from evils. If a man perceived or felt this constant activity and yet was
not led like one bound, would he not struggle against it continually and
then either quarrel with God or mingle himself in divine providence? If
he did the latter he would also make himself God; if he did the former he
would free himself from constraint and deny God. Manifestly two forces
would constantly be acting then against each other, the force of evil
from man and the force of good from the Lord. When two opposites act
against each other, one of them conquers or they both perish. In this
instance if one conquers they both perish. For the evil, which is man's,
does not let in good from the Lord in a moment, nor does good from the
Lord cast out evil from man in a moment; if either was done in a moment
no life would be left to man. These and many other harmful results would
follow if man manifestly perceived or felt the operation of divine
providence. This will be demonstrated clearly by examples in what
follows.
178. Man is not given a foreknowledge of events for the same reason,
namely, that he may be able to act in freedom according to reason. It is
well known that man wants what he loves effected, and he guides himself
to this end by reasoning. It is also known that what a man meditates in
his reason comes from his love of giving it effect through thought. If,
then, he knew the effect or the eventuality by divine prediction, his
reason would become inactive and with it his love; for love along with
reasoning ends with the effect, to begin anew. It is reason's very
enjoyment to envision with love the effect in thought, not after it is
attained but before it is, not in the present but as future. So man has
what is called hope, which rises and declines in the reason as he beholds
or awaits the event. The enjoyment is fulfilled in the event and then is
forgotten along with thought about the event. The same thing would occur
with an event that was foreknown.
[2] The human mind dwells always in the trine called end, cause and
effect. If one of these is lacking, the mind is not possessed of its
life. An affection of the will is the initiating end; the thought of the
understanding is the efficient cause; and bodily action, utterance or
external sensation is the effect from the end by means of the thought.
Anyone sees that the human mind is not possessed of its life when it is
only in an affection of the will and in naught besides, or when it is
only in an effect. The mind has no life from one of these separately,
therefore, but from the three together. The life of the mind would
diminish and depart if an event were foretold.
179. As a foreknowledge of future events takes away humanness itself,
which is action in freedom in accord with one's reason, no one is given
to know the future; but everyone is allowed to form conclusions by the
reason about the future; the reason is then fully in its own life.
Accordingly man does not know his lot after death or know any event until
he is on it. For if he knew, he would no longer think from his inner self
how he should act or live so as to meet it, but would think only from his
exterior self that he was meeting it. This state closes the interiors of
his mind where the two faculties of his life, liberty and reason,
especially reside. A desire to know the future is born with most persons
but has its origin in a love of evil. It is taken away, therefore, from
those who believe in divine providence; and trust that the Lord disposes
their lot is given them. Therefore they do not desire to know it
beforehand lest they inject themselves in some way into divine
providence. The Lord teaches this in many sayings in Luke (12:14-48).
[2] Much from the world of the spirit can confirm that this is a law of
divine providence. On entering that world after death most persons desire
to know their lot. The answer they receive is that if they have lived
well their lot is in heaven and if wickedly it is in hell. But as all,
including the wicked, fear hell they ask what they should do and believe
to get into heaven. They are answered that they are to do and believe as
they will, but know that one does not do good or believe truth in hell,
only in heaven. "As you can, seek what is good and true, thinking truth
and doing good." Everyone is thus left to act in freedom according to
reason in the spiritual world as he is in the natural world; but as one
has acted in this world he acts in that, for everyone's life remains to
him and so his lot awaits him, for this is his life's lot.
180. (ii) _If man saw divine providence plainly he would inject himself
into the order and tenor of its course and pervert and destroy them._ To
bring this distinctly to the perception of the rational man and also of
the natural man, it will be illustrated by examples in this order:
1. External things are so connected with internal things that they make
one in all that is done.
2. The human being joins the Lord only in some external things and if he
did in internal things also, he would pervert and destroy the whole order
and tenor of the course of divine providence.
