New Church Life September/October 2015 | Page 10

new church life: september/october 2015 danger. It must be handled carefully. And if, as intended, knowledge leads to actually seeing the truth – that is more dangerous still. Remember what the Lord said to the Pharisees: “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.” (John 9:41) It’s a solemn warning for all who presume to see the truth. What we have in the Heavenly Doctrines are countless particulars of spiritual knowledge on subjects which would otherwise be matters of only general awareness and vague speculation. We have a responsibility to think about such matters because, thanks to the new revelation, we can think about them. “Now it is permitted to enter with understanding into the mysteries of faith.” (True Christian Religion 508) When the Lord opens a door, we should walk through it. The promise the Lord made in His first advent has now been fulfilled: “But when it shall come, the Spirit of truth, it will guide you into all truth. It will glorify Me . . . “ (John 16:13-14 – see also the note on translation in Life Lines). The Lord, the Spirit of truth, speaks through the spiritual truths revealed in the Word He has given for His New Church, which glorify Him in our minds by showing how the Divine and the Human are One in Him. (WEO) the use of knowing As with all kinds of wealth, knowledge carries with it an obligation to put it to use. Knowledge is a vessel through which truth is communicated, and thus also the good of truth, or the good that truth inspires, defines and makes possible. Knowledge of the law, for example, is for the sake of establishing justice. Knowledge of history is for the sake of understanding what was good and worked well in the past so that it can be preserved and built upon in the present, and also that we might learn from the mistakes people made in the past and avoid repeating them. The kind of knowledge needed to design and construct buildings is for the sake of the uses that will be carried out in the buildings. Truth should be loved for its own sake, but we need always to bear in mind what it is that truth loves as its own, namely, the particular good that forms the soul of each truth. “All instruction is simply an opening of the way.” (Arcana Coelestia 1495.2) We begin by storing up factual knowledge in the memory, and then progress into ever higher orders of truth: from knowledge, to understanding, to seeing the truth. When the knowledge of truth we have is filled in and guided by good it becomes wisdom. 442