Swedenborg in relationship between primordial time (aether) and reflective time (materialism) The Doctrine of Ultimates and the Nature of Matter

Transcription

1 Swedenborg in relationship between primordial time (aether) and reflective time (materialism) The Doctrine of Ultimates and the Nature of Matter Rev. Hugo Lj. Odhner Prefatory I have attempted to collect what the Writings say about the "matter" which constitutes the natural world. This is done without offering any definite solution to many philosophical problems involved in physics. Yet some suggestions towards such solutions have been advanced. My admitted ignorance of the field of physics and especially mathematical physics has not prevented me from presenting my own understanding of what the Writings state concerning the nature of the physical world: To provide a setting for the discussion of matter, some considerations have been offered on the Doctrine of Ultimates, which serve to give perspective to the cosmological statements of the Writings. But no attempt has been made to apply this doctrine to the teachings about man's regeneration, the Lord's glorification, or the power residing in the literal sense of the Word. Inevitably, a certain repetition of familiar doctrinal teachings occurs in our treatment. Now as to the purpose of our study: The new physics of this century introduced the concept of "indeterminacy." By implication, this questioned determinism or at least the predictability of nature at its base, and caused Sir Arthur Eddington to write "If the atom has indeterminacy, surely the human mind will have an equal indeterminacy; for we can scarcely accept a theory which makes out the mind to be more mechanistic than the atom." (Mathematical Gazette, vol. 16, no. 218, May 1932.) Certainly there is nothing more unpredictable than human behavior. But the real question is whether the material world is such that our spirit can move the atoms constituting our bodily system, and thus express our inward choice. The Writings, in stressing the constancy and orderliness in the nature of the world, do not rule out the ideas, a) that physical units naturally act in random motion in the absence of any specific spiritual influence; and b) that the spiritual-from a conatus to use-can by its influx motivate and direct the physical units for the formation and operation of organic forms; and finally, c) that this influx and guidance is possible by the very nature of the inmost physical unit. Nature as the Ultimate of Creation 1

2 The theological Writings of Swedenborg contain frequent references to "ultimates." Indeed, if we gather these scattered statements there emerges a unique doctrine which throws light on the nature of the physical world as well as of the spiritual. The understanding of what the Writings mean by "ultimates" should clarify many teachings about creation, regeneration, death, human freedom, the Word, and worship; and even the teachings about the Lord's advent and His glorification, as well as about the Lord's omnipotence and the operation of His Providence. For the Writings teach not only about the ultimates of the natural world but concerning spiritual ultimates and Divine ultimates. The word ultimate comes from a Latin root which carries the sense of 'farthest', 'last', 'most recent', 'final', and also 'utmost' or 'first in rank'-depending on context. When the term is used in the Writings, it conveys the idea of the last in a series, the last in time, a final product. Thus it is said that "the ultimate of creation is the natural world, including the terraqueous globe with all things on it."[1] But the passage continues When these were finished, then man was created, and into him were collated all things of Divine order from firsts to ultimates; into his inmost were collated those things which are in the primes of his order, into his ultimates those which are in ultimates ; so that man was made Divine order in form. (LJ 9)[2] In creation as a whole, then, "the ultimate of Divine order is in the nature of the world."[3] "Those things which are seen in nature in her threefold kingdom are the ultimates of Divine order, since all things of heaven which are called spiritual and celestial terminate in these."[4] The "first of creation," on the other hand, was the spiritual Sun in which is the end or final cause of all things. In the spiritual world are the causes of all things-the efficient or mediate causes. And in the natural world are the effects which appear inter se as instrumental causes.[5] The natural world is thus the last or the ultimate of creation. Ultimates are those things that are "most remote" from the Lord, that is, "the things in nature and the ultimate things in it. These are called ultimates because spiritual things, which are prior, close (desinunt) in them and subsist and rest upon them as upon their bases; wherefore they are immovable, and hence are called the ultimates of Divine order."[6] "All things which are in nature are ultimates of Divine order; and the Divine does not stop in the middle, but flows down even to ultimates, and thus rests (subsistit)."[7] Thus the Divine does not stop with creating a spiritual world, but follows this up with a physical creation.[8] For the force of creating is a force for producing causes and effects from the beginning to the end, and goes on (pergit) from the Prime through intermediates to the ultimate; the Prime is the Sun itself of heaven which is the Lord; the intermediates are spiritual things, then [come] natural things as well as terrestrial out of which at last there are productions: and this force has progressed from the Prime to the ultimate in the creation of the universe; it afterwards goes on in like manner so that there may be continual productions....[9] To the same effect is this statement: "Divine order never stops in the middle and there forms anything without an ultimate, for it is not in its fullness and perfection; but it goes on to the ultimate; and when it is in its ultimate, then it forms, and also by means there collected it renews itself and reproduces itself further... Therefore the seed plot of heaven is there."[10] Every Series Has Its Ultimate Degree 2

