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DISCUSSION:
God; The Trinity, The Second Coming
FOR SEVERAL DECADES AROUND THE TURN of the twentieth
century, when scientific knowledge was expanding at such an
explosive rate that some people wondered how long it would
be until there was nothing more to be learned about the
material world, some theologians became infected with a
similar delusion. It seemed only a matter of time, with each
generation of scholars building on the accomplishments of
its predecessors, that the ancient inability to express the
mysteries of faith would be overcome. Combining science and
religion would bring new certainty and unanimity to
theology. Soon the ancient squabbles over doctrinal details
would be resolved, as nations united into one, and the old
divisions of the church would disappear. Soon people would
be able to talk sensibly and comprehensively about the
nature of God. Perhaps God's existence and the qualities of
Divine Being would be demonstrated with the same certainty
and precision as, say, Newton's laws of motion.
The dream of a commonwealth of nations
exploded in 1914—a "humpty-dumpty" that never quite got put
together again—despite earnest efforts in Geneva and New
York. Newton's laws of motion faded into the greater
complexities of Einstein's General Field Theory. And a
number of theologians, forcefully and eloquently led by Karl
Barth, came to the realization that the only thing that
human beings ever could say meaningfully about God is what
he is not. Theology had come full circle back to Augustine,
who said that he wrote theology, not because he was able to
speak of God, but because he could not keep silent about
him.
The dream of a natural theology was not new
in 1900, nor did it end with World War I. Leibniz hoped that
mathematical reasoning would resolve the riddle of the
Eucharistic Substance, reuniting Catholics and Protestants
(and he designed one of history's first computers to assist
the project). Swedenborg envisioned something much more
complex and profound in his temple inscription, "Now it is
permitted to enter intellectually into the mysteries of
faith." And as late as 1960, Paul Tillich felt compelled to
rebuke Harvard President Nathan Pusey (to his face, in
Harvard Chapel) for publicly hoping that the day would come
"when educated men could speak the name of God without
embarrassment." For Tillich, the name of God embraced all
the infinity that God is, so that it can never be spoken
without "a sublime embarrassment," except in ignorance or
profanity. "The Divine, when called, does not leave man
unanswered," Tillich said. "If he does not heal, he may
destroy."
Nothing Swedenborg wrote would encourage any
lighter use of the name of God (see, e.g.,
True Christianity 297-300). Even though, following
negligibly in the giant footsteps of my predecessors, I
cannot keep silent about God, I do not pretend to describe
him, much less define him, and still less— in the full
biblical sense of the words—to "know his name." I hope that
in your study of this chapter's assignments, you will share
the awe that I feel in commenting on them. It's a healthy
feeling, one that opens the mind to depths and heights of
meaning that otherwise outreach all human attempts at
understanding.
Surely there is more to say of God than the
most that Barth could say, "Gott ist der ganz Andere"
(God is the wholly Other), or than Tillich would, "The
question arises...as to whether there is a point at which a
non-symbolic assertion about God must be made. There is such
a point, namely, the statement that everything we say about
God is symbolic."
But if we go beyond Barth and Tillich, we
must acknowledge their central point: there is a genuine
dilemma inherent in any attempt to use a vocabulary drawn
from finite experience to describe an infinite reality. It
has seemed to me that the only adequate response to a
genuine dilemma is a paradox, and paradox is precisely what
Swedenborg uses to carry theology to realms of meaning that
stretch the limits of human understanding to their utmost.
Most directly, the paradox is this: God is
One; but God is love itself and wisdom itself and the life
that proceeds from them; for in God, love and wisdom are one
in such a way that they remain distinguishable.
Once again, Swedenborg resolves a set of ancient theological
disputes by replacing an "either-or" with a "both-and."
Traditionally, the question of whether God's love or God's
justice is supreme was patched over by the doctrine of
vicarious atonement. Such unresolving patchwork is
unnecessary from a Swedenborgian perspective; love and
wisdom in God make One distinguishably. That is a deep
paradox, but a satisfying one, which may be adequately
clarified in the assigned readings.
Behind that paradox, however, stands a far deeper one,
surely one of the most radical theological statements of the
eighteenth century: "Divinum Esse est Esse in se, et
simul Existere in se." Divine being is being in itself,
and at the same time, presence (or manifestation) in itself
(True Christianity 21).
This assertion must be examined. In the
first place, it must be recognized as an assertion in which
language is radically inadequate. The verb "to be" is at
once the simplest and most complex and difficult verb we
know. In the first clause of this statement, it must serve
as the subject nominative, copula, and predicate nominative.
Divine "isness" is "is-ness" itself. Among the myriad
implications of that truly mammoth proposition, focus for a
moment on this one: Esse is the present infinitive, so
Esse
in itself is eternal, for it never came to be and never will
not be. Esse in se (being [reality] in itself) predicates
absolute reality, unconditioned by time, space, origin, or
end; and it predicates this more clearly and unequivocally
than is possible with any other linguistic device. To say
that divine being is being in itself, is to formulate the
primary truth of all Judeo-Christian theological traditions.
