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
60. That into such a form and image celestial and spiritual things
are arranged and joined cannot be seen by those who have no right
idea of spiritual and heavenly things. Such think that the earthy and
material things of which man's outmost nature is composed are what
makes the man; and that apart from these man is not a man. But let
them know that it is not from these that man is a man, but from his
ability to understand what is true and to will what is good. Such
understanding and willing are the spiritual and celestial things of
which man is made. Moreover, it is known that everyone's quality is
determined by the quality of his understanding and will; and it can
also be known that his earthly body is formed to serve the
understanding and the will in the world, and to skillfully accomplish
their uses in the outmost sphere of nature. For this reason the body
by itself can do nothing, but is moved always in entire subservience
to the bidding of the understanding and will, even to the extent that
whatever a man thinks he speaks with his tongue and lips, and
whatever he wills he does with his body and limbs, and thus the
understanding and the will are what act, while the body by itself
does nothing. Evidently, then, the things of the understanding and
will are what make man; and as these act into the minutest
particulars of the body, as what is internal into what is external,
they must be in a like form, and on this account man is called an
internal or spiritual man. Heaven is such a man in its greatest and
most perfect form.
61. Such being the angelic idea of man, the angels give no thought to
what a man does with his body, but only to the will from which the
body acts. This they call the man himself, and the understanding they
call the man so far as it acts in unison with the will.{1}
{Footnote 1} The will of man is the very being [esse] of his
life, and his understanding is the outgo [existere] of his life
therefrom (n. 3619, 5002, 9282). The chief life of man is the
life of his will, and from that the life of the understanding
proceeds (n. 585, 590, 3619, 7342, 8885, 9282, 10076, 10109,
10110). Man is man by virtue of his will and his understanding
therefrom (n. 8911, 9069, 9071, 10076, 10109, 10110).
62. The angels, it is true, do not see heaven in its whole complex in
the human form, for heaven as a whole does not come within view of
any angel; but remote societies, consisting of many thousands of
angels, they sometimes see as a one in the human form; and from a
society, as from a part, they draw their conclusion as to the
general, which is heaven. For in the most perfect form generals are
like the parts, and parts are like the generals, with simply such a
difference as there is between like things of greater or less
magnitude; consequently, the angels say that since the Divine from
what is inmost or highest sees all things, so in the Lord's sight
heaven as a whole must be in the human form.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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