Day: May 18, 2017

Conjunction

HR90  THE SCIENCE OF CORRESPONDENCE

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CONJUNCTION

HEAVEN IS CONJUNCTION WITH THE LORD

conjunctionpHeaven is heaven, not from the angels but from the Lord. For the love and wisdom in which angels are and which make heaven are not theirs, but the Lord’s, indeed are the  Lord in them. And as love and wisdom are the Lord’s, and are the Lord in heaven, and make the life of angels, it is plain that their life is the Lord’s, indeed is the Lord. The angels themselves avow that they live from the Lord. Hence it is evident that heaven is conjunction with the Lord. But conjunction with Him is various and one man’s heaven is not another’s; therefore heaven is also according to the conjunction with the Lord. In the following proposition it will be seen that conjunction is more and more close or more and more remote.

[2] Here let something be said about how the conjunction takes place and what the nature of it is. It is a conjunction of the Lord with the angels and of the angels with Him, therefore is reciprocal. The Lord flows into the life’s love of the angels, and they receive Him in wisdom, thus in turn conjoining themselves with Him. It must be said, however, that it seems to the angels that they conjoin themselves to the Lord by wisdom; actually the Lord conjoins them to Himself by their wisdom, for the wisdom is also from the Lord. It is the same thing if we say that the Lord conjoins Himself to the angels by good and they in turn conjoin themselves to the Lord by truth, for all good is of love, and truth, of wisdom.

[3] This reciprocal conjunction is an arcanum, however, which few can understand unless it is explained. I want therefore to unfold it so far as it can be done by things within one’s grasp. We showed in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom (nn. 404, 405) how love unites itself with wisdom, namely, through affection for knowing from which comes an affection for truth, through affection for understanding from which comes perception of truth, and through affection for seeing what is known and understood, from which comes thought. Into all these affections the Lord flows, for they are all derivatives of one’s life’s love, and the angels receive the influx in perception of truth and in thought, for in these the influx becomes apparent to them, but not in the affections.

[4] As the perceptions and thoughts appear to the angels to be their own, although they arise from affections which are from the Lord, the appearance is that the angels reciprocally conjoin themselves to the Lord, when nevertheless the Lord conjoins them to Himself. The affection itself produces the perceptions and thoughts, for the affection, which is of love, is their soul. Apart from affection no one can perceive or think anything, and every one perceives and thinks according to his affection.  It is evident that the reciprocal conjunction of the angels with the Lord is not from them, but as it were from them. Such, too, is the conjunction of the Lord with the church and of the church with Him, a union called celestial and spiritual marriage. [DP28]

All conjunction in the spiritual world is effected by intent regard.

When anyone there thinks of another with a desire to speak with him, the other is at once present, and the two come face to face. Likewise, when one thinks of another from an affection of love; by this affection, however, there is conjunction, but by the other only presence. This is peculiar to the spiritual world; for there all are spiritual beings. It is otherwise in the natural world where all are physical beings. In the natural world something similar takes place in the affections and thoughts of the spirit; but as there is space here, while in the spiritual world space is appearance only, what takes place here in one’s spirit occurs outwardly there.

[2] We have said so much to make known how conjunction of the Lord with angels and their seemingly reciprocal conjunction with Him is effected.  All angels turn the face to the Lord; He regards them in the forehead, and they regard Him with the eyes. The reason is that the forehead corresponds to love and its affections, and the eyes correspond to wisdom and its perceptions. Still the angels do not of themselves turn the face to the Lord, but He faces them toward Himself, doing so by influx into their life’s love, by this entering the perceptions and thoughts, and so turning the angels to Him.

[3] There is such a circuit from love to thoughts and under love’s impulse from thoughts to love in all the mind’s activity. It may be called the circling of life. On these subjects see some things also in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom: as that “Angels constantly turn the face to the Lord as a sun” (nn. 129-134); “All the interiors of both the mind and the bodies of the angels are likewise turned to the Lord as a sun” (nn. 135-139); “Every spirit, whatever his character, turns himself likewise to his ruling love” (nn. 140-145); “Love conjoins itself to wisdom and causes wisdom to be conjoined reciprocally with it” (nn.  410-412); “Angels are in the Lord and He in them; and as the angels are only recipients, the Lord alone is heaven” (nn. 113-118). [DP29]

