“It [is] impossible for any good to take root in a person except in their freedom, for that which does not take root in freedom is dispelled at the first sign of evil and of temptation. “
Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia 3854
“It [is] impossible for any good to take root in a person except in their freedom, for that which does not take root in freedom is dispelled at the first sign of evil and of temptation. “
Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia 3854
With all who are undergoing temptations, truth from the Lord is flowing in, and this truth rules and governs their thoughts, uplifting them every time they are given to doubt and also to feelings of despair.”
Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia 5044
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New International Version
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
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“Love and thoughts are not in space and time.” Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Providence 50 ——————– |
Let it be known that no one can be regenerated without temptation.”
Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia 8403:2
Most of us would welcome a life without temptation. It would be so easy to be good!
According to Swedenborg, however, a life without temptation would actually guarantee the opposite: It would leave us mired in evil and bound for hell. In fact, his theology says that temptation is the only way we can root out our evils and let the Lord into our hearts, so we should recognize it as an opportunity even if we can’t exactly embrace it as a good time.
The reasoning behind this starts with the idea that we are what we love; that what we care about actually determines our character and defines our identity. That might sound odd at first, but consider: If you say that you “know” someone, you’re really talking about an awareness of what they love, not an awareness of all their thoughts. What we love is who we are.
And from the beginning of our lives, what we love is highly self-centered. Much as we love babies for their innocence, they can’t even form the concept of putting someone else’s needs first. And while children and teenagers learn to be kind and considerate, that kindness is more in their external levels – inside they are busy with the work of becoming themselves, and that remains a self-involved process.
Somewhere between there and the end of life, we’re called on to change completely, setting our self-interest aside and replacing it with a genuine love for others and love for the Lord. That, however, involves uprooting the things we love most. And since those loves form our identity, that’s really hard, and has to be done in many, many steps.
The key element working for us is the mind: from our knowledge and thoughts we can know what’s right even when we don’t want it. In fact, from our knowledge and thoughts we can actually want to be better people, while in our hearts we still want to wallow in those attractive evils.
Elevating the mind this way creates a conflict between “the person I want to become” and “the person I am,” between “what I want” and “what I want to want” (sort of like, “I want to be craving celery, but I’m really craving cookies”). And since the hells want to keep you enslaved by cookies, they go on the attack, using both blunt desire and twisted logic and argument to try to break you down.
Key to the hells’ attack is the fact that what we want forms our identity; giving up each evil thing we crave feels like sacrificing a little part of who we are. But the Lord’s promise is this: If we actually do it, stick through it and let that piece of ourselves be sacrificed, He will eventually replace it with the desire for something good, pure and loving.
An interesting twist is that if we tried to do this all at once, we actually would lose our identity, destroying every love we have at once. This may sound odd – wouldn’t we want such a transformation- – but imagine someone you think of as thoroughly evil: Hitler, perhaps, or Caligula, or Vlad Dracula. Then imagine removing, in one swipe, all their evil desires. Would we even recognize them anymore? Would they be themselves? Would they be anything?
But imagine a child’s stuffed bear, loved so much that it loses an arm. You replace the arm, and then it is loved so much that it loses the other arm. And then the legs, and the head, all replaced one at a time. Finally the body wears through and you replace that too. So what you have is the same bear, but with every part replaced. That’s kind of how the Lord works on us: Through a lifelong series of temptations we can root out and replace one little bit at a time until we emerge all-new and ready for heaven while still being who we are.
It’s clear, then, how crucial a role temptation plays. If we never had that conflict between what we want to be in our minds and what we are in our hearts, the evil would just stay in our hearts untouched. We have to take on those battles, one by one over a lifetime, to become the people the Lord wishes us to be.
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(References: Arcana Coelestia 730, 739, 755, 757, 1690, 2334, 2338, 4274, 5246, 8403)
Discovering inner health and transformation
‘Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised’ said policeman PC Michael Sanguinetti in Toronto, whilst advising students about safety on campus. In so saying he unleashed a storm of outrage. Hundreds of scantily clad young women took to the streets in North America carrying placards ‘My short skirt and cleavage have nothing to do with you.’ ‘It’s my hot body: I do what I want.’ But just how should men and women conduct themselves in the Western world’s sexual culture?
These days flaunting oneself seems to be the norm. Our sexual culture is a far cry from the days before feminism when women were supposed to repress their sexuality and act all demurely. But does modesty have to be completely thrown out of the window?
