finally to the Christian
heaven; and everywhere their interior perception concerning God was
communicated to him, and he observed that they had no other idea of God
than that He is a man, which is the same as the idea of a Human Divine
(C.L.J. n. 74).

12. The common people in Christendom have an idea that God is a Man,
because God in the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity is called a
"Person." But those who are more learned than the common people pronounce
God to be invisible; and this for the reason that they cannot comprehend
how God, as a Man, could have created heaven and earth, and then fill the
universe with His presence, and many things besides, which cannot enter
the understanding so long as the truth that the Divine is not in space
is ignored. Those, however, who go to the Lord alone think of a Human
Divine, thus of God as a Man.

13. How important it is to have a correct idea of God can be known from
the truth that the idea of God constitutes the inmost of thought with
all who have religion, for all things of religion and all things of
worship look to God. And since God, universally and in particular, is
in all things of religion and of worship, without a proper idea of God
no communication with the heavens is possible. From this it is that in
the spiritual world every nation has its place allotted in accordance
with its idea of God as a Man; for in this idea, and in no other, is the
idea of the Lord. That man's state of life after death is according to
the idea of God in which he has become confirmed, is manifest from the
opposite of this, namely, that the denial of God, and, in the Christian
world, the denial of the Divinity of the Lord, constitutes hell.

14. IN GOD-MAN ESSE AND EXISTERE* ARE ONE DISTINCTLY**

Where there is Esse [being] there is Existere [taking form]; one is not
possible apart from the other. For Esse is by means of Existere, and not
apart from it. This the rational mind comprehends when it thinks whether
there can possibly be any Esse [being] which does not Exist [take form],
and whether there can possibly be Existere except from Esse. And since
one is possible with the other, and not apart from the other, it follows
that they are one, but one distinctly. They are one distinctly, like Love
and Wisdom; in fact, love is Esse, and wisdom is Existere; for there can
be no love except in wisdom, nor can there be any wisdom except from
love; consequently when love is in wisdom, then it EXIS