Heaven is not as far away as we often think it is. Heaven on earth is a state of mind, available to those who are willing to live their lives in such a way as to be receptive of what God offers all people: the opportunity to find happiness through serving others. By believing in God, a person accepts that all of creation is designed to serve God’s ultimate purpose: establishing heaven from the human race (Divine Love and Wisdom 330; Divine Providence 323). Since everything serves this purpose, everything in the natural world must have relation to spiritual things. Knowing how the natural world relates to the spiritual world is the prerogative of a heavenly mind because having an understanding of this relationship is angelic knowledge itself, and is the means of communication with heaven (Heaven and Hell 87). Thinking in terms of correspondences between the natural and spiritual worlds requires a mindset that is practiced in recognizing and discerning how spiritual principles are reflected in natural events. A fully integrated mindset is the same as a way of life, and a collection of individuals (such as a family or community) with this heaven-oriented mindset can be said to be an example of heavenly society, or heavenly culture. In this paper we explore the idea of a heavenly culture and correspondence in the process of wine-making, which we relate to the process by which the Lord introduces us as individuals into heavenly culture.
There is communication between this (natural) world and the other (spiritual) world. This is on account of the fact that God is creating both continually. The communication between our world and the spiritual world is our avenue to knowing the Creator. The detailed correspondence between the worlds serves as the medium for this communication. Of course, without knowing the language, it is hard to communicate with people from another culture. The Lord has given us the means to interpret the language of creation in His Word, which actually embodies His being on earth. By reading the Word and by living according to the teachings in it, we are speaking the language and being assimilated into the culture of heaven. Of course, as with any language, there is a deeper, subtler level of culture that can be difficult for a foreigner to cultivate. Simply knowing the important phrases, “Hello,” and “Where is your toilet?” will only get you so far. In order to fully grasp the language you must have mastery of tonal inflection, knowledge of commonly accepted abbreviations and slang words, and a sense of what phrases are socially acceptable and appropriate for particular situations and times. To deeply understand the people of a country you must have some sense of their art, their music, their forms of entertainment—in short, you must have an intimate knowledge of their culture that only comes through long-term personal experience.
Heaven (here and in the next world) is a culture. In order to know that culture, we need to know more than the simple surface truths taught in the Word, we need to have the perspective gained through the experience of living life according to what is in the Word. Living a culture is to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste as those from that culture do, experiencing that culture as one who is native to it. Many of the world's cultures attribute special meaning to particular shapes or objects; assigning them symbolic or representative meaning according to historical events or geographical features. Sometimes, different cultures adopt the same object as a symbol but assign it opposite meaning, which can lead to confusion for a foreigner to either culture (for example, the swastika, a sacred symbol in several Eastern cultures, is commonly associated in Western culture with Nazism). A part of living the culture of heaven in this world is to see how every detail of creation reflects heaven, which is the Lord’s person. Every object takes on important significance, or correspondence, when viewed with the belief that the Lord had a specific end in mind when he created the world: as stated above, a heaven from the human race. A tree, water, the sun: all of these have important roles to play in the operation of the natural world, and insofar as they contribute to the creation of a heavenly society on earth they have “cultural” significance to a heavenly person. Not only are the general aspects of these macroscopic examples relevant, their specific aspects are, too. The radiation that proceeds from the sun (which we experience as heat and light) imparts energy to plants, driving the process of photosynthesis. Because this process contributes specifically to the sustentation of life on earth, it necessarily contributes with an equal specificity to the Lord’s ultimate goal.
The Word gives us specific examples of, as well as the general principles for understanding, the symbols of heavenly culture. The meanings of certain objects become obvious as we study where each shows up in the stories of the Old and New Testaments and what parts they play in the human interactions that the stories follow. These correspondences are particularly vivid in the Psalms and Prophets, where powerful images are painted of the relationship between God, people, and natural creation:
Blessed is the man...[whose] delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (Psalm 1:1-3)
But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. (Psalm 52:8)
You will be like an oak with fading leaves, like a garden without water. The mighty man will become tinder and his work a spark; both will burn together, with no one to quench the fire. (Isaiah 1:30-31)
This is only a tiny fraction of the quotes found in the Word where we can clearly see the cultural symbolism and simile of heaven. A tree symbolizes man; its fruit the work of his hands. An olive tree symbolizes a man who trusts in God’s love, so olives relate to love. In contrast to the first passage, a man who does not trust in the Lord is like a tree that fails, or a waterless garden, where everything dies. The selfish desires of a person who does not acknowledge the importance of living by the Lord’s commandments are like fuel readily ignited by actions taken to satisfy them, which burn for greater and still greater satisfaction once they have been indulged.
