Aus Swedenborgs Werken

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #23

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23. There is one human God who is the source of everything. All the elements of human reason unite in, and in a sense center on, the fact that a single God is the Creator of the universe. As a result, rational people, on the basis of their shared understanding, neither do nor can think in any other way. Tell people of sound reason that there are two creators of the universe and you will feel within yourself how they recoil from this notion, perhaps simply from the tone of their voice in your ear. This enables us to see that all the elements of human reason unite and center on the oneness of God.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that in its own right, our very ability to think rationally is not our own property. It is a property of God within us. Human rationality in general depends on this fact, and this general property causes our reason more or less spontaneously to see the oneness of God. The second is that through our rational ability either we are in heaven's light or we draw from it some general quality of its thought, and the all-pervading element of heaven's light is that God is one.

This is not the case if we have used our rational ability to skew our lower understanding. In this case we still possess the ability, but by the distortion of our lower abilities we have steered it off course, and our rationality is not sound.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

Aus Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #1633

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1633. I have also been fully informed about the nature of influx into the lives of animals - lives which, following death, all cease to exist. This subject will in the Lord's Divine mercy be taken up later on.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.