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

to religion and therefore contrary to God. Such persons fear God and love the neighbor. They fear God inasmuch as they think that to do such things is to act against God, and they love the neighbor because to murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness and covet the neighbor's house or wife is to act against one's neighbor. Heeding God in their lives and doing no evil to the neighbor, they are led by the Lord, and those whom He leads are also taught about God and the neighbor in accordance with their religion, for those who live in this way love to be taught, but those living otherwise have no such desire. Loving to be taught, they are also instructed by angels after death when they become spirits, and willingly receive such truths as the Word contains. Something about them may be seen in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture (nn. 91-97 and 104-113).

254. The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence when he observes the religious conditions in various nations and notes that some people are totally ignorant of God, some worship the sun and moon, and some worship idols and graven images. Those who argue from these facts against divine providence are ignorant of the arcana of heaven; these arcana are innumerable and man is acquainted with hardly any of them. Among them is this: man is not taught from heaven directly but mediately (this may be seen treated above, nn. 154-174). Because he is taught mediately, and the Gospel could not through the medium of missionaries reach all who dwell in the world, but religion could be spread in various ways to inhabitants of the remote corners of the earth, this has been effected by divine providence. For a knowledge of religion does not come to a man from himself, but through another who has either learned it from the Word or by tradition from others who have learned it, for instance that God is, heaven and hell exist, there is a life after death, and God must be worshiped for man to be blessed.

[2] See in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture (nn. 101-103) that religion spread throughout the world from the Ancient Word and afterwards from the Israelitish Word, and (nn. 114-118) that unless there had been a Word no one could have known about God, heaven and hell, life after death, and still less about the Lord. Once a religion is established in a nation the Lord leads that nation according to the precepts and tenets of its own religion, and He has provided that there should be precepts in every religion like those in the Decalog, that God should be worshiped, His name not be profaned, a holy day be observed, that parents be honored, murder, adultery and theft not be committed, and false witness not be spoken. A nation that regards these precepts as divine and lives according to them in religion's name is saved, as was just said (n. 253). Most nations remote from Christendom regard these laws not as civil but as divine, and hold them sacred. See in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem [about Life] from the Precepts of the Decalog, from beginning to end, that a man is saved by a life according to these precepts.

[3] Also among the arcana of heaven is this: in the Lord's sight the angelic heaven is like one man whose soul and life is the Lord. In each particular of his form this divine man is man, not only as to the external members and organs but as to the more numerous internal members and organs, also as to the skins, membranes, cartilages and bones; but in that man all these, both external and internal, are not material but spiritual. Further, the Lord has provided that those who cannot be reached by the Gospel but only by some form of religion shall also have a place in this divine man, that is, in heaven, by constituting the parts called skins, membranes, cartilages and bones, and like others should be in heavenly joy. For it does not matter whether their joy is that of the angels of the highest heaven or of the lowest heaven, for everyone entering heaven comes into the highest joy of his own heart; joy higher still he does not endure; he would suffocate in it.

[4] A peasant and a king may serve for comparison. A peasant may reach the height of joy when he steps out in a new suit of homespun wool or seats himself at a table with pork, a piece of beef, cheese, beer and fiery wine on it. He would feel constricted at heart if he was clothed like a king in purple, silk, gold and silver, or if a table was set for him on which were delicacies and costly viands of many kinds with noble wine. It is plain from this that the last as well as the first find heavenly happiness, each in his measure, those outside Christendom also, therefore, provided they shun evils as sins against God because these are contrary to religion.

[5] Few are entirely ignorant of God. If they have lived a moral life they are instructed after death by angels and receive what is spiritual in their moral life (see Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture, n. 116). The same is true of those who worship sun and moon, believing that God is there. They know no better, therefore it is not imputed to them as a sin, for the Lord says,

If you were blind (that is, if you did not know), you would have no sin
(Jn 9:41).

But there are many who worship idols and graven images even in the Christian world. This, to be sure, is idolatrous, yet not with all. There are those for whom graven images serve as a means of exciting thought about God, for by an influx from heaven one who acknowledges God desires to see Him, and these, unable to raise the mind above the sensuous as those do who are inwardly spiritual, rouse it by means of statue or image. Those who do so and do not worship the image itself as God are saved if they also live by the precepts of the Decalog from religious principle.

[6] It is plain, then, that as the Lord desires the salvation of all, He has also provided that everyone who lives well may have a place in heaven. See in the work Heaven and Hell, published at London, 1758 (nn. 59-102 ), in Arcana Caelestia (nn. 5552-5569) and above (nn. 201-204) that heaven in the Lord's sight is like one man; that heaven accordingly corresponds to each and all things in man; and that there are also those who represent skin, membranes, cartilages and bones.