Of course the ‘slut walk’ marchers have a crucially important point. As one placard says ‘Sex is something people do together – not something you do to someone.’ They are challenging the attitude of our sexual culture that women are sex objects, that ‘women ask for it’, that men can do nothing other than act on impulse. They are saying rape is a terrible crime.
Justice minister Kenneth Clark found out to his cost, just how serious a crime rape is considered to be in our sexual culture, when implying there can be less serious kinds of rape. When asked about the average rape sentence, he explained: “That includes date rape, 17 year-olds having intercourse with 15-year-olds”, adding that the tariff for “serious rape” was much longer. He was talking about a proposal to halve prison sentences for those who plead guilty early. He later clarified his position by saying all rape was serious. But he had well and truly put his foot in it by the way he expressed himself such is the sensitivity of the issue.
Is the spirit of the protesters’ message all about men taking responsibility for their own behaviour and about valuing sex as part of a human relationship in a sexual culture rather than only a bodily pleasure?
If so, such a point of view is echoed in the value of virtue reflected in the ethical guidelines of the great religions.
The marchers seem to be implying that sexual signals have no meaning in the world of human interaction. Some feminists claim that all men are rapists. This is clearly not literally true although probably many men can be tempted by sexual signals to take the sexual initiative. For what other reason does the prostitute wear low cleavage and sluttish garb if not to attract sexual business? Are these marchers in denial about their responsibility in arousing desire? The individual who leaves their front door open should not be surprised if a burglar takes the opportunity to help himself to their belongings. Has the person who leaves valuables showing in the parked car not any responsibility for facilitating a higher likelihood of car theft?
If women think they can dress sluttishly, why do feminists object to Miss World contests and to scantily dressed page three girls? The answer seems to be that they are showing their right to dress as they like in revealing what they want. But people express their right to drink as much as they like and vomit all over the street. Having a right to do something is not the same thing as exercising that right responsibly.
Men are not all rapists or car thieves but who could claim never to act badly whatever the circumstances one finds oneself in? In saying their Lord’s prayer, Christians ask not to be led into temptation. This raises a question for everyone. Just how susceptible are we all to criminal impulses? Perhaps more so than it is comfortable to assume.
The spiritual philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg wrote about sexuality and the ideal quality of love that can unite a couple as one in heart, mind and body – a quality he termed the ‘conjugial’ relationship. Swedenborg lived in the 18th century before feminism and before a sexual culture. However what he said is as arguably as relevant today as it was 300 years ago.
He compares a natural love of people of the other sex with a spiritual love of one person of the other sex. In other words he says that although we have a natural desire for sexual contact with many people – something we have in common with most animals – nevertheless we are able to rise above our natural animal desires to love only one person in a continuing sexual relationship; something only we as humans can achieve.
One common notion in feminism is that sexual attitudes in society can change as a result of changes in sexual politics; that it is mainly a matter of social norms. However, from a spiritual angle, we get an additional perspective – that of individual freedom and responsibility for healing and self-improvement.
Swedenborg wrote of this spiritual perspective in terms of overcoming temptation; a dynamic process that is central to personal change. According to his view, part of this process is our resistance to unacceptable impulses that come from we know not where but which should be acknowledged and faced. For we are all capable of turning towards what is destructive of the good life. We are all fallible and susceptible to falling for the excitement of the moment that can have serious consequences for the well-being of others.
A need for personal transformation implies something bad associated with us that needs to change. The area of sexual behaviour is no exception to this general condition we all find ourselves in. Don’t we all have a responsibility not to throw temptation in people’s way?
Copyright 2011 Stephen Russell-Lacy
Author of Heart, Head & Hands Swedenborg’s perspective on emotional problems
http://www.spiritualquestions.org.uk/
Posted on23rd May 2011CategoriesEthics, Private EthicsLeave a comment
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Discovering inner health and transformation
Who hasn’t at one time or another felt cross with him or herself for acting on some urge of the moment, giving in to temptation to do something which was enjoyed at the time but which later causes regret?
Perhaps it was overeating and now you are fearful of looking fat and becoming unhealthy: or maybe it was spending money you could not afford on a whim buying something not really needed and now you are concerned about paying off the credit card: or perhaps it was verbally lashing out at someone who angered you at the time and now you fear losing the benefits of the relationship.
Actions like these may bother you but the chances are you will be quick to forget all about such things. and any sense of embarrassment and even guilt will be short lived. Many people are probably like this. It is not that they are bad or stupid. It is simply that they saw they had been tempted to behave against their own interests. They do not consider that succumbing to the impulse of the moment would lead to any long-term serious consequences.