By itself, it is not a radical statement, except in its
radical precision. But Swedenborg says more. Not only is
divine being "being in itself," Divinum Esse est Existere in
se, divine being is presence itself. Once more language
fails, but not as radically as before. The Latin loses
something in translation.
As a first step in finding an adequate
meaning for the Latin Existere, look no further than
True Christianity 21, to see one thing it does not
mean. "The terms 'being' and 'presence' [manifestation] are
used, and not essence and existence (Esse et Existere, et
non Essentia et Existentia). Existere is the
present infinitive of a verb whose root meaning is "to stand
out from." "To become plain" or "to become manifest" are
reasonable equivalents. "To take form" (stand out from
formlessness) is not inappropriate, either. I once was
tempted to borrow from Sorokin's book title, Being and
Becoming, and read, "Divine being is being itself, and at
the same time becoming itself." That might work for this
passage, out of the context of Swedenborg's total work; but
in
True Christianity 210, he says that "in everything
divine there is ...being, becoming, and presence" (esse,
fieri, et existere). Since "becoming" is the
only translation of fieri, it cannot be used for
existere, too. Dr. George Dole has suggested "to become
present," in the sense of standing out from the
indistinguishable background, as a translation of
existere used as a verb, and "presence" when it is used
as a noun. This works especially well in
Divine Love and Wisdom 14: "In the God-man, being
and presence are one in such a way that they are
distinguishable (Esse et Existere in Deo Homine distincte
unum sunt)." So, all things considered, I prefer reading
True Christianity 21: "Divine being is being
itself and presence itself."
Esse, or "being" as a noun, or
"reality," denotes what is eternal, unconditioned, and
therefore unchanging. Existere, "presence," on the
other hand, carries from the root of its origin an
implication of what is in process, conditioned (by what it
is from) and, therefore, changing. It is not simply,
originally, apart from something; it is in the process or
the act of becoming present out of something. This is why
"Divine being is being itself and at the same time presence
itself" is such a radical theological assertion. It says
that God is eternal, unconditioned and permanent, and at the
same time, in process, conditioned and changing. It not only
claims these qualities for God, it says that he is
permanence itself and at the same time he is process itself.
Notice that this does not detract from the eternal,
unconditioned permanence of God; but it paradoxically
asserts the opposite—that his permanence is in process.
This statement is so radical for the
eighteenth century that the nineteenth century offers no
comment, sequel, or even refutation to it. Only in the
twentieth century have men like Alfred North Whitehead,
Charles Hartshorne, and John B. Cobb, Jr., been writing
something called "process theology," which explores the
implications of a conception of God that embraces both a
"Primordial Nature" and a "Consequent Nature" (Whitehead's
terms), or "Absolute" and "Relative" Dimensions
(Hartshorne)—a concept formulated by Swedenborg in
True Christianity 21.
Not all of these implications can be
explored here, but notice one important connection to the
doctrine of the Lord's glorification. The emphasis on
process was unmistakable there, in reference to the Lord's
life on earth as a human being. But notice in
True Christianity 82, 89, and especially 101, that God
acted, assumed a nature he had not had before in the same
way, and became present to the human race. Then, after God
became Man and Man became God (!), it is implied in
True Christianity 170 that God came to be more than he
had been before; the Trinity "was accomplished!" Such an
assertion would be heretical if it denied or qualified the
eternal, unconditioned permanence of God's being; but it
does not. It paradoxically adds to the non-symbolic
assertions that can be made about God, conveying meaning
that traditional, categorical thought cannot conceive, much
less express. Something more will be said of this in Chapter
13, but it is enough for now to begin to contemplate the
immensity of Swedenborg's concept of divine being.
The Trinity in Swedenborg's theology differs
more from the trinitarian conceptions of his time than it
does from Augustine's idea of the Trinity or from the
trinitarian thought of certain modern theologians. The idea
of a trinity is firmly rooted in the Word, but theologians
have struggled (with varying degrees of success) to say what
there can be three of in a God who is one. Three "persons"
(Latin personae), which had come into such simplistic
misuse, entered the theological vocabulary through
Augustine. He used it in its original Latin meaning of mask
(like those that actors wore in Greek tragedies and
comedies). He spoke, as it were, of the "three faces" of
God. Interestingly, Augustine said that he was using
personae to translate hypostasis (equals
"essence" in classical Greek, and "reflection" or "accurate
representation" in New Testament Greek (Hebrews 1:3)). So
persona picked up the representative idea in hypostasis, and
Swedenborg went back to the idea of "essence." But notice:
Swedenborg did not speak of three essences, for that would
have been about as bad in his view as speaking of three
persons. Instead he fell back on what has become familiar in
this course, a substantive adjective. "Three essentials" is
a distinctly different formulation than "three essences,"
for the latter could be divided into three gods, each of
which would have an essence. However, the former refers to
three aspects, masks, faces, or (original) personae—each
essential to the nature of God but inseparable from that one
nature.
