Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence, Emanuel Swedenborg [best ereader for graphic novels .txt] 📗

to avowing it. I have seen some as they returned and heard them confessing that they had no faith although in the world they had believed they had much faith and markedly more than others; they said the same of their intelligence and wisdom. Some were in faith alone and in no charity, and some in self-intelligence.

171. (iv) Man is taught by the Lord through the Word and doctrine and preaching from it, thus immediately by the Lord alone. We said and showed above that man is led and taught by the Lord alone, and from heaven but not through heaven or any angel there. As it is by the Lord alone, it is done immediately and not mediately. How this takes place will be told now.

172. It was shown in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Sacred Scripture that the Lord is the Word and that all the doctrine of the church is to be drawn from the Word. Inasmuch as the Lord is the Word the man who is taught from the Word is taught by the Lord alone. This is comprehended with difficulty and will be clarified in this order:

1. The Lord is the Word because the Word is from Him and about Him. 2. Also because the Word is divine truth together with divine good. 3. To be taught from the Word is to be taught from Him, therefore. 4. That this is done mediately through preaching does not take away its immediacy.

[2] First: The Lord is the Word because it is from Him and about Him. No one in the church denies that the Word is from the Lord, but that it is about Him alone, while not denied, is not known. This was shown in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord, nn. 1-7, 37-44, and in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Sacred Scripture, nn. 62-69, 80-90, 98-100. Inasmuch as the Word is from the Lord alone and treats of Him alone, a man is taught by the Lord when he is taught from the Word, for it is the divine Word. Who can communicate what is divine and implant it in the heart except the Divine Himself from whom it is and of whom it treats? Therefore, in speaking of His union with His disciples He says that they are to abide in Him and His words in them (Jn 15:7 ), that His words are spirit and life (Jn 6:63), and that He makes His abode with those who keep His words (Jn 14:20-24). To think from the Lord therefore is to think from the Word, and as it were, through the Word. It was shown in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Sacred Scripture from beginning to end that all things of the Word have communication with heaven, and as the Lord is heaven, this means that all things of the Word have communication with the Lord Himself. The angels of heaven indeed have communication; this, too, is from the Lord.

[3] Second: The Lord is the Word because it is divine truth together with divine good. The Lord teaches that He is the Word by these words in John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (1:1, 14).

This passage has been understood hitherto to mean only that God teaches men through the Word and has been explained as an hyperbole, with the implication that the Lord is not the Word itself. This is because expositors did not know that the Word is divine truth together with divine good or, what is the same, divine wisdom together with divine love. That these are the Lord Himself was shown in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom, Part I, and that they are the Word in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Sacred Scripture, nn. 1-86.

[4] We will say briefly in what way the Lord is divine truth together with divine good. Each human being is human not because of face and body but from the good of his love and the truths of his wisdom; and because a man is a man from these, he is also his own good and his own truth or his own love and his own wisdom; without these he is not a human being. But the Lord is good itself and truth itself or, what is the same, love itself and wisdom itself; and these are the Word which in the beginning was with God and was God and which was made flesh.

[5] Third: To be taught from the Word, then, is to be taught by the Lord Himself. For it means that one is taught from good itself and truth itself or from love itself and wisdom itself, and, as we have said, these are the Word. But everyone is taught according to an understanding agreeing with his love; what goes beyond this does not remain. All who are taught by the Lord in the Word are instructed in a few truths while in the world but in many when they become angels. For the interiors of the Word, which are divine spiritual and divine celestial, are implanted at the time, but are not consciously possessed until a man on his death is in heaven where he is in angelic wisdom which, compared with human wisdom, thus his earlier wisdom, is ineffable. That divine spiritual and divine celestial things which constitute angelic wisdom are present in each and all things of the Word see Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Sacred Scripture, nn. 5-26.

[6] Fourth: That this teaching is done mediately through preaching does not take away the immediacy. Inevitably the Word is taught mediately by parents, teachers, preachers, books and particularly by reading. Still it is not taught by them but by the Lord through them. Preachers, aware of this, say that they speak not from themselves but from the spirit of God and that all truth like all good is from God. They can speak it and bring it to the understanding of many, but not to anyone's heart; and what is not in the heart passes away from the understanding; by "heart" a man's love is meant. From this it is plain that man is led and taught by the Lord alone and immediately by Him when he is taught from the Word. This is a supreme arcanum of angelic wisdom.