255. The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence when he sees the Mohammedan religion accepted by so many empires and kingdoms. The fact that this form of religion is accepted by more kingdoms than Christianity is may be a stumbling-block to those who give thought to divine providence and at the same time believe that no one can be saved unless he has been born a Christian, thus where the Word is, by which the Lord is known. That form of religion is no stumbling-block, however, to those who believe that all things are of divine providence. These ask in what the providence consists and find it is in this, that Mohammedanism, acknowledges the Lord as Son of God, the wisest of men and a very great prophet who came into the world to teach men; most Mohammedans consider Him to be greater than Mohammed.

[2] That form of religion was called forth in the divine providence to destroy the idolatries of many nations. To make this fully known we will pursue some order; first, something on the origin of idolatries. Previously to that form of religion the worship of idols was general in the world. This was because the churches before the Lord's advent were all representative churches. The Israelitish church was of this character. In it the tabernacle, Aaron's garments, the sacrifices, all things of the temple in Jerusalem, the statutes also, were representative. Moreover, the ancients had a knowledge of correspondences, which is the knowledge of representations—it was the chief knowledge of their wise men. This knowledge was cultivated especially in Egypt and was the origin of Egyptian hieroglyphics. By that knowledge the ancients knew what animals of every kind signified and what trees of every kind signified, as they did what mountains, hills, rivers and fountains signified, as well as sun, moon and stars. As all their worship was representative, consisting of sheer correspondences, they worshiped on mountains and hills and in groves and gardens, regarded fountains as sacred, and in adoration of God faced the rising sun. Furthermore, they made graven images of horses, oxen, calves and lambs, and of birds, fish and serpents, and placed them in their houses and elsewhere, arranged according to the spiritual things of the church to which they corresponded or which they represented. They placed similar objects in their temples, too, to put them in mind of the holy things they signified.

[3] Later, when the knowledge of correspondences had been lost, their posterity began to worship the graven images themselves, as holy in themselves, not knowing that their forefathers had seen no holiness in them, but only that they represented holy things by correspondences and thus signified them. So arose the idolatries which filled the whole world, Africa and Europe as well as Asia with its adjacent islands. In order that all these idolatries might be uprooted, of the Lord's divine providence it was brought about that a new religion, adapted to the genius of Orientals, should start up, in which there would be something from each Testament of the Word, and which would teach that the Lord had come into the world and was a very great prophet, wisest of all, and Son of God. This was done through Mohammed, from whom the religion is called the Mohammedan religion.

[4] Of the Lord's divine providence this religion was raised up and, as we said, adapted to the genius of Orientals, in order that it might destroy the idolatries of so many peoples and give them some knowledge of the Lord before they passed into the spiritual world. This religion would not have been accepted by so many kingdoms or had the power to uproot idolatries, had it not suited and met the ideas and thinking of them all. It did not acknowledge the Lord as God of heaven and earth, for the Orientals acknowledged God the Creator of the universe, but could not comprehend that He came into the world and assumed human nature, quite as Christians do not comprehend this, who therefore separate His divine from His humanity in their thinking and place His divine near the Father in heaven and His humanity they know not where.

[5] Hence it may be seen that the Mohammedan religion arose under the Lord's divine providence and that all adherents of it who acknowledge the Lord as Son of God and live according to the precepts of the Decalog, which they also have, shunning evils as sins, come into a heaven called the Mohammedan heaven. This heaven, like others, is divided into three, the highest, middle and lowest. Those who acknowledge the Lord to be one with the Father and thus the one God are in the highest heaven; in the next heaven are those who renounce a plurality of wives and live with one; and in the lowest are those who are being initiated. More about this religion may be seen in Continuation about the Last Judgment and the Spiritual World (nn. 68-72), where the Mohammedans and Mohammed are treated of.

256. The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence when he sees that the Christian religion exists only in a small part of the habitable world, called Europe, and there is divided. The Christian religion exists only in the small part of the habitable world called Europe because it was not adapted to the genius of Orientals as was a mixed one like the Mohammedan religion, as was just shown; and an unadapted religion is not received. For example, a religion which ordains that it is unlawful to take more than one wife is not received but rejected by those who for ages have been polygamists. This is true of other ordinances of the Christian religion.

[2] Nor is it material whether a smaller or a larger part of the world has received this religion, as long as there are people with whom the Word is. For those who are outside the church and do not possess the Word still have light from it, as was shown in Doctrine