And perhaps they are right. So what is so bad about giving way to temptation? Why should anyone feel guilty about going against the social rules that are expected to be followed?
You might be tempted to harm the person who bothers you, but a society in which everyone gave in to the temptation to hurt those who made them angry, would quickly devolve into chaos. Therefore social roles are developed.
Psychologists have tested how people behave with and without being watched. It is clear that when they think they can get away with it, many will succumb to temptation to pinch things they fancy (for example from hotels), exaggerate their expenses claims, and even fabricate the contents of their CV’s.
Some people thus only follow rules because it seems to be in their interests to do so. If they believe other people are not following the rules or that other people won’t know if they break them, then they are also likely to break rules. Their conscience is one of social conformity rather than high principle.
Many spiritual writers have written that human problems can arise when one lacks a firm foundation of values. Without ethical principles you may be tempted to live a life in which “anything goes,” or be unable to discern what is right and wrong in any given situation.
A well-known moral principle is the golden rule that one should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself — that is with patience, tolerance, trust, and respect. This is not just for the sake of getting back what you give but rather as a spiritual principle in itself. Another example is that of conserving nature and protecting it from unsustainable exploitation not just as a way of protecting our resources but also as a way of recognising something which is valued for itself.
Let us return to the examples given at the beginning about eating, spending money and lashing out. The impulse to eat too much tests one’s inner contentment with the inflow of the spirit rather than attachment to bodily pleasure.
“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Jesus Christ)
Likewise attractive advertising of luxury goods also tests a commitment to prioritising money for what is useful: and being provoked to anger tests the ethic of forgiveness.
A moral consciousness gives you the option of deliberately doing wrong. Having the power of rational and ethical discrimination gives you the responsibility to make the right choices.
Who doesn’t give in to temptation sometimes? Doing so can leave you feeling dissatisfied, guilty or empty because it might be suggested that you have distanced yourself a little from the spirit of goodness that had been inspiring and uplifting your life. I suspect even people of faith who have had a deep trust in their Lord, can find themselves losing confidence when circumstances are tough, becoming anxious about the future or the past, and being tempted with negative attitudes or selfish thoughts. Their faith is indeed being tested.
One idea of religion I like is that of a forgiving God who is always willing to give us another chance.
My view of spiritual growth is that it is a gradual process and that for a long time perhaps to a lessening extent your worldly orientated and self-centred habits of thought still attract you. See here for what John Odhner has written about what the new Testament describes as a conflict between the “old man” and the “new man.” The spiritual teaching is that the more you turn away from what in your heart you know is wrong, then the more you will be transformed into a better character.
“Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.” (William Butler Yeats)
Copyright 2013 Stephen Russell-Lacy Author of Heart, Head & Hands Swedenborg’s perspective on emotional problems
http://www.spiritualquestions.org.uk/
Posted on6th November 2013CategoriesEthics, Private Ethics Leave a comment
‘By what shall I know that I shall inherit it?’ means temptation directed against the Lord’s love which wished to be made quite certain of the outcome. This becomes clear from the feeling of doubt which the words express. Anyone who is undergoing temptation experiences doubt as regards the end in view. That end is the love against which evil spirits and evil genii fight and in so doing place the end in doubt. And the greater his love is, the more they place it in doubt. Unless the end in view which a person loves is placed in doubt, and even in despair, there would be no temptation. A feeling of certainty about the outcome precedes, and is part of, victory. (AC 1820; Elliot)
April 23, 2017 § Leave a comment
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The essence of the Lord – what He’s made of; what he actually is – is love. It’s perfect love, boundless and pure and complete.
Love, of course, innately desires an object. We can’t just love in a vacuum; we want to love someone or something, and in loving them we want to be close to them and ultimately conjoined with them. To fulfill Himself, then, the Lord created the universe and ultimately created us so that he could have something outside Himself to love.
The Lord’s goal for us, then, is to accept His love and to be conjoined with him. For that relationship to work, though, there are two essential elements. First, we have to have a choice; if we didn’t have a choice it would be compulsion, not love, and would be no more meaningful than the instinctive love a dog has for its master. Second, we have to remain separate from the Lord; if we became part of Him, he would be loving Himself.
The first of those elements creates the potential for evil to exist. To give us a choice, the Lord created us with the ability to refocus His love and turn it on ourselves – to use the power and life He freely gives us to love and worship ourselves instead of loving and worshipping Him. That is pretty much the definition of evil, and the Writings tell us that it is the state we are all in from birth and the state we would all return to instantly if it were not for the loving influence of the Lord.
