Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence Part 16

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; would that you were cold or hot; but because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue you out of my mouth (3:14, 15, 16).

This manner of profanation is also described by the Lord in Matthew:

When the unclean spirit goes out from a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest but finds none. Then he says, I will return to the house whence I came out. When he returns and finds it empty, swept and garnished for him, he goes and gathers to him seven other spirits worse than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of the man is worse than the first (12:43-45).

The conversion of the man is described by the unclean spirit's going out of him; his reverting to his former evils when things good and true have been cast out, is described by the return of the unclean spirit with seven worse than himself into the house garnished for him; and the profanation of the holy by what is profane is described by the last state of that man being worse than the first. The same is meant by this pa.s.sage in John,

Jesus said to the man healed in the pool of Bethesda: Sin no more, lest something worse befall you (5:14).

[9] That the Lord provides that man shall not acknowledge truths inwardly and afterwards leave them and become profane, is meant by these words:

He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them (Jn 12:40).

"Lest they should be converted, and I should heal them" signifies lest they should acknowledge truths and then depart from them and thus become profane. For the same reason the Lord spoke in parables, as He Himself says (Mt 13:13). The Jews were forbidden to eat fat and blood (Lev 3:17, 7:13, 25 ); this signifies that they were not to profane holy things, for "fat" signifies divine good and "blood" divine truth. In Matthew the Lord teaches that once converted a man must continue in good and truth to the close of life:

Jesus said: Whosoever perseveres to the end, shall be saved (10:20; similarly Mk 13:13).

232. (iv) _The Lord therefore does not admit man interiorly into truths of wisdom and at the same time into goods of love except as man can be kept in them to the close of life._ To demonstrate this we must proceed by steps for two reasons; one, because it concerns human salvation, and the other, because a knowledge of the laws of permission (to be considered in the next chapter) depends on a knowledge of this law. It concerns human salvation, because, as has just been said, one who first acknowledges what is divine in Word and church and subsequently departs from them profanes what is holy most grievously. In order, then, that this arcanum of divine providence may be revealed so that the rational man can see it in his own light, it is to be unfolded as follows:

1. Evil and good cannot exist together in man's interior being, consequently neither can the falsity of evil and the truth of good.

2. Good and the truth of good can be introduced into man's interior being only so far as evil and the falsity of evil there have been removed.

3. If good with its truth were introduced there before or further than evil with its falsity is removed, man would depart from the good and go back to his evil.

4. When man is in evil many truths may be introduced into his understanding and kept in memory, and yet not be profaned.

5. But the Lord in His divine providence takes the greatest care that they are not received from the understanding by the will sooner or more largely than man as of himself removes evil in the external man.

6. Should it welcome them sooner or in larger measure, the will would adulterate good and the understanding would falsify truth by mingling them with evils and falsities.

7. The Lord therefore admits man inwardly into truths of wisdom and goods of love only so far as man can be kept in them to the close of life.

233. In order, then, that this arcanum of divine providence may be disclosed so that the rational man will see it in his light, the points made will be explained one by one. 1. _Evil and good cannot exist together in man's interior being, consequently neither can the falsity of evil and the truth of good._ By man's interiors the internal of his thought is meant. Of this he knows nothing until he comes into the spiritual world and its light, which happens on death. In the natural world it can be known only by the enjoyment of his love in the external of his thought, and from evils themselves as he examines them in himself.

For the internal of thought in man is so closely connected with the external of thought that they cannot be separated (of this more may be seen above). We say "good and truth of good," and "evil and falsity of evil" because good cannot exist apart from its truth nor evil apart from its falsity. They are bedfellows or partners, for the life of good is from its truth and the life of truth is from its good; the same is to be said of evil and its falsity.

