confirmed even to the point that what is false seems true and what is
evil seems to be good, take for example the confirmation that light is
darkness and darkness is light. A man may ask: "What is light `in
itself'? Is not light only something which appears in the eye according
to the eye's condition? What is light when the eye is closed? Do not bats
and owls have eyes to see light as darkness and darkness as light? I have
heard it said that some persons see in like manner, and that infernal
spirits, despite being in darkness, see one another. Does one not have
light in his dreams in the middle of the night? Is darkness not light,
therefore, and light darkness?" It can be replied, "What of that? Light
is light as truth is truth, and darkness is darkness as falsity is
falsity."
[4] Take a further example: confirmation that the crow is white. May its
blackness not be said to be only a shading which is not the real fact?
Its feathers are white inside, its body, too; and these are the stuff of
which the bird is made. As its blackness is a shading, the crow turns
white as it grows old--some such have been seen. What is black in itself
but white? Pulverize black glass and you will see that the powder is
white. When you call the crow black, therefore, you are speaking of the
shadow and not of the reality. The reply can be, "What of it? All birds
should be called white then."
Contrary as they are to sound reason, these arguments have been recited
to show that it is possible to confirm falsity that is directly opposite
to truth and evil that is directly opposite to good.
[5] Second: _Truth does not appear when falsity has been confirmed, but
falsity is apparent from truth confirmed._ All falsity is in darkness and
all truth in light. In darkness nothing is seen, nor indeed is it known
what anything is except by contact with it, but it is different in the
light. In the Word falsities are therefore called darkness, and those who
are in falsities are said to walk in darkness and in the shadow of death.
In turn, truths are called light in it, and those who are in truths are
said to walk in the light and to be the children of light.
[6] There is much to show that when falsity has been confirmed, truth
does not appear, but when truth has been confirmed, falsity is apparent.
For instance, who would see a spiritual truth unless the Word taught it?
Would there not be darkness that could be dispelled only by the light in
which the Word is, and only with one who wishes to be enlightened? What
heretic can see his falsities unless he welcomes the genuine truth of the
church? Until then he does not see them. I have talked with those who
confirmed themselves in faith apart from charity and who were asked
whether they saw the frequent mention in the Word of love and charity,
works and deeds, and keeping the Commandments, and the declaration that
the man who keeps the Commandments is blessed and wise, but the man who
does not is foolish. They said that on reading these things they saw them
only as matters of faith, and passed them by with their eyes closed, so
to speak.
[7] Those who have confirmed themselves in falsities are like men who see
streaks on a wall, and at twilight fancy that they see the figure of a
horseman or just of a man, a visionary image which is dissipated when the
daylight floods in. Who can sense the spiritual uncleanness of adultery
except one who is in the cleanliness of chastity? Who can feel the
cruelty of vengeance except one who is in good from love to the neighbor?
What adulterer or what avenger does not sneer at those who call enjoyment
in such acts as theirs infernal but the enjoyments of marital love and
neighborly love heavenly? And so on.
[8] Third: _The ability to confirm whatever one pleases is not
intelligence but only ingenuity, to be found in the worst of men._ Some
show the greatest dexterity in confirmation, who know no truth and yet
can confirm both truth and falsity. Some of them remark, "What is truth?
Is there such a thing? Is not that true which I make true?" In the world
they are believed to be intelligent, and yet they are only daubing a
wall.* Only those are intelligent who perceive truth to be truth and who
confirm it by verities constantly perceived. Little difference may be
seen between the latter and the former because one cannot distinguish
between the light of confirmation and the light of the perception of
truth. Those in the light of confirmation seem also to be in the light of
the perception of truth. Yet the difference is like that between illusory
light and genuine. In the spiritual world illusory light is such that it
turns into darkness when genuine light flows in. There is such illusory
light with many in hell; on being brought out into genuine light they see
nothing at all. It is evident, then, that to be able to confirm whatever
one pleases is only ingenuity, which the worst of men may have.