Many find that idea upsetting. Why would the Lord let us be born into evil? Shouldn’t we be essentially neutral if we are to have a choice? And surely we can’t be saying that babies are evil!
In a way, though, the fact that we’re born into evil is the Lord’s way of balancing things out. He is pouring love on us constantly, leading us toward good in countless ways; if we were not innately evil we would be overwhelmed by His love and would lose our ability to choose. As for babies, the Writings do say that babies and young children have a degree of natural goodness, which shows as a love for their parents and kindness toward other children. As they get older and begin to be more rational, the Lord draws this into their interiors so He can continue to affect them as they grow. They are also innocent, lacking the ability to choose either good or evil.
But for all their innocence and sweetness and the powerful love they inspire in us, children are, if you think about it, deeply self-centered. And that self-centered state often persists through adolescence into adulthood, when real choices begin.
This means that we all enter adulthood with some degree of self-love, love of wealth, love of dominating others, love of being in charge, pride in our intelligence and a sense of entitlement. It might not be dominant, but it’s there. What do we do?
Well, remember that the Lord is pouring love on us constantly; our problem is that we are full of evils and there’s no place for that love to attach itself. What we need to do, then, is start attacking those evils. If we can uproot them, the Lord will fill the space with love.
And that, the Writings tell us, is the work of our lifetimes. We are called on to learn what is good and use that knowledge to shun evils – to push them aside so the Lord can replace them with desires for good. Do it long enough and diligently enough and the Lord will set the evils aside permanently and fill us with love – the state of angels. We will then go to a society in heaven to be with people whose loves are similar to ours.
There are a few points worth making about this process:
● It is slow. Our loves are our life, so if the Lord simply took all our evils away at once it would kill us. It’s a process.
● We have to know evil to fight it. The Lord has given us the capacity to know what is right even while we desire what is wrong; we can use that power to examine ourselves and identify our evils so we can combat them.
● Temptation is key. The only way to really uproot an evil love is to fight it, and the battle can only come when that evil desire is active, eating at us, calling to us, trying to drag us away. This is not to say we should seek temptation – the Lord will provide it at the right time – but we can recognize it as an opportunity to grow spiritually.
● We can’t make ourselves good. Only the Lord can do that; our part is to try not to be bad and ask for His help.
● We’re not necessarily responsible for evil thoughts. Just as the Lord is constantly leading us toward goodness and light, the hells also want us to join their ranks in evil and darkness. One way they do this is by bombarding our minds with evil thoughts. But our thoughts are not our life; our loves are. If we let evil thoughts go on by us and don’t make them part of what we intend to do, we’re not responsible for them.
● We’re not necessarily reponsible for evil intentions or actions. Some people are raised without any knowledge of right and wrong, and have no idea that things they desire are evil. Those evils don’t become a permanent part of them unless they embrace them while knowing they are wrong.
And if we fail, then what? Well, that’s a mirror image of the “going-to-heaven” process – if we choose to embrace evils and knowingly make them our own, we will ultimately go to hell to be with others who have similar evil loves.
But here’s an interesting point: The Writings say that the Lord never really takes our evils away, even if we become angels in heaven. He pushes them aside and negates their power, but he doesn’t remove them. Why?
The answer lies in the second of the two elements we mentioned earlier, that we have to stay separate from the Lord in order to be loved by Him. If the Lord actually removed our evils and made us fully pure and good, He would also remove the element that makes us separate, the part of ourselves that is not part of the Lord. The Lord can’t be evil, so the evil in us will always be outside Him. This maintains our identity even in the most exalted angelic state we could reach.
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Religious freedom has been popping up in the news quite a bit lately: The US Army considers whether to relax its regulations on dress and grooming to allow Sikhs—whose religious practices include men wearing turbans and growing beards—to serve in the military. A town in New Jersey debates whether to allow construction of a local mosque, as residents voice fears of a terrorist attack. And religious freedom has become a buzzword on the US campaign trail, as conservative voters protest laws that contradict their beliefs.
All of these debates center around the practice of religion: when, where, and how groups and individuals can put their religious convictions into action. Emanuel Swedenborg offers a different perspective: What if the real question isn’t how we practice religious freedom but how we practice spiritual freedom? And what’s the difference between the two?
