Chapter 22

in a spiritual, not a natural state.

176. (i) _If man perceived or felt the activity of divine providence he would not act in freedom according to reason, nor would anything appear to be his own doing. It would be the same if he foreknew events._ In given articles we made evident to the understanding that it is a law of providence that man should act in freedom according to reason; also that all which a man wills, thinks, speaks and does shall seem to be his own doing; that without this appearance a man would have nothing of his own nor be his own man. He would thus have no selfhood and nothing could be imputed to him, and in that case whether he did good or evil would not matter, and whether he believed in God or was under the persuasion of hell would be immaterial; in a word, he would not be a human being.

[2] We have now to show that man would have no liberty to act according to reason and there would be no appearance of self-activity if he perceived or felt the activity of divine providence, for if he did he would also be led by it. The Lord leads all men by His divine providence and man only seemingly leads himself, as was shown above. If, therefore, man had a lively perception or sense of being led, he would not be conscious of living life and would be moved to make sounds and act much like a graven image. If he were still conscious of living he would be led like one bound in manacles and fetters or like a yoked animal. Who does not see that man would have no freedom then? And without freedom he would be without reason, for one thinks from and in freedom; whatever he does not so think seems to him to be not from himself but from someone else. Indeed if you consider this interiorly you will perceive that he would not possess thought, still less reason, and hence would not be a human being.

177. The Lord's divine providence is constantly seeking to withdraw man from evils. If a man perceived or felt this constant activity and yet was not led like one bound, would he not struggle against it continually and then either quarrel with God or mingle himself in divine providence? If he did the latter he would also make himself God; if he did the former he would free himself from constraint and deny God. Manifestly two forces would constantly be acting then against each other, the force of evil from man and the force of good from the Lord. When two opposites act against each other, one of them conquers or they both perish. In this instance if one conquers they both perish. For the evil, which is man's, does not let in good from the Lord in a moment, nor does good from the Lord cast out evil from man in a moment; if either was done in a moment no life would be left to man. These and many other harmful results would follow if man manifestly perceived or felt the operation of divine providence. This will be demonstrated clearly by examples in what follows.

178. Man is not given a foreknowledge of events for the same reason, namely, that he may be able to act in freedom according to reason. It is well known that man wants what he loves effected, and he guides himself to this end by reasoning. It is also known that what a man meditates in his reason comes from his love of giving it effect through thought. If, then, he knew the effect or the eventuality by divine prediction, his reason would become inactive and with it his love; for love along with reasoning ends with the effect, to begin anew. It is reason's very enjoyment to envision with love the effect in thought, not after it is attained but before it is, not in the present but as future. So man has what is called hope, which rises and declines in the reason as he beholds or awaits the event. The enjoyment is fulfilled in the event and then is forgotten along with thought about the event. The same thing would occur with an event that was foreknown.

[2] The human mind dwells always in the trine called end, cause and effect. If one of these is lacking, the mind is not possessed of its life. An affection of the will is the initiating end; the thought of the understanding is the efficient cause; and bodily action, utterance or external sensation is the effect from the end by means of the thought. Anyone sees that the human mind is not possessed of its life when it is only in an affection of the will and in naught besides, or when it is only in an effect. The mind has no life from one of these separately, therefore, but from the three together. The life of the mind would diminish and depart if an event were foretold.

179. As a foreknowledge of future events takes away humanness itself, which is action in freedom in accord with one's reason, no one is given to know the future; but everyone is allowed to form conclusions by the reason about the future; the reason is then fully in its own life. Accordingly man does not know his lot after death or know any event until he is on it. For if he knew, he would no longer think from his inner self how he should act or live so as to meet it, but would think only from his exterior self that he was meeting it. This state closes the interiors of his mind where the two faculties of his life, liberty and reason, especially reside. A desire to know the future is born with most persons but has its origin in a love of evil. It is taken away, therefore, from those who believe in divine providence; and trust that the Lord disposes their lot is given them. Therefore they do not desire to know it beforehand lest they inject themselves in some way into divine providence. The Lord teaches this in many sayings in Luke (12:14-48).

[2] Much from the world of the spirit can confirm that this is a law of divine providence. On entering that world after death most persons desire to know their lot. The answer they receive is that if they have lived well their lot is in heaven and if wickedly it is in hell. But as all, including the wicked, fear hell they ask what they should do and believe to get into heaven. They are answered that they are to do and believe as they will, but know that one does not do good or believe truth in hell, only in heaven. "As you can, seek what is good and true, thinking truth and doing good." Everyone is thus left to act in freedom according to reason in the spiritual world as he is in the natural world; but as one has acted in this world he acts in that, for everyone's life remains to him and so his lot awaits him, for this is his life's lot.

