Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
How Man's State is Changed by Confirmations and Consequent Persuasions
There is nothing that cannot be confirmed, and falsity is confirmed more readily than the truth.What is there that cannot be confirmed, when it is confirmed by atheists:-
• that God is not the Creator of the universe, but that nature is the creator of itself
• that religion is merely a restraint, and for the simple and the common people
• that man is like a beast, and dies like one
• that adulteries are allowable, likewise clandestine thefts, frauds, and deceitful contrivances
• that cunning is intelligence and shrewdness is wisdom
Does not everyone confirm his own heresy? Are there not volumes filled with the confirmations of the two heresies that reign in the Christian world? Make up ten heresies, however abstruse, ask an ingenious man to confirm them, and he will confirm them all. If afterwards you look at them solely from the confirmations, will you not see the falsities as truths? As all falsity is visible in the natural man from its appearances and fallacies, and truth is visible in the spiritual man only, it is clear that falsity can be confirmed more readily than truth.
To make clear that every falsity and every evil can be so confirmed as to make the falsity appear like truth and the evil like good, let it be proved, for example, that light is darkness and darkness light. May it not be asked, What is light in itself? Is it anything more than a something that appears to the eye according to its state? What is light to the closed eye? Have not bats and birds of night such eyes that they see light as darkness and darkness as light? I have been told that some men see in this way; and that the infernals, although they are in darkness, still see each other. Does not man have light in his dreams in the middle of the night? Thus is not darkness light, and light darkness? But it may be answered: What of this? Light is light as truth is truth; and darkness is darkness as falsity is falsity.
Take another example: It is to be proved that a raven is white. May it not be said that its blackness is only a shade that is not its real self? Its feathers are white within, so is its body; and these are the substances of which the bird is formed. As its blackness is a shade, so the raven grows white when it gets old-such have been seen. What is black in itself but white? Pulverize black glass, and you will see that the powder is white; therefore when you call the raven black you speak from the shadow and not from the reality. But the reply may be, What of this? In this way all birds might be called white. Although all this is contrary to sound reason it has been presented to show how confirmations can be found for falsity that is directly opposite to the truth, and for evil that is wholly opposite to the good.
When falsity has been confirmed the truth is not seen, but from confirmed truth falsity is seen.
All falsity is in darkness, and all truth is in light, and in darkness, nothing is seen, and what anything is is known only by handling it; in light, it is otherwise. For this reason, in the Word falsities are called darkness, and thus those that are in falsities are said to walk in darkness and in the shadow of death. On the other hand, truths are there called light, and therefore those who are in truths are said to walk in the light and are called children of light.
There are many things to show that when falsity has been confirmed truth is not seen, and that from confirmed truth falsity is seen. For example, who could see any spiritual truth if it were not taught in the Word? Would there not be merely thick darkness that could be dispelled only by means of the light in which the Word is, and only in him who is willing to be enlightened? What heretic can see his falsities unless he admits the genuine truths of the church? He does not see them before. I have spoken with those who have confirmed themselves in faith separate from charity; and when asked whether they saw how much is said in the Word about love and charity, about works and deeds, and keeping the commandments, and that he is called blessed and wise who does them, and foolish who does them not, they said, that while reading all this they saw it only as a matter of faith, and thus they passed it by with their eyes shut, as it were.
Those that have confirmed themselves in falsities are like those who see cracks in a wall; and in the shades of evening, they see them in their fancies as a horseman or a man, but this fanciful image is dispelled by the inflowing light of day. Who can have a sense of the spiritual uncleanness of adultery except one who is in the spiritual cleanness of chastity? Who can have a sense of the cruelty of revenge except one who is in good from love of the neighbor? Who that is an adulterer, or that is eager for revenge, does not sneer at those who call the delights of such things infernal, and on the other hand, call the delights of conjugial love and of love for the neighbor heavenly? And so on.
An ability to confirm whatever one pleases is not intelligence, but only ingenuity, which may exist even in the worst of men.