3 When we think of the process of creation as a whole, the spiritual world is relatively the prime while the natural world is the last or ultimate. But in the distinctive key doctrine of Discrete Degrees, it is shown that nothing exists in either world which does not consist of both discrete and continuous degrees.[11] And discrete degrees are related as end to cause and cause to effect in a threefold order. They are called homogeneous[12] and (in their substantial aspect) are formed one from another by the process of composition.[13] The first degree forms the second, and from the second is formed the third, which is called the ultimate or last.[14] Swedenborg testified that the existence of discrete degrees was especially apparent in the spiritual world. For there the three heavens appear entirely discrete. And these heavens, as to distinctive life and quality, were founded in distinct spiritual ethers or atmospheres, the celestial in an "aura," the spiritual in an "ether," and the natural or ultimate heaven in an "ultimate ether" or "air."[15] Each series of discrete degrees has its primes, its intermediates, and its ultimates.[16] That the spiritual world has its own ultimates which are not identical with anything in nature or with the ultimates of nature, is plainly taught. Referring to the heat and light of the Sun of heaven, Swedenborg wrote By means of that heat and that light all things in the spiritual world, and all things in the natural world have been created.... There are three degrees of that light and heat to the ultimates of the spiritual world, and afterwards three degrees to the ultimates of the natural world.[17] Thus we read of three spiritual degrees, the lowest of which is the "ultimate spiritual which is called the spiritual natural."[18] This spiritual degree is the source of the souls of both animals and plants, and becomes the plane of man's natural mind-the mind in which man is conscious while on earth.[19] This natural mind also contains three degrees, the rational, the imaginative, and the sensual, and the sensual is called the ultimate of the natural mind. The spiritual-natural or ultimate spiritual, therefore, reaches down into the world and into man's body, and presents a series of three "lower spiritual degrees."[20] And in the spiritual world, the "ultimates" of the ultimate spiritual appear as lands on which the angels dwell and from which spiritual vegetation comes forth without the mediation of nature.[21] "Nothing is without its ultimate."[22] In fact, there are discrete degrees within each discrete degree.[23] But this does not mean that there is not a certain continuity within a discrete degree which makes it discrete from other discrete degrees. The universe is itself "a continuous work from the Creator even to ultimates," consisting of finite forms in a continuous chain.[24] There is also a continuity of quality in the spiritual which makes it utterly different from the physical. And nature is continuous within itself, by virtue of its common properties of space and time. Yet nature is within itself distinguished into discrete degrees, having three atmospheres so discreted that "no quality of the air can be elevated to any quality of the ether, nor any of this to any quality of the aura."[25] But besides these discrete natural atmospheres, there are in the world three discrete degrees of what is called fixed matters. These degrees of matter are among themselves discrete, being terminations of each of the three discrete natural atmospheres." Their being called "fixed matters" in contrast to "atmospheres" does not impugn that the ethers and the sun itself are material.[27] By fixed matters are obviously meant the passive raw materials of the mineral kingdom. Just as-in the perspective of creation as a whole-the ultimate of Divine order is nature as a whole, so the solar system has also its inmosts and its ultimates. Its ultimates are described as of the mineral kingdom, including rocks and salts and oils and metals, now covered over with soils 3

4 of organic origin.[28] Even metals contain "conglobations of parts in a threefold order," forming degrees.[29] The forms of the mineral kingdom are of three degrees, the first being the "leasts" of each' substance, the second being "congregates of these" in infinite variety, and the third being composites formed by organisms-plants and animals-and broken up into dust to enrich the soil.[30] In the mineral kingdom, which serves as a storehouse,[31] the "ultimate from the Divine in created things" manifests itself as a conatus towards vegetation and the production of uses.[32] And from ultimates, the uses of all created things ascend by degrees to man and through man to God.[33] If man would only acknowledge and love the Lord as his first end, there "would be a descent of the Divine through man into the ultimate of nature," so that "the very ultimate of nature might live from the Divine."[34] The ascent of uses is possible by the influx of this Divine conatus and of the three degrees of the spiritual into nature.[35] The mineral kingdom is called "ultimate"; but the vegetable kingdom is called "intermediate," and the animal kingdom, which in this sense includes men, is called "the prime." Yet each kingdom by itself is ordered into three degrees. In the animal kingdom worms and insects are thus called "the lowest," birds and beasts "the mediate," and men "the highest or supreme." [36] It is to be noted that the term discrete degrees is differently used in different applications. By definition, discrete degrees are formed one from another. Only an idealist could conceive that beasts are formed from men, and insects from animals! What the Writings point out is that the three levels o the animal kingdom originate in discrete degrees of natural creation. Man receives the life of all three degrees of the natural world, while beasts receive life only of two degrees, and insects receive life on only the lowest sensuous plane.[37] In yet another sense, man is the ultimate. Not only was he created "last" in order of time, but he draws into his constitution something from all the degrees of creation, and his physical body is so organized as to serve all the prior degrees, both spiritual and natural. He is therefore an epitome of creation-or a "microcosm and micro-ouranos"-which is "made Divine order in form." [38] Each Degree Has an Ultimate In the universal sense, the spiritual world is the prime, while the natural' world is the ultimate of creation. Each world, however, has three discrete degrees, marked by three ethers or atmospheres formed one from another: an aura, an ether, and an air. In each series the third atmosphere or air is the "ultimate." [25] The atmospheres in the natural world are described as a universal aura from which is gravitation, a middle ether from which is light and magnetism, and "an ultimate ether" which is the air. These six degrees of creation are discrete from each other.[39] But neither of the two worlds consists only of atmospheres. In fact, in each world atmospheres serve as "active forces," waters as "mediate forces," and lands as "passive forces." This is suggestive of the fact that the substance of the natural world appears in three forms-gaseous, liquid, and solid; similarly in the spiritual world there are atmospheres, waters, and lands.[40] 4

