also provides something reciprocal with man. This consists in the fact
that the good a man wills and does in freedom and the truth he thinks and
speaks from the will according to reason seem to be from himself, and
that the good in his will and the truth in his understanding seem to be
his--indeed they seem to the man to be from himself and to be as
completely his as though they really were; there is no difference; does
anyone perceive otherwise by any sense? See above (nn. 74-77) on the
appearance as of self, and (nn. 78-81) on appropriation as of oneself.
The only difference is the acknowledgment which a man ought to make, that
he does good and thinks truth not of himself but from the Lord, and hence
that the good he does and the truth he thinks are not his. So to think
from some love of the will because it is the truth makes conjunction; for
then a man looks to the Lord and the Lord looks on the man.
93. I have been granted both to hear and see in the spiritual world what
the difference is between those who believe that all good is from the
Lord and those who believe that good is from themselves. Those who
believe that good is from the Lord turn their faces to Him and receive
the enjoyment and blessedness of good. Those who think that good is from
themselves look to themselves and think they have merit. Looking to
themselves, they perceive only the enjoyment of their own good which is
the enjoyment not of good but of evil, for man's own is evil, and
enjoyment of evil perceived as good is hell. Those who have done good but
believed it was of themselves, and who after death do not receive the
truth that all good is from the Lord, mingle with infernal spirits and
finally join them. Those who receive that truth, however, are reformed,
though no others receive it than those who have looked to God in their
life. To look to God in one's life is nothing else than to shun evils as
sins.
94. The Lord's conjunction with man and man's reciprocal conjunction with
the Lord is effected by loving the neighbor as one's self and the Lord
above all. To love the neighbor as one's self consists simply in not
acting insincerely or unjustly with him, not hating him or avenging one's
self on him, not cursing and defaming him, not committing adultery with
his wife, and not doing other like things to him. Who cannot see that
those who do such things do not love the neighbor as themselves? Those,
however, who do not do such things because they are evils to the neighbor
and at the same time sins against the Lord, deal sincerely, justly,
amicably and faithfully by the neighbor; as the Lord does likewise,
reciprocal conjunction takes place. And when conjunction is reciprocal,
whatever a man does to the neighbor he does from the Lord, and what he
does from the Lord is good. The neighbor to him then is not the person,
but the good in the person. To love the Lord above all is to do no evil
to the Word, for the Lord is in the Word, or to the holy things of the
church, for He is in these, too, and to do no evil to the soul of
another, for everyone's soul is in the Lord's hand. Those who shun these
evils as monstrous sins against the Lord love Him above all else. None
can do this except those who love the neighbor as themselves, for the two
loves are conjoined.
95. In view of the fact that there is a conjunction of the Lord with man
and of man with the Lord, there are two tables of the Law, one for the
Lord and the other for man. So far as man as of himself keeps the laws of
his table, the Lord enables him to observe the laws of the Lord's table.
A man, however, who does not keep the laws of his table, which are all
referable to love for the neighbor, cannot do the laws of the Lord's
table, which are all referable to love for the Lord. How can a murderer,
thief, adulterer, or false witness love God? Does reason not insist that
to be any of these and to love God is a contradiction? Is not the devil
such? Must he not hate God? But a man can love God when he abhors murder,
adultery, theft and false witness, for then he turns his face away from
the devil to the Lord; turning his face to the Lord he is given love and
wisdom--these enter him by the face, and not by the back of the neck. As
conjunction is accomplished only so, the two tables are called a
covenant, and a covenant exists between two.
96. (vii) _In all the procedure of His divine providence the Lord
safeguards the two faculties in man unimpaired and as sacred._ The
reasons are that without those two faculties man would not have
understanding and will and thus would not be human; likewise that without
them he could not be conjoined to the Lord and so be reformed and
regenerated; and because without them he would not have immortality and
eternal life. The truth of this can be seen from what has been said about
the two faculties, liberty and rationality, but not clearly seen unless
the reasons just given are brought forward as conclusions. They are,
therefore to be clarified.