* Cf. Ezekiel 13:10, 11 and _Arcana Caelestia_ n. 739(2), Apocalypse
Explained nn. 237(5) and 644(25). Tr.
[9] Fourth: _Confirmation may be mental and not at the same time
volitional, but all volitional confirmation is also mental._ Let an
example serve to illustrate this. Those who confirm faith separate from
charity and yet live the life of charity, and in general those who
confirm a falsity of doctrine and yet do not live according to it, are in
intellectual confirmation but not at the same time volitional. On the
other hand, those who confirm falsity of doctrine and live according to
it are in volitional and at the same time in intellectual confirmation.
For the understanding does not flow into the will, but the will into the
understanding. Hence it is plain what falsity of evil is, and what
falsity not of evil is. Falsity which is not of evil can be conjoined
with good, but falsity of evil cannot be. For falsity which is not of
evil is falsity in the understanding but not in the will, while falsity
of evil is falsity in the understanding which comes of evil in the will.
[10] Fifth: _Confirmation of evil, both volitional and intellectual, but
not confirmation only intellectual, causes man to believe that his own
prudence is everything and divine providence nothing._ Many confirm their
own prudence in themselves on the strength of appearances in the world,
and yet do not deny divine providence; theirs is only intellectual
confirmation. But in others, who deny divine providence at the same time,
there is volitional confirmation; this, together with persuasion, is
found chiefly in worshipers of nature and also in worshipers of self.
[11] Sixth: _Everything confirmed by the will and at the same time by the
understanding remains to eternity, but not what is confirmed only by the
understanding._ For what pertains to the understanding alone is not
within man but outside him; it is only in the thought. Nothing enters man
and is appropriated to him except what is received by the will; then it
comes to be of his life's love. This, it will be shown in the next
number, remains to eternity.
319. Everything confirmed by both the will and the understanding remains
to eternity because everyone is his own love, and love attaches to the
will; also because everyone is his own good or his own evil, for that is
called good or evil which belongs to the love. Since man is his own love
he is also the form of his love, and may be called the organ of his
life's love. It was stated above (n. 279) that the affections of man's
love and his resulting thoughts are changes and variations of the state
and form of the organic substances of his mind. What these changes and
variations are and their nature will be explained now. Some idea of them
may be obtained from the alternating expansions and compressions or
dilations and contractions in the heart and lungs, called in the heart
systole and diastole, and in the lungs respirations. These are reciprocal
extensions and retractions or expansions and contractions of their lobes.
Such are the changes and variations in the state of the heart and lungs.
Such changes and variations occur in the other viscera of the body and in
their parts, too, by which the blood and the animal juices are received
and transmitted.
[2] Similar changes and variations take place in the organic forms of the
mind, which, as we showed above, are the substances underlying man's
affections and thoughts. There is a difference. Their expansions and
compressions or reciprocal activities in comparison have so much greater
perfection that they cannot be described in words of natural language,
but only in words of spiritual language, which can sound only as saying
that the changes and variations are vortical gyrations in and out, after
the manner of perpetually winding spirals wonderfully massed into forms
receptive of life.
[3] Now to tell the nature of these purely organic substances and forms
in the evil and in the good respectively: in the good the spiral forms
travel forward, in the evil backward; the forward-traveling are turned to
the Lord and receive influx from Him; the retrogressive are turned
towards hell and receive influx from hell. It should be known that in the
measure in which they turn backward these forms are open behind and
closed in front; and on the other hand in the measure in which they turn
forward, they are open in front and closed behind.
[4] This can make plain what kind of form or organ an evil man is and
what kind of form or organ a good man is, and that they are turned in
opposite directions. As the turning once established cannot be twisted
back it is plain that man remains to eternity such as he is at death.
The love of man's will is what effects this turning, or is what either
converts or inverts, for, as was said above, each person is his own love.
