The Life of the Rational Man

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

It is to be known concerning the rational man in general that it is said to receive life, to be in the womb, and to be born, when the man begins to think that the evil and falsity in himself is that which contradicts and is opposed to truth and good, and still more is this the case when he wills to remove and subjugate this evil and falsity. Unless he can perceive and become sensible of this, he has no rational, however much he may imagine that he has. For the rational is the medium that unites the internal man with the external, and thereby perceives from the Lord what is going on in the external man, and reduces the external man to obedience, nay, elevates it from the corporeal and earthly things in which it immerses itself, and causes the man to be man, and to look to heaven to which he belongs by birth; and not, as do brute animals, solely to the earth in which he is merely a sojourner, still less to hell. These are the offices of the rational, and therefore a man cannot be said to have any rational unless he is such that he can think in this manner; and whether the rational is coming into existence is known from his life in his use or function.

To reason against good and truth, while they are denied at heart, and only known by hearing about them, is not to have a rational - for many can do this who openly rush without any restraint into all wickedness. The only difference is that those who suppose that they have a rational and have it not, maintain a certain decorum in their discourse and act from a pretended honorableness, in which they are held by external bonds, such as fear of the law, of the loss of property, of honor, of reputation, and of life. If these bonds, which are external, were to be taken away, some of these men would rave more insanely than those who rush into wickedness without restraint, so that no one can be said to have a rational merely because he can reason. The fact is that those who have no rational usually discourse from the things of sense and of memory-knowledge much more skillfully than those who have it.

This is very clearly evident from evil spirits in the other life, who although accounted as being preeminently rational while they have lived in the body, yet when the external bonds which caused their decorum of discourse and their pretended honorableness of life are taken away, as is usual with all in the other life, they are more insane than those who in this world are openly so, for they rush into all wickedness without horror, fear, or shame. Not so those who while they lived in this world had been rational, for when the external bonds are taken away from them, they are still more sane, because they have had internal bonds - bonds of conscience - by which the Lord kept their thoughts bound to the laws of truth and good, which were their rational principles.

(Arcana Coelestia 1944)

The Life of Truth

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

When a man is being regenerated, that is, when he is to be conjoined with the Lord, he proceeds to the conjunction by means of truth, that is, by means of the truths of faith; for no one can be regenerated except by means of the knowledges of faith, which are the truths by means of which he proceeds to conjunction. The Lord goes to meet these by means of good, that is, by means of charity, and adjusts and fits this in to the knowledges of faith, that is, to its truths; for all truths are recipient vessels of good, and therefore the more genuine the truths are, and the more they are multiplied, the more abundantly can good accept them as vessels, reduce them to order, and finally manifest itself; so that at last the truths do not appear, except insofar as good shines through them. In this way truth becomes the celestial spiritual.

As the Lord is present solely in the good which is of charity, the man is in this way conjoined with the Lord, and by means of good, that is, by means of charity, is gifted with conscience, from which he afterwards thinks what is true and does what is right; but this conscience is in accordance with the truths and right things into which the good or charity is adjusted and fitted.

(Arcana Coelestia 2063:3)

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It may be supposed that a man cannot but be saved if truths are full of goods. But be it known that there are very few truths with man, and that if there are any, they have no life unless there are goods in them; and that if there are goods in them, he is saved, but from Mercy. For, as before said, the truths with man are very few; and the goods which are in them have their quality in accordance with the truths, and the man's life.

Regarded in themselves, truths do not give life. It is goods that give life. Truths are only recipients of life, that is, of good. And therefore no one can ever say that he can be saved by truths (or as the common expression is, by faith alone), unless there is good in the truths which are of faith, and this good that must be in the truths must be the good of charity; hence faith itself, in the internal sense, is nothing else than charity.

As regards people's saying that the acknowledgment of truth is the faith that saves, be it known that with those who live in things contrary to charity, there cannot possibly be any acknowledgment but only persuasion, to which there has been adjoined the life of the love of self or of the world; thus in the acknowledgment they refer to there is not the life of faith, which is that of charity. The worst men of all - from the love of self or the world, that is, for the sake of being eminent above others in what is called intelligence and wisdom, and thus of winning honors, reputation, and gains - can learn the truths of faith, and confirm them by many things; but still with them these truths are dead.

The life of truth, and thus of faith, is solely from the Lord, who is life itself. The Lord's life is mercy, which is that of love toward the universal human race. In the Lord's life those can in no wise have part who although they profess the truths of faith despise others in comparison with themselves, and who, when their life of the love of self and of the world is touched, hold the neighbor in hatred, and take delight in his loss of wealth, of honor, of reputation, and of life. But the case with the truths of faith is that by means of them man is regenerated, for they are the veriest vessels recipient of good. Such therefore as are the truths, and such as are the goods in the truths, and such as is their conjunction and the consequent capability of being perfected in the other life, such is the state of blessedness and happiness after death.

