Miracles and signs
The Bible often speaks of signs and miracles as things that convinced people of the Lord's leading. "Signs" convince people to believe intellectually, and "miracles" convince people to believe emotionally. For instance, it was a "sign" for the shepherds that they would find the newborn Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. This was not something that defied explanation; there is nothing impossible about a baby being laid in a manger. On the other hand miracles such as the Nile turning into blood, the Red Sea parting or water being made wine were apparently impossible, striking awe and fear in the hearts of observers and thus compelling the emotions. Both signs and miracles, however, are external events that could only force people into compliance out of fear and awe, which is an external form of worship that has little to do with eternal life. The Lord used them in Biblical times because the people of that time were external in nature, and the Lord had to force them into forms of worship to preserve spiritual ideas and to allow for the Bible to be written. Through His advent and His teachings He opened the possibility that we could understand His spiritual meanings, which would allow us to believe and live internally, not just externally.
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #28
28. Will and Understanding
We have two abilities that make up our life, one called will and the other understanding. 1 They are distinguishable, but they are created to be one. When they are one, they are called the mind; so they are the human mind and it is there that all the life within us is truly to be found.
Footnotes:
1. The Latin words here translated "will" and "understanding" are voluntas and intellectus, respectively; the latter is also sometimes translated " intellect. " In Swedenborg's use, however, intellectus has a somewhat broader connotation than understanding or intellect has today, one more consonant with the use of the Latin word in the system of the Scholastics. For example, in the philosophy of the major figure of Scholastic thought, Thomas Aquinas (1224 or 1225-1274), which underlies the terminology of much of philosophical language up to and including Swedenborg's time, intellectus encompasses all of what we associate with the faculties of mind, not only the capacity to reason and understand, but the capacity to perceive ideas in the abstract, as well as the mind's ability to be aware of itself (Shallo 1923, 115-116). The complementarity of will and intellect is also something Swedenborg shares with Scholastic thought. For an overview of the relationship between the will and the intellect, see True Christianity 397; for a detailed and extensive account of their interaction as analogous to that of the heart and the lungs, see Divine Love and Wisdom 394-431. For discussion of the related term "intellectual truth," see note 1 in New Jerusalem 26 above. For further discussion of the will and the understanding, see note 1 in New Jerusalem 33 below. [GFD, RS, JSR]
