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Excerpted from: Robert H. Kirven and George F. Dole, A Scientist Explores Spirit (Swedenborg Foundation, 1996) In paragraph 172 of his last published work, True Christian Religion, Swedenborg wrote, "Anyone who reads the Athanasian Creed with open eyes can see that nothing less than a trinity of gods was understood by the participants in the Council of Nicea, who brought forth that creed like a stillborn infant." Yet beginning at paragraph 55 of an earlier work, The Doctrine of the Lord, he had written "that the import of the Athanasian faith is an accord with the truth, if only we understand the 'trinity of persons' to mean the trinity of person that exists in the Lord." This contrast between scorn for nicean "tritheism" and acceptance of a truth behind the formulation may serve to suggest the subtlety of the difference between Swedenborg's theology and traditional Christian theology: and the contrast may also serve to introduce two of his key concepts as underlying the others. In regard to the subtlety, Swedenborg was well aware of the limitations of language. If his expositions sometimes seem to proceed at a snail's pace by reason of repetitiveness, this may be ascribed to a sense of need to carry his context with him. It bears witness also to his strong sense of the relatedness of all his concepts, to his love of detail, and to his insistence on looking at everything from all sides. Theology could not be reduced to a tidy system of dry, precisely defined terms. It had to be explored and loved and lived. Two broad key concepts may help define the subtlety. The first is the concept of distinguishable oneness. For example, while the form and the substance of an object can usefully be distinguished from each other, they cannot be separated from each other in actuality. In precisely similar fashion, Swedenborg held that love, wisdom, and action can usefully be distinguished from each other, but cannot be separated from each other in actuality. This principle he extended to all of reality, insisting that nothing exists in isolation, and particularly that the Divine is essentially one in the special sense that it is wholly present everywhere and always, in an infinite number of distinguishable forms. The second underlying key concept that may help define the subtlety is that of the reality of spirit. For Swedenborg, there is nothing vague or amorphous about spirit. It is substantial, crisp, and clear, and potent. Angels are in human form, with marvelously acute senses, experiencing themselves and their environment as solid. By comparison, the physical world is cloudy, ambiguous, and sluggish. With these basic concepts in mind, then--distinguishable oneness and the reality of spirit--we may look at some more specific concepts. SECTIONS:
GOD To help us grasp the nature of that infinite oneness, we may distinguish the primary feature of infinite love, wisdom, and power--love being ineffective without wisdom, wisdom inert without love, and power the wholly natural result of their oneness. God is one in the essential sense that there is no conflict within the Divine: love does not bid one course of action, with wisdom counseling another. This is a qualitative monotheism, not simply a numerical one. Love is intrinsically personal, and God is therefore the essential and only person, the definition of the human person. There is no other source of life, which is in its essence love. We have been created not "out of nothing," but quite literally "out of love," since love is by nature self-giving and self-expressive. We are in that sense differentiated from the Divine but never separated (again "distinguishably one"); we are recipients of being rather than beings. We differ from each other not in the presence of the Divine within us, but in our acceptance of or receptivity to the Divine. OUR HUMANITY The physical world is the arena in which we choose to accept or to reject. Its ambiguity is essential to this purpose, enabling us to convince ourselves that we are self-sustaining in fact, to focus on our distinguishability to the exclusion of our oneness. If we so choose, we voluntarily forfeit the unitive power of love and wisdom and thereby set ourselves against the fundamental nature of reality itself. This rejection manifests itself in isolation and hostility, both internal and external. That is, we develop a delight in conflict with others, and our own loves and thoughts are in conflict with each other. Our satisfaction comes only at the expense of others, which is inherently unworkable. LOVE Swedenborg distinguishes a hierarchy of loves: love of God as the Lord, love of others, love of the world, and love of self. All are necessary, and when they are in this order of priority, all are good. Love of self (or of the world) becomes harmful only when it dominates the higher loves rather than serving them. In practical terms, this means