The doctrine of the Second Coming has been
called the boldest of Swedenborg's teachings (by William
Wunsch, in his Outline of New Church Teachings) and
it certainly is no less radical than
True Christianity 21, discussed above. For centuries,
Christians had viewed the Second Coming of the Lord as the
Jews had viewed the Messiah, that is, "coming soon" (most
Christians and Jews still do). Swedenborg's claim that the
Second Coming has in fact occurred is, indeed, a bold christological assertion. But it is also complicated. While
the Second Coming has already happened, it still is
happening and is yet to happen. Swedenborg's "timetable" for
the Lord's return is much like the one Jesus used in
reference to the Reign of God: it is "at hand" (eggizo)—"already
but not yet." Thus the Lord's Second Coming among men and
the descent of the Holy City out of heaven are both "already
but not yet."
This timetable is to be understood in the
context of Swedenborg's commission and revelation. As an accomplished
fact, it predates June 19, 1770 (
True Christianity 1, 108,
791) and correlates approximately with the Ultimate Judgment
in 1757 (True Christianity
115, 121), although it is a separate event. In one sense,
it began with Swedenborg's call and revelatory experiences
while reading the Word; in another sense, however, the first
advent (coming) is not realized in an individual person
until the Lord is received and acknowledged (True Christianity 766), and the subsequent second advent
is not fully realized until the Holy City is fully descended
out of heaven (and the Reign of God is a total reality).
"Already but not yet" summarizes all this perhaps as neatly
as it can be summarized.
As in Chapter 10, I must recall again that the complexity of
all this is more than abstract, intellectual
"hairsplitting." Notice the first sentence of this
assignment: "The recognition of God which comes from knowing
him is the essence and soul of everything involving
theology." "Recognition" is an act of intentionality, not
the understanding, and "knowing" is more dependent on influx
than on study and analysis. But we are thinking beings,
which is to say questioning beings; we live in a world of
questions. If the leaven of our "knowing" God is not kneaded
throughout our entire understanding, questions will
challenge and threaten it. The work of this chapter is part
of that kneading process: as with kneading bread dough, it
is a pretty sticky business at first!
CHAPTER 11 ASSIGNMENTS
Read the following passages from Swedenborg. For further
reading in other published versions, see the passages listed
just below:
True Christianity
5-8, 12, 18-24, 36-42, 49-55, 163-171, 768, 771-785
Revelation Unveiled (Apocalypse
Revealed in older translations) 1109 (Subsections 2-3).
PASSAGES FROM SWEDENBORG:
God; The Trinity, The Second Coming
The Oneness of God
TC 5
The recognition of God that comes from
knowing him is the essence and soul of everything involving
theology. I must begin by speaking of the oneness of God....
TC 6
(i) The entirety of Sacred Scripture and all
the teachings drawn from it by churches throughout the
Christian world teach that there is a God and that he is
one.
The entirety of Sacred Scripture teaches the existence of
God, because its inmost meaning concerns nothing but
God—that is, the Divine which proceeds from God. This is
because Scripture was spoken by God and nothing can proceed
from God except what he himself is. This is what we call the
Divine. This resides in the inmost meaning of Scripture; but
in its lower forms (still derived from the Divine) the Holy
Scripture is adapted to angelic and human perceptions. It is
divine in those forms, too, but in a different way: the
Divine is called heavenly, spiritual, and natural. These are
merely the veils of God, since God himself (as he exists in
the inmost meaning of the Word) cannot be looked on by any
created being. When Moses pleaded to see the glory of
Jehovah, God said that no one can see God and live. It is
the same with the inmost meaning of the Word, in which God
is in his being and his essence.
Nevertheless, the Divine—the Word's most
profound secret, shielded by veils that adapt it to the
perceptions of angels and humans—shines out like light
passing through crystalline structures, so that the light
appears to vary according to the state of mind which we have
acquired from God or from ourselves. If you have acquired
your state of mind from God, the Sacred Scripture is like a
mirror in which you see God in the way most suitable to
yourself. The mirror is made out of truths which you have
learned from the Word and absorbed by living your life
according to them. A primary conclusion from this is that
Scripture is the fullness of God.
Thus the Word teaches not only the reality
of God, but that he is one. As I have said, the truths which
form that mirror are held together in a single bond, so that
they prevent us from thinking of God except as one. That is
why—if you have absorbed some holiness from the Word—you
know, as if of yourself, that God is one. You regard talking
about several Gods as a kind of insanity. Angels are unable
to open their mouths to speak the word, "Gods," for the
heavenly aura in which they live contradicts it....
