new church life: march / april 2014
Few will take the step
that what they know
or believe might be
wrong – a willingness
to admit that what we
know or do is wrong is
distressful. But it is a
necessary step in order
to reach the truth.
taught in the New Church – how Jesus
conquered sin until the Holy Spirit
became available to humanity. It was
not as detailed as what Swedenborg
describes, but enough of it is there in
the New Testament.
Later, I looked at the closed Bible
on the shelf, and thought: I better
start reading it more to determine if
what the church is teaching is correct.
I had at one time decided to read the
entire Bible, but when I hit the book of
Leviticus, I thought: “This has got to be
the most incredibly boring book I have
ever read.” This book was weird – why
such detail in how to sacrifice an animal?
I then skipped to the Book of Revelation, and fell in love with its symbolic
imagery. But as I started to look at the Bible, the first problem I addressed
was how do we prove this is Divinely inspired? I wanted a strong logical and
rational foundation. If you ask the Catholic Church, they will say, “Because
we told you so.” That is what we know as a logical error – an “ar gument from
authority” (argumentum ab auctoritate). I knew the Bible was not completely
correct, as the apostle Jude made a scriptural quote from the apocryphal Book
of Enoch. This was not a problem I could completely solve.
At this point, I thought: let’s move on and try to prove the existence of
God. That was a bigger problem. Where to start? The problem was with any
logical proof; you must begin with a set of assumptions that can never be
proven. Those assumptions must be taken based on “faith.” So, I decided, let’s
start with a proof that has some physical or witness evidence.
There are two things that modern science denies: there is no such thing
as prophesy, where one knows the future, and there is no such thing as the
afterlife. I would periodically scan bookstores, diving into the New Age section.
I had also gathered books on ancient symbolism. Here my research had a bit
of success.
There is documented proof that periodically some people have had visions
of the future. Ordinary people have precognitive dreams every day. For the
afterlife, I discovered the Near Death Experience (NDE), and research in this is
ongoing. One of the books was Life After Life, by Raymond Moody, M.D. And
in a brief chapter, he mentioned this person I had never heard of, Emanuel
Swedenborg, who had described the NDE in the 18th century.
At that time there was no internet. So I made a mental note to check
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