5 But let us note that these three forms of substance are not related by discrete degrees. They are not successive compositions but: states. So, for instance, water (H 2 0) may exist as an invisible vapor or atmosphere, secondly as a liquid, and thirdly in solid form, as ice. Ice is not discretely different from other forms of water, but its molecular activity has lessened, its heat has been dissipated, so that it is what the Writings call "a substance at rest." In a state of cold described as "absolute zero," molecular activity is thought to stop, the water vapor having reached an ultimate state of complete fixity. It is no longer atmosphere or gas, but a "substance at rest." To distinguish a substance relatively at rest, such as we find in the natural world, from the natural atmosphere whence it was formed, the Writings call it "matter" and speak of it as "fixed." For although the natural atmospheres are also composed of 'material' entities,[41] it is as solids that they become fixed and tangible and passive as on the land masses inhabited by men-lands (terrae) which are often spoken of as "ultimates." This teaching becomes especially important in view of the fact that everything in each world coexists from discrete degrees and, at the same time, from continuous degrees.[42] The creation of successive discrete degrees is impossible unless the higher degree is continuously lessened in activity and comes into a passive or compressed state which enables it to be reorganized or molded into a discretely lower form by a process of composition.[43] This means that each discrete degree ranges from its primes to its ultimates, by a continuous or "gradual" lessening in activity, heat, etc., and an increase in density and passivity.[44] When it has by compression taken on a state of inertia, it can serve as the raw material for a creation of a new, discretely lower degree. This is done by a process of composition, directed by the influx of something spiritual. And it explains the puzzling statement that "all creation is effected in ultimates, and all Divine operation passes through to ultimates and there creates and operates..."[45] Unless this law applied to each successive step in creation, the Divine could never have any ultimates wherein to create and fashion. In the descending process of creation, we therefore have spiritual ultimates as well as natural; and, indeed, ultimates of every successive degree. This is taught quite clearly in the Divine Love and Wisdom, no. 302: That atmospheres, which are three in each world, the spiritual and the natural, close in their ultimates in substances and matters, such as are in lands. That there are three atmospheres in each world, the spiritual and the natural, which are distinct among themselves according to degrees of height, and which in their progression towards lower things decrease according to degrees of breadth, was shown in Part Three (nos ). And because atmospheres decrease while progressing towards lower things, it follows that they become continually more compressed and inert, and finally, in ultimates, so compressed and inert that they are no longer atmospheres but substances at rest and, in the natural world, fixed, such as are in lands and are called matters. From which origin 'of substances and of matters, it follows, first, that these substances and matters also are of three degrees; secondly, that they are held in connection among themselves by the surrounding atmospheres; thirdly, that they are accommodated for the production of all uses in their forms. (Translation by H. L. O.) 5

6 It is noted here that since there are three atmospheres which by cooling and condensation become, in their ultimate state, passive, there will, in the natural world, arise matters of three degrees,[46] which are held together by their respective atmospheres. A corresponding thing happens with the spiritual atmospheres. Each of these suffers a decrease and adaptation, a loss of living force, as it descends towards its ultimate and is turned into a substance at rest. And thus there arise three substances at rest as the ultimates of the three spiritual atmospheres. They are not "matters," yet they appear as such.[47] They are identified with "the lands on which the angels dwell." Spiritual Ultimates "As there is nothing without its ultimates in which it terminates and subsists, so the spiritual has its ultimate, which is in a globe'' [tellure], in its lands and waters...."[48] "There are lands there as with us."[49] "From this its ultimate the spiritual produces plants of all kinds.,..."[50] But "the matters, or substances, in the lands that are in heaven are not fixed, and consequently the germinations are not permanent"[51]-and are effected "without nature."[52] "In ultimates, the spiritual retains no more of life than is sufficient to produce a resemblance of being alive."[53] Angels in heaven have no idea of space and time, but an idea of state. This idea of state, with the consequent idea of the appearance of space and time, comes solely in and from the ultimates of creation there; the ultimates of creation there are the lands on which the angels dwell.[54] Ultimates and terminations in heaven differ from ultimates and terminations in the world in this, that in the world these are respective to spaces, while in heaven they have reference to goods conjoined with truths....[55] Exterior spiritual things are created by the Lord to clothe or invest interior spiritual things. And when these are clothed and invested, then there stand forth forms like those in the natural world, and in these interior spiritual things thus close as in an ultimate, and in these they stand forth in an ultimate.[56] In angels and spirits, the spiritual ultimate appears as a spiritual body. And in the mind of man this ultimate form of the spirit presents itself in.his corporeal memory-in the so-called "material ideas" and scientifics which had limited and embodied his spirit on earth. But before there were any angels, or any appearance of spirits or spiritual vegetation or fauna, there were the ultimates of the spiritual atmospheres, in and from which ultimate the natural world was created.[56a] The Reality of Matter The history of philosophy, since the time of Thales, has been marked by a search for an 'ultimate reality'. Recognizing that the surface appearances of life are deceptive, thinkers have sought for some underlying substance which stood as a cause of the phenomenal world-an essence or primary element or original component which in the final analysis could not be further divided or derived. Some, like Plato, regarded this real substance as spiritual-as a pre- 6

