Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence by Emanuel Swedenborg (best book reader txt) 📕

id="id00228">80. Nothing that a person only thinks, not even what he thinks to will, is appropriated to him unless he also wills it so that he does it when opportunity offers. For when a man then does it, he does it from the will by the understanding or from affection of the will by thought of the understanding. If it is something thought only, it cannot be appropriated, for the understanding does not conjoin itself to the will, or the thought of the understanding to the affection of the will, but the latter with the former, as we have shown many times in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom, Part V. This is meant by the Lord's words,

Not that which enters the mouth renders a man unclean, but that which goes forth from the heart by the mouth renders a man unclean ( Mt 15:11, 17, 18, 19).

In the spiritual sense thought is meant by "mouth," for thought is spoken by it; affection which is of love is meant by "heart"; if the man thinks and speaks from this he makes himself unclean. In Luke 6:45 also by "heart" an affection of love or of the will is meant, and by "mouth" the thought of the understanding.

81. Evils which a man believes are allowable, though he does not do them, are also appropriated to him, for the licitness in thought is from the will, as there is assent. When a man deems an evil allowable he loosens the internal bond on it and is kept from doing it only by external bonds, which are fears. As his spirit favors the evil, he commits it when external bonds are removed as allowable, and meanwhile is committing it in spirit. But on this see Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem, nn. 108-113.

82. (iv) A man is reformed and regenerated by the Lord by means of the two faculties and cannot be reformed or regenerated without them. The Lord teaches that,

Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God (Jn 3:3,5,7).

Few know what it is to be born anew or regenerated. For most do not know what love and charity are, therefore what faith is, either. One who does not know what love and charity are cannot know what faith is because charity and faith make one as good and truth do, and as affection which is of the will, and thought which is of the understanding, do. On this union see the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom, nn. 427-431; also Doctrine for the New Jerusalem, nn. 13-24; and above, nn. 3-20.

83. No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he has been born anew for the reason that by heredity from his parents he is born into evils of every kind, with the capacity of becoming spiritual through removal of the evils; unless he becomes spiritual, then, he cannot enter heaven. To become spiritual from being natural is to be born again or regenerated. Three things need to be considered if one is to know how man is regenerated: the nature of his first state, which is one of damnation; the nature of his second state, which is one of reformation; and the nature of his third state, which is one of regeneration.

[2] Man's first state, which is one of damnation, is every one's state by heredity from his parents. For man is born thereby into self-love and love of the world, and from these as fountains into evils of every kind. By the enjoyments of those loves he is led, and they keep him from knowing that he is in evil, for the enjoyment of any love is felt to be good. Unless he is regenerated, therefore, a man knows no otherwise than that to love himself and the world above all things is good itself, and to rule over others and possess their riches is the supreme good. So comes all evil. For only oneself is regarded with love. If another is regarded with love it is as devil loves devil or thief thief when they are in league.

[3] Those who confirm these loves with themselves and the evils flowing from them, from enjoyment in them, remain natural and become sensuous-corporeal, and in their own thinking, which is that of their spirit, are insane. And yet, as long as they are in the world they can speak and act rationally and wisely, for they are human beings and so have rationality and liberty, though they still do this from self-love and love of the world. After death and on becoming spirits, they can enjoy nothing that they did not enjoy in the world. Their enjoyment is that of an infernal love and is turned into the unpleasant, sorrowful and dreadful, meant in the Word by torment and hell-fire. Plain it is, then, that man's first state is one of damnation and that they are in it who do not suffer themselves to be regenerated.

[4] Man's second state—of reformation—is his state when he begins to think of heaven for the joy there, thus of God from whom he has heaven's joy. But at first the thought comes from the enjoyment of self-love; to him heaven's joy is that enjoyment. While the enjoyments of that love and of the evils flowing from it rule, moreover, he cannot but think that to gain heaven is to pour out prayers, hear sermons, observe the Supper, give to the poor, help the needy, make offerings to churches, contribute to hospitals, and the like. In this state a man is persuaded that merely to think about what religion teaches, whether this is called faith or called faith and charity, is to be saved. He is so minded because he gives no thought to the evils in the enjoyments of which he is. While those enjoyments remain, the evils do. The enjoyments of the evils are from the lust for them which continually inspires them and, when no fear restrains, brings them to pass.