[2] _Without those two faculties man would not have understanding and
will and thus would not be human._ Man has will only in that he can will
freely as of himself, and to will freely as of oneself is from the
faculty called liberty, steadily imparted by the Lord. Man has
understanding only in that he can understand as of himself whether a
thing is of reason or not, and so to understand is from the other
faculty, called rationality, steadily imparted to him by the Lord. These
faculties unite in man as will and understanding do, for because a man
can will, he can also understand; willing is impossible without
understanding; understanding is its partner and mate apart from which it
cannot exist. With the faculty called liberty there is therefore given
the faculty called rationality. If, too, you take willing away from
understanding, you understand nothing.
[3] In the measure that you will, you can understand provided the helps,
called knowledges, are present or available, for these are like tools to
a workman. We say, in the measure you will you can understand, meaning,
so far as you love to understand, for will and love act as one. This
seems like a paradox, but it appears so to those who do not love or hence
will to understand. They say they cannot understand, but in the following
section we shall tell who cannot understand, and who can hardly
understand.
[4] It is plain without confirmation that unless man had will from the
faculty called liberty, and understanding from the faculty called
rationality, he would not be human. Beasts do not have these faculties.
Beasts seem to be able to will and to understand, but cannot do so. They
are led and moved to do what they do solely by a natural affection, in
itself desire, which has knowledge for its mate. Something civil and
moral there is in their knowledge, but it does not transcend the
knowledge, for they have nothing spiritual enabling them to perceive or
to think analytically of what is moral. They can indeed be taught to do
something, but this is natural only, is assimilated to their knowledge
and at the same time to their affection, and reproduced through sight or
hearing, but never becomes with them anything of thought, still less of
reason. On this see some things above, n. 74.
[5] _Without those two faculties man could not be con-joined to the Lord
or reformed and regenerated._ This has been shown above. The Lord resides
with men, whether evil or good, in these two faculties and conjoins
Himself by them to every man. Hence an evil man as well as a good man can
understand and has the will of good and the understanding of truth
potentially--that he does not possess them actually is owing to abuse of
those faculties. The Lord resides in those faculties in everyone by the
influx of His will, namely, to be received by man and to have an abode
with him, and to give him the felicities of eternal life; all this is of
the Lord's will, being of His divine love. It is this will of the Lord
which causes what a man thinks, speaks, wills and does, to seem to be his
own.
[6] That the influx of the Lord's will effects this can be confirmed by
much in the spiritual world. Sometimes the Lord fills an angel with His
divine so that the angel does not know but that he is the Lord. Thus
inspired were the angels who appeared to Abraham, Hagar, and Gideon, and
who therefore spoke of themselves as Jehovah; of whom the Word tells. So
also one spirit may be filled by another so that he does not know but
that he is the other; I have seen this often. In heaven it is general
knowledge that the Lord operates all things by willing, and that what He
wills takes place.
From all this it is plain that it is by those two faculties that the Lord
conjoins Himself to man and causes the man to be reciprocally conjoined.
We told above and shall say more below about how man is reciprocally
conjoined by the two faculties and how, consequently, he is reformed and
regenerated by means of them.
[7] _Without those two faculties man would not have immortality or
eternal life._ This follows from what has been said: that by the two
faculties there is conjunction with the Lord and also reformation and
regeneration. By conjunction man has immortality, and through reformation
and regeneration he has eternal life. As every man, evil as well as good,
is conjoined to the Lord by the two faculties every man has immortality.
Eternal life, or the life of heaven, however, only that man has with whom
there is reciprocal conjunction from inmosts to outmosts.
The reasons may now be clear why the Lord, in all the procedure of His
divine providence, safeguards the two faculties in man unimpaired and as
sacred.