7 existing world of patterns or ideas which men realize only in a shadowy and partial way in their mortal experiences in the world of so-called "matter." Others placed reality in matter itself-in indivisible units or atoms, in motion or energy. Descartes and others believed in two coexisting types of created substance: the spiritual, identified with thought or consciousness, and the material, identified with extension endowed with inertia or motion. Many admitted that God was the only substance which was a substance-in se. But the persistent problems concerned the relation of the spiritual (or the mind) to the physical (or matter). Some therefore denied that matter even existed except as an idea in man's minds, and others denied that the spiritual existed except as a by-product of matter in motion. Swedenborg at no time belonged to the school of philosophy which is called Idealism and which denies the existence of "matter." But the Writings are unique in that they derive the natural or material world from the spiritual, at that same time giving to the natural an essence other than that from which it is derived.[57] Throughout Christian centuries some concepts prevailed about a spiritual world as well as a natural world, although the spiritual was thought of as a "purer" natural. The scholastics, and Descartes, even made the spiritual quite substantially distinct from the natural, yet they had no real idea of what the spiritual was. But although they admitted that both worlds were created by God, they did not show that the natural world was created from or through the spiritual."[58] Recent thinkers, of the post-christian era in which we now live, have sought to explain the phenomenal world without recourse to an underlying substance as a cause. Many philosophers have lately come to disown the use of 'metaphysics', the branch of philosophy that has the function of defining "ultimate realities". And so far as the search for ultimate reality is still continued, it usually takes the form of an investigation into the nature of matter. Swedenborg did not employ the phrase 'ultimate reality'. He did not-so far as I know-use the term 'ultimate' in the sense of the inmosts of creation. Not that he denied reality to the natural world. But in the doctrine it is shown that it is the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord's infinite love that is "the very reality and the very essential" which makes and creates.59 This is the Logos, the creative Word without which not anything was made that was made. (John 1: 1-3) And it is also shown that spiritual things are more real than those of nature, since the "dead" clothing which nature supplies lessens reality.[60] Thus the Writings do not place ultimate reality in the matter of the physical world, or in the inmosts or first elements of nature. It is the "primitives" of the spiritual Sun [61] which are the first constituent of finite creation; and that Sun is called "the first and only substance from which all things are."[62 ]That Sun is not to be identified with the Lord who is Divine Man, but it is continually "created" or "produced" from Him.[63] Natural substance, or "matter," is real because it is created from the spiritual. The challenge to the human mind is to grasp how extended matter could originate from spiritual substance which is not extended. To gain better understanding of this, it is necessary to form an idea of the first entities of nature, as these are described in the Writings. Solar Matter The general intimation, if not the explicit teaching, of the Writings, is that the primary matter of nature was that of stars or suns in their original state, and that this matter was so intensely active that it could be described only as "pure fire." This fire, by successive compositions produced gaseous masses which again solidified into planetary matter of several degrees. 7