There are some who are very skilful in confirming, who have no knowledge of any truth and yet are able to confirm both truth and falsity; and some of them ask, What is truth? Is there any? Is not that true that I make true? And yet such are believed in the world to be intelligent; although they are but wall plasterers. Only those who perceive truth to be truth are intelligent, and they confirm truth by verities continually perceived. There is little discernible difference between these two classes, because there is little discernible difference between the light of confirmation and the light of the perception of truth; and those who are in the light of confirmation seem to be also in the light of the perception of truth, and yet the difference between them is like that between illusive light (light in the night) and genuine light (light of the day); and illusive light is such that in the spiritual world it is turned into darkness when genuine light flows in. Such illusive light prevails with many in hell, and when these are brought into genuine light they see nothing at all. From all this it is clear that the ability to confirm whatever one pleases is mere ingenuity, and may exist even in the worst of men.
There is confirmation that is intellectual and not at the same time volitional; but all volitional confirmation is also intellectual.
This may be illustrated by examples. Those who confirm the doctrine of faith separate from charity and yet live a life of charity, or in general those who confirm falsity of doctrine and yet do not live according to it, are those that are in intellectual confirmation and not at the same time in volitional, while those that confirm falsity of doctrine and live according to it are those that are in both volitional and intellectual confirmation. The reason of this is that the understanding does not flow into the will, but the will flows into the understanding. This also shows what falsity of evil is, and what falsity not of evil is. Falsity not of evil can be conjoined with good, but falsity of evil cannot, for the reason that falsity not of evil is falsity in the understanding and not in the will; while falsity of evil is falsity in the understanding from evil in the will.
The confirmation of evil that is volitional and also intellectual causes man to believe that his own prudence is everything and the Divine providence nothing; but this is not true of intellectual confirmation alone.
There are many who by worldly appearances confirm in themselves, their own prudence and yet do not deny the Divine providence; with such there exists only intellectual confirmation. While with those who at the same time deny the Divine providence there exists also volitional confirmation; but this, together with persuasion, exists chiefly with those who are worshipers of nature and also worshipers of self.
Everything confirmed by the will and also by the understanding remains to eternity, but not what has been confirmed by the understanding only.
For that which pertains to the understanding alone (intellectual) is not within the man but is outside of him; it is merely in the thought; and nothing enters into man and is appropriated to him except what is accepted by the will (volitional), for it then comes to be of his life's love. That this remains to eternity.
Everything confirmed by the will and also by the understanding REMAINS TO ETERNITY, because everyone is his own love, and his love belongs to his will
Because every man is his own good or his own evil, for everything that is called good, and likewise evil, belongs to the love. As man is his own love, he is also a form of his love and may be called the organ of his life's love.
The affections of the love and consequent thoughts of man 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 shall now be explained.
Some idea of them may be gathered from the heart and lungs, where there are alternate expansions and compressions or dilations and contractions, which in the heart are called systole and diastole and in the lungs respirations. These are a reciprocal distension and retraction or reciprocal stretching apart and closing together of their lobes. Such are the changes and variations of the state of the heart and lungs. There are like changes in the other viscera of the body, and changes more similar in their parts, by which the blood and the animal juice are received and carried onward.
Like things are to be found in the organic forms of the mind, which are the subjects of man's affections and thoughts; with the difference that their expansions and compressions, or reciprocations, are relatively in such higher perfection as cannot be expressed in the words of natural language, but only in those of spiritual language, and these can be defined in no other way than that they are vortex-like circlings inward and outward, after the manner of perpetual and incurving spirals wonderfully bundled together into forms receptive of life.
The nature of these purely organic substances and forms in the evil and in the good shall now be stated.
In the good these spiral forms are turned forward, but in the evil backward; and the spiral forms turning forward are turned towards the Lord and receive influx from Him, while those turning backward are turned towards hell and receive influx therefrom. It is to be known that so far as they are turned backward they are open behind and closed in front; and on the other hand, so far as they are turned forward they are opened in front and closed behind.
From all this it is evident what kind of a form or organ an evil man is, and what kind of a form or organ a good man is, namely, that they are turned in contrary directions; and as the turning when once fixed cannot be reversed it is clear that such as man is when he dies such he REMAINS TO ETERNITY.
It is the love of man's will that makes the turning, that is, that converts and inverts, for, as has been said above, every man is his own love. It is from this that every man after death goes the way of his own love - he that is in a good love to heaven, and he that is in an evil love to hell, and he finds rest only in that society where his reigning love is; and what is wonderful, everyone knows the way; it is like following a scent with the nose.
(Divine Providence 318-319)