97. ( viii) _It is therefore [a law] of divine providence that man shall
act in freedom from reason._ To act in freedom according to reason, to
act from liberty and rationality, and to act from will and understanding,
are the same. But it is one thing to act in freedom according to reason,
or from liberty and rationality, and another thing to act from freedom
itself according to reason itself or from liberty and rationality
themselves. The man who does evil from love of evil and confirms it in
himself acts indeed from freedom according to reason, but his freedom is
not in itself freedom or very freedom, but an infernal freedom which in
itself is bondage, and his reason is not in itself reason, but is either
spurious or false or plausible through confirmations. Still, either is of
divine providence. For if freedom to will evil and do it as of the reason
through confirmation of it were taken from the natural man, liberty and
rationality and at the same time will and understanding would perish, and
he could not be withdrawn any longer from evils, be reformed or united
with the Lord, and live to eternity. The Lord therefore guards man's
freedom as a man does the apple of his eye. Through that freedom the Lord
steadily withdraws man from evils and so far as He can do this implants
goods, thus gradually putting heavenly freedom in place of infernal
freedom.
98. We said above that every man has the faculty of volition called
liberty and the faculty of understanding called rationality. Those
faculties, moreover, it should be known, are as it were inherent in man,
for humanness itself is in them. But as was just said, it is one thing to
act from freedom in accord with reason, and another thing to act from
freedom itself and according to reason itself. Only those do the latter
who have suffered themselves to be regenerated by the Lord; others act in
freedom according to thought which they make seem like reason. Unless he
was born foolish or supremely stupid, every person can attain to reason
itself and by it to liberty itself. Many reasons why all do not do so
will be disclosed in what follows. Here we shall only tell to whom
freedom itself or liberty itself, and at the same time reason itself or
rationality itself cannot be given and to whom they can hardly be given.
[2] True liberty and rationality cannot be given to those foolish from
birth or to those who become foolish later, while they remain so. Nor can
they be given to those born stupid and dull or to any made so by the
torpor of idleness, or by a disease which perverts or entirely closes the
interiors of the mind, or by love of a bestial life.
[3] Genuine liberty and rationality cannot be given to those in
Christendom who utterly deny the Divine of the Lord and the holiness of
the Word, and have kept that denial confirmed to life's close. For this
is meant by the sin against the Holy Spirit which is not forgiven in this
world or in the world to come (Mt 12:31, 32).
[4] Liberty itself and rationality itself cannot be given to those who
ascribe all things to nature and nothing to the Divine, and have made
this a conviction by reasonings from visible things; for these are
atheists.
[5] True liberty and rationality can hardly be given to those who have
confirmed themselves much in falsities of religion; for a confirmer of
falsity is a denier of truth. But they can be given to those, in whatever
religion, who have not so confirmed themselves. On this see what is
adduced in _Doctrine for the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture,_
nn. 91-97.
[6] Infants and children cannot attain to essential liberty and
rationality before they grow up. For the interiors of the mind of man are
opened gradually, and meanwhile are like seeds in unripe fruit, without
ground in which to sprout.
99. We have said that true liberty and rationality cannot be given to
those who have denied the Divine of the Lord and the holiness of the
Word; to those who have confirmed themselves in favor of nature and
against the Divine; and hardly to those who have strongly confirmed
themselves in falsities of religion; still none of these have destroyed
the faculties themselves. I have heard atheists, who had become devils
and satans, understand arcana of wisdom quite as well as angels, but only
while they heard them from others; on returning into their own thought,
they did not understand them, for the reason that they did not will to do
so. They were shown that they could also will this, did not the love and
enjoyment of evil turn them away. This they understood, too, when they
heard it. Indeed they asserted that they could but did not will to be
able to do so, for then they could not will what they did will, namely,
evil from enjoyment in the lust of it. I have often heard such
astonishing things in the spiritual world. I am fully persuaded therefore
that every man has liberty and rationality, and that every man can attain
true liberty and rationality if he shuns evils as sins. But the adult who
has not come into true liberty and rationality in the world can never do
so after death, for the state of his life remains to eternity what it was
in the world.
