Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence - Emanuel Swedenborg (sight word books .txt) 📗

the Christian religion itself, for it is unknown to nearly everyone; yet everyone does know it, as may be seen above (n. 258). Nearly all are ignorant of it because faith separate has obliterated knowledge of it. For this faith declares that it alone saves and not any good work, that is, any good of charity; also that men are no longer under the yoke of the law, but are free. Those who have frequently heard such teaching no longer give thought to any evil of life or any good of life. Everyone, moreover, is inclined by nature to embrace such teaching, and once he has done so he no longer thinks about the state of his life. This is why it is not known that shunning evils as sins is the Christian religion itself.

[2] That this is unknown was disclosed to me in the spiritual world. I have asked more than a thousand newcomers from the world whether they knew that to shun evils as sins is religion itself. They said that they did not and that it was a new idea which they had not heard before, but had heard that they cannot of themselves do good and that they are not under the yoke of the law. When I inquired whether they knew that a man must examine himself, see his sins, repent and begin a new life and that otherwise sins are not remitted, and if sins are not remitted, men are not saved; and when I reminded them that this was read out in a deep voice to them each time they observed the Holy Supper, they replied that they paid no attention to that but only to this, that they have remission of sins by the sacrament of the Supper and that faith effects the rest without their knowing it.

[3] I asked again, Why have you taught your children the Decalog? Was it not that they might know what evils are sins to be shunned? Was it only that they might know and believe, but do nothing? Why is it said that this is new? To this they could only reply that they know and yet do not know, and that they never think of the sixth* commandment when they commit adultery, or about the seventh when they steal or defraud secretly, and so on, and still less that such acts are contrary to divine law, thus contrary to God.

* Swedenborg follows the numbering of the Commandments customary with
Lutherans, as with Roman Catholics.

[4] When I recalled to them many things from the teachings of the churches and from the Word confirming the fact that to avoid and be averse to evils as sins is the Christian religion's very self and that one who does so has faith, they fell silent. They were convinced of it, however, when they saw that all were examined as to their life and judged according to their deeds, and no one was judged according to faith apart from life, for everyone has faith according to his life.

[5] Christendom in large part has not known this because by a law of divine providence everyone is left to act in freedom according to reason (on this, above, nn. 71-91 and nn. 101-128); and by another law no one is taught directly from heaven but by means of the Word and by doctrine and preaching from it; there are besides all the laws on permission which are also laws of divine providence. On these see above, n. 258.

274.* A doubt may be raised against divine providence in that it has not been known before that a man lives as a human being after death and that this has not been disclosed before. It has been unknown because with those who do not shun evils as sins the belief lies hidden that man does not live after death. It is of no moment therefore to them whether one says that man lives after death or will rise again on the day of the last judgment. If belief in resurrection happens to visit one, he tells himself, "I shall fare no worse than others; if I go to hell I shall have the company of many and also if I pass to heaven." Yet all in whom there is any religion have an implanted recognition that they will live as human beings after death. Only those infatuated with their own intelligence think that they survive as souls but not as human beings.

* So numbered in the Latin original.

It may be seen from the following that anyone in whom is any religion has an implanted recognition that he lives after death as a human being:

1. Who thinks otherwise when he is dying? 2. What eulogizer, mourning the dead, does not exalt them to heaven and place them among the angels conversing with them and sharing their joy? Some men are deified. 3. Who among the common people does not believe that when he dies, if he has lived well he will enter a heavenly paradise, be arrayed in white, and enjoy eternal life? 4. What priest does not speak so to the dying? And when he speaks so he believes it, provided he does not think of the last judgment at the time. 5. Who does not believe that his little ones are in heaven and that after death he will see his wife, whom he has loved? Who thinks that they are spectres, still less souls or minds hovering in the universe? 6. Who contradicts when something is said about the lot or state of those who have passed from time into eternal life? I have told many what the state or lot of various persons is and have never heard anyone protest that their lot is not yet determined but will be at the time of the judgment. 7. When one sees angels in paintings or statuary does he not recognize them as such? Who thinks then that they are bodiless spirits or airy entities or clouds, as do some of the erudite? 8. Papists believe that their saints are human beings in heaven and others elsewhere are; so do Mohammedans of their dead; more than others Africans do, and many other peoples do. Why then do not Reformed Christians believe it, who know it from the Word? 9. Moreover, as a result of the recognition implanted in everyone, some men aspire to the immortality of renown. The recognition is given that turn in them and makes heroes and brave men of them in war. 10. Inquiry was made in the spiritual world whether this knowledge is implanted in all men; it was found that it is in a spiritual idea attached to their internal thought, not in a natural idea attached to their external thought.