180. (ii) _If man saw divine providence plainly he would inject himself into the order and tenor of its course and pervert and destroy them._ To bring this distinctly to the perception of the rational man and also of the natural man, it will be illustrated by examples in this order:

1. External things are so connected with internal things that they make one in all that is done. 2. The human being joins the Lord only in some external things and if he did in internal things also, he would pervert and destroy the whole order and tenor of the course of divine providence.

As we said, these points will be illustrated by examples.

[2] First: _External things are so connected with internal things that they make one in all that is done._ Let this be illustrated by examples from several things in man's body. Everywhere in it are things external and internal. The external are called skins, membranes and coverings; the internal are forms variously composed and woven of nerve fibres and blood vessels. The covering over these enters into them by extensions from itself even to the inmost, so that the external or the covering unites with the internals or the organic forms of fibres and vessels. It follows that the internals act and are acted on as the external acts or is acted on. For they are all constantly bound up together.

[3] Take such a common covering in the body as the pleura, for example, which covers the chest cavity and the heart and lungs. Examine it in an anatomical view, or if you do not know anatomy consult anatomists, and you will learn that this general covering by various circumvolutions and finer and finer extensions from itself enters into the inmost parts of the lungs, even into the smallest bronchial branches and into the sacs themselves which are the beginnings of the lungs, not to mention its subsequent progress by the trachea into the larynx and toward the tongue. From this it is plain that there is a constant connection of the outmost with inmosts; the interiors from the inmosts on therefore act and are acted upon as the external acts or is acted on. For this reason when that outmost covering, the pleura, is congested, inflamed or ulcerated, the lungs labor from their inmost parts; if the disease grows worse, all action of the lungs ceases and the man dies.

[4] The same is true everywhere else in the body. For instance it is true of the peritoneum, the general covering of all the abdominal viscera, also of the coverings on such organs severally as the stomach, liver, pancreas, spleen, intestines, mesentery, kidneys, and the organs of generation in both sexes. Choose any one of these viscera, examine it yourself or consult those skilled in the science, and you will see or hear. Take the liver, for example; you will find there is a connection between the peritoneum and that organ and by its covering with its inmost parts. For the covering puts out constant extensions from itself and insertions towards the interiors and thus continues to inmosts and as a result the whole is bound together. The entire form acts or is acted upon in such manner as the covering acts or is acted upon. The same is true of the rest of the organs. For what is general and what is particular or the universal and the singular in a form act together by a marvelous connection.

[5] You will see below that what occurs in natural forms and their processes, which relate to motion and actions, occurs similarly in spiritual forms and in the changes and variations of their state, which relate to activities of the will and the understanding. Inasmuch as man joins the Lord in certain external activities and no one is deprived of the liberty of acting according to reason, the Lord can act in internals only as, together with man, He does in externals. If man does not shun and turn away from evils as sins, therefore, the external and at the same time the internal of his thought and will are infected and destroyed, comparatively as the pleura is by the disease in it called pleurisy, of which the body dies.

[6] Second: _If man were in internals at the same time he would pervert and destroy the whole order and tenor of divine providence._ Examples from the human body will illustrate this also. If man knew all the workings of the two brains into the fibres, of the fibres into the muscles and of the muscles into actions, and by this knowledge were to have the disposition of them as he disposes his deeds, would he not pervert and destroy all?

[7] If man knew how the stomach digests, and how the surrounding organs take their portion, work the blood and distribute it where needed for life, and if he had the disposing of these as he has of external activities, such as eating and drinking, would he not pervert and destroy all? When he cannot handle the external, seemingly a single thing, without destroying it by luxury and intemperance, what would he do if he had the disposal of the internals, infinite in number? Lest man enter into them by any volition and have control of them, things internal are therefore taken entirely away from the will except for the muscles, which are a covering; moreover, how these act is not known, only that they do.

[8] The same can be said of other organs. To give examples: if man had the disposing of the interiors of the eye for seeing, those of the ear for hearing, or the tongue for tasting, those of the skin for feeling, those of the heart for systolic action, of the lungs for breathing, of the mesentery to distribute the chyle, or of the kidneys for secretion, the interiors of the organs of generation for propagation, or those of the womb for perfecting an embryo, and so on, would he not pervert and destroy the ordered course of the divine providence in them in innumerable ways? As we know, man is in externals, for example sees with the eye, hears with the ear, tastes with the tongue, feels with the skin, breathes with the lungs, impregnates a wife, and so on. Is it not enough for him to know the externals and dispose them for health of body and mind? When he cannot do this, what would happen if he disposed internals also? It may be plain from this that if man saw divine providence plainly, he would inject himself into the order and tenor of its course and pervert and destroy them.