The Word is not limited to direct comparisons between human life, objects, and the Divine. Sometimes the meaning of an object must be tracked down and compared with the meanings of other objects appearing contextually with it in order for a clear understanding to be found. Wine is mentioned many times in the Old and New Testaments, in many different contexts. Sometimes wine is good, as it is in the Sacrament of the Holy Supper. Sometimes wine is bad, as when Noah gets drunk after drinking the fruit of the vine. When presented with a broad range of possible interpretations, it is essential to have guidelines for interpretation. It is similar to visiting a foreign culture and grossly misinterpreting a commonly used gesture or action, which could lead to unfortunate results. As with any other well-structured guidebook, the Word is unambiguous if you look at the big picture. By keeping the essential teachings of the Word in mind (God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4), love God and love the neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40), follow the ten commandments both in their literal and moral senses (Matthew 5:19, whole chapter), etc.) it is relatively easy to stay on track when looking for a right understanding of the Word. It is often easy to impose what we learn about a foreign culture in one location on the entire cultural region. Often such generalizations are reasonably accurate, but it is important to have an awareness of the greater cultural context. Similarly, if your interpretation of a particular passage supports the above-mentioned themes, the meaning you have gleaned doesn’t necessarily have to be imposed directly on or serve as the definition for other circumstances where the same object or phrase is mentioned. Organizing information about culture in this hierarchical way can be called the science of culture. Organizing information about the relationship between the natural and spiritual worlds can hence be called the science, or study, of correspondences between the worlds (Heaven and Hell 87-89; True Christianity 201).
The exquisite beauty of this science (of correspondences) is that it can be applied universally once the principles are understood. The natural (physical) world is the canvas on which God has painted an incredible mural of the symbols and images of heavenly culture. Physical processes observed in nature can serve to expand our understanding of how God works to reveal Himself to us, and how we can cooperate with Him in that endeavor. Take, for instance, the example of wine mentioned above: using the principle of understanding correspondences we have developed here, and taking several basic correspondences a priori, we can explore God’s working in the process of wine-making at a chemical level.
The basic process of wine-making is the conversion of sugars into alcohol by enzymatic catalysis. Through a multi-step chemical process, a glucose molecule (for example) is converted to ethanol and carbon dioxide. Many additional processes make wine what it is—the grape juice from which wine is made is a sugar-water solution that contains tannins and flavenoids, as well as malic, lactic, and other acids. After fermentation, wine is usually aged—a process in which oxidation reactions cause polymerization of these compounds to occur, giving rise to new molecules that add the complex flavors associated with good wine. We will restrict our current investigation to the most basic overview of the process of fermentation: the conversion of sugar (glucose) into alcohol (ethanol) by yeast.
All living organisms are constructed at the molecular level out of hydrocarbons (molecules containing hydrogen and carbon, with carbon serving as the primary structural atom). Because the essence of a person’s spiritual life is love (as per the two great commandments), we can assume a direct correspondence between love and the carbon backbone that makes up the glucose and ethanol molecules. On another, chemical level, we know from common experience that sugars are sweet. Sweetness is commonly used as a synonym for something found delightful. Delight springs from the joy of finding something to be true that corroborates one’s love. That is, delight has its source in good in the form of affection for truth (Arcana Coelestia 8365). However, when we take delight in the realization of self-gratifying loves (loves that do not have the happiness of God or the neighbor as their object) that delight is not good according to the culture of heaven. Of such behavior the Word exhorts us to “repent” (Jeremiah 25:5; Matthew 9:13), a process through which we turn away from personal gratification as our end and toward pursuing the eternal happiness (or true gratification) of our neighbor and, in the highest sense, of God (True Christianity 530).
