The Essential Seen in the Formal

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Thought Is Not Imputed To Anyone, But Will Only

Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.  And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.  I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. (John 8:15-18)

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.

No evil that a man thinks is imputed to him, because he was so created as to be able to understand and thus think either good or evil - good from the Lord and evil from hell - for he is between these two, and from his freedom of choice in spiritual things has the ability to choose either one or the other. ...

And because man has the ability to choose from freedom, he can will or not will, and what he wills is received by the will and appropriated, while what he does not will is not received and thus is not appropriated. All the evils to which man inclines by birth are inscribed upon the will of his natural man; and so far as the man draws upon these evils, they flow into his thoughts. In like manner, goods with truths flow from above the Lord into the thoughts and there they are balanced like weights in the scales of a balance. If the man then adopts the evils, they are received by the old will and added to those in it; but if he adopts goods with truths, the Lord forms a new will and a new understanding above the old, and there by means of truths He gradually implants new goods, and by means of these subjugates the evils that are below and removes them, and arranges all things in order. From this also it is clear that thought is the seat of purification and excretion of the evils resident in man from his parents; consequently if the evils that a man thinks were to be imputed to him, reformation and regeneration would be impossible.

As good belongs to the will and truth to the understanding, and many things in the world correspond to good, (such as fruit and use), while imputation itself corresponds to the estimate and price, it follows that what has here been said of imputation may find its counterpart in all created things; for as before shown in various places, all things in the universe have relation to good and truth, and on the contrary to evil and falsity.

A comparison may therefore be made with the church, in that its value is estimated by its charity and faith, and not by its rituals, which are adjoined to it.

A comparison may also be made with the ministry of the church, in that they are valued according to their will and love, together with their understanding in spiritual things and not according to their affability, (the quality of having a friendly and good-natured manner), and mode of dress.

A comparison may also be made with worship and the temple in which it is performed; worship itself takes place in the will, and in the understanding as in its temple; and the temple is called holy not from itself, but from the Divine that is there taught.

Again, a comparison may be made with a government where good reigns and truth along with it. Such a government is beloved, but not one where truth reigns without good. Who judges of a king by his attendants, horses, and carriages, and not by the royalty which is recognized in him? Royalty consists in a loving and prudent government. Does anyone watching a victory parade fail to look at the victor and judge the procession from him, not him from the procession?

It follows that one judges the formal aspect from the essential, not the reverse. The will is the essential, and thought is the formal. No one can impute to the form anything but what it derives from the essential; so imputation applies to the essential, not the formal.

(True Christian Religion 658-660)

Defending One’s Country Against Invading Enemies

Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
VICTORIES ARE ON THE SIDE OF PRUDENCE; SOMETIMES NOT ON THE SIDE OF JUSTICE
THAT IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHETHER THE COMMANDER IS AN UPRIGHT MAN OR NOT

The worshiper of himself and of nature confirms himself against Divine providence when he reflects according to his perception that victories are on the side of prudence, and sometimes not on the side of justice; and that it makes no difference whether the commander is an upright man or not.

Victories seem to be on the side of prudence, and sometimes not on the side of justice, because man judges from the appearance, and favors one side more than the other, and that which he favors he is able to confirm by reasonings; nor does he know that in heaven there is a spiritual justice to a cause and in the world a natural justice — these are conjoined by means of a connection between things past and things future that are known only to the Lord.

It makes no difference whether the commander is an upright man or not; the wicked perform uses equally with the good, and the evil from their fire with more ardor than the good, especially in wars, because the evil man is more crafty and shrewd in contriving devices; and from a love of glory he takes more delight than a good man in killing and plundering those whom he knows and declares to be his enemies; for a good man is prudent and zealous only in defending, and rarely is prudent and zealous in any degree in attacking. It is the same as with spirits of hell and angels of heaven; the spirits of hell attack, while the angels of heaven defend themselves. From this comes the conclusion that it is allowable for any one to defend his country and his fellow-citizens against invading enemies, even by means of wicked commanders, but that it is not allowable to become an enemy without cause. A cause that looks to glory alone is in itself diabolical, for it is of the love of self.

(from Divine Providence 252)

Wars are Ruled by the Lord's Divine Providence

Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The worshiper of himself and of nature confirms himself against Divine providence when he reflects that wars are permitted, and the consequent slaughter of so many men, and the plundering of their wealth.