181. The like occurs in the spiritual things of the mind to what occurs in the natural things of the body for the reason that all things of the mind correspond to all things of the body. For the same reason the mind actuates the body in externals and generally does so completely. It moves the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the mouth and tongue to eat and drink, also to speak, the hands to do, the feet to walk, the generative organs to propagate. The mind not only moves the externals in these ways but the internals, too, in their whole series, outmosts from inmosts and inmosts from outmosts. Thus while moving the mouth to speak, it moves lungs, larynx, glottis, tongue and lips at the same time, each separately to its especial function, and the face suitably also.

[2] It is clear then that the same can be said of the spiritual forms of the mind as was said of the natural forms of the body, and the same can be said of the spiritual activities of the mind as was said of the natural activities of the body. Consequently the Lord orders the internals as a man does the externals, in one way if the man orders the externals of himself and in another if he orders them under the Lord and at the same time as of himself. The mind of man is also in its total organization a man, for it is his spirit which appears after death altogether as a human being as in the world; hence there are similar things in mind and body. Thus what has been said about the conjunction of externals with internals in the body is to be understood of the conjunction of externals with internals in the mind, with the sole difference that the latter is spiritual and the former is natural.

182. ( iii) _If man beheld divine providence plainly he would either deny God or make himself god._ The merely natural man says to himself, "What is divine providence? Is it anything else or more than an expression which people get from a priest? Who sees anything of it? Is it not by prudence, wisdom, cunning and malice that all things are done in the world? Is not all else necessity or consequence? And does not much happen by chance? Does divine providence lie concealed in this? How can it do so in deceptions and schemes? Yet it is said that divine providence effects all things. Then let me see it and I will believe in it. Can one believe in it until he sees it?"

[2] So speaks the merely natural man, but the spiritual man speaks differently. Acknowledging God he also acknowledges divine providence and sees it, too. He cannot make it manifest, however, to anyone whose thought is on nature only and from nature, for such a person cannot raise his mind above nature, see anything of divine providence in its phenomena, or come to conclusions about providence from nature's laws, which are also laws of divine wisdom. If, therefore, he beheld divine providence plainly, he would sink it in nature and thus not only enshroud it in fallacies but profane it. Instead of acknowledging it he would deny it, and one who denies divine providence in his heart denies God also.

[3] Either one thinks that God governs all things or that nature does. He who thinks that God does thinks that they are ruled by love itself and wisdom itself, thus by life itself; but he who thinks that nature governs all, thinks that all things are ruled by nature's heat and light, although these in themselves are dead, coming as they do from a dead sun. Does not what is itself alive govern what is lifeless? Can what is dead govern anything? If you think that what is lifeless can give life to itself, you are mad; life must come from life.

183. It does not seem likely that if a man saw divine providence and its activity plainly he would deny God; it would seem that he could not but acknowledge it and thus acknowledge God. Yet the contrary is true. Divine providence never acts in keeping with the love of man's will, but constantly against it. For the human being by force of his hereditary evil is ever panting for the lowest hell, but the Lord in His providence is constantly leading him away and withdrawing him from it, first to a milder hell, then away from hell, and finally to Himself in heaven. This activity of divine providence is perpetual. If, then, man saw or felt this withdrawing and leading away, he would be angered, consider God his enemy, and deny Him on account of the evil of his selfhood. In order that man may not know of it, therefore, he is held in freedom and thereby does not know but that he leads himself.

[2] But let examples serve for illustration. By heredity man wants to become great and also rich. In the measure in which these loves are not checked he wants to become still greater and richer and finally the greatest and richest; even so he would not rest, but would want to become greater than God Himself and possess heaven itself. This lust is hidden deep in hereditary evil and consequently in man's life and in the nature of his life. Divine providence does not remove this evil in a moment; if it were removed in a moment man would cease to live; but divine providence removes it quietly and gradually without man's knowing of it. It does this by letting man act according to the thinking which he deems rational; then by various means, rational and also civil and moral, it leads him away and withdraws him so far as he can be withdrawn in freedom. Nor can evil be removed from anyone unless it comes out and is seen and acknowledged; it is like a wound which heals only when opened.

[3] If, therefore, man knew and saw that the Lord in His divine providence works in this way against his life's love, the source of his highest enjoyment, he could not but go in the opposite direction, be enraged, rebel, say harsh things, and finally, on account of his evil, brush aside the activity of divine providence, denying it and so denying God. He would do this especially if he saw success thwarted or saw himself lowered in standing or deprived of wealth.