TC 7
Doctrines of churches throughout the
Christian world teach that God is one. They do this because
all their teachings, which are drawn from the Word, form a
whole as long as one God is acknowledged—not only from the
lips but also in the heart. To those who acknowledge one God
only with their lips while they think three in their hearts
(which is the case with many in the Christian world today),
"God" is nothing more than a verbal expression. The entire
theology of those people is a golden idol locked in a case—a
case to which only their leaders have the key—so when they
read the Word they receive no light concerning it or from
it. Thus, they do not perceive even that God is one. They
read the Word as if it were stained and blotted where it
speaks of the oneness of God....
TC 8
(ii) An influence, predisposing us to
believe that there is a God and that he is one, flows from
God into every human soul.
We can see that God predisposes people to believe things.
For example, everyone admits that God is the source of every
good thing which is good in itself and which we do because
it is present in us....Jesus said, "Without me, you can
do nothing" ( John 15:5), that is, we can do nothing
charitable or faithful.
This influence affects the human soul
because our soul is our inmost and highest part. Divine
influence enters there and descends from there into the
lower parts, giving them life as far as it is accepted.
Truths which will be incorporated into faith are received
through our hearing and thus implanted in our mind (that is,
at a lower level than the soul); but these truths predispose
us to be influenced by God through the soul. The extent to
which they are accepted depends on this conditioning, and
our natural faith is transformed into spiritual faith in the
same proportion....
TC 12
(v) Many things in the world make it
possible for human reason to see and conclude, if it wishes,
that there is a God and that he is one.
This truth can be supported by many things
in the natural world, for the universe is like a theater:
demonstrations of the reality of God and his oneness are
presented continually upon its stage....Those who want to
find the working of God in the details of nature pay
attention to amazing sights in the reproduction of plants
and animals. In plants, a tiny seed cast into the ground
produces a root, a stem by means of the root, and in the
same way branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, and fruit—all in
order—as if the seed knew the pattern of sequential phases
or processes which lead to its renewal. Can any rational
person think that the sun—which is nothing but fire—can have
this knowledge or that it can instruct its heat and light to
produce such effects or that it can act purposefully? If
your ability to think is elevated, seeing and considering
these facts will lead you inevitably to think that they come
from God, the one who possesses infinite wisdom. If you
recognize God's working in the details of nature, your idea
will be further confirmed by seeing these things. On the
other hand, if you do not recognize him, you will see these
things with eyes in the back of your head instead of with
the eyes of reason,...saying..."Something you cannot see
cannot be anything."
[5]....[Or] consider the birds of the air:
each species knows its proper food and where to find it,
recognizes its own kind by sight and sound, knows which
birds are its friends and which its enemies. [Each bird]
knows how to nestle under its plumage, form pairs, cleverly
construct nests, lay eggs, and sit on them. They know how
long to sit and in due season they hatch their chicks (whom
they love dearly), protecting them under their wings and providing food and nourishing them until they can look after
themselves and perform the same service. Anyone willing to
think how the Divine influences the natural world by means
of the spiritual can see this in these facts....
TC 19
(i) The one God is named Jehovah from his
reality—that is, from the fact that he alone is and will
be—and because he alone is first and last, beginning and
end, alpha and omega.[25.
Notes]
It is known that Jehovah means "I am" and
"reality." The Book of Creation (Genesis)[26.
Notes] shows that God was
called Jehovah from earliest times. He is called "God" in
the first chapter, but "Jehovah God" in the second and
subsequent ones. Later, when the descendents of Abraham
(starting with Jacob) forgot the name of God after their
long stay in Egypt, it was recalled to their memory. We read
of this [in Exodus]: Moses said to God, "What is your
name?" God said, "I am who I am. Thus shall you say to the
children of Israel, 'I am' has sent me to you;' and you
shall say, 'Jehovah the God of your fathers has sent me to
you.' This is my name forever, and this is my memorial from
generation to generation" (Exodus 3: [13], 14, 15).
Since God alone is "I am" or reality—that
is, Jehovah—there cannot be anything in the created universe
which does not owe its reality to him....
TC 21
[iii] The divine being is reality itself
and simultaneously presence itself.
Jehovah God is reality itself because he is
"I am," the specific, sole, and primary source from eternity
to eternity, of everything in existence—the source that
allows everything to exist. In this sense and no other, he
is beginning and end, first and last, alpha and omega. One
cannot say that his reality is "from itself" because
"something out of itself" implies something earlier— and
thus implies time. However, time is inconsistent with the
infinite, which we say is outside of time. It also
presupposes another God (who is God in himself); that is,
God originating from God, or God forming himself—in which
case he could not be either uncreated or infinite, because
he would have distinguished himself either from himself or
from another.
