seems true, and what is true seems like something hidden in a thick
cloud overhead or like a shooting star; or else it just seems false. Such
people’s thoughts are represented as night birds, and their speaking as
screech owls. Those among them who have become adamant in their
own false impressions cannot stand to hear things that are true. As soon
as anything true reaches the outermost part of their ear, they reject it in
disgust much the way a nauseous stomach distended with bile will regur-
gitate food.43 5. The essence of love is loving others who are outside oneself, wanting
to be one with them, and blessing them from oneself.Two things—love
and wisdom—constitute the essence of God; but three things consti-
tute the essence of God’s love: his loving others who are outside of him-
self, his wanting to be one with them, and his blessing them from
himself. The same three constitute the essence of his wisdom because in
God love and wisdom are united, as was just explained. It is love that
wants those three things, however, and wisdom that brings them about.
[ 2 ] The first essential, God’s loving others outside himself,is recogniza-
ble in God’s love for the entire human race. And as those who love the
purpose also love the means, God also loves all the other things he cre-
ated, because they are the means.
All people and all things in the universe are outside God, in that they
are finite and God is infinite. God’s love goes out and extends not only to
good people and good things but also to evil people and evil things. It
goes not only to the people and things that are in heaven but also to
those that are in hell—not only to Michael and Gabriel but also to the
Devil and Satan, for God is the same everywhere from eternity to eter-
nity. As he says, “He makes his sun rise on good people and evil people,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5 : 45 ).
Despite this, evil people and things are still evil. This is a result of
what is in the people and the objects themselves. Evil people and things
do not receive the love of God as it truly and most profoundly is; they
receive the love of God according to their own nature, much the way
thorns and nettles receive the heat from the sun and the rain from the sky.
[ 3 ] The second essential of God’s love, his wanting to be one with oth-
ers,is recognizable in his partnership with the angelic heaven, with the
church on earth, with everyone in the church, and with everything good
and true that forms and constitutes an individual and a church. In fact,
seen in its own right, love is nothing but an effort to forge a partnership.