Hence, on death, everyone goes the way of his love, the man in a good
love to heaven, and the man in an evil love to hell, nor does he rest
except in that society where his ruling love is. Marvelous it is that
each knows the way; it is as though he scents it.
320. (iv) _If man believed, as is the truth, that all good and truth are
from the Lord and all evil and falsity from hell, he would not
appropriate good to himself and consider it merited, nor evil and make
himself responsible for it._ This is contrary to the belief of those who
have confirmed in themselves the appearance that wisdom and prudence come
from man and do not flow in according to the state of the organization of
the mind, treated of above (n. 319). It must therefore be demonstrated,
and to be done clearly, it will be done in this order:
1. One who confirms in himself the appearance that wisdom and prudence
are from man and thus in him as his, must take the view that otherwise he
would not be a man, but either a beast or a statue; yet the contrary is
true.
2. To believe and think, as is the truth, that all good and truth are
from the Lord and all evil and falsity from hell, seems impossible, yet
is truly human and hence angelic.
3. So to believe and think is impossible to those who do not acknowledge
the divine of the Lord and that evils are sins, but possible for those
who make these two acknowledgments.
4. Those who make the two acknowledgments alone reflect on the evils in
themselves, and so far as they flee them and are averse to them, they
send them back to hell from which they come.
5. So divine providence appropriates neither evil nor good to anyone, but
one's own prudence appropriates both.
321. These propositions will be explained in the order proposed. First:
_One who confirms in himself the appearance that wisdom and prudence are
from man and thus in him as his, must take the view that otherwise he
would not be a man, but either a beast or a statue; yet the contrary is
true._ It comes from a law of divine providence that man is to think as
it were from himself and act prudently as of himself, but still
acknowledge that he does so from the Lord. It follows that one who thinks
and acts prudently as of himself and acknowledges at the same time that
he does so from the Lord, is a man, but that person is not who confirms
in himself the idea that all he thinks and does is from himself. Neither
is he a man who, knowing that wisdom and prudence are from God, keeps
awaiting influx. This man becomes like a statue, the other like a beast.
One who waits for influx is obviously like a statue; he is sure to stand
or sit motionless, his hands dropped, his eyes closed or, if open,
unblinking, and neither thinking nor breathing. What life has he then?
[2] Plainly, too, one who believes that everything he thinks and does is
from himself is not unlike a beast. For he thinks only from the natural
mind which man has in common with beasts, and not from the spiritual,
rational mind which is the truly human mind; for this mind acknowledges
that God alone thinks from Himself and that man does so from God.
Therefore one who thinks only from the natural mind knows no difference
between man and animal except that man speaks and a beast makes sounds,
and he believes they die alike.
[3] Something further is to be said about those who await influx. They
receive none, except for a few who desire it with the whole heart. These
at times receive some response through a living perception in thought or
by tacit utterance but rarely by an explicit one, and this then is that
they should think and act as they determine and are able, and that one
who acts wisely is wise and one who acts foolishly is foolish. They are
never instructed what to believe or do, in order that human rationality
and liberty may not perish, that is, in order that everyone shall act in
freedom according to reason in all appearance as of himself. Those who
are told by influx what they are to believe or do are not being
instructed by the Lord, nor by any angel of heaven, but by some spirit,
an Enthusiast, Quaker or Moravian, and are being misled. All influx from
the Lord is effected by enlightenment of the understanding and by an
affection of truth, and passes by the latter into the former.
[4] Second: _To believe and think, as is the truth, that all good and
truth are from the Lord and all evil and falsity from hell, seems
impossible, yet is truly human and hence angelic._ To believe and think
that all good and truth are from God seems possible, if no more is said,
for it falls in with a theological belief contrary to which it is not
allowable to think. But to believe and think also that all evil and
falsity are from hell seems impossible, for in that belief man would not
think at all. But man still thinks as from himself though it is from
hell, for the Lord grants to everyone that his thought, wherever it is
from, shall appear to be his own in him. Else man would not live as a
human being, nor could he be led out of hell and brought into heaven,
that is, be reformed, as we have shown many times.