VI. IT IS A LAW OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE THAT MAN SHALL REMOVE EVILS AS SINS
IN THE EXTERNAL MAN OF HIMSELF, AND ONLY SO CAN THE LORD REMOVE THE EVILS
IN THE INTERNAL MAN AND AT THE SAME TIME IN THE EXTERNAL
100. Anyone can see from reason alone that the Lord who is good itself
and truth itself cannot enter man unless the evils and falsities in him
are removed. For evil is opposed to good, and falsity to truth, and two
opposites cannot mingle, but as one approaches the other, combat arises
which lasts until one gives way to the other; what gives way departs and
the other takes its place. Heaven and hell, or the Lord and the devil,
are in such opposition. Can anyone reasonably think that the Lord can
enter where the devil reigns, or heaven be where hell is? By the
rationality with which every sane person is endowed, who cannot see that
for the Lord to enter, the devil must be cast out, or for heaven to
enter, hell must be removed?
[2] This opposition is meant by Abraham's words from heaven to the rich
man in hell:
Between us and you a great gulf is fixed, so that those who would cross
from us to you cannot, nor those over there cross to us (Lu 16:26).
Evil is itself hell, and good is itself heaven, or what is the same, evil
is itself the devil, and good itself the Lord. A person in whom evil
reigns is a hell in least form, and one in whom good reigns is a heaven
in least form. How, then, can heaven enter hell when a gulf is fixed
between them so great that there is no crossing from one to the other? It
follows that hell must by all means be removed for the Lord to enter with
heaven.
101. But many, especially those who have confirmed themselves in faith
severed from charity, do not know that they are in hell when they are in
evils. In fact, they do not know what evils are, giving them no thought.
They say that they are not under the yoke of the law and so the law does
not condemn them; likewise, that as they cannot contribute to their
salvation, they cannot remove any evil of themselves and furthermore
cannot do any good of themselves. It is these who neglect to give some
thought to evil and therefore keep on in evil. They are meant by the Lord
under "goats" in Matthew 25:32, 33; 41-46, as may be seen in _Doctrine of
the New Jerusalem on Faith,_ nn. 61-68; to them it is said in verse 41,
"Depart from Me, you accursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the
devil and his angels."
[2] Persons who give no thought to the evils in them, and who do not
examine themselves and then desist from the evils, cannot but be ignorant
what evil is, and cannot but love it then from delighting in it. For one
who is ignorant of it loves it, and one who fails to give it thought,
goes on in it, blind to it. Thought sees good and evil as the eye sees
beauty and ugliness. One who thinks and wills evil is in evil, and so is
a person who thinks that it does not come to God's sight, or if it does
is forgiven by Him; he supposes then that he is without evil. If such
persons refrain from doing evil, they do so not because it is a sin
against God, but for fear of the law and for their reputation's sake. In
spirit they still do evil, for it is man's spirit that thinks and wills.
As a result, what a man thinks in his spirit in the world, he commits
when he becomes a spirit on his departure from the world.
[3] In the spiritual world, into which everyone comes after death, the
question is not asked what your belief has been or your doctrine, but
what your life has been. Was it such or such? For, as is known, such as
one's life is, such is one's belief, yes, one's doctrine. For life
fashions a doctrine and a belief for itself.
102. From all this it is plain that it is a law of divine providence that
evils be removed by man, for without the removal of them the Lord cannot
be conjoined to man and from Himself lead man to heaven. But it is not
known that man ought to remove evils in the external man as of himself
and that unless he does so the Lord cannot remove the evils in his
internal man. This is to be presented, therefore, to the reason in light
of its own in this order:
i. Every man has an external and an internal of thought.
ii. His external of thought is in itself such as his internal is.
iii. The internal cannot be purified from the lusts of evil as long as
the evils in the external man have not been removed, for these impede.
iv. Only with the man's participation can evils in the external man be
removed by the Lord.
v. Therefore a man ought to remove evils from the external man as of
himself.
vi. The Lord then purifies him from the lusts of evil in the internal man
and from the evils themselves in the external.
vii. The continuous effort of the Lord in His divine providence is to
unite man to Himself and Himself to man, in order to be able to bestow
the felicities of eternal life on him, which can be done only so far as
evils, along with their lusts, are removed.