8 The sun of each solar system is the source, not only of the material constituting the planets, but of the sustaining radiant energy by which light and heat are communicated to these orbiting bodies. "All things in the natural world increase in the measure of their sun's presence.... They increase as heat makes one with its light.... "[64] That the world came into, existence without a sun is dismissed by the doctrine as absurd. The expanse came from the center and subsists from it.[65] The sun appears as "an ocean of fire" -elementary fire.[66] It consists "of created substances, the activity of which produces fire."[67] This pure fire "is material"[68] and has nothing whatever of life in it-in fact, its fire is death itself.[69] Its heat and light are entirely dead, and so also are the atmospheres from it,[70] and all the forces of nature.[71] In its essence it is such that natural heat and light can exist from it.[72] Yet its activity is not from itself but from the living force proceeding from the spiritual Sun; wherefore if this living force were withdrawn, the natural sun would collapse.[73] Something spiritual from the- Sun of heaven "is adjoined" to the natural light and heat of our sun when natural light enlightens the eyes of men.[74] Thus natural light can be' said to receive spiritual light and "convey" it to ultimates by the atmospheres.[75] But natural light and heat only "open and dispose" natural: things for receiving influx from the spiritual.[76] The doctrine plainly states that "the dead sun was created by the Lord through the living Sun so that everything in ultimates may be fixed, static, and constant, and thus that there may exist things that are to be perennial and enduring."[77] As indicated above, the term matter is used in the Writings in several senses. It is, as in common parlance, sometimes used to describe the grosser substances of nature which are tangible and visible and relatively inert, in contrast with the invisible atmospheres from which they are condensed.[78] But generally,, all the substances of the natural world, in all their forms and degrees, including the sun and its three atmospheres, are called "material" or "matter."[79] Materiality is, like space and time, a universal and characterizing attribute of all things of the natural world without exceptions. Even the pure fire of the natural sun is called "material."[80] The atmospheres of nature are said to be "material."[81] But the heat and light which they convey may be regarded as activities of material substances - modifications of the atmospheres-and are thus rather to be called "natural,"[82]-although they are apparently, in one passage, also called "material."[83] Heat and light-or activities---are in one sense not "creatable" but the forms receiving them are created.[84] The quality of matter in its primes pervades the whole of nature. And this quality comes from its two essential properties, space and time.[85] Spaces and times were created together with this world.[86] Here they exist "actually," while in the other world they are appearances of spiritual states.[87] The teaching is that "in nature everything is fixed and ultimated" and that natural things are fixed, stated, constant, measurable, permanent, durable,[88] however man's states may change. The matters and substances of nature give fixation to spiritual forms.[89] But while this is true of all the matters of nature, it is especially true of "the lowest things of nature" which form our lands. These are fixed and "dead," and immutable, since they do not 8

9 change according to the states of men.[90] The grosser things of nature which man puts on as a body, are put off by death because "the extremes or ultimates of nature cannot receive the spiritual and eternal things to which the human mind is formed, as these things are in themselves." He retains only "the purer things of nature which are nearest to spiritual things"; i.e., he retains only "the interior natural things that agree and concord with spiritual and celestial things and serve them as containants."[91] The reference here is obviously to what is elsewhere called a limbus or medium of natural substance retained by the spirit so that it can have a relativity (relativum) to the things in nature.[92] This limbus serves as "a fixed containant of spiritual things" on the basis of which his individual life is perpetuated.[93] Thus the interior substances of nature, instead of its ultimates, serve as immortal "containants" for the spirit.[94] What are these "interiors" or "purer things" of nature which are "nearest to spiritual things"? Although not in the comparatively immobile state of rocks and waters, they are still matters which have space and time as attributes. If drawn from the inmosts of nature,[95] such a substance must resemble the first matter of the sun as to degree and potentialities. It would have to be a form of pure motion, or perhaps energy in some wave pattern. The "fire" of the sun must probably be contained or involuted into less active forms, such as atmospheres before it can serve as an individuated entity. But since the expressions of speech come from the ultimates of nature, and the "limbus" is drawn from the inmosts of nature, the things of this realm "cannot be described except by abstractions."[96] The same, of course, applies to the first solar atmosphere, which is said to be universal and the source of all gravity.[97] Even abstractions fail to do more than express the effects of gravity. Even such a physicist as Sir James jeans admitted that the final harvest of science "will always be a sheaf of mathematical formulas."[98] Space and Matter Science, having broken down the atom, now speaks of electrons and neutrons and wavepackets as "mental constructs" rather than as adequate representations of the actual processes of nature. In the cosmological treatises of Swedenborg, the ultimate constituent of the physical world-the prima materia [99]-is boldly described as first finites composed of dynamic points, or of "first natural points."[100] In the theological Writings, this constituent is not so definitely described, except for specifying that nature is not composed of "simple substances" such as the monads of Leibnitz, the indivisible "atoms" of Epicurus, the "simple substances" of Wolff, or geometrical "points" of no dimension; for of such "simple substances" nothing can be predicated and nothing can be produced by composition.[101] Instead, the first or most simple constituents are most perfect. "There are innumerable things in the most simple substance of all."[102] The source of nature is from the spiritual. It is even said: "Its essence, from which it exists, is the spiritual...."[103] But that does not mean that nature has a spiritual essence. For "the natural world derives nothing whatsoever from the spiritual world"[104] -i.e., none of the qualities which make nature nature are spiritual qualities. Matter has all its substantial reality and its superimposed forms from the spiritual, but its residual qualities such as time, space, and motion, come from a process of privation of reality and a removal of spiritual qualities, a limitation or further finition. Matter; according to our doctrine, is life-less substance, but substance none the less. 9

