The Understanding of the Word is According to the State of the Man Who Reads It

From Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The Word in itself is Divine truth, but the understanding of it is according to the state of the man who reads it. A man who is not in good perceives nothing of the good in it, and a man who is not in truths sees nothing of the truth in it; the cause of this, therefore, is not in the Word, but in him who reads it.

(Apocalypse Explained 373:2)

The Nature of the Understanding of the Word

Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

In the Word are all truths of heaven and the church, yea, all the secrets of wisdom that the angels of heaven possess; but no one sees these unless he is in the good of love to the Lord and in the good of love towards the neighbor.  Those who are not, see truths here and there, but do not understand them.  They have a perception and idea of them wholly different from that which pertains to these same truths in themselves.  Although, therefore, they see or know truths, still truths are not truths with them, but falsities; for truths are not truths from their sound or utterance, but from an idea and perception of them.

When truths are implanted in good it is different.  Then truths appear in their own form, for truth is the form of good.  From this it may be concluded what the nature of the understanding of the Word is with those who make faith alone the sole means of salvation, and cast behind the back the good of life, or the good of charity.  It has been found that those who have confirmed themselves in this, both in doctrine and life, have not even a single right idea of truth.  This, moreover, is why they do not know what good is, what charity and love are, what the neighbor is, what heaven and hell are, that they are to live after death as men, nor, indeed, what regeneration is, what baptism is, and many other things; yea, they are in such blindness respecting God Himself that they worship three in thought, and not one except merely with the mouth, not knowing that the Father of the Lord is the Divine in Him, and that the Holy Spirit is the Divine from Him.

These things are said to make known that there is no understanding of the Word where there is no good. It is here said that to him that sat upon a red horse, it was given "to take peace from the earth," because "peace" signifies a peaceful state of the mind [mens] and tranquillity of the disposition [animus] from the conjunction of good and truth; therefore "to take away peace" signifies an unpeaceful and untranquil state from the disjunction of good and truth, which is the cause of internal dissensions; for when good is separated from truth evil takes its place; and evil loves not truth but falsity; because every falsity belongs to evil, as every truth to good; when, therefore, such a person sees a truth in the Word or hears it from another, the evil of his love, and thus of his will, strives against the truth, and then he either rejects or perverts it, or by ideas from the evil so obscures it that at length he sees nothing of truth in the truth, however much it may sound like truth when he utters it. This is the origin of all dissensions, controversies, and heresies in the church....

(Apocalypse Explained 365:4)

When Means are Loved and Not Ends

Passages from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

To believe those things which the Word teaches, or which the doctrine of the church teaches, and not to live according to them, appears as if it were faith, and some also suppose that they are saved by this faith; but no one is saved by this alone, for it is Persuasive Faith, the quality of which shall now be told.

There is Persuasive Faith when the Word and the doctrine of the church are believed and loved, not for the sake of serving the neighbor, that is, one's fellow citizen, our country, the church, heaven, and the Lord Himself; consequently not for the sake of life, for serving these is life; but for the sake of gain, honors, and the reputation of learning, as ends. Wherefore they who are in this faith do not have in view the Lord and heaven, but themselves and the world.

They who aspire after great things in the world, and covet many things, are in a stronger persuasion that what the doctrine of the church teaches is true, than are those who do not aspire after great things and covet many things. The reason is that to the former the doctrine of the church is merely a means to their ends; and the means are loved and also believed in proportion as the ends are desired.

In itself, however, the fact is that insofar as such men are in the fire of the loves of self and of the world, and speak, preach, and act from this fire, so far they are in that persuasion, and they then know no otherwise than that what they say is so. But when they are not in the fire of these loves, they believe nothing, and many of them deny everything; from which it is evident that a Persuasive Faith is a faith of the lips, and not of the heart; thus that in itself it is no faith.