As we said, these points will be illustrated by examples.
[2] First: _External things are so connected with internal things that
they make one in all that is done._ Let this be illustrated by examples
from several things in man's body. Everywhere in it are things external
and internal. The external are called skins, membranes and coverings; the
internal are forms variously composed and woven of nerve fibres and blood
vessels. The covering over these enters into them by extensions from
itself even to the inmost, so that the external or the covering unites
with the internals or the organic forms of fibres and vessels. It follows
that the internals act and are acted on as the external acts or is acted
on. For they are all constantly bound up together.
[3] Take such a common covering in the body as the pleura, for example,
which covers the chest cavity and the heart and lungs. Examine it in an
anatomical view, or if you do not know anatomy consult anatomists, and
you will learn that this general covering by various circumvolutions and
finer and finer extensions from itself enters into the inmost parts of
the lungs, even into the smallest bronchial branches and into the sacs
themselves which are the beginnings of the lungs, not to mention its
subsequent progress by the trachea into the larynx and toward the tongue.
From this it is plain that there is a constant connection of the outmost
with inmosts; the interiors from the inmosts on therefore act and are
acted upon as the external acts or is acted on. For this reason when that
outmost covering, the pleura, is congested, inflamed or ulcerated, the
lungs labor from their inmost parts; if the disease grows worse, all
action of the lungs ceases and the man dies.
[4] The same is true everywhere else in the body. For instance it is true
of the peritoneum, the general covering of all the abdominal viscera,
also of the coverings on such organs severally as the stomach, liver,
pancreas, spleen, intestines, mesentery, kidneys, and the organs of
generation in both sexes. Choose any one of these viscera, examine it
yourself or consult those skilled in the science, and you will see or
hear. Take the liver, for example; you will find there is a connection
between the peritoneum and that organ and by its covering with its inmost
parts. For the covering puts out constant extensions from itself and
insertions towards the interiors and thus continues to inmosts and as a
result the whole is bound together. The entire form acts or is acted upon
in such manner as the covering acts or is acted upon. The same is true of
the rest of the organs. For what is general and what is particular or the
universal and the singular in a form act together by a marvelous
connection.
[5] You will see below that what occurs in natural forms and their
processes, which relate to motion and actions, occurs similarly in
spiritual forms and in the changes and variations of their state, which
relate to activities of the will and the understanding. Inasmuch as man
joins the Lord in certain external activities and no one is deprived of
the liberty of acting according to reason, the Lord can act in internals
only as, together with man, He does in externals. If man does not shun
and turn away from evils as sins, therefore, the external and at the same
time the internal of his thought and will are infected and destroyed,
comparatively as the pleura is by the disease in it called pleurisy, of
which the body dies.
[6] Second: _If man were in internals at the same time he would pervert
and destroy the whole order and tenor of divine providence._ Examples
from the human body will illustrate this also. If man knew all the
workings of the two brains into the fibres, of the fibres into the
muscles and of the muscles into actions, and by this knowledge were to
have the disposition of them as he disposes his deeds, would he not
pervert and destroy all?
[7] If man knew how the stomach digests, and how the surrounding organs
take their portion, work the blood and distribute it where needed for
life, and if he had the disposing of these as he has of external
activities, such as eating and drinking, would he not pervert and destroy
all? When he cannot handle the external, seemingly a single thing,
without destroying it by luxury and intemperance, what would he do if he
had the disposal of the internals, infinite in number? Lest man enter
into them by any volition and have control of them, things internal are
therefore taken entirely away from the will except for the muscles, which
are a covering; moreover, how these act is not known, only that they do.