10 To emphasize the difference, the Writings call the spiritual 'substantial,' in contrast to the 'material.' "Substantial things are the origins (initia) of material things. What is matter," Swedenborg asks, "but an aggregate (congregatio) of substances?"[105] Thus "the substantial is the primitive of the material."[106] "Matters are originated from substances." [107] By an aggregate of substances, we may understand a concentration or focusing of spiritual forces into a space-time field or within limits not only of energy but of contact. That the original matter out of which the suns were made was "dead" does not mean that it was or is inactive, or has nothing of efficiency in it. Even a grain of sand, we are assured, expires an effective sphere.[108] And the deceptively passive radioactive metals hold within them the powers of the sun, locked up in ultimates. When we think of the 'inmosts' of nature, we are tempted to imagine an indefinite extense of space-a room within which we place all known objects, allowing for their shifting positions relative to each other and to us. We might conceive the prima materia as discreted forms to which we attribute space, motion, and thus time. Our notions of space and time are of course always relative, being seen from the point of view of a finite observer. But who can deny that in the view of an Omnipresent Creator there is in the natural world' what has been called 'absolute time' and 'absolute space'? The doctrine states: "Because the Divine is not in space, neither is it continuous as is the inmost of nature."[109] Space can indeed be conceived as a continuum in which all things are related to some 'constant' such as the speed of light is considered to be. The inmost of nature however is not unlimited or infinite, as Descartes claimed. Its continuity is a continuity of predicates within itself. What is meant, we believe, is that the Divine is not continuous with the inmosts of nature, but is present "in all space without space."[110] Matter, the ultimate constituent of nature, can be regarded, in the manner of Epicurus, as mass-particles moving in space. But even Epicurus - whose views are condemned in the Writings - endowed interstitial space with a certain reality or quality. Another view is to regard matter as a modification of space itself - space being seen not as empty but as a prior reality, a substantial substratum in which traveling whirls of motion, or fields of force, form bodies or particles such as constitute tangible nature. Descartes had some such idea, but he identified matter with extension, making the natural world continuous and infinite. But Newton came to the belief, later clarified and confirmed in the spiritual world, that there could be no "absolute vacuum" or "interstitial nothing." After his death, he realized that the spiritual world into which he had come was where he had thought his vacuum to be.[111] Even before his death, Newton suggested that perhaps the unknown medium through which gravitation acted at a distance, was spiritual.[112] And it is stated-as a principle which obviously applies to both worlds-that heat and light "cannot proceed in nothing, thus not in a vacuum, but in a containant which is a subject. Such a containant we call atmosphere which surrounds the Sun...."[113] In the natural world, solar atmospheres perform corresponding functions as media. But even atmospheres are made up of "discreted substances and least forms."[114] As long as you conceive of matter as consisting of particles, you must also admit of an interstitial something - call it space or not. If you also concede that there can be no infinite space,[115] nor any action at a distance without a medium, you are compelled to conclude that matter arises-and remains-as forms of motion in a nonextended spiritual medium-the "ultimate spiritual." 10

11 Certain philosophic quandaries must be taken into account, however. Parmenides objected to the possibility of individual entities separated by space. If space is a vacuum or nothing, nothing would separate these entities and all things must be continuous being. But this argument need not prevent that this continuous being could contain discrete forms of different degrees; or that what we sometimes call space may in itself be a spiritual reality organized as a field of physical force and substance; or that the whole material world could be regarded as a constantly emerging field of spiritual forces. That the physical entities thus created obey the laws of mechanical motion is also the effect of a specific spiritual influx-the influx of a conatus to motion. This concept would necessarily involve that the spiritual is the cause and medium of all physical existence and of all physical changes, all motion, all matter. It would also imply that what is extended originates from what is nonextended.[116] Thus the fire of the dead natural sun is not self-derived but is from the living forces of the spiritual Sun. Indeed (as noted) the natural sun would collapse if the living forces should be withdrawn.[117] It is said that nature has its primary origin from the spiritual Sun, and only a "secondary origin" from the natural sun. This secondary origin adds no reality but adds a "dead" accessory as an outer garment which gives fixity, permanence, and measurableness.[118] "Abstract space, and altogether deny a vacuum," is the advice of the Writings.[119] Creation cannot be understood unless spaces are removed from our ideas.[120] And interiorly in the rational such thought is possible for men.[121] Swedenborg was himself troubled by vain thoughts about infinite space, but was delivered by the Lord "by thinking of infinite space as not being space outside of the universe."[122] Conatus and Matter What, then, is matter, when considered from its "secondary origin"? "Nature begins from the sun."[123] And the sun is a pure elemental fire, which is even called material and "death itself." It adds what is dead (mortuum). Not that this deprivation of life means passivity. The more it is analyzed, the more active matter seems to be. Yet we are warned that no force has been implanted in nature from first creation, as you might wind up a watch to go until it runs down. Instead it is the spiritual which continually inflows into nature and manifests itself as a conatus to motion, or, in man, as a will to action.[124] This influx of conatus is productive of motion-and repeatedly we are reminded that conatus is the only real thing in motion. "That which from the spiritual world is in natural things... is a conatus...." This conatus "is the spiritual in the natural."[125] It is no exaggeration to say that it is the only way in which the spiritual manifests itself in the natural. The sun is merely an effect of this conatus. Although it is called a "secondary origin," it is really the spiritual that assumes the garbs of death or inertia, assumes new limits which turn it in upon itself to form what we call material substance. These new limits are those of space and time; and by being so limited, the resulting substance is not spiritual or living, or moved by any spiritual purpose or inherent direction to specific uses, as is the case with all spiritual substances. It is of course the Lord of all life who creates this strange 'dead' substance; and He creates it with a purpose of His own even as He-to achieve His purpose in creation-first chose to 11

