Action and Reaction in Understanding the Word

From Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

It is granted by the Lord to every man to perceive [to perceive from the Lord of what quality the Word], but yet no one does perceive it unless he wishes as of himself to perceive it. This ability to reciprocate, man must have in order to receive the faculty to perceive the Word; unless a man wishes and does this as of himself no such faculty can be appropriated to him; since, in order that appropriation may be effected, there must be an active and a reactive; the active is from the Lord, so is the reactive, but the latter appears to be from man; for the Lord Himself gives this reactive, and thence it is from the Lord and not from man; but as man does not know otherwise than that he lives from himself, and consequently that he thinks and wills from himself, so he must needs do this as if it were from what is proper to his own life; and when he so acts, it is then first implanted in him, and conjoined and appropriated to him.

He who believes that Divine verities (truths) and goodnesses flow into man apart from such an ability to react or reciprocate, is much deceived, for this would be to let the hands hang down, and to wait for immediate influx; as those think who wholly separate faith from charity, and who say that the goods of charity, which are the goods of life, flow in without any cooperation of man's will, when yet the Lord teaches that He continually stands at the door and knocks, and that man must open the door, and that He enters in to him who opens (Rev. 3:20).

In brief, action and reaction constitute all conjunction, and in action and mere passiveness there is no conjunction; for when the agent or active flows into the mere patient or passive, it passes through and is dissipated, for the passive yields and retires; but when the agent or active flows into a passive that is also a reactive, then they join together and the two remain conjoined. Thus it is with the influx of Divine good and Divine truth into man's will or love; for this reason when the Divine flows into the understanding alone it passes through and is dissipated, but when it flows into the will, where what is man's own (proprium) resides, it remains conjoined.

(Apocalypse Explained 616)

A Sensual Man

From Heaven and Hell ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The sensual is the outmost of man's life adhering to and inhering in his bodily part.  He is called a sensual man who judges all things and draws all his conclusions from the bodily senses, and believes nothing except what he sees with his eyes and touches with his hands.  Such a man thinks in externals, and not interiorly in himself.  His interiors are so closed up that he sees nothing of spiritual truth in them.  In a word, he is in gross natural light and thus perceives nothing that is from the light of heaven.  Interiorly he is antagonistic to the things of heaven and the church.  The learned who have confirmed themselves against the truths of the church come to be such.  Sensual men are more cunning and malicious than others.  They reason keenly and cunningly, but from the bodily memory, in which they place all intelligence.  But they reason from the fallacies of the senses.

(Heaven and Hell 267 notes)

When Good Becomes Good

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Spiritual food is in general all good, but specifically it is the good which is acquired by means of truth, that is, truth in the will and in act, for this good becomes good from the willing and doing, and is called the good of truth.

Unless truth thus becomes good, it does not benefit the man in the other life; for when he comes into the other life it is dissipated, because it does not agree with his will, thus not with the delight of his love.

He who has learned truths of faith in the world, not for the sake of willing and doing them and thus turning them into goods, but only that he may know and teach them for the sake of honor and gain, even although he may in the world be considered most learned, yet in the other life he is deprived of the truths and is left to his own will, that is, his life. And he then remains as he had been in his life; and wonderful to say he is then averse to all the truths of faith: and denies them to himself, howsoever he had before confirmed them.

To turn truths to goods by willing and doing them, that is, by life, is what is meant by appropriating the good of truth...

(Arcana Coelestia 5820)