0093a We shall say briefly how man can be more and more closely conjoined to the Lord, and then how the conjunction seems closer and closer. _How man is more and more closely conjoined to the Lord:_ this is effected not by knowledge alone, nor by intelligence alone, nor even by wisdom alone, but by a life conjoined to them. A man’s life is his love, and love is manifold. In general there are love of good and love of evil. Love of evil is love of committing adultery, taking revenge, defrauding, blaspheming, depriving others of their possessions. In thinking and doing such things the love of evil finds its pleasure and joy. Of this love there are as many derivatives, which are affections, as there are evils in which it can find expression. And there are as many perceptions and thoughts of this love as there are falsities favoring and confirming such evils. The falsities make one with the evils as understanding makes one with will; they are mutually inseparable; the one is of the other.

[2] Inasmuch as the Lord flows into one’s life’s love and by its affections into the perceptions and thoughts, and not the other way about, as we said above, it follows that the Lord can conjoin Himself more closely to a man only as the love of evil is removed along with its affections, which are lusts. These lusts reside in the natural man. What a man does from the natural man he feels that he does of himself. For his part, therefore, a man should remove the evils of that love; so far as he does, the Lord comes nearer and conjoins Himself to him. Anyone can see from reason that lusts with their pleasures block and close the door to the Lord and cannot be cast out by the Lord as long as the man himself keeps the door shut and presses and pushes from outside to keep it from being opened. It is plain from the Lord’s words in the Apocalypse that a man must himself open the door:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me (3:20).

[3] Plainly, then, so far as one shuns evils as diabolical and as obstacles to the Lord’s entrance, he is more and more closely conjoined to the Lord, and he the most closely who abhors them as so many dusky and fiery devils. For evil and the devil are one and the same, and the falsity of evil and satan are one and the same. As the Lord’s influx is into the love of good and into its affections and by these into the perceptions and thoughts, which have it from the good in which a man is that they are truths, so the influx of the devil, that is of hell, is into the love of evil and its affections, which are lusts, and by these into the perceptions and thoughts, which have it from the evil in which the man is that they are falsities.

[4] How the conjunction seems closer and closer. The more the evils in the natural man are removed by shunning and turning away from them, the more closely a man is conjoined to the Lord. Love and wisdom, which are the Lord Himself, are not in space, as affection which is of love, and thought which is of wisdom, have nothing in common with space. In the measure of the conjunction by love and wisdom, therefore, the Lord seems nearer; and, contrariwise, in the measure of the rejection of love and wisdom, more distant. There is no space in the spiritual world; distance and presence there are appearances according to similarity or dissimilarity of the affections. For, as we said, affections which are of love, and thoughts which are of wisdom, in themselves spiritual, are not in space (on this see what was shown in the treatise _Divine Love and Wisdom,_ nn. 7-10, 69-72, and elsewhere).

[5] The Lord’s conjunction with a man in whom evils have been put away is meant by the Lord’s words:

The pure in heart shall see God (Mt 5:8);

and by the words:

He who has my commandments and does them . . . with him will I make an abode (Jn 14:21, 23).

“To have the commandments” is to know and “to do them” is to love, for it is also said: “he who does my commandments, he it is that loves Me.” [DP 33]

The more closely one is conjoined to the Lord the wiser one becomes._ As there are three degrees of life in man by creation and so from birth (see just above, n. 32), there are specifically three degrees of wisdom in him. These degrees it is that are opened in man according to conjunction, that is, according to love, for love is conjunction itself.  Love’s ascent by degrees, however, is only obscurely perceived by man; but wisdom’s ascent is clearly perceived by those who know and see what wisdom is. The degrees of wisdom are perceived because love by its affections enters the perceptions and thoughts, and these present themselves to the internal mental sight, which corresponds to the external bodily sight. Thus wisdom appears, but not the affection of love which produces it. It is the same with all a man’s deeds; he is aware how the body does them, but not how the soul does them. So he perceives how he meditates, perceives and thinks, but not how the soul of these mental activities, which is an affection of good and truth, produces them.

[2] There are three degrees of wisdom: natural, spiritual, and celestial.  Man is in the natural degree of wisdom during his life in the world. This degree can be perfected in him to its height, but even so cannot pass into the spiritual degree, for the latter is not continuous with it, but conjoined to it by correspondences. After death man is in the spiritual degree of wisdom. This degree also is such that it can be perfected to its height, and yet cannot pass into the celestial degree of wisdom, because neither is this continuous with the spiritual but conjoined to it by correspondences. Plainly, then, wisdom can be raised threefold, and in each degree can be perfected but only to its peak.