First, though, it needs to be clear that all freedom is a matter of love, even to the point that love and freedom are the same thing. Since love is our life, freedom is also essential to our life. (Divine Providence §73:2)
Freedom is a characteristic of everything that belongs to love and everything that belongs to our will. Anyone can see this from the statement “I want to do this because I love it,” and the other way around, “because I love this I also want to do it.” (True Christianity §493)
When Swedenborg speaks in terms of freedom and love, he’s referring back to one of the core ideas of his philosophy: a person’s dominant or ruling love, which you could think of as the emotions, desires, or needs that drive us on a deep inner level. If we love ourselves or our reputation more than anything else, then we’re motivated by selfish love; if we put others first and if we love the divine (in whatever form that takes for us personally), then we’re motivated by positive, selfless love. When we’re doing what we love, Swedenborg says, we feel free.
In his writings, he talks about different levels of freedom that correspond to different levels of our inner being. We have earthly, or bodily, freedom in the sense that we can control our own actions. We can do whatever we want, except to the extent that laws, moral codes, or fear of social consequences hold us back. We have rational, or mental, freedom in that we can think whatever we want; we can reason through problems and decide what we think. We can also use our rationality to override our lower impulses—restrain ourselves from acting out of anger, for example, or giving in to temptation.
Our spiritual freedom, he says, works in a similar way. We can use our spiritual understanding not only to override our ego-driven urges but to untangle the mess of confusion that sometimes arises from overthinking a situation. The difference between spiritual freedom and mental or bodily freedom is that spiritual freedom comes from the Divine:
Spiritual freedom comes from a love for eternal life. The only people who arrive at this love and its pleasure are people who think that evils are sins and therefore do not want to do them, and who at the same time turn toward the Lord. The moment we do this, we are in spiritual freedom, because it is only from an inner or higher freedom that we can stop intending evils because they are sins and therefore not do them. This kind of freedom comes from an inner or higher love. (Divine Providence §73:6)
Swedenborg describes turning toward the Lord—regeneration, or spiritual rebirth—as a long and challenging process of personal growth. The end result is as much a freedom from the limits of the body and mind as it is a freedom to express divine love:
All the freedom we enjoy in earthly matters comes down from this higher freedom; and because freedom originates there, it has a share in all the free choices we make in earthly matters. From among our earthly options, the love that is dominant in us on the highest level selects everything that is well suited to itself. That higher freedom is present the way a spring is present in all the water that flows from it, or the way the fertility of a seed is present in each and every part of the tree that results from it—especially the fruit, in which the seed renews itself. (True Christianity §494)
From this perspective, spiritual freedom is a freedom without walls or limits. Even a person living in an oppressive regime or whose physical movements are restricted can live a full and beautiful life by first seeking out that source of divine love and then allowing that love to guide his or her life. And that love—that spiritual freedom—can be expressed through even the smallest actions, regardless of whether those actions are overtly religious. If everything that we do comes from divine love, then there’s no way to stop that love from flowing through the world.
What does spiritual freedom mean to you?
For an in-depth look at spiritual freedom in Swedenborg’s writings, watch “Spiritual Freedom,” an episode of our weekly webcast Swedenborg and Life (or read the recap here).
For more on the idea of dominant love, see our blog post “How Spiritual Growth Makes You More You”; and there’s also more about divine guidance in the post “Led by the Lord? The Spiritual Questions to Ask Yourself.”
Regeneration: Spiritual Growth and How It Works is a collection of Swedenborg’s writings on spiritual growth that outlines both the process and the internal factors at work.
Eating fruit is supposed to be healthy for us. The saying, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” is a positive testimonial to its nutritional value and fiber content.
So why would God warn Adam and Eve not to do something which offered real health benefits? What made the forbidden fruit forbidden? If one does not think deeply about this, then the only conclusion to be made is that this particular fruit was not necessarily bad to eat, but that the act of disobeying God made it evil.
If one does think deeply about this biblical event it becomes quite troublesome. The outcome, called “The Fall,” challenges our intuitive and deep sense of justice and rightness.
In this story, God concocted an artificial test, which had nothing to do with a person’s actual character or morality, yet became so indignant by this minor infraction that all humanity was doomed to suffer. Why would someone’s moment of weakness be transferred to future generations as deadly original sin?
It seems as though God acted more like a spoiled brat than one possessing Infinite Love and Wisdom. And why did God later choose to become more practical with the Ten Commandments, which does indeed address and test the quality of human souls? Was God still tinkering with how humans should behave? Tinkering does not suggest inerrancy.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. The problem is that the literal interpretation of its stories kills heavenly communication.
