Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence Part 23

The serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field (Ge 3:1), and the Lord said:

Be prudent as serpents and simple as doves (Mt 10:16).

The dragon, too, called "that old serpent" and the "devil" and "satin,"

is described as

Having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns (Apoc 12:3, 9).

Craftiness is signified by the seven heads; the power to persuade by fallacies is meant by the ten horns; and holy things of the Word and the church which have been profaned are signified by the seven crowns.

311. From the description of one's own prudence and of those who are in it, the nature of prudence not one's own and of those who are in it may be seen. Those have prudence not their own who do not confirm in themselves that intelligence and wisdom are from man. They ask, "How can anyone be wise of himself or do good of himself?" When they speak so, they see in themselves that it is so, for they think interiorly. They also believe that others think similarly, especially the learned, for they are unaware that any-one can think only exteriorly.

[2] They are not in fallacies by any confirmation of appearances. They know and perceive, therefore, that murder, adultery, theft and false witness are sins and accordingly shun them on that account. They also know that wickedness is not wisdom and cunning is not intelligence. When they hear ingenious reasoning from fallacies they wonder and smile to themselves. This is because with them there is no veil between interiors and exteriors, or between the spiritual and the natural things of the mind, as there is with the sensuous. They therefore receive influx from heaven by which they see these things.

[3] They speak more simply and sincerely than others and place wisdom in life and not in talk. Relatively they are like lambs and sheep while those who are in their own prudence are like wolves and foxes. Or they are like those living in a house who see the sky through the windows while those who are in prudence of their own are like persons living in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a house who can look out through the windows only on what is down on the ground. Again they are like persons standing on a mountain who see those who are in prudence of their own as wanderers in valleys and forests.

[4] Hence it may be plain that prudence not one's own is prudence from the Lord, in externals appearing similar to prudence of one's own, but totally unlike it in internals. In internals prudence not one's own appears in the spiritual world as man, while prudence which is one's own appears like a statue, which seems living only because those who are in such prudence still possess rationality and freedom or the capacity to understand and to will, hence to speak and act, and by means of these faculties can make it appear that they also are men. They are such statues because evils and falsities have no life; only goods and truths do. By their rationality they know this, for if they did not they would not feign goods and truths; hence in their simulation of them they possess a vital humanness.

[5] Who does not know that a man is what he is inwardly? Consequently that he is a man who is inwardly what he wishes to appear to be outwardly, while he is a copy who is a man outwardly only and not inwardly. Think, as you speak, in favor of G.o.d and religion, of righteousness and sincerity, and you will be a man, and divine providence will be your prudence; you will perceive in others that one's own prudence is insanity.

312. (ii) _By his own prudence man persuades himself and confirms in himself that all good and truth are from him and in him; similarly all evil and falsity._ Rest the argument on the parallel between natural good and truth and spiritual good and truth. Ask what truth and good are to the sight of the eye. Is not what is called beautiful truth to it, and what is called enjoyable good to it? For enjoyment is felt in beholding what is beautiful. What are truth and good to the hearing? Is not what is called harmonious truth to it, and what is called pleasing good to it?

For pleasure is felt in hearing harmonies. It is the same with the other senses. What natural good and truth are is plain, then. Consider now what spiritual good and truth are. Is spiritual truth anything other than beauty and harmony in spiritual matters and objects? And is spiritual good anything other than the enjoyment and pleasure of perceiving the beauty and harmony?

[2] Let us see now whether anything different is to be said of the one from what is said of the other, that is, of the spiritual from what is said of the natural. Of the natural we say that what is beautiful and enjoyable to the eye flows in from objects, and what is harmonious and pleasing to the ear flows in from musical instruments. Is something different to be said in relation to the organic substances of the mind?

Of these it is said that the enjoyable and pleasing are in them, while it is said of eye and ear that they flow in. If you inquire why it is said that they flow in, the one answer possible is that distance appears between the objects and the organs. But when one asks why it is said that in the other case they are indwelling, the one possible answer is that no distance appears between the two. Consequently, it is the appearance of distance that results in believing one thing about what one thinks and perceives, and another thing about what one sees and hears. But this becomes baseless when one reflects that the spiritual is not in s.p.a.ce as the natural is. Think of sun or moon, or of Rome or Constantinople: do you not think of them apart from distance (provided the thought is not joined to the experience gained by sight or hearing)? Why then persuade yourself that because there is no appearance of distance in thought, that good and truth, as also evil and falsity, are indwelling, and do not flow in?

[3] Let me add to this an experience which is common in the spiritual world. One spirit can infuse his thoughts and affections into another, and the other not know that it is not his own thinking and affection.