[3] One who understands the elevation and perfecting of these degrees can see to an extent why angelic wisdom is said to be ineffable. So ineffable, indeed, is it, that a thousand ideas in the thought of angels in their wisdom can present only a single idea in the thought of men in their wisdom, the other nine hundred and ninety-nine ideas being unutterable, because they are supernatural. Many a time have I been given to know this by living experience. But, as was said, no one can enter into the ineffable wisdom of the angels except by and according to conjunction with the Lord, for He alone opens spiritual and celestial degrees, and only in those who are wise from Him. Those are wise from the Lord who cast the devil, that is, evil, out of themselves. [DP34]

Author: EMANUEL SWEDENBORG (1688-1772)

http://www.scienceofcorrespondences.com/conjunction.htm

Copyright © 2007-2013 A. J. Coriat All rights reserved.

We live in two worlds

God is Love

living in two worldsOne of the problems with our busy materialistic world is that we seem to get very little time to think more deeply about what is going on in our lives. Everyday is made up of all sorts of practical and physical activities. We go to the shops and buy food. We cook our meals and wash up. We clean the house and read the newspaper. We mow the lawn or put our feet up in front of the television. We go to work by car or bus or train and come back late and tired. So much can get crammed into one day that we begin to feel unable to cope or at the other end of the scale we may have so little we can do that we feel lonely and cut off from the world around. If we are blessed with all our senses we can see the world around us, we can hear it, touch it, smell it and taste it. And particularly during the spring, when all sorts of flowers are coming into bloom, the physical world around us offers a wonderful array of stimulants for our senses. And we mustn’t forget our interactions with other people: a wave across the street, a smile to a passer-by, a chat over coffee, a lengthy phone call, a letter or text message from a friend, a kind word or a loving kiss. There is so much going on in our physical world that it is not surprising that many people live as though there is nothing else – that everything that goes on in our lives can be explained in physical terms.

But is this really so?

roseImagine you are holding a fragrant rose in your hand. You see the wonderful colour and texture of the flower, you touch its soft and smooth petals and you smell its intoxicating fragrance. So far you have been involved in a physical way with this rose but how does it make you feel? Do you feel happier and a little brighter inside, does a smile come over your face, does it evoke distant memories, do you feel more peaceful, do you feel more loved or more loving? In a wonderful way that rose, out there in the physical world around us, has touched something deep inside you and you have responded.

This is just one example of the countless situations we can find ourselves in when we realise that there is something much deeper to our lives than our physical being. Whilst our lives appear dominated by the physical world around us there is another world within us of feeling and thought where our deepest experiences take place and where we develop our real character. It is our inner world where, for example,  we can feel deep joy when we are very close to someone we love and deep pain when we are separated.

Throughout the ages wise people have realised that we live in two worlds at the same time, a physical outer world and a deeper inner spiritual world. The problem is that we get so absorbed by the state of our physical outer world that we don’t spend enough time on the spiritual world within us. How many people, for example, struggling in a gym to improve their physical well-being, would spend just a little time on spiritual exercises to help them develop their inner world? Is this not a distorted view of our priorities?

Jesus highlighted the need to change our priorities in favour of the inner spiritual life when he said:

Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.   Luke 12:29-31 ESV

And the apostle Paul gave some insight into living in two worlds in his first letter to the Corinthians when he wrote

It [the resurrection body]  is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body …  It is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
[1 Cor 15: 44,46 ESV]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the visionary Jesuit priest, wrote in the 20th century:

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

George Harrison, the particularly spiritual member of the Beatles, echoed these words when he wrote:

Remember – we are not these bodies – just souls having a bodily experience.