173. We have shown in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Sacred Scripture (nn. 104-113) that those outside the church who do not have the Word still have light by means of it. Man has light by means of the Word and from the light has understanding, and both the wicked and the good have understanding. It follows that from light in its origin there is light in its derivatives which are perceptions and thoughts on whatever subject. The Lord says that without Him men can do nothing (Jn 15:5); that a man can receive nothing unless it is given him from heaven (Jn 3:27); and that the Father in the heavens makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Mt 5:45). In the Word in its spiritual sense by "sun" here, as elsewhere, is meant the divine good of divine love and by "rain" the divine truth of divine wisdom. These are extended to the evil and the good, to the unjust and the just, for if they were not, no one would possess perception and thought. It was shown above that there is only one Life from which all have life. But perception and thought are part of life; they are therefore from the same fountain from which life springs. It has been shown many times before that all the light which forms the understanding is from the sun of the spiritual world, which is the Lord.

174. (v) Man is led and taught in externals by the Lord to all appearance as of himself. This is so of man's externals, but not inwardly. No one knows how the Lord leads and teaches man inwardly, just as no one knows how the soul operates so that the eye sees, the ear hears, the tongue and mouth speak, the heart circulates the blood, the lungs breathe, the stomach digests, the liver and the pancreas distribute, the kidneys secrete, and much else. These processes do not come to man's perception or sensation. The same is true of what the Lord does in the infinitely more numerous interior substances and forms of the mind. The Lord's activity in these is not apparent to man, but many of the effects are, as well as some of the causes producing the effects. It is in the externals that man and the Lord are together, and as the externals make one with the internals, cohering as they do in one series, no disposition can be made by the Lord except in keeping with the disposition made in the externals with man's participation.

[2] Everyone knows that man thinks, wills, speaks and acts to all appearance as of himself, and everyone can see that without this appearance man would have no will and understanding, thus no affection and thought, also no reception of any good and truth from the Lord. It follows that without this appearance there would be no rational conception of God, no charity and no faith, consequently no reformation and regeneration, and therefore no salvation. Plainly, this appearance is granted to man by the Lord for the sake of all these uses and particularly that he may have the power to receive and reciprocate so that the Lord may be united to him and he to the Lord, and that through this conjunction the human being may live forever. This is "appearance" as it is meant here.

IX. IT IS A LAW OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE THAT MAN SHALL NOT PERCEIVE OR FEEL ANY OF THE ACTIVITY OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, AND YET SHOULD KNOW AND ACKNOWLEDGE PROVIDENCE

175. The natural man who does not believe in divine providence thinks to himself, "What can divine providence be when the wicked are promoted to honors and gain wealth more than the good, and many such things go better with those who do not believe in divine providence than with the good who believe in it? Indeed, infidels and the impious can inflict injuries, loss, misfortune and sometimes death on the believing and pious, doing so, too, by cunning and malice." He thinks therefore, "Do I not see in full daylight, as it were, in actual experience that crafty schemes prevail over fidelity and justice if only a man can make them seem trustworthy and just by a clever artfulness? What is left except necessities, consequences and the fortuitous in which there is no semblance of divine providence? Does not nature have its necessities, and are not consequences causes arising from natural or civil order, while the fortuitous comes, does it not, from unknown causes or from none?" So the natural man thinks to himself who attributes all things to nature and nothing to God, for one who ascribes nothing to God ascribes nothing to divine providence either; God and divine providence make one.

[2] But the spiritual man speaks and thinks within himself quite otherwise. Although he does not perceive the course of divine providence by any thought or feel it from any sight of it, he still knows and acknowledges providence. Inasmuch as the appearances and resulting fallacies just mentioned have blinded the understanding, and this can receive sight only when the fallacies which have induced the blindness and the falsities which have induced the darkness are dispelled, and since this can be done only by truths which have the power to dispel falsities, these truths are to be disclosed, and for distinctness let it be in this order:

i. If man perceived or felt the activity of divine providence he would not act in freedom according to reason, nor would anything appear to be his own doing. It would be the same if he foreknew events. ii. If man saw divine providence plainly, he would inject himself into the order and tenor of its course, and pervert and destroy them. iii. If man beheld divine providence plainly he would either deny God or make himself god. iv. Man can see divine providence on the back and not in the face; also in a spiritual, not a natural state.

176. (i) If man perceived or felt the activity of divine providence he would not act in freedom according to reason, nor would anything appear to be his own doing. It would be the same if he foreknew events. In given