(Arcana Coelestia 2261)

Vessels Formed to Receive Celestial Communication

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Regarded in itself, the truth learned from childhood is nothing but a vessel adapted to the reception of what is celestial.

Truth has no life from itself, but only from the celestial that flows in. The celestial is love and charity; all truth is therefrom, and because all truth is therefrom, it is nothing but a kind of vessel; and so are truths themselves plainly presented in the other life; truths there are never regarded from truths, but from the life which is in them; that is, from the celestial things which are of love and charity in the truths - from these it is that truths become celestial, and are called celestial truths. .... Truth in the memory [verum scientificum] is one thing; rational truth is another; and intellectual truth is another; they succeed one another. Truth in the memory is a matter of memory-knowledge; rational truth is this truth confirmed by reason; intellectual truth is conjoined with an internal perception that it is so. ...

(Arcana Coelestia 1496)

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By spiritual things are signified, all the things of faith, consequently all doctrinal things, for these are called things of faith, although they are not of faith until they have been conjoined with charity. Between these and the Lord there is not a parallelism and correspondence, for they are such things as do not flow in by internal dictate and conscience, as do those which are of love and charity, but they flow in by instruction, and so by hearing, thus not from the interior, but from the exterior, and in this way they form their vessels or recipients in man.

The greater part of them appear as if they were truths, but are not truths, such as those things which are of the literal sense of the Word, and are representatives of truth and significatives of truth, and thus are not in themselves truths; some of them even being falsities, which however can serve as vessels and recipients. ...

For example: with those who remain in the sense of the letter of the Word, and suppose that it is the Lord who leads into temptation and who then torments man's conscience, and who suppose that because He permits evil He is the cause of evil, and that He thrusts the evil down into hell, with other similar things: these are apparent truths, but are not truths; and because they are not truths that are such in themselves, there is no parallelism and correspondence. Still the Lord leaves them intact in man, and miraculously adapts them by means of charity so that they can serve celestial things as vessels. So also with the worship, the religious teachings and morals, and even with the idols, of the well-disposed Gentiles; these likewise the Lord leaves intact, and yet adapts them by means of charity so that they also serve as vessels.

The case was the same in regard to the very numerous rites in the Ancient Church, and afterwards in the Jewish Church; which in themselves were nothing but rituals in which there was not truth, but which were tolerated and permitted, and indeed commanded, because they were held as sacred by parents, and so were implanted in the minds of children and impressed upon them from infancy as truths. ...

For the things that are once implanted in a man's opinion, and are accounted as holy, the Lord leaves intact, provided they are not contrary to Divine order; and although there is no parallelism and correspondence, still He adapts them. These same things are what was signified in the Jewish Church by the birds not being divided in the sacrifices; for to divide is to place the parts opposite to each other in such a manner that they may adequately correspond; and because the things which have been spoken of are not adequately in correspondence, they are obliterated in the other life with those who suffer themselves to be instructed, and truths themselves are implanted in their affections of good. That in the Jewish Church for the sake of this representation and signification the birds were not divided, is evident in Moses:

If his offering to Jehovah be a burnt-offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtle-doves or of the sons of the pigeon. And he shall cleave it with its wings, he shall not divide it (Lev. 1:14, 17). 

And the same in the case of the sacrifices for sin (Lev. 5:7-8).

(Arcana Coelestia 1832)

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Man's very life is from the internal man, which cannot have communication with the external, except a most obscure communication, until the receiving vessels that are of the memory have been formed, which is effected by means of knowledges [cognitiones et scientiae].

The influx of the internal man goes into the knowledges of the exterior man; affection being the means. Meanwhile, before there are these knowledges, there is indeed a communication, but through affections alone, by which the external man is governed; but from this there exist only the most general motions, and certain appetites, also certain blind inclinations, such as show themselves in infants. But this life becomes by degrees more distinct in proportion as the vessels of the memory are formed by means of knowledges, and the vessels of the interior memory by means of rational things. As these vessels are formed, and are arranged in series - and indeed in such series that they mutually regard each other, comparatively like relationships by blood and by marriage, or like societies and families - thereby is perfected the correspondence of the external man with the internal, and still better is this done by means of rational things, which are intermediate.

But still there is a want of congruity unless the knowledges by which the vessels are formed are truths; for the celestial and spiritual things of the internal man find no correspondence for themselves except in truths. These are the genuine vessels in the organic forms of each memory, and to which the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith can be fitted in; for they are there arranged by the Lord according to the idea and image of the societies of heaven, or of His kingdom, insomuch that the man becomes, in least form, a heaven, or a kingdom of the Lord, as also the minds of those who are in the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith are called in the Word. But these things have been said for those who love to think more deeply.

(Arcana Coelestia 1900)