Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence Part 24

[11] Sixth: _Everything confirmed by the will and at the same time by the understanding remains to eternity, but not what is confirmed only by the understanding._ For what pertains to the understanding alone is not within man but outside him; it is only in the thought. Nothing enters man and is appropriated to him except what is received by the will; then it comes to be of his life's love. This, it will be shown in the next number, remains to eternity.

319. Everything confirmed by both the will and the understanding remains to eternity because everyone is his own love, and love attaches to the will; also because everyone is his own good or his own evil, for that is called good or evil which belongs to the love. Since man is his own love he is also the form of his love, and may be called the organ of his life's love. It was stated above (n. 279) that the affections of man's love and his resulting thoughts are changes and variations of the state and form of the organic substances of his mind. What these changes and variations are and their nature will be explained now. Some idea of them may be obtained from the alternating expansions and compressions or dilations and contractions in the heart and lungs, called in the heart systole and diastole, and in the lungs respirations. These are reciprocal extensions and retractions or expansions and contractions of their lobes.

Such are the changes and variations in the state of the heart and lungs.

Such changes and variations occur in the other viscera of the body and in their parts, too, by which the blood and the animal juices are received and transmitted.

[2] Similar changes and variations take place in the organic forms of the mind, which, as we showed above, are the substances underlying man's affections and thoughts. There is a difference. Their expansions and compressions or reciprocal activities in comparison have so much greater perfection that they cannot be described in words of natural language, but only in words of spiritual language, which can sound only as saying that the changes and variations are vortical gyrations in and out, after the manner of perpetually winding spirals wonderfully ma.s.sed into forms receptive of life.

[3] Now to tell the nature of these purely organic substances and forms in the evil and in the good respectively: in the good the spiral forms travel forward, in the evil backward; the forward-traveling are turned to the Lord and receive influx from Him; the retrogressive are turned towards h.e.l.l and receive influx from h.e.l.l. It should be known that in the measure in which they turn backward these forms are open behind and closed in front; and on the other hand in the measure in which they turn forward, they are open in front and closed behind.

[4] This can make plain what kind of form or organ an evil man is and what kind of form or organ a good man is, and that they are turned in opposite directions. As the turning once established cannot be twisted back it is plain that man remains to eternity such as he is at death.

The love of man's will is what effects this turning, or is what either converts or inverts, for, as was said above, each person is his own love.

Hence, on death, everyone goes the way of his love, the man in a good love to heaven, and the man in an evil love to h.e.l.l, nor does he rest except in that society where his ruling love is. Marvelous it is that each knows the way; it is as though he scents it.

320. (iv) _If man believed, as is the truth, that all good and truth are from the Lord and all evil and falsity from h.e.l.l, he would not appropriate good to himself and consider it merited, nor evil and make himself responsible for it._ This is contrary to the belief of those who have confirmed in themselves the appearance that wisdom and prudence come from man and do not flow in according to the state of the organization of the mind, treated of above (n. 319). It must therefore be demonstrated, and to be done clearly, it will be done in this order:

1. One who confirms in himself the appearance that wisdom and prudence are from man and thus in him as his, must take the view that otherwise he would not be a man, but either a beast or a statue; yet the contrary is true.

2. To believe and think, as is the truth, that all good and truth are from the Lord and all evil and falsity from h.e.l.l, seems impossible, yet is truly human and hence angelic.

3. So to believe and think is impossible to those who do not acknowledge the divine of the Lord and that evils are sins, but possible for those who make these two acknowledgments.

4. Those who make the two acknowledgments alone reflect on the evils in themselves, and so far as they flee them and are averse to them, they send them back to h.e.l.l from which they come.

5. So divine providence appropriates neither evil nor good to anyone, but one's own prudence appropriates both.

321. These propositions will be explained in the order proposed. First: _One who confirms in himself the appearance that wisdom and prudence are from man and thus in him as his, must take the view that otherwise he would not be a man, but either a beast or a statue; yet the contrary is true._ It comes from a law of divine providence that man is to think as it were from himself and act prudently as of himself, but still acknowledge that he does so from the Lord. It follows that one who thinks and acts prudently as of himself and acknowledges at the same time that he does so from the Lord, is a man, but that person is not who confirms in himself the idea that all he thinks and does is from himself. Neither is he a man who, knowing that wisdom and prudence are from G.o.d, keeps awaiting influx. This man becomes like a statue, the other like a beast.

One who waits for influx is obviously like a statue; he is sure to stand or sit motionless, his hands dropped, his eyes closed or, if open, unblinking, and neither thinking nor breathing. What life has he then?