[8] The same can be said of other organs. To give examples: if man had
the disposing of the interiors of the eye for seeing, those of the ear
for hearing, or the tongue for tasting, those of the skin for feeling,
those of the heart for systolic action, of the lungs for breathing, of
the mesentery to distribute the chyle, or of the kidneys for secretion,
the interiors of the organs of generation for propagation, or those of
the womb for perfecting an embryo, and so on, would he not pervert and
destroy the ordered course of the divine providence in them in
innumerable ways? As we know, man is in externals, for example sees with
the eye, hears with the ear, tastes with the tongue, feels with the skin,
breathes with the lungs, impregnates a wife, and so on. Is it not enough
for him to know the externals and dispose them for health of body and
mind? When he cannot do this, what would happen if he disposed internals
also? It may be plain from this that if man saw divine providence
plainly, he would inject himself into the order and tenor of its course
and pervert and destroy them.
181. The like occurs in the spiritual things of the mind to what occurs
in the natural things of the body for the reason that all things of the
mind correspond to all things of the body. For the same reason the mind
actuates the body in externals and generally does so completely. It moves
the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the mouth and tongue to eat and drink,
also to speak, the hands to do, the feet to walk, the generative organs
to propagate. The mind not only moves the externals in these ways but the
internals, too, in their whole series, outmosts from inmosts and inmosts
from outmosts. Thus while moving the mouth to speak, it moves lungs,
larynx, glottis, tongue and lips at the same time, each separately to its
especial function, and the face suitably also.
[2] It is clear then that the same can be said of the spiritual forms of
the mind as was said of the natural forms of the body, and the same can
be said of the spiritual activities of the mind as was said of the
natural activities of the body. Consequently the Lord orders the
internals as a man does the externals, in one way if the man orders the
externals of himself and in another if he orders them under the Lord and
at the same time as of himself. The mind of man is also in its total
organization a man, for it is his spirit which appears after death
altogether as a human being as in the world; hence there are similar
things in mind and body. Thus what has been said about the conjunction of
externals with internals in the body is to be understood of the
conjunction of externals with internals in the mind, with the sole
difference that the latter is spiritual and the former is natural.
182. ( iii) _If man beheld divine providence plainly he would either deny
God or make himself god._ The merely natural man says to himself, "What
is divine providence? Is it anything else or more than an expression
which people get from a priest? Who sees anything of it? Is it not by
prudence, wisdom, cunning and malice that all things are done in the
world? Is not all else necessity or consequence? And does not much happen
by chance? Does divine providence lie concealed in this? How can it do so
in deceptions and schemes? Yet it is said that divine providence effects
all things. Then let me see it and I will believe in it. Can one believe
in it until he sees it?"
[2] So speaks the merely natural man, but the spiritual man speaks
differently. Acknowledging God he also acknowledges divine providence and
sees it, too. He cannot make it manifest, however, to anyone whose
thought is on nature only and from nature, for such a person cannot raise
his mind above nature, see anything of divine providence in its
phenomena, or come to conclusions about providence from nature's laws,
which are also laws of divine wisdom. If, therefore, he beheld divine
providence plainly, he would sink it in nature and thus not only enshroud
it in fallacies but profane it. Instead of acknowledging it he would deny
it, and one who denies divine providence in his heart denies God also.
[3] Either one thinks that God governs all things or that nature does. He
who thinks that God does thinks that they are ruled by love itself and
wisdom itself, thus by life itself; but he who thinks that nature governs
all, thinks that all things are ruled by nature's heat and light,
although these in themselves are dead, coming as they do from a dead sun.
Does not what is itself alive govern what is lifeless? Can what is dead
govern anything? If you think that what is lifeless can give life to
itself, you are mad; life must come from life.
183. It does not seem likely that if a man saw divine providence and its
activity plainly he would deny God; it would seem that he could not but
acknowledge it and thus acknowledge God. Yet the contrary is true. Divine
providence never acts in keeping with the love of man's will, but
constantly against it. For the human being by force of his hereditary
evil is ever panting for the lowest hell, but the Lord in His providence
is constantly leading him away and withdrawing him from it, first to a
milder hell, then away from hell, and finally to Himself in heaven. This
activity of divine providence is perpetual. If, then, man saw or felt
this withdrawing and leading away, he would be angered, consider God his
enemy, and deny Him on account of the evil of his selfhood. In order that
man may not know of it, therefore, he is held in freedom and thereby does
not know but that he leads himself.