Emanuel Swedenborg not only recognised that we are living in two worlds but also that when we die our real inner spiritual self goes on living:

As regards the soul, which – it is said – goes on living after death, it is nothing else than the actual person living in the body. That is, the soul is the person’s inner self acting in the world by means of the body and imparting life to the body. When his inner self is released from the body the person is called a spirit and then appears in a completely human form. Arcana Caelestia 6054

Should not our emphasis be on developing the quality of our inner life rather than worrying excessively as we do about our outer physical world?

http://www.sacred-texts.com/swd/index.htm

http://www.eswedenborg.com/

http://www.god-is-love.org.uk/twelve-key-teachings/we-live-in-two-worlds/

Using Swedenborg to Understand the Quantum World II: Desire and Energy

Swedenborg Foundation

By Ian Thompson, PhD, Nuclear Physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

In the previous post of this series, we saw how Swedenborg’s theory of correspondences could help us to better understand the physical world from a quantum perspective. If our mental processes consist of desire acting by means of thoughts and intentions to produce physical effects, then these physical actions should manifest themselves according to a corresponding pattern. More specifically, if the components of our mental processes occur at variable finite intervals, so too should the expected physical events.

According to many thinkers throughout history, mental and physical are not identical but instead are two different kinds of substances that relate with each other. Swedenborg describes the mental (spiritual) and physical (natural) as distinct but says that they interact by discrete degrees:

A knowledge of degrees is like a key to lay open the causes of things, and to give entrance into them. . . . For things exterior advance to things interior and through these to things inmost, by means of degrees; not by continuous degrees but by discrete degrees. “Continuous degrees” is a term applied to the gradual lessenings or decreasings from grosser to finer . . . or . . . to growths and increasings from finer to grosser . . . precisely like the gradations of light to shade, or of heat to cold. But discrete degrees are entirely different: they are like things prior, subsequent and final; or like end, cause, and effect. These degrees are called discrete, because the prior is by itself; the subsequent by itself; and the final by itself; and yet taken together they make one. (Divine Love and Wisdom §184)

The mental can never be continuously transformed into something physical, nor can the physical be continuously transformed into something mental. They are connected, however, by virtue of their causal relationship: all physical processes are produced, or generated, by something mental. As described in my previous post, this relationship is what gives rise to our correspondences in the first place.

Most of us can realize that the mental and the physical are distinct, even though this may be denied by materialists (for whom the mental is merely an emerging product of the physical) and also by monistic idealists (for whom the physical universe is merely a representation in the mind). The latter view is common in many New Age circles today, and it is even thought to be implied by quantum physics. In this series of posts, by contrast, I want to show how Swedenborg’s ideas give us a new understanding of how mental and physical things can both exist in fully-fledged ways and with serious connections between them that are not deflating or reductionist.

Mental and physical things can both be substances but, they have very different characteristics:

  • Mental things are conscious, whereas physical things are unconscious.
  • Mental beings can think and make deductions using reason, whereas physical beings can only make logical deductions if they are designed that way.
  • Mental beings can use symbols and language to refer to objects and ideas outside themselves, whereas physical beings have no intrinsic ability to refer to anything.
  • Mental processes are motivated by purposes and intentions, whereas physical processes are determined by physical causes that supposedly exclude purposes and intentions.
  • Mental processes tend to produce results according to some conception of what is good, whereas physical processes have no need for any such concept.

As already discussed in the previous post, desire is a component of all mental processes, and we recognize “something physical like desire” as energy or propensity. Swedenborg sees desire, or affection, as a specific kind of love:

That love and wisdom from the Lord is life can be seen also from this, that man grows torpid as love recedes from him, and stupid as wisdom recedes from him, and that were they to recede altogether he would become extinct. There are many things pertaining to love which have received other names because they are derivatives, such as affections, desires, appetites, and their pleasures and enjoyments. (Divine Love and Wisdom §363)

For desire and energy to correspond to each other in the sense that Swedenborg describes, the function of desire as a cause must be similar to the function of energy as a cause. That is, the way in which desire causes mental processes must be similar to the way in which energy causes physical processes. This is not to say that desire is the same as energy but only that desire’s pattern of operation is similar to that of energy. The common pattern is that desire (energy) persists between events, then explores multiple possibilities for those events by means of thoughts (fields of energy), and finally becomes manifest in the physical events produced.

Up until now, the idea of substance has been rather obscure in both physics and philosophy, and it has not been developed significantly. From an ontological perspective, substance is that which endures between events. It is what individuates and bears the intrinsic properties of those events. We are not necessarily talking about a substance that endures forever or about a substance that exists independently of everything else. Based on the common pattern described above, we can arrive at the idea of a created substance that persists, or endures, as a thing at least for some finite time between events. And such a substance would be the capability, or disposition, for action or interaction in that time interval.

