Creation itself cannot be ascribed in the least to the sun of the natural world, but must be wholly ascribed to the sun of the spiritual world; because the sun of the natural world is altogether dead; but the sun of the spiritual world is living; for it is the first proceeding of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom; and what is dead does not act at all from itself, but is acted upon; consequently to ascribe to it anything of creation would be like ascribing the work of an artificer to the tool which is moved by his hands.  The sun of the natural world is pure fire from which everything of life has been withdrawn; but the sun of the spiritual world is fire in which is Divine Life.  The angelic idea of the fire of the sun of the natural world, and of the fire of the sun of the spiritual world, is this; that in the fire of the sun of the spiritual world the Divine Life is within, but in the fire of the sun of the natural world it is without.  From this it can be seen that the actuating power of the natural sun is not from itself, but from a living force proceeding from the sun of the spiritual world; consequently if the living force of that sun were withdrawn or taken away, the natural sun would have no vital power.  For this reason the worship of the sun is the lowest of all the forms of God-worship, for it is wholly dead, as the sun itself is, and therefore in the Word it is called “abomination.”

158.  As the sun of the natural world is pure fire, and therefore dead, the heat proceeding from it is also dead, likewise the light proceeding from it is dead; so also are the atmospheres, which are called ether and air, and which receive in their bosom and carry down the heat and light of that sun; and as these are dead so are each and all things of the earth which are beneath the atmospheres, and are called soils, yet these, one and all, are encompassed by what is spiritual, proceeding and flowing forth from the sun of the spiritual world.  Unless they had been so encompassed, the soils could not have been stirred into activity, and have produced forms of uses, which are plants, nor forms of life, which are animals; nor could have supplied the materials by which man begins and continues to exist.

159.  Now since nature begins from that sun, and all that springs forth and continues to exist from it is called natural, it follows that nature, with each and every thing pertaining thereto, is dead.  It appears in man and animal as if alive, because of the life which accompanies and actuates it.

160.  Since these lowest things of nature which form the lands are dead, and are not changeable and varying according to states of affections and thoughts, as in the spiritual world, but unchangeable and fixed, therefore in nature there are spaces and spatial distances.  There are such things, because creation has there terminated, and abides at rest.  From this it is evident that spaces are a property of nature; and because in nature spaces are not appearances of spaces according to states of life, as they are in the spiritual world, these also may be called dead.