[2] The rational man can see without explanation that evil with its falsity and good with its truth cannot exist in man's interiors at the same time. For evil is the opposite of good and good the opposite of evil; two opposites cannot coexist. Implanted in all evil, moreover, is a hatred for good, and implanted in all good the love of protecting itself against evil and removing it from itself. Consequently one cannot be where the other is. If they were together conflict and combat would start and destruction ensue, as the Lord teaches also in these words:

Every kingdom divided against itself is desolated, and every city or house divided against itself does not stand . . . Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me disperses (Mt 25:30);

and in another place,

No one can serve two masters at the same time: for either he will hate the one and love the other . . . (Mt 6:24).

Two opposites are impossible in one substance or form without its being torn apart and destroyed. If one should advance and approach the other, they would keep apart like two enemies, one retiring to his camp or fort, and the other posting himself outside. This happens with evil and good in a hypocrite; he harbors both, but the evil is inside and the good outside and so the two are separate and not mingled. It is plain then that evil with its falsity and good with its truth cannot coexist.

[3] 2. _Good and the truth of good can be introduced into man's interiors only so far as evil and the falsity of evil there have been removed._ This is a necessary consequence from what has preceded, for as evil and good cannot exist together, good cannot be introduced before evil has been removed. We say man's "interiors" and mean by these the internal of thought; and in these, now being considered, either the Lord or the devil must be present. The Lord is there after reformation and the devil before reformation. So far as man suffers himself to be reformed, therefore, the devil is cast out, but so far as he does not suffer himself to be reformed the devil remains. Anyone can see that the Lord cannot enter as long as the devil is there, and he is there as long as man keeps the door closed where man acts together with the Lord. The Lord teaches in the Apocalypse that He enters when that door is opened by man's mediation:

I stand at the door, and knock; if anyone hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me (3:20).

The door is opened by man's removing evil, fleeing and turning away from it as infernal and diabolical. Whether one says "evil" or "the devil," it is one and the same, in turn whether one says "good" or "the Lord," for within all good is the Lord and within all evil is the devil. From these considerations the truth of this proposition is plain.

[4] 3. _If good with its truth were introduced before or further than evil with its falsity is removed, man would depart from the good and go back to his evil._ This is because evil would be the stronger, and what is stronger conquers, eventually if not then. As long as evil is stronger, good cannot be introduced into the inner chambers but only into the entry hall; for evil and good, as we said, cannot exist together, and what is in the entry hall is removed by its enemy in the chamber. Thus good is receded from and evil is returned to, which is the worst kind of profanation.

[5] Furthermore, it is the enjoyment of man's life to love himself and the world above all else. This enjoyment cannot be removed in a moment, but only gradually. In the measure in which it remains in man, evil is stronger in him and can be removed only as self-love becomes a love of uses, or as the love of ruling is not for its own sake but for the sake of uses. Uses then make the head, and self-love or the love of ruling is at first the body under the head and finally the feet, on which to walk.

Who does not see that good should be the head, and that when it is, the Lord is there? Good and use are one. Who does not see that when evil is the head, the devil is there? As civil and moral good and, in its external form, spiritual good, too, are still to be received, who does not see that these then const.i.tute the feet and the soles of the feet, and are trodden on?

[6] Inasmuch, then, as man's state of life is to be inverted so that what is uppermost may be lowermost, and the inversion cannot be instantaneous, for the chief enjoyment of his life, coming of self-love and the love of ruling, can be diminished and turned into a love of uses only gradually, the Lord cannot introduce good sooner or further than this evil is removed; done earlier or further, man would recede from good and return to his evil.

[7] 4. _When man is in evil many truths may be introduced into his understanding and kept in memory, and still not be profaned._ This is because the understanding does not flow into the will, but the will into the understanding. As the understanding does not flow into the will, many truths can be received by the understanding and held in memory and still not be mingled with the evil in the will, and the holy thus not profaned.

Moreover, it is inc.u.mbent on everyone to learn truths from the Word or from preaching, to lay them up in the memory and to think about them. For by truths held in the memory and entering into the thought, the understanding is to teach the will, that is, the man, what he should do.

This is therefore the chief means of reformation. Truths that are only in the understanding and thence in the memory are not in man but outside him.

