Swedenborg Scientific Association
Publishers of The New Philosophy Journal
Why do human actions take place as they do? Why have the events in history occurred, instead of other events that might have occurred? Why does each individual act as he does, and not in some other way? What are the causes that produce human action? This study arises from an attempt to answer these questions.
The scientific viewpoints of Archimedes and Ptolemy, both implied and stated, illuminate the philosophical ideas of Plato and Aristotle in a striking way, so after outlining some doctrines of the great philosophers, seeing where they agree and where they differ, we will turn to the scientists and let them highlight the particulars.
Organic Unity of Man”The action itself gives quality to truths…” Man is a connected whole, not a series of unrelated mental and physical planes. The body and spirit are inextricably interwoven, and so also are the freedom of the spirit and the freedom of the body. Because the will is free, the body also enjoys freedom.
Whenever scientists come together in congenial surroundings, as for instance over dinner, or when the port and cigars stage has been reached, it is not uncommon to play the space-or time-capsule game: which five or six men have contributed most to Western science? Whose works would you send to another planet or bury for future generations to rediscover as representing the best, the most crucial, contributions to Western science? Of course, much depends on the interests and backgrounds of the players, but several names are popular choices. Newton, whom Wordsworth described as “Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone”; Darwin, whose grand synthesis forms the framework of all later biological work; Socrates, an adventurer of the mind who rejected as unsatisfactory the then current explanations of nature because they did not tell him how and why, and for that reason transformed philosophy from the study of nature to the study of men’s souls and their interactions in society; and Einstein, for his discovery of the equivalence of energy and matter (E = MC2) as well as his perceptive and frank comments concerning the methods of science, all figure prominently in these short lists of distinguished men of science. Copernicus, too, rates highly for persuading us that the earth is not the center of the solar system, much less the universe, as does Aristotle with his encyclopedic knowledge. James Hutton, of whom it was said that “he discovered…time,” and who was an essential precursor to Darwin, as well as being the founder of geological science, is another popular selection. Popper is nowadays often mentioned as are such men as Faraday, Galileo, and so forth.
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.
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.
How many times have I heard this quote used in support of harsh punishment and authority! Yet, to my utter amazement, when I examined the original Greek text of this familiar sentence, I discovered that the term rendered here as “chasten” was nothing else than the well-known paradigm: paideuo—in the whole Greek tradition, the word for—educating! The great Greek writers hardly ever attached any notion of “punishment” to this expression.
Thoreau was perhaps the most militant Transcendentalist. Yet through the years he has been cast as a hermit, naturalist, classics student, scholar of Oriental lore, scholar of New England legend and history, scholar of the American Indian, primitivist or “apostle of the wild,” man of letters, writer of perfect prose, walker, Puritan, Pantheist, and Transcendentalist. I am sure he was a reader of Swedenborg’s theological writings. But before all these, he was a mystic: man had only to seek God in solitude, reverence, and faith; every soul could possess the ability to communicate with that from which it was made. It was a matter of intuition—each man was potentially a mystic.
Some DifficultiesThe view presented in this study has emphasized human freedom as cause of both spiritual decisions and natural events of good and evil. The question arises whether this interpretation contradicts the doctrine that man’s own prudence is nothing, and that Divine Providence does everything good. In the book Divine Providence an entire chapter is given to the subject: “There is no such thing as man’s own prudence. It only appears that there is, and there ought to be this appearance; but the Divine Providence is universal because it is in things most individual.”236 What is meant by man’s own prudence being nothing?
Everything is open for scrutiny. All ‘mysteries’ can be inspected from the light of revealed truth in the Word. We are now in a position to look back at the universe, and to see the chronology both of creation, and of the elevation or evolution of man from what was created; then also the history of the human race. The purpose in making this presentation is not to make yet another interpretation of history from a human perspective; but rather to suggest what may be at the core of history when examined in the light of revealed truth (the Word).
Swedenborg Scientific Association
The Swedenborg Scientific Association’s primary purpose is to make the scientific and philosophical works of Emanuel Swedenborg available as widely as possible. We do this by preserving, translating (into many languages), publishing, and distributing this material.
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