Emmanuel Swedenborg

[gooddoggy]

At the age of twenty I happened upon a volume of the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg.

The effect was like nothing I have ever read.

The depth and profundity of his theology struck my reason with such clarity that some hours spent in contemplating them were almost a spiritual experience.

Swedenborg's theology concerning the Godhead (Modalistic Monarchism) was identical to that taught in the church organization to which I belong. , and in fact served as a textbook in some our Bible colleges.

His other doctrines, however, were so mystical and strange as to appar heretical by any standard except that of Swedenborgians.

As I was new in my faith, they so disturbed me that I decided against ever reading the book again and I shunned it like a plague.

Here is a portion of his work:

The state of first reception of truth, of early idealism, and the life therefrom, is a state that is most important for us to understand, for unless we understand both its use and its limitation, we cannot really understand why the Lord made a second coming. In giving examples of this state the Writings speak of courtship and early marriage. Those who are introduced into an idea of the purpose and nature of conjugial love from the Writings first receive this instruction with delight. The general teachings concerning conjugial love form a vision and an ideal. This not only leads and protects them, but it causes a distaste and repugnance for what is of open disorder, what is filthy and promiscuous, and it judges and separates therefrom. This is a first state, and a necessary state, but it does not rest on an interior understanding of truth. It is easily disappointed and confused, and it is often unknowingly misled. For man to have an interior understanding of truth, that truth must descend into the things of his life a little at a time, to be tested and tried so that man may have the means of desiring it to be his own. This is when the wisdom of life is born. But let us note clearly that even this is not enough. If it were, those who received and used the first spiritual truths of the Christian religion would never have fallen under the captivity of falsities. The understanding, in order to come into a full and certain rationality from heavenly light, must not only have general truths, but it must also have specifics and particulars thereof. Truths must be ordered and organized so that one truth may be seen in relation to another, a particular truth in relation to a general truth, a natural truth in relation to a spiritual truth, an effect in relation to a cause or an end. These relationships are what provide the means for man's rational mind to have a clear and certain conviction of the nature of the Lord, of His heavenly kingdom, and of man's place therein. This knowledge is what the Lord caused to be revealed in the heavens as the foundation of a New Christian Church.

[gooddoggy]

S word should get some response on this thread.

A difference of interpretations of Swedenborg's "Conjugal Love" doctrine.

Basic: Human-Divine relationship perceptions are aided by being understood through mariage between man and wife--this is actually biblical.

A few have contended that Swedenborg meant that the physical act of union is or can be a spiritual medium to expand consciousness of God.

I didn't get this myself from his work, but I only dipped my toe in that pond.

Swedenborg's Christology is another major facet of his work.

He assailed the trinity doctine and the popish church, accepting the doctrine known as Monarchistic Modalism-Christ as the complete Divine, with Father-Son-and Holy Ghost being not distinct personalities in a triune Godhead but different forms/offices/manifestations of on divine personality, the Lord Jesus Christ.

This Christology was also known as Sabellianism--Sabellian being a late 2nd Century heretic who taught Monarchistic Modalism.

Sabellian's writing were burned by opposing bishops but the writings of his enemies seem to indicate the teaching was widespread at that time.

I believe that this was in fact the original apostolic doctrine of the nature and personality of God as taught in the New Testament.

Sabellian Christology was central to the theology of boh Swedenborg and the Quaker William Penn.

However, Swedenborg's other interpretation of Scriptures were highly spiritualized, taking away from the literality of the Bible. This he called the Internal Sense of the Word.

For example, he did not believe in a literal, bodily Second Coming of Christ but that what was meant by a Second Coming was a revival of spiritual elightenment that restored understanding of the Scriptures themselves--an enlightenment led of course by Swedenborg and resulting in the formation of a new movement--the Church of the New Jerusalem, or simply the New Church.

One scholar has contended Swedenborg was a Mason, that the whole things was a Masonic occult teaching. Supposedly Swedenborg engaged in orgies or brothels in some kind of tantric sex ritual. I think this is ludicrous.

What's strange, though, is that there is a cult, the Family International, who were called he Children of God who have such a teaching. They practice "sharing" of member bodies and teach the people to pray aloud as they have sex or masturbate and they actualy imagine that this is the highest form of spiritual communion with one another and the Divine.

If Swedenborg did espouse a sexual theology, that's interesting, because the Family also teaches that the spirits of the sainted dead dwell in communion with the living church members-something that E. Swedenborg also taught.

Is anyone interested in this at all? I think its fascinating, and it has actualy led to a wide body of argumentation documented on the Net.