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

distribute the chyle, or of the kidneys for secretion, the interiors of the organs of generation for propagation, or those of the womb for perfecting an embryo, and so on, would he not pervert and destroy the ordered course of the divine providence in them in innumerable ways? As we know, man is in externals, for example sees with the eye, hears with the ear, tastes with the tongue, feels with the skin, breathes with the lungs, impregnates a wife, and so on. Is it not enough for him to know the externals and dispose them for health of body and mind? When he cannot do this, what would happen if he disposed internals also? It may be plain from this that if man saw divine providence plainly, he would inject himself into the order and tenor of its course and pervert and destroy them.

181. The like occurs in the spiritual things of the mind to what occurs in the natural things of the body for the reason that all things of the mind correspond to all things of the body. For the same reason the mind actuates the body in externals and generally does so completely. It moves the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the mouth and tongue to eat and drink, also to speak, the hands to do, the feet to walk, the generative organs to propagate. The mind not only moves the externals in these ways but the internals, too, in their whole series, outmosts from inmosts and inmosts from outmosts. Thus while moving the mouth to speak, it moves lungs, larynx, glottis, tongue and lips at the same time, each separately to its especial function, and the face suitably also.

[2] It is clear then that the same can be said of the spiritual forms of the mind as was said of the natural forms of the body, and the same can be said of the spiritual activities of the mind as was said of the natural activities of the body. Consequently the Lord orders the internals as a man does the externals, in one way if the man orders the externals of himself and in another if he orders them under the Lord and at the same time as of himself. The mind of man is also in its total organization a man, for it is his spirit which appears after death altogether as a human being as in the world; hence there are similar things in mind and body. Thus what has been said about the conjunction of externals with internals in the body is to be understood of the conjunction of externals with internals in the mind, with the sole difference that the latter is spiritual and the former is natural.

182. ( iii) If man beheld divine providence plainly he would either deny God or make himself god. The merely natural man says to himself, "What is divine providence? Is it anything else or more than an expression which people get from a priest? Who sees anything of it? Is it not by prudence, wisdom, cunning and malice that all things are done in the world? Is not all else necessity or consequence? And does not much happen by chance? Does divine providence lie concealed in this? How can it do so in deceptions and schemes? Yet it is said that divine providence effects all things. Then let me see it and I will believe in it. Can one believe in it until he sees it?"

[2] So speaks the merely natural man, but the spiritual man speaks differently. Acknowledging God he also acknowledges divine providence and sees it, too. He cannot make it manifest, however, to anyone whose thought is on nature only and from nature, for such a person cannot raise his mind above nature, see anything of divine providence in its phenomena, or come to conclusions about providence from nature's laws, which are also laws of divine wisdom. If, therefore, he beheld divine providence plainly, he would sink it in nature and thus not only enshroud it in fallacies but profane it. Instead of acknowledging it he would deny it, and one who denies divine providence in his heart denies God also.

[3] Either one thinks that God governs all things or that nature does. He who thinks that God does thinks that they are ruled by love itself and wisdom itself, thus by life itself; but he who thinks that nature governs all, thinks that all things are ruled by nature's heat and light, although these in themselves are dead, coming as they do from a dead sun. Does not what is itself alive govern what is lifeless? Can what is dead govern anything? If you think that what is lifeless can give life to itself, you are mad; life must come from life.

183. It does not seem likely that if a man saw divine providence and its activity plainly he would deny God; it would seem that he could not but acknowledge it and thus acknowledge God. Yet the contrary is true. Divine providence never acts in keeping with the love of man's will, but constantly against it. For the human being by force of his hereditary evil is ever panting for the lowest hell, but the Lord in His providence is constantly leading him away and withdrawing him from it, first to a milder hell, then away from hell, and finally to Himself in heaven. This activity of divine providence is perpetual. If, then, man saw or felt this withdrawing and leading away, he would be angered, consider God his enemy, and deny Him on account of the evil of his selfhood. In order that man may not know of it, therefore, he is held in freedom and thereby does not know but that he leads himself.

[2] But let examples serve for illustration. By heredity man wants to become great and also rich. In the measure in which these loves are not checked he wants to become still greater and richer and finally the greatest and richest; even so he would not rest, but would want to become greater than God Himself and possess heaven itself. This lust is hidden deep in hereditary evil and consequently in man's life and in the nature of his life. Divine providence does not remove this evil in a moment; if it were removed in a moment man would cease to live; but divine providence removes it quietly and gradually without man's knowing of it. It does this by letting man act according to the thinking which he deems rational; then by various means, rational and also civil and moral, it leads him away and withdraws him so far as he can be withdrawn in freedom. Nor can evil be removed from anyone unless it comes out and is seen and acknowledged; it is like a wound which heals only when opened.