This is called in that world thinking from and in another. I have witnessed it a thousand times and also done it a hundred times; and it seemed to occur at a considerable distance. As soon as the spirits learned that another was introducing the thoughts and affections, they were indignant and turned away, recognizing then, however, that to the internal thought or sight no distance is apparent unless it is disclosed, as it may be, to the external sight or the eye; as a result it is believed that there is influx.

[4] I will add to this experience an everyday experience of mine. Evil spirits have often put into my thoughts evils and falsities which seemed to me to be in me and to originate from me, or seemed to be my own thought. Knowing them to be evils and falsities, I searched out the spirits who had introduced them, and they were detected and driven off.

They were at a great distance from me.

It may be manifest from these things that all evil with its falsity flows in from h.e.l.l and all good with its truth flows in from the Lord, and that both appear to be in man.

313. The nature of men who are in prudence of their own, and the nature of those in prudence not their own and hence in the divine providence, is depicted in the Word by Adam and his wife Eve in the Garden of Eden where were two trees, one of life and the other of the knowledge of good and evil, and by their eating of the latter tree. It may be seen above (n.

241) that in the internal or spiritual sense of the Word by Adam and Eve, his wife, the Most Ancient Church of the Lord on this earth is meant and described, which was more n.o.ble and heavenly than subsequent churches.

[2] Following is what is signified by other particulars. The wisdom of the men of that church is signified by the Garden of Eden; the Lord in respect to divine providence is signified by the tree of life, and man in respect to his own prudence is meant by the tree of knowledge; his sensuous life and his proprium, which in itself is self-love and pride in one's own intelligence, and thus is the devil and satan, is signified by the serpent; and the appropriation of good and truth with the thought that they are not from the Lord and are not the Lord's, but are from man and are his, is signified by eating of the tree of knowledge. Inasmuch as good and truth are what is divine with man (for everything of love is meant by good, and everything of wisdom by truth), if man claims them as his, he cannot but believe that he is as G.o.d. Therefore the serpent said:

In the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be as G.o.d, knowing good and evil (Ge 3:5).

So do those in h.e.l.l believe, who are in self-love and thence in the pride of their own intelligence.

[3] Condemnation of self-love and self-intelligence is meant by the condemnation of the serpent; the condemnation of the volitional proprium is meant by the condemnation of Eve and the condemnation of the intellectual proprium by the condemnation of Adam; sheer falsity and evil are signified by the thorn and thistle which the earth would produce for Adam; the loss of wisdom is signified by the expulsion from the Garden; the Lord's care lest holy things of the Word and the church be violated is meant by guarding the way to the tree of life; moral truths, veiling men's self-love and conceit, are signified by the fig leaves with which Adam and Eve covered their nakedness; and appearances of truth, in which alone they were, are signified by the coats of skin with which they were later clothed. Such is the spiritual understanding of these particulars.

Let him who wishes remain in the sense of the letter, only let him know that it is so understood in heaven.

314. The nature of those who are infatuated with their own intelligence can be seen from their fancies in matters of interior judgment, as, for example, about influx, thought and life. Their thinking about influx is inverted. They think that the sight of the eye flows into the internal sight of the mind or into the understanding, and that the hearing of the ear flows into the internal hearing, which also is the understanding.

They do not perceive that the understanding from the will flows into the eye and the ear, and not only const.i.tutes those senses but also employs them as its instruments in the natural world. As this is not according to the appearance, they do not perceive even if it is only said that the natural does not flow into the spiritual, but the spiritual into the natural. They still think, "What is the spiritual except a finer natural?" And again, "When the eye beholds something beautiful or the ear hears something melodious, of course the mind, which is understanding and will, is delighted." They do not know that the eye does not see of itself, nor the tongue taste, nor the nose smell, nor the skin feel of itself, but that it is the man's mind or spirit which has the perceptions in the sensation and which is affected according to its nature by the sensation. Indeed, the mind or spirit does not sense things of itself, but does so from the Lord; to think otherwise is to think from appearances, and if these are confirmed, from fallacies.

[2] Regarding thought, they say that it is something modified in the air, varied according to topic, and widened by cultivation; thus that the ideas in thoughts are images appearing, meteor-like, in the air; and that the memory is a tablet on which they are imprinted. They do not know that thought goes on in purely organic substances just as much as sight and hearing do. Only let them examine the brain, and they will see that it is full of such substances; injure them and you will become delirious; destroy them and you will die. But what thought and memory are see above at n. 279 end.

