Believe in God’s Love: From “Divine Providence” by Emanuel Swedenborg (vegetarian), Part 2 of 2

Let us continue with selections from “Divine Providence,” where Emanuel Swedenborg gives a more in-depth analysis of the importance of appreciating God’s Love.

“It is because of these two factors – our ability to be engaged in something evil and something true at the same time and the Lord’s inability to prevent this because of the goal, which is our salvation, that our discernment can be lifted up into Heaven’s light and see what is true or recognize it when we hear it even while our love remains down below. This means that we can be in Heaven in our discernment and in hell in our love, and we cannot be denied this possibility because we cannot be deprived of the two abilities that make us human, the two abilities that alone make our rebirth and salvation possible, namely, our rationality and our freedom.”

“It is hard for us to attain union or unity (of what is good and what is true or of what is evil and what is false) in this world because as long as we are living here, we are kept in a state of reformation or rebirth. We all attain one union or the other after death, though, because then we can no longer be remade or reborn: we keep the quality of life we led in the world, that is, the quality of our primary love.

If our life was governed by evil love, anything true we have learned in this world from teachers, sermons, or the Word is taken away. Once it is gone, we soak up the falsity that agrees with our evil the way a sponge soaks up water. Conversely, if our life has been governed by good love, then everything false we have picked up from what we have heard and read in the world without intentionally adopting it is taken away, and in its place, we are given the truth that agrees with our good.”

“The remarkable thing is, though, that all the evil people believe they are powerful, and all the good people believe they themselves are not. This is because evil people ascribe everything to their own power, their own deviousness and malice, and nothing to the Lord, while good people ascribe nothing to their own prudence and everything to the Lord, who is omnipotent. Another reason anything both evil and false is nothing is that it has no trace of spiritual life. This is why a hellish life is called ‘death’ rather than ‘life’; since anything that exists belongs to life, nothing that exists can belong to death.”