[5] Therefore the Lord also grants man to know and consequently to think
that when he is in evil he is in hell, and that if he thinks evil he
thinks from hell. He likewise grants him to think of the means by which
he can escape from hell and not think from hell, but enter heaven and in
heaven think from the Lord, and He grants man the freedom to choose. From
all this it may be seen that man can think evil and falsity as if from
himself and also think that this or that is evil or false; consequently
that it is only an appearance that he does so of himself, an appearance
without which he would not be man. To think from truth is what is human
itself and consequently angelic itself; it is a truth that man does not
think from himself, but is granted by the Lord to think from himself to
all appearance.
[6] Third: _So to believe and think is impossible to those who do not
acknowledge the divine of the Lord and that evils are sins, but possible
to those who make the two acknowledgments._ It is impossible to those who
do not acknowledge the divine of the Lord, for the Lord alone gives man
to think and will; and those who do not acknowledge the divine of the
Lord, being separated from Him believe that they think for themselves. It
is impossible also to those who do not acknowledge evils to be sins, for
they think then from hell, and in hell everyone supposes that he thinks
from himself. That it is possible, however, to those who make the two
acknowledgments can be seen from what was set forth fully above (nn.
288-294).
[7] Fourth: _Only those who live in the two acknowledgments reflect on
the evils in themselves, and so far as they shun and are averse to them,
they send them back to hell from which they come._ All know or can know
that evil is from hell and good is from heaven. Who then cannot know that
so far as man shuns and is averse to evil he shuns and is averse to hell?
He can know then, too, that so far as he shuns and is averse to evil, he
wills and loves what is good, and consequently is so far released from
hell by the Lord and led to heaven. Every rational person may see these
things provided he knows that heaven and hell exist, where good and evil
have their respective origins. If, now, he reflects on the evils in him,
which is the same thing as examining himself, and shuns them, he
disengages himself from hell, puts it behind him, and brings himself into
heaven, where he beholds the Lord before him. Man does this, we say, but
he does it as of himself and from the Lord now. When a man acknowledges
this truth out of a good heart and in a devout faith, it lies inwardly
hidden in all that he thinks and does afterwards as of himself. It is
like the prolific force in a seed which remains in it even until new seed
is produced, and like the pleasure in one's appetite for food the
wholesomeness of which one has learned; in a word, like heart and soul in
all he thinks and does.
[8] Fifth: _So divine providence appropriates neither evil nor good to
anyone, but one's own prudence appropriates both._ This follows from all
that has been said. Good is the objective of divine providence; it
purposes good in all its activity, therefore. Accordingly, it does not
appropriate good to anyone, for then this would become self-righteous;
nor does it appropriate evil to anyone, for so it would make him
responsible for evil. But man does both by his proprium, for this is
nothing but evil. The proprium of the will is self-love and that of the
understanding is the pride of self-intelligence, and of these comes man's
own prudence.
XVII. EVERY MAN CAN BE REFORMED, AND THERE IS NO PREDESTINATION [as
commonly understood*]
* See n. 330 - Tr.
322. Sound reason dictates that all are predestined to heaven and none to
hell, for all are born human beings and consequently God's image is in
them. God's image in them consists in their ability to understand truth
and to do good. The ability to understand truth comes from the divine
wisdom, and the ability to do good from the divine love. This ability,
which is God's image, remains in any sane person and is not eradicated.
Hence it is that he can become a civil and moral man, and one who is
civil and moral can also become spiritual, for the civil and moral is a
receptacle of what is spiritual. He is called a civil man who knows and
lives according to the laws of the kingdom of which he is a citizen; he
is called a moral man who makes those laws his ethics and his virtues and
from reason lives by them.
