in the Lord's Human, and the
trine in Him, and Himself to be the God of heaven and earth. But those
who by intelligence from what is their own (proprium) have destroyed in
themselves the idea of God as a Man are unable to see this; neither do
they see from the trinity that is in their thought that God is one; they
call Him one with the lips only. But those who have not been purified
from evils, and therefore are not in the light of heaven, do not in
their spirit see the Lord to be the God of heaven and earth; but in
place of the Lord some other being is acknowledged; by some of these
someone whom they believe to be God the Father; by others someone whom
they call God because he is especially powerful; by others some devil
whom they fear because he can bring evil upon them; by others Nature, as
in the world; and by others no God at all. It is said in their spirit,
because they are such after death when they become spirits; therefore
what lay concealed in their spirit in the world then becomes manifest.
But all who are in heaven acknowledge the Lord only, since the whole
heaven is from the Divine that goes forth from Him, and answers to Him
as a Man; and for this reason no one can enter heaven unless he is in
the Lord, for he enters into the Lord when he enters into heaven. If
others enter they lose their mind and fall backward. (A.E., n. 956.)

The idea of God is the chief of all ideas; for such as this idea is such
is man's communication with heaven and his conjunction with the Lord,
and such is his enlightenment, his affection for truth and good, his
perception, intelligence, and wisdom; for these are not from man but
from the Lord according to conjunction with Him. The idea of God is the
idea of the Lord and His Divine, for no other is God of heaven and God
of earth, as He Himself teaches in Matthew:

"Authority has been given unto Me in heaven and on earth" (xxviii. 18).

But the idea of the Lord is more or less full and more or less clear; it
is full in the inmost heaven, less full in the middle, and still less
full in the outmost heaven; therefore those who are in the inmost heaven
are in wisdom, those who are in the middle in intelligence, and those
who are in the outmost in knowledge. The idea is clear in the angels
who are at the center of the societies of heaven; and less clear in
those who are round about, according to the degrees of distance from the
center.

All in the heavens have places allotted