Selection from Heaven and Hell ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The genuine rational consists of truths and not of falsities; whatever consists of falsities is not rational.There are three kinds of truths, civil, moral, and spiritual. —
• Civil truths relate to matters of judgment and of government in kingdoms, and in general to what is just and equitable in them.
• Moral truths pertain to the matters of everyone's life which have regard to companionships and social relations, in general to what is honest and right, and in particular to virtues of every kind.
• Spiritual truths relate to matters of heaven and of the Church, and in general to the good of love and the truth of faith.
In every man there are three degrees of life. —
The rational is opened to the first degree by civil truths, to the second degree by moral truths, and to the third degree by spiritual truths. But it ought to be known that the rational that consists of these truths is not formed and opened by man's knowing them, but by his living according to them; and by living according to them is meant loving them from spiritual affection; and to love truths from spiritual affection is:
• to love what is just and equitable because it is just and equitablewhile living according to them and loving them from the bodily affection is to love them for the sake of self and for the sake of one's reputation, honour or gain. Consequently, so far as man loves these truths from a bodily affection he fails to become rational, for he loves, not them, but himself; and the truths are made to serve him as servants serve their lord; and when truths become servants they do not enter the man and open any degree of his life, not even the first, but merely rest in the memory as knowledges under a material form, and there conjoin themselves with the love of self, which is a bodily love.
• what is honest and right because it is honest and right
• what is good and true because it is good and true
From these things it can be confirmed how man becomes rational, namely, that he becomes rational to the third degree by a spiritual love of the good and truth which pertain to heaven and the Church, to the second degree by a love of what is honest and right, and to the first degree by a love of what is just and equitable. These two latter loves also become spiritual from a spiritual love of good and truth, because that love flows into them and conjoins itself to them and forms in them, as it were, its own semblance.
(from Heaven and Hell 468)