From this fact—that God is reality in
itself—it follows that he is love in itself, wisdom in
itself, and life in itself. It also follows that it is God
who is the source of everything—the point of reference of
everything—that is present. This is confirmed by the Lord's
words that "God is life in itself," and thus is God, as in
Isaiah: I, Jehovah, make all things. I alone spread
out the heavens and stretch out the earth by myself
( Isaiah 44:24), and that he is the only God and there is no
God beside him (Isaiah 45:14, 15, 21, 22; Hosea 13:4).
[2] God is not only reality in itself but also presence in
itself because there is no reality that is not present and
nothing is present that is not real. Therefore, one
presupposes the other. In the same way, there is no form
without substance and no substance without a form; anything
that has no qualities is not anything. The terms reality [esse]
and presence [existere] are used here—and not essence and
existence [existentia] because reality needs to be
distinguished from essence and, therefore, presence needs to
be distinguished from existence. The distinction is similar
to that between something precedent and something
subsequent: what precedes is more universal than what
follows from it....
TC 22
There is no way for us to know from our
natural reason that God is the specific, sole and primary
source, called reality and presence, from which is derived
everything that is—everything present. If we rely on our
natural reason, we can attribute these things only to
nature: from our childhood on, nothing else has been
supplied to our natural reason. However, we were created so
that we should be spiritual, too, because our destiny
transcends death and our life then will be among spirits in
their world. Consequently, God has provided the Word. In the
Word, he has revealed not only himself but also the
existence of heaven and hell. Each of us will live to
eternity in either heaven or hell, depending in each case on
the way we lived and at the same time what we believed. In
the Word, too, God has revealed that he is "I am" or
reality, and that he is the specific, sole source which is
self-existing, thus the origin or beginning from which each
specific thing comes.
TC 23
[iv] Divine presence and reality in itself
cannot produce another divine being which is reality and
presence in itself so another God of the same essence is
impossible.
We have shown so far that the one God, the
creator of the universe, is reality and presence in itself,
thus God in itself. It follows from this that a God derived
from God is impossible, because the specific essential of
the Divine—reality and presence in itself—could not exist in
that other God. It makes no difference whether you say,
"begotten by God" or "proceeding from God:" both imply being
produced by God, and there is little difference between this
and being created. Therefore, introducing the belief into
the church that there are three divine persons—each of whom
is severally God and of the same essence (one born from
eternity and the third proceeding from eternity)—has the
effect of utterly destroying the idea of the oneness of God.
Destroying this idea destroys all comprehension of divinity,
thus banishing all of reason's spiritual side....
The essence of God, which is Divine
Love and Divine Wisdom
TC 36
We made a distinction between the reality
and the essence of God because there is a distinction
between God's infinity and his love. The term "infinity" is
applicable to God's reality; the term "love" is applicable
to his essence. As stated above, God's reality is more
universal than his essence. In the same way, his infinity is
more universal than his love. For this reason, "infinite" is
the adjective appropriate to the essentials and attributes
of God (all of which are called infinite: divine love is
infinite, divine wisdom is infinite and so is divine power).
It is not that God's reality existed before his essence,
rather, that it entered into his essence as into an
inseparable adjunct—directing it, forming it and
simultaneously raising it to a higher plane....
TC 37
(i) God is love itself and wisdom itself
and these two make up the essence of God.
Our earliest ancestors perceived that love
and wisdom are the two essentials to which all infinite
qualities—qualities of God and qualities emanating from
God—are to be ascribed. However, succeeding ages gradually
lost this vision, as they allowed their minds to sink down
from heaven and plunge into worldly and bodily matters. They
began to be unaware of what love essentially is and so what
wisdom essentially is. They did not know that love cannot
exist without form, but works in and through a form. Since
God is the specific, sole and primary substance and form—the
essence of which is love and wisdom—all created things came
from him. It follows that he created the universe and all
its parts out of love by means of wisdom. It follows from
this that divine love, together with divine wisdom, is
present in every single created thing. Also, love is not
only the essence which forms everything, it also unites and
joins them, thus keeping together what has been formed....
TC 38
(ii) God is good itself and truth itself
because good refers to love and truth refers to wisdom.
Everyone knows that all things are measured
by what is good and what is true, indicating that all things
owe their origin to love and wisdom. Everything coming from
love is called good because it feels good (because the
pleasure by which love shows itself is each person's good).
Everything coming from wisdom is called true (for wisdom is
composed of nothing but what is true, bathing its objects in
beautiful light, and the perception of this beauty is truth
arising from good). Therefore, love is a compound of all
kinds of good, and wisdom a compound of all kinds of truth.
All of these are from God, who is love itself and thus what
is good in itself, and is wisdom itself and thus what is
true in itself. This is why the church has two essentials,
called charity and faith, which make up its whole structure
and are in every part of it. The reason for this is that all
kinds of good belonging to the church are part of charity
(and are called charity) and all its truths are part of
faith (and are called faith)....
