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22 DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM §585960Divine-Human One—for example, things below us in the animal kingdom,things below them in the plant kingdom, and things below them inthe mineral kingdom. Union with them depends on their functions. Alluseful functions have their only source in a related union with God thatis, however, increasingly dissimilar depending on its level. As we comedown step by step, this union takes on a nature in which there is no elementof freedom involved because there is no element of reason. There istherefore no appearance of life involved; but still these are vessels. Becausethey are vessels, they are also characterized by reaction. It is actuallyby virtue of their reactions that they are vessels.I will discuss union with functions that are not useful after I have explainedthe origin of evil [§§264–270].We can conclude from this that Divinity is present in absolutely everythingin the created universe and that the created universe is therefore thework of Jehovah’s hands, as it says in the Word. That is, it is a work of divinelove and wisdom, for this is what is meant by “Jehovah’s hands.” Further,even though Divinity is present in all things great and small in thecreated universe, there is no trace of intrinsic divinity in their own being.While the created universe is not God, it is from God; and since it is fromGod, his image is in it like the image of a person in a mirror. We do indeedsee a person there, but there is still nothing of the person in the mirror.I once heard a number of people around me in the spiritual worldtalking and saying that they did in fact want to recognize that there wassomething divine in absolutely everything in the universe because theysaw God’s wonders there, and the deeper they looked, the more wonderfulwere the things they saw. However, when they heard someone say thatthere actually was something divine in absolutely everything in the createduniverse, they resented it. This was a sign that they claimed the beliefbut did not actually believe it.They were therefore asked whether they could not see this simply inthe marvelous ability in every seed of generating its growth in sequenceall the way to new seeds. In every seed, then, there is an image of somethinginfinite and eternal, an inherent effort to multiply and bear fruitwithout limit, to eternity.Or they might see this in even the tiniest animals, realizing that theycontain sensory organs, brains, hearts, lungs, and the like, along with arteries,veins, nerve fibers, muscles, and the activities that arise from them,to say nothing of incredible features of their basic nature that have hadwhole books written about them.