go on to infinity and have no end; no one thing in the whole universe or
in any part of it is ever precisely the same as another, nor can be in
the progress of things to eternity. Who disposes these varieties which
proceed to infinity and eternity so that they have order unless it is He
who created what is constant to the end that they may exist in it? And
who can dispose the infinite varieties of life among men but He who is
life itself, that is, love itself and wisdom itself? Except by His divine
providence, which is like a continual creation, can the infinite
affections of men and their thoughts thence and thus the men themselves
be disposed so as to make one? Evil affections and the thoughts from them
to make one devil which is hell, and good affections and the thoughts
from them one Lord in heaven? We have said and shown several times before
that the whole angelic heaven is like one man in the Lord's sight, an
image and likeness of Him, and all hell over against it like one
monstrous man. This has been said because some natural men seize on
arguments for their madness in favor of nature and of one's own prudence
from even the constant and fixed which must exist for the variable to
exist in it.
X. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ONE'S OWN PRUDENCE; THERE ONLY APPEARS TO BE
AND IT SHOULD SO APPEAR; BUT DIVINE PROVIDENCE IS UNIVERSAL BY BEING IN
THE LEAST THINGS
191. That there is no such thing as one's own prudence is contrary to
appearances and therefore to the belief of many. Because it is, one who
believes, on the strength of the appearance, that human prudence does all
things, cannot be convinced except by reasons to be had from a more
profound investigation and to be gathered from causes. The appearance is
an effect, and causes disclose how it arises. By way of introduction
something will be said about the common faith on the subject. Contrary to
the appearance the church teaches that love and faith are not from man
but from God, so also wisdom and intelligence, therefore prudence also,
and in general all good and truth. When this teaching is accepted, one
must also agree that there is no such thing as one's own prudence, but
there only appears to be. Prudence comes only from intelligence and
wisdom and both of these only from the understanding and its grasp of
truth and good. All this is accepted and believed by those who
acknowledge divine providence, but not by those who only acknowledge
human prudence.
[2] Now, either what the church teaches is true, that all wisdom and
prudence are from God, or what the world teaches, that they are from man.
Can these views be reconciled in any other way than this, that what the
church teaches is the truth, and what the world teaches is the
appearance? For the church establishes its teaching from the Word, but
the world its teaching from the proprium; and the Word is God's, and the
proprium is man's. Because prudence is from God and not from man a
Christian in his devotions, prays God to lead his thoughts, purposes and
actions, and also adds that by himself he cannot. Again, seeing someone
doing good, he says the person has been led to it by God; and so about
much else. Can anyone speak so unless he inwardly believes it? To believe
it inwardly comes from heaven. But when a man deliberates and gathers
arguments in favor of human prudence he can believe the contrary, and
this is from the world. The internal faith prevails with those who
acknowledge God in their hearts; the external faith with those who do not
acknowledge Him at heart, however much they may with the lips.
192. We said that a person who believes, on the strength of the
appearance, that human prudence does all things, can be convinced only by
reasons to be had from a more profound investigation and gathered from
causes. In order, then, that the reasons gathered from causes may be
plain to the understanding, let them be put forward in due order as
follows:
i. All man's thoughts are from affections of his life's love; there are
and can he no thoughts apart from them.
ii. The affections of the life's love are known to the Lord alone.
iii. Through His divine providence the Lord leads the affections of the
life's love of man and at the same time the thoughts, too, from which
human prudence comes.
iv. By His divine providence the Lord assembles the affections of all
mankind into one form--the human form.
v. Heaven and hell, which are from mankind, are therefore in such a form.
vi. Those who have acknowledged nature alone and human prudence alone
make up hell, and those who have acknowledged God and His divine
providence make up heaven.
vii. All this can be effected only as it appears to man that he thinks
from himself and disposes by himself.
193. ( i ) _All man's thoughts are from affections of his life's love;
there are and can be no thoughts apart from them._ It has been shown
above in this treatise and also in the one entitled _Angelic Wisdom about
Divine Love and Wisdom,_ Parts I and V particularly, what the life's love
and the affections and the thoughts from them are essentially, and what
the sensations and actions arising from them in the body are. Inasmuch as
these are the causes from which human prudence issues as an effect,
something needs to be said about them here also. For what has been
written earlier elsewhere cannot be as closely connected with what is
written later as it will be if the same things are recalled and placed
with both in view.