[8] Man's memory may be compared to the ruminatory stomach of certain animals in which they put their food; as long as it is there, it is not in but outside their body; as they draw it thence and consume it, it becomes part of their life, and their body is nourished. The food in man's memory is not material but spiritual, namely truths, rightly knowledges; so far as he takes them thence by thinking, which is like ruminating, his spiritual mind is nourished. It is the will's love that has the desire and the appet.i.te, so to speak, and that causes them to be taken thence and to be nourishing. If that love is evil, it desires or has an appet.i.te for what is unclean, but if good, for what is clean, and sets aside, rejects and casts out what is unsuitable; this is done in various ways.

[9] 5. _But the Lord in His divine providence takes the greatest care that truths are not received from the understanding by the will sooner or more largely than man as of himself removes evil in his external man._ For what is from the will enters man, is appropriated to him, and becomes part of his life, and in that life, which is man's from the will, evil and good cannot exist together, for so he would perish. The two may, however, be in the understanding, where they are called falsities of evil and truths of good, and without being mingled; else man could not behold evil from good or know good from evil; but there they are distinguishable and separated like the inner and outer sections of a house. When a wicked man thinks and speaks what is good, he is thinking and speaking externally to himself, but inwardly when he thinks and speaks what is evil; his speech, therefore, when he speaks what is good, comes off a wall, as it were. It can be likened to fruit fair outside but wormy and decayed inside, or to the sh.e.l.l, especially, of a serpent's egg.

[10] 6. _Should the will welcome truths sooner or in larger measure, it would adulterate good and the understanding would falsify truth by mingling them with evils and falsities._ When the will is in evil, it adulterates good in the understanding, and good adulterated in the understanding is evil in the will, for it confirms that evil is good and good is evil. So evil deals with all good, which is its opposite. Evil also falsifies truth, for truth of good is the opposite of the falsity of evil; this is done in the understanding by the will, and not by the understanding alone. Adulterations of good are depicted in the Word by adulteries and falsifications of truth by wh.o.r.edoms. These adulterations and falsifications are effected by reasonings from the natural man which is in evil, and also by confirmations of appearances in the sense of the letter of the Word.

[11] The love of self, the head of all evils, surpa.s.ses other loves in the ability to adulterate goods and falsify truths, and it does this by misuse of the rationality which every man, wicked as well as good, enjoys from the Lord. By confirmations it can in fact make evil look exactly like good and falsity like truth. What can it not do when it can prove by a thousand arguments that nature created itself and then created human beings, animals and plants of every kind, and also prove that by influx from within itself nature causes men to live, to think a.n.a.lytically and to understand wisely? Self-love excels in ability to prove whatever it desires because a certain glamour of varicolored light overlays it. This glamour is the vainglory of that love in being wise and thus also of being eminent and dominant.

[12] And yet, when self-love has proved such things, it becomes so blind that it sees man only as a beast, and that man and beast both think, and if a beast could also speak, conceives it would be man in another form.

If it were induced by some manner of persuasion to believe that something of the human being survives death, it then is so blind as to believe that the beast also survives; and that the something which lives after death is only a subtle exhalation of life, like a vapor, constantly falling back to its corpse, or is something vital without sight, hearing or speech, and so is blind, deaf and dumb, soaring about and cogitating.

Self-love entertains many other insanities with which nature, in itself dead, inspires its fantasy. Such is the effect of self-love, which regarded in itself is love of the proprium. Man's proprium, in respect of its affections which are all natural, is not unlike the life of a beast, and in respect of its perceptions, inasmuch as they spring from these affections, is not unlike a bird of night. One who constantly immerses his thoughts in his proprium, therefore, cannot be raised out of natural light into spiritual light and see anything of G.o.d, heaven or eternal life. Since the love of the proprium is of this nature and yet excels in the ability to confirm whatever it pleases, it has a similar ability to adulterate the goods of the Word and falsify its truths, even while it is constrained by some necessity to confess them.