[2] Let me say how civil and moral life is the receptacle of spiritual
life. Live these laws not only as civil and moral laws but also as divine
laws, and you will be a spiritual man. There is hardly a nation so
barbarous that it has not by law prohibited murder, adultery, theft,
false witness and damage to what is another's. The civil and moral man
keeps these laws that he may be, or seem to be, a good citizen. If he
does not consider them divine laws also he is only a civil and moral
natural man, but if he considers them divine also, he becomes a civil and
moral spiritual man. The difference is that the latter is a good citizen
both of an earthly kingdom and of a heavenly, while the former is a good
citizen only of the earthly kingdom and not of the heavenly. They are
distinguishable by the good they do. The good done by civil and moral
natural men is not in itself good, for man and the world are in it; the
good done by civil and moral spiritual men is in itself good, because the
Lord and heaven are in it.
[3] From all this it may be seen that every person, because he is born
able to become a civil and moral natural being, is also born able to
become a civil and moral spiritual man. He has only to acknowledge God
and not commit evils because they are against God, but do good because
good is siding with God. Then spirit enters into his civil and moral
actions and they live; otherwise there is no spirit in them and hence
they are not living. Therefore the natural man, however much he acts like
a civil and moral being, is spoken of as dead, but the spiritual man is
spoken of as living.
[4] Of the Lord's divine providence every nation has some religion, and
primary in every religion is the acknowledgment that God is, else it is
not called a religion. Every nation that lives its religion, that is,
does not do evil because this is contrary to its God, receives something
spiritual in its natural life. Who, on hearing a Gentile say he will not
do this or that evil because it is contrary to his God, does not say to
himself, "Is this person not saved? It seems, it cannot be otherwise."
Sound reason tells him this. On the other hand, hearing a Christian say,
"I make no account of this or that evil. What does it mean to say that it
is contrary to God?" one says to himself, "This man is not saved, is he?
It would seem, he cannot be." Sound reason dictates this also.
[5] Should someone say, "I was born a Christian, have been baptized, have
known the Lord, read the Word, observed the Sacrament of the Supper,"
what does this amount to when he does not count as sins murder, or the
revenge breathing it, adultery, stealing, false witness, or lying, and
different sorts of violence? Does such a person think of God or of
eternal life? Does he think they exist? Does sound reason not dictate
that such a man cannot be saved? This has been said of a Christian, for a
Gentile in his life gives more thought to God from religion than a
Christian does. But more is to be said on these points in what follows in
this order:
i. The goal of creation is a heaven from mankind.
ii. Of divine providence, therefore, every man can be saved, and those
are saved who acknowledge God and live rightly.
iii. Man himself is in fault if he is not saved.
iv. Thus all are predestined to heaven, and no one to hell.
323. (i) _The goal of creation is a heaven from mankind._ It has been
shown above and in the work, _Heaven and Hell_ (London, 1758), that
heaven consists solely of those who have been born as human beings. Since
heaven consists of no others, it follows that the purpose of creation is
a heaven from mankind. This has been shown above (nn. 27-45), it is true,
but will be seen more clearly still with explanation of the following:
1. Everyone is created to live forever.
2. Everyone is created to live forever in a blessed state.
3. Thus every person has been created to enter heaven.
4. The divine love cannot but will this, and the divine wisdom cannot but
provide it.
324. One can see from these points that divine providence is none other
than predestination to heaven and cannot be altered into anything else.
We must now demonstrate, therefore, in the order proposed, that the goal
of creation is a heaven from the human race. First: _Everyone has been
created to live to eternity._ In the treatise _Divine Love and Wisdom,_
Parts III and V, it was shown that there are three degrees of life in
man, called natural, spiritual and celestial, that they are actually in
everyone, and that in animals there is only one degree of life, which is
like the lowest degree in man, called the natural. The result is that by
the elevation of his life to the Lord man is in such a state above that
of animals that he can comprehend what is of divine wisdom, and will what
is of divine love, in other words, receive what is divine; and he who can
receive what is divine, so as to see and perceive it within him, cannot
but be united with the Lord and by the union live to eternity.