[2] Earlier in this treatise, and in that just mentioned about _Divine
Love and Wisdom,_ it was shown that in the Lord are divine love and
wisdom; that these two are life itself; that from the two man has will
and understanding, will from the divine love and understanding from the
divine wisdom; that heart and lungs in the body correspond to these two;
that this may make plain that as the pulsation of the heart along with
the respiration of the lungs rules the whole man as to the body, so the
will together with the understanding rules him as to his mind; that thus
there are two principles of life in everyone, one natural and the other
spiritual, and that the natural principle of life is the heartbeat, and
the spiritual is the will of the mind; that each adjoins a consort to
itself with which it cohabits and performs the functions of life; and
that the heart joins the lungs to itself, and the will the understanding
to itself.
[3] Now, as the soul of the will is love, and the soul of the
understanding is wisdom, both of them from the Lord, love is the life of
everyone and is such life as it has in union with wisdom; or what is the
same, the will is the life of everyone and is such life as it has in
conjunction with the understanding. More on the subject may be seen above
in this treatise and especially in _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and
Wisdom,_ Parts I and V.
194. It was also demonstrated in the treatises mentioned that the life's
love produces subordinate loves from itself, called affections; that
these are exterior and interior; and that taken together they make one
dominion or kingdom as it were, in which the life's love is lord or king.
It was also shown that these subordinate loves or affections adjoin
consorts to themselves, each its own, the interior affections consorts
called perceptions, and the exterior consorts called knowledges, and each
cohabits with its consort and performs the functions of its life. In each
instance, it was shown, the union is like that of life's very being with
life's coming forth, which is such that the one is nothing without the
other; for what is life's being unless it is active and what is life's
activity if it is not from life's very being? The conjunction in life, it
was likewise shown, is like that of sound and harmony, of sound and
utterance, too, in general like that of the heart's pulsation and the
respiration of the lungs, a union, again, such that one without the other
is nothing and each becomes something in union with the other. Union must
either be in them or come about by them.
[2] Consider, for example, sound. One who thinks that sound is something
if there is nothing distinctive in it is much mistaken. It also
corresponds to affection in man, and as something distinctive is always
in it the affection of a person's love is known from the sound of his
voice in speaking, and his thought is known from the varied sounds which
speech is. Hence the wiser angels perceive just from the sound of his
voice a man's life's love together with some of the affections which are
its derivatives. This has been remarked that it may be known that no
affection is possible without its thought, and no thought without its
affection. More on the subject can be seen above in this treatise and in
_Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom._
195. Inasmuch as the life's love has its enjoyment, and its wisdom its
pleasure, and likewise every affection, which is essentially a lesser
love derived from the life's love like a stream from its source or a
branch from a tree or an artery from the heart, therefore every affection
has its enjoyment and the perception or thought from it its pleasure.
Consequently these enjoyments and pleasures make man's life. What is life
without joy and pleasure? It is not animated at all, but inanimate.
Reduce enjoyment and pleasure and you grow cold and torpid; take them
away and you expire and die. Vital heat comes from the enjoyments of the
affections and the pleasures of the perceptions and thoughts.
[2] As every affection has its enjoyment and the thought thence its
pleasure, it may be plain whence good and truth are and what they are
essentially. Whatever is the enjoyment of one's affection is one's good,
and one's truth is what is pleasant to the thought from that affection.
For everyone calls that good which he feels in the love of his will to be
enjoyable, and calls that truth which he then perceives in the wisdom of
his understanding to be pleasant. The enjoyable and the pleasant both
flow out from the life's love as water does from a spring or blood from
the heart; together they are like an element or the atmosphere in which
man's whole mind is.
[3] The two, enjoyment and pleasure, are spiritual in the mind and
natural in the body, and in each make man's life. From this it is plain
what it is in man that is called good, and what it is that is called
truth; likewise what it is in man that is called evil and false; whatever
destroys the enjoyment of his affection is evil to him, and what destroys
the pleasure of his thought thence is false to him. It is plain,
moreover, that evil on account of the enjoyment in it and falsity on
account of the pleasure in it may be called good and truth and believed
to be good and truth. Goods and truths are indeed changes and variations
of state in the forms of the mind, but they are perceived and have life
only through the enjoyments and pleasures they have to give. This is
noted to make known what affection and thought are in their life.
196. Inasmuch as it is not the body but man's mind that thinks and that
does so from the enjoyment of one's affection, and inasmuch as man's mind
is his spirit which lives after death, man's spirit is nothing else than
affection and thought therefrom. It is altogether plain from spirits and
angels in the spiritual world that thought cannot exist apart from
affection, for they all think from the affections of their life's love;
the enjoyments of these affections attend each as his atmosphere, and all
are united by these spheres exhaled from the affections by their
thoughts. The character of each one is known also by the sphere of his
life. It may be seen from this that all thought is from an affection and
is the form of that affection. The same applies to the relationship
between will and understanding, good and truth, and charity and faith.