that Swedenborgian theology provides no warrant for asceticism or "renunciation of the world," but rather calls us to care for our own well-being, and values all moments of genuine joy, whether physical or spiritual. This affirmative stance is particularly clear in his treatment of marriage. He sees marriage as offering an opportunity for the most complete uniting of love and wisdom, so that the fully married couple is "distinguishably one" with no hint of domination by either of the other. As the two become more and more one, each becomes more perfectly defined--the husband more a man, the wife more a woman. HUMAN PROCESS A further consequence of this is that our feeling and our thought--our "love" and our "wisdom"--unlike God's, are often in conflict. Sometimes, for example, we can see mentally what is good even when we do not feel it, and we have the freedom to follow that sight rather than the feelings. To the extent that we do so, we gradually become conscious of our latent "other-sensitivity." In one of Swedenborg's images, we open the way for the Lord's presence within us to flow through into our consciousness. This results in increasing "oneness" within us as well as with others. It must be stressed that this process of growth requires an active life in the world. The primary agent of change is constructive activity; and the disciplines of private study, self-examination, or meditation are effective only as they focus on such activity. Again, this is consistent with Swedenborg's emphasis on wholeness: the individual is not fulfilled by neglecting an entire level of being. REVELATION He came to see the Bible not as a compendium of theological propositions or proof-texts, but as a coherent story: The process of growth noted under "Human Process" involves a lifelong task, which proceeds in an orderly fashion from more physical interests to more spiritual ones. The underlying order of that process is reflected in the biblical story under the primary image of the establishment of the kingdom of God. The literal story moves from an initial vague promise through many vicissitudes to the successful founding of an earthly empire. When this proves inadequate, the Incarnation translates the hope into one of a spiritual kingdom, the "kingdom of heaven," which is at last prophetically realized in the descent of the Holy City. In precisely analogous fashion, we can progress from our first vague childhood "dreams of glory" through experience to the establishment of self-identity, can realize the inadequacy of that outward appearance, and can become conscious participants in the vibrant world of spiritual love, wisdom, and activity. CORRESPONDENCE Swedenborg therefore sees the physical world as the result of spiritual causes, a result that reflects those causes, albeit dimly at times. The growth of deeper consciousness brings an understanding of this relationship. Laws of nature are seen as reflections of spiritual laws; physical entities and events are seen as results and therefore images of spiritual ones. The effort toward establishing an earthly kingdom is an appropriate prelude to the establishment of a heavenly one because the underlying principles are the same in each case. The instances are "distinguishable" in level, one being internal to the other, and "one" in principle. IMMORTALITY The choice after death is not necessarily instantaneous. Swedenborg describes a "World of Spirits" between heaven and hell, where the newly deceased gradually lose their ability to dissemble, and resolve any remaining indecisions. The only "judgement" we experience is our own--our free choice to care for each other, which is heaven, or to care only for ourselves, which is hell. MAXIMUS HOMO INCARNATION The virgin birth, in this understanding, is essential for two reasons. First, there must be a physical parent to transmit the fallen nature: for Swedenborg, an immaculate conception, conception by a sinless mother, would have been quite pointless and ineffective. Second, there needed to be within that fallen nature an infinite capacity for the acceptance of the Divine. Without the first, Jesus' life would have been irrelevant to ours; without the second, it would have failed in its purpose. Jesus is then seen as having grown as we do, knowing doubt, selfishness, and all the distortions of humanity we can experience in ourselves. His life is the perfect exemplar of the process of transformation which is our own hope, and which, as already noted, is imaged in the biblical story. He was in a very special sense "the Word made flesh" and the fulfillment of Scripture. The passion on the cross was not a sacrificial appeasement but a final trial, a final self-giving. By refusing to use miraculous means to override our rejection of him, Jesus took the last step into perfect, loving wholeness; and because that wholeness was complete, the resurrection included even his physical body. RADICAL CLAIM A VISION |
