76. Anyone who does not know this, and who cannot from any perception think of God independently of time, is utterly incapable of conceiving of eternity other than as an eternity of time. In that case he also cannot help but think irrationally of God's being from eternity, for he thinks in terms of a beginning, and a beginning is characteristic solely of time. His irrational thinking continues to the point of judging that God originated from Himself, and from that it slips headlong into supposing the origin of nature to be from itself. From this idea he can be extricated only by a spiritual or angelic concept of eternity, which is one independent of time; and when thought of independently of time, eternity and Divinity are one and the same, the Divine being Divine in itself, and not from itself. Angels say that they can indeed conceive of God's being from eternity, but not in any way of nature's being from eternity, still less of nature's originating from itself, and not at all of nature's being nature in itself. For what exists in itself is being itself, the origin of all else, and being in itself is life itself, which is the Divine love belonging to Divine wisdom and the Divine wisdom belonging to Divine love. This to angels is eternity, being thus independent of time, as the uncreated is independent of the created, or the infinite independent of the finite, which do not have even a mathematical relation.