The philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg : God, Man and the cosmos

before I do so it might be helpful if I here summarized what has been advanced up to this point.

1. The Universe, including man, is a creation and therefore finite. 2. The Infinite is God and God is a Personal, Divine-Human

Being whose esse is Love itself and its form or mode of Being is Divine Wisdom.

3. God is Life in itself and Wisdom in itself, and Divine Love and Wisdom are substance and form in themselves.

4. God, who is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, is the Very and Only Man, and the One Only Reality,

5. Creation is continuous from God but is not God and forms no part of God.

It is the last point that leads us now to the consideration of Swedenborg’s unique doctrine of Degrees.

As its name implies a degree is a step, a stage. Creation proceeds by ordered steps, which in general are God, the spiritual world and the physical universe.

Degrees are of two kinds, one of which alone is familiar to philosophers, scientists, theologians and to lesser mortals than these. The degrees present in all things are discrete and continuous. It is the latter with which most people are familiar, as for example degrees of heat, from intensity, less intensity, to cold. Degrees of light in like manner, of effulgence, to shade. Objects are thick, thicker, or less thick, to thinness. These are examples of continuous degrees which are less or more of the same thing on the same plane.

Discrete degrees on the other hand, are best compared to parallel lines. These can be continuously extended or diminished, but they each remain distinct from each other, never meeting and never merging.

Thus God’s existence is on the discrete plane of Divinity and