The Word of God could not be the Word of God unless it contained the boundless depth of Infinite wisdom. God could not have created everything in the universe, including bio-complexity, from the Holy Word, unless it too, contained unimaginable complexity. The only way Infinite Wisdom and complexity can exist in a finite book is if Scripture is a multidimensional document with layers of meaning.
These higher meanings allow God to reveal more and more divine wisdom to us. For instance, on a higher level, the act of eating in Scripture represents appropriation. When we eat and metabolize food (or fruit) it enters into our very fabric and becomes “us.” The same thing holds true with ideas and beliefs – which we can swallow whole.
Simply put, the forbidden fruit was harmful because it was really poisonous to eat – poisonous for the soul. God warned against eating this fruit because it came from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which represents humankind’s misguided belief and faith in their own self intelligence, rather then being led by God’s wisdom (Tree of Life).
To be expelled from the Garden of Eden is to be removed from God’s wisdom. Everything wrong about today’s world and human affairs is not from any ongoing punishment. It all stems from a lack of wisdom.
Don’t you think that the “fruits” of one’s self-pride and ego reasoning are much more tempting and sweeter than a mere apple? This higher lesson is carried over into the New Testament by the Lord’s words, “wherefore by their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:20) and “for the tree is known by his fruit” (Matthew 12:33).
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Many of us have developed at least one way of acting that can hurt ourselves, annoy others or damage relationships. Something is lacking self-control. Examples include over-eating, untidiness, nagging, and telling lies. If we keep doing these things they become ingrained in our behaviour and may seem impossible to change.
Yet we weren’t born with these actions and what is learned can be unlearned. Gaining better self-control over our behaviour can be done but requires a conscious effort and persistence.
To stand any chance of gaining self-control we need to be completely clear about why we want to change. Often our family and friends are more aware of our problem behaviour than we ourselves. We may not always realise when, and to what extent, we are at fault.
It might help to find out from somebody else at what times and in what situations where we are going wrong. What harm am I doing? What is embarrassing, upsetting or irritating for me or for others?
It’s never too late to stop a bad habit. When we have dug ourselves into a hole, the best policy is to stop digging! After all no-one is compelled to be untidy, to nag, be argumentative, tell a lie or get drunk. It just seems that way at the time.
We need to be especially on guard at the times when we are most at risk of relapsing into our old ways. We have reached a choice between yielding to, or exercising self-control over undesirable impulses. Having a sense of freedom in choosing between alternative actions is a familiar experience. It confirms out ability to make real choices.
Many self-indulgent desires are represented in images we remember seeing in the mass media. Because we merely have some connection with them, we need not allow ourselves to become enslaved by them but are free to ignore them. Because these impulses are not entirely part of us we can disown them.
For many moral issues call us to a deeper conflict. The tension is not just between indulging self and exercising self-control. Neither is it just about doing what is thought by others to be right or wrong. It is also about choosing to follow our inner conscience or not. When we try to have self-control over what is bad in our lives because it goes against our inner conscience, then temptation combat becomes inevitable.
Religion says to gain self-control we need the spiritual help of a higher power. Many alcoholics feel they have failed, despite doing all they can, to overcome the ‘demon drink’ and so many members of Alcoholics Anonymous surrender themselves to a higher power, many call God, believing that only with the strength of this force for good can they stay sober.
Having a belief that we are not fighting alone means a huge sense of confidence that the battle can be won. The problem drinker also has a part to play – it would be no good believing in a higher power without acting on that belief for example by resisting the temptation to buy alcohol at a shop or visit a drinking establishment.
The spiritual philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg makes an important distinction between on the one hand the notion of resisting bad impulses by our own efforts alone and on the other hand resisting them in God’s strength ‘as of ourselves’. In other words we need both God’s strength and our own effort to turn away from what is wrong about our living and instead embrace what would be right.
In line with this teaching he criticised the orthodox Christian doctrine of ‘justification by faith alone’ that gives the only emphasis on belief in God at the expense of our additional responsibility to gain control over our own behaviour.
The bad news is that if we make no effort to resist our own demons, no attempt to stop pandering to our baser instincts at the expense of our higher impulses, then we have taken a backward step towards gaining any control over our faults. What is bad in us will have acquired power over what is good in us. On the other hand if we do try hard to take control over the selfish and greedy desires, in God’s strength, then the divine spirit can then give us a new direction. This means self-restraint as well as enlightenment and inner happiness to replace the illusion that we are enslaved to self-indulgence.
