Faith (pt. 7)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued pt. 7)

The Sum of Faith is -
He who lives well and believes rightly is saved by the Lord.

Under the belief that the man who lives well and believes aright is not saved, and that God is able freely and at pleasure to save and damn whom He will, the man who is lost may justly accuse God of unmercifulness and severity, and even of cruelty, and may even deny that God is God. He may also claim that in His Lord God has spoken unmeaning things, and has commanded things of no importance, or that are trifling.

Or again, if the man who lives well and believes aright is not saved, he may also accuse God of violating His covenant, which He made on Mount Sinai and wrote with His finger upon the two tables. That God cannot but save those who live according to His commandments and have faith in Him, is evident from the Lord's words in John:

He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep my words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him. He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings: and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me. (14:21-24)

and anyone in possession of religion and sound reason can confirm himself in this, when he reflects that God who is unceasingly in man and who gives him life and also the ability to understand and love, must needs love him who lives well and believes aright, and must needs conjoin Himself with him by love. Is not this inscribed by God on every man and every creature? Can a father and mother reject their children, or a bird or beast its young? Not even tigers, panthers, or serpents can do this. For God to do otherwise would be contrary to the order into which He is and according to which He acts, and also contrary to the order into which He created man.

Since then, it is impossible for God to damn anyone who lives well and believes aright, so on the other hand it is impossible for Him to save anyone who lives wickedly and therefore believes what is false; this too is also contrary to order, and therefore contrary to God's omnipotence, which can proceed only in the path of justice; and the laws of justice are truths that cannot be changed. For the Lord says:

It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the law to fall (Luke 16:17).

This can be seen by anyone who knows anything about the essence of God, and man's freedom of will.

For example, Adam was at liberty to eat of the tree of life, and also of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If he had eaten of the tree or trees of life only, would it have been possible for God to expel him from the garden? I believe that it would not. But after he had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and will, would it have been possible for God to retain him in the garden?

Again I believe that it would not; likewise that God cannot cast into hell an angel that has been received into heaven, neither introduce into heaven a condemned devil. That neither of these can He do from His Divine omnipotence ...

(True Christian Religion )

To be continued...

Faith (pt. 6)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued pt. 6)

The Sum of Faith is -
He who lives well and believes rightly is saved by the Lord.

That man was created for eternal life, and that every man may inherit it provided -

he lives according to the means of salvation prescribed in the Word

is admitted by every Christian, and by every heathen who possesses religion and sound reason.

Nevertheless, the means of salvation are manifold, although they each and all have relation to living well and believing rightly, thus to charity and faith, for living well is charity, and believing rightly is faith. These two general means of salvation are not only prescribed in the Word but are imposed as commandments, and as they are commanded, it follows that by means of them man can procure for himself eternal life from the power implanted in him and given to him by God; and so far as man uses that power and at the same time looks to God, so far God makes it effective in converting everything of natural charity into spiritual charity, and everything of natural faith into spiritual faith; thus God makes dead charity and faith to be alive, and the man also

There are two things that must coexist before man can be said to live well and believe rightly. In the church these two are called the internal and the external man.

When the internal man's will is right and the external acts rightly, the two make one, the external [acting] from the internal and the internal through the external, thus man from God and God through man.

But on the other hand, if the internal man's will is evil and yet the external acts rightly, they both act none the less from hell; for the man's willing is from hell, and his doing is hypocritical; and in all hypocrisy his willing which is infernal, is interiorly concealed like a snake in the grass or a worm in a flower.

The man who knows that there is an internal and an external man, and who also knows what they are, and that the two can act as one actually, and can also act as one apparently; and who knows, moreover, that the internal man lives after death, and the external is buried, possesses in potency the arcana both of heaven and of the world in abundance. And he who conjoins these two men in himself in good becomes happy to eternity; while he who divides them, and still more he who conjoins them in evil, becomes unhappy to eternity.

(True Christian Religion 340)

To be continued...

Faith (pt. 5)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued pt. 5)

SAVING FAITH IS:

FAITH IN THE LORD GOD THE SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST

Men ought to believe, that is, have faith, in God the Savior Jesus Christ, because that is a faith in a visible God within whom is the invisible

faith in a visible God, who is at once Man and God, enters into a man

for faith in its essence is spiritual but in its form is natural; consequently with man such a faith becomes spiritual-natural.

For anything spiritual, in order to be anything with man, must have a recipient in the natural.

The naked spiritual does indeed enter into man, but it is not received; it is like the ether, which flows in and out producing no effect, for to produce an effect there must be perception and consequent reception, both of these in his mind; and no such reception is possible with man except in his natural.

But on the other hand merely natural faith, or faith destitute of a spiritual essence, is not faith, but only persuasion or knowledge.

In externals persuasion emulates faith; but since there is in its internals no spirituality, neither is there anything saving in it.  Such is the faith of all who deny the Divinity of the Lord's Human; such was the Arian faith, and such also is the Socinian faith, because both reject the Lord's Divinity.

What is faith without an object toward which it is determined? Is it not like gazing into the universe, where the sight falls, as it were, into vacuity and is lost? It is like a bird flying beyond the atmosphere into the ether, where, as in a vacuum, it ceases to breathe. The abiding of this faith in man's mind may be compared to that of the winds in the wings [halls?] of Aeolus, or of light in a falling star. It rises like a comet with a long tail, and like it passes over and disappears.

This is the origin of the prevailing naturalism of the day.

In a word, faith in an invisible God is actually blind, since the human mind fails to see its God; and the light of that faith, not being a spiritual-natural faith, is a fatuous light; which light is like that of the glow-worm, or like that seen above marshes or sulphurous glebes at night, or like the phosphorescence of rotten wood.

From that light nothing comes except what pertains to fantasy, which creates a belief that the apparent is the real, when yet it is not.

Faith in an invisible God shines with no other light than this, especially when God is thought to be a Spirit, and spirit is thought to be like ether. What follows but that man regards God as he does the ether? Consequently he seeks God in the universe; and when he does not find Him there, he believes the nature of the universe to be God.

Did not the Lord say,

That no one ever heard the Father's voice or saw His shape? (John 5:37);

and also,

That no man hath seen God at any time, but that the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father hath revealed Him (John 1:18).

No man hath seen the Father, save He who is with the Father, He hath seen the Father (John 6:46).
Also that no one cometh unto the Father, but through Him (John 14:8).

Furthermore,

That He who sees and knows Him sees and knows the Father (John 14:7-12).

But faith in the Lord God the Savior is different

He, being God and Man, can be approached and be seen in thought.

Faith in Him is not indeterminate, but has an object from which and to which it proceeds and when once received is permanent, as when anyone has seen an emperor or king, as often as the fact is recalled the image returns. That faith's sight is like one's seeing a bright cloud, and in the midst of it an angel who invites the man to him, so that he may be raised up into heaven.

Thus does the Lord appear to those who have faith in Him; He draws near to every man so far as man recognizes and acknowledges Him, which he does, so far as he knows and keeps the Lord's commandments, which are, to shun evils and do good; and at length the Lord comes into man's house, and together with the Father who is in Him, makes His abode with man, according to these words in John:

Jesus said, He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him (14:21, 23).

(True Christian Religion 339)

To be continued...