Activity Within a Regenerate Man

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF THE REGENERATE MAN

AND

ON THE INFLUX OF THE INTERNAL MAN INTO THE EXTERNAL

A few words shall be said about what the regenerate man is relatively to the unregenerate man, for in this way both will be apprehended.

• With the regenerate man there is a conscience of what is good and true, and he does good and thinks truth from conscience; the good which he does being the good of charity, and the truth which he thinks being the truth of faith.

• The unregenerate man has no conscience, or if any, it is not a conscience of doing good from charity, and of thinking truth from faith, but is based on some love that regards himself or the world, wherefore it is a spurious or false conscience.

• With the regenerate man there is joy when he acts according to conscience, and anxiety when he is forced to do or think contrary to it

• But it is not so with the unregenerate, for very many such men do not know what conscience is, much less what it is to do anything either according or contrary to it, but only what it is to do the things that favor their loves. This is what gives them joy, and when they do what is contrary to their loves, this is what gives them anxiety.

• With the regenerate man there is a new will and a new understanding, and this new will and new understanding are his conscience, that is, they are in his conscience, and through this the Lord works the good of charity and the truth of faith.

• With an unregenerate man there is not will, but instead of will there is cupidity, and a consequent proneness to every evil; neither is there understanding, but mere reasoning and a consequent falling away to every falsity.

• With the regenerate man there is celestial and spiritual life.

• But with the unregenerate man there is only corporeal and worldly life, and his ability to think and understand what is good and true is from the Lord's life through the remains before spoken of, and it is from this that he has the faculty of reflecting.

• With the regenerate the internal man has the dominion, the external being obedient and submissive.

• But with the unregenerate the external man rules, the internal being quiescent, as if it had no existence.

• The regenerate man knows, or has a capacity of knowing on reflection, what the internal man is, and what the external.

• But of these the unregenerate man is altogether ignorant, nor can he know them even if he reflects, since he is unacquainted with the good and truth of faith originating in charity.

Hence may be seen what is the quality of the regenerate, and what of the unregenerate man, and that they differ from each other like summer and winter, and light and darkness; wherefore the regenerate is a living, but the unregenerate a dead man.

WHAT IS THE INTERNAL MAN — WHAT IS THE EXTERNAL MAN

What the internal man is, and what the external, is at this day known to few, if any. It is generally supposed that they are one and the same, and this chiefly because men believe that they do good, and think truth from what is their own, for it is the nature of man's Own to believe this; whereas the internal man is as distinct from the external as heaven is from earth.

Both the learned and the unlearned, when reflecting on the subject, have no other conception respecting the internal man than its being thought, because it is within; and of the external man that it is the body, with its life of sense and pleasure, because this is without. Thought, however, which is thus ascribed to the internal man, does not belong thereto; for —

• In the internal man, there are nothing but goods and truths which are the Lord's
  

• In the interior man, conscience has been implanted by the Lord
  

And yet the evil, and even the worst of men, have thought, and so have those who are devoid of conscience, which shows that man's thought does not belong to the internal, but to the external man.

• That the body, with its life of sense and pleasure, is not the external man, is evident from the fact that spirits equally possess an external man, although they have no such body as they had during their life in this world.

But what the internal man is, and what the external, no one can possibly know unless he knows that —

• There is in every man a celestial and a spiritual that correspond to the angelic heaven, a rational that corresponds to the heaven of angelic spirits, and an interior sensuous that corresponds to the heaven of spirits.
  

For there are three heavens, and as many in man, which are most perfectly distinct from each other; and hence it is that after death —

• The man who has conscience is first in the heaven of spirits

• Afterwards is elevated by the Lord into the heaven of angelic spirits
  

• Lastly into the angelic heaven

— which could not possibly take place unless there were in him as many heavens, with which and with the state of which he has the capacity of corresponding.

From this I have learned what constitutes the internal, and what the external man.

• The internal man is formed of what is celestial and spiritual
  

• The interior or intermediate man, of what is rational
  

• The external man of what is sensuous, not belonging to the body, but derived from bodily things

— and this is the case not only with man, but also with spirits.

To speak in the language of the learned, these three, the internal, the interior, and the external man, are like end, cause, and effect; and it is well known that there can be no effect without a cause, and no cause without an end.

Effect, cause, and end, are as distinct from each other as are what is exterior, what is interior, and what is inmost.

Strictly speaking, the sensuous man - or he whose thought is grounded in sensuous things - is the external man, and the spiritual and celestial man is the internal man, and the rational man is intermediate between the two, being that by which the communication of the internal and the external man is effected.

I am aware that few will apprehend these statements, because men live in external things, and think from them. Hence it is that some regard themselves as being like the brutes, and believe that on the death of the body they will die altogether, although they then first begin to live.

After death, those who are good —

• At first live a sensuous life in the world or heaven of spirits
  

• Afterwards, an interior sensuous life in the heaven of angelic spirits
  

• Lastly, an inmost sensuous life in the angelic heaven, this angelic life being the life of the internal man, and concerning which scarcely anything can be said that is comprehensible by man.

The regenerate may know that there is such a life by reflecting on the nature of the good and the true, and of spiritual warfare, for it is the life of the Lord in man, since the Lord — through the internal man — works the good of charity and the truth of faith in his external man. What is thence perceived in his thought and affection is a certain general which contains innumerable things that come from the internal man, and which the man cannot possibly perceive until he enters the angelic heaven.

THE NATURE AND QUALITY OF HEAVEN AND OF HEAVENLY JOY

But in order that I might know the nature and quality of heaven and of heavenly joy, for long and often I have been permitted by the Lord to perceive the delights of heavenly joys, so that as I know them from actual experience I can indeed know them, but can by no means describe them. 

However, in order to give some idea of it I may say that heavenly joy is an affection of innumerable delights and joys that form one general simultaneous joy, in which general joy, that is, in which general affection, there are harmonies of innumerable affections that do not come distinctly to perception, but obscurely, because the perception is very general. Yet I was permitted to perceive that there are things innumerable within it, in such order as can never be described, these innumerable things being such as flow from the order of heaven. 

Such order exists in every least thing of the affection, all of which together are presented and perceived as a very general one according to the capacity of him who is the subject of it. 

In a word, in every general joy or affection there are illimitable things ordinated in a most perfect form, and there is nothing that is not alive or that does not affect even the inmost things of our being, for heavenly joys proceed from inmost things. I perceived also that the joy and deliciousness came as if from the heart, and very softly diffused themselves through all the inmost fibers, and so into the congregated fibers, with such an inmost sense of delight that the fiber is as it were nothing but joy and deliciousness, and the whole derivative perceptive and sensitive sphere the same, being alive with happiness. In comparison with these joys, the joy of bodily pleasures is like gross and pungent dust as compared with a pure and gentle breeze. (Arcana Coelestia 545)

The things here said about the internal man, being above the apprehension of very many, are not necessary to salvation. It is sufficient to know that there is an internal and an external man, and to acknowledge and believe that all good and truth are from the Lord.

(Arcana Coelestia 977, 978)