TC 39
(iii) God is all of love and all of
wisdom, so he is all of life, that is, he is life itself.
It is written in the Gospel of John:
The Word was with God, and the Word was God;....in him
was life and the life was the light of humanity
(John 1:1, 4). Here, "God" means divine love, and "Word"
(logos) means divine wisdom; divine wisdom really is life,
and life really is the light radiated by the sun of the
spiritual world. Jehovah God is in the midst of that sun.
Divine love forms life just as fire forms light. Fire has
two qualities: burning and shining. Its burning radiates
heat as its shining radiates light. Similarly, love has two
properties. The one to which fire's burning corresponds is
something that acts intimately on our will. The other, to
which fire's shining corresponds, is something that acts
intimately on our ability to think. This is the source of
human love and intelligence. As I have said several times
before, the sun of the spiritual world radiates heat (which,
in its essence, is love) and light (which, in its essence,
is wisdom)....
TC 40
....You should beware of convincing yourself
that you owe your life (or your intelligence, belief, love,
perception of truth, or your willing or doing good) to
yourself. As far as you convince yourself of these ideas, so
far do you cast your mind earthward from heaven; so far do
you change yourself to be natural instead of spiritual,
influenced by the senses and the body. For this shuts off
the higher regions of your mind; you become blinded to God,
heaven, and the church. Everything you think, reason and say
becomes foolishness; you are in darkness (though, at the
same time, you become confident that your thinking and
speech are the products of wisdom).
TC 41
(iv) Love and wisdom are one in God.
All wise church people know that everything good in love and
charity comes from God, as well as all that is true in
wisdom and faith. Human reason can see that this is so, as
long as it knows that the origin of love and wisdom is the
sun of the spiritual world with Jehovah God in the midst of
it or, what is the same, that they come from Jehovah God
through the sun that surrounds him....The sun of the
spiritual world can serve to demonstrate this. It is pure
fire, its fiery property producing heat and the brilliance
of its fire producing light, so that these two are one at
their source.
TC 50
(i) Omnipotence, omniscience, and
omnipresence are properties of divine wisdom resulting from
divine love.
There is a secret from heaven that has not
yet dawned on anyone's understanding: omnipotence,
omniscience, and omnipresence are qualities of divine wisdom
resulting from divine love—not qualities of divine love by
means of divine wisdom. This has remained secret because no
one has known what love is in its essence and they know even
less about what wisdom derived from it is, or how one
influences the other. Love (with all the details that
comprise it) flows into wisdom, living there like a king in
his realm or a master in his house, leaving all
administration of justice to wisdom's judgment. Since
righteousness is an attribute of love and judgment an
attribute of wisdom, love leaves all its control to wisdom.
The fact that God's omnipotence, omniscience, and
omnipresence arise through the wisdom of his love is what is
meant by this passage from John: In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
All things were made through him and without him nothing
that was made was made. In him was life, and the life was
the light of humanity; and the world was made through him;
and the Word was made flesh (Excerpted from John 1:1, 3, 4, 10,
14).
Here, "Word" means divine truth or, in other
words, divine wisdom. That is why it is also called life and
light, for these are nothing but wisdom.
TC 52
(ii) The omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God
cannot be really known without information about order,
without realizing that God is order, and that he introduced
order into the universe (as a whole, and in all its parts)
at the same time that he created it.
....Absurdities have crept into human minds—and thus into
the church through the heads of its founders—as a result of
failing to understand the order with which, from creation,
God endowed the universe and all its parts. . . . Order is
the quality of arrangement, direction and activation of the
parts,
substances and entities making up a form. Order determines
the condition of the form, and the perfection of the form's
condition is the product of wisdom from its love. Its
imperfection is forged by insanity of reason from lust.
This definition employs the terms "substance," "form," and
"condition." By "substance" I also mean "form," for all
substance is a form; the quality of a form is its
"condition," and the perfection or imperfection of its
condition is the result of order [applied to it].
TC 53
God is order because he is substance itself and form itself.
He is substance because everything substantial came to be,
and continues to be, from him. He is form because all
attributes of all substances arose and are maintained by
him. Attributes cannot come from any source but form.
God is the precise, sole, and primary
substance and form. Simultaneously, he is precisely and
solely love, and precisely and solely wisdom. Since wisdom
from love produces form, and the condition and quality of
the form depends on the order in it, it follows that God is
order itself. It follows, too, that out of himself he
introduced order into the universe and each of its parts. It
was perfect order that he introduced, because all that he
created was good, as we read in the Book of Creation....[27.
