Heaven and its Wonders and HellSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Future life -- Christianity -- Early work to 1800; Heaven -- Christianity; Hell -- Christianity
32. In each heaven there is an internal and an external; those in the
internal are called there internal angels, while those in the
external are called external angels. The internal and the external in
the heavens, or in each heaven, hold the same relation as the
voluntary and intellectual in man-the internal corresponding to the
voluntary, and the external to the intellectual. Everything voluntary
has its intellectual; one cannot exist without the other. The
voluntary may be compared to a flame and the intellectual to the
light therefrom.
33. Let it be clearly understood that with the angels it is the
interiors that cause them to be in one heaven or another; for as
their interiors are more open to the Lord they are in a more interior
heaven. There are three degrees of interiors in each angel and
spirit, and also in man. Those in whom the third degree is opened are
in the inmost heaven. Those in whom the second degree is opened, or
only the first, are in the middle or in the outmost heaven. The
interiors are opened by reception of Divine good and Divine truth.
Those who are affected by Divine truths and admit them at once into
the life, thus into the will and into action therefrom, are in the
inmost or third heaven, and have their place there in accordance with
their reception of good from affection for truth. Those who do not
admit truths at once into the will but into the memory, and thence
into the understanding, and from the understanding will and do them,
are in the middle or second heaven. But those who live morally and
who believe in a Divine, and who care very little about being taught,
are in the outmost or first heaven.{1} From this it is clear that the
states of the interiors are what make heaven, and that heaven is
within everyone, and not outside of him; as the Lord teaches when He
says:
The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither
shall they say, Lo here, or Lo there; for behold the
kingdom of God ye have within you (Luke 17:20, 21).
{Footnote 1} There are as many degrees of life in man as there
are heavens, and these are opened after death in accordance
with his life (n. 3747, 9594). Heaven is in man (n. 3884).
Therefore he that has received heaven into himself in the
world, comes into heaven after death (n. 10717).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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