[2] But let examples serve for illustration. By heredity man wants to
become great and also rich. In the measure in which these loves are not
checked he wants to become still greater and richer and finally the
greatest and richest; even so he would not rest, but would want to become
greater than God Himself and possess heaven itself. This lust is hidden
deep in hereditary evil and consequently in man's life and in the nature
of his life. Divine providence does not remove this evil in a moment; if
it were removed in a moment man would cease to live; but divine
providence removes it quietly and gradually without man's knowing of it.
It does this by letting man act according to the thinking which he deems
rational; then by various means, rational and also civil and moral, it
leads him away and withdraws him so far as he can be withdrawn in
freedom. Nor can evil be removed from anyone unless it comes out and is
seen and acknowledged; it is like a wound which heals only when opened.
[3] If, therefore, man knew and saw that the Lord in His divine
providence works in this way against his life's love, the source of his
highest enjoyment, he could not but go in the opposite direction, be
enraged, rebel, say harsh things, and finally, on account of his evil,
brush aside the activity of divine providence, denying it and so denying
God. He would do this especially if he saw success thwarted or saw
himself lowered in standing or deprived of wealth.
[4] But it is to be known that the Lord in no wise leads man away from
seeking position and acquiring wealth, but leads him away from the lust
of seeking position solely for the sake of eminence or for his own sake,
and also from acquiring wealth for its own sake or just to have it.
Leading the man away, He introduces him into the love of uses so that he
may regard eminence not for his own sake but for the sake of uses, thus
as attached to uses and only so to himself, and not as attached to him
and then to the uses; the same applies to wealth. At many places in the
Word the Lord Himself teaches that He continually humbles the proud and
exalts the humble; what He teaches in it is also of His divine
providence.
184. Any other evil in which man is by heredity is dealt with in like
manner, such as adultery, fraud, vengeance, blasphemy and other similar
evils, none of which can be removed except as freedom to think and will
them is left to man for him to remove them as if of himself. Nevertheless
he can do this only as he acknowledges divine providence and prays that it
may be done by it. Apart from this freedom and from divine providence at
the same time, the evils would be like poison shut in and not driven out,
which would spread quickly and consign all parts to death, or would be
like disease of the heart itself, from which the whole body soon dies.
185. The truth of what has been said cannot be better known than from
human lives after death in the spiritual world. Very many who had become
great or wealthy in the natural world and in their eminence or riches had
regarded themselves alone, at first speak of God and divine providence as
though they had acknowledged them at heart, but seeing divine providence
clearly then and their final lot under it, namely, for them to enter
hell, they unite with devils there and not only deny God then but also
blaspheme Him. Finally they reach such madness that they acknowledge the
more powerful among devils as their gods and desire nothing more ardently
than to become gods themselves.
186. Man would go contrary to God and also deny Him if he saw the
activities of God's divine providence plainly, for the reason that man is
in the enjoyment of self-love and this enjoyment constitutes his very
life. Therefore when man is held in the enjoyment of his life he is in
his freedom, for freedom and the enjoyment make one. If, then, he should
perceive that he is continually being led away from his enjoyment, he
would be enraged as against one who wanted to destroy his life and would
hold him to be an enemy. Lest it happen, the Lord in His divine
providence does not appear manifestly, but leads man by it as silently as
a hidden stream or favorable current does a vessel. Consequently man does
not know but that he is steadily in his own, for his freedom and his
proprium make one. Hence it is plain that freedom appropriates to him
what divine providence introduces, which would not take place if
providence were manifest. To be appropriated means to become of one's
life.