[4] But it is to be known that the Lord in no wise leads man away from seeking position and acquiring wealth, but leads him away from the lust of seeking position solely for the sake of eminence or for his own sake, and also from acquiring wealth for its own sake or just to have it. Leading the man away, He introduces him into the love of uses so that he may regard eminence not for his own sake but for the sake of uses, thus as attached to uses and only so to himself, and not as attached to him and then to the uses; the same applies to wealth. At many places in the Word the Lord Himself teaches that He continually humbles the proud and exalts the humble; what He teaches in it is also of His divine providence.

184. Any other evil in which man is by heredity is dealt with in like manner, such as adultery, fraud, vengeance, blasphemy and other similar evils, none of which can be removed except as freedom to think and will them is left to man for him to remove them as if of himself. Nevertheless he can do this only as he acknowledges divine providence and prays that it may be done by it. Apart from this freedom and from divine providence at the same time, the evils would be like poison shut in and not driven out, which would spread quickly and consign all parts to death, or would be like disease of the heart itself, from which the whole body soon dies.

185. The truth of what has been said cannot be better known than from human lives after death in the spiritual world. Very many who had become great or wealthy in the natural world and in their eminence or riches had regarded themselves alone, at first speak of God and divine providence as though they had acknowledged them at heart, but seeing divine providence clearly then and their final lot under it, namely, for them to enter hell, they unite with devils there and not only deny God then but also blaspheme Him. Finally they reach such madness that they acknowledge the more powerful among devils as their gods and desire nothing more ardently than to become gods themselves.

186. Man would go contrary to God and also deny Him if he saw the activities of God's divine providence plainly, for the reason that man is in the enjoyment of self-love and this enjoyment constitutes his very life. Therefore when man is held in the enjoyment of his life he is in his freedom, for freedom and the enjoyment make one. If, then, he should perceive that he is continually being led away from his enjoyment, he would be enraged as against one who wanted to destroy his life and would hold him to be an enemy. Lest it happen, the Lord in His divine providence does not appear manifestly, but leads man by it as silently as a hidden stream or favorable current does a vessel. Consequently man does not know but that he is steadily in his own, for his freedom and his proprium make one. Hence it is plain that freedom appropriates to him what divine providence introduces, which would not take place if providence were manifest. To be appropriated means to become of one's life.

187. (iv) _Man can see divine providence on the back and not in the face; also in a spiritual state but not in a natural._ To see divine providence on the back but not in the face means after it acts and not before. To see it in a spiritual state and not in a natural is to see it from heaven and not from the world. All who receive influx from heaven and acknowledge divine providence, especially those who have become spiritual through reformation, on beholding events taking a wonderful course see providence as it were from an interior acknowledgment and confess it. These do not wish to see it in the face, that is, before it eventuates, fearing that their volition may intrude on something of its order and tenor.

[2] It is otherwise with those who do not admit any influx from heaven but only from the world, especially with those who have become natural by confirming appearances in themselves. They do not see anything of divine providence on the back, that is, after it eventuates, but wish to behold it in the face or before it eventuates; and as divine providence works by means, and these are provided through man or the world, they attribute providence, whether they look it in the face or on the back, to man or to nature, and so confirm themselves in the denial of it. They make this ascription of it because their understanding is closed above, that is, to heaven, and open only below, that is, to the world; one cannot see divine providence in a worldly outlook, only in a heavenly. I have wondered sometimes whether they would acknowledge divine providence if their understanding was opened above and they were to see as in the light of day that nature in itself is dead, and human intelligence in itself nothing, and that it is by influx that either appears to have being. I perceived that those who have confirmed themselves in favor of nature and of human prudence would not make the acknowledgment because the natural light flowing in from below would immediately extinguish the spiritual light flowing in from above.

189.* The man who has become spiritual by acknowledgment of God, and wise by rejection of the proprium, sees divine providence in the world as a whole and in each and all things in it. Looking at natural things, he sees it; at civil things, he sees it; at spiritual things, he sees it; and in things simultaneous as well as successive. He sees it in ends, causes, effects, uses, forms, things great and small. Above all he sees it in the salvation of men, as that Jehovah gave the Word, taught men by it about God and about heaven and hell and eternal life, and Himself came into the world to redeem men and save them. Man sees these and many other things and divine providence in them from spiritual light in natural light.

* The Latin original has no number 188.