[13] 7. _The Lord therefore does not admit man inwardly into truths of wisdom and goods of love except as man can be kept in them to the close of life._ The Lord does this lest man fall into that most serious kind of profanation of which we have treated in this chapter. In view of that peril the Lord also tolerates evils of life and many heresies in worship, the tolerance of which will be the subject of the following chapter.

XIII. LAWS ON PERMISSION ARE ALSO LAWS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE

234. There are no laws of permission per se or apart from the laws of divine providence; rather they are the same. Hence to say that G.o.d permits something does not mean that He wills it, but that He cannot avert it in view of the end, which is salvation. Whatever is done for the sake of that end is in accord with the laws of divine providence. For divine providence, as was said, constantly travels in a different direction from that of man's will and against his will, always intent on its objective. At each moment of its activity or at each step in its progress, as it perceives man straying from that end, it directs, turns and disposes him according to its laws, leading him away from evil and to good. It will be seen in what follows that this cannot be done without the tolerance of evil. Furthermore, nothing can be permitted for no cause, and the cause can only be in some law of divine providence, explaining why it is permitted.

235. One who does not acknowledge divine providence at all does not acknowledge G.o.d at heart, but nature instead of G.o.d, and human prudence instead of divine providence. This does not appear to be so because man can think and speak in two ways. He can think and speak in one way from his inner self and in another from his outer self. This capability is like a hinge that lets a door swing either way, in one direction as one enters, in the other as one leaves; or like a sail which can take a ship one way or the other as the skipper spreads it. Those who have confirmed themselves in favor of human prudence to the denial of divine providence see nothing else as long as they are in this way of thinking, no matter what they see, hear or read, nor can they, for they accept nothing from heaven but only from themselves. As they draw their conclusions from appearances and fallacies alone and see nothing else, they can swear that prudence is all. If they also recognize nature only, they become enraged at defenders of divine providence, except that they think when these are priests they are simply pursuing their teaching and office.

236. We will enumerate now some things that are tolerated and yet are in accord with laws of divine providence, by which, however, the merely natural man confirms himself in favor of nature and against G.o.d and in favor of human prudence and against divine providence. For instance he reads in the Word that:

1. Adam, wisest of men, and his wife allowed themselves to be led astray by the serpent, and G.o.d did not avert this in His divine providence.

2. Their first son, Cain, killed his brother Abel, and G.o.d did not speak to him and dissuade him but only afterwards cursed him.

3. The Israelites worshiped a golden calf in the wilderness and acknowledged it as the G.o.d that had brought them out of Egypt, yet Jehovah saw this from Mt. Sinai near by and did not warn against it.

4. David numbered the people and as a consequence a pestilence befell them in which so many thousands of them perished; G.o.d sent the prophet Gad to him not before but after the deed and denounced punishment.

5. Solomon was allowed to establish idolatrous worship.

6. After him many kings were allowed to profane the temple and the sacred things of the church.

7. And finally that nation was permitted to crucify the Lord.

One who hails nature and human prudence sees nothing but what contradicts divine providence in these and many other pa.s.sages of the Word. He can use them as arguments in denial of providence, if not in his outward thought nearest to speech, still in his inner thought, remote from it.

237. Every worshiper of self and nature confirms himself against divine providence:

1. When he sees such numbers of wicked in the world and so many of their impieties and how some glory in them, and sees the men go unpunished by G.o.d.

2. He confirms himself the more against divine providence when he sees plots, schemes and frauds succeed even against the devout, just and sincere, and injustice triumph over justice in the courts and in business.

3. He confirms himself especially on seeing the impious advanced to honors and becoming leaders in the state or in the church, abounding, too, in riches and living in luxury and magnificence, and on the other hand sees worshipers of G.o.d despised and poor.

4. He also confirms himself against divine providence when he reflects that wars are permitted and the slaughter of so many in them and the looting of so many cities, nations and families.

5. Furthermore, he reflects that victories are on the side of prudence and not always on the side of justice, and that it is immaterial whether a commander is upright or not.

Besides many other things of the kind, all of which are permissions according to laws of divine providence.