Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
In the ideas of thought a Trinity of Divine Persons from eternity, or before the world was created, is a Trinity of Gods; and these ideas cannot be effaced by, a lip-confession of one God. That a trinity of Divine persons from eternity is a trinity of Gods is clearly evident from the following passage in the Athanasian Creed:"There is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit; the Father is God and Lord; the Son is God and Lord; and the Holy Spirit is God and Lord; nevertheless there are not three Gods and Lords, but one God and Lord; for as we are compelled by the Christian verity to confess each person singly to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say three Gods or three Lords."This creed is accepted as ecumenical or universal by the whole Christian church, and all that is at this day known and acknowledged respecting God is from it. That no other trinity than a trinity of Gods was understood by the members of the Nicene Council, from which the Athanasian Creed came forth like a posthumous birth, anyone can see who reads it with his eyes open. And not only was the trinity understood by them to be a trinity of Gods, it was so understood by the whole Christian world as well, for the reason that the whole Christian world derives all its knowledge of God from that source, and every man clings to a belief in its words.
I appeal to everyone, layman and clergyman, to titled masters and professors, consecrated bishops and arch-bishops, purple-robed cardinals, and even the Roman pontiff himself, whether in the Christian world today the trinity is understood to be anything else than a trinity of Gods; let everyone of them consult with himself and speak from the things that are in his mind; for from the words of this universally accepted doctrine respecting God this is as manifest and clear as water in a crystal goblet, and also that there are three persons, each one of whom is God and Lord; and further that according to Christian verity each person singly ought to be confessed or acknowledged to be God and Lord, but that the Catholic or Christian religion or faith forbids the saying or naming three Gods and Lords; thus verity and religion, or verity and faith, are not one thing but two things, each contrary to the other. But lest all this should be exposed to ridicule before the whole world it was added that there are not three Gods and Lords, but one God and Lord; for who would not laugh at the idea of three Gods? And still does not everyone see the contradiction in this addition?
If they had said, indeed, that to the Father belongs the Divine essence, to the Son the Divine essence, and to the Holy Spirit the Divine essence, and yet there are not three Divine essences, but one indivisible essence, that is to say, if by the Father there be understood the Divine from whom [a Quo], by the Son the Divine Human therefrom, and by the Holy Spirit the proceeding Divine, which are the three constituents of the one God, then this mystery would be explicable. Or if we understood by the Divine of the Father what is like the soul in man, and by the Divine Human what is like the body of that soul, and by the Holy Spirit what is like the operation that proceeds from both, then three essences, which belong to one and the same person, and so together constitute one indivisible essence, are understood.
The idea of three Gods cannot be effaced by a lip-confession of one God, for the reason that from childhood this idea has been implanted in the memory, and it is from the things contained in the memory that everyone thinks. The memory in man is like the ruminatory stomach in birds and beasts; into which they thrust the food from which they gradually derive nourishment; and from time to time they draw the food from it and convey it to the true stomach, where it is digested and meted out to the various uses of the body. The human understanding is this latter stomach, as the memory is the former. That the idea of three Divine persons from eternity, which is the same as the idea of three Gods, cannot be effaced by a lip confession of one God, can be seen by anybody from this fact alone, that it has not yet been effaced, and that among the notable there are some who do not wish it to be effaced; for while they insist that the three Divine persons are of one God, they obstinately deny that God, on account of being one, is one person. But what wise man does not think within himself that the term person can not in this case mean person but that it predicates some quality, though what quality is not known? And this not being known, what has been implanted in the memory from childhood remains, as the roots of a tree remain in the ground, and from them, even if the tree be cut down, a shoot will spring forth.
But, my friend, not only cut down the tree, but also dig up the root, and then plant in your garden trees bearing good fruit. Thus beware, lest in your mind there should lurk the idea of three Gods, while your mouth utters the words one God, with no idea in them. In that case is not the understanding (which above the memory is thinking of three Gods, and at the same time below the memory is causing the mouth to utter one God), like a player on the stage able to act two roles by running from one side to the other, at one side saying one thing and at the other just the opposite, and by such contradiction playing on the one side the wise man and on the other the fool? What else can result from this but that when the understanding stands in the center and looks both ways it will conclude that neither this nor that amounts to anything, and so, perhaps, that there is neither one God nor three, thus that there is no God? The prevailing naturalism of the day is from no other source. In heaven no one can utter the words, A trinity of persons each one of whom singly is God; for it is resisted by the very aura of heaven, in which the thoughts of those there fly and undulate, as sounds do in our air. Such words can be uttered only by a hypocrite, and the sound of his speech grates in the heavenly aura like the gnashing of teeth, or is like the croak of a raven trying to imitate a bird of song. Moreover, I have heard from heaven that to efface a belief established in the mind by confirmations favoring a trinity of Gods, by means of a lip-confession of one God, is as impossible as it is to draw a tree back through its seed, or a man's chin through a hair growing out of it.
(True Christian Religion 172-173)