12 "finite" or "limit" the infinite substance of His Love to produce the spiritual primitives of which the spiritual Sun consists,[126] and from which all the degrees of the spiritual world are derived; so, secondly, He "finites" or limits the spiritual substance into a new form by depriving it of its freedom and causing it to bend to the laws and conditions of space and time.[127] By this secondary finition He creates matter, which first appears in the form of the primitive entities out of which the natural suns and stars are composed. Science is even now speculating on the existence and nature of these apparently transitional entities which go to compose the more stable elements of the world. The latest word for this raw material of the stars is 'plasma', a form of matter in which mass at inconceivable temperatures is being transformed into energy or energy recaptured into electromagnetic fields.[128] The use of this barren matter, formed into suns and planets and satellites, and its activity as light and heat, was not to act as-of-itself or to transmit life as such (as do the spiritual atmospheres), but to furnish the passive substance and energy with which the Creator could clothe His spiritual designs and patterns in permanent forms. Matter has motion, but no life or direction of its own. A recent writer describes a current idea of matter when he says that so solid a thing as a diamond is "a patterned arrangement of atoms which are themselves mainly empty space, with infinitesimal dabs of electrons whirling round infinitesimal dabs of protons and neutrons."[129] This describes only one phase of the atom. For "actually there is just as much evidence that all matter has wave properties."[130] Inwardly, the hypothetical atom seems to be a miniature solar system in complexity, with orbiting bundles of neutralized energy of inconceivable intensity and velocity. Swedenborg suggested such a dynamic concept of matter in his Principia. And in the Writings, matter is described as originating from pure fire-which means much the same. Yet it is passive and "dead," because it is governed by forces not its own. Motion is not life! It is among "the laws inscribed on the nature of all things" that nothing is activated (agatur) and moved by itself but from another, and this only when it is in an equilibrium between two forces one of which acts from within and the other from without.[131] The force acting from within is the ultimate spiritual, presumably the conatus to motion; while the force acting from without is from the natural world,[132] and would therefore appear as bodies which are forms of motion between which there occurs an exchange of measured amounts of energy according to mechanical laws. On the other hand, we must distinguish between the elemental matter of nature and the matter which is inwoven into organic, living forms. We have postulated-and without fear of contradiction-that matter arose as forms of motion creating a world of space and time. "Motion is nothing else than continuous conatus."[133] The Writings reiterate that "the only real thing in motion is conatus."[134] In fact, motion may be referred to as the "ultimate degree" of conatus.[135] But the conatus which creates the material substance of the stars is not worthy of the name of "living conatus," because the force or motion of elemental nature which it produces is not a living force or living motion. There are, in every degree of the spiritual, living forces which are generative of all organic forms in both worlds. But these are contrasted with the forces of nature which from their origin in the sun "are not living forces but dead forces."[136] The living forces are from a "living conatus," like the human will.[137] "But still not all endeavors (conatus) are living." For there are "endeavors (conatus) of life's ultimate forces.... In ultimates, atmospheres become such forces, by which substances and matters such as are in lands are actuated into forms and are held in forms both within and without....'"[138] The "nonliving endeavors" (conatus non vivi) are thus not the 'souls' of vegetation or of animal organisms, but the 'soul' of matter, or the source of that force which constructs and maintains the physical elements. "Nothing in nature exists except from the spiritual and by means of it."[139] The 'nonliving' endeavors are presumably the conatus which matter has 12