[2] Plainly, too, one who believes that everything he thinks and does is from himself is not unlike a beast. For he thinks only from the natural mind which man has in common with beasts, and not from the spiritual, rational mind which is the truly human mind; for this mind acknowledges that G.o.d alone thinks from Himself and that man does so from G.o.d.

Therefore one who thinks only from the natural mind knows no difference between man and animal except that man speaks and a beast makes sounds, and he believes they die alike.

[3] Something further is to be said about those who await influx. They receive none, except for a few who desire it with the whole heart. These at times receive some response through a living perception in thought or by tacit utterance but rarely by an explicit one, and this then is that they should think and act as they determine and are able, and that one who acts wisely is wise and one who acts foolishly is foolish. They are never instructed what to believe or do, in order that human rationality and liberty may not perish, that is, in order that everyone shall act in freedom according to reason in all appearance as of himself. Those who are told by influx what they are to believe or do are not being instructed by the Lord, nor by any angel of heaven, but by some spirit, an Enthusiast, Quaker or Moravian, and are being misled. All influx from the Lord is effected by enlightenment of the understanding and by an affection of truth, and pa.s.ses by the latter into the former.

[4] Second: _To believe and think, as is the truth, that all good and truth are from the Lord and all evil and falsity from h.e.l.l, seems impossible, yet is truly human and hence angelic._ To believe and think that all good and truth are from G.o.d seems possible, if no more is said, for it falls in with a theological belief contrary to which it is not allowable to think. But to believe and think also that all evil and falsity are from h.e.l.l seems impossible, for in that belief man would not think at all. But man still thinks as from himself though it is from h.e.l.l, for the Lord grants to everyone that his thought, wherever it is from, shall appear to be his own in him. Else man would not live as a human being, nor could he be led out of h.e.l.l and brought into heaven, that is, be reformed, as we have shown many times.

[5] Therefore the Lord also grants man to know and consequently to think that when he is in evil he is in h.e.l.l, and that if he thinks evil he thinks from h.e.l.l. He likewise grants him to think of the means by which he can escape from h.e.l.l and not think from h.e.l.l, but enter heaven and in heaven think from the Lord, and He grants man the freedom to choose. From all this it may be seen that man can think evil and falsity as if from himself and also think that this or that is evil or false; consequently that it is only an appearance that he does so of himself, an appearance without which he would not be man. To think from truth is what is human itself and consequently angelic itself; it is a truth that man does not think from himself, but is granted by the Lord to think from himself to all appearance.

[6] Third: _So to believe and think is impossible to those who do not acknowledge the divine of the Lord and that evils are sins, but possible to those who make the two acknowledgments._ It is impossible to those who do not acknowledge the divine of the Lord, for the Lord alone gives man to think and will; and those who do not acknowledge the divine of the Lord, being separated from Him believe that they think for themselves. It is impossible also to those who do not acknowledge evils to be sins, for they think then from h.e.l.l, and in h.e.l.l everyone supposes that he thinks from himself. That it is possible, however, to those who make the two acknowledgments can be seen from what was set forth fully above (nn.

288-294).

[7] Fourth: _Only those who live in the two acknowledgments reflect on the evils in themselves, and so far as they shun and are averse to them, they send them back to h.e.l.l from which they come._ All know or can know that evil is from h.e.l.l and good is from heaven. Who then cannot know that so far as man shuns and is averse to evil he shuns and is averse to h.e.l.l?

He can know then, too, that so far as he shuns and is averse to evil, he wills and loves what is good, and consequently is so far released from h.e.l.l by the Lord and led to heaven. Every rational person may see these things provided he knows that heaven and h.e.l.l exist, where good and evil have their respective origins. If, now, he reflects on the evils in him, which is the same thing as examining himself, and shuns them, he disengages himself from h.e.l.l, puts it behind him, and brings himself into heaven, where he beholds the Lord before him. Man does this, we say, but he does it as of himself and from the Lord now. When a man acknowledges this truth out of a good heart and in a devout faith, it lies inwardly hidden in all that he thinks and does afterwards as of himself. It is like the prolific force in a seed which remains in it even until new seed is produced, and like the pleasure in one's appet.i.te for food the wholesomeness of which one has learned; in a word, like heart and soul in all he thinks and does.

[8] Fifth: _So divine providence appropriates neither evil nor good to anyone, but one's own prudence appropriates both._ This follows from all that has been said. Good is the objective of divine providence; it purposes good in all its activity, therefore. Accordingly, it does not appropriate good to anyone, for then this would become self-righteous; nor does it appropriate evil to anyone, for so it would make him responsible for evil. But man does both by his proprium, for this is nothing but evil. The proprium of the will is self-love and that of the understanding is the pride of self-intelligence, and of these comes man's own prudence.

XVII. EVERY MAN CAN BE REFORMED, AND THERE IS NO PREDESTINATION [as commonly understood*]

* See n. 330 - Tr.

