Continually Being Perfected

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

There is no definite period of time within which man's regeneration is completed, so that he can say, "I am now perfect;" for there are illimitable states of evil and falsity with every man, not only simple states but also states in many ways compounded, which must be so far shaken off as no longer to appear.... In some states the man may be said to be more perfect, but in very many others not so. Those who have been regenerated in the life of the body and have lived in faith in the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor, are continually being perfected in the other life.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 894)

The Origin of All Things

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

In heaven all goods and truths — celestial and spiritual — are so distinct in their genera, and these in their species, that there is not the least of them which is not most distinct; and so innumerable are they, that the specific differences may be said to be unlimited.

From this it may be seen how poor and almost nonexistent is human wisdom, which scarcely knows that there is such a thing as spiritual good or spiritual truth, much less what it is.

From celestial and spiritual goods and their derivative truths, issue and descend natural goods and truths. For there is never any natural good and truth that does not spring from spiritual good, and this from celestial, and also subsist from the same. If the spiritual should withdraw from the natural, the natural would be nothing.

The origin of all things [rerum] is in this wise:-

All things, both in general and in particular, are from the Lord; from Him is the celestial; from Him through the celestial comes forth the spiritual; through the spiritual the natural; through the natural the corporeal and the sensuous. And as they all come forth from the Lord in this way, so also do they subsist from Him

for, as is well known:-

Subsistence is a perpetual coming into existence.

They who have a different conception of the coming into existence and rise of things — like those who worship nature and deduce from her the origins of things — are in principles so deadly that the phantasies of the wild beasts of the forest may be called far more sane. Such are very many who appear to themselves to excel others in wisdom.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 775)

Man is Governed by the Principles He Assumes

Selections from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

A desire to investigate the mysteries of faith by means of the things of sense and of the memory, was not only the cause of the fall of the posterity of the Most Ancient Church ... but it is also the cause of the fall of every church; for hence come not only falsities, but also evils of life.

The worldly and corporeal man says in his heart — If I am not instructed concerning the faith, and everything relating to it, by means of the things of sense, so that I may see, or by means of those of the memory [scientifica], so that I may understand, I will not believe — and he confirms himself in this by the consideration that natural things cannot be contrary to spiritual. Thus he is desirous of being instructed from things of sense in what is celestial and Divine, which is as impossible as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

The more he desires to grow wise [by such means], the more he blinds himself, till at length he believes nothing, not even that there is anything spiritual, or that there is eternal life.

This comes from the principle which he assumes. And this is to "eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" of which the more anyone eats, the more dead he becomes.

But he who would be wise from the Lord, and not from the world, says in his heart that the Lord must be believed, that is, the things which the Lord has spoken in the Word, because they are truths; and according to this principle he regulates his thoughts. He confirms himself by things of reason, of knowledge, of the senses, and of nature [per rationalia, scientifica, sensualia et naturalia], and those which are not confirmatory he casts aside.

Everyone may know that man is governed by the principles he assumes, be they ever so false, and that all his knowledge and reasoning favor his principles — for innumerable considerations tending to support them present themselves to his mind, and thus he is confirmed in what is false.

He therefore who assumes as a principle that nothing is to be believed until it is seen and understood, can never believe, because spiritual and celestial things cannot be seen with the eyes, or conceived by the imagination.

But the true order is for man to be wise from the Lord, that is, from His Word, and then all things follow, and he is enlightened even in matters of reason and of memory-knowledge [in rationalibus et scientificis]. For it is by no means forbidden to learn the sciences, since they are useful to his life and delightful; nor is he who is in faith prohibited from thinking and speaking as do the learned of the world; but it must be from this principle — to believe the Word of the Lord, and, so far as possible, confirm spiritual and celestial truths by natural truths, in terms familiar to the learned world. Thus his starting-point must be the Lord, and not himself; for the former is life, but the latter is death.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 127-129)