It is plain from all this that doubt should not be thrown on the Lord's divine providence on the supposition that only now has it been disclosed that the human being continues such after death. It is only the sensuous in man that wants to see and touch what is to be credited. One who does not raise his thinking above it is in the dark of night about the state of his own life.

XIV. EVILS ARE TOLERATED IN VIEW OF THE END, WHICH IS SALVATION

275. If man were born into the love for which he was created, he would not be in evil, in fact would not know what evil is. For one who has not been in evil and is not in it, cannot know what it is; told that this or that is evil, he would not believe it. This is the state of innocence in which Adam and his wife Eve were; that state was signified by the nakedness of which they were not ashamed; the knowledge of evil subsequent to the fall is meant by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The love for which the human being was created is love to the neighbor, to wish him as well as one does oneself and even better. He is in the enjoyment of this love when he serves his neighbor quite as parents do their children. This is truly human love, for in it is what is spiritual, distinguishing it from the natural love of brute animals. Were man born into this love, he would not be born into the darkness of ignorance as everyone is now, but into some light of the knowledge and hence of the intelligence soon to be his. To be sure, he would creep on all fours at first but come erect on his feet by an implanted striving. However much he might resemble a quadruped, he would not face down to the ground but forward to heaven and come erect so that he could look up.

276. When love of the neighbor was turned into self-love, however, and this love increased, human love was turned into animal love, and man, from being man, became a beast, with the difference that he could think about what he sensed physically, could rationally discriminate among things, be taught, and become a civil and moral person and finally a spiritual being. For, as was said, man possesses what is spiritual and is distinguished by it from the brute animal. By it he can know what civil evil and good are, also what moral evil and good are, and if he so wills, what spiritual evil and good are also. When love for the neighbor was turned into self-love, however, man could no longer be born into the light of knowledge and intelligence but was born into the darkness of ignorance, being born on the lowest level of life, called corporeal-sensuous. From this he could be led into the interiors of the natural mind by instruction, the spiritual always attending on this. Why one is born on the lowest level of life known as corporeal-sensuous, therefore into the darkness of ignorance, will be seen in what follows.

[2] Anyone can see that love of the neighbor and self-love are opposites. Neighborly love wishes well to all from itself, but self-love wishes everyone to wish it well; neighborly love wants to serve everyone, but self-love wants all to serve it; love of the neighbor regards everyone as brother and friend, while love of self regards everyone as its servant, and if one does not serve it, as its enemy; in short, it regards only itself and others scarcely as human beings, esteeming them at heart less than one's horses and dogs. Thinking so meanly of others, it thinks nothing of doing evil to them; hence come hatred and vengeance, adultery and whoredom, theft and fraud, lying and defamation, violence and cruelty, and similar evils. Such are the evils in which man is by birth. That they are tolerated in view of the end, which is salvation, is to be shown in this order:

i. Everyone is in evil and must be led away from it to be reformed. ii. Evils cannot be removed unless they appear. iii. So far as they are removed they are remitted. iv. The toleration of evil is therefore for the sake of the end in view, namely, salvation.

277. (i) Everyone is in evil and must be led away from it to be reformed. The church knows that there is hereditary evil in man and that as a result he is in the lust of many evils. Thence it is that he cannot do good of himself, for evil does only such good as has evil in it; the evil inwardly in it is that one does good for one's own sake and thus only for the sake of appearances. It is known that hereditary evil comes from one's parents. It is said to come from Adam and his wife, but this is an error; for everyone is born into hereditary evil from his parent, and the parent from his parent, and so on; thus it is transmitted from one to another, is augmented and becomes an accumulation, and is passed to one's progeny. There is therefore nothing sound in man but all is evil. Who feels that it is evil to love himself above others? Who, then, knows that this is an evil, though it is the head of evils?

[2] Inheritance from parents, grandparents and great-grandparents is plain from much which is known in the world, from the fact, for instance, that households, families and even nations are distinguishable by the face; the face is also a type of the mind which in turn accords with the affections of one's love. Sometimes, too, the features of a grandfather recur in a grandson or a great-grandson. From the face alone I know whether a person is a Jew or not; likewise of what