13 from creation-by a continuous influx-and which is freed by the sun's radiation to become "the acting force even in the minutest forms of nature."[140] It is light and heat that serve as "mediate causes" which open the seeds in the soil for the creative influx of the spiritual.[141] Natural radiation thus acts to modify the matter of the earth from without, while the spiritual, with its living formative or plastic forces, inflows from within to produce forms of life.[142] What shall we make, then, of the opposite teaching, that "the substances of the natural world from. their nature react against the substances of the spiritual world, because, the substances of the natural world are in themselves dead, and are acted upon from without by substances of the spiritual world...."[143] In fact, the natural atmospheres are not receptacles of spiritual heat and light, and "there is nothing interiorly in them from the Sun of the spiritual world; but still they are environed by spiritual atmospheres...."[144] What must here be meant is that even the spiritual influx into the minutest components of matter,[145] affects the natural units as something other than itself-and is in no sense an interior part of matter or of the forces of nature. It is beyond the relations of space. Only if we remove space from our thought can we see how the spiritual can be present in the natural and yet be "outside" of it. But if we think "interiorly in the rational" we can also see what is meant by the sayings that natural atmospheres were created to "encompass" the spiritual atmospheres "as the shell does the kernel or the bark... the wood,"[146] and that three "lower" spiritual atmospheres "constantly accompany" (jugiter sequuntur) the three natural, to enable men "to think and feel."[147] Matter and Natural Law The modern concept of matter resembles that which Swedenborg presents in his Principia, in that matter is in essence dynamic, consisting in forms of motion or bundles of energy which act as. entities and are subject to mechanical laws. Actually, nature takes its "secondary origin" when the spiritual assumes the garbs of death, or inertia, by taking on new limits which turn it into what we call matter or natural substance. These new limits are those of the dimensions of space and time.[148] By being so limited (or, if you please, further finited), the resulting substance is no longer spiritual or living or moved by any living purpose or inherent direction to specific ends. The general opinion is that the world of dead matter is subject to mechanical law. Swedenborg emphasized this as a philosopher, although he allowed also for things not mechanical.[149] In the Writings it is amply shown that the Lord in His omnipotence governs the universe - and "very easily"[150] - according to the laws of His Providence which enters into greatest and least things. Many "laws of Divine order" are mentioned, but the reference is specifically to the spiritual laws of regeneration or of man's spiritual, moral, and civil life. All these laws, even the law of permissions, are said to be "necessities,"[151] as if they were a protective framework within which man's freedom could operate. But to the physical laws of nature, the Writings give only passing references. They note that "all things of heaven constantly have their foundation in the laws of the order of nature in the world and in man, [so] that the foundation remains permanently fixed...."[152] It is also noted that "not the least little movement is accomplished by a man, without a fixed (stata) law."[153] And some "laws inscribed. on the nature of all things" are listed, with reference to the equilibrium of two forces, one natural and one spiritual.[154] 13

14 Much is said about the Lord having created the universe from order, in order, and for order; and about the error of thinking that God acts arbitrarily by changing His. Divine laws - at His pleasure. Much is also said about the chains of causes and effects, operative in both worlds. In the spiritual world, spiritual causes lead to spiritual effects, and also to the creation and subsistence of nature. Even in the natural world one thing indeed exists from another progressively, but this by causes from the spiritual world; for every effect becomes an efficient cause in order even to the ultimate where the effective force subsists; but this is done continually from the spiritual in which alone that force resides (est). Hence it is that nothing, in nature exists except from the spiritual and by means of it.[155] Regarded in itself, an effect is nothing but a cause so outwardly clothed that it might serve in a lower sphere to enable the cause to act as a cause there.[156] Since the natural is thus nothing but an effect of the spiritual, the question then is whether there are any natural or physical laws properly so called; or whether what men have in their research listed as the laws or formulas by which they can to a large extent predict physical events, are no more than generalizations of the accustomed effects of spiritual causes, rather than a testimony to inevitable necessities. And the appearance is that wherever there is "life" - as in all organic forms - matter seems to be reconstructed to display qualities quite different, and to resist some of the supposed natural "laws," 'or at least utilize these laws to a superior end. The "Law of Chance" The known laws of mechanics are formulas constructed from statistical studies. Supposedly, matter is not only devoid of inward purpose but - according to many at this day - it is not governed or disposed by any purpose or plan. The universe simply "happened," as one of the infinite possibilities latent in eternity, or (to be conservative) in matter, or in primordial "Space-Time." It started without purpose as a supreme accident, and it ends without a goal. As was shown above, the Writings speak of matter as in itself "dead"; and that of course means devoid of any living purpose of its own, although dependent on spiritual causes and serving as a tool in the hands of the Creator. But by what laws can it operate? If by the "laws of chance," we would possibly face the paradox that, in creating matter, the Lord forms a substance over which He has - to all appearances - relinquished His control! a world which seems to run mechanically without respect to any motivation of good or evil - a world which seemingly of itself, by the momentum of its first pattern of motion, automatically constructs solar centers with atmospheres and lifeless planets around them, and then arranges them into galaxies and supernovae. We picture a barren world, shaped by ceaseless cosmic convulsions as the raw material of things to come. We imagine planets boiling from fiery depths, cooling into mountainous surfaces and freezing into icy plateaus. A dead world, with no indications of further purpose. As was shown above, the Writings speak of matter as in itself "dead"; and that of course means devoid of any living purpose of its own, although dependent on spiritual causes and serving as a tool in the hands of the Creator. But by what laws can it operate? If by the "laws of chance," we would possibly face the paradox that, in creating matter, the Lord forms a substance over which He has - to all appearances - relinquished His control! a world which seems to run mechanically without respect to any motivation of good or evil - a world which 14