new church life: september/october 2014
taken place is due to the uniqueness of having language in written form. But
what accounts for this uniqueness? How is it that nowhere else has writing
developed? Here the testimony of the Arcana, just two paragraphs after the
first passage quoted, may seem a little perplexing, in that it seems to bring us
about in a circle:
That the Word could be written on our earth is because the art of writing has existed
here from the most ancient time, first on wooden tablets, later on parchment,
afterward on paper, and finally it could be published in print. This has been provided
by the Lord for the sake of the Word. (Arcana Coelestia 9353) (emphasis added)
These passages seem to say that the Lord chose to be born on our earth
because the account of His advent could be written here. But then the art of
writing seems to have arisen, in the Lord’s providence, in anticipation of His
advent. Why could not the same have happened elsewhere? To break this
seeming circularity, however, we need proceed but a few more paragraphs to
Arcana 9360:
To the reasons already adduced may be added that the inhabitants, spirits and
angels of our earth bear relation in the Grand Man to the external and bodily sense
(see n. 9107), and the external and bodily sense is the ultimate, into which the
interior things of life come to a close, and in which they rest as in their common
receptacle (n. 5077, 9212, 9216). The case is similar with truth Divine in the letter,
which is called “the Word,” and which for this reason also has been given on this
earth and not on another. And because the Lord is the Word, and is its first and its
last, therefore in order that all things might come forth according to order, He also
willed to be born on this earth, and to become the Word….
So both the provision of writing and the Lord’s birth on this earth are
consequences of what we might call a more fundamental reason: the nature
of the human race as it exists on our planet. Apparently, more than any other
place in the universe, our planet relates to the external and bodily sense of the
Grand Man.
Thus the root distinction of our planet turns out to be a dubious one: being
the most external, the most ultimate of all. This is why we have been given
Divine Revelation in its most ultimate form. This is why the Lord assumed the
Divine Natural in actuality among us. And although the distinction may be
dubious, it did lead to the blessing of being those among whom this greatest of
all miracles took place.
The Rev. Stephen D. Cole was ordained in 1977 and into the second
degree in 1978. He has been a minister in Ohio, Detroit, Michigan,
and San Diego, California. He is Assistant Professor of Religion and
Philosophy in Bryn Athyn College of the New Church, and of Theology
in the Theological School. He is also head of the Religion Major in the
College. He and his wife, Jennifer (Smith), live in Bryn Athyn and have
eight grown children. Contact: [email protected]
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