THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE
for the
NEW JERUSALEM
FROM THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Emanuel Swedenborg
— Doctrinal Series —
(pt. 15)
NO ONE CAN FROM HIMSELF DO WHAT IS GOOD THAT IS REALLY GOOD.
. . . a man who is not spiritual can yet think rationally and speak from that thought, like a spiritual man, is because man's understanding can be uplifted into the light of heaven, which is truth, and can see from it; but his will cannot be in the same way uplifted into the heat of heaven, which is love, so as to act from that heat.— It is for this reason that truth and love do not make a one in a man unless he is spiritual. —
And it is for this reason also that man can speak; and it is this which makes the difference between a man and a beast. It is by means of this capacity of the understanding to be uplifted into heaven when as yet the will is not so uplifted, that it is possible for a man to be reformed and to become spiritual; but he does not begin to be reformed and become spiritual until his will also is uplifted. It is from this superior endowment of the understanding over the will, that a man, of whatever character he may be, even if evil, is able to think and therefore to speak rationally, as if he were spiritual. That still in spite of this he is not rational, is because the understanding does not lead the will, but the will leads the understanding. The understanding merely teaches and shows the way, as has been said in the Doctrine of the Holy Scripture (n. 115*).
And so long as the will is not in heaven together with the understanding, the man is not spiritual, and consequently is not rational; for when he is left to his will or love, he throws off the rational things of his understanding respecting God, heaven, and eternal life, and adopts in their stead such things as are in agreement with his will's love, and these he calls rational. But these matters shall be elucidated in the treatises on Angelic Wisdom.
(LIFE 15)
* But as there are those who maintain, and have confirmed themselves in the opinion, that without a Word it is possible for a man to know of the existence of God, and of heaven and hell, and of all the other things taught by the Word, and as they thereby weaken the authority and holiness of the Word, if not with the lips, yet in the heart, therefore it is not practicable to deal with them from the Word, but only from rational light, for they do not believe in the Word, but in themselves.
—
Investigate the matter from rational light, and you will find that in man there are two faculties of life called the understanding and the will, and that the understanding is subject to the will, but not the will to the understanding, for the understanding merely teaches and shows the way. Make further investigation, and you will find that man's will is what is his own [proprium], and that this, regarded in itself, is nothing but evil, and that from this springs what is false in the understanding.
Having discovered these facts you will see that from himself a man does not desire to understand anything but that which comes from the own of his will, and also that it is not possible for him to do so unless there is some other source from which he may know it.
From the own of his will a man does not desire to understand anything except that which relates to himself and to the world; everything above this is to him in thick darkness.So that when he sees the sun, the moon, the stars, and chances to think about their origin, how is it possible for him to think otherwise than that they exist of themselves? Can he raise his thoughts higher than do many of the learned in the world who acknowledge only nature, in spite of the fact that from the Word they know of the creation of all things by God? What then would these same have thought if they had known nothing from the Word?
Do you believe that the wise men of old, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and others, who wrote about God and the immortality of the soul, got this from themselves [proprio]? Not so, but from others who had it by tradition from those who first knew it from the [Ancient] Word. Neither do the writers on natural theology get any such matters from themselves. They merely confirm by rational arguments what they have already become acquainted with from the church in which is the Word; and there may be some among them who confirm without believing it.
(Doctrine of the Holy Scripture (n. 115)