[3] Regarding life, they know it only as an activity of nature, which makes itself felt in different ways, as a live body bestirs itself organically. If it is remarked that nature is alive then, they deny this, and say it enables to life. If one asks, "Is life not dissipated then on the death of the body?" they reply that life remains in a particle of air called the soul. Asked "What then is G.o.d? Is He not life itself?" they keep silence and do not want to utter what they think. Asked, "Would you grant that divine love and wisdom are life itself?" they answer, "What are love and wisdom?" For in their fallacies they do not see what these are or what G.o.d is.

These things have been adduced that it may be seen how man is infatuated by prudence of his own because he draws all conclusions then from appearances and thus from fallacies.

316.* By one's own prudence one is persuaded and confirmed that all good and truth are from man and in man, because a man's own prudence is his intellectual proprium, flowing in from self-love, which is his volitional proprium; proprium inevitably makes everything its own; it cannot be raised above doing so. All who are led by the Lord's divine providence are raised above the proprium and then see that all good and truth are from the Lord, indeed see that what in the human being is from the Lord is always the Lord's and never man's. He who believes otherwise is like one who has his master's goods in his care and claims them himself or appropriates them--he is no steward, but a thief. As man's proprium is nothing but evil, he also immerses the goods in his evil, by which they are destroyed like pearls thrown into dung or into acid.

* So numbered in the Latin original.

317. ( iii) _All that a man is persuaded of and confirms remains with him as his own._ Many believe that no truth can be seen by man without confirmations of it, but this is false. In civic and economic matters in a kingdom or republic what is useful and good can be seen only with some knowledge of its numerous statutes and ordinances; in judicial matters only with knowledge of the law; and in natural subjects, like physics, chemistry, anatomy, mechanics and others, only on acquaintance with those sciences. But in purely rational, moral and spiritual matters, truths appear in light of their own, if man has become somewhat rational, moral and spiritual through a suitable education. This is because everyone as to his spirit, which is what thinks, is in the spiritual world and is one among those there, consequently is in spiritual light, which enlightens the interiors of his understanding and, as it were, dictates. For spiritual light in essence is the divine truth of the Lord's divine wisdom. Thence it is that man can think a.n.a.lytically, form conclusions about what is just and right in matters of judgment, see what is honorable in moral life and good in spiritual life, and see many truths, which are darkened only by the confirmation of falsities. Man sees them almost as readily as he sees another's disposition from his face or perceives his affections from the sound of his voice, with no further knowledge than is implanted in one. Why should not man in some measure see from influx the interiors of his life, which are spiritual and moral, when there is no animal that does not know by influx all things necessary to it, which are natural? A bird knows how to build its nest, lay its eggs, hatch its young and recognize its food, besides other wonders which are named instinct.

318. How this state is changed, however, by confirmations and consequent persuasions will be told now in this order:

1. There is nothing that cannot be confirmed, and falsity is confirmed more readily than truth.

2. Truth does not appear when falsity has been confirmed, but falsity is apparent from confirmed truth.

3. The ability to confirm whatever one pleases is not intelligence but only ingenuity, to be found in the worst of men.

4. Confirmation may be mental and not at the same time volitional, but all volitional confirmation is also mental.

5. Confirmation of evil both volitional and intellectual causes man to believe that one's own prudence is everything and divine providence nothing, but not confirmation solely intellectual.

6. Everything confirmed by the will and at the same time by the understanding, remains to eternity, but not what has been confirmed only by the understanding.

[2] Touching the first, that _there is nothing that cannot be confirmed, and that falsity is confirmed more readily than truth._ What, indeed, cannot be confirmed when atheists confirm that G.o.d is not the Creator of the universe but that nature is her own creator; that religion is only a restraint and is for simple and common folks; that man is like the beast and dies like one; that adultery and secret theft, fraud and deceitful schemes are allowable, and that cunning is intelligence and wickedness is wisdom. Everyone confirms his heresy. Volumes are filled with confirmations of the two heresies prevalent in Christendom. a.s.semble ten heresies, however abstruse, ask an ingenious man to confirm them, and he will confirm them all. If you regard them then solely from the confirmations of them, will you not be seeing falsities as truth? Since all that is false lights up in the natural man from its appearances and fallacies, but truth lights up only in the spiritual man, plainly falsity can be confirmed more readily than truth.

[3] For it to be known that everything false and everything evil can be confirmed even to the point that what is false seems true and what is evil seems to be good, take for example the confirmation that light is darkness and darkness is light. A man may ask: "What is light 'in itself'? Is not light only something which appears in the eye according to the eye's condition? What is light when the eye is closed? Do not bats and owls have eyes to see light as darkness and darkness as light? I have heard it said that some persons see in like manner, and that infernal spirits, despite being in darkness, see one another. Does one not have light in his dreams in the middle of the night? Is darkness not light, therefore, and light darkness?" It can be replied, "What of that? Light is light as truth is truth, and darkness is darkness as falsity is falsity."