103. (i) _Every man has an external and an internal of thought._ By
external and internal of thought the same is meant here as by external
and internal man, and by this nothing else is meant than external and
internal of will and understanding, for will and understanding constitute
man, and as they both manifest themselves in thoughts, we speak of
external and internal of thought. And as it is man's spirit and not his
body which wills and understands and consequently thinks, external and
internal are external and internal of his spirit. The body's activity in
speech or deed is only an effect from the external and internal of man's
spirit, for the body is so much obedience.
104. As he grows older, every person has an external and an internal of
thought, or an external and an internal of will and understanding or of
his spirit, identical with external and internal man. This is evident to
anyone who observes another's thoughts and intentions as they are
revealed in speech or deed, or who observes his own when he is in company
and when he is by himself. For from the external thought one can talk
amicably with another and yet in internal thought be hostile. From
external thought and from its affection, too, a man can talk about love
for the neighbor and for God when in his internal thought he cares
nothing for the neighbor and does not fear God. From external thought
together with its affection he can talk about the justice of civil laws,
the virtues of the moral life, and matters of doctrine and the spiritual
life, and yet in private and from his internal thought and its affection
speak against the civil laws, the moral virtues, and matters of doctrine
and spiritual life. So those do who are in lusts of evil but want to
appear to the world not to be in them.
[2] Many also, as they listen to others, think to themselves, "Do those
speaking think inwardly in themselves as they think in utterance? Are
they to be believed or not? What do they intend?" Flatterers and
hypocrites notoriously possess a twofold thought. They can be
self-restrained and guard against the interior thought's being disclosed,
and some can hide it more and more deeply and bar the door against its
appearing. That a man possesses external and internal thought is also
plain in that from his interior thought he can behold the exterior
thought, can reflect on it, too, and judge whether or not it is evil. The
human mind is such because of the two faculties, called liberty and
rationality, which one has from the Lord. Unless he possessed internal
and external of thought from these faculties, a man could not perceive
and see an evil in himself and be reformed. In fact, he could not speak
but only make sounds like a beast.
105. The internal of thought comes out of the life's love, its affections
and the perceptions from them. The external of thought is from what is in
the memory, serving the life's love for confirmation and as means to its
end. From childhood to early manhood a person is in the external of
thought from an affection for knowledge, which is then his internal; from
the life's love born in one from parents something of lust and hence of
disposition issues, too. Later, however, his life's love is as he lives,
and its affections and the perceptions from them make the internal of his
thought. From his life's love comes a love of means; the enjoyments of
these means and the information drawn thereby from the memory make his
external of thought.
106. (ii) _Man's external of thought is in itself such as his internal
is._ We showed earlier that from head to foot a man is what his life's
love is. Something must be said about his life's love, for until this is
done nothing can be said about the affections which together with
perceptions make the internal of man, or about the enjoyments of the
affections together with thoughts which make his external. Loves are
many, but two--heavenly love and infernal love--are like lords or kings.
Heavenly love is love to the Lord and the neighbor; infernal love is love
of self and the world. These are opposite to each other as heaven and
hell are. For a man in love of self and the world wishes well only to
himself; a man in love to the Lord and the neighbor wishes well to all.
These two are the loves of man's life, though with much variety. Heavenly
love is the life's love of those whom the Lord leads, and infernal love
the life's love of those whom the devil leads.
[2] No one's life's love can be without derivatives, called affections.
The derivatives of infernal love are affections of evil and falsity
--lusts, properly speaking; and those of heavenly love are affections of
good and truth--loves, strictly. Affections, or strictly lusts, of
infernal love are as numerous as evils are, and affections, or properly
loves, of heavenly love are as many as there are goods. Love dwells in
its affections like a lord in his domain and a king in his realm; its
domain or realm is over the things of the mind, that is, of the will and
understanding and thence of the body. By its affections and the
perceptions from them and by its enjoyments and the thoughts therefrom,
the life's love of man rules him completely, the internal of the mind by
the affections and perceptions from them, and the external by the
enjoyments of the affections and of the thoughts from them.