new church life: november/december 2017
auxiliary studies.
Liberation of thought springing
up in the wake of the Reformation led
people to question many of the things
taught in the medieval world. The
limiting dominion of Catholic thought
was gradually broken, and over the
next centuries human understanding
would grow exponentially, both
outward into the universe and inward
into the human body. The mysteries
of science slowly revealed themselves,
philosophy asked new questions, and
explored new ways of answering them.
It was as if shackles had been cast
off, and people could move with a
freedom never experienced before. Of
course, not everyone experienced this;
there was still vast ignorance, pain and
cruelty in the world, for true faith and
charity could no more exist in the wake of Luther’s teaching than it did in the
Catholic Church. But the building blocks of the Last Judgment and the New
Church were slowly being formed.
When New Church historians consider Martin Luther and the Reformation
in the light of the Heavenly Doctrine, it becomes clear that he set into motion
events that would make the Last Judgment and the formation of the New
Church possible.
Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses did not arrest the decline of the church.
The work Brief Exposition makes it clear that when the dust settled there was
little major difference in doctrine before and after the Reformation. The
Reformation may not have restored the Church, but slowed down the decline
until all the other pieces needed for the New Church were in place.
One can compare this to an airplane coming in to land, but being put
into a holding pattern, circling the airport until its turn to land arrives. The
Heavenly Doctrine could not have been written if the Bible was still withheld
from people; it could not have been published where there was no freedom
of religious thought in at least some countries in Europe. It could not have
contained the many scientific references if they had not been discovered.
These things did not exist during Luther’s life, yet they were in place, at a
sufficient level to reveal a rational teaching of truth so that when Swedenborg
was well schooled in them, he could begin his work.
When New Church
historians consider
Martin Luther and the
Reformation in the
light of the Heavenly
Doctrine, it becomes
clear that he set into
motion events that
would make the Last
Judgment and the
formation of the New
Church possible.
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