(DP) - Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence

DP 15

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15. Good may be separated from truth and truth from good, and when separated may still appear to be good and truth; because man has the faculty to act that is called liberty, and the faculty to understand that is called rationality. It is by the abuse of these powers that a man can appear in externals to be different from what he is in internals; and consequently that a bad man can do what is good and speak what is true, that is, that a devil can feign himself an angel of light. On this subject see the following passages in the work THE DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM: The origin of evil is from the abuse of the faculties proper to man, called rationality and liberty (n. 264-270). These two faculties are in the evil as well as in the good (n. 425). Love without a marriage with wisdom, or good without a marriage with truth, cannot effect anything (n. 401). Love does nothing except in conjunction with wisdom or the understanding (n. 409). Love joins itself to wisdom or the understanding, and causes wisdom or the understanding to be reciprocally joined to it (n. 410-412). Wisdom or the understanding, by means of the power given to it by love, can be raised up, and can perceive and receive such things as belong to light from heaven (n. 473). Love can in like manner be raised up, and can receive such things as belong to heat from heaven, provided it loves its marriage partner wisdom in that degree (n. 474, 415). Otherwise love draws down wisdom or the understanding from its elevation, that it may act as one with itself (n. 416-418). Love is purified in the understanding* if they are raised up together (n. 479-421). When love has been purified by wisdom in the understanding it becomes spiritual and celestial; but when defiled in the understanding it becomes sensual and corporeal (n. 422-424). It is the same with charity and faith and their conjunction as with love and wisdom and their conjunction (n. 427-430). What charity is in the heavens (n. 437).
* Original Edition has "si non simul elevantur."

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