[2] The merely natural man, however, sees none of these things. He is like a man who sees a magnificent temple and hears a preacher enlightened in divine things, but once home asserts that he saw only a stone building and heard nothing but sounds made. Again, he is like a near-sighted man who steps into a garden remarkable for fruits of every sort and who reports on getting home that he saw only woods and trees. Moreover, when such persons, having become spirits after death, are taken up into the angelic heaven where all objects are in forms representative of love and wisdom, they see none of them, not even that they exist. I have seen this happen with a number who denied the Lord's divine providence.

190. Many constant things exist, created that inconstant things may exist. Such constants are the ordained changes in the rising and setting of sun, moon and stars; their obscurations by interpositions called eclipses; the heat and light from them; the seasons of the year, called spring, summer, autumn and winter; the times of the day, morning, noon, evening and night; also atmospheres, waters and lands, viewed in themselves; the vegetative force in the plant kingdom, that and the reproductive in the animal kingdom; likewise what is constantly produced when these forces are set in action in accord with the laws of order. These and many more things existing from the creation are provided so that infinitely varying things may exist, for what varies can exist only in what is constant, fixed and certain.

[2] Examples will illustrate this. The varieties of vegetation would not be possible unless sunrise and sunset and the resulting heat and light were constant. Harmonies are infinitely varied, and would not exist unless the atmospheres were constant in their laws and the ear in its form. Varieties of vision, which are also infinite, would not exist unless the ether in its laws and the eye in its organization were constant; equally so, colors, unless light was constant. The same is true of thoughts, words and actions, which are of infinite variety too; they could not exist, either, unless the organic forms of the body were constant. Must not a house be steady for a variety of things to be done in it by a person? So must a temple be for the various acts of worship, preaching, instruction and devout meditation to be possible in it. So in much else.

[3] As for the varieties found in the constant, fixed and certain, they go on to infinity and have no end; no one thing in the whole universe or in any part of it is ever precisely the same as another, nor can be in the progress of things to eternity. Who disposes these varieties which proceed to infinity and eternity so that they have order unless it is He who created what is constant to the end that they may exist in it? And who can dispose the infinite varieties of life among men but He who is life itself, that is, love itself and wisdom itself? Except by His divine providence, which is like a continual creation, can the infinite affections of men and their thoughts thence and thus the men themselves be disposed so as to make one? Evil affections and the thoughts from them to make one devil which is hell, and good affections and the thoughts from them one Lord in heaven? We have said and shown several times before that the whole angelic heaven is like one man in the Lord's sight, an image and likeness of Him, and all hell over against it like one monstrous man. This has been said because some natural men seize on arguments for their madness in favor of nature and of one's own prudence from even the constant and fixed which must exist for the variable to exist in it.

X. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ONE'S OWN PRUDENCE; THERE ONLY APPEARS TO BE AND IT SHOULD SO APPEAR; BUT DIVINE PROVIDENCE IS UNIVERSAL BY BEING IN THE LEAST THINGS

191. That there is no such thing as one's own prudence is contrary to appearances and therefore to the belief of many. Because it is, one who believes, on the strength of the appearance, that human prudence does all things, cannot be convinced except by reasons to be had from a more profound investigation and to be gathered from causes. The appearance is an effect, and causes disclose how it arises. By way of introduction something will be said about the common faith on the subject. Contrary to the appearance the church teaches that love and faith are not from man but from God, so also wisdom and intelligence, therefore prudence also, and in general all good and truth. When this teaching is accepted, one must also agree that there is no such thing as one's own prudence, but there only appears to be. Prudence comes only from intelligence and wisdom and both of these only from the understanding and its grasp of truth and good. All this is accepted and believed by those who acknowledge divine providence, but not by those who only acknowledge human prudence.

[2] Now, either what the church teaches is true, that all wisdom and prudence are from God, or what the world teaches, that they are from man. Can these views be reconciled in any other way than this, that what the church teaches is the truth, and what the world teaches is the appearance? For the church establishes its teaching from the Word, but the world its teaching from the proprium; and the Word is God's, and the proprium is man's. Because prudence is from God and not from man a Christian in his devotions, prays God to lead his thoughts, purposes and actions, and also adds that by himself he cannot. Again, seeing someone doing good, he says the person has been led to it by God; and so about much else. Can anyone speak so unless he inwardly believes it? To believe it inwardly comes from heaven. But when a man deliberates and gathers arguments in favor of human prudence he can believe the contrary, and this is from the world. The internal faith prevails with those who acknowledge God in their hearts; the external faith with those who do not acknowledge Him at heart, however much they may with the lips.

192. We said that a person who believes, on the strength of the appearance, that human prudence does all things, can be convinced only by reasons to be had from a more profound investigation and gathered from causes. In order, then, that the reasons gathered from causes may be plain to the understanding, let them be put forward in due order as follows: