Angelic Wisdom about Divine ProvidenceSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Providence and government of God -- Christianity
168. As few know anything about the enlightenment in which the
understanding of a man is who is taught by the Lord, something will be
said of it. There is inner and outer enlightenment from the Lord, and
inner and outer enlightenment from oneself. Inner enlightenment from the
Lord consists in man's perceiving on first hearing something whether it
is true or not; outer enlightenment consists in thought from this. Inner
enlightenment from oneself is simply from confirmation and outer
enlightenment merely from information. We will say something of each.
[2] By inner enlightenment from the Lord a rational person perceives
about many things the moment he hears them whether they are true or not;
for example, that love is the life of faith or that faith lives by love.
By interior enlightenment a person also perceives that a man wills what
he loves and does what he wills, consequently that to love is to do;
again, that a man wills and does whatever he believes from love, and
therefore to have faith is also to do; and that the impious man cannot
have love for God or faith then in Him. By inner enlightenment a rational
man also perceives the following truths at once on hearing them: God is
one; He is omnipresent; all good is from Him; all things have relation to
good and truth; all good is from good itself and all truth from truth
itself. A man perceives these and other similar truths inwardly in
himself on hearing them and does so because he possesses a rationality
which is in heaven's enlightening light.
[3] Outer enlightenment is enlightenment of one's thought from this inner
enlightenment. One's thought is in this enlightenment so far as it
remains in the perception it has from inner enlightenment and so far as
it possesses knowledge of good and truth, for it gets from this
knowledge reasons confirming it. Thought from outer enlightenment sees a
matter on both sides; on the one, it sees reasons which confirm it, and
on the other, the appearances that weaken it; it dispels these and
assembles the reasons.
[4] Inner enlightenment from oneself, however, is quite different. By it
one regards a matter on one side only, and having confirmed it sees it in
light apparently like that just spoken of, but it is a wintry light. For
example, a judge who judges unjustly in view of gifts or gain, once he
has confirmed the judgment by law and reason sees in it nothing but
justice. Some judges see the injustice but not wanting to see it, they
keep it out of sight and blind themselves and so do not see. The same is
true of a judge who renders judgments out of friendship, or to gain
favor, or on account of relationship.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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