Notes]
TC 54
....Human beings are created with their own order, as is
each and every one of their parts. The head has its own
order, the body its order; the heart, lungs, liver,
pancreas, and stomach each has its own; as does every organ
of movement called a muscle and every organ of sense (such
as the eye, ear, or tongue). Indeed, there is not a single
capillary or minor nerve fiber in the body which does not
have its own proper order. Furthermore, these innumerable
parts are connected with each other in such a way that they
are linked to the common body to make a whole.... Every land
animal, every bird of the air, every fish of the sea, every
creeping thing, every worm, every moth, was created with its
own order. Similarly, every tree, bush, shrub and vegetable
has it's order; also every stone and mineral, down to every
speck of dust.
TC 55
Who does not see that every empire, kingdom,
dukedom, republic, state, or private family is founded upon
laws of order that constitute its own government?....God
has established the church with these laws of order: God
shall be in every part of it and the neighbor shall be the
object toward which order is directed... The laws of this
order are truths contained in the Word....
The Divine Trinity
TC 63
(i) There is a divine Trinity, which is
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This is plainly established in the Word in passages like the
following: The angel Gabriel said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit
will come upon you, and the power of the most high will
overshadow you, so that the holy thing that is born of you
will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).
Here, all three are named: the Most High (who is God the
Father), the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God.
When Jesus was baptized, "Behold, the heavens were opened,"
and John saw "the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and
alighting upon Him; and a voice from heaven saying, 'This is
my beloved in whom I am well-pleased'" (Matthew 3:16-17;
Mark 1:10-11; John 1:32).
It is even clearer in the words which the Lord used to the
disciples: "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"
(Matthew 28:19)....In addition to which, the Lord prayed
to his Father, spoke about him with him, saying that he
would send the Holy Spirit (which he did)....
TC 166
(ii) These three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are three
essentials of one God, which make One—as soul, body, and
action make one person.
In everything, general essentials as well as
particular essentials together form a single essence. A
person's general essentials are the soul, the body, and
their actions. These form a single essence, as we can see
from the fact that one arises from the next and exists for
the sake of the next, in a continual series....
TC 168
Saying that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three
essentials of one God—in the same way that soul, body, and
action are in a person—may sound to the human mind as if the
three essentials are three persons, but that is not
possible. Realizing that the three essentials of the one God
are the Father's Divine (making up the soul), the Son's
Divine (making up the body), and the Holy Spirit's Divine
(or the Divine which proceeds, making up the activity), lets
it be grasped by our understanding. For God the Father is
his own Divine, the Son out of the Father is his own, and
the Holy Spirit out of both is his own. Since these are of
one essence and unanimous, they make up one God. However, if
those three Divines are called "Persons," and his own
attributes are assigned to each—imputation to the Father,
mediation to the
Son, and activity to the Holy Spirit—then the divine essence
is divided (although, in fact, it is one and indivisible).
Then, no one of the three is fully God,...which a sound
mind cannot accept.
TC 170
(iii) Before the creation of the world, there was no such
Trinity; it was provided and made after the world was
created—when God became incarnate—and then it was in the
Lord God, the Redeemer, and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The Christian Church today recognizes a
divine trinity existing before the creation of the world
(that is, Jehovah God fathered a Son from eternity and the
Holy Spirit issued from both of them). Each of the three is
by himself (or singly) God, because each is a person who
exists from himself (since this lies beyond reason's grasp,
it is called a mystery).... This trinity is a trinity of
three gods and, therefore, in no sense a divine trinity....
The Divine Trinity is in the Lord God, the Redeemer, and
Savior, Jesus Christ, because the three essentials of one
God (making up a single essence) are in him. All the
fullness of the Godhead is in him, as Paul says. This is
clear from the words of the Lord himself: that all things of
the Father's are his and the Holy Spirit does not speak from
himself but from him (Matthew 28:1-8; Mark 16:5, 6; Luke
24:1-3)....
TC 768
The Second Coming of the Lord is not his coming to destroy
the visible sky and the habitable earth and recreate a new
sky and a new earth, as many have supposed through not
understanding the spiritual sense of the Word.
The prevailing opinion in the churches is
that when the Lord comes to perform the last judgment, he
will appear in the clouds with angels and with the sound of
trumpets, and will gather together all the inhabitants of
the earth as well as all who have died. Then he will
separate the evil from the good—as a shepherd separates
goats from sheep—and will cast the evil (the goats) into
hell and raise the good (the sheep) into heaven. At the same
time, he will create a new visible sky and a new habitable
earth, sending down upon it a city—to be called the New
Jerusalem—built according to the description in Revelation
21. It will be built of jasper and gold, to be sure; the
foundations of its walls made of all precious stones. Its
height, width, and length will be equal (each measuring
12,000 stadia [about 1,364 miles]). All the elect will be
gathered into this city—both those then living and those who
have died since the creation of the world (the latter
returning to their bodies)—and enjoy everlasting bliss in
this city as their heaven....
TC 771
In the chapter on Sacred Scripture [in
True Christianity
(see above, Chapter 7)], I showed that the literal sense of
the Word is written by appearances and correspondences.
