Faith in the Understanding; Faith in the Will

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Regarded in itself, faith is a faith in the understanding and a faith in the will; to know and understand the truth which is of faith is called faith in the understanding; but to will the truth which is of faith is called faith in the will. ... That faith in the understanding, or the understanding of truth, precedes faith in the will, or the willing of truth, must be evident to everyone; for when anything is unknown to man (such as heavenly good), he must first know that it exists, and understand what it is, before he can will it.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 3863:3)

Pharisaic and Hypocritical Good

Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

It is known that man's interior must be purified before the good that he does is good; for the Lord says:

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside may be clean also (Matt. 13:26).

Man's interior is purified only as he refrains from evils, in accordance with the commandments of the Decalogue. So long as man does not refrain from these evils and does not shun and turn away from them as sins, they constitute his interior, and are like an interposed veil or covering, and in heaven this appears like an eclipse by which the sun is obscured and light is intercepted; also like a fountain of pitch or of black water, from which nothing emanates but what is impure. That which emanates therefrom and that appears before the world as good is not good, because it is defiled by evils from within, for it is Pharisaic and hypocritical good. This good is good from man and is meritorious good. It is otherwise when evils have been removed by a life according to the commandments of the Decalogue.

Now since evils must be removed before goods can become goods, the Ten Commandments were the first of the Word, being promulgated from Mount Sinai before the Word was written by Moses and the Prophets. And these do not set forth goods that must be done, but evils that must be shunned. For the same reason these commandments are the first things to be taught in the churches; for they are taught to boys and girls in order that man may begin his Christian life with them, and by no means forget them as he grows up; although he does so. The same is meant by these words in Isaiah:

What is the multitude of sacrifices to Me? Your meal-offering, your incense, your new moons, and your appointed feasts, My soul hateth. And when you multiply prayer I will not hear. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil. Then though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow; though they be red as purple they shall be as wool (1:11-19.

"Sacrifices," "meal-offerings," "incense," "new moons," and "feasts," also "prayer," mean all things of worship. That these are wholly evil and even abominable unless the interior is purified from evils is meant by Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings, and cease to do evil. That afterwards they are all goods is meant by the words that follow.

(Apocalypse Explained 939)

Truths Which Only Regard Faith And Not Life

Selection from Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

... in it [the church] there is no faith because there is no charity; and where there is no charity, there is no spiritual good, for that good exists from charity alone. It was said from heaven that there is still good with some, but that it cannot be called spiritual, but natural good, because Divine truths themselves are in obscurity, and Divine truths introduce to charity, for they teach it, and regard it as their end and aim; whence no other charity can exist than such as the truths are which form it.

The Divine truths from which the doctrines of the churches are derived, respect faith alone, on which account they are called the doctrines of faith, and do not look to life.

Truths which only regard faith and not life, cannot make man spiritual; for so long as they are out of the life they are only natural, being merely known and thought of like other things.

Hence it is that spiritual good is not given at the present day, but only natural good with some.

Moreover every church in the beginning is spiritual, for it begins from charity; but in the course of time it turns aside from charity to faith, and then from being an internal church it becomes an external one, and when it becomes external its end is, since it then places everything in knowledge, and little or nothing in life. Thus also as far as man from being internal becomes external, spiritual light is darkened within him, until he no longer sees Divine truth from truth itself, that is from the light of heaven, for Divine truth is the light of heaven, but only from natural light; which is of such a nature, that when it is alone, and not illumined by spiritual light, it sees Divine truth as it were in night, and recognizes it as truth for no other reason than that it is so called by the leader, and is received as such by the common assembly. Hence it is, that their intellectual faculty cannot be illustrated by the Lord, for as far as natural light shines in the intellectual faculty, in so far spiritual light is obscured. Natural light shines in the intellectual faculty, when worldly, corporeal, and earthly things are loved in preference to spiritual, celestial, and Divine things; so far also man is external.

(from Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed 38)

Only Those Who Have Faith Are In Heaven

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

It is one thing to know truths, and quite another to acknowledge them, and still another to have faith in them.

To know is the first thing of regeneration, to acknowledge is the second, to have faith is the third.

What difference there is between knowing, acknowledging, and having faith is evident from the fact that the worst men may know, and yet not acknowledge, like the Jews and those who attempt to destroy doctrinal things by specious reasoning; and that unbelievers may acknowledge, and in certain states preach, confirm, and persuade with zeal; but none can have faith who are not believers.

Those who have faith — know, acknowledge, and believe — they have charity, and they have conscience. Therefore faith can never be predicated of anyone, that is, it cannot be said that he has faith, unless these things are true of him. This then it is to be regenerate. Merely to know what is of faith is of a man's memory, without the concurrence of his reason. To acknowledge what is of faith is a rational consent induced by certain causes and for the sake of certain ends. But to have faith is of conscience, that is, of the Lord working through conscience. This is abundantly evident from those who are in the other life. Those who only know are many of them in hell. Those who acknowledge are also many of them there, because their acknowledgment in the life of the body has been in certain states only, and when in the other life they perceive that what they had preached, taught, and persuaded others is true, they wonder greatly and acknowledge it only when it is recalled to their memory as what they had preached. But those who have had faith are all in heaven.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 896)

The Inexpressible Power of the Word

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Hardly anyone at this day knows that there is any power in truths; for truth is supposed to be nothing more than a statement uttered by someone in authority, which ought for that reason to be obeyed; thus truth is supposed to be like a mere breath from the mouth or sound in the ear; and yet truth and good are the principles of all things in both worlds, the spiritual and the natural; also they are the means by which the universe was created, and through which the universe is preserved, and the means as well by which man was created; therefore these two are the all in all things. That the universe was created by Divine truth, is clearly declared in John:

In the beginning was the Word, and God was the Word; by It were all things made that were made and by It the world was made (John 1:1, 3, 10).

