e
infinite. Plainly, the finite cannot possibly look to what is infinite,
but the infinite can look to the infinite-from-itself in finite beings.

54. It seems as if the infinite could not be conjoined to the finite
because no ratio is possible between them and because the finite cannot
compass the infinite. Conjunction is possible, nevertheless, both because
the Infinite created all things from Himself (as was shown in the work
_Divine Love and Wisdom,_ nn. 282-284), and because the Infinite cannot
but look in things finite to what is infinite from Him, and this
infinite-from-Him in finite beings can appear as if it were in them.
Thereby a ratio is possible between finite and infinite, not from the
finite, indeed, but from the infinite in the finite. Thereby, too, the
finite is capable of the infinite, not the finite being in himself, but
as if in himself from the infinite-from-itself in him. But of this more
in what follows.

55. (iii) _Divine providence looks to the infinite and eternal from
itself in all that it does, especially in saving mankind._ The infinite
and eternal in itself is the Divine itself, or the Lord in Himself; the
infinite and eternal _from_ itself is the proceeding Divine or the Lord
in others created by Him, thus in men and angels. This Divine is
identical with divine providence, for by the divine from Himself the Lord
provides that all things shall be held together in the order in which and
into which they were created. This the Divine in the act of proceeding
accomplishes and consequently all this is divine providence.

56. That divine providence in all that it does looks to what is infinite
and eternal from itself is evident from the fact that every created thing
proceeds from a first, which is the infinite and eternal, to things last,
and from things last to the first whence it is (as was shown in the work
_Divine Love and Wisdom,_ in the part in which the creation of the world
is treated of). But the first whence anything is, is inmostly in all the
progression, and therefore the proceeding Divine or divine providence in
all that it does has in view some image of the infinite and eternal. It
does so in all things, in some obviously so that it is perceptible, in
others not. It makes that image evident to perception in the variety, and
in the fructification and multiplication, of all things.

[2] _An image of the infinite and eternal is apparent in the variety of
all things,_ in that no one