Therefore, it contains a spiritual sense which reveals truth
in its light (while the literal sense is in shadow). So, the
Lord has been pleased to open the sight of my spirit (thus
admitting me to the spiritual world) to prevent people of
the new church from going astray (as those of the old church
did) in the shadows surrounding the Word's literal sense—particularly concerning heaven and hell, life after death
and the coming of the Lord.
TC 772
This coming of the Lord, which is the Second Coming, is
occurring so that the evil might be separated from the good
and those who believe and have believed in him might be
saved; and so that a new heaven and a new earth might be
formed from them....The last judgment took place in the
spiritual world in the year 1757, as was shown in Last
Judgment, published in London in 1758, and also in
Supplement to the Last Judgment, published in Amsterdam in
1763. I solemnly bear witness to this because I saw it with
my own eyes while I was fully conscious.
TC 774
The Lord is always present with every person, evil as well
as good (for no one could live without his presence), but
his coming is only to those who receive him—those who
believe in him and keep his commandments. The Lord's
continual presence gives everyone the power to be rational
and become spiritual. This occurs by means of the light
which comes from the Lord (as sun of the spiritual world),...truth which can give us power to reason. The Lord's
coming, however, occurs with those who combine heat with
that light, that is, combine love with truth....
TC 776
This Second Coming of the Lord is not in person, but in the
Word—which is from him, and which he is.
We read in many passages that the Lord will come in the
clouds, as in Matthew 17:5; 24:30; 26:64; Luke 9:34, 35;
21:27; Revelation 1:7; 14:14; and Daniel 7:13. Until now,
however, no one has known what the clouds mean....Clouds
of the sky [or clouds of heaven] mean the Word in its
literal sense; the glory and power with which he is to come
at that time (Matthew 24:30) mean the spiritual sense of the
Word....
[3]....The spiritual world has clouds, just as the
natural world does, but they are of a different origin....Shining clouds over the angels' heaven indicate obscurity
resulting from the literal sense of the Word. The dispersal
of those clouds means the spiritual sense has brought its
clarity. On the other hand, dark clouds over the hells
indicate falsification and profanation of the Word.
TC 779
(viii) This Second Coming of the Lord occurs by means of a
man—a man to whom the Lord has shown himself in person and
opened his spirit's eyes—so that he may teach doctrines of
the new church (which is the New Jerusalem) through use of
the Word.
Since the Lord cannot show himself in person (as was just
demonstrated)—and still he predicted that he would come
again and establish a new church, which is the New
Jerusalem—it follows that he will do this by means of a man
who can intellectually receive the doctrines of this church
and, additionally, have them printed and published. I
testify in truth that the Lord has shown himself before me,
his servant, commissioned me to do this job and opened the
sight of my spirit. This has enabled me to see the heavens
and the hells, and talk with angels and spirits, which I
have been doing continually for many years now. I state just
as strongly that, from the first day of my commission, I
have not learned any doctrines of that church from any
angel, but only from the Lord.
RU 1109
[2] From divine providence, each and every point of
Athanasian teaching about the trinity and the Lord is true
and harmonious when, instead of three persons, we understand
one person in whom is the trinity (if it is believed that
the Lord is that person). At that time [when the Athanasian
Creed was adopted], if the trinity of persons had not been
accepted, people would have become either Arians or Socinians.[28.
Notes] In that case, the Lord would have been
recognized as a mere man and not as God. This would have
destroyed the Christian Church, for no one is bonded with
heaven (and after death admitted to heaven), unless he
thinks of God as human and simultaneously believes God to be
one essence and one person. It is by this that
non-Christians are saved. Also, recognition of the Lord's
Divine and his Human is necessary for bonding with heaven
(Christians are saved by this, provided that they also live
as Christians).
[3] It was by divine toleration that the doctrine concerning
God and the Lord—primary among doctrines—was conceived by
Athanasius in the way it was. It was foreseen by the Lord
that Roman Catholics would recognize the Divine of the Lord
in no other way,...nor would the Reformed have seen the
Divine in the Lord's Human. Nevertheless, both of them recognize the Lord
in the divine trinity of persons.
EXTENDED READINGS FOR CHAPTER 11:
True Christianity
5-8, 12, 18-24, 36-42, 49-55, 163-171, 768, 771-785
Revelation Unveiled (Apocalypse
Revealed in older translations) 1109 (Subsections 2-3).
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER 11:
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a "natural
theology" was in vogue that looked toward an
ever-increasing knowledge of God through the expansion of
the natural sciences. Compare and contrast this with
True Christianity 12.
How do you relate divine love and wisdom with divine
being
(Latin: esse) and divine presence (Latin: existere)?
Discuss the relationship between God's being (esse),
presence (existere), and the Trinity's coming into being.
What questions or issues does the lesson raise for you?
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