Emanuel Swedenborg

Emanuel Swedenborg {{Audio|sv-Emanuel_Swedenborg.ogg|listen}} (born Swedberg) (January 29, 1688–March 29, 1772), Swedish scientist, philosopher and mystic, was born in Stockholm, the third son of the renowned but controversial bishop, Jesper Swedberg. Emanuel had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. Then at age fifty-six he claimed that he entered into a new spiritual phase of his life, experiencing first dreams, and later visions of a spiritual world where he talked with angels and spirits, many of them from the Bible, such as Moses and Jesus. Amongst other things, he said these spirits guided his interpretation of the Scriptures.

Theology

Some of his beliefs were:

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• Life after death When a human being dies, he passes over to the spiritual world. The spiritual world consists of two main divisions: heaven and hell. Good people are in heaven, bad people are in hell. People associate with one or the other during this life, but it is not visible because of the limitations of the physical body.
• All good comes from God The light of heaven is the same as the truth from God, the warmth of heaven is the same as love towards God. When a person lets the Lord Jesus Christ lead his life and opens his heart towards God, he will enter the light and warmth of heaven, and his speech and actions will be governed by the Lord.
• Evils are from the Self When a person is occupied with the self-preservation of his body, he concerns himself primarily with material things to the exclusion of spirit. The human body is for Swedenborg the external, while the Spirit is called internal.
• People possess free will A person can only love something he believes in. Therefore God lets human beings think and act according to what they believe is best. They can only love God by their own choice.

(from Swedenborg's The New Jerusalem, and its Heavenly Doctrines.)

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Swedenborg was influenced not only by Biblical figures such as Paul, Jesus, Moses and Abraham, but also by non-Christians, primarily Plato, and Cicero. He also had a fondness towards the writings of Saint Augustine. All of these he claimed to have met and spoken to in the spiritual world. Many people assumed these assertions to be creations of his vivid imagination but Swedenborg himself claimed to have reported only what the Lord told him to, and would write in letters how he had "travelled with angels for the last 20 years" as if it was completely natural.

Related Topics:
Paul - Jesus - Moses - Abraham - Plato - Cicero - Saint Augustine

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Swedenborg was sharply opposed to the Christian doctrine of Trinity, which is the concept of God consisting of three entities: the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. Instead he claimed the three supposed persons were three different aspects of the one God and that divinity is impossible if divided into three entities. For this reason he also expressed his support of Muslims— who he considered almost equal to the best Christians— and were, according to him, mainly opposed to Christianity because of the doctrine of Trinity. He considered the doctrine to originate with the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, and that it signified a deviation from true Christianity. (True Christian Religion, section Trinity)

Related Topics:
Trinity - Muslims - First Council of Nicaea - 325 - CE

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He also spoke sharply against the Protestant doctrine that faith alone (Sola fide) is enough to save a person, i.e., render him spiritually fit. This was a belief held firmly by Luther and Melanchthon, and the core of Lutheranism. Swedenborg instead held that love is the core of Christendom and reported many conversations with spirits discussing the matter.

Related Topics:
Sola fide - Luther - Melanchthon

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He wrote in his True Christian Religion that everything in the universe is connected to love. He distinguished three kinds of love: love of oneself, love of worldly matters and love of spiritual matters, and claimed everyone's love is directed to one of the three. When people die, they continue their life in persuit of their desires, doing the things they love the most, through all eternity.

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He wrote that selfishness and worldliness creates the evils of the world, and that there is no inherent good in man, but that all love comes from God, depending on the human free will to chose to accept it. To choose to be Christian, he further argues, leads to a kind of rebirth whereby a human learns to talk and speak anew, reshaping his internal, or spiritual side.

Related Topics:
Free will - Rebirth

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Swedenborg spent considerable time and effort not only grounding his theological beliefs in the Bible, but also relating and/or contrasting them with various seminal church creeds and historical events such as the First Council of Nicaea.

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Theological writings

Swedenborg's theological writings roughly fall into four groups:

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• Books of spiritual philosophy, including The Divine Love and Wisdom, The Divine Providence, The Intercourse between the Soul and the Body, Conjugial Love;
• Expository, including Arcana Celestia (giving the spiritual sense of Genesis and Exodus), The Apocalypse Revealed, The Apocalypse Explained;
• Doctrinal, including The New Jerusalem, and its Heavenly Doctrines, The Four Chief Doctrines, The Doctrine of Charity, The True Christian Religion, Canons of the New Church;
• Eschatological, including Heaven and Hell, and The Last Judgment.

About forty volumes are available in English, and they are continuously being translated into languages from all continents, such as Arabic, Hindi, and Japanese.

Related Topics:
Arabic - Hindi - Japanese

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