Those Who are in Knowledges Alone, and Not in a Life of Love

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Those who love knowledges alone, and not a life according to them, for the most part pride themselves on them, and seem to themselves to be wiser than others. Thus they love themselves and despise others, especially those who are in good, whom they regard as simple and unlearned. But the lot is inverted in the other life, where those who have seemed to themselves wise become foolish, and those who seemed simple are wise.

Every love contains within it all power to know what belongs to that love.

Take for example the animals of the earth, and also the animals or birds of heaven. These have the knowledge of all things of their love. Their loves are to feed themselves, to dwell safely, to propagate offspring, to rear their young; and they have all the requisite knowledge for these purposes; for this is in these loves, and flows into these creatures as into its own receptacles. This knowledge is in some cases so extraordinary that man cannot but be amazed at it. It is said to be inborn, and is called instinct; but it is of the love in which they are.

If man were in his own love, which is love to God and toward the neighbor, this being man's proper love by which he is distinguished from the beasts, he would then be not only in all requisite knowledge, but also in all intelligence and wisdom, neither would he have occasion to learn them, for they would flow in from heaven into these loves, that is, through heaven from the Divine. But as man is not in these, but in contrary loves, namely, in the love of self and the love of the world, therefore he must needs be born into all ignorance and lack of skill; yet by Divine means he is brought to something of intelligence and wisdom, but still not actually into anything unless he removes the loves of self and of the world, and thus opens the way for love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor.

That love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor have within them all intelligence and wisdom, can be seen from those who in the world have been in these loves, for when in the other life they come into heaven, they there know and are wise in such things as before they had never known; nay, they think and speak there as do the rest of the angels such things as the ear has never heard, nor the mind known, which are unutterable. The reason is that these loves have in them the capacity to receive such things.

(from Arcana Coelestia 7749-7750)

The Pure In Heart Shall See God

Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

How A Man Can Be More Nearly Conjoined With The Lord
How The Conjunction Appears More And More Near

How man is more and more nearly conjoined with the Lord:-
This is effected not by knowledge alone, nor by intelligence alone, nor even by wisdom alone, but by a life conjoined with these.

Man's life is his love, and love is manifold. In general, there is a love of evil and a love of good. The love of evil is a love of committing adultery, taking revenge, defrauding, blaspheming, depriving others of their goods. In thinking about these things and in doing them the love of evil has a sense of pleasure and delight. The derivatives of this love, which are its affections, are as many as are the evils into which it has determined itself; and the perceptions and thoughts of this love are as many as are the falsities that favor these evils and confirm them. These falsities make one with the evils, as the understanding makes one with the will; they are not separated from each other, for one is of the other.

Since, then, the Lord flows into the life's love of every one, and through its affections into the perceptions and thoughts, and not the reverse, as has been said above, it follows that the Lord can conjoin Himself more nearly only so far as the love of evil with its affections, which are lusts, has been set aside. And as these have their seat in the natural man, and as whatever a man does from the natural man is felt as if done from himself, so man ought as if from himself to put away the evils of that love; and so far as this is done by man, the Lord draws nearer and conjoins Himself with him. Any one can see from reason that lusts with their enjoyments block the way and close the doors before the Lord, and that these can not be cast out by the Lord so long as man himself holds the doors closed, and by pressing and pushing from without prevents their being opened. That man himself ought to open them is clear from the Lord's words in the Apocalypse:-

Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any one hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with Me (3: 20).

From this it is evident that so far as one shuns evils as diabolical and as obstacles to the Lord's entrance, he is more and more nearly conjoined with the Lord, and he the most nearly who abominates them as so many dusky and fiery devils; since evil and the devil are one, and the falsity of evil and Satan are one. For as the Lord's influx is into the love of good and into its affections, and through these affections into the perceptions and thoughts (and these are all truths by derivation from the good in which the man is), so the influx of the devil, that is, of hell, is into the love of evil and into its affections, which are lusts, and through these into the perceptions and thoughts (and these are all falsities by derivation from the evil in which the man is).

How that conjunction appears more and more near:-
The more fully evils in the natural man are put aside by shunning them and turning away from them, the more nearly is man conjoined with the Lord.

And as love and wisdom, which are the Lord Himself, are not in space (since affection, which belongs to love, and thought, which belongs to wisdom, have nothing in common with space), so the Lord appears to be nearer in the measure of the conjunction by love and wisdom; and on the other hand, more remote in the measure of the rejection of love and wisdom. In the spiritual world there is no space, but there distance and presence are appearances in accordance with similarities and dissimilarities of affections; for the reason, as has been said before, that affections, which belong to love, and thoughts, which belong to wisdom, and which in themselves are spiritual, are not in space.

The Lord's conjunction with a man in whom evils have been put away, is meant by these words of the Lord:-

The pure in heart shall see God (Matt. 5. 8);

and by these:-

He that hath My commandments and doeth them, I will make My abode with him (John 14: 21, 23).

"To have the commandments" is to know, and "to do them" is to love; for it is also there said: "He that doeth My commandments, he it is that loveth Me."

(Divine Providence 33)

The Two Faculties of the Mind

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Thought Is Not Imputed To Anyone, But Will Only

Every educated man knows that the mind has two faculties or parts, the will and the understanding; but few know how to distinguish them aright, to examine their properties separately, and again unite them. Those who are unable to do this can form for themselves only the most obscure idea respecting the mind. Therefore. unless the properties of each are first separately described, this statement that thought is not imputed to anyone, but will only, cannot be understood. In brief, the properties of the two are as follows:

1. Love itself and the things pertaining to it reside in the will, and knowledge, intelligence and wisdom in the understanding; and these the will inspires with its love, and secures their favor and agreement; and the result is, that such as the love is, and the consequent intelligence, such is the man.
2. From this it also follows that all good as well as all evil belongs to the will; for whatever proceeds from the love is called good, even if it be evil, this being the result of delight, which constitutes the life of the love, the will, through its delight entering the understanding and producing consent.
3. Consequently the will is the being or essence of man's life, while the understanding is the outgo or existence therefrom. And as an essence is nothing except it is in some form, so the will is nothing unless it is in the understanding; wherefore the will takes form in the understanding, and thus comes to light.
4. Love in the will is the end, and in the understanding seeks and finds the causes whereby it advances into effect. And because the end is the purpose, and this is what the man intends, purpose also belongs to the will and through the intention enters the understanding and impels it to consider and evolve the means, and to conclude upon such things as tend to effects.
5. Everything that is man's very own is in the will, and is evil from the first birth, but it becomes good by means of the second birth. The first birth is from parents, but the second from the Lord.

From these few statements it can be seen that the property of the will and the property of the understanding are different; and that from creation these are conjoined like being and existence; consequently that man is man primarily from the will, and secondarily from the understanding. This is why thought is not imputed to man, but will, and consequently good and evil, because these, as before said, reside in the will and from that in the thought of the understanding.

(True Christian Religion 658)