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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #72

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72. The second experience.

Once I heard an unusual murmuring at a distance, and in the spirit I followed the track of the sound until I came near. When I reached its source, I found a group of spirits arguing about imputation and predestination. They were Dutch and British, with a few from other countries among them, and at the end of each argument these shouted: 'Wonderful, wonderful!'

The subject under discussion was: 'Why does God not impute the merit and righteousness of His Son to every single person He has created and subsequently redeemed? Is He not omnipotent? Can He not, if He wishes, make Lucifer, the Dragon and all the goats into angels? Is He not omnipotent? Why does He allow the unrighteousness and impiety of the devil to triumph over the righteousness of His Son and the piety of those who worship God? What is easier for God than to judge all worthy of faith and so of salvation? What does it take but one little word? And if not, is He not acting contrary to His own words, that He desires salvation for all and death for none? Tell us then whence it is that those who perish are damned, and what is the reason for it.'

Then a certain believer in predestination, a supralapsarian 1 from Holland, said: 'Surely this is at the pleasure of the Almighty. Shall the clay blame the potter, because he made a chamber-pot of it?' Another said: 'The salvation of every man is in His hand, like the scales in the hands of someone weighing.'

[2] At the sides of the group there stood a number of people of simple faith and upright heart, some with reddened eyes, some as if drugged, some as if drunk, and some as if choked, muttering to one another: 'What have we to do with this nonsense? They have been driven crazy by their faith, which is that God the Father imputes the righteousness of His Son to whomsoever He wishes, when He wishes, and sends the Holy Spirit to effect the rewards of that righteousness; and so that a person should not claim for himself a grain of merit in attending to his own salvation, he must be as inert as a stone in the matter of justification, and like a block of wood in spiritual matters.'

Then one of these people thrust himself into the group and said in a loud voice: 'You madmen, what you are arguing about is goat's wool. 2 You obviously do not know that almighty God is order itself, and that there are myriads of laws of order, as many in fact as there are truths in the Word, and God cannot act contrary to them, because if He did so, He would be acting against Himself, and so not only contrary to righteousness but contrary to His own omnipotence.'

[3] On the right he saw at a distance what looked like a sheep and a lamb, and a dove in flight, and on the left what looked like a goat, a wolf and a vulture. 'Do you believe,' he said, 'that God by His omnipotence could turn that goat into a sheep, or that wolf into a lamb, or that vulture into a dove, or the reverse? Far from it; that is contrary to the laws of His order, of which not so much as a tittle can fall to the ground, as His words tell us. How then can He impart the righteousness of His Son's redemption to anyone who resists it, contrary to the laws of His righteousness? How can Righteousness itself do unrighteousness, and predestine anyone to hell and cast him into the fire, beside which the devil stands torch in hand making it blaze? You madmen, devoid of spirit, your faith has led you astray. Is it not in your hands like a snare for catching doves?'

On hearing this a magician made as it were a snare out of that faith and hung it in a tree, saying? 'Watch me catch that dove.' Very soon the hawk flew up and put its neck in the snare and hung there, while the dove on seeing the hawk flew past. The by-standers exclaimed in wonder, 'This trick is a reward of righteousness.'

Footnotes:

1. Supralapsarian: a person who believes the Fall of Adam was predestined.

2. Proverbial for what does not exist.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #335

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335. The fourth experience.

I woke from sleep one morning while it was still twilight, and saw as it were apparitions of various sorts before my eyes. Then when it was full morning, I saw mirages of different types. Some were like sheets of paper covered with writing, which were folded over so many times that at last they looked like shooting stars, failing into the air and vanishing. Some looked like open books, some of which glittered like small moons, others burnt like candles. Among them were books which soared aloft, and high in the air disappeared; others fell to the ground and there were reduced to dust. On seeing these things I guessed that beneath these appearances in the air stood people arguing about imaginary matters, which they regarded as of great importance. For in the spiritual world such phenomena in the atmospheres are to be seen arising from the reasoning of those beneath.

A little later the sight of my spirit was opened, and I observed a number of spirits with their heads wreathed in laurel leaves, and their bodies dressed in flowery robes. This was a sign that they were spirits who in the natural world had been famous for their learning. Being in the spirit, I approached and joined the gathering. Then I heard that they were engaged in a bitter and intense debate about connate ideas, that is to say, whether human beings have any ideas directly from birth, as animals do.

Those who denied this were withdrawing from those who asserted it, and finally they stood divided into two parties, like the lines of two armies about to fight with swords. But lacking swords they were fighting with verbal thrusts.

[2] Suddenly an angelic spirit took his stand in their midst, and cried in a loud voice: 'I have heard from a distance, but not too far from you, that on both sides you are engaged in fierce debate, whether human beings have any connate ideas, as animals do. I tell you that human beings do not have any connate ideas, and that animals do not have any ideas at all. So your quarrel is about nothing, or, as the saying goes, about goats' wool or the beard of this age 1 .'

