love themselves or good and truth themselves, thus is the one Self,
indeed is veritable Man; there is such an idea, too, in speaking of the
infinite as "all," as that infinite wisdom is _omniscience_ and infinite
power _omnipotence._

[2] Still these ideas turn obscure to thought and may meet denial for not
being comprehended, unless what one's thought gets from nature is removed
from the idea, especially what it gets from the two properties of nature,
space and time. For these are bound to restrict the ideas and to make
abstract ideas seem to be nothing. But if such things can be removed in a
man, as they are in an angel, what is infinite can be comprehended by the
means just mentioned. Then also it will be grasped that the human being
is something because he was created by infinite God who is all; also that
he is a finite substance, having been created by infinite God who is
substance itself; further that man is wisdom inasmuch as he was created
by infinite God who is wisdom itself; and so on. For were infinite God
not all, and were He not substance and wisdom themselves, man would not
be anything actual, thus would either be nothing or exist only in idea,
as those visionaries think who are called idealists.

[3] It is plain from what was shown in the treatise _Divine Love and
Wisdom_ that the divine essence is love and wisdom (nn. 28-39); that
divine love and wisdom are substance itself and form itself, the one Self
and the sole underived being (nn. 40-46); and that God created the
universe and its contents from Himself, and not from nothing (nn. 282-284
). It follows that every creature and above all the human being and the
love and wisdom in him, are real, and do not exist only in idea. For were
God not infinite, the finite would not be; were the infinite not all, no
particular thing would be; and had not God created all things from
Himself, nothing whatever would be. In a word, we are because God is.