187. (iv) _Man can see divine providence on the back and not in the face;
also in a spiritual state but not in a natural._ To see divine providence
on the back but not in the face means after it acts and not before. To
see it in a spiritual state and not in a natural is to see it from heaven
and not from the world. All who receive influx from heaven and
acknowledge divine providence, especially those who have become spiritual
through reformation, on beholding events taking a wonderful course see
providence as it were from an interior acknowledgment and confess it.
These do not wish to see it in the face, that is, before it eventuates,
fearing that their volition may intrude on something of its order and
tenor.
[2] It is otherwise with those who do not admit any influx from heaven
but only from the world, especially with those who have become natural by
confirming appearances in themselves. They do not see anything of divine
providence on the back, that is, after it eventuates, but wish to behold
it in the face or before it eventuates; and as divine providence works by
means, and these are provided through man or the world, they attribute
providence, whether they look it in the face or on the back, to man or to
nature, and so confirm themselves in the denial of it. They make this
ascription of it because their understanding is closed above, that is, to
heaven, and open only below, that is, to the world; one cannot see divine
providence in a worldly outlook, only in a heavenly. I have wondered
sometimes whether they would acknowledge divine providence if their
understanding was opened above and they were to see as in the light of
day that nature in itself is dead, and human intelligence in itself
nothing, and that it is by influx that either appears to have being. I
perceived that those who have confirmed themselves in favor of nature and
of human prudence would not make the acknowledgment because the natural
light flowing in from below would immediately extinguish the spiritual
light flowing in from above.
189.* The man who has become spiritual by acknowledgment of God, and wise
by rejection of the proprium, sees divine providence in the world as a
whole and in each and all things in it. Looking at natural things, he
sees it; at civil things, he sees it; at spiritual things, he sees it;
and in things simultaneous as well as successive. He sees it in ends,
causes, effects, uses, forms, things great and small. Above all he sees
it in the salvation of men, as that Jehovah gave the Word, taught men by
it about God and about heaven and hell and eternal life, and Himself came
into the world to redeem men and save them. Man sees these and many other
things and divine providence in them from spiritual light in natural
light.
* The Latin original has no number 188.
[2] The merely natural man, however, sees none of these things. He is
like a man who sees a magnificent temple and hears a preacher enlightened
in divine things, but once home asserts that he saw only a stone building
and heard nothing but sounds made. Again, he is like a near-sighted man
who steps into a garden remarkable for fruits of every sort and who
reports on getting home that he saw only woods and trees. Moreover, when
such persons, having become spirits after death, are taken up into the
angelic heaven where all objects are in forms representative of love and
wisdom, they see none of them, not even that they exist. I have seen this
happen with a number who denied the Lord's divine providence.
190. Many constant things exist, created that inconstant things may
exist. Such constants are the ordained changes in the rising and setting
of sun, moon and stars; their obscurations by interpositions called
eclipses; the heat and light from them; the seasons of the year, called
spring, summer, autumn and winter; the times of the day, morning, noon,
evening and night; also atmospheres, waters and lands, viewed in
themselves; the vegetative force in the plant kingdom, that and the
reproductive in the animal kingdom; likewise what is constantly produced
when these forces are set in action in accord with the laws of order.
These and many more things existing from the creation are provided so
that infinitely varying things may exist, for what varies can exist only
in what is constant, fixed and certain.
[2] Examples will illustrate this. The varieties of vegetation would not
be possible unless sunrise and sunset and the resulting heat and light
were constant. Harmonies are infinitely varied, and would not exist
unless the atmospheres were constant in their laws and the ear in its
form. Varieties of vision, which are also infinite, would not exist
unless the ether in its laws and the eye in its organization were
constant; equally so, colors, unless light was constant. The same is true
of thoughts, words and actions, which are of infinite variety too; they
could not exist, either, unless the organic forms of the body were
constant. Must not a house be steady for a variety of things to be done
in it by a person? So must a temple be for the various acts of worship,
preaching, instruction and devout meditation to be possible in it. So in
much else.