by Daniel W. Goodenough
An alternate title for this address is, "Why Didn't Swedenborg Publish Rational Psychology?" While I hope it will help you understand Swedenborg and his preparation, and perhaps offer some insight into the fundamental use of his life—serving as an instrument for the Lord's Second Coming—there will probably be no immediate application to your life. I have thought a great deal about whether ideas without direct application to life are useful for people to learn and think about. Certainly there is a great deal of totally unnecessary and useless information about. On the other hand, it is self centered to want all doctrine, all ideas, to benefit and relate to oneself now. There are many important ideas, spiritual and natural, that we have to learn and live with for a time before we understand what they really mean, much less apply to life. If we attend only to those ideas that we understand and can apply immediately upon hearing them we are not going to change very quickly, but will remain pretty much where we are. Only ideas that stretch us can move us out of the comfortable or uncomfortable ruts we tend to run in. Only new ideas can renew the vision, or even keep it alive.
by Daniel W. Goodenough
How the Lord Governs EvilIf the Lord does not determine (cause) all things that happen in the natural world, the question arises, how does He govern evil and restrain it? One way He does not govern it is by simply never letting evil happen. What He permits is still evil. Permission of evil is only for the sake of good, but this does not mean that only good is permitted. Part of the Lord's governing of evil is allowing it to happen.