They who are in Persuasive Faith do not know from any internal enlightenment whether what they teach is true or false; nay, they do not care, provided they are believed by the common people; for they are in no affection of truth for the sake of truth. Moreover, above all others they defend faith alone; and the good of faith, which is charity, they make of importance only insofar as they can profit by its means.

They who are in Persuasive Faith abandon faith, if they are deprived of honors and gains, provided their reputation is not endangered; for Persuasive Faith is not within the man, but stands outside, in the memory only, out of which it is drawn while it is being taught. And therefore after death this faith vanishes, together with its truths; for then only that much of faith remains which is within the man; that is, which has been rooted in good; thus has been made of the life.

They who are in Persuasive Faith are meant by those of whom we read in these passages:
Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied by Thy name, and by Thy name have cast out demons, and in Thy name done many mighty deeds? But then will I confess unto them, I know you not, ye workers of iniquity (Matt. 7:22, 23).

Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets. But He shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity (Luke 13:26, 27).

They are also meant in Matthew by the five foolish virgins, who had no oil in their lamps:
Afterward came the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He answering said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not (Matt. 25:11, 12);
"oil in the lamps" denotes good in the faith.

(Arcana Coelestia 9363 - 9369)

What Universally Reigns Governs Every Detail

From a passage in Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

... if essential and not instrumental things are cared for, they shall have instrumental things in abundance. For example: if truths are cared for, they shall have memory-knowledges in abundance.... In like manner if good is cared for, they shall have truths in abundance. Memory-knowledges, and also truths, must be cared for, but men must regard good as the end. If the eye is upon good as in the end, the man is then in full view of the consequent things, or in the perception of such as are derived from it, which perception is never possible unless good is the end, that is, unless it reigns universally in each and all things.

The case herein is like the body and its soul. A man must by all means care for his body, as that it may be nourished, and clothed, and may enjoy the delights of the world; but all these not for the sake of the body, but for the sake of the soul, namely, that the soul may act in a sound body correspondently and rightly, and may have the body as an organ entirely compliant to it. Thus the soul must be the end. Yet neither must the soul be the end, but only a mediate end, for which the man must care, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the uses which it must perform in both worlds; and when a man has uses as the end, he has the Lord as the end, for the Lord makes disposition for uses, and disposes the uses themselves.

As few know what it is to have as the end, this also shall be told. To have as the end is to love above all other things, for what a man loves, this he has as the end. That which a man has as the end is plainly discerned, for it reigns universally in him; and thus is continually present even at those times when he seems to himself not to be thinking at all about it, for it is seated within and makes his interior life, and thus secretly rules each and all things. As for example, with him who from the heart honors his parents, this honor is present in each and all things that he does in their presence and that he thinks in their absence, and it is also perceived from his gestures and speech. So with him who from the heart fears and honors God, this fear and honor are present in everything that he thinks, and speaks, and does, because it is in him even when it does not seem to be present, as when he is engaged in business that seems to be far from it; for it reigns universally; thus in every detail. That which reigns in man is plainly perceived in the other life, for the sphere of his whole life which exhales from him is thence derived.

From all this it is evident how it is to be understood that God must be always kept before the eyes; not that He must be constantly thought about, but that the fear or the love of Him must reign universally, in which case God is kept before the eyes in every detail. When this is the case the man does not think, speak, or do what is against Him and displeasing to Him; or if he does, that which universally reigns, and lies hidden within, manifests itself and admonishes him.

(Arcana Coelestia 5949)

Moving Things To The Circumference

From Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

 Whatever a man does from freedom in accordance with his thought
is appropriated to him as his, and remains.

This is because man's own (proprium) and his freedom make one. Man's own belongs to his life; and what a man does from his life he does from freedom. Again, man's own belongs to his love, for every one's life is his love; and what a man does from his life's love he does from freedom. From his freedom man acts in accordance with his thought, for the reason that whatever belongs to one's life or love becomes a subject of thought and is confirmed by his thought; and when it has been confirmed he does it from freedom in accordance with his thought.

For whatever a man does, he does from the will by means of the understanding; and freedom belongs to the will, and thought to the understanding. Moreover, from freedom man is able to act contrary to reason, also to act in accordance with reason and not from freedom; but what is so done is not appropriated to the man; it belongs merely to his lips and body, not to his spirit and heart. But whatever is from his spirit and heart, when it comes to be also of the lips and body, is appropriated to him. ...
To be appropriated to man means to enter into his life, and to become a part of his life, consequently to become his own. Yet there is nothing ... that is man's own, it merely seems to him as if it were. Here it needs only to be said that every good that a man does from freedom in accordance with reason is appropriated to him as his, because in the thinking, the willing, the speaking, and the doing, it appears to him to be his; nevertheless, the good is not man's but the Lord's in man.
It is said that whatever one does from freedom in accordance with his thought remains, since nothing that a man has appropriated to himself can be eradicated; for it has come to be of his love and at the same time of his reason, or of his will and at the same time of his understanding, and consequently of his life. It can be removed, but it cannot be eliminated; and when removed it is as it were transferred from the center to the circumference, and there it stays. This is what is meant by its remaining.
For instance, if a man in his boyhood and youth has appropriated to himself a certain evil by doing it from the enjoyment of his love, like fraud or blasphemy or revenge or whoredom, as these things have been done from freedom in accordance with his thought, he has appropriated them to himself; but if he afterwards repents of them, shuns them, and looks upon them as sins that must be hated, and thus refrains from them from freedom in accordance with reason, then the good things to which those evils are opposed are appropriated to him. These goods then constitute the center and remove the evils toward the circumferences further and further, to the extent that he loathes and turns away from them. Nevertheless, they cannot be so cast out as to be said to be extirpated, although by such removal they may appear to be extirpated, which is effected by man's being withheld from evils and held in goods by the Lord. This is true both of all man's inherited evil and of all his actual evil.
...
Let it be understood, therefore, that these goods are appropriated to man only in the sense that they are always the Lord's in man; and that so far as man acknowledges this the Lord grants that the good may appear to man to be his, that is, that it may appear to man that he loves the neighbor or has charity as if from himself, that he believes or has faith as if from himself, that he does good and understands truths and thus is wise as if from himself. From all this any one who is enlightened can see the nature and strength of the appearance in which the Lord wills man to be; and this the Lord wills for the sake of man's salvation; for without this appearance no one could be saved. ...

(Divine Providence 78 - 79)

Good and Truth ~ The Universals of Creation

Passage from Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Since then the Lord God the Creator is Love itself and Wisdom itself, and the universe was created by Him, which is therefore as a work proceeding from Him,-it cannot be but that in each and all things created there is something of good and of truth from Him. For what is done and goes forth from any one bears a likeness of him. And reason can also see that it is so, from the order in which each and all things were created in the universe, which is that one thing is for another and that therefore one depends upon another, like the links of a chain. For they are all for the sake of the human race, to the end that from this there may be an angelic heaven, through which the creation returns to the Creator Himself from whom it came. Hence there is a conjunction of the created universe with its Creator, and through conjunction perpetual conservation. It is on this account that good and truth are said to be the universals of creation. That it is so is plain to every one who reflects upon the matter from reason. He sees what relates to good and what relates to truth in every created thing.

(Conjugial Love 85)

We are Because God IS

A portion of a passage from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

["I think, therefore I am" coined by the French philosopher René Descartes in his Discourse on Method corrected should be "We are because God is."]*

• Divine essence is love and wisdom
• Divine love and wisdom are substance itself and form itself, and the one and only absolute
• God created the universe and everything in it from Himself and not from nothing

It follows from this that every created thing, and above all the human being and the love and wisdom in him, have real existence, and do not exist only in idea. For unless God were infinite, there would be nothing finite. So, too, unless the infinite were omni- or all- , there would be nothing real. And unless God created all things from Himself, there would be nothing at all.

In a word: We are because God is.

(Divine Providence 46:3)

*added by editor