1. THE DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM REGARDING FAITH

Faith is an Internal Acknowledgment of Truth

Faith today is taken to mean no more than the thought that a thing is so because it is something the church teaches, and because it is not evident to the intellect. For we are told, "Believe and do not doubt." If we reply, "I do not understand," we are told that that is why it should be believed.

Faith today is therefore a faith in the unknown and may be termed a blind faith. Moreover, because it is one person’s assertion received by another, it is an inherited faith. We will see in what follows that that is not a spiritual faith.

343. [335.] 1) What faith is.

2) That there is a conjunction of faith with good works, there being as much faith as there is life.

3) That life is the soul of faith.

4) That faith by itself is not faith, being lifeless.

5) That it is the dragon, ¹ that it is the he-goat, ² that it is Philistia, that it is Cain, that it is Reuben.

6) What faith is, that it is truth.

7) How sterile it is at the present time and not constituting religion.

Note a piè di pagina:

56. That the religion of faith divorced from charity is meant and described in the book of Revelation by the dragon and its two beasts is something I have not only been told from heaven, but also something that was shown to me in the world of spirits below heaven.

A company of people whose faith was divorced from charity appeared to me as a great dragon, with its tail extended toward the sky. And some others of the same character appeared to me individually as dragons. For appearances of this kind are found in the spiritual world, owing to the correspondence of spiritual things and natural things. Therefore angels in heaven call these people dragonists.

These people are, however, of more than one kind. Some of them constitute the dragon’s head, some its body, and some its tail. Those who constitute its tail are people who have falsified all the Word’s truths. That is why we are told in the book of Revelation that the dragon’s tail drew down a third of the stars of heaven. The stars of heaven symbolize concepts of truth, and a third part all.