197. (ii) _The affections of the life's love of man are known to the Lord
alone._ Man knows his thoughts and his intentions in them because he sees
them in himself, and as all prudence is from them, he sees this, too,
within him. Then if his life's love is self-love, he comes to take pride
in his own intelligence, ascribes prudence to himself, gathers arguments
in support of it, and thus recedes from acknowledging divine providence.
Much the same happens if love of the world is his life's love, but he
does not then recede to the same extent. It is plain from this that these
two loves ascribe all things to man and to his prudence and when
interiorly examined ascribe nothing to God and to His providence. When
persons who do this happen to hear that the reality is that there is no
such thing as human prudence, but that divine providence alone governs
all things, they laugh at this if they are outright atheists; if they
hold something of religion in remembrance and are told that all wisdom is
from God, they assent on first hearing it, but inwardly in their spirit
deny it. Such especially are priests who love themselves more than God,
and the world more than heaven, or what is the same, worship God for
position's or riches' sake, and yet have been preaching that charity and
faith, all good and truth, all wisdom, too, and in fact prudence are from
God and none of them from man.
[2] In the spiritual world I once heard two priests debating with a
certain royal ambassador about human prudence whether it is from God or
from man, and the debate was heated. The three believed alike at heart,
namely, that human prudence does all and divine providence nothing, but
the priests in their theological zeal at the moment asserted that there
was nothing of wisdom and prudence from man. When the ambassador retorted
that there was nothing of thought then, either, they said "yes, nothing
of thought." But as angels perceived that the three believed alike, they
bade the ambassador, "Put on priestly robes, believe yourself to be a
priest, and then speak." He robed himself, believed he was a priest, and
thereupon declared in a deep voice that never could there be wisdom or
prudence in man save from God. He defended this with the customary
eloquence filled with rational arguments. Then the two priests were told,
"Put off your robes, put on those of political ministers, and believe
that that is what you are." They did so, thought then from their interior
selves, and gave voice to the arguments they had entertained inwardly
before in favor of human prudence and against divine providence. Upon
this the three, believing alike, became warm friends and set out together
on the path of one's own prudence, which leads to hell.
198. It was shown above that man can have no thought except from some
affection of his life's love and that the thought is nothing other than
the form of the affection. Now, man sees his thought but cannot see his
affection, which he feels; it is therefore from sight which dwells on the
appearance, and not from affection which does not come into sight but
into feeling, that he concludes that one's own prudence does all things.
For affection shows itself only in a certain enjoyment of thought and in
pleasure ever reasoning about it. This pleasure and enjoyment make one
with the thought in those who, from self-love or love of the world,
believe in one's own prudence. The thought glides along in its enjoyment
like a ship in a river current to which the skipper does not attend,
attending only to the sails he spreads.
199. Man can indeed reflect on what his external affection finds
enjoyable when it is also an enjoyment of a bodily sense, but he still
does not reflect that that enjoyment comes from the enjoyment of his
affection in thought. For example, when a lecher sees a lewd woman his
eyes light with a lascivious fire and from this he feels a physical
pleasure; he does not, however, feel his affection's enjoyment or that of
the lust in his thought, only a strong desire more nearly physical. The
same is true of the robber in a forest at sight of travelers and of the
pirate at sea on sighting vessels, and so on. Obviously a man's
enjoyments govern his thoughts, and the thoughts are nothing apart from
them; but he thinks he has only the thoughts, when nevertheless these are
affections put into forms by his life's love so that they appear in the
light; for all affection has heat for its element and thought has light.
[2] The external affections of thought manifest themselves in bodily
sensation, and sometimes in the thought of the mind, but the internal
affections of the thought from which the external exist never make
themselves manifest to man. Of these he knows no more than a rider asleep
in a carriage does of the road or than one feels the rotation of the
earth. Now, when man knows nothing of the things beyond number that take
place in the interiors of his mind, and the few external things which
come to the sight of his thought are produced from the interiors, and the
interiors are governed by the Lord alone through His divine providence
and the few external by the Lord also together with man, how can anyone
assert that one's own prudence does all things? Were you to see just one
idea laid open, you would see astounding things, more than tongue can
tell.
[3] It is clear from the endless things in the body that there are so
many things in the mind's interiors that the number cannot be given, and
nothing of them comes to sight or sense except only a much simplified
action. Yet to the action thousands of motor or muscular fibres
contribute, and thousands of nerve fibres, thousands of blood-vessels,
thousands of cells in the lungs which must cooperate in every action,
thousands in the brains and in the spinal cord, and many more things
still in the spiritual man which is the human mind, in which all things
are forms of affections and of perceptions and thoughts from the
affections. Does not the soul, which disposes the interiors, dispose the
actions also which spring from them? Man's soul is nothing else than the
love of his will and the resulting love of his understanding; such as
this love is the whole man is, becoming so according to the disposition
he makes of his externals in which he and the Lord are together.