On hearing this they all flew into a rage and yelled: 'Throw him out, what he says is contrary to common sense.' But when they attempted to throw him out, they saw that he was surrounded by light from heaven, through which they could not break, for he was an angelic spirit. So they retreated and kept a short distance from him. When the light was re-absorbed, he said to them: 'Why do you fly into a rage? Listen first and take in the arguments I shall use, and then reach your own conclusion from them, I foresee that those who have good powers of judgment will agree and will calm the storms which have arisen in your minds.' In reply to this they said, though with indignation in their voices; 'Speak then, and we will listen.'

[3] Then he began speaking and said: 'You believe that animals have connate ideas, and you have deduced this from the fact that their actions seem to spring from thought. Yet they do not have the slightest capacity for thought, and it is only resulting from thought that we may speak of ideas. It is the mark of thought that one acts in such and such a way for this or that reason. Consider then whether the spider weaving its so skillfully designed web thinks in its tiny head: "I will stretch threads out in this order, and join them together with cross threads, so that my web will stand up to the air pressure it will encounter. And where the inside ends of the threads meet to make the centre, I will make myself a place to sit, so that I can detect anything falling into the web and run to it. So if a fly flies into it, it will be ensnared, and I shall quickly attack and wrap it up, so that it will be food for me." Again, does the bee think in its tiny head: "I will fly off. I know where there are meadows in flower, and there I shall suck up wax from some flowers and honey from others; and from the wax I shall build a series of adjoining cells, leaving as it were streets so that I and my companions may freely enter and go out again. Then we shall store large amounts of honey in the cells, to last through the coming winter, so that we do not die." There are many other wonderful details in which bees not only rival the social and economic provisions of men, but in some actually surpass them. (see above 12).

[4] 'Again, does the hornet think in its tiny head: "My companions and I will construct a dwelling of thin paper, with the walls inside curving around to make a labyrinth; and in the middle we shall make a kind of square, equipped with a way in and a way out, but so artfully contrived that no other creature than our own species will find its way to the middle where we hold our meetings." Or does the silk-worm, while still in the grub stage, think in its tiny head: "Now is the time for me to prepare to spin silk, so that, when it is spun, I can fly out, and in the air, an element previously beyond my reach, play with my mates and provide myself with offspring"? And likewise the other grubs, when they crawl through walls, and turn into nymphs, pupas, chrysallises, and finally butterflies? Does any fly have an idea about meeting another fly in one place and not another?

[5] 'It is much the same with larger animals as it is with these insects; as for instance birds and winged creatures of every kind, which know when to meet, when to prepare nests, lay eggs in them, sit on them and hatch their young, offer them food, bring them up until they fly away, and afterwards drive them from their nests as if they were not their own offspring, and countless things besides. It is much the same with land animals, snakes and fish. Is there any among you who cannot see from what I have said that their spontaneous actions do not result from any process of thought, the only context in which we can speak of ideas? The erroneous belief that animals have ideas has arisen solely from the false idea that animals think just as much as human beings, and the power of speech is the only difference.'

[6] After this speech the angelic spirit looked around, and since he saw that they were still wavering about whether animals have thought-processes or not, he went on speaking and said: 'I perceive that the similarity of the actions of animals to those of men has left you still dreaming about their thought-processes. So I will tell you the source of their actions. Every animal, every bird, fish, creeping thing and insect has its own natural, sensual and bodily love; these reside in their heads, and in the brains in them. By this route the spiritual world acts directly upon their bodily senses, and by these it directs their actions. This is why their bodily senses are much more sensitive than those of human beings. This impulse from the spiritual world is what is called instinct, and it is given this name because it arises without the mediation of thought. There are also secondary instincts arising from habit. But their love, by which the impulse from the spiritual world directs their actions, is concerned only with feeding and the propagation of the species, not with any knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, the means by which love develops successively in human beings.

[7] 'Nor does man have any connate ideas, as can be clearly established from the fact that he has no connate thought-process, and in the absence of thought-processes no idea can exist, for the one is dependent upon the other. This can be deduced from newly born babies, who are unable to do anything but take milk and breathe. Their ability to take milk is not the result of being born with it, but of having continually been sucking in the mother's womb. Their ability to breathe is the result of being alive, for this is something which is universal among living creatures. Even their bodily senses are extremely feeble; and little by little they work away from this state by contact with objects, likewise they learn by practice to move. Little by little too they as it were learn to make babbling sounds, at first uttered without any idea, but something dim arises in their mental imagery; and as this becomes clearer, a dim kind of imagination arises, and from this the same kind of thought. In proportion to the formation of this state ideas arise, which, as was said before, are inseparable from thought, and thinking develops from nothing by instruction. This is how human beings come to have ideas; they are not connate, but formed, and from them their speech and actions are derived.'

For man having nothing by birth other than a faculty for knowing, understanding and being wise, and an inclination to love not only these faculties but also his neighbour and God, see the experience recorded above (48); and in one of those to follow.

After this I looked round and saw close by Leibnitz and Wolff 2 , who were listening intently to the arguments put forward by the angelic spirit. Then Leibnitz approached and signified his approval and assent; but Wolff went away both assenting and dissenting, since he lacked the inner powers of judgment which Leibnitz had.

Footnotes:

1. Proverbial expressions for what does not exist.

2. Leibnitz (1646-1716) and Wolff (1679-1754), both famous German philosophers.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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