322. Sound reason dictates that all are predestined to heaven and none to h.e.l.l, for all are born human beings and consequently G.o.d's image is in them. G.o.d's image in them consists in their ability to understand truth and to do good. The ability to understand truth comes from the divine wisdom, and the ability to do good from the divine love. This ability, which is G.o.d's image, remains in any sane person and is not eradicated.

Hence it is that he can become a civil and moral man, and one who is civil and moral can also become spiritual, for the civil and moral is a receptacle of what is spiritual. He is called a civil man who knows and lives according to the laws of the kingdom of which he is a citizen; he is called a moral man who makes those laws his ethics and his virtues and from reason lives by them.

[2] Let me say how civil and moral life is the receptacle of spiritual life. Live these laws not only as civil and moral laws but also as divine laws, and you will be a spiritual man. There is hardly a nation so barbarous that it has not by law prohibited murder, adultery, theft, false witness and damage to what is another's. The civil and moral man keeps these laws that he may be, or seem to be, a good citizen. If he does not consider them divine laws also he is only a civil and moral natural man, but if he considers them divine also, he becomes a civil and moral spiritual man. The difference is that the latter is a good citizen both of an earthly kingdom and of a heavenly, while the former is a good citizen only of the earthly kingdom and not of the heavenly. They are distinguishable by the good they do. The good done by civil and moral natural men is not in itself good, for man and the world are in it; the good done by civil and moral spiritual men is in itself good, because the Lord and heaven are in it.

[3] From all this it may be seen that every person, because he is born able to become a civil and moral natural being, is also born able to become a civil and moral spiritual man. He has only to acknowledge G.o.d and not commit evils because they are against G.o.d, but do good because good is siding with G.o.d. Then spirit enters into his civil and moral actions and they live; otherwise there is no spirit in them and hence they are not living. Therefore the natural man, however much he acts like a civil and moral being, is spoken of as dead, but the spiritual man is spoken of as living.

[4] Of the Lord's divine providence every nation has some religion, and primary in every religion is the acknowledgment that G.o.d is, else it is not called a religion. Every nation that lives its religion, that is, does not do evil because this is contrary to its G.o.d, receives something spiritual in its natural life. Who, on hearing a Gentile say he will not do this or that evil because it is contrary to his G.o.d, does not say to himself, "Is this person not saved? It seems, it cannot be otherwise."

Sound reason tells him this. On the other hand, hearing a Christian say, "I make no account of this or that evil. What does it mean to say that it is contrary to G.o.d?" one says to himself, "This man is not saved, is he?

It would seem, he cannot be." Sound reason dictates this also.

[5] Should someone say, "I was born a Christian, have been baptized, have known the Lord, read the Word, observed the Sacrament of the Supper,"

what does this amount to when he does not count as sins murder, or the revenge breathing it, adultery, stealing, false witness, or lying, and different sorts of violence? Does such a person think of G.o.d or of eternal life? Does he think they exist? Does sound reason not dictate that such a man cannot be saved? This has been said of a Christian, for a Gentile in his life gives more thought to G.o.d from religion than a Christian does. But more is to be said on these points in what follows in this order:

i. The goal of creation is a heaven from mankind.

ii. Of divine providence, therefore, every man can be saved, and those are saved who acknowledge G.o.d and live rightly.

iii. Man himself is in fault if he is not saved.

iv. Thus all are predestined to heaven, and no one to h.e.l.l.

323. (i) _The goal of creation is a heaven from mankind._ It has been shown above and in the work, _Heaven and h.e.l.l_ (London, 1758), that heaven consists solely of those who have been born as human beings. Since heaven consists of no others, it follows that the purpose of creation is a heaven from mankind. This has been shown above (nn. 27-45), it is true, but will be seen more clearly still with explanation of the following:

1. Everyone is created to live forever.

2. Everyone is created to live forever in a blessed state.

3. Thus every person has been created to enter heaven.

4. The divine love cannot but will this, and the divine wisdom cannot but provide it.

324. One can see from these points that divine providence is none other than predestination to heaven and cannot be altered into anything else.

We must now demonstrate, therefore, in the order proposed, that the goal of creation is a heaven from the human race. First: _Everyone has been created to live to eternity._ In the treatise _Divine Love and Wisdom,_ Parts III and V, it was shown that there are three degrees of life in man, called natural, spiritual and celestial, that they are actually in everyone, and that in animals there is only one degree of life, which is like the lowest degree in man, called the natural. The result is that by the elevation of his life to the Lord man is in such a state above that of animals that he can comprehend what is of divine wisdom, and will what is of divine love, in other words, receive what is divine; and he who can receive what is divine, so as to see and perceive it within him, cannot but be united with the Lord and by the union live to eternity.

