The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
• Doctrinal Series •
THE INTERNAL AND THE EXTERNAL MAN
(pt. 7)
Emanuel Swedenborg
• Doctrinal Series •
THE INTERNAL AND THE EXTERNAL MAN
(pt. 7)
They who have only a general idea concerning the internal and the external man, believe that it is the internal man which thinks and wills, and the external which speaks and acts; because to think and to will is internal, and to speak and to act thence is external.
But it is to be known that when man thinks intelligently and wills wisely, he then thinks and wills from a spiritual internal; but when man does not think intelligently, and will wisely, he thinks and wills from a natural internal.
Consequently, when a man thinks well concerning the Lord, and those things which are of the Lord, and well concerning the neighbor, and those things which are of the neighbor, and wills well to them, he then thinks and wills from a spiritual internal, because he then thinks from the faith of truth and from the love of good, thus from heaven. But when man thinks and wills wickedly concerning them, he then thinks and wills from a natural internal, because he thinks and wills from the faith of falsity and from the love of evil, thus from hell.
In a word, so far as man is in love to the Lord, and in love towards the neighbor, so far he is in a spiritual internal, from which he thinks and wills, and from which also he speaks and acts; but so far as man is in the love of self, and in the love of the world, so far he is in a natural internal, from which he thinks and wills, and from which also he speaks and acts.
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 42)
• In the manuscript, the author, Emanuel Swedenborg, annexed to each section of the doctrine extracts from the Arcana Coelestia, because in the Arcana Coelestia the same things are more fully explained. Arcana Coelestia is available in print or online.