സ്വീഡൻബർഗിന്റെ കൃതികളിൽ നിന്ന്

 

Divine Providence #322

ഈ ഭാഗം പഠിക്കുക

  
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322. Everyone Can Be Reformed, and There Is No Such Thing as Predestination

Sound reason tells us that everyone is predestined to heaven and no one to hell. We are all born human, which means that we have the image of God within us. The image of God within us is our ability to discern what is true and to do what is good. Our ability to discern what is true comes from divine wisdom and our ability to do what is good comes from divine love. This ability is the image of God; it is enduring with everyone who is whole and is never erased. It is why we can become civic, moral individuals; and if we can become civic and moral individuals, we can become spiritual individuals, since civic and moral life is receptive of spiritual life. We are called civic individuals if we know and abide by the laws of the country we are living in. We are called moral individuals if we make habits and virtues of these laws and live by them for rational reasons.

[2] Next I need to say how civic and moral living is receptive of spiritual living. Live by these laws not only as civic and moral laws but also as divine laws and you will be a spiritual person.

There is hardly a nation so barbaric that it does not have laws forbidding murder, promiscuity with other people's spouses, theft, perjury, and violation of others' rights. Civic and moral individuals keep these laws in order to be or to seem to be good citizens; but if they do not regard them as divine laws as well, they are civic and moral individuals only on the earthly level. On the other hand, if they do regard them as divine laws, they become civic and moral spiritual individuals.

The difference is that in the latter instance they are not just good citizens of their earthly kingdom, they are good citizens of the kingdom of heaven as well; in the former instance they are good citizens of their earthly kingdom but not of the kingdom of heaven. It is the good they do that makes the difference. The good that worldly civic and moral individuals do is not intrinsically good because they themselves and the world are at its heart. The good that civic and moral spiritual individuals do is intrinsically good because the Lord and heaven are at its heart.

[3] This shows that since we are all born capable of becoming civic and moral individuals on the earthly level, we are also born capable of becoming civic and moral individuals on the spiritual level. All we have to do is acknowledge God and not do evils because they are against God, and do what is good because that is for God. Doing this enables the spirit to enter into our civic and moral acts, and they come to life. Otherwise there is no spirit in our acts, and they are not alive. This is why worldly people are called "dead" no matter how civic and moral their behavior is, while spiritual people are called "living."

[4] Under the Lord's divine providence, every nation has a religion, and the first principle of every religion is a recognition of the existence of God. Otherwise we cannot call it a religion. Every nation that lives by its religion--that is, that does not do evil because it is against its God--is given a spiritual element within its worldly life.

Imagine hearing non-Christians say that they do not want to do some evil thing because it is against their God. Is there anyone who would not say inwardly that these people are saved? Nothing else seems possible; that is what sound reason tells us. Conversely, suppose some Christian says, "One evil or another does not matter to me. What is this business about saying that it's against God?" Is there anyone who would not say inwardly that this person is not saved? It seems impossible; that is what sound reason tells us.

[5] If this individual says, "I was born Christian, I was baptized, I have confessed the Lord, read the Word, and taken the Holy Supper," does all this matter if this individual has a craving for murder and revenge, for adultery, surreptitious theft, perjury, lies, and all kinds of violence, and does not regard them as sins? Are people like this thinking about God or about some eternal life? Do they think that they exist? Surely sound reason tells us that people like this cannot be saved.

I make these statements about Christians because non-Christians pay more attention to God than Christians do, because their religion is in their life.

I need now to say more about this, though, in the following sequence.

1. The ultimate purpose of creation is a heaven from the human race.

2. Consequently, under divine providence everyone can be saved; and everyone is saved who believes in God and lives a good life.

3. It is our own fault if we are not saved.

4. This means that everyone is predestined to heaven and no one to hell.

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

സ്വീഡൻബർഗിന്റെ കൃതികളിൽ നിന്ന്

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #60

ഈ ഭാഗം പഠിക്കുക

  
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60. I heard a number of people in the spiritual world speaking round about me, saying that they were quite willing to acknowledge that the Divine is present in each and every constituent of the universe, because they saw in these constituents the wonders of God, and the more deeply they viewed them, the more wonderful they seemed. But yet when I told them that the Divine actually is within each and every constituent of the created universe, they responded with indignation - a sign that they really did not believe what they said.

Therefore I asked them whether they could not see it simply from the marvelous ability that exists in every seed to reproduce its own kind of plant in such a progression of development as to culminate in new seeds. Or from the fact that in every seed there is a reflection of the infinite and eternal, for they have in them a striving to multiply and produce fruit infinitely and to eternity.

[2] Consider also any animal, even the smallest - that it has in it sense organs, a brain, heart, lungs, and all the other organs, including arteries, veins, fibers, muscles, and the functions of these, not to mention the amazing phenomena inherent in their character, on which subject we have available whole books written.

All of these wonders come from God, while the forms in which they are clothed come from materials of the earth. Out of these are formed plants, and in turn human beings. Consequently of man it is said that he was created out of the ground, and that he is dust of the earth, and that the breath of life was breathed into him (Genesis 2:7). From this it is apparent that the Divine is not man's but is something adjoined to him.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.