Copyright 2013 Stephen Russell-Lacy
Author of Heart, Head & Hands Swedenborg’s perspective on emotional problems
Now, therefore, send quickly and tell David, saying, “Do not spend this night in the plains of the wilderness, but speedily cross over, lest the king and all the people be swallowed up” (2SA 17:16).
Absalom was the favorite son of King David. He was tall. He was handsome. He was the apple of his father’s eye. While his father sat on the throne doing the actual work of bringing justice to the kingdom, Absalom stood in the gate of the city and greeted all the people who came to petition the king. He told each one just what he wanted to hear, that if he were king, he would surely decide in that one’s favor. More and more people began to succumb to this flattery and began to love Absalom more than they loved David.
Absalom seemed to have everything going his way, but he did have one glaring fault that led him into many disorders: he wanted to be king so badly that he could not patiently wait for his father to die or give him the throne. Absalom spent most of his adult life plotting to violently overthrow his father and rule in his place.
The amazing thing is that David knew of his son’s plans, he knew that Absalom was a constant threat to the stability of his kingdom and his own life, and yet he continued to turn his eyes away from Absalom’s wickedness, and play the fool to Absalom’s lies. His love for his son was not based upon respect, or on the good things that Absalom was able to accomplish among the people. Instead, his love was based on the mere fact that Absalom has arisen from his own body, and for that reason alone David protected him from the consequences of his behavior. If David had only acted as a responsible parent and brought Absalom under control, it would have saved both of them much misery in their lives.
As with every story in the Word when viewed from the perspective of the regenerative series, David, as the central figure, represents each of us as we try to regenerate. Absalom stands for the evils that we love even though we know that they are evil.
David’s uncritical love for his son represents our uncritical loves, all those conflicts between our will and our understanding where we know we should be doing one thing, but we want to do something else. David knew he should control Absalom, but he did not want to. He refused to restrain his son.
Returning for a moment to the literal story, we see that when Absalom believed that he had amassed a sufficiently broad base of popular support, he moved against his father. Absalom and his army rose up in the night and attacked Jerusalem. Their victory was quick, though it was not quite complete. David managed to flee into the country-side with a few of his advisers, servants, and family.
As David fled, he had time to speak to his close friend and loyal adviser, Hushai, and asked him to risk his life by staying and becoming an adviser to Absalom. David’s hope was that Hushai could confound the good counsel that Absalom would get from his other advisers, specially from such wise men as Ahithopel.
Hushai did as his king bid him. He presented himself to Absalom, who recognized him as a trusted friend of David’s. Absalom asked him to explain why he should not be executed for his treason against David. Hushai explained that he had always been an adviser to the king, and now there was a new king to advise. Hushai convinced Absalom that his loyalty lay with the throne, not with the individual who sat upon it. Absalom, a man who was not known for his humility and good sense, believed him, because the explanation pleased him. And so Hushai was in a position to protect David from within Absalom’s inner circle of advisers.
Absalom called his council together to discuss what to do next. Ahithopel correctly advised him that David was now alone in the wilderness, without food, tents, or weapons. He had no army, but only a few personal servants and members of the court. He told Absalom that if he were to strike forcefully and immediately, he could easily overwhelm David and ensure the future of his own kingdom.
Hushai (knowing that if Absalom did move swiftly, David was doomed), cautioned Absalom not to move too quickly. He reminded Absalom of David’s reputation as the slayer of “10 000 Philistines”, and told him that if he thought to fight against such a warrior as David was, he had better be thoroughly prepared. Absalom accepted the counsel of Hushai because he did still fear his father’s reputation as a warrior, and so he lost his opportunity to crush David while he was weak and unable to defend himself. As a direct result of the delay, David was able to gather a powerful army to himself and crush the rebellion, killing Absalom.
This is an interesting story of political intrigue and struggles between powerful men within a royal family, but there must be more to it than that, or it would not be a part of God’s Word. It must somehow address the problems of men that transcend time and place. If it is God’s Word, it must speak to each of us and help us in the daily struggle of our lives. When we think of David as standing for ourselves, and Absalom standing for our evil loves, this story tells us many things about fighting against the hells in states of temptation.
First, it tells us that although the hells (represented by Absalom) seem to be incredibly powerful, we must keep in mind that they are stupid, vain, and cowardly, and we can use these weaknesses to our advantage. We don’t have to fight against them when we are weak and unprepared. We can push them away until we are ready to fight, until we have chosen the time and place that puts us in the better position. The internal sense of the story tells us what these steps are in their order.