Therefore, if he attributes all things to himself and to nature,
self-love becomes the soul; but if he attributes all things to the Lord,
love to the Lord becomes the soul; this love is heavenly, the other
infernal.
200. Inasmuch as the enjoyments of his affections, from inmosts down
through interiors to exteriors and finally to outermost things in the
body, bear man along as wave and wind bear a ship; and inasmuch as
nothing of this is apparent to man except what takes place in the
outermost things of the mind and the body, how can he claim for himself
what is divine on the strength merely of the fact that those few
outermost things seem to be his own? Even less should he claim what is
divine for himself, knowing from the Word that a man can receive nothing
of himself unless it is given by heaven; and knowing from reason that
this appearance has been granted him in order to live as a human being,
see what is good and evil, choose between them, and appropriate his
choice to himself that he may be united reciprocally with the Lord, be
reformed, regenerated and saved, and live forever. It has been stated and
shown above that this appearance has been granted to man in order that he
may act in freedom according to reason, thus as of himself, and not drop
his hands and await influx. From all this it follows that proposition iii
to be demonstrated has been confirmed: _Through His divine providence the
Lord leads the affections of the life's love of man and at the same time
the thoughts, too, from which human prudence comes._
201. (iv) _By His divine providence the Lord assembles the affections of
all mankind into one form--the human form._ In a subsequent paragraph it
will be seen that this is the universal effort of divine providence.
Those who ascribe everything to nature deny God at heart, and those who
ascribe everything to human prudence, at heart deny divine providence;
the one cannot be separated from the other. Yet both groups for their
reputation's sake and for fear of losing it profess in words that divine
providence is universal, but say its details fall to man and in their
aggregate are grasped by human prudence.
[2] But consider: what is universal providence when the details are taken
from it? Is it anything but just an expression? For that is called
universal which consists of the total of details as what is general does
of particulars. If, then, you remove details, what is the universal
except something empty, thus like a surface with nothing underneath or an
aggregate without content? If it should be said that divine providence is
a universal government but nothing is governed but only held in
connection and items of the government are handled by others, can this be
called a universal government? No king has such a government. For if a
king gave his subjects the government of everything in his kingdom, he
would no longer be king, but would only be called king; he would have the
standing in name only and not in fact. In the case of such a king one
cannot speak of government, still less of universal government.
[3] God's providence is called man's prudence. As universal prudence
cannot be said of a king who has only kept the name so that the kingdom
may be called a kingdom and be held together, so one cannot speak of
universal providence if human beings provide everything by their own
prudence. The same is true of the terms "universal providence" and
"universal government" in reference to nature when they mean that God
created the universe but endowed nature to produce everything from
herself. What is "universal providence" then but a metaphysical term, and
nothing but a term? Many of those who attribute everything produced to
nature and everything accomplished to human prudence and yet profess
orally that God created nature, regard divine providence as an empty
expression. But the reality is that divine providence is in the least
things of nature and of human prudence also and is thereby universal.
202. The Lord's divine providence is universal by being in the least
things in that He created the universe in order that an infinite and
eternal creation might come about from Him, and it does as He forms a
heaven from mankind which in His sight is like one humanity, His image
and likeness. We showed above (nn. 27-45) that heaven formed of human
beings is such in His sight; that this was the purpose of creation; and
that the divine regards what is infinite and eternal in all that it
does (nn. 46-69). The infinite and eternal to which the Lord looks in
forming His heaven from mankind is the growth of it to infinity and
eternity and thus His dwelling constantly in the purpose of His creation.
This infinite and eternal creation the Lord provided for in creating the
universe and He pursues it steadily in His divine providence.
[2] Can anyone who knows and believes from the church's doctrine * that
God is infinite and eternal be so lacking in reason that he does not
agree on hearing it that God can then regard only what is infinite and
eternal in the great work of His creation? To what else can He look from
His infinite being? To what else in mankind of which He forms His heaven?
What else can divine providence then have for its end than the
reformation and salvation of mankind? No one can be reformed by himself
through his prudence; he is reformed by the Lord through His divine
providence. Consequently, unless the Lord leads man every least moment
the man lapses from the way of reformation and perishes.
* It is the doctrine of all churches in Christendom that God the Father,
God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is infinite, eternal, uncreated and
omnipotent, as may be seen in the Athanasian Creed.