And in David:

By the Word of Jehovah were the heavens made (Ps. 33:6).

In both of these passages "The Word" means the Divine truth. As the universe was created by this truth, so also was the universe preserved by it; for as subsistence is perpetual existence, so preservation is perpetual creation.

It was by means of Divine truth that man was made, because all things in man have relation to understanding and will, the understanding being the receptacle of Divine truth, and the will of Divine good; therefore, the human mind — which consists of those two principles — is nothing but a form of Divine good and Divine truth spiritually and naturally organized. The human brain is that form. And as the whole of man depends upon his mind, so all things of his body are appendages, which are moved by these two principles, and life from them.

From all this it can now be seen why God came into the world as the Word, and became Man, namely, that the work of redemption might be accomplished; for God then, by means of His Human, which was Divine truth, put on all power, overthrew the hells (which had grown up even as far as to the heavens where the angels were), and subjugated them, and reduced them to obedience to Himself, and this was done not by a spoken word but by the Divine Word which is Divine truth. Afterward He opened a great gulf between the hells and the heavens, which no one from hell can cross; if anyone attempts it, at the first step he is tortured like a serpent laid on a sheet of hot iron, or on an ant hill. For at the first approach of the odor of Divine truth the devils and satans instantly cast themselves into the abyss and throw themselves into caves and stop them up so closely that not a crevice is visible. This is because the will of such is in evils, and the understanding in falsities, that is, in what is opposite to the Divine good and the Divine truth. And because the whole of man, as just said, consists of these two principles of life, they are thus from head to foot, completely and grievously overpowered in consequence of their sensation of the opposite.

From all this it can be seen that the power of Divine truth is inexpressible. And as the Word which the Christian church possesses is the containant of Divine truth in three degrees, that Word is evidently what is meant in John (1:1, 3, 10). That its power is inexpressible I could prove by many evidences of experience in the spiritual world.... The following will serve to keep these truths in remembrance:

• That a church that is in Divine truths from the Lord has power over the hells

• The Lord's words to Peter refer to such a church:
  Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).

This the Lord said after Peter had confessed,

That He was the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16).
"Rock" here means such truth, for everywhere in the Word "rock" means the Lord in respect to Divine truth.

(True Christian Religion 224)

Of These The Human Mind Consists

Selection from New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

THE WILL AND THE UNDERSTANDING

Man has two faculties which make his life; one is called the Will, and the other the Understanding. These faculties are distinct from each other, but are so created that they may be one; and when they are one they are called the Mind. Of these, then, the human mind consists; and the whole life of man is there.

As all things in the universe, which are according to Divine order, have relation to good and truth, so all things with man have relation to the will and the understanding; for good with man is of his will, and truth with him is of his understanding; for these two faculties, or these two lives of man, are their receptacles and subjects. The will is the receptacle and subject of all things of good, and the understanding the receptacle and subject of all things of truth. Goods and truths with man are nowhere else; and because goods and truths with man are nowhere else, so neither are love and faith elsewhere; for love is of good, and good is of love; and faith is of truth, and truth is of faith.

Since, then, all things in the universe have relation to good and truth, and all things of the church to the good of love and the truth of faith; and since man is man from those two faculties, therefore they also are treated of in this doctrine; otherwise man could have no distinct idea of them, on which to found his thought.

The will and the understanding also constitute the spirit of man; for his wisdom and intelligence, and his life in general, reside in them; the body is only obedience.

Nothing is more important to know than how the will and the understanding make one mind. They make one mind as good and truth make one; for there is a similar marriage between the will and the understanding as there is between good and truth. What is the quality of that marriage may fully appear from what has been quoted above, concerning good and truth, namely, as good is the very esse of a thing, and truth the existere of a thing thence derived, so the will with man is the very esse of his life, and the understanding the existere of life thence; for good, which is of the will, forms and renders itself visible in the understanding.

They who are in good and truth have will and understanding, but they who are in evil and in falsity have not will and understanding; but instead of will they have cupidity, and instead of understanding they have science. For the truly human will is the receptacle of good, and the understanding is the receptacle of truth; for which reason will cannot be predicated of evil, nor can understanding be predicated of falsity, because they are opposites, and opposites destroy each other. Hence it is, that the man who is in evil and thence in falsity, cannot be called rational, wise, and intelligent.

With the evil, also, the interiors of the mind, in which the will and the understanding principally reside, are closed. It is believed that the evil also have will and understanding, because they say that they will, and that they understand; but their willing is only cupidity, and their understanding is only knowing.

(New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 28-34)

Spiritual Sight

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Spiritual sight abstracted from such things as are of the world is nothing else than a perception of truth, or of the things of faith; and therefore in the internal sense nothing else is signified by "seeing." For the internal sense comes forth when the things of the world are removed, because the internal sense relates to such things as are of heaven. The light of heaven, by which is sight there, is Divine truth from the Lord, which appears before the eyes of the angels as light, a thousand times brighter than the midday light in the world; and as this light has life in it, therefore at the same time that it illumines the eyesight of the angels, it illumines also the sight of their understanding, and causes a perception of truth in accordance with the amount and quality of the good in which they are.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 5400)