Starting from the point where we see that David stands for each one of us, and Absalom stands for some evil within us that we love like a son, we can see the first step in preparing to do battle with and defeat some evil love within us is to flee from it!
After David fled from Jerusalem into the wilderness, counsel was given to both Absalom and David. This tells us that the second step should be that, having fled the sphere of the evil, we must then take counsel.
The third step is revealed when Hushai sends word to David that he should not delay, but should “speedily” cross over the Jordan and leave the wilderness. The wilderness represents a state of despair, hunger, loneliness, and temptation. Gilead, the land on the other side of the Jordan, was a good place, pleasant to live in, and represents the sensuous pleasures that delight the natural man.
The fourth step is to continue our self-examination, our searching for the truth of the matter. This is represented by the spies, Jonathan and Ahimaaz, who were sent to David by Hushai. We are told that Absalom’s men were looking for them, and they were forced to hide in a well in a courtyard, which was then covered with a cloth and ground grain.
A well in Israel in those days was usually a pit hollowed out of the underlying sandstone. Rainwater would be directed into the pit, and hoarded through the long dry season. This kind of well has a good representation, because it is used to store water, but the water becomes stale after several months, and while it is still useful for watering crops and livestock, it is not as pleasant to drink as running water from a mountain stream. Thus, such a well represents the very lowest sort of truths there are, very external and sensual. This is further represented by the fact that the well was in the courtyard of a house, for a courtyard also represents what is external or natural.
External truths from the Word are our sure ground when we are being attacked by the hells.
We are told that Absalom’s men were not able to find the spies, which means in the spiritual sense that the hells cannot harm our remains of good and truth.
The fifth step again refers to crossing over into Gilead, and we are told that this is because as we prepare to fight, as we make decisions to do what the Word teaches, as we compel ourselves to fight against evil, the Lord gives us feelings of pleasure and delight. Perhaps we could think of this in terms of an army facing an important battle. How does the General prepare his troops?
The Lord cannot stand before us in person and give us a pep talk, but He can touch our hearts and our minds with the strength and courage we need, if we will invite Him to do so. This is what encamping in Gilead means.
And so in this story of Absalom’s revolt against David we learn five steps that we can take to prepare ourselves properly to fight against the hells in states of temptation so that when we fight with the Lord’s help, we will certainly win.
Lessons: 2 Samuel 17:15-29, Mark 10:35-45, TCR 596
True Christian Religion 596.
VII. WHEN THIS TAKES PLACE A CONFLICT ARISES BETWEEN THE INTERNAL AND THE EXTERNAL MAN, AND THEN THE ONE THAT CONQUERS RULES OVER THE OTHER.
596. A conflict then arises because the internal man is reformed by means of truths; and from truths he sees what is evil and false, which evil and falsity are still in the external or natural man; consequently disagreement first springs up between the new will, which is above, and the old will, which is below; and as the disagreement is between the two wills, it is also between their delights; for the flesh, it is well known, is opposed to the spirit and the spirit to the flesh, and the flesh with its lusts must be subdued before the spirit can act and man become new. After this disagreement of the two wills a conflict arises; and this is called spiritual temptation. This temptation or conflict does not take place between goods and evils, but between the truths of good and the falsities of evil For good cannot fight from itself but fights by means of truths; nor can evil fight from itself but by means of its falsities; just as the will cannot fight from itself but by means of the understanding where its truths reside.
[2] Man is not sensible of that conflict except as in himself, and as remorse of conscience; and yet it is the Lord and the devil (that is, hell) that are fighting in man, and they are fighting for dominion over him, or to determine who shall possess him. The devil or hell attacks man and calls out his evils, while the Lord protects him and calls out his goods. Although that conflict takes place in the spiritual world, still it takes place in man between the truths of good and the falsities of evil that are in him; therefore man must fight wholly as if of himself, for he has the freedom of choice to act for the Lord, and also to act for the devil; he is for the Lord, if he abides in truths from good, and for the devil, if he abides in falsities from evil. From this it follows that whichever conquers, the internal man or the external, that one rules over the other; precisely like two hostile powers contending as to which shall be master of the other’s kingdom–the conqueror takes possession of the kingdom, and places all in it under obedience to himself. In this case, therefore, if the internal man conquers, he obtains dominion and subjugates all the evils of the external man, and regeneration then goes on; but if the external man conquers, he obtains the dominion, and dissipates all the goods of the internal man, and regeneration perishes.
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