The process of fermentation consists chiefly in breaking down the sugar initially present in the grape juice and converting it to alcohol. The first step in making wine corresponds to the first step in the process of our spiritual regeneration: our worldly and selfish delights, which we are born into for the sake of human freedom (Divine Providence 83), must be broken down in order for us to be open to genuine feelings of love toward God and neighbor. The recognition and abolition of selfish loves is the first step toward assimilation into heavenly culture, and must come before we can be regenerated (True Christianity 571) and it is therefore appropriate to our analogy that “breaking down” is the first step, both in fermentation and in our personal rebirth. The means by which the process of fermentation is generally driven in wine-making is yeast. Jesus tells us in the New Testament that yeast corresponds to false teachings, or false understanding (Matthew 16:6), which we can take to mean falsity in general. This is why the Israelites had ordinances against eating leavened bread at certain times and for many offerings. However, there are other places in the Word that suggest that falsity plays an important, even essential, role in the process of coming to love the culture of heaven. For example, we are told in Leviticus of two specific times when offerings of leavened bread are ordained: the first-fruit offering of the feast of weeks (Leviticus 23:17) and the peace offering made in thanksgiving (Leviticus 7:13). We can understand why falsity plays an important role in our spiritual regeneration by examining the Lord’s love and mercy with regard to our state when we first turn to Him to be reformed, in preparation for the life of heaven. When we first turn to the Lord, we still have false ideas and ignoble desires in addition to our newborn love of what is good and true in God’s eyes. The Lord accepts our first, imperfect attempts at being good people because, in His mercy, He accepts our desire to know and love Him, regardless of the mixed motives and behavioral shortcomings that still accompany our actions. Similarly, when we acknowledge the Lord to be the God of our lives by giving thanks to Him, He accepts this true acknowledgment even when we are not fully able to live according to His commandments. This acceptance on His part is absolutely necessary in order for us to turn from naturally oriented people (loving ourselves and the world above God and our neighbors) to spiritually oriented people (loving God and our neighbors first).
Returning to the subject of fermentation, it is known that in the process of wine-making the yeast feeds on the sugars present in the juice. Similarly, our false ideas thrive on our selfish and worldly delights, thereby bringing them to the forefront of our minds so that we can consciously deal with them. Unless those false ideas expose our innermost desires, we would not even be able to acknowledge those desires, much less relinquish them in favor of heavenly ones. For example, I’m working on a paper for work and I really want to finish the reference section, but I know that my wife would really like me to come home and be present to her, help with dinner, and hold our baby while she (my wife) does something else for half-an-hour. I manage to convince myself that the paper is really important (I want to submit it for publication in a week or so) and decide to stay at work late. On arriving home I find no dinner, an upset child, and a smoldering spouse. As a person who practices self-examination, this result leads me to examine my actions. On contemplation, I realize that I was led by my desire to do what I wanted to do rather than what was good for the people I love. This revelation in turn helps me to recognize that it is actually more important to give my family the loving support they need than to give in to my self-serving desires, especially since I could have easily finished the references the next day, in plenty of time for my submission deadline. The incredible action on the Lord’s part is that he uses our false conceptions of the world to expose and eradicate the feelings that separate us from a life of true heavenly happiness.
The by-product of glucose consumption by the yeast is alcohol, which at high concentrations kills the yeast, which in turn settles to the bottom of the fermentation flask. The “by-product” of removing the delights of selfishness from our lives is the creation of a new, more rarified delight in making other people happy. Eventually, we are reformed to the point where the power of the false ideas is effectively neutralized because we no longer have any desire to buy into them. Rather than disappear (there will always be outside influences and memories that re-introduce bad ideas into our heads) these thoughts and the evil desires from which they spring settle to the bottom of the mind, like the dregs (Divine Providence 79). In this way we see a reflection of the process by which we are drawn to God in the process of fermentation.
Knowledge is not the same as understanding. It is only through understanding what we know that our knowledge becomes vivified. Knowing that every object or process in the natural world corresponds to a spiritual concept or process does not help us become better people, or help us to improve the lives of the people around us. It is only through applying our knowledge of the Word to the world around us that we can understand how the Lord is constantly working to bring the entire human race to heaven. The effort of drawing out a likeness between natural processes and heavenly ones forces us to look more deeply into each process, the natural and the spiritual, to understand how each works in intimate detail. It is through learning what the Word teaches, seeing its teachings in all things, and practicing what we learn that we immerse ourselves in the culture of heaven. Studying how the natural world reflects the Divine glory and living accordingly is to be in harmony with heavenly life, which is to live in heaven itself.
Johanan Odhner is pursuing his doctorate in chemistry at Temple University. He lives with his wife and 9-month old daughter in Rydal, PA.