This relates to the idea of “dispositional essentialism” that has been put forth by philosophers in recent years.[1] Dispositional essentialism is the notion that some kind of power or disposition (such as a cause or energy) must be an essential part of something. Some philosophers take this idea even further, saying that disposition must be the individual essence of something. In much the same way, I am saying that disposition is what constitutes the substance of something.[2] So if the main similarity between desire and energy is that they both persist between events, then both desire and energy are substances.

By using ideas from Swedenborg to understand the world, we have a new way of grasping the mental and physical and perhaps of understanding quantum physics. Either one of these results would be very useful; to have both is to be extremely fortunate.

In the next post of this series, I will discuss how and in what form both desire and energy persist between events.

Ian Thompson is also the author of Starting Science from God, as well as Nuclear Reactions in Astrophysics (Univ. of Cambridge Press) and more than two hundred refereed professional articles in nuclear physics.
[1] B. Ellis and C. Lierse, “Dispositional Essentialism,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy (72, 1994): 27–45.

[2] See Ian J. Thompson, “Power and Substance,” http://www.generativescience.org/ph-papers/pas.htm.

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Truth argues. Love supports.

When we argue with other people, the human brain instantly brings to mind the ideas that uphold our viewpoint. These ideas represent our “truth.” All people argue from their notion of truth. Religions argue over truths, which are their differing doctrines. Scientists argue over what theories are closest to the truth.

Love, on the other hand, is supportive for it represents the very essence of goodness.  Everyone appreciates goodness. But isn’t there some ultimate truth that can settle all arguments?

Yes! When truth leads to love then it is ultimate truth. According to scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg, truth is the form by which love can be intellectually seen and understood. Let me make an analogy. In the same way physical force finds its form (embodiment) in kinetic energy (outward trajectory), love finds its form in some construct of “truth.” Truth is the informational parameter or limit for which love is tending—just like a trajectory is the parameter and limit in which a physical force is tending. Without love or physical force taking on some real form, neither can be discerned. That is why form and information are synonymous.

One might say that if knowledge must lead to love (and wisdom) it will limit the mind’s thirst for all kinds of data and information. Not really. It will only point to the incompleteness of such information.

Why do I say that? Because even a physicist will concur that the universe is unified. Therefore, all information must be interrelated, interconnected and even interdependent. In other words, all true knowledge must be supportive! Existence is relational.

Love supports (and thus unifies). So all the laws (truths) of the universe must be expressions (physical analogs) of love. This is why nature has a relentless drive towards self-organization and complexity. The scientific mystery behind the thermodynamics of gravitating systems to grow coherent structure spontaneously is solved when love is seen as the first causal principle in the universe. Love brings people together as well as atoms, quantum potentials and stars. This brings God into the equation of scientific investigation.

I have just completed a book entitled Proving God. It will be available in 6 weeks and provide lots of evidence for why love is the ultimate science and why God and science can be rationally unified.

Posted on March 11, 2010by
http://www.provinggod.com
https://thegodguy.wordpress.com/
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http://blog.beginningtheisticscience.com/
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Is it all in God’s hands?

“Each time I turn on the news, it’s full of stories of awful things happening to people, and it’s really hard to handle. How can I be compassionate to those suffering without feeling overwhelmed myself?”

Just doing your existing work with integrity will have a ripple effect on tragedies across the globe.

Just doing your existing work with integrity will have a ripple effect on tragedies across the globe.

Whether it’s a local kidnapping, financial hardship, or a refugee crisis in the Middle East, our fellow human beings are suffering all the time. To avoid feeling overwhelmed, some people ignore suffering. Others become cynical, their pessimism allowing them to be right when bad things happen. Others decide to stop caring at all. For people who do care, though, the feeling of helplessness can be overpowering. The most effective way I’ve found of remaining compassionate without feeling overwhelmed is exploring this question, “What is my role in Divine providence? “

One way people respond to tragedies and human evil is to invoke Divine providence with the phrase, “It’s all in God’s hands.” After all, religious people throughout history have believed that God influences human events. It can be comforting to know that even when chaos reigns, God is watching out for us. And I believe it’s true. But I’m not entirely comfortable with people seeing evil and saying, “It’s all in God’s hands.” I want to challenge this response, not because I think God is absent, but because there often seems to be missing a crucial piece: you.

