know that as we live in freedom and in equilibrium between heaven and hell,
there will always be evil in this world; to know that all of our challenges are
fundamentally spiritual; and to know that there is real hope in prayer – that
God, in His providence, is “fixing this” and leading to a good end.
I have been driven to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere
else to go. (Abraham Lincoln)
Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers are risen
up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them.
(Psalm 54:2,3)
(BMH)
swedenborg the invisible
The intellectual seeds of the modern worldview – scientific, philosophic
and theological – were planted during Swedenborg’s lifetime, some by him.
(I hasten to add, although I guess it’s hardly necessary, that some modern
attitudes and ideas are antithetical to Swedenborg’s.)
New Church people might wish that Swedenborg would get more credit,
but I think it is providential that he remains a hidden, behind-the-scene source
of ideas which are now generally accepted and recognized as fundamentally
important.
The very way I have stated this point shows why I think it is a good
thing Swedenborg is not better known – namely, the references to his ideas,
his influence, his importance. Discussion of Swedenborg’s place in modern
thought inevitably focuses on him. And this is something that those who are
actually familiar with him know that he, more than anyone else, would object
to most strenuously.
When it came to his theological Writings, he went out of his way to
deflect attention from himself as the source of the truths revealed in them.
The first and lengthiest work, the 12-volume Arcana Coelestia, was published
anonymously (which would seem to make “Swedenborg’s masterwork,” as it
has sometimes been called, an unintentionally ironic accolade).
The distinction between “Swedenborg’s ideas” and “truths revealed by
the Lord through Swedenborg” was crucial for him and remains so for us.
(WEO)
a one-word oxymoron
The term “Swedenborgian” might be called a one-word oxymoron; a selfcontradiction. It implies that we follow Swedenborg, and yet Swedenborg
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