1. True Christianity

Containing a Comprehensive Theology of the New Heaven and the New Church

The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church

THE faith of the new heaven and the new church is stated here in both universal and specific forms to serve as the face of the work that follows, the doorway that allows entry into the temple, and the summary that in one way or another contains all the details to follow. I say "the faith of the new heaven and the new church" because heaven, where there are angels, and the church, in which there are people, act together like the inner and the outer levels in a human being. People in the church who love what is good because they believe what is true and who believe what is true because they love what is good are angels of heaven with regard to the inner levels of their minds. After death they come into heaven, and enjoy happiness there according to the relationship between their love and their faith. It is important to know that the new heaven that the Lord is establishing today has this faith as its face, doorway, and summary.

345. Since I have just given a brief list of types of spiritual faith, I will also give a brief list of types of merely earthly faith. Such faith is actually a persuasion that pretends to be faith. It is a false persuasion. It is called heretical faith. Its categories are (1) illegitimate faith, in which false beliefs have been mixed with true ones; (2) promiscuous faith based on truths that have been falsified, and adulterous faith based on good things that have been contaminated; (3) closed or blind faith, which is a faith in mystical things that we believe in, although we do not know whether they are true or false, beyond reason or contrary to it; (4) wandering faith, which is faith in many gods; (5) half-blind faith, which is faith in some other god besides the true one, or among Christians, faith in someone else besides the Lord God our Savior; (6) hypocritical or pharisaical faith, which is faith of the mouth but not of the heart; and (7) imaginary and backwards faith, which presents falsity as truth and bolsters it with clever argumentation.

648. This brief list of points of discord or disagreement makes it clear that there is no way in which we can simultaneously hold the views of the new church and the views of the former, still-persisting church on faith and the assignment of spiritual credit or blame. Because there is such discord and disagreement between these two views on faith and the assignment of spiritual credit or blame, they are completely incompatible. Therefore if we did hold both these views in our mind at once, they would collide and cause so much conflict that everything related to the church would be destroyed in us, and we would fall into such a state of spiritual madness or else spiritual unconsciousness that we would not know what the church was or whether such a thing even existed. Would we then know anything about God, or about faith, or about goodwill?

[2] The faith of the former church, because it prevents light of any kind from entering its reasoning, can be likened to an owl. The faith of the new church can be likened to a dove that flies by day and sees things in the light of heaven. Therefore keeping these two ideas together in one mind would be like keeping an owl and a dove together in one nest. The owl would lay its eggs there, and the dove would lay its eggs. After incubation, both sets of chicks would hatch, and then the owl would tear apart the dove's chicks and feed them to its chicks. (Owls are voracious.)

[3] The faith of the former church is portrayed in Revelation 12 as a dragon, and the faith of the new church is portrayed as the woman clothed with the sun, who had a crown of twelve stars on her head. Therefore by analogy we can see what the state of our mind would be if we kept both these views in the same home, so to speak. The dragon would stand by the woman who was about to give birth with the intention of devouring her child; after she flew away into the desert, it would pursue her and cast water like a river out of its mouth to swallow her up.