When people say, “it’s all in God’s hands,” I wonder if they’re really saying, “Bad things just happen, and I can’t do anything about it.” Not all people who cite providence are being cynical, of course, but let’s make sure we don’t use God as an excuse for throwing up our hands or throwing in the towel. Leaving problems to God in this world may be akin to believing that our deeds have no relation to our life in the next world: if we can’t do anything to counter the force of evil, then how can God fairly expect us to do anything at all? In the movie Gladiator, the hero Maximus says, “What we do in life echoes in eternity!” This is a central theme of many faiths and a key principle for the New Church: “Everyone knows that religion consists in doing good, and that every one will be judged according to his deeds” (Doctrine of Life 31). What we do makes a difference.

But none of us is Superman—we can’t fix everything! Consider an especially overwhelming current event: the massive refugee crisis in the Middle East. You may or may not be aware that hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled their country with little hope of return. Pause for a moment to consider the terrible impact on ordinary people—people like you and me, “How can I do anything about that?” you might wonder. And it’s true, we may have no ability to directly help those refugees from Syria. Instead, the Lord asks us to do what we can with what we have, as the parable of the talents demonstrates: “And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability” (Matt. 25.15). The Lord gives skills; it’s up to us to use them as we see fit. But which of the world’s problems should we address? To find our role in Divine providence, we need to look inward.

The Lord provides a simple action model: since everything good is from Him, all we need to do is remove what is hateful, and then His love will fill the extra room in our hearts. Far from fixing the world’s problems by Himself, the Lord empowers us to conquer evil from the inside out, “Every person by nature is such that he can shun evils, as of himself, from the Lord’s power, if he implores it; and what he does after this, is good from the Lord”(Doctrine of Life 31). Feeling overwhelmed by the troubles of the world? First stop being part of the problem: take a look at yourself and cooperate with the Lord in removing destructive habits that sneak into your own life.

And then be part of the solution. It might be small—just doing your existing work with integrity will have a ripple effect on tragedies across the globe. Or, your skills and passion might take you further afield, maybe even into a refugee camp. Either way, as we turn away from the darkness inside ourselves we will invite the hands of God to guide us. It is all in God’s hands, but those Divine hands are guiding human ones. Let us pray that over time more and more people will respond to the Lord’s call, will embrace His handiwork. Whether or not we answer the call is up to us. This is a key part of Divine providence—the Lord inspires us to clean up our own acts so that we can be of use to each other. We will still grieve when we see suffering, but let’s use that sorrow to discover what strand of the Lord’s love we especially resonate with. Let’s peel back the layers to discover the talents He’s given us, first by removing the barriers that hell throws up in our way, and then by completing that truth, that it’s all in God’s hands—by being part of them.

by Judah Synnestvedt

https://newchurch.org/

Full issue

DAILY INSPIRATION

“Faith is the eye of love, since it is from love through faith that the Lord is seen.”

Arcana Coelestia 3863

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The Bible

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A still life painting by Vincent van Gogh of an open Bible on a table

The Bible… what do make of it? Clearly, it’s been a huge influence on world culture for two thousand years, and on culture in the Middle East for many hundreds of years before that. How should we read it, and use it, today?

It makes sense that a loving God would try to communicate true ideas to us, so that we could consider them in our rational minds, and decide what to do with them. With early people, before the development of written language, there’s plenty of evidence from their art, and from oral traditions, that they felt a communication with God. Later, as writing developed, we find written works – notably the Old Testament of the Bible – that demonstrate God’s drive to reveal truths to us.

The Bible, as it has come down to us, is a revelation of God’s mind, his plan, his truth, and his love for us. It’s a guidebook that we can use to live good lives. It’s ancient, but still fresh and relevant. Its inner meaning has been the subject of many explorations.

The Bible is divided into two testaments, Old and New. Each testament is divided into “books”, each of which has a name, e.g. Genesis, Exodus, etc. Each book is divided into chapters, and each chapter into verses. The Bible has been translated into many languages, by many translators, some from long ago, and many working still today. By and large, the divisions into books, chapters and verses are fairly standard. There’s some variation, partly because the original texts come from scrolls that differ amongst themselves, but overall it’s a surprisingly consistent, well-preserved set of work.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew. Its earliest stories, starting with the creation story, and Adam and Eve, are very ancient. At the time of Moses, perhaps 1300-1500 years before Christ, those early stories were written down and preserved, but they were already part of a much older oral tradition.

