Doctrine of Faith #4

By Emanuel Swedenborg

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4. This, now, is why people who possess an internal acknowledgment of truth are those who have an affection for truth. Because angels have that affection, they completely reject the dogma that the intellect must be kept in obedience to faith. For they say, "What is it to believe something and not see whether it is true?"

And if someone says that it must nevertheless be believed, they reply, "Do you suppose yourself to be God whom I am to believe? Or that I am so irrational as to believe in an assertion in which I do not see any truth? Make me see it!"

Upon which the dogmatist goes away.

The wisdom of angels consists simply in this, that they see and comprehend what they entertain in thought.

  
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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.