[2] What would the Lord do with all the created universe if He had not also created images and likenesses of Himself to whom He could communicate His divine? What would He exist for, otherwise, except to make this and not that or bring something into existence but not something else, and this merely to be able to contemplate from afar only incidents and constant changes as on a stage? What would there be divine in these unless they were for the purpose of serving subjects who would receive the divine more intimately and see and sense it? The divine is of an inexhaustible glory and would not keep it to itself, nor could. For love wants to communicate its own to another, indeed to impart all it can of itself. Must not divine love do this, then, being infinite? Can it impart and then take away? Would that not be to give what will perish, what in itself is nothing, coming to nothing when it perishes? What really _is_ is not in it. But divine love imparts what really _is_ or what does not cease to be, and this is eternal.

[3] In order that a man may live forever, what is mortal with him is taken away. This mortal of his is his material body, which is taken away by its death. His immortal, which is his mind, is thus laid bare and he becomes a spirit in human form; his mind is this spirit. Ancient sages and wise men perceived that man's mind cannot die. They asked how the mind could die when it is capable of wisdom. Few today know the interior idea they had in this. It was the idea, slipping into their general perception from heaven, that G.o.d is wisdom itself, of which man partakes, and G.o.d is immortal or eternal.

[4] Since it has been granted me to speak with angels, I will say something from experience. I have spoken with those who lived many ages ago, with some who lived before the Flood and some who lived after it, with some who lived at the time of the Lord and with one of His apostles, and with many who lived in the centuries since. They all seemed like men of middle age and said that they do not know what death can be unless it is condemnation. Further, all who have lived well, on coming into heaven, come into the state of early manhood in the world and continue in it to eternity, even those who had been old and decrepit in the world. Women, too, although they had become shrunken and old, return into the bloom and beauty of their youth.

[5] That man lives after death to eternity is manifest from the Word, where life in heaven is called eternal life, as in Mt 19:29, 25:46; Mk 10:17; Lu 10:25, 18:30; Jn 3:15, 16, 36, 5:24, 25, 39, 6:27, 40, 68, 12:50; also called simply life (Mt 18:8, 9; Jn 5:40, 20:31). The Lord also told His disciples,

Because I live, you will live also (Jn 14:19),

and concerning resurrection said that

G.o.d is G.o.d of the living and not G.o.d of the dead, and that they cannot die any more (Lu 20:38, 36).

[6] Second: _Everyone is created to live forever in a blessed state._ This naturally follows. He who wills that man shall live forever also wills that he shall live in a blessed state. What would eternal life be without this? All love desires the good of another. The love of parents desires the good of their children, the love of the bridegroom and the husband desires the good of the bride and the wife, and love in friendship desires the good of one's friends. What then must divine love desire! What is good but enjoyment, and divine good but eternal blessedness? All good is so named for its enjoyableness or blessedness.

True, anything one is given or possesses is also called good, but again, unless it is enjoyable, it is a barren good, not in itself good. Clearly, then, eternal life is also eternal blessedness. This state of man is the aim of creation; that only those who come into heaven are in that state is not the Lord's fault but man's. That man is in fault will be seen in what follows.

[7] Third: _Thus every person has been created to come into heaven._ This is the goal of creation, but not all enter heaven because they become imbued with the enjoyments of h.e.l.l, the opposite of heavenly blessedness.

Those who are not in the blessedness of heaven cannot enter heaven, for they cannot endure doing so. No one who comes into the spiritual world is refused ascent into heaven, but when one ascends who is in the enjoyment of h.e.l.l his heart pounds, his breathing labors, his life ebbs, he is in anguish and torment and writhes like a snake placed near a fire. This happens because opposites act against each other.

[8] Nevertheless, having been born human beings, consequently with the faculties of thought and volition and hence of speech and action, they cannot die, but they can live only with those in a similar enjoyment of life and are sent to them, those in enjoyments of evil to their like, as those in enjoyments of good are to their like. Indeed, everyone is granted the enjoyment of his evil provided that he does not molest those who are in the enjoyment of good. Still, as evil is bound to molest good, for inherently it hates good, those who are in evil are removed lest they inflict injury and are cast down to their own places in h.e.l.l, where their enjoyment is turned into joylessness.

[9] But this does not alter the fact that by creation and hence by birth man is such that he can enter heaven. For everyone who dies in infancy enters heaven, is brought up there and instructed as one is in the world, and by the affection of good and truth is imbued with wisdom and becomes an angel. So could the man become who is brought up and instructed in the world; the same is in him as in an infant. On infants in the spiritual world see the work _Heaven and h.e.l.l,_ London, 1758 (nn. 329-345).