144 HEAVEN and HELL §271
g. Angels are being perfected to eternity: 4803 , 6648.The reason anything beyond this comes from evil is that it is not from
the Lord; for the truths that are resident within angels of the third heaven
are from the Lord because they are centered in a love for him. Love for
the Lord in that heaven is intending and doing divine truth, for divine
truth is the Lord in heaven.272 There is still another reason, beyond the ones already given, why
angels can accept so much wisdom, a reason that in heaven is actually the
primary one. It is that they are free of any selfi shness; for to the extent
that people are free of selfi shness they can be wise in divine matters. Self-
ishness is what closes off our deeper natures from the Lord and heaven
and opens our outer natures and turns them toward ourselves. So all peo-
ple in whom that selfi sh love predominates are in the depths of darkness
as far as heavenly realities are concerned, no matter how much light they
may enjoy in regard to worldly matters. In contrast, since angels are free
of that love, they enjoy the light of wisdom. The heavenly loves in which
they are centered—love for the Lord and love for their neighbor—open
the deeper levels because these loves come from the Lord and the Lord
himself is within them. (These loves constitute heaven in general and
form heaven in individuals in particular: §§ 13 – 19 .)
Since heavenly loves open our deeper levels toward the Lord, all the
angels turn their faces toward the Lord (§ 142 ): in the spiritual world love
is what turns the deeper levels of every individual toward itself, and what
turns the deeper levels turns the face, since the face there acts in unison
with the deeper levels and is actually their outward form. Further, because
love does turn the deeper levels and the face toward itself, it also unites
itself to them, since love is spiritual union. Therefore it also shares what
it has with them. It is from this turning and the consequent union and
sharing that angels get their wisdom (all union in the spiritual world
takes place according to the way people are facing, § 255 ).273 Angels are constantly being perfected in wisdom,g but still they can-
not to eternity be so perfected that there is any ratio between their wis-
dom and the Lord’s divine wisdom. For the Lord’s divine wisdom is
infi nite and the angels’ is fi nite, and there is no ratio between the infi nite
and the fi nite.274 Since wisdom perfects angels and makes their life, and since heaven
with its blessings fl ows into individuals according to their wisdom, all the
people there long for it and seek it, much the way a hungry person seeks