§86 the lord’s divine human 45
exists there is not like that in our world. In our world, it is fi xed and
therefore measurable, while in heaven it is not fi xed and therefore not
measurable. There will, though, be more about extension in heaven
below, in the chapters on space and time in the spiritual world.
Further, everyone knows how far our eyesight reaches—all the way to
the sun and stars, which are so very far away. Anyone who thinks more
deeply also knows that the inner sight that pertains to thought reaches
even farther, and that still deeper sight reaches still farther. What must we
say, then, of the divine sight, which is the deepest and highest of all?
Since thoughts do have this kind of extension, everything of heaven is
communicated to everyone there. This means all of the divine nature that
makes heaven and fi lls it, as I have explained in the preceding chapters.
People in heaven are amazed that people here believe they are intelli- 86
gent when they think of something invisible in the process of thinking
about God, something that cannot be comprehended in any form, and
that they call people who think otherwise unintelligent and even simple-
minded, when the opposite is in fact the case. They assert that if people
who regard themselves as intelligent on this account would examine
themselves, they would fi nd nature in the place of God—for some, the
nature in front of their eyes, for others, a nature they cannot see with their
eyes. They would fi nd that they are so blind that they do not know what
God is, what an angel is, what a spirit is, what the soul is that will live
after death, what the life of heaven is for us, or many other things that are
matters of intelligence. Yet all the people whom they call simple know
these things in their own way. They have an image of God as a Divine
Being in human form, an image of an angel as a heavenly person, a con-
cept of their soul that will live after death as being like an angel, and a
concept of the life of heaven for us here as living by the divine command-
ments. Angels refer to these people as intelligent and fi t for heaven, but
the others they call unintelligent.