[4] Take a further example: confirmation that the crow is white. May its blackness not be said to be only a shading which is not the real fact?

Its feathers are white inside, its body, too; and these are the stuff of which the bird is made. As its blackness is a shading, the crow turns white as it grows old--some such have been seen. What is black in itself but white? Pulverize black gla.s.s and you will see that the powder is white. When you call the crow black, therefore, you are speaking of the shadow and not of the reality. The reply can be, "What of it? All birds should be called white then."

Contrary as they are to sound reason, these arguments have been recited to show that it is possible to confirm falsity that is directly opposite to truth and evil that is directly opposite to good.

[5] Second: _Truth does not appear when falsity has been confirmed, but falsity is apparent from truth confirmed._ All falsity is in darkness and all truth in light. In darkness nothing is seen, nor indeed is it known what anything is except by contact with it, but it is different in the light. In the Word falsities are therefore called darkness, and those who are in falsities are said to walk in darkness and in the shadow of death.

In turn, truths are called light in it, and those who are in truths are said to walk in the light and to be the children of light.

[6] There is much to show that when falsity has been confirmed, truth does not appear, but when truth has been confirmed, falsity is apparent.

For instance, who would see a spiritual truth unless the Word taught it?

Would there not be darkness that could be dispelled only by the light in which the Word is, and only with one who wishes to be enlightened? What heretic can see his falsities unless he welcomes the genuine truth of the church? Until then he does not see them. I have talked with those who confirmed themselves in faith apart from charity and who were asked whether they saw the frequent mention in the Word of love and charity, works and deeds, and keeping the Commandments, and the declaration that the man who keeps the Commandments is blessed and wise, but the man who does not is foolish. They said that on reading these things they saw them only as matters of faith, and pa.s.sed them by with their eyes closed, so to speak.

[7] Those who have confirmed themselves in falsities are like men who see streaks on a wall, and at twilight fancy that they see the figure of a horseman or just of a man, a visionary image which is dissipated when the daylight floods in. Who can sense the spiritual uncleanness of adultery except one who is in the cleanliness of chast.i.ty? Who can feel the cruelty of vengeance except one who is in good from love to the neighbor?

What adulterer or what avenger does not sneer at those who call enjoyment in such acts as theirs infernal but the enjoyments of marital love and neighborly love heavenly? And so on.

[8] Third: _The ability to confirm whatever one pleases is not intelligence but only ingenuity, to be found in the worst of men._ Some show the greatest dexterity in confirmation, who know no truth and yet can confirm both truth and falsity. Some of them remark, "What is truth?

Is there such a thing? Is not that true which I make true?" In the world they are believed to be intelligent, and yet they are only daubing a wall.* Only those are intelligent who perceive truth to be truth and who confirm it by verities constantly perceived. Little difference may be seen between the latter and the former because one cannot distinguish between the light of confirmation and the light of the perception of truth. Those in the light of confirmation seem also to be in the light of the perception of truth. Yet the difference is like that between illusory light and genuine. In the spiritual world illusory light is such that it turns into darkness when genuine light flows in. There is such illusory light with many in h.e.l.l; on being brought out into genuine light they see nothing at all. It is evident, then, that to be able to confirm whatever one pleases is only ingenuity, which the worst of men may have.

* Cf. Ezekiel 13:10, 11 and _Arcana Caelestia_ n. 739(2), Apocalypse Explained nn. 237(5) and 644(25). Tr.

[9] Fourth: _Confirmation may be mental and not at the same time volitional, but all volitional confirmation is also mental._ Let an example serve to ill.u.s.trate this. Those who confirm faith separate from charity and yet live the life of charity, and in general those who confirm a falsity of doctrine and yet do not live according to it, are in intellectual confirmation but not at the same time volitional. On the other hand, those who confirm falsity of doctrine and live according to it are in volitional and at the same time in intellectual confirmation.

For the understanding does not flow into the will, but the will into the understanding. Hence it is plain what falsity of evil is, and what falsity not of evil is. Falsity which is not of evil can be conjoined with good, but falsity of evil cannot be. For falsity which is not of evil is falsity in the understanding but not in the will, while falsity of evil is falsity in the understanding which comes of evil in the will.

[10] Fifth: _Confirmation of evil, both volitional and intellectual, but not confirmation only intellectual, causes man to believe that his own prudence is everything and divine providence nothing._ Many confirm their own prudence in themselves on the strength of appearances in the world, and yet do not deny divine providence; theirs is only intellectual confirmation. But in others, who deny divine providence at the same time, there is volitional confirmation; this, together with persuasion, is found chiefly in wors.h.i.+pers of nature and also in wors.h.i.+pers of self.