It is not from the Divine providence that wars exist, for they are connected with murders, plunderings, violence, cruelties, and other terrible evils, which are directly opposed to Christian charity; and yet they must needs be permitted, because, since the time of the most ancient people, meant by Adam and his wife, the life's love of man has become such that it wills to rule over others, and finally over all, also to possess the wealth of the world, and finally all wealth. These two loves (to rule over others and to possess the wealth of the world) cannot be kept bound, for it is according to the Divine providence that everyone be allowed to act from freedom in accordance with reason; furthermore, without permissions man cannot be led from evil by the Lord, and thus be reformed and saved. For unless evils were permitted to break out man would not see them, and therefore would not acknowledge them, and thus could not be led to resist them. For this reason evils cannot be prevented by any providence; for if they were they would remain shut in, and like the diseases called cancer and gangrene would spread about and consume all that is vital in man.

For man from birth is like a little hell, between which and heaven there is perpetual discordance. No man can be withdrawn from his hell by the Lord unless he sees that he is in hell and wishes to be led out; and this cannot be done without permissions, the causes of which are laws of the Divine providence.

For this reason there are wars, lesser and greater, the lesser between the possessors of estates and their neighbors, and the greater between the rulers of kingdoms and their neighbors. Between the lesser and greater there is no difference, except that the lesser are kept within bounds by the laws of the nation, and the greater by the laws of nations; also that while both the lesser and greater wish to transgress their laws, the lesser cannot, and the greater can, although not beyond its abilities.

There are many other reasons stored up in the treasury of Divine wisdom why the Lord does not check the greater wars, with their kings and commanders, connected as they are with murders, depredations, violence, and cruelties, neither in their beginning nor in their progress, but only at the close, when the power of one or the other has become so reduced that he is in danger of destruction. Some of these reasons have been revealed to me, and among them is this:

that all wars, however much they may belong to civil affairs, represent in heaven the states of the church, and are correspondences.

Such were all the wars described in the Word, and such also are all wars at this day.

The wars described in the Word are those that the children of Israel waged with various nations, as the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Philistines, the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians; and when the children of Israel, who represented the church, departed from their commandments and statutes and fell into the evils signified by those nations, they were punished by some nation, because each nation with which the children of Israel waged war signified some particular kind of evil. For example, when they profaned the holy things of the church by foul idolatries they were punished by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, because "Assyria" and "Chaldea" signify the profanation of what is holy.

Like things are represented by the wars of the present day, wherever they occur —

for all things that take place in the natural world correspond to spiritual things in the spiritual world, and every thing spiritual has relation to the church.

It is not known in this world what kingdoms in Christendom answer to the Moabites and Ammonites, what to the Syrians and Philistines, or what to the Chaldeans and Assyrians, and the others with whom the children of Israel waged war; and yet there are those that do answer to them.

Moreover, what the quality of the church upon earth is and what the evils are into which it falls, and for which it is punished by wars, cannot be seen at all in the natural world, because in this world externals only are evident, and these do not constitute the church; but this is seen in the spiritual world, where internals are manifest, in which the church itself is, and there all are conjoined in accordance with their various states. The conflicts of these in the spiritual world correspond to wars which are governed by the Lord on both sides correspondentially, in accordance with His Divine providence.

That in this world wars are governed by Divine providence the spiritual man acknowledges, but the natural man does not, except when a festival is appointed on account of a victory that he may return thanks on his knees to God that He has given the victory, also by a few words before going into battle. But when he returns into himself he ascribes the victory either to the prudence of the general or to some measure or occurrence in the midst of the battle, which they had not thought of, from which nevertheless came the victory.

That the Divine providence that is called fortune is in the least particulars of even trivial things; and if in these you acknowledge the Divine providence you must certainly acknowledge it in the affairs of war. Also the successes and favorable occurrences of war are called in common language the fortune of war; and this is Divine providence, especially in the plans and preparations of the general, even although he then and afterwards may ascribe it all to his own prudence. And let him do this if he will, for he is in full liberty to think in favor of the Divine providence or against it, and even in favor of God and against Him; but let him know that no part whatever of the plan or preparation is from himself; it all flows in either from heaven or from hell — from hell by permission, from heaven by providence.

(from Divine Providence 251)