The New Testament, written shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, was written in Greek. The four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the Book of Revelation, form the core of it, and they are supplemented by letters – epistles – written by early church leaders: Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude.

Should we call this work the Bible, or the Word?

In New Christian theology, we tend to use the term “The Word”. Why? In his many volumes of theology, Emanuel Swedenborg uses the term “The Bible” only a handful of times, and most of those instances are in reference to ancient writing styles. On the other hand, the term “The Word” appears more than 15,000 times, and it is crucially important to the doctrinal system Swedenborg illustrates.

What’s the difference?

In Swedenborg’s works, “The Word” in its deepest sense means divine truth in its fullness, the infinite expression of the Lord’s infinite love, shining on us the way light shines from the sun. In fact, since the Lord’s essence is love itself and love cannot exist without taking form, Swedenborg’s works say that The Word actually is the Lord, and that the Lord actually is the Word (think about John 1:1: “The Word was with God, and the Word was God”).

Divine truth is, to be sure, an expansive thing: It is the agent and force of creation, and is reflected in all aspects of humanity and of the natural world. If we understood enough we could gaze on fields and trees and see the nature of the Lord’s love and the spiritual world. But that is a fluid expression; we can cut down a tree and change it. The ultimate expression of the Lord’s love is permanent and safeguarded, hidden away within the stories and prophecies of the Bible where only those who love the Lord can begin to understand. Understood at the most internal, symbolic level, those stories and prophecies are completely about the Lord Himself, unveiling His love in its infinite forms, and by reading it we open ourselves to Him and let Him flow into our hearts and minds.

In a sense, then, the Bible is a container for the Word, a compilation of natural language that is divinely ordered so that it can hold and express spiritual ideas. That’s one reason churches based on Swedenborg’s works have traditionally called even the physical book itself “The Word” instead of “The Bible.” They want to be open to the love the book contains, not just the external meanings of the text.

The other reason is more controversial. Swedenborg says that only 34 of the Bible’s books are written with a complete and continuous internal sense, and thus only those 34 are truly part of the Word. The 34 are the five books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, Psalms, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, the four Gospels and Revelation. This leaves out some treasured books of the Old Testament: Ruth, Job, Proverbs, Song of Solomon and others.

But the exact contents of the Old Testament have been debated for millennia and there are already variations in the Jewish, Catholic and Protestant Bibles. What most people find harder to accept is the idea that the works of the early Christian Church — Acts and the various epistles of Christian leaders – are not filled with the divine.

But consider the difference between how the Gospels were written and how the Epistles were written. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were simply trying to record the words and deeds of Jesus, telling what they new of these things in their most outward form. The Lord was able to guide that outward form so that inwardly it could be filled with spiritual correspondences. The epistles, on the other hand, were really the first human attempts to interpret Jesus’s teachings and develop them into a consistent doctrine. The fact that the writers were already trying to find deeper meanings meant that their work could not be used to contain deeper meanings. It doesn’t mean their doctrinal conclusions are wrong – they had vast insight – but they are not divine.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 1403, 1405; Doctrine of Sacred Scripture 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 31, 56, 77, 97, 110, 111; Doctrine of Sacred Scripture 23 [1]; Heaven and Hell 241; The White Horse 16)

http://newchristianbiblestudy.org/

Is free-market capitalism unethical?

Spiritual Questions & Answers

Discovering inner health and transformation

Free-market capitalism
Rana Plaza building

When things go badly wrong in the world of commerce, we ask about the ethics of free-market capitalism.

Dangerous cracks had been spotted in the walls of the Rana Plaza building — a factory complex in Bangladesh — but the staff had been ordered to continue working, making clothes for lucrative export to the West. Now over 900 people are dead in the ruins of the building which has collapsed. In the last eight years alone, more than 1,000 workers had died in similar incidents, owing to the negligence of factory owners.  The Bangladesh Government has failed to regulate the garment industry by enforcing proper safety standards.

Given this tragedy, we might wonder whether unregulated free-market capitalism is a good thing. How can its advocates be correct when they say that the profit motive, property rights, divisions of labour, and competition, actually lead to prosperity for all? Is it really the case that market regulation reduces the entrepreneurial spirit?