[5] While evils remain in the lusts of love for them and so in one's enjoyments, there is no faith, piety, charity or worship except in externals, which seem real in the world's sight, but are not. They may be likened to waters flowing from an impure fountain, which one cannot drink. While a man is such that he thinks about heaven and God from religion but gives no thought to evils as sins, he is still in the first state. He comes into the second state, which is one of reformation, when he begins to think that there is such a thing as sin and still more when he thinks that a given evil is a sin, explores it somewhat in himself, and does not will it.

[6] Man's third state, which is one of regeneration, sets in and continues from the former. It begins when a man desists from evils as sins, progresses as he shuns them, and is perfected as he battles against them. Then as he conquers from the Lord he is regenerated. The order of his life is changed; from natural he becomes spiritual; the natural separated from the spiritual is in disorder and the spiritual is in order. The regenerated man acts from charity and makes what is of his faith a part of his charity. But he becomes spiritual only in the measure in which he is in truths. Everyone is regenerated by means of truths and of a life in accord with them; by truths he knows life and by his life he does the truths. So he unites good and truth, which is the spiritual marriage in which heaven is.

85.* Man is reformed and regenerated by means of the two faculties called rationality and liberty, and cannot be reformed or regenerated without them, because it is by means of rationality that he can understand and know what is evil and what is good, and hence what is false and true, and by means of liberty that he can will what he understands and knows. But while the enjoyment of an evil love rules him he cannot will good and truth freely or make them a matter of his reason, and therefore cannot appropriate them to him. For, as was shown above, what a man does in freedom from reason is appropriated to him as his, and unless it is so appropriated, he is not reformed and regenerated. He acts from the enjoyment of a love of good and truth for the first time when the enjoyment of love for the evil and false has been removed. Two opposite kinds of enjoyments of love at one and the same time are impossible. To act from the enjoyment of love is to act freely and is also to act according to reason, inasmuch as the reason favors the love.

* This number must be kept though there is no number 84; long established references to Swedenborg's books make it necessary to keep the numbering in the Latin original.

86. Because an evil man as well as a good man has rationality and liberty, the evil man as well as the good can understand truth and do good. The evil man cannot do this in freedom according to reason, while a good man can; for the evil man is in the enjoyment of a love of evil, the good man in the enjoyment of a love of good. The truth which an evil man understands and the good he does are therefore not appropriated to him, as they are to the good man, and aside from appropriation there is no reformation or regeneration. With the evil man evils with their falsities occupy the center, as it were, and goods with their truths the circumference, but goods with their truths the center with the good man and evils with their falsities the periphery. In each case what is at the center is diffused to the circumference, as heat is from a fiery center and cold from an icy one. Thus with the wicked the good at the circumference is defiled by evils at the center, and with the good evils at the circumference grow mild from the good at the center. For this reason evils do not condemn a regenerating man, nor do goods save the unregenerate.

87. (v) A man can be reformed and regenerated by means of the two faculties so far as he can be led by them to acknowledge that all truth and good which he thinks and does are from the Lord and not from himself. What reformation and regeneration are has been told just above, likewise that man is reformed and regenerated by means of the two faculties of rationality and liberty. Because it is done by those faculties, something more is to be said of them. From rationality a man can understand and from liberty he can will, doing each as of himself. Yet he does not have the ability to will good in freedom and to do it in accord with reason unless he is regenerated. An evil man can will only evil in freedom and do it according to his thinking, which by confirmations he has made to be his reasoning. For evil can be confirmed as well as good, but is confirmed by fallacies and appearances which then become falsities; evil so confirmed seems to accord with reason.

88. Anyone thinking from interior understanding can see that the power to will and the power to understand are not from man, but from Him who has power itself, that is, power in its essence. Only think whence power is. Is it not from Him who has it in its full might, that is, who possesses it in and from Himself? Power in itself, therefore, is divine. All power must have a supply on which to draw and direction from an interior or higher self. Of itself the eye cannot see, nor the ear hear, nor the mouth speak, nor the hand do; there must be supply and direction from the mind. Nor can the mind of itself think or will this or that unless something more interior or higher determines the mind to it. The same is true of the power to understand and the power to will. These are possible only from Him who has in Himself the power of willing and understanding.

[2] It is plain, then, that the two faculties called rationality and liberty are from the Lord and not from man. Man can therefore will or understand something only as if of himself, and not of himself. Anyone can confirm the truth of this for himself who knows and believes that the will to good and the understanding of truth are wholly from the Lord, and not from man. The