdom, and accordingly ceases to love the Lord.
By wisdom we mean wisdom in spiritual matters. From this as a wellspring flows wisdom in all else, which we call intelligence, and through this knowledge, which results from an affection for knowing truths.
Conjugial Love (Rogers) 130
People are capable of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Knowledge has to do with concepts, intelligence with reason, and wisdom with life.
Regarded in its fullness, wisdom has to do with concepts, reason and life at the same time. Concepts come first; reason is formed by means of them, andwisdom by both concepts and reason together - and this when a person lives reasonably or rationally according to truths formed as concepts.
Wisdom, therefore, has to do with both reason and life together. It is on the way to becoming wisdom when it is a matter of reason first and consequently of life; but it is wisdom when it has become a matter of life first and consequently of reason.
The most ancient people in this world did not acknowledge any other wisdomthan wisdom of life. This was the wisdom of those who were formerly called sages. The ancients, however, who came after those most ancient people, recognized as wisdom a wisdom of reason, and they were called philosophers. But today, many even call knowledge wisdom, for the educated, the learned, and the merely knowledgeable are called wise. Thus has wisdom fallen from its peak to its valley.
Divine Love and Wisdom (Dole) n. 213
As for love and wisdom, love is the purpose, wisdom the means, and service the result. Further, service is the composite, vessel, and foundation ofwisdom and love, such a composite and such a vessel that every bit of love and every bit of wisdom is actively present in it.
Divine Love and Wisdom (Dole) n. 180
It is even clearer that there are levels of love and wisdom if we compare angels' love and wisdom with our love and wisdom. It is generally acknowledged that the wisdom of angels is unutterable, relatively speaking. You will see later [267, 416] that it is also incomprehensible to us when we are wrapped up in our earthly love. The reason it seems unutterable and incomprehensible is that it is on a higher level.
Divine Love and Wisdom 358
We read that we were created in the image of God and according to his likeness (Genesis 1:26). In this passage "the image of God" means divinewisdom and "the likeness of God" means divine love, since wisdom is nothing more than the image of love. Love actually presents itself to view and to recognition in wisdom, and since that is where we see and recognize it,wisdom is its image. Then too, love is the reality of life and wisdom is its consequent manifestation. This "image and likeness" of God is strikingly visible in angels. Love shining from within is their faces and wisdom in their beauty, with beauty as the form of their love. I have seen this, and I have come to know it.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1226
That 'the sons of Shem' means the attributes of wisdom is clear merely from the fact that 'Shem' is the internal Church whose sons mean nothing else than attributes of wisdom. The expression wisdom is used for everything that springs from charity, for it comes by way of charity from the Lord, the source of all wisdom because He is Wisdom itself. From that Wisdom true intelligence derives, also true knowledge, and true cognition.
True Christian Religion 242
The wisdom of heavenly angels goes almost as far beyond the wisdom of spiritual angels as the wisdom of spiritual angels goes beyond our humanwisdom. The reason for this is that heavenly angels have a love from the Lord for what is good, while spiritual angels have wisdom from the Lord about what is true. Where love for what is good exists, there dwells wisdom also. Where truths exist, there dwells only as much wisdom as there is love for what is good.
Divine Love and Wisdom (Dole) n. 287
We can also tell that love and wisdom are human by looking at heaven's angels, who are people in full beauty to the extent that they are caught up in love, and therefore in wisdom, from the Lord. The same conclusion follows from what it says in the Word about Adam's being created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), because he was created in the form of love andwisdom.
All earthly individuals are born in the human form as to their physical bodies. This is because our spirit, which is also called our soul, is a person; and it is a person because it is receptive of love and wisdom from the Lord. To the extent that our spirit or soul actually accepts love and wisdom, we become human after the death of these material bodies that we are carrying around. To the extent that we do not accept love and wisdom we become grotesque creatures, retaining some trace of humanity because of our ability to accept them.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 242
On the point that the angels receive all their wisdom from the Word, they themselves assert this. They have as much light as they have understanding of the Word. Heavens light is divine wisdom; before angels' eyes this divinewisdom takes the form of light.
In the sanctuaries where their copies of the Word are kept, the light is fiery or shining white. There is more light in such places than anywhere else in heaven.
True Christian Religion 350
The Lord's Word is an ocean of truths, vast and deep, from which all angelicwisdom comes, although to those of us who do not know about its spiritual and heavenly meanings the Word appears to hold no more than a jug of water.