For free-market capitalism

Those in favour of free-market capitalism maintain that self-interested individuals would mostly engage in win-win transactions: self-interest is natural and beneficial in making untrammelled free markets work well.

“The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.”
(Milton Friedman)

The pursuing of profits by self-interested companies competing in the market economy is said to cause trickle down benefits even to the poorest: thus an unintended consequence of individual gain is prosperity for all. And competitive markets are said to drive down prices and increase business efficiency.

Against free-market capitalism

If the biblical message about the love of money being the root of all evil is true, then perhaps maximising profits is undesirable. One can get carried away with free-market competition for the sake of making money. In 19th century America, a lot of people were against outlawing child labour, because to do so would be against the very foundations of a free market economy.

Free-market capitalism results in huge differences in wealth. For example according to Ha-Joon Chang:

“The top 10 per cent of the US population appropriated 91 per cent of income growth between 1989 and 2006, while the top 1 per cent took 59 per cent.”

One of the obvious recent social trends in Britain has been the huge and still widening gap between the poor and the rich. One can wonder whether even if free-market capitalism reduces the absolute level of poverty in a country, the gross inequality of relative poverty might lead to a divided rather than cohesive society.

Maximising profits

Writing nearly three centuries ago before the growth of free-market capitalism as we know it today, spiritual philosopher, Emanuel Swedenborg, suggests it is not ethically wrong to make profits. How else can one provide for oneself, and one’s family?  Today, like the past, any business that focuses on turnover without profits does not survive.

However, Swedenborg says there is an important difference between on the one hand gaining profit through providing a commercial service and on the other hand exploiting customers to maximize profits.

For example the ethical cobbler charges customers what he thinks is fair and reasonable for his skill and labour and not necessarily the higher price that the market would bear. He needs to cover his costs and provide for the needs of himself and his family but his focus is on being of help to his community.

There is a central spiritual principle here. It is that all spiritual  life is the life of wanting what is useful. In other words the inner experience of deep happiness and contentment comes not from material gain but rather from being of service to others and enjoying their fellowship.

Working for oneself, one can adopt one’s own rules. However, economies of scale in production mean that large companies operate in large markets which are impersonal and traders operate anonymously. For instance, one might wonder about a manager’s attitude towards sales staff who fail to get the best price by only charging what they feel is a fair price rather than the highest possible price they can get away with. Companies have codes of ethics but we might ask whether the ethical issue of non-exploitation — something that  perhaps transcends common commercial practice — could be defined by companies whose investors expect the maximisation of profit.

In some parts of the world it is thought that capturing limited resources by greedy exploitation of the weak and uneducated means that many remain hungry and homeless.

‘There is enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed’, (Gandhi)

Moderating free-market capitalism

Here are a few suggestions that come to mind.

Curtailing privatisation of natural monopolies (e.g. water supplies) encouraging ownership by the population being served or strengthening the powers of regulators such as in Britain Ofgas, Ofgen etc.

Ensuring free competition by restricting the hike in prices that comes about as companies try to corner the market by forming cartels and restricting the company take-overs (e.g. in Britain by its Monopoly Commission)

Reducing the size and thus locality of savings banks along the lines of the previous mutual building societies before they were allowed to become private banks.

Encouraging local markets where business people draw income from activities in which they have some vestige of personal involvement. Admittedly, in the modern global, interconnected world, the ability to do this is limited.

Further developing markets in “Fair Trade” products.

Creating opportunities for share-ownership of companies. For example the John Lewis Partnership, which owns a chain of department stores and supermarkets, seems to have a good scheme; the company is owned by a trust on behalf of all its employees — known as Partners — who have a say in the running of the business and receive a share of annual profits, which is usually a significant addition to their salary.

Conclusion

Whilst the desires reflected in markets remain predominantly materialistic, I believe that an alternative economic pattern will be hard to grow. Therefore, it seems that the best ethical solution is for government not to de-regulate the markets but continue to exercise close control of health and safety, prevention of monopolies and ensuring there is fair competition.

Copyright 2013 Stephen Russell-Lacy
Author of Heart, Head & Hands Swedenborg’s perspective on emotional problems

http://www.spiritualquestions.org.uk/

Posted on9th May 2013AuthorEditorCategoriesEthics, Ethics & PoliticsTags, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Leave a comment