were saying was ineffable—most of it could not be expressed in the
words of any earthly language. Several times before, however, I had been
in gatherings of angels in heaven itself, and had been able to join in their
conversation because I was then in a state similar to theirs. This enabled
me to understand them now, and to select from their discussion a few
points that could be expressed in a rational way using the words of
earthly language.
[ 2 ] They were saying that the underlying divine reality is united, uni-
form, absolute, and undivided. They used spiritual images as illustration.
They said, “The underlying divine reality cannot be divided into
many entities, each of which possesses an underlying divine reality, and
still remain united, uniform, absolute, and undivided. Otherwise each
separate entity would think on its own from its own separate underlying
divine reality. If it also happened to be of the same mind as the others,
there would be a number of deities in agreement; there would not be one
God. Agreement, or the consensus of many, each one acting on its own
or by itself, is not an attribute of one God but of many.”
They did not say “gods” because they were unable to. It was sup-
pressed by the light of heaven that shaped their thought and by the
atmosphere in which their conversation took place. They also said that
when they tried to utter the word “gods” and to describe each one as a
person by himself, the effort to say that immediately veered off toward
“one,” and in fact toward “the one only God.”
They added, “The underlying divine reality is a reality in itself, not
from itself, because if it were from itself, that would imply an underlying
reality that existed in itself from some prior underlying reality. It would
mean there was a god from a god, which is not possible. What comes
from God is called ‘divine,’ but it is not called ‘God.’ What is ‘a god from
God,’ what is ‘an eternally begotten god from God,’ and what is ‘a god
emanating from an eternally begotten god from God’ except words
devoid of heavenly light?”
[ 3 ] Later on they said, “The underlying divine reality, which in itself is
God, is uniform—and uniform not just in a simple way but in an infinite
number of ways. It is uniform from eternity to eternity. It is uniform every-
where, and it is uniform with everyone and in everyone. (It is the condi-
tion of the recipient that causes all the variety and change in reception.)”
The angels demonstrated the absoluteness of the underlying divine
reality, which in itself is God, as follows: “God is the Absolute, because
he is absolute love and absolute wisdom, or to put it another way,
because he is absolute good and absolute truth. As a result, he is life itself.
§25 god the creator & creation 35