[3] If, therefore, man knew and saw that the Lord in His divine providence works in this way against his life's love, the source of his highest enjoyment, he could not but go in the opposite direction, be enraged, rebel, say harsh things, and finally, on account of his evil, brush aside the activity of divine providence, denying it and so denying God. He would do this especially if he saw success thwarted or saw himself lowered in standing or deprived of wealth.

[4] But it is to be known that the Lord in no wise leads man away from seeking position and acquiring wealth, but leads him away from the lust of seeking position solely for the sake of eminence or for his own sake, and also from acquiring wealth for its own sake or just to have it. Leading the man away, He introduces him into the love of uses so that he may regard eminence not for his own sake but for the sake of uses, thus as attached to uses and only so to himself, and not as attached to him and then to the uses; the same applies to wealth. At many places in the Word the Lord Himself teaches that He continually humbles the proud and exalts the humble; what He teaches in it is also of His divine providence.

184. Any other evil in which man is by heredity is dealt with in like manner, such as adultery, fraud, vengeance, blasphemy and other similar evils, none of which can be removed except as freedom to think and will them is left to man for him to remove them as if of himself. Nevertheless he can do this only as he acknowledges divine providence and prays that it may be done by it. Apart from this freedom and from divine providence at the same time, the evils would be like poison shut in and not driven out, which would spread quickly and consign all parts to death, or would be like disease of the heart itself, from which the whole body soon dies.

185. The truth of what has been said cannot be better known than from human lives after death in the spiritual world. Very many who had become great or wealthy in the natural world and in their eminence or riches had regarded themselves alone, at first speak of God and divine providence as though they had acknowledged them at heart, but seeing divine providence clearly then and their final lot under it, namely, for them to enter hell, they unite with devils there and not only deny God then but also blaspheme Him. Finally they reach such madness that they acknowledge the more powerful among devils as their gods and desire nothing more ardently than to become gods themselves.

186. Man would go contrary to God and also deny Him if he saw the activities of God's divine providence plainly, for the reason that man is in the enjoyment of self-love and this enjoyment constitutes his very life. Therefore when man is held in the enjoyment of his life he is in his freedom, for freedom and the enjoyment make one. If, then, he should perceive that he is continually being led away from his enjoyment, he would be enraged as against one who wanted to destroy his life and would hold him to be an enemy. Lest it happen, the Lord in His divine providence does not appear manifestly, but leads man by it as silently as a hidden stream or favorable current does a vessel. Consequently man does not know but that he is steadily in his own, for his freedom and his proprium make one. Hence it is plain that freedom appropriates to him what divine providence introduces, which would not take place if providence were manifest. To be appropriated means to become of one's life.

187. (iv) Man can see divine providence on the back and not in the face; also in a spiritual state but not in a natural. To see divine providence on the back but not in the face means after it acts and not before. To see it in a spiritual state and not in a natural is to see it from heaven and not from the world. All who receive influx from heaven and acknowledge divine providence, especially those who have become spiritual through reformation, on beholding events taking a wonderful course see providence as it were from an interior acknowledgment and confess it. These do not wish to see it in the face, that is, before it eventuates, fearing that their volition may intrude on something of its order and tenor.

[2] It is otherwise with those who do not admit any influx from heaven but only from the world, especially with those who have become natural by confirming appearances in themselves. They do not see anything of divine providence on the back, that is, after it eventuates, but wish to behold it in the face or before it eventuates; and as divine providence works by means, and these are provided through man or the world, they attribute providence, whether they look it in the face or on the back, to man or to nature, and so confirm themselves in the denial of it. They make this ascription of it because their understanding is closed above, that is, to heaven, and open only below, that is, to the world; one cannot see divine providence in a worldly outlook, only in a heavenly. I have wondered sometimes whether they would acknowledge divine providence if their understanding was opened above and they were to see as in the light of day that nature in itself is dead, and human intelligence in itself nothing, and that it is by influx that either appears to have being. I perceived that those who have confirmed themselves in favor of nature and of human prudence would not make the acknowledgment because the natural light flowing in from